Notes:

1. Chiefly marsh-gas with ethane and some carbonic acid. 4. A mixture of marsh-gas, ethane and butane. 5. Chiefly propane, with small quantities of carbonic acid and nitrogen. 10. Trace of heavy hydrocarbons. 11. Marsh-gas, with a little carbonic acid. 13. Chiefly marsh-gas, with small quantities of nitrogen and 15.86 per cent carbonic acid.

References:

1. Fouqu, "Comptes Rendus," lxvii, p. 1045. 2. H. Wurtz, "Am. Jour. Arts and Sci." (2), xlix, p. 336. 3. Robert Young. 4. Fouqu, "Comptes Rendus," lxvii. p. 1045. 5. Fouqu, "Comptes Rendus," lxvii. p. 1045. 6. S.P. Sadler, "Report L, 2d Geol. Sur. Pa.," p. 153. 7. S.P. Sadler, "Report L, 3d Geol. Sur. Pa.," p. 152. 8. S.P. Sadler, "Report L, 3d Geol. Sur. Pa.," p. 153. 9. S.P. Sadler, "Report L, 3d Geol. Sur. Pa.," p. 153. 10. F.C. Phillips. 11. Robert Young. 12. Rogers. 13. Fouqu, "Comptes Rendus," lxvii, p. 1045. 14. Bischof's Chemical Geology," I, p. 730. 15. Bischof's Chemical Geology," I, p. 730. 16. J.W. Thomas, London, "Chemical Society's Journal," 1876, p. 793. 17. Same, 1875, p. 793.

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CLOSING LEAKAGES FOR PACKING.

By L. C. LEVOIR.

The mineral asbestos is but a very poor packing material in steam-boilers. Moreover, it acts as a strong grinding material on all moving parts.

For some years I have tested the applicability of artificial precipitates to close the holes in boilers, cylinder-covers, and stuffing boxes. I took, generally with the best success, alternate layers of hemp-cotton, thread, and absorbent paper, all well saturated with the chlorides of calcium and magnesium. The next layers of the same fiber are moistened with silicate of soda. By pressure the fluids are mixed and the pores are closed. A stuffing box filled with this mixture has worked three years without grinding the piston-rod.

In the same manner I close the screw-thread hole in gas tubes used for conducting steam. I moisten the thread in the sockets with oleic acid from the candle-works, and dust over it a mixture of 1 part of minium, 2 parts of quick-lime, and 1 part of linseed powder (without the oil). When the tube is screwed in the socket, the powder mixes with the oleic acid. The water coming in at first makes the linseed powder viscid. Later the steam forming the oleate of lime and the oleate of lead, on its way to the outer air, presses it in the holes and closes them perfectly.

After a year in use the tubes can be unscrewed with ease, and the screw threads are perfectly smooth.

With this kind of packing only one exception must be made—that is, it is only tight under pressure; condensation or vacuum must be thoroughly avoided.—Chem. News.

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LUMINOUS PAINT.

In answer to various inquiries concerning the manufacture of this article, we give herewith the process of William Henry Balmain, the original discoverer of luminous paint, and also other processes. These particulars are derived from the letters patent granted in this country to the parties named.

Balmain's invention was patented in England in 1877, and in this country in 1882. It is styled as Improvements in Painting, Varnishing, and Whitewashing, of which the following is a specification:

The said invention consists in a luminous paint, the body of which is a phosphorescent compound, or is composed in part of such a compound, and the vehicle of which is such as is used as the vehicle in ordinary paint compounds, viz., one which becomes dry by evaporation or oxidation.

The objector article to which such paint or varnish or wash is applied is itself rendered visible in the darkest place, and more or less capable of imparting light to other objects, so as to render them visible also. The phosphorescent substance found most suitable for the purpose is a compound obtained by simply heating together a mixture of lime and sulphur, or carbonate of lime and sulphur, or some of the various substances containing in themselves both lime and sulphur—such, for example, as alabaster, gypsum, and the like—with carbon or other agent to remove a portion of the oxygen contained in them, or by heating lime or carbonate of lime in a gas or vapor containing sulphur.

The vehicle to be used for the luminous paint must be one which will dry by evaporation or oxidation, in order that the paint may not become soft or fluid by heat or be liable to be easily rubbed off by accident or use from the articles to which it has been applied. It may be any of the vehicles commonly used in oil-painting or any of those commonly used in what is known as "distemper" painting or whitewashing, according to the place or purpose in or for which the paint is to be used.

It is found the best results are obtained by mixing the phosphorescent substance with a colorless varnish made with mastic or other resinous body and turpentine or spirit, making the paint as thick as convenient to apply with a brush, and with as much turpentine or spirit as can be added without impairing the required thickness. Good results may, however, be obtained with drying oils, spirit varnishes, gums, pastes, sizes, and gelatine solutions of every description, the choice being varied to meet the object in view or the nature of the article in hand.

The mode of applying the paint, varnish, or wash will also depend upon the circumstances of the case. For example, it may be applied by a brush, as in ordinary painting, or by dipping or steeping the article in the paint, varnish, or wash; or a block or type may be used to advantage, as in calico-printing and the like. For outdoor work, or wherever the surface illuminated is exposed to the vicissitudes of weather or to injury from mechanical contingencies, it is desirable to cover it with glass, or, if the article will admit of it, to glaze it over with a flux, as in enameling, or as in ordinary pottery, and this may be accomplished without injury to the effect, even when the flux or glaze requires a red heat for fusion.

Among other applications of the said invention which may be enumerated, it is particularly advantageous for rendering visible clock or watch faces and other indicators—such, for example, as compasses and the scales of barometers or thermometers—during the night or in dark places during the night time. In applying the invention to these and other like purposes there may be used either phosphorescent grounds with dark figures or dark grounds and phosphorescent figures or letters, preferring the former. In like manner there may be produced figures and letters for use on house-doors and ends of streets, wherever it is not convenient or economical to have external source of light, signposts, and signals, and names or marks to show entries to avenues or gates, and the like.

The invention is also applicable to the illumination of railway carriages by painting with phosphorescent paint a portion of the interior, thus obviating the necessity for the expense and inconvenience of the use of lamps in passing through tunnels. It may also be applied externally as warning-lights at the front and end of trains passing through tunnels, and in other similar cases, also to ordinary carriages, either internally or externally. As a night-light in a bed-room or in a room habitually dark, the application has been found quite effectual, a very small proportion of the surface rendered phosphorescent affording sufficient light for moving about the room, or for fixing upon and selecting an article in the midst of a number of complicated scientific instruments or other objects.

The invention may also be applied to private and public buildings in cases where it would be economical and advantageous to maintain for a short time a waning or twilight, so as to obviate the necessity for lighting earlier the gas or other artificial light. It may also be used in powder-mills and stores of powder, and in other cases where combustion or heat would be a constant source of danger, and generally for all purposes of artificial light where it is applicable.

In order to produce and maintain the phosphorescent light, full sunshine is not necessary, but, on the contrary, is undesirable. The illumination is best started by leaving the article or surface exposed for a short time to ordinary daylight or even artificial light, which need not be strong in order to make the illumination continue for many hours, even twenty hours, without, the necessity of renewed exposure.

The advantages of the invention consist in obtaining for the purposes of daily life a light which is maintained at no cost whatever, is free from the defects and contingent dangers arising from combustion or heat, and can be applied in many cases where all other sources of light would be inconvenient or incapable of application.

Heretofore phosphorus has been mixed with earthy oxides, carbonates, and sulphates, and with oxides and carbonates of metal, as tin, zinc, magnesia, antimony, and chlorides of the same, also crystallized acids and salts and mineral substances, and same have been inclosed and exhibited in closely-stopped bottles as a phosphorus; but such union I do not claim; but what I claim is:

A luminous paint, the body of which is a phosphorescent substance, or composed in part of such substance, the vehicle of which is such as is ordinarily used in paints, viz., one which will become dry by oxidation or evaporation, substantially as herein described.

A. Krause, of Buffalo, N.Y., obtained a patent for improvement in phosphorescent substances dated December 30, 1879. The patentee says: This invention relates to a substance which, by exposure to direct or indirect sun-light, or to artificial light, is so affected or brought into such a peculiar condition that it will emit rays of light or become luminous in the dark.

It is a well-known fact that various bodies and compositions of matter, more especially compositions containing sulphur in combination with earthy salts, possess the property of emitting rays of light in the dark after having been exposed to sun-light. All of these bodies and compositions of matter are, however, not well adapted for practical purposes, because the light emitted by them is either too feeble to be of any practicable utility, or because the luminous condition is not of sufficient duration, or because the substances are decomposed by exposure to the atmosphere.

Among the materials which have been employed with the best results for producing these luminous compositions are sea-shells, especially oyster-shells. I have found by practical experiments that only the inner surface of these shells is of considerable value in the production of luminous compositions, while the body of the shell, although substantially of the same chemical composition, does not, to any appreciable extent, aid in producing the desired result. It follows from this observation that the smallest shells, which contain the largest surface as compared with their cubic contents, will be best adapted for this purpose.

I have found that chalk, which is composed of the shells of microscopic animals, possesses the desired property in the highest degree; and my invention consists, therefore, of a luminous substance composed of such chalk, sulphur, and bismuth, as will be hereinafter fully set forth.

In preparing my improved composition I take cleaned or precipitated chalk, and subject it to the process of calcination in a suitable crucible over a clear coal or charcoal fire for three or four hours, or thereabout. I then add to the calcined chalk about one-third of its weight of sulphur, and heat the mixture for from forty-five to ninety minutes, or thereabout. A small quantity of bismuth, in the proportion of about one per cent, or less of the mixture, is added together with the sulphur.

The metal may be introduced in the metallic form in the shape of fillings, or in the form of a carbonate, sulphuret, sulphate, or sulphide, or oxide, as may be most convenient.

