It was the forenoon of the second day after the picnic. There was
thunder in the air, but the storm had not yet broken. Any moment the
clouds might part and the first bolt fall. What might have been the
result of the collision between Laroche and Colonel Woodruffe on the
day of the picnic, but for the opportune invasion of the glen by a
number of excursionists, who put privacy to flight, it is of course
impossible to say. It may be also that the Frenchman read something in
the colonel’s eye which warned him not to proceed too far. No sooner,
therefore, had the remark last recorded passed his lips, than he turned
abruptly on his heel, and striking into the same winding pathway that
Mora had taken earlier in the day, became at once lost to view in the
depths of the shrubbery.
‘Had you not better let me take you back to the hotel at once?’ said
the colonel to Mora after a little pause. ‘You can easily make an
excuse to your party for leaving them. There is an inn at the foot of
the valley at which we can hire a fly.’
Mora at once assented. Now that the worst was known, now that
everything had been told, her heart cried out for solitude: she wanted
to be alone with her despair.
On their way they encountered Miss Gaisford, to whom Mora made some
kind of an excuse. An hour later they alighted at the _Palatine_. As
they stood for a moment at the door, the colonel said: ‘I shall remain
here at the hotel for the present, in case you should need me. No one
can tell what may happen. Night or day I am at your service.’
She gazed into his eyes for a moment, pressed his hand tenderly, and
was gone.
From that hour, Madame De Vigne had ceased to appear in the general
sitting-room down-stairs. The bedrooms occupied by the sisters were
separated by a small boudoir. In this latter room Madame De Vigne now
passed her time, and here she and Clarice partook of their meals. Miss
Penelope and Nanette alone had access to their room.
Of all the people in the hotel Colonel Woodruffe alone was aware that
the polite and good-looking French gentleman who called himself M. De
Miravel had any acquaintance with Madame De Vigne, or had as much as
spoken a word to that lady. De Miravel, to all appearance, did not know
a soul in the place. He was very smiling and affable to every one, but
seemed to have no acquaintances. His sole occupation—if occupation it
could be called—seemed to be to lounge about the grounds and smoke.
Once, it is true, he went for an hour’s row on the lake, but that was
all. When he and Colonel Woodruffe chanced to meet, they passed each
other like utter strangers.
Another visitor who appeared not to care to make acquaintances was Mr
Santelle. He took his breakfast in the public coffee-room, and dined
at the _table-d’hôte_; his keen, watchful eyes saw everything and
everybody, but he rarely addressed himself to any one. He was not so
much _en évidence_ as M. De Miravel; but with a guide-book under his
arm and a field-glass slung over his shoulder, he took the steamer
from place to place, and seemed bent upon seeing all that there was to
be seen. Jules kept a furtive eye upon him at meal-times, but not the
slightest sign of recognition passed between the two men.
When Clarice got back to the hotel on the evening of the picnic, she
found a telegram from Archie awaiting her. ‘Governor not yet to hand,’
ran the message. ‘Probably fatigue of travelling has been too much for
him. May have broken journey somewhere. Can only await his arrival.
Hope he will turn up in the morning. Will telegraph again to-morrow.’
Clarice handed the telegram to Mr Etheridge. That gentleman read it
slowly and carefully, and handed it back with a smile. ‘I think it
very likely, as Mr Archie suggests, that Sir William has broken his
journey,’ he observed. ‘But I have long thought that Sir William
fancies himself more of an invalid than he really is, and that if he
chose to exert himself a little more, it might perhaps be all the
better for his health. But there is no accounting for the whims of
these rich people. I sometimes think that a little poverty would be a
good thing for some of them.’
There was more cynicism in this speech than in any that Clarice had
hitherto heard from the old gentleman’s lips. But it was not in her
province to make any reply to it. She had never even seen Sir William,
whereas Mr Etheridge had known him for years.
When not with her sister—and Mora seemed to prefer to be as much alone
as possible—Clarice spent most of her time with the old man. She could
talk to him about Archie, whom he seemed to have known from childhood,
and could listen with unfailing interest to all that he had to tell
about the eccentric baronet; while Mr Etheridge seemed quite as fond
of her society as she was of his. No message, either by telegram or
letter, had yet arrived for him, but he never failed to ransack the
letter-rack three or four times a day. ‘We can only wait,’ he said
once or twice to Clarice, as he turned from the rack with that faint,
patient smile which she was beginning to know so well. ‘Sir William is
a man who can never bear to be hurried in anything.’
