\
THE!
//
POPULAR CYCLOPEDIA
OF
USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
A COMPLETE LIBRARY OF
USEFUL INFORMATION FOR THE MASSES,
KMBRACED IN THE SUBJECTS OF
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, NATURAL HISTORY, TRAVELS,
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, MANUFACTURES, VEG-
ETATION, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY, MIN-
ING, THE SEA, FAMILIAR SCIENCE, THE
LAW, STATISTICS, Etc., Etc.
WITH TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS.
NEW YORK :
F. M. LUPTON, PUBLISHER,
No. 63 MURRAY STREET.
1888.
COPYRIGHT BY
M. LUPTON,
i88.
PREFACE.
A BICH store of knowledge may bo ohtaiuccl from books in fact therein
may be found ali, or nearly all, that mankind has yet discovered; but there
are two entirely opposite methods of giving knowledge to the world. The
first is that which enters into extensive detail, and repels and confuses the
average reader with scientific phraseology and verbose description. The
second is that which seeks, by simplicity and conciseness, to make knowl-
edge attractive, entertaining and amusing its readers while it instructs and
benefits them. The latter is the method adopted in the present volume.
The object is to present for family reading a book which will interest and
entertain the most careless reader and at the same time fill his mind with
knowledge of the most useful character a book which may be taken up at
random, as in idle moments, and read with interest and pront by all classes
and conditions of mankind. Few men or women are so well informed that
they will not learn much that is of real interest and value to them from this
book. Herein is information for the curious, knowledge and facts for those
who seek them, self education for old and young.
The material of a dozen ordinary volumes has been carefully epitomized
and combined in one, yet, unlike other Cyclopaedias sold at low prices,
which are practically nothing more than defining dictionaries, it undertakes
to treat upon only such a number of topics as can be treated satisfactorily
and well. First, we have the department of " Biography," containing
sketches of the lives of half-a-hundred of the most prominent men who
have figured in the history of this country and Europe for a century or more
past, each biography being accompanied by a portrait. In the department
of "History" are given graphic descriptions of several of the most impor-
tant historical occurrences of the present and former times. Under " Nat-
ural History " will be found exceedingly interesting descriptions of animals,
birds, reptiles, fishes and insects, nearly all of which are accompanied by
handsome illustrations. In the department of " Travels, Manners and
Customs, Etc.," are given descriptions of the life of people of many coun-
tries and climes, their peculiar rites, forms and ceremonies. Under " The
World Illustrated " are described some of the most wonderful works both
of the Creator and of man. " Useful Arts and Manufactures " describes
'arious industrial processes, and will be found exceedingly interesting and
profitable reading. Under "Trees, Plants, Fruits, Etc.," are given de-
scriptions of the vegetable productions of foreign countries, acquainting the
reader with many interesting and useful facts regarding these things.
"Great Inventions" describes the history of some of the most important
mechanical discoveries of mankind, and " Mining " relates to the produc-
tion of the mineral wealth of the earth. " Wonders of the Sea " treats ol
the wonderful and beautiful things found upon the floor of the ocean.
"Familiar Science " describes the earth and other members of the solar
eystem, likewise the various agents, forces, etc., in nature. " Law for the
" will be fomja of great benefit to men an.d worqen in the practical
iv PREFACE.
relations of life, while the department of " Statistical and Miscellaneous "
is a repository of useful and interesting facts and figures. The illustrations,
of which there are two hundred and seventy-three, form one of the most
desirable features of the book, and greatly enhance its interest and value.
The work is submitted in the hope that it may find a warm welcome in
thousands of American homes, and in the firm conviction that its patrons
will be invariably ite friends and admirers. It is not too much to say that
never before in the history of book-making has a work containing BO vast
an amount of useful information been presented in so attractive a form and
given to the public at so low a price. It is a book for the masses for old
md young, rich and poor. It may be read continuously, or, by the aid of
fce index at the end, used as a work of reference. A glance over its pages
will serve to convey an idea of the extent and variety of its contents, yet the
real excellence and value of the work cannot be appreciated until it hat
ben read from beginning to end.
CONTENTS,
PAGE
BlOGBAPHY , 13
UlSTOBY 62
NATUBAL HISTOBY 86
TBAVELS, MANNEBS AND CUSTOMS, ETC 144
THE WOBLD ILLUSTBATED 205
USEFUL ABTS AND MANTIPACTUBES 237
TBEES, PLANTS, FBUITS, ETC 292
GBEAT INVENTIONS 844
MINING 362
WONDEBS OF THE SEA 381
FAMTLIAB SCIENCE 395
LAW FOB THE MASSES ,..-.. 442
Vi CONTENTS.
PAGE
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS 477
INDKI , 539
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Georgo Washington . . . . . . . .13
Napoleon Bonaparte ........ 15
William Shakespeare . . . . . . . .16
Lord Byron ......... 17
William Penn . . . . . . . . .18
Benjamin Franklin ........ 19
Patrick Henry . . . . . . .20
John Adams ......... 21
Thomas Jefferson . . . . . . . . .22
Alexander Hamilton ........ 23
John Jacob Astor . . . . . . . . .24
Robert Fulton ......... 25
Andrew Jackson . . . . . . . . .26
Henry Clay . . . . . . . 27
Daniel Webster . . . . . . . . .28
George Peabody ........ 29
Edward Everett . . . . . . . . .30
James Fenimore Cooper ....... 31
Washington Irving . . . . . . . .82
Abraham Lincoln ........ 33
Horace Greeley . . . . . . . . .84
Thurlow Weed ........ 35
Wendell Phillips . . . . . . . . .36
Henry Ward Beecher ........ 37
Charles Dickens . . . . . . . . .38
William Cullen Bryant ....... 39
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . . . . . . .40
Ralph Waldo Emersou . . . . . . .41
Jjhn G. Whittier . . . . . . . . .42
Alfred Tennyson . . . . . . . .43
Herbert Spencer . . . . . . . . .44
William E. Gladstone ....... 45
Oliver Wendbll Holmes . ^ . . . . . .46
James Russell Lowell ....... 47
Peter Cooper . . . . . . . . .48
James A. Garfield ........ 49
Ulysses S. Grant . . . . . . . .50
Samuel J. Tilden ........ 51
George F. Edmunds .... , .52
Allen G. Thurman ..... . S3
John Sherman . . . . . . . , ' . i&
?,Villiam M. Evarts ........ 65
Thomas F. Bayard . . . . . . . .56
James G. 131aiue ........ 57
rili LIST Off ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
William T. Sherman ........ 58
Philip H. Sheridan 59
Grover Cleveland ........ 60
Thomas A. Heudricks ....... 61
The Lion .......... 86
The Hippopotamus ........ 87
The Syrian Bear . . . . . . . .89
The Bison ......... 90
The Tiger 91
The Leopard ......... 92
The Wolf 93
The Giraffe ......... 94
The Zebu. . . 95
The Ant-Eater ......... 98
The Porcupine . . . . . . . . .97
The Hedgehog . . . . . . .98
The Elk .......... 99
The Stag 100
The Chamois . . . . . . . . .101
The Caribou or American Reindeer . . . . . 102
Beavers ......... . 103
The Ferret ......... 105
The Mole .......... 106
The Crocodile. ........ 109
The Alligator . . . . . . . . .110
The Long-Eared Bat . . . . . . .111
The Colugo . . . . . . . . .112
The Paper Nautilus ........ 113
The Flying Fish . . . . . . . . .114
The Sea Horse ..... ... 115
The Lyre-Bird ..... ... 116
The Ostrich . . . . . . . .118
The Condor . . . . . . . . .119
The Vulture ........ .120
The Solitaire . . . . . . . '. .121
The Bittern ......... 122
The Heron 123
The Roseate Spoonbill ....... 124
The Stork 125
The Crane ......... 126
The Crested Grebe . . . . . . . .127
The Cormorant ........ 128
The Bird of Paradise 129
The Falcon ......... 130
The Tailor-Bird . . . . . . . . .131
The Wheatear . . . . . . . .132
The American Bluejay . . . . . . . .133
The Skylark ......... 133
The Belted Kingfisher . . . . . . . .134
The Starling ......... 134
TheTitlark 135
Butterflies 136
LIST OF ILL^^'^-.A
PAGE
jNest of the Common Humble Bee . . . . . .138
A Spider's Web 141
The Water Spider . . . . . . . .142
Chinese Ladies ........ 144
A Chinese Bride ......... 145
A Chinese Baby in its Winter Cradle ..... 146
Beating on a Temple Drum ....... 147
A Chinese Mode of Punishment ...... 149
A Chinese Pavilion ........ 150
Porcelain Tower ........ 151
Japanese Bride and Attendants ...... 152
A Japanese Family ........ 153
A Japanese Bed ......... 154
A Japanese Temple ........ 155
The Hindoo . . . . . . . . .156
A Brahmin Expounding the Veda ...... 157
The Bheels . . . . . . . . .158
The Mahrattas of India ....... 159
A Native Musician of India ....... 160
Natives of Banjara, India ....... 161
Women of the Himalayas ....... 162
Suttee Worship, India . . . . . 163
Zebu Carriage, India ........ 164
Mode of Fishing in India . . . . . . ' . 164
Senegambia Fulahs ........ 165
The Sourigo, Natives of West Africa ..... 166
Chiefs Wife Traveling, Central Africa . . . . .167
Saluting a Superior ........ 168
Bakalahari Women Filling Water Skins . . . . .169
A Family of Bedouins ....... 170
Arab Dress ......... 171
An Arab Tent . . . . . . . .172
Interior of a Turkish House ....... 173
Life in Constantinople ....... 174
Mexican Women ......... 176
Dancing Girls of Mexico ....... 177
Natives of South America ....... 178
Fruit Dealer of Rio de Janeiro ...... 179
House on the Coast of Ecuador, South America .... 180
A Piute Lode ..... 181
Some Piute Beaux ........ 182
An Egyptian Woman Churning . . 183
An Egyptian Well . . .184
Approaching the King in Siam . ... 185
Eating Rice in Siam . . 185
The Abyssinians . . ...
The Herdsman of the Alps . 187
An Icelandic Lady .
Mountain Traveling in Spain . . 189
A Dinner in Palestine . 190
The Greek . . .... 191
Marriage Ceremony in Borneo . .... 192
x LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAOE
Niagara Falls from Below . . . . . . .205
The Horseshoe Fall, Niagara ...... 206
Rapids of the St. Lawrence ....... 207
Franoonia Notch, White Mountains ..... 208
Watkins Glen . . . . . . . . .209
Fawn's Leap, Catekill Mountains ...... 210
Trenton Falls, New York . . . . . . .211
The Bartholdi Statue ....... 212
The Palisades of the Hudson River ...... 213
The Allegheny River ....... 214
Natural Bridge, Virginia ....... 215
Gothic Chapel, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky .... 216
Silver Springs, Florida . . . . . .-..'. . 217
Silver Cascade, St. Anthony's Falls ..... 218
Grand Canon of the Colorado ....... 219
Great Falls of the Missouri River, Montana .... 220
Great Springs, Yellowstone Pa-rk ...... 221
Liberty Cap, Yellowstone Park ...... 222
Great Geyser, Yellowstone Park ...... 223
Bridal Veil Fall, Yosemite Valley 224
Summit of the Sierras ........ 225
Cape Horn in the Sierras . . . . . . . 226
In Arctic Seas . . . . . . . . .227
Loch Katrine . . . . . . . .228
Edinburgh Castle . . . . . . . .229
Melrose Abbey ..... , . . 230
Alpine Peaks . . . . . . . . .231
Garden of the Tuileries, Paris ...... 232
Champa Elysees, Paris ........ 233
Vesuvius in Eruption ....... 234
Venice . . . . . . . . ' . 235
Compositor at Work ........ 237
Composing Room ........ 238
Press Room ......... 239
Stereotyping ......... 240
Sewing Books . . . . . . . . 241
Wood Engraving . . . . . . . . .242
Copper-plate Printing ....... 243
Paper-Making Machine . . . . . . . .248
The Silk- Worm 250
Calico Printing ......... 252
Puddling Iron ........ 254
Melting Steel 255
Glass Manufacture Annealing Furnace ..... 257
Watch-Making The Work Room . . . . . .260
" " Firing the Dials 261
Piano-Making The Case Room . . . . . .262
" " The Polishing Room 263
The Manufacture of Soap . . . . . . .264
A Tan-Yard 265
Maple Sugar Gathering the Sap ...... 267
Manufacture of Turpentine, Resin and Tar. Fig. 1 . . .269
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xl
PAGE
Manufacture of Turpentine, Resin and Tar. Fig. 2 . . .270
" " " " " " - Fig. 3 . . .271
" " " " " " Fig. 4 . . .272
tt u tt < _pig. 5 . .273
_ Figi 6 . p 274
Nail Forge 277
Manufacture of Needles Drilling the Eyes . . . . .279
Tea Plant, Flower and Leaf ...... 292
A Tea Farm 293
A Coffee Plantation 294
The Cacao 295
The Cotton Plant 297
Picking Cotton . . . . . . . . .298
Flax . ... ....... 300
Hemp . . . . . . . . . .301
Gathering Sugar Cane ....... 303
Tobacco .......... 305
The India Rubber Tree . . ... . .306
Gutta Percha . 307
The Castor Oil Plant ........ 309
The Camphor Tree ..... . 310
Peppermint . . . . . . . ... 311
Wine Growing . . . . . . . . .312
The Nutmeg ......... 314
Tho Clove Tree 315
Cinnamon ......... 316
Allspice .......... 317
The Almond ......... 317
The Cocoanut Tree . . . . . . . .318
'The Pineapple ........ 319
The Banana Tree . . . . . . . .320
The Date 321
The Fig . . . 322
The Orange ......... 323
The Lemon . . . . ... . . .323
Olives .......... 324
The Jak Tree . . . . . . . . .326
Twining Hyacinth of California ...... 327
The Big Trees of California . . . . . . .328
The Ivory Plant ........ 330
The Betel-Nut Tree . . . . . . . .331
The Talipat Palm Tree ....... 333
The Bamboo . . . . . . . . .335
The Star Fish Cactus ....... 336
A Peruvian Forest ........ 337
The Banyan Tree ..... 341
George Stephenson's First Locomotive ..... 345
A Modern Printing Press ....... 349
Shuttle of the Wheeler and Wilson Sewing Machine . . .353
The Spinning Jenny ........ 356
The Type Writer - 338
A Silver Mine .,,.%,, 866
xu LIST Of ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Diamond Mining in Africa ....... 368
Coal Miners at Work ....... 370
Coal Cars 371
Interior of a Shaft ........ 372
Entrance to the Mine ........ 374
Passage to the Mine ........ 375
The Illuminated Lake . . . . . . . .876
Tropical Anemone ........ 382
Fringed Anemone . . . . . . . 383
The Diver . . . . . ... . .385
Sheila of the Indian Ocean ....... 387
A Living Sponge ........ 390
A Sea Aater Attached to a Crab . . . . . . 392
A Singular Star Fish . . . . . .394
Herschel's Theory of Sun Spots ...... 401
Wind Cloud 433
The Simoon ......... 43-.'
Waterspouts ......... 434
Eain Cloud . . . . . . . . .436
Snow Cloud ......... 437
Snow Crystals . . . . . . . . . 438
BIOGRAPHY.
George Washington. George Washington was born in Westmorc,
land County, Virginia, February 22, 1732, and was the son of Augustine
Washington, who died in 1744. His early life was spent chiefly with hi
brother at Mount Ver-
nou, and with Lord
Fairfax, who owned
great estates in the Vir-
ginia valley; and in 1748
ho engaged to survey
these wild territories
for a doubloon a day,
camping out for mouths
in the forest, in peril
from Indians and squat-
ters. At the age of 19,
at the beginning of the
Seven Years' War, he
was appointed Adjutant
of the provincial troope,
with the rank of Major;
in 1751, he made his
only sea voyage a trip
to Barbadoes with his
brother Lawrence, who
died soon after, and left
George heir to his es-
tates at Mount Vernon.
At 22 (1754), he com-
manded a regiment
against the French, who
had established them-
selves at Fort Duquesne
(now Pittsburgh), and
held Fort Necessity
against superior num-
bers, until compelled to capitulate. The year following, when two regiments
of regulars were led against Fort Duquesne by General Braddock, Wash-
ington volunteered; and at the disastrous ambuscade of July 9, 1755, he was
the only aide not killed or wounded. He had four bullets through his coat,
and two horses were skot under him. In 1759, he married Mrs. Martha
Custis, a wealthy widow. He was, like nearly all Americans of property at
that period, a slaveholder, and possessed at his death 124 slaves, whom he
directed, in his will, to be emancipated at the death of his wife (who sur-
GEOBGE WASHINGTON.
14 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
vived him but three years), so that the negroes of the two estates, who had
intermarried, might not be separated. He was for some years a member of
the Virginia Assembly; and in 1774, he was ready to fight for the constitu-
tional rights of the colonists. The news of the battle of Lexington (April 19,
1775) called the country to arms; and Washington, then a member of the
Continental Congress, was elected Commander-in-Chief by that body. -He
hastened to the camp at Cambridge; compelled the evacuation of Boston;
was driven from New York; compelled to retreat across New Jersey; often
defeated, and reduced to the most desperate straits, by disaffection, lack of
men and supplies, and even cabals against his authority; but by hia calm
courage, prudence, firmness and perseverance, he brought the war, with
the aid of powerful allies, to a successful termination; and (December 23,
1783), the independence of the thirteen colonies achieved, ho retired from
the army to Mount Vernon. He refused pay, but kept a minute account of
his personal expenses, which were reimbursed by Congress. The Federa-
tion of States having failed to give an efficient government, Washington pro-
posed conventions for commercial purposes, which led to the convention of
1787, of which he was a member, which formed the present Federal consti-
tution, considered by him as the only alternative to anarchy and civil war.
Under this constitution he was chosen President, and inaugurated at New
York, April 30, 1789. He served two terms, and died December 14, 1799.
John Milton. This English poet was born in London, December 9,
1608. His father was of an ancient Catholic family, but was disinherited on
becoming a Protestant. By occupation he was a scrivener, and a person of
great musical accomplishments, being the composer, among other things, of
two well-known psalm tunes " Norfolk " and " York." From him the son
derived his matchless ear and that strict integrity of character for which he
was famous. Milton was carefully nurtured and educated, graduating in
1632 from Christ College, Cambridge, with the degree of A. M. He married
Mary Powell, the daughter of an Oxfordshire royalist, by whom he had three
daughters, Ann, Mary, and Deborah. The union was an unhappy one and
a separation followed. The wife was fond of gay society, while the husband
was of an austere, philosophic mind, and two such natures coming together
the inevitable clashing at once ensued. A genuine and permanent recon-
ciliation took place after a lapse of time, however. Death calling his first
wife home, the poet married a second, but she lived only about two years,
dying in childbirth. Unceasing study affected Milton's eyesight and he be-
came totally blind, but this did not hinder his marrying a third time. " Par-
adise Lost," his greatest poem, was sold for 5, with the promise of another
like amount from the publisher when sales had reached 1,300 copies. He
died Sunday, November 8, 1674, and was buried in the chancel of St. Giles,
Cripplegate, by his father's side. He left some 1,500 in property. Milton
was stately and grand above all English poets. In one of his prose tracts
he did not scruple to say that he proposed to write a poem which would be
one of the glories of the century. His pledge was at last redeemed in old
age, blindness and neglect.
Napoleon Bonaparte. The celebrated warrior and Emperor of the
French, Napoleon Bonaparte, was born at Ajaccio, in the island of Corsica,
August 15, 1769. At the age of ten he entered the military school of Bri-
enne, as a lung's pensioner. In 1785 he obtained his commission as Sub-
I4euteuant in. the artillery regiment de ?a Fere, When th,o Revolution broke
BIOGRAPHY.
15
ont Napoleon took the popular side, but in a quiet and undemonstrative
way. In December, 1793, lie was sent by the convention to assist in the re-
duction of Toulon, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel of artillery. In the
following February he was raised to the rank of Brigadier-General. In 1795
the convention was in great peril, on account of the mutinous spirit of the
arrondissemcnts of the capital, and Napoleon was made commander of the
troops provided for its defence. On the 4th of October, 1795, the national
guard, 30,000 strong, attempted to force its way into the Tuileries, where the
convention was sitting, but
was routed and dispersed
by a terrible cannonade di-
rected by the young artil-
lery officer. Napoleon was
immediately appointed to
the command of the army
of the interior. About this
time he made the acquaint-
ance of Josephine Beauhar-
nais. Captivated by her
elegant manners and amia-
ble disposition, he proposed
marriage to the graceful
widow, and was accepted.
The ceremony took place
March 9, 1796. A few days
before he had been appoint-
ed to the supreme command
of the army of Italy, and he
was forced to leave his bride
almost at the altar. His fa-
mous campaigns against the
Austrians for the conquest
of Upper Italy, his invasion
of Egypt, his phenomenal
successes in the field, often
against apparently insur-
mountable obstacles, are
matters of history which volumes would be required to describe. He over-
threw the Directory in Paris and became ruler of France, being crowned
Emperor in 1804, and in the same year was made Bang of Italy. He fought
successfully against the allied forces of Russia and Austria at Austerlitz, an-
nihilated the power of Prussia and captured Berlin, defeated Spain and
seized the city of Madrid. His wife Josephine having borne him no chil-
dren, being ambitious to perpetuate his power in his family, he proceeded
to divorce her, and married Maria Louisa, Archduchess of Austria. Such is
the outline of the history of the wonderful conquests of Napoleon, but soon
disasters fell thick and fast. He invaded Russia with an army of half a
million men. The Russians retreated, deliberately wasting the country and
carrying off the supplies, but avoiding all engagements, the design being to
surround Napoleon in the heart of the country, and, by the help of famine
and the rigors of a northern winter, annihilate him. When he reached Mos-
cow the city was deserted by its inhabitants, and a fire broke out which
raged for three days and left the city a heap of ruins, When he began hi
NAPOLEON BONAPAKTE.
1(3
CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
retreat his army was reduced to 120,000, and when ho at last escaped from
Russia ho had not more than 25,000. Afterward, in his conflict with tho
allied powers of Prussia, Austria, and Russia, at Leipzig, and with tho En-
glish and Prussians at Waterloo, ho was completely annihilated, and lost his
crown and liberty. Ho died an exile on the island of St. Helena, May 5, 1821.
William Shakespeare. This famous man, who has been called " the
chief literary glory of England," was born at Stratford-on-Avon, April 23,
1564. His father, John Shake-
speare, was a yeoman, but his
mother, Mary Arden, came of
a good old Warwickshire fam-
ily. William was the third
child of a family of four sous
and four daughters, and at tho
free grammar school of Strat-
ford received his entire educa-
tion. Misfortune overtook the
father when the son was four-
teen years of ago, and in con-
sequence William was with-
drawn from school and set to
work to earn his own liveli-
hood. In what manner he was
employed is unknown, but it is
probable that he lived miscel-
laneoiisly as ho could. At the
age of nineteen ho was married
to Anne Hathaway, of Shottery.
Four children were born to
them, two daughters and one
son, the last mentioned dying
in his twelfth year. Shake-
speare went to London in 1586,
and became identified in an
humble capacity with the Blackfriars Theatre, and very speedily we find
him a man of some importance, at onco dramatist, actor, and shareholder in
the institution. As an actor he seems at no time to have shone especially,
being rather respectable than eminent. As dramatist, his magnificent pow-
ers were at once recognized, and in no long time had won for him the very
foremost rank among tho writers for the stage of his time. Ho was a man of
shrewd business ability, and his material prosperity kept pace with his po-
etical reputation. In addition to being a considerable shareholder in tho
Blackfriars Theatre he became part proprietor of the Globe, subsequently
erected. To both he contributed dramas, and from his gains in the triple
capacity of actor, author, and shareholder, ho rapidly amassed a fortune.
He purchased largely of landed property in his native town of Stratford, and
in 1613 left London and established himself at the former place, where he
occupied the closing days of his life in agricultural pursuits, but still con-
tinued to write for the stage. His death took place on his 53d birthday,
April 23, 1616. The only works of Shakespeare certainly published under
his own hand were the two poems " Venus and Adonis " and the " Rape of
liucrece," which appeared in 15931594 respectively. As was naturally to be
WILLIAM SHAKESPEABE.
17
looked for in the case of pieces on the stage so popular, certain of his dramas
found their way from time to time into print, but no authoritative edition of
any of them was issued during his lifetime. The first collected edition of
his dramas was issued in 1623, by Heminge and Condell, his friends and co-
proprietors in the Blackfriars and Globe theatres. A second edition fol-
lowed in 1632; a third in 1664; and a fourth in 1685. In 1709, appeared the
edition of Howe, with a prefatory sketch of the poet's life. Of the " Shake-
spearean literature " which followed, and the various re-issues of the dramas,
with such masses of critical
commentary and emenda-
tion as no other writer has
ever perhaps been made the
subject of, it would be hope-
less to attempt an account.
Lord Byron. George
Gordon, Lord Byron, was
born in Holies Street, Lon- ,
don, on the 22d of January,
1788. He was the only son
of Captain John Byron, of
the Guards, and Catherine
Gordon, of Gight, an heir-
ess in Aberdeenshire. Cap-
tain Byron and his wife did
not live happily. The hus-
band's habits were profligate
in the highest degree, and
the wife's fortune was soon
squandered. Separated
from her husband, the lady
retired to the city of Aber-
deen with her little lame
boy, whom she passionately
loved, her sole income at
this time being about 130
per annum. In his llth
year, Byron succeeded his grand uncle, William Lord Byron; and mother
and son immediately left the north for Newstead Abbey, the ancient seat of
the family. On succeeding to the title, Byron was placed in a private school
at Dulwich, and thereafter sent to Harrow. In 1805, he removed to Trinity
College, Cambridge; and two years thereafter his first volume of verse, en-
titled " Hours of Idleness," was printed at Newark. The poems therein
contained were not absolutely without merit, but they might have been
written by any well-educated lad, who, in addition to ordinary ability, pos-
sessed the slightest touch of poetic sensibility. The volume was fiercely
assailed by Lord (then Mr.) Brougham, in the Edinburgh Review, and his
sarcasms stung Byron into a poet. The satire, " English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers," was written in reply to the article in the Edinburgh, and the
town was taken by a play of wit and a mastery of versification unequalled
since the days of Pope. In 1812, he published the first two cantos of " Childe
Harold," with immense success, and was at once enrolled among the great
poeta of his country. During the next two years, he produced " Th
LORD BYEON.
18
CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Giaour," "The Bride of Abydos," "The Corsair," and "Lara." He mar-
ried Miss Milbanke, daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, a baronet in the County
of Durham. This xinion proved singularly infelicitous. It lasted only a
year, and during that brief period, money embarrassments, recriminations,
and all the miseries incident to an ill-assorted marriage, were of frequent
occurrence. After the birth of her child Ada, Lady Byron retired to her
father's house, and refused to return. At Geneva, Byron produced the
third canto of'Childo Harold" and "The Prisoner of Chillon." "Man-
fred " and " The Lament of Tasso " were written in 1817. The next year,
ho was at Venice, and finished " Childe Harold " there; and, in the
gay and witty " Beppo," made
an experiment in the new field
which he was afterwards to
work so successfully. During
the next three years, he pro-
duced the first five cantos of
" Don Juan," and a number of
dramas of various merit,
" Cain " and " Werner" being
opposite poles In 1822, he
removed to Pisa, and worked
there at "Don Juan," which
poem, with the exception of
" The Vision of Judgment,"
occupied his pen almost up to
the close of his life. He died
at Missolonghi, in Greece,
April 19, 1824. His body was
conveyed to England; and,
denied a resting-place in West-
minster Abbey, it rests in the
family vault in the village
church of Hucknall, near New-
stead.
William Fenn. The
celebrated English Quaker
WILLIAM PENN. an ^ philanthropist and found-
er of the colony of Pennsylva-
nia, William Penn, was the son of Sir William Penn, an eminent English
admiral, and was born at London, October 14, 1644. He studied at Christ
Church, Oxford, and while here was converted to Quakerism by Thomas
Loe. His enthusiasm for his new faith was very great, and for non-confor-
mity with the customs and services of the Church of England he was beaten
and turned out of doors by his father, and, on one occasion, imprisoned in
the Tower of London, and at another time in Newgate. His famous works,
" No Cross, No Crown," "Innocency with her Open Face," and " The Great
Cause of Liberty of Conscience " were written while in prison. In Septem-
ber, 1670, Admiral Peun died, leaving his son an estate of 1,500 a year, to-
gether with claims against the government for 16,000. He married, in the
beginning of 1672, Gulielma Maria Springett, daughter of Sir William Sprin-
gett, and for some years thereafter continued to propagate, by preaching
and writing, the doctrines of his sect. Circumstances having turned his atr
BIOGRAPHY.
19
tontion to the New World, he, in 1681, obtained from the nrown, in lion of
his monetary claim upon it, a grant of the territory now forming the State of
Pennsylvania. Penn wanted to call it Sylvauia, on account of its forests;
but the king (Charles II) good-humoredly insisted on the prefix Penn. His
great desire was to establish a home for his co-religionists in the distant
West, where they might preach and practice their convictions in peace. Penn,
with several friends, sailed for the Delaware in August, 1682, was well re-
ceived by the settlers, and on the 30th of November held his famous inter-
view with the Indian tribes,
under a large elm tree at
Shackamaxon, now Kensing-
ton. He next planned and
named the city of Philadelphia,
and for two years governed
the colony in the wisest, most
benevolent and liberal manner.
Not only Quakers, but perse-
cuted members of other re-
ligious sects, sought refuge in
his new colony, where, from
the first, the principle of tol-
eration was established by law.
Having called the colonists to-
gether, he gave the infant state
a constitution in twenty-four
articles. Toward the end of
the reign of Charles II, Penn
returned to England to exert
himself in favor of his perse-
cuted brethren at home. His
exertions in favor of the Qua-
kers were so far successful,
that in 1686 a proclamation was
issued to release all persons
imprisoned on account of their
religious opinions, and more
than 1,200 Quakers were set free. In 1693, his wile died, but in less than
two years ho married again. His second wife, Hannah Callowhill, was a
Bristol lady. In 1699 he paid a second visit to the New World, and found
Pennsylvania in a prosperous condition. His stay, which lasted two years,
was marked by many useful measures, and by efforts to ameliorate the con-
dition both of the Indians and Negroes. Penn departed for England towards
the end of 1701, leaving the management of his affairs to a Quaker agent
named Ford, whose villainy virtually ruined Penn. When the rogue died,
he left to his widow and son false claims against his master, and these were
so ruthlessly pressed, that Penn allowed himself to be thrown into the Fleet
in 1708, to avoid extortion. His friends afterwards procured his release, but
not till his constitution was fatally impaired. Penn died at Euscombe, in
Berkshire, July 30, 1718.
Benj amiii Franklin. The distinguished philosopher and statesman,
Benjamin Franklin, was born at Boston, Jamiary 17, 1706. His parents were
poor, and had a family of seventeen children, he being the fifteenth. Josiah
BENJAMIN FKANKLTN.
20
CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Franklin, his father, had loft England in 1685, and settled in America, where
he followed the business of soap-boiler and tallow chandler. At the age of
eight, Franklin was sent to school, where he displayed groat aptitude for
learning. At twelve, he was apprenticed to his step-brother James, who
had set up a printing shop in the place, and ho soon acquired considerable
proficiency at that trade. He was passionately fond of reading, and all the
time he could spare he devoted to the perusal of such books as he could lay
his hands on. His brother treated him unkindly, and he secretly left home
and journeyed to New York,
and thence to Philadelphia,
where he procured employ-
ment in a printing office. Ho
led a somewhat wandering
life and endured many hard-
ships, until in 172G, with the
assistance of friends, he start-
ed in business for himself in
Philadelphia. He became edi-
tor and proprietor of the Ga-
zeUe, and published the fa-
mous " Poor Eichard's Alma-
nac." In 1730 he married a
Miss Bead. He founded the
first association for extinguish-
ing fires and the first com-
pany for insurance against
fire, and through his instru-
mentality was established the
first public library in Phila-
delphia. Among the public
offices to which ho was ap-
pointed were those of clerk to
the General Assembly of Penn-
sylvania in 1736; postmaster of
Philadelphia in 1737; repre-
sentative of Philadelphia in
the Assembly in 1747. In
1753, he was appointed Deputy Postmaster-General for the British colonies.
In 1757, he was sent to England to settle some matters for the Assembly,
and so ably did he perform his task, that Massachusetts, Maryland, and
Georgia severally appointed him their English agent. In 1752 he discovered
the identity of electricity with lightning, and turned his discovery to account
by publishing a plan for defending houses from lightning by the use of
pointed conductors. Ho likewise "made important discoveries with regard
to the laws that regulate the electric fluid, a subject hitherto very imper-
fectly understood. His renown was spread over the whole civilized world,
and honors were heaped upon him by the various learned societies of Eu-
rope. Ho was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1775, and
from that time exerted himself to the utmost to obtain a Declaration of the
Independence of the thirteen American States. This Declaration was pro-
nounced by Congress on the 4th of July, 1776, and Franklin was appointed
United States Minister at the Court of France, where he succeeded in induc-
ing the French government to form an offensive and defensive alliance with.
PATRICK HENKT.
the States. On the 20th of January, 1782, Franklin had the supreme satis-
faction of signing at Paris, with the English commissioners, the treaty of
peace by which the independence of the American colonies was assured.
Returning to America in 1785, he was successively chosen member and presi-
dent of the supreme executive council for the city of Philadelphia, and in
1787 delegate for Pennsylvania to the convention for the revision and emen-
dation of the Articles of Union. In 1788, he retired from public life, and
died April 17, 1790, at the ad-
vanced age of 84.
Patrick Henry This
eminent American orator was
born in Hanover County, Vir-
ginia, in 1736. His father was
a native of Scotland, and a
nephew of Robertson, the cele-
brated his torian. In early life,
Henry seemed too indolent to
apply himself to any regular
occupation. Ho managed, how-
ever, to pick up much general
information, and seemed to
possess byintuition a profound
knowledge of human nature
in its various phases. Having
failed successively in " store-
keeping " and in farming, he
was at length induced to try
the profession of law. For a
few years this seemed to prom-
ise no better success than his
former occupations had done,
but having been employed in
1755 to plead the cause of the
people against an unpopular = "JOHN ADAMS.
tax, his peculiar talent seemed
suddenly to develop itself; his eloquence, untaught except by the inspira-
tion of native genius, thrilled the audience, and held it in rapt attention
more than two hours. From that moment to the present day he has been
universally regarded as the greatest of American orators. He was a zealous
patriot in the war of the Revolution, and was one of the most prominent and
influential members of the Virginia Legislature, when that State was delib-
erating whether or not to join Massachusetts in forcibly resisting the arbi-
trary policy of the home government. Henry was a delegate to the first
general Congress, which met at Philadelphia, in September, 1774, and his
voice was the first to break the silence of that assembly. His eloquence on
that occasion is said to have astonished all his hearers. In 1776, he was
elected Governor of Virginia, and was afterwards twice re-elected. In 1795,
Washington appointed him Secretary of State. He died in 1799.
John Adams. The second President of the United States was born at
Braintree, in Massachusetts, on the 19th of October, 1735. His parents were
descended from a Puritan family which had emigrated from England to Mas-
22 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
sachnsetts in 1640. Before the Revolution Adams had distinguished himself
as a jurist, and wrote in the liostou Journal on "Canon Law and Feudal
Law " (1705). He was sent by Massachusetts to the Congress which com-
menced its sittings in Philadelphia in 1774. With Lee and Jefferson ho
boldly argued for a separation from the mother-country; and Lee's propo-
sition of a Declaration of Independence was carried on the 4th of July, 177G.
Adams and Jefferson had been appointed to draw up the Declaration of In-
dependence, but it appears that Jefferson was the sole author of it. In suc-
ceeding years, Adams was
employed on many important
negotiations with European
powers; among others, he as-
sisted Franklin, Jay, Jefferson
and Laurens, hi 1782, in set-
tling the conditions of peace
with England. In 1785 he
went to London as the first
ambassador from the Union.
George III expressed his
pleasure in receiving an am-
bassador who had no preju-
dices in favor of the French,
the natural enemy of the En-
glish crown, and Adams re-
plied: " I have no proj ndices
but in favor of my native
land." He published in Lon-
don his " Defence of the Con-
stitutions of Government of
the United States " (3 vols.
1787) . On his return to Amer-
ica, in the same year, he was
elected as Vice-President of
the United States, and on the
retirement of Washington (in
1797, became President. In
1801, -when his term of four years of office had expired, his adversary Jeffer-
son was elected by a majority of one vote. Adams now retired to his estate
at Quincy, near Boston, where he occupied himself with agricultural pur-
suits. After this retirement, he received many proofs of respect and confi-
dence from his countrymen. When 85 years old, we find him still in hia
place as member of the convention appointed (1820) to revise the Constitu-
tion of Massachusetts. He died on the 4th of July, 1826, on the fiftieth anni-
versary of the day when he had proclaimed in Congress the independence of
the United States.
Thomas Jefferson. The third President of the United States, Thomas
Jefferson, was the son of a planter, and was born at Shadwell, Albemarlo
County, Virginia, April 2, 1743. Ho studied at William and Mary's College,
Williamsburg; and after leaving college, was engaged for some years in the
practice of law. In 1769, he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses,
where he joined zealously with the revolutionary party. In 1773, as a Mem-
ber of the Assembly, he took a prominent part in the measures which re-
THOMAS JEFFEBSON.
suited in the calling of the Continental Congress, to wliich he was sent as a
delegate, where he drew up the celebrated Declaration of Independence.
During the war in defence of this Declaration, he was Governor of Virginia,
and in 1784 was sent Minister to France, where his manners, accomplish-
ments, and more solid qualities did much to secure to America the powerful
alliance that insured her success. Returning in 1789, he was appointed, by
Washington, Secretary of State, a post due to his abilities, hia influence, and
his distinguished services. The Federal constitution had been adopted, and
the two parties which soon di-
vided the country began to de-
velop themselves. Washing-
ton, John Adams, Jay, and
Hamilton were in favor of a
strong centralized govern-
ment; Jefferson led the party
in favor of States' rights, and
a Federal Government of re-
stricted and carefully denned
powers. The first party took
the name of Federalists; the
latter wer first called Anti-
Federalists, then Republicans,
and finally adopted the title
first given them, as a reproach,
of Democrats. When Wash-
ington retired, after eight years
of office as President, a new
election took place, the two
highest candidates, as leaders
of the opposing parties, were ?S
John Adams and Jefferson.
Adams, having the largest
vote, was declared President,
while Jefferson, having the
next highest number, became
the Vice-President, 1797. The
strife of these parties culmi-
nated in 1800, when Jefferson and Aaron Burr were elected President and
Yice-President, against John Adams, the Federal candidate. On entering
upon the Presidency, he reduced the government to a republican simplicity,
made few removals, and resolutely refused to appoint any of his own rela-
tives to office. The most important act of his administration was the pur-
chase of Louisiana from France. At the end of eight years, he retired to hia
residence at Monticello. His death was very remarkable; it occurred on
the 4th of July, 1826, while the nation was celebrating the fiftieth anniversary
of the Declaration of Independence, which he had written. On the same
day, and almost at the same hour, John Adams, the second President, who
had signed with him the Declaration, died in New England.
Alexander Hamilton. This celebrated American statesman was born
in January, 175fc in the West Indian island of Nevis, and was the son of a
Scotch merchant who had married a young French widow. His father soon
failed in business, and Alexander, at the age of twelve, had to enter the
ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
24 CYCLOPEDIA Of VSBFVL KNOWLEDGE.
souuting-house of a rich American merchant, named Crugcr. His extra-
ordinary abilities, however, induced some of his friends to procure for him
a better education than could be got at home. He was accordingly sent to a
grammar-school at Elizabeth town, New Jersey; and shortly afterwards en-
tered Columbia College, New York. On the first appearance of disagree-
ment between Great Britain and her colonies, Hamilton, still a schoolboy,
and barely eighteen, wrote a series of papers in defence of the rights of the
latter, which were at first taken for the production of the eminent statesman
Jay, and which secured for the
writer the notice and consid-
eration of the popular leaders.
On the outbreak of the war, he
obtained a commission as Cap-
tain of Artillery, gained the
confidence of Washington, was
made his aide-de-camp in 1777,
and acquired the greatest in-
fluence with him as his friend
and adviser. In 1780, he mar-
ried a daughter of General
Schuyler, who was a member
of a very old family. On the
termination of the war, he left
the service with the rank of
Colonel, and betaking himself
to legal studies, soon became
one of the most eminent law-
yers in New York. In 1782, he
was elected by the State of
New York a Bepresentative at
the Continental Congress; in
1786, he became a member of
the New York Legislature; and
in 1787, he was appointed one
of the delegates to the con-
vention which met at Phila-
delphia, for the purpose of re-
vising the Articles of Confederation. In conjunction with Madison, he had
the most important share in drawing up the Constitution afterward adopted.
He was a strong supporter of the Federal, as opposed to the Democratic
party; and, with Jay and Madison, defended the Constitution against all at-
tacks, by a series of letters in the Daily Advertiser, of New York, afterwards
collected and published under the title of " The Federalist. " On the estab-
lishment of the new government in 1789, with Washington as President, Ham-
ilton was appointed Secretary of the Treasury. In 1795, he resigned his
office, and resumed the practice of law in New York. When the war with
France broke out in 1798, he was, according to the wish of Washington,
made Major-General of the United States Army; and, on the death of Wash-
ington, he succeeded to the chief command. When peace was restored, ho
returned to hia civil duties, but became involved in a political quarrel with
Aaron Burr. This difference unhappily culminated hi a duel, in which
Hamilton received a wound, of which he died the following day (July 12,
JOHN JACOB ASTOB.
'25
John Jacob Astor. This enterprising merchant, founder of the
American Fur Company, was born in a village near Heidelberg, in Germany,
1763. After spending some years in London, he sailed to America in 1783,
and boon invested his small capital in furs. By economy and industry, he
so increased his means that after six years he had acquired a fortune of
$200,000. Although the increasing influence of the English fur companies
in North America was unfavorable to his plans, he now ventured to fit
out two expeditions to the Oregon territory one by land and one by sea
the purpose of which was to open up a regular commercial inter-
est with the natives. After
many mishaps, his object
was achieved in 1811, and the
furtrading station of Astoria
was established; but the war of
1812 stopped its prosperity for
a time. From this period As-
tor's commercial connections
extended over the entire globe,
and his ships were found in
every sea. He died in 1848,
leaving property amounting to
$30,000,000. He left a legacy
of $350,000 for the establish-
ment of a public library in
New York. His wealth was
mainly inherited by his son,
William, who continued to aug-
ment it till his death in 1875,
when he is said to have left
$50,000,000. He added $200,-
000 to his father's bequest for
a public library. He was known T
as the " landlord of New York "
from the extent of his property
in that city.
Robert Pulton The
celebrated American engineer,
Robert Fulton, was born at Little Britain, Pennsylvania. His parents be-
longed to Ireland, whence they emigrated to America; and being in poor cir-
cumstances, all the education young Fulton acquired was the ability to read
and write. When he was old enough, his mother apprenticed him to a jew-
eler in Philadelphia. In addition to his labors at this trade, he devoted
himself to painting; and the sale of his portraits and landscapes enabled
him, in the space of four years, to purchase a small farm, on which he
placed his mother, his father being dead. At the age of twenty-two, he pro-
ceeded to London, where he studied painting under West; but after several
years spent thus, he abandoned painting, and applied himself wholly to
mechanics. In 1794, he obtained from the British government a patent for
an inclined plane, the object of which was to set aside the use of locks; and
in the same year, he invented a mill for sawing and polishing marble. His
next invention was a machine for spinning flax, followed by one for making
ropes, He was received as a civil engineer in 1795; and wrote a work en
KOBEET FULTON.
26 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
canals, in which he developed his system. Accepting an invitation from the
United States Minister at Paris, ho proceeded to that city in 1796, and re-
mained there for seven years, devoting himself to now projects and inven-
tions. Amongst his inventions here was the itautiltis or submarine boat, in-
tended to be used in naval warfare, which he in vain sought the French
government to accept; nor was ho more successful with the British govern-
ment, which he next tried, though commissions were appointed in both
cases to test the value of
his invention. Having
failed in this matter, he
next turned his attention to
the application of steam to
navigation. In 1803, he con-
structed a small steamboat,
and his experiments with it on
the Seme were attended with
great success. He returned
in 1806 to New York, and pur-
sued his experiments there.
He perfected his Torpedo sys-
tem, which was afterwards em-
ployed effectively in the war
between Britain and America.
In 1807, he launched a steam-
vessel upon the Hudson, which
made a successful start, fn the
presence of thousands of as-
tonished spectators. From this
period, steamers (for the con-
struction of which Fulton re-
ceived a patent from the Leg-
islature) came into pretty gen-
eral use upon the rivers of the
United States. Although Ful-
ton was not the first to apply
ANDBEW JACKSON. ^^ fo uayigatioll) &s & steam
vessel had been tried upon the Forth and Clyde Canal as early as 1789, yet
be was the first to apply it with any degree of success. He died in 1815.
Andrew Jackson. This famous General and seventh President of the
United States was born at Waxaw settlement, South Carolina, March 15,
1767. His father, who was a Scotchman by birth, emigrated to America in
1765, and soon afterwards died, leaving to his widow a half-cleared farm in
a new settlement, with no negroes to assist in its cultivation. When Jackson
grew up, he was sent to study for the church, but on the breaking out of the
American Revolution, he and his brothers were summoned to the field, and
the elder lost his life at Stono Ferry. Andrew, though but thirteen years
old, fought with his remaining brother under Sumter, and remained with
the army until the end of the war. In 1784 he commenced the study of law,
and in 1787 was appointed solicitor for the western district of South Caro-
lina, now the State of Tennessee. This frontier settlement had for its neigh-
bors several powerful tribes of Indians, against whom Jackson fought with
euch success as to get from them the complimentary titles of " Share) Knife "
27
and "Pointed Arrow." In 179G, ho was a member of the convention which
modeled the Constitution and organized the State of Tennessee, and was
elected to the Legislature as Representative, and then as Senator, and ap-
pointed Judge of the Supreme Court (an office he soon resigned), and Major-
General of the State Militia. In 1813, at an outbreak of hostilities with the
Creek Indians, he raised a volunteer force of two or three thousand men,
and defeated them. When destitute of supplies, he is said to have set an
example of endurance by feeding on hickory-nuts, and hence, according to
some, to have acquired the
popular sobriquet of " Old
Hickory." Jackson's final vic-
tory (March 27, 1814) at the
Horseshoe peninsula, in the
Tallahoosa, completely broke
the power of the Indian race
in North America. In conse-
quence of his skill and energy
in Indian warfare, he was ap-
pointed a Major-General of the
Army of the United States; and
in the contemporaneous war
with England had command
of the forces which captured
Pensacola, and defended New
Orleans against the attack of
the British under General
Packenham, December, 1814.
After Spain had ceded Florida
to the United States, he was
made Governor of the territory
and subsequently was chosen
United States Senator from
Tennessee. In 1824, he re-
ceived the highest vote of four ^
candidates for the Presidency
of the United States, but by HEN T KY CLAY.
the influence of Mr. Clay, John
Quincy Adams was elected by the House of Representatives. He was, how-
ever, in spite of bitter and violent opposition, elected by the Democratic
party in 1828, and in 1832 re-elected by a still more overwhelming majority.
His administration was marked by singular firmness. He vetoed important
measures against large majorities, and, after a long struggle, destroyed the
Bank of the United States, and took the first steps towards a specie currency
and independent treasury. He died at his farm of the Hermitage, near
Nashville, June 8, 1845.
Henry Clay. The famous American statesman, Henry Clay, was born
April 12, 1777, in Hanover County, Virginia. He early devoted himself to
the law, and fixing his residence at Lexington, Kentucky, soon obtained a
lucrative practice and political influence enough to be elected to the State
Legislature. In 180G ho was elected to Congress, and again in 1809 he was
chosen Senator for a term of two years. In 1811 he was sent to the House
of Representatives, where he was immediately elected Speaker. A strong
28 CYCLOPEDIA 6f USfiPUL KNoWLEkQ K.
advocs.te of nationality, he denounced the claims put forth by England as to
right of search; he was a strenuous supporter of the war with that country,
and in consequence was sent, in 1814, as one of the commissioners to sign
the treaty of peace at Ghent, where his acuteness secured for America many
advantages. On his return, he exerted all his talents in favor of the inde-
pendence of South America, and labored hard to eradicate all European in-
fluence from the American continent. Clay, however, is best known as the
author of the famous " Missouri Compromise," restricting slavery to the
States south of 30 30' n. lat.;
and also for the compromise
of 1850, known as Clay's " Om-
nibus " measure. He died in
June, 1852. He was very pop-
ular during his lifetime, and
was two or three times pro-
posed for the Presidency, an
honor, however, which he
never succeeded in obtaining.
Daniel Webster. The
great American statesman and
jurist, Daniel Webster, was
born at Salisbury, New Hamp-
shire, January 18, 1782, and
was the second son of Eben-
ezer Webster, a small farmer,
and Justice of the County
Court. He entered Dartmouth
College in 1797, and taught
school in winter to pay his ex-
penses, and aid his brother,
Ezekiel, who became a dis-
tinguished lawyer, in fitting
for college. On graduating in
1801, he commenced to study
law, but was induced, by the
offer of a salary of $350 a year,
to become preceptor of an academy at Fryburg, Maine, paying his board by
copying deeds. In 1804, he went to Boston, and entered the law office of
Mr. Gore, refusing an appointment of clerk of the court of which his father
was a judge, at $1,500 a year. In 1805, having been admitted to the Boston
bar, he established himself at Portsmouth, New Hampshire; married in
1808; and having engaged in politics as a member of the Federalist party,
was elected to Congress, where ho immediately took rank with the foremost
men of the country. Hfe speech on the Berlin and Milan Decrees, and his
mastery of the question of currency and finance, gave him a high position;
but he determined, in 1816, to remove to Boston, where, leaving politics,
he engaged for several years in legal practice of the most extensive and va-
ried character. In 1822 he was elected to Congress from Boston, and was
distinguished by his speeches on the Holy Alliance and the Greek Revolu-
tion, and his labors in the revision of the criminal laws of the United States.
In 1826, he was chosen Senator; and in 1830, he rose to the height of his for-
ensic renown in a speech of two days, in the debate with Mr. Hayne, ef
DAKIEL 'WEBSTER.
BIOGRAPHY.
29
South Carolina, on the right of " nullification." Webster and Clay were the
leaders of the opposition during the administrations of Jackson and Van
Buren. In 1839, he visited England, Scotland and France; and in 1841, ac-
cepted the post of Secretary of State in the Cabinet of General Harrison, and
remained in that of Mr. Tyler, who, as Vice-President, succeeded on the
death of the President, until 1843. In 1844, he aspired to the Presidency,
but the choice of his party fell
upon Mr. Clay, whom he sup-
ported, butunsuccessfully. He
was chosen Senator for Mas-
sachusetts, and again in 1848
was disappointed of the Presi-
dential nomination by the pop-
ular enthusiasm for General
Taylar. His senatorial efforts
at thia period were directed
to the preservation of the
Union by the advocacy of com-
promises on the slavery ques-
tion, and he gave offence to
the Abolitionists by defending
the Fugitive Slave Law. In
1850, he became again Secre-
tary of State in the Cabinet of
Mr. Fillmore; and in 1852 was
once more, and no doubt griev-
ously, disappointed at not re-
ceiving the nomination to the
Presidency, which was given
to General Scott. He did net
live to see the defeat of his
rival; but after a brief illness,
died at his country residence
at Marshfield, Massachusetts,
October 24, 1852.
George Peabody. This
name deserves to be held in
remembrance on account of his munificent philanthropy. He was born at
Dauvers, Massachusetts, February 18, 1795. His parents were poor, and his
only education was received at the district school. At the age of eleven he
was placed with a grocer, and at fifteen in a haberdasher's shop in Newbury-
port. When twenty-two years old, he was a partner with Elisha Riggs in
Baltimore. In 1827 he first visited England, where he settled permanently
ten years later. Withdrawing from the Baltimore firm in 1843, ho established
himself in London as a merchant and money-broker, and accumulated a
large fortune. As one of three commissioners appointed iii 1848 by the State
of Maryland to obtain the restoration of its credit, he refused all payment,
and received a special vote of thanks from the Legislature of that State. In
1851 he supplied the sum required to fit up' the American Department at the
great exhibition. In the following year he sent a large donation, afterwards
increased to $270,000, to found an Educational Institute, etc., in his native
town of Danvers (which is now called Peabody). He contributed $10,000 to
GEOEGE PEABODY.
CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
the first Grinnell Arctic Expedition; $1,400,000 to the city of Baltimore for an
Institute of Science, Literature and the Fine Arts; $8,000,000 for the promo-
tion of education, endowment of libraries, etc., in the United States. From
1862 to 1868, ho gave $1,750,000 for the benefit of the London poor, and in
his will he left $750,000 for the same purpose. This vast sum has been em-
ployed in building dwellings for the working-classes. He died in Londo*
in 1869.
Edward Everett. This distinguished American was born in 1794, at
Dorchester, near Boston, Massachusetts, entered Harvard College iii 1807,
and took his degree in 1811.
He was for some time a Uni-
tarian clergyman in the town
of Cambridge, and in this ca-
pacity had the reputation of
being one of the most eloquent
and pathetic preachers in the
United States. In 1815, he was
elected Professor of the Greek
Language and Literature in
Harvard College; and to qual-
ify himself more thoroughly
for his work, he visited Eu-
rope, where he resided for
four years, and had a distin-
guished circle of acquaintance
including Scott, Byron, Jef-
frey, Romilly, Davy, etc. M.
Cousin, the French philoso-
pher and translator of Plato,
pronounced him " one of the
best Grecians he ever knew."
In 1820, Everett became editor
of The North American lie-
view; and in 1824, a Member
of the United States Congress,
sitting in the House of Repre-
sentatives for ten years. In 1835, he was appointed Governor of Massachu-
setts; and in 1841, Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James. Whilft
in England, ho received from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and
Dublin the degree of D. C. L. On his return to America in 1845, he was
elected President of Harvard College; on the decease of Daniel Webster, he
became Secretary of State; and in 1853, the Legislature of Massachusetts
chose him as member of the Senate of the United States. He died in Jan-
uary, 1865. Mr. Everett's principal works are: " A Defence of Christianity "
(1814); "Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions from 1825 to 1836"
(1836); and "Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions from 1825 to
1850." This includes all the previous orations. These " Orations," as they
are called, are upon all subjects, and indicate a varied, vigorous, and flexi-
ble genius.
James Fenimore Cooper. The celebrated novelist, James Fenimora
Cooper, was born at Burlington, New Jersey, September 15, 1789. Having
EDWAHD EVERETT.
BIOGRAPHY.
31
received his early education from a private tutor, he, at the age of thirteen,
passed to Yale Colloge, and after three years' study there, entered the
American navy as a midshipman. He remained six years at sea, gathering
the experience of which he was afterwards to make such good use in his
novels. On his retirement from the sea in 1811, ho married; and the next
ten years of his life were spent in a quiet, domestic fashion. In 1821 ap-
peared his first work, "Precaution," a novel that afforded no indication
whatever of the talent he siibsequeutly exhibited. In the following year,
however, he published " The
Spy," a tale which at once
secured for him a place in the
first rank of novelists. By
not a few critics he was even
elevated to a higher pedestal
than that which Scott occu-
pied; but time sobered their
judgment, while it still left
him a deservedly high posi-
tion as a writer of fiction. In
quick succession followed
" The Pioneers," " The Pilot,"
" The Last of the Mohicans,"
" The Bed Hover," and " The
Prairie," with which Cooper's
genius culminated; for though
between this date (1827) and
1850 he wrote about twenty-
six different works, none of
them equalled in merit those
we have mentioned. The se-
cret of Cooper's success as a
novelist lies in his graphic
descriptive powers, and his
thorough knowledge of the
matters he describes, whether
it be the boundless ocean or
the broad prairie, together with an attentive study of character. Not a lit-
tle of his popularity in America, however, must be attributed to bjs nation-
ality; and in Europe a good deal of it was owing to the freshness of the
scenes in which his stories were laid. About 1827, Cooper visited Europe,
where he remained several years; the fruits of his sojourn, besides novels,
being some ten volumes of sketches of European society. Many of his works
have been translated into most modern languages, and one " The Spy "-
can be read in Persian. He died at Cooperstown, in the State of New York,
September 4, 1851.
Washington Irving'. This distinguished American author was born
in the city of New York, April 3, 1783. At the ago of sixteen he entered a
law office; but ho profited largely by his father's well-stocked library, Chau-
cer and Spenser being his favorite authors. New York, at this period, was
a small town of about 50,000 inhabitants, mauy of whom were descendants of
the original Dutch settlers, having quaint manners and customs, of which
Irving was a curious observer. In 1807, he contributed a series of genial and
JAMES FENTMOEE COOPEE.
82 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
humorous essays to a periodical called Salmagundi. In 1809, ho wrote " A
History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the
Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrick Knickerbocker. " Having no inclination for law,
he engaged in commerce with his brothers as a silent partner, but devoted
his time to literature, and in 1813 edited the Analectic Magazine, in Phila-
delphia. At the close of the war in 1815, he visited England. While he was
enjoying his English visit, his commercial house failed, and he was suddenly
reduced to poverty, and the necessity of writing for his bread. The " Sketch
Book," which soon after ap-
peared, was received with
great favor. Irving went to
Paris, and in 1822 wrote
" Bracebridge Hall," and in
1824 the " Tales of a Traveler."
He was then invited by Ever-
ett, the American ambassador
to Spain, to accompany him to
Madrid to translate document*
connected with the life of Co-
lumbus. With these materials
he wrote his "History of the
Life and Voyages of Colum-
bus " (1828); "Voyages of
the Companions of Columbus;"
" The Conquest of Granada;"
"The Alhambra" (1832), a
portion of which was written
in the ancient palace of the
Moorish kings; " Legends of
the Conquest of Spain " (1835);
and " Mahomet and his Suc-
_ cessors" (1849). In 1829, he
WASHINGTON IKYING. returned to England as Sec-
retary to the American Lega-
tion. In 1831, he received the honorary degree of LL. D. from the univer-
sity of Oxford; and next year returned to America, where he was welcomed
with great enthusiasm. A visit to the Kocky Mountains produced his " Tour
on the Prairies." He also contributed sketches of Abbotsford and Newstead
Abbey to the " Crayon Miscellany," and from the papers of John Jacob Astor,
wrote " Astoria " (1837), and the " Adventures of Captain Bonneville;" also
a series of stories and essays in the Knickerbocker Magazine, collected under
the title of " Wolfert's Boost." In 1842, he was appointed Minister to Spain.
In 1846 was published his "Life of Goldsmith;" and his great work, the
" Life of Washington," was published in 1855 1859. He spent the last years
of his life at Sunnyside, in his own "Sleepy Hollow," on the banks of tli8
Hudson, near Tarrytown, with his nieces, where he died suddenly of disease
of the heart, November 28, 1859. Ho was never married.
Abraham Lincoln. The sixteenth President of the United States,
Abraham Lincoln, was born in Kentucky, February 12, 1809. His grand-
father was an emigrant from Virginia; his father, a poor farmer, who, in
1806, removed from Kentucky to Indiana. In the rude life of the back-
woods, Lincoln's entire schooling did not exceed one year, and ho waa m-
83
ployed in tho severest agricultural labor. He lived with his family in Spen-
cer County, Indiana, till 1830, when he removed to Illinois, where, with an-
other man, he performed the feat of splitting 3,000 rails in a day, which gave
him the popular sobriquet of " tho Railsplitter." In 1834, he was elected to
the Illinois Legislature. At this period, ho lived by surveying land, wore
patched homespun clothes, and spent his leisure hours in studying law. Ho
was three times re-elected to the Legislature; was admitted to practice law
in 1836; and removed to Springfield, the State capital. In 1844, he canvassed
the State for Mr. Clay, then nomi-
nated for President. Mr. Clay
was defeated, but tho popularity
gamed by.Lincoln in the canvass
secured' his own election to Con-
gress in 184G, where he voted
against the extension of slavery;
and in 1854 was a recognized
leader in the newly-formed Re-
publican party. In 1855, he can-
vassed the State as a candidate for
United States Senator, against Mr.
Douglas, but without success.
In 1856, ho was an active sup-
porter of Mr. Fremont in the Pres-
idential canvass which resulted in
the election of Mr. Buchanan.
In 1860, he was nominated for the
Presidency by the Chicago Con-
vention. The non-extension of
slavery to the Territories or new |
States to be formed from them, 1
was tho most important principle
of his party. There were three
other candidates, but Mr. Lincoln
received a majority of votes over
any of the other candidates. He ABBAHAM LINCOLN.
was inaugurated March 4, 1861. His election by a sectional vote and on a
sectional issue hostile to the Soiith, was followed by the secession of eleven
Southern States, and a war for the restoration of the union. As a military
measure, he proclaimed, January 1, 1863, the freedom of all slaves in the
rebel States; and was re-elected to the Presidency in 1864. The war was
brought to a close, April 2, 1865; and on the 15th of the same month Lincoln
was cut off by the hand of an assassin. He was characterized by a strong
sense of duty and great firmness.
Horace Gr eeley. The great American journalist, Horace Greeley, was
born at Amherst, New Hampshire, February 3, 1811. His father was a
farmer of small means; and Horace, after acquiring the rudiments of educa-
tion at a common school, entered a printing office as an apprentice in 1825,
at Putney, Vermont. On the completion of his apprenticeship, he removed
to New York City and worked for some time as a journeyman printer, and hi
1834 commenced the publication of the New Yorker, a literary weekly paper,
for which ho wrote essays, poetry, and other articles. After one or two
Other essays at editorship, he began in 1841 the New York Tribune^ of which
QYVLOT-'JRDIA OF USL'FUL KNOWLEDGE.
be was the leading editor until a short time previous to his death. As Mr.
Greeley had adopted, to some extent, the social theories of Fourier, he was
joined by the most able writers of that school of Socialism, and the paper
was published as a joint-stock concern, being held in shares by its writers
and others engaged in its publication. The Tri'ntne has been an earnest ad-
vocate of temperance, woman's rights, the abolition of slavery and capital
punishment, and other reforms, and is recognized as the organ of the Re-
publican party. In 1848, Mr. Greeley was elected to Congress from one of
the districts of New York,
for the short term, but
failed in his congressional
career by agitating an un-
welcome reform in the mile-
age payments to members.
In 1851 he visited Europe,
and was chairman of one
of the committees cf the
great exhibition. His as-
pirations to political posi-
tion were defeated by the
more conservative party
loaders, and he, in turn, is
supposed to have secured
the election of Mr. Lin-
coln, instead of Mr. Seward,
in 1860. On the secession
of the Southern States from
the Union, Mr. Greeley at
first advocated their right
to secede, in accordance
with the principles of the
Declaration of Independ-
ence; but when the war be-
gan, he became one of its
most zealous advocates,
HOKACE GKEELEY. and is supposed to have
caused the premature ad-
vance that resulted in the defeat of Bull's Run, July 21, 1861. In 1872, ho
was a candidate for the Presidency, being nominated by the " Liberal " Re-
publican party of that period, and endorsed by the Democratic party, but
was defeated by his opponent, General Grant. He died the same year. He
is the author of " The American Conflict," "Essays on Political Economy,"
" Recollections of a Busy Life," " What I Know About Farming," and ether
popular works.
Thurlow Weed. From the most humble origin Thurlow "Weed rose
by slow degrees until he became one of the leading journalists of the United
States and the greatest political leader of his time. He was born at Cairo,
Greene County, New York, November 15, 1797. His parents were poor,
and his opportunities of procuring an education very limited. At the age of
ten years he was cabin-boy on a sloop on the Hudson River; at twelve he
was an apprentice in the printing office of Mr. Croswcll, at Catskiil; ho then
lired for a short time in a backwoods settlement, but at fourteen returned.
B10G21AP2/J.
