Journal

whenever there's an eclipse of the moon, it's sure to turn your pickles yellow.' 'Remarkable woman, your grandmother,' responded Dick sententiously. "That she was. It was she who taught me to milk, and I was christened after her-Betsy. Yes, my dear boy'-lowering her voice-'my husband calls me Leonora because it sounds aristocratic; but my maiden name was Betsy Clegg; my father was a dairyman at Peckham Rye, and I used to have six cows to milk every morning of my life.'

'I've a great respect for cows. very.'

Fine institution, At this moment the heat of the argument that was being sustained in Mr Pebworth's party caused Mr Dempsey to elevate his voice somewhat. Mrs Pebworth and Dick turned to listen. He was addressing Dyson. 'I tell you, sir,' he said with emphasis, that my friend so far succeeded in eliminating the natural ferocity of this particular tiger, that the animal's greatest pleasure was to eat macaroons from the extended hand of his master.'

'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Dyson sarcastically. A remarkable story, truly! Now, when I was in the Punjab'

Mr Dempsey was seized with a sudden fit of sneezing, while Mr Pebworth swept his letters and papers together and rose from his seat..

'Dear me, dear me, I had no idea it was so late,' remarked Pebworth, after consulting his watch. 'And I have several letters to send off by the forenoon post.' He moved slowly away. 'Leonora, my love, I want you,' he said to his wife in his most dulcet tones, as he passed her and Dick on his way to the house.

'Now, what can Algernon want me for?' remarked Mrs Pebworth to Dick. "There's something wrong; I know there is, by the way he spoke to me.' She said no more, but followed her husband into the house.

'It strikes me,' muttered Dick to himself as he looked after them, that Mr Algernon Pebworth is one of those by no means uncommon characters-a philanthropist abroad, but a bully at home.'

Mr Dempsey had risen, and was getting his letters and papers together. I can't stand that Punjab story again,' he said below his breath.

Miss Deene had crossed to a rosebush and was selecting a flower. 'Mr Dempsey, I challenge you to a game of croquet,' she called out with a mischievous glance at the old beau.

'Only too charmed, Miss Deene,' he answered with a grimace; 'but there's a sort of clever stupidity about croquet that I have never been quite able to master.

'It is never well to abuse what you don't understand, Mr Dempsey.'

'If Miss Deene will allow me,' said Dyson, rising with alacrity.

'Only too delighted, Captain Dyson.' 'Dyson has quite a genius for croquet,' sneered Dempsey.

'Some people have no genius for anything,' remarked Miss Deene with the most innocent air imaginable.

She and Dyson strolled off together towards the croquet lawn, the last words conveyed to those who were left behind being: When I

'Horrid flirt!' exclaimed Clunie spitefully as her eyes followed her cousin. 'I must rescue the little Captain from her clutches at any cost.'

Mr Dempsey crossed the lawn, and went indoors with a very sour look on his face. Clunie and Dick were left alone.

No sooner did Clunie Pebworth find herself alone with Mr Drummond, than she proceeded to peep at him round a clump of evergreens. He was leaning back in his chair in his favourite attitude, with his hat tilted over his eyes. 'He can't really be asleep,' said Clunie to herself. 'Not three minutes ago he was talking to mamma.' She strolled slowly towards him, humming a little air under her breath, and swinging her straw-hat in one hand with an air of engaging innocence. She was passing close to him, when suddenly she shrieked, started, and nearly fell into his arms. The wasp!' she cried-the horrid wasp!'

Dick opened his eyes, sprang to his feet, swung Clunie into the chair in which he had been sitting, and kissed her as he did so. 'Eh! What? Wasp! Where? Beg pardon. Temptation too much for me. But cousins may kiss. Provided for in the Prayer-book, you know.'

'You are a horrid man,' retorted Clunie with a pout.

I know I am a horrid man; only you needn't remind me of the fact. But where's that marauding wasp?'

"Gone. It went sailing away over the shrubbery.'

'I don't think it wanted to sting_you, Clunie; only to sip the honey of your lips. I don't blame that wasp.' He sat down on a chair beside her. What have you here?' he asked, taking a book from her unresisting fingers.