Next afternoon there came a second telegram addressed to Miss Loraine:
‘No news of the governor yet. Most extraordinary. Would have started
back to-day, but Blatchett strongly advises to remain till morning.
Should there be no news by ten A.M., you may expect me at the
_Palatine_ in time for dinner.’
‘Just like Sir William—just like him; I’m not a bit surprised,’ was Mr
Etheridge’s curt comment when he had read the telegram.
‘He must indeed be a singular man,’ said Clarice. Then her eyes began
to sparkle, and a lovely colour flushed her cheeks. ‘Perhaps by this
time to-morrow Archie may be back again,’ she said, more as if speaking
to herself than addressing Mr Etheridge.
In the course of these two days Colonel Woodruffe and Mr Etheridge met
more than once. They talked together, walking side by side on the lawn
of the hotel. The chief part of the talking, however, seemed to be done
by the colonel, his companion’s share of it being mostly confined to
‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ a confirmatory nod of the head, or now and then a brief
question.
* * * * *
When Lady Renshaw got back from the picnic on Wednesday evening, and
was in a position to have a quiet chat with her niece, she declared
that she had not spent so pleasant a day for a long time. Dr M‘Murdo
was really a most agreeable, well-informed man—a man whose talents
ought to make him a position in the world; and as for the poor,
dear vicar, he was nothing less than charming. ‘So simple-minded
and unworldly, my dear. He quite puts me in mind of the Vicar of
Wakefield.’ Then she added by way of after-thought: ‘But I cannot say
that I care greatly for that sister of his. There is something about
her excessively flippant and satirical—and I do dislike satirical
people, above all others.’
But Lady Renshaw’s real enjoyment—of which she said nothing to her
niece—arose from her thorough belief that both the doctor and the
vicar had been irresistibly smitten by her charms. If they were not
in love, or close on the verge of it, why had they followed her about
all day like two spaniels, each of them jealously afraid to leave her
alone with the other? It was delightful! As she sipped a cup of tea
after her return, she began to ask herself whether she might not do
worse than accept this clever, well-preserved Scotch doctor. She had
no doubt in her own mind that he would propose in the course of a few
days. With the help of her money, he might buy a first-class West-end
practice; and after that, there was no knowing what he might not rise
to in the course of a few years. Seven to ten thousand a year, so she
had been given to understand, was by no means an uncommon income for a
fashionable doctor to make nowadays. She would think the matter over in
the quietude of her own room, so that she might be prepared with her
answer, when the inevitable moment should arrive.
The fact was that Dr Mac had fooled her to the top of her bent, as Miss
Gaisford had prophesied he would do. Her vanity, as he soon found, was
insatiable; no compliment was too egregious for her to swallow. ‘I’ve
done my duty like a man,’ he remarked with grim humour to Miss Pen at
the close of the day; ‘but I hope you will never set me such a task
again: the creature’s self-conceit is stupendous—stupendous!’
The picnic took place on Wednesday. Thursday was ushered in with wind
and rain. The hills had wrapped thick mantles of mist about them, and
had retired into private life. Visitors shook their heads as they
peered out of the rain-streaked windows, and made up their minds to
settle down for the day to novels, gossip, and letter-writing. Despite
the wind and rain, Dr Mac set out for Kendal at an early hour with the
avowed intention of hunting up some old friends. The vicar, too timid
to tackle the widow by himself, kept to his own room, on the plea of
having a sermon to compose. Miss Wynter might have been justified that
day in her belief that her aunt’s temper was not invariably the most
angelic in the world.
Bella had enjoyed her picnic more, far more than her aunt was aware of.
And yet the girl was troubled in her secret heart. Dick had never made
love to her so audaciously before; in fact, the opportunity had never
been afforded him; while she herself had never quite known till that
day how dear he had become to her. Her training, almost from childhood,
and her mode of life since her aunt had taken charge of her, had all
tended to stifle the feelings natural to her age and sex, and to induce
her to regard the sacrament of marriage as a mere question of pounds,
shillings, and pence. Yet here, almost to her dismay, and very much to
her mortification, because she felt that she could not help it, she
found herself hopelessly in love with a man the amount of whose income
seemed in her eyes little more than an equivalent for semi-genteel
pauperism. What was to be done? Should she treat Dick after the fashion
in which she had treated more than one man already? Now that she had
brought him to her feet, should she turn her back on him with a little
smile of triumph, and bid him farewell for ever? But then, she had
never cared for those other men; while for Dick she did care very
much. Whatever she might decide to do must be decided quickly. Dick,
easy-going and full of fun as he might seem to be, was not a man to
stand any shilly-shallying nonsense. As he stood for a moment or two
on the dusky lawn with her hand in his after their return from the
picnic, he had given her plainly to understand that he should expect a
categorical ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ from her on Friday. And now Friday was here,
and her mind was no nearer being made up than it had been on Wednesday.
