Chapter VI: MISCELLANEOUS.--The New German Patent Law: being the Full (1)

Text of the New Law for Patents, passed July 1, 1877, covering all
the States of the German Empire.

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CARRYING PEACE INTO AFRICA.

To carry war into Africa has been a proverb ever since Rome vowed the destruction of Carthage. But the Carthagenian invasion was a modern episode in Africa's experiences of that nature. On one of the earlier monuments of Egypt there is figured a slave-hunter's raid upon an Ethiopian village, the horrid details of which are said by travelers to be an accurate picture of a slave raid of to-day. The same murderous work has been going on incessantly for at least 4,000 years: how much longer there is no telling. For all these ages the African borders have known war and war only, and of the most destructive and barbarizing nature.

Recently, under the influence of Sir Samuel Baker, Colonel Gordon, and the civilized world in general, the Khedive of Egypt has carried war into the interior in the interests of peace: a conquest in a measure justified by the suppression of inter-tribal war for the filling of slave pens, and the abolition of the slave trade down the Nile. A similar reform has been effected on the east coast by the pressure of English power on the Sultan of Zanzibar. And the immediate effect of these two movements has been to prevent the butchery or enslavement of not less than half a million negroes annually.

A still more promising invasion of Africa has just been decided upon in the International Geographical Conference in Brussels: an invasion wholly in the interests of peace and civilization. At the meeting, a year ago, it was declared advisable to establish, by international effort, a line of permanent commercial stations from Bagomoyo, on the coast of Zanzibar, to St. Paul de Loanda, on the opposite Atlantic coast; the first stations to be at Ujiji, where Stanley found Livingstone, on the eastern shore of lake Tanganyika; at Nyangwe, Livingstone's furthest point northward on the Lualaba; and at some point further west on the route of Cameron, to be fixed in the dominions of Muata Yamvo, one of the most powerful chiefs of Central Africa. At the second conference, which ended June 24, arrangements were made for sending out the first expedition toward Tanganyika.

The object of the proposed stations is the development of civilization by commerce, not by religious propaganda. Primarily they will serve as bases of operation for explorers of the interior, a sort of _entrepots_, where the explorer may supply himself with provisions, instruments, and goods, and thus save the cost and embarrassment of an army of porters from the coast. They will also serve as places of refuge for explorers in times of sickness and other reverses, which have hitherto so terribly hampered explorers. The heads of these pioneer establishments are to be men of scientific training and proved executive ability; and each will be aided by a physician-naturalist and a few skilled artisans. The points thus far chosen are on a line regularly traveled by the caravans of Arab traders, carrying coffee, tea, sugar, arms, and woven goods to permanent Arab residences and trading stations in the interior. An agent of the London Missionary Society has already begun the survey of a route for ox teams as far as lake Tanganyika; and Cameron has expressed the opinion that a light narrow-gauge railway could be constructed from the coast to the lake at a cost not exceeding four thousand dollars a mile. The traffic along such a road, he thinks, would soon pay interest on the outlay.

The unexplored region thus to be opened up to civilization and commerce (other than in human beings) is larger than the United States east of the Mississippi. Around it is a still larger region of partially explored country of unequalled fertility, abounding in great lakes and navigable rivers, and for the most part so high above the sea that the products of the tropics mingle with those of the temperate zone. The cereals, durah, maize, rice, sugar cane, starch-yielding roots and tubers, cotton, coffee, tobacco, spices, gums and caoutchouc, dye-stuffs and medicinal plants, the banana, fig, date, orange, and the vine are among the known products of this region; and all are capable of becoming important staples of foreign commerce. The country is not less rich in coal, iron, copper, gold, and other valuable minerals. The climate, though moist from abundant rain, is less debilitating than India or Brazil; and everywhere, away from the miasmatic coast regions and the marshes of the lower river courses, European explorers have found small cause for complaining of excessive heat or unhealthiness. On the elevated plateaus which cover so large a part of Central Africa, the climate is like that of the sanitariums of India; while among the mountains the finest climates of the world are fairly rivalled. Stanley found in the mountainous region between the great lakes and within a degree of the equator every climatic condition and every element of landscape beauty that could attract and delight a white colony. It was a perfect alpine country, with mountains rising from twelve to fifteen thousand feet, yet free from alpine cold and snow. Countless torrents from the hills watered ever-verdant valleys as beautiful as those of Tyrol, lying under a brilliant equatorial sun, yet with a climate as cool and equable as any European might desire. Further south, among the mountains about Lake Nyassa, the same features are presented on a grander scale: a country aptly described as a second Switzerland of gigantic proportions.

