Chapter II: Part 2

The central nave of the Palace of the Liberal Arts is wholly occupied by this exhibit. Grand porticos and galleries of woodwork with platforms in the lower story, form four grand divisions with interior courts that approach by monumental staircases opening under the dome upon each side of the rotunda, which occupies the centre and shelters the theatrical exhibit. All around the porticos and galleries full panels were reserved upon which M. Charles Touche placed decorative compositions broadly treated in aquarelle illustrating, so to say, the history of labor.

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AN INGENIOUS PLAN FOR STRAIGHTENING WALLS.--Yankees, as a rule, are equal to any emergency; what the average Yankee mechanic fails to conjure up at a time when his wits are most needed, leaves very little room for foreign genius to think and work in. Yet it remained for M. Molard, a French architect, to contrive an original and ingenious plan for straightening the walls of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, which threatened an absolute collapse owing to the extreme weight of the roof. A series of strong iron bars were carried across the building from wall to wall, passing through holes in the walls, and were secured by nuts on the outside. In this state they would have been sufficient to have prevented the further separation of the walls by the weight of the roof, but it was desirable to restore the walls to their original state by drawing them together. This was effected in the following manner: Alternate bars were heated by lamps fixed beneath them. They expanded, and consequently the nuts, which were previously in contact with the walls, were no longer so. The nuts were then screwed up so as to be again in close contact with the walls. The lamps were withdrawn and the bars allowed to cool. In cooling they gradually contracted and resumed their former dimensions; consequently the nuts, pressing against the walls, drew them together through a space equal to that through which they had been screwed up. Meanwhile the intermediate bars were heated and expanded, and the nuts screwed up as before. The lamps being again withdrawn, they contracted in cooling, and the walls were further drawn together. This process was continually repeated, until at length the walls were restored to their perpendicular position. The gallery may still be seen with the bars extending across it, and binding together its walls.--_Philadelphia Record and Guide_.

LOSS OF POWER BY RADIATION OF HEAT.[3]

To him who holds the purse and pays for the coal consumed, it is of importance that between the energy of the burning fuel and the power developed by the engine there should be the least possible loss. Every unit of heat radiated by boiler-pipe, cylinder or heater is absolute loss, and must come out of that purse. In an electrical plant this matter is of great importance. There is less opportunity to have results obscured. There is, proportionally, a large possible loss between the coal on the grate and the far end of the cylinder, and this loss should be reduced to the minimum. Is it not always the best economy to throw away as little as possible, to save from waste _all_ that can be saved? Is not the very _reason far being_, of the architect, the mechanical engineer, in fact of every man who is paid for his advice and direction, just this: that he shall bring to bear upon the subject, and impart to his client honest knowledge concerning the various matters about which he is consulted? That he shall keep abreast of the tide of discovery and improvement, and that upon these subjects he shall _know_, not trusting to mere hearsay or to unintelligent prejudice for his impressions.

Some little time since a gentleman from a neighboring city called upon me for information upon the subject of coverings in general and their comparative values. Being an intelligent man he said frankly at the outset that he knew very little on the subject. He had, however, in common with all of us, heard the word "asbestos" used as a shibboleth for years, but he desired definite knowledge, and after he had digested the information he should act on his judgment. I devoted sufficient time to him to put him in possession of the salient points of the subject. His understanding was acute. He left me to seek elsewhere further light upon this matter. After some few days he returned and directed that the magnesia covering be applied to his work. In the course of conversation he remarked that he had received great diversity of advice from those to whom he had gone. One man, who had been years in the business of selling steam plants, told him that the best thing for him to use was hair-felt, even though the steam-pressure might run up to 125 pounds to the inch. Now, as a matter-of-fact, the man who gave that advice simply showed himself an unsafe guide; and from his inability to keep abreast with modern knowledge, that he had no conception of the fire-hazard which his advice was to thrust upon the innocent inquirer, and that his advice was little short of being morally criminal.

The subject of the fire-hazard of organic coverings has been pretty thoroughly investigated and can be pretty well-known, when there is any inclination to get out of ruts which long years of travelling in has deepened. How many fires (cause unknown?) have really originated from the slow carbonizing of organic material on steam-pipes? It is but recently that the hair-felt covering on the steam end of a Worthington pumping-engine, within ten miles of us, not only burnt itself but destroyed some thousands of dollars worth of walnut lagging. Cases of the combustion of these organic coverings are numerous and are well-known.

Few appreciate the great loss of heat from uncovered or imperfectly covered pipes. Many have an indistinct impression that there may possibly be some slight loss. But there is in many cases an absence of knowledge upon this subject where it should be complete. The most correct data available show that the radiation from uncovered two-inch steam-pipe, with 60 pounds steam-pressure, is 391.83 kilo. centigrade heat-units one foot one hour, or 21,739.78 kilos. of coal for 100 feet per year of 300 days of 10 hours each; one kilo. equals 2,205 pounds. Properly combining these figures we see that there are 23.97 tons of coal lost by radiation from that uncovered pipe. If the coal costs $4 per ton, the radiation from this 100 feet of pipe will amount to $95.87. From the same pipe covered with Wm. Berkefield's fossil meal composition, 32/100-inch thick, the most powerful inorganic non-heat conductor used as a covering at the time these investigations were made, there was radiated 24,109 kilo. cent. heat-units one foot one hour, or 1,337.63 kilos. of coal for the year. This would be 1-474/1000 tons of coal at $4 per ton, amounting to $5.89. Then $95.87 less $5.89 equals $89.98, the saving effected by covering this pipe with William Berkefield's fossil-meal composition 92/106 of an inch thick. Or, in other words, the saving effected was over 93 per cent of the total possible radiation, using a thickness of one inch this loss would be reduced to $5.50.

