But while these and many other fables rose from the natural yearning after the prolongation of human life beyond its natural span, it was not until the rise of alchemy, in the middle ages, that the search for an elixir of life, as a scientific possibility, engaged the attention of thinking men. It is difficult to state in plain English the fundamental principles of the alchemists; first, because their utterances had a mystic or esoteric signification that outran the plain ordinary meaning of words; and, second, because the authorities differed largely among themselves and each spoke a jargon of his own. But the alchemic philosophy was nearly if not exactly as follows: All matter is simply the varied and shifting manifestation of four elementary substances. These four elements, according to Paracelsus, are salt, sulphur, and mercury, and (rather unphilosophically) a compound of the three, which produced metals. There was a fifth element, a quintessence (hence our modern word) an unknown and only true element, of which the four (or three) generic principles themselves were derivative forms, and into which it was the hope of the alchemist to resolve them. This quintes sence was, in fact, the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life, and the alkahest or universal solvent, which were the triune object of the alchemist's search-another application of that doctrine of trinity which had so strange a fascination for medieval minds. Gold was the perfect form of metallic elements, said the alchemists. Nature always began with the intention of producing gold, but at this or that stage of development the hand of Nature was stayed by some accident. and the results of such arrests of development were the baser metals. The same substance that would rid metals of their impurities would naturally heal the impurities of living organisms. Hence, in the earliest times it was supposed that the elixir was potable gold, i. e., a solution of gold in aqua regia. To this Roger Bacon attributed his seventy years of life, and he recommended the liquid to Pope Nicholas IV, telling him how an old man, plowing one day in Sicily, found some yellow liquid in a vial and drank it off, supposing it to be dew, and instantly was transformed into a hale and hearty youth. By others the elixir was variously described as an invigorating paste, a red powder, or a liquid containing some of the properties of sea-water. Saltpeter was long looked upon as a possible elixir, because it was found in the animal, mineral, and vegetable kingdoms. Basil Valentine recommended antimony. Glauber, who discovered Glauber's salts, speaks of salt as the beginning and end of all things. Artephius, in the twelfth century, wrote a treatise on the art of prolonging human life, and claimed to have lived one thousand and twentyfive years. Frederick Gualdo, the Rosicrucian, lived the more modest term of four centuries. Arnold de Villeneuve had a recipe for the prolongation of human life for a hundred years. Louis XIII made Chataigne, a Franciscan monk, his grand almoner, because he held before him the promise of a reign of a hundred years by means of a grand elixir. As late as the middle of the last century, Joseph Balsamo, more generally known as Cagliostro, found ready customers for an elixir through whose agency he pre

tended to have lived in perennial youth for one hundred and fifty years.

The idea that the generative organs of animals contain the vital principle of life, is of great antiquity. The American Indians and remotely separated tribes of savages still devour raw the generative organs of newly killed animals, under the belief that by so doing they renew life; but it remained for Dr. Brown-Sequard to recommend semen as a nutritive elixir. On June 1, 1889, he made to the Société de Biologie of Paris, a communication concerning the effects produced on a man by subcutaneous injections of a liquid obtained from the testicles of animals; and subsequently he communicated the substance of that article to the "Lancet." These communicationsexcited much attention and comment in Europe and America. Briefly, he said in them: For a great many years I have believed that the weakness of old men depended on two causes —a natural series of organic changes and the gradually diminishing action of the spermatic glands. In 1869, in a course of lectures at the Paris Faculty of Medicine, discussing the influence possessed by several glands upon the nervous centers, I put forward the idea that if it were possible, without danger, to inject semen into the blood of old men, we should probably obtain manifestations of increased activity as regards the mental and various physical powers. Led by this view. I made various experiments on animals at Nahant, near Boston, in 1875. In some of those experiments, made on a dozen male dogs, I tried vainly, except in one case, to ingraft certain parts or the whole body of young guinea-pigs. The success obtained in the exceptional case served to give me great hopes that by a less difficult process I should some day reach my aim. This I have now done. At the end of last year I made on two old male rabbits experiments, which have been repeated on several others, with results leaving no doubt as regards both the innocuity of the process used and the good effects produced in all these animals. This having been ascertained, I resolved to make experiments on myself, which I thought would be far more decisive on man than on animals. I made use, in subcutaneous injections, of a liquid containing a small quantity of water mixed with the three following parts: First, blood of the testicular veins; second, semen; and third, juice extracted from a testicle, crushed immediately after it had been taken from a dog or a guinea-pig. Wishing in all the injections made on myself to obtain the maximum of effects, I employed as little water as I could. To the three kinds of substances I have just named, I added distilled water in a quantity that never exceeded three or four times their volume. The crushing was always done after the addition of water. When filtered through a paper filter, the liquid was of a reddish hue and rather opaque, while it was almost perfectly clear and transparent when Pasteur's filter was employed. For each injection I have used nearly one cubic centimetre of the filtered liquid. The animals employed were a strong and, according to all appearances, perfectly healthy dog (from two to three years old) and a number of very young or adult guinea-pigs. The experiments so far do not allow of a positive conclusion as re

