Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 by Various
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Various >> Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883
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9 [Illustration]
Scientific American Supplement No. 415
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 15, 1883
Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XVI, No. 415.
Scientific American established 1845
Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.
Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
I. CHEMISTRY AND METALLURGY.--Carbon in Steel.
Heat developed in Forging.
Recent Studies on the Constitution of Alkaloids.--Extract from
a lecture delivered before the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy.
--By SAML.P. SADTLER.
II. ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS.--Apparatus for Extracting
Starch from Potatoes.--With engraving.
A Simple Apparatus for describing Ellipses.--By Prof. E.J.
HALLOCK. 1 figure.
A Novel Propeller Engine.--With full description and numerous
engravings.--By Prof. MACCORD.
The New Russian Torpedo Boat, the Poti.--With engraving.
A New Steamer Propelled by Hydraulic Reaction--Figures showing
plan and side views of the steamer.
A New Form of Flexible Band Dynamometer.--By Prof. W.C.
UNWIN. 4 figures.
III. TECHNOLOGY.--Enlarging on Argentic Paper and Opals.--By
A. GOODALL.
The Manufacture and Characteristics of Photographic Lenses.
Improved Developers for Gelatine Plates.--By DR. EDER.
The Preparation of Lard for Use in Pharmacy.--By Prof. REDWOOD.
Anti-Corrosion Paint.
Manufacture of Charcoal in Kilns.--Different kilns used.
IV. ART, ARCHITECTURE, AND ARCHAEOLOGY.--The German
National Monument.--With two engravings of the statues of
Peace and War.
The Art Aspects of Modern Dress.
Artisans' Dwellings, Hornsey, London.--With engraving.
Discovery of Ancient Church In Jerusalem.
V. ELECTRICITY, HEAT. ETC.--See's Gas Stove.--With engraving.
Rectification of Alcohol by Electricity. 3 engravings showing
Apparatus for Hydrogenizing Impure Spirits. Electrolyzing
Apparatus, and Arrangement of the Siemens Machine.
VI. GEOLOGY.--On the Mineralogical Localities in and around New
York City.--By NELSON H. DARTON.
VII. NATURAL HISTORY.--The Zoological Society's Gardens, London.--With
full page engravings showing the new Reptile House, and the
Babiroussa family.
VIII. HORTICULTURE.--The Kauri Pine--Damarra Australis.--
With engraving.
How to Successfully Transplant Trees.
IX. MEDICINE, HYGIENE, ETC.--On the Treatment of Congestive
Headache.--By Dr. J.L. CORNING.
The Use of the Mullein Plant in the Treatment of Pulmonary
Consumption.--By Dr. J.B. QUINLAN.
Action of Mineral Waters and of Hot Water upon the Bile.
Vivisection.--Apparatus Used.--Full page of engravings.
Insanity from Alcohol.--Intemperance a fruitful as well as
inexhaustible source for the increase of insanity.--By Dr. A. BAER,
Berlin.
Plantain as a Styptic.--By J.W. COLCORD.
Danger from Flies.
* * * * *
THE GERMAN NATIONAL MONUMENT.--WAR AND PEACE.
In our SUPPLEMENT No. 412 we gave several engravings and a full
description of the colossal German National monument "Germania," lately
unveiled on the Niederwald slope of the Rhine. We now present, as
beautiful suggestions in art, engravings of the two statues, War and
Peace, which adorn the corners of the monumental facade. These figures
are about twenty feet high. The statue of War represents an allegorical
character, partly Mercury, partly mediaeval knight, with trumpet in one
hand, sword in the other. The statue of Peace represents a mild and
modest maiden, holding out an olive branch in one hand and the full horn
of peaceful blessings in the other. Between the two statues is a
magnificent group in relief representing the "Watch on the Rhine." Here
the Emperor William appears in the center, on horseback, surrounded by a
noble group of kings, princes, knights, warriors, commanders, and
statesmen, who, by word or deed or counsel, helped to found the
empire--an Elgin marble, so to speak, of the German nation.
[Illustration: WAR. THE GERMAN NATIONAL MONUMENT. PEACE.]