The substance produced in this manner possesses the property of emitting light in the dark in a very high degree. An exposure to light of very short duration, sometimes but for a moment, will cause the substance to become luminous and to remain in this luminous condition, under favorable circumstances, for upward of twenty-four hours.

The intensity of the light emitted by this composition after exposure is considerable, and largely greater than the light produced by any of the substances heretofore known.

The hereinbefore described substance may be ground with oil and used like ordinary paint; or it may be ground with any suitable varnish or be mixed in the manner of water colors; or it may be employed in any other suitable and well-known manner in which paints are employed.

My improved luminous substance is adapted for a great variety of uses—for instance, for painting business and other signs, guide boards, clock and watch dials, for making the numbers on houses and railway cars, and for painting all surfaces which are exposed periodically to direct or indirect light and desired to be easily seen during the night.

When applied with oil or varnish, my improved luminous substance can be exposed to the weather in the same manner as ordinary paint without suffering any diminution of its luminous property. I claim as my invention the herein described luminous substance, consisting of calcined chalk, sulphur, and bismuth, substantially as set forth.

Merrill B. Sherwood, Jr., of Buffalo, N. Y., obtained a patent for a phosphorescent composition, dated August 9, 1881.

The author says: My invention relates to an improvement in phosphorescent illuminants.

I have taken advantage of the peculiar property which obtains in many bodies of absorbing light during the day and emitting it during the night time.

The object of my invention is the preparation by a prescribed formula, to be hereinafter given, of a composition embodying one of the well-known phosphorescent substances above referred to, which will be applicable to many practical uses.

With this end in view my invention consists in a phosphorescent composition in which the chief illuminating element is monosulphide of calcium.

The composition obtained by the formula may be used either in a powdered condition by dusting it over articles previously coated, in whole or in part, with an adhesive substance, or it may be intimately mixed with paints, inks, or varnishes, serving as vehicles for its application, and in this way be applied to bodies to render them luminous.

The formula for obtaining the composition is as follows: To one hundred parts of unslaked lime, that obtained from calcined oyster shells producing the best results, add five parts of carbonate of magnesia and five parts of ground silex. Introduce these elements into a graphite or fire-clay crucible containing forty parts of sulphur and twenty-five parts of charcoal, raise the whole mass nearly or quite to a white heat, remove from the fire, allow it to cool slowly, and, when it is cold or sufficiently lowered in temperature to be conveniently handled, remove it from the crucible and grind it. The method of reducing the composition will depend upon the mode of its use. If it is to be applied as a loose powder by the dusting process, it should be simply ground dry; but if it is to be mixed with paint or other similar substance, it should be ground with linseed or other suitable oil. In heating the elements aforesaid, certain chemical combinations will have taken place, and monosulphide of calcium, combined with carbonate of lime, magnesia, and silex, will be the result of such ignition.

If, in the firing of the elements, as above set forth, all of the charcoal does not unite with the other elements, such uncombined portion should be removed from the fused mass before it is ground.

If it is designed to mix the composition with paints, those composed of zinc-white and baryta should be chosen in preference to those composed of white lead and colored by vegetable matter, as chemical action will take place between the composition and paint last mentioned, and its color will be destroyed or changed by the gradual action of the sulphureted hydrogen produced. However, by the addition of a weak solution of gum in alcohol or other suitable sizing to the composition, it may be used with paints containing elements sensitive to sulphureted hydrogen without danger of decomposing them and destroying their color.

In many, and possibly in a majority of cases, the illuminating composition applied as a dry powder will give the most satisfactory results, in view of the tendency to chemical action between the paint and composition when intimately mixed; in view of the fact that by the addition to paint of any color of a sufficient quantity of the composition to render the product luminous, the original color of the paint will be modified or destroyed; and, also, in view of the fact that the illuminating composition is so greatly in excess of the paint, the proportions in which they are united being substantially ten parts of the former to one of the latter, it will be difficult to impart a particular color to the product of the union without detracting from its luminosity. On the other hand, the union of dry powder with a body already painted by the simple force of adhesion does not establish a sufficiently intimate relation between it and the paint to cause chemical action, the application of a light coat of powder does not materially change the color of the article to which it is applied; and, further, by the use of the powder in an uncombined state its greatest illuminating effects are obtained. Again, if the appearance in the daytime of the article which it is desired to have appear luminous at night is not material, it may be left unpainted and simply sized to retain the powder.

In printing it is probable that the composition will be employed almost exclusively in the form of dry powder, as printing-ink, normally pasty, becomes too thick to be well handled when it is combined with powder in sufficient quantity to render the printed surface luminous. However, the printed surface of a freshly printed sheet may be rendered luminous by dusting the sheet with powder, which will adhere to all of the inked and may be easily shaken from the unmoistened surfaces thereof.

I am aware that monosulphide of calcium and magnesia have before been used together in phosphorescent compounds. What I claim is a phosphorescent composition consisting of monosulphide of calcium, combined with carbonate of lime, magnesia, and silex, substantially as described.

Orlando Thowless, of Newark, N.J., obtained a patent for a process of manufacturing phosphorescent substances dated November 8, 1881. The inventor says: The object of my invention is to manufacture phosphorescent materials of intense luminosity at low cost and little loss of materials.

I first take clam shells and, after cleaning, place them in a solution composed of about one part of commercial nitric acid and three parts of water, in which the shells are allowed to remain about twenty minutes. The shells are then to be well rinsed in water, placed in a crucible, and heated to a red heat for about four hours. They are then removed and placed, while still red-hot, in a saturated solution of sea salt, from which they are immediately removed and dried. After this treatment and exposure to light the shells will have a blood-red luminous appearance in the dark. The shells thus prepared are used with sulphur and the phosphide and sulphide of calcium to produce a phosphorescent composition, as follows: One hundred parts, by weight, of the shells, prepared as above, are intimately mixed with twenty parts, by weight, of sulphur. This mixture is placed in a crucible or retort and heated to a white heat for four or five hours, when it is to be removed and forty parts more of sulphur, one and one-half parts of calcium phosphide, and one-half part of chemically pure sulphide of calcium added. The mixture is then heated for about ninety minutes to an extreme white heat. When cold, and after exposure to light, this mixture will become luminous. Instead of these two ignitions, the same object may be in a measure accomplished by the addition of the full amount of sulphur with the phosphide and sulphide of calcium and raising it to a white heat but once. The calcium phosphide is prepared by igniting phosphorus in connection with newly slaked lime made chemically pure by calcination. The condition of the shells when the sulphur is added is not material; but the heat renders them porous and without moisture, so that they will absorb the salt to as great an extent as possible. Where calcined shells are mixed with solid salt, the absorbing power of the shells is greatly diminished by the necessary exposure, and there will be a lack of uniformity in the saturation. On the contrary, by plunging the red-hot shells in the saline solution the greatest uniformity is attained.

Instead of using clam shells as the base of my improved composition, I may use other forms of sea shells—such as oyster shells, etc.

I claim as new:

1. The herein described process of manufacturing phosphorescent materials, which consists in heating sea shells red-hot, treating them while heated with a bath of brine, then, after removal from the bath, mixing sulphur and phosphide and sulphide of calcium therewith, and finally subjecting the mixture to a white heat, substantially as and for the purpose described.

2. The described process, which consists in placing clean and red-hot clam shells in a saturated solution of sea salt, and then drying them, for the purpose specified.

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BOXWOOD AND ITS SUBSTITUTES.

[Footnote: Prize essay written for the International Forestry Exhibition, Edinburgh.]

By JOHN R. JACKSON. A.L.S., Curator of the Museums, Royal Gardens, Ken.

The importance of the discovery of a hard, compact, and even grained wood, having all the characteristics of boxwood, and for which it would form an efficient substitute, cannot be overestimated; and if such a discovery should be one of the results of the present Forestry Exhibition, one of its aims will have been fulfilled.

For several years past the gradual diminution in the supplies of boxwood, and the deterioration in its quality, have occupied the attention of hardwood merchants, of engravers, and of scientific men.

Of merchants, because of the difficulties in obtaining supplies to meet the ever increasing demand; of engravers, because of the higher prices asked for the wood, and the difficulty of securing wood of good size and firm texture, so that the artistic excellence of the engraving might be maintained; and of the man of science, who was specially interested in the preservation of the indigenous boxwood forests, and in the utilization of other woods, natives, it might be, of far distant countries, whose adaptation would open not only a new source of revenue, but would also be the means of relieving the strain upon existing boxwood forests.

While by far the most important use of boxwood is for engraving purposes, it must be borne in mind that the wood is also applied to numerous other uses, such, for instance, as weaving shuttles, for mathematical instruments, turnery purposes, carving, and for various ornamental articles, as well as for inlaying in cabinet work. The question, therefore, of finding suitable substitutes for boxwood divides itself into two branches, first, directly for engraving purposes, and, secondly, to supply its place for the other uses to which it is now put. This, to a certain extent, might set free some of the boxwood so used, and leave it available for the higher purposes of art. At the same time, it must not be forgotten that much of the wood used for general purposes is unsuited for engraving, and can only therefore be used by the turner or cabinet maker. Nevertheless, the application of woods other than box for purposes for which that wood is now used would tend to lessen the demand for box, and thus might have an effect in lowering the price.

So far back as 1875 a real uneasiness began to be felt as to the future supplies of box. In the Gardeners' Chronicle for September 25, of that year, page 398, it is said that the boxwood forests of Mingrelia in the Caucasian range were almost exhausted. Old forests, long abandoned, were even then explored in search of trees that might have escaped the notice of former proprietors, and wood that was rejected by them was, in 1875, eagerly purchased at high prices for England. The export of wood was at that time prohibited from Abhasia and all the government forests in the Caucasus. A report, dated at about the same period from Trebizond, points out that the Porte had prohibited the cutting of boxwood in the crown forests. (Gardeners' Chronicle, Aug. 19, 1876, p. 239.) Later on, the British Consul at Tiflis says: "Bona fide Caucasian boxwood may be said to be commercially non-existent, almost every marketable tree having been exported." (Gardeners' Chronicle, Dec. 6, 1879, p. 726.)