There can be no question of the ability of Europeans to sustain themselves in the greater part of the interior-certainly on all the higher plateaus-nor of the possibility of building up in Central Africa a great civilized empire. Nature offers every facility, and the native population seem to be well fitted for productive industry. In every respect they are physically and morally superior to the negroes of the coast, and only need protection and the encouragement of legitimate commerce to weld them into a great nation. Already they stand on the borders of civilization. They are intelligent, industrious, and not unskillful in the manufacture of iron and copper ornaments, utensils, and weapons. The arts of tanning, spinning, weaving, dyeing, mat-making, etc., are widely diffused among them, and many of their products are remarkable for their fineness and strength. They carry on agriculture with considerable success; and, notwithstanding the chronic state of insecurity incident to slave-hunting, their wealth in cattle is very great. As soon as the disturbing and impoverishing influence of the slave traffic is abated, and a market provided for the products of peace, the advancement of the people in civilization is likely to go on with great rapidity. As the source of raw materials which we need, and as a market for the surplus manufactures of Europe and America, the country offers, to say the least, many attractions; and it will not be surprising if, within fifty years, thriving commercial stations will be founded on all its great lakes and rivers, and connected with the outer world by telegraphy, railways, and steamship lines.

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ADDRESS OF CLARENCE KING ON CATASTROPHISM.

Mr. Clarence King lately delivered an interesting address before the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College, New Haven, Conn., under the title of "Catastrophism, or the Evolution of Environment," which promises to evoke considerable discussion. We subjoin an abstract of the principal features of the address, which is quite lengthy. The full text will be found in our SUPPLEMENTS, Nos. 80, 81.

Mr. King refuted the doctrine of slow evolution as taught by Huxley and Darwin, and declared that the surface of the earth and climate had been subject to sudden and catastrophic mutation, which included in its environment all types of life.

He reasoned that marine fossils are found entombed in rocky beds far remote from present seas; and that these beds were once sea bottoms that have been upheaved by convulsions of Nature. The earliest history of mankind is pregnant with catastrophe, and we have historic story and biblical record of its sudden and destructive energy. He called to mind the vast and massive eruptions of the Pliocene basalt as seen upon our own continent.

The great obvious changes in the rocky crust were referred to a few processes; the sub-aerial decay of continents, delivery by streams of land-detritus into the sea, the spreading out of these comminuted materials upon a pelagic floor, and lastly upheaval, by which oceanic beds were lifted up into subsequent land masses. All these processes he declared to have been more rapid in the past than now. Suddenness, world-wide destructiveness, were the characteristics of geological changes. Periods of calm, like the present, are suddenly terminated by brief catastrophic epochs. Successive faunas and floras were created only to be extinguished by general cataclysms.

He believed in recurrent, abrupt accelerations of crust change, so violent as to destroy all life on the globe. He declared the idea to be the survival of a prehistoric terror, and was backed up by breaks in the great palaeontological record. Of the geologic features of our continent, he said that beneath our America lies buried another distinct continent, which he called Archaean America, which was made up of what was originally ocean beds lifted into the air and locally crumpled into vast mountain chains, which were in turn eroded by torrents into mountain peaks. The original coast lines of this continent we may never be able fully to survey, but its great features, the lofty chains of the mountains which made its bones, were very nearly co-extensive with our existing systems, the Appalachians and Cordilleras. The canon-cutting rivers of the present Western mountains have dug out the peaks and flanks of those underlying, primeval uplifts and developed an astonishing topography; peaks rising in a single sweep 30,000 feet from their bases, precipices lifting bold, solid fronts 10,000 feet into the air, and profound mountain valleys. The work of erosion, which has been carried on by torrents of the quaternary age, brings to light buried primeval chains loftier than any of the present heights of the globe.

At the close of the Palaezoic age, two enormous masses of what, probably, were then continents began to sink, and as they disappeared the present Atlantic and Pacific oceans appeared, while the sea-floor of a then ocean, emerged, and became the new continent of America. Dividing this new continent was a sea, but catastrophe removed this sea and resulted in the folding up of mountain ranges 20,000 and 40,000 feet in height, thereby essentially changing the whole climate of the continent. Of the land life of the mesozoic age we have abundant remains. The wonderful reptilian and avian fauna of the mesozoic age is now familiar to all. But after the catastrophe, and the change of climate which must necessarily have ensued, this fauna totally perished.

After criticising the opinions of Huxley, Lyell, Hutton, Darwin, and others, he recurred to the effects of sudden terrestrial or cosmical changes, and conceived that the effects of these changes would be, first, extermination; secondly, destruction of the biological equilibrium; and thirdly, rapid morphological change on the part of plastic species. When catastrophic change burst in upon the ages of uniformity, and sounded in the ear of every living thing the words "Change or die!" plasticity became the sole principle of salvation. And plasticity is the key to survival and prosperity. Mr. King remarked in conclusion of his address: "He who brought to bear that mysterious energy we call life upon primeval matter bestowed at the same time a power of development by change, arranging that the interaction of energy and matter, which make up environment should, from time to time, burst in upon the current of life and sweep it onward and upward to ever higher and better manifestations. Moments of great catastrophe, thus translated into the language of life, become moments of creation, when out of plastic organisms something newer and nobler is called into being."

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DUPLEX EDUCATION.

The age in which we live is a fast one, and he who does not move with equal celerity, and keep pace with those around him, is ruthlessly thrust to the wall, and remains there unless he has strength and will to regain the lost position. We call to our aid every force of Nature and invoke the assistance of every appliance with which we are cognizant. We call our fathers slow, and to us they were so; but there was the same need of celerity in their every-day life as to-day there is in ours.