* * * * *
A writer in the London _Lancet_ ridicules a habit of being in great
haste and terribly pressed for time which is common among all classes of
commercial men, and argues that in most cases there is not the least
cause for it, and that it is done to convey a notion of the tremendous
volume of business which almost overwhelms the house. The writer further
says that, when developed into a confirmed habit, it is fertile in
provoking nervous maladies.
* * * * *
THE ART ASPECTS OF MODERN DRESS.
At a recent conversazione of the London Literary and Artistic Society,
Mr. Sellon read a paper upon this subject. Having expressed his belief
that mere considerations of health would never dethrone fashion, the
lecturer said he should endeavor to show on art principles how those who
were open to conviction could have all the variety Fashion promised,
together with far greater elegance than that goddess could bestow, while
health received the fullest attention. Two excellent societies, worthy
of encouragement up to a certain point, had been showing us the folly
and wickedness of fashionable dress--dress which deformed the body,
crippled the feet, confined the waist, exposed the chest, loaded the
limbs, and even enslaved the understanding. But these societies had been
more successful in pulling down than in building up, and blinded with
excess of zeal were hurrying us onward to a goal which might or might
not be the acme of sanitative dress, but was certainly the zero of
artistic excellence. The cause of this was not far to seek. We were
inventing a new science, that of dress, and were without rules to guide
us. So long as ladies had to choose between Paris fashions and those of
Piccadilly Hall, they would, he felt sure, choose the former. Let it be
shown that the substitute was both sanitary and beautiful, capable of an
infinite variety in color and in form--in colors and forms which never
violated art principle, and in which the wearer, and not some Paris
liner, could exercise her taste, and the day would have been gained.
This was the task he had set himself to formulate, and so doing he
should divide his subject in two--Color and Form.
In color it was desirable to distinguish carefully between the meaning
of shade, tint, and hue. It was amazing that a cultured nation like the
English should be so generally ignorant of the laws of color harmony. We
were nicely critical of music, yet in color were constantly committing
the gravest solecisms. He did not think there were seventeen interiors
in London that the educated eye could wander over without pain. Yet what
knowledge was so useful? We were not competent to buy a picture, choose
a dress, or furnish a house without a knowledge of color harmony, to say
nothing of the facility such knowledge gave in all kinds of painting on
porcelain, art needlework, and a hundred occupations.
An important consideration in choosing colors for dress was the effect
they would have in juxtaposition. Primary colors should be worn in dark
shades; dark red and dark yellow, or as it was commonly called, olive
green, went well together; but a dress of full red or yellow would be
painful to behold. The rule for full primaries was, employ them
sparingly, and contrast them only with black or gray. He might notice in
passing that when people dressed in gray or black the entire dress was
usually of the one color unrelieved. Yet here they had a background that
would lend beauty to any color placed upon it.
Another safe rule was never to place together colors differing widely in
hue. The eye experienced a difficulty in accommodating itself to sudden
changes, and a species of color discord was the consequence. But if the
colors, even though primaries, were of some very dark or very light
shade, they become harmonious. All very dark shades of color went well
with black and with each other, and all very light shades went well with
white and each other.
A much-vexed question with ladies was, "What will suit my complexion?"
The generally received opinion was that the complexion was pink, either
light or dark, and colors were chosen accordingly, working dire
confusion. But no one living ever had a pink complexion unless a painted
one. The dolls in the Lowther Arcade were pink, and their pink dresses
were in harmony. No natural complexion whatever was improved by pink;
but gray would go with any. The tendency of gray was to give prominence
to the dominant hue in the complexion. When an artist wished to produce
flesh color he mixed white, light red, yellow ocher, and terra vert. The
skin of a fair person was a gray light red, tinged with green; the color
that would brighten and intensify it most was a gray light sea green,
tinged with pink--in other words, its complementary. A color always
subtracted any similar color that might exist in combination near it.
Thus red beside orange altered it to yellow; blue beside pink altered it
to cerise. Hence, if a person was so unfortunate as to have a muddy
complexion, the worst color they could wear would be their own
complexion's complementary--the best would be mud color, for it would
clear their complexion.
Passing on to the consideration of form in costume, the lecturer urged
that the proper function of dress was to drape the human figure without
disguising or burlesquing it. An illustration of Miss Mary Anderson,
attired in a Greek dress as Parthenia, was exhibited, and the lecturer
observed that while the dress once worn by Greek women was unequaled for
elegance, Greek women were not in the habit of tying their skirts in
knots round the knees, and the nervous pose of the toes suggested a more
habitual acquaintance with shoes and stockings.