The characters of boxwood are so marked and so distinct from those of most other woods that some extracts from a report of Messrs. J. Gardner & Sons, of London and Liverpool, addressed to the Inspector-General of Forests in India, bearing on this subject, will not be without value; indeed, its more general circulation than its reprint in Mr. J.S. Gamble's "Manual of Indian Timbers" will, it is hoped, be the means of directing attention to this very important matter, and by pointing out the characters that make boxwood so valuable, may be the means of directing observation to the detection of similar characters in other woods. Messrs. Gardner say:

"The most suitable texture of wood will be found growing upon the sides of mountains. If grown in the plains the growth is usually too quick, and consequently the grain is too coarse, the wood of best texture being of slow growth, and very fine in the grain.

"It should be cut down in the winter, and, if possible, stored at once in airy wooden sheds well protected from sun and rain, and not to have too much air through the sides of the sheds, more especially for the wood under four inches diameter.

"The boxwood also must not be piled upon the ground, but be well skidded under, so as to be kept quite free from the effects of any damp from the soil.

"After the trees are cut down, the longer they are exposed the more danger is there afterward of the wood splitting more than is absolutely necessary during the necessary seasoning before shipment to this country.

"If shipped green, there is great danger of the wood sweating and becoming mildewed during transit, which causes the wood afterward to dry light and of a defective color, and in fact rendering it of little value for commercial purposes.

"There is no occasion to strip the bark off or to put cowdung or anything else upon the ends of the pieces to prevent their splitting.

"Boxwood is the nearest approach to ivory of any wood known, and will, therefore, probably gradually increase in value, as it, as well as ivory, becomes scarcer. It is now used very considerably in manufacturing concerns, but on account of its gradual advance in price during the past few years, cheaper woods are in some instances being substituted.

"Small wood under four inches is used principally by flax spinners for rollers, and by turners for various purposes, rollers for rink skates, etc., etc., and if free from splits, is of equal value with the larger wood. It is imported here as small as one a half inches in diameter, but the most useful sizes are from 2 to 3 inches, and would therefore, we suppose, be from fifteen to thirty or forty years in growing, while larger wood would require fifty years and upward at least, perhaps we ought to say one hundred years and upward. It is used principally for shuttles, for weaving silk, linen, and cotton, and also for rule making and wood engraving. Punch, The Illustrated London News, The Graphic, and all the first class pictorial papers use large quantities of boxwood."

In 1880, Messrs. Churchill and Sim reported favorably on some consignments of Indian boxwood, concluding with the remarks that if the wood could be regularly placed on the market at a moderate figure, there was no reason why a trade should not be developed in it. Notwithstanding these prospects, which seemed promising in 1877 and 1880, little or nothing has been accually done up to the present time in bringing Indian boxwood into general use, in consequence, as Mr. Gamble shows, of the cost of transit through India. The necessity, therefore, of the discovery of some wood akin to box is even more important now than ever it was.

BOXWOOD SUBSTITUTES.

First among the substitutes that have been proposed to replace boxwood may be mentioned an invention of Mr. Edward Badoureau, referred to in the Gardeners' Chronicle, March 23, 1878, p. 374, under the title of artificial boxwood. It is stated to consist of some soft wood which has been subject to heavy pressure. It is stated that some English engravers have given their opinion on this prepared wood as follows:

It has not the power of resistance of boxwood, so that it would be imposible to make use of it, except in the shape of an electro obtained from it, as it is too soft to sustain the pressure of a machine, and would be easily worn out. In reply to these opinions, Mr. Badoureau wrote: "My wood resists the wear and tear of the press as well as boxwood, and I can show engravings of English and French artists which have been obtained direct from the wood, and are as perfect as they are possible to be; several of them have been drawn by Mr. Gustave Dore."

Mr. Badoureau further says that "while as an engraver he has so high an opinion of the qualities of compressed wood as a substitute for boxwood, as the inventor of the new process he considered that it possesses numerous advantages both for artistic and industrial purposes." In short, he says, "My wood is to other wood what steel is to iron."

The following woods are those which have, from time to time, been proposed or experimented upon as substitutes for boxwood, for engraving purposes. They are arranged according to their scientific classification in the natural orders to which they belong:

Natural Order Pittospore.

1. Pittosporum undulatum. Vent.—A tree growing in favorable situations to a height of forty or even sixty feet, and is a native of New South Wales and Victoria. It furnishes a light, even grained wood, which attracted some attention at the International Exhibition in 1862; blocks were prepared from it, and submitted to Prof. De la Motte, of King's College, who reported as follows:

"I consider this wood well adapted to certain kinds of wood engraving. It is not equal to Turkey box, but it is superior to that generally used for posters, and I have no doubt that it would answer for the rollers of mangles and wringing machines." Mr. W.G. Smith, in a report in the Gardeners' Chronicle for July 26, 1873, p. 1017, on some foreign woods which I submitted to him for trial, says that the wood of Pittosporum undulatum is suitable only for bold outlines; compared with box, it is soft and tough, and requires more force to cut than box. The toughness of the wood causes the tools to drag back, so that great care is required in cutting to prevent the lines clipping. The average diameter of the wood is from 18 to 30 inches.

2. Pittosporum bicolor, Hook.—A closely allied species, sometimes forty feet high, native of New South Wales and Tasmania. This wood is stated to be decidedly superior to the last named.

3. Bursaria spinosa, Cav.—A tree about forty feet high, native of North, South, and West Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, in which island it is known as boxwood. It has been reported upon as being equal to common or inferior box, and with further trials might be found suitable for common subjects; it has the disadvantage, however, of blunting the edges and points of the tools.

Natural Order Meliace.

4. Swietenia mahagoni, L. (mahogany).—A large timber tree of Honduras, Cuba, Central America, and Mexico. It is one of the most valuable of furniture woods, but for engraving purposes it is but of little value, nevertheless it has been used for large, coarse subjects. Spanish mahogany is the kind which has been so used.

Natural Order Ilicine.

Ilex opaca, L. (North American holly).—It is a widely diffused tree, the wood of which is said to closely resemble English holly, being white in color, and hard, with a fine grain, so that it is used for a great number of purposes by turners, engineers, cabinet makers, and philosophical instrument makers. For engraving purposes it is not equal to the dog-wood of America (Cornus florida); it yields, however, more readily to the graver's tools.

Natural Order Celastrine.

6. Elodendron australe, Vent.—A tree twenty to twenty-five feet high, native of Queensland and New South Wales. The wood is used in the colony for turning and cabinet work, and Mr. W.G. Smith reports that for engraving purposes it seems suitable only for rough work, as diagrams, posters, etc.

7. Euonymus sieboldianus, Blume.—A Chinese tree, where the wood, which is known as pai'cha, is used for carving and engraving. Attention was first drawn to this wood by Mr. Jean von Volxem, in the Gardeners' Chronicle for April 20, 1878. In the Kew Report for 1878, p. 41, the following extract of a letter from Mr. W.M. Cooper, Her Majesty's Consul at Ningpo, is given: "The wood in universal use for book blocks, wood engravings, seals, etc., is that of the pear tree, of which large quantities are grown in Shantung, and Shan-se, especially. Pai'cha is sometimes used as an indifferent substitute. Pai'cha is a very fine white wood of fine fiber, without apparent grains, and cuts easily; is well suited for carved frames, cabinets, caskets, etc., for which large quantities are manufactured here for export. The tree itself resembles somewhat the Stillingia, but has a rougher bark, larger and thinner leaves, which are serrated at the edge, more delicate twigs, and is deciduous." In 1879, a block of this wood was received at the Kew Museum, from Mr. Cooper, a specimen of which was submitted to Mr. Robson J. Scott, of Whitefriars Street, to whom I am much indebted for reports on various occasions, and upon this wood Mr. Scott reported as follows: "The most striking quality I have observed in this wood is its capacity for retaining water, and the facility with which it surrenders it. This section (one prepared and sent to the Kew Museum), which represents one-tenth of the original piece, weighed 3 lb. 4 ounces. At the end of twenty one days it had lost 1 lb. 6 ounces in an unheated chamber. At the end of another fourteen days, in a much elevated temperature, it only lost ounce. In its present state of reduced bulk its weight is 1 lb. 10 ounces. It is not at all likely to supersede box, but it may be fit for coarser work than that for which box is necessary." Later on, namely in the Kew Report for 1880, p. 51, Mr. R.D. Keene, an engraver, to whom Mr. Scott submitted specimens of the wood for trial, writes: "I like the wood very much, and prefer it to box in some instances; it is freer to work, and consequently quicker, and its being uniform in color and quality is a great advantage; we often have great difficulty in box in having to work from a hard piece into a soft. I think it a very useful wood, especially for solid bold work. I question if you could get so extreme a fine black line as on box, but am sure there would be a large demand for it at a moderate price." Referring to this letter, Mr. Scott remarks that the writer does not intend it to be understood that pai'cha is qualified to supersede box, but for inferior subjects for which coarse brittle box is used. Mr. Scott further says that of the woods he has tried he prefers pear and hawthorn to pai'cha.

Natural Order Sapindace.

8. Acer saccharinum, L. (sugar or bird's eye maple).—A North American tree, forming extensive forests in Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The wood is well known as a cabinet or furniture wood. It has been tried for engraving, but it does not seem to have attracted much notice. Mr. Scott says it is sufficiently good, so far as the grain is concerned. From this it would seem not to promise favorably.

Natural Order Leguminose. Sub-order Papilionace.