While calling to our aid the elements of Nature and adapting thousands of mechanical appliances to our wants, do we not often feel that there is beyond all these a "something" that may be invoked and trained to help us on in the race of life? Occasionally we find dim glimmerings of this "something" that we believe will eventually grow to be one of the prominent sciences. Physiologists tell us that the human brain is double, that the right and left lobes act in a degree independent of each other--the right lobe of the brain controlling the physiology of the left side of the individual from head to heel, while the left lobe exercises a like dominion on the opposite side. Grant this to be true, then can be explained the idiosyncrasy that is occasionally seen in individuals, of which we may instance that of writing at the same time with both hands; and again we have heard of telegraph operators sending and receiving two messages at the same time, operating with both hands, and independent of each other. It is said that Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam hammer, could actually produce two sketches or drawings in this way and at the same time. It is also affirmed that Sir Charles Fox, the architect of the Exhibition building of 1851, could write upon two ideas at the same time and transfer these ideas simultaneously to paper with right and left hand. The mechanic can often be found who can operate upon one piece of mechanism, while at the same time his brain is busy upon the study of some unborn idea, foreign to that work upon which he is laboring. Writers can be found who can write out one train of ideas, while ideas entirely different are being cogitated upon somewhere in their craniums. We have even heard it affirmed that an indistinct glimmering of a third idea would occasionally peep around the corner of the caputs of these favored ones.

Why not educate this? Why not form schools and institutions to bring it out and lead the brain to perform this double function? It can certainly be done. The world wants it, surely. The age demands it. Individuals need it. If these individuals can succeed and become experts in this method of double work, will not double compensation and a greater remuneration be their reward? This, certainly, will be an incentive to its acquirement. Go to the apprentice when first he takes position beside the vise, with chipping chisel in one hand and hammer in the other. The injunction he mentally receives as he raises the hammer is, that to miss the chisel is to hit his knuckles. After a few demonstrative blows he knows what it means, and therefore chisel and hammer soon come by some strange process to harmonize in action, so that in whatever position the head of the chisel may be, the blow is sure to be properly received, and that, too, without any sensible effort on his part. In this illustration both right and left hand are taught to act, by brain dictation, in a certain concerted manner.

Again, we find that mutes have been learned to articulate words and sentences by proper education, they being taught to imitate the motions of the mouth and labial organs as by their tutors directed. Education can do much, and these are some of its results. Can we not by proper teaching produce all the results as shown in the case of Nasmyth and Fox. The first lessons must necessarily be simple. For instance, two things done at the same time with both hands, giving expression at this time to ideas connected therewith, but distinct from each other. From this simple lesson we progress, and, as the ultimatum, we may arrive at greater achievements than Nasmyth or Fox ever dreamed of. We may find that we can so divide our entity that we can be conscious of a double-brain existence in a dual action.

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THE CARRIGEEN CROP.

To the great majority of people, Carrigeen, under the more familiar name of Irish Moss, is known chiefly as the basis of a pleasant and wholesome drink for the sick room, or as an article of use in the preparation of delicacies for the table. Comparatively few are aware of its wide and varied use in the arts, or that the thousands of barrels of it employed annually by our manufacturers of paper, cloth, felt, and straw hats, etc., and by brewers, is not an Irish, but an American product, and, speaking strictly, is not a moss but a seaweed.

Carrigeen (_chondrus crispus_) is to be found more or less abundantly all along our northern coast, ranging between the low water line and the depth of forty feet, or so; but as a rule its fronds, which correspond to the leaves of air plants, are so numerously inhabited by small mollusca that they are spoiled for other use. The clean-growing article seems to be limited almost wholly to certain ledges in the neighborhood of Scituate, Mass.--a section of coast guarded by the celebrated Minot Ledge Lighthouse, and famous for its danger to shipping. Here, where the waves of the Atlantic dash with full force upon the rocky coast, the carrigeen grows to perfection; and wherever it escapes the spawn of mussels and other shellfish, is gathered during the summer season in vast quantities.

The harvest begins in May and ends about the first of September. The gathering is made in two ways--by hand-picking during exceptionally low tides, and by means of long-handled iron-toothed rakes at ordinary tides. Of course the work cannot be carried on except during fair weather. Hand-pulling is possible only during the bi-monthly periods of spring tides, that is, when the moon is full and again at new moon. At such times high tide occurs about midday and midnight, and the ledges are exposed for moss gathering morning and evening. The mossers' boats are rowed to the rocks where the finest grades abound, and the gatherers select with great care the growths that are freest from minute shells and other foreign matter. This portion of the crop, if properly handled afterwards, generally goes to the apothecary and fetches a price two or three times that of the common grade.

As the tide rises the pickers are driven to their boats, and proceed to the outer moss-bearing rocks where the rake is used, as it also is during ordinary low tides. Moss taken in this way is not so clean as the hand-picked, and is always mixed with tape grass, which must be removed during the process of curing and packing.

