578 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OE SCIENCE. 



Scientific men have attacked this problem with admirable courage. Obser- 

 vatories have been erected on the banks of Vesuvius and ^tna, where the breath- 

 ings of those monsters are carefully recorded, and skilled observers have been 

 stationed in several of the earthquake centers of Europe and Asia, armed with 

 ingenious instruments. If, as some prophesied, the present cycle of earth- 

 quakes is to last for several years, it is not impossible that we may be on the eve 

 • of discoveries that will enable us to foresee and prepare for the shakings that 

 Mother Earth occasionally gives us. 



Capt. Mallett, of the bark Cherokee, of Liverpool, which arrived here on 

 Saturday, had an unusually interesting story to tell. Besides encountering severe 

 gales in his voyage, he says he and his crew felt the effect of an earthquake at 

 sea. At about six o'clock in the afternoon of August 6th, when they were nearly 

 in the middle of the Atlantic, and about in the latitude of the northern part of 

 Newfoundland, two severe shocks made the bark tremble from stem to stern. 

 The shocks were between five and ten seconds apart. Capt. Mallett says that 

 in his long experience as a seaman this is the first time he has ever felt an earth- 

 quake shock at sea, but he has been informed that such shocks have been felt by 

 vessels in the South Atlantic near the Equator. 



Dispatches from Chios say that the earthquake shocks in that island, have 

 been renewed within a few days, and that one village seems to be sinking. The 

 inhabitants are deserting their houses in alarm. — N. Y. Sun. 



GLASS AS A BUILDING MATERIAL. 



Perhaps not one builder or contractor in ten, if told that the common grades 

 of glass made at the glass factories in this city have a crushing strength nearly 

 four times as great as that credited by experienced engineers to the strongest 

 quaUty of granite, would accept the statement as true. Yet it is fact, and being so, 

 the query as to why glass has not received more attention from architects as a 

 structural material naturally suggests itself. A reporter had a talk with several 

 prominent glass manufacturers on the subject, and in answer to an interrogatory 

 as to whether blocks of glass could be made in suitable lengths and sizes and so 

 annealed as to be utilized in the construction of a building in place of stone, they 

 said that it could be done. Said one of these gentlemen : ' ' This question has been 

 considered by myself a number of times and, although I do not want to advocate 

 the absolute abolition of brick and stone, yet in the erection of art galleries, 

 memorial buildings, etc., a structure composed of blocks of glass in prismatic 

 colors would be a unique, beautiful and lasting structure. With the numerous 

 inventions which have come into use of late years in connection with the pro- 

 duction of glass, the cost has been gradually going down, while the quality of 

 the fabric is steadily becoming better. Now, as the Smoky City controls the 

 bulk of the glass production, there could not be a more appropriate place for the 

 erection of such a building. 



