MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 85 



ART IN NATURE. 



The old corals abound in ornamental patterns, which man, unaware of 

 their existence at the time, devised long after for himself. In an article on 

 calico printing, which forms part of a recent history of Lancashire, there 

 are a few of the patterns introduced, backed by the recommendation that 

 they were the most successful ever tried. Of one of these, known as " Lane's 

 Net," there sold a greater number of pieces than of any other pattern ever 

 brought into market. It led to many imitations ; and one of the most 

 popular of these answers line for line, save that it is more stiff and rectilinear, 

 to the pattern in a recently-discovered Old Eed Sandstone coral, the Smitkia 

 Pengettyi. The beautifully-arranged lines which so smit the dames of Eng- 

 land, that each had to provide herself with a gown of the fabric which they 

 adorned, had been stamped amid the rocks eons of ages before. And it must 

 not be forgotten, that all these forms and shades of beauty which once filled 

 all nature, but of which only a few fragments, or a few faded tints, sur- 

 vive, were created, not to gratify man's love of the aesthetic, seeing that man 

 had no existence until long after they had disappeared, but in meet har- 

 mony with the tastes and faculties of the Divine Worker, who had, in His 

 wisdom, produced them all. Hugh Miller's Testimony of the Hocks. 



EXTINGUISHING FIRES ON SHIPBOARD. 



Dr. James Patton, of Paisley, Scotland, has proposed a plan for extin- 

 guishing fires on shipboard, by filling the vessel with carbonic acid gas, as 

 soon as the crew and passengers are removed upon deck. This can be ac- 

 complished, by placing in some convenient part or parts of the vessel, a tank 

 or tanks, containing super-carbonate of soda, or some other carbonate, and 

 in the interior thereof a glass vessel, containing a clue proportion of sulphuric 

 or other acid for displacing the gas. The tank should communicate with the 

 deck by an opening through which an iron rod could be passed, and having 

 openings in the side through which the gas might escape into the hold of the 

 vessel, the upper opening being closed as soon as the glass is broken, so that 

 the gas might be diffused below. Upon any alarm of fire, all being mustered 

 upon deck, the carboy in the interior of the carbonate might then be broken 

 by the iron rod; the vessel .would fill in a few minutes with fixed air, ex- 

 tinguishing the fire at the same time, so that there would not be the smallest 

 danger unless it had penetrated the deck previously. The above may be 

 verified, by taking an air-tight deal box, a tumbler, or any convenient air- 

 tight vessel, placing a quantity of super-carbonate of soda at the bottom, 

 with a tube reaching to the top, then, filling the vessel with cotton, or other 

 combustible, ignite, and while combustion is going on, pour a little vinegar 

 or other acid in the tube upon the soda ; the fire will instantly be extin- 

 guished, even though there is no covering over the vessel to retain the gas. 



EXPERIMENTS IN AEROSTATION. 



At a recent meeting of the French Academy, Marshal Yaillant gave an 

 account of some tiials made at Vincennes in the spring of 1855, under the 



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