POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



283 



mote. The salutary influence of children is 

 equally marked with married and widowed 

 persons, with men and women. The Swed- 

 ish statistics may be brought in again to en- 

 large our knowledge on this point by show- 

 ing the combined influence of marriage and 

 age. According to these tables, the differ- 

 ence in the liability of married men and 

 celibates, while they are still young, is very 

 slight. The tendency to suicide then in- 

 creases slowly among married men as they 

 grow older, and at its maximum (at about 

 sixty to sixty-five years of age) is two and 

 one half times (26 in 100,000) what it was 

 at the adult age (10 to 11 per 100,000). 

 After the sixty-fifth year it diminishes. 

 With unmarried persons, on the other hand, 

 the tendency increases with almost a geo- 

 metrical progression. At twenty-five years 

 of age it is more than double (26 per 100,- 

 000) what it is with married persons of the 

 same age (11 per 100,000), and at seventy 

 years is eleven times as great (230 against 

 21 per 100,000); and after this period it 

 goes on increasing as fast as ever, while the 

 proportion for married persons is diminish- 

 ing. The phenomena with women are analo- 

 gous, but less marked. It is found, by com- 

 paring the statistics of the two classes, that 

 the general increase in the tendency to com- 

 mit suicide with advancing age can be al- 

 most wholly accounted for by this progres- 

 sion of suicides among the unmarried. The 

 difference in the liability of the two classes 

 may be partly explained by setting off 

 the regularity of habit which married life 

 and particularly the caro for children in- 

 duce with the irregularities to which the un- 

 married surrender themselves, of which the 

 most damaging is drunkenness. Signor Mor- 

 relli says that drunkenness causes thirty-one 

 per cent, of the suicides in Denmark, and 

 that a similar rule prevails everywhere. 



Artificial Lights. The great point of dif- 

 ference between natural and artificial li"-hts. 

 says Dr. Javal, the French occulist, is the ex- 

 cessive feebleness of the latter. A lamp 

 or a gas-jet makes an insignificant impres- 

 sion in daylight. The light of a million can- 

 dles burning in a room would be vastly in- 

 ferior in intensity to that of the direct rays 

 of the sun. The pupils of our eyes are con- 

 siderably larger in the most brilliantly light- 



ed room than they are in daylight. We seek 

 the brightest places of resort at night, and 

 use the strongest lights we can afford in our 

 homes, employing every means to make them 

 stronger. Persons with imperfect sight are 

 fatigued in working with artificial lights be- 

 cause the enlargement of their pupils gives 

 full play to faults which are mitigated un- 

 der the contraction of the aperture which a 

 strong light induces. The spectra of all 

 artificial lights, except the magnesium and 

 electrical lights, are different from the spec- 

 trum of sunlight in that they are dark on 

 the most refracted side, that of the blue, 

 violet, and chemical rays. It may be that 

 this quality compensates in part for the 

 greater dilatation of the pupil which these 

 lights require by reducing the amount of 

 chromatic refraction which would otherwise 

 take place. It does not appear, however, 

 that any workmen prefer such lights to sun- 

 light. It has been suggested that the pres- 

 ence of these rays in the electric light might 

 cause it to be injurious. If that should 

 prove to be the case, any evil effect might 

 be remedied by shading the pencils with yel- 

 low-tinted globes. No complaint has been 

 made, however, of bad effects arising from 

 the proper use of this light. Those who 

 have studied it most attentively have felt no 

 inconvenience except when they looked in- 

 tently at it without guarding their eyes. It 

 is not intended to be used thus ; and, if we 

 judged by this criterion, the sun would be 

 the worst of all lights. When the electric 

 light was first introduced into the freight 

 depots in Paris, the workmen complained of 

 being dazzled by it. After some weeks, it 

 was taken away, and gas was put in its place, 

 when a general outcry went up against the 

 darkness. 



A Solar Machine. The idea of applying 

 the heat of the sun directly as a motive force 

 has been entertained as within the limits of 

 possibility for some time. A Frenchman, 

 M. Mouchot, devised a machine, about two 

 years ago, for concentrating the rays of the 

 sun so that they could be made to perform 

 some slight offices. M. Abel Pifre, an engi- 

 neer associated with M. Mouchot, has car- 

 ried on some experiments in Algeria with an 

 adaptation of his machine which have had a 

 promising degree of success. Ilis apparatus 



