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SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
A WEEKLY JOURNAL OF PRACTICAL INFORMATION, ART, SCIENCE, MECHANICS,
CHEMISTRY, AND MANUFACTURES.
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 14, 1878.
Vol. XXXIX.--No. 24. [NEW SERIES.]
[$3.20 per Annum [POSTAGE PREPAID.]]
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
(Illustrated articles are marked with an asterisk.)
Alum in baking powders
Alum in bread 376
Argonaut, or Paper Nautilus* 375
Astronomical notes 377
Babbitt metal, to make [5] 378
Belts, rubber, slipping [6] 378
Bench, saw, Casson's* 374
Boot polish liquid [8] 378
Butter, to color [16] 378
Canal, ship, Belgian* 367
Economy, machine shop 371
Eggs, preservation of 375
Electric light, Werdermann* 373
Engineers, warning to 367
Engine, steam, valve yoke [48] 379
Exterminator, roach [57] 379
Filter for rain water [19] 378
Foot power, new* 370
Glass, iridescent 368
Glass, to make a hole in 375
Hair, to prevent falling out [42]379
Inks, sympathetic 377
Invention, reward of 371
Inventions, new, 370
Inventions, new agricultural 377
Inventions, new mechanical 374
Inventors, bait for 374
Iron and steel, preservation of 367
Iron, malleable, to make [43] 379
Leaves, culinary uses for 370
Line, straight, to draw* [36] 379
Mechanics, amateur* 371
Mexico, progress of science in 376
Microphone as a thief catcher 375
Naphtha and benzine 377
Nitrate of silver, reduction of 377
Notes and queries 378
Oil notes 372
Petroleum and gold 377
Petroleum, progress of 368
Poultices 374
Quinine, effects of on hearing 374
Railroad, first in U. S. [2] 378
Rails and railway accidents 368
Railway notes 373
Sanitary Science in the U. S. 369
Screw heads, blue color for [4] 378
Sheep husbandry, American 375
Shutter fastener, new* 370
Silver mill in the clouds 374
Spider, trap-door* 375
Sprinkler, garden, improved* 370
Telescope, sunshade for [3] 378
Tools, steel, to temper [55] 379
Tree, tallest in the world 375
Tree trunks elongation of 376
Trees, felling by electricity 370
Tubing, to satin finish [51] 379
Vise, an improved* 370
White lead, to test [14] 378
Wire clothing for cylinders* 377
Work, the limit of 368
* * * * *
THE BELGIAN SHIP CANAL.
The ship canal from Ghent to Terneuzen was originally laid out with
many bends, rendering navigation difficult; it had a depth of 14 feet
4 inches and a width of 98 feet 6 inches at the water level. The works
which are at present in course of execution have especially for their
object the deepening of the canal to 21 feet 3 inches, with a width
of 55 feet 9 inches at the bottom and 103 feet 9 inches on the water
line. The slopes have a uniform inclination of 1 to 3, and the towing
paths on each side are placed 6 feet 6 inches above the water level,
and are 32 feet 8 inches wide. In many instances also the course of
the canal has been altered and straightened for the improvement of
navigation; several important diversions have been made for this
purpose. The excavation has been effected by hand, by dredging, and by
the Couvreux excavator, figured as below in _Engineering_.
The earth excavated was carried to spoil, and in many cases was
employed to form dikes inclosing large areas, which served as
receptacles for the semi-liquid material excavated by the dredging
machines with the long conductors; the Couvreux excavator used will be
readily understood from the engraving. It had already done service on
the Danube regulation works. The material with which it had to deal,
however, was of a more difficult nature, being a fine sand charged
with water and very adherent. The length of track laid for the
excavator was about 3 miles along the side of the old canal, which had
been previously lowered to the level of the water.
* * * * *
PRESERVATION OF IRON AND STEEL FROM OXIDATION.
We are indebted to J. Pechar, Railway Director in Teplitz, Bohemia,
for the first official report in English from the Paris International
Exhibition which has come to hand. This volume contains the report
on the coal and iron products in all countries of the world, and is
valuable for its statistical and other information, giving, as it
does, the places where the coal and minerals are found, and the
quantities of each kind produced, for what it is used, and to what
other countries it is exported. The able compiler of these statistics
in the introduction of his report gives the following account of
the means recommended by Professor Barff, of London, for preventing
oxidation, which is being considerably used abroad. The writer says:
It is well known that the efficient preservation of iron against
rusting is at present only provided for in cases where human life
would be endangered by failure, as in the case of railway bridges
and steamers. Thus, for example, at Mr. Cramer-Klett's ironworks at
Nuremberg every piece of iron used for his bowstring bridges is dipped
in oil heated to eight hundred degrees. The very great care which
is at present taken in this matter may be judged from the current
practice of most bridge and roofing manufacturers. Every piece of
iron before being riveted in its place is cleaned from rust by being
immersed in a solution of hydrochloric acid. The last traces of free
acid having been cleared away, at first by quicklime and afterward by
a copious ablution with hot water, the piece is immediately immersed
in hot linseed oil, which protects every part of the surface from the
action of the atmosphere. Afterward it is riveted and painted.
