He was a close friend of Stanley, the explorer, and had corresponded with him for years. For fourteen continuous years he was secretary of the Lotos Club. He was also a member of the Union League Club, of the Authors' Club, managing director of the Olympic Club, which he had made his summer home for several years, and a member of the New England Society."

Stevenson's "Vailima Letters."- The Bookman says of this volume: "The value of these letters lies in their being like their writer. All Stevenson's work, when it was successful, was a more or less literal transcription of his everyday self. Even his literary discipline tended and helped to this end, instead of to the production of an artificial and unfamiliar self. No writer owed so much to his own social qualities; and his popularity is very far from being an exclusively literary one. His interests, his views of life, his opinions on books, his hopes, his despondencies, his eccentricities, heresies, prejudices, he insinuates into his readers, and they are adopted, cheered, echoed, in most unlikely quarters, not because of their intrinsic worth or reasonableness, but because they were his, and had, therefore, the most winning of advocates and expounders. The Vailima Letters are not to be named with epistolary masterpieces. But they let out the secret, to whoever has not already guessed it, of Stevenson's beguiling influence. Just what delighted you in 'Kidnapped,' or "The New Arabian Nights,' or in the 'Travels with a Donkey,' is here to delight you when he is speaking of his own private concerns, or of Samoan politics, or of his literary hopes and fearshis sparkling fun, his varying moods, his austere indignation, his gentleness, his ready confidence. If Stevenson ever posed at all he posed in naturalness, in being so much himself that no one could think him other than he was."

From Authors' Portrait Catalogue. Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Brothers. THOMAS W. KNOX.

He was

but at the age of ten years went to work upon a farm. ambitious, however, and at the age of twenty-three he became principal of an academy at Kingston, N. H. In 1860 he went to the gold-fields of Colorado, but shortly afterward, the war breaking out, he served as a volunteer aid in two campaigns, receiving his rank of lieutenant-colonel as a member of the staff of the Governor of California. Later he was the war correspondent of several New York papers.

"At the close of the war he invested in plantations in Louisiana, but the speculation proved unfortunate, and financial ruin ensued. In 1866 Colonel Knox undertook a trip with an expedition organized to establish a line of telegraphic communication through Southern Asia, and on this journey he traveled through Siberia for 3,500 miles on sledges and 1,500 miles on wheels.

One

"The next few years he devoted himself to traveling and literary work. One of his first books was 'Overland Through Asia,' in which he gave the results of his observations as a member of the first overland expedition through Northern Asia. After 1879 he worked steadily and turned out about two books a year. of his most intimate friends, Chandos Fulton, says that he was a most methodical worker, turning out a fixed amount of work on each working-day. He published in all about thirty-nine books, among them being 'Cotton Field and Campfire,' 'The Boy Travelers in China and Japan,' 'The Boy Travelers in Siam,' a book which pleased the King of Siam so much that he conferred upon the colonel the Order of the White Elephant, Colonel Knox being the first American to receive that honor; 'How to Travel,' 'The Young Nimrods in North America,' 'Underground Life,' 'Backsheesh,' 'Lives of Blaine and Logan,' 'Decisive Battles Since Waterloo,' and 'Life of Henry Ward Beecher.'

"Colonel Knox was a member of the International Jury of the Paris Exposition of 1878. genious system of typographical telegraphy, which he sold to the United States for use in the transmission of weather maps. of his latest books was called 'The History of the Republican Party.' He was at work upon a book at the time of his death.

He was also the inventor of an in

One

8.

NOTES.

PAUL VERLAINE, the French Symbolist poet, died in Paris on January Verlaine was born in Metz, in 1844, and published his first verse, "Poèmes Saturniens," in 1866, since which time he has published thirteen volumes of poetry, six volumes of prose, a one- act comedy in meter, and he had in preparation at the time of his death three additional volumes of poetry. The Evening Post says: "His life was a fevered period of alternate debauchery and repentance, and according to his mood for the time being he wrote licentious or religious verses. In both he indulged in all sorts of extravagances of form and expression."

