466 



KNOWLEDGE • 



[Dec. 5, 1884. 



follows : — We set a Sugg's standard candle at a distance of 

 1 ft. from the eye, with a white surface (such as a sheet 

 of foolscap paper) behind it, in a room otherwise totally 

 dark. We now take the diameter of the pupil in the way 

 just indicated, and read it off from the scale. Leaving the 

 photometer intact, we substitute for the candle the source 

 of light whose intensity we wish to measure, placing a 

 white background behind it, as in the previous case. Sup- 

 pose that it is a duplex lamp which replaces our original 

 candle. If we regard this from a distance of 1 ft., as 

 before, we shall find our two discs of light, so far from 

 touching, will be pretty widely separated, and we must 

 slowly retire from the lamp until the circles have expanded 

 sufficiently to become tangent again ; when, of course, the 

 pupil will have regained its original dimensions, from the 

 light falling upon it being of identical intensity with that 

 of the candle. It only remains to measure the distance of 

 the lamp from the eye in feet and decimals of a foot to 

 find its illuminating power, which obviously will vary as 

 the square of the distance (vide p. 130), i.e., if we have to 

 retire to a distance of 1 ft. the lamp must give the light of 

 sixteen candles, and so on. In a foot-note to Mr. Tindall's 

 letter on p. 391, a doubt was expressed as to the efficiency 

 of Dr. Gorham's invention as a qiuxiititative light-measurer. 

 In connection with this we may mention that, as a pre- 

 liminary to penning this article we have been experi- 

 menting with a candle and a small reading-lamp, the 

 relative intensities of whose lights we measured in succes- 

 sion by Eumford's method (Fig. 2i, p. 130) and by the 

 instrument we are describing. By the former mode of 

 measurement we found that the lamp gave 7-1113 times 

 the light of the candle ; by the new photometer it came 

 out 7 '111! It would perhaps be idle to contend that no 

 element of " fluke " entered into this extraordinary coin- 

 cidence; but it may serve to show with what minute 

 accuracy the relative intensities of various illuminating 

 agents can be measured by this most simple apparatus. 

 The incipient user of it will find it politic to keep his 

 unused eye open ; as, if it be closed, and then opened 

 while the photometer is being employed, the stimulus of 

 the light on the freshly-exposed pupil will cause the one 

 viewing the hole itself to contract sympathetically ; and so 

 derange the measurement. Jlr. C. Coppock, of New Bond- 

 street, is the maker of this photometer. 



THE STANDARD OF POLITICS IN 

 AMERICA. 



THE Rev. Heber Newton, in the course of an eloquent 

 discourse on the low standard of moral ideas in 

 American politics, made the following remarks, which will 

 be read with pleasure by all who wish well to the great 

 nation of our kinsmen on the other side of the Atlantic : — 

 " I have nothing to do," he said, " with the truth or falsity 

 of the charges preferred against the man who has barely 

 missed election to the highest office in the gift of our 

 people. But I would point out the danger which menaces 

 our country through the easy deflecting of the conscience 

 to party interests. Hosts of men have practically said : 

 ' This is a big fuss about nothing. Our leader is not 

 charged with having directly stolen anything. The most 

 than can be said about him is that he has kept his weather 

 eye open to the main chance, and that he used his ruling 

 as a speaker as a plea on which to obtain private 

 wealth. Why should he not have done all these things ? 

 If he threw away good chances that did not involve 

 stealing to enrich him, the more fool he. Who of us 



would not do what he has been accused of doing if we had 

 the opportunity 1. We like him all the better for not being 

 over scrupulous. The great American people believe in a 

 smart man.' I fear that a great body of by no means bad 

 men have followed a really able leader, not because they 

 believed him to be free from fault, but because they rather 

 like the faults alleged against lum. Lots of men regarded 

 him as the great American, becavise of his supposed acting 

 forth of those by no means noble qualities which unfortu- 

 nately characterise ns as a people — because of which we 

 ought to feel alarmed. If he really typifies our average 

 American idea of smartness, then again we have not merely 

 a sad feature of a political campaign, but a sadder symptom 

 of a low tone of honour — a sign of the times which it 

 behoves us to ponder. The sting of Dickens' cut at 

 American smartness yet remains. The Fortnightly Review 

 recently compared us to Russia, of which the Czar Nicholas 

 said : — ' I and my son are the only people who do not 

 steal.' " 



CHAPTERS ON MODERN DOMESTIC 

 ECONOMY. 



IV.— THE FRAMEWOEK OF THE DWELLING-HOUSE 

 {continued). 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CONSTRUCTION. 



THE laying of the parqueterie is, of course, best under- 

 stood by those whose special avocation it happens to 

 be. The parts of the house adapted to this kind of flooring 

 liave been decided upon through a long course of practical 

 experience, until a kind of standard or general routine to 

 be followed has been unconsciously established. The result 

 of our inquiries at Messrs. Howard it Sons' works in 

 Berners-street, W., may be briefly formulated thus : — In a 

 drawing-room the entire floor ought to be covered ; skins 

 and eastern rugs, which can be readily taken up and freed 

 from dust, will be found quite sufiicient, upon such a 

 groundwork, to satisfy the most fastidious aesthete. The 

 dining-room should be preferably bordered with parquet, 

 and the central portion carpeted. The bed-rooms ought to 

 be completely covered with this flooring, to which a rug at 

 the bedside may be superadded. The bathroom requires a 

 special lining of cork parquet, the thermal conductivity of 

 cork being such as to afford a comparatively warm sense of 

 touch to the feet on getting out of the bath. 



The benefits to be derived from the use of these varieties 

 of flooring are chiefly of sanitary importance : — (1) freedom 

 from accumulations of dust ; (2) the ease with which they 

 may be cleansed ; (3) even when washed with a wet cloth 

 they do not absorb water, and hence are not liable to create 

 damp ; (4) they are beautiful and durable. 



Although private dwelling-houses would be immeasurably 

 superior in every respect if floored with parquet work, the 

 system is particularly to be commended for public and 

 other large buildings. In ball-rooms the floors may be 

 polished with wax, and thereby rendered delightfully 

 smooth, in addition to their quality of being and remaining 

 absolutely level ; but for hospitals it is the flooring par 

 excellence. When Messrs. Howard were engaged in layiag 

 the floors of Westminster Hospital, they were obliged to 

 take up the boards and match them properly before laying 

 on the parqueterie. In doing so they discovered little 

 conical heaps of dust over every supporting joist between 

 the ill-matched floor-boards. It is needless to conjecture 

 the evil efi'ects of such a state of afiairs ; every time that 

 water was made use of in cleansing and scrubbing, the little 

 cones of dust, probably teeming with zymotic disease-germs, 