Notwithstanding all this, the painting requires continual and
careful renewal. On the Britannia Bridge, near Bangor, the painter is
permanently at work; yet, in spite of all this care and expense, rust
cannot be entirely avoided. The age of iron railway bridges is still
too short to enable us to draw conclusions as to the probabilities of
accidents. Now, Professor Barff has discovered a process by which
iron may be kept from rusting by being entirely coated with its own
sesquioxide. A piece of iron exposed to the action of superheated
steam, in a close chamber and under a certain pressure, becomes
gradually covered by a skin of this black oxide, of a thickness
depending upon the temperature of the steam and the duration of
the experiment. For instance, exposure during five hours to steam
superheated to five hundred degrees will produce a hermetical coating
capable of resisting for a considerable time the application of emery
paper and of preserving the iron from rust even in a humid atmosphere,
if under shelter from the weather. If the temperature is raised to
1,200 degrees, and the time of exposure to six or seven hours, the
skin of sesquioxide will resist every mechanical action, and the
influence of any kind of weather. The sesquioxide being harder than
the iron itself, and adhering to its surface even more firmly than the
atoms of iron do to each other, there is an increased resistance not
only to chemical but also to mechanical action. The surface is not
altered by the process in any other respect, a plain forging retaining
its roughness, a polished piece its smooth surface. If the skin is
broken away oxidation takes place, but only just on the spot from
which the oxide has been removed. If Professor Barff's experiments
are borne out by practice, this invention may become of very great
importance. It is within the bounds of probability that it may enable
iron, by increasing its facility in competing with wood, to recover,
at least for a considerable time, even more than the ground it has
lost by the extraordinary extension of the use of steel. Iron is
already being used for building purposes to a large extent; but
oxidation once thoroughly prevented it will be able to take the place
of wood and stone to a still greater degree. Iron roofing may be
made quite as light as that of wood, and of greater strength, by a
judicious arrangement and use of T iron.
* * * * *
WARNING TO LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS.
Drs. Charles M. Cresson and Robert E. Rogers, of this city, says
the Philadelphia _Ledger_, well known as experts in chemistry and
dynamics, were appointed by the Reading Railroad Company to inquire
into and report upon the causes of the recent explosion of the boiler
of the express locomotive "Gem," at Mahanoy City, by which five lives
were lost. Their report, which is designed to cover the whole scope
of a most careful investigation, is not yet made public, but they have
arrived at the following specific conclusion, which we give in their
own language: "We are, therefore, of the opinion that the explosion of
the boiler of the locomotive 'Gem,' was produced by the projection of
foam upon the heated crown bars of the furnace, caused by suddenly
and widely opening the safety valve, at a time when the water had been
permitted to get so low as to overheat the crown of the furnace." This
is an important matter that should be carefully noted by locomotive
and other engineers.
* * * * *
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* * * * *
VOL. XXXIX., No. 24. [NEW SERIES.] Thirty-third Year. NEW YORK,
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1878.
* * * * *
TABLE OF CONTENTS OF
THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT
No. 154,
For the Week ending December 14, 1878.
Price 10 cents. For sale by all newsdealers.
I. ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS.--Portable Steam Pumping Engine, 1
engraving.--New Bone Crushing Mill, 2 engravings.--Picard's Boiler.
Extraction of Salt from Salt Water.--Compressed Air Machines.
Hydraulic vs. air pressure. Causes of the losses of power.
Estimates of useful effects obtainable.--The St. Gothard Tunnel.
By GEO. J. SPECHT, C.E.--Apparatus for Lifting Sunken Vessels,
with 8 figures.--Russia Sheet Iron.--Manufacture of Artificial
Stone.--Compressed Fuel.--The New Magnesi Process for Boiler Feed
Water.
II. FRENCH INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF 1878.--Wine Presses.
Description of sixteen new and peculiar wine presses at the
Exhibition, with 31 figures and 9 engravings. The Press Primat;
Press Mabille; Press David; Samain Press; Marchand, Maupre,
Boyries, Chapellier, Marmonier, Nogues, Mailhe, Moreau, Piquet,
Delperoux, Terrel des Chenes, and Cassan fils Presses.
The Algerian Exhibit. The street of Algiers, with 1
illustration.--Woolen Fabrics.
