We some months ago recorded the fact that a prize of five hundred pounds had been offered by Mr Ellis Lever for a new Safety-lamp, which must fulfil certain stringent conditions. The adjudicators—all well-known scientific men—have just reported upon the one hundred and eight lamps which were sent in for competition. Of these, four were electric lamps, no one of which approached fulfilment of the conditions of the award; the rest being oil-lamps. All those which fulfilled the preliminary requirements were experimented upon; and very few indeed remained when the more extreme tests were reached. But none of the lamps really embraced the whole of the conditions enumerated, so the adjudicators felt themselves unable to make the award to any. At the same time, they highly commend two which nearly fulfilled those conditions. One of them is called the Marsaut Lamp; and the other is the contrivance of Mr William Morgan of Pontypridd, which they say presents several good features of marked originality.
The success of the Royal Tapestry Works at Windsor, where so much excellent work is turned out every year, has stimulated others to endeavour to produce a material similar in appearance, without all the costly processes which makes the woven fabric so expensive. In London recently, an Exhibition has been opened of the works of English artists upon a material known as Gobelins tissue. The work is executed with the brush like an ordinary picture on canvas, but with an intention to imitate the work of the loom.
A rare phenomenon in these latitudes, a waterspout, was recently witnessed at Southwold. The wind at the time was changeable, and attention was directed to the strange manner in which certain dark clouds seemed to be driven first in one direction and then in another. At length these clouds united, and their mass formed a clearly defined edge some distance above the horizon. From this edge there suddenly shot down a narrow tongue of cloud, which seemed to strike the sea above five miles from the shore. Swayed from side to side by the wind at first, it gradually grew into an enormous column of water, estimated to be nearly one hundred and fifty yards in diameter, the mass of foam at its base indicating the enormous velocity with which water was being poured from it into the sea. The waterspout remained for twenty minutes, when it disappeared as quickly as it came. It was fortunate that there were at the time no ships in the neighbourhood.
An exhibition of what is called ‘sanitary and insanitary houses’ has been opened at the Health Exhibition. The idea seems to be to arrange two houses, the one as it ought to be, and the other as it ought not to be, and thus to exhibit the two in strong contrast the one to the other, by which an opportunity will be given to visitors, and those who choose to take the trouble to exercise their wits, of gaining instruction upon a point which has never before been brought forward in this manner. The houses are so placed that visitors enter by the ground-floor of the insanitary house, and pass through its various rooms, where all its defects are carefully and plainly set forth; then, on reaching the top-floor, the visitor crosses over to the sanitary house and descends through it.
OCCASIONAL NOTES.
THE FRENCH CROWN JEWELS.
According to a contemporary, we learn that the French crown jewels when valued just after the Revolution of 1789 were estimated at eight hundred and forty thousand pounds, and they consisted of seven thousand four hundred and eighty-two diamonds, five hundred and six pearls, two hundred and thirty rubies, one hundred and fifty emeralds, one hundred and thirty-four sapphires, seventy-one topazes, eight garnets, and three amethysts. They were stolen from the Treasury, in which they had been deposited, and only a very small portion recovered; but the purchases made by Napoleon and the Bourbon kings brought the total of the crown jewels up to nine hundred thousand pounds when they were valued in 1832. When a fresh inventory was taken in 1875, it was found that the crown jewels consisted of seventy-seven thousand four hundred and eighty-six stones, weighing over nineteen thousand carats, and a part of these will shortly be sold. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that at the impending sale all the objects of historical interest will be reserved, for many of the jewels which belonged to the Duchess Anne of Brittany, and became an appanage of the French Crown when she married Charles VIII., are to be disposed of, as also several articles bequeathed by Cardinal Richelieu.
TREATMENT OF DIARRHŒA AND CHOLERA.
The following instructions, issued to local authorities in Scotland by the Board of Supervision, and certified by Dr Littlejohn, Medical Officer of the city of Edinburgh, may be useful in the event of cholera occurring in this country:
Local authorities, where there are either no medical men, or only a few scattered over the country, should provide themselves with a supply of suitable remedies. Among these may be mentioned—(1) elixir of vitriol; (2) the lead and opium pill; (3) the aromatic powder of chalk and opium; (4) ordinary mustard.