Nov. 21, 1884.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



427 



ceiling the vitiated air passes horizontally to the walls of 

 the apartment, where, becoming cool, it descends to the 

 lower levels, to be rebreathed and consumed, and to escape 

 partially through the chimney. When the room is over- 

 heated, or the outer atmosphere is very much colder than 

 that within, the currents which descend along the walls, 

 especially along window - frames and unsheltered walls, 

 become suddenly reduced in temperatui-e, and in their con- 

 sequent rapidity of falling become a constant source of 

 draughts. 



It is thus easy to understand how it is that unventilated 

 rooms which are more or less constantly occupied tend to pro- 

 mote every form of disease, from a simplelieadache and a sensi- 

 tiveness to cold to pulmonary consumption, fever, asphyxia, 

 and death. The introduction of fresh air and the ren.oval 

 of foul air, not only without tlie production, but with the 

 abolition, of draughts, combined with a due regulation of the 

 temperature of the room, must be regarded as indispensables 

 in the construction of a healthy house. To accomplish 

 these results at a minimum of expense has been the aim of 

 many inventors since " Tobin's Tubes " were brought into 

 use. It may interest our readers to learn that a most effi- 

 cient instrument has been devised for this purpost- at a 

 trifling cost by Mr. J. E. Ellison, of Leeds, the recipient of 

 Silver and Bronze Medals at the recent Health Exhibition. 

 The following is a brief description of his patents. 



" Ellison's Patent Conical-Perforated Bricks and Air- 

 Grates " consist of red, white, or salt-glazed bricks of 

 standard dimensions. The thickness of the brick is per- 

 forated by a series of conical apertures, terminating by a 

 wide mouth at one, and bj- a narrow mouth at the opposite, 

 face. When used as inlets for fresh air, the larger opening 

 ought to be placed inside ; the incoming current of air is 

 by this means effectually radiated and diffused, so that all 

 draught is avoided. This may be readily demonstrated by 

 blowing a column of air through the conical aperture with 

 a pair of bellows. 



Fig. 1 is an explanatory sketch of the " Radiator Venti- 

 lator," which has been constructed in such a way as to 

 admit air into any apartment without draught. It is one 

 of the best appliances that has hitherto been brought for- 

 ward ; it not only accomplishes the purposes for which it 

 was specially designed, but is worthy of the highest recom- 

 mendation, inasmuch as it comes within the reach of all, 

 and can be fixed to any existing dwelling-house. The 

 " Radiator " is composed of a flat disc, bearing divisional 

 planes placed crosswise behind its 

 surface, which, on closing the ap- 

 paratus, slide into the box, B, 

 Fig. 1, fixed in the wall of the 

 building. By means of its four 

 wedge-shaped compartments, the 

 air which is admitted through the 

 outer grate. A, is dispersed in all 

 directions in the apartment, as 

 shown by the arrows in the 

 figure ; and so effectually that 

 no draught is felt. The venti- 

 lator should be fixed preferably 

 from 4 ft. to 8 ft. above the floor 

 of the room, and in a position 

 free from obstruction for about a 

 foot on every side ; it ought not 

 to be opened more than about liin. If placed behind a 

 hot-water pipe, the incoming air is warmed : the same 

 result may be accomplished by supplying the air to the 

 ventilator through a shaft built in the wall, which can thus 

 admit of being suitably warmed. It thus fulfils all the 

 requirements of a perfect inlet ventilator. 



I sii?'i!*&!>'!S<>, Xl \| 



UcUTSIDECr-CS 

 13 BOX IN W/IIL I 

 iCMOVABLE FHOKW 



Fig. 1. — Ellison's 

 " Hadiator " Ventilator. 



THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN.* 

 By Edwahd Clodd. 



NUMEROUS as have been the discoveries of unground 

 stone tools and weapons, which are characteristic of 

 the Palaeolithic Age, in the valleys of the Thames, Lea, and 

 other rivers, there had been until the fall of last year no 

 fragment of man's skeleton found which could be referred 

 to that lemote period. 



Various satisfactory reasons for this absence of human 

 bones are adduced, among others, the absence of bones of 

 other animals of corresponding size, the liability to decay, 

 or, if not burned, to being devoured by the hyasnas which 

 then abounded. But none the less was some evidence 

 desired which might enable us to know what were the- 

 physical features of these chippers of flint. 



When, therefore, in the judgment of such an expert in 

 palteontology as Sir Richard Owen, the remains of a veri- 

 table man of the Ancient Stone Age have been unearthed, 

 the interest of the volume before us, describing and illus- 

 trating the subject, is manifest. It would seem that in the 

 course of some excavations at the East and West India 

 Dockworks, at Tilbury, in October, 1883, portions of a 

 human skeleton were found at thirty-four feet below the 

 surface in a bed of sand, and although these were more or 

 less detached and, in the case of the pelvis, smashed by the 

 navvy's pick and scattered by the shoveller, enough was 

 recovered by the care of Mr. Donald Baynes, the company's 

 engineer, for transmission to Sir Richard Owen. He iden- 

 tities them as having belonged to a male, the jawbone 

 indicating, by the loss of masticating teeth, that he had 

 reached, what was probably then exceptional, old age. In 

 a technical description, which thinly veils its humour. Sir 

 Richard says : " The smooth, unbroken surface of the 

 molar tract tells plainly that the aged palaeolithic individual 

 went on labouring for his subsistence long after the loss of 

 his grinders, and putting such few teeth as remained to 

 their utmost powers of trituration." 



With his heavy polished flint weapons he had slain the 

 mammoth or captured it in a pitfall. In the da}s of his 

 youth, "iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd," he had chased the 

 deer, the bison, and other wild beasts that roamed through 

 the thickets then covering the site above which West- 

 minster Abbey and the Tower of London stand. During 

 the short and special seasons of the variable climate 

 of that epoch his dainties would be the cral> 

 apple, the sloe, the hips and haws ; while for winter 

 store hazel-nuts, beech - nuts, and acorns would be 

 gathered. But as eye grew dim and natural force abated,. 

 " the preparation for swallowing raw and hard fruit 

 polished ott' the crowns of the few remaining teeth of the- 

 ancient, probably primitive, dweller of the Thames valley." 

 The report which Sir Richard Owen gives concerning 

 the cranial capacity of this specimen is of value, although 

 it affords no clue to connect it with any existing race, such 

 as, according to Professor Boyd Dawkins, we have to con- 

 nect the cave-men of the Old Stone Age with the Eskimos. 

 In shape, the skull approaches the dolicho-cephalic, or long- 

 headed, and " the contraction and slope of the low and 

 narrow forehead and the prominence of the frontal sinuses 

 are matched by low Australian and Andamanese skulls,"' 

 whilst the eminences and depressions indicative of cerebral 

 convolutions are few and feebly indicated. As the higher 



* " Antiquity of Man, as deduced from the discovery of a Human 

 Skeleton at Tilbnry, North Bank of the Thames." By Sir 

 Richard Owen, K.C.B., &e. (London : Van Voorst. 1S84.) 



