benevolent gentleman for the relief of our fourfooted fellow-creatures, and was named after him, 'The Brown Institution.' It stands in the Wandsworth Road, London. From the last annual Report of this hospital we learn that there were treated during the past year two hundred and twenty-two in-patients, and three thousand two hundred and sixty-nine out-patients, principally horses and dogs. With regard to the latter, it appears that towards the end of the year a series of cases of rabies occurred, but the disease was soon stamped out. Dr Burdon Sanderson, the well-known physiologist, was at one time at the head of this institution, and he made a suggestion with regard to the prevention of hydrophobia, which, although of a most valuable character, did not commend itself to the official mind, and was therefore not acted upon. He suggested that upon the back of every dog license issued should be printed a few lines giving the leading symptoms of hydrophobia, so that dog-owners could be warned in time. By this simple means the necessary steps could be taken to isolate or destroy an afflicted animal before it had time to do mischief to others. It is never too late to mend,' and we feel confident that this useful hint will yet be acted upon. A new method of producing maps in relief has been invented and patented by a M. de Mendonca, a Portuguese councillor of state; and the system is receiving the attention of the War Ministries in France, Germany, and Italy. The maps are produced by chemical and mechanical processes; and the hills, vales, watercourses, &c. of a country are shown with such accuracy, that their height, depth, and extent can be readily measured. The maps are printed upon thin paper, which can be rolled up and put in the pocket without injury; nor are they injured even if soaked in water for several hours. Such maps-which can be as cheaply produced, it is said, as ordinary charts-will not only be of immense service to an army in the field, but will prove a boon to our schoolmasters and their pupils. General Colston, a recent traveller in the Soudan, has lately pointed out how it is that Arabs contrive to live in the waterless deserts of that much-talked-of region. They are, to begin with, abstemious in their habits, and know every crevice and hollow in the hills where water will collect. They regard this fluid more perhaps in the light of a luxury than as a necessity, and use it with wonderful economy. They would never think of wasting it on the exterior of their bodies, and consider that once in forty-eight hours is often enough to replenish the inner man. General Colston tells us that when Bedouins came to his camp, water would be offered them, but would often be refused with the remark that the visitor had drunk yesterday. By cultivating this habit of abstemiousness, they are able to cover immense distances which would be impossible for a European, unless he were accompanied by baggage animals. The water difficulty in the case of laying the Suakim-Berber Railway is, however, to be met in a somewhat novel way. Messrs John Russell & Co. of Walsall proposed to the War Office last year that a pipe-line might be laid across the Desert. Subsequently, three miles of an experi mental line of pipes and attached pumps was tested at Aldershot with satisfactory results. A contract has now been entered into for the laying down of fifty miles across the Desert, to follow the first section of the Berber Railway. It would be well if every difficulty in the way of that enterprise could be as easily surmounted. A scheme for connecting Paris and London by a pneumatic tube has been devised, by which mails could be, it is said, conveyed between the two capitals in one hour. The tube would be of cast-iron, the lengths of which would be connected together by india-rubber junctions. The carriage, as designed, is a wire receptacle covered with asbestos cloth, and made in such a manner that the friction and the heat arising from such friction would be minimised. The compressed air to give the carriage its motive-power would be generated by a thirty-horse-power engine. It remains to be seen whether this last phase of Channel tunnelling will get beyond the paper stage. According to Engineering, a United States chemist has discovered a method of preserving wood from decay, which although at present only applied to shingles-split logs used for roofing in lieu of slates or tiles-will have many other applications. By the process the wood is also rendered incombustible. Here is the method of treatment. Two hundred and fifty gallons of water are mingled with twenty pounds of lime and ten pounds of salt. In this mixture the wood is boiled until quite saturated. Shingles so prepared will last for roofing purposes for many years, although unprotected with paint. With regard to the fire-resisting powers of wood so prepared, experiments showed that when soaked in naphtha and set alight, the shingles would not catch fire, although, of course, the liquid burned itself out. A curious point in this method of preparing timber is that it is best applied to green wood, as then the sap cells are open, and will better absorb the solution. For many years the electro-magnet has been used occasionally by surgeons for the extraction of small pieces of steel or iron which have become imbedded in the eye. Such cases of accidental injury are by no means uncommon, as our ophthalmic surgeons well know. Dr Snell of the Sheffield General Infirmary, in the neighbourhood of which steel works are numerous, has