The Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178,
June 25, 1898, by Various
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Title: Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898
Author: Various
Release Date: April 27, 2006 [EBook #18265]
Language: English
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[Illustration]
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 1178
NEW YORK, JUNE 25, 1898.
Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XLV., No. 1178.
Scientific American established 1845
Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.
Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.
* * * * *
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
I. ARCHÆOLOGY.--Tombs of the First Egyptian Dynasty--By
LUDWIG BORCHARDT 18767
II. ANTHROPOLOGY.--The Milestones of Human Progress 18766
III. BIOGRAPHY.--The Queen Regent and Alfonzo XIII.--1
illustration 18755
IV. BOTANY AND HORTICULTURE.--Rose Psyche--1 illustration 18768
V. CIVIL ENGINEERING.--The Lock of the Dortmund-Ems Canal
at Henrichenburg.--1 illustration 18776
VI. ELECTRICITY.--The Development of the Central Station--By
SAMUEL INSULL 18774
VII. MARINE ENGINEERING.--Steering Gear of North German
Lloyd Steamers "Coblentz," "Mainz" and "Trier."--2
illustrations 18777
VIII. MEDICINE AND HYGIENE.--Sleep and the Theories of its
Cause 18768
IX. MISCELLANEOUS:
Engineering Notes. 18771
Electrical Notes. 18771
Selected Formulæ. 18771
X. NATURAL HISTORY--Wild and Domestic Sheep in the Berlin
Zoological Garden.--8 illustrations 18772
XI. PATENTS.--Patents.--By JAMES W. SEE 18773
XII. PHOTOGRAPHY.--Amateur Chronophotographic Apparatus.--2
illustrations 18769
XIII. STEAM ENGINEERING.--Combined Steam Pumping and
Motive Power Engine.--1 illustration 18778
XIV. TECHNOLOGY.--The Reclaiming of Old Rubber.--By HAWTHORNE
HILL 18769
XV. WARFARE.--The American "Regular."--By the English
correspondent of the London Times on board the United
States transport "Gussie." 18776
* * * * *
THE QUEEN REGENT AND ALFONZO XIII.
[Illustration: THE QUEEN REGENT AND HER SON, KING ALFONSO XIII.
OF SPAIN.]
In the present war between the United States and Spain, the Queen
Regent is an impressive figure, and it is entirely owing to her charm
and fortitude that the present dynasty of Spain is maintained. Since
his earliest youth she has constantly made efforts to fit her son to
wear the crown. The Queen Regent came from the great historic house of
Hapsburg, which has done much to shape the destinies of the world. All
the fortitude that has distinguished its members is represented in
this lady, who is the widow of Alfonzo XII. and the mother of the
present king. Her father was the late Archduke Karl Ferdinand and she
is the cousin of Emperor Franz Joseph. She has had a sad history. Her
husband died before the young king was born, and from the hour of his
birth she has watched and cared for the boy. She is the leader in all
good works in Spain, and her sympathy for the distressed is
proverbial. She gives freely from her private purse wherever there is
need, whether it be for the relief of misery or, as recently, when the
state is in peril. The young king has been carefully educated. By a
curious fate, his birth deposed from the throne his sister Maria de
las Mercedes, who as a little girl was queen for a few months. The boy
has been brought up under the influence of family life and has a warm
affection for his mother and sisters. He has never had the full
delights of childhood, for he has been educated in that false,
punctilious and thoroughly artificial atmosphere of the court of
Spain, in which every care has been taken to fit him for his royal
position. His health is far from robust, though the military education
he has received has done much to strengthen his constitution. He has
been taught to interest himself especially in the naval and military
affairs, and the study of the models of ships and military discipline
has been one of the principal occupations of his childhood. It is the
earnest wish of Spain that he should prove worthy of his mother.
* * * * *
THE MILESTONES OF HUMAN PROGRESS.[1]
[Footnote 1: A lecture delivered by Prof. Daniel G. Brinton at
the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.]
The subject pertains directly to the advancement of the race. Indeed,
it is to the measure of this advancement I shall ask your attention.
There is no doubt about the advancement. There are some people who
believed and believe that man began in a state of high development and
has since then degenerated into his present condition. The belief in
some period of Arcadian simplicity and human perfection is still to be
found in some remote nooks and crannies of the learned world; but
those minds who have been trained in archæological studies and in
ethnographic observations know well that when we go back to the most
ancient deposits, in which we find any sign of man at all on the
globe, we find also the proofs that man then lived in the rudest
possible condition of savagery. He has, little by little, through long
centuries and millenniums of painful struggle, survived in made his
weapons and his most effective tools for the time being would be a
good criterion to go by, because these weapons and tools enabled him
to conquer not only the wild beasts around him and his fellow man
also, but nature as well. These materials are three in number. They
particularly apply to European archæology, but, in a general way, to
the archæology of all continents. The one is stone, which gave man
material for the best cutting edge which he could make for very many
millenniums of his existence. After that, for a comparatively short
period, he availed himself of bronze--of the mixture of copper and tin
called bronze--an admixture giving a considerable degree of hardness
and therefore allowing polish and edge making. The bronze age was not
long anywhere. It was succeeded by that metal which, beyond all
others, has been of signal utility to man--iron. We live in the iron
age, and it is from iron in some of its forms and products that all
our best weapons and materials for implements, etc., are derived. We
have, therefore, the ages of stone, of bronze and of iron. These are
the measures, from an artistic source, of the advancement of human
culture; and they certainly bear a distinct relation to all man's
other conditions at the time. A tribe which had never progressed
beyond the stone age--which had no better material for its weapons and
implements than stone--could never proceed beyond a very limited point
of civilization. Bronze or any metal which can be moulded, hammered
and sharpened of course gives a nation vast superiority over one which
uses stone only; and the value of iron and steel for the same purposes
I need not dwell upon.
To be sure, we have here several measures; and it would seem more
desirable, if we could, to obtain one single measure--one single
material or object of which we could say that the tribe that uses or
does not use that to an equal degree is certainly lower or, in the
other respects, higher than another; but I believe that there has been
no single material which has been suggested as of sufficient use and
value in this direction to serve as a criterion; but, yes! I remember
there was one and, on the whole, not a bad one. It was suggested by
Baron Liebig, the celebrated chemist, who said: "If you wish a single
material by which to judge of the amount of culture that any nation,
or, for that matter, any individual, possesses, compared to another
one, find out how much soap they use. Nothing," he said, "more than
personal cleanliness and general cleanliness differentiates the
cultured man from the savage;" and as for that purpose he probably had
in view a soap, he recognized that as the one criterion. It is not
amiss, but open, also, to serious objections; because there are tribes
who live in such conditions that they can get neither water nor soap;
and the Arabs, distinctly clean, are not by any means at the highest
pinnacle of civilization.
The Germans, therefore, as a rule, have sought some other means than
all those above mentioned. Almost all the German writers on
ethnography divide the people and nations of the world into two great
classes--the one they call the "wild peoples," the other the "cultured
peoples"--the "Natur-Voelker" and the "Kultur-Voelker." The
distinction which they draw between these two great classes is largely
psychological. Man, they say, in the condition of the "wild
people"--of the "Natur-Voelker"--is subject to nature; therefore, they
call them "nature people." The "Kultur-Voelker," on the other hand,
have emancipated themselves, in great measure, from the control of
nature.
Furthermore, the man in the condition of the "wild people" is
in a condition of practically unconscious life: he has not yet
arrived at self-consciousness--he does not know and recognize his
individuality--the "Ego"--"das ich;" that is a discovery which comes
with the "Kultur-Voelker"--with the "cultured people;" and just in
proportion as an individual (or a nation) achieves a completely clear
idea of his own self-existence, his self-consciousness, his
individuality, to that extent he is emancipated from the mere control
of nature around him and rises in the scale of culture.
Again, to make this difference between the two still more apparent, it
is the conflict between the instinctive desires and the human heart
and soul and the intelligent desires--those desires which we have by
instinct, which we have by heredity and which have been inculcated
into us wholly by our surroundings, which we drink in and accept
without any internal discussion of them: those are instinctive in
character. We go about our business, we transact the daily affairs of
life, we accept our religion and politics, not from any internal
conviction of our own or positive examination, but from our
surroundings. To that extent people are acting instinctively; and, as
such, they are on a lower stage of culture than those who arrive at
such results for themselves through intelligent personal effort. This
is a real distinction also, although somewhat more subtle, perhaps,
than the ones previously given. Therefore, the differentiation made by
the German ethnographers between wild people and the cultured peoples
is, in the main, right; but it does not admit of any sharp line of
distinction between the two. We cannot draw a fixed line and say, "On
this side are the cultured people and on that the wild," because there
are many tribes and nations who are about that line, in some respects
on one side of it, in others on the other; but in a broad, general way
this distinction (which is now universally adopted by the German
writers) is one we should keep in our minds as being based upon
careful studies and real distinctions.
Usually the writers in the English tongue prefer a different basis
than any of these which I have mentioned; they prefer the basis as to
whence is derived the food supply of a nation, or a tribe; and on the
source of that food supply they divide nations and tribes into the
more or less cultured. In earliest times (and among the rudest tribes
to-day) the food supply is furnished entirely by natural means; there
is little or no agriculture known to speak of; there is nothing in the
way of preserving domestic animals for food; hunting the wild beasts
of the forests and fishing in the streams are the two sources.
Therefore, we call that last condition the hunting and fishing stage
of human development. You will observe that when that prevails there
can be no congregation of men into large bodies. Such a thing as a
city would be unknown. The food supply is eminently precarious. It
depends upon the season and upon a thousand matters not under the
control of man in any way. Moreover, inasmuch as the supply at the
best is uncertain, it allows but a very limited population in a
district; nor does it permit any permanent or stable inhabitations.
The towns, such as they are, must be movable; they must go to one part
of the country in the summer and another in the winter; they must
follow the game and the fruits; and in that condition, therefore, of
unstable life it is not possible for a nation or a tribe to gain any
great advance. You observe, therefore, that when the food supply is
drawn from this source it does entail a general depravity of culture
everywhere.
Above that would come the food supply which is obtained from other
sources. There is one which is not universal but still widely
extended, and that is the pastoral life. There are many tribes (as,
for instance, in southern Africa and in India and throughout the
steppes of Tartary and elsewhere) who live on their herds and drive
their herds from one pasture to another in order to obtain the best
forage. This nomadic and pastoral life extended very widely over the
old world in ancient times, but existed nowhere in the new world, for
the simple reason that they had no domesticated animals. Our own
remote ancestors--both the Aryans and the Semites--all the early
ancestors of the white race so far as known, were pastoral or nomadic;
and the Aryans of central Europe remained so until after the fall of
Rome, when, for the first time, they became practically sedentary.
This nomadic and pastoral life is a very great advance over the mere
hunting and fishing stage. It requires considerable care and attention
to domesticate the wild animals in any sufficient quantity to form a
reliable source of food. Moreover, the attention which it was
necessary to give to the rearing and training and the looking after
domestic animals was to a certain extent, humanizing. When a man found
that it was necessary to be careful about his animals, he would also
be careful about his neighbors. We would say that the same sense which
enabled him, or directed him, to look after the welfare of the herd
would justify and, in fact, impel him to look after that of man also;
so that the nomadic and pastoral life, although not stable nor
favorable to the development of cities, nor the great extension of
commerce, was nevertheless a decided advance over the ruder hunting
and fishing stage. So far as we know, neither Aryan nor Semite ever
depended upon a hunting and fishing stage. They doubtless did, but not
in the time of any history that we know. The Bedouins, etc., wandering
tribes to-day, and, among the Semitic, the Tuaregs of the Sahara, are
a purely nomadic or pastoral race; yet are very much above the negroes
of the south, who depend upon hunting and fishing.
Above it, however, and a very great improvement upon it, is the
agricultural stage, where the main source of the food supply is the
harvests. You observe, at once, that that means a sedentary life. When
a man sows corn, he must wait thereabout and tend it and till it and
finally reap it and store it and thrash it and then preserve the grain
and build granaries for it; and it involves, in fact, the remaining in
one place all the whole year; and then the regularity of that life led
very distinctly to making men regular, generally, in their habits.
They wanted to defend their homes--defend these grain fields of
theirs, or starvation would result; therefore, they built towers and
strong-walled cities; and they took great care in the selection of the
best men among them to do the fighting, while others looked after the
crop. We find that agriculture began at a very, very early period in
both continents. In our own continent we cannot tell when agriculture
was first in use--the main crop being the maize, or Indian corn. It
was raised by the more advanced tribes from the extreme north, where
its profitable culture invited, to the extreme south, from about the
northern line of Wisconsin in North America to the latitude of
southern Chile in South--extending, therefore, over some seven to
eight thousand miles of linear distance.
In the old world (going back to the time of the lake dwellers) we know
they had barley, rye and a species of millet; and later on they were
introduced to oats and wheat and a variety of others. Rice was of the
very earliest of our cereals, in the extreme east of the old world.
Wherever we find a very ancient civilization we also find that it is
intimately connected with some important cereal, and it has been said
that all you have to do is to study botany--the history of botany--and
you will find the history of human culture; and much there is that
could be said for that.
Fourth, and finally, those who divide human culture according to the
food supply consider that the highest stage is reached through
commerce. Commerce brings to all the great centers of human life the
food essential to their sustenance. It would be absolutely
impossible--obviously so--to have a city like Philadelphia in
existence for a month without constant and ceaseless commerce brought
here the food for its inhabitants. It is quite likely that, were
Philadelphia shut off at once from all connection with the world,
within ten days there would be an absolute famine here--so closely do
we depend upon our commercial supplies for our subsistence. These
supplies are not drawn from any one locality; were we to draw a radius
of five hundred miles around our great city of a million inhabitants,
we should still find that the greater part of our food supply comes
from a wider distance from us than that; and there is no one of us
that will go to his table this evening but will see upon that table
food products drawn from every quarter of the world. Thus it is that
commerce enables man to reach an indefinite degree of consolidation;
and it is through consolidation--through the more and more intimate
relationship, and the closer and closer juxtaposition of man--that his
real benefit and progress may be derived.
These, therefore, are the four stages of culture, as depending upon
food supply: the hunting and fishing stage, the nomadic or pastoral,
the agricultural and the commercial. These have been generally adopted
by English writers, and they are so adopted to-day; and you will
probably find them in many of the text books.
The American writers have, in many instances, followed the principles
laid down and defined most clearly by Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, a
distinguished ethnologist of the last generation. He divides (or
accepted the division and largely defined it) the progress of man into
a series of stages: beginning at the lowest point with savagery; then
barbarism, semi-civilization, civilization, and fifth, enlightenment.
I may briefly refer to what he would include in these and the main
criteria which he gives for each of them. He would place the savage
condition as being that of the lowest tribes known to us. They have
little or no agriculture; their commerce is very inchoate and rude:
they have no knowledge of the metals as such; their best weapon is the
bow and arrow, or the throwing stick; and their best tool is the stone
hatchet and the stone spade. This is very much like the lowest
condition of the "wild people" to whom I referred.
Above that he would place the condition of barbarism. In the stage of
developed barbarism he would place such inventions as, for instance,
pottery, the art of weaving (which is a very primitive art) and the
taming of a certain number of domestic animals, some for food, some
for amusement and hunting, and also the beginnings of the development
of agriculture. A type of such a nation of barbarism would be the
Indians who used to live here--the Algonkian--the Delaware Indians.
When the first Europeans came to the shores of the Delaware River they
did not find absolutely rude savages. The Delaware Indians had
moderately stationary villages surrounded by pickets, the houses being
built of strong timber; they had large fields of maize, pumpkins,
squashes and beans, which they cultivated diligently during the summer
and stored the food for their winter's supply. They depended largely,
to be sure, upon hunting and fishing also; but along with that they
had these simple arts: From the rushes which grew below Philadelphia,
in a place called the "Neck," they used to weave mats for protecting
the floors and also for building the sides of their summer houses and
for sleeping upon. They had a method of tanning and dressing buckskin
and using it for the purposes of clothing. They were by no means naked
savages; they were clothed, and tolerably well clothed; they could
make pottery, and the pottery was decorated sometimes with interesting
designs, of which we have specimens in our cabinets. Therefore, we
find among the old Delaware Indians who formerly lived on the site of
Philadelphia a fair specimen of a nation in a barbarous stage,
decidedly superior to the Australian natives of to-day or the Indians
of the Terra del Fuego or the northern part of British America, who
are in the state of complete savagery.
Above that is the period of semi-civilization, a stage marked by the
discovery of the method of building stone walls. No Algonkian or
Iroquois Indian ever built a stone wall in his life; there is no
record of any and no signs of any throughout the United States east of
the Mississippi; there was never a stone wall built by a native tribe
that really amounted to anything more than a stone pile; but we do
find that in the southwest, among the cliff dwellers, and in various
parts of Central America and South America, the stone wall was not
only known, but it was constructed with a great deal of durability and
skill. Also, some knowledge of metals was found among most of the
semi-civilized people. The Mexicans and the Peruvians were in a state
of semi-civilization when they were discovered by the whites the first
time. They, built many extensive temples and houses, erected
frequently upon pyramids, the pyramids themselves being supported by
stone walls. They knew the dressing of stone; they were distinctly
agricultural and depended more on that than anything else for their
food supply. They had developed a system of mnemonic records which, in
the Yucatan culture, might be called picture writing, but was not
phonetic writing in our true sense of the term. The also knew
something about weighing and measuring. They had definite laws, laws
which were carried out by properly appointed individuals. Their towns
and cities would often number thousands of inhabitants; they had roads
connecting them, which roads were kept in good condition; they had a
regular army made up of men selected and trained for that purpose. In
all these respects we see nations who were semi-civilized, but they
were not yet civilized. We could call a nation civilized that had a
distinct system of phonetic writing and used it; but not all nations
having this are civilized. It is only when it is used freely and for
purposes of business that we can call them civilized.
The wild Tuaregs of the Sahara have a system of phonetic writing used
by a few of them--the women being the literati of those tribes (the
men not knowing how to read or write); but civilization means more
than this; it means the use of iron weapons and tools; it means also
the adoption of a definite currency which is established on a fixed
basis and recognized throughout the community; it means the
establishment of commercial lines--a progress distinct above that
which is the mere barter of the lower conditions of savagery and
barbarism. In all these respects we see that civilization means a type
about such as we enjoy at present. It is such as has existed in Europe
since the Renaissance; because during the middle ages we could only
say that Europe was in a semi-civilized condition. They knew something
about writing; but at a time when Dean, the writer of the early
history of England, said that throughout the whole of England there
were not half a dozen men who could read what he had written, you can
see that writing was a very unimportant part of the culture of that
nation; so it can only be when writing becomes a common possession of
the majority that we can call it an element of civilization.
It is not to be supposed that we ourselves have reached the type of
the highest culture. We leave something for our descendants to do. We
do not wish to relieve them of the privilege of being better than
ourselves; and we shall leave them, probably, plenty of room; because
it is supposed that the stage of enlightenment which is the highest
stage of culture--which we foresee, but do not see--that that rather
applies to the future than to ourselves. That period will come when
mankind has freed itself very much more than now from the bonds of
nature and the environment of society. It will come when the ideas of
our equality are much more perfect than they are now; when that
equality extends to the equality of women with men before the law and
in all rights; when it comes to the equality of all men of all castes
before the law and the equal opportunity of all men to obtain that
which is best in the life of all. We are very far from that yet. It
will come also when the idea of international legislation is such that
it will not be necessary, in order to cure great evils, that we should
have recourse to weapons of any material whatsoever; that time is not
yet come; and so we have much that is left for our descendants to work
out in this direction.