From the same data we find (page 44) it stated that while the radiation through 25 m.m. of Wm. Berkefield's fossil meal was 7.7 heat-units, through 25 m.m. of carb. magnesia it was 6.7 heat-units, therefore the proportions 7.7: 6.7 = $5.50: $4.80 gives us the coal value of heat lost by radiation through the magnesia covering. To put this in another form: From the running-foot of two-inch pipe uncovered the loss is 96 cents, while, from the same pipe covered with the magnesia, the loss is less than five cents; or a saving of over 91 cents per year. To accomplish this saving the cost of the covering should be taken into account. This was 27 cents. Therefore, the investment in the magnesia covering is paid back in less than four months. The data which we have used were obtained by the use of a calorimeter measuring the quantity of heat passing through covering. The other possible method of arriving at this knowledge would be to accurately measure the condensation of the steam. In these experiments, owing to several reasons, it was not deemed advisable to rely upon the second method. Recently, however, I have seen in the _American Engineer_ of June 12, a report of the proceedings of the Michigan Engineering Society containing a paper by Professor Cooley, of Ann Arbor, Mich., in which he says:

"The benefits of covering steam-pipes to prevent radiation are strikingly illustrated by the following example: The Thomson-Houston electric-light plant in Ann Arbor has about 60 feet of seven-inch pipe connecting the boilers with the engines and two large steam-drums above the boilers: in March, 1887, the steam at the far end of this pipe was tested to determine the amount of entrained water, the pipes and drums at the time being uncovered. An average of nine experiments gave 31.01 per cent moisture. In June of the same year, after the pipes were covered with magnesia sectional-coverings, the quality of the steam was again tested, the average of five experiments giving 3.61 per cent moisture; the tests were made by the same men from the same connections, and in the same manner. The pipes and steam-drums in March were subjected to a draught, which, of course, aided the condensation. Enough water passed into the cylinders to retard the engines, producing a disagreeable noise. In June the weather was warmer and the pipes and steam-drums were well protected. The quality of steam at the boilers was tested in June, and showed about three per cent moisture. Assuming that 100 incandescent horse-power were being developed at the time, and that each horse-power required 30 pounds of steam; if the steam is assumed to have 25 per cent entrained water due to condensation in the pipes and connections, then 4,000 pounds steam will need be produced in the boilers, or 1,000 pounds more than necessary. To produce this steam will require about 125 pounds of good coal per hour, or 1,000 pounds per day of eight hours. One-half ton per day at $3 per ton for 300 days, $450. The actual cost of the covering put on complete probably did not exceed $150."

An interesting verification of the remarkable non-heat condensing quality of the magnesia covering occurred at Lynn, Mass. In the heart of the district in that city, recently the scene of the disastrous conflagration, there was located the machine-shop of Messrs. Rollins & Glozier. A two-inch steam-pipe there was covered with this material. The heat of the fire at this place has been curiously determined to have been between the minimum extreme of 2,756 deg. Fah. and the maximum extreme of 2,950 deg. Fah., in this way: Cast-iron melts at 2,756 deg. Fah.; wrought-iron at 2,950 deg. Fah. A portion of the cast-iron bed of a lathe was fused into an irregular mass, and on it, partly imbedded, was a wrought-iron nut not melted. The steam-pipe spoken of fell a distance of 20 feet, and some of the magnesia covering was broken by the fall, but so effective was its heat-resisting and non-heat-conducting power that the pipe was found to be uninjured, and it is being used again in the building which is being erected to take the place of the one burned. That the magnesia should have endured the ordeal successfully was not unexpected, for we know that it is used by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company as a lining to the shells of its coil boilers, and it is there subjected to a very intense heat resulting from the forced draught used in this type of boiler. Instances could be multiplied indefinitely, but I refrain from occupying further time with them, citing, however, one recent pertinent case.

The trial trip of the new cruiser "_Baltimore_" took place in the middle of September. It is reported to have been in many ways eminently satisfactory. The report goes on to state: "Another noteworthy fact was the comfortable condition of the fire and engine rooms. A duplicate crew had been provided with the expectation of relieving the firemen in two-hour turns; but after the first two hours of the run the first watch refused to quit work and insisted in running the ship throughout the entire four hours' trial." Boilers and all steam-surfaces were covered with the magnesia covering.

So it appears that not alone is the man who pays for the coal interested in this question of most perfect insulation, but also the men who operate the plant as well. In time, those architects, those mechanical engineers, those engine-builders and those other advisers, who are paid to advise soundly and correctly, and who are represented by our figure with the re-entering angles, will, of necessity, change their form and begin to assimilate these new facts, or ossification will so spread throughout the whole figure that they will be relegated to the shelf for curiosities as showing what strange geometrical forms the intellectual life of man may take.