had his attention naturally drawn to the frequency of such cases, and has designed a form of magnetic instrument which in his hands has proved of great use. A soft iron core, surrounded by a coil of insulated copper wire-forming an electro-magnet is covered with an ebonite casing. At one end the iron core protrudes; and is furnished with a hole, into which needles of different forms can be screwed when required. At the other end of the instrument the ends of the coil appear in the form of two terminals, to which wires from a portable battery can be readily attached. The needle is presented to the foreign body, and directly the electric current is applied, is turned into a most powerful magnet, which pulls away the offending fragment without any painful or tedious opera tion. Once more the question of using balloons as an aid to warfare has come to practical test, and a number have been sent out to the Eastern Journal Soudan. It is rather remarkable that war-bal-apparatus is small and compact, and represents looning should only recently have been practised, a distinct advance in the direction of primary especially when we remember that the French batteries, even if it brings us no nearer to used a captive balloon for observing the move- universal electric illumination. ments of the enemy so long ago as 1794 at the battle of Fleurus. The great difficulty hitherto had been the necessary gas; but this has been overcome in the present instance by carrying it from England compressed in cylinders. One man in a balloon at the height of a few hundred feet from the ground can do the work of a large contingent on outpost duty. The thick scrub which in the late engagements near Suakim gave such protection to the Arabs, is thick no longer as now viewed from overhead. The cheap telegrams which we are promised in August next are expected so to increase the demand for that mode of correspondence that it has become necessary to erect nine hundred additional miles of wire. To support these lines, many thousand Norwegian pines have been felled, to be replanted as telegraph poles in this country. We learn that larch used to be employed for this purpose, but it is found to be inferior to pine. But any kind of wooden support is perishable, even if treated with some preservative such as creosote. It therefore becomes a question of importance whether wooden poles should not be given up in favour of iron ones. The latter are, humanly speaking, imperishable; but they cost four times as much as wooden ones, and initial cost is a thing that must be taken account of in these days of constantly increasing taxation. A newspaper correspondent in Afghanistan speaks of the Persian bread as being a most peculiar and unsavoury substance. It is made in large flaps, which he suggests would do for morning newspapers as well as bread-should the Persians ever require that kind of intellectual food-if put through a printing-press. In colour, substance, and appearance it is like the blacksmith's leather apron which used to figure as the standard of Persia. In curious contrast to this kind of fare is the bread made from acorns by the American Indians, the manufacture of which was lately described in the San Francisco Chronicle. The acorns are first of all ground to a pulp, and put in vats hollowed out of the soil. Water heated by dropping into it hot stones, is poured upon the pasty mass, and it washes out the bitterness from the acorn pulp. The mass is now taken up and spread upon a rock to dry. For use, it is once more mixed with water and made into thin cakes, which are baked before the fire. The food thus made is sweet and palatable. It may interest many to know that the Edison Central Station for the distribution of electricity for lighting purposes has now been in continuous operation for two years and a half, during which time there has been only one stoppage, lasting two hours. The price charged is at the same rate as gas at two dollars per thousand feetconsiderably more than double the average price charged for gas in Britain-but the Company only earns three per cent. upon the outlay. The recuperative system of gas-lighting which has for some time been on trial in the carriages of the Great Western Railway, has lately been adopted in two rooms of the Langham Hotel, London. The burners are made to consume their own products of combustion, and in the process they are supplied with the necessary volume of air at a high temperature. The principle is the same as that of the Siemens' regenerative gasburner, but without its cumbrous apparatus. Each burner is furnished with a glass dome, inside which the flame is projected horizontally. No shadow is cast by the burner itself, as in ordinary gas-lamps, and the light is so white that colours can be readily distinguished by it. To these advantages may be added that of economy. If it be possible to make warfare more hideous than it ever has been, the United States Dynamite Projectile Company will help towards that end. An account has lately been published of some practice with six-inch shells charged each with eleven pounds of nitro-gelatine. (This explosive contains ninety-five per cent. of nitro-glycerine.) The target was a perpendicular ledge of trap rock at a distance of one thousand yards from the gun. Tons of rock were torn away at the impact of each shell, the fragments being hurled a distance of half a mile. It is not difficult to imagine the effect of such a projectile falling amid a mass of human beings. There is at least one aspect of this desire