POPULAR MISCELLANY 



573 



affecting of all in ancient literature, the 

 fright of the child in Homer's " Parting of 

 Hector and Andromache," the interest, " if 

 we analyze it, belongs rather to an impartial 

 delineation of human life as it is, than to 

 any sympathy with the helplessness and de- 

 pendence of its earliest stage." While mod- 

 ern art does not show an equal lack of the 

 taste for childhood, it " is comparatively 

 feeble at all times in comparison with the 

 feeling of our own day." This feeling is re- 

 flected in its intensity first in the poem3 of 

 Wordsworth and the pictures of Sir Joshua 

 Reynolds. " This sympathy with childhood," 

 says the writer in the " Spectator " whose 

 essay we have summarized, " which gives its 

 coloring to modern literature and art, is to 

 be traced back to utterances which have in- 

 fluenced more than the literature and art of 

 modern Europe. ' Except ye become as little 

 children, ye can not enter into the kingdom 

 of heaven,' was a saying new to the world. 

 The fresh aspect under which all weakness, 

 all dependence, appeared in the light of that 

 teaching, was evidently bewildering to its 

 hearers." It took centuries for the Chris- 

 tian world to take in the full meaning of 

 that utterance, which has not been realized 

 as a fact of ordinary life till nearly our own 

 time. But now, " for a year or two in this 

 pilgrimage of ours, the most commonplace, 

 the most tiresome of us is invested with this 

 wonderful capacity [of persuasion and con- 

 ciliation] ; every human being has once upon 

 a time hushed enmities and bridged estrange- 

 ment." 



Iron as a Purifier of Water. The power 

 of iron to remove coloring matter and or- 

 ganic contamination from impure waters has 

 been made capable, by recent improvements 

 in processes, of receiving a greatly extended 

 application. In Prof. Bischof's system, a 

 sand filter which separates the mechanical 

 impurities is underlaid by a mixture of 

 gravel and iron in the proportion of three 

 parts to one. When the water is drawn off 

 from this filter after using, no discoloration 

 is visible in the upper sand, nor till near the 

 iron mixture. In this the particles of gravel 

 and iron become thickly coated and mixed 

 with the reddish, slimy product of the chemi- 

 cal action of the iron ; and, still lower down, 

 the mixture is black, and not subject to 



change. The slimy-coated mixture has to 

 be removed and washed every six months. 

 By another improvement the iron is pre- 

 sented in a state of constant agitation, and 

 the slimy coating being washed away as fast 

 as it is formed, an always clean surface is 

 offered to the water. The working of the 

 method is satisfactory, and may, by adding 

 fresh iron from time to time, be made near- 

 ly continuous. The purification depends 

 upon the chemical action of iron on organic 

 matter in solution, and its property of co- 

 agulating very finely divided particles of 

 matter so that they can be removed by fil- 

 tration. The iron, in this process, changes 

 the chemical nature of the organic matter 

 and greatly reduces the albuminoid ammo- 

 nia; softens the hard scales that form in 

 boilers, and destroys or removes much of the 

 infusorial life in the water. 



A Bit of Triassic History. Mr. W. M. 



Davis's study of the " Topographic Devel- 

 opment of the Triassic Formation of the 

 Connecticut Valley " shows that the country 

 from northwest to southeast suffered from 

 repeated faultings after the trap sheets had 

 taken their places, as extensive surface-flows, 

 in the stratified series, the trend of the faults 

 being to the southwest. The initial con- 

 structional regions are represented by the 

 faulted blocks of southern Idaho. A mount- 

 ainous variety of form prevailed which 

 may provisionally be called the Jurassic 

 stage of the evolution of the district ; but 

 in time during the Cretaceous the fault- 

 ed ridges were reduced to a low, base-leveled 

 plain, in which the present valleys were worn 

 after its elevation. The Connecticut River 

 was originally consequent on the monoclinal 

 faulting ; and, while it has entered on a sec- 

 ond cycle of life as a result of the elevation 

 of the lowland that was produced in its first 

 cycle, it still persists in the course it first took. 



Uranium. It is now a hundred years 

 since Klaproth (in 17S9) discovered the 

 metal which be named after the planet 

 Uranus, then recently discovered by Her- 

 schcl. Uranic oxide, which is yellow, is 

 used to produce a beautiful golden color, 

 and, with other minerals, opalescent tint3 

 in glass and porcelain. The pentoxide is 

 black, and is used in the production of 