III. ELECTRICITY, LIGHT, HEAT, ETC.--Electric Lighting. Estimate
of the comparative heating effect in gas and electric lighting,
and the consequent loss of power.--The Electric Light. Remarks on
its economy.--The Present Bugbear of French Savants.
New Planets.
The Dutch Arctic Expedition. The Peak of Beerenburg, Spitzbergen,
with 1 illustration.
IV. CHEMISTRY AND METALLURGY.--New Process for Separating Iodine
and Bromine from Kelp.--Inoffensive Colors for Toys.--New Coloring
Matters.--Tungsten.
Ozone and the Atmosphere. By ALBERT R. LEEDS, Ph.D. Table of
percentage of ozone contained in the atmosphere at various
localities in the United States. Register of ozone observations
for one month at Upper Saranac Lake, N. Y., giving thermometric
and barometric observations, and full record of weather.
Examination of methods in ozonometry. Preparation of ozone by
electrolysis of water containing sulphuric acid, with 1 engraving.
Preparation by electricity, with 1 engraving. Does the electric
spark decompose potassium iodide? Collection and preservation of
ozone. Preparation by chemical methods. Critical examination of
ozonoscopes. Potassium iodide; starch; paper classification of
ozonoscopes. Examination of ozonoscopes under certain conditions.
Limits of the Combustibility of Gases.--The Diffusion of
Salicylate of Soda.--Singular use of Fluorescein.--New Metal.
Philippium By M. MARC DELAFONTAINE.--Better Pharmaceutical
Education. By RICHARD V. MATTISON, Ph. G.--An El Dorado for
Apothecaries.
V. MEDICINE AND HYGIENE.--The Science of Easy Chairs. The muscular
conditions of fatigue, and how to obtain the greatest rest. How
easy chairs should be made.
Prof. Huxley on the Hand. Abstract of his inaugural lecture before
the South London Workingmen's College.
Paint from a Sanitary Point of View. The required abolition of
absorbent surfaces in dwellings. Lead poisoning from paint not
thoroughly dry. Cases described in which white lead paint in
dwellings never dries, but gives off poisonous particles, which
are inhaled by the inmates, causing depression, weakness headache,
and loss of appetite. Zinc recommended in paint to avoid lead
poisoning, and the new oxy-sulphide of Zinc described, with
covering qualities equal to white lead.
The Purification of Sewage. By HENRY ROBINSON, F.R.S. Paper
read before the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain. Progress
in purifying sewage by precipitation. The use of chemicals for
precipitating, deodorizing, and disinfecting. Practical data on
a large scale, with cost. Average number of gallons per head of
population, etc., of the successful system now in operation at
Coventry and Hertford. How the water is removed from the sludge by
filter presses. Drying and removal of the sludge. Theoretical and
actual values of the sludge for fertilizing.
VI. AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, ETC.--The Broadside Steam Digger,
with 1 engraving.--Shall I Plow the Lawn?--Bee Culture.
* * * * *
PROGRESS OF PETROLEUM.
The efforts of the great majority of the Western Pennsylvania
petroleum producers to obtain relief from what they deem the
oppressive acts of the Standard Oil Company and the unjust
discriminations of the United Pipe Lines, and the various railroads
traversing the oil regions, have attracted more than usual attention
to the present condition of this industry and its possible future.
We would here explain that the Standard Oil Company originated in
Cleveland, Ohio, about twelve years ago, and was incorporated under
the laws of Ohio, with a nominal capital now, we are informed, of
$3,000,000, which, however, very inadequately represents the financial
strength of its members. It is now a combination of the most
prominent refiners in the country, and has before been credited with
manipulating the transportation lines to its own special advantage.
We can recall no instance of such serious hostility between parties
whose interests are at the same time of such magnitude and so nearly
identical; nor can we see what substantial, enduring benefit would
accrue to the producers in the event of their victory in the struggle.
They charge that the Standard Oil Company has become the controlling
power to fix prices and to determine the avenues by which the oil
shall be transported eastward for home consumption and for foreign
exportation; that the railway companies have given this company lower
rates than other parties for transporting the oil; and that through
the rates given to it by the railways the value of their property is
destroyed.
The reply, in effect, is, Granting all this to be true, what does
it amount to? Neither more nor less than that the managers of the
Standard Oil Company, by combination of capital, by intelligence and
shrewdness in the management of their operations, have built up a
successful business, and that they have so extended it by the use of
all practicable appliances, and by the purchase of the property of
competitors, that they do practically control the prices of oil, both
crude and refined, and that the uncombined capital of the other oil
producers, lacking the power, the intelligence, and the business skill
which combined capital can secure, cannot compete with the Standard
Oil Company. Now, is there any great wrong or injustice in this?
