journey‒if not for her own sake, at least for that of her husband,
she expressed none, except on her Highness’s account. However, her
Highness gaily laughed at hardship and difficulty, and was not at all
depressed at having left her mother in the castle-prison. Her only
fear was that she should be missed from the castle before she had got
clear of Innsbruck. But matters were too well arranged for so speedy a
termination of the romance. By two o’clock of the windy spring morning
the travelling carriage was ready, the Tyrolese landlord and landlady
little suspecting, as they sped their parting guests, that the second
lady who entered it in cloak and mask was any other than that sister of
the Comtesse de Cernes who had arrived four days before.
‘Oh, my good Papa Wogan!’ exclaimed the latest addition to the party
of pilgrims, as they were rolled into the darkness of that wild night,
‘how delighted I am to be free again, and about to join my royal
consort! I owe more than I can express to all, but most to you!’ Which
she might well say, seeing that it was ‘Papa Wogan’ who had selected
her as the bride of this consort to whom her devotion was so great.
She chattered brightly away, with the natural vivacity of eighteen in
an adventure, rejoicing in her new-found freedom however cold it might
be; and the only clouded face in the carriage was that of the Comtesse
de Cernes. She was anxious on account of the vivacious little man who
had formerly been postillion, and who was now riding far behind the
carriage with his tall companion, to keep at bay possible couriers,
who might soon be hurrying to the border fortresses with news that a
prisoner had escaped the vigilance of General Heister at the Castle of
Innsbruck. The two gentlemen in the carriage assured her that no harm
would happen to two such dashing cavaliers; but perhaps the comtesse
thought that to those who are safe it is easy to talk of safety. Not
that any of the party were really safe, but the cheerfulness of the
young lady, whose passport was shewn at all the towns as made out for
the sister of the Comtesse de Cernes, seemed to preclude the idea of
peril to her companions. At Venice the mind of the comtesse was finally
set at ease by the reappearance of the outriders, telling a funny
unscrupulous sort of story about having fallen in on the road with a
courier from Innsbruck, to whom they made themselves very agreeable,
and whom they finally left hopelessly tipsy at an inn near Trent.
‘It was very wrong of you, Messieurs,’ said the escaped fugitive, ‘to
make him drink so much; you ought to have tied him up somewhere. But I
thank you very much for all the dangers you incurred for my sake; and I
assure all of you, my good friends, that your king and queen will never
forget you.’
There were no telegrams in those days; but before a week was over, all
Europe, or rather all political and fashionable Europe, was talking
of the escape of the Princess Clementina Sobieski, grand-daughter
of the hero who repulsed the hordes of Turkey on the plains before
Vienna, from her captivity at the Castle of Innsbruck, where she and
her mother had‒for political reasons connected with Great Britain‒been
placed by her cousin, the Emperor Charles VI. of Germany. It was told
with indignation at the courts of London and Vienna, with laughter
and admiration at those of Rome, Paris, and Madrid, how she had been
carried off by a party of dashing Irish people, calling themselves
noble Flemish pilgrims; and how she had left a French maid-servant in
her place in the castle, and a letter to her mother apologising for
her flight. The prime contriver of the adventure, it was said was that
Chevalier Wogan who had been in mischief for some time past, and had
made his own way with great _aplomb_ out of Newgate.
At Venice, a singular readjustment of the dashing party took place: the
vivacious outrider now appearing in the character of Captain Misset,
the husband of Madame Misset, hitherto called the Comtesse de Cernes;
and the tall outrider in that of Captain O’Toole, both being of the
Franco-Irish regiment of Count Dillon, as was also the gallant Major
Gaydon, _alias_ the Comte de Cernes. The comtesse’s brother was now
no longer related to her, but acknowledged himself to be that Charles
Wogan who had really done much for the Chevalier, having fought for
him, been taken prisoner for him, escaped for him, chosen his bride,
and effected her liberation as cleverly as he had effected his own. In
fact the Italian postillion Vezzosi was the only one of this curious
group who had acted at all _in propriâ personâ_.