gards the relative power of the liquid obtained from a dog and that drawn from guinea-pigs. All that I can assert is, that the two animals have given a liquid endued with very great power. I have hitherto made ten subcutaneous injections of such a liquid-two in my left arm, all the others in my lower limbs-from May 15 to June 4, last. The first five injections were made on three succeeding days with a liquid obtained from a dog. In all the subsequent injections, made on May 24, 29, and 30, and June 4, the liquid used came from guinea-pigs. When I employed liquids that had passed through Pasteur's filter, the pains and other bad effects were somewhat less than when a paper filter was used."

Dr. Variot, an eminent French physician, made a trial of the elixir recommended by Dr. BrownSequard upon three old men, using the testicles of rabbits and guinea-pigs, with successful results. In the United States numerous experiments were made. At Connersville, Ind., on Aug. 9, the elixir was made from the most vital organs of sheep and thoroughly triturated, and the fluid tightly corked in bottles. The fluid was pinkish, of the consistency of sperm oil, and odorless. It was an hour and thirty minutes after the animal had been killed before the fluid was injected into the arm of the patient, who was William Greer, an old and well-known citizen, who suffered from chronic rheumatism contracted during the war, and who during the past four months had been unable to take off his coat or grasp anything in his hands. By means of a hypodermic syringe, a drachm of the elixir was in jected into each arm just above the elbow, and a drachm in the muscles of the left leg. No sensation was at first felt by the patient, except the pricking of the needle of the syringe. After remaining quiet about twenty minutes, he said he felt a peculiar sensation in his fingers; and his face flushed. In a few more minutes he could close his hand, a thing he had not been able to do for months. About forty-five minutes after the injection, he rose and walked with comparative ease, putting on his hat and coat without trouble.

In Springfield, Ohio, the elixir was given to many persons. Nine people, most of them aged men, stiffened by the various diseases that afflict the old, after receiving hypodermic injections of a pinkish fluid extracted from progenitive organs of three buck lambs, declared themselves filled with new life. One thing mentioned as notable in all the cases was the rapid acceleration of the beatings of the pulse. The dose seems to have been a single drachm.

In Louisville, Ky., the patient selected was an old man who was troubled with nocturnal diabetes and asthma of such an aggravated form that he had been unable to lie down to sleep for six weeks. A sedative was given him one evening, and the next morning an injection was made with carefully prepared elixir, though he was not informed of its nature. He slept well the next night, and appeared to be greatly improved.

A case was recorded in the newspapers, but seems to lack confirmation, where a preparation from fowls and lambs, with distilled water, was said to have been given to an old colored man who had been paralyzed. The result was said to VOL. XXIX.-19 A

be most satisfactory, as the patient was soon walking about freely, sleeping well, and eating heartily.

At Fort Wayne, Ind., the patient had been so seriously affected with rheumatism that he had been unable to walk without the aid of crutches. In less than an hour after the injection, the patient, not knowing anything concerning the nature of the operation, or what was claimed for it by its discoverer, threw away his crutches and walked about the room with ease. His pulse

rose to 138.

