Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 126, vol. III, May 29, 1886

Truly, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The moral of my painful story is obvious. I intend to bring up the rest of my family, if possible, to occupations involving no knowledge whatever.

THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.

About two years ago, we recorded an interesting discovery which had been made on the coast of Norway, that of a viking war-ship, which had formed the tomb of some forgotten Danish freebooter. We have now to chronicle a somewhat similar find, which has recently been unearthed at Brigg, in Lincolnshire. While the workmen were excavating the ground for a new gas-holder, they came upon a block of oak, which ultimately proved to be an ancient British vessel of extraordinary size. It is cut out of a solid piece of wood, and measures forty-eight feet in length, fifty-two inches in width, and thirty-three inches in depth. The boat is in a wonderfully good state of preservation, owing, no doubt, to the clayey nature of the soil in which it lies, and which has effectually sealed up every cranny against the intrusion of the air. The discovery of this prehistoric relic is of such interest, that it is to be hoped some way of preserving it from the action of the weather will be found before it is too late.

Only a few years ago, an ancient wooden causeway was discovered in the same neighbourhood—a causeway made of squared balks of timber fifteen feet long and ten inches square. The ends of these logs were bored with holes for the reception of pegs, so that the whole structure could be firmly fastened to the earth. This was evidently a necessary precaution; for the causeway crosses the valley of the river Ancholme, and would be subject to removal by the action of the tidal waters. It is believed that an extensive shallow lagoon once existed in the Ancholme valley, and that this was slowly filled up with alluvium. It is to this silting up with a non-porous soil that the preservation of both the boat and the causeway is due.

The _Times of India_ raises a curious point about a certain meteor of unusual brilliancy which was seen in India on a certain night in January last. Curiously enough, a meteor which was described by eye-witnesses in almost the same language which was used by the Indian observers, passed over London on the same evening. It was travelling in an easterly direction, and appeared about two hours and a half before the meteor noted in India. The question raised by this double appearance is: Are these two meteors really one and the same? The distance between the two points of observation is between five and six thousand miles, which would give a rate of movement for the meteor of thirty-five and a half miles per minute. The question is a startling one, which we should think could be easily answered by consulting the logs of various vessels which were near the presumed track of the meteor on the night of its occurrence. Such an unusual appearance could not fail to have been recorded.

The celebrated Christy Ethnographical Collection has now been added to the British Museum, and for the first time it may be said that the country which has the best opportunities of studying prehistoric and semi-barbarous peoples in all the countries of the world, is not behind its neighbours in its collection of objects for promoting that study. Mr Henry Christy, who died in 1865, left his wonderful collection to four trustees, to deal with it as they might think fit in the best interests of science. These trustees offered the collection to the national Museum on the very wise condition, that it was not to become the property of the Museum until it should be publicly exhibited there. This proviso has prevented the collection being packed away into cellars for an indefinite time, a fate which has befallen too many treasures intrusted to the national Museum.

The delegates of the French Chambers of Commerce who accompanied M. de Lesseps during the late survey of the Panama Canal works, have now returned with hopeful tales of the ultimate success of the grand project for uniting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Briefly put, the matter stands thus: let money be supplied, and the work can be brought to a glorious termination. M. de Lesseps affirms that the canal can be opened for traffic as soon as 1889; and he points to the circumstance that all contracts expire in 1888. But contractors are but mortal, and it is believed by experts that the hard Culebra rocks, which present the most formidable obstacle to the prosecution of the work, cannot be cut through in less than five years. These rocks are more than a mile in length, and in some spots they rise to a height of more than one hundred and fifty feet above the canal level.

