Lastly, the important question of a pure water-supply engaged the professor’s attention, and his opinion on this point will be best given in his own words. ‘I venture,’ he says, ‘to think that our hope for a radical improvement in the water-supply of this great metropolis lies rather in the application of a simple, expeditious, cheap, and effective mode of chemical treatment to supplies from sources now in use, previous to their filtration, than in a complete change of our source of supply.’ It now, therefore, remains for future experimenters to devise some means by which water can be freed from those germs which, under various names, are now said to be responsible for the ills of mankind, and at the same time be left uncontaminated by any foreign matter. The problem seems to be a hard one to solve, but not harder than many which have been successfully conquered by modern science.
Whilst our never-ending difficulties in the Soudan and South Africa are giving us costly information regarding those parts of the huge continent, Mr Joseph Thomson comes back from his hazardous journey in Eastern Africa to tell us about a tract of country with regard to which hardly anything before was known. If we refer to a map of Africa, we shall be readily able to note the position of Lake Victoria Nyanza, with which Mr H. M. Stanley’s name is identified. Between this lake and the coast lies the theatre of Mr Thomson’s wanderings. With an inadequate number of followers, the great majority of whom he describes as the very offscourings of Zanzibar villainy, this intrepid explorer prosecuted his work in the face of almost inconceivable perils. His contributions to geographical knowledge are of great importance, and his sole reward is the hearty reception accorded to him the other evening, when he gave a graphic account of his adventures to the Royal Geographical Society.
At the recent Exhibition at Philadelphia, attention was directed in a rather comical but effective manner to the Edison electric lamp. A powerful lamp of this description was fastened to the head of a black man, concealed wires being carried down his body from it and connected with copper discs on the heels of his boots. This coloured gentleman—the term ‘darkie’ is here obviously inadmissible—could become luminous at will by simply placing his heels upon certain copper conductors laid along the floor, which were in circuit with the general system for lighting the building.
A still more startling novelty in electric illumination was organised in New York a few weeks ago, an illustration of which is given in the Scientific American, published in that city. This consisted of an electric torchlight procession, which traversed several of the streets; and its object was, we presume, to advertise the Edison system of electric illumination. The procession may be best described as a hollow square formed by about three hundred men, each wearing a helmet, surmounted by a powerful electric lamp, and each holding the protected rope which carried the current from one to the other. In the centre of the square travelled a steam-engine and dynamo-machine—on trucks drawn by horses—followed by coal and water carts to supply the engine with its necessary food. Both horses and trucks were decorated with lamps, and the leader of the brilliant throng carried a staff tipped with radiance of two hundred candle-power.
Our readers will learn with interest that Mr Clement Wragge, the pioneer of the meteorological station on the summit of Ben Nevis, is initiating a work of similar character in Australia. He has placed self-registering instruments on the top of Mount Lofty in connection with the Observatory at Sydney, and has appealed to the public to help in promoting scientific research by leaving them untouched.
An explosion last July at a gunpowder factory in Lancashire, by which four men lost their lives, was caused by lightning. This disaster once more calls attention to the grave necessity which exists for buildings, and such buildings especially, to be protected by efficient lightning-conductors. From Colonel Ford’s Report upon the matter, which as Inspector of Explosives he has just presented to the Secretary of State, it appears that a conductor was fitted to the doomed building, but that it was a defective one. He states that there is no authentic case on record where a properly constructed lightning-conductor failed to do its duty; and recommends that these safeguards should be periodically examined and tested.
From time to time, we have given in these pages the results of different experiments with the new method of preserving fodder, known as ensilage, and have expressed the hope that our farmers may find in it some compensation for recent bad times. We now learn from the agricultural returns for 1884 how widespread have been the experiments in this direction. These returns state that no fewer than six hundred and ten silos have been built in this country, of which five hundred and fourteen are to be found in England, sixty in Scotland, and thirty-six in Wales. Of the English counties, Norfolk heads the list with fifty-nine silos. In Scotland, Argyll has twelve, and is followed by Lanark and Renfrew, which counties have each half that number. The largest silo noted in the returns is in the county of Argyll. We may gather from these figures that the principle of ensilage as adapted to British farming has now entirely passed the experimental stage. (This important subject is further noticed in one of our Occasional Notes. See [p. 829].)
The novel proposal has lately been made by Mr W. O. Chambers, the Secretary of the National Fish-culture Association, that fishponds should be established on lands which are unavailable for ordinary crops, and that unprofitable agri-culture should give place to profitable aqua-culture. The fish which it is said can be made to accomplish this desirable result is the carp, and the German carp in particular. According to Mr Chambers, this fish attains in three years a weight of four pounds, and its fecundity is so great that it will yield an average of half a million eggs. He states that one acre of water will produce, with little or no expense for food or maintenance, five thousand fish per annum. In a word, we are recommended to do as did the monks of old when monastic buildings were dotted over the land. The remains of fish stews or ponds left to us by the monks can be pointed to in plenty, and the question arises, if fresh-water fish-culture is really so profitable, why were these ponds suffered to fall into disuse? Another consideration arises as to whether, supposing the scheme to be possible, modern taste, not compelled to eat fish on certain days, would find the fresh-water variety palatable?
The British Rainfall Association is one of those unobtrusive societies which is doing quietly a work of great good. Begun some years back by Mr Symons, who set up a rain-gauge in his garden in London, and put himself in communication with a few friends in other parts of the country who did the same, the Association now numbers two thousand observers, spread over the United Kingdom. Mr Symons has lately published a curious diagram showing approximately the amount of rain which has fallen each year in Britain for two centuries. Of course such a record cannot pretend to be infallible, especially in the case of the earlier period which it covers, but it opens out more than one extremely interesting subject for inquiry.
The year 1884, with its genial spring, its splendid summer, and its gorgeous autumn, has been one in which the rainfall has been somewhat below the average; and in some districts there have been positive symptoms of a water-famine. But if we look back to the last century, we find a period of drought between the years 1738 and 1750, which, if it recurred in the present day would, in Mr Symons’s opinion, dry up the water-supply of nearly every town in the kingdom. Another curious observation is this: an unusually wet year seems to occur at intervals of ten years, the years ending with the figure four being the favoured ones. Thus, 1854, ’64, ’74, and so on, were wet years. But at the same time another twelve-year cycle of dry years also occurs—the years 1824, ’36, ’48, and so on, having been particularly limited in their rainfall. In this year of grace 1884, the two cycles terminate together, as they must do every now and then. So we have a year of doubt, and know not until its close which influence has proved the stronger.