"Love

WILLIAM BLACK, the novelist, was born in Glasgow in 1841. As a boy he wished to be an artist, and studied for some time in the Glasgow School of Art. Before he was twenty he contributed to the Glasgow Weekly Citizen, and at the age of twenty-three he came to London, where he joined the staff of The Morning Star, and became special correspondent for that paper during the war of 1866. His first novel, or Marriage," was published in 1867. Next came "In Silk Attire," "Kilmeny," and "The Monarch of Mincing Lane." He made his reputation by "A Daughter of Heth," published in 1871. Tom Cassilis, better known as the "Whaup," is his most famous character. The most important of his other works are "The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton," "A Princess of Thule." "Three Feathers," "Madcap Violet," "Green Pastures and Piccadilly," "Macleod of Dare,' ""Yolande," "White Heather," "In Far Lochaber," and "The New Prince Fortunatus." In twenty years he has produced over twenty books. He was at one time assistant editor of The Daily News.-The Bookman.

WILLIAM BLACK.

SPEAKING of Mr. William Winter's new book, "Brown Heath and Blue Bells" (Macmillan & Co.), Mr. Stoddard says, in The Mail and Express: "It is a pretty little miniature volume, about one half of which is filled with accounts of visits paid by their writer to the famous places in Scotland, descriptions of the scenery.thereabout, and the emotions which these visits inspired in his sensitive mind. It is not easy to classify a writer like Mr. Winter, who has a graceful talent in verse of an amatory and pathetic kind, a predilection for and experiences in dramatic criticism and biography; but, at a venture, he is a literary enthusiast, who, uninfluenced by what is going on in the world of letters about him, lives among and reflects the works which were in vogue in his early years, and in that respect, when measured by the standard which we apply to living American writers, is somewhat overshadowed in his manner and his method."

IN reply to a request that he sign the address of British literary men to American authors asking the latter to do all in their power to prevent a war between Great Britain and the United States, Mr. Alfred Austin, the new Poet Laureate, writes professing admiration and respect for the American Government and people, but saying that their recent attitude was unfair and unfriendly. He, therefore, at the present moment can not approve of a body of Englishmen addressing a body of Americans in language which might be construed as savoring of timorous complaisance.New York Sun.

IMPRO

SCIENCE.

A LAMP THAT MAKES ITS OWN GAS. MPROVEMENTS in artificial illumination seem to be quite the order of the day, and the week that does not see the introduction of some new burner or some novel application of oil, gas, or electricity is an uneventful one. The system of lighting to be described below, however, is an entirely new departure, being nothing less than the chemical preparation by the simplest of methods of a powerful and safe illuminating gas in the very lamp in which it is to be burned. The principle has been known for at least a year, and we are now told that it has reached a practical application, tho we can not be sure of this until we see the new gas-lamps actually on the markets. Our account and illustrations are taken from an article in La Nature (Paris, December 7) by its editor, M. Gaston Tissandier:

"Much has been said lately about a new system of lighting by means of acetylene gas, which was formerly known only to chemists, and which has not been practically utilized before. M. Moissan, the celebrated French chemist, to whom we owe so many new and important results obtained by means of the electric furnace and of the high temperature of the electric arc, has directed attention to acetylene, by discovering a mode of production that it would have been impossible to foresee. M. Moissan has discovered in one of his electric furnaces a new substance endowed with astonishing properties; it consists of a chemical combination of carbon and lime and constitutes a carbid of calcium. This product has the look of a grayish stony mass, but when it is plunged into water it does a surprising thing; it decomposes the water, and itself decomposes at the same time, producing a gas which, collected in a tube, can be burned like ordinary illuminating gas. The flame of acetylene is extremely brilliant, and has a purity that has never been observed in other flames; it is of great whiteness and enormous illuminating power. Is not this an astonishing fact? A mineral substance which, thrust into water at the ordinary temperature, immediately determines the production of a combustible gas! The gas may be lighted as soon as it escapes from the water, because there is no danger of explosion, even when it is mixed with air. Mr. T. O'Conor Sloane, at the beginning of the year 1895, was the first to describe an apparatus consisting of a glass globe which, contain