3,')
to printing. In early lifo ho was singularly uncouth and awkward in ap-
pearance, so much so that ho frequently excited the ridicule of his associ-
ates. When the war of 1812 began, young Weed volunteered into the Amer-
ican army. At his majority ho owned a newspaper. In 1826 and 1827 ho
was cngagod in editing the Anti-Masonic Enquirer. Twice elected to the
Assembly of the Empire State, ho never afterwards accepted a political po-
sition, however important,
honorable or remunerative.
Mr. Weed was a clever party
manager, and is given a largo
share of the credit due to the
men who secured the election
of Do Witt Clinton as Gov-
ernor of New York. In 1830
he settled at Albany, and com-
menced the publication of the
Evening Journal, an an ti- Jack-
son, Whig, or Republican pa-
per, which became the organ
of the party, and of the State
government when its party
was in power. Ho is sup-
posed to have exercised al-
most supremo influence in
nominations and appoint-
ments, and to have secured
the choice of Presidents Har-
rison and Taylor. Through-
out his whole career he was
the friend and adviser of Mr.
Seward, and ho was also a
member of the famous polit-
ical firm of Seward, Weed &
Greeley. When Mr. Weed
visited Europe in 1861, he was
received with marked distinc-
tion, due to a prominent jour-
nalist, politician and diplo-
matist. Ho retired from the
Albany Evening Journal in 1862, but so lately as 1880 contributed to its col-
umns in the shape of an article recording his half a century's connection
with public life. Ho was connected both with the New York Times and the
Commercial Advertiser in tho later years of his career. Mr. Weed was the
author of a volume of letters addressed from Europe and the West Indies,
and of an interesting and valuable book on his personal reminiscences. He
died in New York City in the year 1882.
Wendell PMllips The great Anti-Slavery agitator, Wendell Phil-
lips, was born in Boston, November 29, 1811, and was the son of the first
Mayor of that city. He was educated at Harvard, where he was graduated
in the year 1831. He studied law at the Cambridge Law School, and was
admitted to the bar in -1834, one year after his graduation there. He prac-
ticed his profession until 1839, when he retired in consequence of his. uuwiU-
THUELOW WEED.
36
CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
ingness to bo bound by an oath of fidelity to the Constitution, as at that time
construed by the supremo court. At a meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston,
in December, 1837, in an impromptu speech of great eloquence, he made his
first public appearance as a reformer, and from that time he became known
to the public as a prominent agitator in the Anti-Slavery, Temperance, and
Woman's Eights reforms.
During the early stage of
the civil war, he advocated
the emancipation of the
slaves in a wonderfully ener-
getic and eloquent man-
ner, and after this reform
was accomplished continued
a member of the Anii-Slavery
Society, which was not dis-
solved until 1870. Mr. Phil-
lips had been its President
continuously as the immedi-
ate successor of William
Lloyd Garrison. In 1870 he
was the candidate of the " La-
bor-Reform " party for Gov-
ernor of Massachusetts. He
strenuously opposed the pol-
icy of President Hayes to-
wards the Southern States,
and his views on the Irish
and other political and social
questions are well known. He
published many pamphlets
upon the subjects which so
engrossed his thoughts. In
1863 was published an edi-
tion of his speeches, lectures
and letters. For finished and
impressive address, elegance and grace of delivery, he was incomparable
among the orators of his time. He died in 1884, at the age of seventy-three
years.
Henry Ward Bceclier. No man in the United States has been writ-
ten about more than Henry Ward Beecher, but the main facts of his life are
told in a few words. He is a native of Litchfield, Connecticut, where he was
born on the 24th of June, 1813. His father was the sturdy Rev. Dr. Lyman
Boecher, who rose from the anvil to bo the leader of orthodoxy in New Eng-
land. The future pastor of Plymouth Church was graduated at Amherst in
1834. He studied theology at Lane Seminary, and in 1837 became pastor of
a church at Lawrenceburg. In 1839 he accepted a call to Indianapolis,
where he remained eight years, after which Plymouth Church, Brooklyn,
became the scene of his distinguished efforts as a preacher. Before the war
Mr. Beecher was long distinguished among the opponents of slavery. Dur-
ing ita progress he visited Great Britain as a representative of the Union
cause, where his eloquence assisted the efforts of the journalists, religious
other persons who took the same view of the struggle as he
BIOGRAPHY.
did. Jealousy of the rapid prosperity of this country, the dislike of British
manufacturers to our protective system, their business relations with the
planters of the South, the interests of the aristocracy, who foresaw mischief
to their privileges in the success of popular government, and, on the part of
many who were disposed to side with the Union, their non-apprehension of
the reason which delayed the abolition of slavery, may be mentioned as
among the causes which led to an unfriendly attitude of Great Britain towards
the Northern cause at tho
time of the war, when, on
the other hand, the non-
conformist and radical sec-
tion of its people favored it.
Mr. Beecher met with oppo-
sition in his mission, and
with great kindness as well.
His oratorical gifts were at
their best, and ho returned
after a campaign which did
great credit to his abilities
and proved of much value
to the cause he promoted.
As a preacher and lecturer
the sxibject of this sketch
takes the highest rank, and
as a writer enjoys distinc-
tion. His versatility is
wonderful, his liberality of
thought and sentiments not
less extraordinary. His per-
sonal appearance and the
peculiar fascination of his
address, whether in private
or public, are so well known
that nothing need to be said
of them here. While opin-
ion is divided as to the effect
of his life and teaching, critics, both friendly and unfriendly, are at one in re-
garding Beecher as a great man.
Charles Sumner This famous American statesman was born at
Boston, Massachusetts, January 6, 1811. IJis father was a lawyer, and for
many years sheriff of the county. He was educated at Harvard College,
where he graduated in 1830; studied law at the Cambridge Law School; was
admitted to the Bar in 1834, and entered upon a large practice; edited the
American Jui~ist; published three volumes of Sumner's " Reports of the
Circuit Court of the United States;" gave lectures at the Law School, but
declined a proffered professorship; and from 1837 to 1840, visited England
and the continent of Europe. On his return, he edited Vesey's " Reports,"
in twenty volumes, and in 1845, rnado his debut in politics in a 4th of July
oration on the " True Grandeur of Nations " an oration directed against
the war with Mexico, pronounced by Mr. Cobcteu the noblest contribution by
any modern writer to the cause of peace. Identifying himself with the Free-
soil party, he was, in 1850, chosen United States Senator from Massachusetts,
HENKY WABD BEECIIER.
88 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
in place of Daniel Webster, where be opposed the Fugitive Slave law, and de-
clared " freedom national slavery sectional." In 1856, he made a two days'
speech on "The Crime Against Kansas," some of which was of a violent
personal character, in consequence of which he was attacked in the Senate
Chamber, May 22d, and severely beaten by Preston C. Brooks, and so
severely injured that his labors were suspended three c* four years, during
which he visited Europe for repose and health. Returning to the Senate,
he supported the election of Mr. Lincoln, urged upon him the Proclamation
of Emancipation, and became
the leader of the Senate, as
chairman of the Committee
on Foreign Relations. In 1862
he was again elected a Sena-
tor, and re-elected in 1869.
In 1871 he opposed the annex-
ation of Hayti to the United
States. He published ' ' White
Slavery in the Bar bar y
States" (1853), " Orations and
Speeches" (1850), etc. He
died hi 1874.
Charles Dickens. The
great English novelist and
humorist, Charles Dickens,
was born at Landport, in
Hampshire, in February,
1812. His father, Mr. John
Dickens, was employed for
some years in the Navy
Pay Department, but at tho
conclusion of the war with
CHAELES DICKENS. prance ^ p eD8 i one d, and
became a parliamentary reporter. In this pursuit his son was soon dis-
tinguished for uncommon ability, and after a literary engagement, at a very
early age, tipon The True Sun, he became connected with The Morning
Chronicle. In this newspaper he gave the first evidence of his talents in the
lively essays entitled " Sketches by Boz," published in 1836. Encouraged
by their success he next produced the famous " Pickwick Papers," which
had an enormous commercial success and began an era in English literature,
being the first of a series of fictitious works exhibiting the life and manners
of the middle and lower classes, which up to that time had had scarcely any
exponent. Mr. Dickens's fame was now thoroughly established upon both
sides of the Atlantic, and each new work as it emanated from his pen was
read with eager interest. In due season appeared " Nicholas Nickleby,"
" Hard Times," " The Old Curiosity Shop," " Barnaby Rudge," " A Tale of
Two Cities," "David Copperfield," "Martin Chuzzlewit," "American Notes,"
" Dombey and Son," " Bleak House," " Little Dorrit," " Great Expecta-
tions," "Oliver Twist," "Christmas Stories," and "Our Mutual Friend."
At the time of his death, June 9, 1870, he was engaged upon a novel entitled
" The Mystery of Edwin Drood," which was left unfinished. Mr. Dickens
Tisited America in 1842 and again in 1867, giving numerous readings and
meeting with a brilliant reception.
BIOGRAPHY.
William Cullen Bryant. This famous poet and journalist was born
in Curamington, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, on November 3, 1794.
He was the son of a physician, a gentleman of culture, who took great pride
in his promising son, whose poetic talents wore early made manifest. At tho
curly age of ten he made
translations from some of
the Latin poets and con-
tributed rhymes to the lo-
cal newspapers. When
scarcely thirteen years
of age ho wrote a terse
and vigorous political
poem entitled " The Em-
bargo." At eighteen he
composed his "Thanatop-
sie," a poem full oi beauty
and usually regarded as
the greatest literary pro-
duction of his life. In 1810
Mr. Bryant entered Wil-
liams' College, and choos-
ing the la w as aprofession,
was admitted to the Bar
five years later. He prac-
ticed for ten years with
diligence and success,
first at Plainfield and af-
terward at Great B&rring-
tou, but his tastes inclined
toliteraturc,andin!825he
went to New York, where
he became associated with
Eichard H. Dana as edi-
tor of the Ntw York He-
view. In 1826 ho became
principal editor of The
Evening Post, one of the
leading evening papers of the metropolis, which he conducted with rare
ability. The first collected edition of his poems appeared in 1832. They
were soon after republished in Great Britain, and were regarded as the
highest efforts, up to that time, of the American Muse. In 1842 he published
" The Fountain, and other Poems." Mr. Bryant visited Europe in 183-i, and
several times afterwards, and records his observations in "Letters of a
Traveler in Europe and America." In 1858 appeared a new edition of his
poetical works, and in 18G9, a metrical translation of the " Iliad," followed
in 1871 by that of " Odyssey." He afterwards engaged in writing a " History
of the United States."" He died June 12, 1878.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The subject of this sketch was
the most popular of American poets. Mr. Longfellow was bom at Portland,
Maine, on the 27th of February, 1807. His father was an attorney at law. In
1821 he entered Bowdoin College, and was graduated therein four years
later. He then read law a few months in his father's office, a pursuit which,
WILLIAM CULLEN BKYANT.
40 CYCLOPEDIA OP VStifut
Happily, he did not continue, friends who knew his genius, by acquaintancQ
with his college life, providing him the opportunity of an occupation more
congenial. They offered him the position of Professor of Modern Languages
at Bowdoin, one entirely proper to his bent. To qualify himself the better
for its duties, Mr. Longfellow spent the three years and a half immediately
Succeeding his acceptance of the offer, in Europe, visiting France, Spain, Italy,
Germany, Holland and England for this purpose. He came home in 1829,
and began his professorship
at Bowdoin, which continued
until 1835, when the death
of Mr. George Ticknor, who
held the corresponding po-
sition hi Harvard University,
resulted in his acceptance
of the vacant professorship
in that eminent seat of learn-
ing. Before actually enter-
ing upon its duties, he again
went to Europe, this time
visiting the Scandinavian
countries, Germany and
Switzerland, mainly with the
view of promoting his ac-
quaintance with the litera-
ture of Northern Europe.
In the autumn of 1836, he
began to teach in Harvard,
and continued there eigh-
teen years, when he was suc-
ceeded by James Eussell
Lowell. Mr. Longfellow's
career as an author dated
f r o m his undergraduate
days, during which ho con-
tributed poetry to the col-
umns of The United States
Literary Gazette. While at
Bowdoin some able pieces of literary criticism, the products of his fertile
pen, were printed in The North American Review. His first volume of
poems was published in 1833, and thereafter, at not infrequent intervals, a
new volume appeared, always welcomed with pleasure by a large constitu-
ency of admiring, loving readers. There is no occasion whatever to detail
the numerous productions of his pen. Perhaps " Evangeline " and " Miles
Standish " are the beet known of his longer pieces. In the writer's opinion,
his most effective work is seen in some of his lyrics, which are perfect in
their construction and pervaded with sweetness, pensive tenderness and
humanity. They are carried in the memory of thousands on both sides of
the Atlantic, and are gems which permanently enrich the literature of na-
tions. Mr. Longfellow's poetry is not characterized by strength or great-
ness, but by gentleness, sweetness and refinement, the product of vast labor,
but free from pedantry and affectation. He gave eloquent and simple voice
to the convictions and emotions of good, every-day kind of people. He died
March 24, 1882.
HENRY WADSWOBTH LONGFELLOW.
41
Ralph Waldo Emerson. The famous " sago of Concord " was the
son of a Unitarian minister. He was born in Bodton, May 25, 1803. During
the four years from 1817 to 1821, he studied at Harvard College, where ho
was graduated. It is told of him that he was not a model student, in the
sense of superiority in the matter of performing set work, but he was a great
reader and followed a decided personal judgment in his choice of books.
Like many other great men, he started life as a teacher, which he did not
follow long, but relinquished for the study of theology an ancestral pur-
suit, by the way, for it is
recorded that there was al-
ways a clergyman in the
American branch of the
family from the time when
Concord was founded, back
in the seventeenth century.
For three years, from 1829
to 1832, he ministered
thought to a congregation in
Boston, but resigned when
his people and he had grown
hopelessly at variance in
their conceptions of religion.
Retiring to Concord, where
he lived to the end, Mr.
Emerson devoted himself to
a life of letters, producing a
considerable number of
books in prose and poetry
and lecturing in this coun-
try and abroad as solicited
by demand for his utter-
ances. He never cultivated
popularity as a speaker, but
his voice was, at one period
of his life, heard frequently
on the question of slavery,
womens' rights and other subjects of current and particular interest. Mr.
Emerson made his first address as a literary man, in 1837, at Harvard, on
" Man Thinking. " An address on " Literary Ethics," to the Divinity School
of the same University, was his next effort, delivered a year after the first.
In 1840, he started a magazine called The Dial, which taught the " tran-
scendental philosophy," at that time greatly exercising the keen wits of New
England. This publication lived four years. In 1841, Emerson published
his "Method of Nature," " Man the Reformer," a volume of " Essays," and
several lectures. His first volume of poems appeared in 1846, in which
year two series of " Essays " were alsopublished. Three years after, he
visited England, where he delivered a course of lectures on " Representa-
tive Men." In 1852, associated with W. H. Channing and J. F. Clarke, he
published a biography of Margaret Fuller, who, with A. Bronson Alcott,
had assisted him in the conduct of The DM. " English Traits," perhaps
the most read of his books, was published in 1856, and " The Conduct of
Life," in 1860. These are his principal works. Mr. Emerson's style is
peculiar, possessing affectations and conceits which mar the pleasure of
EALPH WALDO EMEKSON.
CYCLOPEDIA Off USEFUL KNOW LSD C-E.
the average reader. His poetry is deeply tender and beautiful. He died
April 27, 1882.
Jolin G. Wkittier. John Greenleaf Whittier was born at Havcrhill,
Mass., in 1807. Ho is a descendant of a family belonging to the Society of
Friends, with which Mr. Whittier is also connected, and from which fact ho
has gained the name of the " Quaker Poet." His earlier years were spent
on his father's farm, ami in the occupation of a shoemaker. A strong desire
for learning led him to the
local academy for a two years'
course of study, and iu 1829 he
weiut to Boston and became
the editor of the American
Manufacture)', a protective
tariff publication. In 1830 ho
edited the New England Re-
view, at Hartford, Conn., from
which place his first literary
efforts were Bent out. In 1835
and 1836 he represented his
native town in the Massachu-
Eetta Legislature, and was one
of the Secretaries of the
American Anti-Slavery Socie-
ty, and during the same yeai-s
was editor of the Pennxi/i-
vania freeman, in Philadel-
phia. In 1840, he removed to
Amesbury, Mass., and em-
ployed a portion of his time as
corresponding editor of the
National Era, an anti-slavery
paper, published at Washing-
ton, I). C. From that time
until now, his life has been
devoted to literature and
philanthropy. His first ven-
ture, in a literary way, was
published in the Newburyport
Free Press, in 1826. He is a
prolific writer, and his prose has been widely circulated. Ho is a thor-
ough American poet, selecting the homo subjects, which find a welcome in
every heart, and portraying with graphic word pictures the bright side of
human life. There is never an exceptional line in Whittier's poems. They
may lack the perfection of idea and expression which characterize the
shorter lyrics of Longfellow; they may lack the humor of Holmes, and the
polish of Tennyson, yet they have a quaint simplicity, which gives him an
individuality entirely his own. The general impression of Whittier is one of
simplicity and quiet quaintness, yet, at times, he bursts forth with a fire and
energy which seem to spring from the intermingling of his very life-blood,
the out-pouring of his soul, in his ardor and enthusiasm. Whittier may not
be ranked by critics among the great poets of the world, but it is for but
few to hold the love which h holds from the people of hia native land.
JOHN G. WHITTIEK.
BIOGRAPHY.
43
Alfred Tennyson. Tho Toot Laureate of England was born at
Somersby, Lincolnsbiro, in tho year 1809. He was the third son of the fiev.
G. C. Tennyson, and nephew of tho Eight Hon. C. Tennyson d'Eyncourt.
Trinity College, Cambridge, had the honor of being the place of education
of the future poet. The story of Tennyson's life cau be little else than the
story of his successive poems. Bibliomaniacs are eager to give a high price
for tho little anonymous volume of 'Teems by Two Brothers" (1827), the
earliest published verses of Alfred and Charles Tennyson. In 1830 appeared
" I'ocnis, Chiefly Lyrical," and
from that date on Tennyson's
farneasapoetgrewrapidly. Tho
" Mort d' Arthur," " Locksley
Hall," the "May Queen," and
" Two Voices " followed each
other in quick succession. Of
the "Idylls of tho King," of
which the " Mort d' Arthur "
was the first, it may bo said
that while students of the old
Welsh legends and of the
ancient French Arthurian ro-
mances find much to cavil at,
the general reader is intro-
duced to a new and magical
world of lofty thought and
poetry. In 1847 was printed
" The Princess," Tennyson's
first long poem. "In Me-
moriam," the laureate's great-
est poem, was suggested by
the death of young Arthur Hal-
lam. It is a series of marvel-
ously touching monodies, is
resplendent with religious and
philosophical speculation, and
was the work of many years.
The death of Wordsworth
(1850) left it almost a matter of
course that to Tennyson should
be offered " the laurel greener
from the brows of him who uttered nothing base." Such noble poems as
that on the death of the Prince Consort and the famous " Charge of the
Light Brigade " show that the laureate did not consider his office an idle
honor. Of Tennyson's other chief poems, " Maud " was printed in 1855; the
first series of the "Idylls of the King" in 1859; "Enoch Arden and Other
Poems "in 1864; "The Holy Grail and Other Poems" in 1869; a revised
edition of the " Idylls," arranged in sequence, in 1870; and " The Widow "
in the same year. His recent short poems ho now writes but little are
inferior to his best work. Like more than one great poet he has proved the
delusiveness of the belief that a great poet must be also a great dramatist.
"Queen Mary, a Drama" (1875), and "Harold" (1877), both tragedies in
five acts, have some powerful passages, but as acting plays are dreary
failures. Tennyson was married in 1851 to Miss Emily Sellwood. Before
ALFBED TENNYSON.
Of VSEF17L KNOWL El) GE.
that time he had lived chiefly in London; since ho has resided at Farring-
ford, Isle of Wight, at Aldworth in Surrey, and near Petersfield, Hampshire.
He has two children.
Herbert Spencer The famous English evolutionist, Herbert
Spencer, was born in Derby in 1820. He was educated by his father, W. G.
Spencer, a teacher, chiefly of mathematics, and his uncle, the Rev. Thomas
Spencer, a clergyman of the established church, well-known for his liberal
opinions on political and
ecclesiastical questions. At
the age of seventeen, he be-
came a civil engineer; but
after about eight years,
abandoned the profession, in
consequence of the large in-
flux of young men brought
into it during the railway
mania, and the consequent
undue competition. During
the eight years of his engi-
neering life, he contributed
various papers to the Civil
Engineer's and Architect's
Journal. His first produc-
tions in general literature
were in the shape of a series
of letters on the " Proper
Sphere of Government,"
published in the Noncon-
I'onnist newspaper in 1842,
which were some time after
reprinted as a pamphlet.
From the close of 1848 to the
middle of 1853, he was en-
gaged on the Economist, then
HERBERT SPENCER. edited by the late James
Wilson, M. P.; and during
this time he published his first considerable work, " Social Statics." Shortly
afterward he began to write for the quarterly reviews, most of his articles
appearing in the Westminster, and others in the North British, British
Quarterly, Edinburgh, Medico-chimrgical, etc. In 1855, appeared his
"Principles of Psychology." In 1860 he commenced a connected series of
philosophical works, designed to unfold in their natural order the principles
of biology, psychology, sociology and morality. To this series belong, besides
the "Psychology" (2 vols., new edition 18711872), "First Principles"
(1862, second edition, 1867); " Principles of Biology" (two vols., 1864), and
" Principles of Sociology " (first vol., 1876). " Education " was published in
1861; "The Study of Sociology "in 1872; and "Descriptive Sociology" in
1873. Spencer has applied universally, and carried out into detail, the
theory of evolution.
William E. Gladstone. An outline of the public career of William
E. Gladstone, Prime Minister of England, is soon given, although he haa
n 10 on
insisted in tho making of history for nearly half a century, and is, in some
respects, the most remarkable, if not the greatest, man in Europe. He was
born December 29, 1809, at Liverpool, an Englishman by birth, but Scotch
in blood. His father was a merchant of considerable eminence and wealth.
Great paina were taken in tho education of a lad singularly studious and
ambitious. Before attaining tho ago of twenty-two, tho future statesman
graduated at the University of Oxford. This was in tho year 1831, preceding
by a twelve-month only his entrance upon public life as member of Parlia-
ment for Nowark-on-Trent.
Gladstone was an ardent Con-
servative at that time, and
his first book was a defence
of tho union of Church and
State a remarkable work
which Macaulay reviewed in
the Edinburgh Reciew, with
appreciation of its spirit and
scholarly style, but condemn-
ing its conclusion. Newark
continued Mr. Gladstone as
her representative until
1845. During tho thirteen
years of this association,
hopeful honors had fallen
on the head of the youthful
Commoner, " handsome
Gladstone," as ho was called.
He was only twenty-five when
Sir Robert Peel made him a
Junior Lord of the Treasury.
Three months later, he was
promoted to bo an Under
Secretary for the Colonies,
which position he held until
April, 1835, when Peel went
out of office. Upon the return of Sir Robert to power, in 1841, Mr. Glad-
stone was made Vice-President of the Council and Master of the Mint. In
1843, he relinquished the first-named of these offices in order to assume that
of President of tho Board of Trade. Two years afterward ho was made
Secretary for the Colonies. In 1851 Mr. Gladstone differed so widely from
his party in opinion, that he was no longer numbered in the Conservative
ranks. He was a member of the coalition ministry of Lord Aberdeen formed
in the year 1852, that same ministry which, in alliance with France and
Turkey, undertook the war with Russia. His office was that of Chancellor
of the Exchequer, for which he showed a marvelous aptitude. In 1858 and
1859 the subject of this sketch was sent on a special mission to the Ionian
Islands, and in June, 1859, again served as Chancellor of the Exchequer
under Lord Palmerston, the Premier, upon whose death and the succeeding
premiership of Earl Russell he continued to hold the same position, and
also acted as leader of the House of Commons. In 1866 the Russell-Glad-
stone ministry, as it was called, resigned in consequence of an adverse vote
on the question of reform in Parliamentary representation, and a Conserva-
tive government assumed office. In 1868, Mr. Disraeli's government retiring
WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE.
46 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
because of the election of a Liberal majority to the Commons, Mr. Gladstone
assumed the premiership for the first time. His great measures, the dis-
establishment arid disendowment of the Irish Church and the Irish Land
Bill, were passed by the year 1870. In 1873, his government was defeated
on the Irish University-Education Bill, and he resigned, but was persuaded
by his sovereign to resume office. He served until after the general
election of 1874, which resulted in the triumph of the Conservatives. Mr.
Gladstone now retired from the leadership of his party in the House of
Commons, which was assumed
by the Marquis of Hartington,
and devoted himself to liter-
ary labor. The magnificent
triumph of the Liberals in the
election of 1880, when Mr.
Gladstone was elected by Mid-
Lothian and the borough of
Leeds, virtually compelled
his assumption of power as
the First Lord of the Treas-
ury, to which he added the
functions of Chancellor of the
Exchequer.
Oliver Wendell
Holmes. This famous poet
and humorist was born in
1809, in the old " gambrel
roofed " house in Cambridge,
Mass., opposite the Harvard
University buildings. Hia
father, Rev. Abiel Holmes,
D. D., was an eminent
preacher, and was long pas-
tor of the First Congregational
Church of Cambridge. Dr.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Holmes graduated at Harvard
in 1829, and, adopting the
medical profession, completed his studies in 1836. Up to 1847 he filled the
chair of Anatomy and Physiology at Dartmouth, and in the latter year
assumed a similar professorship at Harvard, since which he has resided
continuously in Boston. It would be difficult to say whether Dr. Holmes
enjoys greater distinction as a physician or man of letters. Both in the
theory and practice of medicine, he has achieved the most brilliant success.
He has especially devoted himself to the investigation of psychological
problems, raised by the interdependence of mind and matter, a romance,
" Elsie Venner," dealing with this subject. The success of the Atlantic
Monthly was largely due to his " Autocrat of the Breakfast Table " and
other prose pieces which ho contributed. His graceful and polished style
invests the driest topics with a peculiar charm, and makes him one of the
best known and most popular of American writers. Who has not heard of
the "One Horse Shay"? Though past the allotted three-score and ten
years, he is still tale and hearty, looking as he has for forty years past.
gbjewd, observant, reflective, humorous, generous, kindly and tender, he \e
BIOGRAPHY.
47
one of those to whom any one could come for help. A genial and cheery
temperament has made him the idol of the Harvard medical students
whom he has so long instructed. No man in America is hold in higher
honor than Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose name is an ornament to American
literature as well aa to the medical profession.
James Russell Lowell Mr. Lowell is descended from an English
family who settled in New England in the year 1639. His grandfather was
made a Judge by Washington after having assisted in framing the Constitu-
tion of Massachusetts in 1780, moved the insertion in the Bill of Eights of
that State of the clause that
" all men are born free and
equal," and earned great
eminence as a lawyer. The
family of the Lowells gave
its name to the city of Lo-
well, and has given mer-
chants, manufacturers,
authors, preachers, lawyers,
scholars, philanthropists and
statesmen to the Bay State.
Mr. Lowell was born at Cam-
bridge, Mass., February 22,
1819. He was educated at
Harvard, and in 1855 suc-
ceeded Mr. Longfellow in the
Belles-Lettres professorship
of that college. One of his
greatest literary perform-
ances was the production of
the "Biglow Papers." He
is the author of several long
poems which are ranked
with our best literature, and
of shorter pieces almost in-
numerable. He is a grace-
ful speaker, and is remark-
able for the polish of his
utterances whether by pen or voice. He has force and the courage of his
opinions, which were decidedly on the side of freedom in the anti-slavery
agitation, but is not an aggressive man, and treats his opponents with self-
restraint, courtesy, and the quiet dignity of the scholar and gentleman. His
first diplomatic position was that of Minister to Spain, and his last appoint-
ment as Minister to England was conferred upon him by President Hayes.
Peter Cooper. No man was more honored arsd loved than the vener-
able Peter Cooper, whoso death in 1883 was mourned as a public lose. Mr.
Cooper was born in New York City, February 12, 1791. His father served as
a Lieutenant in the Eevolution, after which he established a hat factory,
where young Peter worked. In 1808 he was apprenticed to a coachmaker,
who esteemed him so highly that he offered to start him in business, which
was declined. Young Peter was able to attend school but half of each day
for a single year. From 1812 to 1815, he manufactured a patent machine for
JAMES KT7SSELL LOWELL.
48 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
shearing wool, which was in great demand, but lost its value on the conclu-
sion of peace. He successively engaged in the manufacture of cabinet
ware, the grocery business and in the manufacture of glue and isinglass,
which last he continued for more than fortv years. The success which
everywhere crowned his efforts ho attributed to his never incurring a debt,
and so never having interest to pay. His policy was never to owe any man
anything except his good will. Ho built iron works near Baltimore in 1830,
and turned out the first locomotive engine in America. Selling this soon
after he erected a rolling
and wire mill, in which an-
thracite coal was first suc-
cessfully applied to pud-
dling iron. In 1845, he
erected at Trenton, New
Jersey, the largest mills
then in the United States
for the manufacture of rail-
road iron. Here, he was
the first to roll iron beams
for building purposes. He
invested a large capital in
extending the electric tele-
graph, and advocated the
construction of the Croton
Aqueduct, New York. The
Erie Canal project received
his hearty support, and he
invented an endless chain
operated by water, which
in trial propelled a boat two
miles in eleven minutes.
But his chief title to fame
rests upon his efforts in be-
half of popular education.
Ho was Yice-President of
the old Public School So-
ciety, when it was merged
in the Board of Education.
To give the masses the
benefits of the School of Technology ho established in New York, in 1858, the
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. The building covers
the block between Seventh and Eighth Streets and Third and Fourth
Avenues, and cost $2,000,000. To this ho added an endowment of $150,000
in cash, and other gifts. His career shows him to have been one of the
greatest of Americans and the noblest of men. He learned three trades
before he was twenty-one; his genius enabled him to rank high as an
inventor; he was pre-eminently a man of affairs, his knowledge of men
and business securing success in every venture; and most important
of all, he was a broad and practical philanthropist, who labored con-
stantly for the elevation and advancement of the masses of the people. His
son, Edward Cooper, was at one time Mayor of New York, and a daughter
is the wife of the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, for many years a member of Con-
gress from New York.
PETEB COOPEE.
BIOGRAPHY.
19
James A. Garfield. Tlio twentieth President of the United States,
James A. Garfield, was born in a log cabin in Orange township, Cuyahoga
County, Ohio, November 19, 1831. His early education was obtained at a
district school-house, where ho learned to read, write and cipher. At the
age of eighteen he went to Newburgh and chopped one hundred cords ot
wood for fifty dollars. Ho then hired out to drive horses on the canal. The
following year he went to Geauga Academy, to make a beginning toward
getting an education. In the summer he worked for day wages as a farm
hand and at the carpenter's trade, and in the winter studied industriously
and lived economically. From the Geauga Academy he went to the Eclectic
Institute at Hiram, Ohio,
where he paid for his tuition
by teaching country schools
in winter. In 1854 he entered
Williams College, at Williams-
towu, Mass., and after grad-
uating there he became pro-
fessor of Latin and Greek and
afterward President of the
Hiram Institute. He now
began to take part in politics,
and early espoused the cause
of the Republican party. He
was elected to the State Sen-
ate of Ohio in 1859, and after-
ward studying law, was ad-
mitted to the bar in 18G1. In
the same year the civil war
broke out, and Garfield was
an early volunteer. H e
served with distinction under
Buell and Eosecrans at
Shiloh, Chickamauga and in
otherimportant engagements,
being promoted successively
to the ranks of Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, Brigadier-General and Major-
General. In 1862 he resigned his commission to accept a nomination for
Congress. He served in the House for nearly twenty years, and became
recognized as one of the ablest leaders of his party. In January, 1880, he
was elected to the United States Senate, and in June of the same year he
was nominated by the Republican party as its candidate for President, to
which high office he was triumphantly elected in the fall of that year. His
administration opened most contpicuously, but on the 2d of July, 1881, he
was assassinated by one Charles J. Guiteau, probably from motives of
revenge, he having failed to obtain from the President a coveted foreign
mission. After a long and painful illness Mr. Garfield died at Long Branch,
N. J., September 19, 1881.
Ulysses S. Grant. This famous General and the eighteenth Presi-
dent of the United States, was born at Point Pleasant, Clermont County,
Ohio, April 27, 1822. He graduated at the Military Academy of West Point
in 1813, and served under General Taylor in the war with Mexico, in 1816,
up to the capture of Monterey. His regiment was then transferred to the
JAMES A. GAKFIELD.
60 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
expedition under General Scott, and he took part in every action from Vera
Cruz to Mexico, and was brevetted First Lieutenant and Captain for meri-
torious conduct at Molino del Hey and Chapultapec. In 1852, he served in
Oregon; but, in 1854, resigned his commission, and settled at St. Loiiis, Mo.,
whence, in 1859, he moved to Galena, 111., and engaged in the leather trade.
At the beginning of the War of Secession in 1861, he volunteered his services,
and was appointed Colonel of
an Illinois regiment. In Au-
gust he was appointed Briga-
dier-General, commanding the
important post of Cairo, occu-
pied Paducah, and led an ex-
pedition on the Mississippi. In
February, 18G2, ho distin-
guished himself in the capture
of Fort Donelson, on the Ten-
nessee Eiver, and was made
Major-General. On the 6th of
April following, after a pre-
liminary defeat, he won a
great battle over the Con-
federates at Pittsburgh Land-
ing, or Shiloh. Succeeding
General Halleck in the west,
he commanded the land forces
which, in conjunction with tho
navy, reduced Yicksburg,
July 4, 1863, soon followed by
the fall of Fort Hudson, and
the opening of tho Mississippi.
He then took command of the
Army of the Tennessee, and
defeated General Bragg at
Chickamauga, in September
of the same year; and was, in
1864, appointed Lieutonant-
General and Commander-in-
Chief, and personally directed
the operations of the great
final struggle in Virginia, in which the Northern forces, though often
repulsed with heavy losses, finally compelled the evacuation of Richmond,
April 2, 1865, followed ou the 9th by the surrender of the Confederate army
under General Lee, and soon after of the entire Confederate forces. Con-
gress, in recognition of his eminent services, passed an act reviving the
grade of "General of the Army of tho United States," to which Grant
was immediately appointed. In 1868 he was elected, on tho Republican
platform, President of tho United States; and having, in 1872, been
re-elected over a notable opponent, the late Horace Groeley, of the New
fork Tril)une, he retired in 1877 after his second term of office. In tho
latter year he began his tour around tho world, returning in 1880, after
having been the recipient of unprecedented honors. In 1885, he completed
his popular work, " The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant," being a narrative
ol his own experiences during the war of the Rebellion. He died July 23, 1885v
TTLTSSES S. GBANT.
BIOGRAPHY.
51
Samuel J. Tilden. Tho distinguished Democrat, Samncl J. Tildon,
was born in Now York City in the year 1814. He entered Yale College, from
whence he was graduated. Choosing the legal profession he subsequently
studied law in the University of New York, and was admitted to the bar.
His advancement, owing to his extraordinary natural gifts, was rapid, and
ho soon acquired a reputation for great legal acuteness, especially in rail-
road litigation. Ho soon became interested in local and State politics, and
was for thirteen years Chairman of the Democratic State Committee of New
York. Ho was elected to the
Legislature in 1846, and hi
1872 this honor was again con-
ferred upon him. Meantime he
had acquired great wealth
from the practice of his profes-
sion and many shrewd specu-
lations and investments, being
one of the leading capitalists
cngagcdin building the elevat-
ed railroads in New York City.
In 1874 Mr. Tildeu received
the nomination for Governor
of the State of New York, to
which office ho was elected.
During the two years in which
he was at the head of the
State Government he achieved
great reputation as a reform-
er, breaking up numerous
corrupt rings, and became at
once the most prominent man
in hia party. He was nom-
inated for the Presidency in
1876, Mr. Hendricks, of In-
diana, being the candidate for
Vico-Presidont. In the elec-
tion which followed Mr. Til-
den received a majority of the
popular vote, and on the face
of the returns was duly elected. A dispute arose, however, regarding the
vote in the States of South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida and Oregon, and a
commission consisting of five Senators, five Judges of the Supreme Court
and five Members of the House of Representatives, was appointed to deter-
mine the matter. This commission was composed of eight Republican and
seven Democratic members, and, dividing strictly upon party lines, gave
the electoral votes of the disputed States to Rutherford B." Hayes, Mr.
Tilden's opponent, who was accordingly declared elected. Though fre-
quently urged to again become the standard bearer of his party, Mr. Tilden
has mingled no more in politics, but has lived hi retirement at his palatial
residence in Yonkers, N. Y.
George P. Edmunds. Senator Edmunds is descended from Quaker
and Puritanic parentage. He is a Vermonter by birth, having been born at
Richmond, February 1, 1828. He received a public school education, read
SAMUEL J. TILDEN.
62
CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
law and was admitted to the bar. At twenty-six years of age, he was elected
to the State Legislature, and continued to assist in ite proceedings five
years, during three of which he served as Speaker of the House. In 1861
and 18G2, he acted as temporary presiding officer in the Senate of Vermont.
His seat in the United States Senate has been held continuously since 18C6,
when ho received an appointment to fill the vacancy created by the death of
Solomon Foot. Ho was a member of the Electoral Commission in 1877, and
succeeded Mr. Trumbull in
the Chairmanship of the Judi-
ciary Committee. In that
position some of the most im-
portant measures ever before
the National Legislature
passed through his hands. He
is an able, but not a brilliant
speaker, and however keen
and sarcastic his oratorical
efforts may be, he is never per-
sonally offensive. As a law-
yer, statesman and debater,
Senator Edmunds ranks
among the highest. The coun-
try hears from him on all
great public questions, which
do not seem to have been
thoroughly discussed until the
illumination of his learning,
cool jiidgment and perspicu-
o u s statement have been
brought to bear upon them.
He is emphatically a safe man.
While staunch to his party, he
is not narrow or unfair, and
is regarded by the opposite
party with a respect as nearly
like the veneration with which
his own party regards him, as
the circumstances of political
opposition admits of. He is a
genial man, warm and constant in hia friendships, as witness his longtime
brotherly association with Senator Thurman, with whom he was inseparable,
excepting in the Senate where party lines divided them. That he is a good
man, against whose fair name calumny would be powerless, needs not to be
said. In 1880 several leading newspapers strongly urged hid nomination for
the Presidency. Mr. Edmunds is a tall, broad shouldered man with a stoop
noticeable in close students. His eyes are steel gray set under heavy eye-
brows of bristling white. No public man is more respected. His honors are
universally felt to be due to his superior talents, exemplary diligence and
exalted character.
Allen G. Thurman. Ex-Senator Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio, a gen-
tleman held in the highest esteem by both political parties, and a statesman
of learning, experience and lofty character, is a native of the State of Yir-
GEOKGE F. EDMUNDS.
13100 flA PHY.
ginia. He was born at Lynchburg, November 13, 1813. When four years
old his home was changed to the State of Ohio. Ho received a thorough
education, studied law, and was admitted to the bar when twenty-two years
of age. After having practiced law lor some years at Columbus, Ohio, ho
was returned as Representative to the Twenty-ninth Congress. In 1851 ho
was elected a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and was Chief Justice
in the same court from 1854 to 1856. He was the Democratic candidate for
the Governorship of the State in 1867, but was defeated. A year later ho
was elected a United States
Senator, and took his seat
March 4, 1869. He was re-
elected in 1874, and his sec-
ond term of service expired
March 3, 1881, when, the
Legislature of Ohio being
Eepublican, he retired to
private life in his home at
Columbus. Mr. Tlmrman's
services to his party, as well
as to the country at large,
are well known. In the
Senate ho was a warm and
vigorous advocate of all
just and prudent measures,
and a bitter antagonist of
corruption. He is one of
the few public men who pos-
sess the confidence and
esteem of the entire people,
even those differing with
him upon questions of po-
litical economy cheerfully
acknowledging Ms remark-
able abilities and sterling
integrity. He has long been
upon terms of warm in-
timacy with Senator Ed- ALLEN a. THUBMAN.
munds, of Vermont, though
the two are widely at variance in political views. He was prominently men-
tioned as the Democratic candidate for President in 1880 and again in 1884,
and, though Allen G. Thurman may or may not be again called upon to
serve tbe country in office, he will always hold a high place in the esteem of
his countrymen.
John Sherman. His record gives the subject of this sketch great
authority on the question of finance. He is an Ohio man, bora at Lancas-
ter on the 10th of May, 1823, in a family of English extraction, whose first
American ancestry settled in Connecticut and Massachusetts. His father,
Charles Eobert Sherman, was made a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio,
the same year in which John was born, the eighth child of a family of twelve.
When his father died, John was only six years old, and the widow's eleven
surviving children were divided by harsh necessity, only three being left in
their mother's care. In 1831, John was taken by a cousin of his fnther,
CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
named John Sherman, to live with him at Mount Vernon. This kinsman had
him thoroughly prepared for the academy in anticipation of giving liim a
college education. At twelve, young John entered the Academy at Lancas-
ter. Wo next find him acting as junior rod man in a corps of engineers
engaged in the Muskingum improvement. In 1838, when only fifteen, he
was given charge of the works at Beverly. His next move was to study law
in the office of Charles T. Sherman, an older brother, who was afterwards
made a Judge of the United
States District Court. He en-
tered into partnership with
his brother at Mansfield in
1844. Four years later, ho
began his political life as dele-
gate to the "Whig Convention
which nominated General
Taylor for President. In the
same year, 1848, he married a
daughter of Judge Stewart,
of Mansfield. He was dele-
gate to the Baltimore Conven-
tion of 1852, which nominated
General Scott. His first elec-
tion to Congress was in 1855,
where he gained distinction
in committee work. He was
a supporter of John C. Fre-
mont, in 1856, believing that
the area of slavery should not
be extended while the exist-
ence of the institution itself
could not be disturbed in the
States which supported it.
Mr. Sherman was elected to
the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-
sixth Congresses. When, in
March, 18G1, Salmon P. Chase
retired from the Senate, John
JOHN SHEEMAN. Sherman was elected to take
his place, and was re-elected
in 18G7 and 1873. Ho was conspicuous for patriotism in the war, spending
money, time and service in the Federal cause. The making Treasury notes
a legal tender in 1862 was mainly due to him and Salmon P. Chase. In
1867, he proposed the Refunding Act, passed in 1870, and the resumption of
specie payments on January 1, 1879, was the leading triumph of his financial
policy. President Hayes made him Secretary of the Treasury in March,
1877. Upon retirement from office with the incumbency of President
Garfield, the veteran financier resumed his Beat in the United States
Senate.
William M. Evarts. Both as a lawyer and a statesman Mr. Evarts
ranks high. Since the death of Charles O'Conor ho has been regarded as at
the head of the American Bar. His career in his profession has been one of
unfailing diligence and brilliant success. The firm of which he is now the
PHY.
55
head is entrusted \vitli great interests, and realizes enormous fees. As a
matter of course, opinions differ strongly as to Mr. Evarts's political views
and conduct. He was born in Boston, February 6, 1818, the son of a clergy-
man of that city. When a child he manifested wonderful precocity, and waa
well grounded in the learned languages very early in life. He is a graduate
of Yale, and of Harvard in law. In 1841 he was admitted to the Bar in New
York City, where he continues in active practice. Mr. Evarts was leading
counsel for President Johnson in the impeachment proceedings of 1868, and
from July 15 of that year to the end of the Johnson administration waa
Attorney-General of the Uni-
ted States. He represented
the United States in the
tribunal of arbitration which
determined on the Alabama
Claims at Geneva in 1872. Mr.
Evarts was chief of counsel
for Henry Ward Beecher in
the Tilton-Beecher trial. In
187C he was appointed by
Governor Tilden to serve on
the Charter Commission. He
was Secretary of State during
the administration of Presi-
dent Hayes, after having rep-
resented the Eepublican party
in the discussion, before the
Electoral Commission, of the
questions on which the Presi-
dency depended. In 1885 he
was elected to the United
States Senate. Perhaps no
man is better qualified than
Mr. Evarts to speak on ques-
tions of interest at public
meetings, and he is much in
demand on these occasions
He ia believed to be un-
equalled as a phrase-maker, and seems to be able to talk happily under all
circumstances. Unfortunately his delivery, graceful and correct as it is, is
unaccompanied by the power necessary to its perfection. Notwithstanding
this defect, however, no public man in the United States is heard with
greater respect and admiration than Mr. Evarts. He is accused of time-
erving, a want of moral courage, and inconsistency in his utterances, but a
man who has talked so many years can hardly be expected to remain
in the same mind on every question which has engaged his attention. Mr.
Evarts's personal appearance is remarkable. He is tall and thin. Hia
face is refined and indicative of his extraordinary capacity, but cold
and unvarying in its expression. The great lawyer and rhetorician,
" the American Cicero," as somebody calls him, dresses most ungracefully;
but too much hat and baggy trousers do not impair the certainty of his
being recognized as a gentleman by all sorte and conditions of people.
He is a family man, the head of a household eminent among the most
refined and cultured in New York.
WILLIAM M. EVAKTS.
56 CYCLOP^blA Of USBFVL
Thomas P. Bayard. Thomas Francis Bayard was borii in Wilming-
ton, Del., October 29, 1828. His father and grandfather, both named James
A. Bayard, and his uncle, Kichard H. Bayard, served as United States
Senators from Delaware. Mr. Bayard was educated chiefly at the Flushing
school established by Rev. Francis L. Hawks, D. D., and was originally
designed for a mercantile career. He chose the law, however, and was
admitted to the Bar in 1851. He was appointed United States District-
Attorney for Delaware in 1853. He succeeded his father in the United
States Senate, taking his seat on March 4, 1869, and was re-elected in 1875
and 1881. In 1876 he was a
Member of the Electoral
Commission. During his
career in the United States
Senate he distinguished him-
self in all the ways by which
a public official could com-
mend himself, and it is pre-
suming nothing to say that
he is among the foremost of
American statesmen to-day.
He has brought to his work
high personal character, a
mind of conservative mold,
pure devotion to great pub-
lic interests, ability as an
orator and debater and
activity and energy in the
committee r o o m qualities
that have never failed him.
He has always been an un-
questioned Democrat, re-
spected by his party as a
great and safe leader, al-
though hardly ever the beau
ideal of the mere machine
politicians. In person ho
bears an admirable physique; is fond of outdoor sports and athletic exercise.
He is marriedj and is the head of an interesting family. In the Democratic
National Convention of 1880 he received 153% votes on the first ballot. In
the Democratic National Convention of 1884 he received 170 votes on the
first ballot and 151% on the second. In 1885 he was appointed Secretary of
State by President Cleveland.
James G. Blaine. This distinguished gentleman, who is universally
known as a statesman of large views and varied attainments, comes of good
old Revolutionary stock, and was born in Union Township, "Washington
County, Pennsylvania, in 1830. When but seventeen years of age, he was
graduated with the first honors of his class from the College of Washington
and Jefferson, in that State. Shortly afterward he went to Kentucky and
entered upon the active business of life, by becoming Professor of Mathe-
matics in the Western Military Institute, at Blue Lick Spring. During his
residence there, he first met Miss Harriet Stanwood, an accomplished young
lady from Maine, who, after he had had experience as a tutor for two years,
THOMAS F. BAYAKD.
induced him to remove to her native State, where ho soon began to display
those abilities which have since made him famous, and which have for
years placed the leadership of the Republican party of that section of tho
Union in his hands. Soon after his arrival in Maine, ho married the lady
jnst mentioned; and not long subsequently embraced tho profession of
journalism, becoming, for a brief period, connected with the Portland Daily
Ailrciiiser. Upon relinquishing Ms position on this publication, ho settled
in Augusta, and undertook the editorship of tho Kcnnebcc Journal; thence-
forward progressing steadily in both private and public estimation. In
1858, Mr. Elaine was elected
a Representative of tho Re-
publican party to the State
Legislature, where he speed-
ily made his mark. From
this time forward his influ-
ence in the House and
throughout the State became
most pronounced, and so well
assured, that he was called
upon to serve for four ses-
sions, during tho latter two
of which he was Speaker of
tho House. In 1862 he was
first elected to Congress, and
was re-elected six times, or
until ho became a Senator in
1876. He was Speaker of the
Forty-first, Forty-second and
Forty-third Congresses, and
was still serving his first
term as Senator when he was
appointed Secretary of State
by President Garficld in 1881.
Upon the death of Mr. Gar-
field, which occured in Sep JAMES G. ELAINE.
tember of the same year,
Mr. Blaino retired to private life and engaged in writing a voluminous work
entitled " Twenty Years of Congress." Tho first volume was published in
1884, and met with an almost unprecedent success. In June of the samo
year the Republican National Convention met at Chicago and nominated
Mr. Elaine for the Presidency. He directed a vigorous campaign, but was
defeated by his Democratic opponent, Grover Cleveland.
William T. Sherman. General Sherman is a native of the State of
Ohio, and was born at Lancaster, on the 8th of February, 1820. He was
graduated at "West Point in his twenty-first year, and saw military service in
Florida and tho M r ar with Mexico and elsewhere, before resigning his com-
mission in tho year 1853. Upon his retirement from the army he began
business in San Francisco as a banker, and continued this vocation four
years, including a residence in New York City. From 1857 to 1859 he prac-
ticed law in Leavenworth, Kansas. During the succeeding time up to the
secession of the State from tho Union, ho acted as Superintendent of the
Louisiana Military Academy. His resignation took place in January, 1861,
CYCLOPEDIA OF UKEFVt KNOWLEDGE.
and was almost immediately followed by his return to the army. The civil
war gave Sherman the opportunity of distinguished service, and placed him
in the first rank of living generals. His first commission was that of Colonel
of a regiment of infantry. At the battle of Bull Run he commanded a
brigade of volunteers, and was made Brigadier-General of volunteers.
After serving a short time in the camp of instruction at St. Louis, he took
part in the campaign conducted in the States of Tennessee and Mississippi,
during which he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General of the
regular army. In October,
1863, he succeeded General
Grant as commander of the
army department of the Ten-
nessee. When, in March,
1864, General Grant was made
Lieutenaut-General and Com-
mander of all the Union
forces, Sherman succeeded
him as Commander of the
military division of the Missis-
sippi. This included the en-
tire Southwest, and his ap-
pointment gave him command
of more than a hundred thou-
sand effective troops with
whom to operate against Gen-
eral J. E. Johnston. He began
the invasion of Georgia on the
2d of May, 1864, making his
advance movement at the
same time with that of General
Grant in the East. His forces
were superior in number to
those of the Confederate Gen-
eral, who, however, stubborn-
ly contested the advance at
every possible point. There
was much hard fighting be-
tween the two armies, and it was not until September 2d that Atlanta was
captured by Major-General Sherman, but then newly promoted to this rank.
He occupied the city with his army for ten weeks, when he commenced his
march to the sea, having previously dispatched some forty thousand men
under General Thomas to repel General Hood's advance into Tennessee.
His remaining forces consisted of sixty thousand men, more or less. In less
than a month they had marched three hundred miles without resistance.
His first fight was at Fort McAllister, below Savannah, the surrender of
which stronghold preceded that of Savannah by eight days. In the middle
of January, 1865, General Sherman began his invasion of the Carolinas. His
march through South Carolina lasted six weeks. In North Carolina ho
encountered considerable opposition, and fought two pitched battles.
Goldsboro' was occupied on the 22d of March, 1865, Kaleigh on April
13th. On the 26th of April General Johnston surrendered his army to
Sherman on the same terms as had been granted to General Lee by General
Grant, This surrender virtually closed the war. General Sherman con-
W1L.IJAM T. SHEEMAN.
BIOGRAPHY.
no
tinned in command of the military division of the Mississippi a year alter
the end of the hostilities, with the rank of Major-General in the regular
army. He was promoted to Lieuteuant-General when in July, 18GG, Grant
had been made General of the Army. His command continued as before.
Sherman succeeded Grant as General of the Army in March, 1869, after the
election of the first named to the Presidency.
Philip H. Sheridan. -On February 9, 1865, the thanks of the United
States Congress were tendered to a man for the gallantry, military skill and
courage displayed hi a series
of victories, achieved by bis
army, in the Valley of the
Shenandoah, especially at the
battle of Cedar Eun. This
man was Philip Henry Sheri-
dan, familiarly known as
" Little Phil." He was born
hi Somerset, Perry County,
Ohio, hi 1831, was educated
at West Point, and was ad-
mitted to the Military Acad-
emy hi 1848, where he grad-
uated in 1853. Entering the
United States Artillery, he
served in Texas and Oregon
until 1855, when he sailed for
San Francisco, in command
of an escort to a United States
surveying expedition. From
this time until 1861, he com-
manded a body of troops
among the Indian tribes,
when he was promoted to the
rank of Captain. Upon the
breaking out of the civil war,
he was appointed Quarter-
master of the Western De-
partment, and Colonel of the
Second Michigan Volunteer
Cavalry. At Booneville, hi July, 1862, he was promoted to the rank of
Brigadier-General of volunteers, and took command of the third division of
the Army of the Ohio, distinguishing himself by his defence of Louisville,
and again whining distinction on the banks of the Stone Kiver, December 30th,
at which time he was promoted to the rank of Major-General of volunteers.
He was appointed in April, 1864, to the command of the cavalry corps of
the Army of the Potomac. In September, 1864, he was appointed Brigadier-
General, and hi November of the same year Major-General of the United
States Army. He was in command of various military divisions of the army
from June 3, 1864, until September 12, 1867. On March 4, 1869, he was
appointed Lieutenant-General of the United States Army, and the same
month took the command of the military division of the Missouri. He was
in command of the Western Division, with headquarters at Chicago, until
1879, and commanded the forces which were sent to quell the Louisiana
PHILIP H. SHERIDAN.
<SO CYCLOPEDIA OP USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
difficulties. The cavalry branch of the Federal forces under his able
direction acquired an efficiency and gained a reputation such as it had
ne\er borne before. Sheridan recently succeeded Sherman as Commander-
in-Chief of the United States Army.
Grover Cleveland. Mr. Cleveland is a native of New Jersey, born at
Caldwell, Essex County, March 18, 1837. His father was a minister. After
receiving such instruction as was procurable from the common school in
various places of the parental
residence, young Cleveland
was sent to the Academy,
Clinton, Oneida County, New
York. Upon leaving this seat
of learning, he went to New
York City, where he filled for
some time the position of
clerk in an institution of
charity. He is next heard of
making his way West, in com-
pany with an enterprising
young man, with Cleveland,
Ohio, as his objective point;
but visiting, while on his way,
an uncle residing in Buffalo,
he was induced to remain in
that city, as clerk in the store
of his relative. He was
eighteen years of age at the
time, an ambitious young fel-
low possessed of the earnest
desire to become a successful
lawyer. His uncle favored
this aspiration, and we soon
find the youth a clerk in the
office of a prominent law firm
and at the same time enjoy-
ing the comforts of a good
home at his relative's house.
He was admitted to the Bar
in 1859. His first political office was as Assistant District- Attorney for the
County of Erie, under C. C. Torrance. He held the position three years,
until the end of his superior's term of office, when he was nominated for
District- Attorney on the Democratic ticket, but defeated. In 1870, five years
after this failure, he was elected Sheriff of Erie County; and in November,
1881, was elected Mayor of Buffalo by a decisive majority. So admirably
did he perform the functions of this office that his fame as a reformer soon
spread throughout the State, and in 1882 he was nominated for Governor.
The Republican party was hopelessly divided, and Mr. Cleveland was
elected by the enormous majority of 192,000. This phenomenal success,
coupled with his very satisfactory administration of the State government,
gave Mr. Cleveland a national reputation, and in 1884 the Democratic party,
in convention at Chicago, nominated him as its candidate for President.
The Republican candidate was James G. Blame, and an animated and
GKOVER CLEVELAND.
BIOGRAPHY.
01
sharply contested campaign followed, but Mr. Cleveland was elected, and
on March 4, 1885, was iaugurated President of the United States.
Thomas A. Heiidricks Thomas Andrew Hendricks was born in
Ohio on the 7th of September, 1819. He was graduated from South Han-
over College in that State in 1840, when he removed to Chambersburg, Penn-
sylvania, and began the
study of law. Three years
later ho was admitted to the
Bar and began the practice
of his profession in Indiana.
His career opened auspi-
ciously and in a few years he
became a lawyer of excellent
standing. In 1848 he was
elected to the State Legisla-
ture, and in 1850 was a dele-
gate to the State Constitu-
tional Convention. The next
year he was elected to the
House of Representatives,
and in 1853 his term expired.
He was appointed Commis-
sioner of the General Land
Office by President Pierce,
and from this on he has been
one of the most important
political characters in In-
diana. In 1860 he ran for
Governor against Henry S.
Lane, and was defeated. He
was elected to the United
States Senate in 1863 for the
long term. Here he won
considerable distinction as a
debater and served with
marked ability in the Com-
mittees on Claims, Public
Buildings and Grounds, the
Judiciary, Public Lands and Naval Affairs. His nama was presented to the
Democratic National Convention in 1868 as candidate for the Presidency, and
he would- no doubt have received the nomination but for the Ohio delegates,
who by persistently voting for Horatio Seymour finally caused a stampede
in his favor. The friends of Mr. Hendricks have always insisted that his
nomination would have insured a Democratic victory. Again in 1872 he was
proposed as a candidate in the Democratic National Convention, and but for
the unexpected fusions of that time he would probably have been the nom-
inee of his party. He was nominated for Vice-President in 1876 upon the
ticket with Samuel J. Tilden, and for the same office in 1884, Grover Cleve-
land being the candidate for the Presidency, and was elected.
THOMAS A. HENDKTCKS.
HISTORY.
The Battle of Waterloo. The decisive conflict -which annihilated
uhe power of Napoleon I, was fought June 18, 1815, in a plain about two
miles from the village of Waterloo, and twelve miles south from Brussels.
Agreeably to the unanimous resolve of the Allies to attack Napoleon on all
sides, and crush him as they had done in 1814, British and Prussian troops
were stationed in the Netherlands, under the command of Wellington and
Blucher respectively, in order to attack France on the north. Napoleon, on
his side, well aware that for a considerable time no weighty attack could be
made on France except by these forces, and fully recognizing the immense
advantage to be gained by destroying one enemy before the others could
comb up, rapidly concentrated the bulk of his troops; and with a sudden-
ness and secrecy which defied all effective counter-preparations, crossed the
Belgian frontier, and fell with one part of his forces on the Prussians at
Ligny, and with the other part, under Ney's immediate command, on the
army of the Prince of Orange at Quatre-Bras. The Prussians as Welling-
ton, after learning Blucher's dispositions for the battle, had foretold were,
after a contest of the most obstinate description, completely defeated; but the
Prince of Orange, by the aid of the reinforcements promptly forwarded to
him by the English commander, succeeded in withstanding Ney's attack.
In the plan preconcerted by the Allied generals such a result was not un-
foreseen, and in accordance with their scheme of firm resistance and retreat
if necessary (to allow time for the Kussians and Austrians to assemble on
the eastern frontier of France), Blucher retreated northwards (instead of
eastwards, as Napoleon expected) nearer the place of rendezvous with Well-
ington at Mont St. Jean; while early on the morning of the 17th, the Anglo-
Netherlanders retired along an almost parallel route till they reached the
forest of Soignies, hi front of which they were formed in battle array, facing
southwards. Napoleon, imagining that the Prussians were in total rout,
and their complete dissipation would easily bo accomplished by Grouchy's
division (33,000 men), which he had sent in pursuit, crossed to Quatre-Bras
with the rest of his troops, and uniting with Ney, marched hi pursuit of
Wellington, arriving 011 the plain of Waterloo in the ei ening.
The two armies which then confronted each other, though nearly equal
in strength, were composed of very different materials. The French army,
numbering from 69,909 to 72,247 men (according to French authorities, Eng-
lish historians varying in their estimate from 74,000 to 90,000, though its
exact strength cannot be ascertained, owing to the loss of the official re-
turns), was composed of veteran troops, who had enthusiastically ranked
themselves once more under the standard of the chief who had so often led
them to victory. The Anglo-Netherlands army, which numbered 69,894, of
whom only 25,389 were British, 6,793 of the king's German legion, 10,995
Hanoverians, 6,303 Brunswickers, 2,926 Nassauers, and 17,488Netherlanders,
consisted, with the exception of a small number of Peninsular veterans,
wholly of young soldiers, a larjre Dronortioa of whom had never been under
HISTORY. 63
fire; the Hanoverians were only militia, some of them being fit but for garri-
son duty; while the behavior of many of the Belgian troops during the bat-
tle showed plainly enough that they mainly increased the numei~iccd strength
of the army, as they left it to the Dutch soldiers to vindicate the wrongs of
the Netherlands. The French had 240, while their opponents had only
about 156 guns. "With such an army, to maintain even a defensive conflict
with an army of veterans, commanded by the greatest general of the time,
was a task which (laboring under a mistake as to the exact superiority in
number of his opponents) it required all Wellington's rare tenacity of pur-
pose to undertake; yet undertake it he did, depending on Blucher's promise
to join him an hour after mid-day.
On the morning of the 18th, the two armies found themselves ranged in
battle-array opposite each other; the Allies, posted on a line of eminences,
had their left wing resting on Frischermont, the farm-house of La Haye
Sainte in front of their center, while their right wing curved convexly round
behind Hougomont, and rested on Braine Merbes, The French were ranged
on a parallel row of eminences, having La Belle Alliance in their center,
with some divisions of cavalry and infantry in reserve behind the right whig;
Kellermann's dragoons behind the left wing; and the Guard, stationed with
the 6th corps, in the rear. Skirmishing had continued all the morning; but
the first serious attack was not made till between eleven and twelve, when
a part of the first corps advanced against Hougomont, with the view of
masking the more important attack to be made against the allied left.
This preliminary assault, however, though unsuccessful, was maintained
with great vigor for a considerable time; till Napoleon, dreading a further
loss of time, prepared to make his grand attack on the left center. At this
time (half-past one p. M.) he learned that the advanced guard of the 4th
Prussian corps (Bulow's) was appearing in front of St. Lambert, two or
three miles to his right; and being forced to detach his 6th corps (Lobau's)
with the reserves of cavalry behind his right wing, to keep them in check,
ho had to modify his grand plan of attack on the Anglo-Netherlanders, and
accordingly ordered Ney to break through their center. At two p. M., after
a furious preliminary cannonade, from which Wellington sheltered his men
(as at various other times during the battle), by retiring them to the reverse
of the slope, Ney advanced against the left center with 20,000 men, but had
only succeeded in putting to flight a Belgian brigade, when he was attacked
and driven back by Picton's division, his retreating columns charged and
broken by the English cavalry, and 2,000 prisoners taken. Nevertheless,
after a brief space, Ney returned to the charge, and carried La Haye Sainte,
though his repeated attacks on the infantry in position were constantly re-
pulsed, and his retreating columns severely handled by the British cavalry,
who, disordered by success, were as often overthrown by the French cuiras-
siers. By this time (half-past four p. M.), Bulow had succeeded in deploy-
ing from the woods, and, advancing against Planchenoit, in the rear of the
French right, carried it after a vigorous conflict. Lobau's corps, however,
aided by a reinforcement from the Guarl, speedily retook the post, and
driving the Prussians back into the wood, secured the French right flank for
a time; Napoleon, though now learning that another Prussian corps (the 1st,
under Ziethen) was coming up by Chain to join the Allied left, being still
confident that he could destroy the Anglo-Netherlanders before the Prus-
sians could render effective aid. During the conflict with Bulow, Ney had
been warmly engaged with the center and right of the enemy, who had made
various attempts to regain the wood of Ilougomont and La Haye Sainte, and
64 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
had supported his repeated attacks with not only his own cavalry, but (by,
at any rate, the " tacit consent " of the Emperor) with the cuirassiers, lan-
cers, and chasseurs, of the Guard, and the whole of the mounted reserve,
without, however, producing any result other than a great slaughter on both
Bides, and the useless sacrifice of 18,000 of the finest cavalry ever seen.