9. Brya ebenus, [Delta]. DC.—A small tree of Jamaica, where the wood is known as green ebony, and is used for making various small articles. It is imported into this country under the name of cocus wood, and is used with us for making flutes and other wind instruments. Mr. Worthington Smith considers that the wood equals bad box for engraving purposes.

Natural Order Rosace.

10. Pyrus communis, L. (common pear).—A tree averaging from 20 to 40 feet high. Found in a wild state, and very extensively cultivated as a fruit tree. The wood is of a light brown color, and somewhat resembles limewood in grain. It is, however, harder and tougher. It is considered a good wood for carving, because it can be cut with or across the grain with equal facility. It stands well when well seasoned, and is used for engraved blocks for calico printers, paper stainers, and for various other purposes. Pear-wood has been tried for engraving purposes, but with no great success. Mr. Scott's opinion of its relative value is referred to under pai'cha wood (Euonymus sieboldianus).

11. Amelanchier canadensis. L. (shade tree or service tree of America).—A shrub or small tree found throughout Canada, Newfoundland, and Virginia. Of this wood, Porcher says, in his "Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests": "Upon examining with a sharp instrument the specimens of various southern woods deposited in the museum of the Elliott Society, ... I was struck with the singular weight, density, and fineness of this wood. I think I can confidently recommend it as one of the best to be experimented upon by the wood engraver."

12. Cratoegus oxyacantha, L. (hawthorn).—A well-known shrub or small tree in forests and hedges in this country. The wood is very dense and close grained. Of this wood, Mr. Scott reports that it is by far the best wood after box that he has had the opportunity of testing.

Natural Order Myrtace.

13. Eugenia procera, Poir.—A tree 20 to 30 feet high, native of Jamaica, Antigua, Martinique, and Santa Cruz. A badly seasoned sample of this wood was submitted to Mr. R.H. Keene, who reported that "it is suited for bold, solid newspaper work."

Natural Order Cornace.

14. Cornus florida, L. (North American dogwood).—A deciduous tree, about 30 feet high, common in the woods in various parts of North America. The wood is hard, heavy, and very fine grained. It is used in America for making the handles of light tools, as mallets, plane stocks, harrow teeth, cogwheels, etc. It has also been used in America for engraving.

In a letter from Prof. Sargent, Director of the Arnold Arboretum, Brookline, Massachusetts, quoted in the Kew Report for 1882, p. 35, he says: "I have been now, for a long time, examining our native woods in the hope of finding something to take the place of boxwood for engraving, but so far I am sorry to say with no very brilliant success. The best work here is entirely done from boxwood, and some Cornus florida is used for less expensive engraving. This wood answers fairly well for coarse work, but it is a difficult wood to manage, splitting, or rather 'checking,' very badly in drying." This, however, he states in a later letter, "can be overcome by sawing the logs through the center as soon as cut. It can be obtained in large quantities." Mr. R.H. Keene, the engraver before referred to, reports that the wood is very rough, and suitable for bold work.

Natural Order Ericace.

15. Rhododendron maximum, L. (mountain laurel of North America).—Of this wood it is stated in Porcher's "Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests," p. 419, that upon the authority of a well-known engraver at Nashville, Tennessee, the wood is equaled only by the best boxwood. This species of Rhododendron "abounds on every mountain from Mason and Dixon's line to North Georgia that has a rocky branch." Specimens of this wood submitted to Mr. Scott were so badly selected and seasoned that it was almost impossible to give it a trial. In consideration of its hardness and apparent good qualities, further experiments should be made with it.

16. Rhododendron californicum.—Likewise a North American species, the wood of which is similar to the last named. Specimens were sent to Kew by Professor Sargent for report in 1882, but were so badly seasoned that no satisfactory opinion could be obtained regarding it.

17. Kalmia latifolia, L. (calico bush or ivy bush of North America).—The wood is hard and dense, and is much used in America for mechanical purposes. It has been recommended as a substitute for boxwood for engraving, and trials should, therefore, be made with it.

Natural Order Epacride.

18. Monotoca elliptica, R. Br.—A tall shrub or tree 20 or 30 feet high, native of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania. The wood has been experimented upon in this country, and though to all appearances it is an excellent wood, yet Mr. Worthington Smith reported upon it as having a bad surface, and readily breaking away so that the cuts require much retouching after engraving.

Natural Order Ebenace.

19. Diospyros texana.—A North American tree, of the wood of which Professor Sargent speaks favorably. "It is, however," he says, "in Texas, at least, rather small, scarcely six inches in diameter, and not very common. In northern Mexico it is said to grow much larger, and could probably be obtained with some trouble in sufficient quantities to become an article of commerce." Of this wood Mr. Scott says: "It is sufficiently good as regards the grain, but the specimen sent for trial was much too small for practical purposes." Mr. R.H. Keene, the engraver, says it "is nearly equal to the best box."

20. Diospyros virginiana, L. (the persimmon of America).—A good-sized tree, widely diffused, and common in some districts. The wood is of a very dark color, hard, and of a fairly close grain. It has been used in America for engraving, but so far as I am aware has not been tried in this country. It has, however, been lately introduced for making shuttles.

21. Dyospyros ebenum, Koenig (ebony).—A wood so well known as to need no description. It has been tried for engraving by Mr. Worthington Smith, who considers it nearly as good as box.

Natural Order Apocyne.

22. Hunteria zeylanica, Gard.—A small tree, common in the warmer parts of Ceylon. This is a very hard and compact wood, and is used for engraving purposes in Ceylon, where it is said, by residents, to come nearer to box than any other wood known. On this wood Mr. Worthington Smith gave a very favorable opinion, but it is doubtful whether it would ever be brought from Ceylon in sufficient quantities to meet a demand.

Natural Order Bignoniace.

23. Tecoma pentaphylla, Dl.—A moderate-sized tree, native of the West Indies and Brazil. The wood is compact, very fine, and even grained, and much resembles box in general appearance. Blocks for engraving have been prepared from it by Mr. R.J. Scott, who reported upon it as follows: "It is the only likely successor to box that I have yet seen, but it is not embraced as a deliverer should be, but its time may not be far off."

Natural Order Corylace.

24. Carpinus betulus, L. (hornbeam).—A tree from 20 to 70 feet high, with a trunk sometimes 10 feet in girth, indigenous in the southern counties of England. The wood is very tough, heavy, and close grained. It is largely used in France for handles for agricultural and mining implements, and of late years has been much used in this country for lasts. The wood of large growth is apt to became shaky, and it is consequently not used as a building wood. It is said to have been used as a substitute for box in engraving, but with what success does not appear.

25. Ostrya virginica, Willd (ironwood, or American hornbeam).—A moderate-sized tree, widely spread over North America. The wood is light-colored, and extremely hard and heavy; hence the name of ironwood. It is used in America by turners, as well as for mill cogs, etc., and has been suggested as a substitute for boxwood for engraving, though no actual trials, so far as I am aware, have been made with it.

Besides the foregoing list of woods, there are others that have been occasionally used for posters and the coarser kinds of engraving, such, for instance, as lime, sycamore, yew, beech, and even pine; and in America, Vaccinium arboreum and Azalea nudiflora. Of these, however, but little is known as to their value.

It will be noticed that in those woods that have passed through the engraver's hands, some which promised best, so far as their texture or grain is concerned, have been tried upon very imperfect or badly seasoned samples.

The subject is one of so much importance, as was pointed out at the commencement of this paper, that a thoroughly organized series of experiments should be undertaken upon carefully seasoned and properly prepared woods, not only of those mentioned in the preceding list, but also of any others that may suggest themselves, as being suitable, It must, moreover, always be borne in mind that the questions of price, and the considerations of supply and demand, must, to a great extent, regulate the adaptation of any particular wood.

With regard to those woods referred to as being tried by Mr. Worthington Smith, he remarks in his report that any of them would be useful for some classes of work, if they could be imported, prepared, and sold for a farthing, or less than a halfpenny, per square inch.

Specimens of all the woods here enumerated are contained in the Kew Museum.

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COMPOSITE PORTRAITS.

Not long since we gave a figure from a drawing by Mr. Grallieni, which, looked at from a distance, seemed to be a death's head, but which, when examined more closely, was seen to represent two children caressing a dog. Since then we have had occasion to publish some landscapes of Kircher and his imitators, which, looked at sideways, exhibited human profiles. This sort of amusement has exercised the skill of artists of all times, and engravings, and even paintings, of double aspect are very numerous. Chance has recently put into our hands a very curious work of this kind, which is due to a skillful artist named Gaillot. It is an album of quite ancient lithographs, which was published at Berlin by Senefelder. The author, under the title of "Arts and Trades," has drawn some very amusing faces that are formed through the tools and objects used in the profession represented. We reproduce a few specimens of these essentially original compositions of Gaillot. The green grocer is formed of a melon for the head, of an artichoke and its stem for the forehead and nose, of a pannier for the bust, etc. The hunter is made up of a gun, of a powder horn, and of a hunting horn, etc.; and so on for the other professions. This is an amusing exercise in drawing that we have thought worthy of reproducing. Any one who is skillful with his pencil might exercise himself in imagining other compositions of the same kind.—La Nature.



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HAND-CRAFT AND REDE-CRAFT.—A PLEA FOR THE FIRST NAMED.

[Footnote: Read before the Worcester Free Industrial Institute, June 25, 1885.]

By DANIEL C. GILMAN, President of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.

I cannot think of a theme more fit for this hour and place than handy-craft. I begin by saying "handy-craft," for that is the form of the word now in vogue, that which we are wonted to see in print and hear in speech; but I like rather the old form, "hand-craft," which was used by our sires so long ago as the Anglo-Saxon days. Both words mean the same thing, the power of the hand to seize, hold, shape, match, carve, paint, dig, bake, make, or weave. Neither form is in fashion, as we know very well, for people choose nowadays such Latin words as "technical ability," "manual labor," "industrial pursuits," "dexterity," "professional artisanship," "manufacture," "decorative art," and "technological occupations," not one of which is half as good as the plain, old, strong term "hand-craft."

