The annexation of Upper Burmah to the British Empire represents the most important addition to our possessions which has been made for very many years. Lying between India and China, the two most populous countries in the world, Burmah is favourably situated as a highway, along which a vast trade can be conducted. As to the country itself, it presents many valuable features. It has a plentiful rainfall, a healthy climate, and a luxuriant vegetation. The principal crops are rice, oil-seed, cotton, and tobacco. Sixty-one varieties of rice are known to cultivators, and half of these are of the hard kind familiar to us. The remainder have a soft glutinous grain, which is preferred by the natives of Burmah. The revenue and population of the country have both increased enormously during the past ten years.
In Mr Hallett’s interesting paper addressed to the members of the Scottish Geographical Society, entitled ‘A Survey for Railway Connections between India, Siam, and China,’ he showed that there is now no political hindrance to prevent our driving the locomotive up to the gates of China and opening up a vast trade with that prosperous empire. Mr Hallett has personally explored and surveyed Burmah, Siam, and the Shan States, and he points out how a railway can be made to join the Brahmapootra valley with the valley of the Irrawadi, and that such a railway could join the line which already finds a terminus at the seaport of Rangoon. This short line of railway, only one hundred and sixty-two miles in length, pays a good dividend, although it finds a formidable rival in the admirable flotilla of steamers which ply on the Irrawadi River hard by.
At a recent meeting of the Russian Geographical Society, M. Grjimaïlo gave an interesting description of the Pamir region, which we may remind our readers is a high tableland of Asia on the western limit of Little Tibet. His tour through this little-known region covered a period of eighteen months, during which time he was able to make extensive observations of its flora and fauna, as well as of the condition of its inhabitants. During the long winter, the people have to seek the shelter of their tents, and seem in the spring to wake up from a kind of lethargy with the joy and light-heartedness of children. The women do most of the work, which is of a pastoral kind. The country is intersected with enormous glaciers, and is situated at such a great elevation that the natives call it by a name which signifies ‘Roof of the World.’
The Cleopatra’s Needle which adorns Central Park, New York, has suffered much from transatlantic cold, and a mass of scales and chips has been removed from it by atmospheric influences, as thoroughly as if a number of masons had been set to work to achieve the same result. This gradual disintegration of the noble Egyptian obelisk has, however, been stopped by coating the monument with paraffin, which coating has given a slightly darker colour to the stone. Those who have charge of public buildings in Britain which have been built of perishable stone—and there are unfortunately many such—would do well to make a note of this employment of paraffin as a successful preservative.
A new artificial fireproof stone or plaster has recently been invented. Its principal constituent is asbestine, a mineral which is plentiful in certain localities in the State of New York, U.S.A. This asbestine, which is a silicate of magnesium, is mixed with powdered flint and caustic potash, and is then mingled with sufficient water-glass (silicate of soda) to make it into an adhesive plaster. In this condition it is prepared for transport, and is mixed with sand before use. This plaster is not only fireproof, but it adheres with wonderful tenacity to perfectly smooth surfaces. It does not, therefore, require a roughened surface before attachment, such as a wall composed of nailed laths, as is the usual case. A common mode of applying it is to line a room with sheet-iron, protected from rust by a coating of asphaltum, and to spread upon this metal basis a thickness of the new plaster. Besides being unaffected by heat, it will not crack if water is thrown upon it when in a heated state.
Mr Hannay, of Glasgow, has invented a new form of lamp which will prove very useful for various industrial purposes, where the more intense rays of the electric arc are not readily available. The lamp consists of a cylindrical vessel containing about thirty gallons of any heavy hydrocarbon oil, such as creosote. At one side of this vessel is an entry-pipe for air, which must be under pressure of about fifteen pounds on the square inch. The air thus admitted forces the oil up a vertical pipe which springs from the bottom of the vessel, and ends in a burner which extends for some feet outside the oil receptacle. Another pipe surrounds the oil-tube, and through this, part of the air is carried, so that at the point where both tubes terminate, there rushes forth a blast of mingled air and creosote in fine particles. This is turned into a flame of great brightness when a match is applied to it, a flame, too, which is unaffected by wind or rain. The quantity of oil given above will supply a light for about twenty hours, which will be effective at two hundred yards from the lamp. This contrivance has already been used with success at the Forth Bridge works. It is now being introduced for various purposes by Mr James Sinclair, 64 Queen Victoria Street, London.
A plan for rendering paper so tough that it can be used for various purposes for which formerly it was considered there was ‘nothing like leather,’ has recently been published. The process is of continental origin. The paper pulp during manufacture is mixed with chloride of zinc in solution, and the more concentrated this solution is, the tougher is the finished paper. It is said that the new material has been successfully used in boxmaking, combmaking, and has actually taken the place of leather in bootmaking. This last application of the material is perhaps not quite so much of a novelty as it seems to be; for in the cheaper kinds of boots and shoes, the soles, instead of being of solid leather, are often made of a compound of which brown-paper pulp seems to be the chief constituent. The adulteration is not apparent to the wearer until wet weather makes it very evident indeed.
In the building operations of man he uses hair to bind the particles of lime together in forming a plaster wall. In the work of nature, much the same end is achieved by binding loose particles of soil together with the rootlets of various plants. The continually slipping particles of a newly made embankment have to be rendered secure by this means; but such grasses as have hitherto been used for the purpose need several months for their development. M. Cambier, of the French railway service, has recently pointed out that the double poppy is a valuable plant for this purpose. Its germination is rapid, and in a week or two its rootlets are sufficiently strong to give some support to the soil. But at the end of three or four months, the roots attain a length of twelve inches, and form a far stronger network to hold the soil in place than any grass known. The plant is an annual, but it sows itself after the first year.
We are glad to notice that a ‘Plumage League’ is being established for the purpose of discountenancing the inhuman fashion now in vogue of introducing the dead bodies of birds as ornaments on ladies’ bonnets, hats, and dresses. Lady Mount-Temple, in advocating the establishment of this League, the members of which will bind themselves to discourage in every way the use of plumage in dress, writes thus: ‘A milliner told me she had put twelve birds on one (dress). Another told us of a ball-dress covered with canaries.’ We should rejoice to see the Princess of Wales or some other member of the Royal Family setting her veto upon the cruel practice of adorning female dress with the bodies of our feathered songsters.
The Crematorium at Woking Cemetery has just been used for the third time under the auspices of the Cremation Society. In France, the Prefecture of the Seine is about to spend three thousand pounds on the erection of a similar building in the well-known cemetery, Père-la-Chaise. Sanitary reformers will rejoice that cremation is making some progress in both countries, although that progress is slow.