An enlargement from a drawing by Walter Crane was shown as illustrating
the principles of artistic and natural costume--costume which permitted
the waist to be the normal size, and allowed the drapery to fall in
natural folds--costume which knew nothing of pleats and flounces, stays
and "improvers"--costume which was very symbolization and embodiment of
womanly grace and modesty.
A life-sized enlargement of a fashion plate from _Myra's Journal_, dated
June 1, 1882, was next shown. The circumference of the waist was but 123/4
in., involving an utter exclusion of the liver from that part of the
organization, and the attitude was worthy of a costume which was the _ne
plus ultra_ of formal ugliness.
Having shown another and equally unbecoming costume, selected from a
recent issue by an Oxford Street firm, the lecturer asked, Why did women
think small waists beautiful? Was it because big-waisted women were so
frequently fat and forty, old and ugly? A young girl had no waist, and
did not need stays. As the figure matured the hips developed, and it was
this development which formed the waist. The slightest artificial
compression of the waist destroyed the line of beauty. Therefore, the
grown woman should never wear stays, and, since they tended to weaken
the muscles of the back, the aged and weak should not adopt them. A
waist really too large was less ungraceful than a waist too small. Dress
was designed partly for warmth and partly for adornment. As the uses
were distinct, the garments should be so. A close-fitting inner garment
should supply all requisite warmth, and the outer dress should be as
thin as possible, that it might drape itself into natural folds. Velvet,
from its texture, was ill adapted for this. When worn, it should be in
close fitting garments, and in dark colors only. It was most effective
when black.
Turning for a few moments, in conclusion, to men's attire, the lecturer
suggested that the ill-success of dress reformers hitherto had been the
too-radical changes they sought to introduce. We could be artistic
without being archaic. Most men were satisfied without clothes fairly in
fashion, a tolerable fit, and any unobtrusive color their tailor
pleased. He would suggest that any reformation should begin with color.
* * * * *
ARTISANS' DWELLINGS, HORNSEY.
The erection of artisans' dwellings is certainly a prominent feature in
the progress of building in the metropolis, and speculative builders who
work on a smaller scale would do well not to ignore the fact. The
Artisans, Laborers, and General Dwellings Company (Limited) has been
conspicuously successful in rearing large blocks of dwellings for
artisans, clerks, and others whose means necessitates the renting of a
convenient house at as low a rental as it is possible to find it. We
give an illustration of a terrace of first-class houses built by the
above company, who deserve great praise for the spirited and liberal
manner in which they are going to work on this the third of their London
estates--the Noel Park Estate, at Hornsey. On the estates at Shaftesbury
and Queen's Parks they have already built about three thousand houses,
employing therein a capital of considerably over a million sterling,
while at Noel Park they are rapidly covering an estate of one hundred
acres, which will contain, when completed, no less than two thousand six
hundred houses, to be let at weekly rentals varying from 6s. to 11s.
6d., rates and taxes all included. The object has been to provide
separate cottages, each in itself complete, and in so doing they have
not made any marked departure from the ordinary type of suburban terrace
plan, but adopting this as most favorable to economy, have added many
improvements, including sanitary appliances of the latest and most
approved type.
The most important entrance to Noel Park is by Gladstone Avenue, a road
60 ft. wide leading from the Green Lanes to the center of the estate. On
either side of this road the houses are set back 15 ft., in front of
which, along the edge of the pavement, trees of a suitable growth are
being planted, as also on all other roads on the estate. About the
center of Gladstone Avenue an oval space has been reserved as a site for
a church, and a space of five acres in another portion of the estate has
been set apart to be laid out as a recreation ground, should the
development of the estate warrant such an outlay. The remaining streets
are from 40 ft. to 50 ft. in width, clear of the garden space in front
of the houses. Shops will be erected as may be required.
[Illustration: SUGGESTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE.--A ROW OF COMFORTABLE
DWELLINGS.]
