Dec. 29, ]88 2.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



493 



one occupied last year by the Brush Company), we saw a 

 more brilliant " armature-fire " than we had ever seen 

 before. The brushes or collectors were not making contact 

 with the commutator at the proper points, and conse- 

 quently, tho current fused them at a great rate, the charac- 

 teristic gi'een flame of copper illuminating the dynamo and 

 the space around it, and, frequently, pieces of red-hot 

 copper flying ofl' in various directions. It is surprising to 

 us that the insulation on the field magnet underlying the 

 commutator was not set on fire, or, at least, electrically 

 destroyed. 



The Roman Court is occupied by an " Electric Bazaar," 

 and here our feelings received a severe shock, for on the 

 tables were a number of Yoss machines,* all of them with 

 the fixed plate placed out of position in such a way that 

 they could not be put right without either the vertical 

 or horizontal combs being removed. The attendant was, 

 of course, unable to get a spark, and to account for the 

 failure informed inquirers that the ireather u-as too damp / 

 Along the centre of the north nave are several miscel- 

 laneous exhibits, few of them, however, being far advanced 

 in preparation. They should be illuminated in the evening 

 by various forms of electric light, but the three Mackenzie 

 lamps are the only ones at present visible. 



The gas exhibits are by far the more important and 

 interesting, and are also much nearer completion than those 

 in the electrical section. A fund of upwards of £5,000 

 Las been subscribed Ijy the various gas interests ; and 

 accordingly a very representative exhibition may be an- 

 ticipated. The south nave is well lighted by Sugg, Bray, 

 Siemens, Strode, Heron, and others ; but of these 

 we will speak more fully hereafter. The West Corridor 

 is well stocked with gas-engines, cooking and heating 

 apparatus, etc., and in other adjacent portions of the 

 palace a crowd of very interesting exhibits are, or soon 

 will be, open to inspection. Not the least interesting 

 object is Pintsch's patent gas apparatus, by which a rail- 

 way passenger carriage is lighted for 36 or lO hours with 

 one charging of gas. The charging is said to be eflected in 

 less than a minute. A cylinder underneath the carriage 

 holds the specially-made oil gas at a pressure of 90 lb. 

 This is being constantly reduced by the consumption at the 

 burners, but the patent regulator always brings the gas to 

 them at the proper burning pressure. The cost is claimed 

 to be less than half that of the usual railway oil lamp, and 

 several British railways are using the light. Equally inte- 

 resting is Pintsch's nine-feet spherical gas-buoy, with lantern 

 and dioptric lens. It is charged with oil gas, and will burn 

 for three months continuously, the light being visible for 

 six miles. By the time this notice appears, the Gas Exhi- 

 bition will be nearly completed and very interesting, but 

 the Nortli Nave is doomed to remain in semi-darkness for 

 some weeks. 



CORSETS AND HEALTE.f 



By Dr. Dig Lewis. 



STRENGTU AND ACTIVITY OP WOMEX WUEX 

 UNHAMPERED BY CORSETS. 



rnilE Boston Normal School for Physical Education 

 X trained and graduated -121 teachers of the new Scliool 

 of Gymnastics. The graduates are about equally divided 

 between the sexes. xV considerable proportion of the 

 women were school-teachers in broken health, seeking in 

 the new profession a better means of living. The average 

 health of the women was, in the beginning, lower than that 



* Soe Knowledge No. 59. t From tho North American Review, 



of the men. But, with the removal of the corset and the 

 long heavy skirts, and the use of those exercises which a 

 short and very loose dress renders easy, a remarkable 

 change ensued. In every one of the ten classes of gra- 

 duates, the best gymnast was a woman. In each class 

 there were from two to six women superior to all the 

 men. In exhibiting the graduating classes from year to 

 year on the platform of Tremont Temple, women were 

 uniformly placed in the more conspicuous situations, not 

 because they were women, but because they were the finer 

 performers. Dr. Walter Channing, who was one of the 

 professors in this normal school, often ."poke with great 

 enthusiasm of the superiority of the women. 



A convincing experiment was made upon a large num- 

 ber of girls at Lexington, Mass. A school for young 

 ladies was announced and largo buildings prepared. 

 During four years of personal management by the founder 

 of the school, nearly three hundred young women were 

 subjected to a new and peculiar regimen, to determine the 

 possibility of improving their bodies during their school- 

 life, as the bodies of young men are improved in some of 

 the German universities. An exceptionally full curriculum 

 of studies was adopted, and a large corps of teachers, in- 

 cluding such distinguished names as Theodore D. Weld, 

 Catherine Beecher, and Zerdahelyi, laboured with enthu- 

 siasm in the brain-work. The pupils were pressed harder, 

 probably, than in any other school in New England. The 

 girls averaged about seventeen years of age, and came from 

 all parts of the country, including California, Central 

 America, and the West Indies. They were largely from 

 wealthy families — delicate girls, unable to bear the 

 artificial life of fashionable seminaries, and were drawn to 

 the Lexington school by its fame for body-training. The 

 constant dress of the pupils, like that of the Normal school, 

 was short and loose, leaving the girls as much liberty as 

 boys have in their gymnasium dresses. The results of the 

 physical training at Lexington are well known : — 



On entering the school, pupils were measured abo\it the 

 chest, under the arms, about the waist, the arm, and the 

 fore-arm. The average gain for eight months about the 

 chest was 2^ inches; waist, 5 inches; arm, \\ inches; 

 fore-arm, about 1 inch. The work was so hard that, with 

 all this remarkable development, the weight of the pupil 

 was often lessened. Of course, the girls came with in- 

 junctions from their mothers not to climb stairs, and 

 with letters from family physicians urging moderation in 

 gymnastics, and prescribing tho horizontal position a number 

 of days each month. With the corsets and long skirts in 

 which they came, these injunctions and cautions were not 

 unwise ; but, with the change of dress, became absurd. 



And now, with a full knowledge of all the facts familiar 

 to hundreds of grateful parents, the writer allirius that, 

 giving little or no attention to periodicity, the girls worked 

 through the entire month in those extreme stridings and 

 other vigorous exercises of the legs and hips, contrived to 

 counteract the evil etlects of the long, imprisoning skirts, and 

 that in tiie four years not only was no harm done by this 

 constant and dreadful violation of Dr. Edward Clarke's 

 counsels, but that in no instance did a pupil fail to im- 

 prove in liealth. The results may be described ns follows : 

 Pupils came with dread of stairs, with back-ache, palpi- 

 tation, and other sutlerings which may not bo named here, 

 and in a few months could do tho full and hard gymnastic 

 work of the school, dance three evenings a week, go up- 

 stairs without symptoms, and walk five to ten miles on 

 Saturday without inconvenience. A common exclamation 

 among tho pupils was this : " What a slave I was ! Every- 

 thing was toil and sullering. I have now just begun to 

 live ! " And all this happy change came of abandonment 



