jlrientijk Jltujs 



FOR GENERAL READERS. 



Vol. II. 



OCTOBER 12, 1888. 



No. 15. 



PAGE 



Scientific Table Talk 377 



Some Photo-micrographic Apparatus 



\lttus.) 378 



Ancient Inhabitants of the Canary 



Islands (Illus.) 379 



On the Stability of the Fauna ... 382 



General Notes 383 



Gas Burner on the Lebrun System 



{Illus.) 385 



On the Part played by Symbiosis in 



certain Marine Animals ... ... 385 



Notes for Young Collectors 386 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



Natural History — 



The Puff Adder (Illus.) 387 



Granular Ophthalmia and Flies ... 388 



Use of the Antlers of Deer _ ... 388 



A Migration of Spiders 388 



Miscellaneous Notes 388 



Caterpillars on Fruit Trees 389 



Reviews — 

 Reports of the Scientific Results of 



the Challenger Expedition ... 391 



Totem Clans and Star Worship ...' 392 



Abstracts of Lectures, etc. — 



Society of Engineers... .. ... 394. 



Entomological Society ... ... 394 



Falmouth Naturalist Society ... 394 



Electrical Transmission of Power ... 395 



Correspondence... ... .„ ... 398 



Recent Inventions ... ... ... 398 



Technical Education Notes ... ... 399 



Sales and Exchanges 400 



Selected Books 400 



Notices ... ... ... ... ... 400 



Meteorological Returns 400 



Announcements ... 400 



SCIENTIFIC TABLE TALK. 



By W. Mattieu Williams, F.R.A.S., F.C.S. 



All who have reflected on the subject must have been 

 glad to learn that the subject of gas fuel has again been 

 discussed at the British Association. My detestation of 

 English coal fires and their dirty surroundings has been 

 frequently expressed. These heresies have been de- 

 scribed as "crotchets," a very honourable epithet, seeing 

 that the wise men of all ages have been called heretics 

 or crocheteers by the — i.e., the others. 



Considerable progress has been made in gas heating 

 since the subject was first brought before the Association 

 in 1 88 1, but much more is demanded. 



Mr. Dowson has practically proved that fuel gas 

 may be made at very small cost in a small apparatus, 

 and that such gas does admirable work in driving gas 

 engines, and in various factory applications— so far so 

 good, and very good, but this is merely a preliminary 

 step. The great desideratum is a supply of cheap fuel 

 gas that we may use for warming our houses and cooking 

 our food, so that all the dirtiness of coal heavers, coal 

 cellars, coal scuttles, fenders and fire-irons, of smoky 

 chimneys, and soot and dust and chimney sweepers, may 

 be utterly and for ever abolished. 



When this is done — as it must and shall be done — 

 London will become a beautiful city, a city in which an 

 artistic architect may follow his vocation. At present it 

 is the metropolis of grimy abominations, dirty-faced 

 streets, dirty public and private buildings, many of them 

 beautiful underneath, but all stuccoed with soot, besmeared 

 with black streaks and blotches that conceal and deface 

 the original design. 



There is a great deal of very fine relievo work on many 

 buildings, both in the City and West-end — work, which 

 if visible, would vie with the best to be found in Italian 

 or any other Continental cities. Some time ago I suggested 

 to an enthusiastic amateur-photographer that instead of 

 travelling abroad for subjects, he should rise early on 

 summer mornings and take pictures of such works — 

 naming samples. He approved of the suggestion, but 

 on examining the samples perceived at once that the 

 light and shade, upon ,vhi;h such pictures must depend, 



was all obliterated by soot smears ; the stone cherubs are 

 dirtier than the street arabs in the mud below, and the 

 allegorical females would come out in the picture with 

 black eyes suggestive of Tom Cribb and Ben Caunt, 

 rather than goddesses of peace and plenty. 



We have not only dirty streets, dirty homes, dirty 

 faces and dirty hands, but the very air we breathe is 

 abominably dirty. 



Frankland has shown that the distinctive character of 

 the "London particular," the choking brown fog (which, 

 by the way, is not the exclusive property of London, 

 but is shared by all our large towns), is due to the 

 coating of watery particles with a film of tarry filth pro- 

 duced by the condensation of the hydro-carbon vapours 

 that are poured into the air by the imperfect combustion of 

 bituminous coal. Such products of that barbaric device, 

 that devoutly worshipped national fetish, "The English- 

 man's fireside," not only renders artistic refinement 

 impossible, but irritates the lungs, and by familiarity 

 with grime, reacts upon the worshippers, and induces no 

 small amount of moral degradation. This is demon- 

 strated by the toleration the dirt receives. 



Fletcher, of Warrington, and other manufacturers, 

 offer us gas stoves of admirable construction for both 

 cooking and warming purposes ; all that we now want is 

 the gas at such a price as to compete with the cost of 

 coal, in which cost we must include that of dragging 

 coal about the house, of cleaning, chimney-sweeping, and 

 the wear and tear it involves. At present prices of 

 ordinary gas, the cost of a gas fire in an ordinary sitting- 

 room is, hour for hour, between two and three times 

 that of an ordinary open coal fire. In cases where the 

 fire is only occasionally used, it may be cheaper than 

 the coal fire in spite of this difference. It is needless 

 to discuss the prime cost of gas so long as, in London, its 

 supply to a given district is a monopoly. 



That picture of the Dowson gas apparatus in the 

 Scientific News of September 21st, inspires hope, as it 

 shows that heating gas may be made on a moderate 

 scale in the back-yard of an ordinary London house, and 

 therefore, that the inhabitants of any given street, or 

 square, or two or three streets combined, may form a 

 small syndirpte, make their own gas close to their own 