From Lima, Ohio, came the account of an experiment upon an old lady who had been a confirmed morphine-eater for twenty years. She was about sixty years old, and had acquired the habit when about forty, which grew to such an extent that she had eaten from twenty to twentyfive grains daily for the past twelve months, and for the past six months had been unable to attend to any work, no matter how light. Two drachms of the elixir were injected into her arm, and there was at first no perceptible change in her appearance, but when bedtime came she retired without taking her customary dose of morphine, and for the first time in years she slept soundly, and awoke in the morning greatly refreshed. The family were astonished at the results, and the old lady said she felt twenty-five years younger. She rose and dressed herself without assistance, walked to the breakfast-table, and ate a hearty meal. The elixir brought the color back to her cheeks, the sparkle to her eyes, and new blood in her veins. She has not taken a particle of morphine since, and says she has no desire for it.

At Detroit, Mich., the elixir was administered to two patients-sixty and seventy years old, respectively. The elder man was decrepit, and had been in failing health for some years. The first injection seemed to put new life into him, and the effect of the second administration was remarkable. He walked erect, had the appearance of strength, and said he felt remarkably well. The younger man did not show such pronounced results immediately after the first trial, but with the second he appeared greatly rejuvenated.

In New York the experiment was tried upon several persons. One of the old men who had been injected with the elixir was a shoemaker, fifty-six years of age. He had been under treatment in Bellevue Hospital for emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and asthma. He was given four injections of thirty minims each of the fluid, at intervals of two days. A short time after the first injection he said he felt as if he had taken a big dose of morphine. That night he was not troubled with the asthma for the first time in more than a month. During the following day he felt much better and stronger. The improvement continued and increased up to the time of the fourth injection. After that, although he complained of no pain at the seat of puncture, his general condition seemed to be much worse. His hands trembled, he complained of a burning sensation, and appeared as one who had suffered a severe nervous shock. At the end of twentyfour hours his condition became substantially what it had been previous to the last operation. After this, the seemingly beneficial effects wore gradually off, the asthma returned, and the patient grew weak.

The

ENGINEERING. Water Works. completion of the great dam across the Vyrnwy valley, among the mountains of North Wales, with its connecting aqueduct, finishes one of the greatest engineering works of the century. The illustration shows the end of the dam with a portion of the lake and a section of the masonry work. The aqueduct is 68 miles long, from the dam to the distributing reservoirs at Prescott, and it is nine miles more to the Town Hall in Liverpool. This is 32 miles longer than the great Claudian aqueduct. The surface of the lake is

strength of the opposition, and a final review of the whole structure was published in the engineering journals.

The constructing engineer was Mr. G. F. Deacon, C. E. The rock bar crossing the valley was laid bare for a space 120 feet wide by 1,100 feet long. All loose material was removed and the sloping rock surface was benched or stepped to receive the foundation. The river was diverted while the building was in progress. Stone was quarried near by, similar in character to that in the bed-rock of the dam. No stones were al

817 feet above the sea level, and the valley, now filled with water, is nearly five miles long, with a level bottom, half a mile wide. The valley is supposed to be the result of glacial action during the Ice Age, and fortunately for the engineers of to-day a natural bar of harder rock remained for a foundation at the lower end of the valley. The Vyrnwy river has six tributaries above the dam, draining an aggregate area of 23,000 acres, and finding their source in mountain moorlands 1,300 to 2,200 feet above the sea level. Probably this system of water works has no superior in excellence of construction. Residents in the valley below were naturally anxious about the security of the work, and more than once during its progress attempts were made to bring the whole undertaking into discredit. Rigorous investigations were ordered, and the work, from beginning to end, has the approval of the best engineering talent in the United Kingdom. The Johnstown disaster, coming as it did, just as the Vyrnwy dam was nearing completion, renewed the

lowed of more than ten tons weight, and nearly 50 per cent. of the material was in blocks of less than two tons. No grouting of any kind was allowed, the intimate mixture and density of the filling material being attained by ramming.

A tower, not shown in the illustration, stands in 50 feet of water, 140 feet from the shore. Its total height is 160 feet, with a diameter of 47 feet at the base. Within are screens of fine copper-wire gauze, through which all the water passes before delivery into the tunnel.

The population of Liverpool is now rapidly nearing a million souls, and, as the Vyrnwy works, when completed to their full capacity, are expected to deliver 40,000,000 gallons daily, the water-supply is probably secure for many years to come.