Not much appetite for her breakfast had Miss Wynter that morning.
As a matter of course, Mr Etheridge was introduced to Lady Renshaw. Her
ladyship was very gracious indeed, when she found in what relation the
pleasant-voiced, white-haired gentleman stood to Sir William Ridsdale,
and that he was the bearer of a letter all the way from Spa for Mr
Archie. With her usual penetration, her ladyship at once concluded
in her own mind that the story about a letter for Archie was a mere
blind, and that the real object of Mr Etheridge’s journey was to spy
out the weakness of the land. In other words, Sir William had deputed
him to ascertain all that could be ascertained respecting Madame De
Vigne and her sister, their mode of life, antecedents, &c.; which,
under the circumstances, was no doubt a laudable thing to do. In fact,
all her ladyship’s sympathies were on the side of Mr Etheridge, and she
would most gladly have assisted him in his task, had she only seen her
way clearly how to do so. She smiled to herself more than once, as she
remarked how innocently all these good people around her accepted Mr
Etheridge’s version of the reason of his visit to Windermere, not one
of them seeming to dream that there could possibly be anything in the
background. But then, it is not given to all of us to be so far-seeing
as the Lady Renshaws of this world.
As she rose from the breakfast-table this Friday morning she chanced to
spy Mr Etheridge pacing the lawn in front of the windows with his hands
clasped behind him. He was waiting for Clarice. The two were going on a
little excursion together; but not to any distance, as Clarice thought
that at any moment there might come a telegram from Archie. Lady
Renshaw, seeing Mr Etheridge alone, could not resist the temptation
of a little private conversation with him. She might perhaps be able
to glean some information as to how matters were progressing; besides
which, she had another motive in view.
‘I trust that you left dear Sir William quite well, Mr Etheridge?’
remarked her ladyship after the usual greetings had passed.
‘Tolerable, ma’am, tolerable. At the best of times his health is never
very robust; but there has been a considerable improvement in it of
late—or he fancies there has, which comes, perhaps, to pretty much the
same thing.—Probably Sir William has the honour of your ladyship’s
acquaintance?’
‘N-no; I have never yet had the pleasure of meeting him. You see, he
has lived so much abroad, otherwise I have no doubt we should have met
at the house of some mutual acquaintance in town.’
Mr Etheridge coughed a dry little cough, but said nothing.
‘Dear Archie, now, and I are old acquaintances. What a fine young
fellow he is! So clever, you know, and all that. I’m sure Sir William
must be proud of such a son.’
‘Possibly so, madam—possibly so.’
Her ladyship was anxious to touch on delicate ground, but scarcely saw
her way to begin. However, it was necessary to make a plunge, and she
did not long hesitate.
‘Between you and me, Mr Etheridge,’ she said insinuatingly, ‘don’t
you think it a great pity that a young man with Mr Archie’s splendid
prospects should seem so determined to throw himself away—no, perhaps
I ought not to make use of that phrase—but—to—to—in short, to take up
with a young lady like Miss Loraine, who, so far as any one knows,
seems to have neither fortune, prospects, nor antecedents? To me, it
seems a great, great pity.’ She glanced sharply at her companion as she
finished, anxious to note the effect of her words.
Mr Etheridge came to a halt, apparently engaged in deep thought
for a few moments before he replied. Then he said, speaking very
deliberately: ‘It does perhaps seem a pity, as you say, madam, that Mr
Archie should be so infatuated with this young lady, when he might do
so very differently, were he so minded.’
‘I was quite sure that you would agree with me,’ returned her ladyship
in her most dulcet tones. ‘But no doubt Mr Archie will listen to
reason. When Sir William places the matter before him in its proper
light, and proves to him how irretrievably he will ruin himself by
contracting such an alliance, he will surely see that, in his case at
least, inclination must give way to duty, and that his career in life
must not be frustrated by the mere empty charms of a butterfly face.’
