140 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



taken, though maple is cut for rims and 

 handles. In the salt marshes sweet grass is 

 found, which when dry gives out a fragrant 

 odor. Alder is steeped for pale red, white- 

 birch bark for bright red, cedar boughs for 

 green, and sumac for yellow. Black comes 

 from white-maple bark. A light solution 

 of maple, however, shows purple instead of 

 black. Lazy Indians buy logwood for black, 

 redwood for red, and fustic for yellow. A 

 family of four basket makers in Oldtown 

 cleared one thousand dollars last year, in 

 addition to the household expenses. In the 

 same house where the baskets were made 

 are a four-hundred-dollar piano, a Brussels 

 carpet, lace curtains, plush furniture, a pic- 

 ture of a priest and one of the Virgin Mary, 

 a Catholic epitome, a set of Cooper's novels 

 a stuffed owl, and a peacock, also stuffed. 

 Two canary birds sang in a cage hanging in 

 the room, and on a mat a tired foxhound 

 snored. 



Ancient Beginnings of Chemistry. In a 



paper presenting evidences of careful study, 

 Prof. H. Carrington Bolton has shown how 

 the beginnings of chemistry were in the 

 very earliest times, when already many arts 

 were practiced involving chemical operations, 

 such as working in metals, purification of 

 natural salts for pharmacy, etc., dyeing of 

 cloths and the preparation of pigments, 

 brewing of fermented liquors, and others. 

 Hence we find that long before chemistry 

 became a science, even before it became in- 

 oculated with the virus of alchemy, furnaces 

 and apparatus of earthenware, metal, and 

 glass, adapted to special work, were in com- 

 mon use. The Egyptians attained great 

 skill in industrial arts at a remote period, 

 and have left records of a most enduring 

 character, pictures cut in their granite tombs 

 and temples. There we see the processes of 

 gold washing and smelting ; the use of blow- 

 pipes and double bellows for intensifying 

 heat, various forms of furnaces, and cruci- 

 bles having a shape quite similar to those 

 of to-day. Some of these crucibles preserved 

 in the Berlin Museum date from the fifteenth 

 century B. c. The earliest chemical labora- 

 tories of which we have any knowledge are 

 those connected with the Egyptian temples. 

 Each temple had its library and its labora- 

 tory, commonly situated in a definite part of 



the huge structure. In these laboratories 

 the priests prepared the incense, oils, and 

 other substances used in the temple services, 

 and on the granite walls were carved the re- 

 cipes and processes. These are still to be 

 seen by the archaeologist. The Israelites 

 carried with them from Egypt to the prom- 

 ised land knowledge of the technical and 

 artistic skill of their contemporaries, and the 

 Holy Bible contains frequent allusions to 

 industrial arts. Cupellation is plainly de- 

 scribed by Jeremiah ; metallurgical opera- 

 tions are mentioned in Job, Ezekiel, and 

 other books, and bellows by Jeremiah. 

 Geber, the Arabian physician and chemist 

 of the eighth century, wrote very plainly of 

 chemical processes, describing minutely so- 

 lution, filtration, crystallization, fusion, sub- 

 limation, distillation, cupellation, and va- 

 rious kinds of furnaces and apparatus em- 

 ployed in these operations. He describes in 

 detail the aludel (or sublimatory of glass), 

 the necessary apparatus for filtration, and 

 the water-bath. The last piece (bain-marie 

 in French) is said to have been invented by 

 an alchemist named Mary, who is identified 

 with Miriam, the sister of Moses. Perhaps 

 the earliest drawings of strictly chemical 

 apparatus are those in the so-called manu- 

 script of St. Mark, which is a Greek papyrus 

 on the " sacred art " preserved in Venice 

 and recently edited by Berthelot. 



Adaptability of the South to Cotton 

 Manufacturing. The feasibility of establish- 

 ing profitable cotton manufactures in the 

 Southern States was recently discussed in 

 the Manufacturers' Record of Baltimore by 

 D. A. Tompkins, of the Atherton Mills, 

 Charlotte, N. C., and Henry G. Kittredge, 

 editor of the Boston Journal of Commerce. 

 Mr. Tompkins believes that the conditions at 

 the South are more favorable to the manu- 

 facture of cotton than those of any other 

 part of the world because no freight 

 charges or only trifling ones have to be in- 

 curred ; the profits of dealers in cotton are 

 eliminated ; labor and living are cheaper 

 than in other parts of the United States ; the 

 cost of bagging and ties is almost entirely 

 saved, because they can be sold back to the 

 farmers ; and the loss of cotton in transpor- 

 tation to other points is saved. Mr. Kit- 

 tredge does not regard these advantages as 



