FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



389 



stone, and slate. Holes two inches and 

 three quarters in dianieter and four or 

 five feet deep are bored and the rock 

 dislodged by means of dynamite. A nar- 

 row-gauge railway is used to remove the 

 ddbris. It is expected that the tunnel 

 will be completed in five years and a 

 half. At the close of 1898, 300 feet had 

 been penetrated on the south side and 

 1,300 on the north. The estimated cost 

 of the complete double-track tunnels is 

 69,000,000 francs. This does not include 

 the construction of the permanent way. 

 The Mont Cenis Tunnel cost 75,000,000 

 francs, and the St. Gothard 59,750,000 

 francs. The work is practically con- 

 trolled by the Jura-Simplon Railway. 



Grant Allen. — The death of our 

 contributor, Mr. Grant Allen, was men- 

 tioned in the last number of the Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly. Mr, Allen was 

 born in February, 1848, the son of the 

 Rev. J. A. Allen, of Wolfe Island, Can- 

 ada. He attended schools in the United 

 States, in France, and in Birmingham, 

 England, and entered Merton College, 

 Oxford, whence he took his degree of 

 B. A. in 1870. He afterward spent a 

 few years in Jamaica as principal of a 

 college for the higher education of the 

 negro, which had only a brief career. 

 He returned to England and settled 

 down in London for literary work, writ- 

 ing rather on social and scientific than 

 political subjects, for various journals. 

 While he loved and appreciated scien- 

 tific truth, he rather regarded his subject 

 from the essthetic side, and this gave a 

 peculiar charm to his articles. He pub- 

 lished books on Physiological Esthetics 

 and The Color Sense, which did not 

 prove profitable. Finding it hard to 

 gain a livelihood from his scientific 

 work, he turned- to fiction, and soon 

 found, as the London Times has it, 

 " that his worst fiction was more profit- 

 able than his best science." His love of 

 science, however, " approached enthusi- 

 asm," and he contributed frequent popu- 

 lar scientific articles to the magazines, 

 so that " for years past hardly one of 

 those publications has been reckoned 

 complete " without contribution of this 

 character from him. He removed from 

 London to Dorking, and afterward went 

 to southern France and Italy for his 

 health. Then, having so far recovered 

 that he could spend his winters in Eng- 



land, he maae himself a home at Hind- 

 head, Surrey. Here he died, October 

 •25th, after several weeks' suffering from 

 a painful internal malady. Among his 

 scientific works, his books on Physio- 

 logical ^Esthetics, The Color Sense, and 

 the Evolution of the Idea of God deserve 

 special mention. 



Japanese Paper. — The peculiar 

 qualities of Japanese paper, most of 

 them excellent ones, and the great va- 

 riety of uses to which it is applied, are 

 known everywhere. It is a wood or 

 bark paper, and derives its properties 

 from the substances of which it is made 

 and the method of its manufacture. 

 Several plants are cultivated for the 

 oianufacture, which, in the absence of 

 English names, must be called by their 

 Japanese or scientific ones, of which 

 the principal are " mitsumata " (Edge- 

 worthia papyrifera), the " sozo " (Bros- 

 sonia papyrifera), and the "gampiju" 

 {Wiekstroannia canecensis). Bamboo 

 bark also fxirnishes a good paper, but is 

 not much used. The mitsumata rami- 

 fies into three branches, and is culti- 

 vated in plantations, being propagated 

 from seeds and by cuttings. It is fit 

 for use in the second year if the soil 

 is good. Its cultivation and exporta- 

 tion have reached an enormous im- 

 portance, largely because the Imperial 

 Printing Office uses it for bank notes and 

 official documents. The so::o is propa- 

 gated by seeds, and somewhat resembles 

 the mulberry. The gampiju is a small 

 shrub which is cut in its third year. 

 To make paper, the bark is steeped in a 

 kettle with buckwheat ashes to extract 

 the resin in it. When it is reduced to 

 a pulp, a sieve-bottomed frame with silk 

 or hempen threads is plunged within, 

 very much as in Western paper-making. 

 This, letting out the water, holds the 

 pulp, which, felting, is to form the future 

 sheet of paper. This is pressed, to squeeze 

 all the water out, and is left to dry. The 

 uses made of paper in Japan are in- 

 numerable, particularly in old Japan, 

 which treasures up its past. The pa- 

 pers, though all made in a similar way, 

 are called by different names, according 

 to the uses to which they are applied 

 and their origin. Window lights are 

 made of paper, and partitions between 

 rooms, when it is stretched on frames, 

 which work as sliding doors. The ccle- 



