MISCELLANY. 



779 



scheme is its expense. The product would 

 necessarily cost about as much per ton as 

 good coal, without being at all as service- 

 able. The next attempt was the production 

 of "gaseous coke." Here the object was to 

 convert small coal, by the addition of coal- 

 tar, either pure, or mixed with naphtha, into 

 a well-mixed mass. It was then to be put 

 into an oven and coked ; afterward it was 

 to be broken into suitable blocks for use. 

 There were several modifications of this 

 process, but as they all more or less involved 

 the previous manufacture of their most es- 

 sential ingredient, coal-tar, the anticipations 

 of the projectors were not realized. 



In 1823 a step was taken in the right 

 direction by the combination of bituminous 

 and anthracite coals, and converting them, 

 by partial carbonization in an oven, into a 

 kind of soft coke. In 1845 Frederick Ran- 

 some introduced a plan for cementing to- 

 gether small coal by means of a solution of 

 silica dissolved in caustic soda, the small 

 refuse coal so treated to be then compressed 

 into blocks suitable for use. In 1849 Henry 

 Bessemer proposed simply to heat small 

 coal sufficient to soften it, and thus render 

 it capable of being easily pressed into 

 moulds and formed into solid blocks. The 

 coal, according to this plan, might be soft- 

 ened either by the action of steam or in 

 suitable ovens. Coal alone was used, no 

 extraneous matter of any kind being em- 

 ployed. In 1856 F. Ransome brought for- 

 ward one of the best plans yet offered. He 

 placed the small coal in suitable moulds, 

 which were then passed into an oven, and 

 there heated just sufficiently to cause the 

 mass to agglomerate. 



Though the writer in the Mechanic com- 

 mends highly the Ransome and the Besse- 

 mer plans, it is clear that they do not fully 

 solve the problem, for inventors are still 

 busy on both sides of the Atlantic devising 

 other and better methods. Perhaps, how- 

 ever, the successful working of the Crans- 

 ton "Automatic Reverberatory Furnace," 

 which is adapted for the consumption of 

 powdered coal, will cause such a demand 

 for small coal as will leave these utilizing 

 processes without material to work on. 



Quatrefages on Unman Crania. Quatre- 

 fages is engaged on a work entitled " Cra- 



nia of the Human Races," and recently 

 laid before the Paris Academy of Sciences 

 a synopsis of the results which he there 

 proposes to establish. The materials he 

 has at hand for this investigation are 

 abundant no less than 4,000 skulls ; and 

 he acknowledges the valuable assistance 

 rendered to him by the most eminent sa- 

 vants both of France and of the rest of 

 Europe. He holds that the fossil races are 

 not extinct, but that, on the contrary, they 

 have yet living representatives. He regards 

 the skull discovered in 1*700 at Caustadt, 

 near Stuttgart, as the type of the most an- 

 cient human race of which we have any 

 knowledge. This skull is dolichocephalous 

 that is, having a length greater than its 

 breadth. With the Canstadt skull he 

 classes those of Enghisheim, Brux, Nean- 

 derthal, La Denise, Staengenaes, Olmo, and 

 Clichy the last-named three being the 

 skulls of females. Among the representa- 

 tives, in historical times, of the dolichoceph- 

 alous race, M. Quatrefages reckons Kay 

 Lykke, a Danish statesman of the seven- 

 teenth century, whose skull is portrayed in 

 the forthcoming work ; Saint Mansuy, Bishop 

 of Toul in the fourth century, whose skull is 

 also figured ; and Robert Bruce. Whether 

 the cranium is long or short dolichoceph- 

 alous or brachycephalous is a question 

 which has nothing to do with the intel- 

 lectual status of the man, according to M. 

 Quatrefages. 



Heart-Disease and Overwork. The ear- 

 ly break-down of health observed among 

 Cornish- miners, and commonly regarded 

 as an affection of the lungs " miners' 

 phthisis " is declared, by competent au- 

 thority, to proceed rather from disturbed 

 action of the heart ; and this, according to 

 Dr. Houghton, the distinguished Dublin 

 physiologist, is caused by the great and 

 sudden strain put upon the system by the 

 ascent from the pits, at a time when the 

 body is not sufficiently fortified with food. 

 In his valuable address on the " Relation 

 of Food to Work," Dr. Houghton says : 

 " The labor of the miner is peculiar, and his 

 food appears to me badly suited to meet its 

 requirements. At the close of a hard day's 

 toil the weary miner has to climb, by verti- 

 cal ladders, through a height of from 600 to 



