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Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883

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Title: Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883

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SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 384

NEW YORK, MAY 12, 1883

Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XV., No. 384.

Scientific American established 1845

Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.

Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.

* * * * *

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I. ENGINEERING.--Locomotive for St. Gothard Railway.--Several

figures.

The Mersey Railway Tunnel.

Dam Across the Ottawa River, and New Canal at Carillon,

Quebec. Several figures and map.

II. ARCHITECTURE.--Dwelling Houses.--Hints on building. By

WILLIAM HENNAN.--Considerations necessary in order to have-

thoroughly sweet homes.--Experiment illustrating the necessity

of damp courses.--How to make dry walls and roofs.--Methods of

heating.--Artificial lighting.--Refuse.--Cesspools.--Drainage

House at Heaton.--Illustration.

A Mansard Roof Dwelling. 2 figures.

III. ELECTRICITY.--The History of the Electric Telegraph.--Documents

relating to the magnetic telegraph.--Apparatus of Comus

and Alexandre.--Origin of the electric telegraph.--Apparatus of

Lesage, Lemond, Reveroni, Saint Cyr, and others.--Several figures.

Electrical Transmission and Storage.--By DR. C. WM. SIEMENS.

III. MEDICINE AND HYGIENE.--Malaria. By Dr. JAMES SALISBURY.--VII.

Report on the cause of ague.--Studies of ague plants

in their natural and unnatural habitats.--List of objects found in

the Croton water.--Synopsis of the families of ague plants.--

Several figures.

Ichthyol.

Autopsy Table. 1 figure.

The Exciting Properties of Oats.

ads:

Filaria Disease.

IV. CHEMISTRY.--Preparation of Hydrogen Sulphide from Coal Gas.

By J. TAYLOR. 1 figure.

Setting of Gypsum.

V. TECHNOLOGY.--On the Preparation of Gelatine Plates. By E.

HOWARD FARMER.

Pictures on Glass.

VI. NATURAL HISTORY.--Survey of the Black Canon.

The Ancient Mississippi and its Tributaries. By J. W. SPENCER.

VII. AGRICULTURE.--The Spectral Masdevallia.--Illustration.

* * * * *

LOCOMOTIVE FOR ST. GOTHARD RAILWAY.

We give engravings of one of a type of eight-coupled locomotives

constructed for service on the St. Gothard Railway by Herr T.A. Maffei,

of Munich. As will be seen from our illustrations, the engine has

outside cylinders, these being 20.48 in. in diameter, with 24 in.

stroke, and as the diameter of the coupled wheels is 3 ft. 10 in.,

the tractive force which the engine is capable of exerting amounts to

(20.48 squared x 24) / 46 = 218.4 lb. for each pound of effective pressure per

square inch on the pistons. This is an enormous tractive force, as it

would require but a mean effective pressure of 1021/2 lb. per square inch

on the pistons to exert a pull of 10 tons. Inasmuch, however, as the

engine weighs 44 tons empty and 51 tons in working order, and as all

this weight is available for adhesion, this great cylinder power can be

utilized. The cylinders are 6 ft. 10 in. apart from center to center,

and they are well secured to the frames, as shown in Fig. 4. The frames

are deep and heavy, being 1 3/8 in. thick, and they are stayed by a

substantial box framing at the smokebox end, by a cast-iron footplate at

the rear end, and by the intermediate plate stays shown. The axle box

guides are all fitted with adjusting wedges. The axle bearings are all

alike, all being 7.87 in. in diameter by 9.45 in. long. The axles are

spaced at equal distances of 4 ft. 3.1 in. apart, the total wheel base

being thus 12 ft. 9.3 in. In the case of the 1st, 2d, and 3d axles, the

springs are arranged above the axle boxes in the ordinary way, those of

the 2d and 3d axles being coupled by compensating beams. In the case of

the trailing axle, however, a special arrangement is adopted. Thus, as

will be seen on reference to the longitudinal section and plan (Figs. 1

and 2, first page), each trailing axle box receives its load through the

horizontal arm of a strong bell-crank lever, the vertical arm of which

extends downward and has its lower end coupled to the adjoining end of a

strong transverse spring which is pivoted to a pair of transverse stays

extending from frame to frame below the ash pan. This arrangement

enables the spring for the trailing axle to be kept clear of the

firebox, thus allowing the latter to extend the full width between the

frames. The trailing wheels are fitted with a brake as shown.

[Illustration: LOCOMOTIVES FOR ST. GOTHARD RAILWAY.]

The valve motion is of the Gooch or stationary link type, the radius

rods being cranked to clear the leading axle, while the eccentric rods

are bent to clear the second axle. The piston rods are extended through

the front cylinder covers and are enlarged where they enter the

crossheads, the glands at the rear ends of cylinders being made in

halves. The arrangement of the motion generally will be clearly

understood on reference to Figs. 1 and 2 without further explanation.

The boiler, which is constructed for a working pressure of 147 lb. per

square inch, is unusually large, the barrel being 60.4 in. in diameter

inside the outside rings; it is composed of plates 0.65 in. thick. The

firebox spreads considerably in width toward the top, as shown in the

section, Fig. 5, and to enable it to be got in the back plate of the

firebox casing is flanged outward, instead of inward as usual, so as to

enable it to be riveted up after the firebox is in place. The inside

firebox is of copper and its crown is stayed directly to the crown

of the casing by vertical stays, as shown, strong transverse stays

extending across the boiler just above the firebox crown to resist the

spreading action caused by the arrangement of the crown stays. The

firegrate is 6 ft. 11.6 in. long by 3 ft. 4 in. wide.

[Illustration: ST. GOTHARD LOCOMOTIVES.]

The barrel contains 225 tubes 1.97 in. in diameter outside and 13 ft. 91/2

in. long between tube plates. On the top of the barrel is a large dome

containing the regulator, as shown in Fig. 1, from which view the

arrangement of the gusset stays for the back plate of firebox casing and

for the smokebox tube plate will be seen. A grid is placed across the

smokebox just above the tubes, and provision is made, as shown in Figs.

1 and 4, for closing the top of the exhaust nozzle, and opening a

communication between the exhaust pipes and the external air when the

engine is run reversed. The chimney is 153/4 in. in diameter at its lower

end and 18.9 in. at the top. The chief proportions of the boiler are as

follows:

Sq. ft

Heating surface: Tubes 1598.5

Firebox 102.5

------

1701.0

Firegrate area 23.3 [1]

Sectional area through tubes (disregarding ferrules) 3.5

Least sectional area of chimney. 1.35

Ratio of firegrate area to heating surface. 1:73

Ratio of flue area through tubes to firegrate area. 1:6.7

Ratio of least sectional area of chimney to firegrate area. 1:17.26

[Transcribers note 1: Best guess, 2nd digit illegible]

The proportion of chimney area to grate is much smaller than in ordinary

locomotives, this proportion having no doubt been fixed upon to enable a

strong draught to be obtained with the engine running at a slow speed.

Of the general fittings of the engine we need give no description, as

their arrangement will be readily understood from our engravings, and

in conclusion we need only say that the locomotive under notice is

altogether a very interesting example of an engine designed for

specially heavy work.--_Engineering_.

* * * * *

THE MERSEY RAILWAY TUNNEL.

The work of connecting Liverpool with Birkenhead by means of a railway

tunnel is now an almost certain success. It is probable that the entire

cost of the tunnel works will amount to about half a million sterling.

The first step was taken about three years ago, when shafts were sunk

simultaneously on both sides of the Mersey. The engineers intrusted

with the plans were Messrs. Brunlees & Fox, and they have now as their

resident representative Mr. A.H. Irvine, C.E. The contractor for the

entire work is Mr. John Waddell, and his lieutenant in charge at both

sides of the river is Mr. James Prentice. The post of mechanical

engineer at the works is filled by Mr. George Ginty. Under these chiefs,

a small army of nearly 700 workmen are now employed night and day at

both sides of the river in carrying out the tunnel to completion. On

the Birkenhead side, the landward excavations have reached a point

immediately under Hamilton Square, where Mr. John Laird's statue is

placed, and here there will be an underground station, the last before

crossing the river, the length of which will be about 400 feet, with up

and down platforms. Riverward on the Cheshire side, the excavators have

tunneled to a point considerably beyond the line of the Woodside Stage;

while the Lancashire portion of the subterranean work now extends to

St. George's Church, at the top of Lord street, on the one side, and

Merseyward to upward of 90 feet beyond the quay wall, and nearly to the

deepest part of the river.

When completed, the total length of the tunnel will be three miles one

furlong, the distance from wall to wall at each side of the Mersey being

about three-quarters of a mile. The underground terminus will be about

Church street and Waterloo place, in the immediate neighborhood of the

Central Station, and the tunnel will proceed from thence, in an almost

direct line, under Lord street and James street; while on the south side

of the river it will be constructed from a junction at Union street

between the London and Northwestern and Great Western Railways, under

Chamberlain street, Green lane, the Gas Works, Borough road, across the

Haymarket and Hamilton street, and Hamilton square.

Drainage headings, not of the same size of bore as the part of the

railway tunnel which will be in actual use, but indispensable as a means

of enabling the railway to be worked, will act as reservoirs into which

the water from the main tunnel will be drained and run off to both sides

of the Mersey, where gigantic pumps of great power and draught will

bring the accumulating water to the surface of the earth, from whence

it will be run off into the river. The excavations of these drainage

headings at the present time extend about one hundred yards beyond the

main tunnel works at each side of the river. The drainage shafts are

sunk to a depth of 180 feet, and are below the lowest point of the

tunnel, which is drained into them. Each drainage shaft is supplied

with two pumping sets, consisting of four pumps, viz., two of 20 in.

diameter, and two of 30 in. diameter. These pumps are capable of

discharging from the Liverpool shafts 6,100 gallons per minute, and from

the Birkenhead 5,040 gallons per minute; and as these pumps will be

required for the permanent draining of the tunnel, they are constructed

in the most solid and substantial manner. They are worked by compound

engines made by Hathorn, Davey & Co., of Leeds, and are supplied

with six steel boilers by Daniel Adamson & Co., of Dukinfield, near

Manchester.

In addition to the above, there is in course of construction still

more powerful pumps of 40 in. diameter, which will provide against

contingencies, and prevent delay in case of a breakdown such as occurred

lately on the Liverpool side of the works. The nature of the rock is

the new red sandstone, of a solid and compact character, favorable for

tunneling, and yielding only a moderate quantity of water. The engineers

have been enabled to arrange the levels to give a minimum thickness of

25 ft. and an average thickness of 30 ft. above the crown of the tunnel.

Barges are now employed in the river for the purpose of ascertaining the

depth of the water, and the nature of the bottom of the river. It is

satisfactory to find that the rock on the Liverpool side, as the heading

is advanced under the river, contains less and less water, and this the

engineers are inclined to attribute to the thick bed of stiff bowlder

clay which overlies the rock on this side, which acts as a kind of

"overcoat" to the "under garments." The depth of the water in one part

of the river is found to be about 72 ft.; in the middle about 90 ft.;

and as there is an intermediate depth of rock of about 27 ft., the

distance is upward of 100 ft. from the surface of low water to the top

of the tunnel.

It is expected that the work will shortly be pushed forward at a much

greater speed than has hitherto been the case, for in place of the

miner's pick and shovel, which advanced at the rate of about ten yards

per week, a machine known as the Beaumont boring machine will be brought

into requisition in the course of a day or two, and it is expected to

carry on the work at the rate of fifty yards per week, so that this year

it may be possible to walk through the drainage heading from Liverpool

to Birkenhead. The main tunnel works now in progress will probably be

completed and trains running in the course of 18 months or two years.

The workmen are taken down the shaft by which the debris is hoisted, ten

feet in diameter, and when the visitor arrives at the bottom he finds

himself in quite a bright light, thanks to the Hammond electric light,

worked by the Brush machine, which is now in use in the tunnel on both

sides of the river. The depth of the pumping shaft is 170 feet, and the

shaft communicates directly with the drainage heading. This circular

heading now has been advanced about 737 yards. The heading is 7 feet in

diameter, and the amount of it under the river is upward of 200 yards on

each side. The main tunnel, which is 26 feet wide and 21 feet high, has

also made considerable progress at both the Liverpool and Birkenhead

ends. From the Liverpool side the tunnel now extends over 430 yards, and

from the opposite shore about 590 yards. This includes the underground

stations, each of which is 400 feet long, 51 feet wide, and 32 feet

high. Although the main tunnel has not made quite the same progress

between the shafts as the drainage heading, it is only about 100 yards

behind it. When completed, the tunnel will be about a mile in length

from shaft to shaft. In the course of the excavations which have been so

far carried out, about 70 cubic yards of rock have been turned out for

every yard forward.

Ten horses are employed on the Birkenhead side for drawing wagons loaded

with debris to the shaft, which, on being hoisted, is tipped into the

carts and taken for deposit to various places, some of which are about

three miles distant. The tunnel is lined throughout with very solid

brickwork, some of which is, 18 inches thick (composed of two layers

of blue and two of red brick), and toward the river this brickwork is

increased to a thickness of six rings of bricks--three blue and three

red. A layer of Portland cement of considerable thickness also gives

increased stability to the brick lining and other portions of the

tunnel, and the whole of the flooring will be bricked. There are about

22 yards of brickwork in every yard forward. The work of excavation up

to the present time has been done by blasting (tonite being employed for

this purpose), and by the use of the pick and shovel. At every 45 ft.

on alternate sides niches of 18 in. depth are placed for the safety of

platelayers. The form of the tunnel is semicircular, the arch having a

13 ft. radius, the side walls a 25 ft. radius, and the base a 40 ft.

radius.

Fortunately not a single life has up to the present time been lost in

carrying out the exceedingly elaborate and gigantic work, and this

immunity from accident is largely owing to the care and skill which are

manifested by the heads of the various departments. The Mersey Tunnel

scheme may now be looked upon as an accomplished work, and there is

little doubt its value as a commercial medium will be speedily and fully

appreciated upon completion.

* * * * *

DAM ACROSS THE OTTAWA RIVER AND NEW CANAL AT CARILLON QUE

By ANDREW BELL Resident Engineer

The natural navigation of the Ottawa River from the head of the Island

of Montreal to Ottawa City--a distance of nearly a hundred miles--is

interrupted between the villages of Carillon and Grenville which are

thirteen miles apart by three rapids, known as the Carillon, Chute a

Blondeau, and Longue Sault Rapids, which are in that order from east to

west. The Carillon Rapid is two miles long and has, or had, a fall of 10

feet the Chute a Blondeau a quarter of a mile with a fall of 4 feet and

the Longue Sault six miles and a fall of 46 feet. Between the Carillon

and Chute a Blondeau there is or was a slack water reach of three and a

half miles, and between the latter and the foot of the Longue Sault a

similar reach of one and a quarter miles.

Small canals limited in capacity to the smaller locks on them which were

only 109 feet long 19 feet wide, and 5 to 6 feet of water on the sills,

were built by the Imperial Government as a military work around each of

the rapids. They were begun in 1819 and completed about 1832. They were

transferred to the Canadian Government in 1856. They are built on the

north shore of the river, and each canal is about the length of the

rapid it surmounts.

[Illustration: THE GREAT DAM ACROSS THE OTTAWA RIVER, AT CARILLON.]

The Grenville Canal (around the Longue Sault) with seven locks, and the

Chute a Blondeau with one lock, are fed directly from Ottawa. But with

the Carillon that method was not followed as the nature of the banks

there would have in doing so, entailed an immense amount of rock

excavation--a serious matter in those days. The difficulty was overcome

by locking up at the upper or western end 13 feet and down 23 at lower

end, supplying the summit by a 'feeder from a small stream called the

North River, which empties into the Ottawa three or four miles below

Carillon, but is close to the main river opposite the canal.

In 1870-71 the Government of Canada determined to enlarge these canals

to admit of the passage of boats requiring locks 200 feet long, 45 feet

wide, and not less than 9 feet of water on the sills at the lowest

water. In the case of the Grenville Canal this was and is being done by

widening and deepening the old channel and building new locks along

side of the old ones. But to do that with the Carillon was found to be

inexpedient. The rapidly increasing traffic required more water than the

North River could supply in any case, and the clearing up of the country

to the north had materially reduced its waters in summer and fall, when

most needed. To deepen the old canal so as to enable it to take its

supply from the Ottawa would have caused the excavation of at least

1,250,000 cubic yards of rock, besides necessitating the enlargement of

the Chute a Blondeau also.

It was therefore decided to adopt a modification of the plan proposed

by Mr. T.C. Clarke, of the present firm of Clarke Reeves & Co, several

years before when he made the preliminary surveys for the then proposed

"Ottawa Ship Canal," namely to build a dam across the river in the

Carillon Rapid but of a sufficient height to drown out the Chute a

Blondeau, and also to give the required depth of water there.

During the summer and fall of 1872 the writer made the necessary surveys

of the river with that end in view. By gauging the river carefully in

high and low water, and making use of the records which had been kept by

the lock masters for twenty years back, it was found that the flow of

the river was in extreme low water 26,000 cubic feet per second, and

in highest water 190,000 cubic feet per second, in average years about

30,000 and 150,000 cubic feet respectively. The average flow in each

year would be nearly a mean between those quantities, namely, about

90,000 cubic feet per second. It was decided to locate the dam where it

is now built, namely, about the center of Carillon Rapid, and a mile

above the village of that name and to make it of a height sufficient to

raise the reach between the head of Carillon and Chute a Blondeau about

six feet, and that above the latter two feet in ordinary water. At the

site chosen the river is 1,800 feet wide, the bed is solid limestone,

and more level or flat than is generally found in such places--the banks

high enough and also composed of limestone. It was also determined to

build a slide for the passage of timber near the south shore (see map),

and to locate the new canal on the north side.

Contracts for the whole works were given out in the spring of 1873, but

as the water remained high all the summer of that year very little could

be done in it at the dam. In 1874 a large portion of the foundation,

especially in the shallow water, was put in. 1875 and 1876 proved

unfavorable and not much could be done, when the works were stopped.

They were resumed in 1879, and the dam as also the slide successfully

completed, with the exception of graveling of the dam in the fall of

1881. The water was lower that summer than it had been for thirty five

years before. The canal was completed and opened for navigation the

following spring.

THE DAM

In building such a dam as this the difficulties to be contended against

were unusually great. It was required to make it as near perfectly tight

as possible and be, of course, always submerged. Allowing for water used

by canal and slide and the leakage there should be a depth on the crest

of the dam in low water of 2.50 feet and in high of about 10 feet.

These depths turned out ultimately to be correct. The river reaches

its highest about the middle of May, and its lowest in September. It

generally begins to rise again in November. Nothing could be done except

during the short low water season, and some years nothing at all. Even

at the most favorable time the amount of water to be controlled was

large. Then the depth at the site varied in depth from 2 to 14 feet, and

at one place was as much as 23 feet. The current was at the rate of from

10 to 12 miles an hour. Therefore, failures, losses, etc., could not be

avoided, and a great deal had to be learned as the work progressed. I

am not aware that a dam of the kind was ever built, or attempted to be

built across a river having such a large flow as the Ottawa.

The method of construction was as follows. Temporary structures of

various kinds suited to position, time, etc., were first placed

immediately above the site of the dam to break the current. This was

done in sections and the permanent dam proceeded with under that

protection.

In shallow water timber sills 36 feet long and 12 inches by 12 inches

were bolted to the lock up and down stream, having their tops a uniform

height, namely, 9.30 feet below the top of dam when finished. These

sills were, where the rock was high enough, scribed immediately to it,

but if not, they were 'made up' by other timbers scribed to the rock, as

shown by Figs 4 and 5. They were generally placed in pairs about 6 feet

apart, and each alternate space left open for the passage of water, to

be closed by gates as hereafter described. Each sill was fastened by

five 11/2 in. bolts driven into pine plugs forced into holes drilled

from 18 inches to 24 inches into the rock. The temporary rock was then

removed as far as possible, to allow a free flow of the water.

In the channels of which there are three, having an aggregate width of

about 650 feet, cribs 46 feet wide up and down stream were sunk. In the

deepest water, where the rock was uneven, they covered the whole bottom

up to about five feet of the level of the silts, and on top of that

isolated cribs, 46 in. X 6 in. and of the necessary height were placed

seven feet apart, as shown at C Figs 2 and 3. At other places similar

narrow cribs were placed on the rock, as shown at D, Figs 2 and 3. The

tops of all were brought to about the same level as the before mentioned

sills. The rock bottom was cleaned by divers of all bowlders, gravel,

etc. The cribs were built in the usual manner, of 12 in. X 12 in. timber

generally hemlock, and carefully fitted to the rock on which they stand.

They were fastened to the rock by 11/2 in. bolts, five on each side of a

crib, driven into pine plugs as mentioned for the sills. The drilling

was done by long runners from their tops. The upstream side of the cribs

were sheeted with 4 in. tamarack plank.

On top of these sills and cribs there was then placed all across river a

platform from 36 to 46 feet wide made up of sawed pine timber 12 in.

X 12 in., each piece being securely bolted to its neighbor and to the

sills and cribs below. It was also at intervals bolted through to the

rock.

On top of the "platform" there was next built a flat dam of the

sectional form shown by Fig 1. It was built of 12 in. X 12 in. sawed

pine timbers securely bolted at the crossings and to the platform, and

sheeted all over with tamarack 10 in. thick and the crest covered with

1/2 in. boiler plate 3 ft. wide. The whole structure was carefully filled

with stone--field stone, or "hard head" generally being used for the

purpose.

At this stage of the works, namely, in the fall of 1881 the structure

presented somewhat the appearance of a bridge with short spans. The

whole river--fortunately low--flowed through the sluices of which there

were 113 and also through a bulkhead which had been left alongside

of the slide with a water width of 60 ft. These openings had a total

sectional area of 4,400 sq. ft., and barely allowed the river to pass,

although, of course, somewhat assisted by leakage.

[Illustration: Fig. 1. CROSS SECTION IN DEEP WATER.]

It now only remained, to complete the dam, to close the openings. This

was done in a manner that can be readily understood by reference to

the cuts. Gates had been constructed with timber 10 in. thick, bolted

together. They were hung on strong wooden hinges and, before being

closed, laid back on the face of dam as shown at B, Figs. 1, 2, and 3.

They were all closed in a short time on the afternoon of 9th November,

1881. To do this it was simply necessary to turn them over, when the

strong current through the sluices carried them into their places, as

shown at A, Figs. 2 and 3 and by the dotted lines on Fig. 1. The closing

was a delicate as well as dangerous operation, but was as successfully

done as could be expected. No accident happened further than the

displacement of two or three of the gates. The openings thus left

were afterward filled up with timber and brushwood. The large opening

alongside of the slide was filled up by a crib built above and floated

into place.