What her ladyship meant by a ‘butterfly face’ she did not condescend to
explain.
‘As to whether Mr Archie will listen to what your ladyship calls reason
is a point upon which, as matters stand at present, I am scarcely
competent to offer an opinion.’
‘Sly old fox!’ muttered her ladyship. ‘He wasn’t born yesterday. But he
doesn’t take _me_ in with his innocent looks.’
She had another arrow left. ‘Then, as regards the sister of Miss
Loraine—this Madame De Vigne? A very charming person, no doubt; but
that is not everything. I daresay, Mr Etheridge, your experience will
tell you that the most charming of our sex are sometimes the most
dangerous?’
Mr Etheridge bowed, but did not commit himself further.
‘On all sides I hear people asking, “Who is Madame De Vigne? Where
did she spring from? Who was Monsieur De Vigne? What was he, when
alive?” Question after question asked, but no information vouchsafed.
Ah, my dear Mr Etheridge, where there’s concealment, there’s mystery;
and where there’s mystery, there’s—there’s—— Well, I won’t say what
there is.’ Possibly her ladyship had not quite made up her mind what
there was. ‘In any case, Mr Etheridge,’ she resumed, ‘were I in your
position, I should deem it imperative on me to make Sir William
acquainted with everything, down to the most minute particulars. You
are on the spot; you can see and hear for yourself. Of course, it would
be a dreadful thing if, after Mr Archie were married to the young lady,
something discreditable were to turn up—some family secret, perhaps,
that would not bear the light of day; some scandal, it may be, that
could only be spoken of in whispers. For Sir William’s sake, if not for
that of our dear, foolish Archie, everything should be made as clear as
daylight before it is too late. I hope you agree with me, Mr Etheridge?’
‘Quite, madam—quite.—What a splendid man of business your ladyship
would have made, if you will excuse me for saying so. Sir William shall
be made acquainted with everything. I will see to that; yes, yes; I
will see to that.’
‘He _is_ a spy, then, after all,’ said Lady Renshaw complacently to
herself.
At this moment, Clarice emerged from the hotel. Lady Renshaw greeted
her with a smile of much amiability. ‘I trust that dear Madame De Vigne
is better this morning?’ she said. ‘I have been so grieved by her
indisposition. But, really, on Wednesday I myself found the heat most
trying. I cannot wonder at her prostration.’
‘My sister is a little better this morning, thank you, Lady Renshaw,’
answered Clarice in her gently serious way. ‘I trust that by to-morrow
she will be well enough to join us down-stairs.’
‘I hope so, with all my heart,’ answered her ladyship with as much
fervour as if she were repeating a response at church.
After a few more words, Clarice and Mr Etheridge went their way. As her
ladyship turned to go indoors, Miss Wynter, escorted by Mr Golightly in
his boating flannels, emerged from the hotel. They had breakfasted an
hour before her ladyship, who was a somewhat late riser. Dick had said
to Bella at table: ‘I want you to go on the water this morning. It’s
going to be a bit cloudy later on, I think, and it’s just possible that
the perch may be in the humour for biting.’
‘As if he cared a fig about the perch!’ said Bella to herself. ‘The
wretch only wants to get me into a boat all to himself, and then he
thinks he can say what he likes to me.’ She trembled a little, feeling
that the crisis of her fate was at hand. She would have liked to mutiny
and say, ‘I shan’t go,’ as under similar circumstances she would have
said to any other man. But with Dick, poor Dick! who had run such risks
for her sake, and had done so much to win her, she felt that she could
not be so cruel. Besides, she had a woman’s natural curiosity to hear
what he would say. ‘And I needn’t say “Yes” unless I choose to,’ she
remarked to herself; but in her heart of hearts she knew that her ‘No,’
if uttered at all, would be a very faint one indeed. As it was, she
merely looked at him a little superciliously for a moment or two, and
then quietly assented.
‘I trust, dear Mr Golightly, that you are thoroughly competent to
manage a boat?’ remarked her ladyship, when she had been told where the
young people were going.
‘Rather,’ answered Richard a little brusquely. ‘I didn’t pull stroke in
the Camford Eight, seven years ago, for nothing.’