It would, however, appear that all these various criteria which I have
named are somewhat unsatisfactory. They do not, it appears to me,
quite touch the question at issue. They are in a measure external
measures altogether--even that somewhat psychological one which I
quoted from the German authorities. Were I to propose a criterion, or
a series of criteria, of culture which could be applied to all
nations, it would be that which might as well and easily be applied to
each individual; and when we come to apply it in that manner it is
much more easy to understand its bearing. Herbert Spencer, in defining
what he means by culture, says: "It means the knowledge of one thing
thoroughly and a knowledge of the groundwork of all other branches of
human knowledge." He claimed that we can only understand one thing
thoroughly; but that we could and ought to understand the general
outline of all other things which are studied by mankind. This is
somewhat defective, it appears, because it bases culture entirely from
an intellectual point of view; and if man were merely a walking
intellectual machine, it would be well enough; but he is not; for the
intellectual man is but a small portion of his life. We are engaged,
most of our time, in something which is very far from purely
intellectual action. We are governed distinctly by our emotions and
our feelings--our sentiments; and culture must touch them, or it is
vague and empty. Therefore it is that I would say that we should think
with Goethe--to whom we must often recur for an insight into the
profoundest trends of human nature--must recur to him; and we find
that he lays down the principle of culture in the individual to be "A
general sympathy with all the highest ideas which have governed and
are governing the human mind." He said: "We should keep ourselves
first (each man and woman should keep himself and herself) in touch
with the highest elements of his and her own nature." He said, "It is
not so difficult, if we give but a little time to it--provided we give
that time regularly. We must remember," he says, "to cultivate our
intellect by some study, every day and our sense of the beautiful by
looking at something which is beautiful; and there is much around us
which costs us nothing to look at were we to observe it--the cloud,
the sunlight, the tree, the flower, a butterfly--anything of that kind
studied for a few minutes each day would continue to develop in man's
mind the sense of the beautiful. We should also appreciate carefully
our actions and govern them and measure them, as to whether they are
just to others--a matter which a very few minutes a day will probably
enable us to do;" and so also he would go further and seek to find, in
the idea of truth itself, as to what we ought and ought not to
believe--trying to discover some one test of truth which we can apply.
Indeed, we may therefore formulate and apply to nations at large what
Goethe has there suggested; and we shall find it can be arranged in
what I may call a pentatonic scale of culture. You may be aware that
all musical scales of all savage and barbarous and primitive tribes
are not in the octave, as ours, but in five notes only; they all have
one musical scale only, and that is a pentatonic scale; and it is
perhaps because they feel that their own minds are based upon some
such arrangement as that (although that is an idea which I do not
subscribe to, but only suggest); but when we come to look over the
whole cycle of culture, as we find it described in the histories of
culture--in the histories of civilization--we find that they are all
efforts to develop one or the other, or several, of five primary ideas
which are in the mind of every human being; and when they are
developed, then culture is perfect, either in the individual or in the
nation or the race. These five primitive ideas, innate in every human
soul, are the ideas of the useful, of the beautiful, of the just, of
the good and of the true, and you will not find any savage (provided
he is not deficient in the ordinary mental ability of his tribe) who
does not indicate an appreciation of every one of these in his own
way. It is the idea of the useful which teaches him his utilitarian
arts; which teaches him to build his house; to chip the flint for his
weapon; to sharpen the stick to dig the place to drop the seed; and
all those we call the arts of utility, the useful arts; and yet you
will not find a savage tribe to-day but what goes somewhat above this;
because among them all they make also an effort that these tools and
weapons of theirs shall have some sign about them of the beautiful;
and you will find decoration--indeed, "the painted savage" is a name
we give to the lowest order of humanity; yet this same paint is to
make himself beautiful; and so it is throughout all his games and
amusements in life--you will find he is constantly striving at the
idea of decoration--at the idea of beauty; little by little he
develops this, until it becomes, in some nations, the joy of their
existence and the lesson of the race, as in the ancient Greeks; as in
the Italians of the time of the Renaissance. These are what we call
the æsthetic emotions, based upon an innate sense and love of the
beautiful: and we may also turn to the lowest savage--we shall not
find him deficient in justice; on the contrary, among the rudest
Australians, without shelter or clothing, you will find that the law
of the tribe is well defined and also implacable; and a man who has
sinned knows that he must meet it or flee; he knows that there is no
avail or recourse beyond the tribal council, and he knows what they
will decide in his particular case, because he knows the law and the
penalty of its infringement. And this rude notion of justice develops,
little by little, into the great edifice of jurisprudence, the law of
nation and the law of nations. Thus we find that the idea of the just,
and of what is right from man to man, is something which is found
everywhere; and as that develops culture develops; but the mere just
alone does not satisfy the human heart; the man who merely metes out
to his fellow that which the tribal law, or the law of the land,
requires of him, certainly is not up to the ideal of any man or woman
in this assembly or in this city.
There is something beyond that, and what is that? We find that it
rests in the idea of the good--that which is often brought forward in
the beautiful forms of religion, which tells man that above justice
there is something greater and nobler than mere ethics or
morality--the mere right and wrong--the mere giving what is due. It is
not enough to do that; there must be a giving of more than is due;
because the idea of the good transcends the present life--it passes
into the future life of the species; and it is only through going
above what is needed to-day that we may endow our posterity with
something greater than we ourselves possess. It is the idea of the
good, therefore, which lifts that which is merely just into a
higher--into, I might say, an immortal sphere of activity. It has
always had an intense attraction for noble souls, which history shows
us; and it is not to be supposed that that attraction will ever
diminish; it will ever increase, although its forms may change; and
finally, along with this betterment of the emotions, and of the sense
of justice--of right and of ethics and of æsthetics--we find the
constant effort and desire of all mankind, in all stages of culture,
to find out what is true, as distinct from that which is not true. You
will not be mistaken if you seek for this in the soul of the rudest
savage; he, too, likes to know the truth. The methods by which he
arrives at it, or seeks to arrive at it, are widely different from
those which you have been taught. Nevertheless, the logical force of
his mind; the methods of thought that he has; the laws that govern his
intelligence, are exactly the same as yours: and it is only with your
enlightenment you have gained more and more acquaintance with the
methods. You know something about the great discovery which has
advanced all modern science from its mediæval condition to that of the
present--of the application of the inductive system of science and
thought; and you know that it is by constant and close mathematical
study of analogy--of probability--that we exclude error little by
little from our observations--we improve more and more our instruments
of precision--we count out the errors of our observation; and we are
constantly seeking those laws which are not transient and ephemeral
only, but which are eternal and immortal. Upon those laws, finally,
must rest all our real, certain knowledge; and it is the endeavor of
the anthropologist to apply those laws to man and his development; and
such, indeed, is the recognized and highest mission of that science.
We thus find that the idea of truth is at the summit of this scale
which I have placed before you--not separated from it. It interprets
every one of the ideas and justifies them and qualifies them and lifts
them up into their highest usefulness. Chevalier Bunsen, in describing
what he thought would be the highest condition of human enlightenment,
said, "It will be when the good will be the true and the true will be
the good;" and he might have extended that further and said, when both
those ideas were the inspiring motives of all these five great ideas
which I have stated are at the basis of the culture of every
individual and are also at the basis of the culture of the race and of
the nation.
This, therefore, will serve as a sketch of the milestones of human
progress. The way has been long and painful; the results have been far
from satisfactory; and yet they have been enormous and wonderful, when
we compare them now with what our ancestors were when history began.
We can conclude, however, from looking back on this thorny and upward
path, that it is still going to ascend; we do not know it for certain;
progress may cease, through some unknown law, now and here; but if
there is anything that we can derive from the lesson of the past--if
we can project into the future any of the facts which history shows us
are our own now--it guides us forward to a firm belief that the
hereafter will have in its breast greater treasures for humanity,
greater glories for posterity, than any that we know or can
understand.
* * * * *
TOMBS OF THE FIRST EGYPTIAN DYNASTY.[1]
[Footnote 1: The Independent.]
By LUDWIG BORCHARDT, Ph.D., Director of the German School in
Cairo.
For many years various European collections of Egyptian antiquities
have contained a certain series of objects which gave archæologists
great difficulty. There were vases of a peculiar form and color,
greenish plates of slate, many of them in curious animal forms, and
other similar things. It was known, positively, that these objects had
been found in Egypt, but it was impossible to assign them a place in
the known periods of Egyptian art. The puzzle was increased in
difficulty by certain plates of slate with hunting and battle scenes
and other representations in relief in a style so strange that many
investigators considered them products of the art of Western Asia.
The first light was thrown on the question in the winter of 1894-95 by
the excavations of Flinders Petrie in Ballas and Neggadeh, two places
on the west bank of the Nile, a little below ancient Thebes. This
persevering English investigator discovered here a very large
necropolis in which he examined about three thousand graves. They all
contained the same kinds of pottery and the same slate tablets
mentioned above, and many other objects which did not seem to be
Egyptian. It was plain that the newly found necropolis and the
puzzling objects already in the museums belonged to the same period.
Petrie assumed that they represented the art of a foreign
people--perhaps the Libyans--who had temporarily resided in Egypt in
the time between the old and the middle kingdoms. He gave this unknown
people the name "New Race." But his theory met with little approval,
least of all from German Egyptologists; and even at that time, an
opinion was expressed that this unusual art belonged before the known
beginning of Egyptian culture. However, in spite of much discussion,
the question could not then be decided.
About the same time another riddle was presented to Egyptologists by
the results of the excavations made in Abydos by the French scholar
Amélineau; and another hot discussion was raised. Amélineau had
excavated several large tombs and had also found objects which could
not be arranged in the known development of Egyptian art. The
fortunate discoverer ascribed these to the dynasties of the demigods,
who, according to Egyptian tradition, reigned before the kings; but of
course this idea met with determined opposition, and indeed especially
among his French colleagues. The tomb of Abydos offered, however, on
quiet consideration, more material for establishing its date than
those of Ballas and Neggadeh. In Abydos a number of inscriptions had
been found which, rude as they were, showed that the people buried in
the tombs had known the hieroglyphic system of writing. The occurrence
of so-called "Horus names" in these inscriptions was especially
important. For every old Egyptian king had a long list of names and
titles, and among them a name surmounted by the picture of a hawk
(i.e., Horus), and called on that account the "Horus name." As the
name is, at the same time, written on a sort of standard, it is also
called the "Banner name." Such "Horus" or "Banner names" occur, then,
on the objects found by Amélineau. Accidentally, one of these names
occurs, also, on a statue in the Grizeh Museum which, according to its
style, is one of the oldest statues which the museum possesses. Thus
it became evident that the Abydos objects were, in any case, to be
placed in the earliest period of Egyptian history.
The discussion stood thus when, in the spring of 1897, the fortunate
hand of De Morgan, the former Directeur-général des Services des
antiquités égyptiennes, succeeded by renewed excavations in Neggadeh
in furnishing the connections between the objects found by Petrie in
Ballas and Neggadeh and those found by Amélineau in Abydos. He
discovered, not far from the necropolis, excavated by Petrie, the tomb
of a king which, on the one hand, contained pottery and tablets like
those found by Petrie, and on the other, objects entirely like those
found by Amélineau. Thus it was proved that both Petrie's tombs and
those of Amélineau belonged to the same period, and, indeed, the
oldest period, of Egyptian history, before the third dynasty. They
were older than the most ancient objects which we had thought that we
possessed. But it was still impossible to date them exactly.
At this point, an epoch-making discovery of Dr. Sethe, privat-docent
at the University of Berlin, placed the whole matter at a single
stroke on a comparatively sure foundation. He pointed out that the
inscriptions on a few unassuming potsherds from Abydos contained not
only Banner names of old kings, but also their ordinary names. These
names were not inclosed, as later, in cartouches, and even contained
many unusual spellings; but they were still too clear to be
misunderstood. Sethe succeeded in identifying the names of the fifth,
the sixth and the seventh kings of the first Manethonian dynasty,
called by the Greek authors Usaphais, Miebais and Semempses. Thus it
became extremely probable that all these newly discovered objects were
from the first dynasty, but still not absolutely certain; for the
three names occurred only on fragments of vases, and absolutely
nothing was known of how these fragments were found. The proof that
they belonged to the other objects was wanting. A very skeptical
investigator might still have said that the other objects were older,
that the potsherds had only fallen accidentally into ruined tombs of
an older period; or he might have said quite the contrary, that the
potsherds were older than the tombs.
At this point occurred the possibility of finding a solution of the
question in the objects found in the royal tomb of Neggadeh. For the
report of the excavations at Neggadeh was more exact than that of the
excavations at Abydos; and the whole contents of the tomb of Neggadeh
had been kept together and preserved in a separate room in the Grizeh
Museum. The possibility became a reality. One of the principal objects
of this royal tomb was found to bear the ordinary as well as the Horus
name of the king--a fact which had escaped the fortunate discoverer.
The object is a small ivory plate with incised representations of
funerary offerings before the king. Animals are being sacrificed to
him; jars full of beer and other things are being offered. The figure
of the king, in front of a hanging mat, is not preserved; but the
upper corner still remains with the two names, which were written
above the figure. First, there is the same Horus name which occurs on
all the inscribed objects of this tomb and which may be translated
"The Warrior." Beside the Horus name in a sort of cartouche is the
title "Lord of Vulture and Serpent Crown" (Lord of Upper and Lower
Egypt), and beneath the title the sign which represents a
checkerboard, and has the syllabic value Mn. There can therefore be no
doubt that the king buried in the royal tomb of Neggadeh, of whom we
had only known the Horus name "The Warrior," had also the name Mn.
Now, there is no other known Egyptian king who could be identified
with this name Mn than the first king of the first Manethonian
dynasty, called Menes by the Greeks. It is impossible here to go into
the philological basis of the identification of Mn and Menes. The
final conclusion is this: In Neggadeh, we have before us the tomb of
the oldest king of whom the Egyptians had preserved any memory, and
whom they considered the founder of the Egyptian monarchy.
In consideration of the importance of the questions involved, a short
description of the tomb of Menes and of the objects found in it will
certainly be of interest. The second part of De Morgan's book,
"Recherche sur les origines de l'Egypte," which has just appeared,
furnishes us with the facts concerning the tomb, and the objects found
in the tomb I will describe from the originals in the Gizeh Museum.
The tomb consists of a large building, standing alone, measuring 54 X
27 m. (about 100 X 50 Egyptian ells), and built of burned brick. The
outside walls were ornamented, as was usual in later Egyptian
buildings, with pilasters composed of groups of smaller rectangular
pilasters. It is the same motive so often to be observed in the sham
doors in tombs of the old kingdom, and is really the most natural
facade ornamentation for brick buildings, as it may be made by simply
setting every alternate column of bricks forward or backward. The
walls were, in addition, plastered. Back of the thick outside wall on
each side lay a row of narrow rectangular rooms, formed by dividing a
corridor by means of cross walls. Inside this surrounding row of rooms
was the real tomb, a building with thick walls and five rooms in a
row. The middle one of these rooms, noticeably larger than the others,
is the real burial chamber. These five rooms were originally connected
by doors which were afterward walled up. As to the roof, we can only
make surmises, as the excavator has furnished us with no material on
this point. The walls as they now stand are at the highest point about
four meters high, and thus may form only the lower part of the
building. Whether the roof was an arch of stone or simply of wood, is
uncertain; but it seems to me probable that it was of wood. For the
tomb contained a layer of ashes in which all the objects put in the
grave with the dead man were found; and, assuming that the roof was of
wood, it is possible that the roof was set on fire at the time when
the tomb was robbed and that the ashes came from this fire. The
explanation which the excavator gives of these ashes, that the body
and the offerings were burned in the closed grave, hardly deserves
consideration. In any case, the grave has been robbed and destroyed.
That is shown by the fact that many pieces of funeral furniture, which
originally could only have been put in the central rooms, were found
partly broken in the outside rooms, or on the side toward the fields,
the side most exposed to the attack of grave robbers.
The assumption that the grave has been robbed and intentionally
destroyed agrees entirely with the fact that all the more valuable
objects found in the grave were in fragments. But, fragmentary as they
are, they are sufficient to give us a good idea of the art of the
first period of the Egyptian kingdom, a period which is now most
generally estimated to be five and a half millenniums before the
present day (3600 B.C.) The skill with which ivory carving was done in
that early time is indeed amazing. Reclining lions, hunting dogs and
fish are so skillfully reproduced that one asks how many centuries of
development must have preceded before the art of carving reached this
perfection. A number of feet taken from the legs of small chairs and
other similar furniture, and made in imitation of bulls' legs, show
such a fixity of style and at the same time such a freedom of
execution, that no archæologist, without the report of the excavator,
would dare to proclaim them the oldest dated works of Egyptian art.
But it was not only in carving ivory, which is easy to work, that the
Egyptian artists showed their skill. They also make bowls and vases of
diorite and porphyry with the same success; and the forms presented by
the smaller ivory vases are also to be found in vases made of those
refractory stones. Further, the vases made of stone present not merely
such forms as might be made by turning or boring, but there are also
bowls with ribs which are as finely polished as the turned bowls. The
hardest material used in the objects already found is rock crystal, of
which several small flasks and bowls and a little lion are composed.
But the lion, it must be confessed, is rather rudely worked. A few
small vases of obsidian also occur--remarkable in view of the fact
that we do not know of any place in or near Egypt where this stone may
be found. Besides these vessels of hard stone, there are, of course, a
large number made of softer stone. Alabaster vases occur in every
conceivable form. Cylindrical pots, with wavy handles or simple
cordlike ornamentation, appear to have been especially favored. The
great beer jars, closed with enormous stoppers of unbaked clay, were
made of ordinary baked clay. Of course the different stone and clay
vessels, which, undoubtedly, originally contained offerings for the
dead, form the bulk of the contents of the grave. The slate tablets
for rubbing cosmetics for painting the body, and the flint weapons and
knives of all sorts, follow in point of numbers. Remarkably enough,
metal objects occur in this oldest historical period alongside the
stone implements, though, of course, in less numbers. Several objects
made of copper and a slender bead of gold have been found. Such, in
short, is all that remains of the things put in the tomb with the
king. But little as there is, it gives us an idea of the richness and
splendor with which these old royal tombs were furnished.
It might certainly be productive of unusual emotions to know that the
few human bones found in the tomb, and now preserved in the Gizeh
Museum, once belonged to the oldest Egyptian king. But as we know
almost nothing of him, except some unfounded traditions, this sort of
relic worship deserves very little respect. The scientific value of
the proof that Menes was the king buried in the royal tomb of Neggadeh
lies rather in the fact that we have now settled the question of the
age of that culture which was presented to us by the excavations of
Ballas, Neggadeh and Abydos. The products of a whole period of
Egyptian civilization which had been misunderstood, and had been
used to support false historical conclusions, fall into their true
place; and our knowledge of the history of Egyptian culture is
carried back not merely a few centuries, but to a period presenting
characteristics different from the oldest previously known period, but
containing the germs of the later development.
