The inhabitants of Woolwich and neighbourhood, with praiseworthy energy, have determined to take the question of a bridge or ferry across the Thames into their own hands and decide the matter for themselves, as they were, we presume, pretty well tired out by the endless talk and procrastination of the government authorities, who have spoken for years of a swing-bridge below the Pool, without anything ever coming of it. A steam-ferry is now proposed, by which vans and carts of any weight can be transported without delay or difficulty from one side of the river to the other, at a small cost. Where the traffic will be greatest there will be one tidal, and two travelling platforms, to be constructed on an improved principle; and the stagings will be so arranged as to avoid any inclines for horses and heavy loads. The tidal platform will be managed by machinery as the tide rises and falls so as to bring its deck to a level with the deck of the ferry-boat, and is to be worked automatically by means of electricity. The ferry-boats will be fitted with double engines and twin screws, and lighted with the electric light, and they will run every twenty minutes throughout the day. Return tickets and workmen’s tickets will be granted, and every facility provided for the convenience of passengers. As the banks of the Thames near to both North and South Woolwich are the centres of an enormous industry, it is morally certain that the scheme of steam-ferries, where there is no bridge for many miles, will pay well; and as the capital required to start with is estimated at only fifteen thousand pounds, it will doubtless be soon forthcoming, and the scheme speedily be an established fact. This resolute energy, on the part of private individuals, forms a striking contrast to the time-losing and money-spending schemes of the Metropolitan Board of Works, who proposed to lay out the modest sum of seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds on one single swing-bridge!
UTILISATION OF SEWAGE.
To many large and growing towns, the disposal of the sewage is becoming a serious matter, and while several large towns are just now contemplating the expenditure of very large sums for the purpose of getting rid of it, a Company has been formed, and works have been erected at Shrewsbury with a view to utilising this valuable waste material. The process by which this Company profess to be able, without creating a nuisance, (1) to purify the sewage so that the effluent water is sufficiently pure to be admitted into any river, within the requirements of the Rivers’ Pollutions Prevention Act, and (2) to produce ‘native guano,’ is very simple. As the sewage enters the works, clay, charcoal, and blood are added as deodorisers; and after thorough mixing, a solution of sulphate of alumina is added, by which the dissolved and suspended impurities are quickly precipitated in one or other of the settling tanks, from the fourth of which the water runs without further treatment into the river. Dr Wallace reports that the sewage as it enters the works contains 37.5 per cent. of suspended organic and inorganic matter, but that in the effluent water there were only the merest traces of either. By experiment it has been found that in this water fish will live for months. The deposit is then removed from the tank, and, by means of pressure and artificial heat, is deprived of its moisture, till it obtains the consistency and appearance of dry earth. It is then ready for market, and is in such demand, that as yet the Company are unable to overtake all orders, though seventy shillings per ton is charged.
ELECTRICITY AS A BRAKE.
A new electric brake, recently invented by an American, named Walcker, and which is already in use in America, was lately tried on a tramway between Turin and Piosassio, with remarkable results. It is reported that by means of this brake two cars, running at a speed of about twenty-two miles per hour, were stopped in the short space of six seconds, and within a distance of twenty yards. This, if reliable, is a great achievement certainly, and will doubtless lead to further and more extensive experiment, and possibly to its general adoption. The brake is at present being exhibited in the Turin Exhibition.
MAKING OF MUMMIES.
An extraordinary subject was brought forward at the recent meeting of the Social Science Congress, namely, the actual making of modern mummies. A paper was read on this question by Mr Thomas Bayley, of Birmingham, going fully into the objections raised to cremation, the most important, as far as legal points are concerned, being, that cremation does away with all evidence of foul-play, which must be lost the moment the body is destroyed. In the face of this grave difficulty, the paper proposes a plan by which the dead may be easily preserved for an indefinite time after death, so as to be at any moment recognisable and in a fit state for analysis, examination, or otherwise as may be necessary—the body, in fact, becoming a perfect mummy. This curious position is arrived at by enveloping the body in cotton-wool; it is then placed in an air-tight case, and exposed, in a subterranean gallery lined with cement, to the action of cold air, which is dried and purified from putrefactive bacteria. After this, air at a higher temperature is used in the same way; and the result of the process is the manufacture of a complete mummy, with the integument remaining white, and the body entire. And herein this new process differs from that adopted by the ancient Egyptians, who were specially careful to remove the interior portions of both the trunk and the head, their place being supplied with peppers, spices, and other aromatic herbs. It is a somewhat delicate question to ask whether this curious suggestion will ever become popular with Englishmen, or Europeans in general; but there can be no doubt, in questions where suspicion of murder has arisen and yet cannot be proved, that the preservation of the body of the deceased in such an ingenious manner would be eminently satisfactory to the relatives of the supposed victim, because the body is always at hand, intact and ready for careful examination at any moment, on the discovery of fresh evidence, or otherwise.
TURNING WOOD INTO METAL.
Our readers may not be aware of a process whereby wood can be almost turned into metal; that is to say the surface becomes so hard and smooth that it is susceptible of a high polish, and may be treated with a burnisher of either glass or porcelain. The appearance of the wood is then in every respect that of polished metal, and has the semblance of a metallic mirror, only with this peculiar and important difference, that, unlike metal, it is unaffected by moisture. The process by which this curious fact is arrived at may be briefly described. The wood is steeped in a bath of caustic alkali for two or three days, according to its degree of permeability, at a temperature of between one hundred and sixty-four and one hundred and ninety-seven degrees of Fahrenheit. It is then placed in a second bath of hydrosulphate of calcium, to which a concentrated solution of sulphur is added after twenty-four or thirty-six hours. The third bath is one of acetate of lead at a temperature of from ninety-five to one hundred and twenty-two degrees of Fahrenheit, and in this the wood remains from thirty to fifty hours. After a complete drying, it is then ready for polishing with lead, tin, or zinc, finishing the process with a burnisher, as already mentioned, when the wood, apparently, becomes a piece of shining polished metal. This curious process we are told is the invention of a German named Rubennick.