‘I only spoke because I’m told that the lake is most treacherous,
and that a year rarely passes without one or more fatalities.—Bella,
darling, I think you ought to have taken a warmer shawl with you. The
air on the water is often chilly.’ Then in an aside: ‘Be careful what
you are about. If he proposes, only accept him provisionally. This
affair of Archie Ridsdale’s is by no means at an end yet.’
Bella nodded. ‘Too late, aunty, too late,’ she said to herself. ‘I’m
very much afraid that I can’t help myself.’
Lady Renshaw, as she turned away, remarked to herself: ‘I’m not sure
that young Golightly is quite such a nincompoop as I took him to be at
first. But in any case, Bella ought to be able to twist him round her
finger.’
Clarice had not left her sister many minutes when Nanette entered her
mistress’s room carrying a note on a salver. It was simply addressed,
‘Madame De Vigne.’ One glance at the writing was enough. Mora
remembered it too well. She turned sick at heart as she took the note.
‘You need not wait,’ she said to Nanette. As soon as she was alone, she
sank down on the ottoman and tore open the envelope. The note, which
was written in French, ran as follows:
‘I have not troubled you since our last interview. I have left
you alone, that you might have time to think over what I said
to you. But I have had no message from you, and this long delay
begins to irritate me. I must know at once what you intend to
do. I propose to call upon you at seven o’clock this evening. I
need not say more.—LAROCHE.’
Madame De Vigne sat staring at the letter for some minutes, as though
the reading of its contents had taken from her all power of sense or
feeling. Then waking up as if from a trance, she said to herself: ‘It
must be done; there is no other course.’ She touched the tiny gong at
her elbow. Nanette appeared. ‘Inquire whether Colonel Woodruffe is in
the hotel,’ she said. ‘If he is, tell him that I should like to see him
here at his convenience.’
(_To be concluded next month._)
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
It has long been understood that the vaults of the British Museum
contained many treasures for which no space could be found in those
parts of the building accessible to the public. But the removal of
the Natural History Collection to its new home at South Kensington
has placed a series of spacious galleries at the disposal of the
authorities, and these are now being filled with the hitherto hidden
antiquities. Among the most interesting of these is a collection of
tablets bearing inscriptions relating to Babylonian history. One is a
Babylonian Calendar, from which it would appear that in Babylon the
superstition existed of certain days in the year being either lucky
or unlucky. This book of fate had to be consulted before performing
various acts of domestic life. The same superstition is common to the
Chinese, and seems akin to the astrological fictions prevalent in
Europe a few centuries back.
Mr Petrie, whose excavations at San (Zoan) have been adverted to more
than once in these pages, has now returned to England, and has recently
given an account of his work at a meeting of the subscribers to the
Egypt Exploration Fund. He has examined more than twenty sites of
ancient cities and remains, and speaks of certain ground so thickly
strewn with early Greek pottery ‘that the potsherds crackled under
the feet as one walked over it.’ He pointed out that the main object
with regard to San—a city built seven years before Hebron—was to gain
knowledge of the unknown period of the Shepherd kings. But the work
will occupy several years, for the district to be explored covers some
square miles, and the remains are in many cases lying beneath eighty
feet of earth. The Exploration Fund shows a balance of two thousand
pounds, a circumstance partly due to the liberality of our American
cousins, who are greatly interested in the work.
It is proposed to found at Athens a British School of Archæology,
the aim of which will be to promote the study of Greek art and
architecture, the study of inscriptions, the exploration of ancient
sites, and to promote generally researches into Hellenic life and
literature. His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is President of
the General Committee, which includes a large number of distinguished
representatives of our universities and schools. Sufficient money has
already been subscribed to start the enterprise, but more will be
required for its maintenance. Subscriptions may be sent to Mr Walter
Leaf, Old Change, London, or to Professor Jebb, at the University,
Glasgow.
The French Minister of Agriculture some time ago commissioned a
Professor of the Collège de France to experiment upon the best method
of destroying the winter eggs of the _Phylloxera_, it having been
ascertained that that line of attack was the most efficient in dealing
with that terrible scourge of the vineyard. After several trials, a
mixture of oil, naphtha, quicklime, and water has been tested on a
large scale with the most successful results. It was of course easy
enough to hit upon a chemical compound which would kill the eggs, but
not so easy to find one which would not destroy the vine at the same
time. The remedy is not only efficient, but cheap.