The design contemplates the filling up with stone and gravel on

up-stream side of dam about the triangular space that would be formed by

the production of the line of face of flat dam till it struck the rock.

Part of that was done from the ice last winter; the balance is being put

in this winter.

Observations last summer showed that the calculations as to the raising

of the surface of the river were correct. When the depth on the crest

was 2.50 feet, the water at the foot of the Longue Sault was found to be

25 in. higher than if no dam existed. The intention was to raise it 24

in.

The timber slide was formed by binding parallel piers about 600 feet

long up and down stream, as shown on the map, and 28 ft. apart, with a

timber bottom, the top of which at upper end is 3 ft. below the crest

of dam. It has the necessary stop logs, with machinery to move them, to

control the water. The approach is formed by detached piers, connected

by guide booms, extending about half a mile up stream. See map.

Alongside of the south side of the slide a large bulkhead was built, 69

ft. wide, with a clear waterway of 60 ft. It was furnished with stop

logs and machinery to handle them. When not further required, it was

filled up by a crib as before mentioned.

The following table shows the materials used in the dam and slide, and

the cost:

______________________________________________________________________

+---------+---------+----------+---------+----------+

Temporary works | 134,500 | 92,000 | 11,400 | | $79,000 |

| | | | | |

Permanent dam | 265,000 | 439,600 | 24,000 | 6,500 | 151,000 |

| | | | | |

Slide, including | 296,500 | 156,400 | 32,800 | | 102,000 |

+---------+---------+----------+---------+----------+

| | | | | |

Total | 696,000 | 687,000 | 68,200 | 6,500 | $332,000 |

-----------------+---------+---------+----------+---------+----------+

The above does not include cost of surveys, engineering, or

superintendence, which amounted to about ten per cent, of the above sum.

[Illustration: DETAILS OF THE OTTAWA RIVER DAM, AT CARILLON.]

The construction of the dam and slide was ably superintended by Horace

Merrill, Esq., late superintendent of the "Ottawa River Improvements,"

who has built nearly all the slides and other works on the Ottawa to

facilitate the passage of its immense timber productions.

The contractors were the well known firm of F.B. McNamee & Co., of

Montreal, and the successful completion of the work was in a large

degree due to the energy displayed by the working member of that

firm--Mr. A.G. Nish, formerly engineer of the Montreal harbor.

THE CANAL

The canal was formed by "fencing in" a portion of the river-bed by an

embankment built about a hundred feet out from the north shore and

deepening the intervening space where necessary. There are two

locks--one placed a little above the foot of the rapid (see map), and

the other at the end of the dam. Wooden piers are built at the upper and

lower ends--the former being 800 ft. long, and the latter 300 ft; both

are about 29 ft. high and 35 ft. wide.

The embankment is built, as shown by the cross section, Fig. 6. On the

canal side of it there is a wall of rubble masonry F, laid in hydraulic

cement, connecting the two locks, and backed by a puddle wall, E, three

feet thick; next the river there is crib work, G, from ten to twenty

feet wide and the space between brick-work and puddle filled with earth.

The outer slope is protected with riprap, composed of large bowlders.

This had to be made very strong to prevent the destruction of the bank

by the immense masses of moving ice in spring.

The distance between the locks is 3,300 feet.

In building the embankment the crib-work was first put in and followed

by a part (in width) of the earth-bank. From that to the shore temporary

cross-dams were built at convenient distances apart and the space pumped

out by sections, when the necessary excavation was done, and the walls

and embankments completed. The earth was put down in layers of not more

than a foot deep at a time, so that the bank, when completed, was solid.

The water at site of it varied in depth from 15 feet at lower end to 2

feet at upper.

The locks are 200 ft. long in the clear between the gates, and 45 ft

wide in the chamber at the bottom. The walls of the lower one are 29 ft.

high, and of the upper one 31 ft They are from 10 to 12 ft thick at the

bottom,

The locks are built similar to those on the new Lachine and Welland

canals, of the very best cut stone masonry, laid in hydraulic cement.

The gates are 24 in. thick, made of solid timber, somewhat similar to

those in use on the St. Lawrence canals. They are suspended from anchors

at the hollow quoins, and work very easily. The miter sills are made of

26 in. square oak. The bottom of the lower lock iis timbered throughout,

but the upper one only at the recesses, the rock there being good.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE OTTAWA RIVER AT CARILLON RAPIDS.

SECTION OF RIVER AT DAM. NOTE.--THE LOWEST DOTTED LINE IS LOW WATER

BEFORETHE DAM WAS BUILT. THEN THE LINE OF HIGH WATER WAS ABOUT A FOOT

ABOVE WHAT IS CREST OF DAM NOW.]

The rise to be overcome by the two locks is 16 ft., but except in medium

water, is not equally distributed. In high water nearly the whole lift

is on the upper lock, and in low water the lower one. In the very lowest

known stage of the river there will never be less than 9 ft. on the

miter sills.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, four locks were required

on the old military canal to accomplish what is now done by two.

The canal was opened in May, 1882, and has been a great success, the

only drawback--although slight--being that in high water the current for

about three-quarters of a mile above the upper pier, and at what was

formerly the Chute a Biondeau, is rather strong. These difficulties can

be easily overcome--the former by building an embankment from the pier

to Brophy's Island, the latter by removing some of the natural dam of

rock which once formed the "Chute."

The following are, in round numbers, the quantities of the principal

materials used:

Earth and puddle in embankment ...cub. yds. 148,500

Rock excavation, " 38,000

Riprap, " 6,600

Lock masonry " 14,200

Rubble masonry, " 16,600

Timber in cribs, lock bottoms and gates " 368,000

Wrought and cast iron, lb ................. 173,000

Stone filling cu yds ...................... 45,300

Concrete " 830

The total cost to date has been about $570,000, not including surveys,

engineering, etc.

The contractors for the canal, locks, etc., were Messrs. R. P. Cooke &

Co., of Brockville, Ont., who have built some large works in the States,

and who are now engaged building other extensive works for the Canadian

Government. The work here reflects great credit on their skill.

On the enlarged Grenville Canal, now approaching completion, there

are five locks, taking the place of the seven small ones built by the

Imperial Government. It will be open for navigation all through in the

spring of 1884, when steamers somewhat larger than the largest now

navigating the St. Lawrence between Montreal and Hamilton can pass up to

Ottawa City.--_Engineering News_.

* * * * *

DWELLING HOUSES--HINTS ON BUILDING--"HOME, SWEET HOME."

[Footnote: From a paper read before the Birmingham Architectural

Association, Jan 30, 1883]

By WILLIAM HENMAN, A.R.I.B.A.

My intention is to bring to your notice some of the many causes which

result in unhealthy dwellings, particularly those of the middle classes

of society. The same defects, it is true, are to be found in the palace

and the mansion, and also in the artisan's cottage; but in the former

cost is not so much a matter of consideration, and in the latter, the

requirements and appliances being less, the evils are minimized. It is

in the houses of the middle classes, I mean those of a rental at from

L50 to L150 per annum, that the evils of careless building and want

of sanitary precautions become most apparent. Until recently sanitary

science was but little studied, and many things were done a few years

since which even the self-interest of a speculative builder would not do

nowadays, nor would be permitted to do by the local sanitary authority.

Yet houses built in those times are still inhabited, and in many cases

sickness and even death are the result. But it is with shame I must

confess that, notwithstanding the advance which sanitary science has

made, and the excellent appliances to be obtained, many a house is now

built, not only by the speculative builder, but designed by professed

architects, and in spite of sanitary authorities and their by-laws,

which, in important particulars are far from perfect, are unhealthy, and

cannot be truly called sweet homes.

Architects and builders have much to contend with. The perverseness of

man and the powers of nature at times appear to combine for the express

purpose of frustrating their endeavors to attain sanitary perfection.

Successfully to combat these opposing forces, two things are above all

necessary, viz 1, a more perfect insight into the laws of nature, and a

judicious use of serviceable appliances on the part of the architect;

and, 2, greater knowledge, care, and trustworthiness on the part of

workmen employed. With the first there will be less of that blind

following of what has been done before by others, and by the latter the

architect who has carefully thought out the details of his sanitary work

will be enabled to have his ideas carried out in an intelligent manner.

Several cases have come under my notice, where, by reckless carelessness

or dense ignorance on the part of workmen, dwellings which might have

been sweet and comfortable if the architect's ideas and instructions had

been carried out, were in course of time proved to be in an unsanitary

condition. The defects, having been covered up out sight, were only made

known in some cases after illness or death had attacked members of the

household.

In order that we may have thoroughly sweet homes, we must consider the

localities in which they are to be situated, and the soil on which they

are to rest. It is an admitted fact that certain localities are more

generally healthy than others, yet circumstances often beyond their

control compel men to live in those less healthy. Something may, in

the course of time, be done to improve such districts by planting,

subdrainage, and the like. Then, as regards the soil; our earth has

been in existence many an age, generation after generation has come and

passed away, leaving behind accumulations of matter on its surface, both

animal and vegetable, and although natural causes are ever at the work

of purification, there is no doubt such accumulations are in many cases

highly injurious to health, not only in a general way, but particularly

if around, and worse still, under our dwellings. However healthy a

district is considered to be, it is never safe to leave the top soil

inclosed within the walls of our houses; and in many cases the subsoil

should be covered with a layer of cement concrete, and at times with

asphalt on the concrete. For if the subsoil be damp, moisture will rise;

if it be porous, offensive matter may percolate through. It is my belief

that much of the cold dampness felt in so many houses is caused by

moisture rising from the ground inclosed _within_ the outer walls.

Cellars are in many cases abominations. Up the cellar steps is a

favorite means of entrance for sickness and death. Light and air, which

are so essential for health and life, are shut out. If cellars are

necessary, they should be constructed with damp proof walls and floors;

light should be freely admitted; every part must be well ventilated,

and, above all, no drain of any description should be taken in. If they

be constructed so that water cannot find its way through either walls or

floors, where is the necessity of a drain? Surely the floors can be

kept clean by the use of so small an amount of water that it would be

ridiculous specially to provide a drain.

The next important but oft neglected precaution is to have a good damp

course over the _whole_ of the walls, internal as well as external. I

know that for the sake of saving a few pounds (most likely that they may

be frittered away in senseless, showy features) it often happens, that

if even a damp course is provided in the outer walls, it is dispensed

with in the interior walls. This can only be done with impunity on

really dry ground, but in too many cases damp finds its way up, and, to

say the least, disfigures the walls. Here I would pause to ask: What is

the primary reason for building houses? I would answer that, in this

country at least, it is in order to protect ourselves from wind and

weather. After going to great expense and trouble to exclude cold and

wet by means of walls and roofs, should we not take as much pains to

prevent them using from below and attacking us in a more insidious

manner? Various materials may be used as damp courses. Glazed

earthenware perforated slabs are perhaps the best, when expense is no

object. I generally employ a course of slates, breaking joint with a

good bed of cement above and below; it answers well, and is not very

expensive. If the ground is irregular, a layer of asphalt is more easily

applied. Gas tar and sand are sometimes used, but it deteriorates and

cannot be depended upon for any length of time. The damp course should

invariably be placed _above_ the level of the ground around the

building, and _below_ the ground floor joists. If a basement story is

necessary, the outer walls below the ground should be either built

hollow, or coated externally with some substance through which wet

cannot penetrate. Above the damp course, the walls of our houses must

be constructed of materials which will keep out wind and weather. Very

porous materials should be avoided, because, even if the wet does not

actually find its way through, so much is absorbed during rainy weather

that in the process of drying much cold is produced by evaporation. The

fact should be constantly remembered, viz., that evaporation causes

cold. It can easily be proved by dropping a little ether upon the bulb

of a thermometer, when it will be seen how quickly the mercury falls,

and the same effect takes place in a less degree by the evaporation of

water. Seeing, then, that evaporation from so small a surface can

lower temperature so many degrees, consider what must be the effect of

evaporation from the extensive surfaces of walls inclosing our houses.

This experiment (thermometer with bulb inclosed in linen) enables me as

well to illustrate that curious law of nature which necessitates the

introduction of a damp course in the walls of our buildings; it is known

as capillary or molecular attraction, and breaks through that more

powerful law of gravitation, which in a general way compels fluids to

find their own level. You will notice that the piece of linen over the

bulb of the thermometer, having been first moistened, continues moist,

although only its lower end is in water, the latter being drawn up by

capillary attraction; or we have here an illustration more to the point:

a brick which simply stands with its lower end in water, and you can

plainly see how the damp has risen.

From these illustrations you will see how necessary it is that the brick

and stone used for outer walls should be as far as possible impervious

to wet; but more than that, it is necessary the jointing should be

non-absorbent, and the less porous the stone or brick, the better able

must the jointing be to keep out wet, for this reason, that when rain is

beating against a wall, it either runs down or becomes absorbed. If both

brick and mortar, or stone and mortar be porous, it becomes absorbed; if

all are non-porous, it runs down until it finds a projection, and then

drops off; but if the brick or stone is non-porous, and the mortar

porous, the wet runs down the brick or stone until it arrives at the

joint, and is then sucked inward. It being almost impossible to obtain

materials quite waterproof, suitable for external walls, other means

must be employed for keeping our homes dry and comfortable. Well built

hollow walls are good. Stone walls, unless very thick, should be lined

with brick, a cavity being left between. A material called Hygeian Rock

Building Composition has lately been introduced, which will, I believe,

be found of great utility, and, if properly applied, should insure a dry

house. A cavity of one-half an inch is left between the outer and inner

portion of the wall, whether of brick or stone, which, as the building

rises, is run in with the material made liquid by heat; and not only is

the wall waterproofed thereby, but also greatly strengthened. It may

also be used as a damp course.

Good, dry walls are of little use without good roofs, and for a

comfortable house the roofs should not only be watertight and

weathertight, but also, if I may use the term, heat-tight. There can be

no doubt that many houses are cold and chilly, in consequence of the

rapid radiation of heat through the thin roofs, if not through thin and

badly constructed walls. Under both tiles and slates, but particularly

under the latter, there should be some non-conducting substance, such

as boarding, or felt, or pugging. Then, in cold weather heat will be

retained; in hot weather it will be excluded. Roofs should be of a

suitable pitch, so that neither rain nor snow can find its way in in

windy weather. Great care must be taken in laying gutters and flats.

With them it is important that the boarding should be well laid in

narrow widths, and in the direction of the fall; otherwise the boards

cockle and form ridges and furrows in which wet will rest, and in time

decay the metal.

After having secured a sound waterproof roof, proper provision must be

made for conveying therefrom the water which of necessity falls on it in

the form of rain. All eaves spouting should be of ample size, and the

rain water down pipes should be placed at frequent intervals and of

suitable diameter. The outlets from the eaves spouting should not be

contracted, although it is advisable to cover them with a wire grating

to prevent their becoming choked with dead leaves, otherwise the water

will overflow and probably find its way through the walls. All joints

to the eaves spouting, and particularly to the rain-water down pipes,

should be made watertight, or there is great danger, when they are

connected with the soil drains, that sewer gas will escape at the joints

and find its way into the house at windows and doors. There should be a

siphon trap at the bottom of each down pipe, unless it is employed as a

ventilator to the drains, and then the greatest care should be exercised

to insure perfect jointings, and that the outlet be well above all

windows. Eaves spouting and rain-water down pipes should be periodically

examined and cleaned out. They ought to be painted inside as well as

out, or else they will quickly decay, and if of iron they will rust,

flake off, and become stopped.

It is impossible to have a sweet home where there is continual dampness.

By its presence chemical action and decay are set up in many substances

which would remain in a quiescent state so long as they continued dry.

Wood will rot; so will wall papers, the paste used in hanging them,

and the size in distemper, however good they have been in the first

instance; then it is that injurious exhalations are thrown off, and the

evil is doubtless very greatly increased if the materials are bad in

themselves. Quickly grown and sappy timber, sour paste, stale size, and

wall papers containing injurious pigments are more easily attacked, and

far more likely to fill the house with bad smells and a subtile poison.

Plaster to ceilings and walls is quickly damaged by wet, and if improper

materials, such as road drift, be used in its composition, it may become

most unsavory and injurious to health. The materials for plaster cannot

be too carefully selected, for if organic matter be present, the result

is the formation of nitrates and the like, which combine with lime and

produce deliquescent salts, viz, those which attract moisture. Then,

however impervious to wet the walls, etc., may be, signs of dampness

will be noticed wherever there is a humid atmosphere, and similar evils

will result as if wet had penetrated from the exterior. Organic matter

coming into contact with plaster, and even the exhalations from human

beings and animals, will in time produce similar effects. Hence stables,

water closets, and rooms which are frequently crowded with people,

unless always properly ventilated, will show signs of dampness and

deterioration of the plaster work; wall paper will become detached from

the walls, paint will blister and peel off, and distemper will lose its

virtue. To avoid similar mishaps, sea sand, or sand containing salt,

should never be used either for plaster or mortar. In fact, it is

necessary that the materials for mortar should be as free from salts and

organic matter as those used for plaster, because the injurious effects

of their presence will be quickly communicated to the latter.

Unfortunately, it is not alone by taking precaution against the

possibility of having a damp house that we necessarily insure a "sweet

home." The watchful care of the architect is required from the cutting

of the first sod until the finishing touches are put on the house. He

must assure himself that all is done, and nothing left undone which is

likely to cause a nuisance, or worse still, jeopardize the health of

the occupiers. Yet, with all his care and the employment of the best

materials and apparatus at his command, complete success seems scarcely

possible of attainment. We have all much to learn, many things must

be accomplished and difficulties overcome, ere we can "rest and be

thankful."

It is impossible for the architect to attempt to solve all the problems

which surround this question. He must in many cases employ such

materials and such apparatus as can be obtained; nevertheless, it is his

duty carefully to test the value of such materials and apparatus as

may be obtainable, and by his experience and scientific knowledge to

determine which are best to be used under varying circumstances.

But to pass on to other matters which mar the sweetness of home. With

many, I hold that the method usually employed for warming our dwellings

is wasteful, dirty, and often injurious to health. The open fire,

although cheerful in appearance, is justly condemned. It is wasteful,

because so small a percentage of the value of the fuel employed is

utilized. It is dirty, because of the dust and soot which result

therefrom. It is unhealthy, because of the cold draughts which in its

simplest form are produced, and the stifling atmosphere which pervades

the house when the products of imperfect combustion insist, as they

often do, in not ascending the flues constructed for the express purpose

of carrying them off; and even when they take the desired course, they

blacken and poison the external atmosphere with their presence. Some of

the grates known as ventilating grates dispose of one of the evils of

the ordinary open fire, by reducing the amount of cold draught caused by

the rush of air up the flues. This is effected, as you probably know, by

admitting air direct from the outside of the house to the back of the

grate, where it is warmed, and then flows into the rooms to supply the

place of that which is drawn up the chimneys. Provided such grates act

properly and are well put together, so that there is no possibility of

smoke being drawn into the fresh air channels, and that the air to

be warmed is drawn from a pure source, they may be used with much

advantage; although by them we must not suppose perfection has been

attained. The utilization of a far greater percentage of heat and the

consumption of all smoke must be aimed at. It is a question if such can

be accomplished by means of an open fire, and it is a difficult matter

to devise a method suited in every respect to the warming of our

dwellings, which at the same time is equally cheering in appearance.

So long as we are obliged to employ coal in its crude form for heating

purposes, and are content with the waste and dirt of the open fire, we

must be thankful for the cheer it gives in many a home where there are

well constructed grates and flues, and make the best use we can of the

undoubted ventilating power it possesses.

A constant change of air in every part of our dwellings is absolutely

necessary that we may have a "sweet home," and the open fireplace with

its flue materially helps to that end; but unless in every other respect

the house is in a good sanitary condition, the open fire only adds to

the danger of residing in such a house, because it draws the impure air

from other parts into our living rooms, where it is respired. Closed

stoves are useful in some places, such as entrance halls. They are more

economical than the open fireplaces; but with them there is danger of

the atmosphere, or rather, the minute particles of organic matter always

floating in the air, becoming burnt and so charging the atmosphere with

carbonic acid. The recently introduced slow-combustion stoves obviate

this evil.

It is possible to warm our houses without having separate fireplaces in

each room, viz., by heated air, hot water, or steam; but there are

many difficulties and some dangers in connection therewith which I

can scarcely hope to see entirely overcome. In America steam has been

employed with some success, and there is this advantage in its use, that

it can be conveyed a considerable distance. It is therefore possible

to have the furnace and boilers for its production quite away from the

dwelling houses and to heat several dwellings from one source, while at

the same time it can be employed for cooking purposes. In steam, then,

we have a useful agent, which might with advantage be more generally

employed; but when either it or hot water be used for heating purposes,

special and adequate means of ventilation must be employed. Gas stoves

are made in many forms, and in a few cases can be employed with

advantage; but I believe they are more expensive than a coal fire, and

it is most difficult to prevent the products of combustion finding their

way into the dwellings. Gas is a useful agent in the kitchen for cooking

purposes, but I never remember entering a house where it was so employed

without at once detecting the unpleasant smell resulting. It is rare to

find any special means for carrying off the injurious fumes, and without

such I am sure gas cooking stoves cannot be healthy adjuncts to our

homes.

The next difficulty we have to deal with is artificial lighting.

Whether we employ candle, oil lamp, or gas, we may be certain that the

atmosphere of our rooms will become contaminated by the products of

combustion, and health must suffer. In order that such may be obviated,

it must be an earnest hope that ere long such improvements will be made

in electric lighting, that it may become generally used in our homes as

well as in all public buildings. Gas has certainly proved itself a very

useful and comparatively inexpensive illuminating power, but in many

ways it contaminates the atmosphere, is injurious to health, and

destructive to the furniture and fittings of our homes. Leakages from

the mains impregnate the soil with poisonous matter, and it rarely

happens that throughout a house there are no leakages. However small

they may be, the air becomes tainted. It is almost impossible, at times,

to detect the fault, or if detected, to make good without great injury

to other work, in consequence of the difficulty there is in getting at

the pipes, as they are generally embedded in plaster, etc. All gas pipes

should be laid in positions where they can be easily examined, and, if

necessary, repaired without much trouble. In France it is compulsory

that all gas pipes be left exposed to view, except where they must of

necessity pass through the thickness of a wall or floor, and it would be

a great benefit if such were required in this country.

