146 



POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 



[OCTOBEK, 1888. 



familiar to most amateurs, of taking two 

 pictures on the same plate. The illustration 

 shows a person confronted b^- a gigantic 

 phantom ; and the effect was produced as 



Fig. "S. 



follows : The person sitting in the chair was 

 first focussed upon the ground glass of the 

 camera, and the place where the instrument 

 stood, marked upon the ground. It was then 

 moved towards a person covered with white 



Fio. 4. 



cloth, representing the ghost, until his image 

 was of a sufficient magnitude, and the posi- 

 tion of tlie camera again marked. The camera 

 was then returned to its first position, and 



the first sitter photographed in the usual waj-. 

 The person representing tlie spectre then 

 took his place, the instrument was moved to 

 its second position, and a verj- short exposure 

 given ; this was sufficient to impress the second 

 image on the plate without obliterating the 

 details underneath it, thus giving the efl'ect 

 of transparency to the supposed spiritual 

 visitor. The development and subsequent 

 treatment of the plate was carried out in the 

 usual manner. 



The " photo-bust," or statuary effect, is verj- 

 easily accomplished. Fig. 3 shows the result 

 obtained by the method, and Fig. 4 the ar- 

 rangement of the model. A piece of wood 

 painted to represent a pedestal is placed in 

 position, and the subject stands behind it, 

 posed so that only the head and bust are 

 visible. A more realistic effect is obtained 

 by powdering the face and hair. A perfectly 

 black background is used ; and after the picture 

 is developed, the arms or an}- parts of the figure 

 not intended to be shown are scraped off the 

 plate with a knife. The glass is thus rendered 

 transparent, and in the finished photograph 

 the portrait bust stands out against a black 

 background like a marble statue. 



We are indebted to La Nature for the above 



engravings. 



♦ 



[Original in Popular St-ience JWw-s.] 

 THE ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS AT KEW. 



BY K. B. CLAYPOLE. 



Botanical gardens on a wet day are not attrac- 

 tive to the general visitor, and even the student of 

 botany or horticulture would do well to wait for 

 sunshine, if he would to the full enjoy their beauties. 

 If, however, limited time compels him to take the 

 day apportioned for his visit to the Royal Botanic 

 (iardens at Kew, be it wet or fine, he will be amply 

 repaid for his courage, even if he should get no 

 farther than the museums of economic botany. 



These museums, three in number, owe their 

 origin to the first director of the Gardens, Sir 

 W. J. Hooker, who took advantage of the addi- 

 tion of a building to the Gardens in 1847 to ask 

 permission to have one room in it fitted up with 

 cases for the exhibition of vegetable products, — 

 objects which neither the living plants of the Gar- 

 den nor the preserved specimens of the Ileibarium 

 could show. This request being liberally met, 

 the director presented his private collection as a 

 nucleus, and the museum was forthwith com- 

 menced. No sooner was the establishment and 

 aim of the museum generally made known, than 

 contributions poured in from all quarters of the 

 globe, until, in a few years, the fen rooms of the 

 building, with its passages and corners, were abso- 

 lutely crammed with specimens. Application was 

 then made to P irlianient for a grant to defray the 

 expense of an additional building for the proper 

 accommodation of the objects; and, as the result, 

 the house occupied by Museum No. I. was oi^ened 

 to the public in the spring of 1857. 



In dividing the extensive arranged collections 

 between 'the two museum buildings, advantage 

 was' taken of the two grand classes under which 

 the orders of flowering plants are found to be 

 grouped in nature; No. I. being devoted to the 

 dicotyledons and gymnosperras, and No. II. to 

 monocotyledons, together with all the products, 

 etc., yielded by those plants, which are commonly 

 regarded as not bearing flowers, as mosses, ferns, 

 seaweeds, lichens, and fungi. 