The curing of the moss is the most critical part of this peculiar farming. On being brought to the shore the moss is black and unsightly; it must be bleached as well as dried. The bleaching is effected by repeated wetting and drying in the sun; and as the moss is readily soluble in fresh water the bleaching beds are situated near the banks of the salt creeks that abound along the shore. After drying, the moss is packed in tubs and rolled to the water, where it is thoroughly washed, then rolled back to the bleaching bed, to be dried again in the sun. Five or six such exposures are usually sufficient. On the bleaching ground, the moss is carefully spread and turned, and watchfully guarded against wetting by rain. In this process it turns from black to red, then to the yellowish-white of the perfected article. When properly cured the moss is stored in bulk, in shanties; where, as time permits, it is picked over and packed in barrels. The crop averages about half a million pounds a year; and thanks to the brighter and more abundant sunshine of our coast, the moss has a brighter color and is of finer quality than the Irish product.

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CATASTROPHISM IN GEOLOGY.

Mr. Clarence King was probably not a little surprised to learn from the Tribune that in his most suggestive address on "Catastrophism and the Evolution of Environment," he had turned the guns of Geology upon Biology; and that in calling attention to the influence of periods of accelerated change in environment upon exposed types of life he had swept away the "fundamental doctrines upon which has been built the scheme of development by natural selection and the survival of the fittest." Certainly nothing in the address betrays any consciousness of possible effects of that sort. And it is quite probable also that Mr. King will have to suffer some annoyance from seeing his name set up at gaze, like Joshua's moon in Ajalon, by the unscientific press generally, as that of the newest champion of orthodoxy against the leaders of modern scientific thought: a penalty which scientific men always have to pay for emphasizing neglected truths.

Mr. King certainly deals some telling blows against the position of the stricter school of Uniformitarians in geology, and brings into prominence a much neglected element in the struggle for existence; but there is no scientific revolution threatened, nor are any crumbs of comfort spread for those endeavoring to arrest the natural drift of scientific progress.

The issue between Mr. King and the sticklers for uniformity in rates of geological change is simply this: In the reaction against the sweeping cataclysms, the sudden wipings out of whole creations and the sudden introductions of new worlds of life believed in by earlier geologists, the modern English school has come to look upon time and the slower modifications of the earth's surface, now observable, with the struggle for existence under easy conditions, as the chief factors in geological change and its accompanying variations in the forms of life. Mr. King, on the other hand, insists that in so doing they have taken too little account of catastrophic changes, that is, widespread and sudden movements of sea and land. In other words, he raises rapid change of environment from the subordinate place it has hitherto occupied in the scheme of historical development, and gives special emphasis to the grand geologic movements which have to do with such changes.

In this Mr. King has unquestionably rendered good service to the science he has done so much to extend and honor in the field; while the illustrations from American geology which he brings to bear on the subject are as likely as his sturdy opinions to attract attention. Yet we are inclined to think that in some things he has allowed his enthusiasm to run away with him. The stolid self-confidence of extreme Uniformitarians has tempted him to exaggerate the periodic accelerations of geologic and biologic movement, and to overstate their effects quite as much as others have underestimated them; and when he charges the followers of Lyell with intellectual near-sightedness and a lack of "the very mechanism of imagination," they may possibly be able to retort not unjustifiably that he has mistaken the natural foreshortening of the geological vista due to distance for actual brevity; and that his belief in the abruptness and suddenness of the great changes which the earth's strata record, may be due to his own lack of sustained imaginative power for grasping and interpreting all the evidences of the enormous time really involved. But this is a question not of imaginative capacity but of logical deduction from observed facts; and however abrupt the beginning of some of the great geologic movements may have been, their subsequent progress cannot in all cases have been so rapid as to allow of their being called catastrophic in any ordinary acceptation of the term.

Take, for example, the alleged catastrophe which marked the close of the mesozoic age in the West. Of this movement Mr. King remarks: "In a quasi-uniformitarian way, 20,000 or 30,000 feet of sediment had accumulated in the Pacific and 14,000 in the [American] mediterranean sea; when these regions, which, during the reception of sediment, had been areas of subsidence, suddenly upheaved, the doming up of the middle of the continent quite obliterating the mediterranean sea and uniting the two land masses into one. The catastrophe which removed this sea resulted in the folding up of mountain ranges 20,000 and 40,000 feet in height, thereby essentially changing the whole climate of the continent."

That this great change occurred, and was attended with an obliteration of the wonderful reptilian and avian fauna of the mesozoic age, is most true: that it occurred suddenly does not appear. On the contrary, there is evidence to show that the prodigious folding up of mountain ranges involved could not have proceeded with sufficient rapidity to turn the course of a stream of water. It happened that one of those folds--one which, had no denudation been going on meanwhile, would have lifted its crest higher than the highest peak of the Himalayas--lay directly across the course of the Colorado river. The river held its course uninterruptedly, sawing its way through the uplift until six vertical miles of rocky strata had risen past it. At no time, therefore, could the rapidity of motion in the bulging strata have exceeded the capacity of the river to wear away the obstruction, and the bulge was fifty miles across! We do not know how rapidly a river may sink its channel through such a rising barrier; but we do know that a process of that nature cannot legitimately be described as swift or sudden. And surely it requires not less intellectual far-sightedness and imaginative faculty to carry the mind across the enormous stretch of time involved in such a change slowly wrought--a period during which at least three vertical miles of the rising mountain fold was worn down by rain and atmospheric abrasion--as to mass the continental doming, the mountain folding, and the attendant life changes together as a convulsive "catastrophe."