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THE COST OF A SMALL MUSEUM.

More than once we have endeavored to impress upon our readers the importance of collections of casts and other art reproductions as factors in popular education. It is only through these that the body of our people can ever hope to become familiar with the great masterpieces of European galleries, which have had so much effect upon the taste of the people among whom they exist, and might do a similar good work in this country were they only brought within reach. Doubtless there are many who join us in the wish that not only every large, but every small city might have its gallery of reproductions as well as its public library--a gallery in which children could grow up familiar with the noblest productions of Greece and Italy, in which the laborer could pass some of his holiday hours, and in which the mechanic could find the stimulus to make his own work beautiful as well as good. But the principal reason why such collections are not more numerous is probably that people have an exaggerated idea of their cost, and, among those who might best afford this, there are doubts as to whether an undertaking of the kind would be appreciated in any but the large cities.

Thanks to the liberality of Mr. W.A. Slater, the experiment has been tried in Norwich, Conn., and the results of the first year of the Slater Memorial Museum in attracting and holding popular interest have far exceeded the anticipations of its founder and his advisers. As it has been Mr. Slater's desire that the museum established by him should serve not only to educate his townsmen, but also to stimulate others who had the means to follow his example in other parts of the country, he has given us permission to make public the cost of his collections, which, we doubt not, will be a revelation to many. In August of last year we gave a long description of the Slater Memorial Museum, not then quite completed, from which it was evident that within the lines laid down by Mr. Slater, by which it was determined that the collection should contain only reproductions, and no original works, there were no restrictions as to expense. The works selected were to be the best of their kind, and were to be set up and arranged in the most effective manner possible. The number of objects was to be limited only by the size of the building.

The useful little catalogue of the casts in the Museum, prepared by Mr. H.W. Kent, the curator, to whom we are indebted for the figures which we shall quote, shows 124 numbers in the Greek and Roman section, and 103 in that of the Renaissance. Among these are some of the largest casts made, such as the selection from the Pergamon reliefs, the Nike of Samothrace and the Font of Siena. They were all made expressly for the Museum, and imported from London, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Florence, Rome, Naples and Athens. In addition to these, there is a complete collection of the British Museum electrotypes of Greek coins, handsomely mounted, and the nucleus of a collection of photographs, about 600, including the best plates of Braun, Naya, Brogi and other celebrated photographers. Most of the statues are mounted on revolving pedestals; two hundred and fifty of the photographs are exhibited in individual frames, the backs of which are movable, that the exhibition may be varied as often as desired; and, owing to the lack of wall-space, draperies have been hung extensively throughout the hall, the material of which is heavy raw silk. We mention these facts only to show that economy was not a consideration in the execution of the Museum, and believe that our readers will be the more surprised to learn that its _gross_ cost to Mr. Slater--excluding, of course, the building itself--was exactly $27,112.97. Is there any city or college in the Union in which this sum could not be raised for a similar purpose?

The cost of the building we do not give, because it would be useful as showing how much, rather than how little, could be put into such an edifice. It contains, besides the museum proper, the floor-space of which amounts to about 10,000 square feet, a lecture-hall with a seating-capacity of about 1,200, a library and four large class-rooms, which, if the intentions of the founder are fully carried out, will be used for practical instruction in the fine arts. Desirable as all these rooms are in a building of the kind, the only one which seems to us absolutely necessary is the lecture-hall. To open a gallery like this to the public, and then leave people to float about in it aimlessly, without a notion of its meaning or its purposes, is to do but half the work. Either regular courses of instruction or occasional lectures upon topics connected with the theory or history of art are necessary in order to make the Museum anything more than a collection of curiosities to the uninitiated, and such lectures are given during the winter at the Slater Museum.

Of the amount just quoted, the principal item was naturally for casts. The cost of these, including packing and transportation, but not setting-up in the Museum, was $13,968.68, making an average of a trifle less than $62 for each number in the catalogue. We ought to say here, however, that an average is a dangerous guide in a matter of this kind, owing to the enormous difference in the size and price of casts, as well as in the distance from which they come. Obviously, too, the cost of packing and importing a few casts would be proportionately much greater than in a large order.

The casts once received, they must be put together, sometimes repaired and finally set up. Pedestals must be built for the statues, wall-spaces prepared for the reliefs. Therefore, a small force of skilled plaster-workers and carpenters is necessary. In Norwich most of the plaster-work was done by two men, a third being added occasionally, and the aggregate of this item in the expenses was $1,626.75. With regard to the carpentry, more work of this kind than would usually be necessary was required by the fact that a number of changes had to be made in order to adapt the hall to its use as a museum of art, its destination not having been determined when the building itself was completed. Consequently, some of the $4,690 paid for material and labor in this department would form a part of the building expenses in a structure designed especially for the purpose.

These were the principal expenses in the preparation of the Slater Museum. On photographs about $800 have been spent thus far, the electrotype coins cost something less than $750, and the balance of the total quoted was made up by such incidentals as the draperies and upholstering, photograph frames, the designer's commission and petty expenses.