Cairo, Egypt.
* * * * *
ROSE PSYCHE.
The hybrid Polyantha Rose Psyche is a seedling from the dwarf
Polyantha Rose Golden Fairy, crossed with the pollen of the Crimson
Rambler. Its growth and habit, though more delicate, much resembles
the Rambler. It is apparently quite hardy, and is very free flowering,
but we fear not perpetual. The flowers are produced in clusters of
from fifteen to twenty-five, and are 2 to 2½ inches across when
fully expanded. In the bud stage they are very pretty and well formed.
The color is white, suffused with salmon-rose and pink, with a yellow
base to the petals. It is a real companion to Crimson Rambler.--The
Gardeners' Chronicle.
[Illustration: ROSE HYBRID POLYANTHA "PSYCHE"--COLOR, PALE PINK.]
* * * * *
SLEEP AND THE THEORIES OF ITS CAUSE.
The theory of the origin of sleep which has gained the widest credence
is the one that attributes it to anæmia of the brain. It has been
shown by Mosso, and many others, that in men with defects of the
cranial wall the volume of the brain decreases during sleep. At the
same time, the volume of any limb increases as the peripheral parts of
the body become turgid with blood. In dogs, the brain has been
exposed, and the cortex of that organ has been observed to become
anæmic during sleep. It is a matter of ordinary observation that in
infants, during sleep, the volume of the brain becomes less, since the
fontanelle is found to sink in. It has been supposed, but without
sufficient evidence to justify the supposition, that this anæmia of
the brain is the cause and not the sequence of sleep. The idea behind
this supposition has been that, as the day draws to an end, the
circulatory mechanism becomes fatigued, the vasomotor center
exhausted, the tone of the blood vessels deficient, and the energy of
the heart diminished, and the circulation to the cerebral arteries
lessened. By means of a simple and accurate instrument (the
Hill-Barnard sphygmometer), with which the pressure in the arteries of
man can be easily reckoned, it has been recently determined that the
arterial pressure falls just as greatly during bodily rest as during
sleep. The ordinary pressure of the blood in the arteries of young and
healthy men averages 110-120 mm. of mercury. In sleep, the pressure
may sink to 95-100 mm.; but if the pressure be taken of the same
subject lying in bed, and quietly engaged on mental work, it will be
found to be no higher. By mental strain or muscular effort, the
pressure is, however, immediately raised, and may then reach 130-140
mm. of mercury. It can be seen from considering these facts that the
fall of pressure is concomitant with rest, rather than with sleep. As,
moreover, it has been determined on strong evidence that the cerebral
vessels are not supplied with vasomotor nerves, and that the cerebral
circulation passively follows every change in the arterial pressure,
it becomes evident that sleep cannot be occasioned by any active
change in the cerebral vessels. This conclusion is borne out by the
fact that to produce in the dog a condition of coma like to sleep, it
is necessary to reduce, by a very great amount, the cerebral
circulation. Thus, both carotids and both vertebral arteries, can be
frequently tied at one and the same time without either producing coma
or any very marked symptoms. The circulation is, in such a case,
maintained through other channels, such as branches from the superior
intercostal arteries which enter the anterior spinal artery. While
total anæmia of the brain instantaneously abolishes consciousness,
partial anæmia is found to raise the excitability of the cortex
cerebri. By estimation of the exchange of gases in the blood which
enters and leaves the brain, it has been shown that the consumption of
oxygen and the production of carbonic acid in that organ is not large.
Further, it may be noted that the condition of anæsthesia is not in
all cases associated with cerebral anæmia. Thus, while during
chloroform anæsthesia the arterial pressure markedly falls, such is
not the case during anæsthesia produced by ether or a mixture of
nitrous oxide and oxygen.
The arterial pressure of man is not lowered by the ordinary fatigue of
daily life. It is only in extreme states of exhaustion that the
pressure may be found decreased when the subject is in the standing
position. The fall of pressure which does occur during rest or sleep
is mainly occasioned by the diminished rate of the heart. The increase
in the volume of the limbs is to be ascribed to the cessation of
muscular movement and to the diminution in the amplitude of
respiration. The duty of the heart is to deliver the blood to the
capillaries. From the veins the blood is, for the most part, returned
to the heart by the compressive action of the muscles, the constant
change of posture and by the respiration acting both as a force and
suction pump. All of these factors are at their maximum during bodily
activity and at their minimum during rest. On exciting a sleeper by
calling his name, or in any way disturbing him, the limbs, it has been
recorded, decrease in volume while the brain expands. This is so
because the respiration changes in depth, the heart quickens, the
muscles alter in tone, as the subject stirs in his sleep in reflex
response to external stimuli. Considering all these facts, we must
regard the fall of arterial pressure, the depression of the
fontanelle, and the turgescence of the vessels of the limbs as
phenomena concomitant with bodily rest and warmth, and we have no more
right to assign the causation of sleep to cerebral anæmia than to any
other alteration in the functions of the body, such as occur during
sleep.
We may well here summarize these other changes in function:
(1) The respiratory movement becomes shallow and thoracic in type.
(2) The volume of the air inspired per minute is lessened by one-half
to two-thirds.
(3) The output of carbonic acid is diminished by the same amount.
(4) The bodily temperature falls.
(5) The acidity of the cortex of the brain disappears.
(6) Reflex action persists; the knee jerk is diminished, pointing to
relaxation in tone of the muscles; consciousness is suspended.
Analyzing more closely the conditions of the central nervous system,
it becomes evident that, in sleep, consciousness alone is in abeyance.
The nerves and the special senses continue to transmit impulses and to
produce reflex movements. If a blanket, sufficiently heavy to impede
respiration, be placed upon the face of a sleeping person, we know
that it will be immediately pushed away. More than this, complicated
movements can be carried out; the postilion can sleep on horseback;
the punkah-wallah may work his punkah and at the same time enjoy a
slumber; a weary mother may sleep, and yet automatically rock her
infant's cradle. Turning to the histories of sleep walkers, we find it
recorded that, during sleep, they perform such feats as climbing
slanting roofs or walking across dangerous narrow ledges and bridges.
The writer knew of the case of a lad who, when locked in his room at
night to prevent his wandering in his sleep, climbed a partition eight
to ten feet in height which separated his sleeping compartment from
the next, and this without waking.
The brain can carry out not only such complicated acts as these, but
it has been found to maintain during sleep its normal inhibitory
control over the lower reflex centers in the spinal cord.
Thus, in sleeping dogs, after the spinal cord has been divided in the
dorsal region, reflexes can be more easily evoked from the lumbar than
from the cervical cord, because the former is freed from the
inhibitory control of the brain.
The strength of stimulus necessary to pass the threshold of
consciousness and to produce an awakening has been measured in various
ways. It has been determined that it takes a louder and louder sound
or a stronger and stronger electric shock to arouse a sleeper during
the first two or three hours of slumber; after that period, the sleep
becomes lighter and the required stimulus need be much less.
The alternative theories which have been suggested to account for the
onset of sleep may be classed as chemical and histological.
In relation to the first, it has been suggested that if consciousness
be regarded as dependent upon a certain rate of atomic vibration, it
is possible that this rate depends on a store of intramolecular
oxygen, which, owing to fatigue, may become exhausted; or it may be
supposed that alkaloidal substances may collect as fatigue products
within the brain, and choke the activity of that organ. Against this
theory may be submitted the facts that monotony of stimulus will
produce sleep in an unfatigued person, that over-fatigue, either
mental or bodily, will hinder the onset of sleep, that the cessation
of external stimuli by itself produces sleep. As an example of this
last, may be quoted the case recorded by Strumpel of a patient who was
completely anæsthetic save for one eye and one ear, and who fell
asleep when these were closed. Moreover, many men possess the power,
by an effort of will, of withdrawing from objective or subjective
stimuli, and of thus inducing sleep.
The histological theories of sleep are founded on recent extraordinary
advances in the knowledge of the minute anatomy of the central nervous
system, a knowledge founded on the Golgi and methylene blue methods of
staining. It is held possible that the dendrites or branching
processes of nerve cells are contractile, and that they, by pulling
themselves apart, break the association pathways which are formed by
the interlacing or synapses of the dendrites in the brain. Ramon y
Cajal, on the other hand, believes that the neuroglia cells are
contractile, and may expand so as to interpose their branches as
insulating material between the synapses formed by the dendrites of
the nerve cells. The difficulty of accepting these theories is that
nobody can locate consciousness to any particular group of nerve
cells. Moreover, the anatomical evidence of such changes taking place
is at present of the flimsiest character.
If these theories be true, what, it may be asked, is the agency that
causes the dendrites to contract or the neuroglia cells to expand? Is
there really a soul sitting aloof in the pineal gland, as Descartes
held? When a man like Lord Brougham can at any moment shut himself
away from the outer world and fall asleep, does his soul break the
dendritic contacts between cell and cell; and when he awakes, does it
make contacts and switch the impulses evoked by sense stimuli on to
one or other tract of the axons, or axis cylinder processes, which
form the association pathways? Such a hypothesis is no explanation; it
simply puts back the whole question a step further, and leaves it
wrapped in mystery. It cannot be fatigue that produces the
hypothetical interruptions of the dendritic synapses and then induces
sleep, for sleep can follow after fatigue of a very limited kind. A
man may sleep equally well after a day spent in scientific research as
after one spent in mountain climbing, or after another passed in
idling by the seashore. He may spend a whole day engaged in
mathematical calculation or in painting a landscape. He fatigues--if
we admit the localization of function to definite parts of the
brain--but one set of association tracts, but one group of cells, and
yet, when he falls asleep, consciousness is not partially, but totally
suspended.
We must admit that the withdrawal of stimuli, or their monotonous
repetition, are factors which do undoubtedly stand out as primary
causes of sleep. We may suppose, if we like, that consciousness
depends upon a certain rate of vibration which takes place in the
brain structure. This vibration is maintained by the stimuli of the
present, which awaken memories of former stimuli, and are themselves
at the same time modified by these. By each impulse streaming into the
brain from the sense organs, we can imagine the structure of the
cerebral cortex to be more or less permanently altered. The impulses
of the present, as they sweep through the association pathways, arouse
memories of the past; but in what way this is brought about is outside
the range of explanation. Perhaps an impulse vibrating at a certain
rate may arouse cells or fibrils tuned by past stimuli to respond to
this particular rate of vibration. Thus may be evoked a chain of
memories, while by an impulse of a different rate quite another set of
memories may be started. Tracts of association are probably formed in
definite lines through the nervous system, as during the life of a
child repeated waves of sense impulses beat against and overcome
resistances, and make smooth pathways here and there through the brain
structure. Thus may be produced growth of axons in certain directions,
and synapses of this cell with that. If the same stimulus be often
repeated, the synapses between groups of cells may become permanent. A
memory, a definite line of action which is manifested by a certain
muscular response, may thus become structurally fixed. If the stimulus
be not repeated, the synapses may be but temporary, and the memory
fade as the group of cells is occupied by a new memory of some more
potent sense stimulus. Many association tracts and synapses are laid
down in the central nervous system when the child is born. These are
the fruits of inheritance, and by their means, we may suppose,
instinctive reflex actions are carried out.
So long as the present stimuli are controlled by past memories and are
active in recalling them, so long does consciousness exist, and the
higher will be the consciousness, the greater the number and the more
intense the character of the memories aroused. We may suppose that
when all external stimuli are withdrawn, or the brain soothed by
monotony of gentle repetition, and when the body is placed at rest,
and the viscera are normal and give rise to no disturbing sensations,
consciousness is then suspended, and natural sleep ensues. Either
local fatigue of the muscles, or of the heart, or ennui, or exhaustion
of some brain center usually leads us to seek those conditions in
which sleep comes. The whole organism may sleep for the sake of the
part. To avoid sleeplessness, we seek monotony of stimulus, either
objective or subjective. In the latter case, we dwell on some
monotonous memory picture, such as sheep passing one by one through a
gap in the hedge. To obtain our object, we dismiss painful or exciting
thoughts, keep the viscera in health, so that they may not force
themselves upon our attention, and render the sense organs quiet by
seeking darkness, silence and warmth.--L.H., in Nature.
* * * * *
AMATEUR CHRONOPHOTOGRAPHIC APPARATUS.
At the time that we described the Demeny chronophotographic apparatus
we remarked that it had the advantage of permitting of the projection
of very luminous images of large dimensions; but it is certain that
the cases are somewhat limited in which there is any need of using a
screen 24 or 25 feet square, and, as a general thing, one 6 or 10 feet
square suffices. The manufacturer of the apparatus, M. Gaumont, has,
therefore, been led to construct a small size in which the bands have
the dimensions usually employed in the French and other apparatus,
thus permitting of the use of such as are now found in abundance in
the market.
By reducing the size, it has been possible further to simplify the
construction, and at the same time to reduce the price, thus making of
the new form a genuine amateur apparatus.
It will be remembered that the Demeny principle consists especially in
the avoiding of traction upon the perforated part of the band, which
is the portion that always presents the most fragility. This principle
has naturally been preserved in the small model, and a preservation of
the bands for a long time is thus assured.
[Illustration: FIG. 1--ARRANGEMENT OF THE SENSITIZED BAND IN TWO
MAGAZINES.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2--ARRANGEMENT FOR TAKING VIEWS WITH SPECIAL
GEARING FOR THE WINDING OF THE BAND.]
The apparatus is reversible, and may be used for making negatives as
well as for projecting positives. In its new form it is easily
transportable and is no more bulky than an ordinary 5 by 7 inch
apparatus. Nothing is simpler then than to carry it on a journey, if
one desires to make his own negative bands. Since the sensitized film
has to be protected against the light during its entire travel, two
magazines have been arranged (Fig. 1). One of these, A, which is fixed
upon the top of the camera, contains the clean film, while the other,
B, which is placed beneath the objective, receives the strip after it
has been acted upon by the light. A train of toothed wheels, C (Fig.
2), actuates the roller of this second magazine. This arrangement may,
moreover, be utilized also when projections are made, if one does not
desire the band to float in measure as it unwinds behind the
objective. As the upper magazine is entirely closed when it is placed
upon the apparatus, it is necessary, in order to prepare for taking a
negative, to pull out a few inches of the film, pass the latter over
the guide roller and fix the extremity to the winding roller in the
lower magazine.
It is clear that we can have any number of magazines whatever for
carrying about, all charged, just as one carries the frames of his
ordinary camera.
Chronophotography presents no more difficulty than ordinary
photography as regards the taking of negatives, and the amateur who
has not the proper facilities for developing and printing the latter
can have these operations performed by a professional. Animate
projections are beginning to be introduced into parlors, and some day
will entirely replace the magic lantern therein. The excitement caused
by the catastrophe at the Charity Bazar is now calmed, and it has been
ascertained that the accident was not due to the lamp of the
projector, but to a carelessly handled can of ether. So the extension
of this sort of spectacle, momentarily arrested, is taking a new
impetus, which will be further aided by the apparatus under
consideration, for the description of which and the illustrations we
are indebted to La Nature.
* * * * *
THE RECLAIMING OF OLD RUBBER.
By HAWTHORNE HILL.
The complaint of high prices of India rubber is as old as the rubber
industry, one result of which has been an unceasing effort to discover
a practical substitute. Never was the secret of the transmutation of
metals sought more persistently by ancient philosophers than the
secret of an artificial rubber has been by modern chemists, but, thus
far, the one search has been hardly more successful than the other.
One discovery has been made, however, by which our rubber supplies
have been so far conserved that, for the want of it, we might be
obliged now to pay double the current prices for new rubber. This is
the reclaiming of rubber from worn-out goods, in a condition fit for
use again in almost every class of products of the rubber factory.
Soon after the vulcanization of rubber became fully established,
attempts began to be made to "devulcanize" the scrap and cuttings of
rubber which accumulated in the factories. So extensive were these
accumulations that one company are reported to have built a road with
rubber scrap through a swamp adjacent to their factory, while most
other manufacturers were unable to find even so profitable a use for
their wastes. As time advanced there came to be large stocks, also, of
worn-out rubber goods, such as car springs and the like, all of which
appealed to a practical mind here and there as being of possible
value, since the price of new rubber kept climbing up all the while.
No fewer than nineteen patents were granted in the United States for
"improvements in devulcanizing India rubber," or "restoring waste
vulcanized rubber," beginning in 1855, or eleven years after the date
of Goodyear's patent for the vulcanization process. In that year
Francis Baschnagel obtained a patent for restoring vulcanized rubber
to a soft, plastic, workable state, by treating it with alcohol
absolutus and carbon bisulphuratum, in a closed vessel, without the
application of heat. Later he obtained a patent for accomplishing the
same result by "boiling waste rubber in water, after it has been
reduced to a finely divided state;" and still later, one for treating
the waste to the direct action of steam.
Patents were granted in 1858 to Hiram L. Hall, for the treatment of
waste rubber by boiling in water; also, by subjecting it to steam; and
again, by combining various resinous and other substances with it. The
two inventors named assigned their patents to the Beverly Rubber
Company, of Beverly, Mass., controlled then by the proprietors of the
New York Belting and Packing Company, and their processes became the
basis of an important business in rubber clothing.
The low cost of the devulcanized rubber, as compared with new rubber,
alone gave them a great advantage over other manufacturers, in
addition to which they escaped the payment of a license to work under
the Goodyear patents.
Many army blankets, made for the government during the civil war, were
waterproofed with Hall's devulcanized rubber, and from that period
little new rubber has been used in the manufacture of heavy rubber
coats. The other patents in this class do not deserve special mention.
It having been established that rubber is rubber, no matter where
found, manufacturers gradually turned their attention beyond the
scraps and cuttings which remained after making up their goods. There
was beginning to be a good demand for ground-up rubber car springs,
wringer rolls, tubing and other rubber goods free from fiber, after it
had been so treated as to remove the sulphur contents and restore the
gum to a workable condition. But this left out of account rubber
footwear, belting, and hose, not to mention the later heavy production
of bicycle tires. There were only a few uses to which rubber waste
containing fibrous material could be put when ground up and
devulcanized without the removal of the fiber. It could be put into a
cheap grade of steam packing or mixed in a powdered form with new
rubber for the heels of rubber boots and shoes. There was an early
patent for a process for "combining fibrous materials with waste
vulcanized rubber, rendered soft and plastic." But all the other
patents which come within the scope of this article had for their
object the separation of fibers from the rubber.
An important advance was marked by the Hayward patent (No. 40,407),
granted in 1868, for "boiling waste rags of fibrous material and
rubber in an acid or alkali, for the purpose of destroying the
tenacity of the fibers of the rags, so that the rubber may be
reground." But this process extended only to the weakening of the
fibers, and not their complete destruction. A later patent, in the
same year, provided for exposing the ground rubber waste to the direct
action of flames of gas or inflammable liquids, by which the foreign
matters would be consumed and the rubber rendered plastic and
cohesive, but it is not on record that this process received any
particular application.