'A beautiful volume. Piljamb's Affinities of the Soul. But you don't care for poetry.'

'How do you know that? In any case, I'm open to conversion.-Good gracious! what's this?' He had opened the book at random, and he now read out the two following lines:

Each soul is wedded ere it comes to earth;
Somewhere in space its other half is waiting.

'I've often heard that marriages are made in heaven,' remarked Dick; but I never knew till now that we are married before we are born. What a frightful idea!'

'You misapprehend the poet's meaning, Cousin Frank. But perhaps you have never studied the doctrine of Elective Affinities-of spiritual unions anterior to our mortal birth?'

'Can't say that I have. But how easily one might perpetrate bigamy without knowing it.'

Mark how splendidly the poem opens!' exclaimed Clunie with well-feigned enthusiasm. Then she began to declaim:

Soft lapsing languors of the lonely shore,
White Aphrodite rising through the waves,
Sweet solemn strains heard once, and then no more,
A madd'ning crowd that creep through Mem'ry's
moaning caves.

"Vastly pretty,' said Dick, with a humorous twinkle in his eyes. 'Memory's moaning caves is especially fine. But what does it all mean?'

'Good gracious!'

'But music that will some day be addressed to another-music that will never be heard by me.'

'So much the better for you, Clunie; and if I were you I would try to find some sweeter strain elsewhere,' said Dick not unkindly. "There's Captain Dyson, for instance, who was making eyes at you over the breakfast-table. He is young, rich, spooney-why not try to find a sympathetic chord in his bosom? Who knows but that he may have a soul which is pining vainly for its other half, and that you, ma belle cousine, may have that other half which alone can make the fierce Captain happy?' He changed his tone abruptly. Ah, here comes Drummond,' he said drily.

་

"That odious Mr Drummond! He's always to be found where he's not wanted,' cried Clunie petulantly. Then putting on a dignified air, she added: I thank you for your candour, Cousin Frank. Some day, perhaps, you will understand me better.' She turned abruptly into a sidewalk as she said these words.I may as well go in search of the Captain at once,' she murmured

under her breath.

Frobisher came slowly forward. He looked very much better in health than when we last saw him. He was soberly dressed in a black frock-coat and gray trousers.

Pebworth to the proof before many days are

over.'

'To the proof?'

'If he's the rogue I suspect him to be,' said Frank, 'he will succumb to the temptation I shall put before him; and then, woe be to him!' 'But if not?'

'In that case, he will denounce me as a rogue, and advise you to have me kicked out of the house.'

'And then will come the crisis?' 'Exactly.'

'I shan't be sorry,' said Dick whimsically, and drawing a long breath. 'Why?'

'I'm getting tired of the berth. There's too much expected of a fellow. The man who earns two pounds a week can afford to be his own master; but the man with eight thousand pounds a year is everybody's slave.'

You must pay the penalty of the position,' said Frobisher with a smile.

'Bother the position! say I. Give me impecuniosity and independence. Waylands is by far and away too grand a place for me. Before I have been here six months, I shall be pining for my two pair-back in Soho; for my old black meerschaum, my brushes and palette; and for Polly Larcom to fetch me my stout-and-bitter every morning at eleven.'

Dick rose, yawned, and stretched his lanky person. 6 By-the-by,' he went on, ' that letter you handed to me this morning was from Bence Leyland. It had been sent on from our old lodgings.'

And what does the dear old boy say?'

'Nothing of importance. Best wishes to you, of course, but apparently has not heard of your good fortune. Expects to be in town in the course of a few weeks. Was glad to see that notice in The Parthenon of my picture in the Dudley Gallery, and hopes it may be the means of bringing me a customer.'

'Not at all. I'm glad you came when you did. Mademoiselle Clunie has been doing another little "try-on." She either can't or won't see how useless such attempts are.'

'And yet she's sharp enough in most things.' 'She's acting on the old man's orders, I suspect.'

'Probably so. What a hypocrite he is!' 'What about the Patent Ozone Company?' queried Dick.