It is, of course, impossible in a short time to 

 give great attention to all the orders represented 

 in the cases; though, as we pass from one to 

 another, we learn the sources of many articles of 

 food, medicine, or use in the arts, or even of mere 

 curiosity, and we become impressed with the 

 great number of the products furnished by the 

 vegetable kingdom for our use and convenience. 

 In the cashew-nut order (Anacardiacen:), for in- 

 stance, we find a series of specimens illustrating 

 the preparation of Japanese lacquer and the 

 manufacture of lacquer ware. There are stems of 

 the lacquer-tree (Khtis vernicifera, etc.) showing 

 the incisions made for collecting the juice; instru- 

 ments used for making the incisions, paring the 

 bark, etc. ; lacquer in different stages of prep- 

 aration; dyes and coloring matters; brushes, 

 squares, and compasses used in drawing the de- 

 signs; and a drying press, in which the work is 

 put to dry. The Leguminosee, again, occupy fifteen 

 cases, one of them being very attractive, with 

 various specimens of Lisbon copal, — recent and 

 fossil, — pebbly copal, African copal, and a fine 

 mass of accra from the Gold Coast; all probably 

 furnished by species of Copaifera. The Umhellif- 

 erw present curious objects in dry-looking tufts of 

 plants of Azorella selago (Hook. §7), very abundant 

 in Kerguclen's Land, where it often covers the 

 ground with dense masses of vegetation. A still 

 denser, haider mass is afforded by Azorella ccEnpUosa. 

 (Vahl.), the bog balsam, a singular feature in the 

 landscape of the Falkland Islands, rising in h\ige, 

 perfectly hemispherical hillocks, often two to four 

 feet in height, and four feet in diameter. Close 

 to this anomalous umbellifer is a very fine speci- 

 men of an equally strange composite, the I'aoulia 

 eximia (Hook), which, growing in large, whitish 

 tufts on the mountains of New Zealand, is often 

 mistaken, even at a short distance, for a recum- 

 bent sheep ; and shepherds have been known to 

 climb up to a mass of it, thinking it one of their 

 laggard flock. 



There is also a valuable series of materials, 

 fruits, etc., from the ancient Pile dwellings in the 

 Swiss lakes, and a collection of wreaths and funeral 

 offerings from the tombs of Aahmes, Rameses IL, 

 and the Princess Nzi, some of them dating from 

 1300 to 1700 B.C. 



In ifuseum No. II., among the products of the 

 bamboos and palms, are the gigantic fruits of the 

 coco de mer, or double cocoanut {Loiloicea sechel- 

 larum, Lab.), a lofty palm limited to three small, 

 rocky islands of the Seychelle group, North-east 

 Madagascar. I'rior to the discovery of these islands, 

 in 1743, the nuts had been picked up floating on 

 the ocean, and fabulous stories had been told by 

 mariners respecting their origin. The slender 

 trunk of the palm, twelve to eighteen inches in 

 diameter, attains a height of seventy to ninety 

 feet, surmounted by a crown of fan-like leaves, 

 which, with leaf-stalk, measure from twenty to 

 thirty feet in length. The fruit, resembling two, 

 or even thiee or four, cocoanuts joined together, 

 sometimes weighs forty or fifty pounds. 



In Museum No. IH. may be studied the timber 

 resources of various countries in every quarter of 

 the globe. From New Zealand are fine planks 

 of woods suitable for structural or building pur- 

 poses, and choice specimens for ornamental cabinet 

 work; and, a mere curiosity, for its wood is soft 

 and useless from an excess of gallic and tannic 

 acid, is a specimen of the kohuterhuter (Fuchsia 

 excortica, lAn.Jil), a large bush or small tree ten to 

 thirty feet high, with a trunk sometimes three feet 

 in diameter. Australia, largely represented by 

 her acacia and eucalyptus woods, exhibits a group 

 of grass gum-trees (Xanthorrhoea (juadrangulta, V. 

 Muell), — singular plants belonging to the Juncacw 



