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SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 401




NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 8, 1883

Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XVI, No. 401.

Scientific American established 1845

Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.

Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I.    CHEMISTRY.--On the Different Modifications of Silver Bromide
      and Silver Chloride.

      Analysis of New Zealand Coal.

      On the Determination of Manganese in Steel, Cast Iron,
      Ferro-manganese, etc.

      Manganese and its Uses.

      Ozokerite or Earth-wax. By WILLIAM L. LAY. A valuable
      and instructive paper read before the New York Academy of
      Sciences.--Showing the nature, sources, and applications of this
      remarkable product.

      On the Constitution of the Natural Fats.

II.   ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS.--Improved Spring wheel
      Traction Engine.--With two engravings.

      An Improved Iron Frame Gang Saw Mill.--With one large
      engraving.

      The Heat Regenerative System of Firing Gas Retorts.--Siemens'
      principle.--As operated at the Glasgow Corporation Works.--With
      two engravings.

      A New Gas Heated Baker's Oven.

III.  TECHNOLOGY.--How to Produce Permanent Photographic Pictures
      on Terra Cotta, Glass, etc.--With recipes and full directions.

      How to Make Paper Photo Negatives.--Full directions.

      Some of the Uses of Common Alum.

      An Improved Cloth Stretching Machine.--With an engraving.

      Purification of Woolen Fabrics by Hydrochloric Acid Gas.

      Apparatus for Preventing the Loss of Carbonic Acid in Racking
      Beer.--With an engraving.

IV.   ELECTRICITY.--Application of Electricity to the Bleaching of
      Vetable Textile Materials.--With figure of apparatus.

      Table Showing the Relative Dimensions, Lengths, Electrical
      Resistances, and Weights of Pure Copper Wires.

V.    ASTRONOMY.--The Solar Eclipse of 1883.--An interesting abstract
      from a report of C. S. HASTINGS (Johns Hopkins University), of
      the American Astronomical Exhibition to the Caroline Islands.

VI.   NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.--Recent Experiments Affecting the
      Received Theory of Music.--An interesting paper descriptive of
      certain experiments by President Morton, of Stevens Institute.

      The Motions of Camphor upon Water.--With an engraving.

VII.  ARCHITECTURE.--Suggestions in Village Architecture.--
      Semidetached villas.--Bloomfield crescent.--With an engraving.

      Specimens of Old Knocking Devices for Doors.--Several figures.

VIII. ARCHAEOLOGY.--A Buried City of the Exodus.--Being an account
      of the recent excavations and discoveries of Pithom
      Succoth, in Egypt.--With an engraving.

      The Moabite Manuscripts.

IX.   AGRICULTURE. HORTICULTURE, ETC.--The Queen Victoria
      Century Plant.--With an engraving.

      Charred Clover.

      A New Weathercock.--With one figure.

X.    MISCELLANEOUS.--New Monumental Statue and Landing Place
      in Honor of Christopher Columbus at Barcelona, Spain.--With an
      engraving.

      Scenery on the Utah Line of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway.

      Captain Matthew Webb.--Biographical sketch.--With portrait.

      The Dwellings of the Poor In Paris.

      Shipment of Ostriches from Cape Town, South Africa.--With one
      page of engravings.

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MONUMENT TO CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, AT BARCELONA, SPAIN.


The cultivated and patriotic city of Barcelona is about to erect
a magnificent monument in honor of Columbus, the personage most
distinguished in the historic annals of all nations and all epochs.
The City of Earls does not forget that here the discoverer of America
disembarked on the 3d of April, 1493, to present to the Catholic
monarchs the evidences of the happy termination of his enterprise. In
honoring Columbus they honor and exalt the sons of Catalonia, who also
took part in the discovery and civilization of the New World, among whom
may be named the Treasurer Santangel, Captain Margarit, Friar Benardo
Boyl, first patriarch of the Indies, and the twelve missionaries of
Monserrat, who accompanied the illustrious admiral on his second voyage.

In September, 1881, a national competition was opened by the central
executive committee for the monument, and by the unanimous voice of
the committee the premium plans of the architect, Don Cayetano
Buigas Monraba, were adopted. From these plans, which we find in _La
Ilustracion Espanola_, we give an engraving. Richness, grandeur, and
expression, worthily combined, are the characteristics of these plans.
The landing structure is divided into three parts, a central and two
laterals, each of which extends forward, after the manner of a cutwater,
in the form of the bow of a vessel of the fifteenth century, bringing to
mind the two caravels, the Pinta and Nina; two great lights occupy the
advance points on each side; a rich balustrade and four statues of
celebrated persons complete the magnificent frontage. A noble monument,
surmounted by a statue of the discoverer, is seen on the esplanade.