"As "bogus" as several of the other concerns he is mixed up with.'

'Dempsey and Dyson have both promised to invest.'

'Do them good to burn their fingers for once. Make them more wide-awake for the future.'

'Do you wish me to invest?' asked Dick. You may do so,' replied Frank, 'to the extent of a couple of thousands.'

'But you will lose your money.'

said.

Mr Drummond groaned. "This will be the third deputation within the last ten days.'-Then turning to the servant, he added: "Tell the gentlemen that I will be with them in a few minutes.'

'What have you to be afraid of, man alive?' asked Frank with a laugh. 'Promise them to give the matter your best consideration, and get rid of them in that way.'

Dick merely shook his head, and without another word, marched off towards the house with a gloomy and preoccupied air.

Frobisher sat down on a garden-chair, and drawing a letter from his pocket, he read it carefully through for the second or third time. His face darkened as he read. 'It was a happy thought to put Mr Gimp's confidential clerk Whiffles on the track of my respected uncle,' he muttered to himself as he put away the letter. 'But the reality proves to be even worse than

'Yes-meanwhile?'

Jan. 27, 1883.]

net in which he has already enmeshed so many victims ! O hypocrite! rogue and hypocrite! Not much longer shall the blow be delayed.' (To be concluded next month.)

THE MONTH.

SCIENCE AND ARTS.

A VISIT to the International Electric and Gas Exhibition now taking place at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, is not only very instructive, but is most interesting at a time when the rival claimants to artificial illumination are so industriously asserting their advantages. The first thing that strikes the visitor is that the Gas Section is far more complete and elaborate than that devoted to Electricity. This may be partly accounted for by the circumstance that the electricians have recently had an exhibition all to themselves in the same building. Still the fact remains, that the present Exhibition of gas appliances for both lighting and heating far excels those which owe their power to electricity.

Improved gas-burners are now common enough in our streets and houses, and therefore there is little to record respecting them; but two totally new methods of burning gas which are here brought before the public for the first time, cannot be so lightly passed over. We allude to the incandescent gas-burners bearing the names respectively of Lewis and Clamond. In Lewis's burner, a mixture of gas and air is made to play through a small cylinder of platinum gauze. This is immediately brought to an incandescent state, and gives out a beautiful mellow light, which, though unprotected by any kind of shade, is unaffected by wind or rain. In the Clamond light, the same results are achieved by the employment of a little cylinder which looks like a miniature eel-pot made of plaster; but in reality it is composed of magnesia (not magnesium, let it be understood, but its carbonate, familiar enough to childhood in conjunction with rhubarb). This little cage of magnesia is brought to an intensely white-heat by the action of the gas; and the light given out is a very near approach to the well-known lime-light.

These incandescent gas-burners, from their very beauty and purity-for the combustion is so perfect that no unconsumed products are given off-would at once come into general use, if it were not for the circumstance that they require to be fed not only with gas but with air under pressure. This, of course, necessitates a double supply, which cannot be had without special apparatus. The light they give is as good, or even better than that obtained from the muchvaunted incandescent electric globes; and as it must obviously be cheaper to obtain a supply of air under pressure than to evoke a current of electricity, there is no doubt that they will be widely adopted. They are the first burners of the kind, and may perhaps prove to be the pioneers of a new era of gas-lighting.

MM. Muntz and Aubin have recently made some interesting observations with reference to the presence of ammonia and nitrates in air and water at great altitudes. Their observations have been obtained by a month's sojourn on the summit of the Pic du Midi, nearly ten thousand feet

above the sea-level. The air showed the same proportion of ammonia as that on low ground; but rain-water, fog, and snow showed a much less proportion; while as to nitrates, they were all but absent. This seems due to the fact that nitrates are formed in the air by electrical action during thunderstorms, and such storms are rarely produced in the Pyrenean region at a greater height than seven thousand seven hundred feet. The authors consider that the absence of the fine powders of nitrates contributes towards the remarkable transparence of the air at these altitudes, and conceive that both plants and the soil which they help to form on high mountains must obtain their nitrogenous constituents from the ammonia in the air.