The drainage of the estate has been arranged on the dual system, the
surface water being kept separate from the sewage drains. Nowhere have
these drains been carried through the houses, but they are taken
directly into drains at the back, having specially ventilated manholes
and being brought through at the ends of terraces into the road sewers;
the ventilating openings in the roads have been converted into inlet
ventilators by placing upcast shafts at short intervals, discharging
above the houses. This system of ventilation was adopted on the
recommendation of Mr. W.A. De Pape, the engineer and surveyor to the
Tottenham Local Board.
All the houses are constructed with a layer of concrete over the whole
area of the site, and a portion of the garden at back. Every room is
specially ventilated, and all party walls are hollow in order to prevent
the passage of sound. A constant water supply is laid on, there being no
cisterns but those to the water-waste preventers to closets. All water
pipes discharge over open trapped gullies outside.
The materials used are red and yellow bricks, with terracotta sills, the
roofs being slated over the greater part, and for the purpose of forming
an agreeable relief, the end houses, and in some cases the central
houses, have red tile roofs, the roofs over porches being similarly
treated. The houses are simply but effectively designed, and the general
appearance of the finished portion of the estate is bright and cheerful.
All end houses of terraces have been specially treated, and in some
cases having rather more accommodation than houses immediately
adjoining, a slightly increased rental is required. There are five
different classes of houses. The first class houses (which we illustrate
this week) are built on plats having 16 ft. frontage by 85 ft. depth,
and containing eight rooms, consisting of two sitting rooms, kitchen,
scullery, with washing copper, coal cellar, larder, and water-closet on
ground floor, and four bedrooms over. The water-closet is entered from
the outside, but in many first-class houses another water-closet has
been provided on the first floor, and one room on this floor is provided
with a small range, so that if two families live in the one house they
will be entirely separated. The rental of these houses is about 11s. to
11s. 6d. per week. Mr. Rowland Plumbe, F.R.I.B.A., of 13 Fitzroy Square,
W., is the architect.--_Building and Engineering Times_.
* * * * *
ENLARGING ON ARGENTIC PAPER AND OPALS.
By A. GOODALL.
[Footnote: Read before the Dundee and East of Scotland Photographic
Association.]
The process of making gelatino bromide of silver prints or enlargements
on paper or opal has been before the public for two or three years now,
and cannot be called new; but still it is neither so well known nor
understood as such a facile and easy process deserves to be, and I may
just say here that after a pretty extensive experience in the working of
it I believe there is no other enlarging process capable of giving
better results than can be got by this process when properly understood
and wrought, as the results that can be got by it are certainly equal to
those obtainable by any other method, while the ease and rapidity with
which enlarged pictures can be made by it place it decidedly ahead of
any other method. I propose to show you how I make a gelatino bromide
enlargement on opal.
[Mr. Goodall then proceeded to make an enlargement on a 12 by 10 opal,
using a sciopticon burning paraffin; after an exposure for two and
a-half minutes the developer was applied, and a brilliant opal was the
result.]
We now come to the paper process, and most effective enlargements can be
made by it also; indeed, as a basis for coloring, nothing could well be
better. Artists all over the country have told me that after a few
trials they prefer it to anything else, while excellent and effective
plain enlargements are easily made by it if only carefully handled. A
very good enlargement is made by vignetting the picture, as I have just
done, with the opal, and then squeezing it down on a clean glass, and
afterward framing it with another glass in front, when it will have the
appearance almost equal to an opal. To make sure of the picture adhering
to the glass, however, and at the same time to give greater brilliancy,
it is better to flow the glass with a 10 or 15 grain solution of clear
gelatine before squeezing it down. The one fault or shortcoming of the
plain argentic paper is the dullness of the surface when dry, and this
certainly makes it unsuitable for small work, such as the rapid
production of cartes or proofs from negatives wanted in a hurry; the
tone of an argentic print is also spoken of sometimes as being
objectionable; but my impression is, that it is not so much the tone as
the want of brilliancy that is the fault there, and if once the public
were accustomed to the tones of argentine paper, they might possibly
like them twice as well as the purples and browns with which they are
familiar, provided they had the depth and gloss of a silver print; and
some time ago, acting on a suggestion made by the editor of the
_Photographic News_, I set about trying to produce this result by
enameling the paper with a barium emulsion previous to coating it with
the gelatinous bromide of silver. My experiments were successful, and we
now prepare an enamel argentic paper on which the prints stand out with
brilliancy equal to those on albumenized paper. I here show you
specimens of boudoirs and panels--pictures enlarged from
C.D.V.--negatives on this enamel argentic.