In a recent article on ‘The National Egg-supply,’ a contemporary gives some interesting particulars regarding the productiveness of different kinds of fowls. The laying power of each hen is said to be on an average one hundred eggs per annum. This seems a small average. Some fowls will lay as many as two hundred and twenty per annum, but the larger proportion yield not more than from sixty-five to one hundred and twenty per annum. Care and proper food have much to do with productiveness, as all keepers of fowls know well. A large portion of our egg-supply comes from Ireland, where the birds are not nearly so well tended as they are in England and Scotland. A score of Irish eggs selected at random from a large crate weighed a little under two pounds. The eggs from good Dorkings will weigh six ounces more than this. The eggs from Spanish fowls weigh two pounds fourteen ounces per score; while those from Leghorns weigh as much as three pounds for the same quantity. The total cost of our annual egg-supply is calculated to be nearly seven millions sterling.

Mr W. K. Brooks, of the John Hopkins University of America, has put forward a new observation regarding oyster spat, which may account for the failure of the fisheries in many parts of this country. He remarks that the young oyster as it settles upon the bottom of the sea is in some localities so covered with sediment that it is killed at a very early stage of existence. He holds that the tender oyster should find a resting-place which must be clean as well as free from destructive pests. He recommends the employment of floating frames furnished with a bottom of galvanised wire-netting for the reception of the fry. Under such conditions, it is found that oysters grow with wonderful rapidity.

Anglers know well that the voracious pike is a fish most tenacious of life, and that hours after he has lain in the fishing-creel apparently dead, he is quite capable of giving a snap with his sharp teeth. But few are aware how long a pike will live out of his proper element. A Paris fishmonger recently received a quantity of fish from Rotterdam which were packed in ice. Among these was a pike over two feet long, which, on unpacking, was seen slightly to move its gills. The fish was placed in fresh water, with the result that in a few hours it was fully alive and very active. This fish, as far as can be learnt, was actually out of the water for three days, during which time it travelled nearly three hundred miles. It is now in the Trocadero Aquarium, and seems to have fully recovered from its curious experience.

The _Sanitary Record_ informs metropolitan householders that their peace is threatened with a new danger. A London resident found that each time the water was turned on to his house, a plentiful supply of coal-gas was delivered gratis at the same time and through the same pipes. The explanation of the matter is as follows: in the particular street where this strange thing happened, the soil round the water main is completely saturated with gas from leaky pipes. When the water is turned off, there is a vacuum formed in the main, and gas is sucked in through imperfect joints, to be delivered to the unfortunate residents directly the water is again turned on. The matter can of course be easily remedied; but the serious lesson taught by the incident is that gas can find its way to water-pipes, and that sewer-gas may as easily do so as coal-gas.

The last application of rock-oil is a petroleum engine, which we saw working lately in London. In general appearance, it is like a gas engine; but it has a tank fixed above the cylinder which contains a supply of petroleum. This liquid is conveyed by a small pipe and pump to the cylinder at the rate of about four drops per stroke of the piston rod. It is ignited by a spirit-lamp after having been mingled with sufficient air to form an explosive mixture. The working cost of the engine is calculated at three-halfpence per horse-power per hour for petroleum, and one-sixth of that sum for lubricating. The engine will be valuable where gas is not to be obtained and where steam is inadmissible.

Mr William Anderson lately delivered an interesting lecture before the Royal Institution ‘On New Applications of the Mechanical Properties of Cork to the Arts.’ He showed that cork was unique among solid substances in being capable of cubical compression both from forces applied in opposite directions and from pressure from all sides. This is shown when cork is immersed in water and is subjected to hydraulic pressure. The phenomenon in question is due to the peculiar cellular structure of the material, which causes it to behave more like a gas when under pressure than like a solid. Mr Anderson proposes to use cork instead of air in the air-vessels of water-raising machinery, and he showed by experiment how well fitted it was for doing this duty. He also proposes to use it in connection with gun-carriages in the following way: the carriage is to be furnished with hydraulic compressors in the customary manner, but the water in the cylinders is to be driven by the recoil of the gun into a vessel filled with cork. This will represent a store of energy which will run the gun out again when loaded, by the aid of a tap which will liberate the water from the compressed cork. The lecture certainly exhibited cork in a new character, and called attention to many ways in which it can be used with advantage.