The recent formation of a National Fish Culture Association of Great Britain and Ireland, under the auspices of a body of gentlemen who have had much practical experience in pisciculture, is an event of vast importance to the public at large. Not only river-fish are to be cared for by this Association, but they intend to devote much attention to the circumstances surrounding the lives of those which inhabit the seas. The cultivation of soles and turbots, and the establishment of a close-time for those fish-such as the salmon and other fresh-water fish already enjoy-is to be seriously entertained. And fishermen-whose knowledge respecting the creatures upon which they depend for support is astonishingly smallwill be encouraged to learn something about the food of different classes of fish, their habits, and the enemies which destroy them.

To show how much is possible by means of careful culture, we may refer to what has been done during recent years in Germany. The fishbreeding Societies there number three hundred, which have among them succeeded in doubling the yields of salmon and trout in many of the rivers. In several continental rivers, salmon are now found; but they were only conspicuous by their absence before these useful Societies began their labours. Canada can show success on a far more limited scale, for it at present owns but nine fish-hatching stations. But in the United States, where the system receives state support, the results have been almost fabulous, many rivers having been restocked and extinct sea-fisheries revived. In olden times, apprentices used to stipulate in their indentures that they should not be expected to feed on 'such common food' as salmon more than so many days a week. Perhaps, with the help of the new Association, history will repeat itself.

The Times recently contained a most interesting description of what must be regarded as the most perfect form of big gun-namely, the new onehundred-ton breechloading Armstrong. The most novel point respecting it is the manner in which it is mounted. It has no trunnions, but is fixed firmly by steel straps and rings to a massive sledge-like carriage of steel weighing fourteen tons. This sledge rests and slides upon two steel beams, which are hinged at their front ends, so that carriage, gun, and beams can be elevated or depressed as a whole. This movement is executed by hydraulic presses. Another hydraulic arrangement is employed for the loading, each system having its own levers. The movements are so simple and easy that the huge gun can actually

be worked by the hand of a lady. Twenty years ago, the largest gun afloat was the five-ton naval gun. In order to bring it into action, several men were required. With wooden levers, they managed with great exertion to move its clumsy carriage to right or left, much in the same way that labourers urge heavy blocks of stone along a road. Now, the touch of a handle brings into accurate position a mass of metal twenty times the weight.

A foreign technical journal gives a simple recipe for preserving silver and plated articles from turning black, as they invariably will if not kept constantly in use. The same plan could with advantage be applied, we should think, to any metal subject to change or rust from the action of the atmosphere. Plain collodion-that is, not photographic collodion-is diluted with twice its bulk of spirits of wine, and applied to the surface of the metal with a soft brush. The spirit soon evaporates, leaving an imperceptible and transparent skin, which can when required be removed with hot water.

Dr C. W. Siemens, the indefatigable inventor of things both gaseous and electrical, has recently patented a new explosive, which, although exhibiting double the energy of gunpowder, is far less dangerous to prepare and to handle. It consists of a mixture of nitre, chlorate of potash, and some solid hydrocarbon, such as pitch, asphaltum, gutta-percha, &c. These are intimately mixed together after having been separately pulverised. After this treatment, a liquid-such as benzine, ether, &c.-which will dissolve the solid hydrocarbon is added, and the whole is formed into a plastic mass. After being rolled into sheets or cakes, the volatile liquid evaporates, leaving a hard mass, which can be broken up into grains like ordinary gunpowder. The intensity of explosion can be regulated by the size of these grains and by the proportion of the various constituents. The chief merit of the new compound seems to lie in the safety with which it can be manipulated during manufacture. If it by any means catch fire, the liquid first burns away, after which the solid residue is slowly consumed.

The excitement caused by the recent transit of Venus has hardly subsided before astronomers are called upon to prepare for another event of almost equal interest. On May 6, there will be a total eclipse of the sun of unusual duration, for the orb will be obscured for nearly six minutes. This will give time for observations, photographic and otherwise, which will be fully appreciated, and which will probably add much to our knowledge of that luminary upon which our light and life are dependent. Unfortunately, there are only two little spots-tiny islands in the South Pacific-which the line of totality touches, the rest of that line crossing the boundless ocean. The French astronomers have already taken steps for making observations, and it is said with a view to testing the truth of Leverrier's hypothesis as to the existence of planets nearer to the sun than Mercury.