The 15th of May 1719 was a gala day in Rome, when a long string of
coaches and the Prince‒whom a large number of British subjects,
expressing their loyalty by peculiar signs of approval, considered to
be rightful king of Great Britain and Ireland‒went out to conduct the
fugitive young lady triumphantly into the Eternal City. She now no
longer had need to use the passport which franked her as the sister
of the Comtesse de Cernes, being openly and joyfully welcomed as the
Princess Maria Clementina Sobieski.
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
In 1845 the late Professor Faraday delivered a lecture on the
solidification of gases at the Royal Institution, and demonstrated his
facts by experiments as interesting as they were successful. Under his
skilful manipulation a tube filled with olefiant gas, quite invisible,
was seen to become partially filled with a colourless liquid, which was
the gas in a condensed form. Two conditions were shewn to be essential
to the result‒extreme pressure, and extreme cold. The pressure was
obtained by strong mechanical appliances, and the cold by means of
solidified carbonic acid, which looked like lumps of snow. In this way
the lecturer made clear to a general audience the process by which a
number of gases had been brought into a liquid or solid form; and he
stated that he had ‘hoped to make oxygen the subject of the evening’s
experiment, but from some undetected cause it had baffled his attempts
at solidification.’ Nevertheless, he looked forward to the time when
not only oxygen, but azote and hydrogen would be solidified, and he
agreed with Dumas, of the Institute of France, that hydrogen would shew
itself in the form of a metal.
Faraday’s anticipation is now realised in one particular, for oxygen
has been liquefied. This achievement is due to the enlightened and
persevering efforts of Mr Pictet, an able physicist of Geneva.
Working with apparatus capable of resisting a pressure of eight
hundred atmospheres, and a temperature sixty-five degrees below
zero (centigrade), he succeeded in converting oxygen (invisible)
into a visible liquid which spouted from the tube in which it had
been inclosed for experiment. It is a feat which involves important
consequences for science. It is a further confirmation of the
mechanical theory of heat, according to which all gases are vapours
capable of passing through the three states‒solid, liquid, and gaseous.
Geneva winds up the year with a fine scientific triumph. Will Albemarle
Street supplement it by liquefying or solidifying azote and hydrogen?
Just as these lines are going to press we hear a rumour that it has
been done by a Frenchman at Paris.
Experiments have been made to measure the sound-impulse produced in a
telephone by ordinary speaking; but it is too feeble to excite even
a delicate galvanometer. But a slight swing of the free end of the
instrument affects the needle, which moves in a different direction
according as the swing is south, north, west, or east. There is no
doubt, as we observed in a recent paper on the subject, that in the
behaviour of the telephone and the phenomena of its currents scientific
men have a promising subject of inquiry. Meanwhile, as explained at
the end of this article, the notion that it would at once supersede
other forms of telegraphy or telephony will abate. A telephone has no
advantage over a speaking-tube within the distances where a tube is
available. Moreover the needlessly high price at which it is to be sold
will be an effectual bar to its general use. To ask thirty-five pounds
and twenty-five pounds for an article that could be sold at a profit
for so many shillings, is not and ought not to be the way to commercial
success.
It is stated in a French scientific periodical that underground water
may be discovered by observing the quivering of the air on a clear
calm summer afternoon when the sun is low. If a well be dug at the
spot where the quivering appears, a supply of water will, as is said,
there be found. And as regards the influence of trees on moisture,
careful observation has confirmed the theory that more rain falls on
forests than on open plains; and comparing different kinds of trees it
is found that the pine tribe get more water and retain more than leafy
trees. Hence, it is said, pines are the best defence against sudden
inundations, and the best means for giving freshness and humidity
to a hot and dry climate such as that of Algeria, where attempts at
amelioration have been made by planting, and by the digging of artesian
wells.
