♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Sept. 20, 18S2. 



iNrKOTioN- AT Seasidk Loucixgs. — We are continually 

 ! -.yiving cuttings from newspapers and communications 

 . >£ various kinds, pointing out — in too many instances very 

 j.ainfully illustrating— the perils of infection which lurk 

 *iu seaside lodgings to which the weakly or jaded resort for 

 rest and health. There is an irony in the fate which 

 mikes these places notorious as centres for the propagation 

 of disease. It is not easy to suggest a remedy, because 

 those who live by letting lodgings regard their visitors as 

 fair game at any risk. If a lodger contracts fever or 

 diphtiieria, and dies or is removed one week, the bill "To 

 La'I " will be up again the next week. It luxs been 

 repeatedly suggested that there should be a systematic 

 rfgi.^trati'on and inspection of lodgings, but apparently the 

 time has not arrived for the need of such a measure to be 

 publicly felt Perhaps, when the many cases which are 

 uow scattered, and therefore overlooked, come to be 

 collected and reported en nia^se, public opinion may bo 

 stirred in the interests of self preservation and common 

 sense. — Lane t. 



Ikdiaks as Workmen. — The popular theory that the 

 Indian cannot be made to work is not altogether unfounded. 

 It by no means follows, however, that he cannot be induced 

 to work, and work well, when removed from his n.itive 

 surroundings and supjilied with the proper incentives. 

 The Indians in the industrial schools at Hampton, Vn., 

 and at Carlisle, Pa., have shown a readiness to acquire 

 trades and a capacity to learn to handle tools skilfully, that 

 must stagger the projiidices of those who have adopted the 

 frontier creed that the only useful Indian is a dead Indian. 

 At the recent public exorcises at Carlisle, a Plains Indian 

 was the proud, though seemingly stolid, exhibitor of a 

 waggon built entirely by himself, a piece of work that 

 older mechanics might not have been ashamed of. The 

 Springfield R'piihlicnn says that there are now on exhibi- 

 tion in Boston samples of shoes and harnesses made at 

 Hampton Institute, which both in finish and se^^^ceable- 

 ncss are able, in the opinion of competent inspectors, to 

 compete successfully with the products of regular work- 

 men. The shoes are part of a contract for two thousand 

 pairs which the Government gave to the Superintendent 

 of the Institute, General Armstrong, last spring. The 

 Govirnment has also ordered seventy-five sets of double- 

 plough harnesses. General Armstrong is confident that 

 within five years, as the hundred Indians at Hampton, 

 the three hundred at Carlisle, and others under instruction 

 elsewhere, Ijccome ma-sters of the craft, all the shoes and 

 harnesses needed for the plains, can be made by Indian 

 young men at home. 



Tub largest strap for the transmission of motive 

 power in the world was recently completed at Berlin. 

 Its width is 160 centimetres, of about 6 feet 3 inches, and 

 its weight a ton and a half. As many as 200 of the 

 largest and heaviest ox-liides had to be used in making this 

 gigantic strap. It is intended for a starch manufactory in 

 •iermany, where it is to transmit a motive power equal to 

 500 horses. 



Mr.DiCAL men have always differed as to whether the 

 Vjest treatment of frozen persons was by a gradual or rapid 

 application of heat. To settle the matter, Laptchinkski 

 has madeawrrjes of very careful experiments upon dogs, 

 with the following results : Of twenty animals treated by 

 the method of gradual resuscitation in a cold room, four- 

 teen perished ; of twenty placed at once in a warm apart- 

 ment, eight died; while of twenty immediately put into a 

 hot lAth, all recovered. 



The largest locomotive ever built has just been com- 

 pleted at Paterson, N.J., and is one of twenty-five ordered 



by the Central Pacific Railroad. Its weight without the 

 tender is sixty-two tons. The size of the cylinders is 

 twenty bj' thirty inches. These engines have eight drivers 

 and a four-wheeled truck. 



