Art-“Metal 
Ceilings 
Are Attractive 
Interiors 
fe) 
“CANTON” 
Metal Art Plates 
are famous for their architectural features. Attract attention everywhere. 
Will not burn, crack or peel. No falling plaster to contend with. Once in 
place needs no repairing. Sanitary, and saves time and trouble. Low cost 
considering the lasting qualities. Let us tell you more about them. Our pea 
tiful book, “‘Art in Metal Ceilings,’’ shows the designs. Tell us you re interested. 
Ge CANTON STEEL ROOFING CO., Canton, Ohio 
New York Agency, 525 West 23d Street 
q TO SECURE a prompt response to this announcement we have arranged to 
distribute free of charge 250 beautiful bookcases to the first 250 of our readers who 
answer this advertisement and accept our proposition as explained below. 
Within Reach of All 
HE cAMERICANA needs no word of praise from us. 
Produced by America’s foremost scholars and experts, 
it stands as an achievement which has already met 
with the enthusiastic approval of the American people. 
Before ever a line was written for this great work the Ideal 
was set: A National Work Universal in its Information. 
American in its Production. 
The cAMERICANA is distinctly a national work. It is 
made by Americans. Every section of America has been 
called upon to contribute, and for the first time, in a work 
of universal information, North, South, East and West, 
Canada and South America have had full and true represen- 
tation. 
The -AMERICANA is new from cover to cover—new and 
beautiful type, new maps, new text illustrations, new color 
plates, and, best of all, new and original treatment throughout 
by the foremost American Scholars and Experts. 
The -cAMERICANA has*commanded the services of so 
many educators, scholars and experts as to fully justify its 
title of the one 
Great National Reference Library 
No mere advertisement can convey an adequate idea of the vast interest 
and immense utiliry of he CPAMERICANA, or of its exceptional value 
and sumptuous appeasance. We have therefore prepared for distribution 
among thcse interested, a handsome 120-page book containing specimen 
pages, maps, full-page plates, colored plates, portraits of celebrities, photo- 
graphic plates showing the fastest train in the world, the largest steamship 
ever built in America, the famous Flatiron Building, etc., etc. Send us your 
name and address and we will mail you this beautiful and expensive 
book FREE. 
OUR PROPOSITION 
q TO THE FIRST 250 PERSONS who answer this advertisement and later 
order the set, we will present absolutely free one of the handsome bookcases shown in 
the illustration above. ‘This bookcase will cost 
fou nothing. 'e STaltie y rem i 
y wWng We offer it as a premium for THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN CLUB 
acceptance of our offer. It is made especially 258 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
to hold the -AMERICANA, and will be an GENTLEMEN:—Please send without cost to me 
a ’ sample pages and full particulars of your advertising 
ornament to any home. — Fill out the coupon Of CTA Lee cance 
cut from this advertisement and mail it to us 
to-day. [ull particulars of our offer and our 
handsome 120-page book will be sent you at 
once, postpaid. 
58 AMERICAN HOMES AND GAR DEMS January, 1906 
cording to the necessities of the occasion. The 
radiator was set close to the wall so that the 
outside face did not project more than 5 inches 
from the baseboard. “The supporting stand- 
ards can be made in a variety of forms. 
26. Cleaning White Paint 
PERHAPS no paint for interior uses has 
preserved a well deserved popularity for 
so long a time as white. The cheerful- 
ness it gives to rooms is without rival; it 
harmonizes well with every color, and it has 
been used so frequently that it has almost be- 
come the standard color for interior use. But 
its employment involves serious expenses in 
cleaning. It is exceedingly difficult to keep 
clean, although perhaps not more so than any 
other light and delicate tint. If left without 
care it loses its value and repainting becomes 
necessary. It is, therefore, a matter of some 
moment to keep such paint clean. The matter 
is so important that a special profession of 
white paint cleaners has been developed in 
New York. The work can not be well done 
by ordinary cleaners, and well educated, in- 
telligent young women have been drafted into 
the work. White woodwork must be cleaned 
little by little, a single panel or small part 
rubbed gently and persistently until every 
stain has vanished. It should be then rinsed 
and finally polished with a soft dry cloth. The 
corners and edges must be cleaned out with a 
skewer or small stick inside a piece of cloth. 
Good white soap and warm water are recom- 
mended for cleaning white enamel paint. A 
tablespoonful of ammonia should be added to 
each bucketful if the water be hard. Whiting 
in water is said to be the best cleaning material 
for plain white paint. 
NEW BOOKS 
Mr. Howells on London 
Lonpvon Firms. By William Dean Howells. 
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1905. 
Pp. 241. “Price, $2°25) nee 
Mr. Howells is too well known asanobsery- 
er and as a keen analytical writer to need com- 
mendation at this day. This, his latest book, 
deals with one of the most fascinating of cities, 
and it loses none of its charms in being viewed 
through his kindly eyes. London is not only 
physically one of the mightiest of cities, but 
it is one of the mightiest of themes. Its many- 
sided aspects are of infinite variety and import, 
and the single difficulty that confronts a writer 
who essays to write of it as a whole is its 
myriad interests and the immensity of its at- 
tractiveness. 
Mr. Howells has not undertaken to write 
of London as a whole, but has taken the wiser 
course of selecting his subjects and depicting 
phases of London life that have interested him 
and which have come under his recent per- 
sonal observation. “The briefest sojourner in 
London sees more than he can readily. digest 
mentally, and Mr. Howells’s book by no 
means obtains insufficiency because it is con- 
cerned simply with what has interested this 
genial, cultivated observer. 
It is with the human side of London he is 
concerned rather than its structural and 
material side. And the human side is vastly 
interesting, vastly absorbing, vastly large. 
The chapters cover a very wide range of 
subjects, each treated in a distinctive man- 
ner and presented in a new and charm- 
ing way that no one can give so well as this 
accomplished author. It is a book richly im- 
bued with the charm of London. A more 
agreeable book on London has not been recently 
published. ‘The illustrations add a good deal 
to the volume, while the absence of an index 
is a serious Omission. 