When brains can command capital it is always more successful in
business matters than any amount of brains without capital or capital
without brains. This result is the natural working out of the same
principle that is everywhere to be seen--some men are successful and
others are not.
It is the essence of communism to drag down those who succeed to the
level of the unsuccessful.
If men cannot compete with others in any business they must accept the
fact, and try some other employment.
If, through superior intelligence and capital, the Standard Oil
Company can control the oil business of Pennsylvania, then, according
to the principles of common sense, it must be permitted to do so.
What right, then, has the oil producer to complain? Why, if all that
is alleged is true, will they persist in sinking more wells, when,
as they say, they are controlled by the Standard Oil Company? No one
forces them to lose money by continuing in the business. Let them find
other employment. They do not show that the Standard Oil Company
does anything that combined capital on their part and equal business
ability could not effect.
The cry of monopoly in this case is altogether unfounded, those
opposed to the Standard Oil Company having just as much right to do
all that that company does, and, therefore, there can be no monopoly,
because they have no exclusive powers.
As to the railway companies, they can afford and have a right to
transport the tonnage offered them by the Standard Oil Company at less
cost, because it costs them less to do a regular and large business
than an irregular and smaller one. They would simply be acting in
accordance with business principles the world over.
These are the arguments, the statement of the position of a successful
combination confident in its resources and of victory in the coming
struggle. The justness, the correctness of the doctrines enunciated,
and the wisdom of so doing at this crisis, we do not propose to
criticise; but it is very safe to say that if the prosperity of the
complainants depends upon relief in this direction they may as well
cease producing.
There are too many of them for harmonious and concerted action against
the powerful corporations they complain of; and if they should succeed
in securing equal transportation facilities the prices would still be
regulated by the monopolists, who carry more than four-fifths of the
accumulated stock of the oil regions.
The proposed appeal to Congress to pass some law whereby each producer
can compel railroad companies to carry his produce at regular rates,
amounts to a confession of the desperate straits of the producers
and of their weakness as well; and even if successful, which is most
improbable, would not remedy the deplorable existing state of things.
Still lower rates would fail to give relief, with all the present
avenues of trade filled to repletion and with an increasing output
at the wells. Relief and permanent relief can be found only in the
direction we have before indicated: in the general application of
petroleum and its products to the manufacture of gas for illuminating
and heating purposes, and its substitution for coal in the metallurgic
and other prominent industries of the world.
* * * * *
THE LIMIT OF WORK.
In distributing the prizes to workmen at the Paris Exhibition, Louis
Blanc, the leader of the French Republican Socialist party, quoted
approvingly these words of Simonde de Sismondi:
"If the workman were his own master, when he had done in two hours
with the aid of machinery what would have taken him twelve hours to do
without it, he would stop at the end of the two."
M. Blanc had been discussing very eloquently, but also very
fallaciously, the relations of machinery to labor. If men were
properly united in the bonds of association, he said, if the
solidarity of interests were realized, "the happy result of the
application of mechanical power to industry would be equal production,
with less of effort, for all. The discovery of an economic method
would never have the lamentable consequence of robbing men of the work
by which they live. Unfortunately, we are far from this ideal. Under
the empire of that universal antagonism which is the very essence of
the economic constitution of modern societies, and which too often
only profits one man by ruining another, machinery has been employed
to make the rule of the strong weigh more heavily on the weak. There
is not a single mechanical invention which has not been a subject of
anguish and a cause of distress to thousands of fathers of families
from the moment it began to work."
If all this, and much else that M. Blanc alleges, were true, then the
condition of all workingmen to-day should be in every way worse than
that of their fathers, in anti-machinery days. But such is not the
case. There never was a time when the laborer toiled less or enjoyed
more than in these days of machinery; and the laborer's condition is
best where the machinery is best and most used.
A hundred years ago the laborer toiled long, produced little, and
enjoyed less. To-day, thanks to the victories of invention, machinery
does the heaviest of the work; the workman's hours of labor are fewer
than formerly; his wages are greater; and his earnings will buy vastly
more, dollar for dollar, than in any previous age in the world's
history.
What laborer of to-day would be satisfied with the remuneration, the
food, the shelter, the clothing of the laboring classes of one hundred
years ago? The wants of men, as well as their thoughts, are widened by
the process of the suns. And in no section of society have the daily
wants been more markedly increased, or the facilities for gratifying
them either, than among those that live by labor.
"If the workman were his own master, when he had done in two hours
with the aid of machinery what it would have taken him twelve hours to
do without it, he would stop at the end of the two."