[Mr. Goodall then passed round several enlargements from landscape and
portrait negatives, which it would have been difficult to distinguish
from prints on double albumenized paper.]
I have already spoken of the great ease and facility with which an
argentic enlargement may be made as compared with a collodion transfer,
for instance; but there is another and more important point to be
considered between the two, and that is, their durability and
permanence. Now with regard to a collodion transfer, unless most
particular care be taken in the washing of it (and those who have made
them will well know what a delicate, not to say difficult, job it is to
get them thoroughly freed from the hypo, and at the same time preserve
the film intact), there is no permanence in a collodion transfer, and
that practically in nine cases out of ten they have the elements of
decay in them from the first day of their existence. I know, at least in
Glasgow, where an enormous business has been done within the last few
years by certain firms in the club picture trade (the club picture being
a collodion transfer tinted in oil or varnish colors), there are
literally thousands of pictures for which thirty shillings or more has
been paid, and of which the bare frame is all that remains at the
present day; the gilt of the frames has vanished, and the picture in
disgust, perhaps, has followed it. In short, I believe a collodion
transfer cannot be made even comparatively permanent, unless an amount
of care be taken in the making of it which is neither compatible nor
consistent with the popular price and extensive output. How now stands
the case with an argentic enlargement? Of course it may be said that
there is scarcely time yet to make a fair comparison--that the argentic
enlargements are still only on their trial.
I will give you my own experience. I mentioned at the outset that seven
or eight years ago I had tried Kennet's pellicle and failed, but got one
or two results which I retained as curiosities till only a month or two
ago; but up to that time I cannot say they had faded in the least, and I
have here a specimen made three years ago, which I have purposely
subjected to very severe treatment. It has been exposed without any
protection to the light and damp and all the other noxious influences of
a Glasgow atmosphere, and although certainly tarnished, I think you will
find that it has not faded; the whites are dirty, but the blacks have
lost nothing of their original strength. I here show you the picture
referred to, a 12 by 10 enlargement on artist's canvas, and may here
state, in short, that my whole experience of argentic enlargements leads
me to the conclusion that, setting aside every other quality, they are
the most permanent pictures that have ever been produced. Chromotypes
and other carbon pictures have been called permanent, but their
permanence depends upon the nature of the pigment employed, and
associated with the chromated gelatine in which they are produced, most
of pigments used, and all of the prettiest ones, being unable to
withstand the bleaching action of the light for more than a few weeks.
Carbon pictures are therefore only permanent according to the degree in
which the coloring matter employed is capable of resisting the
decolorizing action of light. But there is no pigment in an argentic
print, nothing but the silver reduced by the developer after the action
of light; and that has been shown by, I think, Captain Abney, to be of a
very stable and not easily decomposed nature; while if the pictures are
passed through a solution of alum after washing and fixing, the gelatine
also is so acted upon as to be rendered in a great degree impervious to
the action of damp, and the pictures are then somewhat similar to carbon
pictures without carbon.
I may now say a few words on the defects and failures sometimes met with
in working this process; and first in regard to the yellowing of the
whites. I hear frequent complaints of this want of purity in the whites,
especially in vignetted enlargements, and I believe that this almost
always arises from one or other of the two following causes:
First. An excess of the ferrous salt in the ferrous oxalate developer;
and when this is the case, the yellow compound salt is more in
suspension than solution, and in the course of development it is
deposited upon, and at the same time formed in, the gelatinous film.
The proportions of saturated solution of oxalate to saturated solution
of iron, to form the oxalate of iron developer, that has been
recommended by the highest and almost only scientific authority on the
subject--Dr. Eder--are from 4 to 6 parts of potassic oxalate to 1 part
of ferrous sulphate.
Now while these proportions may be the best for the development of a
negative, they are not, according to my experience, the best for
gelatine bromide positive enlargements; I find, indeed, that potassic
oxalate should not have more than one-eighth of the ferrous sulphate
solution added to it, otherwise it will not hold in proper solution for
any length of time the compound salt formed when the two are mixed.
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