PARK AND CEMETERY, 
i75 
her from the Brownings, George Eliot, the Trollopes, Landor, 
aud many others of the most famous and interesting people of 
the age. Her life was a more remarkable one in all its inclusive- 
ness than has, perhaps, been realized even by those who most 
loved and appreciated her exquisite genius and lofty character. 
x x x 
The City Comptroller of Camden, N. J., last month re- 
fused to allow the Camden Cemetery trustees to spend $500 for 
an iron fence around the burial grounds while the money to their 
credit in the City Treasury is needed to pay interest on the 
cemetery bonds. 
X * X 
The Mary Custis Lee Chapter, Daughters of the Confederacy, 
have secured funds for improvements in Lexington Cemetery, 
Lexington, Va. It will be inclosed on the front and on half of 
the north side by a substantial wall four feet high, eighteen 
inches thick, and with a stone coping two feet broad, which will 
be built of native limestone in ashlar masonry. 
* x * 
The Woodmere Cemetery Association, Detroit, Mich., has 
received from the ordnance department of the U. S. A., through 
Secretary of War Alger, two two-ton howitzers and eighty shells 
the shells weighing about fifty pounds each and measuring eight 
inches in diameter. The cannon will be placed at each end of 
the G. A. R. and U. S. military plats in the cemetery, while the 
shells will be made into four piles and placed in front of the two 
lots which adjoin each other. 
India rubber is being experimented upon as a material for 
street paving. It was first tried on a bridge in Hanover, Ger- 
many, a little more than a year ago, and has proved so satisfac- 
tory that further experiments with it for ordinary roadways are 
being made in Berlin and Hamburg. 
X X * 
The G. A. R. Post of Mercer, Pa., have received two cannons 
from the Brooklyn Navy yard, to be placed at either side of the 
monument to be erected in Warren’s park in memory of Mercer 
county’s fallen heroes. The work on the monument will prob- 
ably be completed in October. 
The Rural Cemetery, St. John, N. B. 
The progressive development of our own cemeteries very 
early attracted the attention of the officials of the Rural ceme- 
tery of St. John, N. B„ and it has frequently been mentioned in 
these columns. The following descriptive notes on its policy 
and progress written by Mr. H. L. Spencer will be interesting. 
“The Saint John Rural Cemetery Co., was incorporated by 
an act of the New Brunswick legislature of March 30, 1848. The 
capital of the company was $15,000. The site chosen contained 
1 10 acres of land, about one and one-fourth miles eastward from 
the city, bounded on the north and south by the Marsh and 
Westmoreland roads. A more picturesque situation could not 
have been selected anywhere in the vicinity of the city nor one 
better adapted for cemetery purposes. Much of its surface, 
which is diversified by hill and valley with several springs and 
running brooks, was originally covered with a growth of ever- 
green and deciduous trees, and much of its soil is of a gravelly 
nature and the facilities for drainage, where necessary, are ex- 
cellent. Eight or ten drinking fountains in different parts of the 
ground are supplied with water from Loch Lomond, ten miles 
distant. M. Stead, one of the most distinguished landscape 
gardeners in the province, supervised the improvement of the 
grounds for many years and all of the principal avenues and 
paths were laid out under his direction. Their utility and pic- 
turesqueness furnish a substantial monument to his discernment 
and skill. There are now some twenty miles of these, the 
avenues being from twenty to thirty feet and the paths from six 
to eight feet in width. Several miles of drains from five to six 
feet in depth have been laid and are under construction. A few 
years since Mr. J . R. Ruel, president of the company presented 
the cemetTv with a beautiful drinking fountain in memory of 
his wife and the construction of an artificial lake, a chapel and a 
shelter house are under consideration. Within two or three 
years many lots subject to perpetual care have been sold and 
many more have been placed under annual care. 
The effect is that lot owners generally give more attention 
to their holdings and the appearance o the cemetery is greatly 
improved. Sixty six lots were sold Jast year and the total re- 
ceipts were $6,597 61. The list of proprietors of lots now num- 
bers nearly 3.000, and the number of interments to date is in the 
vicinity of 18,000. During the last five years the grounds have 
been enlarged by purchase to about 170 acres and have been 
greatly beautified by the planting of a large number of imported 
trees and shrubs adapted to this climate. Probably nowhere 
else on the continent can finer specimens of roses pansies, 
rhododedrons and hydrangeas be found than in the Rural ceme- 
tery in their season, and in consequence the place has become 
the favorite resort of thousands of citizens, especially on Sunday 
afternoons, all through the summer months. 
Should all of the improvements that are projected by super- 
intendent J. P. Clayton, to whom the public is largely indebted 
for the restfulness and beauty ol the place, the Rural cemetery 
will soon have no peer among the burial grounds of Canada. 
Many beautiful monuments have been erected during the last 
year, one of which, manufactured from granite found recently at 
Westfield, near the city, is greatly admired. The stone is 
nearly black, takes a beautiful polish and appears as if sprinkled 
with a dust of silver.” 
The lightest known solid is said to be the pith of the 
sunflower, with a specific gravity of .028, or about one- 
eighth that of cork. The sunflower is extensively culti- 
vated in central Russia, and various uses are served by 
its different parts, the recent discovery of the lightness 
of the pith essentially increasing the commercial value 
of the plant. For life-saving appliances at sea cork has 
a buoyancy of one to five, while with the sunflower pith 
one to thirty-five is attained. About 800 cubic inches 
of it would weigh as much as one cubic inch of iridium, 
the heaviest metal. — The American Machinist. 
* * * 
A correspondent in The Garden , of London, uses a 
steam lawn mower, of which the following particulars 
are given: It is much easier to work than an ordinary 
horse. It is very simple and not at all unwieldy, the 
engine and boiler being fitted on the top of the large or 
main roller. The machine is nicely balanced and can 
be turned with more ease than a horse machine. The 
boiler is composed of a series of copper tubes, and a 
copper fire box, and the pressure carried is 300 pounds. 
Water is fed to the boiler by a pump at a temperature 
of 180 degrees. Ordinary petroleum under a pressure 
of about 15 lbs., is used as fuel, burned in the fire box 
through a burner like a naphtha lamp. There is little 
odor and scarcely any smoke when working. The cost 
of working is something more than 2 cents per hour, 
and it will run 6 hours on its oil supply. It does about 
double the work of a horse machine in a given time. 
The 30 inch machine of the writer weighs some 1,500 
lbs. It can be used fur pumping water, and makes an 
excellent roller, besides other purposes. 