The nebula in the Pleiades, so strangely discovered by photography, although it was quite invisible to ordinary telescopic scrutiny, has now been detected by more than one observer. It is, however, as may be guessed, an extremely faint object. MM. Perrotin and Thollon, of the observatory at Nice, say that they have seen it, but admit at the same time that this was only because they knew from the Paris photograph that it existed.

The number of valuable substances which can be extracted from coal-tar is marvellous, and would surprise gas manufacturers of a generation ago, who gladly gave away the tar to any one who would take it. The last product of the black and ill-smelling fluid is a substance which has been named Saccharin, on account of its extreme sweetness, and the discovery is due to Professor Fahlberg. Saccharin is said to be two hundred and thirty times sweeter than the best cane-sugar. It has a great interest for the medical profession, for it can be used to render palatable the food of patients suffering from diabetes, and has been already adopted for this service in one of the Berlin hospitals. At present, the new sweetener costs forty shillings per pound. It has been ascertained by experiment that saccharin is innocuous; and we may feel sure that if its price can be reduced, it will become a formidable rival to sugar.

The chief of the United States Geological Survey, Major Powell, has discovered near California what he believes to be the oldest human habitations on the American continent. The mountains in the vicinity are covered with beds of lava, in which have been excavated square rooms, lined with a kind of cement made with lava. Although these rock-dwellers were of prehistoric time, their work shows traces of an advanced civilisation. Several articles of pottery have been found in these cave-dwellings, as well as a kind of cloth made of woven hair. Wrapped in such a cloth, which tumbled into dust when touched, there was found a small image resembling a man. No fewer than sixty groups of these villages in the lava have been found.

Mr Eric S. Bruce, who has been experimenting during the past year for the government with a balloon for signalling purposes, which he has invented, is about to exhibit a balloon of the same kind at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. This aërostat will have a capacity of eighty thousand cubic feet, sufficient to give it the necessary lifting power to carry up several passengers. The balloon will be a captive one, like that exhibited at Paris in 1878, and will, like its huge forerunner, be hauled down to the earth after each ascent, by steam-power. It will ascend for the amusement of visitors during the daytime, telephonic communication being maintained between the car and the earth; while at night it will be illuminated by the electric light, so that Mr Bruce’s method of signalling may be fully demonstrated.

The number of deep wells sunk in London and its neighbourhood during the past thirty years has had the effect of lowering the general water level in the chalk to the amount of about twelve inches annually. But there is still a very large quantity available—so the experts say—without sinking shafts to extraordinary depths. Much interest attaches to the subject at the present time on account of the threatened action of the London corporation to sink wells for themselves, as the strongest protest they can offer against the high charges of the Water Company supplying the city.

The title of one of Turner’s best pictures, ‘The _Téméraire_ towed to her last Moorings,’ comes to the mind as one hears that the _Great Eastern_, the largest steamship ever built, too large, indeed, to be profitably worked, has steamed round to Liverpool to serve as a show-place during the Maritime Exhibition there. After this last duty is done, this monument of Brunel’s wonderful skill will take up her position as a coal-hulk.

People who rejoice in the possession of wealth and who have plenty of time on their hands, generally develop into ‘collectors.’ Coins, pictures, books, china, orchids, postage-stamps, &c., have their periods as the fashionable things to gather together. The last craze of this kind is devoted to engraved plates. Old copper plates are perhaps the best; and the way to preserve and exhibit them is as follows: the plate is rolled with ink and polished, just as if an impression were required of it. It is then set aside for the ink to dry, when it receives a coating of clear varnish, to protect it from the oxidising action of the air. It is now framed and hung up like an ordinary picture.