ing pieces of carbid of calcium, gave off acetylene gas through a tube leading from its upper part. By opening a stopcock the jet could be lighted at once, producing a beautiful flame. The first acetylene lamp was thus made. Today lamp-makers have studied this system of lighting, so singular, so easily produced, and so interesting. M. Trouvé has recently attacked the problem of a practical acetylene lamp, and we shall first describe an interesting little experimental device that he has constructed. This device (Fig. 2) is made with a little laboratory bottle having a hole in its bottom and furnished at its mouth with a stopper through which may be passed a glass tube to serve as a jet. This bottle is placed in a large jar, as shown in Fig. 2, No. 1. In the bottle is suspended a little wireter is to be filled with fragments basket containing pieces of calciof calcium carbid when it is de- um carbid. No. 2 of Fig. 2 shows sired to use the light. the introduction of the bottle into the receiving-vase, which is two thirds full of water. When the bottle is thrust in the water rises into it through the hole in the bottom, the acetylene is formed at once, and issues at the extremity of the tube where it is lighted. To this system may be added a small balloon, borne at the end of a support. After filling this with gas it can be used as a little gasometer (see Fig. 2, No. 3).

FIG. 1.-Acetylene Lamp Constructed by M. Trouvé. The basket of metal gauze that is seen in the reservoir full of wa

"M. Trouvé, after his early experiments, made several lamps of different forms, and finally adopted the one shown in Fig. 1, which is excellently adapted to its purpose. The reservoir of the lamp is of glass, and within it may be seen the bottle with the hole in its bottom, and the basket containing the calcium carbid. The reservoir of the lamp is surmounted with a nickel-plated top which forms a little hemispherical dome; a tube furnished with a gas-tip and a stopcock finishes off the apparatus. The lamp having been properly filled, it suffices to open the stopcock; the water of the glass gasometer surrounding the submerged bottle that contains the supply of acetylene mounts in the interior of this receiver and reaches the calcium carbid; bubbles of gas are seen to form, and by touching a match to the gas-tip the jet can be lighted.

FIG. 2.-Experimental Apparatus for the Production of Acetylene Gas.

"Having thus described the newly invented acetylene lamp, we ought to say a few words about the history of the gas. It is a compound of carbon and hydrogen, and is represented by the formula C2H2. It was discovered in 1836 by Davy, and has been made a special object of study by Berthelot. It is colorless and quite soluble in water. Unfortunately it has a very disagreeable odor, but this is no objection in a properly constructed lamp."Translated for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

GENIUSES, SANE AND OTHERWISE.

THE

HE dictum of some modern criminologists that a genius is always a degenerate is stoutly resisted by others, who maintain, on the contrary, that those who are properly so styled are eminently sane and of normal development. Dr. Warren L. Babcock comes to the relief of those who do not know which of these assertions to accept, by telling us that both are right-there are geniuses of both kinds, sane and insane. We quote a few paragraphs from the beginning of an article by him in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases (New York, December), in which he lays down this distinction:

"The term genius has long enjoyed a wide latitude of application, and it becomes necessary, before the men of great gifts can be properly studied or their characteristics rightly defined, to divide them into two primary classes: first, the normal or regenerate, and, second, the abnormal or degenerate, men of genius.

the

"The normal man of genius can be dismissed in few words. He is now the highest type of our present state of evolution and civilization; he is the talented man of our colleges and universities, the leader of his profession, and the director of all movements of progress. By force of industry and tact he has acquired those resources of mind which characterize, in larger measure, greater genius. A superficial comparison would reflect him as a copy in miniature of his degenerate cousin, but a deeper study would establish a wide divergence, both mental and physical. Well-developed qualities of originality, attention, and abstraction are strangers to his mentality; his heritage bespeaks a normal ancestry and his symmetry of physical contour a healthy organThe work of the mediocre or even the talented man fades away in the march of ages and sinks into obscurity. A generation or two suffices to obliterate his labors from the history of mankind, and tho not having lived in vain, he lived for his time and generation only. But the discoveries of really great men never leave us; their works live on and on, and their fame proves immortal."

ism.