Nearly thirty years ago there was exhibited at the Palais de l'Industrie, Paris, a bar of white metal bearing a label describing it as 'Silver from clay.' The metal thus extravagantly named was really obtained from clay; but was not silver, but aluminium. This metal has several excellent

properties which would cause it to be much valued in the various arts. It is so light that an ounce of it is three times as bulky as an ounce of silver; it is sonorous, malleable, not liable to tarnish, and is very beautiful in appearance. Unfortunately, the process of extracting it from its original clay is so costly that its price prohibits its use except for certain purposes of luxury or adornment. Many attempts have been made to cheapen its production without success. But at the present time there is a rumour abroad that the problem has at last been solved. It is stated that a ton of the metal can now be produced in a week at a cost of a hundred pounds. If this be true, it will come into common use for a great variety of purposes. Its price has hitherto been from five to seven shillings per ounce.

According to the experience of most poultryowners, winter is a bad season for eggs. The fowls cost more than in summer; for they can get no natural food out of the hard ground, and they must make up their loss by increased consumption of artificial food, for which they make no return whatever. According to an article which appears in the Gardeners' Chronicle, this should not be the case, the fault being with the owners, and not with the stock, when eggs are scarce. Birds hatched in May or June should be looked forward to as winter layers, the grand secret being in the nature of the food with which they are supplied. This is the dietary recommended: the first thing in the morning, give barley-meal mixed to a dough with hot water or ale; at midday, wheat; and for the last feed in the afternoon, Indian corn. This bill of fare is said never to fail in giving abundance of eggs during the coldest season of the year.

During the last few months, several shocks of earthquake have been experienced at Panama and various places near it. This has occasioned some surprise, because, although adjacent cities in Central America are notorious for such visitations, that part of the isthmus upon which Colon and Panama stand-the terminal points of the projected interoceanic canal has hitherto been free. Indeed, this immunity from volcanic disturbance has been one of the chief advantages urged in favour of the Colon and Panama scheme against the various other alternative_routes proposed. In a map issued by M. de Lesseps, this particular portion of the isthmus is coloured, to indicate its happy freedom from such disasters. We fear that the tint must now be altered.

At a recent meeting of the Paris Academy, the subject of the dreaded Phylloxera again came to the front. M. Dumas stated that the Commission formed to combat the ravages of the pest had recommended as a primary measure the destruction by fire of all vines showing traces of infection. This action was resisted, owing to the state of French legislation regarding rural property, and the Commission had to give in. An official Report from Switzerland has since proved the soundness of the plan advocated by the French Commission. In the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, and Lucerne, where the burning process was adopted, and the owners compensated by a small tax on more fortunate vineyards, vines representing a value of forty millions sterling had been saved at the expense of a few thousand pounds. The penny-wise and

Journal

pound-foolish policy can affect nations as it does individuals.

Professor Gulley recently read a paper before the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science at Montreal, containing some very interesting notes regarding the food-value of cotton seed and the oil obtained from it. When properly refined, this oil is largely used for cooking purposes, taking the place of lard. The cotton-seed cake, or meal, is found of great value for fattening cattle; but the seed itself, when boiled and mixed with any kind of hay or straw, is so nutritious that animals increase in weight most rapidly when fed upon it. Under such treatment, cows give rich milk, the oil from the seed appearing to form the cream. Experiments are being continued with regard to manure, fertilisers, &c.

A most important engineering work, which will represent a great addition to the security of our Indian possessions, is approaching completion. A railway sixteen hundred miles in length now stretches from Calcutta to Peshawer, that frontier town of Afghanistan about which we heard so much a few years back. The only break in this long road is at Attock, a large fort on the Indus, about twenty miles south of Peshawer. The river at this point has usually been covered by a bridge of boats, except in the rainy season, when the current is far too turbulent for such a contrivance. Now, however, a noble bridge will soon be complete, having five arches, bearing a railway one hundred and thirty feet above the water-level, and a lower road for ordinary traffic. This great work will represent one of the most important railway systems in India, which country we have already greatly benefited by the laying of about ten thousand miles of rails.