Mr. King, however, is not a Catastrophist of a very violent sort. He shelves among the errors of the past the belief in such cataclysms as Cuvier believed in, involving world-wide destruction of all life--"the mere survival of a prehistoric terror, backed up by breaks in the palaeontological record and protected within those safe cities of refuge, the Cosmogonies;" though he rejects as equally unsatisfactory the mild affirmations of the Uniformitarians, that existing rates of change and indefinite time are enough to account for all the geological record. With our present light, he holds, geological history seems to be a dovetailing together of the two ideas. "The ages have had their periods of geological serenity, when change progressed in the still, unnoticeable way, and life through vast lapses of time followed the stately flow of years; drifting on by insensible gradations through higher and higher forms, and then all at once a part of the earth suffered short, sharp, destructive revolution unheralded as an earthquake or volcanic eruptions." Thus stated, his position does not seem to be radically different from that of the broader Uniformitarians, except that he marks the periods of accelerated physical change, and not those of comparative quiescence, as the dominant ones in their influence on life-change. He takes high and strong ground, too, in insisting that it is the business of geology not simply to decipher and map out the changes which have taken place in the configuration of the globe and in its climatic conditions, but also to investigate and fix the rates of change. And when the evolution of environment takes form as a distinct branch of geology, he expects to witness a marked modification in the dominant views of biologists. Its few broad laws will include "neither the absolute uniformitarianism of Lyell and Hutton, Darwin and Haeckel, nor the universal catastrophism of Cuvier and the majority of teleogists." "Huxley alone among prominent evolutionists opens the door for a union of the residue of truth in the two schools, fusing them in his proposed evolutional geology."

So, on looking back over a trail of thirty thousand miles of geological travel, Mr. King is impelled to say that Mr. Huxley's far-sighted view perfectly satisfies his interpretation of the broad facts of the American continent.

Of Mr. King's observations in regard to plasticity of physical structure in connection with rapidly changing environment and the struggle for existence, we propose to speak at another time.

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The great stone monuments of England, like Stonehenge, are supposed, by Mr. James Fergusson, to be military trophies, erected in the time of King Arthur on the battle fields by the victorious armies.

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A NEW APPARATUS FOR STORING AND UTILIZING SOLAR HEAT.

The apparatus herewith illustrated is devised to collect solar heat or other heat, store it up in a heat reservoir--a mass of iron or other suitable material--confine it in the reservoir until needed, keep it in such form that it can be transported from place to place, and utilize it for industrial or other purposes.

A is a concave mirror for concentrating the solar rays upon the heat reservoir, B, which is a mass of iron. C is the heat box for confining the heat until needed, and also for serving as package for transporting the heat reservoir when hot. G is the heat reservoir chamber, in which the heat is communicated from the hot reservoir to the air. Under certain circumstances the heat reservoir may be heated in the heat reservoir chamber. H is a devaporizing chamber, for extracting the moisture from the air by means of a deliquescent substance or other material or treatment. A vertical stack or flue, I, communicates with the heat reservoir chamber, for conveying the heated air away for use.

The device for concentrating the solar rays may be either stationary or movable, and, if movable, may be moved by hand, or automatically, to follow the sun. The various chambers mentioned will have valves, J, at the ends to regulate the passage of the air, and there will be a door, K, at the side or bottom.

Patented through the Scientific American Patent Agency, March 20, 1877, by Messrs. John S. Hittell and Geo. W. Deitzler, of San Francisco, Cal.

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PHOSPHORESCENT SWEATING.

While the subject of phosphorescence in marine animals was under discussion at a society meeting in Florence, Professor Panceri cited the case of a medical man, who, after eating fish, felt indisposed, had nausea, and sweats that were luminous. This idiosyncrasy was laid to the _pesce baudiera_, a Neapolitan fish. Dr. Borgiotti, another member of the Academy, also narrated a case of phosphorescent sweating in a patient with miliaria, a fact which has previously been noticed.

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UTILIZATION OF TIN SCRAP.

Messrs. Charles A. Catlin and George F. Wilson, of Providence, R. I., have patented, May 8, 1877, a new process of utilizing tin scrap, whereby they claim the tin is recovered, either as a valuable salt of that metal or in the metallic form, and the iron or other metal is left as a scrap at once available for reworking.