Turning now for a moment to the other side of the balance-sheet, we shall try to answer the question, "Does it pay" to undertake a work of this kind, except in our large and central cities? If to the founder or founders of such an institution it be sufficient recompense for their liberality to see their gift used, appreciated and enjoyed by people of all classes, the brief experience of the Slater Memorial Museum answers the question with a strong affirmative. The Museum was dedicated on November 22 of last year. Since then it has been open regularly ten hours a week, divided among three days, and at other times to students and visitors from a distance. It is always free. There being no automatic machine for registering the admissions, Mr. Kent has requested visitors to write their names in a book provided for the purpose. The number who do so is naturally considerably less than the total number of visitors, particularly when the Museum is crowded, yet up to date the books show more than 10,000 names. The average attendance per week thus recorded, from the time of opening to July 1, was 283, the best month being December, in which 2,163 names were entered, the poorest June, with a total of 483. Especially gratifying has been the attendance on holidays, which shows that the interest in the Museum is by no means confined to those who have plenty of leisure. On Thanksgiving Day 800 names were registered, Christmas 932, New Year's 732, Decoration Day 850. For the benefit of the mill-operatives and other laborers who form the largest portion of the population of Norwich and the adjoining towns, to whom the Museum might do a world of good, we sincerely hope the day is not far distant when the building may be open at least a couple of hours each Sunday. The experience of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Sunday opening has been an unqualified success, and we wish that Norwich, as well as our own city, might profit by it. In Boston, we are told, the average number of admissions during the Sunday hours has reached as high as 1,000 per hour, and of these probably four-fifths are common workmen with their families.

These facts and figures regarding the Slater Memorial Museum are valuable only so far as they go. They show that the first problem of a museum--to interest the public at large--has there been solved successfully. More than that is not to be looked for yet. The ultimate good which the institution will accomplish can be but imperfectly manifested in one generation. It is from the children now growing up, from their children and their children's children, that the deeper results are to be expected. As the beginning has been made, we can afford to wait for the rest, which will come in good time. The lesson to be learned from it now is, that such collections are needed, that they are appreciated not by a few but by many, and that, so far as the cost is concerned, they are within the reach of every well-settled community.--_New York Evening Post._

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SANITARY ENTOMBMENT: THE IDEAL DISPOSITION OF THE DEAD.[4]

In this country, partly because there were few places of large population, and partly because it was an early and general tendency to use cemeteries rather than churches, and the grounds adjacent to them, the evils of earth-burial did not manifest themselves so soon or in so marked a manner as in the Old World. But there were instances enough to convince the most incredulous that a radical change must be made. Dr. Ackerly, writing in 1822, thus describes the condition of the burial-ground connected with Trinity Church, New York, forty years before: "During the Revolutionary War this ground emitted pestilential vapors, the recollection of which is not obliterated from the memory of a number of living witnesses." In the same year, the _Commercial Advertiser_ published an article in reference to the present evils of earth-burial at the same place, in which it was said: "It will be remembered that the graveyard, being above the streets on the west, and encompassed by a massive stone wall, and the east side being on a level with Broadway, it results that this body of earth, the surface of which has no declivity to carry off the rain, thus becomes a great reservoir of contaminating fluids suspended above the adjacent streets. In proof of this, it is stated that, in a house in Thames Street, springs of water pouring in from that ground occasioned the removal of the tenants on account of their exceeding fetidness." At a later date, Dr. Elisha Harris brought this telling indictment against the same place of interment: "Trinity churchyard has been the centre of a very fatal prevalence of cholera whenever the disease has occurred as an endemic near or within a quarter of a mile of it. Trinity Place, west of it, Rector Street, on its border, the streets west of Rector and the occupants of the neighboring offices and commercial houses have suffered severely at each visitation of the pest from 1832 to 1854." It seems hardly necessary to add that the foregoing statements are not intended to make the impression that there was a worse condition at the churchyard named than at any other....

It may now be said: "Yes, this is all true, but we have changed all that! We no longer inter our dead in churchyards or burial-grounds within the limits of cities. We have provided cemeteries at great distances from our cities and large centres of population, and there the dead can do no harm."

To this the reply is easy and convincing: "that, if the dead endanger the living when the population is dense, they certainly also endanger them when the population is sparse. The danger is only diluted. It still exists, and it ought to alarm us just as truly when a few are imperilled as when many are." ...

Not to attempt to tell all that has been ascertained, it will be sufficiently convincing to quote from Sir Henry Thompson's utterance in the _Nineteenth Century_ in 1880: "I state, as a fact of the highest importance, that, by burial in earth, we effectively provide--whatever sanitary precautions are taken by ventilation and drainage, whatever disinfection is applied after contagion has occurred--that the pestilential germs, which have destroyed the body in question, are thus so treasured and protected as to propagate and multiply, ready to reappear and work like ruin hereafter for others.... Beside anthrax or splenic fever, spores from which are notoriously brought to the surface from buried animals below, and become fatal to the herds feeding there, it is now almost certain that malarial diseases, notably Roman fever and even tetanus, are due to bacteria which flourish in the soil itself. The poisons of scarlet fever, enteric fever (typhoid), small-pox, diphtheria and malignant cholera are undoubtedly transmissible through earth from the buried body." That the burial of a body that contains the seeds of zymotic disease is simply storing them for future reproduction and destruction is amply proved by the researches of Darwin and Pasteur, of whom the former has shown that the mould, or fertile upper layer of superficial soil, has largely acquired its character by its passage through the digestive tract of earth-worms; and the latter that this mould, when brought by this agency to the surface from subjacent soil that has been used as a grave, contains the specific germ of the disease that has destroyed its tenant.

