INVENTION AND DISCOVERY.
Detachable Shelving for Windows.—The scent and the sight of flowers are the source of so much enjoyment to most persons, and the means of keeping them in our houses, as a rule, is such a puzzle, that the "detachable shelving for windows" ought to find favor with everybody, young or old.
This shelving is an apparently simple arrangement of three shelves connected by strong braces running from one to another, and attached to the sides of the window in two places by screw-eyes and nuts which are securely fastened in the outer frame of the window. Simple as it appears, it is very ingeniously contrived, and forms a most desirable substitute for the window-ledge itself, which is seldom wide enough for flower-pots to stand on with any degree of safety.
Station-Indicator.—We remember once travelling in the winter in almost the last car of a long train, where we could not see the names of the stations; the conductor shouted out the stopping-places in a way not easy to understand, and we had no time-table and did not know when the train was due. It was the most uncomfortable journey it is possible to imagine. A station-indicator in each car would forever prevent the recurrence of such discomfort and anxiety. Curiously enough, two have been invented within six months; the later one has an endless roll with the names of all the stations on the route, and, by the movement of a simple bar, after passing one station the name of the next one appears in its place.
SIMPLE LESSONS IN THE
STUDY OF NATURE
By I.G. OAKLEY
This is a handy little book, which many a teacher who is looking for means to offer children genuine nature study may be thankful to get hold of.
Nature lessons, to be entitled to that name, must deal with what can be handled and scrutinized at leisure by the child, pulled apart, and even wasted. This can be done with the objects discussed in this book; they are under the feet of childhood—grass, feathers, a fallen leaf, a budding twig, or twisted shell; these things cannot be far out of the way, even within the stony limits of a city.