The principal activity of invention in the field of reclaiming rubber
dates from 1870, since which year 37 patents have been granted for
processes more or less distinctive from those which had for their
object only the devulcanization of rubber. Prior to that time the use
of rubber reclaimed from fibrous wastes had been confined practically
to one large factory in Boston and one near New York. One concern, for
a while, bought old rubber shoes and sent them to women in the
country, whom they paid so much a pound for the rubber stripped off--a
very expensive process. There were several claimants for priority in
the matter of reclaiming rubber by the processes which finally became
standard, and some conflicting interests were brought together under
the head of the Chemical Rubber Company. This corporation controlled
the leading patents for the "acid" process, licensing various parties
to work under them, and bringing suits against concerns who reclaimed
rubber without their license. In 1895 the United States courts decided
in favor of the defendants, practically rendering the patents invalid,
on the ground that the inventions claimed under them had been
disclosed by the Hall patents of 1858 and the Hayward patent of 1863.
The two patents upon which the suits for infringement rested
principally were No. 249,970, granted to N.C. Mitchell, in 1881, and
No. 300,720, granted to the same, in 1884. About the same time the
Rubber Reclaiming Company, formed in 1890 by the combination of five
leading rubber reclaiming plants, and working under license from the
company above named, was resolved into the original elements. There
were about that time five other rubber reclaiming plants in the United
States, operating either the "acid" or the "mechanical" process,
besides nine general rubber factories producing their own reclaimed
rubber by the "acid" process. While several of the latter--rubber shoe
concerns controlled by the United States Rubber Company--have been
consolidated, there has been an increase in the number of rubber
manufacturers reclaiming their own rubber, since the end of the patent
litigation, so that the total number of reclaiming plants now probably
is twenty.
The first step in any process for reclaiming rubber is the grinding of
the waste, for which purpose several machines have been designed
specially, an early patent for disintegrating rubber scrap by
"subjecting it to the abrading action of grindstones" having failed to
meet with favor. The most usual chemical treatment is a bath in a
solution of sulphuric acid in lead-lined tanks. Generally heat is
employed to hasten the process, through the medium of steam, in which
case the tanks are tightly closed. The next step is the washing of the
scrap, to free it of acid and dirt, after which it is sheeted by being
run between iron rollers and hung in drying rooms. As soon as it has
become dry it is ready for sale.
In the extended litigation over the acid process patents, the points
at issue related to the strength of the acid named in the various
specifications and also to the methods of applying steam. Prof.
Charles F. Chandler, called as an expert in one case, testified that
the effects of acids, such as sulphuric or hydrochloric, upon rubber
and rubber compounds, under varying strength and temperature, had been
known at a period antedating all the patents then the basis of suits
for infringement; also that their effect upon cotton and woolen
fabrics had been equally well known. They had the same effect upon
fibers, whether the latter were combined with rubber or not, but very
strong acids would affect the rubber injuriously. The line of defense
in this case was that "no invention was required in selecting the
strength of acid; only the common sense of the manufacturer, aided by
his skill and experience, was necessary to bring about the proper
results." In support of this a factory superintendent testified that
varied stocks required skill and judgment in their treatment and more
or less variation as to the strength of acid, temperature, etc.
As to the use of steam, Prof. Henry B. Cornwall, of Princeton College,
called as an expert in another case, testified that, having put to a
test the specifications in all the patents involved, he had found it
necessary in no case to inject live steam into the mixtures of acid
and rubber scrap in order to effect the decomposition and removal of
either woolen or cotton fiber. The use of the acids specified was
sufficient for this, and the various high temperatures called for were
not essential for the destruction of the fibers. He neglected to
mention, however, that the steam served an equally important purpose
in devulcanizing the rubber.
It appeared that the practice in different factories had included the
use of sulphuric acid varying from a 2½ per cent. solution to the
full commercial strength of the acid, but one of the defendant
companies based their case upon their use of acid of the strength of
28° to 30° Baumé, whereas the patent they were charged with infringing
specified a strength of 66°. Their tanks were lead-lined and provided
on the interior with steam pipes running down the sides and along the
bottom, the sections at the bottom being perforated and the steam
admitted at a pressure of 75 to 80 pounds. The chemical treatment
lasted from 2½ to 4 hours.
The sulphuric acid treatment, however, is confined mainly to scrap
containing cotton fiber. Where woolen fibers occur, which is much less
frequently, their disintegration is accomplished generally by the use
of caustic soda.
In the mechanical process of reclaiming rubber, the rubber is
separated from the fiber, after the whole has been finely ground, by
means of an air blast, the method being not unlike that practiced by
furriers for separating hair and fur from bits of pelt after skins
have been finely divided. As the powdered waste comes from the blower,
the rubber falls in a heap near the machine, while the particles of
fiber, being lighter, are carried far enough away to make the
separation complete. Devulcanization in this case is effected by
exposure to live steam at a high temperature. No oil is used in the
process, the sheeting of the product being facilitated by means of hot
friction rollers.
The cost of reclaiming rubber by the acid process is less than by
mechanical means, for which reason the former is now much more
generally used. But some manufacturers are willing to pay more per
pound for mechanically-reclaimed rubber, either (1) because it can be
"compounded" more heavily than the acid product, or (2) because of
certain inherent disadvantages of the latter. It is the testimony of
these manufacturers that the action of sulphuric acid upon whiting
(one of the most common adulterants used in rubber shoes) is to turn
it into sulphate of lime--an ingredient which is far from advantageous
in a rubber compound. Again, any acid which may remain in the
reclaimed rubber is liable to rot thin textile fabrics with which it
may be combined in manufacture. Finally, rubber recovered by the
chemical process, it is claimed, is harder than that obtained by any
other; so that it is usual to add, during vulcanization, in order to
soften the product, the residuum obtained from petroleum manufactures,
or palm or other oils. Unvulcanized rubber clippings also have been
used for this purpose. One of the most successful of our rubber
factory superintendents, who formerly made the reclaimed rubber used
by his factory, has stated that his practice was to subject the
material to an alkaline bath after the acid treatment, not only for
the better cleaning of the rubber, but to neutralize any acid which
might remain. Considering all the points involved, it was his opinion
that, when scrap rubber is cheap, the mechanical process is the more
economical, while, if it is high priced, the acid process has the
advantage. Since this expression of opinion, however, prices of rubber
scrap have ranged constantly at higher figures than before, and there
is no indication that we shall have again what was known formerly as
"cheap" scrap. It is not surprising, therefore, that the volume of
mechanical "shoddy" should be placed by the best estimates at not
above one-sixth of the total production of reclaimed rubber in the
United States. And the acid product, with all its admitted
shortcomings, is still superior to any of the so-called rubber
substitutes.
Reclaimed rubber is not to be considered as an adulterant, except in
the same sense as fillings, like whiting, litharge or barytes, the use
of which in rubber compounds often gives to the product desirable
qualities that are unobtainable by the use of "pure gum." It lacks
some of the qualities of good native rubber, and yet it is rubber, and
fills its proper place as acceptably as any raw material of
manufacture. Rubber shoes made of new gum entirely would be too
elastic, and for that reason would draw the feet, besides being too
costly for the ordinary trade. The construction of a rubber shoe, by
the way, is well adapted for the use of different compounds for the
different parts. Rubber enters into twenty-six pieces of a rubber boot
and nine or more pieces of a rubber shoe. Consequently, as many
different compounds may be used, if desired, for the output of a
single factory for rubber footwear. The highest grades of native
rubber may be used for waterproofing the uppers of a fine overshoe,
while reclaimed rubber, of a cheap class even, may be good enough for
the heel, which requires only to be waterproof and durable, without
too much weight, and with no elasticity. Reclaimed rubber goes into
many classes of goods of high grade. The result is that such goods
have been cheapened legitimately, placing them within the reach of
immense numbers of consumers who otherwise would be obliged to do
without.
While the extensive use of reclaimed rubber is a matter of common
knowledge to all who are familiar with the rubber industry, there are
nowhere available any statistics of either the absolute or comparative
volume of its consumption, with the single exception of the official
returns of imports into Canada. There separate accounts are kept of
crude India rubber and of recovered rubber received in each year, and
as only a consuming market exists for these commodities in the
Dominion, the figures given below may be taken to represent closely
the actual consumption by the rubber factories of Ontario and Quebec.
It is interesting to note the heavy growth of the percentage of
recovered rubber shown in the table, all the figures representing
pounds:
Fiscal Crude Recovered Total
Year. Rubber. Rubber. Imports.
1885-86 739,169 19,499 758,668
1886-87 785,040 46,508 831,548
1887-88 1,225,893 88,471 1,314,364
1888-89 1,669,014 221,674 1,890,688
1889-90 1,290,766 147,377 1,438,143
1890-91 1,602,644 8,254 1,610,898
1891-92 2,100,358 106,080 2,206,438
1892-93 2,152,855 195,281 2,348,136
1893-94 2,077,703 529,900 2,607,603
1894-95 1,402,844 611,745 2,014,589
1895-96 2,155,576 643,169 2,798,745
1896-97 2,014,936 1,061,402 3,076,338
Percentage, 1885-86 97.5 2.5 100
" 1896-97 65.5 34.5 100
If it were possible to examine the books of the several rubber
reclaiming plants on this side of the border, including rubber shoe
and mechanical goods factories producing their own reclaimed rubber,
the percentage of this material used, in comparison with the total
rubber consumption, might be found to be as great in the United States
as in Canada. The rubber manufacture in the Dominion, in its
inception, was practically an offshoot from the industry in this
country. Our manufacturers supplied the Canadian demand for rubber
goods until, under the stimulus of heavy protective duties, rubber
works were established beyond the border, since which time, to quote a
leader in the trade in the United States, "the methods of the Dominion
rubber industry have mirrored the best practice in our country." Hence
it seems not unreasonable to conclude that if the Canadians are using
so large a percentage of reclaimed rubber, they are doing no more nor
less than the older and larger concerns here. The most trustworthy
authorities place the consumption of new rubber in the United States
during 1897 at not far from 35,000,000 pounds. Assuming that the rate
of consumption of reclaimed rubber was as great as in Canada, we have
18,435,000 pounds more, or a total of 53,433,000 pounds. But there are
producers of reclaimed rubber who insist that the amount of this
material used in this country equals, pound for pound, the consumption
of new rubber.
The use of reclaimed rubber in Europe is increasing gradually, and
especially in Great Britain. The American product is sold extensively
in that country, and some native reclaiming plants have been started.
The most extensive "galosh" factory in Russia, which is said to be the
largest in the world, is reclaiming rubber according to American
methods. But, as a rule, the Continental rubber manufacturers make
more use of "substitutes," a class of materials which has not found
favor in America. These rubber substitutes belong chiefly to the class
of oxidized oils and may be classed in three divisions: Those obtained
(1) by the action of oxygen or air on linseed oil; (2) by acting on
rape oil with chloride of sulphur; and (3) by the action of sulphur on
rape oil at a high temperature. The first class has little application
to the rubber trade, though its use is universal in the linoleum
industry. In Europe the chemist holds a more important position in the
rubber manufacture than here, one result of which has been cheaper
compounds of rubber and another the satisfactory employment of the
refractory African rubbers long before they were used extensively in
the United States. Hence the cost of raw materials in the rubber
industry has been, on the whole, cheaper abroad. The Europeans have
had an advantage, too, in respect to cheaper labor, which has offset
somewhat our own advantage from the use of reclaimed rubber as a cheap
material.
There are numerous grades of reclaimed rubber, due to differences in
the quality of stock used, and also to the different degrees of care
used in its preparation, according to the requirements of
manufacturers. The declared value of reclaimed rubber exported from
New York during July, 1897, averaged 12.6 cents per pound, while the
value of exports for September averaged only 9.1 cents. The average
value for the eight months ending February 28, 1898, was 10.08 cents
per pound. The total declared value of such exports for the fiscal
year 1896-97 was $119,440, which, at the prices prevailing since,
would represent considerably more than 1,000,000 pounds. Some of the
material sold at home is known to bring less than any prices quoted
above. "Mechanical" stock brings about two cents per pound more than
"acid" stock of corresponding grade.
The collection of old rubber has acquired large proportions as an
adjunct to the trade in junk or rags. Not long ago the estimated
yearly collection of rubber shoes alone amounted to 18,000 tons, and
since that time the business in bicycle tire scrap has also become
very large. During the past ten years the price of old rubber shoes
has ranged between $60 and $120 per ton in carload lots, being at
present about $90 per ton. Some 1,500 tons of rubber scrap are
imported annually by the reclaiming companies in the United States.
* * * * *
In the Baltic Sea there are more wrecks than in any other place in the
world. The average throughout the year is one each day.
* * * * *
ENGINEERING NOTES.
THE AUSTRIAN government has ordered thirty-seven engines arranged to
burn kerosene, for use in the Arlberg tunnel, in which lack of proper
ventilation at present causes the tunnel to remain filled with
smoke.--Uhland's Wochenschrift.
One of the first essentials to modern military enterprise is the
establishment of a military railway system for war purposes. To be in
a position to carry out efficiently and speedily what we may expect to
be called upon to do on the outbreak of serious war, previous
preparation in time of peace is an absolute requisite. In connection
with General Sherman's operations in Georgia, during the American
civil war, an army was supplied for six and a half months over a line
473 miles long. The corps of workmen was 10,000 strong, and on one
occasion replaced 35,000 sleepers and nine miles of rails in seven
days. The true defense of the line was effected by the engineers
always having men and material ready. In spite of the large and
skilled railway population on which the army could call, and of the
fact that practically the nation was in arms, it was found extremely
difficult to keep this railway construction corps together until they
were placed under a severe military discipline.--United Service
Gazette.
A HOSPITAL car has been introduced on the Belgian railroads, says
The Engineer. It is designed for use in the event of a serious railway
accident, and can be run to the spot where the wounded may be picked
up and carried to the nearest city for treatment, instead of being
left to pass hours in some wayside station while awaiting surgical
attendance. The interior of this car is divided into a main
compartment, a corridor on one side and two small rooms at the end.
The largest compartment, the hospital proper, contains twenty-four
isolated beds on steel tubes hung upon powerful springs; each bed is
provided with a small movable table, a cord serving to hold all the
various small objects which may be needed, and each patient lies in
front of two little windows, which may be closed or opened at will.
The corridor on the outside of the hospital chamber leads to the linen
closet and the doctor's apartment; in the latter is a large cupboard,
the upper portion being used for drugs, while the lower is divided
into two sections, one serving as a case for surgical instruments and
the other as a receptacle for the doctor's folding bed.
THE DUST collected from the smoke of some Liege furnaces, burning
coal raised from the neighboring mines, produces, when dissolved in
hydrochloric acid, a solution from which considerable quantities of
arsenic and several other metallic salts may be precipitated.
Commenting on this fact, ascertained by M.A. Jorissen, M. Francis Maur
asks whether this breathing of arsenic and other minerals in a finely
divided state may not account for the singular immunity from epidemics
enjoyed by certain industrial districts, such as that of Saint
Etienne, and hopes that some mine doctor will throw additional light
on the subject. In the meanwhile, it may be suggested that the
ventilating effect of the numerous chimneys in iron making and other
industrial centers has its due share in constantly driving off the
vitiated air and replacing it by fresh quantities of pure air. At any
rate, when pestilence was raging in the high and pleasant quarter of
Clifton, its inhabitants migrated to the low-lying and not overclean
parish of St. Philips, Bristol, where the air is black from the smoke
of numerous chimneys, but where also the mortality compared very
favorably with that in the fashionable quarter.
A TWO-SPEED movable sidewalk, of the Blot, Guyenet and De Mocomble
type, is to be used for conveying visitors at the Paris Exposition,
says Engineering News. It differs from those of Chicago and Berlin in
the reduction of the weight of the moving platform by spacing the
driving wheels 127.5 feet apart and using electricity as a motive
power. The driving wheels are mounted in the bed of the track and
impart motion to a central rail on the under side of the platform.
Bearing wheels, spaced about 20 feet apart under this rail, also carry
the platform, and the central rail supports one-half the total weight
of the platform; small side wheels carry the other half on side
tracks. This arrangement enables the platform, which is divided into
sections and hinged, to pass around quite sharp curves. The high speed
platform, 4 feet 3 inches wide, is supposed to move at the rate of
6½ miles per hour on a 35½-inch gage track; the slow platform is
31½ inches wide, moves at half speed and runs on a 17-3/4-inch gage
track. The whole structure will be elevated on girders carried by cast
iron columns, with stations about 656 feet apart. The high speed
platform weighs 146 pounds per lineal foot; and with passengers,
nearly 400 pounds per foot. The slow speed platform weighs about half
this. The track will be about 2½ miles long; the initial motive
power is figured at 472 H.P. and the carrying capacity at 38,880 per
hour.
THE "SCHLAMM," or mud, thrown down from the water of coal washing
has hitherto been regarded as worthless, says The Engineering and
Mining Journal, except that sometimes a portion of the coal particles
it contained have been separated and made of value by a washing
process; but Bergassessor Haarmann, of Friedrichsthal, has invented a
new method for treating it dry and dividing it into two products, one
of which, with low ash content, is distinguished by its granular
nature, while the other contains a large proportion of ash and is of
the fineness of flour. The former of these two products is, on account
of its low ash content, useful for various purposes, and the latter
constitutes a fuel quite ready for use in coal dust firing. The method
is founded on the circumstances, hitherto lost sight of, that the
incombustible constituents of the "schlamm" chiefly consist of clay
which was formerly more or less dissolved in the wash water; and on
the mud being dried and subjected to a suitable mechanical process,
the clay falls into fine dust, while the coal particles, on the
contrary, retain their granular nature. The method is carried out by
drying the mud and a subsequent fine sifting, which effects a breaking
up of the lumps that occur in the dried "schlamm," and a separation
into the two products above named. The dust that falls through the
sieve has a high ash content, being in the nature of flour, while what
remains behind is granular and has a low ash content. It seems to us
that this game is hardly worth the candle.
* * * * *
ELECTRICAL NOTES.
ELECTRICITY AT the Paris Exposition.--Electricity will play a large
part at the Paris Exposition of 1900, says the Revue Technique. No
less than 15,000 h.p. will be used for lighting and 5,000 h.p. for
furnishing electric power to the various parts of the grounds. As far
as possible all the machinery exhibited will be shown at work and for
this purpose electric conductors will be laid down to all points on
the grounds. The boiler plant will be located at the end of the Champ
de Mars, and will occupy two spaces of 130 X 390 feet each, one being
devoted to French boilers and the other to those of foreign makers.
This plant will be in itself a very interesting exhibit. It is
proposed to provide a capacity for evaporating not less than 440,000
pounds of water per hour.
AN INTERESTING little plant in which the rise and fall of the tides
is used as motive power for the generation of electricity is described
in L'Electricien. Near Ploumanach, on the northern coast of France,
where the tides have a daily range of 39 feet, a small fish pond
separated from the sea by a dike is arranged with gates so that at
high tide the water flows in and fills it, the gates closing
automatically when the tide recedes. The machinery of an old grist
mill is used to operate a small dynamo, which charges a storage
battery and furnishes light for the fish industry there. Another wheel
in the same mill works an ice making machine, the whole being under
the charge of one man. It is stated that the total daily expense for
generating about 2,000 horse power hours is only $2.
