POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



569 



archery and the paraphernalia of the ar- 

 chers than has yet been done, that " the 

 remarkable persistence of certain forms of 

 arrow-release among various nations leads 

 me to believe that, in identifying the affini- 

 ties of past races, the method of using the 

 bow may form another point in establishing 

 or disproving relationships. By knowing 

 with more certainty the character and limi- 

 tation of the forms of arrow - release, an- 

 other clew may be got as to the date and 

 nature of fragments of sculpture represent- 

 ing the hand. The peculiar attitude of the 

 archer might lead to the interpretation of 

 armless statues." 



Workingnien's Co-operation Organiza- 

 tions.— Mr. A. H. Dyke Acland, M. P., made 

 some statements in the British Association 

 concerning the operation of workingmen's 

 co-operative organizations. After describ- 

 ing the plans on which the organizations are 

 formed, he said that the result of their op- 

 eration has been a gradual saving of capi- 

 tal, till there is often more than can be em- 

 ployed in the business ; indeed, the difficulty 

 with many societies is too much capital, not 

 too little. The increase in the business of 

 the societies between 1865 and 1885 was 

 from about £3,000,000 per annum to more 

 than £20,000,000 per annum. At the pres- 

 ent time productive or manufacturing busi- 

 ness of £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 a year, on 

 a large or small scale, is carried on, the 

 capital of which comes mainly from the 

 distributive or retail societies. The two 

 wholesale societies are the property of the 

 retail stores, which have created them for 

 their own convenience for the supply of ar- 

 ticles direct to their shops from England 

 and abroad. The English wholesale socie- 

 ty like the retail societies has had to refuse 

 capital which its members (that is, the re- 

 tail stores) would willingly have deposited 

 with it. It has adhered mainly to the work 

 of the merchant, and has done compara- 

 tively little in the way of manufacturing. 

 Some of the large stores have erected corn- 

 mills and batteries, and many societies em- 

 ploy tailors, dress-makers, and the like, and 

 some are now begining to rent farms. In 

 the large stores there is a great demand 

 for milk, butter, and agricultural produce. 

 These facts throw light on the questions of 



the possibility of the accumulation of large 

 sums of capital by workingmen ; of the suc- 

 cessful utilization of such capital by work- 

 ingmen in industrial enterprise ; and of the 

 improvement of the position of the worker 

 or the lessening of the assumed antagonism 

 of employer and employed in consequence 

 of such successful utilization of capital. 

 In the discussion on Mr. Acland's paper, Mr. 

 Evans, representing the Co-operative Con- 

 gress Board, said it was remarkable to how 

 great an extent the progress of co-operation 

 coincided with the decline of the influence 

 of socialistic teaching. 



The Preservation of Water-Colors. — In 



a paper " On the Fading of Water-Colors," 

 read in the British Association, Professor W. 

 N. Hartley pointed out that colors consist 

 of mineral substances, for the most part of 

 a stable character, or of organic substances 

 comprising stable colors and unstable and 

 changeable colors. Excepting ultramarine, 

 bodies of the former class may be consid- 

 ered unalterable unless they contain lead or 

 mercury ; those of the second class may be 

 considered alterable under certain condi- 

 tions. The action of light on these two 

 classes of substances, when it is capable of 

 affecting them, is different. On mineral sub- 

 stances the red rays cause oxidation ; the 

 oxidizing power decreases as the rays ex- 

 tend more toward the yellow ; becomes null 

 in the yellowish-green ; is reversed and be- 

 comes a reducing power in the blue, and 

 this is intensified in the violet and ultra-vi- 

 olet. On organic substances the action of 

 light is an oxidizing one throughout, con- 

 tinuously increasing in power (except in the 

 green, where it is diminished) through the 

 red and yellow into the violet. The action 

 is not confined to oxidation, for bodies of 

 complex and unstable character may be 

 changed in composition, and, being resolved 

 into more stable compounds, changed in 

 color or rendered colorless. In order to pre- 

 serve water -color drawings in which deli- 

 cate yellow and red tints are largely used, 

 they should be kept in a very subdued light, 

 preferably of a yellow tint, such as is yield- 

 ed by daylight passing through blinds of 

 unbleached linen. The action of the violet 

 rays is from two to three times as powerful 

 as that of the red and yellow, and the dif- 