[Illustration: MONUMENTAL LANDING AND STATUE TO COLUMBUS, AT BARCELONA,
SPAIN.]

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The commission appointed in France to consider the phylloxera has not
awarded to anybody the prize of three hundred thousand francs that was
offered to the discoverer of a trustworthy remedy or preventive for the
fatal grape disease. There were not less than 182 competitors for the
prize; but none had made a discovery that filled the bill. It is said,
however, that a Strasbourg physician has found in naphthaline an
absolutely trustworthy remedy. This liquid is poured upon the ground
about the root of the vine, and it is said that it kills the parasites
without hurting the grape.

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SCENERY ON THE UTAH LINE OF THE DENVER AND RIO GRANDE.


Mr. R.W. Raymond gives the following interesting account of the
remarkable scenery on this recently opened route from Denver to Salt
Lake:

Having just made the trip from Salt Lake City to this place on the
Denver & Rio Grande line, I cannot write you on any other subject at
present. There is not in the world a railroad journey of thirty hours
so filled with grand and beautiful views. I should perhaps qualify this
statement by deducting the hours of darkness; yet this is really a
fortunate enhancement of the traveler's enjoyment; it seems providential
that there is one part of the way just long enough and uninteresting
enough to permit one to go to sleep without the fear of missing anything
sublime. Leaving Salt Lake City at noon, we sped through the fertile and
populous Jordan Valley, past the fresh and lovely Utah Lake, and up the
Valley of Spanish Fork. All the way the superb granite walls and summits
of the Wahsatch accompanied us on the east, while westward, across the
wide valley, were the blue outlines of the Oquirrh range. One after
another of the magnificent canyons of the Wahsatch we passed, their
mouths seeming mere gashes in the massive rock, but promising wild and
rugged variety to him who enters--a promise which I have abundantly
tested in other days. Parley's Canyon, the Big and Little Cottonwood, and
most wonderful of all, the canyon of the American Fork, form a series not
inferior to those of Boulder, Clear Creek, the Platte, and the Arkansas,
in the front range of the Rockies.

Following Spanish Fork eastward so far as it served our purpose, we
crossed the divide to the head waters of the South Fork of Price River,
a tributary of Green River. It was a regret to me, in choosing this
route, that I should miss the familiar and beloved scenery of Weber and
Echo canyons--the only part of the Union Pacific road which tempts one
to look out of a car window, unless one may be tempted by the boundless
monotony of the plains or the chance of a prairie dog. Great was my
satisfaction, therefore, to find that this part of the new road,
parallel with the Union Pacific, but a hundred miles farther south,
traverses the same belt of rocks, and exhibits them in forms not less
picturesque. Castle Canyon, on the South Fork of the Price, is the
equivalent of Echo Canyon, and is equal or superior in everything except
color. The brilliant red of the Echo cliffs is wanting. The towers
and walls of Castle Canyon are yellowish-gray. But their forms are
incomparably various and grotesque--in some instances sublime. The
valley of Green River at this point is a cheerless sage-brush desert,
as it is further north. To be sure, this uninviting stream, a couple of
hundred miles further south, having united with the Grande, and formed
the Rio Colorado, does indeed, by dint of burrowing deeper and deeper
into the sunless chasms, become at last sublime. But here it gives no
hint of its future somber glory. I remained awake till we had crossed
Green River, to make sure that no striking scenery should be missed by
sleep. But I got nothing for my pains except the moonlight on the muddy
water; and next time I shall go to bed comfortably, proving to the
conductor that I am a veteran and not a tender-foot.

In the morning, we breakfasted at Cimarron, having in the interval
passed the foot-hills of the Roan Mountains, crossed the Grande, and
ascended for some distance the Gunnison, a tributary of the Grande, the
Uncompahgre, a tributary of the Gunnison, and finally a branch, flowing
westward, of the Uncompahgre. A high divide at the head of the latter
was laboriously surmounted; and then, one of our two engines shooting
ahead and piloting us, we slid speedily down to Cimarron. It is in such
descents that the unaccustomed traveler usually feels alarmed. But the
experience of the Rio Grande Railroad people is, that derailment is
likely to occur on up-grades, and almost never in going down.

From this point, comparison with the Union Pacific line in the matter
of scenery ceases. As everybody knows, that road crosses the Rocky
Mountains proper in a pass so wide and of such gradual ascent that the
high summits are quite out of sight. If it were not for the monument to
the Ameses, there would be nothing to mark the highest point. For all
the wonderful scenery on the Rio Grande road, between Cimarron and
Pueblo, the Union Pacific in the same longitudes has nothing to show.
From an artistic stand-point, one