In any suitable building, a crane, A, is erected and placed in the sweep of that crane; in any convenient order are a boiler, D, two tanks, B and C, an evaporating pan, F, and an additional tank, E. From the crane is suspended a wire basket to contain the scrap to be treated, so perforated as to admit of the ready entrance of the liquid when submerged in, and its ready escape when withdrawn from, the boiler, D, in which boiler is put a sufficient quantity of the solution of caustic soda or potash to allow of a complete submersion therein of the basket and its contents. The basket, G, is then filled with the material to be treated, sprinkling in during the filling the requisite quantity of common salt or other chloride and nitrate of soda or other nitrate, using these dry, not in solution, either previously mixed or shaken in together in the proportion of from three to five pounds each to every hundred pounds of scrap, the requisite quantity depending upon the thickness of the thin [tin?] plate to be removed. The loaded basket, being elevated by the crane, A, is then swung round, and, by lowering, submerged in the hot or boiling solution of caustic soda or potash in the iron boiler, D, which may hold in solution a further proportion of the chloride and nitrate used, the heat of which solution is maintained by a fire beneath the boiler, or in any other and ordinary way. In the ensuing reaction the oxygen of the nitrate combines with the tin to form stannic acid, and this, in turn, combining with the alkali present, forms a stannate of that base, which, entering into solution, leaves the before-plated metal tin-free, the chloride present assisting in the reaction. A further and more complex reaction takes place, by which copious fumes of ammonia are evolved, which may be utilized by proper appliances. When the reaction is complete, the basket containing the now tin-freed scrap is withdrawn from the boiler, and suspended above it long enough to drain. It is then swung over the tank, C, containing water, in which it is washed by submerging and withdrawing several times, and in like manner the washing completed in the water of the tank, B. The contents of the basket being now discharged, it is again filled with fresh scrap in the manner already described, and the process repeated. The loss by evaporation from the boiler, D, is supplied by the wash water in the tank, C; this, in turn, being supplied by the wash water in the tank, B, to which fresh water is supplied as required. When the caustic solution is sufficiently charged with the tin salt, it is allowed to deposit the impure crystals, which, being removed and drained, are redissolved in water in the iron tank, E. This solution in the iron tank, E, after filtration or decantation, is again concentrated in the evaporating pan, F, the crystals of stannate being removed from time to time, drained and dried; or the impure crystals obtained in the boiler, D, may be mixed with fine charcoal or other reducing agent, and subjected to the requisite heat for the reduction of the tin to the metallic form.

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NEW ALLOY.

A very beautiful new alloy, intended to replace brass in various ornamental uses, especially in window and door furniture, has been invented by W. A. Hopkins, of Paris. The alloy is composed of copper, tin, spelter, or zinc and lead, which metals are manipulated. A crucible is placed in the furnace and fired to red heat, and into the crucible thus heated the metals are placed in the proportions of--tin 1-1/8 (say) 1 oz., spelter or zinc 1/2 oz., lead 5/16 of an ounce. These are the proportions he prefers to use, as he has found them to give excellent and satisfactory results, but he does not intend to confine himself rigidly to the precise proportions named, as they may, perhaps, be slightly varied in some particulars without materially detracting from the beautiful color of the alloy which it is intended to produce. The molten metals are kept well stirred, and any impurities therein should be removed. When thoroughly mixed, this alloy, which is termed the first alloy, is poured off into ingot moulds and left to cool. Copper, in the proportion of eight parts to one of this first alloy, is then placed in the crucible and brought to melting heat, when the tin or first alloy is added and intimately mixed with the copper, for which purpose the molten mass must be well stirred for several minutes; it is then poured into ingot moulds for sale in the form of ingots, or it may be poured into pattern moulds so as to produce the articles required. This is the mode of manipulation which it is preferred to employ, as an opportunity is thus afforded of removing any impurities from the first alloy before mixing it with the copper; but all the metals may, if preferred, be mixed together in the proportions given and melted at one operation. By this means an alloy is obtained of great strength, and of a very beautiful appearance, and which is particularly suitable for small work, such, for instance, as window and door furniture and other house furniture which is usually made in brass or other alloy of copper, though it is not intended to confine its use to such articles.

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SEBASTIN--AN IMPROVED EXPLOSIVE.

In the manufacture of the explosive known as dynamite, an infusorial earth is used, which is filled with or made to absorb nitroglycerin. As compared with certain kinds of charcoal, however, the absorptive and retentive power of infusorial earth in small changes of temperature unfavorably affect the common dynamite, and cause a separation of the nitrogylcerin from the infusorial earth. The improvement we now refer to is the invention of G. Fahnehjelm, of Stockholm, Sweden, and consists in the substitution of a highly porous and absorptive species of wood charcoal, in place of the earth heretofore employed. The author designates his production as "sebastin," and gives a number of interesting particulars as follow:

In order to produce a charcoal having the required quantities, the carbonization or coking must be done in such a manner as to completely destroy the organic substances, and to produce as porous a charcoal as possible. For this he selects by preference young trees or striplings or branches of poplar, hazelwood, or alder tree, and he burns them in an open fire. When the wood has been consumed he does not put out the fire by means of water, but leaves it to go out of itself. In this way he obtains a very inflammable and very porous charcoal, which can absorb more than five, and approaching six times its weight of nitroglycerin without any risk of the separation of the oil. The charcoal is pulverized in a wooden mortar, but it should not be reduced to too fine a powder, else it will not so completely absorb the nitroglycerin. The charcoal produced in the ordinary way, or by closed fire, is quite different as regards absorbing power. Charcoal of fir trees may, however, be used, and may acquire nearly the same qualities, that is, if charred a second time in a special oven.