Readers of this _Journal_ will not be ignorant of the health-imparting
properties of the Australian gum-tree, or eucalyptus, nor that the
fir and pine possess similar properties, but in a minor degree,
yet still sufficient to enhance the title to salubrity of certain
watering-places. Mr Kingzett, an ingenious and persevering chemist,
had tried for a long time to discover whether the active atmospheric
element, ozone, was evolved from the leaves of plants, and was forced
to the conclusion that the element produced was not ozone, but peroxide
of hydrogen. He then experimented on oils of different kinds, and found
that they absorbed oxygen rapidly, and were thereby in some instances
transformed into new substances. Among them all turpentine proved to be
the best absorber; and it appeared on further experiment that while one
portion became resinified, another portion was converted into peroxide
of hydrogen and camphoric acid. The natural conclusion from this result
was that the eucalyptus and the pine owe their salubrious properties
to the presence of these two substances; or rather to the ‘terpene,’
or principle of turpentine, with which they are imbued. This point
established, measures were taken to produce the sanifying substances
on a large scale; and now a company owning a manufactory in the east
of London advertise that they are ready to supply the new disinfectant
under the name of _Sanitas_ in any quantity. It is not poisonous, will
not stain the materials to which it may be applied, can be used as a
wholesome scent, and is efficacious in preserving articles of food. The
process of manufacture is ingenious, and is so combined that there is
no waste of turpentine even in the form of vapour; but of the details
we need not attempt an explanation here. Suffice it that _Sanitas_,
with full description of its virtues, is now largely advertised in the
public journals.
Professor Galloway, of the Royal College of Science, Dublin,
has published a pamphlet in which he states that salted meat is
unwholesome, and produces scurvy, because by the process of salting
the meat is deprived of important constituents, notably phosphate of
potash. He says that if this salt were eaten with the beef served out
on board ship, the meat would be nutritious, would not occasion scurvy;
and he calls on the Admiralty to test his view by actual experiment.
What a convenience it would be if all the street lamps of a town
could be lighted and put out at once! Mr Lane Fox has proved at a
commercial station in the neighbourhood of Fulham that it can be done.
All the lamps are connected by wires overhead or underground; to each
burner is fitted an electro-magnet composed of a coil of wire round
a soft iron core, and above it hangs a movable magnet. The ends of
the connecting wires are attached to or detached from a battery at
pleasure. When the gas is to be lighted, a current is sent through the
wires; the electro-magnet on each burner is excited; the movable magnet
swings round, and turns on the gas; a current from a powerful coil
is then sent through the wires, and produces a spark at each burner,
and thereby lights the gas. The putting out is effected by a reverse
current. From twenty to forty lamps have been thus treated, and with
entire success; and it is thought that three hundred might be included
in the circuit with a like satisfactory result.
Thus in order to light up London or any other large town, the lamps
would have to be divided into groups of three hundred. The lamplighter,
or man in charge of the battery, would of course require to know that
none had been missed, and this could be made certain by placing the
first and last lamp of the group within sight of his station. If they
are alight, then all are alight. The practicability of the operation
appears therefore to be settled. The next question is‒Will it prove a
saving to the ratepayers?
Complaints that ordinary gas-light is not so brilliant as it ought
to be, are often heard, and not without reason. The Pure Carbon Gas
Company claim for their gas that it is not open to the objections
urged against other gas. The process of manufacture has the merit
of being very simple, and free from the usual noxious results. At a
demonstration made a few weeks since, proof was given that but little
space and little skill are required in the manufacture. The tar formed
during the process, instead of being carried away as at present, is
passed back into the retorts, whereby, as is said, three thousand feet
more of gas can be produced from a ton of coal than by the ordinary
process. An arrangement is introduced which separates the ammonia and
the sulphur, and in consequence this pure carbon gas has but little
smell. Ordinary gas is passed as good if it contains not more than
twenty-five grains of sulphur to the hundred feet: the quantity in
the new gas is less than three grains. We are told that the cost of
manufacture is not more than eighteenpence the thousand cubic feet,
that it does not require skilled labour, that in consequence of its
freedom from smell it could be carried on in a ship or in a house,
while its simplicity renders it applicable to villages where at present
there are no public lights. The Collinge Engineering Works, Westminster
Bridge Road, are mentioned as the place where the demonstration above
described was given.
