194 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Liddon, at St. Paul's Cathedral, and Canons Barry and Prothero, at Westminster 

 Abbey, agreed in referring to the Darwinian theory as ' ' not necessarily hostile 

 to the fundamental truths of religion." The effect of Mr. Darwin's work has 

 been, however, to remodel the theological conceptions of the origin and destiny 

 of man which were current in former times. In this respect it has wrought a 

 revolution as great as that which Copernicus inaugurated and Newton completed, 

 and of very much the same kind. Again has man been rudely unseated from 

 his imaginary throne in the center of the universe, but only that he may learn to 

 see in the universe and in human life a richer and deeper meaning than he had 

 before suspected. Truly, he who unfolds to us the way in which God works 

 through the world of phenomena may well be called the best of religious teach- 

 ers. In the study of the organic world, no less than in the study of the starry 

 heavens, is it true that "day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night 

 showeth knowledge." — June Atlantic. 



A CHEMICAL STOVE. 



An alleged improvement by a Dresden chemist, Herr Nieski, in the new 

 method of heating with acetate of soda, consists in mixing hyposulphate of soda 

 with the acetate. The former melts more quickly than the latter, and retards 

 crystallization in cooling. Herr Nieski uses one volume of acetate with ten of 

 hyposulphate. The cases are filled to the extent of three-fourths, hermetically 

 closed, and kept in hot water till one no longer hears a sound from crystals with- 

 in on shaking. The cases will then give an equable heat from ten to fifteen hours 

 according to size. A room-stove acting on this principle is described by Herr 

 Nieski in the Deutsche Ind, Zeitung. It consists of an inner and outer cylinder, 

 the latter having numerous small holes. In the space between the two stand 

 three of the heating cases. These can be easily lifted out by the handles and put 

 into water in the central cylinder, which can be heated in position by means of a 

 burner below (or removed to be heated elsewhere). This done, the cases are 

 lifted into their places in the circular space. The stove runs on castors and has 

 a cover. The water in the inner cylinder furnishes, by evaporation, a wholesome 

 degree of moisture. — Boston Journal of Commerce. 



DEADENING SOUNDS. 



A new plan to deaden floors has been patented, and is being tested in a new 

 building at Philadelphia. A 6x3 plank is inserted between each joist two inches 

 from the bottom of the joists, and projecting four mches beneath. Underneath 

 the intervening planks the ceiling boards are nailed and the space filled with saw- 

 dust to within one inch of the joists. By this method the waves of sound are 

 carried off, and it is claimed that the most vigorous hammering cannot be heard 

 in the story beneath. 