for wholesale carnage which we may look upon with comfort-it points to a time when warfare will become too awful to be countenanced by civilised beings, and when all quarrels will be perforce adjusted by international arbitration. It has always been a common idea that those of our fellow-creatures who are afflicted with blindness are endowed with abnormal power in the exercise of some other sense-hearing, for instance. This, according to Professor Graham The last novelty in electrical science is the Bell, is a mistake. He has found that the blind Skrivanow primary battery, which, although of are far more liable to deafness than those who small size, will feed an electric lamp of some have the use of all their senses; and that the power. It has been tried on the Thames by the deaf are more liable to blindness than the more police authorities for a search-light; and more fortunate majority of their fellow-beings. Prolately a domestic glow-lamp has been exhibited fessor Bell has devoted nearly the whole of his which owes its radiance to the same source. life to the study of the afflicted ones called deafEach cell of the battery consists of two zinc mutes-we, of course, do not here ignore his plates and a packet of chloride of silver, the wonderful discovery of the magnetic telephone exciting solution being caustic potash. The ini--and he certainly can be relied upon in the tial cost of the silver is of course somewhat facts which he gives. heavy, but it does not waste. It is gradually Those who have the grievous misfortune to transformed into metallic silver, which, once more be the parents or guardians of little ones who reduced by a simple process to chloride, can be are deficient in intelligence, would do well to used again and again in the battery. The note a caution which Professor Bell has given in this direction. He asserts that children who are simply deaf are often sent to idiot schools. On the other hand, idiots who can hear perfectly are occasionally sent to schools for the deaf. In both cases, the difficulty of distinguishing the nature of the affliction arises from the want of articulate speech, and this want of speech may be due to lack of hearing or lack of intelligence. It is clear that a child should be examined by an expert, should he unfortunately be afflicted in either way. Herr Falb of Vienna has started the theory that fire-damp in mines is of volcanic origin, and that explosions are to be looked for during any time that earthquakes may be prevalent. He further gives certain dates on which miners must exercise particular care, for on those dates earthquakes may be expected. The process by which these astonishing predictions is arrived at is not given, so we have no means of passing an opinion upon them. At a meeting of the Society of Arts, Mr R. C. Reid, C.E., read a paper on the Utilisation of the Mississippi at Minneapolis for flour-milling, and on the Water-power of Niagara Falls. Mr Reid said the Mississippi river at St Anthony's Falls had a catchment basin of twenty thousand square miles, or ten times the area drained by the Tay at Perth. The rainfall was thirty inches, and one-third of that found its way to the rivers. The fall of St Anthony's was fifty feet high, and the rain could develop twenty-five thousand horse-power, except during the winter months, when auxiliary steam-power was needed. For flour-milling alone fourteen thousand horse-power was utilised, and the output for the Minneapolis mills was twenty-eight thousand barrels per day, which would take the yearly produce of two and a half million acres of wheat if working constantly. The United States government were erecting large reservoirs in the upper waters which would have the effect of doubling the flow. The proximity of this water-power to the great wheat-growing districts had had the effect of raising in Minneapolis a population of one hundred thousand. The Niagara river was regulated by the equalising power of the lakes, in the same manner as the Blue Nile was regu lated by the great lakes in Central Africa, and the result was that the discharge over Niagara Falls varied little all the year round. It could be computed from the rainfall returns that not less than three hundred thousand cubic feet per second passed over the Falls. That was thirty times the quantity discharged by the Rhone at Geneva, the only large river that could compare with it in the purity and colour of its water. From Lake Erie to Lake Ontario there was a fall of three hundred and thirty feet, and about three hundred feet of that could be taken advantage of for the production of mechanical power. Taking a mean fall of two hundred and seventy-six feet from the head of the rapids to the level of Lake Ontario, the mechanical power that could be developed by Niagara was six million nine hundred thousand horse-power, which was equal to the power that would be obtained by the best class of engines from the consumption of fifty million tons of coal, or one-half the whole output of the United States. That power was now lost for practical purposes, and its only effect would be to raise the temperature of the water in Lake Ontario one-third of a degree Fahrenheit. Electricians could now transmit and reproduce fifty per cent. of mechanical effort, and the day was not far distant when this great source of energy would be turned to some useful purpose. That could be done to a great extent without appreciably affecting the appearance of the Falls. During the last few years, the demand for early impressions of