For some years, Dr Jaeger, of Germany, has been preaching a new
hygienic doctrine, which has quickly gained disciples in the
Fatherland and in other countries as well. Under the title of Sanitary
Clothing, this new creed teaches that our dress requires a far more
radical change than is indicated in the philosophy of so-called
dress-reformers. Here is the pith of the matter. Man being an animal,
should follow the dictates of nature by wearing only clothing made from
wool and similar animal products. Cotton, linen, &c., are harmful in
collecting the emanations from the skin, whilst animal textures assist
in their evaporation. At the same time, animal clothing is warmest in
winter, and coolest in summer, and by its adoption we might count upon
the same immunity from disease as is seen in well-cared-for domestic
animals. By night as well as by day we must shun contact with vegetable
fibres. Sheets must give place to wool and camel-hair coverings. It is
obvious that, besides revolutionising the Englishman’s innate regard
for ‘clean linen,’ the general adoption of these new tenets would cause
a revolution in trade, and would therefore at once court opposition;
but for all this, the doctrine seems to have a considerable amount of
common-sense about it.
A very pleasant and interesting ceremony was witnessed on Scarborough
sands the other day, where a large collection of donkeys and ponies
were assembled in review order. A few gentlemen have for the past two
years subscribed for prizes to be offered at the end of each season to
those drivers who can show their beasts in good condition and bearing
the signs of kind treatment. This was the second distribution of the
kind. There are many seaside places and other spots of popular resort
where this good example might be followed with much advantage.
Lord Brabazon utters a useful note of warning when he points out, what
has long been patent to many observers, that there is a deterioration
in physique of the inhabitants of the more crowded portions of our
cities. Want of food, exercise, and fresh air are the causes of this
decline. He points out that in this year’s drill competition of School
Board scholars it was clearly noticeable that those children from
the poorest and most crowded districts were of shorter stature than
the others. As a partial remedy for this lamentable state of things,
Lord Brabazon advocates more variety in the system of education, and
begs the authorities to remember that the body should be cared for as
well as the brain. He pleads also that cookery, needlework, and the
knowledge of a few simple rules for maintaining the body in health,
will be of more value to a girl than a smattering of French, and that a
boy will make a better citizen for having been trained to use his hands
as well as his head in honest labour.
It is stated that a Wild Birds’ Protection Act is much needed in
several parts of our Indian possessions. The birds have been hunted
down for the sake of their bright plumage, until in some districts
certain species are almost exterminated. The frightened agriculturists
are now calling out for protection for their feathered friends, for
insects of various kinds are increasing to an alarming extent, and are
playing sad havoc with the crops.
According to the _Building News_, another curious use has been found
for paper. At Indianapolis, a skating rink has been constructed of this
ubiquitous material. Straw-boards are first of all pasted together,
and are subjected to hydraulic pressure, and these when sawn into
flooring-boards are laid so that their edges are uppermost. After being
rubbed with glass paper, a surface is obtained so smooth and hard, and
at the same time exhibiting such adhesive properties, that it is well
adapted for the modern roller-skates. It is also stated that in Sweden
old decaying moss has been manufactured into a kind of cardboard which
can be moulded in various ways for the purposes of house decoration. It
is said to be as hard as wood, and will take an excellent polish.
When we read the account of some fatal gas explosion, we are always
prepared to find the oft repeated tale of the foolish one who goes to
look for the leak with a lighted candle. A recent explosion of this
kind in Paris has led to the appointment of a Commission to determine
the best manner of searching for gas-escapes. It has been now decided
that an electric incandescent light fed by an accumulator—or secondary
battery—shall be rendered obligatory for such operations, and suitable
apparatus has been selected and approved. It now remains to be seen
where the lamps are to be kept, how they are to be always charged ready
for use, and whether the foolhardy folk who court explosion with a
naked candle or match will ever trouble themselves at all about the
provision made for their protection.
Japan has the unenviable distinction of being the one spot on this
globe where earthquakes are most frequent, and therefore it may be
assumed that the Seismological Society of Japan has plenty of work to
do. In the last issue of the ‘Transactions’ of this useful body of
workers, there is a good paper by Professor Milne on Earth Tremors.
