to their nests in the eaves, and the chaffinch piped his love-song to his mate in the appletrees in the orchard. With all which 'spring's delights,' Joe had been familiar from his youth up; but such a delicious spring as this had never blessed the earth since Adam ate that unfortunate apple. Joe was sure of that!

VII.

Mary as his housekeeper; and they were pretty frequent visitors at Knowecroft in the evenings. Dick and Ruth generally managed to get ensconced in a corner by themselves; and as matrimony seemed to be in the very air, and Mary Braithwaite had been spoken for by a bluff yeoman of Westmorland, Mrs Martindale considered it to be for her good to give her matronly advice whenever occasion offered; so there was only Joe left to give undivided attention to Phyllis-to turn over the leaves of her Mary Braithwaite's matrimonial arrangements music for her, and suggest what they should required that she should be back in Westmorland have next. If Joe had not been head-over-ears by midsummer; and as it would never have done in love with Phyllis, to begin with, no other for Dick to have been left without a houseconclusion could have come from this state of keeper, he had prevailed on Ruth to hasten their affairs; and as it was, every day riveted firmer wedding so that it should take place before then. the chain that bound him. But he dared not Accordingly, one fine day in May, when Dick tell her how dear she was to him; the risk seemed and Joe had occasion to go to Carlisle, Ruth too great. If she had showed any signs of and Phyllis seized the opportunity to accommeeting him half-way, he might have ventured pany them, to choose the wedding dress. This on a declaration; or if she had been an inmate agreeable task having been accomplished to of another household, he might have broached their entire satisfaction, and suitable habiliments the momentous question, and put his fortune selected for the bridesmaids, Mary and Phyllis to the touch.' But he surmised that a pre---which latter costumes Ruth insisted on being mature declaration of his love might drive away of a pink hue-they rejoined their escort. Now, from Knowecroft this fairy creature, who had as it was still early in the afternoon, and Phyllis changed it from a matter-of-fact farmhouse to had hitherto seen but little of the town, it was a bower of bliss; and so he waited, with all proposed that they should walk round it; and the patience he could summon to his aid, the as they were passing down Castle Street, Ruth arrival of the time when he could, with some exclaimed: 'Joe, I've never been inside the certainty of success, ask her to become his cathedral in my life, and I should like to see wife. it. I wonder if we could get in?'

Had he known the secrets of our dear Phyllis's heart, he need not have been so wary; for Phyllis was just as much in love with Joe as Joe was with her. She had taught Joe enough of music to enable him to follow her and know the right time to turn over; but sometimes he was so much taken up watching her nimble fingers as they slid over the keys as to forget to keep his eyes on the music, until brought to a sense of his duty by her pausing to turn the leaf over for herself. On such occasions, when their hands met she would tingle and blush all over; but as he was behind her, he could not see this. And when he returned from ranging the fields or from his other outdoor vocations, and his light springing step was heard in the passage, accompanied by the stately tread This was eagerly agreed to, and at once they of his faithful collie Yarrow, her heart would began the ascent. A tiresome treadmill business go pitapat and her rosy cheeks would grow it was, till they reached the clerestory, and looked rosier all which signs told their tale plainly down from that giddy height upon the choir enough to Joe's mother and his wide-awake beneath. Then came a dark passage, demanding little sister, but scarcely so to him; although he had his hopes, of course, as well as his fears. What love could live without them?

'I daresay it will be open,' replied Joe; 'we'll go round and see.'

So they sauntered down Paternoster Row and into the abbey, and sure enough the south door was open. They were duly shown over the building; and having sufficiently admired the exquisite tabernacle work of the stalls, the quaint and grotesque carving of the misereres, the lofty ceiling gorgeous in blue and gold-and, in fact, all that there was to be seen-above all, the crowning glory of the cathedral, its matchless great east window, with its delicate and symmetric tracery, they prepared to leave. Their guide, however, was ready with a new suggestion. Would you not like,' he said, 'to go up to the tower? There's a splendid view from the top.'