The cooking processes which necessarily go on often result in unpleasant

odors pervading our homes. I cannot say they are immediately prejudicial

to health; but if they are of daily or frequent occurrence, it is more

than probable the volatile matters which are the cause of the odors

become condensed upon walls, ceiling, or furniture, and in time undergo

putrefaction, and so not only mar the sweetness of home, but in addition

affect the health of the inmates. Cooking ranges should therefore be

constructed so as to carry off the fumes of cooking, and kitchens must

be well ventilated and so placed that the fumes cannot find their way

into other parts of the dwelling. In some houses washing day is an

abomination. Steam and stife then permeate the building, and, to say the

least, banish sweetness and comfort from the home. It is a wonder that

people will, year after year, put up with such a nuisance.

If washing must be done home, the architect may do something to lessen

the evil by placing the washhouse in a suitable position disconnected

from the living part of the house, or by properly ventilating it and

providing a well constructed boiler and furnace, and a flue for carrying

off the steam.

There is daily a considerable amount of refuse found in every home, from

the kitchen, from the fire-grate, from the sweeping of rooms, etc., and

as a rule this is day after day deposited in the ash-pit, which but

too often is placed close to the house, and left uncovered. If it were

simply a receptacle for the ashes from the fire-grates, no harm would

result, but as all kinds of organic matter are cast in and often allowed

to remain for weeks to rot and putrefy, it becomes a regular pest box,

and to it often may be traced sickness and death. It would be a wise

sanitary measure if every constructed ash pit were abolished. In place

thereof I would substitute a galvanized iron covered receptacle of but

moderate size, mounted upon wheels, and it should be incumbent on the

local authorities to empty same every two or three days. Where there are

gardens all refuse is useful as manure, and a suitable place should be

provided for it at the greatest distance from the dwellings. Until the

very advisable reform I have just mentioned takes place, it would be

well if refuse were burnt as soon as possible. With care this may be

done in a close range, or even open fire without any unpleasant smells,

and certainly without injury to health. It must be much more wholesome

to dispose of organic matter in that way while fresh than to have it

rotting and festering under our very noses.

A greater evil yet is the privy. In the country, where there is no

complete system of drainage, it may be tolerated when placed at a

distance from the house; but in a crowded neighborhood it is an

abomination, and, unless frequently emptied and kept scrupulously clean,

cannot fail to be injurious to health. Where there is no system of

drainage, cesspools must at times be used, but they should be avoided as

much as possible. They should never be constructed near to dwellings,

and must always be well ventilated. Care should be taken to make them

watertight, otherwise the foul matter may percolate through the ground,

and is likely to contaminate the water supply. In some old houses

cesspools have been found actually under the living rooms.

I would here also condemn the placing of r. w. tanks under any portion

of the dwelling house, for many cases of sickness and death have been

traced to the fact of sewage having found its way through, either by

backing up the drains, or by the ignorant laying of new into old

drains. Earth closets, if carefully attended to, often emptied, and the

receptacles cleaned out, can be safely employed even within doors;

but in towns it is difficult to dispose of the refuse, and there must

necessarily be a system of drainage for the purpose of taking off the

surface water; it is thereupon found more economical to carry away all

drainage together, and the water closet being but little trouble, and,

if properly looked after, more cleanly in appearance, it is generally

preferred, notwithstanding the great risks which are daily run in

consequence of the chance of sewer-gas finding an entrance into the

house by its means. After all, it is scarcely fair to condemn outright

the water closet as the cause of so many of the ills to which flesh is

subject. It is true that many w. c. apparatus are obviously defective

in construction, and any architect or builder using such is to be

condemned. The old pan closet, for instance, should be banished. It is

known to be defective, and yet I see it is still made, sold, and fixed,

in dwelling houses, notwithstanding the fact that other closet pans far

more simple and effective can be obtained at less cost. The pan of the

closet should be large, and ought to retain a layer of water at the

bottom, which, with the refuse, should be swept out of the pan by the

rush of water from the service pipe. The outlet may be at the side

connected with a simple earthenware s-trap with a ventilating outlet at

the top, from which a pipe may be taken just through the wall. From the

S-trap I prefer to take the soil pipe immediately through the wall, and

connect with a strong 4 in. iron pipe, carefully jointed, watertight,

and continued of the same size to above the tops of all windows. This

pipe at its foot should be connected with a ventilating trap, so that

all air connection is cut off between the house and the drains. All

funnel-shaped w. c. pans are objectionable, because they are so liable

to catch and retain the dirt.

Wastes from baths, sinks, and urinals should also be ventilated and

disconnected from the drains as above, or else allowed to discharge

above a gulley trap. Excrement, etc., must be quickly removed from the

premises if we are to have "sweet homes," and the w.c. is perhaps the

most convenient apparatus, when properly constructed, which can be

employed. By taking due precaution no harm need be feared, or will

result from its use, provided that the drains and sewers are rightly

constructed and properly laid. It is then to the sewers, drains, and

their connections our attention must be specially directed, for in the

majority of cases they are the arch-offenders. The laying of main sewers

has in most cases been intrusted to the civil engineer, yet it often

happens architects are blamed, and unjustly so, for the defective

work over which they had no control. When the main sewers are badly

constructed, and, as a result, sewer gas is generated and allowed to

accumulate, ordinary precautions may be useless in preventing its

entrance by some means or other to our homes, and special means and

extra precautions must be adopted. But with well constructed and

properly ventilated sewers, every architect and builder should be able

to devise a suitable system of house drainage, which need cause no

fear of danger to health. The glazed stoneware pipe, now made of any

convenient size and shape, is an excellent article with which to

construct house-drains. The pipes should be selected, well burnt, well

glazed, and free from twist. Too much care cannot be exercised in

properly laying them. The trenches should be got out to proper falls,

and unless the ground is hard and firm, the pipes should be laid upon a

layer of concrete to prevent the chance of sinking. The jointing must be

carefully made, and should be of cement or of well tempered clay, care

being taken to wipe away all projecting portions from the inside of the

pipes. A clear passage-way is of the utmost importance. Foul drains are

the result of badly joined and irregularly laid pipes, wherein matter

accumulates, which in time ferments and produces sewer-gas. The common

system of laying drains with curved angles is not so good as laying them

in straight lines from point to point, and at every angle inserting

a man-hole or lamp-hole, This plan is now insisted upon by the Local

Government Board for all public buildings erected under their authority.

It might, with advantage, be adopted for all house-drains.

Now, in consequence of the trouble and expense attending the opening up

and examination of a drain, it may often happen that although defects

are suspected or even known to exist, they are not remedied until

illness or death is the result of neglect. But with drains laid in

straight lines, from point to point, with man holes or lamp holes at the

intersections, there is no reason why the whole system may not easily be

examined at any time and stoppages quickly removed. The man holes and

lamp-holes may, with advantage, be used as means for ventilating the

drains and also for flushing them. It is of importance that each house

drain should have a disconnecting trap just before it enters the main

sewer. It is bad enough to be poisoned by neglecting the drainage to

one's own property, but what if the poison be developed elsewhere, and

by neglect permitted to find its way to us. Such will surely happen

unless some effective means be employed for cutting off all air

connection between the house-drains and the main sewer. I am firmly

convinced that simply a smoky chimney, or the discovery of a fault in

drainage weighs far more, in the estimation of a client in forming his

opinion of the ability of an architect, than the successful carrying out

of an artistic design. By no means do I disparage a striving to attain

artistic effectiveness, but to the study of the artistic, in domestic

architecture at least, add a knowledge of sanitary science, and foster a

habit of careful observation of causes and effects. Comfort is demanded

in the home, and that cannot be secured unless dwellings are built and

maintained with perfect sanitary arrangements and appliances.--_The

Building News_.

* * * * *

HOUSE AT HEATON

This house, which belongs to Mr J. N. D'Andrea, is built on the Basque

principle, under one roof, with covered balconies on the south side, the

northside being kept low to give the sun an opportunity of shining in

winter on the house and greenhouse adjacent, as well as to assist in the

more picturesque grouping of the two. On this side is placed, approached

by porch and lobby, the hall with a fireplace of the "olden time,"

lavatory, etc., butler's pantry, w. c., staircase, larder, kitchen,

scullery, stores, etc.

On the south side are two sitting rooms, opening into a conservatory.

There are six bedrooms, a dining-room, bath room, and housemaid's sink.

The walls are built of colored wall stones known as "insides," and

half-timbered brickwork covered with the Portland cement stucco,

finished Panan, and painted a cream-color.

All the interior woodwork is of selected pitch pine, the hall being

boarded throughout. Colored lead light glass is introduced in the upper

parts of the windows in every room, etc.

The architect is Mr. W. A. Herbert Martin, of Bradford.--_Architect_

[Illustration: HOUSE AT HEATON, BRADFORD.]

* * * * *

A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING.

The principal floor of this design is elevated three feet above the

surface of the ground, and is approached by the front steps leading to

the platform. The height of the first floor is eleven feet, the second

ten feet, and the cellar six feet six inches in the clear. The porch is

so constructed that it can be put on either the front or side of the

house, as it may suit the owner. The rooms, eight in number, are airy

and of convenient size. The kitchen has a range, sink, and boiler, and

a large closet, to be used as a pantry. The windows leading out to the

porch will run to the floor, with heads running into the walls. In the

attic the chambers are 10x10 feet, 13x14 feet, 12x13 feet, 10x101/2 feet,

and a hall 6 feet wide, with large closets and cupboards for each

chamber. The building is so constructed that an addition can be made

to the rear any time by using the present kitchen as a dining room and

building a new kitchen.

[Illustration: A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING. First Floor.]

[Illustration: A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING. Second Floor.]

These plans will prove suggestive to those contemplating the building

of a new house, even if radical changes are made in the accompanying

designs.--_American Cultivator_.

[Illustration: A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING. Front Elevation.]

* * * * *

THE HISTORY OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

[Footnote: Aug. Guerout in _La Lurmiere Electrique_.]

An endeavor has often been made to carry the origin of the electric

telegraph back to a very remote epoch by a reliance on those more or

less fanciful descriptions of modes of communication based upon the

properties of the magnet.

It will prove not without interest before entering into the real history

of the telegraph to pass in review the various documents that relate to

the subject.

In continuation of the 21st chapter of his _Magia naturalis_, published

in 1553, J. B. Porta cites an experiment that had been made with the

magnet as a means of telegraphing. In 1616, Famiano Strada, in his

_Prolusiones Academicae_, takes up this idea, and speaks of the

possibility of two persons communicating by the aid of two magnetized

needles influenced by each other at a distance. Galileo, in _Dialogo

intorno_, written between 1621 and 1632 and Nicolas Caboeus, of Ferrara,

in his _Philosophia magnetica_, both reproduce analogous descriptions,

not however without raising doubts as to the possibility of such a

system.

A document of the same kind, to which great importance has been attached

is found in the _Recreations mathematiques_ published at Rouen in 1628,

under the pseudonym of Van Elten, and reprinted several times since,

with the annotations and additions of Mydorge and Hamion and which must,

it appears, be attributed to the Jesuit Leurechon. In his chapter on the

magnet and the needles that are rubbed therewith, we find the following

passage.

"Some have pretended that, by means of a magnet or other like stone,

absent persons might speak with one another. For example, Claude being

at Paris, and John at Rome, if each had a needle that had been rubbed

with some stone, and whose virtue was such that in measure as one needle

moved at Paris the other would move just the same at Rome, and if Claude

and John each had an alphabet, and had agreed that they would converse

with each other every afternoon at 6 o'clock, and the needle having made

three and a half revolutions as a signal that Claude, and no other,

wished to speak to John, then Claude wishing to say to him that the king

is at Paris would cause his needle to move, and stop at T, then at H,

then at E, then at K, I, N, G and so on. Now, at the same time, John's

needle, according with Claude's, would begin to move and then stop at

the same letters, and consequently it would be easily able to write or

understand what the other desired to signify to it. The invention is

beautiful, but I do not think there can be found in the world a magnet

that has such a virtue. Neither is the thing expedient, for treason

would be too frequent and too covert."

The same idea was also indicated by Joseph Glanville in his _Scepsis

scientifica_, which appeared in 1665, by Father Le Brun, in his

_Histoire critique des pratiques superstitieuses_, and finally by the

Abbe Barthelemy in 1788.

The suggestion offered by Father Kircher, in his _Magnes sive de arte

magnetica_, is a little different from the preceding. The celebrated

Jesuit father seeks however, to do nothing more than to effect a

communication of thoughts between two rooms in the same building. He

places, at short distances from each other, two spherical vessels

carrying on their circumference the letters of the alphabet, and each

having suspended within it, from a vertical wire a magnetized figure. If

one of these latter he moved, all the others must follow its motions,

one after the other, and transmission will thus be effected from the

first vessel to the last. Father Kircher observes that it is necessary

that all the magnets shall be of the same strength, and that there shall

be a large number of them, which is something not within the reach

of everybody. This is why he points out another mode of transmitting

thought, and one which consists in supporting the figures upon vertical

revolving cylinders set in motion by one and the same cord hidden with

in the walls.

There is no need of very thoroughly examining all such systems of

magnetic telegraphy to understand that it was never possible for them to

have a practical reality, and that they were pure speculations which it

is erroneous to consider as the first ideas of the electric telegraph.

We shall make a like reserve with regard to certain apparatus that

have really existed, but that have been wrongly viewed as electric

telegraphs. Such are those of Comus and of Alexandre. The first of these

is indicated in a letter from Diderot to Mlle. Voland, dated July 12,

1762. It consisted of two dials whose hands followed each other at a

distance, without the apparent aid of any external agent. The fact

that Comus published some interesting researches on electricity in the

_Journal de Physique_ has been taken as a basis for the assertion that

his apparatus was a sort of electrical discharge telegraph in which the

communication between the two dials was made by insulated wires hidden

in the walls. But, if it be reflected how difficult it would have been

at that epoch to realize an apparatus of this kind, if it be remembered

that Comus, despite his researches on electricity, was in reality only a

professor of physics to amuse, and if the fact be recalled that cabinets

of physics in those days were filled with ingenious apparatus in which

the surprising effects were produced by skillfully concealed magnets, we

shall rather be led to class among such apparatus the so-called "Comus

electric telegraph."

We find, moreover, in Guyot's _Recreations physiques et

mathematiques_--a work whose first edition dates back to the time at

which Comus was exhibiting his apparatus--a description of certain

communicating dials that seem to be no other than those of the

celebrated physicist, and which at all events enables us to understand

how they worked.

Let one imagine to himself two contiguous chambers behind which ran

one and the same corridor. In each chamber, against the partition that

separated it from the corridor, there was a small bracket, and upon the

latter, and very near the wall, there was a wooden dial supported on a

standard, but in no wise permanently fixed upon the bracket. Each dial

carried a needle, and each circumference was inscribed with twenty-five

letters of the alphabet. The experiment that was performed with these

dials consisted in placing the needle upon a letter in one of the

chambers, when the needle of the other dial stopped at the same letter,

thus making it possible to transmit words and even sentences. As for the

means of communication between the two apparatus, that was very simple:

One of the two dials always served as a transmitter, and the other as a

receiver. The needle of the transmitter carried along in its motion

a pretty powerful magnet, which was concealed in the dial, and which

reacted through the partition upon a very light magnetized needle that

followed its motions, and indicated upon an auxiliary dial, to a person

hidden in the corridor, the letter on which the first needle had been

placed. This person at once stepped over to the partition corresponding

to the receiver, where another auxiliary dial permitted him to properly

direct at a distance the very movable needle of the receiver. Everything

depended, as will be seen, upon the use of the magnet, and upon a deceit

that perfectly accorded with Comus' profession. There is, then, little

thought in our opinion that if the latter's apparatus was not exactly

the one Guyot describes, it was based upon some analogous artifice.

Jean Alexandre's telegraph appears to have borne much analogy with

Comus'. Its inventor operated it in 1802 before the prefect of

Indre-et-Loire. As a consequence of a report addressed by the prefect of

Vienne to Chaptal, and in which, moreover, the apparatus in question was

compared to Comus', Alexandre was ordered to Paris. There he refused to

explain upon what principle his invention was based, and declared that

he would confide his secret only to the First Consul. But Bonaparte,

little disposed to occupy himself with such an affair, charged Delambre

to examine it and address a report to him. The illustrious astronomer,

despite the persistence with which Alexandre refused to give up his

secret to him, drew a report, the few following extracts from which

will, we think, suffice to edify the reader:

"The pieces that the First Consul charged me to examine did not contain

enough of detail to justify an opinion. Citizen Beauvais (friend and

associate of Alexandre) knows the inventor's secret, but has promised

him to communicate it to no one except the First Consul. This

circumstance might enable me to dispense with any report; for how judge

of a machine that one has not seen and does not know the agent of? All

that is known is that the _telegraphe intime_ consists of two like

boxes, each carrying a dial on whose circumference are marked the

letters of the alphabet. By means of a winch, the needle of one dial is

carried to all the letters that one has need to use, and at the same

instant the needle of the second box repeats, in the same order, all the

motions and indications of the first.

"When these two boxes are placed in two separate apartments, two persons

can write to and answer one another, without seeing or being seen by one

another, and without any one suspecting their correspondence. Neither

night nor fog can prevent the transmission of a dispatch.... The

inventor has made two experiments--one at Portiers and the other at

Tours--in the presence of the prefects and mayors, and the record shows

that they were fully successful. To-day, the inventor and his associate

ask that the First Consul be pleased to permit one of the boxes to be

placed in his apartment and the other at the house of Consul Cambaceres

in order to give the experiment all the _eclat_ and authenticity

possible; or that the First Consul accord a ten minutes' interview to

citizen Beauvais, who will communicate to him the secret, which is

so easy that the simple _expose_ of it would be equivalent to a

demonstration, and would take the place of an experiment.... If, as one

might be tempted to believe from a comparison with a bell arrangement,

the means adopted by the inventor consisted in wheels, movements,

and transmitting pieces, the invention would be none the less

astonishing.... If, on the contrary, as the Portier's account seems to

prove, the means of communication is a fluid, there would be the more

merit in his having mastered it to such a point as to produce so regular

and so infallible effects at such distances.... But citizen Beauvais

... desires principally to have the First Consul as a witness and

appreciator.... It is to be desired, then, that the First Consul shall

consent to hear him, and that he may find in the communication that will

be made to him reasons for giving the invention a good reception and for

properly rewarding the inventor."

But Bonaparte remained deaf, and Alexandre persisted in his silence, and

died at Angers, in 1832, in great poverty, without having revealed his

secret.

As, in 1802, Volta's pile was already invented, several authors have

supposed an application of it in Alexandre's apparatus. "Is it not

allowable to believe," exclaims one of these, "that the electric

telegraph was at that time discovered?" We do not hesitate to respond in

the negative. The pile had been invented for too short a time, and too

little was then known of the properties of the current, to allow a

man so destitute of scientific knowledge to so quickly invent all the

electrical parts necessary for the synchronic operation of the two

needles. In this _telegraphe intime_ we can only see an apparatus

analogous to the one described by Guyot, or rather a synchronism

obtained by means of cords, as in Kircher's arrangement. The fact that

Alexandre's two dials were placed on two different stories, and distant,

horizontally, fifteen meters, in nowise excludes this latter mode of

transmission. On another hand, the mystery in which Alexandre was

shrouded, his declaration relative to the use of a fluid, and the

assurance with which he promised to reveal his secret to the First

Consul, prove absolutely nothing, for too often have the most profoundly

ignorant people--the electric girl, for example--befooled learned bodies

by the aid of the grossest frauds. From the standpoint of the history

of the electric telegraph, there is no value, then, to be attributed to

this apparatus of Alexandre, any more than there is to that of Comus or

to _any_ of the dreams based upon the properties of the magnet.

The history of the electric telegraph really begins with 1753, the date

at which is found the first indication of a telegraph truly based upon

the use of electricity. This telegraph is described in a letter written

by Renfrew, dated Feb. 1, 1753, and signed with the initials "C.M.,"

which, in all probability, were those of a savant of the time--Charles

Marshall. A few extracts from this letter will give an idea of the

precision with which the author described his invention:

"Let us suppose a bundle of wires, in number equal to that of the

letters of the alphabet, stretched horizontally between two given

places, parallel with each other and distant from each other one inch.

"Let us admit that after every twenty yards the wires are connected to a

solid body by a juncture of glass or jeweler's cement, so as to prevent

their coming in contact with the earth or any conducting body, and so

as to help them to carry their own weight. The electric battery will be

placed at right angles to one of the extremities of the wires, and the

bundle of wires at each extremity will be carried by a solid piece of

glass. The portions of the wires that run from the glass support to the

machine have sufficient elasticity and stiffness to return to their

primitive position after having been brought into contact with the

battery. Very near to this same glass support, on the opposite side,

there descends a ball suspended from each wire, and at a sixth or a

tenth of an inch beneath each ball there is placed one of the letters of

the alphabet written upon small pieces of paper or other substance light

enough to be attracted and raised by the electrified ball. Besides this,

all necessary arrangements are taken so that each of these little papers

shall resume its place when the ball ceases to attract.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--LESAGE'S TELEGRAPH.]

"All being arranged as above, and the minute at which the correspondence

is to begin having been fixed upon beforehand, I begin the conversation

with my friend at a distance in this way: I set the electric machine

in motion, and, if the word that I wish to transcribe is 'Sir,' for

example, I take, with a glass rod, or with any other body electric

through itself or insulating, the different ends of the wires

corresponding to the three letters that compose the word. Then I press

them in such a way as to put them in contact with the battery. At the

same instant, my correspondent sees these different letters carried in

the same order toward the electrified balls at the other extremity of

the wires. I continue to thus spell the words as long as I judge proper,

and my correspondent, that he may not forget them, writes down the

letters in measure as they rise. He then unites them and reads the

dispatch as often as he pleases. At a given signal, or when I desire it,

I stop the machine, and, taking a pen, write down what my friend sends

me from the other end of the line."

The author of this letter points out, besides, the possibility of

keeping, in the first place, all the springs in contact with the

battery, and, consequently, all the letters attracted, and of indicating

each letter by removing its wire from the battery, and consequently

making it fall. He even proposed to substitute bells of different sounds

for the balls, and to produce electric sparks upon them. The sound

produced by the spark would vary according to the bell, and the letters

might thus be heard.

Nothing, however, in this document authorizes the belief that Charles

Marshall ever realized his idea, so we must proceed to 1774 to find

Lesage, of Geneva, constructing a telegraph that was based upon the

principle indicated twenty years before in the letter of Renfrew.