Statistics of the Postal Union. — The following sta- 

 tistics for 1S81 have been issued by the central authority 

 of the Postal ITnion in Switzerland. During the year the 

 Union was reinforced by the accession of Chili, Columbia, 

 the Little Antilles, Grenada, St Lucia, Tobago, the Turks 

 Islands, Barbadoes, St Vincent, Guatemala, Haiti, and 

 Paraguay, while, since the commencement of the present 

 year, Hawai and Nicaragua have also joined. In round 

 numbers, the amount of business carried on during 

 1881 included the transmission of ;3,86G,OOO,0OO letters, 

 649,000,000 postal cards, 3,000,000 cards with paid 

 answers, 1,983,000,000 newspapers, 1,023,000,000 printed 

 packets, 04,000,000 patterns, 98,000,000 small parcels. 

 The post ollice orders granted were 95,000,000, representing 

 a value of 8,04.5,000,000 f. Daily throughout the globe, 

 the Postal Union expedites upwards of 13,000,000 letters 

 and post-cards, without counting printed matter, while the 

 distribution of each year includes 3,448,000,000 letters in 

 Europe, 1,240,000,000 in America, 70,000,000 in Asia, 

 30,000,000 in Australia, and 11,000,000 in Africa. 



The Velocity of Light. — Preparations are nearly 

 completed at the Case School of Applied Sciences, Cleve- 

 land, Ohio, for a reinvestigation of the velocity of light, 

 by Professor A. A. Michelson, late of the Naval Academy 

 at Annapolis. The velocity found (180,380 miles a second) 

 difFered slightly from that obtained by M. Cornu at the 

 observatory at Paris in 1874, and also, it is said, from 

 that obtained more recently by Professor Newcomb at 

 Washington. The results of the last-named observations 

 have not been published. Mr. Michelson has, accordingly, 

 been requested to repeat his experiments, money for the 

 purpose, about §1,200, having been promised from' the 

 Bache scientific fund. The Cleveland Leader says that two 

 small buildings have been erected for the experiments on 

 the grounds of the Case School. The larger of the two, 

 10 X 4.J ft, contains the chief apparatus. Two thousand 

 feet west of it is a smaller building containing a stationary 

 mirror. In the experiments the light traverses the space 

 between the buildings and back again to the apparatus, 

 by whose movement data are obtained upon which the 

 velocity of the light is measured. 



The Area of IModeun State.s. — Some interesting facts 

 may be gleaned as to the relative size, according to area, 

 of the various European and American States. The largest 

 Slate in the civilised world is Texas, which boasts an area 

 of 274,356 square miles ; the smallest is the little State of 

 Monaco in Europe, which has only an area of six square 

 miles. The .Vustrian Empire contains 240,943 square 

 miles; the German Empire, 212,091; France, 204,091 

 Spain, 177,781 ; Sweden, 108,042; California, 157,801; 

 Dakota, 150,932; territory of Montana, 14.3,776; Nor- 

 way, 122,280; New Mexico, 121,201 ; Great Britain and 

 Ireland, 120,879; Italy, 114,296; Arizona, 113,916; 

 Nevada, 112,090; Colorado, 104,500; territory of Wyo- 

 ming, 97,883 ; Oregon, 9.5,274 ; territory of Idaho, 86,294; 

 territory of Utah, 84,476 ; Minnesota, 83,531 ; Kansas, 

 H0,891 ; Nebraiska, 75,995 ; territory of Washington 

 09,994; Indian territory, 08,991; Missouri, 05,3.50 j 

 Turkey in Europe, 02,028 ; then come a number of othe 

 American States, aftf;r which are Roumania, 45,0421 

 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 28,125; Bulgaria, 24,3001 

 Servia, 20,850; Netheriands, 20,527; Greece, 19,94l( 

 Switzerland, 15,235; Denmark, 14, .553; Eastern Rot 

 melia, 13,500; Belgium, 1 1,373 ; and Montenegro, I,77C 