Napoleon now resolved on another vehement assault on the immovable
British center, and directed against it in succession two columns, one com-
posed of four battalions of the Middle Guard, and the other of four battalions
of the Middle and two of the Old Guard, supporting them with flank attacks
of other infantry divisions, of cavalry and with a dreadful fire of artillery.
The advancing French were met with a well-sustained fire from every piece
which could be brought to bear upon them; the first attacking column was
fairly driven down the slope by the English Guards, and the second was to-
tally routed by a bayonet-charge of Adam's brigade, the British cavalry fol-
lowing up the fugitives. Ziethen hadnow (seven p. M.) joined the left of the
English line; Bulow, further reinforced, had carried Planchenoit, and was
driving the French right wing before him; and the combined attack on the
retiring masses of the French by the whole effective force of the Anglo-
Netherlanders on the one side, and of the Prussian cavalry on the other,
converted an ordinary, though severe defeat into a rout unparalleled in his-
tory. The magnificent cavalry, wantonly destroyed by Ney in fruitless at-
tacks upon an " impracticable " infantry, would then have been of incalcu-
lable service, but they were no longer to be had. The last square of the
Guard still stood its ground, to protect the flight of the Emperor; but it was
speedily surrounded, and on the soldier-like refusal of Cambronne to sur-
render, was in a moment pierced through, and broken to pieces. From this
time all resistance was over; the roads southwards, especially that to Ge-
nappes, were crowded with fugitives fleeing for their lives from the pursu-
ing cavalry; and though the English light cavalry, exhausted with their
severe work during the battle, soon ceased the pursuit, it was kept up with
great energy throughout the whole night by the Prussian troopers, who
'seemed bent upon at once avenging the defeats of Jena, Auerstadt, and
Ligny, and glutted their fierce animosity by an indiscriminate slaughter.
The total loss in this battle was, from the obstinacy and determination with
which it was contested, necessarily large; the figures are: British and Han-
overians, 11,678, Brunswickers, 687; Nassauers, 643; Netherlanders, 3,178; a
total of 16,186, which, added to 6,999 Prussians, gives the aggregate allied
loss, 23,185. The French had 18,500 killed and wounded; 7,800 prisoners
(some French accounts raise the total list of hors de combat to 32,000), and
227 cannon captured.
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew. In order to properly under-
stand the events that led to the great political and ecclesiastical crime of
1572 a short review of the three preceding reigns is necessary. French-
men still look back with pride to the memory of Francis I. A king of great
virtues and equally great vices, of noble aspirations but of ignoble passions,
never bigoted except when frightened by priests, the friend of painter and
scholar, but dying at last from a disgusting malady brought on by his licen-
tious amours.
In 15M Francis chanced to be ill of a dangerous malady. The bigoted
Cardinal de Touruon persuaded him that his illness was a judgment of God
to punish him for not extirpating heresy in France, and the king ordered the
Waldenses of Provence to bo exterminated as a cure for his malady. Thie
HISTORY. 65
peaceable, industrkma and God-fearing race bad been a living protest
against the church of Homo for hundreds of years, but now an expedition
was sent among them commanded by John Meuier, Baron of Opede, who
declared, " I know how to treat those people; I will send them one and all
to hell." So far as lay in his power he fulfilled his word by murdering 3,000
people and burning twenty-four villages. The tale of the atrocities com-
mitted in Provence awoke a cry of indignation from one end of the country
to the other, and the cloud of religious war that was already hovering over
France grew black and ominous.
Francis was succeeded by his second sou Henry, who ascended the
throne in 15-17. Henry's queen was the celebrated Catherine de' Medici, of
whom we shall hear more hereafter. He was a prince of dull and common-
place intellect, chiefly distinguished for his skill iu the tournaments.
During this reign the reformed religion spread rapidly, although the
edicts against dissenters were enforced with great severity. In Poitou and
Anjou the fires of persecution blazed so fiercely that the Reformers medi-
tated taking up arms, but were dissuaded from so doing by their leader
Calvin.
France was at war with Spain during a great part of this reign. After
the fall of St. Quentin, at which Admiral Coligny so famous both for the
greatness of his character and from the fact that he was the first victim of
the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was taken prisoner, peace was concluded
on the 3rd of April, 1559. William of Orange was sent as a hostage to Paris
by the King of Spain, and one day while hunting in a forest, the King con-
fided to him a plan he had formed for the extermination of the Huguenots at
a single blow. From the taciturnity and presence of mind with which he
received so startling a revelation, the liberator of the Netherlands received
the title of William, the Silent. This is ample proof that the great massacre
was contemplated as early as 1559, although two kings died and thirteen
years rolled away before its execution.
In June an edict was issued more severe than any that had gone before.
By it, all convicted Lutherans were to be punished with instant death with-
out chance cf remission. There is but little doubt that if this decree had
been enforced as Henry intended it should be, Protestantism would have
been crushed out of France as it was of Spain. But this was not to be.
During the same month, at a grand tournament, the king was wounded in
the eye by a splinter from a lance. The wound waa mortal, and on the 10th
of July, 1559, the sceptre of Franco fell from the dead hand of Henry the
Second.
Francis the Second, a youth of weak body and dull intellect, the eldest
son of Henry, and husband of the unfortunate and beautiful Mary of Scot-
land, ascended his father's throne on the 10th of July, 1559, at the age of six-
teen. His mother, Catherine de' Medici, who had remained in the back-
ground during the reign of Henry, now became one of the chief political
forces of the kingdom. It now became evident that she was a consummate
mistress of the art of political intrigue, by her success in playing the rival
houses of Guise and Bourbon one against the other. The Guises being at
this time most in favor of the King, a conspiracy was formed to accomplish
their overthrow. It failed, however, and was followed by another wholesale
butchery, chiefly instigated by the Duke of Guise and his brother, the
Cardinal of Lorraine. The cruelties practiced at this " massacre of Am-
broise," as it is called, had so exasperated the people, and the symptoms of
a general outbreak of the HuerueuaifL who liad now become very powerful,
66 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
were so alarming, that the Government was forced to make concessions. Am
edict was published making the bishops and clergy the sole judges for
offences against religion, which had the practical effect of preventing the
establishment of the inquisition in France, and the Slates-General were con-
voked for the first time in seventy-six years. The cause of the reformers
was eloquently advocated by the Admiral Coligny, who presented a petition
from the Huguenots, asserting their love for the King, but praying that a
stop be put to the cruel persecutions under which they were suffering, and
for permission to read the Bible, and hold Hieir meetings in the open day.
"But your petition," said Francis, "has no signatures." "That is true,
eire," replied Coligny, " but if you will allow us to meet for the purpose, I
will in one day obtain in Normandy alone 50,000 signatures." " And I," in-
terrupted the Duke of Guise, " will find 100,000 good Catholics to break
their heads."
Louis, Prince of Conde, and Henry, King of Navarre, who had been se-
cretly allied with the reformers, were at this time under sentence of death,
and were only saved by the timely death of the King, which took place ou
the 5th of December, 1560, after a reign of eighteen months, the shortest in
French annals.
Francis, dying childless, was succeeded by his brother Charles, a child
of ten years. Catherine now assumed as her right, the exercise of sovereign
power in the name of her son. Her first act was to divide the great offices
between the families of Guise and Bourbon, her object being to hold the bal-
ance evenly between them. This and other well-intentioned acts on the
part of the Government were rendered fruitless by the intensity of the hatred
between the rival religions. Disturbances were general throughout tho
kingdom, and the furious fanaticism of both sides found many victims.
The civil war which had long been imminent, was precipitated by what is
called tho "Massacre of Vassy." The Duke of Guise, traveling with a re-
tinue of 200 armed gentlemen, stopped at the little town of Vassy, in Cham-
pagne, where, the day being Sunday, Protestants were assembled for divine
worship. By the Duke's order, his attendants tried to disperse the gather-
ing. They resisted, and an unequal conflict ensued. The Duke was struck
on the cheek by a stone, whereupon his enraged soldiers fired upon the un-
armed multitude, killing sixty and wounding over 200. The Huguenots
now rushed to arms, and France became the theatre of civil war. Under
their leaders, Coligny and the Prince of Conde, they fought with varying suc-
cess until a peace was concluded in 1563, by which they obtained permission
to worship in the houses of the nobility and gentry, and m one to*n in every
Bailliage. This was, however, of short duration. Some conferences be-
tween Catherine and her daughter Elizabeth, wife of the King of Spain, to-
gether with the reports of the atrocities committed by the Duke of Alva in
the Netherlands, excited the suspicions of the Huguenots, and in 1567, war
was recommenced by an attempt on their part to sieze the King and his
family, with a view to a complete change of Government. With tho excep-
tion of a short truce in 1568-'9, the combat raged until 1570. At first the
Huguenots met with many disasters, but the tide of battle turned and their
successes in the campaign of 1570, secured for them the treaty of St. Ger-
main, by which they obtained tho free exercise of their religion throughout
the kingdom, with the single exception of the capital; they were admitted
on equal terms with the Catholics to all professions and public employments,
and restitution was granted for all forfeited offices and confiscated property.
The Huguenote were now lulled into temporary security by the efforts of
HISTORY. 67
the courts to mitigate the bitter hostility of parties. Admiral Coligny had at
last overcome his deep-seated distrust, and repaired to Blois, where he was
received by the young King with open arms.
However, the favor and ascendency of the Protestants served only to in-
tensify tho hatred of the Catholic party, and it was apparent to many that a
crisis waa approaching. The sudden death of the queen of Navarre, under
strong suspicion of poison, so alarmed the reformers that many fled from
Paris. Coligny still remained, in spite of tho remonstrances of his friends.
Early in the summer of 1572, an expedition to the Netherlands was fitted out
under his direction, by whichjnany important places were taken, but a re-
verse occurring, the council were divided on the course to be pursued.
The Admiral and his adherents demanded an immediate declaration of war
with Spain. Catherine and the Guises ranged themselves on the opposing
side, and thus becoming in direct collision with Coligny, determined on his
death. It was arranged that he should be assassinated by some retainer of
tho Guises. This would produce an insurrection of the Huguenots to
avenge his death, whereupon tho populace of Paris were to be instigated tf
rise and exterminate tho weaker party in a wholesale massacre.
On the 18th of August, the marriage of Henry of Navarre and Margare
ofYaloistook place, and aroused popular commotion to the highest pitch.
Strange and fearful rumors of impending calamity gained ground in the
capital. Three days after, as the Admiral was returning from the Louvre,
he was fired at from a window by an agent of the Duke of Guise, and
wounded in the head and arm. When the news was brought to Charles, he
exclaimed passionately, " Am I never to be left in peace ? " but went ai
once to see his wounded friend to assure him of his affection, and that he
would at once exact a signal vengeance for the outrage. Coligny com-
plained bitterly of the malign influence of Catherine, and urged the King to
deprive her of power, offering the aid of the whole Protestant party to effect
this purpose. The conspirators were now struck with consternation. Their
first blow had failed, lor the Admiral's wounds were not dangerous, and
they were menaced with exposure and ruin. After an agitated consultation,
they went in a body to the King, and conjuring up before him dreadful vis-
ions of renewed civil war, revolution, foreign aggression and personal vio-
lence, urged him to consent to the death of the Admiral and other leaders
of the Huguenots. Tho monarch yielded, after a long and painful struggle.
Starting up suddenly in one of those transports of delirious fury to which he
was subject, he ordered, with fearful execrations, that since it was neces-
sary to shed the blood of the Admiral, not a Huguenot should be left alive
in his kingdom to reproach him with the deed.
On tbe Feast of St. Bartholomew, August 24th, 1572, the great bell ol
St. Germain 1'Aiixerrois rang out at the unwonted hour of two in the morn-
ing. This was the appointed signal. It was instantly repeated from all the
steeples of the capital. Lights were suddenly shown in every window. The
assassins, armed to the teeth, and distinguished by white crosses in theii
hats, swarmed forth from their lurking places in every quarter of Paris, and
tho work of death began. The first victim was the illustrious Coligny.
The wounded Admiral was awakened by tumultuous knocking, and voicei
crying, "Open in the King's name!" The Dukes of Guise and Aumale.
with a band of myrmidons were at the gate. The frightened servants raij
to see what caused the tumult. Some were killed and some escaped up^
stairs and barricaded the doors with furniture. Coligny, who was alone
with Ambroise Pare the surgeon, knew well the meaning of the uproar, and
68 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
yet remained as calm as though no danger was impending. In a few mo-
ments the feeble barrier was dashed aside, and a band of ruffians entered,
one of whom, advancing his sword to the breast of the wounded man, ex-
claimed, "Are you not the Admiral?" The answer was, "I am; but,
young man, you should respect my grey hairs and not attack a wounded
man. But what matters it ? You cannot shorten my life except by God's
permission," The German soldier with an execration, plunged his sword
into the old hero's breast, and his body was thrown from a window to Henry
of Guise, who was waiting below, and who refused to take any evidence but
that of his senses, that his great enemy was dead.
When the harsh sound rang from the belfry of St. Germain PAuxerrois,
it was caught up and echoed from tower to tower, rousing all Paris from
their slumbers. Immsdiately from every quarter of that ancient city, up-
rose a tumult as of hell. Tho clanging bell, the crashing doors, the mus-
ket shots, the rush of armed men, the shrieks of their victims, and high
over all the yells of the mob, fiercer and more pitiless than hungry wolves,
made such an uproar that the stoutest hearts shrank appalled, and the most
sane appeared to have lost their reason. Women uusexed, men wanting
everything but the strength of wild beasts, children without a single charm
of youth or innocence, crowded the streets where the rising day still struggled
with the glare of a thousand torches. They smelled the odor of blood, and
thirsting to indulge their passions for once with impunity, committed hor-
rors that have become a marvel of history.
Within the walls of the Louvre, and in the hearing of Charles and his
mother, if not actually in their sight, was enacted one of the most foul
scenes of this detestable tragedy. A list of the names of the Huguenot gen-
tlemen in attendance on the King of Navarre was read, and as each man
answered to his name, he was forced to step into a courtyard, where sword
and spear made short work of him. Thus perished 200 of the best blood of
France.
The houses in which the Huguenots lodged were easily known, having
"been registered. The soldiers burst into them, killing all they found, with-
out regard to age or sex, and if any escaped to the roof, they were shot down
like pigeons. Daylight served to facilitate a work too foul even lor the
blackest midnight. Ilcstraint of evory^ kind was thrown aside, and while
men were victims of bigoted fury, the women were exposed to violence unut-
terable. Marshal Tavannes, the military director of this deed of treachery,
rode the streets with drip*ping sword, shouting, "Kill, kill! the doctors say
that blood-letting is as gool in August as in May." In making his dying
confession, this Tavanues was reminded that he had made no allusion to
St. Bartholomew's day. " That," he replied, " I look upon as a meritorious
action, which ought to atone for all the sins of my life." Such was the
spirit that animated the sectaries of the 16th century.
The massacre soon exceeded the bounds anticipated by the conspirators.
Toward evening the King gave orders to put a stop to the bloody work, but
it was found that the demons he had iinchained were not so easily appeased,
and the carnage continued unabated during several days. Similar enormi-
ties were committed in all the more important provincial towns, the history
of which would far exceed the limit assigned to this article. The whole
number who perished is given by the most trustworthy authorities as about
20,000.
There were great rejoicings in Rome, and at the court of Spain, when the
pews wag received, but it sent % thrill of horror through Protestant England,
HISTORY. 69
and it was some days before the French Ambassador vas received at court
there. On his deathbed, Charles is said to have suffered great agonies of
remorse over the cruelties that had disgraced his reign.
It is only necessary to add that here, as elsewhere, history teaches the
lesson that such violent measures almost always operate for the cause that
they are directed against. In less than a year the Huguenots had recov-
ered from their temporary demoralization, and were in position to address
the King in bolder and more importunate language than ever before, and
soon a third and more powerful party was formed by a coalition of the
Huguenots and moderate catholics.
As a purely gratuitotis massacre, the Feast of St. Bartholomew remains
without a parallel in the annals of the world. The Greeks of Lesser Asia
rose and slew 80,000 Romans living among them, the Britons massacred
whole settlements of the invading Danes, and at the Sicilian vespers 20,000
French were put to death without distinction of age or sex. But these
massacres were all committed in the name of freedom to drive out a for-
eign conqueror, to throw off the yoke of an invader. The motives that ani-
mated the conspirators in Paris were of the lowest kind envy, jealousy,
greed, ambition.
The Inquisition or Holy Office. Carlyle has somewhere noted in
dispraise of written history, that those facts are more often preserved which
tend to retard the progress of civilization, than those other which aid in its
advancement. As such, he speaks of the records of wars, conquests, cruel-
ties and persecutions. But while we own with candor the over fondness of
the human mind for the dramatic and thrilling incidents contained in such
records, we cannot for a moment deny their iustructiveness and value.
The history of the institution of which wo purpose to write, is one replete
with horrors. From a thousand blazing piles of fagots, we may yet hear
the pain- wrung cries of women, men and children that were uttered three
centuries or more ago. For most of them a word would have purchased
absolution, but that word was false, and remained unspoken. On the one
hand, the astonishing fortitude of human beings perishing, for a principle,
by the most painful processes that human ingenuity, aided by the most in-
veterate hate and fanaticism could devise. On the other, the persecutor,
trained by tradition and by education, to believe hia trade in truth a " holy
office," and one deserving the richest rewards of rth, the most felicitous
enjoyments of heaven. For few, we must believe, acted from the pure love
of cruelty. The powers that were, doubtless, knew how to select their in-
struments, and chose men of a hard and ambitious cast of character.' But
that these were actuated largely by a sense of duty, and of the importance
of preserving intact the tenets of the mother church, we cannot doubt. Did
these events retard the progress of civilization ? Was not the progress of
civilization and of the Reformation the same ? Does not history teach that
principle and sect thrive best when persecuted ? The light of reason was
shining there, though forced to hide and tremble, and what was still more
potent for good to the cause of Luther, and of Calvin, the great heart of the
people of Europe was rightly placed, and pity dwelt there as it does in the
hearts of men to-day. We may not lightly conclude bat that the baleful
fires of Torquemada did as much to aid the onward movement of the Refor-
mation, as did the iniquitous sale of indulgences, to secure its birth.
From its early ages, the Christian church had claimed the right to not
only look after the spiritual welfare, but to inquire into the doctrinal sound-
70 CYCLOPEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
ness of all people where it was established, and laws more or less rigorous
existed for the punishment of all dissenters from the national creed. Dur-
ing the reigns of Theodosius and Justinian, officials called Inquisitors were
appointed, whoso duty it was to cite persons suspected of heresy before the
civil tribunals.
Their sentences usually took some mild form of ecclesiastical censure,
although occasional cruelties were practiced. During the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, however, the spread of certain sects known as the Cathari,
Waldenses, and Albigenses, alarmed the church authorities, and measures
were taken to perfect the inquisatorial system for the suppression of heresy.
In 1248, under Pope Innocent IV, the form of the institution was changed
from that of a local tribunal, for the suppression of certain sects as they
arose, to that of a permanent establishment, to be introduced into the differ-
ent countries where the Papal power was recognized. Thus constituted,
and under the Dominican order of monks, it was introduced into Italy,
Spain, Germany and the southern provinces of France.
The operation of the inquisition was as follows: In each parish a number
of persona were sworn to give information of all who were suspected of hold-
ing heretical opinions, who attended secret meetings, or departed in any way
trom the established customs of the church. In some cases, nearly all the
inhabitants of a parish were thus made sworn informers. Any person re-
fusing to qualify as an informer, by taking the oath, was himstlf suspected
of heresy. To conceal the crime of others was punished by confiscation of
property, and deprivation of office.
Persons suspected were reported to the bishops. They were then
thrown into prison, to be released for trial at the pleasure of the judges.
In case of inactivity on the part of the bishops, they might be deprived of
office by the Legates of the Pope, by whom the process of extirpation was
controlled. The accused, when brought to trial, was not confronted with
his accusers, nor were their names made known to him. The evidence of
an accomplice was admissible, and the accused himself was often put to the
torture to extort a confession from him. If found guilty, be was liable to
death by fire or the scaffold, imprisonment in the galleys for life, or for a
limited period, forfeiture of property, civil infamy, or in minor cases, re-
I raction and public penance. He who concealed the guilty, was regarded as
I in offender of the gravest kind, and was punished by the confiscation of his
property, and deprivation of office. In sickness, no medical attendance was
permitted them, and they were forced to depart from their homes clad in a
jarb betokening their infamy.
All these conditions the Papal authority had power to enforce. The
agents of the Pope were well chosen. The emoluments of their office were
isnormous, and from their greed and zealous eagerness in performing the
duties assigned to them, they earned the punning title, on the name of
their order, of " Domini Canes," or dogs of the Lord. The character of
some of the Papal legates may fairly be estimated by an incident in south-
ern France.
During the first part of the thirteenth century, the Papal Legate and in-
quisitor, Peter of Caatelnau, who had been commissioned to extirpate heresy
ia the dominions of Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, was murdered. A
cruBade was undertaken, under the direction of Legates Arnold and Milo,
lad under the military conduct of Simon of Monfort. The ostensible object
of the expedition was to revengro the death of Peter, but its real purpose waa
to punish Count Raymond, who had become an object of hatred to the Papal
HISTORY. Tl
authorities, by his toleration of the Albigenses in his domain. It was in
vain that the Count submitted to the most humiliating penance and flagella-
tion at the hands of Milo. The town *f Beziers was taken by storm, and
twenty (some authorities say forty) thousand people, both Catholic and
heretics, were massacred. " Kill them all," said Legate Arnold, " God
will know his own."
At the beginning of the 15th century, the arrogance and avarice of the
Eomish church had reached a point at which the movement, which was to
undermine its temporal power, was inevitable. Wycliffe in England, Jerome
of Prague, and HUBS, the Bohemian martyr, were beginning to strike the
chords of awakening reason. But the overbearing spirit of the church was
too strong for the reforming spirit in its early manifestations. In the midst
of his evangelical activity, Husa was betrayed, through promise of a safe-
conduct, into making his appearance at the council of Constance in 1414.
No sooner was he fairly in the power of the council, than he was confronted
with certain articles of abjuration, and refusing to submit without being
convinced, he was, in defiance of the promise made to him, condemned to
be burned as a heretic. The rising spirit of the Reformation was for a mo-
ment quenched in the flames that consumed the intrepid martyr of Bo-
hemia.
A little further on, the sale of indulgences, by which the church granted
absolution and release from the pains of purgatory for all crimes committed,
or to be committed, by any persons who would pay to the church a fixed
sum of money, awoke from a life of asceticism, that leading spirit of the
Reformation, Martin Luther. From his fiery utterances, the movement
spread rapidly through Germany, and obtained a foothold in different parta
of Hurope. For the first time the Papal throne was made to tremble. Here
was a spirit not to be intimidated. A Papal bull, that fearful instrument
that had made so many kings bow their heads in submission, was by him
publicly burned at the gate of Wittenberg. Translations of the Scriptures
were being made, and although fiercely condemned by the church, found
many secret hiding-places.
Against this rising spirit were set to work all the intricate and deadly
machinery of the inquisition. Volume! would be required to give an ac-
count of the struggle in all the different countries of Europe. We will con-
fine ourselves to some transactions in Spain, and in the Netherlands.
In Spam, the office of Inquisator-General was first filled by Thomas de
Torquemada, a friar of the Dominican order, whose cruelties have made the
name of the Spanish Inquisition infamous in history. During the sixteen
years of his tenure of office, 9,000 persons perished in the flames. %
The ceremony preceding these executions was called an Auto da Fe, or
Act of Faith, and was often attended by the King and first grandees of Spain.
It was held on a Sunday or Holy-day. At dawn the dismal tolling of the
great bell of the high church, gave the signal to begin the drama of the day.
The procession was led by the Dominicans, carrying the flag of the Inquisi-
tion. Next followed the penitents on whom only penance had been laid.
Behind them, and separated by a great croea which was borne befere, came
those condemned to death bare-foot, clad in the aan-benito and with a
pointed cap upon their heads; then effigies of the fugitives; and lastly tke
bones of dead culprits, in black coffins, painted with flames and hellish ym-
bols. The frightful train was closed by an army of priests and monka. Tha
procession went through the principal streets to the church, where, after &
sermon on the true faith, sentence was pronounced. A few hours after-
72 CYCLOPEDIA OF VSEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
wards, they were brought to the place of execution. Tf they yet, at the List,
made profession of the Catholic faith, they were HO far favored as to be first
strangled; otherwise they were burned alive.
In IS'tO, Francisco San-Roman, a native of Burgos, was sent by his em-
ployers to Bremen, to transact some business. While there, he became a
convert to the reformed doctrines. Some Lutheran books being found in
his possession, ho was seized and thrown into prison, where he remained
for eight months. Afterwards, for a too free avowal of his sentiments on
the occasion of an introduction to the Emperor Charles, he was again de-
livered over to the Inquisition at Valladolid. When brought before the in-
quisitors, he frankly avowed his belief in the cardinal doctrine of the re-
formers, and pronounced the mass, auricular confession, purgatory, the in-
vocation of saints, and worshiping of images, to be a blasphemy against the
living God. He refused at the place of execution to purchase a mitigation
of punishment, by confessing to "a priest, or bowing to a crucifix which was
placed before him. When the flames first reached him, he made an invol-
untary motion of his head, and the friars exclaimed that he had become
penitent, and ordered him, to be brought from the fire. On recovering his
breath, he looked them calmly in the face and asked, "Did you envy my
happiness ? " at which he was thrust back into the flames and almost in-
stantly suffocated .
The second Auto da Fe in Valladolid, took place on the 8th of October,
1559. Twenty-nine prisoners appeared on the scaffold, of whom sixteen wore
the garb of penitents, while the flames painted on the san-benitos of the re-
mainder, marked them out for the stake. At the head of those devoted \o
death was Don Carlos de Seso. Arrested at Logrono, he was thrown into
the secret prison of the Inquisition, and on the 28th of June, 1558. answered
the interrogatories of the fiscal. His conduct during the whole of his im-
prisonment and in the terrible scene with which it terminated, was worthy
of his noble character and the active part which he had taken in the cause
of religious reform. When informed of his sentence, he called for pen, ink
and paper, and having written a confession of his faith, gave it to an officer
saying, " This ia the true faith of the Gospel, as opposed to that of the
church of Rome, which has been corrupted for ages." The whole of that
night and morning was spent by the friars in an ineffectual attempt to induce
him to recant. He appeared in the procession with a gag in his mouth. It
was removed after he was bound to the stake, and the friars began again to
exhort him to confess. He replied in a loud voice, and with great firmness,
" I could demonstrate to you that you ruin yourselves by not imitating my
example, but there is no time. Executioners, light the pile that is to con-
sume me." They obeyed, and De Seso expired among the flames without
a struggle or a groan.
At an Auto in Seville, on the 22nd of December, 1560, no fewer than eight
females of the most irreproachable character, suffered the most cruel of
deaths. Among these were Maria Gomez, her sister and three daughters.
After the reading of the sentence which condemned them to the flames, one
of the young women went up to hor aunt, from whom she had imbibed the
Protestant doctrine, and thanked her for the religious instruction she had
given her, and implored her dying blessing. The five friends took leave of
one another with tender embraces, and words of mutual comfort. The in-
terview between these devoted women was beheld by the Holy Tribunal,
with a ripid composure of coiintenance, undisturbed even by a glance of dis-
pleasure, and so completely had superstition and habit subdued the strong-
ff IS TO ST. 73
eat emotions of the human breast, that not a single expression of sympathy
escaped from the multitude at witnessing a scene which, in other circum-
stances, would have harrowed up the feelings of the spectators and driven
them to a mutiny.
The foregoing are but samples of what was taking place all over Europe,
during the great struggle for freedom of conscience. In the Netherlands,
the Inquisition was introduced in the 13th century, and severely enforced
under the Spanish Emperora, Charles V and his son Philip II. The lattef
was probably the most inflexible and bigoted tyrant of modern history. He
it was who replied to one of his subjects on the way to the stake, who asked:
" Canst thou, sire, thus witness the tortures of thy innocent subjects ? " " I
would carry the wood to burn my own son, were he as wicked as thou."
That he would have done so ia amply proven by the fact, that the evidence
scarcely admits of a doubt that hia son Carlos did eventually die by poison,
administered by the direction of hia father.
The struggle of the Netherlanders for civil and religious liberty was long
and obstinate, and involved them in a war of eighty years' duration. For-
timate for them, their oppression awoke the strong arm and patriotic heart
of William the Silent, Prince of Orange, without whose wise guidance the
final victory could never have been won.
In 1567, the Duke of Alva was sent to the Netherlanders by Philip, to act
as Governor-General. On arriving there he established what was called the
Council of Troubles, and renamed by the people the Council of Blood. The
proceedings of this body were summary in the extreme, and its justice may
be fairly estimated by an anecdote of one of its members, Councillor Hes-
sela. This worthy was accustomed to sleep through the dry and uninter-
esting evidence in defence of the accused, and awaking with a a tart at the
conclusion of the testimony, shout out, " To the gallows with him! To the
gallows with him!" It would be a useless labor to relate particular in-
stances of the atrocities committed by a tribunal composed of men like this.
"Columns and stakes in every street, the door-posts of private houses, the
fences in the fields were laden with human carcasses strangled, burned, be-
headed. The orchards in the country bore on many a tree the hideous
fruit of human bodies." This ia the moderate testimony of the historian
Motley. Suffice it, that at last " Liberty did triumph," and the power of the
Spanish throne was driven from the Netherlands forever.
But a little more than a century has elapsed since the fires of the Inqui-
sition were kindled for the last time. The progress of civilization makes it
seem impossible that such scenes should ever be enacted again. Of the
thousands who perished, the names of but few have come down to us.
Their martyrdom was suffered, that men might come at laat to know the
truth of that which was said BO many centuries before by Gamaliel, " That
if these doctrines be new, and of the world, and men pleased by their nov-
elty, they will soon die of themselves, but, if they be from God, no mortal
will be able to atop their progresa."
Tlie Reign of Terror in Paris. The following description of this
exciting period in French history is from the stenographic report of a lecture
delivered by Mr. John L. Stoddard in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn,
New York:
"A most deplorable state of affairs was that brought on by the revolution
hi the latter part of the eighteenth century. Louis XVI and Marie An-
toinette had attempted to escape, but were captured and brought back to
74 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
the royal palace in the Tuilerics. Hardly had Louis entered Paris when he
apologized for his escape and swore to his people that in future he would
be faithful to the nation and carry into effect all the decrees of the govern-
ment. Great was the festival upon the return of the king. At the Champs
de Mars, France arid Paris rejoiced at Louis' return, and made memorable
the occasion by numerous signs of great joy. Balloons were sent up, from
which were scattered far and wide copies of the constitution which the ruler
had promised to obey. Yet when Louis returned to his chamber he is said
to have wept. He could not accept or reject the constitution, and could
only only cry out, ' What can I do ? ' It was almost the united wish of the
French people that there should be a limited monarchy. But there came the
advocates of a republic who would not believe that the Bong meant to keep his
second oath. The crisis was fast approaching. It came at length. Louis
was taking no measures to defend the realm. In the Tuileries the royalists
were planning to assert their power, and what wonder was it that the friends
of Liberty, seeing that the enemy most to be feared was in their own court,
utirred up the people to strike at the Tuileries and put the conspirators to
th sword ? They had destroyed the Bastile, taken Versailles, and now came
the destruction of the Tuileries the King's palace. The King had the right
of veto. He refused to sanction certain decrees of the Assembly. The peo-
ple became aroused and assembled together with their banners and mottoes
calling for the death of the King, who was no longer the protector of their
rights. They stormed the palace, and he ordered the gates of the Tuileries
to be thrown open. Excited and fierce was the mob. They entered the
room where the King stood. There was Louis surrounded by the petition-
ers. Physically he was no coward, however; otherwise he was weak and
incompetent. 'Sire, fear nothing,' said a man in the crowd. 'Put your
hand on my heart and see if I am afraid,' was Louis' reply. ' France has
no better friend,' he added. ' Then put on the bonnet rouge,' cried the
mob, and Louis, with the red cap on his head, was led to the window to be
seen by the crowd without. ' If you love the people, drink to their health,'
said a man, as he handed the King a glass of wine. Louis did as he was re-
quested. The palace was cleared by the guards, and as the King saw re-
flected in one of the broken mirrors the red cap, he exclaimed to Marie An-
toinette: ' It was not to see you thus insulted that I brought you here from
Vienna.' The allied sovereigns issued a proclamation that the inhabitants
of the towns and cities of France would be visited with war, and all Paris
given over to destruction, if the Tuileries were destroyed. But this threat
had little effect. From the tower of St. Germain Church rang forth the call
to arms. All night long sounded the alarm bells from the same tower that
gave the signal for the St. Bartholomew massacre many years before. But
now a different cry was heard it was the cry of the people fighting for their
liberty. It was the 10th of August. The Swiss Guard remained faithful to
the King, when early in the morning the populace rushed into the garden of
the Tuileries, shouting: 'Down with the tyrant!' Marie Antoinette heard
the shouts, and is reported to have said: ' my God, they are insulting the
King.' She drew a pistol from the belt of a grenadier, and going to Louis
and handing him the weapon, said: ' Now is the time to how yourself &
King.' An officer advised Louis to go at once to the Assembly, which he
did. As he passed along, a faithful soldier said to him: ' Be sure of this,
eire, the man who kills you dies the moment after.' Louis might have said
in reply that it would be better to have the would-be murderer die the mo-
ment before, but it was no time for jest. Th royal family entered the
HIS TOUY. 75
Assembly chamber and found seats in the reporters' gallery. The Assem-
bly was in session, and a vote was passed to suspend the King from office.
The King was calm, dignified, unmoved. He said a few words to a messen-
ger, who left the room. He was intercepted, and said that his orders were to
bring the King his dinner. It was brought, and Louis ate heartily with
death staring him in the face. In the meantime, the crowd had burst into
the Tuileries, massacred the Swiss Gmard and made prisoners of the Royal-
ists. The royal family was imprisoned. Then came the King's trial and
the verdict of death. Six hundred soldiers followed the carriage. It must
have been an impressive scene. Despite tho treachery and the villainy,
there was something sad in the sight of a dethroned monarch being led to
his death. It was a solemn trial. ' You are about to give a lesson to all tho
nations,' said the judge, when he had informed Louis that he was accused
of treason. The judges each voted what should be the punishment. When
the president arose to announce the vote, there had been 387 for death, a
majority of 53 out of the 721 votes cast. The King was taken to the Place
de la Concorde, a lofty platform was erected, where now stands the obelisk.
1 1 die innocent. I forgive the authors of my death; I pray that my blood
may not fall on France, but that it may appease the wrath of my enemies,'
were his last words, and the soul of Louis was ushered into eternity. Then
came the Reign of Terror. The revolutionists were in a desperate situation.
All France rose en masse. Young men rushed to the army, women made
clothing, the children made lint for the wounded, while the old men in-
spired a feeling of terrible hatred, and the revolution continued until the
allied forces were drawn from the country. There were two parties in Paris
struggling for supremacy. Tho Jacobins were in power, and were the idols of
the people. Danton, a natural leader of the people, believed that the only
way to save France, was to destroy all who were deemed tho least dangerous.
A tribunal was formed to decide who should be guillotined. First suffered
the Royalists, then came the Girondists. Marat was a member of the trium-
virate. He was repulsive in appearance. He had the instincts of a tiger,
and was continually calling for new heads for the guillotine. Charlotte Cor-
dayl the beautiful heroine of the Revolution, remarkable for her beauty and
spotless character, resolved to strike down the Jacobin leaders. She called
upon Marat; found him in the bath; gave him a list of names for death, and
as he read them, with one blow of the dagger killed him. The act of Char-
lotte Corday was a mistake. She only gave greater impetus to the terror
which reigned, instead of bringing about peace, which she had intended.
'She has killed us, but she taught us how to die,' said the enemy. Great
was the courage of the twenty-two Girondists as they met their doom, and
on their way to the Place de Greve, in the true spirit of French republican-
ism, they sang the ' Marseillaise ' and continued to sing, the song growing
fainter as the numbers decreased. In thirty-one minutes the twenty-two
Girondist leaders were beheaded. Their memory was cherished by all true
friends of liberty. Madame Roland, the noble patriot, soon after yielded up
her life, and she it was who gave utterance to the famous sentence, ' Oh,
Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name 1' The Reign of Terror
was a constant succession of cruel tragedies. Marie Antoinnette was con-
fined to a cell where she suffered every indignity, and was then taken in a
common cart to the guillotine where, looking upon the Tuileries, the former
homo of the proud queen, she died at the hands of the executioner, and her
body was thrown into a coffin that cost 7 francs ($1.40.) To die thus wa
terrible, but to die and leave her children in horrible captivity, was more
76 CYCLOPEDIA OF VSEFVL KNOWLEDGE.
terrible. The story of the little Dauphin is the most pathetic. The Dau-
phin was placed in solitary confinement, poorly fed and miserably clad,
where he finally died at the age of ten years. Historians differ as to the
death of this young Prince. Robespierre was the last of the leaders of the
Jacobins. Ho was a thin man, with rasping voice. There was nothing at-
tractive in his appearance. In the Assembly ho was for some time of little
account; but gradually he made for himself a position, and nice observers
noted in him a quality of fanatical earnestness and conviction, in virtue of
which they surmised for him a great career. ' This man,' said Mirabeau,
' will go far, for he believes every word he says.' He became a merciless
fanatic, with supreme power. Ho was ready to send to the guillotine his
best friends, if they crossed his path. Robespierre, as was natural, had
many enemies, and in particular, the numerous friends of Danton were
eager to avenge his death. A conspiracy was organized against the tyrant,
and after a scene of fierce struggle, his arrest was accomplished. He was
atruck down in the Hotel de Ville, and as he lay on the table bleeding from
Ids wounds not a hand was stretched out to give him water. The multitude
spat upon him and insulted him in every manner possible, but his courage
never faltered, and he was taken to the guillotine to suffer the same death
which he had brought, to so many. When the knife fell that severed his
head from his body loud and unanimous were the cheers that went up from
the crowd. ' Yes, Robespierre, there is a God,' cried out an old man. But
with his death the Reign of Terror did not end. In three days 114 victims
suffered death. Finally came Napoleon, the reseller of the people from im-
pending anareiiy. The young man was summoned by the Assembly to take
command of the forces to put down the revolution. ' Yes, I am in the habit
of accomplishing all that I undertake,' were his words, when questioned as
to the success of the enterprise. But he in turn, led on by ambition, founded
for a brief tune a land of Roman empire, and he himself became the Caesar
of the Nineteenth Century."
Braddock's Defeat. The dispute with the French in respect to the
Ohio lands, which commenced in Virginia, was vigorously taken up in Eng-
land, and two regiments were at once ordered to America to maintain the
claim of the British Crown to the territory in dispute. These troops arrived
in the early part of 1755, under the command of General Braddock, who in-
vited Washington to serve during the campaign as a volunteer aide-de-camp.
This invitation he at once accepted, and joined the regiment on its march to
Fort Cumberland. At this post the expedition was unfortunately detained
until near the middle of June, waiting for teams and army stores, and by
V he time they were ready to march Washington was prostrated by a serious
illness, but, with his characteristic spirit, he refused to remain at the fort,
und accompanied the army hi a covered wagon. The object of the campaign
being to capture Fort Duquesne by a rapid march and possible surprise,
Washington advised the general to leave his heavy artillery and baggage
behind, and to press forward with a chosen body of troopa as expeditiously
as possible. Tin's advice being adopted, twelve hundred men were selected,
to be commanded by General Braddock in person, and to advance with the
utmost dispatch. But much to the dissappointmeut of Washington, the
march was not made with the speed or caution the exigencies of the case re-
quired. Writing to his brother, Washington said: "I found that instead of
pushing on with vigor, without regarding a little rough road, they were
halting to level every molehill and to erect bridges over every brook." At
HISTORY. 77
Little Meadows Washington was so overcome by sickness that he had to
remain behind for a few days until the arrival of Colonel Dunbar with the
remainder of the army. He again reached the main army on the day before
that eventful battle in our early history. This was on the 9th of July, when
General Braddock, having crossed the Monongahela Eiver, was pressing
forward to Fort Duquesne without caution or preparation to prevent sur-
prise. Earnestly Washington expostulated with him and explained to him
the peculiar warfare of the wily savage, but to this advice of the colonial
militia officer the vain and arrogant Braddock gave a contemptuous reply
that he had nothing to fear from French or Indians, and that he commanded
British troops whose bravery and tactics were superior to that of any savage
foe. Thus he marched his troops on without a single scout until within a
few miles of Fort Duquesue, when suddenly they fell into that terrible and
deadly ambush so familiar to history as one of the most stupid and obstinate
blunders ever made by a military man. Here the hidden foe of French and
Indians in the high grass and behind trees poured their deadly volleys of
musketry into the broken and disordered ranks, and with dead and dying
strewing the ground in every direction, the greatest consternation prevailed,
and officers and soldiers alike went down or fled, unable to see or fight their
foe. Washington and his Virginia militia alone were cool, and they alone
saved the remnant of the British army from entire destruction. Skilled in
the Indian mode of warfare, the Virginia troops took to the shelter of tho
trees, and by their well-directed fire held the savages in check and stopped
the relentless pursuit and butchery. Braddock was soon shot down, and
the entire defence devolved on Washington, who rode through the hottest
of the engagement and had two horses killed under him, and four bullet*
passed through his coat. It seems indeed a Providential interposition that
saved him Irom the fate of those around him.
Never before was an army more completely surprised in daylight, or
thrown into greater dismay or disorder. A thousand deadly bullets were
whistling through the forest, and hundreds of panic-stricken soldiers writhed
in death agonies. This was the fearful surprise, the awful ambush against
which Washington had continually warned Braddock, who had time in his
dying agonies, while being carried to the camp of Dunbar, to realize his
fatal mistake, if he did not even fully realize it on the field of his terrible
defeat, while Washington's heroic deeds upon that bloody field stand out as
one of the brightest pages of his renown.
The Plague of London The great plague of London in 1665 formi
a climax in the history of diseases. Many, with Milton or Defoe, looked
upon the plague as the judgment of Heaven upon the misdeeds of theh
rulers. London in the winter and spring of 1664-'65 was crowded with people;
in the West End the wealthy and noble gathered around Westminster and
Whitehall, in the city and the eastern suburbs trade had revived. The
river was full of ships, the streets filled with an overflowing ticle of life.
Defoe has painted with his realistic pen the slow rise of the pestilence, tho
first alarm, the hopes, the fears, the progress of the scourge secretly and
then openly, the flight of the citizens, the horrid gloom, the death cries, the
yawning graves, crime, woe, the decline of the pestilence, the boundless
joy of the survivors, the return of the impenitent Court. For a long time it
had been known in London that the plague had been raging on the Conti-
nent, brought from the East by some unlucky trader; but in the winter of
1661 only a few cases had been noticed iu the capital, .vet these were enough
71 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
to excite a deep anxiety. But the winter came on sharp and bleak, and
seemed to kill the disease, as if it could only flourish in the hot air of sum-
mer. It disappeared wholly. It revived in May a cool, pleasant month;
it lingered in the filth and squalor of St. Giles's, and in June broke into
fearful activity. The pestilence had come; the citizens who were able
closed their houses and shops and fled. The Court had gone to Oxford; for
weeks the streets were filled with crowds of people moving to the country
on horseback, on foot, carrying their furniture, goods, wares, the rich and
poor mingled in a common calamity.
But many were forced to stay, and on these the pestilence fell with
almost unaccountable fury. The hot weather of July roused it to virulence;
in August it was fearful; in September the horrors told of it surpass belief.
It first appeared with a tumor on the breast or under the arm, hard, pain-
lul, horrible the plague-spot. The physicians when they saw the fearful
omen would cry, " Lift up your eyes to God! " In a few hours it was fatal.
Sometimes the patient sank under a raging lever, headache; sometimes
faded away in a swift decline, almost painless; some seemed to die of
fright; some hanged themselves to escape it; some were seized in the
streets, and died before they could reach their own doors. In September
8,000 persons died weekly, and 60,000 it was believed were infected. The
Lord Mayor of the city, his sheriff and aldermen, remained bravely at their
post; they did nil that man could do. They ordered, when too late, the
streets to be purified; funerals or rather burials were only to be per-
formed at night, when there was to be no tolling of bells, no outward cere-
monial. But at night the fatal cart began its rounds, and at every infected
house the cry was heard, " Bring out your dead!" They were thrown
together in huge piles; in the churchyards deep pits were dug, and here by
the gleam of torches the bodies were thrown in and lightly covered with
earth.
Every house that was infected was isolated; a watchman stood at the
entrance; no one was suffered to go in or out except the physician; upon
the door was placed a large red cross inscribed: " Lord have mercy on us."
They might well cry for mercy. The air seemed tainted; grass grew in once
crowded streets; the trade of the capital was lost; the ships hung idly in the
Thames; the miserable poor died by thousands, and saved the city from the
cost of feeding them, which it never has failed to do. The recreant King
and Court would fly from the scene of duty, but the city officials showed no
trace of fear. The Mayor was constantly in the streets; even the constables
and watchmen were seldom at rest; many of them died. Day and night, at
last, an observer relates, the labor of burial went on. Bancroft, Dean of St.
Paul's, had fled to Tunbridge; his canons remained, and some of their
letters to the Dean still exist the cry of utter despair.
Whole streets of houses were shut up and deserted; men fled from each
other when they met; the money paid to the butcher or baker was invariably
fumigated; thieves wandered through the deserted shops and dwellings,
and sometimes died in them. Fearful tales were told of nurses who
smothered and robbed their patients; of deeds of horror that were never
punished; of the infected who ran shrieking about the streets, and fell
dead; of homes in which all had died together. August, September, passed
with growing horrors; in November the colder weather seemed to check the
disease, and many who came back too hastily were infected and died. At
last in December the great deliverance came; the pestilence had ceased. A
wild, a fearful joy spread over the afflicted city; ita people came back once
HISTORY. 'II
more to the desolate scene, maddened with a strange exhilaration. Those
who survived were crazed with the joy of living. Once more the great city
was thronged with the rich, busy, gay; the Court and King came back; a
rigid law was passed to punish Dissenters; the revels and crimes of White-
hall began again; but nothing was done by Court or King to prevent the
return of that awful scourge that had so recently passed away. A mightier
power intervened. A new calamity seemed to prevent a recurrence of the
old. The great fire of London soon followed, swept over the tainted ground,
consumed churches and church-yards --St. Paul's and St. Mary's shops,
warehouses, palaces, hovels, cleansed many a narrow close, purified many a
scene of horror. The city was rebuilt with wider streets, better buildings.
Perhaps its citizens had learned neatness and propriety; but it is certain that
the plague never cume again, and that by the labors of modern science tho
vast capital has been made one of the healthiest and most fortunate of
cities.
The Burning of Moscow. The following graphic description of
this thrilling episode in the career of the first Napoleon is extracted from an
exceedingly interesting book of travels entitled "Eed-Letter Days Abroad,"
by John L. Stoddard (Boston: James B. Osgood & Co.):
It was by moonlight on a summer evening that we went forth from
our hotel, and, standing near St. Basil's Church, took a farewell look
at the Kremlin. Never before had Moscow seemed to me such an Orien-
tal city; for its gilded towers, sparkling ia the moonbeams, recalled
the Turkish minarets which I had often watched thus from the Bosphorus.
I thought then of the night which Napoleon passed within those Kremlin
walls apparently a conqueror, but really on the verge of a sublime catas-
trophe. " We shall see," he had exclaimed on entering the Kremlin, " what
the Eussiana will do. If they refuse to treat with me, our winter quarters
are assured. We shall give to the world the singular spectacle of an army
wintering in an enemy's country. In the springtime will come mild
weather and victory! " Napoleon believed that his genius had foreseen
everything. It had, indeed, foreseen every possibility, save one, namely,
the suicide of Moscow! As the exultant French entered the city which
seemed to them the goal of their desires, they found it a desert without food
or inhabitants. Even here the Eussian army persisted in its policy of
retreating and never fighting; for well it knew that in the field the Eagles
of France moved only to victory. Its population of three hundred thousand
had fled, and only some liberated convicts and abandoned wretches watched
the triumphant entry of the conqueror. It was appalling. The French
were starving; and Moscow was empty! But this was only the commence-
ment.
Scarcely had Napoleon entered the Kremlin, when the liberated convicts
Aegan their work, and those flames burst forth whose lurid after-glow was
to light the path to Waterloo and St. Helena. There was something sublime
in this act of the Eussians. To thwart the otherwise invincible Napoleon,
they gave up to the devouring element their ancient, beautiful and holy
city, although it was the idol of every Eussian heart, and though her shrines
were to him the holiest in the world, hallowed by seven centuries of his-
torical association! This fearful sea of flame spoke, therefore, in a million
fiery tongues of the grandest sacrifice ever made to national feeling.
Starting from eleven different places, the conflagration raged for three
days with terrific fierceness. The Russians had removed all the engines,
80 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
and the dismayed French could do almost nothing to check it, though the in-
cendiaries were shot down like dogs. But what words can describe the
horror of that scene ? Amid the glorious palaces and churches resplen-
dent in the flames, the convicts and abandoned wretches ran like vermin,
engaged in universal pillage, and covering their filthy rags with furs and
costly robes. What the fire spared, the greedy clutch of ravishers de-
stroyed; and works of elegance and luxury went down either in the awful
holocaust or in the vortex of remorseless war. No less than twenty thou-
sand Russian soldiers who had been left in the Moscow hospitals were
burned to death.
What wonder that Napoleon, though quartered in the Kremlin, now
sought to make peace with his peculiar foe ? But now the Russians laughed,
and Kutuzoff, their leader, answered: "I have but just opened the cam-
paign, for now I see approaching- my ally, Winter! " And then commenced
that terrible retreat, whose horrors have baffled the power of brush and
pencil to portray. All the annals of war furnish no parallel to the story of
that march, which has been forever frozen into the memory of man. The
frost and enow made frightful havoc with the host, which in the most awful
scenes of carnage had never blanched. Such was their agony for food that
officers and soldiers alike fought for the carcasses of the horses as they fell,
and ate them raw.
Freezing, yet struggling to the last against the eddying snow and pierc-
ing wind, they staggered on, till one after another fell from the ranks, to be
coffined only in the shroud of ice woven around them by the pitiless storm-
king. The exact extent of the French loss is unknown, but a Russian ac-
count states that when the icy mantle of the Beresina had melted in the
spring, there were found in the river alone thirty-six thousand dead bodies!
They were the laat ghastly remnant of the one hundred and thirty thousand
who perished on that tearful march, from cold, hunger, and fatigue!
Chronological American History. 923. Discovery of Greenland
by the Icelanders.
1435. Columbus born at Genoa, in Italy.
1492. Oct. 27, Cuba discovered.
1494. Columbus discovers Jamaica.
1497. Newfoundland and Labrador discovered by the Cabota.
1498. Aug. 1, Columbus discovers the South American continent.
1499. South America visited by Americus Vespucius.
1500. The Amazon at its mouth discovered by Pincon.
1512. April 2, Florida discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon.
1513. Sept. 26, Pacific Ocean discovered by Vasco Nunez de Balboa.
1516. Rio de la Plata discovered by Juan Riaz de Solis.
1519. March 13, Cortez lands at Tabasco in Mexico.
1520. Magellan discovers Patagonia.
De Ayllon discovers Carolina.
1522. Bermuda discovered by Juan Bennudez.
1537. California discovered by Cortez.
1539. Ferdinand de Soto heads an expedition to conquer Florida.
1541. De Soto discovers the Mississippi.
1562. Coligny attempts to found a colony of French Protestants in Florida.
1563. Slaves first imported into the West Indies by the English.
1565. St. Augustine founded by the Spaniards.
1576. Elizabeth's and Frobisher's Straite discovered by Martin Frobisher.
HISTORY. 81
1584. Sir Walter Raleigh dispatches two vessels to Virginia.
1586. Discovery of Davis's Straits.
1602. May 15, Cape Cod discovered and named by Bartholomew Goenold.
1603. Coast of Maine visited by Martin Pring.
1605. Port Eoyal, Acadie [Nova Scotia], founded by the French under De
Monts.
1608. July 3, Quebec founded by Champlain.
1609. Hudson Eiver discovered by Henry Hudson.
1610. Delaware Bay named in honor of Lord de la War, who visited the
bay at that time and died on his vessel at his mouth.
1611. Lake Champlain discovered by Champlaiu.
1613. Pocahontas weds John Eolfe.
1614. New York settled by the Dutch on Manhattan Island (now New York)
and at Fort Orange (Albany).
1616. Tobacco first cultivated in Virginia.
1619. June 19, first colonial assembly in Virginia.
1620. Slaves first introduced into Virginia by the Dutch.
Nov. 10, the Mayflower anchors in Cape Cod harbor; first white child
born in New England.
Dec. 11, landing of the Puritans at Plymouth.
1621. May 12, first marriage at Plymouth.
1623. Maine and New Hampshire settled by the English. Now Jersey set-
tled by the Swedes and Dutch.
1627. Delaware settled by Swedes and Finns.
1628. Salem, Mass., founded by John Endicott.
1629. Charlestown founded by the Massachusetts Bay colony.
1634. Maryland founded by Lord Baltimore.
1636. Hartford settled. Providence, E. I., founded by Eoger Williams.
1638. New Haven founded by Eaton and Davenport. Harvard college
founded.
1639. First printing press Bet up at Cambridge, Mass., by Stephen Day.
1640. Montreal founded.
1648. First execution for witchcraft. New London settled.
1650. Harvard college chartered. Constitution of Maryland settled.
1663. Carolina granted to Lord Clarendon by Charles II.
1665. June 12, New York city incorporated.
1672. Charleston, S. C., founded. First copyright granted by Massachusetts.
1675. June 24, commencement of King Philip's war; attack on Swanzey.
1681. Grant of Pennsylvania to William Penn.
1687. First printing-press established near Philadelphia by William Brad-
ford.
1693. First printing-press established in New York, by William Bradford.
1699. Kidd the pirate apprehended at Boston.
1701. Yale College founded at Saybrook. Commencement of Queen Anne'a
war.
1703. Culture of silk introduced into Carolina. Duty of 4 laid on imported
negroes in Massachusetts.
1704. First newspaper (Boston News Letter) published at Boston, by Bar-
tholomew Green.
1709. First printing-press in Connecticut, set up at New London, by Thomas
Short.
1710. First colonial post-office at New York.
1712. Free schools founded in Charlestown, Mass.
82 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
1714. First schooner built at Cape Ann.
1717. New Orleans founded by the French.
1719. First Presbyterian church founded in New York.
1721. Inoculation for small-pox introduced into New England.
1725. First newspaper in New York (New Ym-k Gazette), published by Wil-
liam Bradford.
1729. North and South Carolina separated.
1732. Tobacco made a legal tender in Maryland at Id. per pound, and corn
at 20d. per bushel.
Feb. 22, George Washington born.
1733. Georgia settled by Oglethorpe.
1738. College founded at Princeton, N. J.
1742. Faneuil Hall erected at Boston by Peter Faneuil.
1744. King George's war begins;
1750. First theatrical performance in Boston.
1754. Columbia College in New York founded.
Beginning of the old French war.
1755. July 9, Braddock's defeat.
Sept. 8, battle of Lake George.
1757. Fort William Henry taken by the French.
1759. Niagara, Ticonderogo, and Crown Point taken by the English, in July.
Sept. 13, battle on the Plains of Abraham; Wolf and Montoalm slain.
Sept. 18, Quebec surrenders to the English.
1764. April 21, Louisiana ordered to be given up to Spain.
1769. Dartmouth College incorporated.
1773. Dec. 16, destruction of 342 chests of tea in Boston harbor.
1775. Several ships of the line and ten thousand troops ordered to America.
April 19, battle of Lexington.
Congress votes to raise an army of twenty thousand men.
Juno 15, George Washington appointed Commauder-in-Chief of the
American army.
June 17, battle of Bunker's Hill.
July 12, Washington takes command of the army at Cambridge.
1776. March 17, the British evacuate Bo*ton.
April, Washington removes his army to New York.
June 28, repulse of the British at Charleston.
July 4, Declaration of Independence.
Aug. 27, battle of Long Island; the British victorious.
Washington abandons New York city; the British take possession,
Sept. 15.
Oct. 28, battle of White Plains.
1777. Lafayette arrives from France with troops and supplies; Congress
gives him a Major-General's commission, July 31.
Aug. 16, battle of Bennington.
Sept. 11, battle of Brandywine.
Oct. 17, surrender of the British army under Burgoyne.
1778. June 18, the British evacuate Philadelphia.
July 11, arrival of a French fleet under Count d'Estaing.
1780. May 12, surrender of Gen. Lincoln and American army at Charleston.
Sept. 23, treason of Gen. Arnold, and arrest of Major Andre.
1781. Bank of North America established.
Oct. 19, surrender of Cornwallis and 7,000 troops at Yorktown,
1782. April 17, Holland acknowledges our independence.
HISTORY. 83
1782. Nov. 30, preliminaries of peace between the United States and Great
Britain signed at Paris.
1783. Independence of the United States acknowledged by Sweden, Feb. 5;
by Denmark, Feb. 25; by Spain, March 24; and by Russia, in July.
April 11, peace proclaimed by Congress; April 19, announced to the
army by Washington.
Nov. 25, New York evacuated by the British.
1786. Shay's insurrection in Massachusetts.
1789. George Washington elected President; inaugurated April 30.
1793. Washington re-elected President. Death of John Hancock.
1794. Insurrection in Pennsylvania.
1797. March 1, John Adams inaugurated President.
1799. Dec. 14, death of Washington.
1800. Seat of government removed to the city of Washington.
1801. March 4, Thomas Jefferson inaugurated President.
1804. Alexander Hamilton killed by Aaron Burr in a duel.
1807. Trial of Aaron Burr for treason. Steamboat invented by Robert Fulton.
1808. Jan. 1, the slave trade abolished.
1809. March 4, James Madison inaugurated President.
1811. Nov. 7, battle of Tippecanoe.
1812. June 18, war declared.
1813. May 27, battle of Fort George.
Sept. 10, Commodore Perry's victory on Lake Erie.
1814. Aug. 25, the British occupy the city of Washington, and burn th
Capitol.
Sept. 11, Macdonough's victory on Lake Champlain.
1815. Jan. 8, battle of New Orleans.
March, war declared with Algiers.
1817. March 4, James Monroe inaugurated President.
1819. First steamship sailed for Europe.
1821. Gas first used for lighting streets in the United States, at Baltimore.
1825. March 4, John Quincy Adams inaugurated President.
1829. March 4, Andrew Jackson inaugurated President.
May 2, hail falls in Tuscaloosa, Ala., to the depth of twelve inches.
1833. March 4, Andrew Jackson inaugurated President for a second term.
May 16, Santa Anna inaugurated President of Mexico.
1835. Dec. 16, great fire in New York.
Seminole war in Florida begun.
1837. March 4, Martin Van Buren inaugurated President.
1841. March 4, William Henry Harrison inaugurated President.
April 4, Death of General Harrison, John Tyler succeeds to the execu-
tive.
1845. March 4, James Knox Polk inaugurated President.
June 8, death of Andrew Jackson.
1846. May 13, proclamation of war existing with Mexico.
Oct. 25, Tobasco in Mexico bombarded by Commodore Perry.
1847. Sept. 14, the American army enters the city of Mexico.
1848. Feb. 23, John Quincy Adams expires in the Capitol at Washington.
1849. March 5, inauguration of Zachary Taylor as President.
May 15, the cholera breaks out in New York.
1850. July 9, death of President Taylor at Washington.
July 10, Millard Fillmore takes the oath of office as President.
Sept. 18, fugitive v slave bill passed.
84 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
1852. Jun 29, Henry Clay dies at Washington.
Got. 24, Daniel Webster dies at Marslifleld.
1853. March 4, Franklin Pierce inaugurated President.
July 14, Crystal Palace at New York opened.
1856. May 22, Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, violently as-
saulted in the Senate chamber at Washington, by Preston C. Brooks,
representative from South Carolina.
1857. March 4, James Buchanan inaugurated President.
1858. Aug. 5, news of the successful laying of the Atlantic telegraph cable
is received throughout the country with great demonstrations of joy.
The cable was placed in mid-ocean July 29; the Agamemnon reached
Valencia, Aug. 4, and the Niagara Trinity Bay, Aug. 5.
1859. Oct. 6, John Brown's seizure of Harper's Ferry; he is taken, and hung
Dec. 2.
1860. May 18, Lincoln nominated by Republican convention at Chicago.
Nov. 6, Abraham Lincoln elected President.
1861. Feb. 4, Seceders' convention at Montgomery, Ala.; they call them-
selves "Confederate States of America," and adopt a constitution.
Feb. 14, Jeff. Davis made President of the Confederates; they raise
troops and arm for war.
April 14, Fort Sumter surrenders after two days' bombardment by the
Confederates.
1862. Feb. 1, Gen. Grant takes Fort Donelson with over 13,000 prisoners,
after four days of tremendous fighting.
Feb. 22, Jeff. Davis inaugurated rebel President for six years.
May 31, battle of Fair Oaks, McClellan's advance defeated severely by
rebels.
June 6, great naval battle in the river before Memphis; rebel fleet
nearly annihilated; Memphis surrendered on the same day to Com-
modore Davis.
July 1, battle of Malvern Hill, last of the Seven Days' Battles; rebels
repulsed with great loss, and the position on the James maintained.
Total Union losses in seven days, 15,244.
July 1, President Lincoln calls for 600,000 volunteers.
Aug. 29 and 30, Gen. Pope defeated at Bull Bun after very heavy
fighting, and falls back.
Sept. 16 and 17, battle of Antietam; rebels defeated, losing 25,000.
Sept. 22, Emancipation Proclamation announced for Jan. 1, 1863.
1863. Jan. 1, the definite Emancipation Proclamation issued.
May 1-5, battle of Chancellorsville; indecisive, but great losses on
both sides.
July 1-3, battle of Gettysburg; Lee defeated and retreats at once
southward.
July 4, unconditional surrender of Yicksburg and 31,000 men to Gen.
Grant.
July 13-18, draft riots in New York city, several negroes tortured and
hung by mob, and much burning and robbing; 1,300 rioters killed,
and riots put down.
Oct. 17, President Lincoln calls for 300,000 more men.
1864. March 17, Gen. Grant assumes supreme command of all the armies of
the United States.
May 5-6, the tremendous battle of the Wilderness; resulting in Lee's
retiring.
HISTORY. 85
1864. Jane 7, Mr. Lincoln renominated at Baltimore.
July 16, gold about this time at its highest in New York, viz.: 284 per
cent.
Aug. 5, Admiral Farragut's splendid victory, in forcing his way into
Mobile Harbor.
Nov. 8, Lincoln and Johnson elected. Gen. McClellan resigns his
commission.
1865. April 2, Grant attacks heavily along his whole line; Lee decisively
defeated, Petersburg and Richmond evacuated at night, and Davis
flees.
April 9, Lee surrenders remains of his army; being 26,115 men.
April 14, Booth assassinates President Lincoln, and his confederate
Payne tries to kill Mr. Seward; Mr. Lincoln dies at 7:22 next morning.
April 25, Booth discovered in a barn in Va., and refusing to surrender,
is shot and dies in four hours.
May 10, Jeff. Davis captured in female disguise at Irwinsville, Ga.
July 7, the assassins Harold, Payne, Atzeroth and Mrs. Surratt, hung
at Washington; Arnold, Mudd, Spangle and McLaughh'n imprisoned
for life.
Dec. 18, the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, officially declared slavery
abolished throughout the United States, 27 States having ratified
the Constitutional Amendment.
1866. July 4, extensive conflagration in Portland, Me.; one third of the city
burnt, and property amounting to $10,000,000.
July 27. laying of the Atlantic cable successively completed.
1868. Nov. 3, Gen. Grant was elected President, and Schuyler Colfax Vico-
President.
1871. Oct. 8, commenced and continued for several days, in Chicago, 111.,
one of the greatest conflagrations of modern times, in which more
than 250 persons lost their lives, and destroyed property to the
enormous amount of $196,000,000.