PEAT BOGS as generators of electrical power are suggested by Dr.
Frank in Stahl und Eisen. He says that the great peat bogs of North
Germany may be thus utilized, and figures that one acre of bog,
averaging 10 feet in thickness, contains about 1,000 tons of dried
peat, or 313,000 tons per square mile; and 430 square miles would be
equivalent in heating power to the 80,000,000 to 85,000,000 tons of
coal annually mined in Germany. The bogs of the Ems Valley alone cover
13,000 square miles; and Dr. Frank proposes the erection in that
district of a 10,000 horse power electric station, which would yearly
consume 200,000 tons of peat, or the product of 200 acres. He would
use the electrical energy on the Dortmund and Emshaven Canal, and for
the manufacture of calcium carbide.
THE SUCCESS attending an application of electric towing on the
Burgundy Canal was such that two new applications of electricity to
canal haulage and also for barge propulsion were made last year in the
neighborhood of Dijon, on the same canal, under the superintendence of
M. Gaillot, Ingénieur des Ponts et Chaussées. In the method of
haulage, says The London Engineer, the receptor dynamo is mounted on a
tricycle, to which the name of "electric horse" has been given, and
which, running on the towing path, takes its current from an air line
consisting of two wires, mounted five meters (nearly 17 feet) above
the surface. This "horse," which weighs two tons, and is guided by a
driver mounted upon it through the front wheel, proceeds on the towing
path like a traction engine; and the boats are connected with it by a
rope, with automatic disengaging gear, in case the force of the stream
or a gust of wind should drive a boat backward. Speeds of from 1,990
to 4,240 meters (mean 3,319 yards) were obtained with the electric
horse, towing from three to four boats, so that it is more suitable
than the electric propeller for towage in rivers or very long reaches;
but it requires a driver, while the propeller, with which speeds of
from 2,150 to 4,240 meters (mean 3,406 yards) per hour were obtained,
is worked by the bargee on board his boat. The towing path is not
worn, and there is no occasion for a tow rope, which always causes
difficulty when two boats cross one another. M. Maillet and M.
Dufourny, Belgian Ingénieurs des Ponts et Chaussées, who watched the
trials, conclude that a practical solution of the question depends
upon the cost of producing the motive power; but they also consider
that horse haulage on canals will soon be superseded by mechanical
traction, based on the use of an automotive tricycle, working with
petroleum or some other hydrocarbon, and capable of running on the tow
path without requiring any fixed plant.
IT HAS long been known that feathers and hair are electrical bodies,
but until recently we have had little information about their
electrical properties or the conditions in which these properties are
manifested. Most of these phenomena were first observed by Exner, and
in the work of Dr. Schwarze are found collected a mass of facts that
cannot fail to interest the physician and the biologist; besides, we
find there a description of Exner's apparatus which was used by
Schwarze in most of his experiments on electrical phenomena of this
kind. By the side of gold leaf electroscopes we see a feather
electroscope, which is fastened to its support by means of a silken
thread. A feather waved through the air is positively electrified,
while the air itself seems to be charged with negative electricity....
Two feathers rubbed together in the natural position are so
electrified that their lower surface is negative and the upper
positive.... These experiments and others still have been utilized to
study the vital relations of animals and the biological signification
of these phenomena. Most feathers stick together and remain so even
after being dried; if they then are waved through the air, the barbs
of the feather separate, owing to differences of electrification. No
bird needs to attend to its plumage at the end of a long flight, for
while the large feathers are positively electrified by friction
against the air, the white down has become negative, and so there is
attraction between it and the feathers. Another consequence of this
production of electricity during flight is that during winds, even the
most violent, the plumage does not become ruffled, but rests tightly
against the bird's body, for in this case the wing feathers, which
overlap, rub against each other and become electrified in contrary
senses. If the bird flies toward the ground, flapping its wings, it
compresses the air below them, and, supposing that the wing feathers
can bend aside, the experiments of Exner show that by the friction the
upper side of one feather and the lower side of that which is just
above are electrified oppositely, the more powerfully as the rubbing
is greater, which always causes them to resume the normal
position.--L'Electricien.
* * * * *
SELECTED FORMULÆ.
REMOVAL OF INK FROM HECTOGRAPH.--It is recommended in Südd. Ap. Ztg.
to pour crude hydrochloric acid upon the hectograph, rub with a wad of
cotton, then wash off by holding under cold running water and drying
with a cloth. The hectograph may be used again immediately.
TO CLEAN WALL PAPER.--Four ounces of pumice stone in fine powder are
thoroughly mixed with 1 quart of flour and the mass is kneaded with
water enough to form a thick dough. This dough is formed into rolls
about 2 inches in diameter and 6 or 8 inches long; each one is sewed
up in a piece of cotton cloth and then boiled in water for from 40 to
50 minutes--long enough to render the dough firm. After cooling and
allowing the rolls to stand for several hours, the outer portion is
peeled off and they are then ready for use, the paper being rubbed
with them as in the bread process.--Druggist's Circular.
INSULATING COMPOUND.--Prof. Fessenden recommends for armature work a
compound made by boiling pure linseed oil at about 200 degrees with
1/2 per cent. of borate of manganese, the boiling being continued for
several hours, or until the oil begins to thicken. An advantage of
this borated oil is that it always retains a slight stickiness, and so
gives a good joint when wrapped around wires, etc. Many substances so
used are not sticky and let moisture in through the joints. Where a
smooth surface is required, it is readily obtained by dusting on a
little talc. It can also be given a coat of japan on the
outside.--American Electrician.
HOW TO CLEAN DIATOMS.--As a general rule, we may say that every
specimen of diatomaceous earth or rock needs a special treatment. The
following, however, may serve as a basic treatment, from which such
departure may be taken in each case as the nature of the specimen
would indicate: Boil the material in hydrochloric acid, in a test
tube, from two to five minutes. Let settle, pour off the hydrochloric
acid, substitute nitric acid in its place, and boil again for two or
three minutes. Pour into a beaker of water, stir a moment with a glass
rod and let settle. After the material has fallen to the bottom,
decant the liquid, and fill with fresh water. Repeat the operation
until the water no longer shows an acid reaction. A portion of the
deposit may now be examined, and if not clean, boil the deposit with
tincture of soap and water in equal parts, decant, wash, first with
water, then with stronger ammonia water, and finally, with distilled
water. This usually leaves the frustules bright and sharp.--National
Druggist.
RED INDELIBLE INK.--It is said that by proceeding according to the
following formula, an intense purple red color may be produced on
fabrics, which is indelible in the customary sense of the word.
No. 1.
Sodium carbonate 3 drs.
Gum arabic 3 "
Water 12 "
No. 2.
Platinic chloride 1 dr.
Distilled water 2 oz.
No. 3.
Stannous chloride 1 dr.
Distilled water 4 "
Moisten the place to be written upon with No. 1 and rub a warm iron
over it until dry; then write with No. 2, and, when dry, moisten with
No. 3. An intense and beautiful purple-red color is produced in this
way. The following simpler and less expensive method of obtaining an
indelible red mark on linen has been proposed by Wegler: Dilute egg
albumen with an equal weight of water, rapidly stir with a glass rod
until it foams, and then filter through linen. Mix the filtrate with a
sufficient quantity of finely levigated vermilion until a rather thick
liquid is obtained. Write with a quill, or gold pen, and then touch
the reverse side of the fabric with a hot iron, coagulating the
albumen. It is claimed that marks so made are affected by neither
soaps, acids nor alkalies. This ink, or rather paint, is said to keep
moderately well in securely stoppered bottles, but we should not rely
on it as a "stock" article. A white paint for marking dark colored
articles might be made by substituting zinc white for the red pigment
in the foregoing formula.--Druggist's Circular.
BROWN OR BLACK DISCOLORATION OF SILVERED MIRRORS.--Generally these
spots are due to faulty manipulation, too great dilution of the silver
solution, or touching the plates with the fingers after they have been
cleaned. Sometimes, however, they are due to chemical defects in the
glass itself. In these cases, as a general thing, the discolorations
occur only after several days--a faultless mirror having been made at
first, and the browning subsequently developing slowly. The writer was
a student in the laboratory of Baron Liebig during the time that
distinguished chemist was carrying out the series of experiments which
resulted in devising a method of making silver mirrors commercially.
One of the greatest troubles with which he had to contend was this
browning--the cause for which was never fully cleared up by him. Some
years ago, the writer, having in his possession two mirrors made by
Liebig, and which had gradually become brown throughout, undertook an
examination of the deposit (which had been thoroughly protected from
extraneous influences by a strong film of varnish), and was surprised
to find that it consisted of a layer of silver sulphide. Without going
into detail, the source of the change was later found to lie within
the glass itself. In making glass to be used for mirrors, a
considerable portion of sodium sulphate is used, and in annealing,
this is partly reduced to sodium sulphide, which effloresces on the
surface of the glass. This efflorescence is, of course, removed on
cleaning the glass before silvering; but it is found that, in many
instances, on exposure of the mirror to the light for some time, a
further efflorescence occurs, and it is this which produces the
discoloration in cases such as we have cited. It has been suggested
that the tendency to subsequent efflorescence may be corrected by
boiling the plates, intended for silvering, for a couple of minutes,
in a 10 per cent. solution of sodium carbonate or bicarbonate. We have
no experience with the process, however.--National Druggist.
* * * * *
WILD AND DOMESTIC SHEEP IN THE BERLIN ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN.
As a rule, domestic animals are accorded very little space in
zoological gardens, but, although it is doubtless the first duty of
these popular institutions to show visitors animals which live in a
wild state in foreign lands, it is well, where there is sufficient
space and adequate means, to extend the limits of the collection so as
to include natives of our own woods and fields, thus enabling people
of a great city who are unfamiliar with nature to form an idea of the
changes wrought in animal life by the influence of man, for domestic
animals are a great aid in the study of natural history. The
accompanying engravings are reproductions of instantaneous photographs
of occupants of the new sheep and goat house--mostly foreign breeds;
but there are a few that belong to that South European-Asiatic group
which are looked upon as the progenitors of the domestic sheep: the
mouflon, of Sardinia and Corsica (Ovis Musimon L.), which has a coat
of brownish red, flecked with darker color; and the slender,
long-legged, reddish-gray sheep of Belochistan (Ovis Blanfordi Hume).
The first glance at these creatures convinces one that they are wild,
not domestic sheep, an impression which is caused chiefly by the
monotonous coloring and the dry, short coat, which bears no
resemblance to the thick fleece of the tame sheep, although the eye is
soon attracted by other differences, such as the shape of the tail,
which is short and thick, and of the horns, which extend over the back
and then turn inward, so that when the old ram is kept in captivity,
it is necessary to cut off the points of the horns to prevent their
boring into the flesh of its neck. Horns of this shape form a strong
contrast to those with snail-like windings and points standing away
from the body. When looking at one of these sheep from the front, it
will be noticed that the left horn turns to the right and the right
horn to the left.
[Illustration: SARDINIAN MOUFLON (OVIS MUSIMON L.)]
[Illustration: BELOCHISTAN SHEEP (OVIS BLANFORDI HUME).]
Former authorities have been unwilling to admit that the domestic
sheep have come from any species of wild sheep of the present time.
They hold that they are the descendants of one or more species of wild
sheep that are now extinct. Recently, however, men have thought more
deeply and freely on such subjects, and Nehring and others have traced
the modern tame sheep back to the mouflon, but not to him alone. It is
thought that in this case, as with other domestic animals, there has
been a mixture of species, and in this connection attention was
directed to the Transcaspian arkal, the argalis of the interior of
Asia and the North African species. Dr. Heck, director of the Berlin
Zoological Garden, thinks that the horns of the tame ram, which are
turned outward, the points being directed away from the body,
constitute one of the strongest proofs that the blood of the argalis
and its extinct European ancestors--which are known only by the fossil
remains--flows in the veins of all domestic sheep.
The other characteristic marks of the domestic sheep--the wool and the
length of the tail--vary greatly. The heath sheep--the little,
contented, weather-hardened grazing sheep of the Lüneburg and other
heaths--belong to one of the oldest species, and their tails are as
short and their horns as dark as those of the moufflon. A cross
between these two breeds is not distinguishable, even in the second
generation, as has been shown by the interesting experiments in the
Düsseldorf Zoological Garden.
[Illustration: HEATH SHEEP.]
The little, black and red-spotted Cameroons sheep, from the western
coast of Africa, have not a trace of wool. But why should they have?
The negroes need no clothing, and, consequently, they have not bred
sheep with wool; and, besides, such an animal could not live in the
tropics, even if the black man were a much better stock raiser and
breeder than he is. The mane on the neck, and breast of the Cameroons
ram reminds one of the North American sheep; but it must be remembered
that the mouflon and arkal rams have this ornament quite clearly,
although not so strongly defined.
[Illustration: CAMEROONS SHEEP.]
The large, short-bodied and long-legged sheep found in the interior of
western and northern Africa are a complete contrast to the
short-legged, long-bodied little Cameroons sheep. There is a very
valuable pair of the former in the Berlin Zoological Garden--the
Haussa sheep--which are very regularly marked, the front parts of
their bodies being red and the hind parts white. They were brought
from the neighborhood of Say, on the middle Niger, by the Togo
Hinterland expedition. The ram has beautiful horns, and the ewe is
distinguished by two strange, tassel-like pendants of skin that hang
from her neck. This zoological garden also possesses a fine ram from
the interior of Tunis, which is similar in shape to the Haussa ram,
but has shorter horns and a heavier mane. Its color is grayish black.
[Illustration: RAM FROM TUNIS.]
[Illustration: HAUSSA RAM.]
[Illustration: HAUSSA EWE.]
Dr. Heck considers the long tail of the domestic sheep the chief
impediment to the adoption of the theory of its descent from the
short-tailed wild sheep. And yet, in sheep, this member is of
secondary importance, for it varies greatly in form. The short-tailed
heath sheep are just the opposite of the fat-tailed Persian sheep,
which are represented in a fabulous account as being obliged to draw
their broad tails, that weighed 40 pounds, behind them on wheels.
These are the sheep that supply the Astrakan and Persian lamb which is
so much worn now. The fur is caused to lie in peculiar waves or tight
rings by sewing the newly born lamb in a tightly fitting covering
which keeps the fur from being mussed. In the Berlin Zoological Garden
there is a very fine four-horned, fat-tailed ram, from the steppes on
the lower Volga. From this region come also the large-boned,
fat-rumped sheep, which have a large mass of fat on each side of the
stunted tail. In the illustration this peculiarity does not show well,
on account of the thick winter wool. Their color is red, with dirty
white. When Wissman and Bumiller returned from their last expedition,
they brought a fine ram of a different breed of fat-rumped sheep,
which are raised by the Kirghise, on the Altai Mountains. They are
smaller than those from the steppes of the Volga, but have finer wool,
and evidently belong to a finer breed. As mutton tallow is very
useful, and has been used even from the most ancient times by sheep
raisers in the preparation of food, they prize sheep with these masses
of fat on the tail and rump, which were purposely developed to the
greatest possible degree.
[Illustration: FAT-TAILED SHEEP (FOUR-HORNED RAM).]
[Illustration: FAT-RUMPED SHEEP.]
The steinbock and the chamois, which live in the highest mountains,
are still found, but other breeds, such as the argalis, which
inhabited the foot hills and the high table lands, have disappeared,
as Europe has become more thickly populated. We know that they
formerly lived there, by the fossil remains of the oldest Pliocene in
England (Ovis Savinii Newton), of the caves of bones near Stramberg in
Moravia (Ovis argaloides Nehring), and of the diluvial strata near
Puy-de-Dôme Mountain in the south of France (Ovis antiqua Pommerol).
For the above and the accompanying illustrations we are indebted to
Daheim.
* * * * *
[Continued from SUPPLEMENT, No. 1172, page 18756.]
PATENTS.[1]
[Footnote 1: To be presented at the Niagara Falls meeting (June,
1898) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and
forming part of Vol. six of the Transactions.]
By JAMES W. SEE, Hamilton, Ohio, Member of the Society.
EMPLOYERS' RIGHTS.
An invention, to be patented, must be applied for by the actual
inventor, and in the absence of acts constituting a transfer, the
patent, and all legal ownership in it, and all rights under it, go
exclusively to the inventor. In the absence of express or implied
contract, a mere employer of the inventor has no rights under the
patent. Only contracts or assignments give to the employer, or to
anyone else, a license or a partial or entire ownership in the patent.
The equity of this may be appreciated by examples. A journeyman
carpenter invents an improvement in chronometer escapements and
patents it. The man who owns the carpenter shop has no shadow of claim
on or under this patent. Again, the carpenter invents and patents an
improvement in jack planes. The shop owner has no rights in or under
the patent. Again, the carpenter invents an improvement in window
frames, and the shop owner has no rights. He has no right even to make
the patented window frame without license. The shop owner, in merely
employing the carpenter, acquires no rights to the carpenter's
patented inventions. But there are cases in which an implied license
would go to the shop owner. For instance, if the carpenter was
employed on the mutual understanding that he was particularly
ingenious in devising carpenter work, and capable of improving upon
the products of the shop; and if in the course of his work he devised
a new and patentable window frame, and developed it in connection with
his employment and at the expense of his employer; and if the new
frames were made by the employer without protest from the carpenter,
the carpenter could, of course, patent the new frame, but he could not
oust the employer in his right to continue making the invention, for
it would be held that the employer had acquired an implied license.
If he could not use it, then he would not be getting the very
advantage for which he employed this particular carpenter, and if he
did get that right, he would be getting all that he employed the
carpenter for, and that right would not be at all lessened by the fact
that the carpenter had a patent under which he could license other
people. The patent does not constitute the right to make or use or
sell, for such right is enjoyed without a patent. The patent
constitutes the "exclusive" right to make, sell or use, and this the
shop owner does not get unless he specially bargains for it. Implied
licenses stand on delicate ground, and where men employ people of
ingenious talent, with the understanding that the results of such
talent developed during the employment shall inure to the benefit of
the employer, there is only one safeguard, and that is to found the
employment on a contract unmistakably setting forth the understanding.
NEW PURPOSE.
If an invention is old, it is old regardless of any new purpose to
which it is put. It is no invention to put a machine to a new use. If
an inventor contrives a meritorious machine for the production of
coins or medals, his invention is lacking in novelty if it should
appear that such a machine had before been designed as a soap press,
and this fact is not altered by any merely structural or formal
difference, such as difference in power or strength, due to the
difference in duty. The invention resides in the machine and not in
the use of it. If the soap press is covered by an existing patent,
that patent is infringed by a machine embodying that invention,
regardless of whether the infringing machine be used for pressing soap
or silver. And it is no invention to discover some new capacity in an
old invention. An inventor is entitled to all the capacities of his
invention.
COMBINATION CLAIMS.
Many people have an erroneous notion regarding patent claims, and
consider the expression "combination" as an element of weakness. The
fact is, that all mechanical claims that are good for anything are
combination claims. No claim for an individual mechanical element has
come under my notice for many years and I doubt if a new mechanical
element has been lately invented. All claims resolve themselves into
combinations, whether so expressed or not. Combination does not
necessarily imply separateness of elements. The improved carpet tack
is after all but a peculiar combination of body and head and barbs.