With a view to account for the presence of mineral oil underground in
certain parts of Europe and in Pennsylvania, some ingenious persons
have assumed that the oil is a decomposition-product of long-buried
organic remains. But the answer to this is that the oil is found in
very old strata ‘where but few organic remains can have existed.’ Mr D.
Mendelejeff, a foreign chemist, having visited the Pennsylvania wells,
puts forward his opinion on this interesting question: The substance of
the earth having been condensed from vapour, ‘the interior of the earth
must consist largely of metals (iron predominating) in combination
with carbon. Wherever fissures have been produced in the earth’s crust
by volcanic action, the water, which of necessity made its way into
the interior, and thus came into contact with metallic carbides at
high temperatures and pressures, must have given rise to saturated
hydrocarbons, which have ascended in the form of vapour to strata where
they condensed,’ and thus formed the oil.
Captain Calver, R.N., has by command of the Admiralty surveyed the
Thames below Woolwich to ascertain whether the discharge of the sewage
of London into the river has created obstructions in the channel. The
captain has published his report, and a very discouraging report it
is, for it makes known that shoals have formed, and are forming, which
in course of time will completely stop the navigation of the river. In
this we have a proof that it is a mistake to send the solid portion of
sewage into a stream, in the hope that it will be effectually carried
away by the tide. It is not carried away; but is deposited at the
bends, and in the eddies, with detriment to health as well as to the
water-way.
Engineers who contend that none but neutralised liquid sewage should
pass into a river are manifestly in the right. To discharge the solids
is a waste as well as a mischief; and if it goes on, the whole of
the land will some day be utterly starved for want of nitrogen. Some
theorists argue that it won’t pay to attempt to convert the solids into
a fertilising material. The answer to this is the experience gained at
Aylesbury, where the solid part of the town sewage is separated from
the liquid by precipitation; is converted into a fertiliser, part of
which is used on the town-farm, and the surplus, in the form of a dry,
scentless powder, is sold at three pounds ten shillings the ton. A
single grain of oats, sown on land treated with this powder, produced
seven thousand grains from one root, and other grains yielded varying
numbers down to two thousand. The powder on analysis seems poor; but
its richness of productive power may be judged of from the foregoing
statement.
A new process for making sulphate of soda has been invented by M.
Fournier, a Frenchman. It leaves behind as waste liquid a large
quantity of a certain chloride, which turns out to be excellent for
the precipitation of sewage. Hence it appears that nature and science
combine to shew how the fertility of the land and the free channels
of rivers may alike be maintained. The process has been patented in
this country, and if all go well we may hope, in time, to hear that
the sewage of London, instead of filling up the bed of the Thames, is
increasing the fruitfulness of fields, gardens, and meadows in Essex
and Kent.
Meteorologists, in their review of the weather, inform us that in the
gale on the 11th of November last, the barometer was lower, the wind
stronger, and the rainfall greater, than on any other day in the year.
The mean velocity of the wind was thirty-eight miles an hour; and the
rainfall in twenty-four hours amounted to a little more than an inch
and a half. The fall for the whole month was in Sussex, eight and a
quarter inches; in Cumberland, nine and three-quarter inches; being, as
regards the Sussex gauge, more than five inches above the average of
the previous ten years. The total rainfall in eleven months, January to
November, was thirty-three and one-third inches: a remarkable excess
over twenty-eight inches, which is the usual average for the whole
year. For those who are curious in comparisons we take a fact from the
weather-records of New South Wales: at Newcastle in that colony there
fell on March 18, 1871, more than ten and a half inches of rain in two
hours and a half.
Two official papers published in India further discuss the
question‒sun-spots and rainfall. ‘The Cycle of Drought and Famine
in Southern India,’ contains a statement of the argument by Dr W.
