SCIENCE 



FRJDAY, AUGUST 3, if 



A RECENT NUMBER of the Journal of the Society of Arts con- 

 tains information of the projected railways in Asia Minor. A new 

 railway is projected from Constantinople to Bagdad, to start from 

 Ismid, the present terminus of a short line of railroad connecting 

 that town with Scutari, the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. Its 

 length is about 1,400 miles, and the estimated cost is $75,500,000. 

 Throughout its length it will traverse a country well populated, 

 abounding in mineral resources, and producing great quantities of 

 grain. British consul Jewett, of Sivas, says that the great advan- 

 tages to the country, commercially and as a civilizing influence, of 

 such a road are too obvious to need mention. It is sufficient to say 

 that it would create a new Asia Minor, open to the trade of the 

 world a vast territory now closed, totally change the character of 

 the country and the people, and practically advance Turkey in Asia 

 from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century ; moreover, the com- 

 mercial world at large has a special interest in this project, as it 

 will, if carried out, shorten the distance between Europe and India 

 by nine or ten days, and give a route to the East independent of 

 the Suez Canal. Should the railroad be built, it is said that Bag- 

 dad, as the entrepot for the trade between the East and the West, 

 is sure to attain a commercial importance hardly second to any city 

 in the East. With the advent of the railroad, with the new towns 

 and cities that will spring up, the new resources and industries de- 

 veloped, and especially with the new ideas and wants which civili- 

 zation creates, there will be a new market, and a constantly increas- 

 ing demand for almost everything which Europe and America 

 manufacture. 



With THE REAPPEARANCE this spring of our native birds in 

 great numbers we expected to hear from some of our ornithologists 

 as to a reasonable explanation. The reappearance was first no- 

 ted in the New York papers, and was promptly credited to the lib- 

 eral destruction of the pugnacious English sparrow, unable to 

 withstand the storm-beating received in the great March blizzard. 

 But counter to this explanation comes information from Illinois 

 that the attention of all is attracted to the remarkably large num- 

 ber of birds that are to be seen. The groves, the woods, and the 

 meadows in the country, and the many trees in the city, are peo- 

 pled with these feathered visitors. The oldest inhabitant does not 

 remember to have seen so many and such a variety of birds. And 

 yet the great blizzard did not visit Illinois. The July Auk, the 

 quarterly organ of the ornithologists, contains no hint as to the cause 

 of this sudden return of the old birds, which we had been led to 

 believe were so vastly reduced in numbers that only after a long 

 respite from the attacks of the sparrows and the country's shot- 

 guns could they possibly be restored to us in their former numbers. 

 The birds are here, as numerous as ever, and have returned en 

 masse. 



Tho.mas Humphrey Ward has published a ' Letter to the 

 American People ' on inlernational copyright in works of art. The 

 special occasion of this letter was the placing in his hands by a f nend 

 of a parcel of ' process ' engravings and a number of trade catalogues 

 issued by American publishing houses. These process engravings, 

 and the grievance to which they have given rise, are an entirely new 

 fact in the world of art. They are the result of (he most modern 

 improvements in the art of reproducing pictures. They bear many 



names. They are called ' artotypes,' ' heilotypes,' ' albertypes,' but 

 they are all varieties of the same method, — the method of apply- 

 ing photography to the purposes of engraving. They are, in fact, 

 reproductions in photo-engraving of the best, the costliest, and the 

 most popular modern English and French engravings and etchings. 

 They are of imposing size, the artotypes measuring, when mounted, 

 thirty inches by forty, and thus approximating to the dimensions of 

 the engravings which they copy. They are showy, effective, and, , 

 to use the language of the workshop, ' well got up.' They are in 

 no sense botched or bungled. They are quite a different thing 

 from the German lithographs of our childhood, those naive at- 

 tempts in art by which the last generation of continental contra- 

 bandistas used to impose upon an unsophisticated world. These 

 things are as like the works they counterfeit as the sun and the 

 printing-press can make them. During the past ten or fifteen 

 years, that is to say, since the recent great development of ' pro- 

 cesses ' has enabled American publishers to destroy the American 

 demand for the first-hand works of European artists, their remu- 

 neration has fallen to a great extent. Fifteen years ago it was 

 quite a common thing for an artist like the late Mr. Cousins to be 

 paid a thousand pounds for a mezzotint plate, for the publisher who 

 commissioned him knew that there were a sufficient number o' 

 buyers in Europe and America, taken together, to make such an 

 outlay remunerative. It is not asserted that there are no longer 

 men who can command a similar price, but they are so few that 

 their existence hardly makes a difference in the ciuestion. In the 

 case of one or two Englishmen, and one or two French or Dutch 

 etchers, it is still possible for the publishers to give these heavy 

 commissions. Fashion still points that way, and while the fashion 

 lasts these men can be employed ; but in the case of the great ma- 

 jority, even of distinguished engravers, the demand for their work 

 is lamentably less than it was, not from any failure of appreciation 

 on the part of the public, not from any failure of power on the part 

 of the engravers, buusimply because the returns are less than they 

 used to be, and less almost exclusively on the American side. 



It is the CURRENT BELIEF that there has been nothing like 

 the present Cincinnati Exposition since the great one at Philadel- 

 phia in 1S76. People who were at New Orleans is 18S5 say that 

 this is enormously superior in all the arts, especially upon the me- 

 chanical and industrial side. The Exposition covers fifteen acres 

 in the very heart of the city, and in every part of this large area 

 one meets evidences of taste, skill, ingenuity, and perseverance in 

 adapting means to ends, which form a series of apparently never- 

 ending surprises as one passes from one exhibit to another. The 

 government exhibits are all good and all characteristic. The Smith- 

 sonian Institution and the Geological Survey exhibits attract crowds. 

 In the latter Prof. F. W. Clark has some transparent photographic 

 views, represented in colors by some new and as yet undisclosed 

 process. The effect is wonderfully natural and beautiful, and if it is 

 found to be durable it will prove a great discovery. The very fine 

 models of the new classes of naval vessels now building attract 

 crowds daily, as do the various forms of weapons for wholesale 

 slaughter in case we ever have another war. In close juxtaposi- 

 tion are the ingenious devices for saving life in cases of shipwreck, 

 of the Life Saving Service. The Fish Commission exhibit is not as 

 yet complete. In such elaborate displays, requiring much prepara- 

 tory work, more time should have been allowed for preparation. 

 The Post Office Department and the .■Xrmy exhibits are also incom- 

 plete, but a few d.iys will find every thing in order. 