The apparatus that Lesage devised (Fig. 1) was composed of 24 wires

insulated from one another by a non conducting material. Each of these

wires corresponded to a small pith ball suspended by a thread. On

putting an electric machine in communication with such or such a one of

these wires, the ball of the corresponding electrometer was repelled,

and the motion signaled the letter that it was desired to transmit. Not

content with having realized an electric telegraph upon a small scale,

Lesage thought of applying it to longer distances.

"Let us conceive," said he in a letter written June 22, 1782, to Mr.

Prevost, of Geneva, "a subterranean pipe of enameled clay, whose cavity

at about every six feet is separated by partitions of the same material,

or of glass, containing twenty-four apertures in order to give passage

to as many brass wires as these diaphragms are to sustain and keep

separated. At each extremity of this pipe are twenty-four wires that

deviate from one another horizontally, and that are arranged like the

keys of a clavichord; and, above this row of wire ends, are distinctly

traced the twenty-four letters of the alphabet, while beneath there is a

table covered with twenty-four small pieces of gold-leaf or other easily

attractable and quite visible bodies."

Lesage had thought of offering his secret to Frederick the Great; but

he did not do so, however, and his telegraph remained in the state of a

curious cabinet experiment. He had, nevertheless, opened the way, and,

dating from that epoch, we meet with a certain number of attempts at

electrostatic telegraphy. [1]

[Footnote 1: Advantage has been taken of a letter from Alexander Volta

to Prof. Barletti (dated 1777), indicating the possibility of firing his

electric pistol from a great distance, to attribute to him a part in the

invention of the telegraph. We have not shared in this opinion, which

appears to us erroneous, since Volta, while indicating the possibility

above stated, does not speak of applying such a fact to telegraphy.]

The first in date is that of Lemond, which is spoken of by Arthur Young

(October 16, 1787), in his _Voyage Agronomique en France_:

"In the evening," says he, "we are going to Mr. Lemond's, a very

ingenious mechanician, and one who has a genius for invention.... He has

made a remarkable discovery in electricity. You write two or three words

upon paper; he takes them with him into a room and revolves a machine

within a sheath at the top of which there is an electrometer--a pretty

little ball of feather pith. A brass wire is joined to a similar

cylinder, and electrified in a distant apartment, and his wife on

remarking the motions of the ball that corresponds, writes down the

words that they indicate; from whence it appears that he has formed an

alphabet of motions. As the length of the wire makes no difference in

the effect, a correspondence might be kept up from very far off, for

example with a besieged city, or for objects much more worthy of

attention. Whatever be the use that shall be made of it, the discovery

is an admirable one."

And, in fact, Lemond's telegraph was of the most interesting character,

for it was a single wire one, and we already find here an alphabet based

upon the combination of a few elementary signals.

The apparatus that next succeeds is the electric telegraph that Reveroni

Saint Cyr proposed in 1790, to announce lottery numbers, but as to the

construction of which we have no details. In 1794 Reusser, a German,

made a proposition a little different from the preceding systems, and

which is contained in the _Magazin fuer das Neueste aus der Physik und

Naturgeschichte_, published by Henri Voigt.

"I am at home," says Reusser, "before my electric machine, and I am

dictating to some one on the other side of the street a complete

letter that he is writing himself. On an ordinary table there is fixed

vertically a square board in which is inserted a pane of glass. To this

glass are glued strips of tinfoil cut out in such a way that the spark

shall be visible. Each strip is designated by a letter of the alphabet,

and from each of them starts a long wire. These wires are inclosed in

glass tubes which pass underground and run to the place whither the

dispatch is to be transmitted. The extremities of the wires reach a

similar plate of glass, which is likewise affixed to a table and

carries strips of tinfoil similar to the others. These strips are also

designated, by the same letters, and are connected by a return wire with

the table of him who wishes to dictate the message. If, now, he who is

dictating puts the external armature of a Leyden jar in contact with the

return wire, and the ball of this jar in contact with a metallic rod

touching that of the tinfoil strip which corresponds with the letter

which he wishes to dictate to the other, sparks will be produced upon

the nearest as well as upon the remotest strips, and the distant

correspondent, seeing such sparks, may immediately write down the letter

marked. Will an extended application of this system ever be made? That

is not the question; it is possible. It will be very expensive; but the

post hordes from Saint Petersburg to Lisbon are also very expensive,

and if any one should apply the idea on a large scale, I shall claim a

recompense."

Every letter, then, was signaled by one or several sparks that started

forth on the breaking of the strip; but we see nothing in this document

to authorize the opinion which has existed, that every tinfoil strip was

a sort of magic tablet upon which the sparks traced the very form of the

letter to be transmitted.

Voigt, the editor of the _Magazin_, adds, in continuation of Reusser's

communication: "Mr. Reusser should have proposed the addition to this

arrangement of a vessel filled with detonating gas which could be

exploded in the first place, by means of the electric spark, in order

to notify the one to whom something was to be dictated that he should

direct his attention to the strips of tinfoil."

This passage gives the first indication of the use of a special call for

the telegraph. The same year (1794), in a work entitled _Versuch ueber

Telegraphie und Telegraphen_, Boeckmann likewise proposed the use of the

pistol as a call signal, in conjunction with the use of a line composed

of two wires only, and of discharges in the air or a vacuum, grouped in

such a way as to form an alphabet.

Experiments like those indicated by Boeckmann, however, seem to have

been made previous to 1794, or at that epoch, at least, by Cavallo,

since the latter describes them in a _Treatise on Electricity_ written

in English, and a French translation of which was published in 1795.

In these experiments the length of the wires reached 250 English feet.

Cavallo likewise proposed to use as signals combustible or detonating

materials, and to employ as a call the noise made by the discharge of a

Leyden jar.

In 1796 occurred the experiments of Dr. Francisco Salva and of the

Infante D. Antonio. The following is what we may read on this subject in

the _Journal des Sciences_:

"Prince de la Paix, having learned that Dr. Francisco Salva had read

before the Royal Academy of Sciences of Barcelona a memoir on the

application of electricity to telegraphy, and that he had presented at

the same time an electric telegraph of his own invention, desired

to examine this machine in person. Satisfied as to the accuracy and

celerity with which we can converse with another by means of it, he

obtained for the inventor the honor of appearing before the king. Prince

de la Paix, in the presence of their majesties and of several lords,

caused the telegraph to converse to the satisfaction of the whole court.

The telegraph conversed some days afterward at the residence of the

Infante D. Antonio.

"His Highness expressed a desire to have a much completer one that

should have sufficient electrical power to communicate at great

distances on land and sea. The Infante therefore ordered the

construction of an electric machine whose plate should be more than

forty inches in diameter. With the aid of this machine His Highness

intends to undertake a series of useful and curious experiments that he

has proposed to Dr. D. Salva."

In 1797 or '98 (some authors say 1787), the Frenchman, Betancourt, put

up a line between Aranjuez and Madrid, and telegraphed through the

medium of discharges from a Leyden jar.

But the most interesting of the telegraphs based upon the use of static

electricity is without doubt that of Francis Ronalds, described by the

latter, in 1823, in a pamphlet entitled _Descriptions of an Electrical

Telegraph and of some other Electrical Apparatus_, but the construction

of which dates back to 1816.

What is peculiarly interesting in Ronalds' apparatus is that it presents

for the first time the use of two synchronous movements at the two

stations in correspondence.

The apparatus is represented in Fig. 2. It is based upon the

simultaneous working of two pith-ball electrometers, combined with the

synchronous running of two clock-work movements. At the two stations

there were identical clocks for whose second hand there had been

substituted a cardboard disk (Fig. 3), divided into twenty sectors. Each

of these latter contained one figure, one letter, and a conventional

word. Before each movable disk there was a screen, A (Fig. 2),

containing an aperture through which only one sector could, be seen at

a time. Finally, before each screen there was a pith-ball electrometer.

The two electrometers were connected together by means of a conductor

could be put in communication with either an electric machine or the

ground. A lever handle, J, interposed into the circuit a Volta's pistol,

F, that served as a call.

When one of the operators desired to send a dispatch to the other he

connected the conductor with the machine, and, setting the latter in

operation, discharged his correspondent's pistol as a signal. The call

effected, the first operator continued to revolve the machine so that

the balls of pith should diverge in the two electrometers. At the same

time the two clocks were set running. When the sender saw the word

"attention" pass before the slit in the screen he quickly discharged the

line, the balls of the two electrometers approached each other, and, if

the two clocks agreed perfectly, the correspondent necessarily saw in

the aperture in his screen the same word, "attention." If not, he moved

the screen in consequence, and the operation was performed over until

he could send, in his turn, the word "ready." Afterward, the sender

transmitted in the same way one of the three words, "letters,"

"figures," "dictionary," in order to indicate whether he wished to

transmit letters or figures, or whether the letters received, instead of

being taken in their true sense, were to be referred to a conventional

vocabulary got up in advance. It was after such preliminaries that the

actual transmission of the dispatch was begun. The pith balls, which

were kept constantly apart, approached each other at the moment the

letter to be transmitted passed before the aperture in the screen.

Ronalds, in his researches, busied himself most with the construction of

lines. He put up on the grounds near his dwelling an air line 8 miles

long; and, to do so, stretched fine iron wire in zigzag fashion between

two frames 18 meters apart. Each of these frames carried thirty-seven

hooks, to which the wire was attached through the intermedium of silk

cords. He laid, besides, a subterranean line of 525 feet at a depth of 4

feet. The wire was inclosed within thick glass tubes which were placed

in a trough of dry wood, of 2 inch section, coated internally and

externally with pitch. This trough was, moreover, filled full of pitch

and closed with a cover of wood. Ronalds preferred these subterranean

conductors to air lines. A portion of one of them that was laid by him

at Hammersmith figured at the Exhibition of 1881, and is shown in Fig.

Nearly at the epoch at which Ronalds was experimenting in England,

a certain Harrisson Gray Dyar was also occupying himself with

electrostatic telegraphy in America. According to letters published only

in 1872 by American journals, Dyar constructed the first telegraph in

America. This line, which was put up on Long Island, was of iron wire

strung on poles carrying glass insulators, and, upon it, Dyar operated

with static electricity. Causing the spark to act upon a movable disk

covered with litmus paper, he produced by the discoloration of the

latter dots and dashes that formed an alphabet.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.]

These experiments, it seems, were so successful that Dyar and his

relatives resolved to construct a line from New York to Philadelphia;

but quarrels with his copartners, lawsuits, and other causes obliged him

to leave for Rhode Island, and finally for France in 1831. He did not

return to America till 1858.

Dyar, then, would seem to have been the first who combined an alphabet

composed of dots and dashes. On this point, priority has been claimed by

Swaim in a book that appeared at Philadelphia in 1829 under the title of

_The Mural Diagraph_, and in a communication inserted in the _Comptes

Rendus_ of the Academic des Sciences for Nov. 27, 1865.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.]

In 1828, likewise, Victor Triboaillet de Saint Amand proposed to

construct a telegraph line between Paris and Brussels. This line was to

be a subterranean one, the wire being covered with gum shellac, then

with silk, and finally with resin, and being last of all placed in glass

tubes. A strong battery was to act at a distance upon an electroscope,

and the dispatches were to be transmitted by the aid of a conventional

vocabulary based upon the number of the electroscope's motions.

Finally, in 1844, Henry Highton took out a patent in England for a

telegraph working through electricity of high tension, with the use of

a single line wire. A paper unrolled regularly between two points, and

each discharge made a small hole in it, But this hole was near one

or the other of the points according as the line was positively or

negatively charged. The combination of the holes thus traced upon two

parallel lines permitted of the formation of an alphabet. This telegraph

was tried successfully over a line ten miles long, on the London and

Northwestern Railway.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.]

We have followed electrostatic telegraphs up to an epoch at which

telegraphy had already entered upon a more practical road, and it now

remains for us to retrace our steps toward those apparatus that are

based upon the use of the voltaic current.

* * * * *

Prof. Dolbear observes that if a galvanometer is placed between the

terminals of a circuit of homogeneous iron wire and heat is applied, no

electric effect will be observed; but if the structure of the wire

is altered by alternate bending or twisting into a helix, then the

galvanometer will indicate a current. The professor employs a helix

connected with a battery, and surrounding a portion of the wire in

circuit with the galvanometer. The current in the helix magnetizes the

circuit wire inclosed, and the galvanometer exhibits the presence of

electricity. The experiment helps to prove that magnetism is connected

with some molecular change of the magnetized metal.

* * * * *

ELECTRICAL TRANSMISSION AND STORAGE.

[Footnote: From a recent lecture in London before the Institute of Civil

Engineers.]

By Dr. C. WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R.S, Mem. Inst. C.E.

Dr. Siemens, in opening the discourse, adverted to the object the

Council had in view in organizing these occasional lectures, which were

not to be lectures upon general topics, but the outcome of such special

study and practical experience as members of the Institution had

exceptional opportunities of acquiring in the course of their

professional occupation. The subject to be dealt with during the present

session was that of electricity. Already telegraphy had been brought

forward by Mr. W. H. Preece, and telephonic communication by Sir

Frederick Bramwell.

Thus far electricity had been introduced as the swift and subtile agency

by which signals were produced either by mechanical means or by the

human voice, and flashed almost instantaneously to distances which were

limited, with regard to the former, by restrictions imposed by the

globe. To the speaker had been assigned the task of introducing to their

notice electric energy in a different aspect. Although still giving

evidence of swiftness and precision, the effects he should dwell upon

were no longer such as could be perceived only through the most delicate

instruments human ingenuity could contrive, but were capable of rivaling

the steam engine, compressed air, and the hydraulic accumulator in the

accomplishment of actual work.

In the early attempts at magneto electric machines, it was shown that,

so long as their effect depended upon the oxidation of zinc in a

battery, no commercially useful results could have been anticipated. The

thermo-battery, the discovery of Seebeck in 1822, was alluded to as a

means of converting heat into electric energy in the most direct manner;

but this conversion could not be an entire one, because the second law

of thermo-dynamics, which prevented the realization as mechanical force

of more than one seventh part of the heat energy produced in combustion

under the boiler, applied equally to the thermo-electric battery, in

which the heat, conducted from the hot points of juncture to the

cold, constituted a formidable loss. The electromotive force of each

thermo-electric element did not exceed 0.036 of a volt, and 1,800

elements were therefore necessary to work an incandescence lamp.

A most useful application of the thermo-electric battery for measuring

radiant heat, the thermo pile, was exhibited. By means of an ingenious

modification of the electrical pyrometer, named the bolometer, valuable

researches in measuring solar radiations had been made by Professor

Langley.

Faraday's great discovery of magneto-induction was next noticed, and the

original instrument by which he had elicited the first electric spark

before the members of the Royal Institution in 1831, was shown in

operation. It was proved that although the individual current produced

by magnetoinduction was exceedingly small and momentary in action, it

was capable of unlimited multiplication by mechanical arrangements of a

simple kind, and that by such multiplication the powerful effects of the

dynamo machine of the present day were built up. One of the means for

accomplishing such multiplication was the Siemens armature of 1856.

Another step of importance was that involved in the Pacinotti ring,

known in its practical application as the machine of Gramme. A third

step, that of the self exciting principle, was first communicated by Dr.

Werner Siemens to the Berlin Academy, on the 17th of January, 1867, and

by the lecturer to the Royal Society, on the 4th of the following

month. This was read on the 14th of February, when the late Sir Charles

Wheatstone also brought forward a paper embodying the same principle.

The lecturer's machine, which was then exhibited, and which might be

looked upon as the first of its kind, was shown in operation; it had

done useful work for many years as a means of exciting steel magnets.

A suggestion contained in Sir Charles Wheatstone's paper, that "a very

remarkable increase of all the effects, accompanied by a diminution in

the resistance of the machine, is observed when a cross wire is placed

so as to divert a great portion of the current from the electro-magnet,"

had led the lecturer to an investigation read before the Royal Society

on the 4th of March, 1880, in which it was shown that by augmenting the

resistance upon the electro-magnets 100 fold, valuable effects could be

realized, as illustrated graphically by means of a diagram. The most

important of these results consisted in this, that the electromotive

force produced in a "shunt-wound machine," as it was called, increased

with the external resistance, whereby the great fluctuations formerly

inseparable from electric arc lighting could be obviated, and thus,

by the double means of exciting the electro-magnets, still greater

uniformity of current was attainable.

The conditions upon which the working of a well conceived dynamo machine

must depend were next alluded to, and it was demonstrated that when

losses by unnecessary wire resistance, by Foucault currents, and by

induced currents in the rotating armature were avoided, as much as 90

per cent., or even more, of the power communicated to the machine was

realized in the form of electric energy, and that _vice versa_ the

reconversion of electric into mechanical energy could be accomplished

with similarly small loss. Thus, by means of two machines at a moderate

distance apart, nearly 80 per cent, of the power imparted to one machine

could be again yielded in the mechanical form by the second, leaving

out of consideration frictional losses, which latter need not be

great, considering that a dynamo machine had only one moving part

well balanced, and was acted upon along its entire circumference by

propelling force. Jacobi had proved, many years ago, that the maximum

efficiency of a magneto-electric engine was obtained when

e / E = w / W = 1/2

which law had been frequently construed, by Verdet (Theorie Mecanique

de la Chaleur) and others, to mean that one-half was the maximum

theoretical efficiency obtainable in electric transmission of power, and

that one half of the current must be necessarily wasted or turned into

heat. The lecturer could never be reconciled to a law necessitating such

a waste of energy, and had maintained, without disputing the accuracy of

Jacobi's law, that it had reference really to the condition of maximum

work accomplished with a given machine, whereas its efficiency must be

governed by the equation:

e / E = w / W = nearly 1

From this it followed that the maximum yield was obtained when two

dynamo machines (of similar construction) rotated nearly at the same

speed, but that under these conditions the amount of force transmitted

was a minimum. Practically the best condition of working consisted in

giving to the primary machine such proportions as to produce a current

of the same magnitude, but of 50 per cent, greater electromotive force

than the secondary; by adopting such an arrangement, as much as 50 per

cent, of the power imparted to the primary could be practically received

from the secondary machine at a distance of several miles. Professor

Silvanus Thompson, in his recent Cantor Lectures, had shown an ingenious

graphical method of proving these important fundamental laws.

The possibility of transmitting power electrically was so obvious that

suggestions to that effect had been frequently made since the days of

Volta, by Ritchie, Jacobi, Henry, Page, Hjorth, and others; but it

was only in recent years that such transmission had been rendered

practically feasible.

Just six years ago, when delivering his presidential address to the Iron

and Steel Institute, the lecturer had ventured to suggest that "time

will probably reveal to us effectual means of carrying power to great

distances, but I cannot refrain from alluding to one which is, in my

opinion, worthy of consideration, namely, the electrical conductor.

Suppose water power to be employed to give motion to a dynamo-electrical

machine, a very powerful electrical current will be the result, which

may be carried to a great distance, through a large metallic conductor,

and then be made to impart motion to electromagnetic engines, to ignite

the carbon points of electric lamps, or to effect the separation of

metals from their combinations. A copper rod 3 in. in diameter would

be capable of transmitting 1,000 horse power a distance of say thirty

miles, an amount sufficient to supply one-quarter of a million candle

power, which would suffice to illuminate a moderately-sized town." This

suggestion had been much criticised at the time, when it was still

thought that electricity was incapable of being massed so as to deal

with many horse power of effect, and the size of conductor he had

proposed was also considered wholly inadequate. It would be interesting

to test this early calculation by recent experience. Mr. Marcel Deprez

had, it was well known, lately succeeded in transmitting as much as

three horse power to a distance of 40 kilometers (25 miles) through

a pair of ordinary telegraph wires of 4 millimeters in diameter. The

results so obtained had been carefully noted by Mr. Tresca, and had been

communicated a fortnight ago to the French Academy of Sciences. Taking

the relative conductivity of iron wire employed by Deprez, and the 3

in. rod proposed by the lecturer, the amount of power that could be

transmitted through the latter would be about 4,000 horse power. But

Deprez had employed a motor-dynamo of 2,000 volts, and was contented

with a yield of 32 per cent. only of the energy imparted to the primary

machine, whereas he had calculated at the time upon an electromotive

force of 200 volts, and upon a return of at least 40 per cent. of the

energy imparted. In March, 1878, when delivering one of the Science

Lectures at Glasgow, he said that a 2 in. rod could be made to

accomplish the object proposed, because he had by that time conceived

the possibility of employing a current of at least 500 volts. Sir

William Thomson had at once accepted these views, and with the

conceptive ingenuity peculiar to himself, had gone far beyond him, in

showing before the Parliamentary Electric Light Committee of 1879, that

through a copper wire of only 1/2 in. diameter, 21,000 horse power might

be conveyed to a distance of 300 miles with a current of an intensity

of 80,000 volts. The time might come when such a current could be dealt

with, having a striking distance of about 12 ft. in air, but then,

probably, a very practical law enunciated by Sir William Thomson would

be infringed. This was to the effect that electricity was conveyed at

the cheapest rate through a conductor, the cost of which was such

that the annual interest upon the money expended equaled the annual

expenditure for lost effect in the conductor in producing the power to

be conveyed. It appeared that Mr. Deprez had not followed this law in

making his recent installations.

Sir William Armstrong was probably first to take practical, advantage of

these suggestions in lighting his house at Cragside during night time,

and working his lathe and saw bench during the day, by power transmitted

through a wire from a waterfall nearly a mile distant from his mansion.

The lecturer had also accomplished the several objects of pumping water,

cutting wood, hay, and swedes, of lighting his house, and of carrying on

experiments in electro-horticulture from a common center of steam power.

The results had been most satisfactory; the whole of the management

had been in the hands of a gardener and of laborers, who were without

previous knowledge of electricity, and the only repairs that had been

found necessary were one renewal of the commutators and an occasional

change of metallic contact brushes.

An interesting application of electric transmission to cranes, by Dr.

Hopkinson, was shown in operation.

Among the numerous other applications of the electrical transmission

of power, that to electrical railways, first exhibited by Dr. Werner

Siemens, at the Berlin Exhibition of 1879, had created more than

ordinary public attention. In it the current produced by the dynamo

machine, fixed at a convenient station and driven by a steam engine

or other motor, was conveyed to a dynamo placed upon the moving car,

through a central rail supported upon insulating blocks of wood, the two

working rails serving to convey the return current. The line was 900

yards long, of 2 ft gauge, and the moving car served its purpose of

carrying twenty visitors through the exhibition each trip. The success

of this experiment soon led to the laying of the Lichterfelde line, in

which both rails were placed upon insulating sleepers, so that the one

served for the conveyance of the current from the power station to the

moving car, and the other for completing the return circuit. This line

had a gauge of 3 ft. 3 in., was 2,500 yards in length, and was worked

by two dynamo machines, developing an aggregate current of 9,000 watts,

equal to 12 horse power. It had now been in constant operation since May

16, 1881, and had never failed in accomplishing its daily traffic.