The study of these slight movements of our great mother is called
microseismology, and a number of exceedingly ingenious instruments have
been contrived for identifying and self-recording them. From the fact
that earthquakes are generally preceded by great activity in the way of
tremors, it is hoped that reliable means may be found of forecasting
those terrible occurrences. Professor Milne supposes earth tremors to
be ‘slight vibratory motions produced in the soil by the bending and
crackling of rocks, caused by their rise upon the relief of atmospheric
pressure.’ Another investigator thinks that they may be the result of
an increased escape of vapour from molten material beneath the crust
of the earth consequent upon a relief of external pressure. In other
words, these premonitory symptoms are developed when the barometer is
low.
Messrs Manlove and Company, engineers at Manchester, Leeds, &c., in
calling our attention to a paragraph which appeared some months back in
this _Journal_ descriptive of a street-refuse furnace or ‘destructor,’
point out that that title was given to an apparatus of their invention
some years ago, which is now in successful operation in various
parts of the kingdom. Owing to the word ‘destructor’ not having been
protected by copyright, it has been applied by other inventors to more
recent contrivances.
A New Jersey capitalist has lately planted a vast area in Florida with
cocoa-palms, and he expects in a few years to rival the most extensive
groves of these trees in other parts. The plantation covers one
thousand acres, and each acre numbers one hundred trees. They will not
yield any return for the first six years; but at the end of that time a
profit of ten per cent. on a valuation of two million dollars is looked
for, the original cost of planting being only forty thousand dollars.
The trees, we learn, will flourish only within a certain distance
of the sea-coast, and each full-grown tree produces annually sixty
nuts. We presume that the estimated profits take into consideration
the processes of oil-extraction and fibre-dressing, which necessarily
follow in the wake of cocoa-nut cultivation.
The International Health Exhibition has been even more financially
successful than its predecessor ‘The Fisheries,’ for the total number
of persons who passed its turnstiles is more than four millions, a
number equal to the population of London itself. The Exhibition of
Inventions which is to open next year has met with some unexpected
but not unnatural opposition from some of our great manufacturers.
These complain that competition with foreign countries is so keen just
now that it will be a national mistake to exhibit for the benefit
of others, machinery and processes which have deservedly earned for
Britain a proud pre-eminence in various manufactured products. They
point out that a patent is very little protection in such a case,
because of the ease with which, in other countries at least, it can
be infringed, and because of the difficulty and expense of tracing
the delinquents. It is probable that for this reason many of our
manufacturers will stand aloof, or will only exhibit such things as
comprise no trade secrets.
The dwellers in a certain part of suburban London have hitherto been
in the happy possession of artesian wells on their premises, from which
they could draw a never-failing supply of good water. They feared not
the calls of the water-rate collector, and looked with indifference
at the disputes with the Water Companies going on around them. But
suddenly they have been rudely awakened from their pleasant dream of
security, for their wells have run dry. An enterprising Water Company
has sunk a deeper well than any of the others; and as water will insist
on finding the lowest level, the smaller fountains have been merged
into the big one.
No one likes to pay exorbitantly, especially for such a necessary
as water, but the system of artesian wells is hardly suitable to a
crowded city. In London itself, many pumps have been closed because
of the dangerous contamination of the subterranean water by sewage
and proximity to graveyards, &c. As a case in point, the city of
New York, instead of drawing its water-supply from a hundred miles’
distance—as London does from the hills of Gloucestershire—has to seek
it underground. Lately, the cholera scare has frightened people into
a sense of insecurity; and inquiry shows that leakage of sewers has
rendered the New York water unsafe, and it has been condemned by the
city Board of Health. This is of course hard upon those who have sunk
wells at great expense; but we have all to learn the lesson that the
individual must occasionally suffer for the public weal.
A clever imitation of amber, which it is difficult to distinguish from
the genuine fossil gum, is made from a mixture of copal, camphor,
turpentine, and other compounds. It exhibits attraction and repulsion
on being rubbed, like real amber (_electron_), which because of the
same properties has given its name to the science of electricity. It
is now being largely manufactured into ornaments and mouthpieces for
pipes. It will not bear the same amount of heat that genuine amber will
withstand, and it softens in ether. These two tests are sufficient to
distinguish it from the genuine article.
The great ship-canal between St Petersburg and the small fortified town
of Cronstadt, which up to this time has been the actual port of Peter
the Great’s city for all vessels drawing more than nine feet of water,
has at last been opened, the work of construction having occupied about
six years. The canal is nearly twenty miles long, it has an average
width of about two hundred feet, and is twenty-two feet in depth. Apart
from its importance commercially both to Russia and the traders of
other countries, who before were subject to the cost of transhipment of
goods going to St Petersburg, the canal will have a strategical value.