1876. Centennial anniversary of American Independence.
1877. March 4, Rutherford B. Hayes inaugurated President.
1881. March 4, James A. Garfield inaugurated President.
July 2, President Garfield shot by Charles J. Guiteau at Washington.
Sept. 19 President Garfield died at Long Branch.
Sept. 20, Chester A. Arthur inaugurated President.
1885. March 4, Grover Cleveland inaugurated President.
NATURAL HISTORY.
The Lion. The lion is chiefly an inhabitant of Africa, although it is
found also in Borne of the wilds of Asia, particularly in certain parts of Ara-
bia, Persia, and India. It is not, in general, an inhabitant of deep forests,
but rather of open plains, in which the shelter of occasional bushes or thick-
ets may be found. The breeding-place is always in some much secluded
retreat, in which the young two, three, or fcnir in a litter are watched over
with great assiduity by both parents, and, if necessary, are defended with
great courage although,
in other circumstances,
the lion is more disposed
to retire from man than
to assail him or contend
with him. When met in an
open country, he retires
at first slowly, as if ready
for battle, but not desirous
of it; then more swiftly;
and finally, by rapid
bounds. If compelled to
defend himself he mani-
fests great courage. He
often springs upon his prey
by a sudden bound accom-
panied with a roar; and it
is said that if he fails in
seizing it, he does notusu-
ally pursue, but retires as
if ashamed; it is certain,
however, that the lion also often takes its prey by pursuing it, and with great
perseverance. The animal singled out for pursuit, as a zebra, may be swifter
of foot than the lion, but greater power of endurance enables him to make
it [his victim. Deer and antelopes are perhaps the most common food of
lions. Like the rest of the Felidce, it is a nocturnal animal; its eyes are
adapted for the night or twilight rather than for the day. It lurks generally
in its lair during the day, and issues as night comes on, when its tremendous
roar begins to be heard in the wilderness. It has a horror of fires and torch
lights, of which travelers in Africa avail themselves, when surrounded by
prowling lions in the wilderness by night, and bleep in safety.
The Hippopotamus. The common hippopotamus is one of the larg-
est of existing quadrupeds, the bulk of its body being little inferior to that
of the elephant; although its legs are so short that its belly almost touches
the ground, and its height is not much above five feet. It is extremely
aquatic in its habits, living mostly in lakes or rivers, often in tidal estuaries,
NATURAL HISTORY. 87
where the saltness of the water compels it to resort to springs for the pur-
pose of drinking, and sometimes even in the sea, although it never proceeds
to any considerable distance from the shore. Its skin is very thick on the
back and sides, more than two inches; it is dark brown, destitute of hair,
and exudes in great abundance from its numerous pores, a thickish, oily
fluid, by which it is kept constantly lubricated. The tail is short. The feet
have each four toes, nearly equal in size, and hoofed. The neck is short and
thick. The head is very large, with small ears, and small eyes placed high,
BO that they are easily raised above water, without much of the animal being
exposed to view. The muzzle is very large, rounded, and tumid, with large
THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.
nostrils and great lips concealing the large front teeth. The hippopotamus
cuts grass or corn as if it were done with a scythe, or bites with its strong
teeth a stem of considerable thickness neatly through. The skull, while it
is distinguished by remarkable peculiarities, corresponds in the most impor-
tant characters with that of the hog. The respiration of the hippopotamus
is slow, and thus it is enabled to spend much of its time under water, only
coming to the surface at intervals to breathe. It swims and dives with great
ease, and often walks along the bottom, completely under water. Its food
consists chiefly of the plants which grow in shallow waters, and about the
margins of lakes and rivers. The hippopotamus is lively and playful in its
native waters; it soon learns to avoid man, and when it cannot retire among
reeds for concealment, it dives and remains long under water, raising only
its nose to the surface when another breath becomes necessary. The female
hippopotamus may sometimes be seen swimming with her young one on her
88 CYCLOPEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
back. The animal is generally inoffensive, but is occasionally roused to fits
of rage, in which it becomes extremely dangerous, particularly to those who
pursue it in boats. Its voice is loud and harsh, and is likened by Burck-
hardt to the creaking and groaning of a large wooden door.
The Elephant. For ages mankind have been familiar with the gen-
eral character of the elephant, the largest animal on the globe; but travelers
and naturalists are very frequently discovering new facts hi regard to their
habits, instincts, and sagacity, which give new interest to the character of
that monster. It is now settled that there are several distinct species. Those
in equatorial Africa are vastly larger than the variety with which Europeans
are mostly acquainted in the East Indies. The first have immensely large
pendulous ears, which when thrown back cover the whole of the shoulders,
and thus serve an important purpose in fanning and keeping off annoying
insects. The others have comparatively small ears, less serviceable as pro-
tecting instruments. The African elephant rarely has the two tusks of the
same size or length. Banging about in herds they unite in actively uproot-
ing large trees for the sake of the tender leaves they know are only at the
top. While some pry and lift with the right tusk under a resisting root,
others push against the trunk and thus heave it over. They are right-
handed, like all quadrupeds, as well as man. The right tusk, in conse-
quence of being used most, is not only stouter and larger than the left, but
often broken off at the point from misadventure in their foraging operations.
Formerly, when large numbers of elephants were trained for war in the
neighborhood of Calcutta, long rows of huge fellows having heavy iron chains
thirty feet long fastened to a collar, at word of command would suddenly
wind them round their trunks and at bidding throw them out horizontally
with prodigious force, sweeping down whole platoons of soldiers at once
when in close engagement.
The Bear. The American black bear ( Ursus AmericanuK) is found in
all parts of North America. Its total length seldom exceeds five feet. The
fur is soft and smooth, and generally of a glossy black; but there are vari-
eties of other colors, as the cinnamon bear, the yellow bear, etc. The
American black bear usually exhibits a timid disposition, seldom attacks
man, feeds chiefly on berries, when they can be obtained, occasionally visits
gardens for the sake of cabbages and other vegetables, and strongly prefers
vegetable to animal food, but has recourse to the latter when pressed by
hunger, and in such circumstances occasionally approaches human habita-
tions and captures pigs, which it endeavors to carry off. In such cases the
bear walks on its hind legs, the pig being firmly sqtieezed between its fore-
paws and breast, making a noise which frequently leads to a rescue. This
and other species of bear, when assailed, not unfrequently hug their adver-
saries in the manner here described, when their strength renders them very
dangerous. The skin of the American black bear is used for caps, rugs, etc.,
and great numbers are annually killed upon this account, chiefly by the
Indians in the employment of the Hudson's Bay Company. The grizzly
bear ( U.ferox) of North America, found chiefly in the Rocky Mountains and
the plains to the eastward of them, from Mexico to lat. 61 n., is much larger
than the species already noticed, and much more fierce and carnivorous.
It sometimes measures more than nine feet from nose to tail, and the claws
of the fore-feet more than six inches in length. It has a lengthened and
narrowed muzzle, a very short tail, and long grizzled hair. No animal of
NATURAL HISTORY.
89
the New World is more formidable. It is capable of overpowering the bison,
and dragging away the huge carcass. It feeds, however, on fruits and
roots. The Arctic or polar bear, also called the white bear ( U. mari-
timus), resembles this species in size and fierceness, but is very distinctly
characterized by its flat head and comparatively long neck. It has a smooth
white fur. It is the only known species of bear which is strictly marine in
its habits, never being found far from the sea. It inhabits the most north-
erly shores of Asia and America, Spitzbergen, etc., where it pursues seals,
both in the water and upon the ice, and preys upon fishes, birds, etc.
Among the articles of its food are eggs and berries in their season, and in
confinement it will subsist long on bread and other vegetable food. Like
THE SYBIAN BEAU.
other species of the genus, it displays great affection for its young, and will
brave all dangers in their defence. Of other species of bear, the Syrian ( U.
Syriacus) may be mentioned, as perhaps the species particularly intended
by the name bear in the Old Testament. It is generally of a dingy-white or
brown color, and has a stiff mane of erect hairs between the shoulders.
Flocks are not safe from it, yet it more frequently commits ravages on crops
of pulse. In its habits generally it much resembles the common bear; as do
also the Tibet bear ( U. Fibetanus), and the spectacled bear ( U. ornatus), so
called from semicircular yellow marks above its eyes, a native of the Andes
of Chili. The long-lipped or sloth bear ( U. labiatus), of the East Indies, is
the kind commonly led about by Indian jugglers. Its long hair, short limbs,
high back, peculiarly uncouth appearance, and gentleness of disposition,
recommend it for this purpose. In a wild state, it is said to feed chiefly on
fruits, honey and ants. It possesses in a remarkable degree the power, com-
mon in some measures to all the bears, of protruding the lips in order to lay
hold of food. Some of the bear species spend the winter in a torpid state,
selecting a cavern or the hollow of a tree for hibernation.
90
CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The Bison. The American bison (Bos Americanus of some naturalists,
B. Bison of others) is interesting as the only species of the ox family indig-
enous to America, except the musk ox of the subarctic regions. It is com-
monly called Buffalo by the Anglo-Americans, although it is very different
from the buffaloes of the Old World. It is found in vast numbers in the
great prairies between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains; it occurs as
far north as the vicinity of Great Marten Lake, in lat. 63 or 64; extensive
level and marshy tracts there affording it suitable food, although it is no-
where else to be met with in so high a latitude. Its southern limit appears
to be in New Mexico. About 300,000 Indians are supposed to subsist almost
entirely on the flesh of the bison. The spear and the bow and arrow are still
much employed by them in hunting it, although many of them also use fire-
arms. They frequently pursue it on horseback; but the hunter, whether on
horseback or on foot, has often much difficulty in getting within shot, upon
account of its keenness of scent, and the speed with which it runs. The chase
of the bison is also
very dangerous, as it
is apt to turn upon an
adversary, and even
a fleet horse cannot al-
ways escape it. Great
numbers, however,
are sometimes killed
when the hunters can
succeed in throwing
the herds that are
scattered over the
plains into confusion,
so that they run wild-
ly, without heeding
whither. Another ex-
pedient of the Indians
is to set fire to the
grass of the prairies
around them, when
they retire in great consternation to the center, and are easily killed. A sort
of pound or enclosure is sometimes made, with a long avenue leading to it,
and an embankment of snow, such that when the animals have descended
over it they cannot return, and by this means great numbers are often cap-
tured and killed. Sometimes, also, the Indians contrive to throw them into
consternation, and to make them run towards a precipice, over which many
of the foremost are driven by the crowds which throng up behind.
The Tiger. This animal is one of the largest of the Felidce, equal per-
haps to the lion in size and strength, and superior in activity. It has no
trace of mane. It is more slender than the lion, its whole form more cat-
like, its head smaller and rounder. All its motions are performed with the
utmost grace and apparent ease. It does not climb trees, but winds ita way
through brushwood or jungle with great dexterity, runs very swiftly, and
can leap an immense distance. It takes its prey either by running, or, more
frequently, by lying in ambush and leaping upon it. Its strength is such
that it is capable of carrying off an ox or buffalo. It is sometimes fifteen feet
in entire length to the tip of the tail; an instance is on record of eighteen
THE BISON.
NATURAL HISTORY.
01
feet; the height is from three to four feet. The tigers of some regions differ
considerably in size from those of others; thus the tiger of Bengal is much
larger than that of Bokhara. The hair is thick, fine, and shining. The color
is a bright tawny yellow, beautifully marked with dark transverse bands,
passing into pure white on the under parts; the dark bands are continued
as rings on the tail. The tail is long, slightly tapering, clothed with hair
similar to that of the body. Individuals sometimes occur, of a pale whitish
color, obscurely striped, the stripes only visible in particular lights. The
tiger is found only in Asia. It abounds in Hindustan, in the Eastern Penin-
sula, in Java, Sumatra, and other tropical islands. It is found also in China'
and Japan, and in Persia. Its range, however, does not extend much to the
west of a line drawn from the mouth of the Indus to the Caspian Sea. It is
found as far north as the south of Siberia, and even on the banks of the Obi.
THE TIGEE.
It inhabits woods, and cannot exist without free access to water. The is-
lands of the delta of the Ganges have long been celebrated as a haunt of
tigers. The animal generally lies concealed in a thicket during the day, and
seeks its prey by night.
The Jaguar. The jaguar is one of the largest of the cat tribe, and by
far the most powerful and dangerous of the American beasts of prey. It is
nearly equal to the tiger in size. The color varies considerably, but is usu-
ally a rich yellow, with large black spots and rings, small black spots gen-
erally appearing within the rings. A black or very dark-brown variety oc-
curs, but the characteristic markings may be seen in certain lights, deeper
in color than the rest of the fur. The jaguar is strong enough to drag away
a horse, and swift enough to capture horses on the open pampas. It is
chiefly, however, an inhabitant of forests. It climbs trees, however smooth
the stem, and moves about with great agility among the branches, making
even monkeys its prey. The skins of jaguars are exported from South
America in great numbers.
92 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The Leopard. The leopard or panther is characterized by a pecub'tt
gracefulness, slenderness and flexibility of form, with a very long tail, and
spotted fur, the spots being arranged in numerous rows along the sides, and
each spot composed of five or six small spots arranged in a circle or rosette.
The general color is yellowish; the lower parts lighter; the spots darker
than the general color of the fur. The leopard is extremely agile, and pos-
sesses the power of leaping, and also that of climbing trees, in great perfec-
tion. It haunts wooded places, and is seldom to be found in open regions
of long grass, like the tiger. When pursued, it takes refuge, if possible, in
a tree, and if hard pressed, springs down on its assailants. It is cunning,
and adopts devices similar to those of the fox for carrying on its depreda-
THB LEOPABD.
tions, and concealing its place of retreat. Deer and antelopes are its
habitual prey; but it is equally ready to feed on pigs, poultry, or whatever
may be found in the vicinity of a farm or village. The size and strength
of the leopard render it as dangerous to man as any of the Felidce; but it
generally seems to dread and flee from man, unless assailed. It is very
capable of domestication.
The Wolf. The common wolf(Canis lupus) inhabits Europe and the
northern parts of Asia and America. It is of a yellowish or tawny-gray
color, with strong, coarse hair, which is longest on the ears, neck, shoulders
and haunches, but particularly on the throat; the muzzle is black, the
NATURAL HISTORY.
03
upper lip and chin white. The ears are erect and pointed, the muz-
zle sharp; the legs rather longer than those of the Shepherd's dog;
the tail bushy, but not curling; the eyes oblique, giving a peculiar vicious
expression to the countenance. The wolf is swift of foot, and hunts deer
and other animals, packs of wolves associating for this purpose; it also
often commits great ravages among sheep, and attacks calves, but seldom
full-grown oxen. It seldom attacks man, unless hard pressed by hunger,
when it becomes very dangerous. The hungry wolves which sometimes
descend, in severe winters, from the forests of the Alps, Pyrenees, and
other mountains, are much dreaded by the inhabitants of neighboring
regions; and terrible stories are told of travelers chased by packs of wolves
in the forest-covered plains of the east of Europe and in Spain. In general
the wolf is cowardly and stealthy, approaching sheepfolds and farm-build-
ings by night, in search of prey, and readily scared by any demonstration
of watchfulness, fleeing
from dogs, and not readi-
ly exposing itself within
range of shot. It defends
itself, however, with
great vigor, when com-
pelled to do so. It is not
easily trapped, being ex-
tremely cautious, and ap-
pearing to understand
the nature and purpose of
a trap almost as well as
those by whom it is set.
Wolves have often been
known even to approach
a trap so skilfully as to
devour the bait without
harm to themselves, get-
ting at it from below. The American wolves consist of several distinct
species, among which are the gray wolf, dusky wolf, black wolf, white wolf,
prairie wolf and coyote.
The Giraffe. The giraffe or camelopard ( Camdopardalis giraffa), the
tallest of quadrupeds, is ranked by some naturalists among deer (Cervidoe),
but more properly regarded as constituting a distinct family of ruminants,
which contains, however, only one species. It is a native of Africa, from
Nubia to the Cape of Good Hope, extensively diffused, but apparently no-
where abundant. It occurs generally in some herds of from five to forty. It
feeds on the leaves and small branches of trees. Its general aspect is
remarkable from the height of the foreparts and great elongation of the
neck, the head being sometimes eighteen feet from the ground. The num-
ber of vertebrae in the neck, however, is not greater than in other quad-
rupeds, and it has no extraordinary flexibility, although its form and move-
ments are very graceful. The body is short, and the back slopes from the
shoulder to the tail; but the greater height of the foreparts is not owing, as
has been often alleged, to the greater length of the forelegs, which are not
really longer than the hind legs, but to processes of the vertebrae, which
form a basis for the muscular support of the neck and head. The articula-
tion of the skull to the neck is such that the head can be easily thrown back
THE WOLF.
94 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Until it is in the same line with the neck, thus giving the animal additional
power of reaching its appropriate food. The skull has empty cavities, which
give lightness to the head, along with sufficient extent of surface for the
insertion of the ligament which supports it. The legs are long and slender;
the feet have cloven hoofs, but are destitute of the small lateral toes or
spurious hoofs, which occur in the other cloven-footed ruminants. The
head is long; the upper lip entire, projecting far beyond the nostrils, and
endowed with considerable muscular power. The tongue is remarkably
capable of elongation, and is an organ of touch and of prehension, like the
trunk of an elephant; it can be thrust far out of the mouth, and employed to
grasp and take up even very small objects; it is said that its tip can be so
tapered as to enter the ring of a very small key. The usefulness of such an
organ for drawing
in leaves and
branchlets to the
mouth is obvious.
The giraffe adroitly
picks off the leaves
of acacias and other
thorny plants, with-
o u t taking the
thorns into its
mouth. The denti-
tion of the giraffe
agrees with that of
antelopes, sheep,
goats and oxen; the
tipper jaw of the
male is destitute of
the canine teeth,
which are present
in the male of most
kinds of deer. The
head is furnished
with two remarka-
ble protuberances
between the ears,
generally described
as horns, bit very
different from the
horns of other ani-
mals, and each consisting of a bone united to the skull by an obvious
suture, permanent, covered with skin and hair, and terminated by long
hard bristles. There is also a projection on the forehead. The ears are
moderately long; the tail is long, and terminates in a tuft of long hair that
nearly reaches the ground. There is a callosity on the breast. The neck
has a very short mane. The hair is short and smooth; the color is a red-
dish white, marked by numerous dark rusty spots. The eye of the giraffe
is very large and lustrous, and so placed that the animal can look all
around without turning its head, so that in a wild state it is not easily
approached. Its nostrils have a muscle by which they can be closed, a pro-
vision for excluding particles of sand. It is an inoffensive animal and gen-
erally seeks safety, if possible, in flight, although it is capable of making a
THE GIKAFFE.
NATURAL HISTORY.
95
stout resistance, and is said to beat off the lion. It fights by kicking with
its hind legs, discharging a storm of kicks with extraordinary rapidity. It
is not easily overtaken even by a fleet horse, and has greatly the advantage
of a horse on uneven and broken ground. Its pace is described as an
amble, the legs of the same side moving at the same time.
The Zebu. The zebu, Indian ox, or Brahmin ox, is closely allied to
the common ox, of which naturalists generally regard it as a mere variety,
although some think it a distinct species (Bos Indicus). The most conspicu-
ous distinctive character is a large fatty lump on the back, above the
shoulders. The legs are rather more slender and delicate than in the
European ox. The hump attains a very great size in animals plentifully
supplied with food, and not compelled to work; in those which are ill-fed or
hard-worked, it is comparatively small. It is alleged that intermixture
takes place freely with the common ox, and that there is no difference of
anatomical structure, but these statements require verification. Mr. Vasey
found the number of camdal vertebra? in the zebu to be only eighteen, whilst
in the common ox it is tweffty-one. The zebu is diffused over India, China,
the Asiatic Islands, Madagascar, and the east coast of Africa. There are
many breeds, differing very much in size; the largest being larger than any
oxen of Europe, whilst the smallest are not much larger than a large mastiff.
The hump of the largest breeds is said to be sometimes fifty pounds in
weight. English residents in India esteem the hump as delicious for the
table. There are hornless breeds; but most of the breeds have short
horns. There is a breed with two fatty humps, one placed immediately
behind the other, which is common in the vicinity of Surat. The
voice of the zebu resembles the grunting of the yak, almost as nearly
as the lowing of the ox. The zebu is used in India both as a beast
of draught and of burden. It ia yoked in the plough, and is occasionally
used for riding. It can travel from twenty to thirty miles a day, and ia
very gentle and docile.
9G CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The Ant-Eater. The ant-eater is a genus of South American quad-
rupeds. They are perfectly toothless, their food being insects, and particu-
larly ants, which they procure in great numbers by thrusting among them
a very long cylindrical tongue, covered with a viscid saliva, and then
retracting it into the mouth. The head is remarkably elongated, with a
slender muzzle, and a small mouth. The tongue is doubled up in the
mouth when not in use for catching prey. The ears and eyes are very small.
The toes differ in number in the different species, but are united as far as
the base of the claws, which are very large and strong, adapted to tearing
up the habitations of ants. The great ant-eater (M.jubata), a native of the
warm parts of South America, and called in Demerara the ant bear, is about
four and one-half feet in length from the snout to the origin of the tail,
which is more than two feet long, and is covered with very long hair. The
THE ANT-EATEB
body is also covered with long hair, particularly along the neck and back.
There are four claws on each fore foot, and five on the hind ones. The ant-
eater spends much of Its time in bleep, the long snout concealed in the fur
of the breast, the hind and fore claws locked together, and the bushy tail
thrown over all, as if for a shade from the sun. It is very unsocial in its
habits, and is regarded an a very stupid animal. It has great strength in its
fore-legs and claws, and ia said to hug like the bear, so as to crush an enemy
to death. The female produces one young one at a birth, and carries it
about for some time on her back.
The Porcupine. The porcupine is a native of the south of Europe,
of many parts of Asia, and of most parts of Africa. It is one of the largest of
rodents, being from two to three feet in length, besides the tail, which is about
six inches long. The hinder part of the head and the neck are furnished
NATURAL HISTORY.
97
with a crest of long bristles, capable of being elevated or depressed at
pleasure. The muzzle and limbs are covered with very short hair; the
back and sides with spines, which are longest on the middle of the back,
where they are almost of the thickness of a goose quill, and more than a foot
long. The spines are supported by a slender pedicle, and they terminate
in a sharp point; they are longitudinally striated, and are ringed with black
aud white, which gives a general gray color to the animal. Their ordinary
position is flat, with the points directed backwards; but when the animal
is excited, they are erected, and it rolls itself up like the hedgehog, with
spines pointing in every direction. The tail spines or quills are of very
singular structure, being open thin-sided tubes, about two inches long,
supported upon slender flexible pedicles; and they make a sound by
THE POBCUPINE.
rattling together when the tail is shaien. The porcupine is said to rattle
also the spines of its body when irritated, but this is doubtful. The state-
ment has been often made, that it throws off its spines or quills by a
voluntary act, launching them at its adversaries; but it has no such power,
although it is possible that quills ready to come off may be detached in
moments of excitement, and fly to a small distance with sufficient force
to be annoying to a pursuer. The porcupine's armor is strictly defensive,
and it seeks to turn its back, and thus the points of its spines, to an
enemy. It is a solitary and nocturnal animal. It burrows in the ground,
and in winter it becomes torpid. It feeds on roots, bark, fruits, and
other vegetable substances, sometimes committing great depredations in
gardens. The spines or quills of the porcupine are used for various pur-
poses, and have a certain commercial value. It is chiefly sought on account
98 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
of them; although its flesh is eaten, and was brought to the market of
ancient Rome.
The Hedgehog. Among the smaller mammalia the hedgehog is by
no means one of the least interesting, whether we consider its structure
or its habits. In almost every part of the country this little animal is
common, frequenting woods, copses, orchards and dense hedge-rows,
where it lies concealed from morning till dusk, evening being its " open-
ing day," when it rouses up from slumber and begins its prowl for food,
when it is all alertness, and alive to every sound. When surprised it
makes no attempt to escape by flight, but rolling itself up into the form
of a ball, trusts to its panoply of thorns, and awaits the result. While
THE HEDGEHOG.
in this position, the head, legs, and tail are completely hidden and
protected, and the animal may be rolled about, or even roughly treated,
without being made to unfold itself; nay, the more severely it is attacked,
the more pertinaciously does it maintain its defensive form, and the
more firmly does it contract. Thus does it offer a passive resistance, and
often a successful one, to its enemies, of which the fox is among the
most resolute, and to which, in spite of all its efforts, it often falls a
prey. When taken young the hedgehog may be completely tamed
and made familiar, allowing itself to be handled, and associating with
the dog or cat upon terms of perfect concord. It feeds indifferently
upon bread and milk, meat, etc., and keeps up a regular nocturnal chaee
after insects.
NATURAL HISTORY.
90
The Elk. The elk, moose, or moose deer, the largest existing species
of the deer family, is a native of the northern parts of Europe, Asia and
America. When full grown, it is about six feet in height at the shoulders,
and sometimes weighs 1,200 pounds. Tho body is round, compact and
short; the neck is short and thick, unlike that of deer in general, but thus
adapted for sustaining the great weight of the head and horns. The head is
very large, narrow, about two feet long. The horns in males of the second
year are unbranched, not flattened, and about a foot long; as the animal
becomes older, they begin -to displa^-a blade, with more numerous suage,
and in mature elks the blade becomes very broad, the snags sometimes
fourteen on each horn; a single antler has been known to weigh about sixty
pounds. The horns have no basal snag projecting forwards. The ears are
long, and have been compared to those of the ass. The eyes are small. The
limbs are long, and very graceful. The tail is only about four inches long.
The body is covered with coarse angular hair, which breaks when it is bent.
On the neck and withers
there is a heavy mane;
and the throat is covered
with long hair. A large
goitre-like swelling un-
der the throat of the
younger elks has a very
curious appearance. The
hoofs of the elk, like
those of the reindeer and
of the buffalo, are so con-
structed as to part wide-
ly, and to afford a better
footing on soft marshy
ground or on snow; they
make a clattering when
it runs. In running it car-
ries its muzzle forward,
with the horns thrown
back upon the neck
BO that they may not be
caught by branches. Its
shoulders being higher
than the croup, its common gait is a shambling trot; but it can also gallop
with great rapidity. Elks delight in marshy districts and in forests. When
compelled to eat grass, they must get down on their knees to reach it;
their proper food consists of the branches and foh'age of shrubs ard trees.
They are very timid and inoffensive, except during the rutting season. A
single stroke of an elk's fore-foot is sufficient to kill the strongest dog. It ia
also an extremely wary animal, and is with the greatest difficulty ap-
proached by the hunter. Its sense of smell is very acute, and the slightest
sound excites its alarm. It is, however, much sought after in North
America. In Sweden its destruction is prohibited; and in Norway is placed
under legal restriction. The flesh of the elk is esteemed a good kind of
venison; the fat is remarkably soft; the nose and the tongue are reckoned
delicacies. The elk is easily domesticated, and was at one time employed
in Sweden for conveying couriers, being capable of traveling more than two
hundred miles in a day when attached to a, sledge,
100 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The Stag. The stag or red deer is a species of deer with round antlers,
which have a snag at the base in front. The female has no horns, and in
called a Hind. The young male, during the first year, acquires mere knobs
in place of horns. In the second year, they are longer and pointed, when
the animal is called a Brocket. The branching of the horns increases every
year till the sixth, when the name Hart begins to be applied. After this,
the age is no longer indicated by an increased number of branches, but the
antlers become larger and thicker, their furrows deeper, and the burr at the
base more projecting. The oldest etags have seldom more than ten or
twelve branches, although an instance has occurred of thirty-three on each
antler. A fine stag is four feet or more in height at the shoulder. The color
ia reddish brown in summer, the rump pale; in winter, it is brownish gray.
The female is smaller than the male. The young is at first spotted with
white. The stag feeds on the budi and young shoots of trees, and on grass;
or, in the severe weather of winter, on bark and mosses. Its speed is very
great. It has also great powers of swimming, and has been known to swim
ten miles. When hard pressed by hunters, it turns to bay, and is not ap-
proached without danger. At the pairing season, which is in August, even
tame stags become so excited that it is not safe to approach them. Their
domestication is never very complete. In fighting, it uses not only its horns,
but its fore-feet, with which it gives severe blows to an adversary.
The Chamois. The chamois is a species of antelope inhabiting the
Alps and other high mountains of Central and Southern Europe, and is
about the size of a large goat. Its color is brown, deeper in winter than ha
summer. The usual summer resort of the chamois is in the higher regions
of the mountains which it inhabits, not far from the snow-line, and it is often
to be seen lying on the snow. In winter, it descends to the higher forests.
Tfce aromatic and bitter plants of the mountain pastures are its favorite
NATURAL HISTORY.
101
food. It is like tho ruminants generally very fond of salt; " and many
stones are met with in the Alps, hollowed out by the continual licking of the
chamois, on account of the saltpetre with which they abound." It is gre-
garious; Hocks of one hundred are sometimes seen; but in the Swiss Alps,
where the numbers have been much reduced by hunting, the flocks are gen-
erally very small, and often consist only of a few individuals. Old males
often live solitarily. The chamois produces one or two young at a birth, in tho
month of March or April. It is an animal of extraordinary agility, and
flocks may often bo observed sporting in a remarkable manner among the
rocky heights. It can leap over ravines of sixteen to eighteen feet wide; a
wall of fourteen feet high presents no obstacle to it; and it passes readily
THE CHAMOIS.
tip or down precipices which almost no other quadruped could attempt. It
is said to descend obliquely almost perpendicular precipices of more than
twenty feet, striking its feet once or twice against the rock, as if to stay and
guide its descent, and alighting securely, often on a very narrow ridge of
rock, with its hind feet first, and bringing the fore-feet almost into contact
with them. When a flock of chamois is feeding one is always on the watch,
and by a sort of whistle announces apprehended danger. From its skin .is
made the shamoy leather so much prized for its warmth and softness.
The Caribou, or American Reindeer. The eyes of the reindeer
are very quick, and his hearing also acute; but his sense of smell is more
wonderfully developed than either of the other senses. The caribou, or
American variety of the reindeer, is a large animal, measuring three feet six
inches iu height at the shoulders when adult. Although it ia specifically
102 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
identical with the European reindeer, it has never yet been brought under
the sway of man, and trained to carry his goods or draw his sledges.
Should it be employed for these purposes, it would be a most valuable ser-
vant, for it is a very strong as well as an enduring animal, leading its pur-
siiers a chase of four or five days, and often eventually making good its es-
cape. Whenever practicable, the caribou makes for the frozen surface of
the lakes, and is then sure to escape, although the manner of doing so is
ludicrously clumsy. Rushing recklessly forward, the caribou will be sud-
denly startled by some object in its front, and on attempting to check its on-
ward career, falls on the ice in a sitting posture, and in that attitude slidea
THE CABIBOTJ, OB AMERICAN EEINDEEB.
for a considerable distance before it can stop itself. Recovering its feet, it
then makes off in another direction, and gets over the ground with such ce-
lerity, that the hunters always yield the chase whenever the animal gets
upon the ice.
The Beaver. This interesting quadruped is very widely distributed
in the northern regions of the world, reaching in America almost as far
south as the Gulf of Mexico. It once existed in the British islands, where,
however, it has long been extinct; and it has become rare in Europe, in
many parts of which it was once common. It has become rare also in the
United States, disappearing before man; but is nowhere BO abundant aa in
NATURAL HISTORY. 103
that wide region of lakes and rivers which lies to the north and west of the
settled parts of North America. Considerable numbers of beavers are found
on the banks of the Obi and other rivers of Siberia, and in Kamtchatka.
The beaver is usually at least two feet in length, from the nose to the root
of the tail; the tail is of an oval form, about ten inches in length, fully three
inches in greatest breadth, and scarcely an inch in thickness. These dimen-
sions are sometimes exceeded. The general form of the animal is thick and
clumsy, thickest at the hips, and then narrowing abruptly, so that it seems
to taper into the tail. The head is thick and broad, the nose obtuse, the
eyes small, the ears short and rounded. The fur consists of two kinds of
hair; the longer hair comparatively coarse, smooth, and glossy; the under
coat dense, soft, and silky. The color is generally chestnut, rarely black,
spotted, or nearly white. The beaver is very aquatic in its mode of life, and
it seldom wanders far from some lake or river. In consequence of its
habits, it is also limited to wooded districts, and the northern range of the
species is everywhere terminated by the limits of the wood upon the river
banks.
The food of the beaver consists of the bark of trees and shrubs (birch,
poplar, willow, etc.), and of the roots of water lilies and other aquatic plants.
In summer, it eats also berries, leaves, and various kinds of herbage. There
is reason to think that it never, as has been supposed, kills or eats fish. Like
some other rodents, it lays up stores of provisions for whiter; but these, in
the case of the beaver, consist chieily of bark, or of branches, aud even
104 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
trunks of trees. Its extraordinary powers of gnawing are exerted to out
down trees of several inches in diameter, both for food and for the construc-
tion of those houses and dams which have rendered it so much an object of
admiration to mankind. A tree of eighteen inches in diameter has been
found thus cut down by beavers, although smaller ones are usually pre-
ferred; and when a tree of this size is cut, the branches only, and not the
trunk, are employed in the architectural operations of the animals. These
operations are very wonderful, although the statement, at one time com-
monly made, that beavers drive stakes into the ground, has no foundation
in faet; and some of the other particulars which passed current along with
it, were equally fabulous. The houses or lodges of beavers are grouped to-
gether near the edge of the water, the mud being scraped away from the
front, so that there may be a sufficient depth of water there to allow free
egress, even during the most severe frost. The winter stores of the animals,
consisting of piles or heaps of wood, are also always under water, at such a
depth that they cannot be locked up in ice. When the depth of water is not
sufficient, the beavers construct a dam across the stream, by the side of
which the lodge is placed; the dam is sometimes as much as three hundred
yards in length, convex towards the current, and most convex in the strong-
est currents, sometimes extending on both sides beyond the natural channel
of the stream. The materials of which it is composed are sticks, roots, and
branches, with stones, moss, grasses, and mud, strangely commingled, but
in such a manner that the structure becomes absolutely water tight.
Branches, of which the bark has been used for food, or taken off for winter
provender, are very generally employed for building purposes. In their
building, beavers interlace small branches with each other and with the
larger; and a beaver kept in confinement has been known to manifest this
instinct, by interlacing branches with the bars of its cage, while it also filled
the interstices with carrots, and other vegetables, given it for food, nicely
bitten to the proper size, and packed in snow, to protect itself from the cold.
Beaver dams are built with the sides inclining towards one another, so that
although ten or twelve feet wide at bottom, they have a narrow top. The
dams and houses are annually repaired, before winter comes on, the work
being performed by night. " In places," says Hearne, " which have been
long frequented by beavers undisturbed, their dams, by frequent repairing,
become a solid bank, capable of resisting a great force, both of water and
ice; and as the willow, poplar, and birch generally take root and shoot up,
they by degrees form a kind of regular planted hedge, which I have seen
in some places so tall that birds have built their nests among the branches."
A broad ditch is often dug all around the lodge, so deep that it cannot freeze
to the bottom, and into it the beavers make the holes by which they go out
and bring their food. The larger lodges are, in the interior, about seven
feet in diameter, and between two and three feet high. The top is formed
of branches of trees, matted with mud, grass, moss, etc. The walls are very
thick, and the whole structure not only secures much warmth, but is a suffi-
cient protection from wolves, wolverines, and other beasts of prey. Differ-
ent apartments have often one common roof, but they have usually no in-
ternal communication. The sleeping-places of the animals are around the
wall of their lodge, the center being left free; they are formed merely of a
little grass or tender bark of trees. A single house seldom contains more
than ten or twelve beavers, but many such families are often congregated in
one place. Beavers, both in a wild state and in confinement, are scrupu-
lously cleanly in their habits. ^
NATURAL HISTORY.
105
Beavers often sit on the liind-feet and tail, and eat in .his posture, hold-
ing vip the food in their fore-paws. They also walk on the hind-feet, with
support of the tail, when they carry materials to their buildings, except
branches, which are dragged. They have considerable power in the tail,
aud not unfrequently flap it, which has given rise to an opinion, perhaps
not altogether erroneous, that they use their tails for plastering their build-
ings, or beating and adjusting the mud which is employed in them. Beavers
do not usually eat in their lodges, but in holes or burrows in the bank of
the river, the entrance to which is from beneath the water, and which thence
proceed obliquely upwards, often a distance of many feet. To these holes
the beavers also flee when their lodge is broken up; and it is therefore a
THE FERBET.
common practice of the beaver hunters to break up the lodges, that they
may take the animals in their holes or vaults. Beavers are also taken by
nets and traps.
It is chiefly in winter that beavers congregate together. During summer
they wander about a little. The young are generally produced in April or
May, from two to seven at a birth. Their eyes are open when they are born.
Single beavers are frequently met with, which live apart from all others of
their species. All of these are males, which, it is supposed, have been con-
quered and driven away by others of their sex. The beaver is very easily
tamed; but no wooden cage will keep one confined. Except in the extra-
ordinary building instincts already noticed, the animal exhibits no remark-
able sagacity. The use of the beaver's fur for making hats is well known.
The Ferret. This animal was imported into Europe from Africa, and
was well known to the Romans, being anciently employed, as it still is, in
catching rabbits, for which purpose it is often sent into their burrows muz-
zled, or " coped," by means of a piece of string, to drive them out into uetSj
106 CYCLOPEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
or, with a string attached to it, it is allowed to seize a rabbit in the burrows,
and is then drawn out, holding it fast. The usual plan, however, is to let
the ferret have free range of rabbit-holes unmuzzled, the rabbits being shot
as they bolt. Attention to warmth and cleanliness is essential to the health
of ferrets. They are capable only of partial domestication, acquiring a kind
of familiarity with man, and submitting with perfect quietness to his hand-
ling, but apparently never forming any very decided attachment; and they
never cease to be dangerous if not carefully watched, especially where in-
fants are within their reach. If allowed any measure of freedom, they are
ready to attack poultry, and kill far more than they can devour, merely
sucking the blood. They generally breed twice a year, each brood consist-
ing of six or nine. The female sometimes devours the young ones, in which
case another brood is speedily produced.
Moles. The mole is a miner, living an almost exclusively subterranean
life, even pursuing its prey through the soil, and working out long galleries
in the chase. It would appear that its labors are exerted in the accom-
plishment of very different objects. Each mole may be said to have its own
district or manor, its hunting-ground, and its lodges; and this ground is
traversed by
high-road
tunnels, in
which it trav-
els from one
part to an-
other, all
branching off
from a cen-
tral fortress
its ordinary
residence,
which is not,
bowever,only
distinct, but
often remote from the chamber in which the nest Is made and the
young reared. We will begin by describing the fortress, or ordinary
domicile. This fortress is constructed under a hillock of considerable
size (not one of those which we ordinarily see, and which, thrown
up every night, indicate its hunting excursions). This hillock is raised
in some secure place, where a high bank, the roots of a tree or the
base of a wall, afford protection. The earth forming this mound is
well compacted together, and made solid by the labors of the architect; and
within this firm-set mound is a complex arrangement of galleries, and pas-
sages of communication. First, a circular gallery occupies the upper por-
tion of the mound, and this communicates, by means of five descending pas-
sages, with another, and with a gallery at the base of the mound, and en-
closing a larger area. These passages are nearly at equal distances. With-
in the area of this lower gallery is a chamber, not immediately communica-
ting with it, but with the upper gallery, by three abruptly descending tun-
nels, so that to get into the basal gallery the mole has first to ascend to the
top gallery, and from that descend into the lower gallery. This chamber is
the dormitory of the mole. From the basal gallery opens a high-road tun-
nel, which is carried out in a direct liuo to the extent of the manor over
THE MOIiE.
NATURAL HISTORY. 107
which the individual presides, aud from the bottom of the central chamber
a passage descends, and then sweeping upward joins this main road at a
little distance from the hillock, so that the mole can enter the high-road;
eight or nine other tunnels are carried out from the basal gallery; they are
of greater or less extent, and wind round more or less irregularly, opening
into the high-road at various distances from the hillock; these irregular tun-
nels the mole is continually extending in quest of prey, throwing up the soil
above the turf, through holes which it makes for the purpose, and which
from the ordinary mole hills which we often see crowded thickly together.
The high or main road exceeds in diameter the body of the mole, and is
solid and well trodden, with smooth sides; its depth varies, according to the
quality of the soil, instinct directing the little excavator in his work. Ordi-
narily it is five or six inches below the surface, but when carried under a
streamlet or pathway it is often a foot and a half beneath. It sometimes
happens that the mole will drive two or more additional high-roads, which
will not admit of two passing at the same time; one therefore must retreat,
but when two males thus come into collision they frequently attack each
other, the weaker falling a victim in the combat. The alleys opening from
the sides of the high-road are generally inclined downward with a gradual
slope, and then at the termination of these the mole excavates branch alleys,
upheaving mole- hills as it works onward in pursuit of prey. This, however,
is not invariably the case, but rather where prey is abundant in rich soils.
Where the soil is barren the mole is constantly driving fresh alleys; these
in winter are carried deep down to where the worms have pierced their way
beyond the line to which the frost penetrates; for, be it observed, the mole
does not hybernate, but is as active during whiter as in spring or summer,
though the results of his operations are less manifest. In soft rich soils,
where the worms are among the roots of the turf, the mole, as may be often
noticed, drives very superficial runs in the pursuit of them; these runs are
to be seen where a thin layer of richly manured soil overlays a stratum of
gravel; in fact the depth of these alleys is always determined by the quality
of the soil and consequent situation of the worms. With respect to the nest
of the female, it is generally constructed at a distance from the fortress,
where, at some convenient part, three or four passages intersect each other;
this point of convergence is enlarged and rendered commodious, and fitted
to receive a bed made of dry herbage, fibrous roots, etc. The chamber is
generally beneath a large hillock, but not always; and the surrounding soil
is usually such as to afford abundani food to the female with little trouble
on her part. The mole breeds in the spring, mostly in April, and brings
forth four or five young at a birth. These are supposed to remain under the
mother's care till about half grown, when they commence an independent
existence.
Baby Monkeys. Monkeys are born in almost as helpless a condition
as are human beings. For the first fortnight after birth they pass their time
in being nursed, sleeping, and looking about them. During the whole of
this time the care and attention of the mother are most exemplary; the
slightest sound or movement excites her immediate notice; and, with her
baby hi her arms, she skillfully evades any approaching danger by the most
adroit manosuvres. At the end of the first fortnight the little one begins to
get about by itself, but always under the mother's watchful care. She fre-
quently attempts to teach it to do for itself, but never forgets her solicitude
for its safety, and at the earliest intimation of danger seizes it in her arms
100 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
and seeks a place of refuge. When about six weeks old the baby begins to
need more substantial nutriment than milk, and is taught to provide for
himself. Its powers are speedily developed, and in a few weeks^its agility
is most surprising. The mother's fondness for her offspring continues; she
devotes all her care to its comfort and education, and should it meet with
an untimely end, her grief is so intense as frequently to cause her own
death. " The care which the females bestow upon their offspring," says
Duvancel, " is so tender and even refined, that one would be almost tempted
to attribute the sentiments to a rational rather than an instinctive process.
It is a curious and interesting spectacle, which a little precaution has some-
times enabled me to witness, to see these females carry their young to the
river, wash their faces in spite of their childish outcries, and altogether be-
stow upon their cleanliness a time and attention that in many cases the
children of our own species mig^it well envy. The Malays indeed related
a fact to me, which I doubted at first, but which I believe to be in a great
measure confirmed by my own subsequent observation; it is, that the young
siamaiigs, while yet too weak to go alone, are always carried by individuals
of their own sex; by their fathers if they are males, by their mothers if fe-
males." M. d'Osbonville states that the parents exercise their parental au-
thority over then? children in a sort of judicial and strictly impartial form.
" The young ones were seen to sport and gambol with one another in the
presence of their mother, who sat ready to give judgment and punish mis-
demeanors. When any one was found guilty of foul play or malicious con-
duct toward another of the family, the parent interfered by seizing the young
criminal by the tail, which she held fast with one of her paws till she boxed
his ears with the other."
The Diamond Rattlesnake. Of all the snake varieties of which we
have yet any knowledge, the diamond rattlesnake, as it is called, seems to
be most deadly. It grows to a length of six or seven feet, and is some-
what thicker than a man's wrist. It is armed with the whitest and sharpest
of fangs, nearly an inch in length, with cisterns of liquid poison at their base.
A terror to man and beast, he turns aside from no one, although he will not
go out ot his way to attack any unless pressed by hunger. A description of
his movements by a traveler who has encountered him states that he moves
quietly along, his gleaming eyes seeming to emit a greenish light, and to
,3hine with as much brilliancy as the jewels of a finished coquette. Nothing
Heenis to escape his observation, and on the slightest movement near him
he swings into a fighting attitude, raising his upper jaw and erecting his
fangs, which in a state of repose lie closely packed in the soft muscles of the
mouth. This snake is not so active as the famous copperhead of North
America, nor so quick to strike, but one blow is almost always fatal. His
fangs are so long that they penetrate deep into the muscles and veins of his
victim, who has little time for more than a single good-by before closing his
eyes torever. In one instance the fangs were found to be seven-eighths of
an inch in length, and though not thicker than a common sewing needle,
they were perforated with a hole through which the greenish-yellow liquid
could be forced in considerable quantities, and each of the sacs contained
about half a teaspoonful of the most terrible and deadly poison.
The Crocodile This reptile may be described as lizard-like in form,
with a great gape, indicative of their characteristic voracity, and with the
tail flattened at the sides, so as to become a powerful organ of propulsion in
NATURAL HISTORY. 109
water. The fore-feet have five toes, the hinder-foot four, the throe inner
ones only being armed with claws; the feet are more or less webbed. Each
jaw has a single row of numerous large teeth, which are couical and directed
backwards; planted in distinct sockets, and becoming hollowed at the base,
to admit the crowns of the new and larger teeth which are to succeed them
as the animal increases hi size. Small ribs are attached to the vertebrae of
the neck, which give it a peculiar stiffness, and make it difficult for the ani-
mal to turn; and persons pursued by crocodiles may make their escape by
rapid turning. The eggs of the crocodile are hard, and small in compari-
son with the size ultimately attained by the animal itself. The females of
some, if not of all the species, guard their eggs, and take care of their young;
THE CROCODILE.
although the eggs, buried in the sand or mud, are hatched by the heat of
the sun alone. Crocodiles swallow stones, apparently to assist digestion.
They prey on fishes and warm-blooded animals; most of them seem to pre-
fer food in a state of incipient putrefaction, and they are even said to hide
their prey, and to return to it when it has reached this state. Some of the
larger kinds do not scruple to attack man. All crocodiles are large reptiles;
they are found in fresh waters and estuaries in the warm parts of the world;
none are found in Europe, nor, as far aa is yet known, in Australia. The
crocodile of the Nile is of a bronzed green color, speckled with brown, lighter
beneath, and is sometimes thirty feet long. It often seizes human beings
for its prey. In " Park's Travels," an instance is recorded of a negro, one
of his guides, who was thus seized in the Gambia, and escaped by thrusting
his fingers into the crocodile's eyes. The ancient Egyptians held it sacred,
and being exempted from all danger on the part of man, it became more
bold and troublesome. The individuals particularly selected as the
objects of idolatrous worship were tamed, and took part in religious procea-
ejons,
110 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The Alligator. Alligators differ from crocodiles in the shorter and
flatter head, the existence of cavities or pits in the upper jaw, into which
(and not into mere notches between the teeth, as in the crocodiles) the long
fourth teeth of the under jaw are received, and the much less webbed feet.
Their habita are less perfectly aquatic; they frequent swamps and marshes,
and may be seen basking on the dry ground during the day, in the heat of
the sun. They are most active during the night, and then make a loud bel-
lowing. They have great strength in their tails, with which the larger ones
can easily upset a light canoe. They feed chiefly on fish, but do not object
to other animal food. The females lay their eggs, from twenty to sixty in
number, in the mud, and leave them to be hatched by the sun, but keep
watch over the spot, and show much affection for their young ones, many
THE ALLIGATOB.
of which, however, fall a prey to the old males, and to vultures and fishes.
There are several species, varying from two to twenty feet and upwards in
length. Perhaps the most fierce and dangerous is that found in the southern
parts of the United States, as far up the Mississippi as the Red Eiver. In
cold weather, these animals bury themselves in the mud, and become so
torpid, that they may be cut to pieces without showing signs of sensibility;
but a few hours of bright sunshine are enough to revive them. Like the
other species, they are so protected by their mailed plates that they are not
easily killed, except by a shot or blow over the eyes. A very strong kind of
leather is prepared from the skin, which is used for making saddles and
other articles. It is said that a considerable quantity of oil can be extracted
from an alligator, which is transparent and burns well. Alligators are not
known to exist in any quarter of the world except America, in which, how-
ever, crocodiles are also found. The flesh of alligators is eaten by Indians
and negroes. It has a musky flavor. The origin of the name is uncertain,
tat it ia supposed to be a corruption of the Portuguese lagarto, a lizard..
NATURAL HISTORY
111
Bats. Sixteen or seventeen distinct species of bate are natives of the
British Islands. Of these, however, several are extremely rare and re-
stricted to certain localities; but some, as the pipis trelle, or common bat,
and the long-eared bat are everywhere abundant. Of all the mammalia the
bats alone emulate in their serial endowments the feathered tenants of the
sky; they are essentially flying insectivora. In the air they pass the active
period of their existence, and revel in the exercise of their faculties. Their
organs of flight, admirably adapted for their destined purpose, do not con-
sist, as in the bird, of stiff feathers based upon the bones of the forearm, but
of a membraneous expansion stretched over and between the limbs, and to
which the bows of the limbs, especially those of the elongated fingers, serve
the same purpose as the strips of whalebone in an umbrella. This apparatus
THE LONG-EAKED BAT.
can be folded tip, and the limbs employed in progression on the ground; on
a level surface, however, the bat shuffles awkwardly but quickly along. In
the hollows of decayed trees, in the crevices of mouldering masonry, or in
the rough chinks and fissures, it can crawl and climb about with tolerable
rapidity, as also about the wire work of a cage. It is a smooth and level
surface that most embarrasses the bat, but even then it can easily take wind.
In the air the bat is all alertness it is here that these singular creatures
pursue their prey uttering their short, sharp cry as they wheel in circling
flights, or perform their abrupt and zig-zag evolutions. The bat is a twi-
light and nocturnal rambler; it passes the clay in its retreat svtspended head
downward, clinging to any roughness or projection by the claws of its hinder
feet. In this position it hybernates in a state of lethargy, numbers congre-
gating together. Church-steeples, hollow trees, old barns, caverns, and
similar retreats, are its lurking places; and numbers are often found crowded
together, and forming a compact mass.,
112 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The Colugo. The colugo is a curious bat-liko animal, which may bo
found in Java, Sumatra, and Borneo. It has a membrane from the neck to
the end of the tail, which, being attached to the ends of the four limbs,
plays the part of wings, permitting the animal to sustain itself in the air for
even a longer time than the flying squirrels. The colugos hide themselves
during the day in the most lonely parts of the forests, and come forth at
evening in search of food. They are then seen moving actively among the
trees, either climbing or flying. Their flight is noiseless, and it is said that
they can clear a space of some hundreds of yards. They feed on insects,
fruits and small birds. In order to rest, these animals suspend themselves
by their hind paws to the branches of trees, like bats. The natives of the
THE COliTJGO.
countries they inhabit choose this time for capturing them. They are in
need of their flesh for food.
Progs. The peeping frog is totally different from the " creaking " frog,
and well repays one's attention. It is commonly thought to be the young of
the bull-frog; but this is not so; it seems to be a distinct variety of the frog
family. He makes himself heard in the spring as soon as the ice is melted,
and is most musical during the evening. You will find him sitting among
the old brown grasses and leaves at the edge of the water; and as soon as
he hears your footfall, down he flattens himself, and you would easily mis-
take him for a brown leaf, but, trusting to your ears and not eyes, you soon.
NATURAL HISTORY.
113
will BOO this brown leaf cautiously rise up, swell its little throat to half tho
size of its body, and give a "peep" shrill enough to leave no doubt as to
what makes that sound. These frogs are, when sitting, an inch long, and
vary in color from a light to a very dark brown. They are easily caught,
and by putting them in a wide-mouthed bottle covered with thin muslin;
and placing this under a hat, or in any place away from the light, they will
continue their peeping for some time.
The Paper Nautilus The shell of the paper nautilus is not cham-
bered like that of the true nautilus, but has one spiral cavity, into which the
animal can entirely withdraw itself. The animal has no muscular attach-
ment to the shell, and some naturalists therefore suspected that it might be
THE PAPER NAUTILUS.
merely, like the hermit crab, the inhabitant of a shell originally belonging
to some other animal; but this question has been set at rest by the observa-
tions of Madame Power, proving the beautiful but fragile shell to be the pro-
duction of the paper nautilus itself. It has, however, also been discovered
that the shell is peculiar to the female, and does not answer the ordinary
purposes of the shells of mollusca, but rather that of an " incubating and
protective nest." The eggs, which are very numerous, are attached to
filamentary stalks, and by these the whole compacted mass is united to the
involuted spire of the shell, where it ia usually concealed by the body of the
parent.
Flying Fish.. This is the name given to all those fishes which have the
pectoral fins so very large that by means of them they are sustained in short
114 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
seeming flights in the air. They swim in shoals; and whole shoals varying
in number from a dozen to one hundred or more --often leave the water at
once, darting in the same direction through the air, and alter descending
into the water at a distance of two hundred yards or even more, from the
place where they arose, quickly renewing their flight. These flights of flying
fishes form one of the most interesting and pleasing spectacles which relieve
the monotony of a voyage in the tropical seas. Sometimes, the coryphene
(dolphin) may be seen in rapid pursuit, taking great leaps out of the water,
and gaining upon his prey, which take shorter and shorter flights, vainly
try to escape their persistent foe, until they sink fit last exhausted; some-
THE FLYING FISH.
times the larger sea-birds catch flying fishes whilst they are in the ah*.
They occasionally rise to the height of twenty feet above the water, although
they more frequently skiin along nearer to its surface. They often fall on
the decks of ships. They are good food, and the natives of the South Sea
Islands take them by means of small nets attached to light poles, like those
in which anglers catch minnows lor bait. For this purpose, they go out at
night in canoes, to the outer edge of the coral reefs, with a torch, which
enables them to see the fishes, and perhaps both attracts and dazzles them.
The Sea Horse. This remarkable fish is found near our South
American coasts. It belongs to the singular order known as Lophobranch,
NATURAL HISTORY.
115
or tuft-gilled, which differ from other fishes in the peculiar structure of the
gill arches, by which the gills are arranged in little tufts on each side of the
head, under the cheek bones or gill covers. The structure of the sea horse's
tail is unlike that of any other fish, being covered with an envelope, con-
sisting of long scales, four-sided, prehensile, like that of a monkey, and of
considerable length. In the act of excluding its young, it catches its tail
around some object, such as a shell, and drawing its pouch downward
against the object, pushes up tho contents, forcing the young out of the
opening at the top of the pouch. The sea horse is a very pretty creature. Ita
general color is ashen
gray; an exceeding-
ly sober suit. But if
examined more close-
ly, it will be found
thickly studded with
tiny spangles of me-
tallic silver; it has
pretty golden eyes,
which, independent
of each other, intent-
ly gaze two ways at
once. Thus the sea
horse, though anom-
alous in form and
habit, has beauty
united with its
strange features, and
grace with its eccen-
tricity.
Brazilian Tur-
tles. The size of
Brazilian turtles may
be imagined from the
fact that the flippers
and feet of one, in
crawling over the
sand, leave a track of
two irregular grooves
three or four feet
apart, as though a
great wagon with THE SKA HOESE.
cog-wheels had been
driven over the ground. It is an easy matter to find a turtle's nest by this
track. She comes out of the sea, and travels far up the beach to lay her
eggs in the sand, digging a hole two feet deep for the nest. Professor Hart
says that he saw a turtle deposit one hundred and forty-three eggs in one of
these nests. The eggs are all laid at one sitting, covered with sand, and left
to hatch. They are round and rather larger than hens' eggs. The Brazilians
eat the eggs, and also the flesh of the turtle. The creature is captured in a
curious way. Two persons go behind it, and, taking hold of the shell, turn
the animal on its back, in which position it is at tho mercy of its captors, as
it is impossible for it to turn on its teet again.
116 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
THE LYBE-BIBD.
NAT UK At ITISTOltY. 117
The Lyre-Bird. Only two species of this singular bird are described,
both natives of Australia. The common lyre-bird has been placed among
pheasants. Its name indicates its general resemblance to these. The length
is about forty-three inches, of which the tail is twenty-five; the bill is rather
more than an inch long, resembling that of a peacock, strong, keeled, broad
at the base, and oi a black color; the nostrils long and narrow, in a fosse
near the middle of its length; the wings moderate and rounded; the body
about the size of that of a pheasant; tail very long and of a singular form,
differing in the two sexes. The general color above is brownish black, and
grayish brown below; the head slightly crested, and the throat rufous;
there are three kinds of feathers in the tail, which are long, and sixteen in
number; twelve have long, slender shafts with delicate filaments, more and
more distant toward the end; the middle two feathers, longer than the rest,
are pointed at the end and barbed only on the inner edge; the external two
feathers are broad, growing wider to the ends, and curving outward, like an
elongated S, the two resembling much the outlines of the ancient lyre.
They are shy, running rapidly among the brushwood; they live in pairs, in
rocky places overgrown with bushes.
The Ostrich The ostrich is the largest of all birds now existing,
being from six to eight feet in height to the top of its head, and an adult
male weighing from two to three hundred pounds. The male is rather
larger than the female. The head and upper part of the neck are scantily
covered with a thin down, through which the skin is visible. The young
have the head and neck clothed with feathers. The general plumage ia
glossy black in the adult male, dark gray in the female and young, with a
slight sprinkling of white feathers; the long plumes of the wings and tail are
white, occasionally marked with black. On each wing are two plumeless
shafts, not unlike porcupine's quills. The inner toe is very large, about
seven inches long, and its claw hoof-like. Whilst the sternum is destituta
of a keel, and the muscles which move the wings are comparatively weak,
those which move the legs are of prodigious strength, so that the ostrich ia
not only capable of running with great speed, but of striking such a blow
with its foot as to make it too formidable for the leopard and other large
beasts of prey to assail it. It has been often known to rip open a dog by a
single stroke, and a man is recorded to have suffered the same fate. Tho
eyes of the ostrich are large, and the lida are furnished with lashes. Ita
fight is keen, so that it descries objects at a great distance in the open
desert.
The ostrich shuns the presence of man, but is often to be seen in near
proximity to herds of zebras, quaggas, giraffes, antelopes and other quad-
rupeds. It is gregarious, although the flocks are not generally very large.
It is polygamous, one male usually appropriating to himself, when he can,
from two to seven females, which seem to make their nest in common,
scooping a mere hole in the sand for this purpose. Each female is supposed
to lay about ten eggs. The eggs are all placed on end in the nest, which
often contains a large number, whilst around it eggs are generally to be
found scattered on the sand. By a remarkable instinct, the ostrich site
upon the eggs by night, when the cold would be too great for them, and
leaves them to the sun's heat during the day. It feeds exclusively on
vegetable substances, its food consisting in great part of grasses and their
seeds; so that its visits are much dreaded by the cultivators of the soil in
the vicinity of its haunts, a flock of ostriches soon making terrible devasta-
118 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
tion of a field of corn. The speed of the ostrich, when it first sets out, ia
supposed to be not less than sixty miles an hour; but it does not seem to be
capable of keeping up this speed for a long time. It is successfully hunted
by men on horseback, who take advantage of its habit of running in a curve,
instead of a straight line, so that the hunter knows how to proceed in order
to meet it and get within shot. It is often killed in South Africa by men
who envelop themselves in ostrich skins, and admirably imitating the man-
ners of the bird, approach it near enough for their purpose, without exciting
its alarm, and sometimes kill one after another.
The eggs of the oetrich are much esteemed as an article of food by the
rude natives of Africa. Each egg weighs about three pounds. They are
THE OSTKICH.
usually dressed by being set upright on a fire and stirred about with a
forked stick, inserted through a hole in the upper end. The thick shell ia
applied to many uses, but particularly for water-vessels. In taking
ostrich eggs from the nest the South African is careful not to touch any
with the hand, but uses a long stick to draw them out, that the birds may
not detect the smell of the intruder, in which case they would forsake the
Best.
The great value of the feathers has induced men of late years to
engage in the domestication of this bird, and ostrich farming is now
a most lucrative employment at the Cape of Good Hope. It is said
that a full-grown bird yields one hundred feathers at a picking, which
coll at Cape Colony for one hundred and eighty dollars.
NATURAL HISTORY.
119
The Condor. Tho condor is a native of the Andes, and the largest of
known flying birds. The wings are long, measuring fourteen feet when
spread, and extremely powerful; the tail short, and wedge-shaped; the gen-
eral color black, which is brightest in old males, the young being of a
brownish color, which has given rise to a notion that there are two species;
the males are also distinguished by having great part of the wings white.
Around the lower part of the neck of both sexes there is a broad white ruff
THE CONDOB.
of downy feathers, above which the skin is bare, and exhibits many folds.
The condor feeds mostly on carrion. Its voracity is enormous. Tschudi
mentions one in confinement at Valparaiso which ate eighteen pounds of
meat in a single day, and seemed next day to have as good an appetite as usual.
They inhabit regions 10,000 or 15,000 feet above the level of the sea, where
they breed, making no nest, but laying their eggs on the bare rocks, and
where they are usually seen in small groups. To these haunts they return,
120 CYCLOPEDIA OP VREPVL KNOWLEDGE.
after their descents into the plains for food. The height to which the con-
dor soars in the air exceeds that of any other bird, and* is said to be almost
six perpendicular miles above the level of the sea, or nearly six times the
ordinary height of the clouds.
The Vulture Vultures are mostly found hi warm climates, and
many of them are inhabitants of mountainous regions. They feed on
carrion, which it seems to be their office in nature to remove from the face
of the earth, that the evil consequences of its corruption may be prevented.
THE VULTUKE.
They seldom attack a living animal, but they have been seen to sit and
watch the approach of death, waiting for their feast. They are not in gen-
eral courageous birds, and often put to flight by birds much smaller than
themselves; yet, if unmolested, they readily become familiar with the pres-
ence of man, and some of them seek their food even in the streets of towns,
in which they are useful as scavengers. They gorge themselves excessively
when food is abundant, till their crops form a great projection, and sit long
in a sleepy or half-torpid state to digest their food. They do not carry food
to their young in their claws, but disgorge it for them from the crop. The
NATURAL El S TO 11 Y.
121
bareness of their head and neck adapts them for feeding on putrid flesh,
by which feathers would bo defiled; and they are very careful to wash and
cleanse their plumage.
The Solitaire. The solitaire is a wingless bird of the dodo family.
The male is brownish gray, a little larger than a turkey, but the beak is
more hooked and the neck longer and straighter; the tail very short, and
the posterior part of the body rounded; the eyes black and lively, the head
THE SOLITAIKE.
without comb or crest. The female smaller and lighter colored. It re-
ceived its name from its being generally seen alone. It is a native of the
island Rodriguez, a few miles east of Mauritius. It is monogamous, making
a nest on the ground of the leaves of the palm, laying one egg, larger than
that of a goose; the young require to be fed in the nest. The flesh is said to
be fat and good eating, and the food the fruit of the date palm.
The Bittern. Bitterns are chiefly distinguished from herons by the
long, loose plumage of the neck, which they have the power of erecting at
122 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
pleasure, with the rest of their clothing feathers, so as greatly to increase
their apparent size. The back of the neck, however, is merely downy, or
almost bare, the long feathers being on the front and sides. Bitterns also
differ from herons in the greater length of their toes, the middle toe being
as long as tho shank. They are almost all solitary birds, inhabiting reedy
and marshy places, where they lie during the day, and will almost allow
themselves to be trodden upon ere they take "wing; they feed during tho
night, and then often rise spirally to a great height into the air, and emit
loud resounding cries. Tneir iood consists chiefly of frogs, and partly, also,
offish, lizards, water-insects, etc., and even of small birds and quadrupeds.
