THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
From the Report issued by the Committee appointed to consider the best way of rebuilding the houses at Casamicciola destroyed in the recent earthquake, we learn that that terrible catastrophe occasioned the deaths of no fewer than two thousand three hundred and thirteen persons, and injury to seven hundred and sixty-two more. Although these unfortunates did not all actually belong to the island, there were among them only fifty-four who could be called foreigners. It will probably be found advisable to rebuild the ruined habitations on the pattern adopted in certain places of Central America, where earthquakes are common. The houses there are built of such light materials, that when a shock comes, they rattle down like a veritable house of cards, and can almost be rattled together again as easily when the danger has for the time passed. In London and some other of our cities and towns, the houses are so shamefully run up that a very mild shock of earthquake would suffice to shake them to pieces.
We are apt to look upon these jerry-built houses as the result of competition and the continual cry for cheap houses. On the other hand, we regard our cathedrals as solid monuments to the more honest work of former times. But this notion must be dispelled. The Peterborough Cathedral architect has been examining the foundations and piers of the tower of that fabric, which it will be remembered he some time ago reported to be in a dangerous condition, and they turn out to be as perfect an example of jerry-building as could be found in our own enlightened times. The piers were found to consist of a thin facing of stone, the interior being filled in with small rubble-stone and sandy earth. He tells us that ‘it is impossible to conceive a worse piece of construction, and it is equally impossible to understand how it is that these piers have stood so long.’ The piers have simply been enabled to hold together by the strength of their exterior clothing. It is some small satisfaction to the modern householder that dishonest building has not been invented for his especial torment, but was practised as long ago as the fourteenth century.
Another far more valuable relic of the past is, as we recently indicated, exciting attention on account of its decaying condition. Westminster Abbey, which may justly be regarded as the most important ecclesiastical building in the kingdom, is wasting away piecemeal under the effects of London smoke and atmospheric agencies generally. The sum required for its restoration is estimated at eighty thousand pounds, and this is probably short of the real amount which will be required to do the work effectually. For such a national purpose, the purse of the nation ought undoubtedly to be responsible.
The complete Report of Professor Hull’s labours, as chief of the little band of scientific explorers who have just returned from a geological survey of Palestine, will be looked forward to with unusual interest, for he brings back with him materials for constructing a far more complete map than has ever before been possible. The ancient sea-margins of the Gulfs of Suez and Akabah have been traced at a height of two hundred feet above their present surfaces—indicating that the Mediterranean and Red Seas have been at one time in natural connection with one another. Professor Hull believes that this was the case at the time of the Exodus. The terraces of the Jordan have also been examined, the most important of these ancient margins being six hundred feet above the present level of the Dead Sea. Besides his scientific Report, the learned Professor is preparing a popular account of his pilgrimage, which will duly appear in the Transactions of the Geological Society. His journeyings will cover much of the same ground traversed nearly fifty years ago by David Roberts, whose drawings of the places visited aroused so much interest at the time, and which have never since been surpassed.
Not very many years ago, a map of Africa presented in its centre a blank space, which was explained to inquiring children as indicating a country so hot that nobody had been there or could live there. This benighted region has now an atlas all to itself. Under the auspices of the Geographical Society, Mr Ravenstein has just completed their map of Eastern Equatorial Africa; it is of large size, and contains altogether twenty-five sheets. He will now commence a similar work for Western Africa, and has proceeded to Portugal in order to take advantage of the materials in the possession of that government bearing upon the subject. This work is also undertaken for and at the expense of the Geographical Society.
The official Report of the late census in British Burmah is not without interest to dwellers in Britain. Only two languages had to be used in the process of enumeration—namely, Burmese and English. The people at first thought that the strange proceedings heralded the advent of a new tax, and one tribe fled across the frontier so as to be out of the way. Another idea that occurred to the people was that the English made use of human heads for inquiring into the future. But these difficulties having been smoothed over, the census was taken satisfactorily. British Burmah is, roughly speaking, of the same area as Great Britain and Ireland, with a population less than that of London. This population, under British rule, has doubled in twenty years, and there is every sign of its continued increase. The males are far in excess of the females, and what seems a very important key to the wonderful prosperity of the country is the fact that there are ten acres of cultivated land for every eight persons living in it.
It is reported that Baron Nordenskïold, whose recent explorations in and around Greenland aroused so much interest in scientific circles, is contemplating a voyage next year to the south polar regions. The cost of the projected expedition is nearly two hundred thousand pounds, but this seemingly large sum will include the expense of building a ship of special construction, to meet the requirements of the explorers.
International courtesies are so very few and far between, that when one occurs it is worthy of the most honourable mention. Many years ago, a band of English Arctic explorers abandoned their ship, the Resolute, for it was hopelessly frozen into the ice-pack. The ship, however, at last floated free, and was taken by an American whaler to New York. The gallant Americans thereupon put the vessel into splendid order, and presented her to Queen Victoria. It was but the other day that the old ship was broken up, when a desk was made from her timbers and presented to the American President. The British government have now presented the Alert, which has also seen Arctic service, to the United States government for the use of the Greeley relief expedition. The ship has long ago been strengthened with teak for protection against the ice, and is thus well fitted for the purpose in view.
The recent experiments at Folkestone once more proved the value of throwing oil on troubled waters, the efficacy of which operation in stormy weather we described last month. In addition to the oil-shell there mentioned, another invention falls to be noticed, by which the same gun from which the oil-shell is discharged may be also employed for projecting a heavy solid cylindrical shot, to which is attached a flexible tubing. Upon firing the gun, the shot is carried a long distance out to sea, pulling the tube after it. The shot sinks to the bottom, and the tube thus anchored can be used with a pump for forcing the oil to any spot in the neighbourhood. This contrivance, like that of the oil-shell, is the invention of Mr Gordon.