By mixing the different kinds of charcoal, a material may be obtained possessing the required absorbing qualities, and an explosive compound may then be obtained of the required power without loss of the necessary consistency--that is, without being too dry, which is not desirable. The charcoal not only serves as the best absorbent for the nitroglycerin, but it plays also an important part in the combustion. The nitroglycerin in exploding decomposes into steam, carbonic acid, nitrogen, and oxygen. In the explosion of dynamite with inert base the oxygen goes away without being utilized, but in the explosion of this new compound (the new sebastin as he calls it) a part of the absorbent charcoal is burnt by means of the liberated oxygen. The quantity of gas is thus augmented, and also the development of heat, whereby again the tension of this gas is augmented. As, however, the quantity of charcoal necessary for the complete absorption of the nitroglycerin is in all cases much larger than that which can reduce the excess of oxygen produced at the explosion into carbonic acid, he adds to the compound a salt, which also by the combustion gives an excess amount of oxygen which may contribute to burn the rest of the charcoal. For this purpose he uses by preference nitrate of potassa, which may be added without any risk, and which gives the explosive compound a very much greater rapidity or vehemence, and consequent force of explosion.

The composition of the new sebastin depends upon the objects for which it is to be used, and the effects intended to be produced. The strongest compound, and even in this there is stated to be no risk of the separation of the nitroglycerin, is composed of 78 parts by weight of nitroglycerin, 14 of the wood charcoal, and 8 of nitrate of potassa; and when less power is required the proportions are varied, the second quality consisting of 68 per cent. by weight of nitroglycerin, 20 of the charcoal, and 12 of nitrate of potassa.

To show the relative strength of the compounds, the inventor says: Let the dynamic force of pure nitroglycerin be represented by the number 2,884,043.6, then the dynamic force of the sebastin No. 1, as above, will be indicated by 2,416,575, and of the sebastin No. 2 by 1,933,079.4, while that of dynamite No. 1 (consisting of 75 per cent. of nitroglycerin and 25 per cent. of infusorial earth) will be represented by 674,694.

For the above qualities of sebastin the increased effect produced by the greater rapidity of the explosion must be taken into account also. The increase has not yet been measured, but is estimated at 10 per cent. The sebastin may also be compounded in other proportions of the constituent parts, but the object being to produce explosive compounds of the greatest force which it is possible to employ without danger, he merely mentions that the proportion by weight may vary from 50 to 80 per cent. of nitroglycerin, 15 to 35 per cent. of the prepared charcoal, and 5 to 20 per cent. of the nitrate of potassa; the parts being taken by weight, as above stated.

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A NEW METHOD OF BOOKBINDING.

The annexed engravings represent a new system of binding books, for which a number of important advantages are claimed. It obviates stitching, allows of each leaf being firmly secured, and hence is especially well suited for single-leaved books. It admits of plates and maps being bound in their proper places instead of being pasted in, and renders the book much stronger and more durable. The inventor claims a saving of 40 to 75 per cent of the time required for stitching, and of 50 per cent of the time needed in ordinary rebinding work.

The mode of operation is as follows: On receiving the sheets, the binder folds them and places them in consecutive order, according to the printer's signature. The front and bottom edges of the book are then trimmed so as to obtain two straight sides; and the backs of the sheets are cut off, transforming them into single leaves. Horizontal lines are now marked with pencil across the back of the book for the saw cuts; and a diagonal line, A, B, Fig. 2, is drawn to serve as a guide in replacing the leaves in their proper places. A thin coat of glue is next applied to the back; and when this is dry, the book is divided into sections of from four to eight leaves (without counting them) entirely disregarding the printer's signatures, but placing the sheets in their original order. The binder places the first section removed at his right hand, the next at his left, and so on, forming two piles. Each pile is then straightened, and in the back of each, a little below the transverse lines, are made bevel cuts with the saw. Said cuts are 1/8 inch in length, inclined at an angle of 45 deg., and so placed that one half their length is above and the other half below the marked line. When one pile of sheets is thus sawn, the other pile is similarly treated; but the corresponding cuts are made at relatively opposite angles. This will be understood from Fig. 1, in which C represents the edge of the right hand pile, for example, and D that of the left hand pile.

The sections of each pile are now returned in their regular order, according to the printer's signatures. Should a section have been misplaced, the diagonal line, being thus broken, will show the fact. It will be seen, however, that this arrangement involves the alternate use of sheets from each pile, so that, when all are put together, the beveled cuts will cross or form dovetails, as shown in Fig. 3. Half inch strips of white paper muslin, E, Fig. 4, are next pasted around the back edges of the first and last sections. This is done to strengthen the hold of the twines in the back of the book, said sections necessarily bearing the whole strain of the covers. The twine used corresponds in size to the holes made by the coincidence of the beveled saw cuts. This twine is passed through the holes by means of a blunt darning needle. The back of the book is shown in Fig. 2; and in Fig. 4 the twines are represented as passed. Nothing further remains to be done but to paste in the fly-leaves and lining, and finish the book in the usual manner.

