P OP ULAR MISCELLANY, 



573 



tain point, beyond which he is hedged in by 

 custom ; and nearly all the affairs of state 

 are transacted at the audience hall, where 

 every man has his say and perfect freedom. 

 The state is situated between Cashmere and 

 the Hindu Kush Mountains. 



Making the Ilonse Healthful. The re- 

 lation of the house to the prevention and 

 treatment of disease is set forth by Dr. G. 

 V. Poore, in The Practitioner, as a matter of 

 prime importance. The danger of the com- 

 munication of infectious disease to the other 

 inmates of the house in which it appears 

 has long been recognized, and the list of 

 diseases communicable in this way is ex- 

 tending ; yet sufficient account of this danger 

 is seldom taken in planning and construct- 

 ing the dwelling. The main object to be 

 kept in view in building a house, and espe- 

 cially in building a house for invalids, is the 

 supply of fresh air. Too much care can not 

 be taken to insure that all the channels of 

 internal communication hall, passages, stair- 

 cases have independent ventilation of their 

 own. Unless there be means of getting 

 these internal channels blown out by through 

 draughts, the house can not be wholesome; 

 and in the event of any air-borne contagion 

 getting a footing in the house, the liability 

 to spread is enormously increased. These in- 

 ternal channels must have light also. If the 

 house be of several stories, the ventilation 

 of the staircase has an importance that bears 

 a direct proportion to the height of the 

 house. The shafts for elevators require in- 

 dependent ventilation as much as the stair- 

 cases. One of the chief defects in the con- 

 struction of city houses is the absence of 

 provision for effective ventilation ; so that 

 the internal channels of communication, in- 

 stead of serving for the supply of fresh 

 air, merely facilitate exchange of foul air. 

 This defect of construction is dangerous in 

 proportion to the size of the building and 

 the number of persons it contains. The sug- 

 gestion has been made to place the sec- 

 ondary staircase (in invalid homes) between 

 the wards and the sanitary offices, so that 

 the staircase well forms a cut-off, with cross- 

 ventilation between the ward on one side 

 and the various sinks, closets, and baths 

 on the other side. The point which requires 

 more attention than any other in building 



a house is the aspect. This is too often neg- 

 lected. A house should receive its maxi- 

 mum amount of sun. The best aspect for 

 a house is generally conceded to be that 

 which allows its chief rooms to look to the 

 southeast. In this way the morning sun is 

 enjoyed, and the rooms do not get the glare 

 of the afternoon sun. It may be advisable 

 to build a house in the form of a veritable 

 sun-trap. The sanitary advantage of a large 

 area for a house is very great indeed. In 

 hospitals we now recognize that infinitely 

 the most important element of the "cubic 

 space per bed " is the floor area, and that 

 a deficient floor space is not to be compen- 

 sated for by giving great height to the 

 wards. The same reasoning is applicable to 

 a house. 



Irrigation of the Nile Valley. In pro- 

 jecting the irrigation works for the Nile Val- 

 ley Engineer Scott-Moncrieff first undertook 

 to restore the barrage built by Mohammed 

 Ali two stone bridges of seventy-one and 

 sixty-one arches respectively thrown across 

 the Rosetta and Damietta branches where 

 they bifurcate. The arches were intended to 

 be fitted up with gates, by lowering which 

 the water would be dammed up and turned 

 into three great brick irrigation canals. The 

 idea of these works was excellent, but the 

 execution was feeble, and they had so far 

 failed to accomplish their purpose. They 

 were again taken in hand and completed in 

 1890, since when the barrage has given no 

 trouble. The three great canals carry off all 

 the river supply from above it, so that prac- 

 tically now the low Nile is emptied every 

 season at the barrage, and no water escapes 

 to the sea. Attention was next directed to 

 providing for the storage of the surplus 

 waters of the upper Nile. The first scheme 

 was to build a great dam at Philse, to be one 

 hundred and fifteen feet high, eighty-five feet 

 at the base, and a mile and a quarter long, 

 pierced by sluices large enough to allow the 

 whole Nile at highest flood to rush through. 

 The lake formed would have been one hun- 

 dred and twenty miles long. The execution 

 of this plan would have drowned the island 

 of Phila) with its splendid Ptolemaic tem- 

 ples built on the sites of older buildings that 

 disappeared centuries ago ; and the civilized 

 world protested against the vandalism, though 