The erroneous public contempt for combination claims is based upon the
legal maxim, that if you break the combination you avoid the claim and
escape infringement, and this legal maxim should be well understood in
formulating the claims. If the claim calls for five elements and the
competitor can omit one of the elements, he escapes infringement.
Therefore, the claim is good only when it recites no elements which
are not essential.
Many inventors labor under the delusion that a claim is strong in
proportion to the extent of its array of elements. The exact opposite
is the truth, and that claim is the strongest which recites the
fewest number of elements. It is the duty of the inventor to analyze
his invention and know what is and what is not essential to its
realization. It is the duty of the patent solicitor to sift out the
essential from the non-essential, and to draft claims covering broad
combinations involving only essential elements. Sometimes the inventor
will help him in this matter, but quite as often he will, through
ignorance, hinder him and combat him. The invention having been
carefully analyzed and reduced to its prime factors, and the claim
having been provided to comprise a combination involving no element
which is not essential to a realization of the invention, a new and
more important question arises. The elements have been recited in
terms fitted to the example of the invention thus far developed. The
combination is broadly stated, but the terms of the elements are
limiting. Cannot some ingenious infringer realize the invention by a
similar combination escaping the literalism of the terms of the
elements? It is at this stage that the claim must be carefully
studied. The inventor, or some one for him, must assume the position
of a pirate, and set his wits to work to contrive an organization
realizing the invention but escaping the terms of the proposed claim.
When such an escaping device is schemed out, then the defect in the
claim is developed and the claim must be redrawn. In this way every
possible escape must be studied so as to secure to the inventor
adequate protection for his invention. Solicitors find it difficult to
get inventors to do or consider this matter properly, inventors being
too often inclined to disparage alternative constructions, the matter
being largely one of sentiment founded on the love of offspring.
The wise inventor will recognize the fact that the patent which he
proposes to get is the deed to valuable property; that the object of
the deed is not to permit him to enter upon the property, for he can
do that without the deed, but that it is to keep strangers from
entering upon the property; that he desires to enjoy his invention
without unauthorized competition; that when the property begins to
yield profit it will invite competition; that competitors may make
machines worse than or as good as or better than his; and that he can
get adequate protection only in a claim which would bar poorer as well
as better machines embodying his invention. Briefly, then, all good
claims for mechanism are combination claims; the fewer the elements
recited, the stronger will the claim be; non-essential elements weaken
or destroy the claim; the claim should not be considered satisfactory
so long as a way is seen for the escape of the ingenious pirate.
COMBINATIONS AND AGGREGATIONS.
A given association of mechanical elements may be entirely new, but it
does not follow that it forms a patentable association, for not all
new things are patentable. If the new association is a combination, it
is patentable, but if it is a mere aggregation, it is unpatentable. An
association may be new and still all of its separate elements may be
old, the act of invention lying in the fact that the elements have
been so associated with relation to each other as to bring about an
improved result, or an improved means for an old result. All new
machines are, after all, composed of old elements. The law presupposes
that the elements are old, and that the invention resides in the
peculiar association of them. If we take a given mechanical element,
recognized as having had a certain capacity, and if we then similarly
take some other mechanical element and employ it only for its
previously recognized capacity, and if we then add the third element
for its recognized capacity, we have in the end only an association of
three elements each performing its well recognized individual office,
and the entire association performing only the sum of the recognized
individual elements. Such an association is a mere aggregation, a mere
adding together of elements, without making the sum of the results any
greater in the association than it was in the individual elements. It
is simply adding two to one and getting three as a result. An
aggregation is unpatentable. As an illustration, a heavy marble statue
of Jupiter is found in the parlor and difficult to move. Ordinary
casters are put under its pedestal and it becomes easier to move.
Modern anti-friction two-wheeled casters are substituted for the
commoner casters, and the statue becomes still easier to move. Casters
were never before associated with a statue of Jupiter. Here is a new
association, but it is a mere aggregation. The statue of Jupiter has
been unmodified by the presence of the casters, and the casters
perform precisely the same under the statue of Jupiter that they did
under the bedstead. There is no combined result, and there is no
patentable combination.
But if an inventor takes a given mechanical element for the purpose of
its well recognized capacity, and then associates with it another
mechanical element for its recognized capacity, but so associates the
two elements that one has a modifying effect upon the capacity of the
other element, then the association will be capable of a result
greater than the sum of the results for the individual elements. This
excessive result is not due to the individual elements, but to the
combination of them. One has been added to one and a sum greater than
two has been secured. The modification of result may be due merely to
the bringing of the two elements together, so that they may mutually
act upon each other, or it may be due to the manner or means by which
they are joined. In a patentable combination the separate elements
mutually act upon each other to effect a modification of their
previous individual results, and secure a conjoint result greater than
the sum of the individual results. The elements of a combination need
not act simultaneously; they may act successively, or some may act
without motion. As an illustration, assume an old watch in which there
was a stem for setting the hands, and assume another old watch with a
stem for winding the spring. If an inventor should make a watch, and
provide it with the two stems, he would have only an aggregation. But
if he employed but one stem, and so located it that it could be used
at will for setting the hands or for winding the spring, then he would
have produced a combination. The particular instance just given is not
a case of the same number of elements, producing a result in excess of
the individual results of the separate elements, but is rather a case
of a lesser number of elements, producing a combination result equal
to the sum of the previous results of a greater number of elements. A
better example would perhaps be a new watch with its two old stems so
related that either could be used for setting the hands or for winding
the spring.
GENERA AND SPECIES.
An inventor, being the first to produce a given organization, and
desiring to patent it, may see at once a patentable variation on the
device. In other words, he makes two machines patentably different,
but both embodying his main invention. He drafts his broad patent
claim to cover both machines. In his patent he must illustrate his
invention, and he accordingly shows in the drawings the preferred
machine. The two machines represent two species of his generic
invention, and for illustration he selects the preferable species. He
drafts his generic claim to cover both species, and he follows this
with a specific claim relating to the selected species. The question
might be asked, If the broad generic claim covers the selected and all
other species, why bother with the specific claim, why not rest on the
generic claim? The answer is that it might in the future develop that
the genus was old, and that the generic claim was invalid, while the
specific claim would still be good. The infringer of the specific
claim may thus be held notwithstanding the generic claim becomes void.
But the inventor cannot claim his second species in his patent. He can
claim the genus, and he can claim one species under that genus, but
all other species must be covered in separate patents. It is even
unwise to illustrate alternative species in a patent for, in case, of
litigation, some one of the alternative species might prove to be old.
This would have the effect, of course, to destroy the generic claim,
but it might possibly have the effect of damaging the specific claim
if it should appear that the specific claim was after all merely for a
modification as distinguished from a distinct species. Were it not for
the danger of broad generic claims being rendered void by discovered
anticipations, there would be no need for claiming species, but in
view of such possibility it is important to claim one species in the
generic patent, and to protect alternative species by other patents.
COMBINATION AND SUB-COMBINATION.
A given machine capable of a given ultimate result having been
invented, a claim may be drawn to cover the combination of elements
comprised in the machine. Such claim will cover the machine as a
whole. But, the fact being recognized that many machines are, after
all, composed of a series of sub-machines, and that these
sub-machines, in turn, are composed of certain combinations of
elements, and that within these sub-machines there are still minor
combinations of elements capable of producing useful mechanical
results, and that the sub-machines, or some of the subordinate
combinations of elements within the sub-machines, might be capable of
utilization in other situations than that comprehended by the main
machine, it becomes important that the inventor be protected regarding
the sub-machines and the minor useful combinations. Claims may be
drawn for the combination constituting the main machine, other claims
may be drawn for the combinations constituting the operative
sub-machines, and claims may be drawn covering the minor useful
combinations of elements found within the sub-machines. Each claimed
combination must be operative. But secondary claims cannot be made for
sub-machines or sub-combinations which are for divisional matter or
matter which should be made the subject of separate patents.
MECHANICAL EQUIVALENTS.
Where an inventor produces a new mechanical device for the production
of a certain result, he can often see in advance that various
modifications of it can be made to bring about the same result, and
even if he does not see it he may in the future find competitors
getting at the result by a different construction. He analyzes the
competing structure, and determines that "it is the same thing only
different," and wonders what the legal doctrine of mechanical
equivalents means, and asks if he is not entitled to the benefits of
that doctrine, so that his patent may dominate the competing machine.
An inventor may or may not be entitled to invoke the doctrine of
mechanical equivalents, and the doctrine may or may not cause his
patent to cover a given fancied infringement. If an inventor is a
pioneer in a certain field, and is the first to produce an
organization of mechanism by means of which a given result is
produced, he is entitled to a claim whose breadth of language is
commensurate with the improvement he has wrought in the art. He cannot
claim functions or performance, but must limit his claim to mechanism,
in other words, to the combination of elements which produces the new
result. His claim recites those elements by name. If the new result
cannot be produced by any other combination of elements, then, of
course, no question will arise regarding infringement. But it may be
that a competitor contrives a device having some of the elements of
the combination as called for by the claim, the remaining elements
being omitted and substitutes provided. The competing device will thus
not respond to the language of the claim. But the courts will deal
liberally with the claim of the meritorious pioneer inventor, and will
apply to it the doctrine of mechanical equivalents, and will hold the
claim to be infringed by a combination containing all of the elements
recited in the claim, or containing some of them, and mechanical
equivalents for the rest of them. Were it not for this liberal
doctrine, the pioneer inventor could gather little fruit from his
patent, for the patent could be avoided, perhaps, by the mere
substitution of a wedge for the screw or lever called for by the
claim. The court, having ascertained from the prior art that the
inventor is entitled to invoke the doctrine of equivalents, will
proceed to ascertain if the substituted elements are real equivalents.
A given omitted element will be considered in connection with its
substitute element, and if the substitute element is found to be an
element acting in substantially the same manner for the production of
substantially the same individual result, and if it be found that the
prior art has recognized the equivalency of the two individual
elements, then the court will say that the substituted element is a
mechanical equivalent of the omitted element, and that the two
combinations are substantially the same. This reasoning must be
applied to each of the omitted elements for which substitutes have
been furnished. In this way justice can be done to the pioneer
inventor. But the courts, in exercising liberality, cannot do violence
to the language of the claim. The infringer will not escape by merely
substituting equivalents for recited elements, but he will escape if
he omits a recited element and supplies no substitute, for the courts
will not read out of a claim an element which the patentee has
deliberately put into the claim, and a combination of a less number of
elements than that recited in the claim is not the combination called
for by the claim.
It is seldom that the exemplifying device of the pioneer inventor is a
perfect one. Later developments and improvements by the original
patentee, or by others, must be depended on to bring about perfection
of structure. Those who improve the structure are as much entitled to
patents upon their specific improvements in the device as was the
original inventor entitled to his patent for the fundamental device.
These improvers are secondary inventors, and are not entitled to
invoke the doctrine of mechanical equivalents. The secondary inventor
did not bring about a new result, but his patent was for new means for
producing the old result. His patent is for this improvement in means,
and his claim will be closely scrutinized in court, and he will be
held to it, subject only to formal variations in structure. The
justice of thus restricting the claim of the secondary inventor must
be obvious, in view of the fact that if the doctrine of mechanical
equivalents were applied to his claim, then the fundamental device on
which he improved would probably infringe upon it, which would be an
absurdity. It is thus seen that the pioneer inventor may have a claim
so broad in its terms that its terms cannot be escaped; that he may
invoke the doctrine of equivalents and have his claim dominate
structures not directly responding to the terms of the claim; that the
secondary inventor, who improves only the means, is limited to the
recited means and cannot invoke the doctrine of equivalents. But
within this general view, sight is not to be lost of the fact that
secondary inventors may be pioneers within certain limits. They are
not the first to produce the broad ultimate result, but they may be
pioneers in radically improving interior or sub-results, and they may
thus reasonably ask for the application of the doctrine of equivalents
to their claims within proper limits. The matter often becomes quite
complicated, for it is sometimes difficult to determine as to what is
the result in a given machine, for many machines consist, after all,
of a combination of subordinate machines. Thus the modern
grain-harvesting machine embodies a machine for moving to the place of
attack, a machine for cutting the grain, a machine for supporting the
grain at the instant of cutting, a machine for receiving the cut
grain, a machine for conveying the cut grain to a bindery, a machine
for measuring the cut grain into gavels, a machine for compressing the
gavel, a machine for applying the band, a machine for tying the band,
a machine for discharging the bundle, a machine to receive the bundles
and carry them to a place of deposit, and a machine to deposit the
accumulated bundles. The machine would be useful with one or more of
these sub-machines omitted, and each machine may be capable of
performing its own individual results alone or in other associations.
Pioneership of invention might apply to the main machine, or to the
sub-machines, or even to the sub-organization within the sub-machines.
(To be continued.)
* * * * *
[Continued from SUPPLEMENT, No. 1172, page 18764.]
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CENTRAL STATION.
By SAMUEL INSULL.[1]
[Footnote 1: Before the Electrical Engineering Department of
Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind., May 17, 1898.]
The success of the low-tension system was followed by the introduction
of the alternating system, using high potential primaries with the
converters at each house, reducing, as a rule, from 1,000 down to
either 50 or 100 volts. I am not familiar with the early alternating
work, and had not at my disposal sufficient time in preparing my notes
to go at any length into an investigation of this branch of the
subject; nor do I think that any particular advantage could have been
served by my doing so, as it has become generally recognized that the
early alternating work with a house-to-house converter system, while
it undoubtedly helped central station development at the time, proved
very uneconomical in operation and expensive in investment, when the
cost of converters is added to the cost of distribution. The large
alternating stations in this country have so clearly demonstrated this
that their responsible managers have, within the last few years, done
everything possible, by the adoption of block converters and
three-wire secondary circuits, to bring their system as close as they
could in practice to the low-tension direct-current distribution
system. I do not want to be understood as undervaluing the position of
the alternating current in central station work. It has its place, but
to my mind its position is a false one when it is used for
house-to-house distribution with converters for each customer. The
success of the oldest stations in this country, and the demonstration
of the possibilities of covering areas of several miles in extent by
the use of the three wire system, resulted in much capital going into
the business. One of the earliest stations of a really modern type
installed on either side of the Atlantic was built by the Berlin
Electricity Works. The engineers of that station, while recognizing
the high value of the distributing system, went back to Edison's
original scheme of a compact direct-connected steam and electric
generator, but with dynamos of the multipolar type designed and built
by Siemens & Halske, of Berlin, the engines being of vertical marine
type.
This was followed by the projecting in New York of the present Duane
Street station, employing boilers of 200 pounds pressure, triple and
quadruple expansion engines of the marine type, and direct-connected
multipolar dynamos. Almost immediately thereafter, the station in
Atlantic Avenue, Boston, somewhat on the same general design so far as
contents is concerned, was erected. In 1891 a small station, but on
the same lines, was projected for San Francisco, and in 1892 the
present Harrison Street station of the Chicago Edison company was
designed, and, benefiting by the experience of Berlin, New York and
Boston, this station produces electric current for lighting purposes
probably cheaper than any station of a similar size anywhere in this
country.
It is not necessary for me to go into detail in explanation of the
modern central station. You are all doubtless quite familiar with the
general design, but if you will examine the detail drawings of the
Harrison Street station, which I have brought with me, you will find
that every effort has been made to provide for the economical
production of steam, low cost of operating, good facilities for
repairs and consequently low cost, and for permanency of service. You
have but to go into any of the modern central stations in midwinter,
to see them turning out anywhere from 10,000 to 80,000 amperes with a
minimum of labor, to appreciate the fact that central station business
is of a permanent and lucrative character.
To go back to the question of alternating currents, the work done in
connection with the two-phase and three-phase currents and the
perfection of the rotary transformer has resulted in introducing into
central station practice a further means of economizing the cost of
production--by concentration of power. According to present
experience, it is (except in some extraordinary cases) uneconomical to
distribute direct low-tension current over more than a radius of a
mile and a half from the generating point. The possibility of
transmitting it at a very high voltage, and consequently low
investment in conductors, has resulted in the adoption of a scheme, in
many of the large cities, of alternating transmission combined with
low tension distribution. The limit to which this alternating
transmission can be economically carried has not yet been definitely
settled, but it is quite possible even now to transmit economically
from the center of any of our large cities to the distant suburbs, by
means of high potential alternating currents, distributing the current
from the subcenter distribution by means either of the alternating
current itself and large transformers for a block or district or else,
if the territory is thickly settled, by means of a system of
low-tension mains and feeders, the direct current for this purpose
being obtained through the agency of rotary transformers.
There are various methods of producing the alternating current for
transmission purposes. In some cases the generators are themselves
wound for high potential; in others they are wound for 80 volts, and
step-up transformers are used, carrying the current up to whatever
pressure is desired, from 1,000 to 10,000 volts. In other cases
dynamos are used having collector rings for alternating current on one
side and a commutator for direct current on the other side of the
armature, thus enabling you, when the peak in two districts of a city
comes at two different times, to take care of this peak by means of
the same original generating unit, furnishing direct low-tension
current to the points near the central station and alternating current
to the distant points. In other cases, where a small amount of
alternating current is required on the transmission line, it has even
been found economical to take direct current from a large unit, change
it by means of a rotary transformer into alternating current, step up
from 80 to, say, 2,000 volts, go to the distant point, and step down
again to 80 volts alternating, and then convert again by means of a
rotary transformer into low-potential direct current.
The introduction of alternating current for transmission purposes in
large cities is probably best exemplified in the station recently
erected in Brooklyn, where alternating current is produced and carried
to distant points, and then used to operate series arc-light machines
run by synchronous motors, the low-tension direct-current network
being fed by rotary transformers, and alternating circuits arranged
with block converters, and even in some cases separate converters for
each individual customer in the scattered districts.
It would be very interesting to go at length into the details of cost
in this, the latest development of central station transmission, but
time will not permit; nor have I the time at my disposal to go at
length into the central station business as developed by the electric
street railways now so universally in use, or another phase of the
business as exemplified by the large transmission plants, the two
greatest examples of which, in this country, are probably those at
Niagara Falls, N.Y., and Lachine Rapids, near Montreal. So far as
street railways and power transmission are concerned, I would draw
your attention to the fact that the same underlying principle of
multiple-arc mains and feeders originally conceived by Mr. Edison is
as much a necessity in their operation as it is in the electric
lighting systems, whether those systems be operated on the old
two-wire plan, the three-wire plan or by means of alternating
currents.
Passing from a review of central station plants and distribution
system naturally bring us to the operating cost and the factors
governing profit and loss of the enterprise. In considering this
branch of the subject, I will confine my remarks to the business as
operated in Chicago by the company with which I am connected.