It is evident that this a very much stronger method of securing the leaves than that in which the twine is simply laid and glued in a straight cut. Each leaf is independently fastened; and the thread is prevented from cutting through, as is commonly the case when the book has been used to any great extent. Books can be bound to open more or less as desired; and in rebinding, instead of taking the book apart and cutting threads, a thin shaving is sliced off the back, and the leaves are treated in the manner already described.

Patented March 20, 1877, by Mr. Florenz E. Schmitz. For further information, address Messrs. Schmitz and Slosson, box 1180, Middletown, Orange county, N. Y.

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IMPROVED CURTAIN FIXTURE.

We illustrate herewith an improved curtain fixture, which may be adjusted to windows or curtains of different widths, and is adapted for use in connection with different means for raising and lowering the curtain. Fig. 1 represents the device in place, a portion of the cornice being broken away to exhibit it; and Fig. 2 shows the same in detail.

Attached to the cornice are guides, A, in which are sliding loops, B. The latter may be adjusted to suit the position of the hooks placed in the window case to sustain the cornice, so that said hooks need not be set with any particularity. The curtain roller, C, has both its ends screw-threaded, to receive hollow pulleys, as shown. The spindles projecting from these pulleys are inclosed in coiled springs which press against the bearings, D, and so hold the shade in any position in which it may be placed. The bearings, D, are clasped in the ways, A, and are laterally adjustable. Sliding blocks are also arranged in said ways, and through each block passes a set screw, E. It will be perceived that the bearings may be readily adjusted to curtains of different widths, and the parts may afterward be locked in position by the set screws, E. The curtain may be raised or lowered by cords wound on the hollow pulleys.

Patented December 5, 1876, by Mr. K. J. Pospisil. For further particulars relative to sale of patent, address the Penn Patent Agency, 133 South Second street, Philadelphia, Pa.

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BOOT AND SHOE MACHINERY.

No manufacturers have taken greater advantage of the ingenuity of the mechanical engineer than the American boot and shoe makers. Nearly every operation in the complex process of evolving finished boots from the plain skins of leather is the object of a special class of machinery; and for several years past, we have weekly chronicled the patenting of several improvements in the devices for effecting some of the numerous operations. We present herewith a series of eight labor-saving machines of the most approved construction, which we select from Knight's "American Mechanical Dictionary."[1]

[Footnote 1: Published in numbers by Messrs. Hurd & Houghton, New York city.]

Fig. 1 is a shoe-edge trimmer, in which the shoe is mounted on a jack, the carriage of which has a motion of translation and rotation communicated to it: so that, while the side of the sole is being trimmed, the shoe is fed longitudinally against the knife, but at the toe and heel is rotated beneath it. The knife is universally jointed, to permit the hands of the operator to determine the different bevels cut.

Fig. 2 is an ingenious little machine for placing the eyelets of the lace holes in position, and fastening them. The eyelets are fed, one by one, from the reservoir at the top, down the inclined ways, and are seized at the foot between the plunger and anvil, and they are riveted in their proper places in the shoe or strip of leather, which is held and fed by the operator.

Fig. 3 is a machine in which a shoe or boot is chucked and revolved against a burnishing tool, to impart a smooth and elegant finish to the heel. Our engraving shows a machine with what is called in the trade a "hot kit," a heated burnishing tool, with a flexible gas pipe of sufficient length, which follows the oscillations of the burnishing stock, _a_, and which conveys gas to the interior of the tool, where it is burnt in a jet. The tool is made to reciprocate over the surface of the heel, passing from breast to breast at each oscillation with an elastic pressure.

Fig. 4 is a machine for pressing together the "lifts" which compose a boot or shoe heel, thus dispensing with the handiwork of the hammer and lapstone. The bed is adjusted vertically by a screw to any thickness to which the blank heel may be built; and the plunger is brought down by the depression of the treadle with such force as to compact the lifts together.

Fig. 5 shows a heel-pricking machine. When the lifts of the heel are fairly pressed together by the appliance shown in Fig. 4, the pricking machine pierces the necessary holes through all the lifts at once by a gang of awls. The compressed heels are first secured together by tacking, and then placed on the platen; and the plunger, with its gang of awls, descends with great force.

Fig. 6 is a heel trimmer, known in the trade as the Cote trimmer. The shoe is held stationary by the treadle clamp; and the knife stock, which is centrally pivoted to the outer plate or jaw bearing upon the tread lift, is then grasped in the hands of the operator, and moved to give a sweeping cut to trim the heel.

Fig. 7 is a machine for pressing boot soles. Beneath the crosshead of the press is a swinging bed, on each end of which is a form, in order that a shoe may remain under pressure upon one while the operator is placing another shoe on the other. The pressure is given by the treadle, which brings down the upper platen on the channeled sole.

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ON DYSPEPSIA.