So says the theoretical socialist. The practical workman never has,
nor, we believe, ever will, act so foolishly; certainly not until the
limit of man's capacity to enjoy has been reached. When the united
products of manual and mechanical effort fully satisfy the desires of
all men, and leave no margin of want unfilled, then and then only
will men be satisfied with the reduction of effort demanded by the
socialists. Until then the larger part of every increase in production
by mechanical improvements will go to swell the volume of good things
for human use and enjoyment. Our machinery enables our thousands of
busy workers to accomplish what millions could not have done years
ago, and a very large part of the aggregate increase of product
comes back to them in conveniences and luxuries surpassing those
the wealthiest could enjoy were machinery not employed, or were it
employed, as the socialist advocates, without increasing the aggregate
of production. The laziness of the savage and the advantages of
civilization are incompatible. The chief merit of machinery lies in
its enabling us to multiply constantly the scope and variety of our
enjoyments without a corresponding increase of toil.
* * * * *
IRIDESCENT GLASS.
Ornamental glassware in many styles, tinted with the glowing colors
of the rainbow, is now making its appearance in the shop windows
of Broadway and Fifth Avenue. This is one of those brilliant little
achievements of science that delights the eye and pleases the
imagination. To produce the colors, the glass, while in a heated
state, is subjected to the vapor of chloride of tin. Shades of more or
less depth or intensity are imparted by adding to the tin chloride a
little nitrate of strontium or barium.
* * * * *
RAILS AND RAILWAY ACCIDENTS--NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.
A meeting of the Section of Physics, New York Academy of Sciences,
was held November 25, 1878. President J. S. Newberry in the chair.
Numerous publications of learned societies were received and
acknowledged. Professor Newberry read a letter from Professor Agassiz
stating that sea lilies, which had hitherto been very rare--a single
specimen bringing as much as fifty dollars--have been found in some
numbers by dredging in the Gulf of Mexico. Their colors are white,
pink, and yellow. Professor Newberry also exhibited specimens of
garnet from California, lamellar quartz from North Carolina, sharks'
teeth belonging to the eocene and miocene tertiary ages from the
phosphate beds of South Carolina, and a number of shells.
Professor Thomas Egleston then addressed the Academy on the subject of
"The Structure of Rails as Affecting Railway Accidents."
The destruction of rails is due to three causes. 1. Defects in the
manufacture; 2. Improper mechanical or chemical composition; and 3.
Physical changes.
A very large number of rails are annually made which should never be
put in any track. Their defects are often imperceptible to the naked
eye, but they very soon begin to break. Statistics show that the
breakage from defects in making increase until they have been used
18 months; then it decreases to zero, and after that rails break from
different causes. In France, breakage usually begins in December,
reaches its maximum in January, and becomes normal in April. As a more
intense cold would be necessary to explain such breakage than that
which is felt in that climate, the cause must be sought in the
stiffness and inelasticity of the frozen road bed. The impact of
the locomotive is then apt to break the rail, very much on the same
principle that is taken advantage of in breaking them up for the
manufacture of smaller objects. A nick is made somewhere, and the
workman then strikes a blow with a hammer at a point between the nick
and the place where the rail is supported. This will sever the rail at
the nicked place. Sometimes more than a second intervenes between the
blow and the fracture. Now, whenever holes are punched in rails for
the fish plates, flaws are apt to radiate from them; and if these
flaws are not planed or filed out, they may cause the rail to break,
just as the nicks above mentioned. Such rails have been known to last
no longer than 18 months, and some have actually broken on the way
from the manufacturer to their destination. There are establishments
in this country and in Europe where they "doctor" such rails by
filling up the flaws with a mixture of iron filings, sal ammoniac, and
some adhesive substance. Beware of them; a poor cheap rail is dear
at any price. The French government stipulates in its contracts for
rails, that flaws shall be planed, drilled, or filed out; that the
rails shall not be allowed to drop on the ground, but shall be carried
by men and slid down. The Lyons railroad does not pay for its rails
until 15,000 trains have passed over them.
By imperfect mechanical composition is meant imperfect union of the
parts of rails. Steel heads are welded to the rest of the rail in a
variety of ways, and this welding is necessarily imperfect. A number
of sections of rails etched with acid plainly showed this want of
homogeneity, as did likewise prints taken from the etched surfaces.
Before such rails have lost weight appreciably, they are used up by
the constant rolling they undergo. The advantage of a steel rail is
its homogeneity, but a good iron rail, such as those made under the
direction of the speaker, for the Reading Railroad Company, is likely
to prove better than one of poor steel. The life of a steel rail
is chiefly affected by the temperature at which it is rolled and
annealed. It ought not to wear off more than 1 mm. for 20,000,000
tons of traffic, and is usually calculated to wear 10 mm. before it is
taken up. In other words, it would last about 20 years on roads doing
as much business as the New York Central. It is, however, unlikely
that our steel rails will stand more than half this amount of traffic.