THE BITTEBN.
The claw of the middle toe is serrated on the inner edge, probably to aid in
securing slippery prey. The bird is very widely diffused over the world,
being found in almost all, at least of the temperate, parts of Europe, Asia,
Africa and North America, which are sufficiently marshy for its manner of
life. In size it is rather less than the common heron; the bill is about four
inches long, the feathers on the crown of the head are greenish black, and
the plumage in general of a dull yellow color, beautifully and irregularly
marked and mottled with black. It makes a rude nest of sticks, reeds, etc.,
in its marshy haunts, and lays four or five greenish-brown eggs. It has a
peculiar bellowing cry, which has obtained for it auch names as M\rc-drum,
NATURAL HISTORY.
123
Bull of the Bog, etc. Some naturalists used to assert that the booming cry of
the bittern was produced by the bird inserting its bill into a reed; that no-
tion, however, has long since been exploded. When assailed, it fights des-
perately with bill and claws; and it is dangerous to approach it incautiously
when wounded, as its strikes with its long sharp bill, if possible, at the
eye.
The Heron. The bill of the heron is long, compressed, and sharp; the
tail short; the legs and the toes long and slender; the wings long; the bill is
slender, but strong, forming a compressed and lengthened cone; the
plumage is beautiful, but seldom exhibits very gay colors; white, brown,
black, and slate color, finely blended, being generally predominant. The
body is small in proportion to the length of the neck and limbs; the neck is
long, and, except in flight, is usually held curved. In flight, the heron car-
THE HERON.
ries the neck, head, and long bill in a straight line before the body, and the
long legs in like manner stretched out behind. Herons feed mostly on fish,
frogs, and other aquatic animals; and may be seen, particularly very early
in the morning and late in the evening, standing patiently motionless in
some shallow water, at the margin of a lake or stream, or on the sea-shore,
waiting till prey come within reach. In default of their more common food,
however, herons sometimes prey on young birds, reptiles, and the smaller
mammalia. They usually go forth singly in quest of prey, but are mostly
gregarious.
The Cuckoo. The name cuckoo is derived from the note of the male,
which, although monotonous, is always heard with pleasure. It frequents
both cultivated districts and moors. There is no pairing or continued at-
124 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
tachment of the male and female, and the female, after having laid an egg on
the ground, deposits it, with her beak, in the nest of some other smaller
bird, leaving the egg to be hatched and the young one to be fed by the
proper owners of the nest. The egg of the cuckoo is very small for so large
a bird, being not larger than the skylark's, and the number she will lay is
uncertain; but the young one soon acquires size and strength enough to
eject from the nest any eggs which may remain in it, or unfortunate young
birds, the true offspring of its foster-parents, and it seems restless and un-
easy till this is accomplished. It works itself under them, and then jerks
them out by a motion of its rump. Its back at this early age exhibits a pe-
culiar depression between the shoulders, so that an egg or a young bird can
easily be got to lie upon it; but this depression soon disappears, and with it
the singular instinct with
which it is supposed to be
connected.
The Roseate Spoon-
bill. Spoonbill is the com-
mon name of the wading
birds, characterized by a much
depressed bill, very broad and
dilated at the end in the shape
of a rounded spoon. Wings
long, second quill the longest;
tail short; legs long; toes
webbed at the base. There
are about a half dozen species,
found in all quarters of the
globe, migrating to warm cli-
mates at the approach of win-
ter. They frequent marshy
inlets of the sea and the bor-
ders of lakes and rivers, wad-
ing about in search of fish,
worms, frogs; they can swim
and even dive. The roseate
spoonbill is about thirty
inches long, the bill being
seven inches, and covered
with a soft skin; the head is
of moderate size, bare, the
skin yellowish green, the neck long and slender, and body compact. The
color is rosy red, paler in front, and white on the neck; and lower part of
the throat bright carmine; tail feathers, ochrey yellow; the young have
the head leathered, ijie carmine tint wanting and the tail rosy. It is
found in the southern Atlantic and Gulf States, and is abundant in the
Indian river, Florida. They are essentially nocturnal, though they often
feed by day when the tide suits; they fly with the neck and legs ex-
tended, and rise rapidly to a great height. They alight easily on trees, and
can walk on the large branches; the nest is usually in the top of a mangrove,
coarsely made; the eggs are three, white, sprinkled all over with bright
spots. They breed and are seen in flocks; the beautiful feathers of the
wings are made into fans.
THE BOSEATE SPOONBILL.
NATURAL HISTORY.
125
The Eagle. From the most ancient times, the eagle has been univer-
sally regarded as the emblem of might and courage; and, like the lion, it
has been fancifully invested with other attributes of greatness, such as men
thought to harmonize with these. Its extraordinary power of vision, the
vast height to which it soars in the sky, the wild grandeur of the scenery
amidst which it chiefly loves to make its abode, and perhaps also its lon-
gevity, have concurred to recommend it to poetic regard. The golden eagle
is the largest of the European species, and is found not only throughout
Europe, preferring wild and mountainous situations, but throughout almost
the whole northern
hemisphere; it is
among the birds of
India, of the north
of Africa, and of
North America; and
the savage warrior
of the Kocky Moun-
tains, as well as the
Highland chieftain,
glories in his eagle
plume. It builds its
nest only in moun-
tainous districts,
carrying a few sticks
and brambles to the
inaccessible shelf of
a rocky precipice,
where the eggs are
deposited almost on
the bare rock.
The Stork.
The stork is about
three feet and a half
inlength. Thehead,
neck, and whole
body are pure white
the wings partly
black and the bill
and legs red. The
neck is long and
generally carried in an arched form; the feathers of the breast are long and
pendulous, and the bird often has its bill half hidden among them. It fre-
quents marshy places, feeding on eels and other fishes, batrachians, reptiles,
young birds and small mammals. It makes a rude nest of sticks, reeds,
etc., on the tops of tall trees, or of ruins, spires or houses. In many parts
of Europe, especially in Holland, it is a very common practice to place boxes
for storks, and it is considered a fortunate thing for a household that the
box on the roof is oecupied. Storks are protected by law in some countries,
on account of their good services not only in destroying reptiles and other
troublesome animals, but in the removal of offal from the streets of towns,
in which they stalk about with perfect confidence, even in the midst of
throngs of people. They have been celebrated from ancient times for the
THE STOKK.
126 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
affection which they display towards their young; and have also had the
reputation not eo well founded of showing great regard to their aged
parents. Before they take their departure from their summer haunts, they
congregate in large flocks, which make a great noise by the clattering of
their mandibles, and are popularly regarded as holding consultation. The
Btork has no voice. Its flight is powerful and very high in the air.
The Crane __ The family to which this bird belongs differs from herona,
bitterns, storks, etc., in having the hind-toe placed higher on the leg than
the front ones, It
consists also of
birds less addicted
to marshy places,
and which feed not
only on animal, but,
to a considerable
extent, on vegetable
food. They are all
large birds, long
legged, long necked
and of powerful
wing, although
their wings are
rounded and not
elongated; some of
them performing
great migrations,
and flying at a pro-
digious height in
the air. The crane
breeds in the north-
ern parts of Eu-
rope, Asia, and
North America, re-
tiring in winter to
tropic al or sub-
tropical regions.
When standing, it
is about four feet
THE CRANE. m hei g ht ' thfe P 16 "
vailing color is ash-
pray, the face and throat nearly black, the wing primaries black. The ter-
ti'al feathers of the wings are elongated, reaching beyond the ends of the
primaries, and their webs are unconnected; they are varied and tipped with
bluish-black, and are the well-known plumes once much used in ornamental
head dresses. It feeds on roots, seeds, etc., as well as on worms, insects,
reptiles, and even some of the smallest quadrupeds.
The Crested Grebe. Grebe is the generally accepted name for all
the birds of the family Podieipedida, belonging to the group Pygopodes ol
Uliger, members of which inhabit almost all parts of the world. Grebes are
at once distinguishable from all other water-birds by their very short body
vid the peculiar structure of their feet, which are not only placed far behind,
NATURAL HISTORY.
127
but have the tarsi flattened and elongated toes furnished with broad lobes
of skin. In Europe there are five well-marked species; North America is
credited with seven, while South America possesses five. The crested
grebe, known in some parts of England as the loon, is widely spread over
both worlds, and though apparently not iound within the tropics, is known
in the extreme south as a native of Australia and New Zealand. Grebes in
general, though averse to taking wing, have much greater powers of flight
than would seem possible on examination of their alar organs, and are ca-
THE CRESTED GEEBE.
pable of prolonged serial journeys. The plumage is short and close. Above,
it is commonly of some shade of brown, but beneath it is invariably white,
and so glossy as to be in much request for muffs and the trimming of ladies'
dresses. Some species are remarkable for the crests or tippets, generally
of a golden chestnut color, they assume in the breeding season. P. aurttus,
the subject of our engraving, is particularly remarkable in this respect, and
when in the full nuptial attire presents an extraordinary aspect, the head
(being surmounted, as it were, by a nimbus or aureole, such as that with
which painters adorn saintly characters), reflecting the rays of light, glitters
with a glory that passes description. Young grebes are beautiful objects,
clothed with black, white and brown hair disposed in streaks, and their bill
128 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
often brilliantly tinted with yellow. On land they are awkward creatures,
but in water they equal, if indeed they do not surpass, their parents, in the
power of diving, which is a special accomplishment of all grebes.
The Cormorant. This is a genus of web-footed birds of the family
Pelecanidce having, like the rest of that family, the hind-toe united in a single
membrane with the other toes. The species are distributed over the coasts
of most parts of the world; some of them occasionally ascending rivers in
pursuit of fish, on which all of them exclusively live, and even visiting inland
lakes. They are proverbial for their excessive voracity. They do not take
their prey by diving when on wing, but pursue it by swimming and diving,
using their wings in progress under water, and descend to a wonderful
THE CORMORANT.
depth; the smaller of the two British species has been caught in a crab-pot
fastened one hundred and twenty feet under water. When the prey has
been caught in a manner inconvenient for swallowing, they toss it in the air,
and adroitly catch it as it descends. Some of the species frequent high
rocks, others low islands, on which they make rude nests, chiefly of sea-
weed; some perch and even build their nests on mangroves and other trees.
Their eggs are covered with a calcareous incrustation. The flesh of all the
species is dark, and of a fishy taste, but is sometimes used as food, particu-
larly that of young birds. The commonest species are the common cormo-
rant, which is mostly of a black color, but for a short time during the breed-
ing season exhibits a sprinkling of lougish white, almost bristly feathers on
the head and back of the neck; and the green cormorant, which is of smaller
eize and of a prevailing dark green color. The common cormorant is about
thirty-three inches long. It ia a very widely distributed species. It waa
NATURAL HISTORY. 129
formerly sometimes tamed in England, to be employed in catching fish, and
IB still trained to this use in China.
The Bird of Paradise. This is the common name of a family of
birds, Paradiseidce of ornithologists, found chiefly in New Guinea and neigh-
boring islands, and remarkable for splendor of plumage. In all other re-
spects, however, they are very closely allied to the crow family. The males
alone are birds of splendid plumage, that of the females possessing neither
THE BEBD OF PAEADISE.
brilliancy of colors nor remarkable development. The plumage of the
males is not only characterized by great brightness of tints, but by a glossy,
velvety appearance, a metallic lustre, and a singularly beautiful play ol
colors. Tufts of feathers generally grow from the shoulders, and these, in
some of the kinds, are prolonged so as to cover the wings; in the species
sometimes called the common Bird of Paradise, and sometimes the Great
Emerald Bird of Paradise, the prolongation of these shoulder tufts ia so
great, thai they extend far beyond the body, and even far beyond the tail.
Thev constitute the most magnificent part of the well-known Bir4 of Para-
130 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
di* plumes. They are exquisitely light and delicate. These birds are, in
general, more or less gregarious. They sometimes pass in flock* from one
island to another, according to the change of seasons, from the dry to the
wet monsoon. Owing to their plumage, they fly more easily against than
with the wind, and by high winds they are sometimes thrown to the ground.
Their food consists in great part of the fruit of the teak tree, and of different
pecies of fig, and also of the large butterflies which abound in their native
islands. The Papuans kill them by shooting them with arrows, and employ
various other means of taking them for the sake of their skins. The com-
mon Bird of Paradise is as large as a jay. It is of a cinnamon color, the
upper part of the head and neck yellow, the front and throat emerald green,
the shoulder-tufts yellow. The
whole length of the extremity
of these is not less than two
feet.
The Falcon. This fa-
mous bird of prey is charac-
terized by a bill curved from
the base, the upper mandible
hooked at the point, and the
cutting edge of the upper man-
dible furnished with a strong
projecting notch, or tooth. The
claws are also sharp, curved,
and strong; and in accordance
with all this powerful arma-
ture, the whole frame is very
robust and muscular. The
legs are rather short, and
have great power in striking
or seizing prey. The keel of
the sternum (breastbone) is
very large, and adapted for
the attachment of powerful
muscles; the furcula and cora-
coid bonea are also very strong, so as to afford a sufficient resisting base for
very powerful action of the wings. The wings are long and pointed, the first
and third quill-feathers of equal length, the second rather the longest, the
first and second emarginated near the tip. The true falcons are bolder in
proportion to then: size than any other Falconidce even eagles. Their acute-
ness of vision is wonderful, and they have very great powers of flight. A
falcon is known to have traversed the distance between Fontainbleau and
Malta, not less than 1,350 miles, iu twenty-four hours. The speed obtained
by a falcon in pursuit of its prey has been calculated to be at the rate of 150
miles an hour. They soar to a prodigious height in the air, always endeav-
oring to outsoar any bird of which they may be in pursuit, and to swoop
down upon it from above; although it is far more difficult for them to rise
vertically hi a calm atmosphere than for birds of short and rounded wing,
and they either rise obliquely often also making their onward flight in a
series of arcs or avail themselves of the wind, and by flying against it, are
borne aloft as a boy's kite is. The species are numerous; some of them are
of very wide distribution, while others are peculiar to certain countries.
THE FAIXX>N.
JTATVEAL HISTORY.
131
The Tailor-Bird. This is a genus of birds of the family Sylviadce,
with a long, graduated tail, the feathers of which are narrow. The species
are numerous, natives of the East Indies and of the Indian Archipelago, and
haunt cultivated grounds, where they are commonly seen in pairs. Their
flight is rapid and undulating, and they seldom ascend above the lower
branches of trees. The name tailor-bird is derived from the way in which
the nest is formed. Two leaves are taken at the extremity of a twig, and
arc sewed together by their edges, or a large leaf is sewed together; the
THE TAILOE-BIBD.
necessary holes being made by the bill, and vegetable fibers forming the
thread. Within the hollow thus made, a quantity of a cottony substance if
placed to receive the eggs.
The Thrush. The song thrush, or throstle, the mavis of the Scotch, it
smaller than the black-bird, its whole length being not quite nine inches.
Its plumage is brown, of various finely-mingled shades; the throat, sides o/
the neck, breast, and flanks yellowish, spotted with dark brown; the bellj
nearly white, with a few spots of dark brown; a dark brown streak, with a
lighter brown streak over it, passing from the bill to the eye. It is found in
all parts of Europe, but deserts some of the northern parts in winter, being
thus partially a bird of passage. It feeds on insecta, worms, slugs, snails,
132 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
berries, and seeds. It often makes its nest in the center of a thick bush or
shrub, and sometimes in an open shed. The eggs are usually four or five
in number. The male takes part in the work of incubation, and is very at-
tentive in feeding his mate while so occupied. The throstle is well known
as one of the sweetest songsters of the groves. In captivity, it has been
taught simple airs.
The Wheatear. The wheatear or fallow-chat is a bird of the genus
popularly known by the name chat, of the family Syloiadce, a common sum-
THE WHEATEAB.
mer visitant of Great Britain, abounding on downs and fallow fields. Its
geographic range is wide. Its winter retreat is in the countries near the
Mediterranean, and chiefly in Africa; its summer migrations extend to the
farthest north of Europe, and to Iceland and Greenland. The entire length
of the wheatear is about six inches and a half; the tail is almost square; the
wings are long and pointed; and the legs are long, enabling the bird to hop
about actively in quest of food. Its food consists of worms and insects, and
it may often be seen perched on the top of a clod or stone, looking out for
them, and at the same time on the watch against enemies. The male is of
an ash-brown color on the upper parts; the forehead, a band above the eyes,
ami the throat, white; a black mark extending from the base of the bill to
NATURAL HISTORY.
133
tmeh eye, and expanding behind it, so as to cover the orifice of the ear; th
wings, black; the rump, and two thirds of the tail, except the two middle
feathers, white; the tip of the
tail, black; the two middle feath-
ers of the tail, entirely black; the
breast, buff-color; the belly and
flanks, pale buffy white. The fe-
male is less gaily colored, brown
and gray prevailing. The wheat-
ear makes its nest in an old wall,
or in a crevice of a quarry or
gravel-pit, often in a deserted
rabbit-burrow, and generally lays
six pale-blue eggs.
THE AMERICAN BLUEJAY.
The American Blue jay.
This beautiful bird is common
to nearly all sections of the Uni-
ted States, from the Gulf of Mex-
ico to Canada. It is an inhabitant
of forests and wooded districts,
and feeds principally upon seeds
and fruits. The head is furnished
with a crest of erectile feathers;
the tail is long and rounded. The
general color of the upper parts
is bright purplish-blue; the wings
and tail white, barred with black;
the neck surrounded with a
curved black collar. They build
in thick trees or bushes, and their nest is a basket-like structure of small
sticks, lined with fine roots and grasses; the eggs, five or six in number, are
yellowish- white, minutely and thickly speckled with light brown. The char-
acter of the bird is omniv-
orous, and it often robs
the nests of other birds.
The Skylark. The
skylark is one of the best
known British birds, and
notwithstanding the tame-
ness of its brown plumage,
is a universal favorite, on
account of the sweetness
of its cheerful song, which
it pours forth while soar-
ing and floating in the air.
It more rarely sings on
the ground. It is in great repute as a cage-bird, and sings well in confine-
ment, but flutters its wings while singing, as if still desirous of soaring in
the air. It abounds chiefly in open biit cultivated districts. It is common
in most parts of Europe, but from the more northern parts it migrates south'
ward on the approach of winter. It is also a native of Asia.
TiLfci RKYTjARK.
184 CYCLOPEDIA OF USSFVL KNOWLEDGE.
The Belted Kingfisher. Many species of the kingfisher family are
found in various parts of the world.
The belted kingfisher is peculiar
to North America, and is a larger
bird than the kingfisher of Great
Britain, being fully twelve inches
in length, but inferior in brilliancy
of plumage. It is common upon
most of our rivers during the warm
season, but migrates southward in
winter, and is then to be found in
the West Indies. Its food consists
of small fishes, such as minnows,
sticklebacks, and trout or salmon
fry, and of leeches and water in-
sects. When it has caught a fish,
it often kills it by beating it on a
branch, and always swallows it
head foremost.
The Starling. -The common
starling of the old world is a beau-
tiful bird, rather smaller than the
song-thrush or mavis, brown, finely
glossed with black, with a pale tip
to each feather, giving the bird a
fine speckled appearance, particu-
larly on the breast and shoulders.
Starlings make artless nests of
Blender twigs, roots and dry grass, in hollow trees, in holes of cliffe, under
eaves of houses, or,
readily enough, in
boxes, which are often
placed for them in
trees or else where near
houses. They fre-
quently breed twice in
a season, and in au-
tumn they unite in
large flocks. The star-
ling becomes very fa-
miliar in confinement,
and displays great imi-
tative powers. Its song
is soft and sweet. The
American starling or
meadow lark is larger
than the common star-
ling. It is common in
the United States, mi-
grating northwards in
.Spring, and south-
autunuu and congregating in great flocks in autumn and winter.
THE BELTED KINGFISIIEE.
NATURAL HISTORY. 135
The Bobolink. This beautiful bird generally makes its nest in a
grassy meadow, an artless structure of a few dry stalks and leaves, with a
lining of finer grass. It displays the same instinct with many other birds,
of seeking to lead intruders away from its nest, by pretending great anxiety
about some other part of the field. During the breeding season, the malei
are very musical, singing mostly in the air, in which they seem to rise and
fall in successive jerks. Their song is very pleasing, and is emitted with a
volubility bordering on the burlesque. On account of their beauty and
powers of song, many are caught, caged, and sold in New York and othr
markets.
The Titlark. This bird is familiarly known in many parts of England
and of Scotland as the M</ss-cheeper. It is found in almost all parts of
Europe, and the north of Asia, in Western India, in Japan, and in Iceland.
It is a small bird, its color brown of various shades. It frequents heaths,
mosses, and pastures; and usually makes its nest on a grassy bank, or
THE TITLARK.
beside a tuft of grass or heath. Its song is weak and plaintive, and it gen-
erally sings in the air. It is gregarious in winter. The cuckoo is said to
deposit its egg more frequently in the nest of the titlark than in that of any
other British bird. A rather larger British species is the tree pipit or field
titling, which has a shorter claw, and perches on trees, frequenting enclosed
and wooded districts, it is a summer visitant of Britain, and most common
in the south of England. It occurs in most parts of Europe, in Asia and the
north of Africa.
Butterflies. If, having never seen nor heard of a butterfly, one were
to meet our gaze as on winnowing wings it danced through the summer air,
from flower to flower, should we conceive it possible that it had ever been a
crawling and voracious worm, and then a torpid being enveloped like a
mummy hi a ease, whence it sprung forth in newness of life, light winged,
and graceful in every movement, and arrayed with beauty ? Although we
know this to be the fact, when we look at the sluggish, leaf-eating cater-
136 CYCLOPEDIA Of VStifVl KNOWLEDGE.
pillar, and contrast it with what it will be, when on broad wings it traverses
garden and meadow, extracting from the flowers their nectar for food, we
feel involuntary emotions of wonder, so striking is the contrast.
On its exclusion from the egg the caterpillar is of very small size; its
growth, however, soon commences, and is as rapid as its appetite is vora-
cious. As, however, it is clothed in an outer skin which is not extensible,
this investment, like the armor of the lobster, must be repeatedly changed.
Beneath the old outer skin, or epidermis, which soon begins to be loosened,
BTTTTEBFIJES.
a new one is formed; a rent takes the place from the swelling out of the
animal, down the back of the old skin, and this rent gradually increases,
till the animal with a brighter epidermis, frees itself from its discarded
weeds and appears of larger dimensions. During this process, which is
often repeated, the caterpillar is sluggish and inactive, and refuses food;
but when the process is over, it recovers its former voracity. During all
this time the caterpillar is laying up an accumulation of fat to serve the
wants of the system during the time of its torpid pupa state, which it is now
preparing for. Beneath the la*t cuticle assumed, the vital energies of the
NATURAL HIS TOUT. 137
System have developed wings, antenna, a slender proboscis, and all the
parts of the perfect butterfly, or moth, that is to be. This last cuticle or
epidermis is, however, yet to be cast off, and another is formed to clothe
the pupa, which in its turn is to be broken open for the exit of the perfect
insect. Previously, however, to the pupa stage being assumed, it secures
itself by means of its silk in a position varying according to the species.
Suppose it merely suspends itself by the tail; in this case the first care of
the caterpillar is to cover the spot to which it is about to suspend itself with
successive layers of silken threads, which readily adhere, till at last a little
silken cone is produced, into which the caterpillar pushes its hinder pair of
prolegs (those on the last segment), which become entangled, and so fixed,
amid the threads; it then permits itself to hang down with the head lowest.
In a short time it begins to bend its back, bringing the head near the
attached feet; and, after continuing for some time in this attitude, it
straightens itself, and repeats the same action. In about twenty-four hours
the outer skin begins to split down the back, and the fissure is enlarged by
the swelling of the chrysalis till at length the head and lower portion of the
suspended being become disengaged, the skin shrivelling up into a bundle
surrounding the tail. This, however, has to be thrown off, and at the samo
time the chrysalis has to avoid disengaging itself from its mooring of silken
threads from which it hangs; for, be it remembered, it was by its hind legs
that it attached itself.
To effect this, instinct guided, it seizes on a portion of this shrivelled
skin between two segments of its body, holding it as with a pair of pincers,
and thus destitute of limbs, supports itself, till it withdraws the tail from
the old useless skin which sheathed it; then, still clinging, elongates the
rings of its tail as much as possible, and seizes a higher portion of the skin,
and in this manner, climbing backward as it were upon its exuviae, it repeats
the manoeuvre till the extremity of the tail presses the silk, to which it
immediately adheres by means of a number of hooks provided for the pur-
pose. Still these exuvice encumber it and hang in contact with it; curving
its tail in such a manner as partly to embrace the shrivelled skin, it whirls
rapidly round, jerking violently, and at length succeeds in disengaging it
from its fastenings and throwing it to the ground. In a short time the
chrysalis hardens, and shows through the outer case the wings, antennce,
eyes, and legs of the perfect insect. It now passes into a sort of torpid
state, till the time arrives for the exit of the perfect butterfly from its case.
The butterfly, when ready for exclusion, bursts the skin of the chrysalis,
now to be thrown off, which cover the thorax, and emerges, feeble and
languid, with wings crumpled up into small bundles. Soon, however, the
body acquires strength; the fluids circulate through the nerves of the wings;
these gradually unfold, and the creature quivers them, as it feels its growing
powers; at length, in the perfection of strength and beauty, it leaves its
sordid mummy-case behind, sores aloft, seeks the flowers of the garden,
and commences a new existence.
The rest of the story is soon told; bright things must fade; the butterfly
enjoys a brief summer, deposits its eggs on the plants which instinct teachea
it are the appropriate nourishment of the future caterpillar, and passes out
of existence.
The Humble Bee. The domicile of the bumblebee is a simple exca-
vatiom in some bank, a little chamber of about six or eight inches in
diameter, to which leads a long winding passage, capable of admitting of
138 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
the ingress and egress respectively of two bees at the same time. Somft
species, as the bombus muscorum, select a shallow excavation which they
dome over with a felt of moss or withered grass, lined with a coat of wax to
render it waterproof; but the bombus terrestris makes or enlarges a subter-
ranean vault, a foot beneath the surface of the ground, and in this is the
colony established. The population, however, is not numerous, seldom
exceeding one or two hundred, and may be divided into females, males and
workers. The females are of two sorts, very large and small. The large
females, or queens, look like giants compared to the smaller females and
workers; they produce males, females and workers, but the small females
.'produce only small eggs. The large females, then, we may regard as the
founders of every colony; and by following up the details we shall be able
to render the plan clearly intelligible. These large females, in an estab-
lished colony, emerge from their pupa state in the autumn, and pair in that
NEST OP THE COMMON HUMBLE BEE.
season -with males, the produce of the small females which have previously
acquired their due development. Now on the approach of winter these
large females, the pairing time over, retire each to a little snug apartment,
lined with moss or grass, and separate from the general vault, passing the
cold season in a state of torpidity. Early in the spring they awake, issue
forth, and take different directions, seeking for some convenient spot in
which to begin their labors. At this time of the year large females may be
often observed exploring every cavity, hole or crevice in banks or on the
ground; they are seeking a fit site for their operations. We will now sup-
pose one of these queens to have formed and established herself in her
chamber; she begins to collect honey and pollen, and constructs cells in
which her eggs are to be deposited. So rapidly are the latter built, that to
make a cell, fill it with honey and pollen (the food of the young), commit
one or two eggs to it, and cover them in, requires little more than half an
hour. Her first and most numerous brood consists only of workers, which,
NATUllAL 111 STORY. 139
as Boon as excluded from the pupa, assist their parent in all her labors. Her
next consists of large and small females and males; these appear in August
or September; but, if Huber be correct, the male eggs, or some of them at
least, are laid in the spring with those that have to produce workers. We
have now, then, small and large females, males and workers, the produce
of the original queen who singly began to found this establishment. It will
be interesting to look a little closer into their transactions; and, first, those
of the workers. These are by far the most numerous tenants of the colony,
and to them is intrusted the reparation of any part by the deposition of
wax, and the spreading of it in patches over the roof. When in any of the
cells one of the larvae has spun its cocoon and assumed the pupa state, it is
their department to remove all the wax away from it; and after the pupa
has attained its perfect state, which takes place in about five days, to cut
open the cocoon, in order that the perfect insect may emerge from its im-
prisonment; it is theirs, moreover, to supply the young grubs with food
after they have consumed the stock deposited with each egg in the cell, and
regularly feed them either with honey or pollen introduced in their pro-
boscis through a small hole in the cover of each cell, opened as occasion
may require, and carefully covered up again. As the grubs increase in size
the colls which contained them respectively become too small, and by their
struggles the thin slides split; the breaches thus produced they repair with
wax as fast as they occur, attentive to see where their services are required;
and it is in this manner that the cells gradually acquire an increase of size
to accommodate the increasing larvse. Besides these duties, in chilly
weather and at night the workers brood over the pupa shrouded in their
cocoons, in order to impart the necessary warmth and maintain a due degree
of temperature. They relieve the mother queen, in fact of half her carea
and nearly all her labor. In some nests there are from forty to sixty honey
pots, the cocoons of the bees recently emerged from their pupa condition,
and more than half of these are often filled in a single day.
The workers have plenty of business on their hands and are busy all
summer long. But tne winter comes and they all perish; they have fulfilled
their allotted part, and their services are no more needed. From the
workers let us pass to the mother queen, and inquire into her duties and
actions. The workers are her first progeny, and we must suppose her sur-
rounded by them. They are watching all her movements, for she is about
to deposit in the cells the eggs from which the second brood is to spring;
and, by a strange instinct, they endeavor to seize the eggs as soon as laid,
and devour them. It is not easy to understand the object to be accomplished
by this procedure on the part of the workers, unless it be to keep the popu-
lation within due bounds. Be this as it may the female has to exert herself
to the utmost to prevent her eggs from being all devoured. When she has
deposited her eggs in the cells and closed them up with wax, she has still
to keep very close watch over them for six or eight hours, otherwise the
workers would immediately open the cells and devour their contents. After
this period, strange to say, the nature of the workers seems changed; thy
no longer evince any appetite for devouring the eggs or destroying the cells.
From these eggs proceed a few large females, to be at a future day the
founders of colonies; a few males, and small females, closely resembling the
workers, but attended by the females which form their court. These small
females now begin to prepare cells for their eggs, which rouses the anger
and jealousy of the mother queen to the highest pitch. She assaults them
with fury, driving them away; puts her head into the cells, and devour*
140 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE,
their eggs, and is in turn herself assaulted and forced to retreat. They then
contend among themselves for various cells, several females often endeavor-
ing to lay their eggs at the same time in the same cell, but after a short
period tranquility seems restored. These small females all perish on the
commencement of winter. Their produce consists only of males, which pair
with the large females in the autumn, the latter retiring to their hybernacu-
lum and sleeping till spring. The males are rather larger than the small
females whence they spring, and their antennae are longer and more slender.
They are not an idle race, for Beaumur asserts that they work in concert
with the rest to repair any damage that may befall their common habitation.
They act in some sort as scavengers of the settlement, removing every sort
of rubbish, and the dead bodies of such individuals as may chance to die,
but do not forage for building materials and provisions, nor do they take
any share in rearing and attending to the young. Such, then, is an outline
of the proceedings which occur in every colony of humble bees, all of
which, with the exception of a few large females destined to continue the
race, perish at the close of autumn.
Spiders There are several species of spiders, divided into two classes,
the sedentary and the wandering spiders. To the first class belong the orb-
weavers, who make a circular web; the line weavers, whose web is labyrin-
thian; the tube weavers, who hang their nests on walls or rocks or branches
of trees; and the tunnel-weavers, who live in tunnels cut into the earth, and
having automatic doors ingeniously contrived.
Spiders are not sociable creatures; they are generally, on the contrary,
of solitary habits, and are mostly cannibals, eating each other with great
gusto. They mate in the spring and autumn, and the mating is often a very
trying and dangerous time. They reverse the order of nature in one re-
spect, for the males are infinitely inferior in every respect to the females,
and the latter are well aware of the fact. Their courtships are scenes of
violence, and not of love and peace. The lady looks with sublime contempt
upon the gentleman, and keeps him at a distance. He can only approach
her by stratagem, and sometimes she nips off one of his legs in her anger,
and casts him adrift a cripple. A spider will never eat her own young, but
the males will destroy them when they can. The mother either goes away
or dies soon after the hatching of her eggs, which number about one hun-
dred to each nest, and the little ones are thrown upon the world almost as
soon as they see light. There are several varieties, however, who carry
their eggs in a silk pouch until they are hatched.
Spiders have numerous enemies, and much of their clever nest-building
is designed for protection against these inroads. Toads and birds destroy
them by the thousand, and a little parasite called the ichneumon^- a small
fly lays its eggs in the cocoons of the spider, and when the larvae appears
it feeds first on the spider's eggs, and later on the young spiders. Orb-
weavers and line-weavers desert their eggs when laid, and meet their off-
spring, where they live so long, as strangers. Another "bitter enemy of the
spider is the mud-daubing wasp, who has a process that might be valuable
to humanity, if it could be discovered, of keeping a supply of fresh meat.
When they capture a spider that is not needed for present use, they sting it
in such a manner that it lives, but has no power to move until such time as
the captor is ready to devour it.
If you anchor a pole in a body of water, leaving the pole above the sxir-
face, and put a spider upon it, he will exhibit marvelous intelligence by bis
NATURAL HISTORY.
141
plans to escape. At first he will spin a web several inches long, and hang
to one end while he allows the other to float off in the wind, in the hope that
it will strike some object. Of course this plan proves a failure, but the
spider is not discouraged. He waits until the wind changes, and then sends
another silken bridge floating off in another direction. Another failure is
followed by several other similar attempts, until all the points of the com-
pass have been tried. But neither the resources nor reasoning powers ol
the spider are exhausted. He climbs to the top of the pole and energeti-
cally goes to work to construct a silken balloon. He has no hot air with
which to inflate it, but he has the power of making it buoyant. When he
gets his balloon finished he does not go off upon the mere supposition that it
will carry him, as men often do, but he fastens it to a guyrope, the other end
of which he attaches to the island pole, upon which he is a prisoner. He then
A SPIDEK'S WEB.
gets into his aerial vehicle, while it is made fast, and tests it to see whether
its dimensions are capable of bearing him away. He often finds that he has
made it too small, in which case he hauls it down, takes it all apart and
constructs it on a larger and better plan. A spider has been seen to make
three different balloons before he became satisfied with his experiment.
Then he will get in, snap the guyrope and sail away, to land as gracefully
and as supremely independent of his surroundings as could be well
imagined.
The Wasp. Wasps differ very widely in their habits, some being soli
tary, others social. Some of the solitary wasps make curious burrows ia
eand, or construct tubes of earthy paste on the sides of walls, in which they
form cells for their eggs, at the same time placing there a etore of food fo;
142 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
the larvae, some of them using for this purpose perfect insects. Others make
little earthen cells on the stems of plants, and store in them a little honey
for their young. The social wasps have various modes of constructing their
nests, which are sometimes formed in excavations in the ground, sometimes
attached to walls, houghs of trees, etc., and formed of a paper-like substance,
produced by mixing into a pulp, with their saliva, small particles of woody
fibre. The combs are made of a substance similar to the outer covering of
the nest, but generally thicker and firmer. As the nest is enlarged, new
paper is made for the purpose, the whole nest being enclosed in the last-
made envelope, and the inner ones, which sufficed for its former size, are
removed to give place to combs.
The Water Spider. The Arggroneta aquatic is a plain, dark-brown
spider, densely hairy. It dives from a leaf on the surface, and, as it plunges
THE WATER SPIDEB.
in, a bubble of air surrounds it attached to its hairy body. Arrived at a de-
sirable location in the midst of a matted mass of water plants, it sets the
bubble free by means of its feet in such a manner that it shall lodge amid
the vegetation. It repeats the journey until finally the bubble thus pro-
duced is large enough; it then spins around its upper part a net to retain
it, and anchors this net to the neighboring water plants. If this thimble-
ehaped diving-bell does not contain enough air, more is now brought down,
until finally the satisfied creature establishes itself within its aquatic
domicile to look out for passing prey. The silvery guard of the spiders aa
they descend, and the beauty of their delicate abode, must be seen to be
and they form delightful additions to the fresh, water acjuariu.ni,
148
White Ants. These insects live in societies, each of which consists of
a countless number of individuals, the large majority of which are wingless.
Two individuals only in each society, a male and a female, or, according to
some, a king and a queen, are winged, and these alone in the entire society
are specimens of the perfect insect. The king and queen are privileged in-
dividuals, surrounded with all the respect and consideration, and receiving
all the attendance and honors, due to sovereigns. Exempted from all par-
ticipation in the common industry ot the society, they are wholly devoted to
increase and multiplication. They are distinguished from the inferior mem-
bers of the society by the possession of organs of vision in the form of large
and prominent eyes, their subjects being all of them blind.
These latter are divided into two classes, the workers and the soldiers.
The workers are by far the most numerous members of the society, being
about a hundred times greater in number than the soldiers. Their bodies
also are smaller than those of the soldiers, the latter being again smaller
than those of the sovereigns. The entire industrial business of the society
is performed by the workers. They erect the common habitation and keep
it in repair. They forage and collect provisions for the society. They at-
tend upon the sovereigns, and carry away the eggs of the queen, as fast aa
she deposits them, to chambers which they previously prepare for them.
They keep these chambers in order, and when the eggs are hatched they
perform the part of nursed to the young, feeding them and waiting upon
them until they have attained sufficient growth to wait upon themselves.
The soldiers are distinguished by their long and large heads, armed with
long pointed mandibles. Their duty, as their title implies, is confined to
the defence of the society and of their common habitation when attacked by
enemies.
A visitor to the tropics unacquainted with the architectural skill of these
small builders must pause in wonderment before the habitations which they
erect. The insect itself is scarcely a quarter of an inch in length, and yet
in the space of three or four years they manage to build a home for them-
selves that is twelve feet in height. , These wonderful structures are shaped
like a sugar-loaf or cone, and when first erected consist of naked clay, but,
in the fertile climate where the white ant lives, the seeds of herbage trans-
ported by the wind are soon deposited upon them, and they are speedily
covered with the same vegetation as the surrounding soil, and when in th a
dry and warm season this vegetation is scorched they assume the appear-
ance of vast hay-cocks. The interior of these mounds themselves are of
most curious and complicated structure, consisting of a variety of chambers
and corridors formed with the most consummate art, and adapted in shape
and siae to the respective purposes to which they are assigned in the geuer?.!
economy of the colony.
The royal chamber appropriated to the sovereigns engrosses much of the
attention and skill of their industrious subjects. It is generally place!
about the center of the base of the mound, at the level of the surrounding
ground. It has the shape that architects call a surmounted dome, and its
magnitude is proportioned to that of the king and queen to whom it is
appropriated. Its floor is perfectly level, and formed of clay about an inch
thick. The roof is a solid, well-turned arch, increasing in thickness from fv
quarter of an inch at the sides, where it rests upon the floor,
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUS-
TOMS, ETC.
China and the Chinese. Among the higher classes in China the
married lady rises early, and first sees that tea is prepared for her husband,
as well as some hot water for his morning bath. The same attention is also
exacted by the mother-in-law; indeed, during the life of the latter, the wife has
CHINESE LADIES.
to be a very drudge in the house. In the morning the ladies fly about dressed
en deshabille, and shout out their orders to the domestic slaves. In short, a
general uproar prevails in many Chinese households, until everything for
the elaborate toilet has been procured. Each lady has generally one or two
maids, besides a slave girl who waits on these maids, and trims her mistress's
pipe. The dressing of the lady's hair occupies her attendants from one to
two hours. Then a white paste is applied to her face and neck, a rose pow-
der to the cheeks and eyelids, and a red dye to the finger nails; and finally
the lady is dressed for the day. Many Chinese ladies spend a great portion
of their time in gossiping, smoking, and gambling. The last named, it is to
be regretted, is the most favorite pastime, but it is the men who set them
the example. They never dream of playing except for money; and when
they have no visitors of their own rank to gamble with they call in the do-
mestics and play with them. Numbers of ladies pass a portion of their tim?
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 145
in embroidering shoes, purses, handkerchiefs, and such things; while beforo
marriage nearly all their days are occupied in preparations for the dreary
event of wedding one whom they have never seen and for whom they do not
care. Some women occasionally hire educated widows in needy circum'
A CHINESE BHIDE.
etances to read novels or plays to them. Women capable of reading in this
way can make a comfortable living, as there are so very few of the female
sex who can read. The women of the poorer classes have no education, and
can be considered but little better than beasts of burden. A man of that
rank will walk deliberately by his wife's side, while she tottera under a
heavy load; and frequently may she be seen yoked to a plow, while her
husband guides it. Those of the lower classes who are good looking, ao-
146 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE,
cording to the Chinese ideas of beauty, are purchased by the rich at about
twelve or fourteen years, for concubines, and are then instructed according
to their master's ideas. The preliminaries, formalities, ceremonies and
superstitions connected with marriage in China, would, if given in full, al-
moit fill a volume. Previous to the wedding day the bride has her eye-
brows pulled out, so that ehe is recognized ever afterward as a married
A CHINESE BABY IN ITS WINTER CBADLE.
woman. On the morning of the " lucky day " chosen for the marriage, she
IB earned from her home to that of her future husband in a beautiful and
highly ornamented bridal chair. The religious part of the ceremony consists
in the bride and groom's worshiping together the spirit tablets of the ances-
tors of the groom. The parties first see each other's faces when, seated by
the bridal bed, the bride's veil is removed, and the two parties drink wine
out of the same cnp. The wedding festivities generally last at least two
days. The first day the male friends and relatives of the groom are invited
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 147
to " shed their light " on the occasion. On the second day the female friends
and relatives of the family of the groom are invited to the wedding feast.
This is often called the " women's day." Not long after the family and
guests have breakfasted on the morning of the second day, the newly mar-
ried couple, amid the noise of fire-crackers, then come out of their room to-
gether for the purpose of again worshiping the ancestral tablets belonging
to the household, the grandparents and parents of the groom. This custom
is known by the name of " coming out of the room." Not long subsequent
to this ceremony the people proceed to the kitchen for the purpose of wor-
BEATING ON A TEMPLE DKUM.
shiping the god and goddess of the kitchen. This is performed with great
decorum, and is regarded as an important and essential part of marriage
solemnities. It is believed that thus they will propitiate their good will,
and especially that the bride, in attempting culinary operations, will suc-
ceed better in consequence of paying early and respectful attention to these
divinities. This is an illustration of how idolatry is inwrought into the social
and domestic life of the Chinese people.
When a baby boy is born in China friends and neighbors come together
to rejoice, and throughout his tender years he is cared for most zealously.
Many ingenious contrivances for the promotion of his health and comfort are
procured, as witness the winter cradle shown in our illustration; but there
is no gladness in a Chinese family at the birth of a little girl. Parents
U8 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
it a great disgrace to have only daughters in their family, and they fear the
gods must be very eugry to send them such a misfortune. And though it ia
almost too sad to believe, the little baby-girls are sometimes put to death
by their own parents, who do not want the trouble of bringing them up. A
Chinese girl is seldom taught to do anything but to use her hands, to cook,
weave, do embroidery, etc. She is taken away when quite a child from her
own father and mother to be married, and then, unless she belongs to the
poorer classes, she is seldom seen outside the house of her mother-in-law.
Indeed you will not wonder at this if you remember their strange custom of
cramping the feet of women to make them small. The mother begins to
bind the foot when the little daughter is only two years old, and the ban-
dages are worn for years, though some children die of the cruel pain. At
last the poor foot loses all feeling, but it is crippled and almost useless.
The small-footed girl cannot walk any distance without the help of a stick,
and her hobble must indeed be painful to see. Yet the Chinese admire the
walk of small-footed ladies, and say it is like " the waving of willow boughs
in a breeze."
The Chinese are so superstitious as to believe that the gods need very much
the same things which we do, and are pleased with the things which give
us pleasure; and so, in their folly, they try to send them money, clothing,
furniture and houses. The wealthy send, in addition, summer-houses, sedan
chairs, pleasure boats, etc. They do this by making paper or wooden repre-
sentations of such things, and burning them in front of the idol or temple,
they believing that they are severally changed into the real articles in the
world of spirits for the use of the gods. Nearly all heathen people accom-
pany their prayers to false gods with beating on some loud-sounding instru-
ment. They seem to have the same idea concerning their gods as Elijah
taunted the prophets of Baal with holding, namely, that Baal might be asleep
and needed to be awakened by noise, or that he might be on a journey and
need to be stopped in the same way. Before a Chinese worshiper enters a
temple he gives a pull on the bell-rope to inform the god that he has come
to worship, and to ask him to please give attention; and in all Buddhist
countries while priests and people are engaged in worship, drums are beaten
for the purpose of holding the attention of the gods. Sometimes these drums
are within and at other times without the temple, and at other temples they
are both within and without. The engraving we give shows the kind of
drum used in Northern China, Thibet and Mongolia. Gongs and other loud-
sounding instruments are also sometimes used in addition to the drums.
The prisons in China are in a much more revolting state than those in
Europe were before John Howard began his labors for their improvement,
and the prisoners who are not rich, or who have not rich friends willing to
bribe the jailers, are given but a small amount of coarse food, and have to
endure exceedingly cruel treatment. Comparatively few criminals, how-
ever, are imprisoned after conviction. Several crimes are punished with
immediate decapitation, or strangulation, and others with tortures and flag-
ellations. One method of punishment is that represented in the picture.
The criminal is fastened in a crouching posture in what looks something
like a cask, but with his hands and head outside, and this painful position
he has to maintain day and night. In the illustration the wife of the criminal
is represented as feeding him with rice by means of the Chinese chop-sticks.
Other punishments are beating the cheeks with a leather instrument; squeez-
ing the fingers; beating the person with a bamboo, or wooden stick; squeez-
ing the ankles; standing on tip-toe in cages made of wooden slabs; wearing
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 149
a very tight-fitting shirt of iron wire, through which the skin and flesh pro-
trude; and many others similar to those which were used in the Roman
Catholic Inquisition.
Mandarins and other wealthy persons in China have extensive pleasure
grounds connected with their residences in which are erected pavilions,
or, as we would call them, summer-houses. We give an illustration of one
of those found in the grounds of the Emperor's Summer Palace, near Pekin.
Canton is one of the finest Chinese cities. Its narrow streets are filled
with a stream of men and women as unceasing as the stream that Sows over
A CHINESE MODE OF PUNISHMENT.
London Bridge daily. As you pass along the streets in a chair, it is one
continual fight for passage room; and the various collisions that occur pro-
voke groans on both sides from the chair-bearers and carriers of goods.
Now a great basket of greens bumps against the sides, and now a pig en-
closed in a basket is brought up against the chair, to the mutual alarm of
pig and passenger. Presently another chair comes down in the opposite di-
rection, and perhaps contains a portly mandarin in official garb. Then a
great shouting ensues on both sides, and a tangle, in which the mandarin
makes the most of the opportunity to look at the foreign lady. Then the
chairs extricate themselves, and on patter the bearers. The streets present
a very curious appearance, being hung with long, colored signboards, which
have the appearance of banners streaming. Among these, glinting out
150 CYOLOPJBDlA Off USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
brightly in the sunlight, are gorgeous lanterns and colored lamps, so that
the streets present a festive aspect even on ordinary occasions. The names
of the streets are characteristic of Chinese inflation of style. One is called
Street of Everlasting Love; another, Street of Refreshing Breezes; another,
Street of a Thousand Beatitudes; another, Street of a Thousand Grandsons.
Trades of all kinds are practiced in the open streets. There are traveling
blacksmiths, hatters, joiners, umbrella makers, tinkers, tinsmiths, cooks,
confectioners, lapidaries, barbers, doctors, dentists, jewelers, clothiers, and
A CHINESE PAVHION.
<w>bblers. They all carry their shops about with them. If a customer wants
his shoes mended, he will find his man at the first street, strike a bargain,
tike off his shoes, smoke the cobbler's pipe and wait. A few steps farther
on he may doff his cost, and hand it for repair to a street tailor. Should he
be afflicted with toothache while he Avaits for his coat, he may have his tooth
extracted by some traveling dentist.
Nothing made Nanking so much celebrated abroad as the Porcelain Tower,
which was one of the wonders of the world. It stood pre-eminent beyond
ull similar buildings for its completeness and elegance, and the quality of
material of which it was built. It cost four millions of dollars, and was
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 151
nineteen years in building, being completed in A. D. 1430. The outer face
of this unique structure was covered with slabs of porcelain of various
colors, principally green, red, yellow and white. At every one of its nine
stories there was a projecting roof covered with green tiles; and a bell was
suspended from each corner. There were one hundred and fifty-two bella
PORCELAIN TOWEB.
in all, which gave sweet sounds when there was a brisk wind. One hundred
and twenty-eight lamps were also hung on the outside. In the year 1801 it
was seriously injured by a storm.
The Japanese. As might be imagined from the character of the gov-
ernment, woman plays no part in the history of Japan, though, allowing for
Oriental usages, she is treated on the whole with tolerable leniency. She
occupies a better position in the family, from not entailing any charge of
her marriage, as a bride receives no dowry, but, on the contrary, is pre-
152 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDG B.
eented by her husband with a handsome donation, which is invariably ap-
propriated by her father. In Japan, therefore, it is considered more fortu-
nate to have daughters than sons, as the former ultimately prove a very
profitable investment. On the birth of a son, the event is commemorated
by planting a tree, which, if the little stranger lives, is carefully tended to
the day of his marriage, when it is cut down and furnishes material for a
chest, designed expressly to hold the wardrobe of the newly-wedded couple.
JAPANESE BBEDE AND ATTENDANTS.
fh marriage, as hi China and Tartary, is an affair between the parents, and
the wishes of the young people themselves are never consulted. The bride
is usually in her fifteenth year; but maturity being early developed, wed-
lock may be contracted at a still younger age, and the mother is often a
child herself. Marriage is a religious ceremony, and is celebrated with
great pomp and many forms, in a public temple, in presence of the priests
and idols, and the friends and kindred of both parties. The priest blackens
the pearly teeth of the bride, using for this purpose the same indelible lac-
quer applied to coal-scuttles and other similar japan ware; and this serves,
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CVSTOMS, ETC.
153
from that time to her death, to notify, like the wedding ring of Europe, that
she has entered the marriage state.
The husband has an absolute power over his wife; she is forbidden to
interfere in anything whatever out of the house. " It is a just rule, recog-
nized in the whole world," says the great legislator Yeyas, " that a faithful
husband manages out-of-door business, and a faithful wile minds her house-
hold. When a woman thinks of outside affairs, her husband neglects his
duties, and it forcibly leads to the ruin of the house. The hen must not
A JAPANESE FAMILY.
crow at dawn; it is a scourge, which every man jealous of his dignity and
happiness should avoid." The husband disposes of the entirety of his wife's
fortune; he can even sell her when hardly pressed by want; but it is right
to add that he seldom takes advantage of this provision of the law for ex-
treme cases. He can also repudiate her for a number of reasons. A di-
vorced woman cannot take her children with her; but divorce is rare where
there are children. She leaves the family of her husband, comes back to
her own, and is allowed to marry again if she gets the chance, which is not
frequently. Conjugal association, which in our societies has such a high
154 CYCLOPEDIA OP V SEP VI KNOWLEDGE.
social importance, has but a very restricted one in Japan. There everything
is expected from the woman, nothing from the man; for the former, mar-
riage is a bond which death itself can scarcely sever; for the latter it is an
association in which he will remain engaged only as long as he chooses.
Among the first things that strike the traveler in Japan are the wooden
sandals worn by these thirty-five millions of people. They have a separate
compartment for the great toe, and make a clacking noise on the street.
Straw slippers are also worn, and a traveler setting out on a journey will
strap a supply of them on his back that he may put on a new pair when the
old ones are worn out. They cost but a cent and a half a pair. They are
never worn in the house, being left outside the door; passing down a street
you see long rows of them at the doors, old and new, large and small. It
A JAPANESE BED.
is surprising to see how readily the Japs step out of them, and pick them up
again with their feet, without stopping, when leaving the house. Constant
habit makes them dexterous.
The inside rooms of the houses are all of a certain size, so that the mats
with which the floors are covered fit snugly. These mats are braided of rice
straw, which is really the universal material of the Japanese, as the European
art of making household furniture, such as beds, tables, chairs, divans, etc.,
is not yet developed. On these mats they take their meals; and family gath-
erings, and in fact all visitors, find a soft and welcome spot. On one of these
mats can be seen the " shake down " bed, which is the universal couch of
repose, with its hard bamboo pillow, than which nothing could certainly be
more uncomfortable to people accustomed to the soft and downy pillow of
civilization.
The Japanese priests, and also of the Buddha religion, are recruited
principally from the higher clasiM, and a small portion from the higher
MANNERS AtTt) CUSTOMS, ETC. 155
middle classes. Around each one there seems to be a distinct social clan.
The Cinto priests live in small-built houses near the temple. Tkey allow
their wives to assist in their priestly duties. Much better, however, live the
A JAPANESE TEMPLE.
priests of the various branches of the Buddha religions. They have large
revenues and live a luxurious life; therefore the least said of their morality
the better.
A traveler thus describes the arrival at a Japanese hotel: The landlord
comes to meet us, falling on his hands and knees, bows his head to the floor.
One or two of the pretty girls out of the bevy usually seen in the Japanese
hotels come to assist us and take our traps. Welcomes, invitations, aiid
plenty of fun greet us as we sit down to take off our shoes, as all good Japa-
156 CYCLOPEDIA OP VStiPVL KNOWLEDGE.
nese do, and as those filthy foreigners don't, who tramp on the clean mats
with their muddy boots. We stand up unshod, and are led by the laughing
girls along the smooth corridors, across an arched bridge, which spans an
open space in which is a rookery, garden, and pond stocked with gold-fish,
turtles, and marine plants. The room which our fair guides choose for us
is at the rear end of the house, overlooking the grand scenery for which
Eanozan is justly noted all over the empire. Ninety-nine valleys are said
to be visible from the mountain top on which the hotel is situated."
The Castes and Tribes of India In India only four pure castes
are recognized, the Brahmin or priests, the Kshatriyas, who are soldiers, the
Vaisyas as husbandmen, and the Sudras as servants or laborers. Heeren
supposed that the first three were a foreign race, who subdued the aborigines
of the country, and reduced them to an inferior caste. These four classes con-
stitute the elements of every so-
ciety in an early period of civiliza-
tion. Professor Wilson says that
everything in the Hindoo insti-
tutes indicates that the Brahmins
originated not from political but
religious principles. "Apparent-
ly," he says, " the system was con-
trived by a religious confederation
as the scheme best adapted to in-
troduce order among semi-civil-
ized tribes, and with no view to
their own advantage, or aggran-
dizement or enjoyment of indolent
ease. The authority of influence,
of advice, the Brahmins necessa-
rily retained, and they were the
only competent expounders of the
laws which they promulgated.
They had no other means of pro-
tection than the character of sanc-
tity with which they invested themselves and which was equally necessary
to insure attention to their instructions. They labored to deserve the opin-
ion of sanctity by imposing burdensome duties on themselves of a domestic
and religious character." In the very rudest constitution of society the
priest is to be found. In addition to the influence which he professes to have
with good and evil spirits, he sometimes practices the medical art, and in
various ways sustains his importance by superior cunning, working upon
the superstition, ignorance, and fears f man in his most abject condition.
Nowhere has the influence of a priesthood been so paramount and extensive
as in Hindostan. It is remarkable that the Brahmins never invested them-
selves with royal authority. The laws of Menu direct that " To one learned
Brahmin, distinguished among the rest, let the king impart his momentous
counsel." As the sole interpreters of the laws, they in reality possessed the
judicial powers of government as well as those of a legislative character.
The code was already perfect and complete, as coming from the Divine
Being, and in no case could it be interpreted except in the sense the Brah-
mins were pleased to impose. The king was little more than a servant of
the Brahmins. In order to have an adequate idea of the superiority of the
THE HINDOO.
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC'.
157
ancient Brahmin, we must refer to the laws of Menu, which were probably
promulgated three thousand years ago. While the Sudra, the lowest of the
four castes, was represented as proceeding from the foot of the Creator, the
Brahmin came forth from his mouth. He is declared to be the lord of all
the classes, and from his high birth alone is an object of veneration even to
deities, and it is through him, and at his intercession, that blessings are be-
etowed upon mankind. " When a Brahmin springs to light, he is born above
the world, the chief of all creatures," the first duty of civil magistrates is to
A BBAHHIN EXPOUNDING THE VEDA.
honor the Brahmins. " Whatever exists in the universe is all in effect, though
not iu form, the wealth of the Brahmin, since the Brahmin is entitled to it all
by his primogeniture and eminence of birth." The sacred books are exclu-
sively his; and while the other classes are scarcely permitted to read them,
he is appointed their sole expounder. For offering to give instruction to
Brahmins, hot oil must be poured into the offender's mouth and ears, and
for contumelious language the punishment is almost as severe. Mysterious
powers were assigned to them. " A priest who well knows the law, need
not complain to the king of any grievous injury, since, even by his own
power, he may chastise those who injure him; hia own power is mightier
158 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
than the royal power." Again, it is said, " Let not the king provoke Brah-
mins to anger, for they once enraged, could immediately destroy him," and
it is asked, " What man desirous of life, would injure those by the aid of
whom worlds and gods perpetually subsist, those who are rich in the knowl-
edge of the Veda ? " Extraordinary respect must be paid to the most humble
Brahmin. " A Brahmin whether learned or ignorant is a powerful divinity."
To confer gifts upon Brahmins was an essential religious duty. These gifts
were a necessary part of expiation and sacrifice. The Hindoo ritual, as
THE JJHEELS.
Mr. Will remarks, extended to almost every hour of the day and every
function of nature and society, and consequently, those who were the sole
judges and directors of its complicated and endless duties could not but be
possessed of an enormous influence on the mental character of the people.
The Bheels are the original inhabitants of the western part of India; at
some remote period, beyond the reach of historical records, they were
driven from the plains, and now inhabit the wild tract of country which
separates Malwah from Nemaur and Guzerat. While the history of the
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 159
Bheels naturally excites curiosity, their dispersion over rugged tracts of
country, and their ignorance and prejudices, are obstacles to intercourse;
and little is known concerning their habits, customs and forms of worship,
except that they are different from those of other races of India. The word
" Bheel," which signifies a robber or plunderer, is applied generally to the
people who dwell in the mountains of Central India, and amid the thickets
on the banks of rivers; but used comprehensively in this manner, it includes
many who are not real Bheels, though they have adopted their predatory
habits. Sir John Malcolm divides the Bheels into three classes those who
live in villages, the agricultural Bheels, and the wild Bheels of the hills.
" The first," he says, " consist of a few who from ancient residence or chance
have become inhabitants of villages on the plain (though near the hills), of
which they are the watchmen, and are incorporated as a portion of the com-
munity. The cultivating Bheela are those who have continued in their
THE MAHBATTAS OF INDIA.
peaceable occupations after their leaders were de&troyed or driven by in-
vaders to become desperate freebooters; and the wild or mountain Bheel
comprises all that part of the tribe, who, preferring savage freedom or
indolence to submission and industry, have continued to subsist by plunder.
The wild Bheel are a diminutive, ill fed, wretched looking people, though
they are active and capable of great fatigue. The village Bheels are faith-
ful and honest, and those who live by cultivation are industrious, but rude
in their manners, easily assimilating to their wilder brethren. The rude
religion of the Bheela bears some lesemblance to that of the Hindoos, but
they excite horror of the latter by eating the flesh of the cow. Their cere-
monies are chiefly propitiatory, consisting of offerings to the minor infernal
deities of the Hindoo mythology.
In the latter half of the seventeenth century, in the reign of Aurungzebe,
the last powerful and energetic monarch who ruled over the Mogul empire
160 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
in Hindostan, there descended from the range of inaccessible hills which
runs along the western coast of India fierce and wild bands of plunderers,
whose devastating excursions spread dismay among the inhabitants of tha
neighboring plains. They were the Mahrattas. Aurungzebe died in 1707,
when the Mogul dominion declined with frightful rapidity. The Mahrattas
now extended their territories, their original country, though large, being
wild and uncultivated. Prcin robbers the Mahrattas became conquerors.
Half the provinces of the empire were turned into Mahratta principalities.
Freebooters sprung from low castes and accustomed to menial em-
ployments became
mighty rajahs. The
Bouses, at the head of
a band of plunderers,
occupied the vast re-
gion Berar. The Gui-
cowar, which is, being
interpreted, the
Herdsman, founded
that dynasty which
still reigns in Guzerat.
The House of Scindia
and Holkar waxed
great in Malwah. One
adventurous captain
made his nest on the
impregnable rock of
G o o t i ; another be-
came the lord of the
thousand villages,
which are scattered
among the green rice
fields of Tanjore. The
formidable confedera-
tion of the Mahrattas
was put an end to in
1817, after a struggle
maintained for many
years against the
British power in
India.
There is a class of
Hindoo women whose
fame has extended far
beyond their native
land, and whom poets have depicted, not without exaggeration, as most
refined and poetic beings. We allude to the Nautch girls, or Bayaderes,
whose songs and dances are in great request throughout India, and are
essential to the proper performance of certain religious rites. Men accom-
pany the movements of the dancers with trumpets and cymbals, while other
Bayaderes, who sit around in a circle, beat time with their hands, and sing
a monotonous refrain. The effect of the dance is produced less by the grace
of the dancer than by her gay-colored garments and the profusion of
jewelry with which she is literally loaded. Their costumes are always rich,
A NATIVE MUSICIAN OF INDIA.
TRAVELS, MAXXEHb AXD CUSTOMS, ETV.
161
and arranged with a considerable degree of arfc. One of the most effective
is composed of a jacket very low in the neck, trousers, and a long veil which
floats about the entire body.
The Banjara women are noted for their beauty; slender, with finely
formed limbs, and a noble expression, each of their movements displays
pride and grace. Their dress is a short jacket, and a long plaited robe.
NATIVES OF BANJABA, INDIA.
Over the pointed head-dress a cloth is thrown, which falls down the back,
and envelopes the figure like a cloak. Their jewelry often represents the
entire capital of their husbands. They wear rings in the nose and ears,
rings and chains braided in their hair, and bands of shells, and red and
blue ivory rings upon their arms. Upon their ankles they load heavy
metallic rings hung with many little bells. These walking jewelers' shops
162 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
present a truly picturesque appearance throned upon camels, their gar-
ments flowing in graceful folds, and holding a child in their arms. The
position of these women is far from happy. In their wanderings the care of
the herds falls entirely upon them, the men contenting themselves with
patrolling the camps, and protecting them against the attacks of robbers
and wild animals.
At the threshold of India, hi the northwestern angle of the Himalayan
WOMEN OF THE HIMALAYAS.
mountain chain, lies the renowned province of Cashmere, surrounded by
ranges of snow-clad mountains, some of which are the loftiest known. Its
deep secluded valleys are carpeted with the richest flowers and the rost
luxurious vegetation. Waterfalls dash in musical cadence from the cliffs,
and numerous lakes reflect and multiply the magnificent landscapes which
surround them on every side. The people who inhabit this paradise are
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 163
usually handsome, with faultless physical proportions. Their rather
prominent noses scarcely detract from the glorious beauty of their spark-
ling eyes. The women, however, are fickle and crafty, and the keen
tongue of a Cashmere beauty is as much dreaded as her caprice.
The magnificence of the Taje Mahal and the " City of Palaces," Calcutta,
lead us to a somewhat exaggerated idea of the splendor of India and its
advancement in the scale of civilization. Many think it has risen out of its
legends and superstitions since ruled by the British crown, and so fail to
consider that it is still, to a large extent, governed by its native chiefs, and
consequently retains most of its old customs and strange laws of caste and
peculiar religious rites. One of these idolatrous rites is represented in our
SUTTEE WOESHIP, INDIA.
illustration of Suttee worship, which is preceded one month by noisy festivi-
ties, and as the day of the sacrifice approaches, the offering is decked with
flowers and a weird dance is held around her, after which the offering to
this feast is bound to the holy stake. The priests then recite the ritual
forms, informing their gods that upon the next day the sacrifice will be
made, and a human life will go out from the dark heathenism of India with
its beautiful Vale of Cashmere.