Passing on presently to the degenerate or abnormal genius, Dr. Babcock proceeds to characterize him as follows:

"You have all noticed the odd boy of the family; the doubtful character; the precocious prodigy; the black sheep of the flock. For example, let us take a respectable farmer's family of four or

five children.

THE

FRANKLIN'S ELECTRICAL KITE.

HE following interesting details regarding Benjamin Franklin's renowned kite experiment are given by Park Benjamin in Cassier's Magazine (January):

"It was a square kite, not the coffin-shaped affair shown in story-book pictures. To the upright stick of the cross Franklin attached his pointed rod-a sharp wire, about a foot long-and provided himself with a silk ribbon and a key; the ribbon, to fasten to the string after he had raised the kite, as some possible protection-how much he did not know-against the lightning entering his 'body; and the key, to be secured to the junction of the ribbon and string to serve as a conductor from which he might draw the sparks of celestial fire-if it came.

"When the thunder-storm broke he went out on the open common near Philadelphia and faced death-faced the tremendous power of the lightning stroke, before which all people of all ages had quailed in terror; faced what most of the world then believed to be the avenging blow of an angered God. True, he believed that electricity and lightning were the same thing, and therefore had no different properties or effects; but he did not know it. The best existing theory which accounted for electrical phenomena at that time was his own. The laws of electrical conduction or resistance, now so familiar, were not even suspected. Who could predict that the lightning would obey any law? Besides, he had produced tremendous shocks with his Leyden jars in series, and had killed birds with them. More than that, he had been terribly shocked himself by the same means-stunned into insensibility and nearly killed. He had said, again and again, that an electric shock, if strong enough, would blot out life, tho without a pang. If his idea was correct, if his conviction was true, he was now about to face an electric discharge beside which that of the most powerful of man-made batteries would seem weak and insignificant.

"All the world knows what happened. The kite soared up into the black cloud, while the philosopher stood calmly in the drenching rain watching the string, until finally he saw the little fibers of the hemp raise themselves. Then without a tremor he touched his knuckle to the key-and lived. For the spark crackled and leaped to his finger as harmlessly as did that from his old familiar electrical machine, and allowed him to charge his jars with it with the same impunity. He sent the story of what he had done abroad, without a particle of trumpeting. He was not a discov

erer for revenue.

No stock-markets awaited the announcement

of his claims; no newspaper stood ready to blaze forth his achievement in the interest of the money-jugglers. His own narrative barely fills one of the little columns of The Gentleman's Magazine for October 19, 1752, and it has at its end only the initials

B. F."

PROFESSOR HEBRA, of Vienna, asserts that the sun does not produce freckles. They never appear, he says, in children under the age of six or eight years, whether exposed to the sun or not.

bears to the larger and more perfect cameras. We translate from La Nature (Paris, December 14) a description of two of these toy phonographs:

"The phonograph, after having remained during long years an instrument of luxury whose price was prohibitory, seems to be now becoming an object that may easily be procured. We recently described some very interesting new models that run by hand or by clockwork, and we now bring to the notice of our readers another, also operated by clockwork. It does not reach, perhaps, all the perfection of detail that is attained by the apparatus just mentioned, but it marks a real progress over the little phonographs that form part of the well-known speaking-dolls and talking-watches.

"The principle of this phonograph, which is the invention of M. Livret, is the old one: the cylinder on which the impressions are made is formed of celluloid. This can be fixed on an axle that is set in motion by a simple ordinary clock-movement wound with a key. Design 2 of Fig. 1 shows the clock-movement and the cylinder adjusted in place. Above is fixed a vibrating membrane with rubber tubes of the well-known model. The horn used to magnify the sound presents some interesting peculiarities; a section of it is shown in design 1 of Fig. 1. The vibrating membrane is a sheet of mica placed in the lower part; on it at the outside rests a metallic point curved like a hook but kept in place by a spring placed within the horn. This arrangement assures a certain sensitiveness to the membrane. Words are not always distinct, but airs played on a horn are reproduced remarkably.