The effects of chemical composition are but little understood. Some
of the purest irons have turned out utterly worthless. Apparently the
absolute quantities of carbon, silicon, aluminum, phosphorus, etc.,
present are not of so much importance as their relative proportion.
One specimen containing carbon 0.16, silicon 0.08, and phosphorus
0.012, could be bent double when cold, while another, containing
carbon 0.58, silicon 0.56, and phosphorus 0.011 broke at once.
The physical tests for tensile and torsional strength, usually made on
a portion cut out of the head of the rail, are not sufficient, because
the flaws before spoken of exist mostly in the flange of the rail, and
fracture usually begins there.
The effect of cold rolling and shocks that a rail is exposed to was
shown by a piece of rail made by the Campbells, Sheffield, Eng., which
had been worn 3 mm. by a traffic of 60,000,000 tons at Spuyten Duyvel.
The head had been somewhat flattened, and the flange driven down into
the foot to a certain extent. Under such usage an iron rail would have
gone to pieces long ago.
Sometimes steel rails crumble all at once and pieces fall out of
the head. This is probably due to some physical defects or to
crystallization from shocks. The cause has not yet been definitely
ascertained.
Mr. Collingwood stated that of a rail only a section of 3/8 square
inch was pressed by the wheel of a locomotive, the effect being to
cause this portion to act like a wedge, and thus to contribute to the
disintegration of the rail. He also exhibited a hook which had been
used to hoist stones of 10 to 12 tons, and then suddenly broke with a
weight of only 61/2 tons. It had been worn from a thickness of 2 inches
to 1-7/8. The pressure at the upper surface crowded the particles and
caused them to act as wedges. Their fracture was crystalline, while
that of the lower surface, which parted more slowly, was fibrous.
Professor Egleston asserted that there was no such thing as fibrous
iron; what appeared so being simply crystalline with the ends
drawn out. A sharp blow would cause this to fall off and show the
crystalline structure beneath.
The discussion was continued by Professors Trowbridge, Egleston, and
Newberry.
C. F. K.
* * * * *
FORMATION OF IODIFORM.--All mixtures in which alcohol and iodine enter
in combination with any alkali forming colorless solutions go in part
to the formation of iodiform. Even chloroform and iodine, forming a
colorless solution, give rise to the same product.--_L. Myers Connor._
* * * * *
SANITARY SCIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES.
The following is an abstract of a paper on the Present and Future of
Sanitary Science in the United States, read by Professor Albert R.
Leeds, of the Stevens Institute of Technology, before the New York
Academy of Sciences at their meeting, November 11th, 1878:
Sciences, such as the one under consideration, that have in them a
side largely practical, are sure of a welcome in our midst. The study
of the laws of public health grew into prominence in this country
during the war, when the Sanitary Commission undertook to supervise
the camps and hospitals. Sanitary associations were then formed
in many States and smaller communities, and these have led to the
establishment of State and city boards of health, clothed to a greater
or less degree with executive functions. Every epidemic has been the
cause of wider dissemination of sanitary knowledge by the daily press.
The yellow fever plague, by which more than twelve thousand people
have perished, has thoroughly aroused public interest. During its
continuance the papers were full of homilies on private and public
hygiene, the people everywhere sent aid and sympathy to the afflicted,
and a lady offered to defray the expenses of a scientific commission
of sanitary experts to inquire into the cause and prevention of the
scourge. The proper execution of sanitary laws depends on the free
and intelligent co-operation of individuals much more than on the
influence of a strong central authority. A general health department
at Washington could not legislate pure air, pure water, and pure
food into use throughout the nation. The people themselves, in each
community, must be educated to demand these requisites of health and
to secure them in their own way.
I. _Vital Statistics._--The first "Bill of Mortality" in New York city
extended from November 1st, 1801, to January 1st, 1803. In it people
are said to have died of "flux," "hives," "putrid fever," "breaking
out," "stoppage," "fits," of "rash," and, by way of contrast,
of "lingering illness." This rude beginning gradually led to the
organization of the Metropolitan Board of Health, whose first report
was made in 1866. Their second report showed a decrease of 3,152
deaths, mainly in districts where the greatest amount of sanitary work
had been done. Valuable illustrations of the relation between damp
houses and consumption were obtained by constructing maps of certain
wards, on which every death from phthisis for several years was noted
opposite each house. It was found that the disease was most fatal in
the lowest levels, in rainy seasons, and in crowded localities.
