Mr Eric S. Bruce, who has been experimenting during the past year for the government with a balloon for signalling purposes, which he has invented, is about to exhibit a balloon of the same kind at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. This aërostat will have a capacity of eighty thousand cubic feet, sufficient to give it the necessary lifting power to carry up several passengers. The balloon will be a captive one, like that exhibited at Paris in 1878, and will, like its huge forerunner, be hauled down to the earth after each ascent, by steam-power. It will ascend for the amusement of visitors during the daytime, telephonic communication being maintained between the car and the earth; while at night it will be illuminated by the electric light, so that Mr Bruce’s method of signalling may be fully demonstrated.
The number of deep wells sunk in London and its neighbourhood during the past thirty years has had the effect of lowering the general water level in the chalk to the amount of about twelve inches annually. But there is still a very large quantity available—so the experts say—without sinking shafts to extraordinary depths. Much interest attaches to the subject at the present time on account of the threatened action of the London corporation to sink wells for themselves, as the strongest protest they can offer against the high charges of the Water Company supplying the city.
The title of one of Turner’s best pictures, ‘The Téméraire towed to her last Moorings,’ comes to the mind as one hears that the Great Eastern, the largest steamship ever built, too large, indeed, to be profitably worked, has steamed round to Liverpool to serve as a show-place during the Maritime Exhibition there. After this last duty is done, this monument of Brunel’s wonderful skill will take up her position as a coal-hulk.
People who rejoice in the possession of wealth and who have plenty of time on their hands, generally develop into ‘collectors.’ Coins, pictures, books, china, orchids, postage-stamps, &c., have their periods as the fashionable things to gather together. The last craze of this kind is devoted to engraved plates. Old copper plates are perhaps the best; and the way to preserve and exhibit them is as follows: the plate is rolled with ink and polished, just as if an impression were required of it. It is then set aside for the ink to dry, when it receives a coating of clear varnish, to protect it from the oxidising action of the air. It is now framed and hung up like an ordinary picture.
The Kyrle Societies have seldom reason to congratulate iron manufacturers on the progress of their art; but it seems as if they might heartily rejoice in a Report recently made at the instance of the North-eastern Steel Company as to the utilisation of an important by-product of the steel manufacture. The Report is on the results of experiments made to test the value of basic cinder as a manure, and is the joint work of Professor Wrightson and Dr Munro, of the College of Agriculture, Downton, Salisbury. Basic cinder, or basic steel slag, is the broken-up and useless lining of the converters used in the Thomas-Gilchrist process for dephosphorising iron, and is a bulky by-product of the manufacture. It contains from sixteen to nineteen per cent. of phosphoric acid combined with lime and other bases; and the Report in question puts it beyond a doubt that the undissolved phosphates of the cinder have an available and remarkable value for manurial purposes. Extensive and elaborate experiments conducted at Downton and elsewhere showed decisively that this heretofore inconvenient substance is an excellent fertiliser for swedes and other turnips, as well as for grass. It seems to be positively better for this purpose than ground coprolites, and only a little less effective than superphosphate. This interesting Report is published at the Daily Exchange Offices, Middlesborough. Similar experiments have been attended with like success in Germany; and from Le Temps it would appear that enterprising agricultural chemists are already in treaty with some of the blast-furnaces of Alsace-Lorraine for the purchase of all the slag produced by them.
The history of the recovery of a portion of the mails from the Cunard steamer Oregon, ought to supply chemists and inventors with a good deal of food for thought. Before the vessel sank, a portion of the mail was recovered, but by far the greater portion went down with her. This was the case with the registered letters, the portion of the mail containing securities, coupons, &c., to the value of at least one hundred thousand pounds, besides drafts, letters of credit, &c., of which the value was unknown. A notice has been issued by the Liverpool postmaster which tells us that the whole of these registered letters have been recovered. The letters were thoroughly soaked, but the post-office authorities dried them as carefully as they could and sent them on to their destination. All the mail-matter that has been recovered was badly damaged by wetting, while the bags which were subjected to long-continued soaking at the bottom of the sea were very much damaged. In one case, a fifty pound note sent from Frome to Chicago was delivered only just recognisable, but still sufficient to insure its being honoured.
These facts have led an American scientific journal to urge the necessity for waterproof mailbags, waterproof paper, and waterproof ink. Waterproof mailbags alone will not be sufficient, as, in the process of handling them or raising them from a sunken vessel, they are liable to be rendered leaky. Waterproof paper, again, would be of no service unless it was accompanied by waterproof ink. The mailbags need only be waterproof in the ordinary acceptation of the term; and if there could be certainty that they would remain so, nothing more would be needed to protect documents or anything else placed in them; but as holes are likely to be worn or torn in them, the only final resource is the production of paper and ink that will resist the prolonged action of sea-water. If such a paper and ink can be produced at a reasonable cost, they would meet with a ready market throughout the civilised world. But the paper must be lighter, more flexible, and more opaque than the waterproof parchment paper now obtainable.
The lesson which the loss of the Oregon seems to teach the commercial world is, that a convenient waterproof paper is required for transatlantic correspondence. Modern chemistry and mechanical invention ought to be able to meet this want.
No class of the community has received so much good advice as that to which the farmer belongs, and it would be a wonder if he did not resent some of it, and say that it is not good advice that is wanted most, but good seasons. However, when a practical lesson comes within one’s reach for the better utilisation of available material, only a foolish person would neglect to learn it. In the model dairy at the Brighton Show, last summer, Professor Long gave an explanatory demonstration of the simple methods of making three kinds of soft cheese, by the employment of tinned-iron hoops, beech-boards, straw-mats, milk-vessels, draining-shelves, and a thermometer. In the Journal of the Bath and West of England Society, he has recently drawn attention to the subject again, and explains his method whereby the farmer may utilise his skim-milk by the profitable manufacture of soft cheese. It seems that anybody can learn the processes; and a few experiments will teach the practice of ripening the cheeses in an apartment having a regulated temperature proper for the development of the necessary white mould, followed by blue mould, producing the most accepted flavour.
From a gallon of ‘whole’ milk, costing sixpence, Professor Long made Brie cheese—the most famous of French varieties—worth, at ten days to three months old, from one shilling to one shilling and sixpence; from half a gallon of milk, half of it skim-milk, valued at twopence-halfpenny, he made Coulommiers, a round cheese worth at least eightpence; and from skim-milk only, costing about one penny, he made a square variety, of his own invention, named Graveley cheese, partaking of the qualities of the Limburg of Germany and the Livarot of France. We understand that nearly six millions of the delicious Brie cheeses are made annually in certain districts of France for the Parisian market. An important point will be gained, however, in this country, if some of our farmers begin to convert their skim-milk into a product which will sell at three or four times the value of the milk.