Inland Navigation.-The possibility of causing rivers to keep their own channels clear by means of training-works, jetties, dredging, and the like, has attracted much attention of late years, and is no doubt destined to bear an important part in the inland commerce of the future. The amount of solid matter carried in suspension by all streams during floods and by some streams at all times is enormous. The Danube, for instance, deposits nearly 68,000,000 tons yearly in the Black Sea. The quantity of solid matter in a cubic foot of water varies from 6 grains to nearly 1,000 grains, according to the season. The Hooghly, it is estimated, deposits 39,000,000 cubic yards of mud, the Plate 82,000,000 tons, and the Mississippi, according to careful estimates, displaces every year a body of water in the Gulf of Mexico 1 mile square and 241 feet deep. This is continent-making at a rapid rate, but not all the matter in suspension reaches the river mouth. Much of it is deposited in the eddies and quiet reaches of the stream, and thus navigation is often impeded. The water of the Mississippi is never clear, hence its enormous energy in the transportation of material, but it is well known that successful engineering devices have been employed in making the great river scour its own channel. The quantity of solids varies largely. In the river Tees (England), while certain training-works were in progress, the weight of solid matter was equal to of the weight of the water (2 pounds in a cubic foot). In the Durance and the Vistula in flood time the proportion is; in the Garonne and the Rhine T. The maximum observed in the Rhone is. In the Nile the quantity carried in suspension is small, about 4 of the weight of the water. The efficient transportation of solid matter depends on the velocity of the current, which is never constant, but where the current is comparatively steady the tendency of the matter in suspension is toward the bottom of the stream. Numerous experiments have been made with a view to ascertaining the quantity of material that water will carry at different velocities without overloading. The data usually quoted are those of M. le Comte Du Buat, who found that a velocity of 3 inches in a second would move semi-fluid river mud, 6 inches a second moved soft clay, 9 to 12 inches a second moved coarse sand, and 2-16 feet a second moved sea-shingle 1 inch in diameter. Controversies have arisen from measuring the amount of matter in a cubic foot of water, instead of that moved in a given time.

Mr. W. Airy has calculated that the carrying capacity of a stream varies as the sixth power of its velocity. Take, for instance, a current moving 8 feet in a second: If its velocity be increased to 9 feet a second it will move twice as much silt as at the lower rate, or if to 16 feet a second it will move 64 times the weight that it did before. Again, the scouring power of a very shallow rapid stream is less than that of a deeper and slower one. Until within a few years the usual process of deepening rivers has been by dredging; some of the modern devices have been described in earlier volumes of the Annual Cyclopædia." This process requires the raising of the material from the bed of the stream, and its transportation to a distance. Of course, if the mate

rial can be broken up by mechanical means the river will carry it away so long as the water is not overloaded. Among the devices resorted to are harrows and the like for stirring up the riverbed. Barges with wing-dams attached to them have been used to deepen narrow channels, the barge being anchored and the dams lowered so that the increased current carried away the silt deposit. Barges fitted in like manner with wingdams sometimes have rakes or harrows attached to the bows, and are allowed to drift with the current, the increased pressure forcing them down stream and tearing up the bottom as they move. By this method 60 cubic yards of clay and sand were removed from the bed of the Garonne river at a cost of about 5 cents a yard. In the Mississippi two harrows, specially constructed for the purpose, were used. Each of them was capable of moving about 10,000 cubic yards a day. These machines were efficient in deepening the channels at the mouth of the river. The river Maas, below Rotterdam, has been deepened by means of a steamer having shafts with screw propellers at the ends, which could be lowered to the bottom and caused to revolve at a high speed. These removed sand at the rate of 130 cubic yards an hour, but eventually suction-pipes were substituted, which raised the sand from the bottom and discharged it during ebb tide. These methods were found to be far more efficient than direct dredging. In New York harbor, and elsewhere in this country, the plan of agitating the bottom by means of forced currents of water or air, has been successfully tried, and similar devices have been employed at Tilbury Docks in the Thames, and by the French in Algeria.