It may now be asked: "Granting that these evils are inseparable from the burial of the dead in the earth or in tombs, what is the remedy? What else can be done?"

To this question not many answers can be given, because the modes of disposing of the dead have always been and must always be few.

Plainly, no such novel mode as casting the dead into the sea will be generally adopted. Plainly, also, the mode of the Parsees, grounded as it is in ancient, if not original use--to give the dead to beasts and birds--will not become universal. And, plainly also, cremation will not be welcome to the many, free as it is from objection on the score of public health, if a method equally sanitary, and at the same time satisfactory to a reverent and tender sentiment, can be devised.

The inquiry, then, has reached its limit; for, apart from the modes that have just been named, there are no others but earth-burial and entombment, and earth-burial, as we have seen, cannot be made sanitary under common conditions. Therefore, if the demands of affection and sanitation are both to be met, entombment is to do it, or it cannot be done.

Happily, better than any other method of disposing of the dead that has ever been devised, entombment has met the demand of affection. Never has any other mode so commended itself to men as this. There may have been at times a general adoption of cremation, and there may have been a general prevalence of earth-burial, but the one has not long satisfied the sorrowing survivors, and the other has owed its beginning and continuance to the apparent absence of alternative. Wherever the living have been able, and the dead have been dearly loved or highly esteemed, the tendency to entomb and not to bury has been constantly manifested.

To call attention to this tendency is enough to prove it, so easily accessible is the evidence and so familiar is its operation in the human heart. The most natural reference will be, first, to the mausoleum, the tomb of Mausolus, that was erected by his sorrowing Queen, Artemisia, at Halicarnassus, upon the AEgean's eastern shore, and that became at once one of the few great wonders of the ancient world. This was intended to do honor to the loved and illustrious dead, and this it did as no grave or pyre could do. This was also intended to protect the lifeless form from ruthless robbery and reckless profanation, and it performed this task so well that for near two thousand years no human eye beheld the mortal part of Mausolus, and no human hand disturbed its rest. At a far earlier time, Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, while he illustrated this tendency to entomb the dead, also offered an influential example to all who would do him reverence, as, in the hour of his great sorrow, he sought the seclusion and the security of Machpelah's cave for the last earthly resting-place of his beloved wife. There he buried Sarah; there he and his son and his son's son and their wives were all laid to rest, and the place of their repose hath not been violated even at this distant day. To this constant tendency constant testimony is borne by the massive and magnificent tombs in which India abounds, the tombs and pyramids that make marvellous the land of the Nile, the tombs that stood thick upon the Appian Way, and that rose superb upon the Tiber's shore, the modern use to which the Pantheon is put, the Pantheon at Paris and the Crypt of the Invalides, the Abbey of Westminster, matchless in memorials, the sepulchres within the hills that gird Jerusalem, and the sepulchre in which the Nazarene was gently laid when His agony was ended.

It remains to be considered whether entombment can be made sanitary. If it can be the problem is solved, for entombment has ever been the best that the living could do for their dead, and, with the added advantage of promoting, or ceasing to be prejudicial to, the public health entombment will be the choice of all whom cost or caprice does not deter.

That entombment can be made sanitary is evident from the fact that in countless instances, in many lands and through long periods of time, it has been made sanitary by the ingenuity of man or by unassisted nature; and it is also evident from the fact that decomposition and disease germs are the dangers to be guarded against, and that against these both ancient and modern science have been able to guard. Not to enumerate all the modes that have been chanced upon or that have been devised by men, there are two that have been notable and are available for modern use--embalming and desiccation.

It is a delusion to imagine that embalming is a lost art; that, like some other marvels of the ancient time, this is a secret process that perished with the people who employed it. Did we desire it, we could embalm our princes and our priests, and retain their shrunken similitudes for distant coming times to gaze and gape upon, as skilfully as they who practised this art in Egypt's palmiest days. Nay, it is doubtless far within the truth to claim that better than they did we could do; and we are actually apprised of better methods and results than they employed or could attain, and it is not unlikely that we shall hear of better methods still. But Egypt's method, or its modern counterpart, will hardly now be popular. It involves too much mutilation and too much transformation. When it has done its work little is left but bone and muscular tissue, and these are so transfused with foreign substances that a form moulded from plastic matter or sculptured from stone could almost as truly be considered that of the lamented dead as this. Moreover, indefinite preservation of the dead is not desirable, and is not desired. The uses to which the Egyptian Pharaohs and their humbler subjects have been put in these days of indelicacy and unscrupulousness in the pursuit of science or sordid gain are not such as to make many eager to be preserved for a similar disposition when the present shall have become a similarly distant past.