slow and careful exploration, after which there was more treadmill work until they arrived at the bell chamber. Here they paused to breathe Then spring returned in all her glory. First, awhile, and look at the massive bells which had her hardy pioneers the snowdrops, fearlessly for centuries rung out tidings of joy or woe to the advancing into the enemy's country; then in city beneath. Whether Ruth and Dick were their track appeared an advance-guard of purple more tired with their ascent than their comand yellow crocuses in irregular order, closely panions, or whether watching the slow and followed by her standard-bearers the daffodils, regular swing of the big clock pendulum had their golden banners waving in the breeze; after mesmerised them, or from whatsoever other cause, a while, her fluters and fifers the thrushes and they seemed in no hurry to proceed when Joe blackbirds, were heard in the tall ash-trees; led the way upward again; and so, when they last of all came her fairy court-violets and emerged in the open air on the leads of the anemones, wild wood hyacinths, cowslips, and tower, Phyllis and he found themselves alone. buttercups, with all the myriad wild-flowers; And what a scene lay beneath them! At their an her full orchestra of feathered songsters feet was the busy city, the streets full of bustle filled with melody the hedgerows and brakes and commotion, for it was market-day; in the nay, the very sky itself. The swallows came back foreground, the venerable castle, with its blackened

water, and feeding them for some days before they are wanted by the cook. They then become fairly palatable.

The

from time to time, the result showing that electricity was effectual enough for the purpose in view, but was quite unsafe for any but skilled operators to deal with. Chief among experi- Professor Hoffman of Berlin has published some menters in this direction stands the well-known curious and interesting details relative to marine name of Dr B. W. Richardson, who, in a recent aquaria, from which it would seem that natural paper, read before the Society of Arts, has given sea-water can be so exactly imitated by artificial much interesting information on the subject. means that aquaria can be furnished and mainThe paper in question is published in the tained at places far removed from the sound of Society's Journal. The main purpose of Dr the waves. The mixture is of course compounded Richardson's lecture was to describe a unique from a careful analysis of sea-water, and constructure, designed by him, which has been used sists of certain proportions of common salt, sulfor the painless destruction of animal life at phate and chlorate of magnesia, and sulphate of the Dogs Home, Battersea. Since May last, potash, added to pure hard well-water. this has been used in the painless killing of chemicals should be pure, and the water cannot more than seven thousand vagrant dogs. The be safely used for tender specimens until a healthy apparatus consists of a huge box or chamber, growth of algae has been secured in the tank. We into which can be wheeled a cage containing should imagine that a more certain result might as many as one hundred doomed animals, which be obtained by evaporating natural sea-water to are quickly sent to sleep, and from sleep pass dryness and adding fresh water to the salt thereinto death. Of twenty-two possible anæsthetics, by obtained; but whether this method has ever Dr Richardson selected four for his experiments been adopted for the purpose in view, we have -namely, common coal-gas, chloroform, carbon no means of knowing. bisulphide, and carbonic oxide. The first proved to be the simplest and best; but the danger of explosion prevented its adoption. Ultimately, carbonic oxide, produced by burning charcoal in a properly constructed stove in communication with the chamber, was the agent adopted. With regard to the suggested narcotising of animals used for food, and the slaughter of them whilst asleep, Dr Richardson states that the blood keeps fluid and the meat is in no way impaired. We may hope that the time may come when animal-life-dismissal under some such humane-because apparently painless-condition may be made compulsory.

How our worthy forefathers would open their eyes, could they review the various uses to which materials are now put which they threw carelessly away, and regarded as rubbish! 'Slate Debris and its Utilisation' formed the title of an interesting paper read before a recent meeting of the Civil and Mechanical Engineers' Society, by Dr G. Selkirk Jones. From this paper we may learn how much can be gleaned from a waste product by careful treatment in the chemist's laboratory. From waste slate the author has obtained alum, so much used in the art of dyeing and other industries. He has also obtained a new filtering agent for sugarrefining; a compound which will remove grease and dirt from the most delicate fabrics without injuring them; French chalk, pigments and fuller's earth, cement, concrete, bricks, sanitary tiles, and lastly, a substance which can be used with lime for the chemical precipitation of sewage, leaving the effluent water from the thickest sludge pure and inodorous.

