P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY 



73 



f rials, which absorb it. Its effects are to 

 cause disintegration of masonry, the decay 

 of timber, the development of saltpeter on 

 walls, and injury to the health of the in- 

 habitants of the buildings, with damage to 

 the decorations of the walls and to furni- 

 ture. Remedies to prevent and cure it may 

 be applied to both the causes by : 1. Employ- 

 ing suitable materials for cellars and other 

 parts of buildings below or on the level of 

 the soil; 2. Inserting damp-courses to stop 

 the upward progress of damp ; 3. Applying 

 preparations to protect the face of the ex- 

 posed wall from the weather, or to prevent 

 damp in the wall from affecting an apart- 

 ment ; and, 4. Adopting precautions against 

 infiltration. Concrete, covering the whole 

 ground-area of the future building with a 

 layer four inches thick, forms the most 

 thoroughly sanitary foundation. Well-pud- 

 dled clay is also good and inexpensive, but 

 is not effective in old buildings. The po- 

 rosity of materials has been obviated by in- 

 jecting them with gas-refuse, by immersing 

 or washing them in solutions of soap and 

 alum successively, by plunging them into a 

 solution of silicate of potash, and by paint- 

 ing them with gas-tar. Mortars are made 

 impervious by mixing them with cement. 

 Parquets may be preserved by laying them 

 upon bitumen. Ventilating bricks, which 

 are made in France twice as large as com- 

 mon bricks, admit air to the interior of 

 walls, and thus keep them dry. Under the 

 Joumet patent, ventilable and perfectly dry 

 floors and areas are made by laying the 

 cement around pipes, which, being drawn 

 out, leave the foundation penetrated by 

 tubes. Conduits are made with the glyco- 

 metallic liquid, or with gutta-percha. The 

 stone settings of windows should be made 

 moisture-proof, and leaden gutters on the 

 inside, to catch the moisture that drips from 

 the glass, will be of service. Slates should 

 be hung on the Fourgeau or Chevreau hooks, 

 with which the damp-admitting holes re- 

 quired when nails are used can be dis- 

 pensed with. Finally, drains from closets 

 should be furnished with ventilating pipes. 



Are Marriage and the Family in Dan- 

 ger ? Certain magazinists, croaking preach- 

 ers, and foreigners who look at American 

 society through telescopes leveled at Utah 



and Chicago, have sounded a cry of alarm 

 that the marriage institution and the purity 

 of the family arc decaying in the United 

 States. Their assertions are founded on the. 

 frequency with which divorces arc sought 

 in some places where the process is made 

 particularly easy. Granting that divorces 

 are too freely given, and that the appetency 

 for divorce indicates that something is wrong 

 in the morals of the parties : have the alarm- 

 ists ever stopped to inquire what arc the 

 moral characters of the parties aside from 

 the fact of the divorce suit, or whether their 

 morals would probably be any better if there 

 were no possibility of divorce ? And have 

 they ever reflected upon the preponderating 

 numbers of American married people who 

 never think of applying for divorce, but are 

 striving with all their might to build up and 

 maintain a pure and healthful family life, 

 and would continue to do so even if it were 

 as easy to get a divorce as to buy a pair of 

 boots ? The very facts the alarmists cite 

 show that there is no relation whatever be- 

 tween facility of divorce and moral laxity. 

 In Maine, divorce is of the easiest the 

 court grants it at its discretion yet no man 

 in his senses will say that society in Maine 

 is a wdiit less pure than in New York, where 

 divorce is of the hardest to get. South 

 Carolina allows no divorces, while North 

 Carolina has a divorce law that is singularly 

 lax, yet no difference can be perceived in the 

 morality of the two States. Boston, where 

 divorces are quite numerous, is quite as 

 moral, to say the least, as Paris, where no 

 divorce is allowed. An increase in the num- 

 ber of divorces is not observed in the United 

 States only, but is receiving attention in 

 countries where laxity can not be predicated 

 of the laws. It is the case " enormously," 

 according to the confession of the " Pall 

 Mall Gazette," in England. In France, le- 

 gal separations have gone up from 1 to 

 370 marriages in 1840-'50, tc 1 in 152 in 

 1860-'70. In Belgium the ratio of divorces 

 has risen from 1 in 576 couples in 1840, to 

 1 in 200 in 1874. 



Biology in Pnblie Schools. Mr. George 

 W. Peckham, of the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) 

 High School, has told how he has succeeded 

 in teaching biology to his classes of boys 

 and girls. Two years' experience convinced 