W. Hunter, and the conclusions to which he has arrived. These are:
‘That although no uniform numerical relation can be detected between
the relative number of sun-spots and the actual amount of rainfall,
yet that the minimum period in the cycle of sun-spots is a period of
regularly recurring and strongly marked drought in Southern India‒That
apart from any solar theory, an examination of the rain registers
shews that a period of deficient rainfall recurs in cycles of eleven
years at Madras ... that the statistical evidence shews that the cycle
of rainfall at Madras has a marked coincidence with a corresponding
cycle of sun-spots ... and that the evidence tends also to shew that
the average rainfall of the years of minimum rainfall in the said
cycle approaches perilously near to the point of deficiency which
causes famine.’ The average is, however, above that point; and though
droughts and famines may recur in the cyclic years of minimum rainfall,
the evidence, in Dr Hunter’s opinion, is insufficient to warrant the
prediction of a regularly recurring famine.
The observations on which these conclusions are founded include
sixty-four years of the present century: too short a period on which
to build a theory; but as no records exist earlier than 1810, it
is by future observation only that the conclusions can be tested.
Meanwhile meteorological observers will be watchful, especially of the
rainfall, for India is a country which affords singularly favourable
opportunities for a comprehensive system of observations.
The other paper referred to above is by Mr H. F. Blanford,
Meteorological Reporter to the government of India. He points out
that Dr Hunter’s views apply exclusively to Southern India, and that
in Northern India famines are most frequent at the epochs of most
sun-spots. This lack of agreement between two competent authorities
shews how great is the need for a lengthened series of observations.
In the recent Arctic Expedition twenty-five species of fossil plants
were discovered in Grinnell Land by Captain Feilden. They are of the
period described by geologists as Miocene, and can be identified with
species of the same period found in Europe, in North-western America,
and in Asia. Among them are two kinds of _Equisetum_, poplar, birch,
elm, and pine. It was suggested at a meeting of the Geological Society
that the bed of lignite in which these remains were met with was in
remote ages a large peat-moss, probably containing a lake in which
the water-lilies grew, while on its muddy shores the large reeds
and sedges and birches and poplars flourished. The drier spots and
neighbouring chains of hills were probably occupied by the pines and
firs, associated with elm and hazel. Among all these which indicate a
primeval forest, the only sign of animal life discovered was a solitary
wing-case of a beetle.
When water-lilies were growing in that now desolate region, fresh-water
must have filled the ponds and lakes. Captain Feilden’s discovery may
be taken as additional evidence of a change of climate, which the
palæontologists and physicists who are now discussing that interesting
question will not fail to make use of on fitting occasion.
A few years ago the British Association appointed a committee of
eminent mathematicians to consider ‘the possibility of improving the
methods of instruction in elementary geometry.’ The Report of this
committee was published in the stout volume which contains the account
of the meeting held at Glasgow. It states that the main practical
difficulty in effecting the improvement is ‘that of reconciling the
claims of the teacher to greater freedom with the necessity of one
fixed and definite standard for examination purposes;’ that ‘no
text-book yet produced is fit to succeed Euclid in the position of
authority, and that a syllabus of propositions in a definite sequence
to be regarded as a standard sequence for examination purposes, might
be published.’ Such a syllabus as is here implied has been brought out
by the Association for the improvement of geometrical teaching; and the
committee recommend it for adoption by the universities and other great
examining bodies of the United Kingdom. ‘It may be well to observe,’
they say in their Report, ‘that the adoption of this or some such
standard syllabus would not necessitate the abandonment of the Elements
of Euclid as a text-book by such teachers as still preferred it to
any other, as it would at the utmost involve only such supplementary
teaching as is contained in the notes appended to many of the editions
of Euclid now in use; while it would greatly relieve that large and
increasing body of teachers who demand greater freedom in the treatment
of geometry than under existing conditions they can venture to adopt.’
Supplementary to our recent notices of the telephone, the following
remarks, translated from a late number of the _Telegraph Bulletin_
of the Ottoman administration, and dealing with a question of some
importance to telegraph manipulators throughout the world, may be read
with interest: