May 21, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



467 



ported. There were imported, largely from 

 America, in 1877, 498 head; in 1882, 1,430. Another 

 obstacle which stock-raising must encounter is the 

 difficulty in the way of pasturage. The scant 

 herbage is unfitted for blooded stock, and the 

 raising of grasses or grain will be unprofitable. 

 In the inland regions the farmers of small means 

 often keep a horse or a cow, not for work, but 

 solely for the manure derived from it. It shows 

 strikingly the lack of capital everywhere so 

 prevalent. When a farmer finds an ox or a cow 

 too costly, he buys a superannuated or broken- 

 down pack-horse that can hardly stand, feeds it, 

 and carefully collects the manure. 



Notwithstanding all the obstacles, the importa- 

 tion and improvement of cattle in Japan, the 

 author believes, should certainly not be abandoned. 

 By a proper study of natural conditions, stock- 

 raising may do much toward bettering the cir- 

 cumstances of the Japanese people. 



A BOOK-MANUFACTORY IN ANCIENT 

 ROME. 



In the Illustrirtes schiveizeriscJies unterhaltungs- 

 blatt fur stenographen, the Publishers' weekly finds 

 an interesting account of the production of books 

 in ancient Rome. It is stated therein, that, not- 

 withstanding the Romans had no printing-presses, 

 books were at that time produced much more 

 quickly and in larger numbers than most modern 

 works. Paper was used which was almost woven 

 out of the fibre of the Egyptian papyrus, which 

 grows to a height of ten feet, and which has given 

 its name to paper. A Roman residing in Egypt 

 assures us that the yield of his paper-manufac- 

 tory would be sufficient to support an army, and 

 whole shiploads of paper were sent from Egypt 

 to Rome. Before books of any description were 

 reproduced in large numbers, they were read 

 mostly either in private circles or publicly, so 

 that the author could adopt suggestions for the 

 improvement of his work. Wealthy Romans used 

 to own a large number of slaves for all kinds of 

 services, which rendered labor cheap, as they cost 

 nothing in many cases, and had only to be sup- 

 ported. They were mostly prisoners of war, the 

 pick of nations, and often more cultivated (espe- 

 cially the Greeks) than their masters. They were 

 consequently also employed in the education of 

 Roman boys. The works of authors were dictated 

 to a number of slaves, women also being employed 

 for that purpose. Even among freemen and 

 liberated slaves the desire to obtain employment 

 became so great, that hundreds of willing hands 

 could be had for writing books at a very low rate 

 of wages. The instruction imparted in the work- 



shops of Roman publishers necessitated a regular 

 course of training, which was to teach the ap- 

 prentices an easy and elegant handwriting. If a 

 publisher had at his disposal, say, a hundred writ- 

 ers, and reckoning the working-day at ten hours, 

 a document which took an hour to write would 

 be multiplied in the course of a day to a thousand 

 copies. The writers became in time expert to 

 such a degree that they combined quickness with 

 elegance. It must also be added that in cases 

 where speed was the first consideration, the use of 

 stenographic contractions became general, and 

 we possess illustrations of their employment in 

 the old manuscripts still in existence. We are 

 also informed that both readers and copyists were 

 instructed and trained, the former in the solution, 

 the latter in the application, of contractions. 

 Their object was to copy works as quickly as 

 possible, the use of full words being only resorted 

 to for the best works. The above brief account 

 demonstrates the fact that the Romans made 

 the nearest approach to the invention of print- 

 ing, although they never attained to it. The 

 movable stamps of iron or other metals used by 

 the Romans for marking earthenware vessels or 

 other utensils also prove this. But the art of 

 rapid writing, which was perfected by them to an 

 unusual degree, counteracted a further develop- 

 ment, while the number of slaves and other 

 willing hands at disposal, by which means the 

 most astonishing results were obtained, operated 

 in the same direction. 



THE HEATING-POWER OF GAS. 



The introduction of the gas-engine and the 

 increased use of ordinary illuminating-gas for 

 domestic heating-purposes, renders its calorific 

 properties of far more importance than they were 

 a few years ago, says Engineering. The experi- 

 ments made on this subject do not appear to have 

 been very exhaustive, and, if we may judge by 

 those we are about to quote, have not always been 

 carried out with due care. M. Aime Witz, whose 

 researches in connection with the gas-engine are 

 well known, has lately made some experiments in 

 order to determine with greater accuracy the heat- 

 ing-power in ordinary French illuminating-gas. 

 His apparatus was composed of an explosion- 

 cylinder of nickel-plated steel 2.36 inches internal 

 diameter and 3.54 inches high. The thickness of 

 the metal was .079 of an inch. The top and bot- 

 tom covers were tightly screwed on, rendering 

 the chamber air-tight. Through the top cover a 

 wire passed, and on the bottom was a valve for 

 filling or emptying the receptacle. This cylinder 

 was contained in a vessel 4 inches in diameter and 