Ships of war could now retreat up the canal if Cronstadt were attacked,
and could, if required, emerge from the security of the waterway fully
equipped and ready for action.
That small creature called the weevil, whose depredations were always
understood to be confined to grain and biscuits, has lately developed
a taste for tobacco. In America, smokers have found to their disgust
that both cigarettes and cigars are riddled through and through by this
pest, the creature confining his attention to the choicest brands. This
discovery has had a most prejudicial effect upon the cigarette trade
in New York and Philadelphia. It is said that in some factories the
weevil is swarming from cellar to garret.
The chairman of the Western Railway Company of France has lately
volunteered a statement respecting the behaviour of the Westinghouse
brake, which has been in use on that line for rather more than four
years. In this statement we find a list of accidents which have been
avoided by the use of the brake, and these accidents are classified
under different heads, such as Collisions, Obstacles on the Line,
Rolling-stock not removed in time, and so forth. Upwards of forty
disasters have been clearly avoided by the prompt use of the brake.
On the other hand, the brake itself will sometimes get out of order
and refuse to act at the critical moment. How many accidents, we
wonder, have already occurred from this cause! We may mention in this
connection, that a meeting of the friends of the killed and injured
in the Peniston disaster has been held, and that it has been resolved
that a test action should be brought against the Railway Company
concerned, on the ground that to send out a train with an insufficient
brake, after the Board of Trade have for seven years laid down certain
conditions, is a wrongful act. The necessary money has been raised
without difficulty.
The recent exhibition of the Photographic Society was a very
interesting one, the pictures shown, a large proportion of which were
by amateur photographers, indicating a very high average of excellence.
The modern gelatine dry-plate system, with its ease of working and its
cleanliness, has attracted a number of amateurs, who, a few years back,
under the old condition of things would never have dreamt of handling a
camera. Indeed, aspirants to photographic fame have become so numerous
of late, that a special journal, _The Amateur Photographer_, has been
started in their interests, and bids fair to attain a wide circulation.
The vexed question as to how long a gelatine plate can be kept
between the moment of exposure and its after-development, has been
partially answered in a satisfactory manner by a certain picture in the
Photographic Exhibition. It was taken in July 1880, and not developed
till four years afterwards. No one would guess, from looking at it,
that the plate which received the light impression had been kept so
long before that impression was made visible by development.
The _Times_ correspondent at the Philadelphia Exhibition gives an
interesting account of the electric lighting system in that city. The
Brush Company there supply arc-lights to the streets and the shops.
The charge amounts to as much as fifty pounds per light per annum; but
the people are content to pay this for a brighter light than gas will
afford. There are no fewer than fourteen towns in the States which are
lighted in this manner; and the writer of the account thinks that the
English public and the English manufacturers have perhaps been rather
hasty in condemning the light on insufficient grounds. We are disposed
to think that the light has had a very fair trial here. Many of our
railway stations and public thoroughfares have been illuminated by
electricity, and many of them have discarded it. In a word, it does
not pay. With improved appliances, which are sure to appear, we may
nevertheless still regard it as the light of the future.
It may interest many of our readers to know, since the ambulance
classes which have been established in most of our large towns have
drawn attention to the subject, that a small case or chest, containing
the requisites for ready treatment of injuries, may be had for a
moderate sum. This case, first introduced at the Sunderland Infirmary
Bazaar by the inventor, Mr R. H. Mushens of that town, is intended
for use in shipbuilding yards and large factories where accidents
are likely to occur. As in many instances the life of an injured man
depends on prompt and ready treatment, and as a considerable time may
elapse before the appearance of a doctor, the advantage of such a handy
means of assistance to employers of labour will be at once apparent.
The case is twenty-one inches long, nine broad, and seven deep, and
is furnished with a brass handle for carrying it about from place
to place. It contains a complete set of splints; roller and Esmarch
bandages for finger, hand, arm, head, and broken ribs; tourniquet for
arresting bleeding; strapping-plaster; sponge, scissors, Carron oil,
&c., with printed hints regarding the rendering of assistance to, and
the removal of the injured. The use of such simple appliances does not
do away with the necessity of the presence of a doctor, but it may save
the life of the injured person, and simplify matters very much for the
doctor by the time he has reached the sufferer.
THE MISSING CLUE.