"We have tested this interesting little phonograph in several ways; without attaining the perfection of detail found

FIG. 2.-Another Model of Phonograph.

in larger apparatus, it forms a very simple and amusing toy, which will please adults as well as children.

"Fig. 2 shows us another model still more simple, forming a toy that may be put into the hands of quite young children. The mechanism described above remains the same, but the clockwork is simpler and resembles that which is used in the talking-dolls, already mentioned. Below, at the side, can be seen the celluloid cylinder, which can be easily changed at will. The vibrating

membrane is similar to that described above; the horn takes a cylindrical form. The whole mechanism is enclosed in a rectangular box of very stiff pasteboard which has the great advantage of allowing the apparatus to be carried about easily, and at the same time of forming a resonance-chamber for the amplification of the sound. There is a lid at the top, and a little door below for use in changing the cylinders.

"These two last models of phonographs certainly constitute what is up to the present time the last expression of simplicity in an apparatus that has long remained an expensive luxury. We should not be astonished to see these phonographs for sale soon on the street-stands."- Translated for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY.

PHOTOGRAPHS taken from points high in the air by means

of cameras pointed directly downward can now be obtained in several ways without the trouble of going up in a balloon for the purpose. These photographs, besides possessing a certain interest for the curious collector, are of great value in topography and will doubtless figure extensively in military operations during the next great war. A brief but comprehensive summary of what has been done in this line is given in an article on the subject in the forthcoming "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Photography."

We quote several paragraphs from specimen sheets that appear in The Photographic Times (January) :

emy. For exploring expeditions, the advantages to be reaped by the use of such an instrument can not be overestimated.

"For similar purposes, M. Batut, a clever French amateur, has invented a kite camera. ... The kite is diamondshaped, with a long tail, assuring stability when it has ascended into the regions of the clouds. The cord holding it to the earth is attached to the frame by a sort of trapeze, so arranged that the camera A, which is also fastened to the frame by the triangular support D, shall have an unobstructed range of whatever is below. The shutter,' which is of the 'drop' variety, working horizontally, being actuated by two rubber bands, is liberated by the burning of a fuse, C, which burus through a thread holding the shutter en tension; the thread being burned releases the shutter, which, in its flight across the opening of the lens, also liberates a scrap of paper which, floating down, shows the manipulator that the exposure has taken place. A self-registering barometer, B, is attached, to show the altitude attained. The cut shows a result obtained by M. Batut at an altitude of 127 meters, on February 13, 1889, at II A.M. It represents a plain view of a farmhouse, with its outbuildings. The kite employed is about 7% feet in height; the camera weighed 1,200 grams [21⁄2 pounds].

PHOTOGRAPH MADE BY A KITE-CAMERA.

"In the year 1858 Nadar, of Paris, made photographs from the car of a balloon. A balloon camera for obtaining photographs from a great height was invented and patented by Woodbury in 1877. To a captive balloon was suspended a camera, fitted with a rapid lens and an instantaneous shutter. Inside the camera were two rollers carrying a band of sensitive tissue moved by clockwork. This clockwork and the instantaneous shutter were both controlled by an electromagnet communicating with the operator on terra firma by electric wires running inside the cord to which the balloon was attached. By means of a small battery the operator below sends a current of electricity through the wire to the electromagnets. The actions of the latter are, first, to release the clockwork and bring into position a piece of sensitive tissue or film, and, secondly, to release the shutter and make the exposure. This operation is repeated until the whole of the sensitized tissue contained in the camera is exhausted, when the balloon is drawn to the earth and the images upon the exposed tissue developed. The uses of an instrument of this kind are many. For war purposes it would be invaluable, enabling one to photograph and ascertain with certainty the position, strength, and movements of the en

KITE-CAMERA.

"" Another curious form of aerial photographic apparatus was developed by a French inventor, M. Denesse. It consists of a photographic camera attached to a rocket. An umbrella-like parachute is also fixed to the rocketstick. When fired into the air this is closed, but as soon as the rocket begins to descend it opens out, and the whole returns gracefully to the earth. In this the camera is cylindrical in form, and has round its circumference twelve lenses-a sensitive plate is in the center. The lenses are provided with a shutter which opens and closes instantly on the camera commencing to descend. It is then drawn back to the operator by a cord attached before the firing of the rocket. The principal advantages of this form of apparatus are cheapness of operating and freedom from risk.