Our actual maximum last winter came on December 20, our load being
approximately 12,000 horse power. A comparison of the figures of
maximum capacity and maximum load of last winter shows that we had a
margin in capacity over output of about 20 per cent. The load curves
shown this evening represent the maximum output of last winter
(December 20), an average summer load last year (June 4), and an
average spring load of this year (May 2). For our purposes we will
assume the maximum capacity of the plant and the maximum load of the
system to be identical. The maximum load last winter occurred, as I
have stated, on December 20, about 4:30 o'clock in the afternoon, and
lasted less than half an hour. It should be borne in mind that the
period of maximum load only lasts for from two to three months, and
that the investment necessary to take care of that maximum load, has
to be carried the whole year. It should not be assumed from this
statement that the whole plant as an earning factor is in use 25 per
cent. of the year. The fact is that, during the period of maximum
load, the total plant is in operation only about 100 hours out of the
8,760 hours of the year; so that you are compelled, in order to get
interest on your investment, to earn the interest for the whole of the
year in about 1½ per cent. of that period, on about 50 per cent. of
your plant.
This statement must bring home to you a realization of the fact that
by far the most serious problem of central station management, and by
far the greatest item of cost of your product, is interest on the
investment. It may be that the use of storage batteries in connection
with large installations will modify this interest charge, but even
allowing the highest efficiency and the lowest cost of maintenance
ever claimed for a storage battery installation, the fact of high
interest cost must continue to be the most important factor in
calculating profit and loss. This brings home to us the fact that in
his efforts to show the greatest possible efficiency of his plant and
distribution system, it is quite possible that the station manager may
spend so much capital as to eat up many times over in interest charge
the saving that he makes in direct operating expenses. It is a common
mistake for the so-called expert to demonstrate to you that he has
designed for you a plant of the highest possible efficiency, and at
the same time for him to lose sight of the fact that he has saddled
you with the highest possible amount of interest on account of
excessive investment. Operating cost and interest cost should never be
separated. One is as much a part of the cost of your current as the
other. This is particularly illustrated in connection with the use of
storage batteries. Those opposed to their use will point out to you
that of the energy going into the storage battery only 70 per cent. is
available for use on your distribution system. That statement in
itself is correct; but in figuring the cost of energy for a class of
business for which the storage battery is particularly adapted, the
maximum load, that portion of your operating cost affected by the 30
per cent. loss of energy in the battery, forms under 4½ per cent.
of your total cost, and it must be self-evident, in that case at
least, that the 30 per cent. loss in the storage battery is hardly an
appreciable factor in figuring the operating cost of your product. So
far as I have been able to ascertain, it would appear to be economical
to use storage batteries in connection with central station systems
the peak of whose load does not exceed from two to two and one-half
hours.
In order to illustrate the important bearing which interest has on
cost, I have prepared graphical representations of the cost of
current, including interest, under conditions of varying load factors.
For the purpose of this chart I have assumed an average cost of
current, so far as operating and repairs and renewals and general
expense are concerned, extending over a period of a year, although of
course these items are more or less attested by the character of the
load factor. For the purpose of figuring interest, I have selected
seven different classes of business commonly taken by electric light
and power companies in any large city. Take, for instance, an office
building. It has a load factor of about 3.7 per cent., that is, the
average load for the whole year is 3.7 per cent. of the maximum demand
on you for current at any one time during that period; or, to put it
in another way, this load factor of 3.7 per cent. would show that your
investment is in use the equivalent of a little over 323 hours a year
on this class of business. This is by no means an extreme case. You
can find in almost every large city customers whose load factors are
not nearly as favorable to the operating company, their use of your
investment being as low as the equivalent of 75 or 100 hours a year.
Take another class of business, that of the haberdasher, or small
fancy goods store. As a rule these stores are comparatively small,
with facilities for getting a large amount of natural light and little
use for artificial light. The load factor as shown by the chart is
about 7 per cent., the use of your investment being not quite twice as
long as that of the office building. Day saloons show an average of 16
per cent. load factor; cafetiers and small lunch counters about 20 per
cent., while the large dry goods stores, in which there is
comparatively little light, have a load factor of 25 per cent. and use
your investment seven times as long per year as the office building.
Power business naturally shows a still better load factor, say 35 per
cent., and the all-night restaurant has a load factor of 48 per cent.
You will see from this that the great desideratum of the central
station system is, from the investors' point of view, the necessity of
getting customers for your product whose business is of such a
character as to call for a low maximum and long average use. This
question of load factor is by all means the most important one in
central station economy. If your maximum is very high and your average
consumption very low, heavy interest charges will necessarily follow.
The nearer you can bring your average to your maximum load, the closer
you approximate to the most economical conditions of production, and
the lower you can afford to sell your current. Take, for instance, the
summer and winter curves of the Chicago Edison company. The curve of
December 20, 1897, shows a load factor of about 48 per cent.; the
curve of May 2, 1898, shows a load factor of nearly 60 per cent. Now,
if we were able in Chicago to get business of such a character as
would give us a curve of the same characteristics in December as the
curve we get in May; or, in other words, if we could improve our load
factor, our interest cost would be reduced, an effect would be
produced upon the other items going to make up the cost of current,
and we probably could make more money out of our customers at a lower
price per unit than we get from them now.
Many schemes are employed for improving the load factor, or, in other
words, to encourage a long use of central station product. Some
companies adopt a plan of allowing certain stated discounts, provided
the income per month of each lamp connected exceeds a given sum. The
objection to this is that it limits the number of lamps connected.
Other companies have what is known as the two-rate scheme, charging
one rate for electricity used during certain hours of the day and a
lower rate for electricity used during the balance of the day, using a
meter with two dials for this purpose. Other companies use an
instrument which registers the maximum demand for the month, and the
excess over the equivalent of a certain specified number of hours
monthly in use of the maximum demand is sold at greatly reduced price.
The last scheme would seem particularly equitable, as it results in
what is practically an automatic scale of discounts based on the
average load factor of the customers. It does not seem to be just that
a man who only uses your investment say 100 hours a year should be
able to buy your product at precisely the same price as the man who
uses your investment say 3,000 hours a year, when the amount of money
invested to take care of either customer is precisely the same. Surely
the customer who uses the product on an average 30 times longer than
the customer using it for only 100 hours is entitled to a much lower
unit rate, in view of the fact that the expense for interest to the
company is in one case but a fraction per unit of output of what it is
in the other. This fact is illustrated by the interest columns on the
graphic chart already referred to. Supposing that the central station
manager desired to sell his product at cost, that is, an amount
sufficient to cover his operating, repairs and renewals, general
expense, and interest and depreciation, he would have to obtain from
the customer having the poorest load factor, as shown on the load
chart, over four times as much per unit of electricity as it would be
necessary for him to collect from the customer having the largest load
factor. No one would think of going to a bank to borrow money and
expect to pay precisely the same total interest whether he required
the money for one month or for twelve; and for the same reason it
seems an absurdity to sell electricity to the customer who uses it but
a comparatively few hours a year at the same price at which you would
sell it to the customer using it ten hours a day and three hundred
days a year, when it is remembered that interest is the largest factor
in cost, and the total amount of interest is the same with the
customer using it but a few hours a year as it is with the customer
using it practically all the year around.
I have dwelt thus at length on the question of interest cost in
operating a central station system, not alone for the purpose of
pointing out to you its importance in connection with an electrical
distribution system, but also to impress upon you its importance as a
factor in cost; in fact, the most important factor in cost in any
public service business which you may enter after leaving this
institution. Most of the businesses presenting the greatest
possibilities from the point of view of an engineering career are
those requiring very large investment and having a comparatively small
turnover or yearly income. Of necessity, in all enterprises of this
character, the main factor of cost is interest, and if you intend
following engineering as a profession, my advice to you would be to
learn first the value of money, or, to put it another way, to learn
the cost of money.
Before leaving this question of interest and its effect upon cost, I
would draw your attention to the fact that while interest is by far
the most important factor of cost, it is a constantly reducing amount
per unit of maximum output in practically every central station
system. When a system is first installed, it is the rule to make large
enough investment in real estate and buildings to take care of many
times the output obtained in the first year or so of operation. As a
rule, the generating plant from the boilers to the switchboard is
designed with only sufficient surplus to last a year or so. In the
case of the distributing system the same course is followed as in the
case of real estate and buildings, with a view to minimizing the
ultimate investment. Mains are laid along each block facing, feeders
are put in having a capacity far beyond the necessity of the moment;
consequently interest cost is very high when a plant first starts,
except, as I have stated, in the case of the machinery forming the
generating plant itself. As the business increases from, year to year,
the item of interest per unit of maximum output consequently will
constantly decrease, owing to the fact that each additional unit of
output following an increase of connected load increases the divisor
by which the total interest is divided. The result is from year to
year the interest cost of each additional unit of maximum output is a
constantly reducing amount, and consequently the average interest cost
of each unit of maximum output should, in a well regulated plant, grow
less from year to year until the minimum interest cost per unit is
reached. This minimum interest cost is reached when the capacity of
the whole system and the total units of output at maximum load are
identical, although of course it will always be necessary to have a
certain margin of capacity over possible output, as a factor of
safety.
This same rule, although to a less extent, applies to the operating
and general expense cost, that is, the cost other than interest. To
particularize, the manager's salary and other administrative expenses
do not increase in proportion to maximum output of station; therefore,
the cost of administration per unit of output, if the business is in a
healthy condition, must be from year to year reduced. There are a
great many other expenses that are not directly in proportion to
output, and these follow the same rule. In a well-run plant the
percentage of operating expenses to gross receipts will stand even
year after year, while the income per unit of output will be
constantly reduced. This is an excellent evidence of the fact that the
cost per unit of output is constantly being reduced, as, if it were
not, the percentage of expenses to gross receipts would be increased
in direct proportion to the reduction in price. Moreover, it should be
borne in mind that there are many difficulties in the way of universal
use of electric energy from a central station system. It is the rare
exception to find a house not piped for gas and water. In the case of
the latter it is almost invariably the rule that owners are compelled
to pipe for water, under the sanitary code of the municipality. On the
other hand, in a large residential district, it is the exception to
find a house wired for electric light; consequently the output of
current per foot of conductor is at the present time very low as
compared with the output of gas per foot of gas pipe in any of the
large cities. The expense of wiring (which must of necessity be borne
by the householder) is large, and it is often a barrier to the
adoption of electric illumination, but as the rule to wire houses
becomes more general, the output per foot of main will constantly
increase, and therefore the interest per unit of output per foot of
main will constantly decrease. This same rule will apply in the case
of expenses of taking care of and repairing the distribution system,
although to not so great an extent.
If you will take into account these various factors constantly
operating toward a reduction of operating and general expense cost,
and interest cost, the conclusion must necessarily be forced upon you
that the price at which current can be sold at a profit to-day is in
no sense a measure of the income per unit which it will be necessary
for central station managers to obtain in the future. In 1881-82 it
was difficult to make both ends meet with an income of 25 cents per
kilowatt hour, to-day there are many stations showing a substantial
return on their investment whose average income does not exceed 7
cents per kilowatt hour, showing 70 per cent. reduction in price in
less than two decades. How far this constant reduction in cost,
followed by a constant reduction in selling price, will go, it is
difficult to determine; but if so much has been accomplished during
the first 20 years of the existence of the industry, is it too much to
predict that in a far less time than the succeeding 20 years electric
current for all purposes will be within the reach of the smallest
householder and the poorest citizen? But few industries can parallel
the record already obtained. If you will trace the history of the
introduction of gas as an illuminant, you will find that it took a
much longer time to establish it on a commercial basis than it has
taken to establish most firmly the electric lighting industry. All the
great improvements in gas, the introduction of water gas, the
economizing in consumption by the use of the Welsbach burner, have all
been made within the time of those before me, and yet, notwithstanding
that when these gas improvements started, the electric lighting
business was hardly conceived, and certainly had not advanced to a
point where you could claim that it had passed the experimental
stage--notwithstanding this, the cost of electrical energy has
decreased so rapidly that to-day there are many large central station
plants making handsome returns on their investments at a far lower
average income per unit of light than the income obtained by the gas
company in the same community. In making my calculations which have
led me to this conclusion, I have assumed that 10,000 watts are equal
to 1,000 feet of gas. This comparison holds good, provided an
incandescent lamp of high economy is used as against the ordinary gas
burner. To make a comparison between electric illumination and
incandescent gas burners, such as the Welsbach burner, you must figure
on the use of an arc lamp in the electric circuit instead of an
incandescent lamp, which is certainly fair when it is remembered that
incandescent gas burners are, as a rule, used in places where arc
lamps should be used if electric illumination is employed.
With such brilliant results obtained in the past, the prospects of the
central station industry are certainly most dazzling. While the growth
of the business has been phenomenal, more especially since 1890, I
think it can be conservatively stated that we have scarcely entered
upon the threshold of the development which may be expected in the
future. In very few cities in the United States can you find that
electric illumination exceeds more than 20 per cent. of the total
artificial illumination for which the citizens pay. If this be the
state of affairs in connection with the use of electricity for
illuminating purposes, and if you will bear in mind the many other
purposes to which electricity can be adapted throughout a city and
supplied to customers in small quantities, you may get some faint
conception of the possible consumption of electrical energy in the not
far distant future. Methods of producing it may change, but these
methods cannot possibly go into use unless their adoption is justified
by saving in the cost of production--a saving which must be sufficient
to show a profit above the interest and depreciation on the new plant
employed. It is within the realms of possibility that the present form
of generating station may be entirely dispensed with. It has already
been demonstrated experimentally that electrical energy may be
produced direct from the coal itself without the intervention of the
boiler, engine and dynamo machine. Whether this can be done
commercially remains to be proved. Whatever changes may take place in
generating methods, I should, were I not engaged in a business which
affords so many remarkable surprises, be inclined to question the
possibility of any further material change in the distributing system.
Improvements in the translating devices, such as lamps, may add
enormously to the capacity of the distributing system per unit of
light; but it does seem to me that the system itself, as originally
conceived, is to a large extent a permanency. Should any great
improvements take place in the medium employed for turning electrical
energy into light, the possible effect on cost, and consequently
selling price, would be enormous.
* * * * *
THE PROPOSAL of Gov. Black, which has now become law, to depute to
Cornell the care of a considerable tract of forest land, and the duty
of demonstrating to Americans the theory, methods and profits of
scientific forestry, has a curious appropriateness much commented on
at the university, since two-thirds of the wealth of Cornell has been
derived from the location and skillful management of forest lands, the
net receipts from this source being to date $4,112,000. In the course
of twenty years management the university has thrice sold the timber
on some pieces of land which it still holds, and received a larger
price at the third sale than at the first. The conduct of this land
business is so systematized that the treasurer of the university knows
to a dot the amount of pine, hemlock, birch, maple, basswood and oak
timber, even to the number of potential railroad ties, telegraph poles
and fence posts on each fourth part of a quarter section owned by
Cornell. Certainly, Cornell is rich in experience for the business
side of a forestry experiment such as Gov. Black proposes. The
university forest lands from which its endowment has been realized are
in Wisconsin.
* * * * *
Books may be called heavy when the qualifying term is not applied to
their writers, but to the paper makers. It is falsifications in the
paper that give it weight. Sulphate of baryta, the well known
adulterate of white lead, does the work. A correspondent, writing to
The London Saturday Review, gives the weight of certain books as: Miss
Kingsley's "Travels in Africa." 3 pounds 5 ounces; "Tragedy of the
Cæsars," 3 pounds; Mahan's "Nelson" (1 vol.), 2 pounds 10 ounces;
"Tennyson" (1 vol.), 2 pounds 6 ounces; "Life and Letters of Jowett"
(1 vol.), 2 pounds 1 ounce. To handle these dumb-bell books, The
Saturday Review advises that readers take lessons in athletics.
* * * * *
THE LOCK OF THE DORTMUND-EMS CANAL AT HENRICHENBURG.
The Dortmund-Ems Canal, destined to connect the heart of German
industry with the sea, was formally dedicated on April 1, and
partially opened to commerce. After its completion, German coal will
be transported to the harbors of the Ems at the same cost as the
English coal which has hitherto forced back the treasures of our soil;
our black diamonds will then be sold in the markets of the world, and
the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal will enable the western part of the empire to
exchange its coal and iron for the grain and wood of the East.
Many difficulties were encountered in cutting the canal, owing partly
to the vast network of railroads in the coal region of Westphalia, but
chiefly due to the insufficiency of moisture in the highlands, the
latter not containing enough water to supply the many necessary
sluices, at which it could be easily foreseen considerable traffic
would occur.
[Illustration: THE LOCK OF THE DORTMUND-EMS CANAL AT HENRICHENBURG.]
For the modern engineer there are, however, no insurmountable
obstacles. Instead of a line of ordinary locks, a single structure was
erected sufficient for the needs of the entire region. This lock is
situated at Henrichenburg, near Dortmund, and our illustration
pictures it with its lock-chamber half raised.
The lock, which serves to overcome a difference in level of fifty-nine
feet, raises vessels of 1,000 tons capacity with a velocity of 0.3 to
0.7 foot per second, and has been constructed after a new and
astonishingly simple system.
The lock chamber, designed for the reception of the various vessels,
is 229.60 feet in length and 28.864 feet in breadth and normally
contains 8.2 feet of water. Under the sluice in a line with the long
axis are five wells filled with water in which cylindrical floats are
placed, connected to the bottom of the chamber by means of iron
trellis-work. The floats are placed so deeply that, in their highest
position, their upper edges are always submerged; they are, moreover,
of such size that by means of their upward impulsion the chamber is
held in equilibrium. Irrespective of the small differences of pressure
which arise from the varying immersion of the framework, the lock will
in all positions be in equilibrium. Since a vessel which enters the
lock displaces a volume of water whose weight is equal to the weight
of the vessel, a constant equilibrium will always be maintained and
only a minimum force required to raise or lower the chamber. In order
to move the lock-chamber up and down and to sustain it constantly in a
horizontal position, nuts have been fixed to strong crossbeams,
through which powerful screw-rods work.
These rods are held in place by a massive framework of iron and are
turned to the left or to the right by means of a small steam engine,
placed at one side of the lock, which engine, by means of a
longitudinal shaft, drives two cross shafts to which bevel wheels are
attached. By this means the chamber is lowered and raised. The screw
rods are so powerful that they sustain the entire weight of the lock
chamber, and the pitch of the thread is such that spontaneous sliding
or slipping is impossible, the chamber being, therefore, kept
constantly in the desired position.
It is interesting to note that the hollow space in the screw rods is
heated by steam during winter, thus preventing the formation of ice in
the machinery.
During the eighties, locks for ships of 400 tons capacity were
erected in England and France, at Anderton, Les Fontinettes and La
Louvière. The lock at Henrichenburg, however, exceeds all its
predecessors, not only in size, but also in security. At all events,
the structure is a worthy memorial of the energy and genius of
German engineers.--Illustrirte Zeitung.
* * * * *
Paper hanging by machine is the latest achievement, according to a
German contemporary, says The Engineer. The arrangement used for this
purpose is provided with a rod upon which the roll of paper is placed.
A paste receptacle with a brushing arrangement is attached in such a
manner that the paste is applied automatically on the back of the
paper. The end of the wall paper is fixed at the bottom of the wall
and the implement rises on the wall and only needs to be set by one
workman. While the wall paper unrolls and, provided with paste, is
held against the wall, an elastic roller follows on the outside, which
presses it firmly to the wall. When the wall paper has reached the
top, the workman pulls a cord, whereby it is cut off from the
remainder on the roll.
* * * * *
THE AMERICAN "REGULAR."
