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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



grammars and dictionaries have also been 

 prepared and printed, and from ttiem the 

 languages can be learned so as to be spoken 

 intelligibly without oral instruction. 



The Storage of Life. — In an address de- 

 livered at the Royal Institution, London, Dr. 

 B. W. Eichardson discussed the conditions 

 of the storing or laying up of life, of which 

 the cases of great longevity frequently met 

 with are examples. He puts "hereditary 

 qualification" first of these conditions, and 

 says that the person gifted with this faculty 

 of storage may be of fragile and delicate 

 build, may even be deformed, may be of 

 dull or of bright intellect, may be of cleanly 

 or of uncleanly habit, may be placed in what 

 would seem the most unfavorable position 

 in life, and will continue to live on so as 

 to see all of his more fortunate neighbors 

 fall. The two hereditary temperaments 

 which are incompatible with storage of life 

 are the nervous and the lymphatic ; the two 

 which are compatible, and perhaps neces- 

 sary, are the sanguine and the bilious ; bet- 

 ter, perhaps, than any singly, would be a 

 mixture of the two latter. In the organism 

 best constituted for storage, the color of the 

 eyes, always an excellent test, is a light ha- 

 zel, the hair is dark brown, the color of the 

 skin is inclined to be florid, and the lips and 

 eyelids are of good natural red. Dr. Rich- 

 ardson is confident that the number of per- 

 sons who reach the classical threescore years 

 and ten in England at present is much above 

 what it has ever been in the history of the 

 country. Toward improving heredity in the 

 direction of longevity, the first consideration 

 is the selection of Uves for parentage. If 

 such a social miracle could be performed as 

 the fashion of a proper arrangement to pre- 

 vent the marriage of health with disease, 

 or, still more urgently, the intermarriage of 

 disease, there would soon be an important 

 advance in the value of life. A strong aid 

 to the force of heredity is the virtue of con- 

 tinency, or that virtue which would provide 

 for the limitation of the family circle to such 

 a degree that the resources of the family 

 may never be dangerously taxed by the 

 largeness of it. Another aid is rendered by 

 the art of training the body in such form 

 that all parts of it shall be kept in perfect 

 balance and in equal health. " I do not 



remember," says Dr. Richardson, " any one 

 of fine and vigorous frame of body and 

 mind who, dying prematurely," did not die 

 from the failure of some one vital organ 

 almost exclusively." A weak and well-bal- 

 anced body is practically a stronger body 

 than a strong and unbalanced one, and a 

 body of original strength and beauty may be 

 made of unusually long or of unusually short 

 life, according as it is trained into the con- 

 ditions leading to the one or the other. The 

 storage of life is promoted also by that stoi- 

 cal virtue which may be summed up in the 

 term perfected or all-round temperance. I 

 include in this term not merely abstinence 

 from stimulating or alcoholic drinks. The 

 storage of life is reduced by intemperance 

 of speech, of action, and even of thought. 

 We may consider that whatever quickens 

 the action of the heart beyond its natural 

 bounds is a form of intemperance. The wild 

 hope or wilder despair of the money-market, 

 unbridled passion, and jealousy, are among 

 the kinds of stimulation that hasten the de- 

 chne of heart-power. The existence among 

 men of diseases which lead to physical de- 

 terioration, and reduce the capacity for the 

 storage of life, not alone in one but through 

 many generations, is the last subject to 

 which there is time to refer. The alcoholic 

 diseases, the scrofulous and phthisical, the 

 malignant or cancerous, the syphilitic, are 

 diseases of this order, and whoever helps 

 to remove them by getting at and removing 

 their causes is among the truest friends that 

 humanity ever possessed. 



Protection of Wood aaginst Fire. — An 



investigation has been made by Profs. Bou- 

 din and Doimy, of the Ghent University, at 

 the requisition of the Belgian Minister of 

 Public Works, in regard to rendering wood 

 uninflammable. They reported that to de- 

 prive wood to a considerable extent of the 

 property of catching and communicating fire 

 it is sufficient to coat it with a suitable com- 

 position. A practical process must not be 

 too expensive, nor take too much time, and 

 the substance used must not attack any 

 metal used in connection with the wood. 

 Two methods of treatment may be men- 

 tioned. One is the injection of saline solu- 

 tions, which appears but little applicable 

 except to small pieces of wood, and may be 



