136 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Carl Vogt on the Archseopteryx. — Tlie 

 Congress of Swiss Naturalists held its sixty- 

 second annual meeting this year at St. Gall. 

 Professor Carl Vogt delivered one of the 

 public lectures, choosing for his subject the 

 archa3opteryx, an animal intermediate be- 

 tween birds and reptiles. Of the archaeop- 

 teryx there exist only two (fossil) speci- 

 mens, one of which, that first discovered, is 

 in the British Museum ; the other, which is 

 by far the more perfect of the two, was dis- 

 covered a few years ago at Solenhofen, Ger- 

 many. It is the property of Dr. Haeber- 

 lein, of Pappenheim. It was once fondly 

 hoped that the Emperor of Germany would 

 purchase this treasure and preserve it for 

 the Fatherland ; but, as Professor Vogt re- 

 marks, a petrified cannon or musket would 

 have found infinitely more favor in that 

 quarter ! The naturalists who studied the 

 specimen in the British Museum pronounced 

 this Jurassic animal to be a bird, inasmuch 

 as it had a beak, nails, and feathers. But 

 the Solenhofen archseopteryx proves, un- 

 doubtedly, that the animal was a bird-like 

 reptile, of the size of a pigeon, which had 

 both scales and feathers, a beak provided 

 with teeth, armed wings, bird-like feet with 

 nails, and a reptilian tail, consisting of twen- 

 ty vertebra". 



Stilling the Waves with Oil.— A few 



months ago we printed some observations 

 on the use of oil as a means of calming 

 a tempestuous sea in cases of danger to 

 mariners. A later number of the journal 

 (Chambers's) from which those observa- 

 tions were quoted contains the ofBcial re- 

 port of a ship-master, whose vessel ap- 

 pears to have escaped disaster through the 

 timely use of oil in a storm. This report 

 was sent to " Chambers's Journal " by Mr. 

 Sprunt, British Vice-Consul at Wilmington, 

 North Carolina. It is as follows : 



"British brigantine Gem, of Sackville, 

 New Brunswick, Richardson, master. On 

 the 1st of April last, bound from Wilming- 

 ton, North Carolina, for Bristol, took a 

 heavy gale of wind about a degree to the 

 eastward of Bermuda, from the south, veer- 

 ing rapidly to the northwest, whence it blew 

 a hurricane for thirty-six hours, with a 

 cross-breaking sea, ship laboring heavily — 

 ' started ' the after-house and boats, stove 



lazarette hatch, and took try-sail from the 

 mast. All hands aft in the cabin in case 

 the sea should break over and carry away 

 fore-house. 8 p. M., sea getting worse, the 

 master thought of resorting to the oil ex- 

 periment, which he had read of in ' Cham- 

 bers's Journal.' Had a canvas bag pre- 

 pared, holding about three quarts of kero- 

 sene oil, with a rope of six fathoms attached, 

 and kept trailing to windward ; the oil leak- 

 ing through the canvas greatly broke top- 

 ping sea, and made matters much more 

 favorable for the ship. This was kept up 

 through the night ; and at 3 a. m. on the 

 2d of April the weather began to moderate. 

 The mate, who had himself lashed to the 

 rigging during the whole of his watch, be- 

 lieved with the captain that the resort to the 

 oil saved the ship, as such fearful weather 

 had never during the captain's experience 

 of fourteen years been witnessed by him. 

 A drop of the oil will smooth about four 

 feet circumference of sea. Captain Rich- 

 ardson suggests that a canvas bag to hold 

 about six gallons is the best size, pierced 

 with small holes with a penknife, the holes 

 to be enlarged as the canvas becomes wet 

 and its texture closer." 



Petrolenm for Steam-making.— A suc- 

 cessful exhibition was recently made at 

 Pittsburg of a method of using petroleum 

 as fuel on board steamers. In its main 

 features this new method resembles other 

 methods which have been tried with more 

 or less success — air, steam, and oil-spray 

 being injected into a suitable fire-box. The 

 spray is said to be immediately converted 

 into inflammable gas, becoming a pure, 

 bright, powerful flame, free from smoke. 

 To accomplish this result, the inventor re- 

 sorts to a very simple contrivance, described 

 as follows in the " Journal of the Franklin 

 Institute " : A small hole is drilled into the 

 iron front of the fire-box, and into this 

 passes a tube which branches, as it leaves 

 this point, into two pipes. One of these 

 connects with the boiler itself, and the 

 other with a receptacle containing crude 

 oil. At the junction of these pipes there 

 is an aperture for the admission of atmos- 

 pheric air. Valves of peculiar construction 

 regulate the quantity of steam or oil ad- 

 mitted to the furnace. Our contemporary 



