192 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Sept. 5, 1884. 



of the body, and as .suffering corresponding mutilation. 

 When the native Australian has slain his foe, he cuts off 

 his right thumb, so as to prevent him from throwing a 

 shadowy spear ; the Chinese dread of decapitation, lest 

 their s))irits are headless, is well known ; but a more telling 

 illustration is that cited by Dr. Tylor, from Waitz, of the 

 West Indian planter, whose slaves sought refuge from the 

 lash and toil in suicide. But he was too cunning for them ; 

 he cut off the heads and hands of the corpses, that the 

 survivors might see that not even death could save them 

 from a taskmaster who could maim their souls in the next 

 world. Among advanced nations the same conceptions sur- 

 vived. AchUles, resting by the shore, sees the dead Patroclus 

 in a dream. " Ay me, there remaiueth then, even in the 

 home of Hades, a spirit and phantom of the dead, for all 

 night long hath the ghost of hapless Patroclus stood over 

 me, wailing and making moan."* Virgil portrays yEneas, 

 and Homer describes Ulysses, as recognising their old 

 comrades when they enter the " viewless shades," where 

 the dwellers continue the tasks of their earthly life. 

 In Hebrew legend Saul recognises the shade of Samuel 

 when the magic spells of the Witch of Endor evokes it, 

 although the grave of the old "judge" was sixty miles 

 away. The monarch-shades of " Sheol" hail with derision 

 the entrauce of the King of Babylon among them. In 

 New Testament narrative the risen Jesus is alternately 

 material and spiritual, now passing through closed doors, 

 and now submitting his wound-prints to the touch of the 

 doubter. In " Hamlet " the ghost is as " the air, invulner- 

 able," yet " like a king "... 



. . . that fair and warlike form 



In which the majesty of buried Denmark 



Did sometimes march. 



Notions of material punishments and rewards involved 

 notions of a material soul, even pending its reunion with 

 the body at the general resurrection. The angels are 

 depicted as weighing souls in a literal balance, while devils 

 clinging to the scales endeavoured to disturb the equi- 

 librium. In some frescoes of the fourteenth century, on 

 the walla of the Campo Santo, at Pisa, illustrations of 

 these notions abound ; the soul is portrayed as a sexless 

 child rising out of the mouth of the corpse, and eagerly 

 awaited as the crown of rejoicing of the angels, or as the 

 lawful prey of the demons. After this it is amusing to 

 learn that extreme tests of the weight of ghosts are now 

 and then forthcoming,+ from the assertion of a Basuto 

 divine that the late queen had been bestriding his 

 shoulders, and he never felt such a weight in his life, to 

 the alleged modern spiritualistic reckoning of the weight 

 of a human soul at from three to four ounces ! And do not 

 spirit-photographs adorn the albums of the credulous ? 



THE WESTINGHOUSE BRAKE. 



By Trevithick. 



{Continued from page 160.) 



I HAVE already indicated several of the features of the 

 Westinghouse brake, but it remains to detail them 

 specifically in order to show the superiority inherent to the 

 apparatus when compared with other systems. 



In the first place, rapidity of action is one great essential 

 in order that a train may be stopped instantaneously. Not 

 only must the effect be felt upon the engine, but throughout 

 the entire train, and that simultaneously. I was consider- 

 ably impressed by the working of a model which I saw at 



* " Iliad," xxiii., 103. f "Prim. Culture," I., 411. 



the works of the company, resembling in every feature a 

 train of sixteen carriages. The moment the air was released 

 from the main pipe the brake cylinders operated, and 

 within 11 seconds the pistons had reached the limit of 

 their stroke, the whole of them moving together. In 

 actual working the brakes are therefore fully on in li 

 seconds. This results from there being only a small 

 volume of air to release, and that at a high pressure. 

 In the case of a vacuum brake, where there is only a part 

 of the pressure of the atmosphere (101b.) to work with, 

 as compared with 70 lb. on the Westinghouse pressure brake, 

 a much larger pi|)e is necessary in order to apply the 

 brakes with sufficient force to be effective. A large pipe 

 implies of necessity the movement of a larger volume of 

 air. Whereas the Westinghouse is fully applied to a train 

 of fifteen vehicles by the withdrawal of 900 cubic inches 

 of air, at least 27,000 cubic inches have to be moved 

 through the large vacuum-pipe to accomplish a like result 

 Fuither than this, the use of auxiliary reservoirs assists in 

 producing an instantaneous application, for without them 

 the rear carriages could only be affected several seconds 

 (fifteen and more) after those in front. The use of the 

 triple valve, which controls the brake cylinder, is, there- 

 fore, apparent, and it is most certainly a simple, as well as 

 a highly useful factor, notwithstanding what Sir K 

 Watkin and other apparently ignorant opponents of the 

 only efficient brake, may say to the contrary. 



Another important feature is that the brake is capable 

 of being operated from the guard's van as well as from the 

 engine, and is also capable of being so fitted as to place it 

 under the control of every passenger in the train. The 

 advantage of this is too evident to warrant any enlargement 

 upon it. It will be borne in mind that it operates auto- 

 matically upon each section of the train, should any of the 

 couplings be accidentally broken 



The fact of a reduction of pressure causing the applica- 

 tion of the brake is also an excellent " tell-tale," and ensures 

 the proper maintenance of the whole apparatus. A driver 

 is consequently able to place implicit confidence in the 

 brake, and has no fear of its being unable to operate 

 whenever he may require it. The advantage of this is seen 

 in the ease with which the Great Eastern local traffic, 

 which is reputed to be the heaviest of its kind in the world, 

 is conducted. Where this confidence is not placed, or, 

 worse still, where it is misplaced, delay, if not disaster, is 

 a frequent result. It is no unusual occurrence for the 

 driver of a train fitted with a Clayton brake (which is con- 

 structed so as to release the wheels within one and a half 

 minutes), after pulling-up outside a station, to find that he 

 is without the necessary vacuum to apply the brakes at the 

 platform, so that his train goes too far. If this happens at 

 a terminal station, the engine may be impelled violently 

 against the buffer-stops, doing thereby a greater or less 

 amount of damage. 



There are, of course, several minor details with which I 

 have not thought it desirable to deal in these articles, the 

 object in view being simply to give an outline of the general 

 arrangement in as popular a form as possible. What I 

 have said in praise of the Westinghouse brake is only a 

 portion of what might be said. The Board of Trade has 

 laid down certain very practical and wise conditions which 

 it urges the various companies to comply with in the matter 

 of brakes ; but it seems that there is only one brake which 

 satisfies all these conditions, and this brake has wisely been 

 adopted by the following companies, viz. : the North- 

 Eastern, the London and I3righton, the Great Eastern, the 

 Chatham and Dover, the North British, the Caledonian, 

 the Glasgow and South- Western, the Great North of 

 Scotland, the Ehymney, the West Lancashire, and Eastern 