BY THE ENGLISH CORRESPONDENT OF THE LONDON TIMES ON BOARD THE
UNITED STATES TRANSPORT "GUSSIE."
The "regular" of the United States is in many respects the least
equipped foot soldier of my acquaintance. This was my reflection as I
overhauled the kit of a private this morning on board the "Gussie."
There was not a single brush in his knapsack. I counted three in that
of a Spanish foot soldier only a few weeks ago. The American knapsack
is merely a canvas bag cut to the outward proportions of the European
knapsack, but in practical features bearing affinity with the
"rückensack" of the Tyrolean chamois hunters, or pack-sack of the
backwoodsmen of Canada and the Adirondack Mountains. This knapsack of
the American is not intended to be carried on any extended marches,
although the total weight he is ever called upon to carry, including
everything, is only 50 pounds, a good 12 pounds less than what is
carried by the private of Germany. The men of this regiment, in heavy
marching order, carry an overcoat with a cape, a blanket, the half of
a shelter tent, and one wooden tent pole in two sections. The rifle
could be used as a tent pole--so say men I talk with on the subject.
On this expedition overcoats are a superfluity, and it is absurd that
troops should be sent to the tropics in summer wearing exactly the
same uniform they would be using throughout the winter on the
frontiers of Canada. This war will, no doubt, produce a change after
English models. At present the situation here is prevented from being
painful because no marching has yet been attempted, and the commanding
officers permit the most generous construction in the definition of
what is a suitable uniform.
On the trip of this ship to Cuba, no officer or man has ever worn a
tunic excepting at guard mounting inspection. The 50 men who went
ashore near Cabañas on May 12 and pitched into some 500 Spaniards left
their coats behind and fought in their blue flannel shirts. Of the
officers, some wore a sword, some did not, though all carried a
revolver. No orders were issued on the subject--it was left to
individual taste, I have experienced hotter days at German maneuvers
than on the coast of Cuba during the days we happened to be there, yet
I have never noticed any disposition in the army of William II. to
relax the severity of service even temporarily. My German friends
sincerely believe that the black stock and the hot tunic are what has
made Prussia a strong nation, and to disturb that superstition would
be a thankless task.
In the way of clothing the American private carries a complete change
of under-drawers, under-shirt, socks, laced boots and uniform
trousers. My particular private was carrying a double allowance of
socks, handkerchiefs, and underwear. He had a toothbrush and comb.
That is the heavy marching order knapsack. For light marching, which
is the usual manner, the man begins by spreading on the ground his
half-tent, which is about the size of a traveling rug. On this he
spreads his blanket, rolls it up tightly into a long narrow sausage,
having first distributed along its length a pair of socks, a change of
underwear, and the two sticks of his one tent pole. Then he brings the
ends of this canvas roll together, not closely, as in the German army,
but more like the ends of a horse-shoe, held by a rope which at the
same time stops the ends of the roll tightly. When this horse shoe is
slung over the man's shoulder, it does not press uncomfortably upon
his chest. The total weight is distributed in the most convenient
manner for marching.
The packing of the man's things is strictly according to regulation,
excepting only the single pocket in his knapsack, where he may carry
what he chooses, as he chooses. His light canvas haversack is much
like the English one, and his round, rather flat water flask is
covered with canvas. It is made of tin, and the one I inspected was
rusty inside. It would be better if of aluminum. In the haversack is a
pannikin with a hinged handle that may be used as a saucepan. Over
this fits a tin plate, and when the two are covering one another the
handle of the pannikin fits over both by way of handle. It is an
excellent arrangement, but should be of aluminum instead of a metal
liable to rust. The most valuable part of this haversack is a big tin
cup that can be used for a great variety of purposes, including
cooking coffee. It is hung loose at the strap of the haversack. Of
course each man has knife, fork and spoon, each in a leather case.
The cartridge belt contains 100 rounds, which are distributed all the
way around the waist, there being a double row of them. The belt is
remarkably light, being woven all in one operation. It is of cotton
and partly some material which prevents shrinking or loosening. The
belts have stood admirably the test put upon them for the last six
days, when it has rained every day, on top of the ordinary heavy
moisture usual at sea in the tropics. The test is the more interesting
from their having been previously in a very dry country. Officers and
men alike unite in praise of this cartridge belt. The particular
private whom I was inspecting said he now carried 100 as easily as he
formerly carried 50. This belt rests loosely on the hips, without any
straps over the shoulders. It is eminently businesslike in appearance.
The hat is the gray felt of South Africa, Australia, and every other
part of the world where comfort and cost are consulted. No boots are
blacked on expeditions of this kind. The men who form in line for
guard duty have their tunics well brushed, but that may be due to
extraneous assistance.
For fighting purposes, then, the United States private has nothing to
keep clean excepting his rifle and bayonet. He carries no contrivances
for polishing buttons, boots, or the dozen of bits of accouterment
deemed essential to a good soldier in Europe. In Spain, for instance,
the private, though he may have nothing in his haversack, will,
nevertheless, carry a clumsy outfit of tools for making his uniform
look imposing.
Now, as to discipline in the American army I cannot speak at present,
for the war is yet too young. It may, however, be worth noting that in
this particular regiment, while most complete liberty was allowed the
men all the twelve days of the rail journey from San Francisco to
Tampa, not a single case of drunkenness or any other breach of
discipline was reported. Among the 105 men on this boat there has not
in the past seven days been a single case of sickness of any kind or
any occasion for punishing. The firing discipline during the three
times we have been under fire has been excellent; the obedience of
soldiers to their officers has been as prompt and intelligent as
anything I have seen in Europe; and as to coolness under fire and
accuracy of aim, what I have seen is most satisfactory. The men
evidently regard their officers as soldiers of equal courage and
superior technical knowledge. To the Yankee private "West Pointer"
means what to the soldier of Prussia is conveyed by noble rank. In my
intimate intercourse with officers and men aboard this ship I cannot
recall an instance of an officer addressing a private otherwise than
is usual when a gentleman issues an order. I have never heard an
officer or noncommissioned officer curse a man. During the engagement
of Cabañas the orders were issued as quietly as at any other time, and
the men went about their work as steadily as bluejackets on a
man-o'-war.
All this I note, because this is the first occasion that United States
troops have been in action since the civil war, and because I have
more than once heard European officers question the possibility of
making an army out of elements different from those to which they were
accustomed. I have heard Germans insist that unless the officer
appears in uniform he cannot command the respect of his men. On this
ship it would be frequently difficult to tell officers from men when
the tunic is laid aside and shoulder straps are not seen. There are
numberless points of resemblance between Tommy Atkins and the Yankee
private; and the Sandhurst man has no difficulty in understanding the
West Pointer. But to do this we must go a little beneath the surface
and see things, not on the parade ground, but in actual war. For dress
occasions the American uniform is far and away the ugliest and most
useless of all the uniforms I know. The helmets and cocked hats are of
the pattern affected by theatrical managers, the decorations tawdry,
the swords absurd, the whole appearance indicative of a taste
unmilitary and inartistic. The parade uniform has been designed by a
lot of unsoldierly politicians and tailors about Washington. Their
notion of military glory is confused with memories of St. Patrick's
Day processions and Masonic installations. They have made the patient
United States army a victim of their vulgar designs, and to-day at
every European army maneuver one can pick out the American military
attache by merely pointing to the most unsoldierly uniform on the
field. On the battlefield, however, there are no political tailors,
and the Washington dress regulations are ruthlessly disregarded.
* * * * *
STEERING GEAR OF NORTH GERMAN LLOYD STEAMERS "COBLENTZ," "MAINZ,"
AND "TRIER."
The steering gear illustrated below, which has been fitted to a number
of vessels in this country as well as on the three North German Lloyd
steamers above named, is designed, primarily, to effect the
distribution of the leverage more in proportion to the resistance of
the rudder than exists in ordinary gears. The latter, as a rule, exert
a uniform and decreasing, instead of an increasing, purchase on the
rudder, in moving it from midgear to hard over. This important object
is attained in the gear under notice chiefly through the arrangement
of the quadrant and the spring buffers, which form an essential part
of it, and of the tiller crosshead. The quadrant--which, as may be
gathered from our illustration, has its main body formed of wrought
steel, flanged and riveted, making an exceptionally strong
design--works on its own center. It travels through 51 degrees in
moving the tiller crosshead through 40 degrees, and in doing so
increases the leverage over the rudder to an extent which is
equivalent to a gain of 60 per cent. upon midgear position.
[Illustration: HAND GEAR HARD OVER.]
[Illustration: HAND GEAR AMIDSHIPS.
CROOM & ARTHUR'S STEERING GEAR.]
Being carried on its own center, and not, as is usual, on the rudder
stock, and with its rim supported on rollers, the quadrant does not
impose upon the rudder pintles any of its own weight, thus diminishing
the wear on these parts. This arrangement also keeps the quadrant
always in good gear with its pinion, thereby allowing the teeth of
both to be strengthened by shrouding, and rendering them exempt from
the effects of sinking and slogger of the rudder stock as the pintles
wear. The rack and pinions are of cast steel, as is also the tiller
crosshead. The spring buffers, which, as has been said, form an
essential part of the quadrant, are fitted with steel rollers at the
point of contact with the crosshead, thereby reducing the friction to
a minimum. The springs, by their compression, absorb any shock coming
on the rudder, and greatly reduce the vibration when struck by a sea.
They are made adjustable, and can be either steel or rubber.
Our illustrations show the arrangement of the gear as worked by hand
at the rudder head, but of course gears are made having a steam
steering engine as the major portion of the arrangement--the two
cylinders being placed directly over the quadrant--thus securing the
well known advantages attaching to a direct rudder head steering
engine as compared with the engine situated amidship, with all the
friction of parts, liability to breakage, etc., thereby entailed.
Whether with engine amidship or directly over the rudderhead, ample
provision is made for putting the hand power into gear by means of a
friction clutch within the standard upon which the hand wheels are
mounted. The clutch is of large diameter and lined with hard wood,
power and ready facility being provided by the hand lever--seen at the
top of standard--and the screw which it operates, for shifting to in
and out of gear.
The patentees and makers of this type of gear are Messrs. Croom &
Arthur, Victoria Dock, Leith, who, in addition to fitting it to the
three North German Lloyd steamers named in the title--which are each
of 3,200 tons, having an 8-inch rudder-stock--have applied it to the
Hamburg and Australian liner Meissen of 5,200 tons and 10-inch rudder
stock, and to the steamer Carisbrook of 1,724 tons, owned in Leith. On
the latter vessel, which was the first fitted with it, the gear has
been working for over two years, giving, we are told, entire
satisfaction to the owners, who say the spring buffers undoubtedly
reduce the vibration when the rudder is struck by a sea, and the
arrangement of quadrant and tiller appears to give increase of power.
Of the installation of this gear on board the three North German Lloyd
vessels, the agents of that company say: "It has been working to our
entire satisfaction. This system, on the whole, proves to have
answered its purpose." Considering the advantages claimed for the
gear, this is satisfactory testimony. We are indebted to The London
Engineer for the cuts and description.
* * * * *
COMBINED STEAM PUMPING AND MOTIVE POWER ENGINE.
We give herewith an illustration of a compact engine, designed by
Messrs. Merryweather & Sons, of London, particularly for mining work,
and already supplied to the Burma ruby mines, the Salamanca tin mines,
and several mining companies in Brazil and other parts of South
America. It is an arrangement of the Valiant steam pumping engine with
a flywheel arranged to take a belt, and is so constructed that the
pump can be readily thrown out of gear and the engine used to drive
light machinery. The smaller size weighs only 7 cwt., including
boiler, engine and pump complete, and can be run on its own wheels, or
these can be detached and the machine carried by eight or ten men on
shoulder poles passed through rings fitted on top of the boiler. Thus
it can be easily transported up country, and has for this reason been
found most useful for prospecting. For alluvial mining it will throw a
powerful jet at 100 lb. to 120 lb. pressure, or by means of a belt
will drive an experimental quartz crusher or stamp mill. The power
developed is six horses, and the boiler will burn wood or other
inferior fuel when coal is not obtainable. The pump will deliver 100
gallons per minute, on a short length of hose or piping, and will
force water through three or four miles of piping on the level, or, on
a short length, 35 gallons per minute against a head of 210 feet. The
pump is made entirely of gun metal, with rubber valves, and has large
suction and delivery branches. Air vessels are fitted, and the motion
work is simple and strong. The boiler is Merryweather's water tube
type, and raises steam rapidly, while the fittings include feed pump,
injector, safety valve, steam blast and an arrangement for feeding the
boiler from the main pump in case of necessity.
[Illustration: MERRYWEATHER'S PUMPING ENGINE.]
We are indebted to The London Engineer for the engraving and
description.
* * * * *
Some romances and exaggerations of which the Pitch Lake, at
Trinidad, has been the subject, are corrected by Mr. Albert Cronise,
of Rochester, N.Y. Its area, height and distance from the sea have
been overestimated, and a volcanic action has been ascribed to it
which does not really exist. It is one mile from the landing place, is
138 feet above the sea level, is irregular, approximately round, and
has an area of 109 acres. Its surface is a few feet higher than the
ground immediately around it, having been lifted up by the pressure
from below. The material of the lake is solid to a depth of several
feet, except in a few spots in the center, where it remains soft, but
usually not hot or boiling. But as the condition of the softest part
varies, it may be that it boils sometimes. The surface of the lake is
marked by fissures two or three feet wide and slightly depressed
spots, all of which are filled with rainwater. In going about one has
to pick his way among the larger puddles and jump many of the smaller
connecting streams. Each of the hundreds of irregular portions
separated by this network of fissures is said to have a slow revolving
motion upon a horizontal axis at right angles to a line from the
center of the lake, the surface moving toward the circumference. This
motion is supposed to be caused by the great daily change in
temperature, often amounting to 80°, and an unequal upward motion of
the mass below, increasing toward the center of the lake. A few
patches of shallow earth lying on the pitch, and covered with bushes
and small trees, are scattered over the surface of the lake.
* * * * *
The Gardeners' Chronicle announces that Mr. Fetisoff, an amateur
horticulturist at Voronezh, Russia, has achieved what was believed to
be impossible, the production of jet black roses. No details of the
process have been received.
* * * * *
Recent Books.
* * * * *
ELECTRO-METALLURGY. Electric Smelting and Refining: The Extraction
and Treatment of Metals by means of the Electric Current. Being the
second edition of Elektro-Metallurgie by Dr. W. Borchers. Translated,
with additions, by Walter G. McMillan. With 3 plates and numerous
illustrations in the text. 8vo, cloth. 416 pages. London and New York,
1897 $6.50
ELECTRO-TECHNICAL SERIES. By Edwin J. Houston, Ph.D., and A.E.
Kennelly, D.Sc. Ten volumes: Alternating Electric Currents, Electric
Heating, Electro-Magnetism, Electricity in Electro-Therapeutics,
Electric Arc Lighting, Electric Incandescent Lighting, Electric
Motors, Electric Street Railways, Electric Telephony, Electric
Telegraphy. Each $1.00
ENGINEERS. The Practical Management of Engines and Boilers,
including Boiler Setting, Pumps, Injectors, Feed Water Heaters, Steam
Engine Economy, Condensers, Indicators, Slide Valves, Safety Valves,
Governors, Steam Gages, Incrustation and Corrosion, etc. A Practical
Guide for Engineers and Firemen and Steam Users generally. By William
B. Le Van. 12mo, cloth. 267 pages. 49 illustrations. 1897 $2.00
EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE. By George M. Hopkins. This book treats on the
various topics of Physics in a popular and practical way. It describes
the apparatus in detail, and explains the experiments in full, so that
teachers, students and others interested in Physics may readily make
the apparatus without expense and perform the experiments without
difficulty. The aim of the writer has been to render physical
experimentation so simple and attractive as to induce both old and
young to engage in it for pleasure and profit. A few simple
arithmetical problems comprise all of the mathamatics of the book.
Many new experiments are here described for the first time. It is the
most thoroughly illustrated work over published on Experimental
Physics. 840 pages. Over 790 illustrations. Seventeenth edition.
Revised and enlarged. 8vo, cloth $4.00
EXPLOSIVES. Lectures on Explosives. A course of Lectures prepared
especially as a Manual and Guide in the Laboratory of the United
States Artillery School. By Willoughby Walke, First Lieut. Fifth
United States Artillery. Second edition. Revised and enlarged. 8vo,
cloth. 435 pages. New York, 1897 $4.00
FEEDS AND FEEDING. A Handbook for the Student and Stockman. By W.A.
Henry. 8vo, cloth. 657 pages. 1898 $2.00
* * * * *
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MUNN & CO., Publishers, New York.
* * * * *
_JUST PUBLISHED._
Second Edition, Revised and much Enlarged.
Gas, Gasoline and Oil Engines
By GARDNER D. HISCOX, M.E.
The only American Book on the Subject.
This is a book designed for the general information of every one
interested in this new and popular motive power, and its adaptation to
the increasing demand for a cheap and easily managed motor requiring
no licensed engineer.
The book treats of the theory and practice of Gas, Gasoline and Oil
Engines, as designed and manufactured in the United States. It also
contains chapters on Horseless Vehicles, Electric Lighting, Marine
Propulsion, etc. Second Edition. Illustrated by 270 engravings.
Revised and enlarged.
LARGE OCTAVO. 365 PAGES. PRICE $2.50.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
Chapter I.--Introductory, Historical. Chapter II.--Theory of the Gas
and Gasoline Engine. Chapter III.--Utilization of Heat and Efficiency
in Gas Engines. Chapter IV.--Heat Efficiencies. Chapter V.--Retarded
Combustion and Wall Cooling. Chapter VI.--Causes of Loss and
Inefficiency in Explosive Motors. Chapter VII.--Economy of the Gas
Engine for Electric Lighting. Chapter VIII.--The Material of Power in
Explosive Engines, Gas, Petroleum Products and Acetylene Gas. Chapter
IX.--Carbureters and Vapor Gas for Explosive Motors. Chapter
X.--Cylinder Capacity of Gas and Gasoline Engines, Mufflers on Gas
Engines. Chapter XI--Governors and Valve Gear. Chapter XII.--Igniters
and Exploders, Hot, Tube and Electric. Chapter XIII.--Cylinder
Lubrication. Chapter XIV--On the Management of Explosive Motors.
Chapter XV.--The Measurement of Power by Prony Brakes, Dynamometers
and Indicators, The Measurement of Speed, The Indicator and its Work,
Vibrations of Buildings and Floors by the Running of Explosive Motors.
Chapter XVI.--Explosive Engine Testing. Chapter XVII.--Various Types
of Gas and Oil Engines, Marine and Vehicle Motors.--Chapter
XVIII.--Various Types of Gas and Oil Engines. Marine and Vehicle
Motors--Continued. Chapter XIX--United States Patents on Gas, Gasoline
and Oil Engines and their Adjuncts--1875 to 1897 inclusive--List of
the Manufacturers of Gas, Gasoline and Oil Engines in the United
States, with their addresses.
* * * * *
A FEW EXTRACTS OF NOTICES FROM THE PRESS.
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particularly for small powers. It gives such general information on
the construction, operation and care of these engines that should
prove valuable to any one in need of such motors, as well as those
already having them in use.--_Machinery._
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