"Many other methods of making photographs from a height have been devised and some very useful results obtained. It is not only for war and exploring purposes that these pictures become valuable: students of geodesy will also find them of service in the construction of plans and maps. Dr. Frank Stolze says that it may be confidently assumed that during the exposure the sensitive plate on which the photograph is made has hardly ever been horizontal enough to allow the plate to be considered analogous to a parallel projection of the natural landscape; it is much more likely to be always more or less perspectively foreshortened. There exists, however, a particularly simple and reliable means of finding proper geometrical projections from the perspective projection.... The work will be far easier than when one has to trust to terrestrial photogrammetry; and it may indeed be stated that views taken from a height and used in this manner far exceed in simplicity and ease all that has yet been done in the way of special views taken for purposes of geodesy. In fact, views taken from balloons, parachutes, kites, or rockets are undoubtedly the geodesic views of the future."

FLOUR THAT MAKES THE BEST BREAD.

THE

HE best bread is that made from a flour whose granules are uniform in size, or as nearly so as possible. This statement is made by J. B. Allfree (The American Miller, Dècember), and the plausible line of reasoning by which he sustains it is given in the following paragraphs, which we quote from his article: "Yeast being a plant of the most 'extraordinary and rapid growth, rapidly setting up in any mass into which it has been introduced conditions similar to its own, it is evident that the impalpable portion of flour will be acted upon speedily, while only the superficial layers of the larger granules would be affected by the ferment. Where such conditions exist-that is, where the flour granules vary in size-the process can not proceed uniformly. The fine particles can not wait upon the coarse. They will have passed through the various stages, and too often have reached the acid stage, before the coarser or larger particles will have been more than superficially acted upon. Therefore carbonic-acid gas that has been generated by the smaller particles will have been eliminated from the mass, and its usefulness destroyed, while a portion of the nutritive properties will be transformed into this gas and carried away by it. This will materially affect the size of the loaf as well as the flavor and dietetic value of the bread, and, furthermore, from over-fermentation, other chemical conditions arise, resulting in discoloration.

"On the other hand, if the flour granules be of even size, this chemical action will be uniform, the entire mass will reach the alcoholic or bread stage at the same time, and, when put into the oven, the heat will stop further fermentation, as well as serving to cook the loaf and further enlarge it by the expansion of the air and the gas contained in it. Thus the nutrient properties are retained, raising the commercial as well as the hygienic value of the bread."

Medicinal Virtues of Fruits.-"Very few people," says The Scientific American, January 4, are aware of the medicinal qualities of grapes; but these they possess. The pulp is nutritious and the juice contains sugar, tannic acid, bitartrate of potassium, tartrate of calcium, common salt, and sulfate of potassium. Without doubt, the woman who cultivates the habit of eating a great deal of fruit is the gainer of health and appearance. The grapefruit, or shaddock, so-called from its discoverer, Lieutenant Shaddock, or to mention its soft Chinese name, pumelo, is highly prized by those who live in malarial localities. It is a charming rival to quinin and boneset, and is driving them from the field. She who eats her grapefruit with a spoon from the natural cup, or relishes it served as a salad, may gladden her heart with the reflection that she is not only pleasing her palate, but benefiting her health. Like oranges and lemons, the grapefruit has great medicinal virtues. If you are of a bilious temperament, says a writer in the Washington Times, eat grapefruit; if fever threaten, eat grapefruit, but in this latter case, adds the writer, do so only at the advice of a physician, as there may be certain tendencies which the grapefruit would only aggravate. The complaint is often made that this fruit is extremely bitter and unpleasant. It is only the white inner rind which is so, and this should be carefully removed."