Desiccation, in striking contrast with embalming, is the process of nature rather than of art, and involves no mutilation and no substitution of foreign substances for human flesh, and does not by unnatural means preserve the semblance of the human form so long that a susceptible sentiment is shocked and a due return of material humanity to the elements that gave it birth prevented. Desiccation is so far a natural process that it seems not to have been thought of until nature had done the work and shown the product, and through many centuries, and upon an extensive scale, nature had employed the process before it occurred to man to copy her and adopt her method for the disposition of his dead.

Wherever the air that enwrapped the lifeless form of man or beast was dry, desiccation anticipated and prevented decomposition. In deserts, upon elevated plains, upon the slopes of lofty mountain ranges, to which the winds that passed their summits bore no moisture, the dead have not decayed, but have dried undecomposed. In the morgue attached to the Hospice of St. Bernard, the dead, lifted too late from their shroud of snow, and borne thither to await the recognition of their friends, dry, and do not decay. In the "Catacombs" of the monastery of the Capuchins at Palermo, and in the "Bleikeller" at Bremen, the same phenomenon has appeared. Even Egypt is a confirmation of these statements, for it is probable that, had much less care been taken to preserve the dead, they would not there have yielded to decay as in other lands; and that moisture is so far absent from the atmosphere that the dead would have been preserved from decay by desiccation had not embalming been resorted to. Upon the elevated Western plains of this continent, the bodies of beasts and men by thousands have been preserved from decomposition by desiccation. To take one instance out of many that might be cited: A cave was not long ago discovered high up among the Sierra Madre Mountains, within which were found, where they had rested undisturbed for many years, the lifeless figures of a little aboriginal household, dried and undecayed. Father, mother, son and daughter, one by one, as death had overtaken them, had been brought thither, bound so as to keep in death the attitude that had marked them when at their rest in life, and there they bore their silent but impressive witness to the beneficent action of the unmoist air that had stayed decay and kept them innocuous to the living that survived them. In Peru, instances of this simple, wholesome process abound on almost every side; upon the elevated plains and heights, as also beside the sea, the dead of Inca lineage, with the lowliest of their subjects, are found in uncounted numbers, testifying that in their death they did not injure the living, because desiccation saved them from decomposition; and a recent traveller has vividly described the scene that a battlefield of the late war presents, and that illustrates the same process, where, though years have passed since the last harsh sound of strife was heard, the fierce and bitter combatants still seem eager to rush to conflict or to sink reluctant into the embrace of death. And all these instances furnish conclusive proof that decomposition can be controlled, and that its loathsome and unwholesome transformations can be prevented, if only the simple conditions are secured that have already so extensively effected this result. That these conditions can be secured no one can doubt, for, every-day, in almost every clime, by processes familiar and available to man, the atmosphere has moisture added to it or taken from it; and the extraction of the moisture from a portion of the atmosphere is all that is required to introduce the process of Peruvian desiccation into the sepulchres of Chicago or New York.

It will naturally be further asked: "Is this all that has been done to demonstrate the efficiency and availability of desiccation for the dead?" To this the answer would be sufficient that the evidence that has been adduced is ample, and that, at once, in perfect confidence as to the result, mausoleums might be erected, with provision for the withdrawal of the moisture from the atmosphere, and for the passage of the desiccated air through the sepulchres in which the dead should rest. So little is involved, and so much has been accomplished without the application of any human skill, that it seems inevitable that, as soon as the resources of modern architecture and sanitary science are drawn upon, the desired result will be at once attained. But, to make assurance doubly sure, several carefully-conducted experiments have been made, under the supervision of the directors of the New Mausoleum movement, that prove that the conditions of desiccation can be controlled and that decomposition can be prevented, that where it has begun it can be stayed, and that prolonged preservation, with a fair approximation to the appearance in life, can be made sure for the recognition of absent friends, for transportation or the furtherance of the ends of justice.

When, now, it is added that desiccation has been ascertained to be an efficient agent in the destruction of disease germs, as proved by the experiments of Dr. Sternberg, of the Hoagland Laboratory, and by the investigations of other experts, enough seems to have been said to establish the truth of the assertion that entombment can be made sanitary, and that, therefore, entombment offers the satisfactory solution of the problem how to dispose of the dead so as to do no violence to a reverent and tender sentiment, and at the same time not to imperil the public health.

The proposition, then, soon to be submitted for public approval is this: to erect in the suburbs of our large towns and cities, perhaps even in their most thickly-populated parts, extensive and handsome edifices that will provide sanitary Sepulchres for the dead. To be comparatively inexpensive, they will have to be comparatively plain, and it seems not too much to hope that our cities will soon adopt this mode of disposing of the dead that depend upon the public care for burial, and that the horrors of a "Potter's Field," of which it cannot be divested, even in a fair and sea-girt isle, may be forevermore unknown of men....