The registration of marriages continued so defective that a writer on
the subject declares it would be impossible for a large portion of
the adult native population of the United States to prove by any legal
document that they have a right to the name they bear, or that their
parents were ever married. The mortality returns of 1871 were probably
nearly perfect, and their very accuracy told against New York city,
whose death rate was 28.6 per thousand, while St. Louis reported 17,
Rochester 16, Buffalo 14, and Jersey City 7 per thousand. To secure
accuracy in the returns of marriages and births, etc., more stringent
legislation will be necessary.
In New Jersey the State Sanitary Association has conclusively
shown the utter worthlessness of the State vital statistics. They
memorialized the legislature, and caused the passage of a law which
gives to New Jersey one of the best systems of registration yet
devised. It owes its excellence to the following features, which
should be universally copied:
1. _Burial Permits_ are issued only after registry has been made by a
properly qualified person; and
2. The returns are made to an _expert_, who collates them and deduces
practical lessons from them.
II. _Registration of Disease_.--A large class of diseases may be
prevented from becoming epidemic if their existence is known in time.
For this purpose the boards of health should be invested with power
and provided with means to investigate, reform, and, if necessary,
to punish delinquency. Yet in the face of so practical a requirement
little more is annually appropriated for the Board of Health of New
Jersey than for the pay of two policemen.
III. _State Sanitary Legislation_.--The agitation for sanitary reform
caused by the yellow fever should not be allowed to die out with the
pressure of the calamity that aroused it. It should continue until
every State that has been the seat of yellow fever, year after year,
has as efficient a health code as Massachusetts and Michigan. The
necessity of educating the people before it is possible to secure
the requisite legislation will cause a considerable period of time
to elapse before all the States have laws in accordance with modern
knowledge. Probably no community takes the trouble to protect itself
until it has actually suffered. To the distress of London the world
owes the report of the Royal Commissions on water supply and the
pollution of rivers, still the best repertory of the best knowledge on
the subject. The manufactories of England have made it necessary for
the government to take cognizance of aerial impurities. Similarly in
this country the pollution of the Passaic has caused inquiries to be
set on foot in the same direction. [1]
[Footnote 1: See Report to Board of Public Works of Jersey City,
by Professors Wurtz and Leeds; also, Analyt. Beitraege aus dem
Laboratorium des Stevens Institute of Technology, by Professor Leeds,
in _Zeitschr. fur Anal. Chem. _1878.]
An attempt was made to deprive the inhabitants of New York of their
public parks, and to occupy them with buildings devoted to military
and other purposes; but the people had already been sufficiently
educated up to an appreciation of their sanitary value not to permit
it. Dr. Seguin eloquently advocated the improvement of the parks,
to make them not only pleasure grounds, but places of aesthetical and
practical out-door education of the public school children.
IV. _Ventilation_.--It would be a great step in the interests of
sanitary science if builders, vestrymen, and school or hospital
trustees could be persuaded that their offices did not make them
temporary authorities on ventilation, and that they had best intrust
this matter to specialists who have fought their way into successful
practice.
It appears that both the system of ventilation by aspiration and
that by propulsion have had great successes and great failures. Many
authorities have declared in favor of mechanical ventilation, yet in
most institutions where fans had been introduced they are now standing
still. In Roosevelt Hospital, New York, they ran their fan backwards
for months and then stopped it.
V. _Physical Education_.--Instruction in hygiene and physical
exercise as a part of the college curriculum was first successfully
accomplished at Amherst College, and has now had a trial of nearly
twenty years. The importance attached to it is shown by the fact that
only distinguished members of the medical profession are appointed
as professors, and that they have the same rank as the rest of the
faculty. Their first duty is to know the physical condition of every
student and to see that the laws of health are not violated. In case
of sickness, the students are given certificates to excuse them from
attendance and are put in the way of obtaining suitable treatment. The
records kept are of great interest. All the classes are required to
attend the gymnastic exercises four times a week. For a full account
see Professor Hitchcock's report on Hygiene at Amherst College to
the American Public Health Association. The excellent results of this
feature--it can no longer be regarded as an experiment--recommend its
introduction in all our colleges and public schools.
VI. _Health Resorts_.--The number of people who leave the cities in
the summer to visit the seashore, the mountains, and the country is
annually increasing. A healthful village is often changed to a center
of pestilence merely by such an influx of strangers, the ordinary
means of removing offal, etc., being no longer adequate. The town of
Bethlehem, N. H., became so popular by reason of its pure air that
several thousand hay fever patients sought relief there in 1877.
The consequence was insufficient drainage; but as the inhabitants
understood their interests, this defect was at once remedied.
The sea shore of New Jersey from Sandy Hook to Cape May is becoming
an almost continuous city, and harbors a multitude of visitors every
summer. Those whose interest it is to retain this patronage
cannot have it too strongly impressed upon them to preserve their
healthfulness by introducing cemented cisterns, by causing garbage to
be removed daily, and by encouraging local boards of health.