Twenty years ago, in boring for water at Middlesborough, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, the important discovery was made that extensive deposits of salt, analogous to those of Cheshire, were situated near the banks of the river Tees. For various reasons, into which we need not enter, the discovery has not been utilised until quite lately. The manner of winning the brine is somewhat novel. A borehole sixteen inches in diameter and many hundred feet deep was cut to the deposit. In this hole a tube is fitted, while the tube itself contains the necessary pumping arrangements. This tube is always full of water, the fresh water remaining at the top, and the fully saturated brine, by reason of its greater specific gravity, at the bottom. The pump is employed to remove this lower stratum, which is constantly renewed. The salt is then crystallised out in evaporating pans after the usual manner. Messrs Bell Brothers-who

own the first salt-works which have been established on the Tees-are already in a position to produce nearly four hundred tons per week. The importance of the establishment of this industry in a new neighbourhood can hardly be overestimated, and is likely to lead to important additions to our northern chemical works. Those who only see salt on the dinner-table will hardly understand to what far more important uses it is put. It constitutes an indispensable item in paper-making, dyeing, bleaching, glass-making, and a host of other important trades. It has been said that the wealth of a country can be

very well gauged by the amount of sulphuric acid which it annually consumes. The same remark would be true if applied to salt.

The

The official crop Report for 1882 of a portion of Manitoba and the adjoining territories of the Canadian North-west has been issued. It is compiled from information collected principally by the postmasters of the various localities, eighty-four districts being represented, comprising about one-fourth the whole area of settlement at the present time. The average yield is shown to be: Wheat, thirty bushels to the acre; oats, fifty-one and a half; barley, thirty-eight and a half; potatoes, two hundred and seventy-seven and a half; turnips, one thousand; flax, fifteen; rye, twenty; pease, thirty-seven. The acreage under cultivation in the eighty-four districts represented is four hundred and seventy-two thousand seven hundred and seventy acres. average number of cattle to each settler in several districts is estimated at over thirty head. Altogether the Report is a most satisfactory one, and bespeaks a general state of contentment and prosperity amongst the settlers. The Canadian and Pacific Railway Company have now completed their main line, some six hundred and six miles beyond Winnipeg, and one hundred and fourteen miles on their southwestern branch, and next season they will have upwards of one thousand miles of road through this fine country, thus giving the settlers ready communication with the eastern markets. Altogether the Canadian Pacific Railway will have about two thousand miles of railway in operation along their whole line by next autumn.

The report of the Clyde ship-building trade for last year shows that this industry in Scotland has been very busily pushed. The total production of the various yards on the Clyde has been one hundred and ninety-one vessels, of three hundred and eighty-nine thousand tons; an increase of fully fifty-seven thousand tons over that of 1881, and of one hundred and two thousand over the output of 1874, which was an exceptionally busy year. The most noteworthy feature of the year's business has been the great amount of steel tonnage and of sailing-ships turned out. In all, sixty-three steamships, of one hundred and twenty thousand tons, were constructed of steel; while the tonnage of sailing-vessels amounted to thirtytwo thousand tons, about double the amount of the preceding year. Only one little commercial vessel, of one hundred and ninety-eight tons, was built of wood! The value of the vessels launched last year is roughly estimated at nine million pounds, against eight millions in the previous year. It is by far the largest total ever produced on the Clyde.

The returns from nineteen ship-building ports in Scotland and England show that during last year, seven hundred and eighty-two vessels, of one million one hundred and ninety-seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine tons, and valued at nearly eighteen million pounds, were built in them. Roughly calculated, something like one hundred and ninety-seven thousand men must have been employed in the construction of the vessels which make up the tonnage named, and about twenty thousand men will be employed in their navigation. Of these nineteen ports, Glasgow, as above stated, with its one hundred and ninety