Within there would be, as the unit of construction, each sepulchre so constructed that anhydrous air could enter, or could be made to enter and withdraw, laden with moisture and morbific matter, which it would convey to a separate structure, where a furnace would complete the sanitary work that the anhydrous air had begun, and return to the external atmosphere nothing that would be noxious. Each sepulchre, in itself and its surroundings, would appear to provide a place of repose, and would have electrical appliances attached to it for the instant indication of the return of consciousness to any who had been prematurely entombed, and would promise and provide the most perfect and permanent protection against intrusion or theft that can be found on earth. In arrangement these sepulchres would have to conform to the price paid and the taste of the purchaser. Many would be like the single graves that thickly ridge portions of our cemeteries; many more would be grouped together after the semblance of a family-tomb; but in the general impression, in the surroundings and suggestions, the resemblance to the provisions of a cemetery would go no farther. For here there could be no burning sun, no chilling cold, no inclement storm; for the living, as they should pay the last sad honor to the dead, or in any subsequent tribute of affection, there could be no exposure, and for the dead there would be only the constant semblance of the comfort and the quiet of the best-ordered and most tranquil home. Thus, in providing the utmost that exacting affection and sanitary science can require, and in taxing to the utmost the resources of art, in architecture, in sculpture and in the use of subdued and according hues and forms for appropriate decoration, these "Campo Santos," or "Mausoleums," or "Mansions of the Dead," will seem to have realized the ideal disposition of the mortal remains of those who depart this life.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: Extracts from a paper read before the Boston Electric Club, December 23, 1889, by F.C. Child.]

[Footnote 4: Extracts from an address by Rev. Charles R. Treat before the American Public Health Association at Brooklyn, N.Y., October 23, 1889.]

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THE VEKPLANCK HOMESTEAD, FISHKILL, N.Y.

The Verplanck homestead stands on the lands granted by the Wappinger Indians, in 1683, to Gulian Verplanck and Francis Rombout, under a license given by Governor Thomas Dongan Commander-in-Chief of the Province of New York, and confirmed, in 1685, by letters patent from King-James the II. The purchase included "all that Tract or Parcell of land Scituate on the East side of Hudson's river, beginning from the South side of a Creek called the fresh Kill and by the Indians Matteawan, and from thence Northward along said Hudson's river five hundred Rodd beyond the Great Wappin's Kill, and from thence into the woods fouer Houres goeing"; or, in our speech, easterly sixteen English miles. There were eighty-five thousand acres in this grant, and the "Schedull or Perticuler" of money and goods given to the natives, in exchange, by ffrancis Rumbout and Gulyne Ver Planke sounds oddly to-day:

One hundred Royalls,
One hundred Pound Powder,
Two hundred fathom of white Wampum,
One hundred Barrs of lead,
One hundred fathom of black Wampum,
Thirty tobacco boxes, ten holl adzes,
Thirty Gunns, twenty Blankets,
Forty fathom of Duffils,
Twenty fathom of stroudwater Cloth,
Thirty Kittles, forty Hatchets,
Forty Hornes, forty Shirts,
Forty pair stockins,
Twelve coates of B.C.,
Ten drawing Knives,
Forty earthen Juggs,
Forty Bottles, Fouer ankers Rum,
Forty Knives, ten halfe Vatts Beere,
Two hundred tobacco pipes,
Eighty pound tobacco.

The purchasers were also to pay Governor Dongan six bushels of good and merchantable winter wheat every year. The deed is recorded at Albany in Vol. 5 of the Book of Patents.

Before 1685 Gulian Verplanck died, leaving minor children, and settlements on his portion of the land were thus postponed. Divisions of the estate were made in 1708, in 1722, and again in 1740. It is not accurately known when the Homestead, the present low Dutch farm-house was built, but we know that it stood where it now stands, before the Revolutionary War, and the date commonly assigned to the building is a little before 1740.

The house stands on a bluff overlooking the Hudson, about a mile and one-half north of Fishkill Landing. It is one-story and one-half high, of stone, plastered. The gambrel roof is shingled, descends low and has dormer windows. The house has always been occupied and is in excellent preservation. Baron Steuben chose it for his headquarters, no doubt for its nearness to Washington's headquarters across the river, and for the beauty and charm of the situation. It is made still further famous by the fact that under its roof was organized in 1783 the Society of the Cincinnati. The room then used is on the right of the hall, and is carefully preserved. In fancy we can picture the assembly of officers grouped about Washington, in that west room overlooking the river, pledging themselves to preserve the memories of the years during which they had struggled for their country's being.

The whole neighborhood, especially the village of Fishkill which was the principal settlement in the county at that date, has many revolutionary associations. The interior army route to Boston passed through the village; this was a depot of army stores, and workshops and hospitals were established. Here was forged the sword of Washington, now in the keeping of the United States Government, and exhibited in the late Centennial collection. It is marked with the maker's name, J. Bailey, Fishkill.

The New York Legislature, retiring before the approach of the British, after the evacuation of the city, came at last to Fishkill, and here the constitution of the State was printed, in 1777, on the press of Samuel Loundon, the first book, Lossing says, ever printed in the State.

Some years after peace was restored, the Verplanck family appear to have occupied the Homestead from time to time. Philip Verplanck, a grandson of Gulian the original grantee, was a native of the patent, but his public life was spent elsewhere. He was an engineer and surveyor, and an able man. Verplanck's Point in Westchester County, where Fort Lafayette stood during the Revolution, was named for him, and he represented that Manor in the Colonial Assembly from 1734 to 1768. Finally, Daniel Crommelin Verplanck with his large family--one of his sons being the well-known Gulian C. Verplanck, born here in 1786--came to live in the old home permanently. He had led an active life in New York, served in Congress and on the bench, and now retired to the quiet of the country. It was he who planted the fine old trees which now shade the lawn; among them the coffee-tree so much admired. About 1810 the north end, built of wood, was added to the old house. Architects were not numerous, apparently, in those days, so the Dutch type was lost in making this large addition, though the interior is quaint, dignified and interesting. It was from under its roof that Daniel C. Verplanck was carried to his last resting-place as his father before him, and generations after him lived and still live in the old Homestead.