prints engraved by Bartolozzi and his school has been steadily increasing, not only among collectors, but others who are anxious to acquire those fine engravings for interior decoration, and to match the present taste in antique house-furnishing. Engravings of this class, espe cially if in fine condition, have lately increased very considerably in value; and to meet, therefore, the increasing want, and at the same time take the place of the numerous reprints from worn-out plates that have lately flooded the market, Messrs Field & Tuer of Leadenhall Street, E.C., have published a selection of engrav ings from original copper plates belonging to a well-known collector. These plates, gradually acquired during the last twenty years, have been little or never before printed from, and the engravings are in many cases from the earliest state of the plate. Among those submitted to us, we especially admire 'Summer' and Winter,' printed in the well-known red and brown; 'Love Wounded' and 'Love Healed,' in red ink, and never before published; also the large plate, 'Alexander III. of Scotland rescued from the Fury of a Stag, by the intrepidity of Colin Fitzgerald,' engraved from the painting by Benjamin West, and only six impressions of which had previously been taken. THE VIOLET BAN K. ONCE more, dear friend, the violet bank we seek, And laughing Spring fills every heart with praise. The Conductor of CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL begs to direct the attention of CONTRIBUTORS to the following notice: 1st. All communications should be addressed to the 2d. For its return in case of ineligibility, postage-stamps 'Editor, 339 High Street, Edinburgh.' should accompany every manuscript. 3d. To secure their safe return if ineligible, ALL MANUSCRIPTS, whether accompanied by a letter of advice or otherwise, should have the writer's Name and Address written upon them IN FULL. 4th. Offerings of Verse should invariably be accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. do his best to insure the safe return of ineligible papers. If the above rules are complied with, the Editor will Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. All Rights Reserved. POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART Fifth Series ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832 No. 70.-VOL. II. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1885. CENTENARIANS. PRICE 1d. The nearest approach to Cran's case is that published in what was then called the Russian Petersburg Gazette, in the early part of 1812, where and when it was stated, but merely stated, that a man had died in the diocese or province of Ekaterinoslav, between two hundred and two hundred and five years of age! In spite of all that is said of the wasteful effect 4 From the very long list of reputed centenarians we extract a number of the more interesting and notable, none of whom, however-if the recorded data are to be relied on-are younger than sixscore years and ten; the number of cases of those whose ages range from one hundred and thirty down being very numerous. First of all, there is the well-known case of Thomas Parr, or 'Old' Parr as he is sometimes called. And yet he is a mere child compared with Thomas Cran, or some of the others on the list, where he only stands fourteenth in order of age, although he actually lived to be one hundred and fifty-two. The death of Old Parr occurred in 1635, the same year, it is curious to note, in which another 'Parr' was born and destined, like his better-known namesake, to be celebrated as a centenarian. This latter person-probably a relative of Old Parr whose grandson, John Michaelstone, lived till he was one hundred and twenty-seven-attained the age of one hundred and twenty-four, thus falling short of Thomas Parr by twenty-eight years. Standing only fourteenth on the list in point of age, Old Parr is the junior of the thirteen persons who are before him by periods varying from seven to fifty-five years, this latter number being the difference in age between himself and Thomas Cran. Both of these men were contemporaries for the space of one hundred and five In point of age, therefore, after Cran, it may be interesting to give the names and ages of those individuals who lived for a shorter period than he, and yet for a longer period than Old Parr.' Excluding the two-hundred-year old Russian, we have on record the following worthy descendants of Methuselah: Peter Tortin, died at Temeswar, Hungary, in 1724, aged one hundred and eighty-five; a mulatto man, at Frederick town, Virginia, in 1798, one hundred and eighty; called M'Culloch, died at Aberdeen about the Golour M'Grain, at isle of Jura, in 1805, one same date, only fourteen years younger than hundred and eighty; Louisa Truxo, a negress, Colonel Winslow; while the same age, one hunat Tucuman, South America, 1780, one hundred dred and thirty-two, was attained by a sailor. and seventy-five; John Room, at Temeswar, In the list there are three soldiers and three Hungary, in 1741, one hundred and seventy-two; sailors whose ages average one hundred and Henry Jenkins, at Ellerton-on-Swale, Yorkshire, twenty-seven years. in 1670, one hundred and sixty-nine; William Edwards, at Cochen, near Cardiff, in 1668, one hundred and sixty-eight; a woman living at Moscow, in 1848, one hundred and sixty-eight; Jonas Warren, at Ballydoyle, Ireland, in 1787, one hundred and sixty-seven; Sarah Brookman, at Glastonbury, in 1793, one hundred and sixty-second year; C. J. Drakenberg, a Norwegian, six; Judith