A line half a kilometer in length, but of 4 ft. 81/2 in. gauge was

established by the lecturer at Paris in connection with the Electric

Exhibition of 1881. In this case, two suspended conductors in the form

of hollow tubes with a longitudinal slit were adopted, the contact being

made by metallic bolts drawn through these slit tubes, and connected

with the dynamo machine on the moving car by copper ropes passing

through the roof. On this line 95,000 passengers were conveyed within

the short period of seven weeks.

An electric tramway, six miles in length, had just been completed,

connecting Portrush with Bush Mills, in the north of Ireland, in the

installation of which the lecturer was aided by Mr. Traill, as engineer

of the company by Mr. Alexander Siemens, and by Dr. E. Hopkinson,

representing his firm. In this instance the two rails, 3 ft. apart, were

not insulated from the ground, but were joined electrically by means of

copper staples and formed the return circuit, the current being conveyed

to the car through a T iron placed upon short standards, and insulated

by means of insulate caps. For the present the power was produced by

a steam engine at Portrush, giving motion to a shunt-wound dynamo of

15,000 watts=20 horse power, but arrangements were in progress to

utilize a waterfall of ample power near Bush Mills, by means of three

turbines of 40 horse power each, now in course of erection. The working

speed of this line was restricted by the Board of Trade to ten miles an

hour, which was readily obtained, although the gradients of the line

were decidedly unfavorable, including an incline of two miles in length

at a gradient of 1 in 38. It was intended to extend the line six miles

beyond Bush Mills, in order to join it at Dervock station with the north

of Ireland narrow gauge railway system.

The electric system of propulsion was, in the lecturer's opinion,

sufficiently advanced to assure practical success under suitable

circumstances--such as for suburban tramways, elevated lines, and

above all lines through tunnels; such as the Metropolitan and District

Railways. The advantages were that the weight, of the engine, so

destructive of power and of the plant itself in starting and stopping,

would be saved, and that perfect immunity from products of combustion

would be insured The experience at Lichterfelde, at Paris, and another

electric line of 765 yards in length, and 2 ft. 2 in. gauge, worked

in connection with the Zaukerode Colliery since October, 1882, were

extremely favorable to this mode of propulsion. The lecturer however

did not advocate its prospective application in competition with the

locomotive engine for main lines of railway. For tramways within

populous districts, the insulated conductor involved a serious

difficulty. It would be more advantageous under these circumstances to

resort to secondary batteries, forming a store of electrical energy

carried under the seats of the car itself, and working a dynamo machine

connected with the moving wheels by means of belts and chains.

The secondary battery was the only available means of propelling vessels

by electrical power, and considering that these batteries might be made

to serve the purpose of keel ballast, their weight, which was still

considerable, would not be objectionable. The secondary battery was not

an entirely new conception. The hydrogen gas battery suggested by Sir

Wm. Grove in 1841, and which was shown in operation, realized in the

most perfect manner the conception of storage, only that the power

obtained from it was exceedingly slight. The lecturer, in working upon

Sir Wm. Grove's conception, had twenty-five years ago constructed

a battery of considerable power in substituting porous carbon for

platinum, impregnating the same with a precipitate of lead peroxidized

by a charging current. At that time little practical importance attached

however to the object, and even when Plante, in 1860, produced his

secondary battery, composed of lead plates peroxidized by a charging

current, little more than scientific curiosity was excited. It was

only since the dynamo machine had become an accomplished fact that

the importance of this mode of storing energy had become of practical

importance, and great credit was due to Faure, to Sellon, and to

Volckmar for putting this valuable addition to practical science into

available forms. A question of great interest in connection with the

secondary battery had reference to its permanence. A fear had been

expressed by many that local action would soon destroy the fabric of

which it was composed, and that the active surfaces would become coated

with sulphate of lead, preventing further action. It had, however,

lately been proved in a paper read by Dr. Frankland before the Royal

Society, corroborated by simultaneous investigations by Dr. Gladstone

and Mr. Tribe, that the action of the secondary battery depended

essentially upon the alternative composition and decomposition of

sulphate of lead, which was therefore not an enemy, but the best friend

to its continued action.

In conclusion, the lecturer referred to electric nomenclature, and to

the means for measuring and recording the passage of electric energy.

When he addressed the British Association at Southampton, he had

ventured to suggest two electrical units additional to those established

at the Electrical Congress in 1881, viz.: the watt and the joule,

in order to complete the chain of units connecting electrical with

mechanical energy and with the unit quantity of heat. He was glad to

find that this suggestion had met with a favorable reception, especially

that of the watt, which was convenient for expressing in an intelligible

manner the effective power of a dynamo machine, and for giving a precise

idea of the number of lights or effective power to be realized by its

current, as well as of the engine power necessary to drive it; 746 watts

represented 1 horse-power.

Finally, the watt meter, an instrument recently developed by his firm,

was shown in operation. This consisted simply of a coil of thick

conductor suspended by a torsion wire, and opposed laterally to a fixed

coil of wire of high resistance. The current to be measured flowed

through both coils in parallel circuit, the one representing its

quantity expressible in amperes, and the other its potential expressible

in volts. Their joint attractive action expressed therefore volt-amperes

or watts, which were read off upon a scale of equal divisions.

The lecture was illustrated by experiments, and by numerous diagrams and

tables of results. Measuring instruments by Professors Ayrton and Perry,

by Mr. Edison and by Mr. Boys, were also exhibited.

* * * * *

ON THE PREPARATION OF GELATINE PLATES.

[Footnote: Being an abstract of the introductory lecture to a course on

photography at the Polytechnic Institute, November 11.]

By E. HOWARD FARMER, F.C.S.

Since the first announcement of these lectures, our Secretary has asked

me to give a free introductory lecture, so that all who are interested

in the subject may come and gather a better idea as to them than they

can possibly do by simply leading a prospectus. This evening, therefore,

I propose to give first a typical lecture of the course, and secondly,

at its conclusion, to say a few words as to our principal object. As the

subject for this evening's lecture I have chosen, "The Preparation of

Gelatine Plates," as it is probably one of very general interest to

photographers.

Before preparing our emulsion, we must first decide upon the particular

materials we are going to use, and of these the first requisite is

nitrate of silver. Nitrate of silver is supplied by chemists in three

principal conditions:

1. The ordinary crystallized salt, prepared by dissolving silver in

nitric acid, and evaporating the solution until the salt crystallizes

out. This sample usually presents the appearance of imperfect crystals,

having a faint yellowish tinge, and a strong odor of nitrous fumes, and

contains, as might be expected, a considerable amount of free acid.

2. Fused nitrate, or "lunar caustic," prepared by fusing the

crystallized salt and casting it into sticks. Lunar caustic is usually

alkaline to test paper.

3. Recrystallized silver nitrate, prepared by redissolving the ordinary

salt in distilled water, and again evaporating to the crystallizing

point. By this means the impurities and free acid are removed.

I have a specimen of this on the table, and it consists, as you observe,

of fine crystals which are perfectly colorless and transparent; it is

also perfectly neutral to test paper. No doubt either of these samples

can be used with success in preparing emulsions, but to those who are

inexperienced, I recommend that the recrystallized salt be employed. We

make, then, a solution of recrystallized silver nitrate in distilled

water, containing in every 12 ounces of solution 11/4 ounces of the salt.

The next material we require is a soluble bromide. I have here specimens

of various bromides which can be employed, such as ammonium, potassium,

barium, and zinc bromides; as a rule, however, either the ammonium or

potassium salt is used, and I should like to say a few words respecting

the relative efficiency of these two salts.

1. As to ammonium bromide. This substance is a highly unstable salt.

A sample of ammonium bromide which is perfectly neutral when first

prepared will, on keeping, be found to become decidedly acid in

character. Moreover, during this decomposition, the percentage of

bromine does not remain constant; as a rule, it will be found to contain

more than the theoretical amount of bromine. Finally, all ammonium salts

have a most destructive action on gelatine; if gelatine, which has

been boiled for a short time with either ammonium bromide or ammonium

nitrate, be added to an emulsion, it will be found to produce pink

fog--and probably frilling--on plates prepared with the emulsion. For

these reasons, I venture to say that ammonium bromide, which figures so

largely in formulae for gelatine emulsions, is one of the worst bromides

that can be employed for that purpose, and is, indeed, a frequent source

of pink fog and frilling.

2. As to potassium bromide. This is a perfectly stable substance, can be

readily obtained pure, and is constant in composition; neither has it

(nor the nitrate) any appreciable destructive action on gelatine. We

prepare, then, a solution of potassium bromide in water containing in

every 12 ounces of solution 1 ounce of the salt. On testing it with

litmus paper, the solution may be either slightly alkaline or neutral;

in either case, it should be faintly acidified with hydrochloric acid.

The last material we require is the gelatine, one of the most important,

and at the same time the most difficult substance to obtain of good

quality. I have various samples here--notably Nelson's No. 1 and "X

opaque;" Coignet's gold medal; Heinrich's; the Autotype Company's; and

Russian isinglass.

The only method I know of securing a uniform quality of gelatine is to

purchase several small samples, make a trial emulsion with each, and buy

a stock of the sample which gives the best results. To those who do not

care to go to this trouble, equal quantities of Nelson's No. 1 and

X opaque, as recommended by Captain Abney, can be employed. Having

selected the gelatine, 11/4 ounces should be allowed to soak in water, and

then melted, when it will be found to have a bulk of about 6 ounces.

In order to prepare our emulsion, I take equal bulks of the silver

nitrate and potassium bromide solutions in beakers, and place them in

the water bath to get hot. I also take an equal bulk of hot water in a

large beaker, and add to it one-half an ounce of the gelatine solution

to every 12 ounces of water. Having raised all these to about 180 deg. F., I

add (as you observe) to the large beaker containing the dilute gelatine

a little of the bromide, then, through a funnel having a fine orifice,

a little of the silver, swirling the liquid round during the operation;

then again some bromide and silver, and so on until all is added.

When this is completed, a little of the emulsion is poured on a glass

plate, and examined by transmitted light; if the mixing be efficient,

the light will appear--as it does here--of an orange or orange red

color.

It will be observed that we keep the bromide in excess while mixing. I

must not forget to mention that to those experienced in mixing, by

far the best method is that described by Captain Abney in his Cantor

lectures, of keeping the silver in excess.

The emulsion, being properly mixed, has now to be placed in the water

bath, and kept at the boiling point for forty-five minutes. As,

obviously, I cannot keep you waiting while this is done, I propose to

divide our emulsion into two portions, allowing one portion to stew, and

to proceed with the next operation with the remainder.

Supposing, then, this emulsion has been boiled, it is placed in cold

water to cool. While it is cooling, let us consider for a moment what

takes place during the boiling. It is found that during this time the

emulsion undergoes two remarkable changes:

1. The molecules of silver bromide gradually aggregate together, forming

larger and larger particles.

2. The emulsion increases rapidly in sensitiveness. Now what is the

cause, in the first place, of this aggregation of molecules: and, in the

second place, of the increase of sensitiveness? We know that the two

invariably go together, so that we are right in concluding that the same

cause produces both.

It might be thought that heat is the cause, but the same changes take

place more slowly in the cold, so we can only say that heat accelerates

the action, and hence must conclude that the prime cause is one of the

materials in the emulsion itself.

Now, besides the silver bromide, we have in the emulsion water,

gelatine, potassium nitrate, and a small excess of potassium bromide;

and in order to find which of these is the cause, we must make different

emulsions, omitting in succession each of these materials. Suppose we

take an emulsion which has just been mixed, and, instead of boiling

it, we precipitate the gelatine and silver bromide with alcohol; on

redissolving the pellicle in the same quantity of water, we have an

emulsion the same as previously, with the exception that the niter and

excess of potassium bromide are absent. If such an emulsion be boiled,

we shall find the remarkable fact that, however long it be boiled, the

silver bromide undergoes no change, neither does the emulsion become

any more sensitive. We therefore conclude, that either the niter or the

small excess of potassium bromide, or both together, produce the change.

Now take portions of a similarly washed emulsion, and add to one portion

some niter, and to another some potassium bromide; on boiling these

we find that the one containing niter does not change, while that

containing the potassium bromide rapidly undergoes the changes

mentioned.

Here, then, by a direct appeal to experiment, we prove that to all

appearance comparatively useless excess of potassium bromide is really

one of the most important constituents of the emulsion.

The following table gives some interesting results respecting this

action of potassium bromide:

__________________________________________________________

Excess of potash bromide. | Time to acquire maximum |

| sensitiveness. |

--------------------------+------------------------------+

0.2 grain per ounce | no increase after six hours. |

2.0 " " | about one-half an hour. |

20.0 " " | seven minutes. |

--------------------------+------------------------------+

I must here leave the _rationale_ of the process for the present, and

proceed with the next operation.

Our emulsion being cold, I add to it, for every 6 ounces of mixed

emulsion, 1 ounce of a saturated cold solution of potassium bichromate;

then, gently swirling the mixture round, a few drops of a dilute (1 to

8) solution of hydrochloric acid, and place it on one side for a minute

or two.

When hydrochloric acid is added to bichromate of potash, chromic acid is

liberated. Now, chromic acid has the property of precipitating gelatine,

so that what I hope to have done is to have precipitated the gelatine in

this emulsion, and which will carry down the silver bromide as well. You

see here I can pour off the supernatant liquid clear, leaving our silver

and gelatine as a clot at the bottom of the vessel.

Another action of chromic acid is, that it destroys the action of light

on silver bromide, so that up to this point operations can be carried on

in broad daylight.

The precipitated emulsion is now taken into the dark room and washed

until the wash water shows no trace of color; if there be a large

quantity, this is best done on a fine muslin filter; if a small

quantity, by decantation.

Having been thoroughly washed, I dissolve the pellicle in water by

immersing the beaker containing it in the water bath. I then add the

remaining gelatine, and make up the whole with 3 ounces of alcohol and

water to 30 ounces for the quantities given. I pass the emulsion through

a funnel containing a pellet of cotton wool in order to filter it, and

it is ready for coating the plates.

To coat a plate, I place it on this small block of leveled wood, and

pour on down a glass rod a small quantity of the emulsion, and by means

of the rod held horizontally, spread it over the plate. I then transfer

the plate to this leveled slab of plate glass, in order that the

emulsion on it may set. As soon as set, it is placed in the drying box.

This process, as here described, does not give plates of the highest

degree of sensitiveness, to attain which a further operation is

necessary; they are, however, of exceedingly good quality, and very

suitable for landscape work.--_Photo. News_.

* * * * *

PICTURES ON GLASS.

The invention of M. E. Godard, of Paris, has for its object the

reproduction of images and drawings, by means of vitrifiable colors on

glass, wood, stone, on canvas or paper prepared for oil-painting and on

other substances having polished surfaces, e. g., earthenware, copper,

etc. The original drawings or images should be well executed, and drawn

on white, or preferably bluish paper, similar to paper used for ordinary

drawings. In the patterns for glass painting, by this process, the place

to be occupied is marked by the lead, before cutting the glass to suit

the various shades which compose the color of a panel, as is usually

done in this kind of work; the operation changes only when the glass

cutter hands these sheets over to the man who undertakes the painting.

The sheets of glass are cut according to the lines of the drawing, and

after being well cleaned, they are placed on the paper on the places for

which they have been cut out. If the window to be stained is of large

size and consists of several panels, only one panel is proceeded with

at a time. The glass is laid on the reverse side of the paper (the side

opposite to the drawing), the latter having been made transparent by

saturating it with petroleum. This operation also serves to fix the

outlines of the drawing more distinctly, and to give more vigor to the

dark tone of the paper. When the paper is thus prepared, and the sheets

of glass each in its place, they are coated by means of a brush with

a sensitizing solution on the side which comes into contact with the

paper. This coating should be as thin and as uniform as possible on

the surface of the glass. For more perfectly equalizing the coating, a

second brush is used.

The sensitizing solution which serves to produce the verifiable image is

prepared as follows: Bichromate of ammonia is dissolved in water till

the latter is saturated; five grammes of powdered dextrin or glucose are

then dissolved in 100 grammes of water; to either of these solutions

is added 10 per cent. of the solution of bichromate, and the mixture

filtered.

The coating of the glass takes place immediately afterward in a dark

room; the coated sheets are then subjected to a heat of 50 deg. or 60 deg. C.

(120 deg. to 140 deg. Fahr.) in a small hot chamber, where they are laid one

after the other on a wire grating situated 35 centimeters above the

bottom. Care should be taken not to introduce the glass under treatment

into the hot chamber before the required degree of heat has been

obtained. A few seconds are sufficient to dry each sheet, and the wire

grating should be large enough to allow of the dried glass being laid in

rows, on one side where the heat is less intense. For the reproduction

of the pictures or images a photographic copying frame of the size of

the original is used. A stained glass window being for greater security

generally divided into different panels, the size of one panel is seldom

more than one square meter. If the picture to be reproduced should be

larger in size than any available copying frame, the prepared glass

sheets are laid between two large sheets of plate-glass, and part after

part is proceeded with, by sliding the original between the two sheets.

A photographic copying frame, however, is always preferable, as it

presses the glass sheets better against the original. The original

drawing is laid fiat on the glass of the frame. The lines where the lead

is to connect the respective sheets of glass are marked on the drawing

with blue or red pencil. The prepared sheets of glass are then placed

one after the other on the original in their respective places, so that

the coated side comes in contact with the original. The frame is then

closed. It should be borne in mind that the latter operations must be

performed in the dark room. The closed frame is now exposed to light. If

the operations are performed outdoors, the frame is laid flat, so that

the light falls directly on it; if indoors, the frame is placed inclined

behind a window, so that it may receive the light in front. The time

necessary for exposing the frame depends upon the light and the

temperature; for instance, if the weather is fine and cloudless and the

temperature from 16 deg. to 18 deg. C. (60 deg. to 64 deg. Fahr.), it will require from

12 to 15 minutes.

It will be observed that the time of exposure also depends on the

thickness of the paper used for the original. If, however, the weather

is dark, it requires from 30 to 50 minutes for the exposure. It will be

observed that if the temperature is above 25 deg. C. (about 80 deg. Fahr.), the

sheets of glass should be kept very cool and be less dried; otherwise,

when exposed the sheets are instantly metallized, and the reproduction

cannot take place. The same inconvenience takes place if the temperature

is beneath 5 deg. C. (41 deg. Fahr.). In this case the sheets should be kept

warm, and care should be taken not to expose the frame to the open air,

but always behind a glass window at a temperature of from 14 deg. to 18 deg.

C. (about 60 deg. Fahr.). The time necessary for the exposure can be

ascertained by taking out one of the many pieces of glass, applying to

the sensitive surface a vitrifiable color, and observing whether the

color adheres well. If the color adheres but slightly to the dark, shady

portions of the image, the exposure has been too long, and the process

must be recommenced; if, on the contrary, the color adheres too well,

the exposure has not been sufficient, the frames must be closed again,

and the exposure continued. When the frame has been sufficiently

exposed, it is taken into the dark room, the sensitized pieces of glass

laid on a plate of glass or marble with the sensitive surface turned

upward, and the previously prepared vitrifiable color strewed over it by

means of a few light strokes of a brush. This powder does not adhere to

the parts of the picture fully exposed to light, but adheres only to the

more or less shady portions of the picture. This operation develops

on the glass the image as it is on the paper. Thirty to 40 grammes

of nitric acid are added to 1,000 grammes of wood-spirit, such as is

generally used in photography, and the prepared pieces of glass are

dipped into the bath, leaving them afterward to dry. If the bath becomes

of a yellowish color, it must be renewed. This bath has for its object

to remove the coating of bichromate, so as to allow the color to adhere

to the glass, from which it has been separated by the layer of glucose

and bichromate, which would prevent the vitrification. The bath has also

for its object to render the light parts of the picture perfectly

pure and capable of being easily retouched or painted by hand. The

application of variously colored enamels and the heating are then

effected as in ordinary glass painting. The same process may be applied

to marble, wood, stone, lava, canvas prepared for oil painting,

earthenware, pure or enameled iron. The result is the same in all cases,

and the process is the same as with glass, with the difference only that

the above named materials are not dipped into the bath, but the liquid

is poured over the objects after the latter have been placed in an

inclined position.

* * * * *

PREPARATION OF HYDROGEN SULPHIDE FROM COAL-GAS.

By I. TAYLOR, B.A., Science Master at Christ College, Brecon.

Hydrogen sulphide may be prepared very easily, and sufficiently pure

for ordinary analytical purposes, by passing coal-gas through boiling

sulphur. Coal-gas contains 40 to 50 per cent, of hydrogen, nearly the

whole of which may, by means of a suitable arrangement, be converted

into sulphureted hydrogen. The other constituents of coal-gas--methane,

carbon monoxide, olefines, etc.--are not affected by passing through

boiling sulphur, and for ordinary laboratory work their removal is quite

unnecessary, as they do not in any way interfere with the precipitation

of metallic sulphides.

[Illustration: PREPARATION OF HYDROGEN SULPHIDE FROM COAL-GAS.]

A convenient apparatus for the preparation of hydrogen sulphide from

coal-gas, such as we have at present in use in the Christ College

laboratory, consists of a retort, R, in which sulphur is placed.

Through the tubulure of the retort there passes a bent glass-tube, T E,

perforated near the closed end, F, with a number of small holes. (The

perforations are easily made by piercing the partially softened glass

with a white-hot steel needle; an ordinary crotchet needle, the hook

having been removed and the end sharpened, answers the purpose very

well.) The end, T, of the glass tube is connected by caoutchouc tubing

with the coal-gas supply, the perforated end dipping into the sulphur.

The neck of the retort, inclined slightly upward to allow the condensed

sulpur, as it remelts, to flow back, is connected with awash bottle, B,

to which is attached the flask, F, containing the solution through which

it is required to pass the hydrogen sulphide; F is connected with an

aspirator, A.

