In a recent lecture on Cholera and its Prevention, Professor de Chamont called attention to the very common and erroneous idea that tobacco-smoke, camphor, and other strongly smelling compounds act as disinfectants. He pointed out that although chlorine, sulphurous acid gas, and carbolic acid may under certain conditions be safely regarded as true disinfectants, the best and most efficient known is fire. He also, in speaking of sulphurous acid gas, generated by burning sulphur, showed that a ready way of facilitating combustion was first of all to pour upon the brimstone a little alcohol.
Mr Graham, who recently gave an account of his mountaineering experiences in the Himalaya, seems to have negatived some of our preconceived notions regarding the difficulty of breathing at high altitudes. At an elevation of more than four miles above the sea-level, Mr Graham and his companions felt no inconvenience in breathing except what might be expected from the muscular exertion they had gone through. Loss of sight, nausea, bleeding at the nose or ears, and other unpleasant symptoms often described by travellers, were entirely absent. But the heart was sensibly affected, its rapid pace being easily perceptible, and its beatings quite audible. It may be remembered that Mr Glaisher and Mr Coxwell, in the course of an experimental balloon ascent some years ago, nearly lost their lives by the effect upon their breathing organs of the highly attenuated atmosphere to which they had risen. But the altitude then reached was about double that attained by Mr Graham in the Himalaya.
A scheme has been proposed for the construction of an Indo-European railway, the chief novelty of which is the adoption of a route along the south shore of the Mediterranean. The line would utilise the railroads of France and Spain. Then there would be steam-transit from Gibraltar Bay to Ceuta in Morocco. Here would be the terminus proper of the international railway, which would be in connection with the lines already laid in Algeria and Tunis. The route would be continued through Tripoli to join the Egyptian lines, and eventually along the coast of the Persian Gulf to Kurrachee in India. Here, of course, contact would be made with the great Indian railway system. Preliminary surveys have been already made, and the nominal capital of the undertaking is fixed at ten millions sterling.
At the late meeting of the British Association in Canada, a very curious contribution to our knowledge of carnivorous plants was made by Professor Moseley, as a result of certain experiments he has made with the water-weed Utricularia vulgaris. This plant is furnished with small pear-shaped bladders, which at certain seasons are charged with air, and cause the weed to rise to the surface of the water. This movement has hitherto been supposed to be connected with the phenomenon of fertilisation. But Professor Moseley points out that each bladder has an opening closed by an elastic door, which will easily yield to the pressure of a small fish; and that any unfortunate intruder is either caught bodily, or can be securely held a prisoner by head or tail until dead. That there is here anything analogous to digestion as seen in other carnivorous plants, such as the Dionæa, &c., does not appear; but it is thought probable that the decomposing animal matter may contribute eventually to the life of the weed.
An invention of considerable importance in connection with the probability of saving life at sea has made its appearance during the month. This consists of an adaptation of the use of oil at sea to the ordinary life-buoy. Round the inside of the buoy is a brass reservoir filled with oil. This is so arranged that when the buoy is hung upon the vessel’s side no oil can escape; while the moment it assumes a horizontal position, as, for instance, when it is thrown into the sea, the oil flows freely, and the water all around the buoy is rapidly covered with a thin film. This soon widens into a large circle, within which, of course, the waves are unbroken, which enables persons to be the more easily secured by the ship’s boats. Since it is a well-known fact that in rough weather, when the cry ‘Man overboard!’ is oftenest heard, life-buoys are frequently useless, as even the strongest men are commonly washed off them, this practical adaptation of the use of oil at sea will probably prove of signal importance. It could, we imagine, also be readily applied to many of those improvised sea-rafts and similar appliances, and render them of great value in rough weather. It was the fault of many of those ingenious contrivances of this kind which were to be seen at the Fisheries Exhibition last year, that no one could possibly live on them in broken water, and this objection the use of oil in this way would certainly obviate. It should be noticed, however, that the chief value of the invention consists in the arrangement for the oil to flow automatically.
In addition to the electrically lighted colliery in South Wales, noticed in last ‘Month,’ we hear of another in Lanarkshire belonging to Mr John Watson, Earnock, near Hamilton. There may possibly be other workings thus illuminated throughout this country; and there is no doubt that ere long the brilliant and comparatively safe electric light will be generally adopted underground.
In Prussia also, as we learn from a contemporary, the electric light at the Mechernich Mines has now had a fair trial for more than three years, and has proved a complete success. The expectation that it would both facilitate the operations and increase their security, has fully been realised, and an extension of the plant is now being carried out. An open working two thousand feet long, one thousand feet wide, and over three hundred feet deep, in which three hundred men and twenty horses are continually occupied, was first to be supplied with the electric light, and it was a question whether arc lamps would answer for this purpose in the smoky atmosphere caused by blasting operations. For the first experiments, arc lamps of three thousand and one thousand candles were used, with the positive carbon in the lower holder. The effect was brilliant, yet the light did not penetrate the white smoke cloud which collects at the upper wall immediately after the shot. But as the smoke settles within ten minutes, it was thought advisable to acquiesce in this interruption of a few minutes, and to use smaller lamps of three hundred and fifty candles, which proved quite efficient. Of these, there are ten in use, with about ten thousand feet of lead cable, the cable being partially elastic, as the lamps with their wires have to be removed when the blasting is to take place. The lamps were originally supplied with hexagonal lanterns with obscured glass to protect the eyes of the miners. The glasses were, of course, soon broken, but no complaints are said to have been made about the naked electric lights.
The speech-recorder would appear to be an instrument of no small importance, if it is able to do in a practical manner that which the title of a patent recently applied for by Mr W. E. Irish would lead us to suppose. The title of the patent is as follows: ‘A system or method and means of receiving and recording articulated speech and other sounds transmitted telegraphically, telephonically, or otherwise, by the aid of electricity.’ The transmitting, as by telephone, and recording of speech in characters which may be easily read, would be of incalculable value. If this instrument fulfils what is claimed for it, the anticipations once hoped for in the phonograph will be realised, and in the future we may expect to see business-men talking their correspondence into a box in which mechanism, by the aid of electricity, records the same on paper, which may be forwarded as a letter. Moreover, literary men will be saved the drudgery of the pen, and have their thoughts recorded as rapidly as they can convey them to the instrument. The system of natural phonetic signs, which we should expect this instrument to describe, may also be the means of influencing spelling and of simplifying the phonographic difficulties of the language. Applications innumerable suggest themselves to us to which such an apparatus may be applied; the verifying and duplicating of orders received and sent telephonically, would form no small item in the advantages to be derived from such a system.
According to the Journal de Rouen, quoting from the Polytechnische Zeitung, the recent invention of M. Verk, by which is produced the effect of any metal on felt, is likely to become extremely useful when applied to theatrical stage properties, as, besides being inexpensive, the articles so treated are not materially increased in weight. The things intended to assume a metallic appearance are first of all covered with a layer of felt, which is coated over with a resinous substance mixed with plumbago or blacklead. This is left to dry, and is then passed over with a hot iron. The article is next rubbed with pumice-stone, which produces the effect of burnished steel. If copper, bronze, or silver is wished to be imitated, the felt—which is rendered a conductor by its coating—is covered readily by immersion in a galvano-plastic bath.