In the Fens on the east coast of England a somewhat primitive but effectual method is still in vogue. Cylinders covered with spikes (technically called hedgehogs) are dragged back and forth over the bottom, revolving as they go. The current does not exceed three feet a second, yet the quantity of material removed is about 700 tons in a working day. This is carried with but slight loss a distance of fifteen miles and deposited in a deep estuary where it can do no harm. The cost is less than two cents a cubic yard. The machines described are really efficient only when the bottom consists of fine, soft material. Mr. W. H. Wheeler, of the British Institute of Civil Engineers, has devised an apparatus designed to remove clay and other hard, compact material. A vertical shaft is fitted with a conical cutter at the lower end, and immediately above it a screw propeller. The shaft is fixed at the stern of a barge, or passes through a well amidships. It can be readily moved up or down, and revolved at a high rate of speed. The conical cutter tears up the clay, and the revolving blades above churn it into diluted mud, in which condition it will remain in suspension for a long time. One of these machines is in successful operation in an English tidal river, but reports of its performance have not been published. The problem of deepening navigable channels is of great importance, since the tendency of all cities is to encroach by slow degrees upon the tidal prism as fixed by nature. If tides and currents can be successfully harnessed to do the work of dredging, slowly, perhaps, but effectually, the gain will be correspondingly great.

A Novel Landing Stage.—In tidal waters of moderate rise and fall, or in rivers that are subject to periodical freshets, the floating stage or wharf boat ordinarily meets all the required conditions, but where the rise and fall of the tide is considerable, as along the Atlantic coast north of Cape Cod, and in the waters surrounding Great Britain where there is often something of a sea at pier-heads and in other exposed situations, it often becomes a problem how to provide a convenient and safe landing for passengers. M. Noel Ridley, of Westminster, England, has devised an ingenious stage that has for several

enough to serve as a loose jacket for the first cylinder is sunk about 18 feet below the sea bottom (see Fig 1), leaving 42 feet exposed to the action of the sea. This upper section is vertically bisected by two slots, BB, diametrically opposite, as in the case of the fixtures of the platform cylinder. It is evident that if cylinder No. 1 be placed inside cylinder No. 2 it can slide freely up and down within the latter, the rigid brace A A running in the slots B B and the platform rising and falling outside the larger cylinder. The two slots admit water to the inside of the larger cylinder, but so slowly that the general in

months stood the test of actual use in connection with the Victoria promenade pier at Folkestone. The landing is exposed to the sea, and an ordinary float was out of the question.

The stage is a timber platform or deck resting on a framework of iron girders and rigidly attached to a vertical cylindrical float six feet in diameter and nineteen feet long, having sufficient displacement to support a full load of passengers at a height above the sea level corresponding with the gangways of the steamers using the pier. The points of rigid attachment (A A, Fig. 2) of the platform to the cylinder are two, diametrically opposite to one another, and the platform surrounds the rest of the cylinder at a distance of a few inches, suitably braced for strength. At the place where this cylindrical float is to remain another iron cylinder 60 feet long and large

FLOATING LANDING-STAGE, INNER CYLINDER.

side level is not perceptibly affected by the passage of waves. The comparatively slow movement of the tide, however, changes the level constantly, and with it of course the platform rises and falls. Access to the pier level is afforded by fixed iron steps beside the platform. In the illustration details of steps, railings, etc., are omitted to avoid confusion. So perfectly steady is this float and its attachments that a visitor who had been in the habit of fishing from the platform could hardly be brought to believe that it was afloat. It is said that the inventor is about to apply the same principle to a large swimming-bath at a considerable distance from shore.

The Loa Viaduct. The completion of what is believed to be the highest railway viaduct in the world-highest certainly in that it is placed at an altitude of 10,000 feet above the sea level— is one of the more noteworthy engineering feats of the year. The Autofagasta Railway in Bolivia crosses the higher Andes in its necessarily circuitous route from the coast to the interior. The cañon spanned by this structure is the bed of the river Loa, and was probably formed by the joint action of volcanic forces and ice. The sides are precipitous, and all the iron work had to be delivered at the crest of the western abutment and lowered into the cañon.

The iron work was all prepared in England, and so carefully were the calculations made that no readjustment was necessary when the col