About one pound of sulphur having been introduced into the retort and

heated to the boiling-point, the tap of the aspirator is turned on and

a current of coal-gas drawn through the boiling sulphur; the hydrogen

sulphide formed is washed by the water contained in B, passes on into

F, and finally into the aspirator. The speed of the current may be

regulated by the tap, and as the aspirator itself acts as a receptacle

for excess of gas, very little as a rule escapes into the room, and

consequently unpleasant smells are avoided.

This method of preparing sulphureted hydrogen will, I think, be found

useful in the laboratory. It is cleanly, much cheaper than the ordinary

method, and very convenient. During laboratory work, a burner is placed

under the retort and the sulphur kept hot, so that its temperature may

be quickly raised to the boiling-point when the gas is required. From

time to time it is necessary to replenish the retort with sulphur and to

remove the condensed portions from the neck.--_Chem. News_.

* * * * *

"SETTING" OF GYPSUM.--This setting is the result of two distinct, though

simultaneous, phenomena. On the one hand, portions of anhydrous calcium

sulphate, when moistened with water, dissolve as they are hydrated,

forming a supersaturated solution. On the other hand, this same solution

deposits crystals of the hydrated sulphate, gradually augment in bulk,

and unite together.--_H. Le Chatellier_.

* * * * *

[Continued from SUPPLEMENT No. 383, page 6118.]

MALARIA.

By JAMES H. SALISBURY, A.M., M.D.

PRIZE ESSAY OF THE ALBANY MEDICAL COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION, FEB.,

1882.

VII.

I have made careful microscopic examinations of the blood in several

cases of Panama fever I have treated, and find in all severe cases many

of the colorless corpuscles filled more or less with spores of ague

vegetation and the serum quite full of the same spores (see Fig. N,

Plate VIII.).

Mr. John Thomas. Panama fever. Vegetation in blood and colorless

corpuscles. (Fig N, Plate VIII.) Vegetation, spores of, in the colorless

corpuscles of the blood. Spores in serum of blood adhering to fibrin

filaments.

Mr. Thomas has charge of the bridge building on the Tehuantepec

Railroad. Went there about one year ago. Was taken down with the fever

last October. Returned home in February last, all broken down. Put him

under treatment March 15, 1882. Gained rapidly (after washing him out

with hot water, and getting his urine clear and bowels open every day)

on two grains of quinia every day, two hours, till sixteen doses were

taken. After an interval of seven days, repeated the quinia, and so on.

This fever prevails on all the low lands, as soon as the fresh soil

is exposed to the drying rays of the sun. The vegetation grows on the

drying soil, and the spores rise in the night air, and fall after

sunrise. All who are exposed to the night air, which is loaded with the

spores, suffer with the disease. The natives of the country suffer about

as badly as foreigners. Nearly half of the workmen die of the disease.

The fever is a congestive intermittent of a severe type.

Henry Thoman. Leucocythaemia. Spleen 11 inches in diameter, two white

globules to one red. German. Thirty-six years of age. Weight, 180

pounds. Colorless corpuscles very large and varying much in size, as

seen at N. Corpuscles filled--many of them--with the spores of ague

vegetation. Also spores swimming in serum.

This man has been a gardener back of Hoboken on ague lands, and has had

ague for two years preceding this disease.

I will now introduce a communication made to me by a medical gentleman

who has followed somewhat my researches for many years, and has taken

great pains of time and expense to see if my researches are correct.

REPORT ON THE CAUSE OF AGUE.--BY DR. EPHRAIM CUTTER, TO THE WRITER

At your request I give the evidence on which I base my opinion that your

plan in relation to ague is true.

From my very start into the medical profession, I had a natural intense

interest in the causes of disease, which was also fostered by my father,

the late Dr. Cutter, who honored his profession nearly forty years.

Hence, I read your paper on ague with enthusiasm, and wrote to you for

some of the plants of which you spoke. You sent me six boxes containing

soil, which you said was full of the gemiasmas. You gave some drawings,

so that I should know the plants when I saw them, and directed me to

moisten the soil with water and expose to air and sunlight. In the

course of a few days I was to proceed to collect. I faithfully followed

the instructions, but without any success. I could detect no plants

whatever,

This result would have settled the case ordinarily, and I would have

said that you were mistaken, as the material submitted by yourself

failed as evidence. But I thought that there was too much internal

evidence of the truth of your story, and having been for many years

an observer in natural history, I had learned that it is often very

difficult for one to acquire the art of properly making examinations,

even though the procedures are of the simplest description. So I

distrusted, not you, but myself, and hence, you may remember, I forsook

all and fled many hundred miles to you from my home with the boxes you

had sent me. In three minutes after my arrival you showed me how to

collect the plants in abundance from the very soil in the boxes that had

traveled so far backward and forward, from the very specimens on which I

had failed to do so.

The trouble was with me--that I went too deep with my needle. You showed

me it was simply necessary to remove the slightest possible amount on

the point of a cambric needle; deposit this in a drop of clean water on

a slide cover with, a covering glass and put it under your elegant 1/5

inch objective, and there were the gemiasmas just as you had described.

I have always felt humbled by this teaching, and I at the time rejoiced

that instead of denouncing you as a cheat and fraud (as some did at that

time), I did not do anything as to the formation of an opinion until I

had known more and more accurately about the subject.

I found all the varieties of the palmellae you described in the boxes,

and I kept them for several years and demonstrated them as I had

opportunity. You also showed me on this visit the following experiments

that I regarded as crucial:

1st. I saw you scrape from the skin of an ague patient sweat and

epithelium with the spores and the full grown plants of the Gemiasma

verdans.

2d. I saw you take the sputa of a ague patient and demonstrate the

spores and sporangia of the Gemiasma verdans.

3d. I saw you take the urine of a female patient suffering from ague

(though from motives of delicacy I did not see the urine voided--still I

believe that she did pass the urine, as I did not think it necessary to

insult the patient), and you demonstrated to me beautiful specimens of

Gemiasma rubra. You said it was not common to find the full development

in the urine of such cases, but only in the urine of the old severe

cases. This was a mild case.

4th. I saw you take the blood from the forearm of an ague patient, and

under the microscope I saw you demonstrate the gemiasma, white and

bleached in the blood. You said that the coloring matter did not develop

in the blood, that it was a difficult task to demonstrate the plants in

the blood, that it required usually a long and careful search of hours

sometimes, and at other times the plants would be obtained at once.

When I had fully comprehended the significance of the experiments I was

filled with joy, and like the converts in apostolic times I desired to

go about and promulgate the news to the profession. I did so in many

places, notably in New York city, where I satisfactorily demonstrated

the plants to many eminent physicians at my room at the Fifth Avenue

Hotel; also before a medical society where more than one hundred persons

were present. I did all that I could, but such was the preoccupation of

the medical gentlemen that a respectful hearing was all I got. This is

not to be wondered at, as it was a subject, now, after the lapse of

nearly a decade and a half, quite unstudied and unknown. After this I

studied the plants as I had opportunity, and in 1877 made a special

journey to Long Island, N.Y., for the purpose of studying the plants in

their natural habitat, when they were in a state of maturity. I have

also examined moist soils in localities where ague is occasionally

known, with other localities where it prevails during the warm months.

Below I give the results, which from convenience I divide into two

parts: 1st. Studies of the ague plants in their natural habitat. 2d.

Studies of the ague plants in their unnatural habitat (parasitic). I

think one should know the first before attempting the second.

_First_--Studies to find in their natural habitat the palmellae described

as the Gemiasma rubra, Gemiasma verdans, Gemiasma plumba, Gemiasma alba,

Protuberans lamella.

_Second_--_Outfit_.--Glass slides, covers, needles, toothpicks, bottle

of water, white paper and handkerchief, portable microscope with a good

Tolles one inch eyepiece, and one-quarter inch objective.

Wherever there was found on low, marshy soil a white incrustation like

dried salt, a very minute portion was removed by needle or toothpick,

deposited on a slide, moistened with a drop of water, rubbed up with a

needle or toothpick into a uniformly diffused cloud in and through the

water. The cover was put on, and the excess of water removed by touching

with a handkerchief the edge of the cover. Then the capillary attraction

held the cover in place, as is well known. The handkerchief or white

paper was spread on the ground at my feet, and the observation conducted

at once after the collection and on the very habitat. It is possible

thus to conduct observations with the microscope besides in boats on

ponds or sea, and adding a good kerosene light in bed or bunk or on

lounge.

August 11, 1877.--Excursion to College Point, Flushing, Long Island:

Observation 1. 1:50 P.M. Sun excessively hot. Gathered some of the white

incrustation on sand in a marsh west of Long Island Railroad depot.

Found some Gemiasma verdans, G. rubra; the latter were dry and not good

specimens, but the field swarmed with the automobile spores. The full

developed plant is termed sporangia, and seeds are called spores.

Observation 2. Another specimen from same locality, not good; that is,

forms were seen but they were not decisive and characteristic.

Observation 3. Earth from Wallabout, near Naval Hospital, Brooklyn, Rich

in spores (A) with automobile protoplasmic motions, (B) Gemiasma rubra,

Observation 4. Walking up the track east of L. I. R.R. depot, I took an

incrustation near creek; not much found but dirt and moving spores.

Observation 5. Seated on long marsh grass I scraped carefully from the

stalks near the roots of the grass where the plants were protected from

the action of the sunlight and wind. Found a great abundance of mature

Gemiasma verdans very beautiful in appearance.

_Notes_.--The time of my visit was most unfavorable. The best time is

when the morning has just dawned and the dew is on the grass. One then

can find an abundance, while after the sun is up and the air is hot the

plants disappear; probably burst and scatter the spores in billions,

which, as night comes on and passes, develop into the mature plants,

when they may be found in vast numbers. It would seem from this that the

life epoch of a gemiasma is one day under such circumstances, but I have

known them to be present for weeks under a cover on a slide, when the

slide was surrounded with a bandage wet with water, or kept in a culture

box. The plants may be cultivated any time in a glass with a water

joint. A, Goblet inverted over a saucer; B, filled with water; C, D,

specimen of earth with ague plants.

Observation 6. Some Gemiasma verdaus; good specimens, but scanty.

Innumerable mobile spores. Dried.

Observation 7. Red dust on gray soil. Innumerable mobile spores. Dried

red sporangia of G. rubra.

Observation 8. White incrustation. Innumerable mobile spores. No plants.

Observation 9. White incrustation. Many minute algae, but two sporangia

of a pale pink color; another variety of color of gemiasma. Innumerable

mobile spores.

Observation 10. Gemiasma verdans and G. rubra in small quantities.

Innumerable mobile spores.

Observation 11. Specimen taken from under the shade of short marsh

grass. Gemiasma exceedingly rich and beautiful. Innumerable mobile

spores.

Observation 12. Good specimens of Gemiasma rubra. Innumerable spores

present in all specimens.

Observation 13. Very good specimens of Protuberans lamella.

Observation 14. The same.

Observation 15. Dead Gemiasma verdans and rubra.

Observation 16. Collection very unpromising by macroscopy, but by

microscopy showed many spores, mature specimens of Gemiasma rubra and

verdans. One empty specimen with double walls.

Observation 17. Dry land by the side of railroad. Protuberans not

abundant.

Observation 18. From side of ditch. Filled with mature Geraiasma

verdans.

Observation 19. Moist earth near a rejected timber of the railroad

bridge. Abundance of Gemiasma verdans, Sphaerotheca Diatoms.

Observation 20. Scrapings on earth under high grass. Large mature

specimens of Gemiasma rubra and verdans. Many small.

Observation 21. Same locality. Gemiasma rubra and verdans; good

specimens.

Observation 22. A dry stem of a last year's annual plant lay in the

ditch not submerged, that appeared as if painted red with iron rust.

This redness evidently made up of Gemiasma rubra dried.

Observation 23. A twig submerged in a ditch was scraped. Gemiasma

verdans found abundantly with many other things, which if rehearsed

would cloud this story.

Observation 24. Scrapings from the dirty end of the stick (23) gave

specimens of the beautiful double wall palmellae and some empty G.

verdans.

Observation 25. Stirred up the littoral margins of the ditch with stick

found in the path, and the drip showed Gemiasma rubra and verdans mixed

in with dirt, debris, other algae, fungi, infusoria, especially diatoms.

Observation 26. I was myself seized with sneezing and discharge running

from nostrils during these examinations. Some of the contents of

the right nostril were blown on a slide, covered, and examined

morphologically. Several oval bodies, round algae, were found with the

characteristics of G. verdans and rubra. Also some colorless sporangia,

and spores abundantly present. These were in addition to the normal

morphological elements found in the excretions.

Observation 27. Dried clay on margin of the river showed dry G. verdans.

Observation 28. Saline dust on earth that had been thrown out during the

setting of a new post in the railroad bridge showed some Gemiasma alba.

Observation 29. The dry white incrustation found on fresh earth near

railroad track entirely away from water, where it appeared as if

white sugar or sand had been sprinkled over in a fine dust, showed

an abundance of automobile spores and dry sporangia of G. rubra and

verdans. It was not made up of salts from evaporation.

Observation 30. Some very thick, long, green, matted marsh grass was

carefully separated apart like the parting of thick hair on the head. A

little earth was taken from the crack, and the Protuberans lamella, the

Gemiasma rubra and verdans found were beautiful and well developed.

Observation 31. Brooklyn Naval Hospital, August 12, 1877, 4 A.M. Called

up by the Quartermaster. With Surgeon C. W. White, U.S.N., took (A) one

five inch glass beaker, bottomless, (B) three clean glass slides, (C)

chloride of calcium solution, [symbol: dra(ch)m] i to [symbol: ounce] i

water. We went, as near as I could judge in the darkness, to about that

portion of the wall that lies west of the hospital, southeast corner

(now all filled up), where on the 10th of August previously I had found

some actively growing specimens of the Gemiasma verdans, rubra, and

protuberans. The chloride of calcium solution was poured into a glass

tumbler, then rubbed over the inside and outside of the beaker. It was

then placed on the ground, the rim of the mouth coming on the soil and

the bottom elevated on an old tin pan, so that the beaker stood inclined

at an angle of about forty-five degrees with the horizon. The slides

were moistened, one was laid on a stone, one on a clod, and a third on

the grass. Returned to bed, not having been gone over ten minutes.

At 6 A.M. collected and examined for specimens the drops of dew

deposited. Results: In every one of the five instances collected

the automobile spores, and the sporangia of the gemiasmas and the

protuberans on both sides of slides and beaker. There were also spores

and mycelial filaments of fungi, dirt, and zoospores. The drops of dew

were collected with capillary tubes such as were used in Edinburgh for

vaccine virus. The fluid was then preserved and examined in the naval

laboratory. In a few hours the spores disappeared.

Observation 32. Some of the earth near the site of the exposure referred

to in Observation 31, was examined and found to contain abundantly the

Gemiasma verdans, rubra, Protuberans lamella, confirmed by three more

observations.

Observation 33. In company with Surgeon F. M. Dearborne, U.S.N., in

charge of Naval Hospital, the same day later explored the wall about

marsh west of hospital. Found the area abundantly supplied with

palmellae, Gemiasma rubra, verdans, and Protuberans lamella, even where

there was no incrustation or green mould. Made very many examinations,

always finding the plants and spores, giving up only when both of us

were overcome with the heat.

Observation 34. August, 1881. Visited the Wallabout; found it filled up

with earth. August 17. Visited the Flushing district; examined for the

gemiasma the same localities above named, but found only a few dried up

plants and plenty of spores. With sticks dug up the earth in various

places near by. Early in September revisited the same, but found nothing

more; the incrustation, not even so much as before. The weather was

continuously for a long time very dry, so much so that vegetables and

milk were scarce.

The grass and grounds were all dried up and cracked with fissures.

There must be some moisture for the development of the plants. Perhaps

if I had been able to visit the spots in the early morning, it would

have been much better, as about the same time I was studying the same

vegetation on 165th Street and 10th Avenue, New York, and found an

abundance of the plants in the morning, but none scarcely in the

afternoon.

Should any care to repeat these observations, these limits should be

observed and the old adage about "the early bird catching the worm,"

etc. Some may object to this directness of report, and say that we

should report all the forms of life seen. To this I would say that

the position I occupy is much different from yours, which is that of

discoverer. When a detective is sent out to catch a rogue, he tumbles

himself but little with people or things that have no resemblance to the

rogue. Suppose he should return with a report as to the houses, plants,

animals, etc., he encountered in his search; the report might be very

interesting as a matter of general information, but rather out of place

for the parties who desire the rogue caught. So in my search I made a

special work of catching the gemiasmas and not caring for anything else.

Still, to remove from your mind any anxiety that I may possibly not have

understood how to conduct my work, I will introduce here a report

of search to find out how many forms of life and substances I could

recognize in the water of a hydrant fed by Croton water (two specimens

only), during the present winter (1881 and 1882) I beg leave to subjoin

the following list of species, not individuals, I was able to recognize.

In this list you will see the Gemiasma verdans distinguished from its

associate objects. I think I can in no other way more clearly show my

right to have my honest opinion respected in relation to the subject in

question.

[Illustration: MALARIA PLANTS COLLECTED SEPT. 10, 1882, AT WASHINGTON

HEIGHTS, 176TH STREET, NEAR 10TH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY, ETC.

PLATE VIII.--A, B, C, Large plants of Gemiasma verdans. A, Mature plant.

B, Mature plant discharging spores and spermatia through a small opening

in the cell wall. C, A plant nearly emptied. D, Gemiasma rubra; mature

plant filled with microspores. E, Ripe plant discharging contents. F,

Ripe plant, contents nearly discharged; a few active spermatia left

behind and escaping. G, nearly empty plant. H, Vegetation in the SWEAT

of ague cases during the paroxysm of sweating. I, Vegetation in the

BLOOD of ague. J, Vegetation in the urine of ague during paroxysm. K, L,

M, Vegetation in the urine of chronic cases of severe congestive type.

N, Vegetation in BLOOD of Panama fever; white corpuscles distended with

spores of Gemiasma. O, Gemiasma alba. P, Gemiasma rubra. Q, Gemiasma

verdans. R, Gemiasma alba. O, P, Q, R, Found June 28,1867, in profusion

between Euclid and Superior Streets, near Hudson, Cleveland, O. S,

Sporangia of Protuberans.]

List of objects found in the Croton water, winter of 1881 and 1882. The

specimens obtained by filtering about one barrel of water:

1. Acineta tuberosa.

2. Actinophrys sol.

3. Amoeba proteus.

4. " radiosa.

5. " verrucosa.

6. Anabaina subtularia.

7. Ankistrodesmus falcatus.

8. Anurea longispinis.

9. " monostylus.

10. Anguillula fluviatilis.

11. Arcella mitrata.

12. " vulgaris.

13. Argulus.

14. Arthrodesmus convergens.

15. Arthrodesmus divergens.

16. Astrionella formosa.

17. Bacteria.

18. Bosmina.

19. Botryiococcus.

20. Branchippus stagnalis.

21. Castor.

22. Centropyxis.

23. Chetochilis.

24. Chilomonads.

25. Chlorococcus.

26. Chydorus.

27. Chytridium.

28. Clatbrocystis aeruginosa.

29. Closterium lunula.

30. " didymotocum.

31. " moniliferum.

32. Coelastrum sphericum.

33. Cosmarium binoculatum.

34. Cyclops quad.

35. Cyphroderia amp.

36. Cypris tristriata.

37. Daphnia pulex.

38. Diaptomas castor.

39. " sull.

40. Diatoma vulgaris.

41. Difflugia cratera.

42. " globosa.

43. Dinobryina sertularia.

44. Dinocharis pocillum.

45. Dirt.

46. Eggs of polyp.

47. " entomostraca.

48. " plumatella.

49. " bryozoa.

50. Enchylis pupa.

51. Eosphora aurita.

52. Epithelia, animal.

53. " vegetable.

54. Euastrum.

55. Euglenia viridis.

56. Euglypha.

57. Eurycercus lamellatus.

58. Exuvia of some insect.

59. Feather barbs.

60. Floscularia.

61. Feathers of butterfly.

62. Fungu, red water.

63. Fragillaria.

64. Gemiasma verdans.

65. Gomphospheria.

66. Gonium.

67. Gromia.

68. Humus.

69. Hyalosphenia tinctad.

70. Hydra viridis.

71. Leptothrix.

72. Melosira.

73. Meresmopedia.

74. Monactina.

75. Monads.

76. Naviculae.

77. Nitzschia.

78. Nostoc communis.

79. OEdogonium.

80. Oscillatoriaceae.

81. Ovaries of entomostraca.

82. Pandorina morum.

83. Paramecium aurelium.

84. Pediastrum boryanum.

85. " incisum.

86. " perforatum.

87. " pertusum.

88. " quadratum.

89. Pelomyxa.

90. Penium.

91. Peredinium candelabrum.

92. Peredinium cinc.

93. Pleurosigma angulatum.

94. Plumatella.

95. Plagiophrys.

96. Playtiptera polyarthra.

97. Polycoccus.

98. Pollen of pine.

99. Polyhedra tetraetzica.

100. " triangularis.

101. Polyphema.

102. Protococcus.

103. Radiophrys alba.

104. Raphidium duplex.

105. Rotifer ascus.

106. " vulgaris.

107. Silica.

108. Saprolegnia.

109. Scenedesmus acutus.

110. " obliquus.

111. " obtusum.

112. " quadricauda.

113. Sheath of tubelaria.

114. Sphaerotheca spores.

115. Spirogyra.

116. Spicules of sponge.

117. Starch.

118. Staurastrum furcigerum.

119. " gracile.

120. Staurogenum quadratum.

121. Surirella.

122. Synchoeta.

123. Synhedra.

124. Tabellaria.

125. Tetraspore.

126. Trachelomonas.

127. Trichodiscus.

128. Uvella.

129. Volvox globator.

130. " sull.

131. Vorticel.

132. Worm fluke.

133. Worm, two tailed.

134. Yeast.

More forms were found, but could not be determined by me. This list will

give an idea of the variety of forms to be met with in the hunt for ague

plants; still, they are as well marked in their physical characters as a

potato is among the objects of nature. Although I know you are perfectly

familiar with algae, still, to make my report more complete, in case you

should see fit to have it pass out of your hands to others, allow me

to give a short account of the Order Three of Algae, namely, the

Chlorosporeae or Confervoid Algae, derived from the Micrographic

Dictionary, this being an accessible authority.

Algae form a class of the thallophytes or cellular plants in which the

physiological functions of the plant are delegated most completely to

the individual cell. That is to say, the marked difference of purpose

seen in the leaves, stamens, seeds, etc., of the phanerogams or

flowering plants is absent here, and the structures carrying on the

operations of nutrition and those of reproduction are so commingled,

conjoined, and in some cases identified, that a knowledge of the

microscopic anatomy is indispensable even to the roughest conception of

the natural history of these plants; besides, we find these plants

so simple that we can see through and through them while living in a

natural condition, and by means of the microscope penetrate to mysteries

of organism, either altogether inaccessible, or only to be attained by

disturbing and destructive dissection, in the so called higher forms of

vegetation. We say "so-called" advisedly, for in the Algae are included

the largest forms of plant life.

The Macrocystis pyrifera, an Algae, is the largest of all known plants.

It is a sea weed that floats free and unattached in the ocean. Covers

the area of two square miles, and is 300 feet in depth (Reinsch). At the

same time its structure on examination shows it to belong to the same

class of plants as the minute palmellae which we have been studying.

Algae are found everywhere in streams, ditches, ponds, even the smallest

accumulations of water standing for any time in the open air, and

commonly on walls or the ground, in all permanently damp situations.

They are peculiarly interesting in regard to morphological conditions

alone, as their great variety of conditions of organization are all

variations, as it were, on the theme of the simple vegetable cell

produced by change of form, number, and arrangement.

The Algae comprehend a vast variety of plants, exhibiting a wonderful

multiplicity of forms, colors, sizes, and degrees of complexity of

structure, but algologists consider them to belong to three orders: 1.

Red spored Algae, called Rhodosporeae or florideae. 2. The dark or black

spored Algae, or Melanosporeae or Fucoideae. 3. The green spored Algae,

or Chlorosporeae or Confervoideae. The first two classes embrace the

sea-weeds. The third class, marine and aquatic plants, most of which

when viewed singly are microscopic. Of course some naturalists do not

agree to these views. It is with order three, Confervoideae, that we are

interested. These are plants growing in sea or fresh water, or on damp

surfaces, with a filamentous, or more rarely a leaf-like pulverulent

or gelatinous thallus; the last two forms essentially microscopic.

Consisting frequently of definitely arranged groups of distinct

cells, either of ordinary structure or with their membrane

silicified--Diatomaceae. We note three forms of fructification: 1.

Resting spores produced after fertilization either by conjugation or

impregnation. 2. Spermatozoids. 3. Zeospores; 2, 4, or multiciliated

active automobile cells--gonidia--discharged from the mother cells or

plants without impregnation, and germinating directly. There is also

another increase by cell division.

SYNOPSIS OF THE FAMILIES.

1. _Lemaneae_.--Frond filamentous, inarticulate, cartilaginous, leathery,

hollow, furnished at irregular distances with whorls or warts, or

necklace shaped. Fructification: tufted, simple or branched, necklace

shaped filaments attached to the inner surface of the tubular frond, and

finally breaking up into elliptical spores. Aquatic.

2. _Batrachospermeae_--Plants filamentous, articulated, invested with

gelatine. Frond composed of aggregated, articulated, longitudinal cells,

whorled at intervals with short, horizontal, cylindrical or beaded,

jointed ramuli. Fructification: ovate spores and tufts of antheridial

cells attached to the lateral ramuli, which consist of minute,

radiating, dichotomous beaded filaments. Aquatic.

3. _Chaetophoraceae_.--Plants growing in the sea or fresh water, coated

by gelatinous substance; either filiform or a number of filaments being

connected together constituting gelatinous, definitely formed, or

shapeless fronds or masses. Filaments jointed, bearing bristle-like

processes. Fructification: zoospores produced from the cell contents of

the filaments; resting spores formed from the contents of particular

cells after impregnation by ciliated spermatozoids produced in distinct

antheridial cells. Coleochaetae.

4. _Confervaceae_.--Plants growing in the sea or in fresh water,

filamentous, jointed, without evident gelatine (forming merely a

delicate coat around the separate filaments) Filaments very variable in

appearance, simple or branched; the cells constituting the articulations

of the filaments more or less filled with green, or very rarely brown or

purple granular matter; sometimes arranged in peculiar patterns on the

walls, and convertible into spores or zoospores. Not conjugating.

5. _Zygnemaceae_.--Aquatic filamentous plants, without evident gelatine,

composed of series of cylindrical cells, straight or curved. Cell

contents often arranged in elegant patterns on the walls. Reproduction

resulting from conjugation, followed by the development of a true spore,

in some genera dividing into four sporules before germinating.

6. _OEdogoniaceae_.--Simple or branched aquatic filamentous plants

attached without gelatine. Cell contents uniform, dense, cell division

accompanied by circumscissile debiscence of the parent cell, producing

rings on the filaments. Reproduction by zoospores formed of the whole

contents of a cell, with a crown of numerous cilia; resting spores

formed in sporangial cells after fecundation by ciliated spermatozoids

formed in antheridial cells.

7. _Siphonaceae_--Plants found in the sea, fresh water, or on damp

ground; of a membranous or horny byaline substance, filled with green

or colorless granular matter. Fronds consisting of continuous tubular

filaments, either free or collected into spongy masses of various

shapes. Crustaceous, globular, cylindrical, or flat. Fructification: by

zoospores, either single or very numerous, and by resting spores formed

in sporangial cells after the contents have been impregnated by the

contents of autheridial cells of different forms.

8 _Oscillatoriaceae_.--Plants growing either in the sea, fresh water, or

on damp ground, of a gelatinous substance and filamentous structure.

Filaments very slender, tubular, continuous, filled with colored,

granular, transversely striated substance; seldom blanched, though often

cohering together so as to appear branched; usually massed together

in broad floating or sessile strata, of a very gelatinous nature;

occasionally erect and tufted, and still more rarely collected into

radiating series bound together by firm gelatine and then forming

globose lobed or flat crustaceous fronds. Fructification: the internal

mass or contents separating into roundish or lenticular gonidia.

9. _Nostochacae_.--Gelatinous plants growing in fresh water, or in damp

situations among mosses, etc.; of soft or almost leathery substance,

consisting of variously curled or twisted necklace-shaped filaments,

colorless or green, composed of simple, or in some stages double rows

of cells, contained in a gelatinous matrix of definite form, or heaped

together without order in a gelatinous mass. Some of the cells enlarged,

and then forming either vesicular empty cells or densely filled

sporangial cells. Reproduction: by the breaking up of the filaments, and

by resting spores formed singly in the sporanges.

10. _Ulvaceae_.--Marine or aquatic algae consisting of membranous, flat,

and expanded tubular or saccate fronds composed of polygonal cells

firmly joined together by their sides.

Reproduced by zoospores formed from the cell contents and breaking

out from the surface, or by motionless spores formed from the whole

contents.

11. _Palmellaceae_.--Plants forming gelatinous or pulverulent crusts on

damp surfaces of stone, wood, earth, mud, swampy districts, or more

or less regular masses of gelatinous substance or delicate

pseudo-membranous expansion or fronds, of flat, globular, or tubular

form, in fresh water or on damp ground; composed of one or many,

sometimes innumerable, cells, with green, red, or yellowish contents,

spherical or elliptical form, the simplest being isolated cells found in

groups of two, four, eight, etc., in course of multiplication. Others

permanently formed of some multiple of four; the highest forms made up

of compact, numerous, more or less closely joined cells. Reproduction:

by cell division, by the conversion of the cell contents into zoospores,

and by resting spores, formed sometimes after conjugation; in other

cases, probably, by fecundation by spermatozoids. All the unicellular

algae are included under this head.

12. _Desmidiaceae_.--Microscopic gelatinous plants, of a screen color,

growing in fresh water, composed of cells devoid of a silicious coat,

of peculiar forms such as oval, crescentic, shortly cylindrical,

cylindrical, oblong, etc., with variously formed rays or lobes, giving

a more or less stellate form, presenting a bilateral symmetry, the

junction of the halves being marked by a division of the green contents;

the individual cells being free, or arranged in linear series, collected

into fagot-like bundles or in elegant star like groups which are

embedded in a common gelatinous coat. Reproduced by division and by

resting spores produced in sporangia formed after the conjugation of

two cells and union of their contents, and by zoospores formed in the

vegetative cells or in the germinating resting spores.

13. _Diatomaceae_.--Microscopic cellular bodies, growing in fresh,

brackish, and sea water: free or attached, single, or embedded in

gelatinous tubes, the individual cells (frustules) with yellowish or

brown contents, and provided with a silicious coat composed of two

usually symmetrical valves variously marked, with a connecting band or

hoop at the suture. Multiplied by division and by the formation of new

larger individuals out of the contents of individual conjugated cells;

perhaps also by spores and zoospores.

14. _Volvocineae_.--Microscopic cellular fresh water plants, composed of

groups of bodies resembling zoospores connected into a definite form

by their enveloping membranes. The families are formed either of

assemblages of coated zoospores united in a definite form by the

cohesion of their membranes, or assemblages of naked zoospores inclosed

in a common investing membrane. The individual zoospore-like bodies,

with two cilia throughout life, perforating the membranous coats, and by

their conjoined action causing a free co-operative movement of the whole

group. Reproduction by division, or by single cells being converted into

new families; and by resting spores formed from some of the cells after

impregnation by spermatozoids formed from the contents of other cells of

the same family.

[Illustration: MALARIA PLANTS COLLECTED AT 165TH STREET, EAST OF 10TH

AVENUE, OCT., 1881.

Plate IX.--Large group of malaria plants, Gemiasma verdans, collected at

165th Street, east of 10th Avenue, New York, in October, 1881, by Dr.

Ephraim Cutter, and projected by him with a solar microscope. Dr.

Cuzner--the artist--outlined the group on the screen and made the

finished drawing from the sketch. He well preserved the grouping and

relative sizes. The pond hole whence they came was drained in the spring

of 1882, and in August was covered with coarse grass and weeds. No

plants were found there in satisfactory quantity, but those figured

on Plate VIII. were found half a mile beyond. This shows how draining

removes the malaria plants.]

From the description I think you have placed your plants in the right

family. And evidently they come in the genera named, but at present

there is in the authorities at my command so much confusion as to the

genera, as given by the most eminent authorities, like Nageli, Kutzing,

Braun Rabenht, Cohn, etc., that I think it would be quite unwise for

me to settle here, or try to settle here, questions that baffle the

naturalists who are entirely devoted to this specialty. We can safely

leave this to them. Meantime let us look at the matter as physicians

who desire the practical advantages of the discovery you have made.

To illustrate this position let us take a familiar case. A boy going

through the fields picks and eats an inedible mushroom. He is poisoned

and dies. Now, what is the important part of history here from a

physician's point of view? Is it not that the mushroom poisoned the

child? Next comes the nomenclature. What kind of agaricus was it? Or was

it one of the gasteromycetes, the coniomycetes, the hyphomycetes, the

ascomycetes, or one of the physomycetes? Suppose that the fungologists

are at swords' points with each other about the name of the particular

fungus that killed the boy? Would the physicians feel justified to sit

down and wait till the whole crowd of naturalists were satisfied, and

the true name had been settled satisfactorily to all? I trow not; they

would warn the family about eating any more; and if the case had not yet

perished, they would let the nomenclature go and try all the means that

history, research, and instructed common sense would suggest for the

recovery.

This leads me here to say that physicians trust too much to the simple

dicta of men who may be very eminent in some department of natural

history, and yet ignorant in the very department about which, being

called upon, they have given an opinion. All everywhere have so much

to learn that we should be very careful how we reject new truths,

especially when they come from one of our number educated in our own

medical schools, studied under our own masters. If the subject is

one about which we know nothing, we had better say so when asked our

opinion, and we should receive with respect what is respectfully offered

by a man whom we know to be honest, a hard worker, eminent in his

department by long and tedious labors. If he asks us to look over his

evidence, do so in a kindly spirit, and not open the denunciations of

bar room vocabularies upon the presenter, simply because we don't see

his point. In other words, we should all be receptive, but careful in

our assimilation, remembering that some of the great operations in

surgery, for example, came from laymen in low life, as the operation for

stone, and even the operation of spaying came from a swineherd.

It is my desire, however, to have this settled as far as can be among

scientists, but for the practical uses of practicing physicians I say

that far more evidence has been adduced by you in support of the cause

of intermittent fever than we have in the etiology of many other

diseases. I take the position that so long as no one presents a better

history of the etiology of intermittent fever by facts and observations,

your theory must stand. This, too, notwithstanding what may be said to

the contrary.

Certainly you are to be commended for having done as you have in this

matter. It is one of the great rights of the profession, and duties

also, that if a physician has or thinks he has anything that is new and

valuable, to communicate it, and so long as he observes the rules of

good society the profession are to give him a respectful hearing,

even though he may have made a mistake. I do not think you had a fair

hearing, and hence so far as I myself am concerned I indorse your

position, and shall do so till some one comes along and gives a better

demonstration. Allow me also to proceed with more evidence.

Observation at West Falmouth, Mass., Sept 1, 1877. I made five

observations in like manner about the marshes and bogs of this town,

which is, as it were, situated on the tendo achillis of Cape Cod, Mass.

In only one of these observations did I find any palmellae like the ague

plants, and they were not characteristic.

Chelsea, Mass., near the Naval Hospital, September 5, 1877. Three sets

of observations. In all spores were found and some sporangia, but

they were not the genuine plants as far as I could judge. They were

Protococcaceae. It is not necessary to add that there are no cases of

intermittent fever regarded as originating on the localities named.

Still, the ancient history of New England contains some accounts of ague

occurring there, but they are not regarded as entirely authentic.

Observation. Lexington, Mass, September 6, 1877. Observation made in

a meadow. There was no saline incrustation, and no palmellae found. No

local malaria.

Observation. Cambridge, Mass. Water works on the shore of Fresh Pond.

Found a few palmellae analogous to, but not the ague palmellae.

Observation. Woburn, Mass, September 27, 1877, with Dr. J. M. Moore.

Found some palmellae, but scanty. Abundance of spores of cryptogams.

Observation. Stonington, Conn., August 15, 1877. Examined a pond hole

nearly opposite the railroad station on the New York Shore Line. Found

abundantly the white incrustation on the surface of the soil. Here I

found the spores and the sporangias of the gemiasmas verdans and rubra.

Observation 2. Repetition of the last.

Observation 3. I examined some of an incrustation that was copiously

deposited in the same locality, which was not white or frosty, but dark

brown and a dirty green. Here the spores were very abundant, and a few

sporangias of the Gemiasma rubra. Ague has of late years been noted in

Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Observations in Connecticut. Middlefield near Middletown, summer of

1878. Being in this locality, I heard that intermittent fever was

advancing eastward at the rate of ten miles a year. It had been observed

in Middlefield. I was much interested to see if I could find the

gemiasmas there. On examining the dripping of some bog moss, I found a

plenty of them.

Observations in Connecticut. New Haven. Early in the summer of 1881 I

visited this city. One object of my visit was to ascertain the truth

of the presence of intermittent fever there, which I had understood

prevailed to such an extent that my patient, a consumptive, was afraid

to return to his home in New Haven. At this time I examined the hydrant

water of the city water works, and also the east shore of the West

River, which seemed to be too full of sewage. I found a plenty of the

Oscillatoreaceae, but no Palmellae.

In September I revisited the city, taking with me a medical gentleman

who, residing in the South, had had a larger experience with the disease

than I. From the macroscopical examination he pronounced a case we

examined to be ague, but I was not able to detect the plants either in

the urine or blood. This might have been that I did not examine long

enough. But a little later I revisited the city and explored the soil

about the Whitney Water Works, whence the city gets its supply of

water, and I had no difficulty in finding a good many of the plants

you describe as found by you in ague cases. At a still later period my

patient, whom I had set to use the microscope and instructed how to

collect the ague plants, set to work himself. One day his mother brought

in a film from off an ash pile that lay in the shade, and this her son

found was made up of an abundance of the ague plants. By simply winding

a wet bandage around the slide, Mr. A. was enabled to keep the plants

in good condition until the time of my next visit, when I examined and

pronounced them to be genuine plants.

I should here remark that I had in examining the sputa of this patient

sent to me, found some of the ague plants. He said that he had been

riding near the Whitney Pond, and perceived a different odor, and

thought he must have inhaled the miasm. I told him he was correct in his

supposition, as no one could mistake the plants; indeed, Prof. Nunn, of

Savannah, Ga., my pupil recognized it at once.

This relation, though short, is to me of great importance. So long as I

could not detect the gemiasmas in New Haven, I was very skeptical as to

the presence of malaria in New Haven, as I thought there must be some

mistake, it being a very good cloak to hide under (malaria). There is no

doubt but that the name has covered lesions not belonging to it. But now

the positive demonstrations above so briefly related show to my mind

that the local profession have not been mistaken, and have sustained

their high reputation.

I should say that I have examined a great deal of sputa, but, with the

exception of cases that were malarious, I have not encountered the

mature plants before. Of course I have found them as you did, in my own

excretions as I was traveling over ague bogs.

[_To be continued_.]

* * * * *

ICHTHYOL.

DR. P.G. UNNA, of Hamburg, has lately been experimenting on the dermato

therapeutic uses of a substance called ichthyol, obtained by Herr

Rudolph Schroter by the distillation of bituminous substances and

treatment with condensed sulphuric acid. This body, though tar-like in

appearance, and with a peculiar and disagreeable smell of its own, does

not resemble any known wood or coal tar in its chemical and physical

properties. It has a consistence like vaseline, and its emulsion with

water is easily washed off the skin. It is partly soluble in alcohol,

partly in ether with a changing and lessening of the smell, and totally

dissolves in a mixture of both. It may be mixed with vaseline, lard,

or oil in any proportions. Its chemical constitution is not well

established, but it contains sulphur, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and also

phosphorus in vanishing proportions, and it may be considered comparable

with a 10 per cent, sulphur salve. Over ordinary sulphur preparations

it has this advantage, that the sulphur is in very intimate and stable

union, so that ichthyol can be united with lead and mercury preparations

without decomposition. Ichthyol when rubbed undiluted on the normal skin

does not set up dermatitis, yet it is a resolvent, and in a high degree

a soother of pain and itching. In psoriasis it is a fairly good remedy,

but inferior to crysarobin in P. inveterata. It is useful also locally

in rheumatic affections as a resolvent and anodyne, in acne, and as a

parasiticide. The most remarkable effects, however, were met with in

eczema, which was cured in a surprisingly short time. From an experience

in the treatment of thirty cases of different kinds--viz., obstinate

circumscribed moist patches on the hands and arms, intensely itching

papular eczema of the flexures and face, infantile moist eczemas,

etc.--he recommends the following procedure. As with sulphur

preparations, he begins with a moderately strong preparation, and as

he proceeds reduces the strength of the application. For moist eczema

weaker preparations (20 to 30 per cent. decreased to 10 per cent.) must

be used than for the papular condition (50 per cent. reduced to 20 per

cent.), and the hand, for example, will require a stronger application

than the face, and children a weaker one than adults; but ichthyol may

be used in any strength from a 5 per cent. to a 40 to 50 per cent.

application or undiluted. For obstinate eczema of the hands the

following formula is given as very efficacious: R. Lithargyri 10.0;

coq.c. aceti, 30.0; ad reman. 20.0; adde olei olivar., adipis, aa 10.0;

ichthyol 10.0, M. ft. ung. Until its internal effects are better known,

caution is advised as to its very widespread application, although

Herr Schroter has taken a gramme with only some apparent increase of

peristalsis and appetite.--_Lancet_.

* * * * *

AUTOPSY TABLE.

The illustration represents an autopsy table placed in the Coroner's

Department of the New York Hospital, designed by George B. Post and

Frederick C. Merry.

An amphitheater, fitted up for the convenience of the jury and those

interested when inquests are held, surrounds the table, which is placed

in the center of the floor, thus enabling the subject to be viewed by

the coroner's jury and other officials who may be present.

The mechanical construction of this table will be readily understood by

the following explanation:

The top, indicated by letter, A, is made of thick, heavy, cast glass,

concaved in the direction of the strainer, as shown. It is about eight

feet long and two feet and six inches wide, in one piece, an opening

being left in the center to receive the strainer, so as to allow the

fluid matter of the body, as well as the water with which it is washed,

to find its way to the waste pipe below the table, and thus avoid

soiling or staining the floor,

The strainer is quite large, with a downward draught which passes

through a large flue, as shown by letter, F, connected above the water

seal of the waste trap and trunk of the table to the chimney of the

boiler house, as indicated by the arrows, carrying down all offensive

odors from the body, thereby preventing the permeating of the air in the

room.

[Illustration: IMPROVED AUTOPSY TABLE.]

The base of the table, indicated by letter, B, represents a ground

swinging attachment, which enables the turning of the table in any

direction.

D represents the cold water supply cock and handle, intersecting with

letter, E, which is the hot water cock, below the base, as shown, and

then upward to a swing or ball joint, C, then crossing under the plate

glass top to the right with a hose attachment for the use of the

operator. Here a small hose pipe is secured, for use as may be required

in washing off all matter, to insure the clean exposure of the parts to

be dissected. The ball swing, C, enables the turning of the table in any

direction without disturbing the water connections. This apparatus has

been in operation since the building of the hospital in 1876, and has

met all the requirements in connection with its uses.--_Hydraulic

Plumber_.

* * * * *

THE EXCITING PROPERTIES OF OATS.

Experiments have been recently made by Mr. Sanson with a view to

settling the question whether oats have or have not the excitant

property that has been attributed to them. The nervous and muscular

excitability of horses was carefully observed with the aid of graduated

electrical apparatus before and after they had eaten a given quantity

of oats, or received a little of a certain principle which Mr. Sanson

succeeded in isolating from oats. The chief results of the inquiry are

as follows: The pericarp of the fruit of oats contains a substance

soluble in alcohol and capable of exciting the motor cells of the

nervous system. This substance is not (as some have thought) vanilline

or the odorous principle of vanilla, nor at all like it. It is a

nitrogenized matter which seems to belong to the group of alkaloids; is

uncrystallizable, finely granular, and brown in mass. The author calls

it "avenine." All varieties of cultivated oats seem to elaborate it, but

they do so in very different degrees. The elaborated substance is the

same in all varieties. The differences in quantity depend not only on

the variety of the plant but also on the place of cultivation. Oats of

the white variety have much less than those of the dark, but for some

of the former, in Sweden, the difference is small; while for others, in

Russia, it is considerable. Less than 0.9 of the excitant principle per

cent. of air-dried oats, the dose is insufficient to certainly affect

the excitability of horses, but above this proportion the excitant

action is certain. While some light-colored oats certainly have

considerable excitant power, some dark oats have little. Determination

of the amount of the principle present is the only sure basis of

appreciation, though (as already stated) white oats are likely to

be less exciting than dark. Crushing or grinding the grain weakens

considerably the excitant property, probably by altering the substance

to which it is due; the excitant action is more prompt, but much less

strong and durable. The action, which is immediate and more intense

with the isolated principle, does not appear for some minutes after the

eating of oats; in both cases it increases to a certain point, then

diminishes and disappears. The total duration of the effect is stated to

be an hour per kilogramme of oats ingested.