We last month noticed a proposal that has been made to revive the fish stews or ponds which in bygone times were so plentiful in this country. According to Dr Irwin, we might learn much in this connection from the thrifty Chinese. During his residence in China, Dr Irwin was struck with the manner in which almost every square yard of water was utilised for fish-culture. Many of the ponds are muddy, and give a well-known characteristic and unpleasant flavour to their inhabitants; but this is corrected by placing the fish in a pool of clear

Mr R. Meldola has given a short and preliminary account of his researches in connection with the earthquake which occurred in our eastern counties in April last, and has announced to the Geologists' Association that a complete and very voluminous Report is almost ready for publication. The disturbance was felt over an area of fifty thousand square miles; but its focus was situated at a point near the villages of Abberton and Peldon, in Essex, where, naturally, the greatest destruction of property was experienced. A noteworthy circumstance was that the tendency of the shock was to make itself especially felt along free margins, such as coast-lines, river-valleys, lines of geological outcrop, &c.

The technical Commission which went out to study on the spot the best means of increasing the efficiency of the Suez Canal have decided that the best course will be not to construct a second and parallel waterway, as has often been suggested, but to widen the existing one so that ships of the largest kind can easily meet and pass one another without danger of collision. The channel is to be widened to about ninety yards at the top, and seventy-five yards at the bottom, of the sloping banks; but where curves are formed this width is to be much increased. It is anticipated that the new works will lead to a great accession to the population of Port Said; and the Canal Company is seeking powers from the Egyptian government to construct a fresh-water canal to that place, which even now is rather badly off for the first necessary of life.

Passing to the other side of the world, we find no fewer than three schemes advocated for crossing or cutting through the Isthmus of Panama. First, we have M. Lesseps' scheme in active progress; next, the ship-railway, a model of which has lately been exhibited in New York, and is said to have been favourably criticised by competent engineers; and lastly, there is the revived proposal to pierce the isthmus at a much higher point with a canal, and to utilise the Lake of Nicaragua and the San Juan River. (This was the route advocated by the late Emperor of the French, who took a great interest in the Panama Canal question.) This last scheme would involve a route of about one hundred and eighty miles, as against forty-six miles

in the channel now being cut between Colon and Panama; but in consequence of making use of the lake and river navigation, the expense would be only about one-fourth. On the other hand, the ready-made depôts formed by the city of Panama, and Colon, and the existing railway between them, are advantages which the Nicaraguan route could not possess.

The founding of a Scottish Geographical Society is an event which must not be allowed to pass unnoticed. It was inaugurated at Edinburgh in December by Mr H. M. Stanley, the well-known African explorer, whose addresses upon the occasion naturally turned upon the question of opening up the Congo district to the commerce of the world.

mile per minute. By this means, written documents, which neither telegraph nor telephone can carry, are quickly transmitted from hand to hand. It appears from the Reports of the public analysts that the prescriptions made up by many chemists are of doubtful quality. We are told that twenty-five per cent. of them-that is, one in four-are not compounded of pure drugs in strict accordance with the pharmacopoeia. This is a most serious matter, and might mean in many cases the difference between life and death. So serious is it, that the authorities should be empowered to give certificates to those whose drugs are above suspicion, so that the public, who are necessarily ignorant on the matter, may know whom to employ. It is true that in many cases reported against, the drugs were not actually adulterated, but were inert or weak from long keeping; but still, the high prices generally charged for dispensing should at least guarantee the use of serviceable preparations.

A new way of employing an old agent in fireextinction has been invented by M. Mönck of Berlin. Carbonic acid compressed to the liquid state is placed in a receiver of sufficient strength to bear a pressure of two hundred and fifty pounds to the square inch. From this receptacle, In the year 1886 we are promised in London which is to be a fixture in a house, branch pipes a Colonial Exhibition, and it has since been are laid to the different apartments to be pro- proposed to open an American Exhibition in tected. If a fire occurs in any one of these friendly rivalry at the same time. In 1889 rooms, it can at once be filled with carbonic-rather a long time to look forward to-there acid gas, in an atmosphere of which, combustion is to be a Great Exhibition in Paris. In one is of course impossible. In Germany, liquid carbonic acid has become a regular article of commerce, so that in that country at least the adoption of the system is easy, and likely to be taken up, more especially as, in a German varnish-factory where it was lately applied, an incipient conflagration was most promptly extinguished by its aid.