An aid to hand-craft is rede-craft—the power to read, to reason, and to think; or, as it is said in the book of Common Prayer, "to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest." By rede craft we find out what other men have done; we get our book learning, we are made heirs to thoughts that breathe and words that burn, we enter into the life, the acts, the arts, the loves, the lore of the wise, the witty, the cunning, and the worthy of all ages and all places; we learn, as says the peasant poet of Scotland,

"The song whose thunderous chime Eternal echoes render— The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, And Milton's starry splendor!"

I do not pit rede-craft against hand-craft. Quite otherwise, I call them not foes (as some would), but friends. They are brothers, partners, consorts, who can work together, as right hand and left hand, as science and art, as theory and practice. Rede-craft may call for books and hand-craft for tools, but it is by the help of both books and tools that mankind moves on. Indeed, we shall not err wide of the mark if we say that a book is a tool, for it is the instrument which we make use of in certain cases when we wish to find out what other men have thought and done. Perhaps you will not be as ready to admit that a tool is a book. But take for example the plow. Compare the form in use to-day on a first-rate farm with that which is pictured on ancient stones long hid in Egypt—ages old. See how the idea of the plow has grown, and bear in mind that its graceful curves, it fitness for a special soil, or for a special crop, its labor-saving shape, came not by chance, but by thought. Indeed, a plow is made up from the thoughts and toils of generations of plowmen. Look at a Collins ax; it is also the record of man's thought. Lay it side by side with the hatchet of Uncas or Miantonomoh, or with an ax of the age of bronze, and think how many minds have worked on the head and on the helve, how much skill has been spent in getting the metal, in making it hard, in shaping the edge, in fixing the weight, in forming the handle. From simple tools, turn to complex; to the printing press, the sewing machine, the locomotive, the telegraph, the ocean steamer; all are full of ideas. All are the offspring of hand-craft and rede craft, of skill and thought, of practice put on record, of science and art.

Now, the welfare of each one of us, the welfare of our land, the welfare of our race, rests on this union. You may almost take the measure of a man's brain, if you can find out what he sees with his eyes and what he does with hands; you may judge of a country, or of a city, if you know what it makes.

I do not know that we need ask which is best, hand-craft or rede-craft. Certainly "the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee." At times, hand-craft becomes rede-craft, for when the eye is blind the hand takes its place, and the finger learns to read, running over the printed page to find out what is written, as quickly as the eye.

In these days, there are too many who look down on hand-craft. They think only of the tasks of a drudge or a char-boy. They do not know the pleasure there is in working, and especially in making. They have never learned to guide the fingers by the brain. They like to hear, or see, or own, or eat, what others have made, but they do not like to put their own hands to work. If you doubt what I say, put a notice in the paper asking for a clerk, and you will have a, hundred answers for every one that will come when you ask for a workman. So it comes to pass that young men grow up whose hands have not been trained to any kind of skill; they wish, therefore, to be buyers and sellers, traders, dealers, and so the market is overstocked with clerks, book-keepers, salesmen, and small shop-keepers, while it is understocked in all the higher walks of hand-craft. Some men can only get on by force of arms, lifting, pounding, heaving, or by power of sitting at counter or a desk and "clerking it."

Machinery works against hand-craft. In many branches of labor, the hand now has but little to do, and that little is always the same, so that labor becomes tiresome and the workman dull. Machines can be made to cut statuary, to weave beautiful tapestry, to fashion needles, to grind out music, to make long calculations; alas! the machine has also been brought into politics. Of course, a land cannot thrive without machinery; it is that mechanical giant, the steam engine, which carries the corn, the cotton, and the sugar from our rich valleys to the hungry of other lands, and brings back to us the product of their looms. Nevertheless, he who lives by the machine alone lives but half a life; while he who uses his hand to contrive and to adorn drives dullness from his path. A true artist and a true artisan are one. Hand-craft, the power to shape, to curve, to beautify, to create, gives pleasure and dignity to labor.

In other times and in other lands, hand-craft has had more honor than it has had with us. Let me give some examples. Not long ago, I went to one of the shrines of education, the Sorbonne in Paris. Two paintings adorn the chapel walls, not of saints or martyrs, nor of apostles or prophets, perhaps I should say of both saints and prophets, Labor and Humilitas, Industry and Modesty.

The touch of Phidias was his own, and so inimitable that a few months ago, an American, scanning, with his practiced eye, the galleries of the Louvre, recognized a fragment of the work of Phidias, long separated from the Parthenon frieze which Lord Elgin sent to London. The sculptor's touch could not be mistaken. It was as truly his own as his signature, his autograph. Ruskin, in a lecture on the relation of Art to Morals, calls attention to a note which Durer made on some drawings sent him by Raphael: "These figures Raphael drew and sent to Albert Durer in Nurnberg, to show him his hand, 'sein hand zu weisen."' Ruskin compares this phrase with other contests of hand-craft, Apelles and Protogenes showing their skill by drawing a line; Giotto in striking a circle.

In the household of the Kings of Prussia, there is a custom, if not a law, that every boy shall learn a trade. I believe this is a fact, though I have no certain proof of it. The Emperor Wilhelm is said to be a glazier, the Crown Prince a compositor, and on the Emperor's birthday not long ago his majesty received an engraving by Prince Henry and a, book bound by Prince Waldemar, two younger sons of the Crown Prince. Let me refer to sacred writ; the prophet Isaiah, telling of the golden days which are to come, when the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in the land, nor the voice of crying, when the child shall die an hundred years old, and men shall eat of the fruit of the vineyards they have planted, adds this striking promise, as the culm of all hope, that the elect of the Lord shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

Now, in view of what has been said, my first point is this: We who have to deal with the young, we all who love our fellow-men, we all who desire that our times, our city, our country, should be thrifty, happy, and content, must each in his place and way give high honor to labor. We, especially, who are teachers and parents, should see to it that the young get "hand-craft" while they are getting "rede-craft." How can this be done?

Mothers begin right in the nursery, teaching little fingers to play before the tongue can lisp a sentence. Alas! this natural training has often been stopped at school. Hitherto, until quite lately, in schools both low and high, rede-craft has had the place of honor, hand-craft has had no chance. But a change is coming. In the highest of all schools, universities, for example, work rooms, labor places, "laboratories," are now thought to be as useful as book rooms, reading rooms, libraries.

What mean those buildings which you have seen spring up within a few years past in all the college greens of New England? They are libraries and laboratories. They show that rede-craft and hand-craft are alike held in honor, and that a liberal education means skill in getting and skill in using knowledge; that knowledge comes from searching books and searching nature; that the brain and the hand are in close league. So too, in the lowest school, as far as possible from the university, the kindergarten has won its place and the blocks, and straws, and bands, the chalk, the clay, the scissors, are in use to make young fingers deft. Between the highest and the lowest schools there is a like call for hand-craft. Seeing this need, the authorities in our public schools have begun to project special schools for such training, and are looking for guidance far and near. At this intermediate stage, for boy and girls who are between the age of the kindergarten and the age of the college or the shop, for youth between eight and sixteen, there is much to be done; people are hardly aware how much is needed to secure fit training for the rising generation.

It seems sometimes as if one of the most needed forms of hand-craft would become a lost art, even good handwriting. We cannot give much credit to schools if they send out many who are skilled in algebra, or in Latin, but who cannot write a page of English so that it can be read without effort.

Drawing is another kind of hand-craft, quite too much neglected. I think it should be laid down as a law of the road to knowledge, that everybody must learn to draw as well as to write. The pencil maybe mastered just as readily as the pen. It is a simpler tool. The child draws before he writes, and savages begin their language with pictures; but, we wiseacres of this age of books let our young folks drop their slate pencils and their Fabers, and practice with their Gillotts and their Esterbrooks. Let us say, in every school and in every house, the child must not only learn to read and write, he must learn to draw. We cannot afford to let our young folks grow up without this power. A new French book is just now much talked about, with this droll title, "The Life of a Wise Man, by an Ignoramus." It is the story of the great Pasteur, whose discoveries in respect to life have made him world renowned. I turned to the book, eager to find out the key to such success, and I found the old story—"the child was father of the man." This philosopher, whose eye is so skilled in observing nature, and whose hand is so apt in experiments, is the boy grown up whose pictures were so good that the villagers thought him at thirteen an artist of rank.

Girls should learn the first lesson of hand-craft with the needle; boys may (and they will always prize the knowledge), but girls must. It is wise that our schools are going back to old fashioned ways, and saying that girls must be taught to sew.

Boys should practice their hands upon the knife. John Bull used to laugh at Brother Jonathan for whittling, and Mr. Punch always drew the Yankee with a blade in his fingers; but they found out long ago in Great Britain that whittling in this land led to something, a Boston notion, a wooden clock, a yacht America, a labor-saving machine, a cargo of wooden-ware, a shop full of knick-knacks, an age of inventions. Boys need not be kept back to the hand-craft of the knife. For in-doors there are the type case and printing press, the paint box, the tool box, the lathe; and for out doors, the trowel, the spade, the grafting knife. It matters not how many of the minor arts the youth acquires. The more the merrier. Let each one gain the most he can in all such ways; for arts like these bring no harm in their train; quite otherwise, they lure good fortune to their company.

Play, as well as work, may bring out hand-craft. The gun, the bat, the rein, the rod, the oar, all manly sports, are good training for the hand. Walking insures fresh air, but it does not train the body or mind like games and sports which are played out of doors. A man of great fame as an explorer and as a student of nature (he who discovered, in the West, bones of horses with two, three, and four toes, and who found the remains of birds with teeth) once told me that his success was largely due to the sports of his youth. His boyish love of fishing gave him his manly skill in exploration.