* * * * *

FILARIA DISEASE.

The rapid strides which our knowledge has made during the past few years

in the subject of the filaria parasite have been mainly owing to the

diligent researches of Dr. Patrick Manson, who continues to work at the

question. In the last number of the _Medical Reports for China_, Dr.

Manson deals with the phenomenon known as "filarial periodicity," and

with the fate of embryo parasites not removed from the blood. The

intimate pathology of the disease, and the subject of abscess caused

by the death of the parent filaria, also receive further attention.

An endeavor to explain the phenomenon of "filarial periodicity" by an

appeal to the logical "method of concomitant variations" takes Manson

into an interesting excursion which is not productive of any positive

results; nor is any more certain conclusion come to with regard to the

fate of the embryos which disappear from the blood during the day time.

Manson does not incline to the view that there is a diurnal intermittent

reproduction of embryos with a corresponding destruction. An original

and important speculation is made with respect to the intimate pathology

of elephantiasis, chyluria, and lymph scrotum, which is thoroughly

worthy of consideration. Our readers are probably aware that the parent

filaria and the filaria sanguinis hominis may exist in the human body

without entailing any apparent disturbance. The diameter of an

embryo filaria is about the same as that of a red blood disk, one

three-thousandth of an inch. The dimensions of an ovum are one

seven-hundred-and-fiftieth by one five-hundredth of an inch. If we

imagine the parent filaria located in a distal lymphatic vessel to abort

and give birth to ova instead of embryos, it may be understood that the

ova might be unable to pass such narrow passages as the embryo could,

and this is really the hypothesis which Manson has put forward on the

strength of observations made on two cases. The true pathology of the

elephantoid diseases may thus be briefly summarized: A parent filaria in

a distant lymphatic prematurely expels her ova; these act as emboli

to the nearest lymphatic glands, whence ensues stasis of lymph,

regurgitation of lymph, and partial compensation by anastomoses of

lymphatic vessels; this brings about hypertrophy of tissues, and may go

on to lymphorrhoea or chyluria, according to the site of the obstructed

lymphatics. It may be objected that too much is assumed in supposing

that the parent worm is liable to miscarry. But as Manson had sufficient

evidence in two cases that such abortions had happened, he thinks it is

not too much to expect their more frequent occurrence. The explanation

given of the manner in which elephantoid disease is produced applies to

most, if not all, diseases, with one exception, which result from the

presence of the parasite in the human body. The death of the parent

parasite in the afferent lymphatic may give rise to an abscess, and the

frequency with which abscess of the scrotum or thigh is met with in

Chinese practice is, in Manson's opinion, attributable to this. Dr.

Manson's report closes with an account of a case of abscess of the

thigh, with varicose inguinal glands, in which fragments of a mature

worm were discovered in the contents of the abscess.--_Lancet_.

* * * * *

THE SPECTRAL MASDEVALLIA.

(_M. chimaera_.)

Of all orchids no genus we can just now call to mind is more distinct or

is composed of species more widely divergent in size, form, structure,

and color than is this one of Masdevallia. It was founded well nigh a

century ago by Ruiz and Pavon on a species from Mexico, M. uniflora.

which, so far as I know, is nearly if not quite unknown to present day

cultivators. When Lindley wrote his "Genera and Species" in 1836, three

species of Masdevallias only were known to botanists but twenty-five

years later, when he prepared his "Folio Orchidaceae," nearly forty

species were; known in herbaria, and to-day perhaps fully a hundred

kinds are grown in our gardens, while travelers tell us of all the

gorgeous beauties which are known to exist high up on the cloud-swept

sides of the Andes and Cordilleras of the New World. The Masdevallia

is confined to the Western hemisphere alone, and as in bird and animal

distribution, so in the case of many orchids we find that when any genus

is confined to one hemisphere, those who look for another representative

genus in the other are rarely disappointed. Thus hornbills in the East

are represented by toucans in the West, and the humming bird of the West

by the sunbird of the East, and so also in the Malayan archipelago.

Notably in Borneo we find bolbophyls without pseudo bulbs, and with

solitary or few flowered scapes and other traits singularly suggestive

at first sight of the Western Masdevallia. Thus some bolbophyl, for

example, have caudal appendages to their sepals, as in Masdevallias,

and on the other hand some Masdevallias have their labellums hinged

and oscillatory, which is so commonly the case as to be "almost

characteristic" in the genus Bolbophyllum or Sarcopodium. Speaking

generally, Masdevallias, coming as most of them do from high altitudes,

lend themselves to what is now well known as "cool treatment," and

cultivators find it equally necessary to offer them moisture in

abundance both at the root and in the atmosphere, also seeing that when

at home in cloud-land they are often and well nigh continually drenched

by heavy dews and copious showers.

Of all the cultivated Masdevallias, none are so weirdly strange and

fascinating as is the species M. chimaera, which is so well illustrated

in the accompany engraving. This singular plant was discovered by

Benedict Roezl, and about 1872 or 1873 I remember M. Lucien Linden

calling upon me one day, and among other rarities showing me a dried

flower of this species. I remember I took up a pen and rapidly made a

sketch of the flower, which soon after appeared (1873, p. 3) in _The

Florist_, and was perhaps the first published figure of the plant. It

was named by Professor Reichenbach, who could find for it no better

name than that of the mythical monster Chimaera, than which, as an old

historian tells us, no stranger bogy ever came out of the earth's

inside. Our engraving shows the plant about natural size, and indicates

the form and local coloring pretty accurately. The ground color is

yellowish, blotched with lurid brownish crimson, the long pendent tails

being blood color, and the interior of the sepals are almost shaggy.

The spectral appearance of the flower is considerably heightened by the

smooth, white, slipper-like lip, which contrasts so forcibly in color

and texture with the lurid shagginess around it. Sir J. D. Hooker, in

describing this species in the _Botanical Magazine_, t. 6, 152, says

that the aspect of the curved scape as it bears aloft its buds and hairy

flowers is very suggestive of the head and body of a viper about to

strike. Dr. Haughton, F.R.S., told me long ago that Darlingtonia

californica always reminds him of a cobra when raised and puffed out in

a rage, and certainly the likeness is a close one.

Grown in shallow teak wood baskets, suspended near the roof in a

partially shaded structure, all the chimaeroid section of Masdevallia

succeed even better than when grown in pots or pans, as they have a

Stanhopea-like habit of pushing out their flowers at all sorts of

deflected angles. A close glance at the engraving will show that for

convenience sake the artist has propped up the flower with a stick, this

much arrangement being a necessity, so as to enable the tails to lie

diagonally across the picture. From tip to tip the flower represented is

9 inches, or not so much by 7 inches as the flower measured in Messrs.

Backhouse's nursery at York.--_The Garden_.

[Illustration: THE SPECTRAL MASDEVALLIA.--MASDEVALLIA CHIMAERA (Natural

Size)]

* * * * *

SURVEY OF THE BLACK CANON.

It is rumored again that a survey is soon to be made through the

heaviest portion of the Black Canon of the Gunnison. For a long distance

the walls of syenite rise to the stupendous height of 3,000 feet, and

for 1,800 feet the walls of the canon are arched not many feet from the

bed of the river. If the survey is successful, and the Denver and Rio

Grande is built through the canon, it will undoubtedly be the grandest

piece of engineering on the American continent. The river is very swift,

and it is proposed to build a boat at the western end, and provision

it for a length of time, allowing it to float with the stream, but

controlled by ropes. If the boat goes, the chances are that the baby

road goes, too.--_Gunnison (Colo.) Review_.

* * * * *

THE ANCIENT MISSISSIPPI AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

[Footnote: This lecture was delivered in the Chapel of the State

University, at Columbia, as an inaugural address on January 10, 1883,

and illustrated by projections. The author has purposely avoided the

very lengthy details of scientific observation by which the conclusions

have been arrived at relating to the former wonderful condition of

the Mississippi, and the subsequent changes to its present form: as a

consideration of them would not only cause him to go beyond the allotted

time, but might, perhaps, prove tiresome.]

By J. W. SPENCER, B.A.Sc., Ph.D., F.G.S., Professor of Geology in the

State University of Missouri.

Physical geology is the science which deals with the past changes of

the earth's crust, and the causes which have produced the present

geographical features, everywhere seen about us. The subject of the

present address must therefore be considered as one of geology rather

than of geography, and I propose to trace for you the early history of

the great Mississippi River, of which we have only a diminished remnant

of the mightiest river that ever flowed over any terrestrial continent.

By way of introduction, I wish you each to look at the map of our great

river, with its tributaries as we now see it, draining half of the

central portion of the continent, but which formerly drained, in

addition, at least two of our great lakes, and many of the great rivers

at the present time emptying into the colder Arctic Sea.

Let us go back, in time, to the genesis of our continent. There was once

a time in the history of the earth when all the rocks were in a molten

condition, and the waters of our great oceans in a state of vapor,

surrounding the fiery ball. Space is intensely cold. In course of time

the earth cooled off, and on the cold, solid crust geological agencies

began to work. It is now conceded by the most accomplished physicists

that the location of the great continents and seas was determined by

the original contraction and cooling of the earth's crust; though very

greatly modified by a long succession of changes, produced by the

agencies of "water, air, heat, and cold," through probably a hundred

million of years, until the original rock surface of the earth has been

worked over to a depth of thirty or forty miles.

Like human history, the events of these long _aeons_ are divided into

periods. The geologist divides the past history of the earth and its

inhabitants into five Great Times; and these, again, into ages, periods,

epochs, and eras.

At the close of the first Great Time--called Archaean--the continent

south of the region of the great lakes, excepting a few islands, was

still submerged beneath a shallow sea, and therefore no portion of the

Mississippi was yet in existence. At the close of the second great

geological Time--the Palaeozoic--the American continent had emerged

sufficiently from the ocean bed to permit the flow of the Ohio, and of

the Mississippi, above the mouth of the former river, although they were

not yet united.

Throughout the third great geological Time--the Mesozoic--these rivers

grew in importance, and the lowest portions of the Missouri began to

form a tributary of some size. Still the Ohio had not united with the

Mississippi, and both of these rivers emptied into an arm of the Mexican

Gulf, which then reached to a short distance above what is now their

junction.

In point of time, the Ohio is probably older than the Mississippi, but

the latter river grew and eventually absorbed the Ohio as a tributary.

In the early part of the fourth great geological Time--the

Cenozoic--nearly the whole continent was above water. Still the Gulf of

Mexico covered a considerable portion of the extreme Southern States,

and one of its bays extended as far north as the mouth of the Ohio,

which had not yet become a tributary of the Mississippi. The Missouri

throughout its entire length was at this time a flowing river.

I told you that the earth's crust had been worked over to a depth of

many miles since geological time first commenced. Subsequently, I have

referred to the growth of the continent in different geological periods.

All of our continents are being gradually worn down by the action of

rains, rills, rivulets, and rivers, and being deposited along the sea

margins, just as the Mississippi is gradually stretching out into the

Gulf, by the deposition of the muds of the delta. This encroachment on

the Gulf of Mexico may continue, yea, doubtless will, until that deep

body of water shall have been filled up by the remains of the continent,

borne down by the rivers; for the Mississippi alone carries annually 268

cubic miles of mud into the Gulf, according to Humphreys and Abbot. This

represents the valley of the Mississippi losing one foot off its whole

surface in 6,000 years. And were this to continue without any elevation

of the land, the continent would all be buried beneath the sea in a

period of about four and a half million years. But though this wasting

is going on, the continent will not disappear, for the relative

positions of the land and water are constantly changing; in some cases

the land is undergoing elevation, in others, subsidence. Prof. Hilgard

has succeeded in measuring known changes of level, in the lower

Mississippi Valley, and records the continent as having been at least

450 feet higher than at present (and if we take the coast survey

soundings, it seems as if we might substitute 3,000 feet as the

elevation), and subsequently at more than 450 feet lower, and then the

change back to the present elevation.

Let us now study the history of the great river in the last days of the

Cenozoic Time, and early days of the fifth and last great Geological

Time, in which we are now living--the Quaternary, or Age of Man--an

epoch which I have called _the "Great River Age_."

It is to the condition of the Mississippi during this period and its

subsequent changes to its present form that I wish particularly to call

your attention. During the Great River age we know that the eastern

coast of the continent stood at least 1,200 feet higher than at present.

The region of the Lower Mississippi was also many hundred feet higher

above the sea level than now. Although we have not the figures for

knowing the exact elevation of the Upper Mississippi, yet we have the

data for knowing that it was very much higher than at the present day.

_The Lower Mississippi_, from the Gulf to the mouth of the Ohio River,

was of enormous size flowing through a valley with an average width of

about fifty miles, though varying from about twenty-five to seventy

miles.

In magnitude, we can have some idea, when we observe the size of the

lower three or four hundred miles of the Amazon River, which has a width

of about fifty miles. But its depth was great, for the waters not only

filled a channel now buried to a depth of from three to five hundred

feet, but stood at an elevation much higher than the broad bottom lands

which now constitute those fertile alluvial flats of the Mississippi

Valley, so liable to be overflowed.

From the western side, our great river received three principal

tributaries--the Red River of the South, the Washita, and the Arkansas,

each flowing in valleys from two to ten miles in width, but now

represented only by the depauperated streams meandering from side to

side, over the flat bottom lands, generally bounded by bluffs.

The Mississippi from the east received no important tributaries south

of the Ohio; such rivers as the Yazoo being purely modern and wandering

about in the ancient filled-up valley as does the modern Mississippi

itself.

So far we find that the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio differed

from the modern river in its enormous magnitude and direct course.

From the mouth of the Ohio to that of the Minnesota River, at Fort

Snelling, the characteristics of the Mississippi Valley differ entirely

from those of the lower sections. It generally varies from two to ten

miles in width, and is bounded almost everywhere by bluffs, which

vary in height from 150 to 500 feet, cut through by the entrances of

occasional tributaries.

The bottom of the ancient channel is often 100 feet or more below the

present river, which wanders about, from side to side, over the "bottom

lands" of the old valley, now partly filled with debris, brought down by

the waters themselves, and deposited since the time when the pitch of

the river began to be diminished. There are two places where the river

flows over hard rock. These are at the rapids near the mouth of the Des

Moines River, and a little farther up, at Rock Island. These portions of

the river do not represent the ancient courses, for subsequent to the

Great River Age, according to General Warren, the old channels became

closed, and the modern river, being deflected, was unable to reopen its

old bed.

The Missouri River is now the only important tributary of this section

of the Mississippi from the west. Like the western tributaries, farther

south, it meanders over broad bottom lands, which in some places reach a

width of ten miles or more, bounded by bluffs. During the period of the

culmination, it probably discharged nearly as much water as the Upper

Mississippi. At that time there were several other tributaries of no

mean size, such as the Des Moines, which filled valleys, one or two

miles wide, but now represented only by shrunken streams.

The most interesting portion of our study refers to the ancient eastern

tributaries, and the head waters of the great river.

The greater portion of the Ohio River flows over bottom lands, less

extensive than those of the west, although bounded by high bluffs.

The bed of the ancient valley is now buried to a depth of sometimes a

hundred feet or more. However, at Louisville, Ky., the river flows over

hard rock, the ancient valley having been filled with river deposits on

which that city is built, as shown first by Dr. Newberry, similar to the

closing of the old courses of the Mississippi, at Des Moines Rapids and

Rock Island. However, the most wonderful changes in the course of the

Ohio are further up the river. Mr. Carll, of Pennsylvania, in 1880,

discovered that the Upper Alleghany formerly emptied into Lake Erie, and

the following year I pointed out that not only the Upper Alleghany, but

the whole Upper Ohio, formerly emptied into Lake Erie, by the Beaver and

Mahoning Valleys (reversed), and the Grand River (of Ohio). Therefore,

only that portion of the Ohio River from about the Pennsylvania-Ohio

State line sent its waters to the Mexican Gulf, during the Great River

Age.

Other important differences in the river geology of our country were

Lake Superior emptying directly into the northern end of Lake Michigan,

and Lake Michigan discharging itself, somewhere east of Chicago, into an

upper tributary of the Illinois River. Even now, by removing rock to a

depth of ten feet, some of the waters of Lake Michigan have been made to

flow into the Illinois, which was formerly a vastly greater river than

at present, for the ancient valley was from two to ten miles wide, and

very deep, though now largely filled with drift.

_The study of the Upper Ancient Mississippi_ is the most important of

this address. The principal discoveries were made only a few years

since, by General G.K. Warren, of the Corps of Engineers, U.S.A. At Ft.

Snelling, a short distance above St. Paul, the modern Minnesota River

empties into the Mississippi, but the ancient condition was the

converse. At Ft. Snelling, the valleys form one continuous nearly

straight course, about a mile wide, bounded by bluffs 150 feet high. The

valley of the Minnesota is large, but the modern river is small. The

uppermost valley of the Mississippi enters this common valley at nearly

right angles, and is only a quarter of a mile wide and is completely

filled by the river. Though this body of water is now the more

important, yet in former days it was relatively a small tributary.

The character of the Minnesota Valley is similar to that of the

Mississippi below Ft. Snelling, in being bounded by high bluffs and

having a width of one or two miles, or more, all the way to the height

of land, between Big Stone Lake and Traverse Lake, the former of which

drains to the south, from an elevation of 992 feet above the sea, and

the latter only half a dozen miles distant (and eight feet higher)

empties, by the Red River of the North, into Lake Winnipeg. During

freshets, the swamps between these two lakes discharge waters both ways.

The valley of the Red River is really the bed of an immense dried-up

lake. The lacustrine character of the valley was recognized by early

explorers, but all honor to the name of General Warren, who, in

observing that the ancient enormous Lake Winnipeg formerly sent its

waters southward to the Mexican Gulf, made the most important discovery

in fluviatile geology--a discovery which will cause his name to be

honored in the scientific world long after his professional successes

have been forgotten.

General Warren considered that the valley of Lake Winnipeg only belonged

to the Mississippi since the "Ice Age," and explained the changes of

drainage of the great north by the theory of the local elevation of the

land. Facts which settle this question have recently been collected in

Minnesota State by Mr. Upham, although differently explained by that

geologist. However, he did not go far enough back in time, for doubtless

the Winnipeg Valley discharged southward before the last days of the

"Ice Age," and the great changes in the river courses were not entirely

produced by local elevation, but also by the filling of the old water

channels with drift deposits and sediments. Throughout the bottom of the

Red River Valley a large number of wells have been sunk to great depths,

and these show the absence of hard rock to levels below that of Lake

Winnipeg; but some portions of the Minnesota River flow over hard rock

at levels somewhat higher. Whether the presence of these somewhat higher

rocks is due entirely to the local elevation, which we know took place,

or to the change in the course of the old river, remains to be seen.

Mr. Upham has also shown that there is a valley connecting the Minnesota

River, at Great Bend at Mankato, with the head waters of the Des Moines

River, as I predicted to General Warren a few months before his death.

At the time when Lake Winnipeg was swollen to its greatest size,

extending southward into Minnesota, as far as Traverse Lake, it had a

length of more than 600 miles and a breadth of 250 miles.

Its greatest tributary was the Saskatchewan--a river nearly as large as

the Missouri. It flowed in a deep broad canon now partly filled with

drift deposits, in some places, to two hundred feet or more in depth.

Another tributary, but of a little less size, was the Assiniboine, now

emptying into the Red River, at the city of Winnipeg. Following up

this river, in a westerly direction, one passes into the Qu'Appelle

Valley--the upper portion of which is now filled with drift, as first

shown by Prof. H. Y. Hind. This portion of the valley is interesting,

for through it, before being filled with drift, the south branch of the

Saskatchewan River formerly flowed, and constituted an enormous river.

But subsequent to the Great River Age, when choked with drift, it sent

its waters to the North Saskatchewan as now seen. There were many other

changes in the course of the ancient rivers to the north, but I cannot

here record them.

As we have seen, the ancient Mississippi and its tributaries were vastly

larger rivers than their modern representatives. At the close of the

Great River Age, the whole continent subsided to many hundred feet below

its present level, or some portions to even thousands of feet. During

this subsidence, the Mississippi States north of the Ozark Mountains

formed the bed of an immense lake, into the quiet waters of which were

deposited soils washed down by the various rivers from the northwestern

and north central States and the northern territories of Canada. These

sediments, brought here from the north, constitute the bluff formation

of the State, and are the source of the extraordinary fertility of our

lands, on which the future greatness of our State depends. However, time

will not permit me to enter into the application of the facts brought

forward to agricultural interests. But although this address is intended

to be in the realm of pure science, I cannot refrain from saying a word

to our engineering students as to the application of knowledge of river

geology to their future work. The subject of river geology is yet in its

infancy, and I have known of much money being squandered for want of

its knowledge. In one case, I saved a company several thousand dollars,

though I should have been willing to give a good subscription to see the

work carried out from the scientific point of view.

I will briefly indicate a few interesting points to the engineer.

Sometimes in making railway cuttings it is possible to find an adjacent

buried valley through which excavations can be made without cutting hard

rock. In bridge building especially, in the western country, a knowledge

of the buried valleys is of the utmost importance. Again, in sinking for

coal do not begin your work from the bed of a valley, unless it be of

hard rock, else you may have to go through an indefinite amount of drift

and gravel; and once more, in boring for artesian wells, it sometimes

happens that good water can be obtained in the loose drift filling these

ancient valleys; but when you wish to sink into harder rock, do not

select your site of operations on an old buried valley, for the cost of

sinking through gravel is greater than through ordinary rock.

In closing, let us consider to what the name Mississippi should be

given. In point of antiquity, the Ohio and Upper Mississippi are of

about the same age, but since the time when ingrowing southward they

united, the latter river has been the larger. The Missouri River,

though longer than the Mississippi, is both smaller and geographically

newer--the upper portion much newer.

Above Ft. Snelling, the modern Mississippi, though the larger body of

water, should be considered as a tributary to that now called Minnesota,

while the Minnesota Valley is really a portion of the older Mississippi

Valley--both together forming the parent river, which when swollen to

the greatest volume had the Saskatchewan River for a tributary,

and formed the grandest and mightiest river of which we have any

record.--_Kansas City Review_.

* * * * *

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