For the above description, prepared with no little painstaking, of an interesting house and demesne, as well as for the loan of the photograph from which I made my pen-and-ink sketch of it, I am wholly indebted to a member of the Verplanck family and a mutual friend.

A.J. BLOOR.

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ROCK UPHEAVAL CAUSED BY HYDRAULIC PRESSURE.--There was a remarkable occurrence at the mills of the Combined Locks Paper Company at Combined Locks, Wis., on Saturday. From some unknown cause there was an upheaval of rock upon which the mills are located, throwing the mill walls out of place, cracking a great wall of stone and cement twenty feet thick and making a saddle-back several hundred feet long and six inches high in the bed rock beneath the mill. An artesian well two hundred feet away on the bluff has dried up. The damage to the mill and machinery will probably amount to several thousand dollars. The upheaval is supposed to have resulted from some hydraulic pressure between the seams of rock beneath. A panic occurred among the mill operatives at the time of the shake-up, but nobody was hurt in the stampede from the mill.--_Boston Transcript_, _September_ 10.

ELECTRICITY'S VICTIMS IN EUROPE.

Although the greatest number of deaths from electricity have occurred in this country--more than one hundred--of which twenty-two occurred in this city, yet other countries have not been without such "accidents," as has been erroneously stated by experts in the employ of the companies interested in the deadly high-voltage currents, and as the subjoined list, compiled by C.F. Heinrichs, the electrical expert, shows. The list is by no means exhaustive. Many European newspapers contain articles advising stringent measures to stop the causes of those accidents and the use of currents of electricity above six hundred volts.

Following is a list of victims of electricity in Europe:

In February, 1880, Mr. Bruno, the euphonium player at the Holte Theatre in Ashton, near Birmingham, touched the conductors of a two-light electric plant and received a shock which rendered him insensible, and he died within forty minutes.

In October, 1880, the stoker of the yacht Livadia, which was lying in the Thames, near London, was ordered to adjust one of the Jablochkoff candles. He accidently touched the terminals of the lamp, and instantly fell down dead. The difference of potential at the lamp terminals was only fifty volts, but it was admitted at the time that the wires must have been in contact with the iron plate upon which the stoker stood, and that alternating currents of higher voltages from the main source caused the death, because with fifty volts an electrical energy of only .05 Watts would have been expended on the resistances of the skin and the vital organs of the victim.

In 1880, a workman touched a wire of a Brush installation at the Hatfield House, the residence of the Marquis of Salisbury, and fell down dead. The current was under eight hundred volts.

In July, 1882, on the occasion of a fire in Brighton, England, a fireman took hold of a fire-escape which was in contact with the wire of a Brush machine. He received a shock which doubled him up and disabled him for a long time.

August, 1883, an official of the Hungarian railway in Pesth was killed on touching a wire of a "Ganz" alternating-current generator.

August, 1884, Emile Martin and Joseph Kenarec were killed in Paris on attempting to climb over the fence of the garden of the Tuileries. Both victims came in contact with the wires of a Siemen twelve-light alternating-current generator. The difference of potential between the place of the accident and the ground was 250 volts. The current which would pass that way caused the deaths, and burns upon the hands, cheek and ear of the victims.

September, 1884, Henry Pink, an attendant at the Health exhibition in London, was killed on touching a Hochhausen dynamo of 1,000-volt capacity. At that time all electricians agreed that no currents over 600 volts should be allowed.

November, 1884, an engine-driver, William Moore, was instantly killed on touching the wire of an arc-light plant, at Messrs. Bolcknow, Vaughan & Co.'s, works, at Middleborough, England. The fatality was admitted to be due to the high-voltage current and bad insulation.

January, 1887, Richard Grove noted that his employer's store, in Regent Street, London, was set on fire by electric-light wires. He rushed up on the roof of the building to cut the wires. He received a shock and fell off the roof, dead. Secondary currents of Goulard & Gibb's converters (Westinghouse system) were held responsible for the fatality by electricians.

December, 1887, James Williams was killed by an electric-light shock at the Pontyminister tin-plate works at Bisca, in Wales.

June, 1888, in Terri, Italy, a tinner was killed on the roof of a building on touching an alternating-current circuit.

October. 1888, in Spain, at the Valladolid electric-light station a carpenter took hold of a wire of an alternating-current generator and could not let go. An attendant tried to pull the man off the wire and both were killed by the currents.

November, 1888, E.A. Richardson, employed at the Consett iron works, in the county of Durnham, England, received a shock from an arc-light plant, from the effects of which he died two hours later.

December, 1888, in Turin, Italy, an employe of an electric-light company was killed by alternating currents.

June, 1889, John Connelly, an employe of the Siemens Electric-Light Company, near London, was killed by an alternating current of 1,000 volts.

Speaking of recent cases here, Mr. Heinrichs said: