The Society of Arts, London, has just commenced the one hundred and
thirty-first session of its useful career. Professor Abel, the chairman
of its Council, presided at the opening meeting, and his speech was a
resumé of the progress of scientific research in various directions,
in which a large number of persons are just now much interested. Being
an electrician, he naturally devoted some time to the progress of
electrical illumination, and pointed to the wonderful display at the
recent International Health Exhibition as an illustration of the grand
results now possible. He also expressed himself satisfied with the
recent advances made in the direction of electric railways and other
means of locomotion to which the comparatively new power has been
experimentally applied, not omitting a very favourable reference to the
telpherage system of Professor Fleeming Jenkin.
The present position of the science of aërial navigation does not
commend itself to Professor Abel as holding out much hope of future
success. The recent experiments in France, during which an electrically
propelled balloon was made to take more than one short excursion in
a predetermined direction, merely prove that electricity can, under
exceptionally favourable circumstances, be employed in this new
service. But much has been done in making balloons serviceable for
purposes of reconnaissance in warfare, the various details, such as
making and transporting hydrogen gas in a compressed state to the field
of action, having been successfully provided for.
Attention was also called in Professor Abel’s address to compressed
carbonic acid gas as a convenient source of power. Messrs Krupp, the
great cannon-founders, at their extensive works at Essen are using
this power for maintaining steel castings under pressure during the
solidification of the metal. The earthen mould is closed directly it
is filled with metal, after which the compressed gas is admitted to it
from a reservoir of liquid carbonic acid, and in this way the space
above the molten metal is filled with gas under very high pressure.
A tendency to the formation of flaws and cavities, which nearly all
metals are subject to—meaning, in the case of railway plant, broken
bridges and fractured crank axles—is in this way completely avoided. It
is believed that the employment of this gas under pressure—compressed,
that is, to the liquid state and stored in iron bottles—has a very wide
future before it in many other useful applications.
Lastly, the important question of a pure water-supply engaged the
professor’s attention, and his opinion on this point will be best given
in his own words. ‘I venture,’ he says, ‘to think that our hope for
a radical improvement in the water-supply of this great metropolis
lies rather in the application of a simple, expeditious, cheap, and
effective mode of chemical treatment to supplies from sources now in
use, previous to their filtration, than in a complete change of our
source of supply.’ It now, therefore, remains for future experimenters
to devise some means by which water can be freed from those germs
which, under various names, are now said to be responsible for the ills
of mankind, and at the same time be left uncontaminated by any foreign
matter. The problem seems to be a hard one to solve, but not harder
than many which have been successfully conquered by modern science.
Whilst our never-ending difficulties in the Soudan and South Africa
are giving us costly information regarding those parts of the huge
continent, Mr Joseph Thomson comes back from his hazardous journey in
Eastern Africa to tell us about a tract of country with regard to which
hardly anything before was known. If we refer to a map of Africa, we
shall be readily able to note the position of Lake Victoria Nyanza,
with which Mr H. M. Stanley’s name is identified. Between this lake
and the coast lies the theatre of Mr Thomson’s wanderings. With an
inadequate number of followers, the great majority of whom he describes
as the very offscourings of Zanzibar villainy, this intrepid explorer
prosecuted his work in the face of almost inconceivable perils. His
contributions to geographical knowledge are of great importance, and
his sole reward is the hearty reception accorded to him the other
evening, when he gave a graphic account of his adventures to the Royal
Geographical Society.
At the recent Exhibition at Philadelphia, attention was directed in
a rather comical but effective manner to the Edison electric lamp.
A powerful lamp of this description was fastened to the head of a
black man, concealed wires being carried down his body from it and
connected with copper discs on the heels of his boots. This coloured
gentleman—the term ‘darkie’ is here obviously inadmissible—could become
luminous at will by simply placing his heels upon certain copper
conductors laid along the floor, which were in circuit with the general
system for lighting the building.
A still more startling novelty in electric illumination was organised
in New York a few weeks ago, an illustration of which is given in
the _Scientific American_, published in that city. This consisted of
an electric torchlight procession, which traversed several of the
streets; and its object was, we presume, to advertise the Edison system
of electric illumination. The procession may be best described as a
hollow square formed by about three hundred men, each wearing a helmet,
surmounted by a powerful electric lamp, and each holding the protected
rope which carried the current from one to the other. In the centre of
the square travelled a steam-engine and dynamo-machine—on trucks drawn
by horses—followed by coal and water carts to supply the engine with
its necessary food. Both horses and trucks were decorated with lamps,
and the leader of the brilliant throng carried a staff tipped with
radiance of two hundred candle-power.
Our readers will learn with interest that Mr Clement Wragge, the
pioneer of the meteorological station on the summit of Ben Nevis, is
initiating a work of similar character in Australia. He has placed
self-registering instruments on the top of Mount Lofty in connection
with the Observatory at Sydney, and has appealed to the public to help
in promoting scientific research by leaving them untouched.
An explosion last July at a gunpowder factory in Lancashire, by which
four men lost their lives, was caused by lightning. This disaster
once more calls attention to the grave necessity which exists for
buildings, and such buildings especially, to be protected by efficient
lightning-conductors. From Colonel Ford’s Report upon the matter, which
as Inspector of Explosives he has just presented to the Secretary of
State, it appears that a conductor was fitted to the doomed building,
but that it was a defective one. He states that there is no authentic
case on record where a properly constructed lightning-conductor
failed to do its duty; and recommends that these safeguards should be
periodically examined and tested.
From time to time, we have given in these pages the results of
different experiments with the new method of preserving fodder, known
as ensilage, and have expressed the hope that our farmers may find
in it some compensation for recent bad times. We now learn from the
agricultural returns for 1884 how widespread have been the experiments
in this direction. These returns state that no fewer than six hundred
and ten silos have been built in this country, of which five hundred
and fourteen are to be found in England, sixty in Scotland, and
thirty-six in Wales. Of the English counties, Norfolk heads the list
with fifty-nine silos. In Scotland, Argyll has twelve, and is followed
by Lanark and Renfrew, which counties have each half that number. The
largest silo noted in the returns is in the county of Argyll. We may
gather from these figures that the principle of ensilage as adapted to
British farming has now entirely passed the experimental stage. (This
important subject is further noticed in one of our Occasional Notes.
See p. 829.)
The novel proposal has lately been made by Mr W. O. Chambers, the
Secretary of the National Fish-culture Association, that fishponds
should be established on lands which are unavailable for ordinary
crops, and that unprofitable agri-culture should give place to
profitable aqua-culture. The fish which it is said can be made to
accomplish this desirable result is the carp, and the German carp in
particular. According to Mr Chambers, this fish attains in three years
a weight of four pounds, and its fecundity is so great that it will
yield an average of half a million eggs. He states that one acre of
water will produce, with little or no expense for food or maintenance,
five thousand fish per annum. In a word, we are recommended to do as
did the monks of old when monastic buildings were dotted over the
land. The remains of fish stews or ponds left to us by the monks can
be pointed to in plenty, and the question arises, if fresh-water
fish-culture is really so profitable, why were these ponds suffered to
fall into disuse? Another consideration arises as to whether, supposing
the scheme to be possible, modern taste, not compelled to eat fish on
certain days, would find the fresh-water variety palatable?
The British Rainfall Association is one of those unobtrusive societies
which is doing quietly a work of great good. Begun some years back
by Mr Symons, who set up a rain-gauge in his garden in London, and
put himself in communication with a few friends in other parts of the
country who did the same, the Association now numbers two thousand
observers, spread over the United Kingdom. Mr Symons has lately
published a curious diagram showing approximately the amount of rain
which has fallen each year in Britain for two centuries. Of course
such a record cannot pretend to be infallible, especially in the case
of the earlier period which it covers, but it opens out more than one
extremely interesting subject for inquiry.
The year 1884, with its genial spring, its splendid summer, and its
gorgeous autumn, has been one in which the rainfall has been somewhat
below the average; and in some districts there have been positive
symptoms of a water-famine. But if we look back to the last century,
we find a period of drought between the years 1738 and 1750, which,
if it recurred in the present day would, in Mr Symons’s opinion, dry
up the water-supply of nearly every town in the kingdom. Another
curious observation is this: an unusually wet year seems to occur at
intervals of ten years, the years ending with the figure four being the
favoured ones. Thus, 1854, ’64, ’74, and so on, were wet years. But at
the same time another twelve-year cycle of dry years also occurs—the
years 1824, ’36, ’48, and so on, having been particularly limited in
their rainfall. In this year of grace 1884, the two cycles terminate
together, as they must do every now and then. So we have a year of
doubt, and know not until its close which influence has proved the
stronger.
Notwithstanding the rapid advance that has been made during the past
few years in the beautiful art of photography, and the various new
applications of it in different arts and sciences, in one particular
it has stood still. A negative picture upon glass can, as every one
knows, be produced in a fraction of a second. But the after-process
of producing so-called positive prints on paper from that negative is
a tedious business, depending in great measure upon the brilliancy
of the weather. Messrs Marion of London have endeavoured to obviate
these inconveniences by the manufacture of a special kind of paper,
the nature of which they at present keep secret, and which they now
offer to the photographic world. By this paper a negative can be made
to yield a positive image in a few seconds, quite independently of
daylight, for a gas jet or paraffin lamp is sufficient to affect its
extreme sensitiveness. This invention will enable a photographer to
send his patron a dozen or more copies of a portrait that has been
taken the same day.
The Bread Reform League is a useful society which has been formed to
counteract the modern tendency to make what is properly called ‘the
staff of life’ in such a way that many of its most useful ingredients
are discarded. This society has, under the organisation of its
energetic honorary secretary, Miss Yates, opened an Exhibition in
London, where different samples of bread stuffs, treated in various
ways, are shown. The profits of this Exhibition are to go to a ‘Penny
Dinner and Breakfast Fund’ for the benefit of needy children attending
the Board Schools. Hitherto, only food for the mind has been provided
at these establishments, and the fact has recently leaked out that
forty per cent. of the children arrive at some of them without any
breakfast, and that at other schools twenty-eight per cent. often are
dinnerless. It is a terribly sad story, and one very difficult to
reconcile with the oft repeated boast that London is the richest city
in the world.
The _Graphic_ makes a very sensible suggestion with reference to
those gloomy places called railway waiting-rooms. In similar places in
France, the walls are often adorned with well-executed maps in relief,
showing the country through which the line passes. Why should not this
system be adopted in Britain? Constant travellers know to their cost
that there are many railway stations in the kingdom where waiting-rooms
are only too necessary. The cry of ‘All change here!’ often means that
all will be compelled to wait here for an indefinite period. Now,
if waiting-rooms were furnished with maps and framed notices giving
some account of the history of the surrounding neighbourhood, its
antiquities, natural beauties, &c., the dreary time might in many cases
be turned into a pleasant visit, and would most infallibly do good as
an advertisement to the railway itself.
At a recent sale of art treasures at Cologne, there were put up to
auction two curiosities which had been bought by their late possessor
at some obscure town in Switzerland twenty-four years ago for the sum
of twenty-three francs. One was a fifteenth-century cup of Venetian
glass, and the other was a bundle of tapestry. At the last sale,
these articles formed two distinct lots, and they realised more than
thirty-six thousand francs—that is, fifteen hundred pounds sterling.
The question of ‘musical pitch’ has for many years troubled musicians,
each country adopting a note giving a different number of vibrations
per second as its standard. In Britain, we have the Philharmonic
pitch, and when any one talks of having his piano tuned up to concert
pitch, the Philharmonic standard is the one indicated. For some
reason, the modern pitch is made higher than that recognised in past
days, and consequently the compositions of some of the best composers
are now heard in a key higher than that intended by their authors.
We understand that a conference upon the subject is shortly to be
organised. In the meantime, the Italian War Minister has sought the
opinions of living composers with reference to the best pitch for
military bands. We need only refer to the reply of one of these, Verdi,
whose name is as familiar in Britain as in the country of his birth.
He writes in reference to the modern high pitch: ‘The lowering of
the diapason will by no means impair the sonorousness and brilliancy
of execution; it will, on the contrary, give something noble, full,
majestic to the tone, which the strident effects of the higher pitch do
not possess.’ He goes on to say that one pitch should be common to all
nations. ‘The musical language is universal; why, therefore, should the
note which is called A in Paris or Milan become B♭ in Rome?’
A German paper gives some interesting statistics relative to ear
disease, which have been collected from different aural surgeons.
From these, we gather that males are more subject to ear disease than
females. Out of every three middle-aged persons, there is found one who
does not hear so well with one ear as with the other. The liability
to disease increases from birth to the age of forty, after which it
decreases as old age is reached. Of six thousand children examined,
twenty-three per cent. show symptoms of ear disease, and thirty-two
per cent. a deficiency of hearing power. With regard to the results
of surgical treatment, we learn that of the total number of cases of
all kinds, fifty-three per cent. are cured, and thirty per cent. are
benefited. We fancy that these figures are rather more favourable than
surgeons in this country can show, it being well known that aural cases
are among the most uncertain and unsatisfactory to deal with.
The steamship _Ionic_, which lately left this country for New Zealand,
took out with her a large number of passengers of a description not
usually met with on shipboard. They consisted of one hundred and
fifty-eight stoats and weasels, whose mission in New Zealand will be to
prey upon the rabbits which are fast overrunning that country. This is
the third consignment which has left our shores. The little animals are
accommodated in zinc-lined boxes, and during the forty days’ journey
are calculated to require for their food more than two thousand live
pigeons, which accompany them. The poor pigeons also require food, and
therefore sixteen quarters of Indian corn were taken out for their
consumption. Altogether, the expense to the colonial government must be
something considerable, but will not be grudged if the required result
is achieved.