Our next Mhistratiou, primitive as it may appear, represents a better
civilization. Although English oaches and Hansom cabs have been intro-
duced into the larger cities, yet when one arrives in what we call the coun-
try towns, there is found the zebu carriage in all its glory, drawn by animals
representing a cross between an ox and deer, with fatty protuberances on \\$
164 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
ZEBU CAEBIAGE, INDIA.
shoulders. The carriage resembles a dog or village cart, and possesses a
canopy to protect the occupant from the rays of the Indian sun. The driver,
seated almost on the bovines' haunches, shouts vigorously from time to
time at the animals, with little result as to speed.
The natives of Scinde, India, dwelling on the shores of the Indus, have a
very primitive and original method of taking the fish necessary for their
TRAVELS MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETG.
165
subsistence. The fisherman launches into the water a large and very light
earthen vessel, ami lying face downward upon it, commends himself to the
mercy of Allah and pushes off from the shore. Impelling his singular
bark forward with his feet and hands, he skims over the water, as our
engraving on preceding page represents. He holds in his right hand
a pitchfork about fifteen feet long, to which is attached a large net,
which he closes immediately the fish is taken, and transfers the fish to
hia vessel. Floating with confidence over the water, the fisherman pro-
SENEGAMBIA FUIAHS.
ceeds several miles from the shore, suffering himself to be carried forward
by the current on account of the puia, a fish in much esteem, always swim-
ming against the stream. Others content themselves with fishing for the
puia with a net, standing on the shore.
Life in Africa. Senegambia is the name given to that portion of West-
ern Africa which is watered by the two great rivers of Senegal and Gambia.
The face of this large tract, which extends interiorward to the distance of
six or seven hundred miles, is generally flat and monotonous. The princi-
1C6 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
pal native tribes of Sencgambia are the Jaloffs, tlio Mandingocs, and the
Fulah. The Fulahs of Futa-Jallon differ very materially from the ordinary
negro races, and can scarcely be classed iu the same family. Their com-
plexion is a brownish black, with hair soft and curly, foreheads good, lips
thin. In staiure they are of middle size, limbs delicate but well formed,
and in gait graceful arid independent. The Fulahs have a tradition that
they are descended from Phut, the son of Ham. They are Mohammedans,
and are zealous in proselyting the heathen tribes.
The Sourigo, also natives of West Africa, are a warh'ke and savage race,
and, unlike the Fu-
lahs, their skin ia
extremely black,
their lips thick and
their countenance
repulsive. They
have frequently
been known to attack
and kill travelers
from apparently no
other motive than
pure wantonness.
Congo women are
not better treated
than women else-
where in Africa. In-
deed, it is said that
one of the greatest
marks of affection
which a husband can
bestow on his wife ia
a good horse-whip-
ping, and that a
Congo wife considers
herself, very badly
used, and her rela-
tive s remonstrate
vrith her husband, if
she does not receive
the chastisement at
regular intervals. A
woman, however,
may ascend the
THE SOUKIGO, NATIVES OF 'WEST AFBICA.
throne, and the reign of one named Shinga, who came to power in 1640, fills a
considerable chapter in the unwritten annals of Equatorial Africa. Through
the intrigues of Jesuit priests, to whose rites she would not submit, sho
was forced to fly the kingdom, after contending with her nephew in three
pitched battles, which she lost. In 1646 she regained her kingdom after
many vicissitudes of fortune. By this time sho had got so accustomed to
war that she cared for nothing else, and her life was spent in hostilities
against her neighbors. Before she undertook any new enterprise she would
sacrifice the handsomest man she could find.
In nearly all parts of Africa the most rigid distinctions of caste are en-
forced. When a native approaches hia superior, he prostrates himself upon
TRAVELS. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC.
167
the ground, burying hia head in the earth, and durst not arise from this
position until the greater man has passed.
The Bakalaharis are a timid race, encountered by Dr. Livingstone in his
expedition of South Eastern Africa. The constant dread of being attacked
by savage tribes drives them to a distance from rivers or lakes. When they
by chance discover a small poud they cover it up with sand. The women,
when they are in need of water, place in a net which they carry on their
backs twenty or thirty empty ostrich eggs, which serve as vases. They then
CHIEF'S "WIFE TBAVELTNG, CENTRAL AFKICA.
attach to the end of a reed two feet long a tuft of herbage, which is thrust
into a hole in the moist ground, the surrounding space being closed up by
the moist earth. By applying their lips to the exposed end of the reed, the
water is drawn into their mouths, and thence transferred by another reed to
the ostrich eggs.
Cameron's "Across Africa" says that on the death of a Urua chief it is
the custom " to divert the course of a stream, and in its bed to dig an enor-
168 CYCLOPEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
mous p : t, the bottom of which is then covered with living women. At one
end a woman is placed on her hands and knees, and upon her back the
dead chief, covered with his beads and treasures, is seated, being supported
on either side by one of his wives, while his second wife sits at his feet.
The earth is then shoveled in on them, and all the women are buried alive,
with the exception of the second wife. To her, custom is more merciful
than to her companions, and grants her the privilege of being killed before
the huge grave is filled in. This being completed, a number of male slaves
sometimes forty or fifty are slaughtered, and their blood poured over the
grave, after which the river is allowed to resume its course."
Upon the death of any man of position or wealth in Madagascar, on the
day of the funeral
the wife is placed in
the house, dressed
in all her best
clothes, and covered
with her silver orna-
ments, of which the
Sihanaka wear a
considerable quan-
tity. There she re-
mains until the rest
of the family return
home from the tomb.
But as soon as they
enter the house they
begin to revile her
with the most abu-
sive language tell-
ing her that it is her
fault that her wini-
arm,OT fate, has been
stronger than that
of her husband, and
that she is virtually
the cause of his
death. They then
strip her of her
clothes, tearing off
with violence the or-
naments from her
neck, arms and ears.
They give her a
coarse cloth, a spoon
with a broken handle, and a dish with a foot broken off, from which to eat.
Her hair is disheveled, and she is covered up with a coarse mat. Under
that she remains lying all day, and can leave it only at night; and she may
not speak to any one who goes into the house. She is not allowed to wash
her face and hands, but only the tips of her fingers She endures all this
sometimes for a year, or at least for eight months; and even when that is
over the time of mourning ie not ended for a considerable period, for she ia
not allowed to go home to her own relations until she lias first been divorced
by her husband's family.
SALUTING A SUPERIOR.
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 169
Religious Customs in Palestine. An English gentleman who haa
lately traveled in Palestine, recently gave a description of the curious scenes
that are enacted in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. He said that when
you first entered the church, you would be surprised to see a party of sol-
diers, with their swords by their sides, and their guns stacked within reach.
It seemed a sacrilege in such a holy place, and struck one rather unpleas-
antly. But he soon found out the necessity for it. According to the law of
the country, every sect is allowed to worship there; and as it is considered
equally sacred both by Christians and Mohammedans, all wish a time for
their mode of wor-
ship. The law al-
lows them an hour
each. They com-
mence at six in the
morning. At that
hour, thosewho have
the first privilege
enter, bringing with
them whatever is
necessary to conduct
their particular re-
ligious rites. They
go through their
prayers and chants,
and all is very quiet
till about a quarter
to seven, when those
who have the privi-
lege of the next hour
begin to arrive. At
first, all is decorum;
but presently the
new comers begin to
hiss and mock. As
their numbers in-
crease, and they be-
come stronger, they
get more and more
bold. A few minutes
before seven, they
proceed to more for-
cible demonstration.
They think, if they can clear out these blasphemers a few minutes before
the time, they have done so much good work for God; while the worshipers,
on the other hand, think, if they can keep possession a few minutes after
the time, they have done an equally good work. As some of these sects use
torches, wax candles, staves or crooks, in their worship, they proceed to use
these as weapons of offense or defense, and a regular melee ensues. Then
come in the soldiers, who separate the combatants by filing in between them,
turning out those whose hour is up, and leaving the place in possession of
the last comers. If blood is shed the church is closed for the day. Such
scenes are occurring all day long, and the presence of soldiers is therefor*
absolutely necessary.
WOMEN FILLING WATER SKINS.
170 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The Arabs. The passion of the Arab lover exhausts itself upon the
maiden; it never extends to the wife. His wooing is most ardent, and all
his war songs are intermingled with thoughts of his mistress; but the Arab
woman's married life is prosaic in the extreme indeed she is little better
than the slave of her husband. The Bedouin marriage ceremony is usually
as follows: After the wooing, which is mostly done with a friend of the father
of the intended bride, the time is fixed for the wedding feast, ordinarily five
or six days after the betrothal. On the wedding night young men chosen for
the purpose kindle a fire before the tent of the bride, around which they
A FAMILY OF BEDOUINS.
gather and discharge their muskets, at which the women set up their shrill
" Elmuta wahat" or song, each strophe of which is accompanied with a
peculiar shout, the thrilling " li-li-li-li " of the chorus ringing away over the
steppes, inviting the occupants of the most distant tents to collect around
the bridal-fire. Each takes up the shout, the desert resounds with the
marching call, " Isru," and men and women rush together, amid the deaf-
ening din of yelp, and shriek, and the discharge of musketry. After a while
the disorder ceases and is followed by songs. The older people sip their
coffee and smoke, the younger members of the party dance, and the women
keep up their ear-splitting " Sagrttia" far into the night. Among many 01
the Bedouin tribes, the bridegroom comes and snatches his bride and carries
her away by force, either from her own tent or that of a neighbor, or, as
with the Bedouins of Sinai, from the mountain where she haa hidden her-
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 171
self. It is considered entirely correct for the bride to escape from her hue-
baud's house if she can.
Among the Arabs the dress for men and women differs but little, many
garments being worn in common, varied only by the manner of putting them
on. A tunic, coat or inner garment is usually made of two pieces of linen,
sewed together at the sides, and it reaches to the knees. The abba, or or-
dinary outer garment, is an oblong piece of woolen cloth, about five yards
long by five feet wide. It can be wrapped around 'the body or worn over
the shoulder like a shawl, with the ends of the " skirt " hanging down in
front. A long tunic without sleeves is sometimes worn, as a third garment,
between these two. Changes of garments constitute an important part of
a man's wealth.
The wandering Arab tribes of the present day dwell in tents. If possi-
ble, these are pitched
near the shade of a tree.
The larger tents are di-
vided into three apart-
ments, the inner of which
is given to the women,
and the outer to the ser-
vants, with the young of
the herds. An Arab camp
is always circular in form
and removed at a dis-
tance from the central
tent of the chief.
The " simoon," or
poison wind of Arabia,
is a serious affair to the
persons caught in it. The
center of the column of
wind is composed of a
poisonous gas, to breathe
which is death. Round
this center there eddy
violent gusts of heated
and impregnated air, like that of a furnace. It approaches slowly amid
the whirl of air currents that precede it for some distance. During its
presence the only chance of preserving life is found in covering the face with
a cloth and lying prone on the sand, inhaling what little pure air may be
found next to the earth. Meanwhile, the feeling of the chest is that of suffo-
cation, and that of the limbs as though moulten iron was being poured over
them. Camels instinctively bury their nozzles in the sand; but horses do
not possess the same preservatory instincts, and often perish in consequence.
Female Beauty The ladies of Arabia stain their fingers and toes
red, their eyebrows black, and their lips blue. In Persia they paint a black
streak around their eyes, and ornament their faces with various figures.
The Japanese women gild their teeth, and those of the Indians paint them
red. The pearl of the tooth must be dyed black to be beautiful in Guzerat.
The Hottentot women paint the entire body in compartments of red and
black. In Greenland the women color their faces with blue and yellow, and
they frequently tattoo their bodies, by saturating threads in soot, inserting
AEAB DRESS.
172 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
them beneath the skin, and then drawing them through. Hindoo families,
when they wish to appear particularly lovely, smear themselves with a mix-
ture of saffron, tumeric and grease. In nearly all the islands of the Pacific
and Indian Oceans, the women, as well as the men, tattoo a great variety of
figures on the face, lips, tongue and the whole body. In New Holland they
cut themselves with shears, and keeping the wounds open a long time, form
scars m the flesh, which they deem highly ornamental. Another singular
mutilation is made by taking off, in infancy, the little finger of the left hand
at the second joint. In ancient Persia, an aquiline nose was highly prized; but
the Sumatran mother carefully flattens the nose of her daughter. By some
of the savage tribes iii Oregon, and also in Sumatra and Aracan, continual
pressure is applied to the skull in order to flatten it, and thus give it new
beauty. The modern Persians have a strong aversion to red hair. Turks,
on the contrary, are warm admirers pf it. In China, small round eyes are
AN ABAB TENT.
liked, and the girls are continually plucking their eyebrows, that they may
be thin and long. But the great beauty of a Chinese lady is in her feet,
which in her childhood are so compressed by bandages as effectually to pre-
vent any further increase in size. The four smaller toes are bent under
the foot, to the sole of which they firmly adhere; and the poor girl not only
endures much pain, but becomes a cripple for life. Another mark of beauty
consists in finger nails so long that casings and bamboo are necessary to
preserve them from injury. An African beauty must have small eyes,
thick lips, large flat nose, and a skin beautifully black. In New Guinea the
nose is perforated, and a large piece of wood or bone inserted. In the north-
west coast of America an incision more than two inches in length is made in
the lower lip, and then filled with a wooden plug. In Guinea the lips are
pierced with thorns, the heads being inside the mouth, and the points rest-
ing on the chin.
Turkish Life and Customs. On entering within the gates of a
Turkish house the ecene forma a ttriking contrast with the dull, sombre ex-
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 173
tenor. An open coTirt, often paved with beautiful marble slabs, and always,
when the weather is fine, covered with matting, shelving terraces, and par-
terres of flowers round parts of this court, and gaily-painted alcoves, gal-
leries, pillars, and the hanging roofs of the apartments flanking the court in
other parts. The ground floor ia given up to the kitchen, offices, and the
servants. The upper or grand apartment ia divided into two. One of these
divisions is occupied by the master of the house, and is open to all male
servants and visitors; the other, called the harem which word signifies a
" holy place " is devoted to the women. The rooms of reception that open
upon the great corridor are spacious, seldom very lofty, and always plain.
The ceilings of the rooms, which are among the most ornamental portions of
a Mussulman's apartment, are exceedingly beautiful. Indeed, in many
INTERIOR OF A TUHKISH HOUSE.
houses it seems as if all art and ornament were reserved to be lavished on
the ceiling. It is formed of curiously tessellated wood-work, at times rep-
resenting a mosaic in wood, dotted here and there with golden stars; at
times painted in the arabesque style with green, blue, and gold, and in the
most varied and complicated designs.
Nothing impresses a stranger with the difference between Constantinople
and even the smallest western town, more forcibly than the almost total ab-
sence of carriages, and the contrast between those that are seen and any
that have ever been met before. The native coach is resplendent with yel-
low, and the canopy decked with numberless red tassels, which are re-
peated with the addition of bells on the harness of the mule, and a more
thoroughly uncomfortable machine in which to go a pleasuring than a telekah
can hardly exist. The narrowness of the road obliges one carriage to come
to a standstill while another passes; this enables one to see the veiled ladies
of course, a la Turque. It ia a rare picture that we view from our
174 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
window; it consists of a large square full of fountains, grass plots, flower-
beds, gilded cages, vases filled witb roses and clinging vines, hanging-
baskets that shine like gold, while here and there servants or guests, in
picturesque garments, move about with languid, indolent grace. There is
an old grandfather Turk standing under the doorway; his servant spreads
a beautiful mat at his feet, and brings him an Oriental pipe. His head has
long silver- white locks, and such a beard 1 It positively etherealizes smok-
ing to see it enjoyed in that manner. If you want to succeed among Orien-
tals, yeu must never show yourself to be in a hurry. Lemonade, sweet-
meats, coffee, and pipes are served with great formality on the streets, and
LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE.
at all hours can be seen the native smoking accompanied by no end of dogs,
which are more numerous in the streets of Constantinople than the sands of
Egypt.
In a Turkish house the men and women do not take their meals together,
do not sit around a table, and can hardly be said to feed decently. It is
quite possible for men and women who do not know the use of a fork to be
very clean about their food, but the use of a fork is a great step toward
cleanliness in eating. A Turk holding a considerable position in the State
will take a handful of boiled rice from the common dish, and after having
squeezed all the water out by working it well in his hands, will put the lump
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETV. 175
into the mouth of a guest as a mark of peculiar favor. There is a slovenli-
ness about Turks at their meals which is probably clue to the fact that men
and women do not take their meals together. The object of the meal is
solely to eat.
Turkish women have oval faces, clear ohve skins, languishing dark eyes,
and beautiful hands, soft as velvet and white as snow beyond this, noth-
ing. They lack the natural grace and pretty coquetry of Levantine belles,
the firm tread, elegant manners and becoming modesty of European women.
Their figures are clumsy, their features somewhat harsh, their lips full and
often thick; they walk with a roll (their legs being bowed), and even their
natural attractions depend more or less upon artificial aid. They thickly
powder their faces, blacken their brows, and dye their eyelids and lashes,
so that when half veiled by the yashmak screen they are certainly striking
and present a dazzling effect; but under other circumstances most of them
would pass unobserved. Many of the children are beautiful, with round,
rosy, plump faces and golden brown hair; their dress is, however, frightful
and ridiculous; they wear wide pantaloons and long skirts of some out-
rageous color (often yellow), badly-fitting shoes and a smartly-colored cap
perched on the tops of their heads.
A Turkish wedding is thus described: " The bride was dressed hi white silk,
brocaded with silver and pearls, and around her waist was a belt containing
a fortune in precious stones. Her cheeks were painted a deep crimson, laid
on in a heart shape, and another heart was painted on the chin, the rest of
the .face white as luminous cosmetic could make it. The eyebrows were
painted intensely black; they met, and were stretched to the temples. Her
fingers were dyed deep crimson, and her long, black hair was braided full
of little jingling coins. Her little feet were shod hi velvet slippers, em-
broidered with pearls, and she wore great diamond earrings. After drink-
ing coffee which the writer would fain immortalize, it was so very precious
and gulping down some rare Turkish bonbons, mixed with paste and
paregoric, they inspected the trousseau of the bride. The chief priest who
performed the ceremony was blazing with jewels, and wore a eostly mitre.
He kept the poor little bride waiting three whole hours while he was at-
tending another wedding, but the people seemed to bear the delay with
patience. The bride was rather under the ordinary height, and the bride-
groom a very tall man, and they were obliged to stand with their foreheads
touching each other during the entire ceremony, which took a whole hour.
After the ceremony the bride was placed on a high chair, and the bridegroom
came forward with a richly-trimmed cushion bearing the bridal presents
a watch and chain, a diamond brooch, earrings, necklace and bracelets, and
a large knitted purse filled with gold. The bridegroom parted the great
veil which'hung over the new wife, and adorned her with the jewels. Then
she was lifted by men and seated astride a small barrel of wine, and the
feast commenced. She was obliged to sit there till all the wine was drank
out of the barrel, which was nearly two hours. She looked tired enough,
and it was daylight before the feast was ended and the bride borne away."
The marriage of princesses, on whose expenses, as the Hatti Hamayoun
of 1858 stated, no saving could be effected, deserves special notice. If one
of the sultan's daughters has attained the age at which Turkish girls are
generally married, the father seeks a husband for her among the nobles at
his court. If a young man specially pleases her, he is given the rank of
lieutenant-general, nothing lower being ever selected. The chosen man
veceivcs, in addition, a magnificent fully-furnished palace, and sixty thon-
176 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
jand piastres a month, pocket money; and, in addition, his father-in-law
defrays all the house-keeping expenses. The bridegroom is not always over
and above pleased at being selected. If he be married, he is obliged to get
a divorce he must never have a wife or mistress in addition to the princess;
and, moreover, he is regarded as the servant rather than the husband of
his wife. The sultan himself announces to him his impending good fortune,
and it is his bounden duty to bow reverentially, kiss the sultan's feet, and
stammer a few words about the high honor, the unexpected happiness, etc.
He then proceeds with a chamberlain, who bears the imperial Hatt to the
sublime porte. A military band precedes him, and soldiers are drawn up
along the road, who present arms. At the head of the stairs the bridegroom
is received by the grand vizier, conducted by him into a room where all the
ministers are assembled, and the Hatt is read aloud. This ceremony cor-
responds to the betrothal.
Mexican Life. The Mexican country women, generally mixtures of
very different grades of blood and nationality, differ widely from the pure
Spanish Creoles of the capi-
tal. They are not without
many attractive features;
their eyes are often bril-
liant and fiery, their hair
glossy and abundant, but
their noses are apt to be
ugly, their mouths large,
and their cheek bones too
prominent. Their dress
consists mostly of a light
skirt of lively colors and a
simple waist of white
woolen.
Very little progress has
been made in the method
of farming in Mexico,
many of the implements
being crude and of a pat-
tern m U8e centuries ago.
_ _- t ...
As nearly all the cultiva-
tion is done by irrigation, crops are much more certain than in some
districts of the United States. The plows used are wooden ones, like
those used in ancient Egypt, made of a straight piece of mesquit tim-
ber a yard long, pointed at one end and wedge-shaped at the bottom. On
top of this is set, at an angle of, say 25 degrees, a long pole, which, going
forward, is attached to a cross bar which is tied to the horns of the oxen; on
the rear end a single upright stick serves for the handles by which the
peon guides his plow. With this primitive instrument the husband-
man plows a gutter about three inches deep and five inches broad at
the top, and his work, excepting sowing and covering, is done. When the
wheat is cut and housed and stacked (and this is done in April and May) it
is spread upon an adobe floor, siirrounded by a wall of adobe six feet high,
and upon this are turned in a number of wild horses from the range. Young
boys keep them running around until the grain is trodden out, and then the
mass is thrown upon another floor on a level with the top of the wall. Here
TEAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 177
it ia cast up with wooden paddles into the air, and the grain separated from
the straw and chaff by the wind.
Many interesting sights meet the eye in the City of Mexico, but none are
more pleasing than that of the dancing girls, who are frequently seen in ihe
paved courtyards, which are a distinguishing feature of the hotels and
public buildings. The music provided is that of a sort of fife, and the man who
plays it is wonderful to behold, in his foreign finery. An immense yellow
sombrero shades his face. His hair hangs in long black ringlets over his
blue embroidered jacket. Under his jacket a sash of brilliant red is tied,
and hangs in heavy folds almost to his feet. He has red ribbons fastened
about the tight yellow stockings, and his slippers have been red. Altogether
he looks as if he might have stepped out of a picture by Velasquez. But so
do the maids, with their short dresses, bright aprons, sashes and head-
gear, their laughing black
eyes, their cheeks with the
scarlet bloom, their braids
of hair.
The moral condition of
the lower classes is fright-
fully degraded. Insecurity
of life and property, a
chronic state of revolution,
and gambling and drunken-
ness have caused such a
degeneration of the masses,
that an American writer has
recently declared, that the
only hope of the regenera-
tion and civilization of
Mexico, is in the absolute
extinction of fully seven of
her eight millions of inhabi-
tants. Among the higher
classes the prospect is hard-
ly more pleasing. Empty
formalities, the haughtiness of the old Spanish Grandees, and a show of
nobility are joined to intellectual insignificance, callousness of feeling, and a
pride of race simply contemptible.
A Country Without Women. There is only one territory of any
size, and never has been but one, occupied by any considerable population,
from which woman is absolutely excluded. Yet, such a place exists to-day,
and has existed for centuries. As far back as history reaches, to all females
it has been forbidden ground. This bachelor's Arcadia is situated on a bold
plateau between the old peninsula of Acte, in the Grecian Archipelago, and
the main land. Here, in the midst of cultivated fields and extensive wood-
lands, dwells a monastic confederation of Greek Christians, with twenty-
three convents, and numbering more than seven thousand souls, and not one
of the monasteries dates from a later time than the twelfth century. A
few soldiers guard the borders of this anti-female land, and no woman ia
allowed to cross the frontier. Nor is this all; the rule is extended to every
female creature, and from time immemorial no cow, mare, hen, duck or
goose has been permitted to make acquaintance with this territory.
DANCING GIBLS OF MEXICO.
178 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
South America The land of the loftiest mountains, largest rivers,
greatest number of volcanoes, most extensive plains, richest mines of
precious metals and subhmest natural scenery on the globe is also noted for
the greatest diversity hi native life, composed of whites, Indians, negroes
and mixed races; their habits and occupations are as varied as their shades
of color and localities. In New Granada and Ecuador we find rope bridges
and silleros carrying travelers hi chairs on their backs; in Peru we see great
cavernous silver mines; in Bolivia we view long trains of mules and llamas
carrying produce over the mountains; in Buenos Ayres and Paragiiay exist
those vast grassy plains or pampas, a thousand miles in extent, without a
tree, on which millions of horses and cattle feed, and where the Ganchos or
white inhabitants live in the saddle and chase the cattle with lassos for
their agreeable occupation. Aa we go farther south civilization recedes,
NATIVES OF SOUTH AMERICA.
until in Patagonia and Terra del Fuego it lapses into barbarism. Among
the huge savages of Patagonia, who are the most gigantic men on the earth,
there are some tribes who possess cannibals, while others enjoy in their
peculiar life the blessings of a plurality of wives.
One of our illustrations represents a Patagonian with his wives preparing
a meal, which though very frugal, will bo none the less relished. During
the recent war between Chili and Peru some of these tribes, considering
that they owed more allegiance to Chili than to the other belligerent, offered
their services, but owing to their savage mode of warfare the Chilian gov-
ernment declined to accept, fearing that once on the battlefield they could
not be controlled.
Our next scene represents a pleasanter phase of life and pleasure; a fair
fruit dealer of Eio de Janeiro surroundnd by her trays and baskets of
tropical fruits, And what do the other fair sieters of Buenos Ayres do? you
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 179
may ask. One glance through the latticed balconies shows well how they
spend their time: lounging in their hammocks as if moulded to them, the
languid and indolent senorita lies enjoying her siesta, or awake puffing the
thin blue curling smoke from her cigarette and thinking of her conquest at
the last fiesta. Even our contented looking fruit dealer finds time and
means to enjoy her cigarette, as free from care apparently as the haughty
dame who swings in her hammock.
Our next illustration represents primitive life on the coast of Ecuador,
where even in Guayaquil, the principal harbor, one sees the curiously built
bamboo houses with straw thatched roof, which abound in that sandy coun-
FBUIT DEALEB OF BIO DE JANEEBO.
try. Thus we see that even yet many of the natives of South America are
scarcely in advance of Africa in civilization.
Modest young men might find the mode of salutation employed by the
fair senoritas of Peru somewhat disconcerting, though not unpleasant. The
mistress of the house enters the reception-room smoking a cigarette, wear-
ing a black silk skirt and a red or blue sacque, and with her magnificent
hair braided down her back in two plaits that almost sweep the floor. Ad-
vancing to you she removes her cigar, spits upon the carpet, although it
may be white velvet tapestry, and folds yon in both arms to her matronly
bosom, pushing your head gently down upon her shoulder, and patting you
softly on your back. This singular proceeding answers to our handshaking.
All classes meet and embrace. Young men and old women, old men and
180 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
young ladies, and even children, all unite in this parting embrace, and
rarely kiss. If the daughters delay coming into the room, the mother opens
the piano and plays you some national dances, sad, yet brilliant, in a plain-
tive minor key. Or she claps her hands, and a native brings in a bottle of
wine and fruits of various kinds, and you are expected to partake, if ever so
little. The daughters never keep you waiting long, if they are not at mass
or shopping; and, if at home, never excuse themselves. They wear white
wrappers, trimmed simply with native lace, and the heavy braids of hair like
the mother's. Conversing with them, you soon ascertain the extent of their
acquirements a little French and knowledge of the geography and history
of Peru. They sel-
dom know more than
to read and write
Spanish, and know
nothing else, and
care to know nothing
else, but about Peru.
They can all sing and
dance, and are very
charming in appear-
ance; but you can see
that they are illit-
erate and ignorant;
that though the dia-
monds glisten upon
small, perfectly-
formed, brown
hands, the hands are
not only dingy, but
dirty; that the nails
Are not clean; and
that the tiny feet,
peeping from the
trailing white wrap-
per, often has either
no stocking or a very
dirty one, and almost
always the slippers
are torn and slip-
shod.
A French naval
surgeon has lately
been exploring the
HOUSE ON THE COAST OF ECUADOR, SOUTH AMERICA.
northern parts of South America, more especially in the valley of the
Oronoco and its affluents. Among other facts of observation, he states that
the Guaraunos, at the delta of that river, take refuge in the trees when the
delta is inundated. There they make a sort of dwelling with branches and
clay. The women light on a small piece of floor the fire needed for cook-
ing, and the traveler on the river by night often sees with surprise long rows
of flames at a considerable height in the air. The Guaraunos dispose of
their dead by hanging them in hammocks in the tops of trees. In the course
of Ms travels, he met with earth-eating tribes. The clay, which often serves
for their food whole months, seems to be a mixture of oxide of iron and some
TRAVELS,
AND CV8TOMS, ETC.
181
organic substances. They have recourse to it more especially in times of
scarcity; but, strange to Bay, there are eager gourmands for the substance,
individuals in whom the depraved taste is so pronounced that they may be
eeen tearing pieces of ferruginous clay from huts made of it, and putting
them hi their mouths.
Slioslione Courtship. Courtship among the Shoshone tribe of Indi-
ans is not so elaborate an affair as among more civilized people. In the
first place it should be borne in mind that the young squaws are more fleet
of foot than the bucks. Now, when a buck fancies a squaw, he provides
himself with a lariat, as he would if he intended to lasso an animal. When
A PIUTE LODGE.
she sees her admirer approaching she behaves, after her fashion, in th
manner of other young ladies. She runs, and the buck runs after her. If
she does not wish to be caught she quickens her pace, and is soon beyond
the reach of the rope; if, on the contrary, she does not object, the noose
slips easily over her head, and the prize is won.
The Plate Indians of Nevada. There aie between four and five
thousand Indians in Nevada, consisting of Shoshones and Piutes, the former
occupying the eastern and central parts of the State, and the latter the
western. The Piutes are a branch of the Shoshone tribe, and formerly both
were governed by one great chief. The Piutes are not hostile to the whites,
although in times past there have been fierce battles between them. th
182 CYCLOPEDIA OF VSEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
last one taking place at Pyramid Lake. The Piutes were formerly a wild,
strong, brave people, so famous as travelers that it is believed they origi-
nally came from Peru, while they now idle about the outskirts of white set-
tlements. The name Piute was derived from their settlement near the lakes
of the Sierra Nevadas, and is properly Pah-TJte or Water-lite. In the larger
towns along the eastern slope of the Sierras, the Piutes are more than half
civilized, and as far as possible imitate the fashion of the white in dress, the
women wearing showy cotton gowns, and the men brilliantly-colored shirts,
trousers and hats. The wigwams are set a few yards apart, and resemble
dilapidated circular tents. As a stranger approaches, the red proprietor
comes forward to meet him with a pleasant smile and at a lazy pace, greet-
BOME PIUTE BEAUX.
ing him with the usual " How ? " which is the Indian abbreviation of " How
do you do ? " We illustrate a lodge of the Piutes, and likewise a number of
lovers sitting upon a log awaiting the arrival of their sweethearts. This is
characteristic of the courtship of the Piutes.
The Sun Dance of the Sioux. The dances of the Sioux Indians
are all forms of worship, the three principal among them being the war, the
medicine, and the great sun dance. When a young brave is anxious for dis-
tinction in his tribe he attempts to signalize himself in the atrocities of the
great sun dance. It lasts three days, commencing at sundown, and the par-
ticipants fast during the entire period. It is intended to gain the favor of
the Great Spirit who dwells in the sun, and as the sun rises on the com-
mencement of the dance, the braves salute it in chorus with their knives
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 183
bare. Long ropes of raw hide are ready, dangling from a sapling, and, as
the sun comes above the horizon, each Indian seizes a rope, puts two gashes
an inch deep and about the same distance apart in his back or side, runs
Lis knife through the flesh between them, and withdrawing it passes the
raw hide rope through the wound and ties it, dancing and throwing his
weight on the rope for hours at a time until the flesh is torn loose and he
falls exhausted to the ground. If the flesh holds too long a friend will come
and give him a push. When he has fallen his comrades gather round him
and say that he will
be a great chief.
The Egyptians.
The women of
Egypt are not al-
lowed to go out of
doors as women in
other countries are,
and many of them
never get beyond the
the walls of their
houses. The cows
sleep in the same hut
with the people.
These huts are made
of mud, without win-
dows, and the doors
so small that the
wonder is how the
people get in. They
do not wash their ba-
bies till they are a
year old, because it is
considered unlucky
to do so. They rarely
comb their hair from
month to month.
Their chief meal is
at sunset; the rest of
the time they eat at a
piece of bread when
they are hungry.
They never use
plates, or knives, or
forks. All sit around the table on the floor. Bread is their daily food, and
each family makes for itself, as it is a kind of disgrace to buy " street
bread." The women clean the corn and carry it on their heads to mill.
It is made into thin, small cakes, stuck against the sides of an oven, and
baked in less than a minute. A hundred loaves are not too many for a family
of four in a week. Travelers are usually expected to eat three loaves
apiece. They make butter in a strange way. A goatskin half filled with
milk ia hung on a peg, and then a woman jerks it to and fro till the butter
comes. Then she drains it, but never washes or salts it. Their favorite dish
is rice cooked with this butter.
AN EGYPTIAN WOMAN CHURNING.
184 CYCLOPEDIA OF VSBFUL KNOWLEDGE.
In journeying from Egypt across Arabia, water is commonly conveyed in
goat skins. Ox hides are often converted into sacks. A pair of these is a
camel's load, and two answer for four persons as many days. The sakkieha
or wells used for irrigating the date-palm trees, consist of two wheels, the
one Bet vertically to the river and slung with a chain of pots, the other a
horizontal cog,
turned by a cam-
el or a buffalo.
Siam. After
all that has been
written about
Siam and the Si-
amese, there re-
mains a great
deal of valuable
information still
to be acquired.
The temples,
palaces, and
monuments of
Siam seem to
bear the impress
of almost every
ancientandmod-
ern civilization,
Egyptian, Indi-
an, Persian,
Mongolian, and
European. And
yet, through all
thesevarieties of
style, they have
strongly marked
characteristics
of theirown. The
government of
Siam is the most
singular in the
world. It con-
sists of a House
of Lords, or Sen-
abodi, and a San
Tuang, or secret
council of twelve of the most powerful princes in the land, and a first and a
second king. The second king has command of the army, and a palace and
court of his own. By his high position he is exempt from the customary
prostration before the first king, whom he may salute by simply raising his
hands and joining them above his head. The rule of the king is absolute. He
Bite at the gates of the palace to receive the petitions of his people. His per-
son is sacred. The highest, not less than the lowest of his subjects, approach
him on all fours, crawling in a most abject posture. No person is allowed
to stand erect in his presence. All the bridges in Siam are so constructed
AN EGYPTIAN WELL.
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC.
APPROACHING THE KINO IN SIAM.
that he may not pass under anything on which human feet have trod. The
king is notably temperate in his diet; boiled rice and salt fish are his favor-
ite dishes. It id curious
to see him eating boiled
rice with gold chop-sticks.
The bowl containing rice
is put on a stand a little
above the level of the
mouth; then the two
sticks, one in each hand,
stir up the rice, and with
great dexterity cause it
to flow in a continuous
stream into the open
mouth below .
The Abyssinians.
The Abyssinians, in
features and form, are
a handsome people. They
are between five and six
feet in height. Erect and
slender, they are not de-
voidof muscular strength,
nor of that symmetrical
roundness which so much contributes to the beauty of the human frame.
The costume of the Abyssinian is exceedingly simple. Men of all ranks,
from the king to the beggar, wear a shama, or loose dress of white cotton,
*rhich, in graceful folds, is thrown over the shoulders so as to leave the
hands and arms free to carry
spear and buckler. The soft-
ness of the web, and the depth
of the red border round the
bottom of this convenient garb,
indicates the social position of
the wearer, and this is so mi-
nutely defined, that any one
who should presume to ape his
betters would, in all proba-
bility, obtain a lesson or two,
on dress from the imperial
giraffe-holder. Beneath the
shama the aristocrat dons his
silken, damask, or velvet ka-
mees; but this is a privilege
only granted, to a few mag-
nates, and those whom the
king delights to honor. Trou-
sers of the same material as
the shama are worn by all, and
also the cotton waistcloth, which is so long that when wound round the
waist, it serves the purpose of armor, in warding off blows, or in protecting
from the thrust of sword or lance. When engaged in battle, the shama is
EATING BICE IN SIAM.
186 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
THE ABYSSINIANS.
exchanged for the dino a mere piece of akin, sometimes of the lion or leop-
ard, but more commonly of the sheep.
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 181
The Herdsman of the Alps. The herdsman of the Alps leads a
life peculiar to his race and land. The pastures whereon his cattle graze
have no resemblance to the broad prairies of our own laud, or to the almost
boundless pampas and sheep-walks of South America and Australia. He
has no use for hordes or
weapons of defence; formida-
ble beasts of prey have long
since disappeared before
the prowess of the hardy Al-
pine hunter, and the narrow
valleys, precipitous mountain
paths, and elevated plateaus
hemmed by almost unfathom-
able gorges, afford too pre-
carious a footing for the horse.
Diiring the summer the moun-
tains yield plentiful pastur-
age, but in spring it does not
come at the same time on all
the pasture lands. The grass
on the lower valleys and
slopes starts first; then the
herdsman leads out his cat-
tle, as the accompanying illus-
tration shows, and they cross
the streams by means of rude
bridges, sniffing, with keen
enjoyment, the mountain air
from the summits of rocks,
and reposing at ease when
their appetites are satisfied on
the luxuriant grass. As the
summer advances the higher
pastures are approached,
and in July and August the
herd feeds on slopes that
are just below the eternal
snows. Autumn comes and
the herdsman turns home-
ward, and when the winter
storms are reveling above,
the cattle are grazing again
in the lower valleys. The
herdsman loves his moun-
tain life as the sailor loves
the sea. Setting forth in
the spring, he carries on
his broad shoulders his house-
hold furniture, holding in one hand the milk pail, and grasping in the
other the iron-pointed alpenstock. A large basket on his back contains hia
milk strainer, some straw, a milking stool, a cheese mold, the stand on
which the cheeses are placed to drain, and the kettle in which the curd is
made. Seldom, until winter, can he revisit the chalet where his family lives,
THE HEHDSMAX OF THE ALPS.
i8 cYOLoP^jbiA oF trsti&ffL
and as he ascends the rugged mountain path he casts an affectionate, lin-
gering glance below.
Life in Iceland. Men and women, masters and servants, all inhabit
the same room, while cleanliness is not much attended to; but, poor as they
are, and accustomed to great privations, they set an example of cheerful
contentment. The beauty of the young girls is remarkable; their fair hair
falls in long plaits, partially covered by a black cloth coil, daintily worn on
one side of the head, finished at the top with a tassel of colored silk, run
through a silver or steel buckle, which floats on the shoulder. It reminds
the traveler of the Greek head dress, but the blue eyes, with their sweet,
benevolent expression, soon recall to their minds their Danish origin. The
dress is made of the cloth woven in the country, and on festive days the
bodice is gaily adorned with silver braid and velvet, while the belt and
sleeves are ornamented with silver devices, beautifully chased, and often of
great vah\e. On wet and
cold days the bhawl becomes
a useful mantilla, completely
enveloping the head, and
defending the wearer from
the effects of the frequent
storms.
The Lapp and His
Reindeer. The mountain
Lapps of Norway have
learned to drink coffee and
wear stout Norwegian cloth,
but they set as much store
by the reindeer as ever. A
poor family will have fifty
and upward in a flock, the
middle classes 300 to 700,
and the richest 1,000 or
more. The reindeer is as
AN ICELANDIC LU>T. much beloved by the Lapp
as his pig by the Irishman,
and the reindeer often sleep in his hut in much the same fashion. The Lapp
will whisper to his reindeer when harnessing him to his sleigh, and will tell
him where he is to go, and declares he understands him. The reindeer is
much like a stag, only smaller; all the people, animals and trees in Lapland
are very diminutive, the men are mostly under five feet high, and the
women under four feet nine inches, so great are the rigors of the climate in
this as in all countries under the Arctic Circle; and the cows, sheep and
goats are small in proportion. In summer the reindeer feed upon grass,
and give excellent milk; in the winter they feed upon moss, which they
scratch up under great depths of snow with marvelous instinct. When win-
ter draws near great numbers are killed, and the flesh is dried and smoked
to provide food when the ground is covered with snow, and but few birds,
like ptarmigan, partridges and capercailzie, are met with. The flesh is very
nutritious, and after a course of grass feeding it is surprising how soon the
reindeer become fat and plump. The skin makes their dresses and boots, the
sinews their thread and fishing lines, and the horns their domestic utensils.
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 189
Mountain Traveling in Spain. To all lovers of natural scenery
there is a peculiar charm in mountain traveling. It offers a wonderful va-
riety of experiences, and though often fatiguing, is not wearisome because
of monotony. The modes differ, it is true. In these latter years facilities
of all kinds are rapidly multiplied. Locomotion upon mule back was form-
MOTJNTAIN TRAVELING IN SPAIN.
erly the sole means in mountain regions, as it remains to this day in many
countries. Our engraving spiritedly illustrates seme of its felicities in
Spain, where the spirit of Progress is as yet only manifest in political striv-
ings after Republicanism. These narrow paths, winding around giddy
ledges, where a misstep would send you a thousand feet below, are pleas-
190 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
anter in the picture than in reality. And the lolling in ddcefar niente styl
upon your mule's back, guitar in hand, idly strumming its strings while
your deft-footed animal picks his way along, is rather more sentimental and
less practical than even things Spanish are ordinarily apt to be.
A Dinner in Palestine The Jews generally eat their dinner before
noon, and their supper after sundown. The chief meal of the Jews was in
the evening; of the Egyptians it was at noon. The early Hebrews sat or
squatted round a low table upon which the meal was served, but in later
tunes couches were used to recline upon before the tables. The guests
were ranged in order of rank side by side, resting upon the left elbow, the
right arm being free. The dishes, as they are to this day, were generally
stews of rice, beans, and burgal (cracked wheat), with soups or sauces.
The meats were so cooked that when served they fell to pieces. Knives
and forks were not used at
the tables, but spoons, and
generally thin slices of bread,
were doubled up and dipped
into the dishes, all eating
from the same dish. These
pieces of bread also served
the purpose of napkins.
Bagdad Customs.
Among the more wealthy, tho
husband sleeps on a raised
bedstead made of wicker
work called doeshick. It has
a mattress and cushions of
silk or cotton, and is covered
by a thick quilt, but is with-
out curtain or moequito-net.
The night-air is always dry;
toward morning there usually
springs up a cool breeze that
dies away soon after sunrise.
The wife occupies a similar
bed, but always on the
ground that is, without a bedstead, and always at a respectable distance
from her husband. The children are scattered about on mattresses, and
the slaves or servants sleep on mats, but all within sight of each other. In
a few houses there are low parapets dividing off the sleeping apartments,
but these are rare, and probably occupied by Europeans. In retiring, the
natives do not divest themselves of the clothing worn during the day except
to lay aside tho outer robes. After rising, the husband performs his de-
votions, and then seats himself on his carpet, where his wife serves him with
a chibouk and coffee with her own hands, retiring at a respectable distance
to wait for the cup, and sometimes with hands crossed, and even kissing his
hand on receiving the cup from it a mark of respect very common in the
East. While the husband is lounging on the carpet or cushions, enjoying
his morning pipe, the women of the family generally pray, going through
the same forms and prostrations as the men; but the children under twelve
years of age never join in their devotions.
A DINNER IN PALESTINE.
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC'. 191
How they Dance in Italy. In Italy, where the country men and wo-
men dance together, the first thing they do is to toss off their shoes, if they
wear any. A man don't go up to a woman and ask her if she will dance, but he
fixes his eye on her from a distance and nods. She nods in return, and then
both kick off their shoes and advance towards each other and begin to dance.
The dance, besides an incessant up and down of steps, represents also quite
a little love drama in gestures, and the success of the dance depends on the
cleverness of the dancers to express the mimic scene. He courts, pleads, be-
seeches, runs after his dancer, tries to clasp her waist and kiss her; all the
time he is dancing. The girl, of course, denies, laughs, shakes her head
and escapes her partner, till at last, the dance finished, she rushes to her
place and resumes her shoes.
The Greeks. The Greeks belong to the great Indo-European race,
who from the earliest times have been the conquerors and civilizers of the
world. They are the only existing representatives of the ancient world.
They have maintained posses-
sion of their country, their lan-
guage, and their social organi-
zation, against physical and
moral forces which have swept
from the face of the earth all
their early contemporaries,
friends and enemies. Even in
dress they retain the steeple
hat and tassel at the end, also
the gay vest and baggy trou-
sers.
A Wedding K, a c e .
Among the Huzarehs a people
of Asia the following is the
way weddings, are managed:
The suitors of the maiden, nine
in number, appear in the field,
all unarmed, but mounted on
the best horses they can pro-
cure; while the bride herself, on a beautiful Turcoman horse, surrounded
by her relations, anxiously surveys the group of lovers. The conditions of
the bridal race are these: The maiden has a certain start given, which she
avails herself of to gain a sufficient distance from the crowd to enable her
to manage her steed with freedom, so as to assist in his pursuit the suitor
whom she prefers. On a signal from the father, all the horsemen gallop
after the fair one, and whichever first succeeds in encircling her waist with
his arms, no matter whether disagreeable or to her choice, is entitled to
claim her as his wife. After the usual delays incident upon such interesting
occasions, the maiden quits the circle of her relations, and, putting her
steed in a hard gallop, darts into the open plain. When satisfied with her
position, she turns round to the impatient youths and stretches out her
arms towards them, as if to woo their approach. This is the moment for
giving the signal to commence the chase, and each of the impatient youths,
dashing his pointed heels into his courser's sides, darts like the unhooded
bawk in pureuit cf the fugitive dove.
192 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The race-course is generally extensive say twelve miles long and three
in width and as the horsemen speed across the plain, the favored lover
becomes soon apparent by the efforts of the maiden to avoid all others who
might approach her.
Wedding's in Borneo. On the wedding-day the bride and bride-
groom are brought from opposite ends of the village to the spot where the
ceremony is to be performed. They are made to sit on two bars of iron,
MAEKIAGE CEREMONY IN BORNEO.
that blessings as lasting and health as vigorous may attend the pair. A
cigar and betal-leaf, prepared with the areca-nut, are next put into the
hands of the bride and bridegroom. One of the priests then waves two
fowls over the heads of the couple, and in a long address to the Supreme
Being calls down blessings upon the pair, and implores that peace and
aappiness may attend the union.- After the heads of the affianced have
been knocked against each other three or four times, the bridegroom puts
the prepared siri-leaf and cigar into the mouth of the bride, while she does
the same to him, whom she thus acknowledges as her husband.
TRAVELS, MANNEES AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 193
Salutations. Arabs of distinction kis each other's cheeks and their
own hands, and exclaim, " God grant thce his favor and send thy family
health." Women and children kiss the beards of their husbands and fathers.
Burmese rub their noses on each other's cheeks and say, " Give me a
smell !"
Chinese ask of equals, " Have you eaten your rice ? " " Is your stomach
in order ? " The response is, " Thanks to your abundant felicity."
In some parts of Germany, gentlemen invariably kiss the hands of their
lady acquaintances when they meet, and gentlemen kiss each other on the
cheek.
Hollanders, with their proverbial love of good living, salute their friends
by asking, "Have you had a good dinner?"
Italians kiss the hands of ladies to whom they are related, asking, " How
does she stand ? "
Japanese remove their sandals when they meet a superior, exclaiming,
" Hurt me notl "
Laplanders, when they meet on the ice, press their noses firmly together.
Mohammedans say, " Peace be with you; " to which the reply is, " On
you be peace; " to which is added, " and the mercy and blessings of God."
Manillas bend their bodies, place their hands upon their cheeks, raise
one leg, and bend the knee.
Moors ride at lull speed toward a stranger, suddenly stop, and then fire
a pistol over his head.
Persians salute by crossing necks, and laying cheek to cheek, with the
extravagant greeting, " Is thy exalted high condition good? " and "May thy
shadow never be less."
The negro kings on the African coasts salute each other by snapping the
middle finger three times.
In Otaheite they rub noses, a custom common with many savages.
The inhabitants of Carmine, when they show particular attachment, open
a vein and present their blood to their friend to drink.
Philippine Islanders take a person's hand or foot and rub it over their
faces.
In the Straits of the Sound they raise the left foot of the person addressed,
and pass it over the right leg and then to the face.
The usual words of salutation in Cairo are, "How do you sweat? " an
absence of perspiration being, in that climate, an indication of fever.
Customs of the Russians. Eussian courting, among the middle
classes, is peculiar. The first Whitsunday after a young girl is acknowledged
by her mother to be of marriageable years, she is taken to the Petersburg
summer garden to join m the " bridal promenade." This consists of the
daughters of the Russian tradesmen walking in procession, followed by their
parents. Up and down they go, pretending to chat with each other and
to take no notice of the young men the tradesmen's sons, dressed in their
best clothes who walk in another procession on the other side. However,
every now and then some young fellow slips out of his proper rank and adds
himself to the line of girls on the other side, speaking to one particularly.
The parents of the girl join in the conversation in a few moments, and soon
they leave the promenade and are joined by the parents of the young man.
Generally the old folks have talked it over before, but on this occasion
every one pretends to be surprised. On the next day a female confidante
calls on the girl's parents and asks her hand. This granted, all the relations
194 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
n both sides meet and argue about the portion to be given with the girl,
If this is not satisfactory all is at an end; if it is what is expected the be-
trothal takes place. The bride and bridegroom kneel down upon a great
fur mat, and the bride takes a ring from her finger and gives it to the bride-
groom, who returns the gift by another. The bride's mother meanwhile
crumbles a piece of bread over her daughter's head, and her father holds
the image of his daughter's patron saint over his future son-in-law's well
bruhed locks. As they arise the bridemaids sing a wedding song. The
jueste each bring forward a present of some sort. Wine is handed about,
and some one says it is bitter and needs sweetening. Upon this the bride-
groom kisses the bride the sweetness being supposed to be provided by
this kiss salutes the company and takes his leave. Courting tune has now
boy un. Every evening the lover comes to his lady's home with a present,
which is always something good to eat generally cakes or sugar plums.
H makes love under rather awkward circumstances, for the bridemaids sit
about the betrothed pair in a circle, singing songs descriptive of their happi-
ness. The last evening of the courtship is enlivened by the presentation of
the gifts of the bridegroom, which must include brushes, combs, soap and
perfumery. On receiving these, the bridemaids instantly carry the bride
away and wash her, dress her hair and perfume her pocket handkerchief.
Thus touched up she returns to the company, and the bride's father gives
his future son-in-law the marriage portion, which he takes home with him in
a neat bag. The next morning he returns for the lady herself. She receives
him with her hair unbraided and flowing down her back. They are married
by the ceremonies of the Greek Church, and the old folks never go to the
wedding dinner. Those eternal bridemaids, whom they must hate by this
time, are there, however, still on duty, and the evening closes by the bride
kneeling down and pulling off her husband's boots, to prove her intention
to be an obedient and submissive wife.
The chief peasant in a Russian village sometimes has more power than
any man in the empire excepting the Czar. He has the power, for instance,
of ordering a culprit to be flogged a right which is denied by law to any
otker public functionary or citizen in the empire. Further, a majority of
the peasants in a commune can sentence one of their number to be beaten
with sticks, and there is no appeal against the sentence. It is true that
women may no longer be flogged, and that the maximum number of blows
which may be inflicted on a man is twenty, while formerly men were some-
times beaten to death by order of the commune; but the commune can still
sentence a man to banishment to Siberia for life. This sentence has been
passed for such petty offences as stealing a handkerchief or a little honey,
or opening a brandy-shop without the permission of the commune.
When a merchant gives a dinner, says the author of " Bussia and the
Bussians," he and his wife stand behind the chairs of the guests, and wait
upon them, receiving the dishes from the servants and placing them upon
the table. Every time one of the guests asks for more sweetening in his
wine, the merchant must march round the table, meet his wile, and salute
her. When it is a newly-married couple this ceremony, from the frequency
of its being required, often becomes fatiguing to the parties.
Courting in Burmah. Courting in Burmah is all done at night.
There is, in fact, a special time for it, designated in popular chronology as
"lads-Ko-courting-time." This is a kind of indefinite period, centering
round nine o'clock in the evening. Though the smitten youth may not
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETV> 195
philander to his Dulcinea alone, he is spared the presence of the old people.
It is not etiquette for them to be present. Nevertheless, though this is per-
fectly recognized, it is not always agreeable or convenient for the parents
to get out of the way whenever the gallant wants to do some sweethearting.
Burmese houses are all on piles, and never more than one story high.
As a general rule, there are only two or three rooms altogether, and there
are, therefore, but two courses open to the elders. They must either go out
and wander about while the courting goes on, or they must go to bed. The
former alternative does not commend itself to the mother, who likes to
superintend operations for herself through a convenient slit in the bamboo
walls, and going off to bed, as it were, at word of command is only compati-
ble with a most mild and yielding disposition in the father. Consequently,
when the girl is arrayed for conquest flowers twined in her hair, fragrant
cosmetics on her cheek and neck, and her finger nails delicately tinted it
is not always possible to summon the ardent youth forthwith. He is out-
side, dressed in his smartest, and with a couple of companions bent possibly
on the same errand as himself; but he is obliged to stay there till he gets
the signal that the coast is clear, and that he may come up.
Every youth has his own private signal, by means of which he announces
to his lady love his arrival in the street. This is almost invariably effected
by means of a fiddle with two strings. The tone of the instrument is not
weet. and the performer starts by the light of nature. He saws backward
and forward diligently, and keeps a vigilant look-out for the wave of the
handkerchief or the jerk of the lamp which will announce to him that the
coast is clear, and that he may advance and pay his devotions. Natural
feelings, as well as a sense of sheepishness, prevent him from executing
his notes immediately in front of the house. He therefore stations himself
at the nearest corner, or a hundred yards or so down the street. The result
of this is that he has to fiddle away all the harder, and therefore to extend
the infliction over the greatest possible area of the quarter.
When at last the happy man receives his summons; there is peace again
for a time, only, however, to be interrupted in something less than an hour,
when, the sweet nothings having all been said as best they can be before an
unsympathetic audience, the young men issue forth to go to some other
girl's house, where another of the party is interested. And so it goes on
until it is too late to make further rounds, and a relieved neighborhood
sighs with delight to find that it is "lads-go-home-time," otherwise "men's-
feet-silent-time," and that there will be no more fiddle-scraping for anothej'
twenty-four hours.
Sandwich Island Houses. The houses of Honolulu are always
open, day and night, as the temperature is so warm that one has to sleep
out of doors. They are built mostly of wood, though many of the oldest and
more substantial houses are built of coral stone, a few of lava stone, and
many may yet be seen within the limits of Honolulu made of grass and
occupied by the natives.
These native huts or houses are built by making a framework of bamboo
poles, covered with layers of the banana tree, the trunk of which can be
removed in layers. This, again, is covered with grass and trimmed on the
corners and top by weaving the grass into different patterns. One opening
or door usually admits enough light and air for the average native, though
some huts are divided off into several rooms, with two and sometime
doors,
196 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
A mat hung down on the inside, covering the opening, is the common
door. Mats made of broad grass interwoven or braided, and sometimes
flags, form the carpets, and a pile of from two to ten, and sometimes even
more, makes the bed on which the natives and invited guests sleep.
Furniture there is none, the natives always sitting on the ground with
their legs crossed beneath them. Their kitchen is outside, and is composed
of a heap of stones, and ordinarily an iron pot.
Habits of Siberians. Many of the habits and customs of these peo-
ple are very singular. Along with much rudeness and simplicity, they have
a high degree of ingenuity. At night, for instance, an Ostaik can tell the
time very accurately by judging the position of the Great Bear; and as this
constellation is constantly varying with the season, the operation involves
on the part of the Ostaik a calculation of some magnitude. In common with
all barbarous and semi-barbaric races, they manifest great dexterity in the
use of weapons. In shooting small animals, such as squirrels, hares, etc.,
for the sake of their furs, care is taken that the animal shall be struck on
the head only; and in this the native seldom fails, even though their riflea
are very clumsy in construction. With the bow and arrow, which is the
weapon most in use, they are equally dexterous. Their method of catching
salmon, as described by a Cossack officer who witnessed it, is peculiar. In
marching through the country at the head of a detachment, he encamped
one evening on the banks of a river; and on the following morning he
observed one of the natives walk to a pool near at hand, into which he
waded, and then stood motionless as a statue, his spear poised aloft, and his
keen eye fixed on the water before him. Not a movement indicated that life
inhabited the figure, until, with lightning rapidity, the spear was launched
forward and as quickly withdrawn, a fine salmon quivering on its barbed
point. Three times in twenty minutes was the operation performed, and
each time a fish rewarded the native's skill. And yet their cleverness is but
slightly applied to the arts of life. The Tungooses, for instance, use bear
and reindeer skins to form their beds; but as they have never discovered
the art of tanning, these articles when not in use are buried beneath the
snow, by which means the hair is prevented from falling off. This same
tribe, too, are remarkably improvident; they will consume nearly a week's
provisions in one night, and go hungry the remaining six days.
An Afghan Beauty. The Afghan beauty has blue-black hair,
plastered stiff with gums, and either worn in various forms on the head or
plaited in long braids down the back. The margins of the ears are pierced
and decorated with rows of small silver rings, while large rings hang from
the lobes. The neck and breast are tattoed with little figures of stars and
flowers, and the sparkle of the lustrous black eyes is enhanced by coating
the lids with black antimony. The cheeks are roughed and dotted with
little round moles of gold and silver tinsel fastened on with gum. A loose
muslin or silk jacket of yellow, blue or red, hangs below the waist, and
wide trousers of silk or other colored material complete the indoor costume.
On going out, the lady wears leggings of cotton cloth, gartered at the knee,
shoes of red or yellow leather, and a hookaposh or cloak. Some ladies
wear horse-hair veils, and others fasten vinaigrettes to their foreheads which
contain attar of roses or other scents. Afghan ladies exercise much in-
fluence over their semi-savage husbands, and one of Shere AU's wives
sometimes smartly boxes him on the ear with a slipper,
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 197
A Persian. Wedding. From an early hour in the morning of a Per-
sian wedding I speak of a wedding in the middle ranks of life there has
been considerable bustle in the house of the bride's father. Carpets have
been borrowed, and rooms that at other times were unused and empty are
now furnished and decorated with flowers. The poor are standing in a
crowd at the outer door, sure of being plentifully regaled. The outer court
has been got ready for the men. Vases of flowers are placed in rows at all
open windows and in every recess; thirty or forty pounds of tobacco have
been prepared by pounding and moistening for smoking; the courtyard is
freshly watered. If it bo a calm day and spring and summer days in Per-
sia are always free from wind rose-leaves are sprinkled on the surface of
the water of the tank in the center of the courtyards, ao as to form the word
Bismillah, the pious welcome of the Mussulman. Similar preparations, but
on a larger scale, have been made in the handsome courtyard which con-
tarns the women's quarters. From this courtyard the negresses may be
Been busily engaged in the kitchen preparing the breakfast for perhaps one
hundred guests, and the visitors will stop all day, only leaving to escort the
bride to the home of her new husband, whither she wDl go after dark.
Large samovars, or Russian urns, which are in use in every Persian
house, are hissing like small steam engines, ready to furnish tea for the
guests on their arrival; not our idea of tea, but a pale infusion, sweetened
to the consistency of syrup, from the center of each cup of which will pro-
ject a little island of superfluous sugar. Orange, sherbet, lemon, pomegra-
nate, rose-water, cherry, quince, and an endless further variety of these
refreshing drinks will be offered the thirsty guests. And now come the
musicians the Mussulmans and the Jews the latter a ragged and motley
crew, but more skillful than their better-clad rivals.
At last all is ready. The master of the house, dressed in his best, gives
an anxious glance at the preparations, and has an excited discussion with
his wife or wives. He waves his hand to the musicians, and hurries to a
seat near the door to be ready to welcome his guests. The music strikes up
a merry tune. Then in a loud scream rises the voice of the principal solo
singer, who commences one of the sad love-songs of Persia in a high falsetto
voice. His face reddens with his exertions, which last through a dozen
yerses. His eyes nearly start from his head, the muscles of his neck stand
out like ropes, but he keeps correct time on the big tambourine, which he
plays with consummate skill.
The music is the signal to the invited guests; they now arrive in crowds.
The host receives them with transports of pleasure all the extravagant com-
pliments of Eastern politeness pass between them. " May your wedding be
fortunate!" "You are indeed welcome; this is a never-to-be-forgotten
honor to me, your slave." In they pour, the men in their beat; the women,
closely veiled, pass on unnoticed by the men into the bride's rooms, where
they unveil and appear to the delighted hostesses in their finest clothes and
all their jewelry, and in most cases with their faces carefully painted. All
the dresses worn among Persian ladies for indoor use only reach to the
knee; their wearers look like opera dancers. The ladies' feet and legs are
bare, as a rule, and a gauze shirt of gay color and a tiny zouave jacket,
elaborately embroidered, are worn. The colors of their clothes are of the
brightest, and the quantity of solid jewelry worn in honor of the bride is
prodigious.
Conversation goes on, pipes are smoked by both men and women. Mes-
sages pass between the two courtyards. But the men remain in their quar-
ters and the women in theirs. The musicians and buffoons, however, are
allowed in the women's court on these occasions; they are supposed to be
mere professional persons, and on this account are tolerated. At noon a
heavy breakfast is served, after which buffoons dance and sing songs in-
decent enough in themselves, but tolerated in the East on such occasions.
The bride meanwhile goes to the bath, whither she is accompanied by
many of the ladies, the friends and near relatives of the family, who super-
intend her toilet and perfume her body. At twilight there is a hum of sus-
pense. The whole place is lighted up by lamps, candles in shades and lan-
terns. A noise of a distant crowd is heard; alms in money are freely dis-
tributed among the crowd of beggars and poor at the door; horses are
brought for the bride and her friends. The procession of the bridegroom is
approaching, and it must be understood that another grand party has been
going on at his father's house; the musicians sing and play their loudest;
the roofs (the flat roofa of the East) are thronged by all the women and
children of the quarter. The bride appears, carefully veiled. She goes to
the door and mounts a gayly caparisoned horse. All the male guests join
the procession. Lighted cressets, full of blazing embers, are carried on
high poles to lead and light the way. The lanterns of all the guests are
lighted and carried in this procession, which joyfully wends its way through
a cheering crowd. At the moment the bride leaves her father's house a
shout of " Kel lei lei!" announces the fact. Fireworks blaze, the music is
deafening; above all is heard the monotonous banging of the wedding drum.
And so, the buffoons and musicians leading the way, the procession slowly
moves on. As it approaches the house of the bridegroom, several sheep are
sacrificed in honor of the bride; they are slain at her feet as she steps over
her husband's threshold for the first time, accompanied by a female friend
or two. Then, invoking blessings on the pair, all wend their way home, and
the festival ia over.
A Persian Dinner. A traveler thus describes a dinner in Persia:
" A tray, containing a chillo and pillo, radishes, fried eggs, a stew of meat,
and a bowl of sherbet, was allotted to each two persons, and, at the word
' Bismillah' (in the name of God), the company fell to in silence, unbroken
during the whole time, save by the sound of the various jaws in process of
mastication. Hands were thrust deep into the greasy dishes, rice squeezed
into balls and swallowed with astonishing rapidity; and in less than a quar-
ter of an hour little remained of the immense piles which had been set be-
fore them. Water was then brought in, and each guest slightly wetted hia
fingers, afterward wiping them on his pocket-handkerchief or coat, as the
cane might be, which ceremony had scarcely been performed when our Shah-
sevea friend and one or two others loosened their belts, and immediately
lapsed into a state of torpidity."