VII. _Illuminating Gas_ not only withdraws from the air of our rooms a
considerable amount of oxygen, but fills them with noxious products of
combustion. All this may be avoided in the future by the introduction
of the electric light.
VIII. _Sanitary Surveys_.--Dr. Bowditch has shown that a thousand
deaths from consumption in Massachusetts are due to a wet and
retentive soil, and this fact alone will show the importance of
sanitary surveys of the country, such as that made of Staten Island
by Professors Newberry and Trowbridge, who determined the influence
of the surface soil, of the underlying rock, its porosity, its bedding
and its joints, upon the drainage and upon the local climate and
health. A similar survey of Hudson county, New Jersey, has been
recently made by L. B. Heard, C.E.
IX. _Composition of the Atmosphere_.--The English government has
been obliged to appoint the celebrated Dr. Angus Smith to examine
the effects of atmospheric contamination. In Philadelphia there is
scarcely a house front that is not disfigured by the stain of magnesia
and lime salts, caused by acid vapors in the atmosphere.
A discussion followed, which was introduced by Mr. Collingwood, who
remarked that the problem of the sewage of cities was still far from
being solved. Though the recent experiments in England on utilizing
sewage for agricultural purposes by filtration and otherwise were
reported to be successful, we had only dodged the question in this
country. Our sewage is still emptied into rivers to poison the water
of cities further down their course. When the country becomes more
thickly settled, this will answer no longer.
It was also stated that while gas in large chandeliers could be made
an effective means of ventilation, there was another objection to its
use in the fact that the soil of the city was everywhere impregnated
with it from leaky mains, thus causing poisonous exhalations and an
insufferable odor whenever the ground was opened. Attention was also
called to the evil effects of the system of tenement houses, which led
to an unfavorable comparison of the health and morality of New York
with those of cities like Philadelphia and Cleveland, that abound in
small homes.
Dr. Minor attributed disease to what Richardson calls
"ultra-microscopic molecular aggregates," which always exist in
the air, but take hold of us only when our vitality is reduced to a
certain point. It has been shown that decay is absolutely impossible
in vessels from which they are excluded. But for them the earth would
now be heaped with the undecomposed remains of animals and vegetables.
According to this view, the future efforts of sanitary science must be
simply in the direction of learning how to protect ourselves against
the "ultra-microscopic molecular aggregates."
C. F. K.
* * * * *
FELLING TREES BY ELECTRICITY.
Some years ago a Doctor Robinson of this city obtained a patent
through the agency of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN for Felling Trees by
Electricity. Subsequently a description of the invention was published
in this paper, soon after which the newspapers in this country
and Europe teemed with the account of a gentleman in India having
contrived an apparatus for felling trees in the same manner. Since
these several years have elapsed we have heard nothing of the
gentleman from India till a few days ago our papers have taken up the
subject anew, and annexed is the account they give of the inventor's
progress in developing his discovery.
The electric fluid in the form of lightning oftentimes proves itself
a very efficient wood cutter, and it has occurred to some ingenious
gentleman in India that artificial electricity may be so applied and
controlled as to cut down trees a good deal faster than the clumsy
ax or that American notion the chain saw. The two ends of the copper
wires of a galvanic battery are connected with platinum wire, which of
course instantly becomes red hot, and while in that state it is gently
seesawed across the trunk of the trees to be felled. When arrangements
were made for the experiment, it turned out that the thickness of
the thickest platinum wire that could be got was only that of crochet
cotton. It was at once seen that such a wire would be consumed before
the tree was half severed from its trunk. However, the attempt was
made. The burning wire performed its task very well as long as it
lasted, but, as anticipated, the wire continually broke, and at
length there was no wire left. There can be little doubt that, with
a stronger battery and a thicker wire, the experiment would have been
entirely successful. As it was, the tree was sawn one fifth through.
* * * * *
AN IMPROVED VISE.
The novel vise shown in the engraving was recently patented by Mr.
William Starkey, of Pittsburg, Pa.
[Illustration: STARKEY'S VISE.]
The fixed jaw is supported by two standards from the base piece, and
has a square boxing or tube for receiving the slide of the movable
jaw. This slide is hollow, and contains a rack which is engaged by a
pinion on the short vertical shaft, which is supported by the fixed
jaw. At the lower end of the vertical shaft there is a worm wheel,
that is engaged by a worm on the horizontal shaft on which is placed
the hand wheel. By turning the hand wheel the vertical shaft is
rotated and the movable jaw is drawn against the object to be clamped
by the vise.
* * * * *
CULINARY USES FOR LEAVES.
A writer in the London _Iron Trade Exchange_, calling attention to a
neglected source of culinary flavors, says: