572 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



walls are jacketed with asbestine or a 

 mortar made of diatomaceous earth " fos- 

 sil meal," and then incased in wood ; but 

 the process of cooking goes on more slowly 

 in this apparatus than in the one previously 

 described. By throwing a woolen covering 

 over the apparatus as soon as the cooking 

 is done, the food may be kept hot for a 

 considerable time. As no evaporation takes 

 place within the apparatus, the cooked food 

 comes out of about the same consistency as 

 it went in. Allowance must be made for 

 this fact ia the preparation of the dishes. 

 Though all of his apparatus has been crude 

 and his efforts mostly tentative, Mr. Atkin- 

 son has had- excellent success with most of 

 the dishes he has cooked in it. They came 

 out as well cooked as in other apparatus, 

 except that they are never browned. He 

 believes that his invention is susceptible of 

 great improvement and development. He 

 invites suggestions looking to those ends, 

 but desires that all improvements belong to 

 the public, and that the use of his appa- 

 ratus be not encumbered by any patents. 

 The date of his communication to us is 

 April 9, 1886. The name of " The Aladdin " 

 has been given to the invention. 



Oriental Carpets. The art of weaving 

 applied first to goods for clothing and to 

 hangings and curtains for the tents of the 

 pastoral people has existed in the East 

 from the earliest times. The designs now 

 used, it is supposed by Mr. Vincent J. Rob- 

 inson an enthusiast on the subject of Ori- 

 ental design in a lecture on the subject be- 

 fore the British Society of Arts, are the 

 same as were in use in the time of Abra- 

 ham, and probably for centuries before. A 

 representation of weaving, in a tomb at 

 Beni Hassan, Egypt, which is as old at least 

 as Abraham's time, shows two figures at 

 work at a loom precisely like those now in 

 use all over the East. Peculiar and dis- 

 tinguishing patterns marked the work of 

 each tribe, and it is still often possible for 

 the expert to determine by these patterns 

 the district whence particular carpets have 

 originated. Floor-coverings are pictorially 

 indicated in the pavements of the palace at 

 Nineveh, where the design of the carpet, 

 marked by an inlaying of colored tesserae, 

 became a part of the permanent pavement. 



These designs are the same as those of some 

 of the carpets still in use in Syria. Baby- 

 lon was an important center of carpet-manu- 

 facturing ; but, after the Roman conquest 

 of Persia, all the goods of the region took 

 the name of Persian, and it has lasted. 

 The history of carpets in India can not be 

 traced so far back, because of the obscurity 

 of the sources and references ; but there is 

 reason to believe that, two or even three 

 thousand years ago, the Indians had at- 

 tained a higher state of refinement than they 

 now possess. While sheep producing quali- 

 ties of wool other than the finest abound in 

 various parts of India, the very finest wool, 

 called put, is only to be found in Turkistan, 

 in the undergrowth which appears in the 

 cold season. The fleece is shorn and the 

 put is combed from the under part of it. 

 This wool is used in the Cashmere shawls. 

 Wool of similar quality is grown in Afghan- 

 istan and Khorassan, and about Shiraz and 

 Kerman and Herat, at mountain-heights 

 ranging from 4,500 to 7,600 feet. Besides 

 these wools, camel's and goat's hair and the 

 hair of the yak and the ibex are employed 

 in carpet-manufacture. The finest of these 

 is the peshur, or hair that grows close to the 

 body of the goat, which is procured chiefly 

 in the mountains of Afghanistan. Silk is oc- 

 casionally used in Southern India, and gives 

 an exceedingly lustrous effect to the pile. 

 A carpet in the Vincent Robinson Collec- 

 tion, made entirely of silk, and probably of 

 the sixteenth century, is wonderful as a 

 mere piece of weaving, having four hun- 

 dred stitches to the square inch. The old 

 carpets were colored red, with kermes or 

 madder ; yellow, with the pomegranate ; and 

 blue, with indigo. The manipulation of the 

 manufacture consists in knotting with a 

 double twist the wool forming the pile of 

 the carpet firmly upon the foundation. The 

 workman sits near the ground, with his legs 

 in a hole in front of his work, which is 

 wound upon a roller as it is done. A work- 

 man can make five or six inches by eighteen 

 of the coarser kinds, less of the finer kinds, 

 per day. Mr. Robinson is greatly impressed 

 with the seemingly unconscious and special 

 artistic gifts of the carpet-makers, and as- 

 cribes much of their success to their abhor- 

 rence of novelty. Indeed, he would like to 

 make it an axiom that in fine design novelty 