A Death in Persia. The sick man lies in extremis on a thin mat-
tress upon the floor, covered by a quilted silken coverlet. Twenty or thirty
persons are in the room where he is dying. The smoke of many hubble-
bubbles clouds the air; whispered conversation is general. The doctors
have declared their patient's condition hopeless, and as a last resort, certain
charms suggested by a weird-looking dervish have been tried. But the
crab broth, prepared from the tiny oruetaceans that inhabit tke streamlet*
round Shiraz, the patient has been unable to swallow; and the dervish
/taints out to the relatives of the dying m&a that his panacea has only not
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 1W
proved infallible because it was tried too late. A veiled woman, the wife of
the dying man, sits weeping at the side of her husband's pillow. She fre-
quently holds to his face a moistened piece of mud torn from the wall (this
wetted mud is supposed to have a very reviving influence, and is used by
Persians as we use smelling salts).
Tea is handed round in small cups; the crowd in the room becomes
greater; every window is shut, and, as the outside temperature ia ninety
degrees, some idea of the heat within caii be formed. The crowd is not
here from mere curiosity. A man is sick; then where should his friende bt,
they say, if not by his bedside? The samovars (Russian tea urns) steam
and bubble; the room is filled with clouds of tobacco smoke and the steam
from the urns. And now, just as two hundred years ago was done in Eng-
land, a fowl is killed and placed warm and bleeding on the patient's feet.
All is of no avail, however. The man has breathed his last.
The wife yields her place by the bedside. Moistened cotton wool it
placed in the mouth of the dead, ia the orifices of the nostrils, and in the
ears. A moollah begins to read aloud the prescribed portion of the Koran,
commencing, " O man, I swear by the instructive Koran that thou art one of
the messengers of God sent to show the right way," etc. This portion of the
Mussulman's sacred book was called by Mohammed himself " the heart of
the Koran." And now all present witness aloud that the dead man was a
good and pious Mohammedan. The limbs are composed, and a cup of water
is placed at the head of the corpse. No soouer is this done than a moollah
ascends to the flat roof of the house and begins to read in a shrill monotone
certain verses from the holy book. This announces to the neighbors that
the man is veritably dead; and at the same moment his relations shriek and
wail, "Woe, woe! he is dead; he has passed away." These are the ex-
pressions of a real grief. But presently the professional mourners arrive
aud rend the air with their shrill screaming, which is like the " keening " of
the Irish.
The house is soon filled with friends and neighbors, who add their cries
to the screams of the mourners. The women of the family hasten to array
themselves in "bitter" (i. e., sombre) garments not in actual black, but
in sad colors; neither they nor the men wash or dress their hair until tha
funeral and the first days of mourning are over. The male relatives do not
literally rend their garments, but give them the right appearance by open-
ing certain seams of their coats and cloaks with a penknife; and instead of
casting dust upon their heads they dab mud on their hats.
And now come the " washers of the dead." To each parish are attached
a family of these people, who get a despised livelihood by performing the
last offices for the dead. The corpse having been washed at an adjoining
stream, the hands are placed across the chest, and it is wrapped In the
shroud of cotton cloth that the deceased has probably had by him, as a sort
of memento mori, for years. Camphor (real vegetable camphor) is placed
beneath the shroud, and the body is laid in a rough coffin made of thin
planks and brought back to the house. The coffin in Persia is of a thin and
unsubstantial kind, and the burial always takes place within twenty-four
hours of decease.
Moslem Marriages. Brokers generally arrange these marriages,
though there are some love matches in which the parties become attached
to each other without the intervention of a third party. When a naaa baa
reached the marrying age, he ia expected to enter the matrimonial raakj),
200 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
unless prevented by poverty or some other impediment, and it is considered
improper and even dishonorable lor him to refrain from so doing. If a mar-
riageable youth has a mother, she describes to him the girls ol her acquain-
tance, and enables him to decide whom to take to his house and home.
Frequently he engages the services of a woman marriage broker, who has
access to harems where there are marriageable women, and is employed by
them quite as often as by the men. She receives fees from one party, and
frequently from both. In her visits to the harems she is accompanied by
the mother or other feminine relatives of the young man; she introduces
them as ordinary visitors, but gives a sly hint as to the object of their call.
If they do not like the appearance of the maiden, they plead many calls to
make, and cut short their stay; but if satisfied, they come to business at
once, and ask how much property, personal or otherwise, the young lady
possesses. When these facts are ascertained, they depart, with the intima-
tion that they may call again. If the young man is satisfied with the report
of the broker, he sends her again to the harem to state his own prospects in
life, and if she looks favorably on his suit, the match is made. Everything
is arranged by deputy, and the Mohammedan lover does not see the face of
his mistress until she is his wife.
Marriages in Servia. -The fathers of two houses concerned meet
and settle the matter together, exchanging presents which often amount to
a considerable value. The brother of the bride delivers her to the solemn
procession, which comes to conduct her to her new abode; and there she is
received by the seslee, a sister-in-law of the intended bridegroom. She
dresses a child, touches with a distaff the walls, which are so often to see
her occupied with this implement, and carries bread, wine and water up to
the table, which it will become her daily duty to prepare. With these sym-
bolical ceremonies she enters into the new community. Her mouth is
sealed by a piece of sugar, to denote that she should only utter little, and
only what is good. As yet she is only a stranger, and for a whole year she
is termed the "betrothed." By an assumption of continued bashfulness,
prescribed by custom, she keeps apart even from her husband. In the
preaence of others she scarcely converses with him, much less would a
playful phrase be permitted from her lips. It is only when years have past,
and she has become the mother of grown-up children, that she, in reality,
finds herself on an equality with the other members of the household.
Marriage Customs in Tartary. Among the Kirghese the practice
of polygamy obtains. Generally the eldest brother of a family has more
than one wife. The first wife is mistress of the household, and is called
baibiche. To her are subject not only her husband's other wives, but also
all the other females of the family. The head of a household will often
send a portion of his herds several hundred miles away under the care of
his wife, while he himself will either remain with his other wives about the
grazing ground, or go and encamp somewhere by himself. In whiter the
family comes together again. The manifold circumstances connected with
marriage among the Kirghese are somewhat formidable, and involve the
payment of a kalim beside the giving of various presents. The affair is ar-
ranged as to its preliminaries by matchmakers, and the bridegroom after
betrothal has sometimes to wait for a year or more until he can bring the
remaining portion of the kalim. If during this period the betrothed girl
Bhould die, her parents are bound to give instead their next daughter, or in
TRAVELS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ETC. 201
default to return the kalim and pay also a fine of one or two horses and
robes or furs. So also is it if the girl should refuse to marry, which she may
do on account of the suitor's ill health, or his poverty, or (in some localities)
her personal dislike. Yet another custom is that if the bridegroom die or
refuse to marry the girl his parents are bound to take her for their next
son, paying a fine, usually a camel, in case of refusal. When the prescribed
period of betrothal is at an end, the bridegroom dressed and mounted at hie
best, goes with his friends to the aul or village of the bride, where the tent
has been prepared for his reception. Throughout the ceremonies of be-
trothal the bride's brother has the right of pilfering from the bridegroom
whatever he pleases; but now the bride's relations come and take as pres-
ents almost everything he has his coat, hat, girdle, horse and saddle, say-
ing each one that they are for the education of the bride a seizure that is
afterward repaid by the relations of the bridegroom on the visit to their aul
of the relations of the bride.
Polygamy in Kafirlaiid Polygamy is universally admitted through-
out all KaSraria, nor is there any legal limit to the number of wives. But
in Kafirland a man is not entitled to choose his wife or wives; his wishes
are in a great degree subordinate to the " intentions " of those who have
daughters to settle in life. The number of wives, therefore, is generally
proportioned to the wealth of the husband. The refusal of a bride is con-
sidered an insult to the family, to be expiated only by the plunder of the
offender's kraal, or by his blood. An old man, if wealthy, is therefore sure
to be burdened with a " large establishment; " and he is frequently obliged
to accept a youug wife when his feelings would rather lead him to decline
the proffered happiness. The average number of wives to each married
man among the common people is said to be about three, but the old Kafir
lawyers, who have amassed wealth in the pursuit of a lucrative profession,
are known to have as many as ten forced on them, and these ladies are not
long in learning the art of dissipating a fortune, or of bringing their nig-
gardly lord to his grave. A Kafir, moreover, is obliged to take not only
any wife that may be offered to him, but to pay for her, although the trans-
action is not regarded in the light of a purchase. The original idea was,
that the " consideration " should be held as a deposit or security for the
proper treatment of the women, and as a token of her husband's regard;
and, accordingly, a girl considers herself as slighted if the usual honorarium
has not been given to her parent. A young bride has been known to run
away from her husband when she discovered that she had not been paid
for.
Australian Marriage Customs. When a girl is betrothed her
mother and aunts may not look at or speak to the man for the rest of nib
life, but if they meet him they squat down by the wayside and cover up
their heads, and when he and they are obliged to speak in one another's
presence they use a peculiar lingo which they call " turn-tongue." This
queer dialect is not used for concealment, for everybody understands it,
and some examples of it show that it has much in common with the ordinary
language. To give an idea of the state of formality into which life has come
among these supposed free-and-easy savages, mention may be made of the
duties of the bridesmaid and groomsman. When the married pair have
been taken to the new hut built for them, for the next two moons the
groomsman and the husband sleep on one side of the fire, the bridesmaid
202 CYCLOPEDIA OP V8XFVL KNOWLEDGE.
and the wife on the other, the new married couple not being allowed to
Bpeak to or look at one another. The bride is called a " not-look-around,"
and the pair in this embarrassing position are a standing joke to the young
people living near, who amuse themselves by peeping in and laughing at
them.
A Bulgarian Wake. When the father of the family feels his end ap-
proaching, he sends for the priest and begins to bargain with him about his
funeral, and settles the details of his " wake." Having arranged all this and
his other worldly affairs, he feels comfortably prepared to leave the world,
and when his agony commences, to have a lighted taper placed in his hand,
his jaws bound up with a cloth, and his eyelids closed. The moment his
pulse has stopped, all the pots, pans, jars, kettles, etc., in the house are
turned upside down to prevent his soul from taking refuge in one of them,
and great care is taken to prevent either man or animal especially a cat or
dog from stepping across his body, as otherwise he would turn into a vam-
pire, and be a continual nuisance and a danger to his family and the whole
community. Within a few hours of death the body is buried, without any
coffin, in a shallow grave, eighteen to twenty-four inches deep, and left
there for three years, during which time many offerings of food and wine are
placed upon it. At the end of the third year the bones of the dead man are
dug up, carefully washed, put into a linen bag, laid before the episcopal
throne, of which there is one in every village, blessed by the pope, and then
finally buried for good. Thus the Bulgarian is well taken care of after his
death, unless, indeed, there is any reason to believe that he has become a
vampire. In that case the grave is opened and the body transfixed by a
stake, or a nail is driven into his breast. If the body is very well preserved,
then it is riddled with pistol shots, and the earth stamped down firmly upon
it, or sometimes it is burnt to ashes by a fire made of thorn.
Mourning Customs. The ancients had queer ideas about mourning
tor dead. The Egyptian women ran through the streets crying, with their
bosoms exposed and their hair disordered. The Lycians regarded mourning
as unmanly, and compelled men who went into mourning to put on female
garments. In Greece, when a popular general died, the whole army cut off
their hair and the manes of their horses. At the present day, the Arabian
women stain their hands and feet with indigo, which they suffer to remain
eight days. They also carefully abstain from milk during this time, on the
ground that its white color does not accord with the gloom of their minds.
In China, the mourning color is white. Mourning for a parent or husband is
required there by law, under penalty of sixty blows and a year's banish-
ment. When an emperor dies, all his subjects let their hair grow for one
hundred days. In the Feejee Islands, on the tenth day of mourning, the
women scourge all the men except the highest chiefs. Another fashionable
custom there requires the friends and relatives of the deceased to assemble
on the fourth day after the funeral, and picture to themselves the amount
of corruption the corpse has sustained by that time. In the Sandwich Is-
lands pertons desirous of going into mourning, paint the lower part of their
faces black, and knock out their front teeth.
Sicilian Funeral Customs. In past ages a piece of money was put
into the mouth of the corpse a survival of the fare which Charon was
bound to receive. A virgin has a palm branch and a crown in her coffin; &
child a garland of flowers. It is the worst possible omen for a bridal pro-
TRAVELS, AfANNEliS AND CVSTOMS, ETC. 208
cession to meet a funeral. It has to be averted by making the " horns," or
"leflche" (thrusting the thumb between the first two fingers), or by
putting a pomegranate before the door or in the window. At Piano de
Greci, certain little loaves or bread cakes in the form of a cross are given to
the poor on the day of a death. In Giacosa, behind the funeral procession
comes an ass laden with food, which, after the burial, is distributed either
in the open or under cover in some house. The Sicilian Albanians do not
sit on chairs during the first days of mourning, but on the dead man's mat-
tress. In some houses all is thrown into intentional confusion turned up-
side down to mark the presence of death. Others put out the mattress to
show that the invalid is dead; others again remake the bed as for marriage,
placing on it the crucifix which the sick man had held in his hand when
dying. Woe to those who lot the candle go out while burning at the foot of
the bedl On the first day of mourning there is only one of these corpse-
lighte; on the second day, two; on the third, three. Men and women sit
round the men covered up in their cloaks with a black ribbon around their
throats, the women with their black mantels drawn closely over the head,
all in deep mourning. For the first nine days friends, also in strict deep
mourning, throng the house to pay their formal visits of condolence. The
mourners do not speak or look up, but sit there like statues and talk of the
dead in solemn phrases and with bated breath, but entering into the
minutest and sometimes most immodest details. The mourning lasts one or
two years for parents, husband or wife and brothers and sisters; six months
for grandparents and uncles and aunts; three months for a cousin.
Cashmere Women Cashmere has long been famous for its beauty.
" Who has not heard of the Yale of Cashmere ? " sings a poet. It is an
irregular oval, shut in by snow-clad mountains, with a rich soil, yielding
flour, fruit and grain, with useful minerals iron, copper, lead, plumbago.
But neither its beauty nor its fertility could keep out war and pestilence.
Scourged by these, the kingdom of Cashmere, of which the Valley alone
contained nearly a million of people, now seea all its provinces number only
three-quarters of that amount. The Cashmerians are pre-eminent among
Indian nations for their physical perfection. The men are tall, well-formed,
robust and industrious, manufacturing shawls, guns, paper, lacquered ware
and attar of roses. The women are famous for their beauty and fine com-
plexion. They are a gay people, fond of pleasure, literature and poetry.
The men are distinguished by their mode of wearing the turban. The women
wear a red gown, with large, loose sleeves, a red fillet on the forehead, over
which is thrown a white mantilla. The hair is collected in separate plaits,
then gathered together, and a long tassel of black cotton is hung from it,
almost down to the ankles. Cashmere was conquered by Akbar in 1586; by
the Afghans in 1752; by the Sikhs in 1819; and by the English in 1846.
Women in Tunis. Women are kept much stricter in Tunis than in
Egypt or Turkey. Moorish ladies of high standing never show themselves
in the street; and there are thousands of them whose only walk during their
whole lives has been from the house of their parents to that of their hus-
bands. Poor women have to go out to make their purchases, and also to go
to public baths, as they have none in their wn houses; but they are veiled
to such a degree, and enveloped in so many shawls, that you can scarcely
see the tips of their fingers. The women of the middle classes also wear a
dark, heavy Bilk handkerchief, and you only see their feet clothed in little
slippers, either embroidered with gold or of patent leather, aud perhaps a
little bit of the calf, dressed in a snow-white stocking, ornamented with
silver or golden clasps, which clink at every step like spurs. Woe be to the
European who, in the presence of men, were to stare at a Moorish woman or
accost her! The Moors are, both in respect of their religion and their
women, the greatest fanatics; and to pursue a woman, or to enter a mosque,
may cost one's life to this day.
The Land of the Midnight Sun. Nothing strikes a stranger
more forcibly, if he visits Sweden at the season of the year when the days
are longest, than the absence of night. Dr. Baird relates some interesting
facts. He arrived in Stockholm from Gottenburgh, four hundred miles dis-
tant, in the morning, and in the afternoon went to see some friends. He
returned about midnight, when it was as light as it is in England half an
hour before sunset. You could" see distinctly, but all was quiet in the
streets; it seemed as if tne inhabitants had gone away or were dead. The
eun in June goes down in Stockholm a little before ten o'clock. There is a
great illumination all night, as the sun passes round the earth toward the
north pole; and the refraction of its rays is such that you can see to read at
midnight without any artificial light. The first morning Dr. Baird awoke in
Stockholm, he was surprised to see the sun shining in his room. He looked
at his watch and found it was only three o'clock. The next time he awoke it
was five o'clock, but there were persons in the street. There is a mountain at
the head of Bothnia, where, on the 21st of June, the sun does not appear to
go down at all. The steamboat goes up from Stockholm for the purpose of
conveying those who are curious to witness the phenomenon. It occurs
only one night. The sun reaches the horizon, yoii can see tho whole face of
it, and in five minutes more it begins to rise. At tho North Cape, latitude
seventy-two degrees, the sun does not go down for several weeks In June
it would be about twenty-nva degrees above tho horizon at midnight. In
the winter time the sun disappears and is not seen for weeks; then it comes
and remains for ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes, after which it descends,
and finally does not set at all, but makes almost a circle around the
heavens. Birds and animals take their accustomed rest &i the usual hour,
whether the sun goes down or not.
A Tyrolese Custom._Tn the mountains of Tyrol, it is the custom of
the women and children to come out, when it is bedtime, and sing their
national songs xantil they hear their husbands, fathers and orothers answer
them from the hills or on their return home. On the shore of the Adriatic
such a custom prevails. There the wives of the fishermen come down about
sunset and sing a melody. After singing the first stanza, they listen awhile
for the answering strain from off the water, and continue to sing and listen
till the well-known voices come borne on the tide, telling that the loved
ones are almost home.
THE WORLD ILLUSTRATED.
Niagara Falls. The largest, grandest and most magnificent cataract
in the world is the world-famous Falls of Niagara. The Niagara River,
which flows northward from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, forms the only out-
NIAGARA FALLS FROM BELOW.
let of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron and Erie, hence the entire flow of
waters from these mammoth lakes must pass over the cataract. The river
is about thirty-six miles in length, and its descent from the level of the one
lake to that of the other is about three hundred and thirty-four feet. On
issuing from Lake Erie, it is three-quarters of a mile broad; but as it flows
on, it becomes several miles wide, making room for a number of islands, the
largest of which, Grand Island, is twelve miles long, and from two to seven
broad. At the foot of Grand Island, which reaches within one and a half
206 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
milee of the Falls of Niagara, the river is contracted to a breadth of two and
a half miles, and grows narrower as it proceeds. By this, and by the de-
scent in the channel, which is about sixty feet in the mile above the Falls,
are produced the swift currents known as the Rapids, in which the river,
notwithstanding its great depth, is perpetually white with foam. At the
Falls, which are twenty-two miles from Lake Erie, the river ia divided by
an island containing about seventy-five acres, called Goat Island; but in
consequence of a bend in the channel, by far the larger portion of the water
THE HOKSESHOE FAIL, NIAGARA.
is sent down by the Canadian side. On this side, therefore, is the grander
cataract, which has been named the Horseshoe Fall, but no longer bears the
name appropriately, as Ihe precipice has been worn from a curved into a
somewhat angular shape. This process of wearing away still goes on, a large
projection on the Canadian bank, known as the Table Eock, having partly fallen
off in 1863. The Horseshoe Fall is above six hundred yards in breadth, and
about one hundred and fifty-four feet in height. The water is so deep that
it retains its green color for some distance below the brow of the precipice;
and it rushes over with such force, that it is thrown about fifty feet from the
fpot of the cliff. One may thus, having donned an oil-skin dress, enter two
TEE WORLD ILLUSTEATXD. 907
or three yards behind the curved sheet of water; but the spray is BO blind-
ing, the dm so deafening, and the current of air so strong, that it requires a
tolerably calm nerve and firm foot. The separation caused by Goat Island
leaves a large wall of rock between the Canadian and American Falls, th
latter being again divided by an islet at a short distance from Goat Island.
This fall is from eight to ten feet higher than the Horseshoe, but only about
two hundred and twenty yards broad. A little above the Fall, the channel
is divided by Bath Island, which is connected by bridges with Goat Island
and the American shore. A small tower, approached from Goat Island, has
been built on a rock over the brow of the Horseshoe Fall; aud from this the
finest view on the American side may be obtained, the Table Bock on the
Canadian side giving the conipletest view of the entire cataract. The Falls
BAPIDS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE.
cau also be seen from below on both sides, and every facility is given for
viewing them from all the best points, while magnificent hotels, Canadian
and American, offer their inducements to the tourist to stay till he has re-
ceived the full influence of the scenery. The river is crossed about two
hundred or three hundred yards below the Falls, where it is twelve hun- 1
dred yards broad. The current is lessened for about a mile, but increases
again as the channel becomes narrower and the descent greater. Between
three and four miles below the Falls, a stratum of rock runs across the di-
rect course of the river, which, after forming a vast circular basin, with an
impassable whirlpool, is forced away at right angles to its old channel. The
celebrated wire suspension-bridge for the Great Western Railway, with a
road beneath for vehicles and foot passengers, crosses the river one and a
half miles below the fall; it is eight hundred feet long, forty broad, and torn
hundred feet above the surface of the water. We present illustrations o(
the American Fall, as eeen from below ? and of the Horseshoe Fall.
208 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The Rapids of the St. Lawrence. The St. Lawrence River,
which flows from Lake Ontario to the sea, forming the outlet of th entire
chain of great lakes in America, is remarkable for its beautiful scenery.
Here are located the famous Thousand Islands, and the shores of the river
throughout its entire length are picturesque in the extreme. From the
Thousand Islands to Montreal a succession of rapida occur, the most
famous of which are the Rapids of Lachine, a few miles above Mon-
treal, of which our illustration is a faithful delineation. Large steamers
pass over these Rapids, taking the course of the channel and descending
within a few feet of the rocks on either side, and " shooting the Rapids " is
an experience long to be remembered by the traveler. No boat can ascend
FRANCONIA NOTCH, WHITE MOUNTAINS.
the river above Montreal, but must pass through the canal which has been
provided for this purpose.
Franconia Notch, White Mountains. The White Mountain
group proper and the Franconia group are separated from each other by a
table land varying from ten to twenty miles in breadth. Of the " notches,"
or passages rent through the solid granite of the mountains, there are five,
those most celebrated being the White Mountain Notch, two miles in length
and only twenty-two feet wide, and the Franconia Notch, which permits the
passage of the Pemigewasset. The flume of the Franconia Notch is the
most noted of those narrow waterways. Among the other objects of interest
in the Franconia group is the " Old Man of the Mountain." At the base of
the mountain lies a beautiful lakelet called Profile Lake. The White Moun-
are famous for grand and beautiful scenery.
THE WORLD ILLUSTRATED.
209
Watkina Glen. The famous Watkins Glen is located in Schuyler
County, New York, at the head of Seneca Lake. It is a narrow gorge or
defile, about three miles in length, cut hundreds of feet in depth in the
rocky hills. It consists properly of a number of glens or sections, rising
WATKINS GLEN.
one above another and forming a series of rocky arcades, galleries
and grottoes, and forms the channel for a limpid stream, which descends
from section to section by a myriad of cascades and rapids. The Kainbow
Fall, Artist's Dream, Cavern Cascade and Cathedral are most celebrated,
210 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Fawn's Leap, Catskill Mountains The Catskill Mountains, in
Greene County, New York, are a part of the Appalachian system. The
group runs nearly parallel with the Hudson River, from which the moun-
tains are distant about eight miles. The region gained a world-wide
celebrity during the lifetime of Washington Irving, who made it the
scene of his most beautiful legends. The chief interest of the Catekills lies
in the variety and beauty of their scenery. They present a multitude of
picturesque objects, which have long made them a favorite resort of artists
and other lovers of the grand and beautiful in nature. The highest peak is
the Overlook Mountain, three thousand eight hundred feet above the sea
level, from the summit of which may be obtained a grand view, stretching
from the Green Mountains, in Vermont, to the highlands of West Point, and
FAWN'S LEAP, CATSKILL MOUNTAINS.
including one hundred miles of the Hudson River valley. The Hunter
Mountain, High Peak and Round Top are also high and commanding eleva-
tions. The Kaatersldll Clove, a remarkable ravine five miles in length, lies
between the lake and Round Top. " The mountains divide like the cleft
foot of a deer," leaving a deep hollow into which the brook plunges over
a cascade one hundred and eighty feet in height. This fall is called the
" Fawn's Leap." There are also many other beautiful cataracts in the
Kaaterskill region. The recent completion of railroad lines leading to
the very heart of the mountains, and the erection of several new and
expensive hotels, has made the CatakUla of late years more popular
than ever.
THE WORLD ILLUSTRATED. 211
Trenton Falls, New York. A series of six cataracts, within the
distance of two miles, with an aggregate descent of three hundred and
twelve feet, constitute the picturesque and romantic Trenton Falls, which are
a part of the West Canada Creek, the main branch of the Mohawk River. The
stream flows through a narrow gorge from one to two hundred feet deep, and
in a succession of beautiful cascades and cataracts the water plungea with
great violence. Mr. J. David Williams, editor of " America Illustrated,''
describes the Falls as follows: " It is not a mere waterfall or series of water-
talle. It is a gigantic millrace, running for three miles between walls of
solid rock, nature's masonry, twice as high as Trinity steeple, and in many
TBENTON FALLS, NEW YOEK.
places almost as perpendicular. Through this gorge ran the waters t>^
West Canada Creek; now corkscrewing their way through a rocky path, water
hewn; now precipitating themselves by a series of cascades into an amphi-
theatre whose rugged sides of rock are clothed in leafy green; now flowing
in a rapid stream over a bed as smooth, and composed of stones as regular
\nd rectangular as those of a city sidewalk; now pouring over a rocky dam
if) straight and formal that you instinctively look for a sawmill at its base;
now leaping down a two-storied cascade in a series of falls whose wondrous
variety of beauty is beyond the power of pen or pencil to describe; now dart-
ing over a bed of rough rocks which throw it into foam and eddies and
waves that are like a miniature surf; now gathering all its volume into one
concentrated column and plunging through a narrow gap, beating like a
gigantic trip-hammer on the rocky bed beneath, finally to hurry ewirled and
212 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
and writhed into innumerable forms through a narrow defile, to
1 last in a deep and to the eye an unfathomable pool of treacherous
calm at the very edge and mouth of the stony chasm. * * * * At the point
in the Falls where the greatest volume of water descends, the rocky walls
on either side are much nearer each other than at other places, giving the
fall at a distance the appearance of water rushing through a great flood-
gate. The waters rush along with an impetuous and unnecessary haste that
is thoroughly American every drop is unmistakably native-born. The
walls are almost perpendicular below the Falls, and in many places the sky
is scarcely visible from the banks of the creek. There is a ladder built
from the base of the great cataract to the plateau above it, and tourists cau
climb up and view the falls at the spot where the
first descent begins. The spectacle here wit-
nessed. is more than compensation for the exer-
tion." * * * *
The Bartholdi Statue. The great Bar-r
tholdi statue, " Liberty Enlightening the World,"
erected upon Bedloe's Island in New York Bay,
was the gift of France to the American people.
It is said that this gigantic work cost $250,000, the
expense being borne by 250,000 Frenchmen of the
middle class, each of whom contributed the
sum of one dollar. Bartholdi, the sculptor, was
eight years constructing the statue. The figure
is made of hammered copper sheets, one-eighth
of an inch thick. These are riveted together,
and fastened to a four-sided iron frame which
runs up through the center of the figure, and is
firmly fixed to the pedestal. It is the largest
statue of which any knowledge is preserved.
The Colossus of Rhodes was said to be ninety
feet high, the statue of "Bavaria," at Munich, is
eixty feet high, The height of the Bartholdi
statue, including the pedestal and foundation, is
305 feet. It towers above the Brooklyn Bridge
pillars and the steeple of Trinity Church. It
weighs 220 tons. Some estimate of the size of
this colossal figure may be formed from the di-
mensions of the forefinger. It is eight feet long,
THE BABTHOLDI STATUE, and four feet nine inches around at the second
joint. The head is fourteen and a half feet high,
and the nose three feet seven inches long. A man six feet tall standing
upon the level of the lips, would just reach the eyebrows. Fifteen people
may sit around the flame of the torch. A staircase ascends inside from the
bottom of the statue quite up into the torch. There the climber can go
outside to a circular balcony, with a railing, around the torch. The view
here of New York harbor and city, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Hudson River
and heights, the bay and the ocean, is one of the most magnificent in
America.
The Palisades of the Hudson River. The Hudson River has been
Appropriately called the American Rhine from the picturesque and roman-
THE WORLD ILLUSTRATED.
213
tic character of its scenery. Its source is in the Adirondack Mountains and
its mouth is New York Bay. It is navigable to Albany, a distance of 160
miles. It winds its way gracefully among mountains, hills and forests, its
surface smooth and bright as a mirror, forming a scene of Eden-like beauty.
From Fort Lee, N. J., opposite the upper portion of Manhattan Island, to
Piermont, N. Y., the west bank of the river consists of a precipitous rocky
wall called the Palisades. This wall is of trap-rock, and rises almost straight
THE PALISADES OF THE HUDSON BIVEB.
and perpendicular from the river's brink to a height of from three to six
hundred feet, and extends a distance of fifteen miles. The Hudson Kiver
was first explored in 1609 by Henry Hudson, an English navigator, who
ascended to the present site of Albany. Robert Fulton made his first suc-
cessful experiments in steam navigation upon this river. During the
war of the Revolution it was the scene of many important engagements,
and some of the old Revolutionary fortifications and other structures are atill
preserved.
U14
OF V8EFUL
The Allegheny River. This beautiful stream rises in the northern
part of Pennsylania, from whence it flows to Pittsburgh, where it unites
with the Monongahela to form the Ohio. It is navigable for nearly 200
miles above Pittsburgh. For the greater part of its course it flows through
THE ALLEGHENY EIVEB.
& great ravine, from one to two hundred feet below the level of the adjacent
country. The scenery in some places is wild and rugged, but more gener-
ally is picturesque and beautiful. The hills are clothed with a dense forest,
and washed at their base by the limpid water. In all Pennsylvania there is
no scenery more picturesque than that of the Allegheny River.
THE WORLD ILLUSTRATED.
215
Natural Bridge, Virginia. In Rockbridge County, Virginia, is to
be found one of the greatest curiosities in the United States. Spanning a
small and unimportant creek (The Cedar) is this world's wonder the Natu-
ral Bridge. This bridge consists of a stupendous arch of limestone rock,
over a chasm fifty feet wide at its base, and ninety feet at the top. The
NATURAL BEIDGE, VIRGINIA.
height of the bridge above the stream, to the top, is two hundred and fifteen
feet; its average width is eighty feet; its extreme length at top, ninety-three
feet, and its thickness, from the under to the upper side, fifty-five feet. A.
clayey earth covers it to the depth of from four to six feet, and it possesses
a natural parapet of rock at the sides, rendered firm by rocks and trees.
The view from above is grand, but the best prospect is obtained from be-
neath, where the astonished spectator has full scope to grasp, at a single
glance, this magnificent work of nature. Tho beauty, elevation, and light-
216 CYCLOPEDIA OP USEFUL
ness of the arch present a striking instance of the graceful in combination
with the sublime.
Gothic Chapel, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky The Mammoth
Cave is in Edmonson County, Kentucky. It extends nine miles under-
ground, and embraces a great variety of subterranean chambers. The
GOTHIC CHAPEL, MAMMOTH CAVE, KENTUCKY.
Gothic Chapel is in what is known as the Gothic Arcade, and is entered from
the main cave by ascending a flight of steps some fifteen feet in height. The
Chapel is a large room, the ceiling of which appears to be supported by
gigantic stalactites, which extend to the floor. When a number of lamps
are hung upon these columns, or carried in the hands of visitors, the Chapel
presents a beautiful appearance. There are many circumstances to prove
that the Mammoth Cave is part of the course of a subterranean river which
existed in a former condition of the surface. Geologists assign a million
years as the approximate term for the production of this series of caves.
TBE WOULD ILLUSTRATED
217
Silver Springs, Florida. The St. Johns River is said to be in many
respects the most remarkable in North America. It has its source in the
Everglades of Central and Southern Florida; and after running due north
for two hundred miles, it abruptly turns eastward to the ocean. Some dis-
tance up this strange river is the famed Silver Springs, a great, deep and
surprisingly clear basin of water, which boils up from the bowels of the
earth with much force, forming a river one hundred feet in width, and which,
in the course of seven miles, forms a junction with the Ocklawaha. This
spring is seventy feet deep, as clear as crystal, and remarkably fresh and
8ILVEB SPRINGS, JTLOBEDA.
cool. " The steamboat on the surface," writes Mr. Louis M. Babcock,
editor of " Our American Resorts," describing the Silver Springs, " rests on
an inverted fac simile, and every tree, twig, vine and rock is reproduced in
the beautiful pool. The floor of this basin is silver sand, studded with curi-
ous figures in pale, green-tinted lime crystals. A row across the pool is
ever to be remembered. Every object that has been dropped into the water
by preceding visitors lies in the silver setting, a rich emerald gem. At one
place a barely discernible bubbling points out the spot from which the water
gushes out, thousands of gallons, eveiy moment. A stone dropped toward
the slight ledge of limestone rock twenty-five feet below, is suddenly thrown
in a curved line nearly to the surface by the rush of the spring from under
the rock."
218 CYCLOPEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Silver Cascade, St. Anthony's Palls. The Falls of St. Anthony, in
Minnesota, received their name from Father Louis Hennepin, a French mis-
sionary, by whom they were discovered in 1680. The entire river, which
exceeds two hundred and fifty yards in width, falls perpendicularly a dia-
STLVEH CASCADE, ST. ANTHONY'S FALLS.
tAnce of thirty feet, forming a beautiful cataract. The rapids below, in a
apace of three hundred yards, render the descent considerably greater, so
that, when viewed from a distance, the falls appear much higher than they
really are. The surrounding country is very picturesque. A short distance
below the falls is a small island, where grow many large oak trees, upon
which hundreds of eagles build their nests. The Silver Cascade shown in
our illustration is a very beautiful fall, within easy driving distance from
Minneapolis,
VfORttt tLfffStnAfED. 219
Grand Canon of the Colorado. The scenery of the Eocky Moun-
tains is not surpassed in grandeur and magnificence by the famous Alps of
Switzerland. In fact, in the matter of their wonderful river canons or ravines
GBAND CANON OF THE COLORADO.
they have no parallel in any part of tbe world. These canons are cut thou-
sands of feet into the heart of the mountains, and through this dark and
rocky gorge the turbulent river winds its way. The Grand Canon of the
Colorado is two hundred and forty miles long, and from two thousand five
hundred to four thousand feet deep. Its walls are of solid rock, in some
laces nearly perpendicular, and almost entirely shutting ont the light of day.
S20 CYCLOPEDIA OF VSEFVL KNOWLEDGE.
Great Falls of the Missouri River, Montana The Missouri
Eiver is not only the chief affluent of the Mississippi, but the largest trib-
utary stream in the world. It is three thousand and ninety-six miles long,
and ia navigable at high water to the Great Falls, two thousand live hun-
dred and forty miles from the Mississippi. The upper Missouri ia reiuark-
QBKAT FALLS OF THE MISSOURI RIVER, MONTANA.
able for its scenery. At a distance of four hundred and eleven miles fron>
its source, it flows through a gorge five and three-quarter miles in length,
between perpendicular walls one thousand two hundred feet high and four
hundred and fifty feet apart. At the Great Falls, one hundred and ten miles
below, the river falls three hundred and fifty-seven feet in a series ot rapids
and cascades extending over a distance of sixteen and one-half miles.
The largest tall is eighty-seven feet high, and the scenery is full of
grandeur.
THE WORLD ILLUSTRATED. 221
The Yellowstone Park. The Yellowstone River rises in a beautiful
lake of the same name high up in the Eocky Mountains, and receiving nu-
merous branches from the south, flows northeasterly through the territory
of Montana, and empties into the Missouri Eiver, in the northwest part of
Dakota Territory. It is eight hundred yards wide at its mouth, one thou-
sand miles long, and navigable seven hundred or eight hundred miles. The
region of the Yellowstone and its source was for the first time explored by
parties from the United States in 1870 and 1871, and seems to be one of the
most wonderful spots ou the earth. Making their way up the river through
the grand scenery of the Eocky Mountains, the explorers came to a district
of a square mile in area*, filled with hot springs in active operation, which
cover the hillsides with snowy white deposit like a frozen cascade. Three
or four miles around were occupied by springs which have ceased to flow.
They are about six thousand feet above the sea, and are much resorted to
by invalids. This was but the beginning of the wonders. Next they came
to a terrific rift, two thousand feet in depth, with a river rolling in its deeps,
GREAT 8PBINGS, YELLOWSTONE PABK.
" a grand, gloomy, terrible place." At the head of this canon are the
Tower Falls, with a sheer descent of four hundred feet. The Grand Canon,
however, throws this into the shade. This fearful abyss is three thousand
feet in perpendicular height, and to one looking up from the bottom, stars
are visible in broad daylight. The ravine is full of hot springs of sulphur,
sulphate of copper, alum, steam jets in endless variety, some of most pecul-
iar form. The grandeur of the canon ia at once heightened and diversified
by the Upper and Lower Falls; the latter one unbroken symmetrical ex-
panse, three hundred and fifty feet in height. Between this fall and the
lake lies a region full of boiling springs and craters, with two hills three
hundred feet high, formed M'holly of the sinter thrown from the springs, one
of which is seventy feet long by forty broad. Still farther on they came to
a valley containing about one thousand five hundred geysers, some throw-
ing up immense columns of water to the height of more than two hundred
feet a stupendous spectacle! The lake from which the river issues is
about three hundred square miles in area, is situated seven thousand four
hundred and twenty-seven feet above the level of the sea, and is described
as " the gem to which all the other wonders form the setting." In one sec-
222 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
tion there is an extinct geyser, which from its old eruptions has built up a
cone of lime forty-two feet high and twenty-two feet in diameter at the base.
This cone has been called " The Cap of Liberty." The wonderful Yellow-
stone region has been set apart by the government of the United States aa
a permanent public park, and is called the Yellowstone National Park.
Salt Lake, Utah. Four barrels of water of the Great Salt Lake will
leave after evapo-
ration nearly a
barrel of salt. The
lake was discov-
ered in the year
1850, and no outlet
has yet been as-
certained. Four or
five large streams
empty themselves
into it, and the fact
of it still retaining
its saline proper-
ties seems to point
to the conclusion
that there exists
some secret saline
deposits over
which the waters
flow, and thus they
continue salt for
though the lake
may be the residue
of an immense sea
which once cov-
ered the whole of that region, yet by its
continuing so salt, with the amount of
fresh water poured into it daily, the idea
of the existence of some such deposit from
which it 'receives its supply seems to be
only too probable. There are no fish in the
lake, but myriads of small flies cover its
surface. The buoyancy of the water is so
great that it is not at all an easy matter
to drown in it. The entire length of Salt
Lake is eighty-five miles. Compared with
the Dead Sea, Salt Lake is longer by forty-three miles, and broader by
thirty-five miles.
Tlie Yosemite Valley. One hundred and forty miles east of San
Francisco, on the western slope of the Sierra Nevadas, thirty miles from
their summit, and at an elevation of over four thousand feet above
the level of the sea, lies the pride of California, the boast of the United
States, and one of the great wonders of the world the Yosemite Valley.
It is about the center of the State, and is a nearly level area some six miles
long and half a mile to a mile wide. It is almost a mile in perpendicu-
LTBEBTY CAP, YELLOWSTONE PABK.
THE WORLD ILLUSTRATED.
223
lar depth below the general level of the adjacent region, and is enclosed in
frowning granite walls rising with almost precipitous faces to the astonishing
height of from three
thousand to six
thousand feet. From
the brow of the prec-
ipice, here and there,
spring streams cf
water which form
cataracts of a love-
liness unknown else-
where among moun-
tain scenery. The
unparalleled charac-
teristic of theYosem-
ite is its incredible
compactness. A 1 -
most one single coup
d'cett can cover it.
Within a minute
space it encloses un-
equaled wonders.
It is one vast flower
garden; plants,
shrubs, flowers of
every lovely form
and hue cover the
ground like a carpet.
The eye is dazzled
with color. The air
is heavy with fra-
grance. The stately
pines that fringe the
valley between the
tremendous cliflfe,
look like daisies in
the midst of pines.
The warder of the
Valley ia the moun-
tain El Capitan.
Though not so high
by half a mile as
some of its neigh-
bors, it is more no-
ticeable from its iso-
lation and its per-
pendicular sides,
down which one
could almost drop a
plummet from the top. It is probably the most square-cut and imposing
face of rock in the world. Opposite El Capitan is that beautiful fall, the
Bridal Veil, where the creek leaps from the sheer edge of the cliff nine hun-
dred feet into the valley below, being dispersed in mist and vanishing in
GBEAT GEYSEB, YELLOWSTONE PABK.
224 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
pray long before it reaches its rocky bed. Falling behind one high shoulder
of El Capitan is the Virgin's Tears, dropping one thousand feet. Not far
from bore are the sculptured piles of granite, known as the Cathedral Bock,
the Spires, the Three Brothers, the Sentinel, etc., rising like vast cathedrals
to heaven. A little farther up the valley are the
Yosemite Falls, the most remarkable feature of this
scenery, having a total plunge of two thousand six
hundred feet. No falls in the known world can be
compared with these for height and sublimity. The
Halfdome is the loftiest mountain of the Yosemite
group proper, rising to the height of four thousand
BBTDAL VEIL FALL, YOSEMITE VALLEY.
seven hundred and thirty-seven feet above the valley, or nine thousand feet
above the sea. We have not space to enumerate a tenth part of the marvels
of this awe-inspiring and romantic valley, and the only way the tourist can
get an adequate conception of them is by climbing some of the numerous
" trails " that have been worn in their sides from bottom to top. This can
be done on foot, or, by almost all trails, on a mule. The bridle-paths are
firm and well made.
THE WOULD ILLUSTRATED.
225
The Summit of the Sierras. The Sierra Nevada Mountains have
been appropriately styled the California Alps. Their grandeur is seen In
the fact that throughout the extent of the range, four hundred and fifty miles,
there is not a pass lower than eight thousand feet above the level of the sea.
It is a grand and exciting ride on the Pacific Railroad down the Sierras, from
Suvimit to Colfax; and here, as at all the passes, especially at the head,
the scenery is of the wildest and grandest description lofty peaks massed
together and laden around their bases with ice arid snow; chains of glacier
lakes, cascading Streams in endless variety, with glorious views eastward
and westward. As he proceeds down the mountains the eye of the tourist
is greeted with every variety of mountain scenery, giving a quick eucces-
THE SUMMIT OF THE SIEKEAS.
sion of magnificent views and striking contrasts fearful chasms and tor-
tuous canons, towering peaks, giant pines and diminutive manzanitas,
sparkling creeks, rushing rivers and romantic cascades, gloomy gorges
and fruit-laden orchards, and woven through all a new and bold civilization
huge smelting furnaces, thundering quartz mills, old placer diggings
and new mines tunneling the alabaster. On every hand we see the
miner's work. Long flumes carry off the washed gravel and retain the
gold; turbulent ditches bear the debris to the plains below; here is a hose
playing against the hillside and bringing down acres of "pay dirt." All
is life, energy, activity. In a run of fifty miles upon this railroad the descent
is more than six thousand feet.
226 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Cape Horn, in the Sierras. From the hoar the traveler leaves
Omaha for California, he finds everything new, curious and wonderful; the
plains, with their buffalo, antelope and prairie dogs; the mountains, which,
as you approach Cheyenne, lift up their glorious enow-clad summits; the
grim scenery of the canons and gorges; the indescribable loveliness and
beauty of the mountain range which shelters Salt Lake City; the extended
alkali and sage brush plain; the snow sheds which protect the Central
Pacific as you ascend the Sierras, and, on the morning of the last day of
your journey, the grand and exciting rush down the Siefras from Summit
to Colfax, winding around Cape Horn and half a hundred more precipitous
cliffs, down which you look out of the open " observation car "as you sweep
CAPE HORN, IX THE SIERRAS.
from a height of seven thousand feet to a level of two thousand five hundred
feet in a ride of two hours and a half. A grander or more exhilarating ride
than this cannot be found in the world, the scenery is so varied, novel
and magnificent.
In Arctic Seas. The manifestations of nature in the Arctic region are
magnificent and marvelous. The ice assumes many fantastic shapes, at
times presenting all the colors of the rainbow. The interior of Greenland is
covered with ice and snow to a great depth. This vast mass is constantly
moving towards the water, and when it reaches the edge of the land it
tumbles over into the sea, breaking off in immense fragments. Our illuatra-
THE WORLD ILLUSTRATED.
227
tion represents a ship in danger of being crushed by the iceberg just
tumbling over into the sea.
The Catacombs of Rome. The catacombs of Rome are believed to
be of great antiquity, they probably having been hewn long before Romulus
and Remus founded Rome. In the course of time they were extended so
that every one of the seven hills on which the city stood was perforated aud
honey-combed by passages, dark galleries, low corridors, and vaulted halls.
What greatly facilitated the work was the light and soft nature of the
material to be quarried, and the workmen were thus enabled to shape the
shafts and galleries as they pleased. As the city grew in extent and wealth
IN ARCTIC SEAS.
these quarries were enlarged and new ones opened. The material was
used in building houses and temples. But little is to be gleaned from the
ancient writers as to the uses to which these subterranean recesses were
put when they ceased to be quarries. Horace says of the caverns under
the Esquiline Hill that it " was the common sepulchre of the miserable
plebeians." The catacombs were crowded with the Christians during the
persecutions under Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Adrian, Severus, Maximinua
and Diocletian, who found there safety from the tyranny of the Roman
pagans. Each catacomb forms a network of passages, or galleries, inter-
secting each other at right angles, but sometimes diverging from a common
center; these galleries, or passages, are usually about eight feet high ? and,
228 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KI' .EDGE.
from three to five feet wide. The graved are in tiers ou ike sides, and when
undisturbed are found closed with marble slabs or tilea;, on which are often
inscriptions or Christian emblems. It has been estimated that the entire
length of the catacombs is not less than five hundred and eighty miles, and
that they contain not less than six million bodies. From being the refuge of
persecuted Christians, they became, about the thirteenth century, the hiding
places of outlaws and assassins, who were, however, finally driven out or
IMC3. KATKINE.
the entrances to their retreats closed. Many interesting and valuable books
have been written on the catacombs, and some hftve spent a lifetime iu
investigating these wonderful caverns.
Loch. Katrine. Of all the Scottish lakes, BO famous in song and story,
none is so widely celebrated as Loch Katrine, which ia situated near the
southwest border of Perthshire. It ia eight miles iu length, and three-
quarters of a mile iu mean breadth. Its greatest depth iu seventy-eight
THE WORLD ILLUSTRATED.
229
fathoms, and its height above the sea about three hundred and seventy feet.
Its shape is serpentine, and displays great variety of shore and background.
Ben Venue and Ben An are on its banks. It contains several islets, one of
which, Ellen's Isle, is the center of the action of the "Lady of the Lake."
Several also of Wordsworth's lyrics were written on subjects suggested in
this locality. The waters of the lake are remarkably pure, and it forms the
water supply of the city of Glasgow.
Edinburgh Castle. No city in the world is more picturesque than
Edinburgh. Its site and structure combine to make it unique. It is a city
of hills and valleys. When you are there everybody talks of the castle.
EDINBURGH CASTLE.
You cannot forget it if you would, for it dominates everything and is the
heart of everything. Castle Eock, as the site of the Castle is called, is some
seven hundred feet in circumference, and on three sides it is just bare rock,
so precipitous that foot of man conld hardly scale it. Accessible only on one
side, a place more perfectly adapted for a fortress can scarcely be
imagined. The old gray Castle itself is one of the most picturesque of
buildings. Whether you see it at sunrise, at high noon, in the tender
twilight time, or when the pale moon visits it, it is' alike beautiful;
but the most impressive view is obtained at sunset, when the valley is in
shadow, the glow of the setting sun resting on the old gray Castle, making
its windows flame like opals.
230 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Melrose Abbey. Melrose is a pleasant village at the foot of the
Eildon Hills., ottthe south bank of the Tweed. It is famous for the ruins of
its nobie Cistercian Abbey, founded by King David I, in 1136. The original
pile having been destroyed during the wars of the Succession, the mon-
astery began to be rebuilt about 1326. The work was helped by large
grants from King Robert Bruce and his son, King David II, but proceeded
ao slowly that it was scarcely finished at the Reformation, in the middle of
;\
MELBOSE ABBEY.
the sixteenth century. It was hi the Second Pointed style, with one or two
approaches to Third Pointed, and was beyond doubt the most beautiful
Ltructure of which Scotland could boast in the middle ages. What now
remains are the chief portions of the conventional church, measuring
two hundred and fifty-one feet in length, and some fragments of the
cloister, which would seem to have been a square one hundred and
fifty feet deep. The tracery and carvings are scarcely surpassed by anj
in England.
THA WORLD ILLUSTRATED.
231
Alpine Peak*. The famous Alps, the most extensive system of lofty
mountains in Europe, raise their giant masses on a basis of ninety thousand
square miles. They extend over the greater portion of Switzerland, and
into France, Italy, Austria and Bavaria. The highest peaks are Mont Blanc,
fifteen thousand seven hundred and forty-four feet; Monte Eosa, fifteen
thousand one hundred and fifty-one feet, and Mont Cervin, fourteen thuu-
ALPINE PEAKS.
sand eight hundred and thirty-six feet. The summits of these mountaima
are covered with perpetual snow. In the lowlands of the Alpine region
there are many beautiful lakes and rivers. The scenery is wild and im-
pressive, and thousands of travelers annually sojourn in the beautiful Swiss
villages. Not the least charm of the locality is the picturesque life of the
herdsmen and farmers, who ply their vocations amid scenes possessing a
grandeur and beauty such as no artist has succeeded in faithfully por-
traying.
032 CYCLOPEDIA Of VSEFVL
Paris. " I know no walks in the world so fascinating," writes Louiae
Chandler Moultou, " as a ramble through the Garden of the Tuileries, across
the Place de la Concorde, and on into the Champs Elysees. I have taken
this walk as a soft spring day was drawing to its close. The sky was all
rose and gold, and the distances were softly purple in the evening glow.
There was a charm in the scene, half-pensive and altogether tender, which
I can never put into words. But it is much gayer in the afternoon. All the
little out-door theatres are in full blast then, and there are several of them
in the Garden of the Tuileries, and several more in the Champs Elysees.
These theatres are for the children, and the performers are not people, but
marionettes, or puppets. There is the merry-go-round, too, with its funny
little wooden ponies, and its queer little chariots, and the great strong Nor-
man horses drawing the whole thing. How it carries me back to a summer
OABDEN OF THE TUILEBIES, PAKIS.
night at Etretat, and a crowd of peasants dancing a slow, fantastic dance in
the pale and fitful moonlight, and pausing now and then to take a turn in
just such a merry-go-round as this. I think I prefer the Garden of the Tui-
leries and the Champs Elysees to the Bois de Boulogne; and yet when I am
in the Bois, I think I prefer that to anything else. It is so bright and gay,
this place which was a noble forest till most of the trees were cut down in
the evil days of 1870 and '71. But still it is one of the finest parks in the
world, and between three and four in the afternoon you may see there the
fashion and beauty of Paris. There are two artificial lakes in the Boib, one
two-thirds and the other a quarter of a mile in length. In the largest of
these lakes are two islands, and on one of them is a cafe, in the form of ft
THE WOULD ILLUSTRATED.
233
Swiss chalet. You are taken from the mainland k> this picturesque cafe for
four cents, and you find there all sorts of dainty temptations in the way of
eating and drinking. At one end of the Bois de Boulogne is an enclosed
portion called the Jardin d'Acclimatation, a garden the purpose of which is
to acclimatize in France birds, animals and plants from every quarter of the
globe. The varieties of dogs alone seem endless, and as for birds, I had
never dreamed of anything so various and so beautiful as this collection.
There is a monkey-house, and there are carriages for children to ride in,
some drawn by ostriches, and others by zebras, and I know not how many
atrange animals. Also there are amiable elephants, on whose backs you
CHAMPS ELYSEES, PABIS.
may ride. It was a dream of delight to be there even to me, and I could
fancy what it must be to the children. It is no wonder that they flock to it,
since it would be impossible to conceive any spot on earth where more is
combined to rejoice the wonder-loving, pleasure-loving heart of childhood."
Strasburg and Its Cathedral. The eminent city of Strasburg, one
of the most important towns in what travelers sometimes call French Ger-
many, is built on an Island in the river HI, which connects with the Ehine.
Strasburg is a place of great wealth, and boasts of many learned and chari-
table institutions, and it has given to the world many eminent men in almost
every department of knowledge. But the chief attraction of the city is its
purely gothic cathedral, the great spire of which soars four hundred and
Sixty-eight feet in the air the tallest spire in the world, and in altitude but
234 CYCLOPAEDIA OF VSEFVL KNOWLEDGE.
fourteen feet below the apex of the pyramid of Cheops. The towers and
spire, as well as the body of the building, are of dark-red sandstone, which
is found in abundance in the neighborhood. Although hemmed in by nar-
row streets, and tall houses, the Cathedral does not impress the reader with
heaviness, and the
stonework of the
spire is remarkable
for the cleverness of
its carvings, tra-
ceries and beauty of
detail. The stone of
the spire is cut
rather to resemble
iron castings or
carved oak than
chiseled stone. The
whole is carefully
tied together with
iron rods, bars,
clamps and bolts, so
as to give it addi-
tional strength to re-
sist the action of the
wind. Should it ever
fall, engineers and
architects say it will
be because of an
earthquake. The
western facade of
the building is not
completed as the
architect designed it
should be. He died
a hundred years be-
fore the building
was consecrated.
Four centuries have
elapsed since the
tower was com-
pleted, and it looks
as fresh as the day
the capstone was
put on it. The in-
terior of the Stras-
burg Cathedral cor-
responds to its ex-
terior in finish and design. It is celebrated for its magnificent colored glass
windows, which were made in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Vesuvius in Eruption. Vesuvius is a celebrated volcano of Italy,
six miles east of the city of Naples. It has two summits. Its perpendicular
height is but three thousand seven hundred feet, though the ascent from the
base to the summit comprises a distance of three Italian miles. One side of
VESUVIUS IN ERUPTION.
TBE WOULD ILLUSTRATED. 235
the mountain ia fertile and well cultivated, producing an abundance of vines;
but the south and west sides are entirely covered with cinders and ashes,
while a sulphurous smoke constantly issues from the top, sometimes at-
tended with the most violent explosions, when huge stones and great masses
of lava are emitted. The first eruption recorded in history took place in the
year 79. In 1806 a violent eruption occurred, when a bright flame arose
from the mountain top to the height of six hundred feet.
Venice. Venice is a seaport city in Austrian Italy. The coast ia a long
and narrow belt of land, through a number of openings in which the waters
of the Adriatic make their way between the mainland and the belt, and form
a lagoon from twenty-five to thirty miles long and about five miles broad.
Into seventy-two little islands in this lagoon piles have been driven, and upon
them Venice has been built, so that from any point of view the city seems to
be floating on the water. The city is a little more than two miles long, one
and a half broad, and about six in circuit. It ia divided into two unequal
parts by the Grand Canal, which runs through it in the form of an S re-
versed; and it is also traversed by one hundred and forty-six smaller canals.
These canals are crossed by three hundred and sixty bridges; but over the
Grand Canal there is but one the Eialto. The Grand Canal varies in
breadth, and on both sides ia lined by magnificent buildings, many of them
immediately on the water's edge, so that people step from them into the
gondolas, of which there are said to be more than four thousand. The pub-
lic buildings are splendid and numerous. There is but one Venice in all the
world, and it is a city of enchantment. Imagine a great populous city where
th rumble of wheels is never heard, and not a single horse ia within it*
limits. All Venice ia out of doors as soon as the suu has sett
236 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNO Wi.* 1) &E.
The Vatican. The word is often used, but there are many who do
not understand its import. The term refers to a collection of buildings on
one of the seven hills of Home, which covers a space of one thousand two
hundred feet in length, and one thousand feet in breadth. It is built on the
spot once occupied by the garden of the cruel Nero. It owes its origin to
the Bishop of Borne, who, in the early part of the sixth century, erected an
humble residence on ita site. About the year 1160, Pope Eugenius rebuilt
it on a magnificent scale. Innocent II, a few years afterward, gave it up ts
a lodging to Peter II, King of Aragon. In 1305 Clement V, at the instigation
of the King of France, removed the Papal See from Eome to Avignon, whera
the Vatican remained in a condition of obscurity and neglect for more than
seventy years. But soon after the return of the Pontifical Court to Rome,
an event which had been so earnestly prayed for by poor Petrarch, and
Tvhich finally took place in 1576, the Vatican was put in a state of repair,
again enlarged, and it was thenceforward considered as the regular palaca
and residence of the popes, who, one after the other, added fresh buildings
to it, and gradually encircled it with antiquities, statues, pictures, and
books, until it became the richest depository in the world. The library of
the Vatican was commenced one thousand four hundred years ago. It con-
tains forty thousand manuscripts, among which are some by Pliny, St.
Thomas, St. Charles Borromeo, and many Hebrew, Syrian, Arabian, and
Armenian Bibles. The whole of the immense buildings composing the Vat-
ican is filled with statues found beneath the ruins of ancient Eome, with
paintings by the masters, and with curious medals and antiquities of almost
every description. When it is known that there have been exhumed more
than seventy thousand statues from the ruined temples and palaces of
Eome, the reader can form some idea of the richness of the Vatican.
Vienna. The capital of the Austrian Empire stands on a plain at the
foot of the last hills of the Wiener Wald, which forms the eastern extremity
of the Alps. East of it extends a vast plain, as far as the eye can see, away
to the Carpathians, which are visible on a clear day in the distance. An
arm of the Danube (called a canal) yassea along the northeast side of tho
city, and separates it from the suburb of Leopoldstadt. Into this arm flows
the stream called the Wien, from which the city takes ita name. Vienna
consists of the old city or inner town, called the Sladt, with narrow and ir-
regular streets, and of a circle of suburbs, nine in number, completely sur-
rounding it. Around the Stadl, and separating it from the suburbs, is a ring
space upon which were formerly the fortifications, leveled in 1858. This
space is now being rapidly covered with buildings, of which the principal
form part of the Ringstrasse, a handsome boulevard, in many places seventy
yards wide. Unlike most other European cities, the old part of the city ia
the most fashionable. In the titadt are the palaces of the emperor and of
eorne of the principal nobility, many stately mansions, the public offices,
the finest churches, most of the museums and public collections, the col-
leges, the exchange, and the best stores. The suburbs are laid out in wide
streets, many of which, being unpaved, are extremely dusty in summer and
very muddy hi winter. As a rule, the houses are let in " flats," almost tho
only exception to this being the palaces of the higher nobility; and in somo
cases even these consist only of the two lower stories of the building. Among
the principal squares are the Josephsplatz and the Burghof (the latter the
court of the palace) , the outer Hurgplatz, in which Stands, the JJurgthor, th
Newr Maria, am ffvf* and, Freiung,
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFAC-
TURES.
Printing. The art of printing from movable types is of comparatively
modern origin, only four hundred years having elapsed since the first book
printed in this manner was issued from the press. The ancients printed
from engraved blocks, and this method is preserved by the Chinese to this
day. The credit of discov-
ering the simple yet mar-
velous art of printing from
movable types is contested
by the Dutch in favor of
Lawrence Coster, between
1420 and 1426, and by the
Germans on behalf of Jo-
fa an n Gutenberg. The
types first employed were
of wood, but soon the prac-
tice of casting them in metal
was introduced. Guten-
berg succeeded in printing
a Bible between 1450 and
1455.
All the types used in
printing offices are sorted
in cases, or shallow boxes,
with divisions. These are
of two kinds the upper and
lower case, the latter lying
nearest to the compositor. In the upper case are placed all the capitals,
imall capitals, accented letters, a few of the points, and characters used as
references. In the lower case are all the. small letters, figures, the remain-
der of the points and spaces to place between the words. In the lower, no
alphabetical arrangement is preserved; each letter has a larger or smaller
box allotted to it according as it is more or less frequently required, and all
those letters most in request are placed at the nearest convenient distance
to the compositor. Placing the copy or manuscript before him on the upper
case, and standing in front of the lower case, the compositor holds in his left
hand a little iron tray called a composing stick. One by one he lifts and
puts the letters of each word and sentence, and the appropriate points and
spaces, into his stick, securing each with the thumb of his left hand, and
placing them side by side from lett to right along the line. On reaching the
end of a line he rearranges the spaces, so as to make it exactly full and se-
cure a uniform separation of the words. When the workman has set up as
m,anv liuee as his stick will bold, he lifts, them out and places them upon a.Q
COMPOSITOR AT "WOKE.
238 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
elongated tray called a gattey, and when the galley is full an impression or
proof of the types is taken, which goes to the proof-reader, whose duty it ia
to mark upon the margins thereof such errors as may have been made by
the compoeitor. After these have been corrected, the matter is divided
into pages of the desired size, head-lines and numerals are added, the pages
are secured in an iron frame or chase, and, after the matter is again care-
fully read and corrected, the/orm is ready for the pressman or electrotypcr.
as the case may be.
I no department of human industry has tiiero been a more signal a.(\-
USEFUL ARTS AND MAN UFA CT TIRES.
239
vanctment than in the manufacture of the printing press, and the improved
newspaper press of the present day would seem to be well-nigh perfect.
To attempt a description of the many and various kinds of presses in use
for the different styles of printing would be quite impossible within the
limits allotted to this article, but the operation of a modern newspaper
printing machine may be thus briefly described: A reel of tightly-rolled
paper, just as it leaves the mill, is placed at one end of the machine, ia
clamped while passing between small cylinders, and is then led between tho
first and second of four cylinders, placed one above the other s where it re-
ceives, its first impression from tlie stereotype cast of. th.e first cylinder, Th.9
240 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
paper then returns backward between the second and third cylinders; and
passing forward again between the third and fourth, receives on its other
side the second impression from the stereotype plates of the lowest cylinder.
The roll is next cut into sheets, and the sheets numbered by an index.
Carried up to the top of the machine, the sheet descends perpendicularly,
and is thrown alternately backwards and forwards on to boards held by
two lads. These, with the striker, who starts the ma-chine, are the sole
attendants necessary. The paper travels at the rate of one thousand feet
per minute, and the finished sheets are delivered a,t tUe rate of twelve
thousand copies and upwards per hour,
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
241
Stereotyping. The art of fabricating metal plates resembling pages
of type, from which impressions may be taken as in letter-press printing, is
termed stereotyping. This process is not employed where only a definite
and moderate number of impressions of any work are required. Its chief
value consists in its availableness for future impressions contingent on the
renewed demand for copies; but it is also of importance in duplicating the
means of taking large impressions quickly. Briefly the process is as follows:
The page of type is laid on a smooth iron table, face upward; a little fine oil
in brushed over it, to prevent the liquid stucco from adhering; the stucco to
the consistency of cream is now poured over the face of the page, and
straightened over it in the process of hardening; when hardened, the oake
of stucco is lifted off, and is seen
to be a perfect mold of the types.
The cake is now baked in an
oven, and then placed in an iron
pan; the pan, which has inlets at
the upper side, is plunged into
molten metal, which soon runs
into the mold; being lifted out
and cooled, the pan isopenedand
found to contain a plate resem-
bling the page of type; the mold
is broken and of no further use.
When removed from the pan,
the plate is rough,- and needs to
e trimmed for working; for this
purpose, it passes through the
hands of artisans, who prepare
it for the press. The paper
mache process, wherein the
mold is made of damp paper,
is much quicker than the above,
and is that in use in daily news-
paper offices. In electrotyping
the mold is taken in wax,
coated with plumbago, and into SEWING BOOKS.
this a film of copper is precipi-
tated by a battery. The face of an electrotype is therefore of copper, and
it is much more durable than the stereotype.