I speak as if hand-craft was to be learned by sport. So it may. It may also be learned by labor. Day by day for weeks I have been watching from my study window a stately inn rise from the cellar just across the road. A bricklayer has been there employed whose touch is like the stroke of an artist. He handled each brick as if it were porcelain, balanced it carefully in his hand, measured with his eye just the amount of mortar which it needed, and dropped the block into its bed, without staining its edge, without varying from the plumb line, by a stroke of hand-craft as true as the sculptor's. Toil gave him skill.

The second point I make is this: If you really value hand-craft, buy that which shows hand-craft, encourage those who are engaged in hand-craft, help on with your voice and with your pocket, those who bring taste and skill and art into the works of their hand. If your means are so small that you only buy what you need for your daily wants, you cannot have much choice, you must buy that which is cheapest; but hardly any one within the sound of my voice is so restricted as that; almost if not quite every one buys something every year for his pleasure, a curtain, a rug, a wall paper, a chair, or a table not certainly needed, a vase, a clock, a, mantel ornament, a piece of jewelry, a portrait, an etching, a picture. Now whenever you make such a purchase, to please your taste, to make your parlor or your chamber more attractive, choose that which shows good handiwork. Such a choice will last. You will not tire of it as you will of that which has but a commonplace form or pattern.

I come now to a third point. That which has just been said applies chiefly to things whose price is fixed by beauty. But handicraft gives us many works not pleasing to the eye, yet of the highest skill—a Jacquard loom, a Corliss engine, a Hoe printing press, a Winchester rifle, an Edison dynamo, a Bell telephone. Ruskin may scout the work of machinery, and up to a certain point may take us with him. Let us allow that works of art marked by the artist's own touch—the gates of Paradise by Ghiberti, a shield by Cellini, a statue by Michael Angelo, are better than all reproductions and imitations, better than plaster casts by Eichler, electrotypes by Barbedienne, or chromos by Prang. But even Ruskin cannot suppress the fact that machinery brings to every thrifty cottage in New England comforts and adornments which, in the days of Queen Bess, were not known outside of the palace. Be mindful, then, that handicraft makes machines which are wonders of productive force—weaving tissues such as Penelope never saw, of woolen, cotton, linen, and silk, to carpet our floors, cover our tables, cushion our chairs, and clothe our bodies; machines of which Vulcan never dreamed, to point a needle, bore a rifle, cut a watch wheel, or rule a series of lines, measuring forty thousand to an inch, with sureness which the unaided hand can never equal. Machinery is a triumph of handicraft as truly as sculpture and architecture. The fingers which can plan and build a steamship or a suspension bridge, which can make the Quinebaug and the Blackstone turn spindles by the hundred thousand, which can turn a rag heap into spotless paper, and make myriads of useful and artful articles from rough metal, are fingers which this age alone has evolved. The craft which makes useful things cheap can make cheap things beautiful. The Japanese will teach us how to form and finish, if we do not first teach them how to slight and sham.

A fourth point is this. If hand-craft is of such worth, boys and girls must be trained in it. This, I am well aware is no new thought. Forty years ago schools of applied science were added to Harvard and Yale colleges; twenty years ago Congress gave enough land-scrip to aid in founding at least one such school in every state; men of wealth, like many whom you have known and whom you honor, have given large sums for like ends. Now the people at large are waking up. They see their needs; they have the means to supply what they want. Is there the will? Know they the way? Far and near the cry is heard for a different training from that now given in the public schools. Many are trying to find it. Almost every large town has its experiment—and many smaller places have theirs. Nobody seems to know just what is best. Even the words which express the want are vague. Bright and thoughtful people differ as to what might, can, and should be done. A society has been formed in New York to bring together the needed data. The Slater trustees, charged with the care of a large fund for the training of freedmen, have said that manual training must be given in all the schools they aid. The town of Toledo in Ohio opened, some time since, a school of practical training for boys, which worked so well that another has lately been opened for girls. St. Louis is doing famously. Philadelphia has several experiments in progress. Baltimore has made a start. In New York there are many noteworthy movements—half a dozen at least full of life and hope. Boston was never behindhand in knowledge, and in the new education is very alert, the efforts of a single lady deserving praise of high degree. These are but signs of the times.

Some things may be set down as fixed; for example, most of those who have thought on this theme will agree on the points I am about to name, though they may or may not like the names which I venture to propose:

1. Kindergarten work should be taught in the nurseries and infant schools of rich and poor.

2. Drawing should be taught in schools of every grade, till the hand uses the pencil as readily as the pen.

3. Every girl at school if not at home should learn to sew.

4. Every boy should learn the use of tools, the gardener's or the carpenter's, or both.

5. Well planned exercises, fitted to strengthen the various bodily organs, arms, fingers, wrists, lungs, etc., are good. Driving, swimming, rowing, and other manly sports should be favored.

What precedes is at the basis of good work.

In addition:

6. With good teachers, quite young children may learn the minor decorative arts, carving, leather stamping, brass beating and the like, as is shown in the Leland classes of Philadelphia.

7. In towns, boys who begin to earn a living when they enter their teens may be taught in evening schools to practice the craft of carpentry, bricklaying, plastering, plumbing, gas fitting, etc., as is shown successfully in the Auchmuty schools of New York. Trade schools they are called; schools of practice for workmen would be a better name.

8. Boys who can carry their studies through the later teens may learn, while at the high school or technical school or college, to work in wood and metals with precision, as I have lately seen in the College of the City of New York, at Cornell University, and elsewhere-colleges or high schools with work-shops and practice classes. If they can take the time to fit themselves to be foremen and leaders in machine shops and factories, they may be trained in theoretical and practical mechanics, as in the Worcester Industrial Institute and in a score of other places; but the youth must have talent as well as time to win the race in these hard paths. These are schools for foremen, or, if we may use a foreign word like Kindergarten, they are Meisterschaft schools.

9. Youths who wish to enter the highest departments of engineering must follow advanced courses of mathematics and physics, and must learn to apply this knowledge. The better colleges and universities afford abundant opportunities for such training, but their scientific laboratories are fitted only for those who love long study as well as hard. These are schools for engineers.

10. Girls are most likely to excel in the lighter arts—to design (for furniture or fabrics), to embroider, to carve, to engrave, to etch, to model, to paint. Here also success depends largely upon that which was inborn, though girls of moderate talent in art, by patience, may become skilled in many kinds of art work. Schools for this instruction are schools of art (elementary, decorative, professional, etc.).

If there be those in this hall who think that hand-craft is adverse to rede-craft, let me ask them to study the lives of men of mark. Isaac Newton began his life as a farm-boy who carried truck to a market town; Spinoza, the philosopher of Amsterdam, ground lenses for his livelihood; Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, was mechanic to the University of Glasgow; Porson, the great professor of Greek, was trained as a weaver; George Washington was a land surveyor; Benjamin Franklin a printer.

Before I close let me draw a lesson from the history of our land. Some of you doubtless bear in mind that before the late war men used to say, "Cotton is king;" and why so? Because the trades which hung on this crop were so many and so strong that they ruled all others. The rise or fall of a penny in the price of cotton at Liverpool affected planters in the South, spinners in the North, seamen on the ocean, bankers and money-changers everywhere. Now wheat and petroleum share the sovereignty; but then cotton was king. Who enthroned this harmless plant? Two masters of hand-craft, one of whom was born a few miles east of this place in Westborough; the other was a native of England who spent most of his days a few miles south of this city. Within five years—not quite a century ago—these two men were putting in forms which could be seen, ideas which brought our countrymen large measures of both weal and woe. In 1790, Samuel Slater, once an apprentice to Strutt and Arkwright, built the mill at Pawtucket which taught Americans the art of cotton-spinning; and before 1795, Eli Whitney had invented the gin which easily cleansed the cotton boll of its seeds, and so made marketable the great crop we have spoken of. Many men have made more noise in the world than Slater and Whitney; few if any can be named whose peaceable hand-craft has done so much to give this country its front place in the markets of the globe.

Let me come nearer home, and as I take my seat let me name a son of this very town who loved hand-craft and rede-craft, and worthily aided both—Isaiah Thomas, the patriot printer, editor, and publisher, historian of the printer's craft in this land, and founder of the far famed antiquarian library, eldest in that group of institutions which gave to Worcester its rank in the world of letters, as its many products give it standing in the world of industry and art.

Mindful of three such worthies, it is not strange that Salisbury, Washburn, Boylston, and many more have built up this high school of handicraft; it will be no wonder if others like minded build on the foundations which have been so fitly laid.

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MAKING SEA WATER POTABLE.

[Footnote: Read lately before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society]

By THOMAS KAY, President of the Stockport Natural History Society.

The author called attention to the absence of research in this direction, and how man, endowed to overcome every physical disability which encompassed him on land, was powerless to live on the wide ocean, although it is teeming with life.

The water for experiment was taken from the English Channel, about fifty miles southwest of the Eddystone Lighthouse, and it was found to correspond closely with the analysis of the Atlantic published by Roscoe, viz.: Total solids 35.976, of which the total chlorides, are 32.730, representing 19.868 of chlorine.

The waters of the Irish Sea and the English Channel nearer to the German Ocean, from their neighborhood to great rivers, are weaker than the above.

Schweitzer's analysis of the waters of the English Channel, near Brighton, was taken as representing the composition of the sea, and is here given:

Sodium chloride 27.059 Potassium " 0.766 Magnesium " 3.666 " bromide 0.029 " sulphate 2.296 Calcium " 1.406 " carbonate 0.033 Iodine and ammoniacal salts traces Water 964.795 1000.000

The chlorides in the—

Irish Sea are about 30 per mille. English Channel are about 31 " Beyond the Eddystone are 32 "

As the requirement for a potable sea water does not arise except in mid-ocean, the proportion of 32 per mille must be taken as the basis of calculation.

This represents as near 20 per mille of chlorine as possible.

From the analysis shown it will be perceived that the chlorides of sodium and magnesium are in great preponderance.

It is to the former of these that the baneful effects of sea water when drunk are to be ascribed, for chloride of sodium or common salt produces thirst probably by its styptic action on the salivary glands, and scurvy by its deleterious action on the blood when taken in excess.

Sodium chloride being the principal noxious element in sea water, and soda in combination with a vegetable or organic acid, such as citric acid, tartaric acid, or malic acid, being innocuous, the conclusion is that the element of evil to be avoided is chlorine.

After describing various experiments, and calling attention to the power of earthy matters in abstracting salts from solutions by which he hoped the process would be perfected, an imperial pint of water from beyond the Eddystone was shown mixed with 960 grains of citrate of silver and 4 grains of the free citric acid.

Each part of the chlorides requires three parts by weight of the silver citrate to throw down the chlorine, thus:

3NaCl + Ag_{3}C_{6}H_{5}O_{7} = Na3.C_{6}H_{5}O_{7}+3AgCl.

The silver chloride formed a dense insoluble precipitate, and the supernatant fluid was decanted and filtered through a rubber tube and handed round as a beverage.

It contained in each fluid ounce by calculation about:

18 grains of citrate of soda. 1-1/2 " " magnesia. 1/2 " " potash. 1 " sulphate of magnesia. 1/2 " " lime. 1/5 " citric acid.

with less than half a grain of undecomposed chlorides.

To analyze this liquid therapeutically, it may be broadly stated that salts of potash are diuretic, salts of magnesia aperient, and salts of soda neutral, except in excessive doses, or in combination with acids of varying medicinal action; thus, soda in nitric acid, nitrate of soda, is a diuretic, following the law of nitrates as nitrate of potash, a most powerful diuretic, nitrous ether, etc.; while soda in combination with sulphuric acid as sulphate of soda is aperient, following the law of sulphates, which increase aperient action, as in sulphate of magnesia, etc.

Thus it would seem that soda holds the scales evenly between potash and magnesia in this medical sense, and that it is weighed, so to speak, on either side by the kind of mineral acid with which it may be combined.

With non-poisonous vegetable acids, and these slightly in excess, there is not such an effect produced.

Sodium is an important constituent of the human body, and citric acid, from its carbon, almost a food. Although no one would advocate saline drinks in excess, yet, under especial circumstances, the solution of it in the form of citrate can hardly be hurtful when used to moisten the throat and tongue, for it will never be used under circumstances where it can be taken in large quantities.

In the converted sea water the bulk of the solids is composed of inert citrate of soda. There is a little citrate of potash, which is a feeble diuretic; a little citrate and sulphate of magnesia, a slight aperient, corrected, however, by the constipatory half grain of sulphate of lime; so that the whole practically is inoperative.

The combination of these salts in nature's proportions would seem to indicate that they must be the best for administration in those ailments to which their use would be beneficial.

Citrate of silver is an almost insoluble salt, and requires to be kept from the light, air, and organic matter, it being very easily decomposed.

A stoppered bottle covered with India-rubber was exhibited as indicating a suitable preserver of the salt, as it affords protection against light, air, and breakage. As one ounce of silver citrate will convert half a pint of sea water into a drinkable fluid, and a man can keep alive upon it a day, then seven ounces of it will keep him a week, and so on, it may not unreasonably be hoped, in proportion.

It is proposed to pack the silver citrate in hermetically sealed rubber covered bottles or tubes, to be inserted under the canisters or thwarts of the life-boats in ocean-going vessels, and this can be done at a simple interest on the first outlay, without any loss by depreciation, as it will always be worth its cost, and be invaluable in case of need.

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THE ACIDS OF WOOL OIL.

All wools contain a certain amount of animal oil or grease, which permeates every portion of the fleece. The proportion of oil varies with the breed of sheep. A difference in climate and soil materially affects the yield of oil. This is shown by analyses made of different kinds of wool, both foreign and domestic. Spanish wool was found to have but eight per cent. grease; Australian wool fifteen per cent.; while in some fleeces of Pennsylvania wool as high as forty per cent. was obtained. To extract the oil from the wool, a fleece was put in a tall cylinder and naphtha poured on it. The naphtha on being allowed to drain through slowly dissolved out the grease. This naphtha solution was distilled; the naphtha passing off while grease remained—a dark oil having high specific gravity and remaining nearly solid at the ordinary temperature. I am indebted to Mrs. Richards for this method of extracting the oil. The process is quick and inexpensive, and is applicable to the treatment of large quantities of wool.

The object of these experiments was to find the readiest method of separating wool oil into its bases and acids, and further to identify the various fatty acids. A solution of the oil in naphtha was cooled to 15 C. This caused a separation of the oil into two portions: a white solid fat and a fluid dark oil. The first on examination proved to be a mixture of palmitic and stearic acids existing uncombined in the wool oil. The original wool oil was saponified by boiling with alcoholic potash.

The soap formed was separated into two portions by shaking with ether and water. On standing, the solution separated into two layers, the upper or murial solution containing the bases, the lower or aqueous solution containing the acids. This method of separation is very slow. In one case it worked very well, but as a rule appeared to be almost impracticable. Benzol and naphtha were tried, instead of ether, but the results were less satisfactory. On suggestion of Prof. Ordway, potassium chloride was added to the soap solution partially separated by ether and water. This caused an immediate and complete separation. By the use of potassium chloride it was found possible to effect a separation with benzol and water, also with naphtha and water.

Another means of separation was tried by precipitating the calcium salts, from a solution of the potash soap. From the portion of the calcium salts insoluble in alcohol, a fatty acid was obtained with a melting point and composition almost identical with the melting point and composition of palmitic acid. The aqueous portion of the separation effected by water and ether was examined for the fatty acid. The lead salts of the fatty acids were digested with ether, which dissolved out the lead oleate. From this oleic acid was obtained. This was further purified by forming the Boreum salt of oleic acid. The lead salts not soluble in ether were decomposed by acid. The fatty acids set free were saponified by carbonate of potassium. A fractional precipitation was effected by adding lead acetate in successive portions; each portion sufficient to precipitate one-fourth of all the acids present.

The acid obtained from the first fractionation had the melting point at 75-76, indicating an acid either in carbon then stearic or palmitic acids.

The acids obtained from the third fractionation had a melting point of 53-54 C. This acid in composition and general properties was very similar to that obtained by freezing the naphtha solution of the oil, and is probably a mixture of stearic and palmitic acids. These acids, being in combination with the bases of the oil, would be set free only on saponifying the oil and subsequently decomposing with acid.

In conclusion, I should say that but a small proportion of the fatty acids exist in the wool oil uncombined; that the proportion of oleic acid is small, and can only be obtained in an oxidized condition; that the main portion of the fatty acids is composed of stearic and palmitic acids in nearly equal proportions; that the existence of a fatty acid, containing a higher per cent. of carbon than those mentioned, is not fully established.—N.W. Shedd, M.I.T.

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A NEW ABSORBENT FOR OXYGEN.

OTTO, BARON V.D. PFORDTEN.—The author makes use of a solution of chromous chloride, which he prepares as follows:

He first heats chromic acid with concentrated hydrochloric acid, so as to obtain a strong green solution of chromic chloride free from chlorine. This is then reduced with zinc and hydrochloric acid. The blue chromous chloride solution thus obtained is poured into a saturated solution of sodium acetate in an atmosphere of carbonic acid. A red precipitate of chromous acetate is formed, which is washed by decantation in water containing carbonic acid. This salt is relatively stable, and can be preserved for an indefinite time in a moist condition in stoppered bottles filled with carbonic acid.

In this process the following precautions are to be observed:

Spongy flocks always separate from the zinc used in the reduction, which float about in the acid liquid for a long time and give off minute gas bubbles. If poured into the solution of sodium acetate, they would contaminate the precipitate; and when dissolved in hydrochloric acid, would occasion a slight escape of hydrogen. The solution of chromous chloride must therefore be freed from the zinc by filtration in the absence of air. For this purpose the reduction is carried on in a flask fitted up like a washing bottle. The long tube is bent down outside the flask, and is here provided with a small bulb tube containing glass wool or asbestos. The hydrogen gas liberated during reduction is at first let escape through this tube; afterward its outer end is closed, and it is pressed down into the liquid. The hydrogen must now pass through the shorter tube (the mouthpiece of the washing bottle), which has an India rubber valve. When the reduction is complete, the blue liquid is driven up in the long tube by introducing carbonic acid through the short tube, so that it filters through the asbestos into the solution of sodium acetate into which the reopened end of the long tube dips. When washing out the red precipitate, at first a little acetic acid is added to dissolve any basic zinc carbonate which has been deposited. In this manner a chromous acetate is obtained perfectly free from zinc.

For the absorption of oxygen the compound just described is decomposed with hydrochloric acid in the following simple washing apparatus: Upon a shelf there are fixed side by side two ordinary preparation glasses, closed with caoutchouc stoppers, each having three perforations. Each two apertures receive the glass tubes used in gas washing bottles, while the third holds a dropping funnel. It is filled with dilute hydrochloric acid, and after the expulsion of the air by a current of gas, plentiful quantities of chromous acetate are passed into the bottles. When the current of gas has been passed in for some time, the hydrochloric acid is let enter, which dissolves the chromous acetate, and thus, in the absence of air, produces a solution of blue chromous chloride. It is advisable to use an excess of chromous acetate or an insufficient quantity of hydrochloric acid, so that there may be no free hydrochloric acid in the liquid. To keep back any free acetic acid which might be swept over by the current of gas, there is introduced after the washing apparatus another washing bottle with sodium carbonate. Also solid potassium carbonate may be used instead of calcium chloride for drying the gas. If the two apertures of the washing apparatus are fitted with small pinch cocks, it is ready for use, and merely requires to be connected with the gas apparatus in action in order to free the gas generated from oxygen. As but little chromous salt is decomposed by the oxygen such a washing apparatus may serve for many experiments.

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GAIFFE'S NEW MEDICAL GALVANOMETER.

In this apparatus, which contains but one needle, and has no directing magnet, proportionability between the intensities and deflections is obtained by means of a special form given the frame upon which the wire is wound.

We give herewith a figure of the curve that Mr. Gaiffe has fixed upon after numerous experiments. Upon examination it will be seen that the needle approaches the current in measure as the directing action of the earth increases; and experiment proves that the two actions counterbalance each other, and render the deflections very sensibly proportional to the intensities up to an angle of from 65 to 75 degrees.



Another important fact has likewise been ascertained, and that is that, under such circumstances, the magnetic intensity of the needle may change without the indications ceasing to have the same exactness up to 65 degrees. As well known, Mr. Desains has demonstrated that this occurs likewise in sinus or tangent galvanometers; but these have helices that are very large in proportion to the needle. In medical galvanometers the proportions are no longer the same, and the needle is always very near the directing helix. If this latter is square, or even elliptical, it is found that, beyond an angle of 15 degrees, there are differences of 4 or 5 degrees in the indications given with the same intensity of current by the same needle, according to the latter's intensity of magnetism. This inconvenience is quite grave, for it often happens that a needle changes magnetic intensity, either under the influence of too strong currents sent into the apparatus, or of other magnets in its vicinity, or as a consequence of the bad quality of the steel, etc. It was therefore urgently required that this should be remedied, and from this point of view the new mode of winding the wire is an important improvement introduced into medical galvanometers.—La Lumiere Electrique.

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THE SUSPENSION OF LIFE.

Every one knows that life exists in a latent state in the seeds of plants, and may be preserved therein, so to speak, indefinitely. In 1853, Ridolfi deposited in the Egyptian Museum of Florence a sheaf of wheat that he had obtained from seeds found in a mummy case dating back about 3,000 years. This aptitude of revivification is found to a high degree in animalcules of low order. The air which we breathe is loaded with impalpable dust that awaits, for ages perhaps, proper conditions of heat and moisture to give it an ephemeral life that it will lose and acquire by turns.

In 1707, Spallanzani found it possible, eleven times in succession, to suspend the life of rotifers submitted to desiccation, and to call it back again by moistening this organic dust with water. A few years ago Doyere brought to life some tardigrades that had been dried at a temperature of 150 and kept four weeks in a vacuum. If we ascend the scale of beings, we find analogous phenomena produced by diverse causes. Flies that have been imported in casks of Madeira have been resuscitated in Europe, and chrysalids have been kept in this state for years. Cockchafers drowned, and then dried in the sun, have been revived after a lapse of twenty-four hours, two days, and even five days, after submersion. Frogs, salamanders, and spiders poisoned by curare or nicotine, have returned to life after several days of apparent death.

Cold produces some extraordinary effects. Spallanzani kept several frogs in the center of a lump of ice for two years, and, although they became dry, rigid, almost friable, and gave no external appearance of being alive, it was only necessary to expose them to a gradual and moderate heat to put an end to the lethargic state in which they lay.

Pikes and salamanders have at different epochs been revived before the eyes of Maupertuis and Constant Dumeril (members of the Academy of Sciences) after being frozen stiff. Auguste Dumeril, son of Constant, and who was the reporter of the committee relative to the Blois toad in 1851, published a curious memoir the following year in which he narrates how he interrupted life through congelation of the liquids and solids of the organism. Some frogs, whose internal temperature had been reduced to -2 in an atmosphere of -12, returned to life before his eyes, and he observed their tissues regain their usual elasticity and their heart pass from absolute immobility to its normal motion.

There is therefore no reason for doubting the assertions of travelers who tell us that the inhabitants of North America and Russia transport fish that are frozen stiff, and bring them to life again by dipping them into water of ordinary temperature ten or fifteen days afterward. But I think too much reliance should not be put in the process devised by the great English physiologist, Hunter, for prolonging the life of man indefinitely by successive freezings. It has been allowed to no one but a romancer, Mr. Edmond About, to be present at this curious operation.

Among the mammifera we find appearances of death in their winter sleep; but these are incomplete, since the temperature of hibernating animals remains greater by one degree than that of the surrounding air, and the motions of the heart and respiration are simply retarded. Dr. Preyer has observed that a hamster sometimes goes five minutes without breathing appreciably after a fortnight's sleep.

In man himself a suspension of life, or at least phenomena that seem inseparable therefrom, has been observed many times. In the Journal des Savants for 1741 we read that a Col. Russel, having witnessed the death of his wife, whom he tenderly loved, did not wish her buried, and threatened to kill any one who should attempt to remove the body before he witnessed its decomposition himself. Eight days passed by without the woman giving the slightest sign of life, "when, at a moment when he was holding her hand and shedding tears over her, the church bell began to ring, and, to his indescribable surprise, his wife sat up and said, 'It is the last stroke, we shall be too late.' She recovered."

At a session of the Academy of Sciences, Oct. 17, 1864, Mr. Blaudet communicated a report upon a young woman of thirty summers who, being subject to nervous attacks, fell, after her crises, into a sort of lethargic sleep which lasted several weeks and sometimes several months. One of her sleeps, especially, lasted from the beginning of the year 1862 until March, 1863.

Dr. Paul Levasseur relates that, in a certain English family, lethargy seemed to have become hereditary. The first case was exhibited in an old lady who remained for fifteen days in an immovable and insensible state, and who afterward, on regaining her consciousness, lived for quite a long time. Warned by this fact, the family preserved a young man for several weeks who appeared to be dead, but who came to life again.

Dr. Pfendler, in an inaugural thesis (Paris, 1833), minutely describes a case of apparent death of which he himself was a witness. A young girl of Vienna at the age of 15 was attacked by a nervous affection that brought on violent crises followed by lethargic states which lasted three or four days. After a time she became so exhausted that the first physicians of the city declared that there was no more hope. It was not long, in fact, before she was observed to rise in her bed and fall back as if struck with death. "For four hours she appeared to me," says Dr. Pfendler, "completely inanimate. With Messrs. Franck and Schaeffer, I made every possible effort to rekindle the spark of life. Neither mirror, nor burned feather, nor ammonia, nor pricking succeeded in giving us a sign of sensibility. Galvanism was tried without the patient showing any contractility. Mr. Franck believed her to be dead, but nevertheless advised me to leave her on the bed. For twenty-eight hours no change supervened, although it was thought that a little putrefaction was observed. The death bell was sounded, the friends of the girl had dressed her in white and had crowned her with flowers, and all was arranged for her burial. Desiring to convince myself of the course of the putrefaction, I visited the body again, and found that no further advance had been made than before. What was my astonishment when I believed that I saw a slight respiratory motion. I looked again, and saw that I was not mistaken. I at once used friction and irritants, and in an hour and a half the respiration increased. The patient opened her eyes, and, struck with the funereal paraphernalia around her, returned to consciousness, and said, 'I am too young to die.'" All this was followed by a ten hours' sleep. Convalescence proceeded rapidly, and the girl became free from all her nervous troubles. During her crisis she heard everything. She quoted some Latin words that Mr. Franck had used. Her most fearful agony had been to hear the preparations for her burial without being able to get rid of her torpor. Medical dictionaries are full of anecdotes of this nature, but I shall cite but two more.

On the 10th of November, 1812, during the fatal retreat from Russia, Commandant Tascher, desiring to bring back to France the body of his general, who had been killed by a bullet, and who had been buried since the day before, disinterred him, and, upon putting him into a landau, and noticing that he was still breathing, brought him to life again by dint of care. A long time afterward this same general was one of the pall bearers at the funeral obsequies of the aide-de-camp who had buried him. In 1826 a young priest returned to life at the moment the bishop of the diocese was pronouncing the De Profundis over his body. Forty years afterward, this priest, who had become Cardinal Donnett, preached a feeling sermon upon the danger of premature burial.

I trust I have now sufficiently prepared the mind of the reader for an examination of the phenomena of the voluntary suspension of life that I shall now treat of.

The body of an animal may be compared to a machine that converts the food that it receives into motion. It receives nothing, it will produce nothing; but there is no reason why it should get out of order if it is not deteriorated by external agents. The legendary rustic who wanted to accustom his ass to go without food was therefore theoretically wrong only because he at the same time wanted the animal to work. The whole difficulty consists in breaking with old habits. To return to the comparison that we just made, we shall run the risk of exploding the boiler of a steam engine if we heat it or cool it abruptly, but we can run it very slowly and for a very long time with but very little fuel. We may even preserve a little fire under the ashes, and this, although it may not be capable of setting the parts running, will suffice later on to revivify the fireplace after it has been charged anew with fuel.

We have recently had the example of Dr. Tanner, who went forty days without any other nourishment than water. Not very long ago Liedovine de Schiedam, who had been bedridden for twenty years, affirmed that she had taken no food for eight of them. It is said that Saint Catharine of Sienna gradually accustomed herself to do without food, and that she lived twenty years in total abstinence. We know of several examples of prolonged sleep during which the sleeper naturally took no nourishment. In his Magic Disquisitions, Delvis cites the case of a countryman who slept for an entire autumn and winter. Pfendler relates that a certain young and hysterical woman fell twice into a deep slumber which each time lasted six months. In 1883 an enceinte woman was found asleep on a bench in the Grand Armee Avenue. She was taken to the Beaujon Hospital, where she was delivered a few days after while still asleep, and it was not till the end of three months that she could be awakened from her lethargy. At this very moment, at Tremeille, a woman named Marguerite Bouyenvalle is sleeping a sleep that has lasted nearly a year, during which the only food that she has had is a few drops of soup daily.