Size of the Universe.-"It has been estimated," says W. H. Lamaster (Popular Astronomy, January), “that a cannonball moving with a velocity of 500 miles an hour, and leaving our earth at a certain time and traveling in the direction of the nearest fixed star, would not reach it in less than 4,500,000 years; and yet there are stars in the heavens and visible through telescopes that would require a cannon-ball moving with the same velocity at least 500,000,000 years to reach them. It was said by the elder Herschell that it would require light traveling at the rate of 185,000 miles a second two millions of years to come to the earth from the remotest luminous vapors within reach of his forty-foot telescope, and yet, whatever may have been the efforts of astronomers to bring the starry heavens as a whole into view, even with the most powerful reflectors, they have so far proved to be futile. Hence, to the minds of men, the universe must seem forever to be and to remain immeasurable, incalculable, and incomprehensible. And while we may be able to weigh and measure suns and systems within range of our telescopes, there are others so far away and so far beyond our powers of vision, and our power of

calculation, that even our present supposed great knowledge of the sidereal heavens would dwindle into the thinnest of mental vapories."

What Load Will Ice Bear?--"The army rules," says Engineering Mechanics, “are that 2-inch ice will sustain a man or properly spaced infantry; 4-inch ice will carry a man on horseback, or cavalry, or light guns; 6-inch ice, heavy field-guns, such as So-pounders; 8-inch ice, a battery of artillery, with carriages and horses, but not over 1,000 pounds per square foot on sledges; and 10-inch ice sustains an army or an innumerable multitude. On 15-inch ice, railroad tracks are often laid and operated for months, and ice two feet thick withstood the impact of a loaded passenger-car, after a 60-foot fall (or, perhaps, 1,500 foot-tons), but broke under that of the locomotive and tender (or, perhaps, 3,000 foot-tons). Trautwine gives the crushing strength of firm ice as 167-250 pounds per square inch. Colonel Ludlow, in his experiments in 1881, on 6-12-inch cubes, found 292-889 pounds for pure hard ice, and 222-820 pounds for inferior grades, and on the Delaware River, 700 pounds for clear ice and 400 pounds or less for ice near the mouth, where it is more or less disintegrated by the action of salt-water, etc. Experiments of Gzowski gave 208 pounds; those of others, 310-320 pounds. The tensile strength was found by German experiments to be 142-223 pounds per square inch. The shearing strength has been given as 75-119 pounds per square inch. The average specific gravity of ice is 0.92. In freezing, water increases in volume from 1-9 to 1-18, or an average of 1-11; when floating, 11-12 is immersed."

SCIENCE BREVITIES.

SOME TACOMA ASTRONOMY.-"Some very curious things get into print sometimes," says Popular Astronomy, January. "A correspondent of the San Francisco Examiner from Tacoma recently says that beautiful shells, such as are found only in equatorial regions, have been discovered at Tacoma 400 feet under the surface of the tide flats, and that certain persons interested have been collecting data for a few years past bearing on the question whether or not the earth's axis has changed in previous time, and that the finding of these shells settles the question affirmatively. How easy the conclusion! The same article contains the startling announcement that probably in the fall of 1901, about Christmas time, when 'the planets are all lined up in a row, on one side of the sun (a thing not recorded astronomically), another change in the earth's axis will take place not to be repeated for more than a million of years in the future. We do not doubt the finding of the shells in the artesian well, nor is it impossible that they belong to those known to exist only in the equatorial regions of the earth; but because they are in that particular locality it is not proof that the axis of the earth has changed through an angle of 40° some time in its past history, however interesting the incident may be. The incident comes infinitely short of that. Much less can any one predict such results from any possible arrangement of the planets in 1901. The supposed arrangement of the planets at that date is an utter impossibility." "THIRTY years ago. says The Railway Review in an editorial article, "there was but one technical school, as we know this term to-day, and now there are so many that there seems to be considerable danger that the school will take a higher place in the mind of the student than it ought to occupy. There is some evidence of an overestimation of the value of the technical training taken as a qualification for the work of engineering practise in any of its branches. Nearly all young graduates have to learn that the practical work which they first get after leaving school is of the greatest value to them, perhaps, of all which they may ever undertake, and this should enable them to properly estimate the value of the school work, which is simply a factor in the whole course of necessary preparation."

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