The Kyrle Societies have seldom reason to congratulate iron manufacturers on the progress of their art; but it seems as if they might heartily rejoice in a Report recently made at the instance of the North-eastern Steel Company as to the utilisation of an important by-product of the steel manufacture. The Report is on the results of experiments made to test the value of basic cinder as a manure, and is the joint work of Professor Wrightson and Dr Munro, of the College of Agriculture, Downton, Salisbury. Basic cinder, or basic steel slag, is the broken-up and useless lining of the converters used in the Thomas-Gilchrist process for dephosphorising iron, and is a bulky by-product of the manufacture. It contains from sixteen to nineteen per cent. of phosphoric acid combined with lime and other bases; and the Report in question puts it beyond a doubt that the undissolved phosphates of the cinder have an available and remarkable value for manurial purposes. Extensive and elaborate experiments conducted at Downton and elsewhere showed decisively that this heretofore inconvenient substance is an excellent fertiliser for swedes and other turnips, as well as for grass. It seems to be positively better for this purpose than ground coprolites, and only a little less effective than superphosphate. This interesting Report is published at the _Daily Exchange_ Offices, Middlesborough. Similar experiments have been attended with like success in Germany; and from _Le Temps_ it would appear that enterprising agricultural chemists are already in treaty with some of the blast-furnaces of Alsace-Lorraine for the purchase of all the slag produced by them.

The history of the recovery of a portion of the mails from the Cunard steamer _Oregon_, ought to supply chemists and inventors with a good deal of food for thought. Before the vessel sank, a portion of the mail was recovered, but by far the greater portion went down with her. This was the case with the registered letters, the portion of the mail containing securities, coupons, &c., to the value of at least one hundred thousand pounds, besides drafts, letters of credit, &c., of which the value was unknown. A notice has been issued by the Liverpool postmaster which tells us that the whole of these registered letters have been recovered. The letters were thoroughly soaked, but the post-office authorities dried them as carefully as they could and sent them on to their destination. All the mail-matter that has been recovered was badly damaged by wetting, while the bags which were subjected to long-continued soaking at the bottom of the sea were very much damaged. In one case, a fifty pound note sent from Frome to Chicago was delivered only just recognisable, but still sufficient to insure its being honoured.

These facts have led an American scientific journal to urge the necessity for waterproof mailbags, waterproof paper, and waterproof ink. Waterproof mailbags alone will not be sufficient, as, in the process of handling them or raising them from a sunken vessel, they are liable to be rendered leaky. Waterproof paper, again, would be of no service unless it was accompanied by waterproof ink. The mailbags need only be waterproof in the ordinary acceptation of the term; and if there could be certainty that they would remain so, nothing more would be needed to protect documents or anything else placed in them; but as holes are likely to be worn or torn in them, the only final resource is the production of paper and ink that will resist the prolonged action of sea-water. If such a paper and ink can be produced at a reasonable cost, they would meet with a ready market throughout the civilised world. But the paper must be lighter, more flexible, and more opaque than the waterproof parchment paper now obtainable.

The lesson which the loss of the _Oregon_ seems to teach the commercial world is, that a convenient waterproof paper is required for transatlantic correspondence. Modern chemistry and mechanical invention ought to be able to meet this want.

No class of the community has received so much good advice as that to which the farmer belongs, and it would be a wonder if he did not resent some of it, and say that it is not good advice that is wanted most, but good seasons. However, when a practical lesson comes within one’s reach for the better utilisation of available material, only a foolish person would neglect to learn it. In the model dairy at the Brighton Show, last summer, Professor Long gave an explanatory demonstration of the simple methods of making three kinds of soft cheese, by the employment of tinned-iron hoops, beech-boards, straw-mats, milk-vessels, draining-shelves, and a thermometer. In the Journal of the Bath and West of England Society, he has recently drawn attention to the subject again, and explains his method whereby the farmer may utilise his skim-milk by the profitable manufacture of soft cheese. It seems that anybody can learn the processes; and a few experiments will teach the practice of ripening the cheeses in an apartment having a regulated temperature proper for the development of the necessary white mould, followed by blue mould, producing the most accepted flavour.