A new way of heating railway and tram cars has been adopted in the United States, and is said to be very efficient. The heating arrangement consists of a thick pipe containing crystals of acetate of soda, with a smaller pipe running through its midst. Into this internal pipe is introduced superheated steam at the starting station. When this heat is applied, the crystals liquefy, and remain liquid until the temperature falls to a certain point, when crystals again begin to form, and in doing so, throw out much heat. Acetate of soda has been used for some years for ordinary railway foot-warmers, first of all in France, and later on by some of the English railways. A chemist in Dresden has also contrived a fireless stove on the same principle, which depends upon the circumstance, that a saturated solution of acetate of soda will not boil until it reaches a temperature of two hundred and fifty-six degrees.

Paris has now a total of one hundred and eleven miles of pneumatic tubes, served by steampumps of a total of three hundred and fifteen horse-power. These tubes are below ground, and are used for telegraphic purposes in a manner somewhat similar to that adopted in our own metropolis. They measure two and a half inches in internal diameter, and are traversed by little trains of boxes, which hold the despatches. The last box-which might be called the engine of the train-is fitted with a flexible leather collar, which fits closely against the smooth interior surface of the tube. Air is pumped in, or sucked out, as the case may be, and the little train is propelled, like a pea through a pea-shooter, at a rate of three-quarters of a

of the French technical papers is published a drawing and description of an iron tower one thousand feet in height-that is, about twice and a half the height of St Paul's Cathedral, London-which it is proposed to erect as one of the attractions there. The tower is pyramidal in form, and consists mainly of four great latticework standards, spread out like legs at the base, but mingling together at the summit. It is said that such an erection will be highly useful for meteorological and astronomical observations; but perhaps its chief use will be to give visitors to the Exhibition a wonderful bird's-eye view of the French capital, such as many enjoyed at the last French Exhibition from the car of M. Giffard's memorable captive balloon. We presume that visitors will be hoisted to the top by means of a 'lift.'

"The winter of our discontent' in the matter of smoke abatement is now fully set in, and the usual flood of letters upon the subject, which are annually sent to the Times and other papers for publication, again appear with their old and new remedies. A suggestion made by Mr Teale of Leeds is especially worthy of notice, for the remedy he proposes is very easy of adoption, and is cheap. He asserts that it saves one-fourth of the coal consumption, gives better fires, reduces both smoke and soot by securing combustion at a higher temperature than usual, abolishes cinders, and has many other advantages. The contrivance is simply a shield of sheet-iron made to fit accurately the space between the lower bar of a grate and the hearth. One caution is necessary. The hearth itself in this arrangement will participate in the greater heat, and therefore there is a danger from fire if it rest on unprotected wooden beams.

The English sparrow, for which many of us feel a sentimental affection, has been convicted, after most mature consideration, of wholesale robbery of our crops. It has been sentenced to death, and the warrant has been countersigned by Miss Ormerod, the entomologist to the Royal

Jan. 31, 1885.]

Agricultural Society. Perhaps, however, our town sparrows may be spared?

As we have recently pointed out, the vast continent of America affords its inhabitants facilities for obtaining data upon which weather predictions can be founded, which are denied us in sea-girt Britain. It has just been announced that, throughout the State of Alabama, daily weather-signals, predicting coming changes, will in future be exhibited at more than one hundred telegraph stations. The necessary information will be telegraphed in the morning of each day from the signal office in Washington. In other States, similar arrangements have been made, and the system is likely to be much extended in the future.