Scott, at Islington, in 1800, one hundred and sixty-two; Jonas Surington, at Bergen, Norway, in 1797, one hundred and fifty-nine; James Bowles, at Killingworth, Warwickshire, in 1656, one hundred and fifty-nine. Afterwards there follows a long list of persons of various nationalities, whose ages range from one hundred and fifty-nine down to one hundred and thirty. In all, there are two hundred and ten; and of these, thirty-one are given as having been one hundred and thirty years old. The list may be divided into males and females; and of the former there are one hundred and forty-two as against sixty-eight of the latter, a curious statement to make to-day, when the proportion of females in this and in many other countries largely exceeds that of the males. Of the one hundred and forty-two old men, it is perhaps initially interesting to notice that seven of them were either physicians or surgeons, whose days, we may assume, were spent in helping to prolong the lives of their fellows, although they may have withheld from them that 'elixir' which so long sustained their own lives. Six of these disciples of Esculapius were natives of Scotland, while the seventh was an Englishman, a Dr Wm. Mead, aged one hundred and forty-eight. In all probability, this was the oldest doctor that ever lived. A Dr Moffat, or Movett, of Dumfries, approaches the nearest to him, at one hundred and thirtynine years. Then we have a baronet, Sir Fleetwood Shepherd, who died in Essex in 1765, aged one hundred and thirty-one; so that, in this connection, it may not be amiss to remark that the venerable Sir Moses Montefiore, whose centenary was celebrated the other day, is not the only person of high social rank who has stepped across that line or limit of old age which is, comparatively speaking, touched by the tottering feet of so few mortals. Next in point of general interest we have the names of twelve farmers or agriculturists, whose given ages average, for each individual, one hundred and thirtythree years. Then the army and navy are represented not unworthily, albeit not so numerously as the foregoing class, demonstrating that a man may risk his life for the honour of his country and yet escape the imminent deathpenalty which so many of his brave comrades pay. A certain Colonel Winslow died at Tipperary in 1766, at the age of one hundred and forty-six; but there is no other record of his career than that he was endowed with great physical prowess and endurance. Such a veteran at the present day would cost the government no trifling sum! Another soldier, a Scotsman, We may next mention a number of miscellaneous worthies who are credited with having cheated Death of his due for so long. Mare Albuna, an Ethiopian, lived a century and a half; a coloured man died in 1850 at Spanish Town, Jamaica, in his one hundred and fortylived for a hundred and forty-one years, as also did William Evans, a Welshman; William Gulstone, an Irishman, died at the age of one hundred and forty; William Shapley, another Irishman, at one hundred and thirty-eight; William Beale, also a native of Ireland, at one hundred and thirty-six ; and thirteen more of the sons of St Patrick from that age down. It is remarkable that in the list of two hundred and ten persons who attained the age, and beyond it, of one hundred and twenty, thirty-one were Irish, and mostly belonged to the poor or peasant class. To come now to the females, of whom sixtyeight are included in our list. Perhaps the most interesting names are those of two Irish ladies who belonged to the aristocracy. The Countess Desmond was said to be one hundred and forty-eight when she died; while her co-aristocrat, the Countess of Eccleston, is credited with having lived one hundred and forty-three years. Not so old as the former lady was a humbler native of Ireland, Biddy or Bridget Devine, who died at Manchester in 1845, aged one hundred and forty-seven, where, probably a hundred years before, she had toiled as a washerwoman. But perhaps the most pathetic case of feminine longevity in this list, if not on record anywhere, is that of a poor woman, a Mrs Grey, of Northfleet, Kent, who was born deaf and dumb and died without ever, during one hundred and thirty-one years, being able to hear or to speak a word. Nor were uninteresting cases those of 'Martha,' wife of a Mohican chief, who died in 1806, aged one hundred and thirty; of a certain Rebecca Fury, a black woman of Falmouth, Jamaica, aged one hundred and forty; and of Sarah Anderson, a free black, who survived for forty years after receiving her freedom on her hundredth birthday. But the oldest woman on record was also a negress, Louisa Truxo, a native of Tucuman, South America, where she died in 1780, at the reputed age of one hundred and seventy-five. Our list is by no means exhausted; but the examples we have given are perhaps sufficient to interest the reader. It is not to be supposed that the race of centenarians has become anything like an extinct genus homo. We frequently read of genuine cases occurring, most of them being poor persons, or persons living in the humblest walks of life. And with increased sanitary blessings, there is no reason why those cases should not multiply. By the ordinary laws of life, no man can be certain he shall continue in existence a single year, much less any definite number of years; with an average constitution, he may fairly expect his days to be long in the land, if he keep the divine commandments brought down and proclaimed by science; for the complete cycle of but |