Mr Preece, the well-known electrician to the Post-office, has lately been visiting the United States, and has brought before the Society of Arts a succinct account of the present state of electric lighting there. He says that there are, he believes, ninety thousand are lamps alight there every night. One manufacturer alone was turning out eight hundred thousand carbons per month for use in these lamps. Mr Preece did not see one single instance of street-lighting by glow lamps; and even for indoor lighting he does not think that they are used to the same extent as they are in England. The price charged is the same as would be paid for gas at the rate of seven and sixpence per thousand feet. At present, we must regard electric lighting in this country as a luxury, which must be paid for as such. In the discussion which followed the reading of this paper, the strange statement was volunteered by one of the speakers, that neither Mr Edison nor Mr Brush-who may be said to stand as the sponsors for electric lighting across the Atlantic-used that method of illumination in their own homes.

In the year 1750 a series of water-marks were established all round the coasts of Sweden, in order to determine the disputed point, whether the land was rising or gradually sinking, opinions of scientific men being divided upon the matter. These marks were renewed in 1851, and again more recently. The Swedish Academy of Sciences has lately published the results of this inquiry, from which it seems, that during the period of one hundred and thirty-four years, the northern part of the country is about seven feet higher than its old level, whilst the southern part has remained in its old position.

The Anchor Line steamer Furnessia, which sailed from Glasgow for New York in December last, had on board one hundred thousand Lochleven trout ova for the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Mr Spenser Baird, commissioner, proposes to send the eggs when received to the station in Michigan to be hatched out for introduction into the great lakes. The ova were packed so as to avoid handling as much as possible. They were enumerated by being spread in water over square wooden frames, covered with suitable netting, each mesh of which isolates a single ovum. The frames were then inverted on squares of felted moss, leaving each ovum in its proper position, and perfectly separated from the others. Three layers of moss and es were placed in a tray, and six trays in each box. A large ice receptacle covered a

double column of trays, the ice in which was occasionally replenished on the voyage, to insure an even temperature throughout. Through the kindness of Messrs Henderson Brothers, ample space in the ice-house was placed, free of freight, at the disposal of Sir A. G. Maitland, the proprietor of the Howietoun Fishery, by whom the eggs have been presented.

In an Occasional Note on p. 767 of last volume of this Journal, some account was given of a process for the utilisation of sewage. Shrewsbury was the place named as the headquarters of the works; we are now informed that these are not situated at Shrewsbury, but at Aylesbury.

OIL ON TROUBLED WATERS. THE casting of oil on troubled waters is so ancient a practice that it has become proverbial; for many years, however, it fell into disuse, owing, doubtless, to the expense involved. With the invention of gas-lighting and the discoveries of petroleum, paraffin, &c., oils of all descriptions fell in price; and certain benefactors to the human race have within the last few years been experimenting with oil, to discover to what extent it may be used as a means of saving life at sea. short time since, the Committee of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution ordered their district surveyors to make experiments to test the value of oil in calming troubled waters, with a view, should the experiments be satisfactory, of using oil to quell the terrific seas which lifeboats have to encounter so frequently.

A

By the majority of persons, the great danger of the sea is considered to be the height to which the waves sometimes rise. But waves are not dangerous from their height, unless they break at the top. On the day after a storm, when the wind has fallen, a tremendous swell will often be seen, the waves rising to a considerable height. No danger need be apprehended from waves of this kind, however unpleasant they may be to non-seafaring passengers. But it is when the winds howl and the white sea-horses are seen raising their snowy crests, that the sailor knows danger to be at hand. Should any one of those green walls of water crowned with white crash on to the deck of his ship, the results would be terrible. The popular idea seems to be, that oil cast on the waves causes them to go down, and a calm spot to be formed among the turmoil. This is not the case; it merely, in certain cases, prevents the waves breaking-in other words, it turns a raging sea into a heavy swell. It will hardly need a knowledge of nautical matters to understand that only in certain cases can ships be brought into the water which has been treated with oil. For instance, if a ship is sailing or steaming with the wind on her beam-say at right angles to the course on which she is steered-by no means yet known can the oil be so distributed as to lie on the water through which she is going. But should the vessel be in great danger from the waves which are breaking around her, the following plan could be pursued: she should be hove to that is, steered nearly into the wind's eye, and kept as stationary as possible. She will then, of course, drift slowly to leeward-that is, in the same direction as the wind. One or more properly perforated bags of