Bookbinding The first operation in bookbinding is to fold the sheets,
by means of a small instrument called a folder. The object is to fold down
the different pages so as to fall on one another; and on the perfect accuracy
with which this is performed depends the proper binding of the book. After
being folded, the sheets of the book are gathered and collated according to the
" signatures," A, B, etc., which are printed at the bottom of the first page of
each sheet. The books so made up and completed, are now pressed to a
proper solidity, by being placed in quantities in a hydraulic press. The
next process is to saw indentations in the back of the book, preparatory to
sewing. The books are next sewed on a frame, each sheet being attached
by a thread to cords across the back. The sewing, though sometimes done
by a machine, is chiefly executed by girls. On beiug removed from the
sewing-frame, the book receives its " waste-papers," which are pasted to the
242 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
back on each Bide. The book is now " trimmed," by being cut on the edges
with a knife-apparatus. The books are next glued on the back, to impart a
certain degree of firmness. After this, they are "backed" by means of a
machine, which imparts a certain roundness to the back, and at the same
tune gives a seat for the boards. The book, with a slip of canvas pasted on
the back, is now ready for receiving the boards, which are previously cut in
large quantities by a machine. The preparing and attaching of the cover
forms the final stage of the process. For the whole of the class of boarded
books we have been describing, there is a method of making " cases." A
case consists of cloth or paper pasted on two boards, the distance of the
boards from each other being equal to the thickness of the book. The case
being finished, receives the book, to which it is attached chiefly by pasting
it to the canvas of the back and the blank or waste paper on each side.
When it is deemed necessary, for the sake of attractiveness, to stamp a pe-
culiar device on the covers of a book, of which thousands are required, the
design is referred to an artist, who, devoting himself to this branch of his
profession, devises something appropriate and original. His design, drawn
on paper, is cut in brass or steel; and this, in the form of a metal block,
gives the stamp
at a blow by the
arming-p r e s s .
When the de-
sign is to be
gilt, leaf-gold is
previously ap-
plied.
Wood En-
graving.-The
wood used for
engraving is
boxwood, near-
ly all of which
WOOD ENGBAVTOG. is importedfrom
Turkey. It is
cut across the grain in slices, which are dressed to the same height as type,
for convenience hi printing. When blocks as the pieces of wood are termed
are required of a larger size than a few inches square, it is necessary to
join two or more pieces together, as the amount of sound wood to be got out
of even a large slice is extremely limited. There is, however, for all practi-
eal purposes, no limit to the joining process, as blocks have been printed
consisting of from fifty to one hundred pieces. The wood having been made
very smooth on the surface, and squared to the required size, is prepared
for the artist by being covered with a preparation of white (commonly
water-color Chinese white); this gives a very good surface for the pencil to
work on. The subject is then drawn in the ordinary way, the tints being
generally washed in with India-ink, and the details filled in with pencil.
When the drawing is finished, it is given to the ehgraver, who, previous to
commencing, carefully covers the block with paper, fastened round the
edges with beeswax; this is necessary, to avoid rubbing the drawing out in
the process. As the engraving proceeds, he gradually tears the paper off.
The tools or gravers necessary in wood engraving are of three kinds viz.,
gravers proper, tint-tools, and acoopers or cutting out tools, for clearing out
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
243
the larger pieces. They are arranged in different sizes, to suit the different
portions of the work. Most engravers use a glass of slight magnifying
power, more for the purpose of relieving the eyes from the strain of fixing
both eyes closely on a small object, than for magnifying the work. When
the drawing is in outline, or mostly so, the engraving is very simple: the
process consists of engraving a line along each side of the pencil lines,
which are, of course, to bo left in relief, and afterwards cutting out the pieces
between. It will thus be understood that every part of a wood-cut which
prints on the paper is the surface of the wood left untouched, and that every
white part is cut or hollowed out. When it is complicated with much shad-
ing, trees, etc., it becomes much more difficult, and brings into play the ar-
tistic talents of the engraver to preserve the proper shades, or color as
it is technically
termed, and texture
of the different ob-
jects.
Copper - Plate
Printing In all
engraving upon
metal plates the
traces or marks
which are to appear
on the paper are cut
or sunk into the
plate. Copper-plates
are ready for press
as soon as they are
finished by the en-
graver. The method
of printing from
them is very simple.
Their engraved sur-
face is daubed over
with a thick oleagin-
ous ink, so that the
lines are effectually
COPPER-PLATE PRINTING.
filled. As this dirties the whole face of the plate, it is necessary to clean it,
which is done by the workman wiping it first with a piece of cloth, and then
with the palms of his hands, rubbed on fine whiting. It may be calculated
that a hundred times more ink is thus removed than actually remains in the
indentations; however, such is necessary. The plate being thoroughly
cleaned, it is laid on a press with a piece of damped paper over it; and be-
ing wound beneath a roller covered with blanket-stuff, it is forced to yield
an impression on the paper. The plate requires to be kept at a moderate
warmth during the operation.
Lithography The art of printing from stone was invented by Aloys
Senefelder, at Munich, about the end of the 18th century. It consists, first.
in writing and drawing on the stone with the pen and brush, with the graverj
and with the crayon or chalk, or in transferring to the stone writings and
drawings made with the pen or brush on transfer paper, or impressions
from copper, steel, and pewter plates, taken on a coated paper, and then in
244 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
printing off from the stone the writings or drawings thus made upon it. The
principles of the art are these: An unctuous composition having been made
to adhere to a calcareo-argillaceous stone, those parts covered by it i. e. t
the writing or drawing acquire the power ot receiving printing ink, whereas
those parts not containing the writing or drawing are prevented from receiv-
ing ink from the inking roller by the interposition of water; and lastly, an
absorbent paper being laid on the stone, and subjected to strong pressure,
copies are obtained. When any writing or drawing has been finished on
stone, it then requires to be etched, thus: a mixture of two parts of nitric
acid, and from forty to sixty parts of dissolved gum arabic, is poured over
the stone once or several times, according to the nature of the work. The
etching changes the surface of the stone, raising the work on it to a degree
scarcely perceptible to the naked eye. The writing or drawing, which has
been effected by greasy ink or chalk, remains protected from the action of
the acid, and those protected parts retain the natural property of the stone,
which is the qualification of receiving printing ink; and, when the printer
wets the stone before applying the hiking roller, the water enters only those
parts of the stone which have been affected by the acid, while the ink ad-
heres only to those parts, however fine, on which the acid could not operate,
owing to the unctuous composition of the ink or chalk with which the
drawing or writing has been done, and which, being greasy, rejects the
water. When the drawing or wi~Uing with ink on a polished stone is com-
pleted, the etching is proceeded with, and a portion of the etching composi-
tion allowed to dry on the stone. The printer then adjusts his stone in the
press, washes off the dried gum, removes the whole drawing or writing with
turpentine, wets the stone with a sponge or damping canvas, then applies
his roller containing the printing ink, and rolls it several times over the
atone till the lines appear again. When sufficient ink has been applied to
the lines, the paper is laid on the stone, drawn through the press, and the
impression effected. The damping and inking of the stone are renewed for
every impression. Tinted drawings, chromo-lithography and colored maps
require as many stones as there are various tints or colors, one stone being
printed after the other, and so fitted and blended together as to produce,
when complete, the effect desired.
Photography. The honor of having been the first to produce pictures
by the action of light on a sensitive surface is now very generally conceded
to Thomas Wedgwood, an account of whose researches was published in
1802 in the " Journal of the Eoyal Institution," under the title, " An Account
of a Method of Copying Paintings upon Glass, and of making Profiles by the
Agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver; with Observations by H. Davy." In
the experiments detailed in this communication, white paper and white
leather were imbued with nitrate of silver, and exposed either in the camera
obacura, or under the leaves of trees or wings of insects. The result was,
that the shadows preserved the parts concealed by them white, while the
*ther parts became speedily darkened. The misfortune was, that no
attempts made either by Wedgwood or Davy to prevent the uncolored por-
tions from being acted on b" light (or, as we now say, to Jlx the picture),
were successful. This operation was not effected in a thoroughly efficient
manner until Sir John Herschel suggested the employment of hyposulphite
of soda for that purpose. Many other fixing agents had been previously
used, as ammonia, iodide of potassium, chloride of sodium, and bromide of
potassium, suggested by Mr. Fox Tulbot; none of these, however, were
VSEFJ7L ARTS A XV M A NIT FA C TUBES. 24
found equal to the salt proposed and successfully used by Sir John
Herschel.
M. Niepce, of Chalon-on-the-Saone, was t the first to enjoy the satisfaction
oi producing permanent pictures by the influence of solar radiations. This
was accomplished in 1814, and the name chosen to designate his process was
heliography a name in some respects preferable to photography. It con-
sisted in coating a piece of plated silver or glass with a varnish made by
dissolving powdered asphaltum to saturation in oil of lavender, taking care
that the drying and setting of this varnish be allowed to take place in the
entire absence of light and moisture. The plate so prepared was then
exposed in the camera obscura for a length of time, varying from four to six
hours, according to the amount of light. A faint image only is at first
visible, and this is afterward developed and fixed by immersion in a mixture
of oil of lavender and oil of white petroleum; the plate bemg finally washed
with water, and dried. Light has little or no action on these heliographs;
they should, however, be protected from moisture. M. Daguerre improved
on this process, by suggesting the use of the resins obtained by evaporating
oil of lavender, whereby a great increase of sensibility was secured.
Adopting date of publication as the best evidence of discovery, the next
process offering itself for consideration is that for photogenic drawing by
Mr. Henry Fox Talbot, communicated to the Royal Society on the 31st Jan-
nary, 1839, just six months previous to the publication of Daguerre's pro-
cess. It consisted in immersing carefully selected writing paper in a weak
solution of common salt, and drying it. After this a dilute solution of nitrate
of silver was spread over one side, and the paper again dried at the fire.
When dry, it was fit for use, the sensitiveness being much increased by
alternate treatment with saline and argentine solutions. Paper thus pre-
pared yielded impressions in an incredibly short time, and nothing could be
more perfect than the images it gave of leaves and flowers, the light passing
through the leaves delineating every ramification of their nerves. Consid-
erable improvement in point of sensibility was attained by Mr. Talbot in the
following year, 1840, by the employment of iodide of silver on paper, as a
foundation, to be washed over with a mixture of aceto-nitrate and gallo-
nitrate of silver, just previous to exposure in the camera. Paper so prepared
was so sensitive that an exposure of less than a second to diffused light was
enough to produce an impression. After exposure and development, the
picture was washed, and fixed by immersion in a solution of bromide of
potassium.
Niepce and Daguerre accidentally discovered that they were conducting
experiments of a kindred character, and shortly afterward entered into a
partnership. The former, however, dying in July, 1833, a new deed of part-
nership was signed between his son Isidore and M. Daguerre, which resulted
in the publication, in July, 1839, of the process known as the Daguerreotype.
This was not done, however, until the French government had passed a bill,
securing to M. Daguerre a pension of six thousand francs, and to M. Isidore
Niepce, the son of tlie Niepce, a pension of four thousand francs, both for
life, and one-half in reversion to their widows. This handsome conduct on
the part of the French government was based upon the argument, that " the
invention did not admit of being secured by patent, since, as soon as pub-
lished, all might avail themselves of its advantages; " they, therefore, chose
to enjoy " the glory of endowing the world of science and of art with one of
the most surprising discoveries that honor their native land."
The discovery of the Daguerreotype may be said to have arisen from the
246 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
dissatisfaction entertained by Daguerre with the insensibility of the bitu-
minous surfaces of Niepce, which induced him to turn his attention to the
salts of silver as a means of producing a higher degree of sensitiveness. This
he attained by exposing a highly polished plate of silver (attached for
greater strength, to a copper plate) to the vapor of iodine, by which pure
iodide of silver was formed on the surface. The plate so prepared was ex-
posed in the camera obscura for a length of time (twenty minutes), which
was then considered very short. No apparent effect was produced on the
plate, the image being a latent one, arising from a minute molecular dis-
turbance caused by the impact of the actinic rays. The latent image was
afterward developed by exposing the plate to the vapor of mercury: and it is
this development of a latent image, reducing as it did the time of exposure
from hours to minutes, which truly constituted a new era in the science of
photography. It is further due to Daguerre to state, that, while his pro-
cesses for the purpose were imperfect, he still succeeded in fixing his
pictures, although it was reserved for Sir John Herschel to announce the
great suitability of the hyposulphites for dissolving the haloid salts of silver.
The sensibility of the silver plate was still further increased by Mr. God-
dard, who suggested, in 1839, the association of the vapor of bromine with
that of iodine; while M. Claudet, in 1840, employed chlorine. It is a remark-
able fact in connection with these discoveries, that the elder Niepce should,
so early as 1820, have tried the treatment of silver plates with the vapor of
sulphur and phosphorus.
But the progress of this interesting science received a very important
impulse from a discovery, which at first scarcely appeared to have any con-
nection therewith. In 1833, Braconnot gave, in the " Annales de Chimie,"
an account of a new substance obtained by the action of nitric acid on
starch, sawdust, linen and cotton-wool. He named this substance Xyloidine;
it was very combustible, and burned almost without residue. In 1838,
Pelouze, in the " Comptes Kendues," suggested its application in artillery.
He says, " Plunge paper in nitric acid (specific gravity 1'500), leave it in for
two or three minutes, and wash: a kind of parchment is obtained, imperme-
able to moisture, and extremely combustible." Dumas, in 1843, proposed
the name Nitramidine, and suggested its use for fireworks. At a meeting
of the British Association held at Southampton hi the year 1846, Herr
Schonbein, an eminent Prussian chemist, read a paper on the preparation of
explosive cotton, a substance obtained by acting on ordinary carded cotton
by a mixture of strong nitric and sulphuric acids. This explosive cotton
was afterward found to be soluble in ether; and the solution so prepared
was named collodion by its discoverer, Mr. Maynard, who, in 1848, pub-
lished in the " American Journal of Medical Science " the formula for its
preparation. This ethereal solution having a certain proportion of alkaline
iodides and iodide of silver added thereto, constituted the collodion first
employed by Mr. Archer, who, although deserving the credit of having first
arranged a practicable working process with collodion for its basis, without
which photography could not have attained its present high position, says,
in the second edition of his " Manual," " It is due to Le Gray to say that he
was the first to publish an account of collodion as a photographic agent; "
thus illustrating the candor with which Mr. Archer admitted his claim to be
considered the first to suggest its value in photography. Mr. Fallon Horn
and Mr. Frye materially assisted Mr. Archer in bringing his experiments to
perfection. Although the announcement at the British Association in 1846,
was to the effect that Schonbein had made cotton as explosive as gunpowder,
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. 247
no particulars were published. In April, 1847, he obtained a patent; but in
October, 1846, Mr. Thomas Taylor had published a similar method to that
patented. By one of those singular freaks of fortune which sometimes
occur, Daguerre succeeded in identifying his name with his process; but
Mr. Archer was not so fortunate as to give his name to the process which he
invented. The sensitive surface is obtained by the conversion of the soluble
iodides and bromides in the collodion film into iodide and bromide of silver
by immersion in a solution of the nitrate cf that base, and it is exposed in
the camera while still moist with adherent nitrate, the latent image so ob-
tained being developed with a mixture of protosulphate of iron, acetic acid,
and alcohol, fixed with hyposulphite or soda, and varnished.
In the Niepcotype or albumen process, glass plates of proper thickness
and quality, and perfectly clean, are coated with albumen, to which an
alkaline iodide has been added. When perfectly dry, they are immersed in
a solution of nitrate of silver, when an immediate decomposition takes place;
iodide of silver being formed in the albumen film, and nitrate of potash or
ammonia remaining in solution. The plate is then freely washed with
water, dried, exposed, developed with gallic acid, and fixed with hyposul-
phite of soda.
A retrospective glance will show the reader that four processes have now
been passed in review; and on a little consideration, it will be seen that one
principle pervades the whole viz., the production of a latent image by the
action of light on iodide and bromide of silver, its subsequent development by
suitable means, and the final removal of the unaltered portions of the sensi-
tive film by & fixing agent.
Among these processes, that in which collodion is employed has achieved
a well-merited distinction, and is now so generally employed, as almost en-
tirely to exclude the others. Various modifications of this process have
been from time to time suggested to meet the exigencies of landscape pho-
tography. It has already been stated that the collodion film ie exposed while
still moist with adherent nitrate of silver solution; and this method is
especially applicable to the taking of portraits, where it is desired to reduce
the time of exposure to a minimum; but for landscape purposes, it is by no
means so imperatively necessary to curtail the time of exposure; and as the
necessary apparatus and materials for sensitizing and developing a wet plat*
are somewhat cumbrous for field work, it was suggested by the Abbe De-
spratz to wash off the free nitrate from the surface, and allow the film to dry
in the absence of light. This is called the " Dry Collodion Process." A
plate so prepared is, however, much less sensitive to light. A variety of
agents have been used to preserve the film, such as sugar, albumen, malt,
tannin, etc.
The practice of photography in the present day is confined almost ex-
clusively to the Positive, the Negative, and the Dry Collodion Processes.
The first and second differ only in degree, or density of deposit, the image
being a positive i. e., having its lights and shadows in their proper posi-
tions, when seen by reflected light; and a negative, or with its Iiht8 and
shadows reversed, when examined by transmitted light. The positive is
backed with black varnish, and the desired pearly-white deposit produced
by development with the protonitrate and sulphate of iron, and nitric and
acetic acids. The negative is used only as a cliche from which to print
positive impressions on paper or other suitable material, and requires a
greater degree of density, its high lights being quite opaque, and descending
6j delicate gradations to its deepest shadows, which should be represented by
448 CTCLOP^DlA OF VSSPUL KNOWLEDGE.
clear glass. The negative requires a longer exposure in the camera than
the positive, and is generally developed with protosulphate of iron and
acetic acid, and intensified with pyrogallic and acetic acids, and nitrate of
silver. The third or dry process is distinguished from the preceding modi-
fications of the wet process by the complete removal of the adherent free
litrate of silver, the application of a preservative agent, and the necessity
for adding nitrate of silver to the
developer. There has recently
come into general use a modifi-
cation of the dry process, which
is likely to supersede all others.
It is known as the collodio-
bromide or emulsion process,
and was introduced by Syce and
Bolton of Liverpool in 1864, but
attracted little attention till 1871.
An emulsion is formed by the
addition of bromide of cadmium,
and nitrate of silver to collodion;
this is poured on a plate,
washed, and immersed in any of
the preservative solutions, and
may be exposed wet, or dried
and kept indefinitely. Plates so
prepared are very sensitive, and
possess the great advantage of
being capable of development
without nitrate of silver; pyro-
gallic acid, ammonia and brom-
ide of potass bringing them
easily up to printing density.
Paper. T his well-known
fabric is usually composed of
vegetable fibres minutely divid-
ed and recombined in thin
sheets, either by simple drying
in contact, or with the addition
of size or some other adhesive
material. "Whatever the material
employed, the process is the
same. The rags, bark fibres, or
other substance, must be re-
duced with water into a fine,
smooth pulp. The paper-mak-
ing machine has almost entirely
superseded the old hand pro-
cess. It contains a pulp vat^
with a hog or wheel inside to agitate the pulp, and an arrangement for
pouring the pulp over a wire-gauze mold, which is an endless sheet mov-
iag round two rollers, which keep it stretched out and revolving when in
operation. Under the part which receives the pulp there is a series of email
brass rollers; these, being nearly close together, keep it perfectly level,
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. 249
Which is a most necessary condition; besides which, there is a shallow
trough, called the sace all, which catches and retains the water, which al-
ways escapes with some pulp in suspension; and an arrangement of suction
boxes and tubes, worked by air pumps, which draw much ol the water out
as the pulp passes over them. The pulp is kept from running over the
sides by straps called the deckles, which are also endless bands, usually of
vulcanized India-rubber, carried round moving rollers, so that they travel
with the wire-gauze, and therefore offer no resistance to it. In addition to
all this, the frame-work on which the surface of the wire-gauze rests has a
shogging motion, or side-shake, which has an important effect in working
the fibres together before the pulp finally settles down. When it reaches
the couching-rolls, which press out most of the remaining moisture, and
carry it forward to the first and second series of press-rolls by means of an
endless web of felt which passes round them, the speed of these rollers and
the traveling sheet of felt is nicely calculated, so as to prevent a strain upon
the still very tender web of paper. Sometimes the upper rollers of these
two series are filled with steam, in order to commence drying the web. The
paper is now trusted to itself, and passes on from the second press-rolls to
the first set of drying cylinders, where it again meets with a felt sheet,
which keeps it in close contact with the drying cylinders, which are of large
size, and filled with steam. Around these it passes, drying as it goes; is
then received between the two smoottiing-rolls, or damp calenders, which
press both surfaces, and remove the marks of the wire and felt, which are
until then visible on the paper. This is necessarily done before the drying
is quite completed; and from the smoothing-rolls it passes to the second
series of drying cylinders, where the drying is finished, and thence to the
calenders, which are polished rollers of hard cast-iron, so adjusted as to
give a considerable pressure to the paper, and at the same time a glossiness
of surface. For writing-papers, the paper passes through a shallow trough
of size after leaving the drying cylinders, and then passes over an-
other series of skeleton cylinders, with fans moving inside, by which
it is again dried without heat, and afterwards passes through the calenders.
Printing and other papers are usually sized by mixing the size in the pulp,
in which stage the coloring materials such as ultramarine for the blue tint
of foolscap are also introduced. Still following the paper web, it is seen to
pass from the calenders to another machine; this slits the web into widths,
which are again cross cut into sheets, the size of which is regulated at will.
The water-mark is impressed on machine-made paper by means of a fine
light wire cylinder with a wire-woven pattern; this is placed over the wire-
gauze sheet upon which the pulp is spread, but near the other end of it, so
that the light impression of the marker may act upon the paper just when it
ceases to be pulp, and this remains all through its course. There are many
other interesting points about the paper-machine, but their introduction
here would rather tend to confuse the reader. Its productive power is very
great; it moves at a rate of from thirty to seventy feet per minute, spreading
pulp, couching, drying, and calendering as it goes, so that the stream of
pulp flowing in at one end is in two minutes passing out finished paper at
the other. It has been computed that an ordinary machine, making webe of
paper fifty-four inches wide, will turn out four miles a day.
Silk. Silk is the produce of a little caterpillar, being the substance of
which the cocoon is formed, in which it reposes during its chrysalis state.
All the insects which we call butterflies or moths, of which the silk worm
250 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
is one, pass through two stages of existence before they arrive at their per-
fect and final form; first, they are worms or caterpillars; then they pass into
some sort of chrysalis, in which state the functions of lile appear suspended;
some of them bury in the earth, others make themselves cases of various
materials in which to sleep till the time for their change comes; the silk-
worm, at this time, spins itself a hollow oval ball of golden-colored silk.
This period of sleep being past, the perfect insect emerges a beautiful but-
terfly, glittering in all the colors of the rainbow, and basking in the sun-
shine; or a soft and downy moth flitting through the evening shadows.
The moth of the silk-worm is a quiet grayish moth, with no beauty to
recommend it, and not very active either, its sole business appearing to be to
lay the eggs which are to furnish the next crop of useful spinners; these eggs
are about the size of a grain of mustard-seed, and care is required in hot cli-
mates that they do not hatch before the time when their natural food ia
ready for them. In cold climates," there is no care of this kind necessary, as
they need artificial heat to hatch them.
The silk-worm in a wild state feeds only on the leaves of the mulberry-
tree, and though it will eat the lettuce and some other things, it never
thrives; nor is it singular
in this, for many other
kinds of caterpillars are
found only or chiefly on
one tree or plant, which is
their favorite food.
The eggs are hatched
by artificial heat. The
old plan for accomplishing
this was for some person
to wear them next their
bosom for three or four
days; but the present plan
is to place them in a room
the temperature of which
is gradually raised, until
the tenth day it reaches
eighty-two degrees;
when the eggs turn whitish it is a sign they are nearly ready to be hatched;
sheets of perforated paper or pieces of clear muslin are placed over the
eggs, and the tiny worms as they come out of their shells climb through to
the upper surface of the paper or muslin. Small twigs of mulberry are
placed on the paper, and as the little nurslings climb on to these they are
carried away to the rearing-house and other twigs are laid on. Great care
is taken that the room in which the worms are kept should be well venti-
lated, and they are fed with young leaves chopped small. The silk-worms
grow very rapidly; at first they are little black threads, small enough to be
coiled in a shell not bigger than a mustard-seed. After one has grown for
about eight days it refuses food, appears sickly, and pines, and in three
days completely changes its skin, throwing off the old one which had con-
fined it; it then grows rapidly again until the time of its second moulting,
when it again refuses food, again casts off its skin, and increases very rapidly
in bulk. This operation is repeated once more, and after the final moulting
the worm is sometimes almost three inches long, and six will weigh an ounce;
whereas when they were first hatched fifty thousand weighed no more.
THE SILK-WOBM.
V8EFVL ARTS AND MANVFACTVRJSS. 251
Little artificial hedges of twigs are formed upon the shelves on which the
woi-ms have been fed, and when they are quite ready, and have no longer
any inclination to eat, they climb among the twigs and seek a convenient
place for forming their cocoons. They first spin thin, loose threads, and in-
side these they form a hollow ball, firm and elastic, and capable of being
unraveled into one continuous thread, varying in length from three hun-
dred to six hundred yards. The length of a cocoon is generally about one
inch, and its width about two-thirds of an inch; this is measured without the
external loose floss silk, which, with some part of the cocoon, can never be
reeled off, but has to be spun in the same manner as cotton. The cocoone
are either' white or yellow, those which are the latter hue contain the most
of a peculiar gum which stiffens the silk, and with which the worm smears
the interior of its cell when finished, to render it both air and water tight.
The emission of all this silk, which has been secreted in two spiral vessels
contained in the stomach of the worm, greatly reduces its size, and when,
at the end of three or four days, the cocoon is completed, it rests awhile;
and then changes its last caterpillar skin for the chrysalidan form, and
would, if undisturbed, emerge in about fifteen or twenty days a moth.
Usually the silk is taken in about seven or eight days froai the time wheii
the cocoons were finished. Great care must be taken to handle them gently,
and to sort them very carefully, selecting some of the best to be preserved
for the eggs. The perfect cocoons are put by themselves, and those which
are soiled, double, or by any means imperfect, are sorted also. It is cus-
tomary to kill the chrysalides in all those which are intended to be reeled,
by exposure to great heat, and after this has been done the balls are stowed
away on shelves in rooms intended for the purpose.
In the average not more than one pound of reeled silk can be obtained
from twelve pounds of cocoons; some of the difference being occasioned by
the weight of the chrysalis, and the remainder by the floss or refuse silk.
To reel the silk a little machine turned by hand is employed, which con-
tains a large reel to form the skein of silk; this is usually about one yard in
circumference, with a wheel which guides the thread to and fro in the same
manner in which sewing-cotton is wound on reels. Attached to this is a
small boiler, about eighteen inches long and six inches deep, under which a
small charcoal fire is made; into this boiler the cocoons are thrown when
the water is nearly boiling, and after a few minutes their gum is sufficiently
softened for the loose filaments to float off. The reeler takes four or more
of these in her hand, and twisting them together they adhere by means of
the softened gum, and when attached to the reel, are wound off as one
thread; by this means their strength is greatly increased. When the thread
from one cocoon breaks it is not needful to tie a knot, the gumminess of the
silk being sufficient to unite the ends; and great care must be taken by regu-
ulating the number of threads wound at once, that the thread produced be
of uniform size throughout.
After reeling, the silk is sent to a mill where it is worked from raw silk
into singles, tram, or organzine; singles is merely made by twisting the
raw silk; for the formation of tram two or more threads are twisted together
(this kind is used for shoot or weft); while organzine is a real, though fine,
cable made of silk, it being composed of separate cords, each of which has
previously been twisted; organzine is principally used for warp.
The silk thus thrown is called hard silk, and must be boiled with soap
in order to discharge the gum; for unless this were done the silk would be
harsh to the touch, and unfitted to receive the beautiful dyes which are
252 CYCLOPEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
always given to silk before it is woven. The boiling, which lasts four or five
hours, lessens
the weight, but
increases the
bulk of the bilk,
and renders it
soft and glossy.
Calico
Printing
The first opera-
tic n connected
with the printing
of cloth is tho
removal of the
surface hairs or
minute threads
which communi-
cate a fibrous
down or nap to
the surface of
the cloth, and if
allowed to re-
main, would in-
terfere with the
uniform applica-
tion of the col-
ors. The surface
down is got rid
of by the pro-
cess of singeing,
during which
the cloth is
drawn over a
red-hot iron or
copper bar or
plate, or through
a series of gas
jets. When well
singed the cloth
undergoes the
process of
bleaching, and
is thereafter cal-
endered. There
are several
modes of apply-
ing the colors to
cloth, but one of
which, termed
the madder style,
we nave 8 p aco
to describe. The madder style is that in which a certain fixing agent or mor-
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. 253
dant is printed on the cloth, which is then introduced into the coloring mat-
ter in a dye-vat, when the mordant, having an attraction alike for the fibre
of the cloth and for the coloring matter, acts the part of glue or paste, and
cements the color to the cloth. Originally, madder was the only coloring
substance employed in this style; but now-a-days, by far the greater num-
ber of dye-stuffs, vegetable and animal, including cochineal, logwood, etc.,
are attached to cloth in this manner. The fixing agents or mordants gen-
erally employed are different strengths of red liquor (acetate of alumina),
iron liquor (acetate of iron), and mixtures of these. These are thickened
with wheat-starch, potato-flour, roasted starch or dextrine, and gum-arabic,
so that the mordant may not run when it is placed on the cloth by the pat-
tern-block or by the printing machine. After the mordant has been im-
printed on the cloth, the latter is hung in a warm, airy room, where it can
easily dry, but where it is at the same time surrounded by a moist atmos-
phere. The result is, that the mordant is decomposed, the acetic acid is
evolved, and the alumina or iron is left attached to the fibre of the cloth in
the state of an insoluble sub-salt, which cannot be dissolved by water. As
some of the mordant is still left in its original soluble condition, it is neces-
sary to wash the cloth free from this, else, during the dyeing operation, the
soluble part of the mordant would run on to those parts of the cloth not in-
tended to be colored, and thus produce a blotted appearance. To obviate
this, the cloth, having undergone the process of drying and ageing, is then
introduced into a vat containing water, through which is diffused some cow-
dung, dung substitute a preparation of bone-ash, sulphuric acid, carbonate
of soda, and glue or bran. The result of this process of dunging is the re-
moval of the soluble part of the mordant, as also the starch or thickening
agent, leaving the decomposed or insoluble mordant adhering to the fibre.
The terms dung-fining, subslitute-fiiiing, and bran-fixing, have reference to
the employment of one or other of these agents at this stage of the operation.
When the cloth has been well washed from the dunging, it is introduced into
the vat or dye-beck containing the coloring matter. The whole is heated by
steam-pipes, and the cloth being placed on a sparred reel kept in motion,
is repeatedly wound out of the vat, and returned thereto. The result is,
that wherever the mordant adhered to the cloth, the coloring matter is at-
tached thereto, and little or no trace of color adheres to the tmmordanted
parts. The last operation 'is the clearing or brightening, during which the
colored cloth is introduced into warm baths of water containing soda, soap,
or, for the more delicate tints, bran, and is thereafter acted on by weak acid
solutions. The object is to clear the colors, and at the same time to confer
upon them the property of resisting the fading action of the air and sun for
a much longer time. The different shades of color which can be obtained
from the same madder beck or vat, with different mordants, are very nu-
merous, and include reds, lilacs, purples, chocolates, and blacks. Thus,
when a weak solution of red liquor (acetate of alumina) is employed as the
mordant, a light-red tint is procured; with a stronger aluminous mordant,
a deep red is formed on the cloth; with a more or less dilute solution of
iron liquor (acetate of iron), the cloth is colored lilao, violet, or purple; with
a strong solution of iron liquor, black is obtained. Indeed, the same piece
of cloth stamped in different places with the various strengths of aluminous
and iron mordants, and mixtures of these, and immersed in the madder-
bath, will be obtained dyed with all the shades mentioned; and in this man-
ner, many of the beautiful variegated colored dresses and handkerchiefs are
prepared for market.
254 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Iron. Iron is a metal, and is a natural substance, but is not found in
the state in which it is used. Metals are seldom met with pure, but are
found combined with earthy matter in the form of rock, with sulphur, car-
bon, etc., and in this state are called ores. Metals are mineral substances,
which are opaque, and possess a peculiar lustre; they are fusible by heat,
and do not become transparent during fusion; most of them are malleable
capable of being hammered out into sheets; ductile capable of being
drawn into wire; and tenacious, or not easily divided.
Cast iron is the term applied to iron which has been melted and poured
into molds; it is the simplest form in which this metal is used. To obtain
PUDDLING IKON.
it the rough ore is first piled up with fuel and roasted in a kiln, which frees
it from water, sulphur, arsenic, and other impurities which are capable of
being sultlimed which means being driven off in fumes. The roasted ore
is then smelted in a blast furnace, which is charged from the top with certain
proportions of iron ore, coke and limestone; the last to act as a flux. Cast
iron articles are made by using a quantity of this pig-iron melted in a
furnace, and then the liquid iron, Avhich looks like liquid fire, is poured out
into molds and allowed to cool very gradually. These molds are usually
made in a bed of fine wet sand; j curious instance of the employment of an
apparently weak and fragile substance to mold or curb a strong one.
USEFUL A JITS AND MANUFACTURES.
255
"Wrought, otherwise called bar or malleable, iron ia made from tha
rough pig-iron in this manner: It is first refined, which is chiefly done in the
" puddling furnace," the iron being exposed to very great heat, and stirred
about while a strong current of air plays over its surface; tho intense heat
consumes the carbonaceous matter remaining in tho iron, and all the earthy
impurities rise to tho surface in tho form of slag, and aro allowed to run offT
Gradually, as tho iron becomes purer, its fusibility generally lessens, and
it becomes tough like dough, even though the heat of tho furnace be
undiminished; it is then withdrawn, and while still red-hot is beaten with
tho forge hammer or subjected to rolling, by which moans it becomes much
more tenacious, from its particles being more closely compacted. This
MELTING STEEL.
process converts hard, brittle, fusible pig metal into a tough elastic bar;
Tery malleable, but hardly fusible at all.
Steel. To make steel from iron, bars of wrought iron are imbedded in
pounded charcoal, and exposed to a furnace heat in close vessels; when
withdrawn from the furnace the steel is found to have absorbed some of tho
charcoal, to be harder and more fusible, and its surface covered with small
bubbles, hence it is called blistered steel. When several rods of this kind
are heated in a l>ox -with a flux, and afterward hammered into one piece, it
js called shear ntf<>t, V>o<*<uife it is the jnost suitable for making shears,
56 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
scissors, etc. When this kind of Bteel is melted and run into ingots, it ia
termed cast steel, which ia the moat perfect form of the metal.
Steel is tempered by being plunged when red-hot into cold water or oil,
by which means it becomes very hard, and can be made brittle and highly
elastic; some things, such as a lancet, require the steel to be hard as ad-
amant, but do not need strength, and break immediately; while for others,
such as a trowel, the hardness must be associated with a toughness, which
shall suffice to prevent it from breaking even with the roughest work; these
extremes, and all intermediate stages, can be attained by regulating the
processes of hardening and tempering.
Glass. Glass is a transparent, hard, brittle substance, formed by the
fusion of flint or sand and an alkali; generally soda, though for the finer
sorts of glass potash is used. It is remarkable that though so perfectly
transparent itself, none of the ingredients employed in the manufacture of
glass possess that quality; and also, that an article which is brittle to a
proverb, should, when heated, become so exceedingly ductile as to be capa-
ble of being molded into any and every form that may be desired, and
drawn out into the finest thread.
Five kinds of glass are made: Flint glass, or crystal; crown glass, broad
sheet glass, bottle, or green glass, and plate glass. Each of these kinds is
made with silex and alkali; their different qualities being dependent on the
proportion and degree of purity of these ingredients, and on various acces-
sory materials; such as nitre, oxide of lead, of manganese, or of arsenic,
borax or chalk. Formerly silex was sometimes used in the form of ground
flint; now this is discontinued, and seasand is almost always employed.
For all kinds of glass, except flint, the materials, after being purified, are
put into a furnace called a " calcar," where they are " calcined," this process
is called fritting; the substance comes out soft and pasty, and is cut into
squares which harden and are piled away for future use. In the final melt-
ing, the/rtf is put in to glass pots, or crucibles, about twelve of which stand
in each furnace; these crucibles sometimes hold as much as a ton of glass
each, and are reached by openings in the wall of the furnace.
Glass does not become transparent as soon as it is melted; a white
opaque porous scum, known by the name of sandiver or glass gall, rises to
the surface, and till this is all cleared off the glass is not transparent, this
scum, which appears to consist of salts and refuse alkali, is purchased by
refiners of metals, who use it as a flux.
The molten glass is fashioned into the different articles in the following
manner: It is cooled till it becomes a consistent tenacious mass, soft enough
to yield to the slightest pressure, able to be bent and pulled into any shape
without cracking. All kinds of small articles are made of flint glass; and to
form these the workman then takes hia blowpipe, collects a quantity of
melted glass upon the end of it, and having rolled it upon a polished iron
slab, called a marver, blows through the pipe, thus distending the glass
into a hollow globe; this is repeated, the glass being frequently heated at
the opening in the furnace, till it assumes the desired size; it is then trans-
ferred from the blowpipe to another rod, and the workman, with an instru-
ment like a pair of sugar-tongs, bends, contracts or enlarges the vessel; any
excess of material ia cut away with shears as readily as a bit of soft leather.
One other tool completes the number used in all the ordinary proceaaeB;
this is a small flat iron plate with a handle, and is called a battledore; it ie
used to flatten the bottoms of tumblers, jugs, etc.
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
257
When completely formed the vessels are at once carried to the annealing
oven called a lenr, where they are heated and allowed to cool very gradually,
without which precaution they would be liable to break with the slightest
touch or change of temperature. The reason for this is, that crystalline
substances expand with heat and contract in cooling, and as the degree of
expansion exactly agrees with the degree of heat, anything like a tube or
hollow vessel, which cools more slowly inside than outside, is very liable to
be broken by the consequent derangement of the atoms some being
crushed by the unequal tension. The cure lies in placing the articles in
aueh external heat as shall allow both surfaces to cool at the same rate-
GLASS MANCFACTUBE. ANNEALING FUKNACE.
The larger and heavier the glass is the more difficult will it be to cool it
safely. The annealing oven, or lear, is an arch with a furnace at one end,
which is heated by coke, and which had a door at each end; this oven is very
long, often sixty feet, but narrow; the floor is fitted with pans for receiving
the glasses, which travel slowly on a miniature railroad from the hottest to
the coolest end; the time employed for annealing varies, according to the
size and weight of the articles, from six to sixty hours.
Sheets of crown glass, like those used for cutting into window-panes,
are made as follows: The melted glass is collected on the blowpipe, as in
the case of flint glass, and the workman gradually blows a globe; he then
fosteng oil an iron rod to the side opposite that where the blowpipe is in-
368 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
sorted, and takes the latter away, which leaves a hole; he heats the glass
again, and begins twirling the rod; the glass yields to the impulse, its
diameter increases, and it finally flies out into a flat disk fifty to sixty inches
across, and having the rod attached in the center by a lump of glass com-
monly known as a bull's eye.
In making plate glass, great care is taken in the selection of such ma-
terials as will insure the greatest clearness and most ready flowing of the
glass; these are fused in the ordinary manner, and afterward removed from
the large glass pots to smaller ones, also kept iu the furnace, and from these
the fluid glass is poured out on large flat iron tables constructed for the
purpose; the tables are heated before being used; and a large copper roller
is passed over the sheet of glass; as soon as it is set it is carefully removed
into the annealing oven, where it remains about fifteen days. They are then
what is termed rough plate, which is frequently used where great strength
is more needed than transparency, but to finish the plate glass it must be
squared, ground and polished; the grinding is performed by making a plate
steady in a frame, and then causing another to rub steadily backward and
forward upon it, with some grinding substance introduced between them;
this is at first ground flint, and afterward as the roughness is lessened,
emery powder is used; when perfectly smooth they are polished with
leather cushions dressed with a red oxide of iron called colcothar.
In converting the plates of glass into mirrors or looking glasses, a flat
smooth slab of wood or stone, enclosed in a wooden frame and fixed on a
pivot, is adjusted horizontally; a sheet of gray paper is then stretched over
it, and above this another of very thin tinfoil, and as much mercury is
poured on as will rest on its flat surface; the plate of glass is then very
carefully slid into the frame and deposited on the foil, and considerable
weights are applied to its surface, which squeeze out the superfluoxis mer-
cury; at the end of a day the under side of the glass is found to be covered
with a thin soft amalgam of mercury and tin, which hardens by exposure,
and causes the glass accurately to reflect.
China and Porcelain. All kinds of pottery, from the finest to the
coarsest, are composed of two ingredients, clay and flint baked together;
but iu porcelain these are of such kinds and in such proportions that the
product is a semivitrified compound, in which one portion remains unaltered
by the intensest heat, while the other vitrifies or becomes glass, and, en-
veloping the particles of the infusible ingredient, produces the smooth,
compact, shining, semi-transparent substance we call porcelain.
In preparing the materials, the first part is the preparation of the
clay. That from which English porcelain is composed is mostly found
in Cornwall, Devonshire and Dorsetshire. The clay from the first named
place, which is considered the finest, consists of decomposed felspar of
granite, which is the rock most abounding in that county. The clay
merchants prepare it by the following method, and send it to the potters
under the name of china clay: The stone is broken up, and laid in run-
ning water, the clayey, or, as they are called, argillaceous parts, being
the lightest, are carried off in suspension, while the quartz and mica, which
were united with them in the granite, fall soon to the bottom. At some dis-
tance these rivulets end in catch-pools where the water is arrested, and
after time has been allowed for the pure clay with which it was charged
to settle and form a deposit, it is drawn off, and the clay dug out in
square blocks, which are placed on shelves to dry in the air. It is now
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. 259
a hard, white as8, which can by crushing he reduced to an impalpable
powder.
The lumps of clay are first pounded and mixed with water to the con-
sistence of cream, by means of various beating and cutting implements; the
pulp is then strained through several sieves, each one finer than the last.
The next process is preparing the flints, which are first burnt in a kiln and
thrown, red-hot, into cold water, and afterward ground in water to an im-
palpable powder; the two dilutions of clay and flint are then brought to-
gether, stirred very thoroughly, and again strained, and so great is the
affinity between them that, even when wet, they unite and form a mortar
which no action of the atmosphere can decompose. This fluid mixture is
called " slip," and is gradually evaporated in what are called " slip-kilns "
to a consistence like dough. It is not yet in a state fit for molding into dif-
ferent articles, for it leaves the slip-kiln full of air-bubbles, which must be
worked out by elaborate treading and kneading, generally with the naked
feet, and after this is done, it should be left a long while before it is used,
that the two elements may the more intimately unite. If placed hi a damp
cellar, the blocks of slip undergo a kind of fermentation, by which all traces
of animal or vegetable matter which they may have contained are decom-
posed and got rid of; and this greatly improves its quality. So sensible are
the Chinese of this that they extend the interval over fifteen or twenty years,
and a parent will often provide a sufficient stock for his son's life.
There are three modes in use in shaping the vessels throwing, pressing
and casting; throwing is performed on a kind of lathe, which consists in a
contrivance by which a small circular board revolves very rapidly, and on
this the clay is measured, and its intended shape given to it, by the press-
ure of the fingers and palms of the potter's hande. The clay vessel thus
molded ia then partially dried before transferring it to the turning-lathe,
where it is reduced by sharp tools to the required thickness, and its form
carefully finished off; it next passes to a man who applies handles, spouts,
and all other small appendages; these are fastened on with slip; all these
small, irregular-shaped pieces are made by pressing in molds formed ol
plaster of Paris; and plates, saucers, and other shallow vessels, are formed
in a mold, which is made to revolve on the block of the lathe, and into
which the workman presses the clay with his hand.
The vessels are put into a furnace enclosed hi deep clay boxes called seg-
gars, capable of sustaining the most intense heat; these protect the ware
from the flame and smoke; the process of baking lasts from forty-eight to fifty
hours, the heat gradually increasing; trial pieces are placed where they can
easily be abstracted to see how the process goes on, and when it is finished,
the fires are put out, and all is left undisturbed twenty or thirty hours to
cool. Bisque or biscuit is the name given to the ware after its first baking.
It is so called from its resemblance to ship-bread. Many small vases, figures,
and other articles of ornament are sold in this stage. The ware is atterward
glazed by being dipped in a compound of litharge of lead and ground flints,
glass, or some similar ingredients, mixed with water to the consistency of
thin cream. The workman employed stands by a large tub or other reser-
voir, and, taking up the pieces of ware so that the smallest possible portion
shall be covered by the fingers, he dexterously plunges it in, taking care
that the glaze is equally distributed all over the article; it then passes to a
woman, who scrapes off any superfluous glaze adhering to it. A skillful
workman will dip about seven hundred dozen plates in a day. It is worthy
of remark that the glaze, when applied, is perfectly opaque, BO that any
fl60 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
painting or printing with which the article may have been ornamented IB
not visible until it has been fired. This second baking is done in a gloss
oven; the heat converts the flint, etc., into a thin coating of glass.
The next operation is painting, which requires to be done with peculiar
metallic colors, united to a flux; these colors are moistened with gum-water
or a peculiar oil, which causes them to adhere to the surface of the china
until it is subjected to a slight firing, sufficient to fuse the glass or flint with
which the colors are united; the paintings are thus burnt in, and acquire a
gloss equal to the rest of the surface. Professed artists are employed for
ornamenting china in this manner, and the most exquisite designs are fre-
quently produced. For the common ware a much simpler process suffices,
and this is done before the glazing instead of after it, as is the case with the
painting. The pattern is printed from a copper-plate, on a thin paper> and
this is transferred to the ware in* the state of biscuit, when the color remains
and the paper is removed; the glazing then proceeds as before noted. Gold
is applied to the finer
wares in a metallic
state, and, after burning
on, requires burnishing
with agate or blood-
stone.
Watch-Making.
There is no more won-
derful or curious piece
of mechanism than a
watch. As it is the most
interesting of all ma-
chines, so the process by
which it is produced
from simple wires of
steel, plates of brass and
ingots of gold or silver,
is very curious. A 1 1
the minute parts of a
WATCH-MAKING. THE woBK BOOM. watch are made by ma-
chinery in this country.
Equally curious with the making of the minute screws is the fashioning of
the other tiny parts. One machine punches a plain round piece of brass;
another makes it a skeleton wheel; a third cuts the teeth on a score of
wheels; yet another polishes it; then it goes into a room where it is im-
mersed in a solution of gold, thus, gilding it; and it comes out one of those
beauti ful little wheels ivhich you see moving so exactly on its pivot in the
completed watch. Another apparatus is used to fashion the escapement
wheels, with their oddly-turned teeth, and the compensation balance,
the most conspicuous of all the wheels of a watch, with its two sec-
tions, held together by a thin, diametrical bar of steel, and its outer
and inner rims of brass and steel. This compensation balance is one
of the most important inventions in the modern watch, as the different
degrees of the contraction or expansion, by cold or heat, of the cop-
per and steel rims, keep the balance constant in all temperatures. No piece,
however small, is put into a watch until it has been measured and weighed.
There is also a gauging machine for measuring thickness, and etill another
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
261
machine measures the hair springs. One of the most interesting rooms is
that in which the dials, or white faces oi' the watches, are made. These are
at first plain, round copper pieces, cut out of the sheets by machinery. A
preparation of white enamel is spread over this copper piece; and when it is
dry it is inserted into a red-hot hole, where the enamel is fused hard on the
copper. It is then ground with fine sand and again subjected to fire to
give it the glossy appearance which we see on the watch's face. Another
curious room is that where the different brass pieces are gilded by means of
batteries and gold solutions. The watches are tested, as to bearing differ-
ent temperatures, by first being placed in little drawers where the air is
made very warm, and then in similar little drawers where it is more than
freezing cold.
Spectacles. The white lens in use in the ordinary spectacle of com-
merce is made of the common window-pane glass rolled in sheets; some-
times it is made into balls. From these are cut pieces of about one and a
quarter to one and a half
inches in size; they are then
taken into the grinding room
and each piece cemented
separately upon what is
called a lap of a semi-circu-
lar shape. These are made
to fit into a corresponding
curve or saucer, into which
fine emery powder is intro-
duced, and subjected to a
swift, rotary motion. The
gradual curve in the lap
gives to the glass as it is
ground a corresponding
shape until the desired cen-
ter is reached; the lap is
then taken out and subjected
to warmth, which melts the
cement sufficiently to permit
the glass being removed and
turned upon the opposite
side, when the same process is renewed. This being completed, the lenses
are detached again from the lap and taken to another department, where
they are shaped to fit the frames. This is accomplished by a machine ol
extreme delicacy. Each piece of glass is put separately upon a rest, when a
diamond is brought to bear upon it, moving in the form of an oval, thus cut-
ting the desired size; but the edges, of course, are rough and sharp, and
must be beveled. For this purpose they are turned over to another set of
hands, mostly girls, who have charge of the grindstones, which are about
six inches in thickness. Each operator is provided with a gauge; the glass
is taken between the forefinger and the thumb, and held sufficiently side-
ways to produce half the desired bevel; when this is attained it is again
turned and the other side of the bevel completed. During this process it is
constantly gauged in order to ascertain that the frame will close upon it
without too much pressure, which would break the lens. The next process
to which the lens is subjected is that of " focusing," and requires extreme
WATCH-MAKING. FIEING THE DIALS.
262 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
care. The person having this department to attend to is placed in a small
room alone; across the entrance is hung a curtain which is only drawn
aside sufficiently to admit the required amount of light from a window sev-
eral feet away, upon one of the top panes of which is placed a piece of
heavy cardboard with a small hole cut in the center representing the bull's
eye of a target Through this the rays of light shine upon the lens in the
hands of a workman, and are reflected through it to a dark background.
The lens is then moved back and forth upon an inch measure until the
proper focus is attained. Say, for instance, the extreme end of the measure
is sixty- two inches, the lens is placed at that, but does not focus; it is
gradually moved along inch by inch, until, perhaps, it is brought to thirty-
six inches. At this the proper height of center or focus is attained, and it ia
then numbered thirty-six. The same operation is, of course, necessary with
every lens. This accounts for the numbers which are upon spectacles or
glasses of any kind when
purchased.
Piano-Making. Al-
most most universal in use
as is the piano, few people
know how intricate an in-
strument it is; how many
and delicate are its pro-
cesses of manufacture; or
are aware that years must
elapse between the cutting
of the various kinds of
wood from which it is
made, and its final appear-
ance complete and beauti-
ful. The manufacture of
the instrument gives em-
ployment to a great variety
of artisans, among whom
the work of the several
parts is minutely divided;
PIANO-MAKING. THE CASE BOOM.
there are the key makers, hammer makers, hammer leatherers, string
makers, stringers, case makers, finishers, etc. The construction is a slow
process, and cannot well be hurried, a grand piano usually requiring to be
six months in making. One curious sight is a huge log of rosewood being
gradually sawed into the thin strips used for veneering. The machine
passes to and fro, shaving off only one veneer at a time, the strips growing
larger at each passage of the saw, until the whole is cut up. There is a be-
wildering variety of machinery in use, each piece of which is full of interest.
The most delicate operations are performed, such as making the small
" action screws " and " bridge pins," " caps " and " dies." The case room is
where the wooden bodies of the pianos are veneered and put together, and
the adjusted pieces at last begin to take a shape familiar to you. More in-
teresting still, perhaps, is the room where the rosewood veneers the tops
and sides of the piano are being made to wear the perfectly smooth and
shining appearance which you see on the finished instrument. These tops
and sides are first well varnished in a large room devoted to this work;
then they are carried to another room, where you see two men on each aide
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
263
of a piano-top, rapidly rubbing it with pumice atone a very hard piece of
work. Then the pieces are polished, and rubbed with " rotten stone," and
filially come out perfectly smooth.
Perfumery There is, perhaps, no occupation which is exactly so
poetical in its surroundings as the perfumer's is; that is, the perfumer who
distills his essences and infuses his extracts at first hand among the flowers',
and not among the chemist's bottles in the shop. Where he dwells and
works it is usually in the South, where groves of oranges and lemons are
not too far away to give him their buds, and where acres of flowers bloom
all about him fields of the violet, of the rose, of the geranium, the verbena,
the lily-of-the-valley, the jasmine, tuberose, hyacinth, jonquil, and myrtle,
and all the rest of the sweet sisterhood. These flowers, each in its season,
his employees gather, always at nightfall or at early dawn, when the dew is
on them. Brought in in large hampers, they are piled handful by handful
on a frame, over which has
previously been stretched a
cloth, often resembling cot-
ton-flannel, moistened in
odorless olive or almond oil.
When the frame is filled,
another is fitted over it, and
that in turn is heaped; and
the fitting and heaping are
continued till a ponderous
pile is prepared, which is
left a couple of days, and
then fresh flowers replace
the first, and the process is
repeated every two days for
a fortnight. At the end of
this time, the last flowers
being removed, the cloths
are taken from the frames,
and the oil with which they
were moistened is wrung
away from them under great
pressure, and is found to be heavily and delicionsly charged with the aroma
of the flowers used. In order to muke the finest extracts, this oil is used
with double its weight of pure rectified spirit in a vessel known among
cooks as a digester; that is, a porcelain or block-tin kettle that fits in an-
other kettle, the outer one filled with boiling water. In this vessel the con-
tents digest during three or four days, being very frequently shaken the
while. Then, having been set to cool, the spirit is decanted into another
vessel holding the same quantity of the perfumed oil, and the process is re-
peated. After the third repetition the spirit has taken up enough of the
perfume, and it is carefully decanted from the oil, for the last time, through
a tube, one end of which is filled with cotton-wool; and it is then pro-
nounced to be the choicest extract known, usually called " triple-extract,"
possessing an exquisite delicacy that belongs to no other preparation.
Soap. Soap i a compound formed by the union of an unctuoni sub-
stance and an alkali. Soaps are of two kinds, hard and soft, differing from
PIANO-MAKING. THE POLISHING BOOM.
264 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
each, other in the materials used in their manufacture, and in the uses to
which they are applied; the latter kind being chiefly used in cleansing of
stufls and silks. Hard soaps are made from animal fate, or vegetable fat
oils, and soda; soft soaps of fish oil or vegetable drying oils, and potash;
soda soaps are invariably harder than potash soaps, when the oleaginous
substance is the same. Soap purifies only by virtue of its alkali, part of
which combines with the greasy matter to be removed by washing.
The soda is chiefly obtained from the decomposition of sea salt, the lye
being frequently made with the unpurified soda in the state of black-ash.
The potash is obtained by calcinizing wood-ashes. The principal oily in-
gredients are tallow or animal fat, and palm-oil, which is obtained from the
fruit of the Elais Guianensis, or oil palm, a native of the west coast of
Africa, where it is extensively cultivated. Olive oil, whale, seal, and cod
THE MANUFACTURE OF SOAP.
oil are also used in smaller quantities; a portion of resin is put into yellow
soap.
The whole quantity of tallow or oil intended to be used is put into the
soap-pan (a large iron boiler) at once, but the alkali is supplied at several
successive times, the exhausted lyes being pumped out and fresh ones
added; a quantity of salt is put into the pan when it is desired to separate
the soap from the lye in which it is suspended. Two or three boilings are
usually given to it for as many successive days.
When the soap is properly formed, the lye is carefully separated from it,
and then it is removed in buckets, to the " frame room," where it is poured
into large frames which are like bins, their sides being bolted together.
Here the pasty mass is stirred and raked about with a little water to make
the grain finer and more equable, and it is then allowed to solidify; when it
is quite firm the frame is unbolted and takn off, and a block of soap re-
mains, which is cut up into bars and stowed away to dry. Soft soaps are
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
265
made in a similar manner, only tlic exhausted lyes are not pumped off.
These soaps always contain half their weight of water; hard soaps may be
reckoned to contain one part alkali, nine parts greasy matter, and five or six
parts water.
Leather. This useful article consists essentially of the skins of ani-
mals chemically altered by the vegetable principle called tannin or tannic
acid, so as to arrest decomposition. The skins of all animals used in the
production of leather consist chiefly of gelatine, a substance which easily
enters into chemical combination with the tannic acid found in the bark of
most kinds of trees, and forms what may be termed an insoluble lanno-
gelaiin. This is the whole theory of tanning, or converting the skins of ani-
mals into leather. Formerly, oak-bark was supposed to be the only tanning
material of any
value; but lately,
very numerous ad-
ditions have been
made to this branch
of economic botany.
In addition to the
process of tanning
in making leather,
there are other
modes, one of which
is tawing, another
dressing in oil. The
following are the
skins which form
the staple of our
leather manufac-
ture: ox, oow, calf,
and kip, buffalo,
horse, sheep, lamb,
goat, kid, deer,
dog, seal, and hog.
Starcli.-Starch
or amylaceous mat-
ter is an organized A TAN-YABD.
substance of the
class known as carbo-hydrates, which occurs in roundish or oval grains in
the cellular tissue of certain parts of plants. It is very widely diffused
through the vegetable kingdom, and is especially abundant in the seeds of
the cereals, in the seeds of leguminous plants such as peas and beans, in
the tuber of the potato, in the roots of arrowroot and tapioca, in the pith of
the sago palm, etc. The grains of starch from the same kind of plant are
tolerably uniform in size and shape, but vary in different species of plants
from l-260th to less than l-3000th of an inch in diameter; and while some
are circular or oval, others are angular; moreover, among other differences,
some (chiefly the larger grains) exhibit a series of concentric rings, while in
others no rings are apparent; and while the grains of potato-starch, if illum-
inated by polarized light, with a prism placed between the object and the eye,
present a well-marked black cross, in wheat-starch no such cross is seen.
266 CYCLOPEDIA OP VSEFVL KNOWLEDGE.
Ordinary commercial starch occurs either as a white, glistening powder,
or in masses which are readily pulverized; and when pressed between the
fingers it evolves a slight but peculiar sound. It is heavier than water, and
is insoluble in cold water, alcohol, and ether. If, however, it be placed in
water at a temperature of 150, its granules swell irorn the absorption of
fluid, and the mixture assumes a viscid, pasty consistence. Dilute acids
rapidly induce a similar change, even without the agency of heat; and if
heated with dilute sulphuric acid, the starch is first converted into dex-
trine, and finally into glycose or grape-sugar; and manufacturing chemists
avail themselves of this property to obtain glycose on a large scale from
starch. Starch dissolves in cold nitric acid, and on the addition of water to
this solution, a white, tasteless, insoluble precipitate falls, which is known
as Xyloidin, and explodes violently when struck by a hammer, or when
heated up to about 350. The composition of this substance is not positively
known, but in all probability one or two equivalents of the hydrogen of the
starch (most probably two) are replaced by a corresponding number of
equivalents of peroxide of nitrogen.
The reactions of starch with iodine and bromine are very remarkable.
Iodine communicates to it a very beautiful purple color, and hence starch-
paste serves as a delicate test for free iodine. The purple color which the
iodine gives to the starch granules appears not to depend on a chemical
combination, because on the application of heat the color disappears, and
reappears on cooling. Bromine communicates a brilliant orange tint to
starch a reaction by which the presence of free bromine may be readily de-
tected. When heated to a temperature of from 340 to 400, dry starch is
converted into Dextrine, or British gum. At a higher temperature, it under-
goes decomposition, and yields on dry distillation the same products as
sugar. When heated in steam under pressure, it also passes into dextrine,
and finally into glycose. The addition of a little sulphuric acid hastens
these changes.
During the germination of seed, the starch undergoes a kind of fermen-
tation, and is converted into a mixture of dextrine and glycose. This change
is due to the action of a peculiar ferment termed Diastase, which exists in
all germinating seeds during the process of growth, and is probably a mix-
ture of albumen and gluten in a special stage of decomposition. Various
animal matters, as, for example, saliva, pancreatic juice, the serum of the
blood, bile, etc., exert the same action on starch as diastase. On treating
starch with chlorine, a remarkable, colorless, oily fluid, Chloral, is obtained.
On prolonged exposure to the air, starch paste becomes acid, in consequence
of the formation of lactic acid.
Starch is usually obtained by a simply mechanical separation of it from
the other ingredients with which it is associated; advantage being taken of
its insolubility in cold water. The details of the mode of separation vary
according to the source from which it is procured. We extract from Miller's
" Organic Chemisty " the method of procuring potato starch: " This variety
is prepared on a large scale from potatoes, which contain about 20 per cent^
of amylaceous matter. The cellular tissue of the tuber does not exceed 2
per cent, of the mass; while of the remainder about 76 per cent, consists of
water, and the rest of small quantities of sugar, salts, and azotized matters.
In order to extract the starch, the tubers are first freed from adhering earth
by a thorough washing, and are then raspad by machinery. The pulp thus
obtained is received upon a sieve, and is washed continually by a gentle
etream of water so long as the waahings run through milky. This milkinesB
VBSfVL AKTR AND VAJfVJfAOTVB&ti. 267
is due to the granules of starch which are held in suspension. The milky
liquid is received into vats, in which the amylaceous matter is allowed to
subside; the supernatant water is drawn off, and the deposit is repeatedly
washed with fresh water until the washings are no longer colored. Tho
Etarch is then suspended in a small portion of water run through a fine sieve
to keep back any portions of Hand, and after having been again allowed to
settle, is drained in baskets lined with ticking; the mass is then placed upon
a porous floor of half-baked tiles, and dried in a current of air, which is af
first of the natural temperature; the drying is completed by the application
of a moderate artificial heat." To obtain starch from wheat or rice, a more
complicated process is required, as the large quantity of gluten which ia
associated with the starch in these grains requires to be removed either by
MAPLE SUGAR. GATHEBING THE SAP.
fermentation, or, according to Jones's patent, by a weak alkaline solution,
which dissolves the gluten, but does not affect the starch granules.
Commercially, there are two classes of starch those used for food, and
those used for manufacturing purposes. The latter are chiefly made from
wheat, rice, and potatoes; but in addition, large quantities of sago starch are
prepared in India, and small quantities are from time to time prepared from
other sources, such as the fruit of the horse-chestnut, etc.
Maple Sugar. The sugar maple tree resembles the sycamore, and
abounds in the northern parts of the United States, and in the British pos-
sessions, where large quantities of sugar are made from it. The trunk of
the sugar maple is generally more slender than that of the sycamore. To
obtain sugar, holes are bored in the trunk when the sap is ascending, early
in spring, before the winter frost has passe i away, in an obliquely ascending
direction, at no great distance from the ground, at first only to the depth of
half an inch, but afterwards deepened to two inches; and the sap thus col-
lected is evaporated W boilers over a brisk fire, to the cenaistency of syrup,
268 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
strained and poured into molds, in which it crystallizes into a coarse gray
or brown colored sugar. It is sometimes afterwards refined. Four gallons
of sap yield about one pound of sugar. A single tree yields from two to
six pounds in a season. During the sugar making season, sheds are erected
in the woods for the boiling and other processes of the manufacture. The
sap cannot be kept long after being collected.
Wall Paper In the manufacture of wall paper, the " blotching ma-
chine " performs the first operation. A web of blank paper is set in a reel
behind one of these machines. The free end of the paper on the web is
pulled forward and placed between two cylinders which drag it into the
machine, where a roller, part of which is working in a " color pan " filled
with thin paint, is working. This roller puts a large quantity of color upon
the paper, and a set of flat brushes called " jiggers " work rapidly back and
forward, working this coloring matter in and spreading it evenly over the
surface of the paper, so that when the cylinders of the rear end of the ma-
chine drag it out it is thoroughly painted in water color on one side.
As it issues from the blotching machine a workman takes the free end of
the paper and wraps it around a stick, which is carried up an incline by two
parallel endless chains. After eighteen feet of the paper have run out, these
chains pick up another stick which lies across them and bears a paper upon
it. This last stick chases the first one up and gains upon it till only a foot
behind, when it stops gaining and both travel along maintaining that rela-
tive distance, with the paper between them looped down till it nearly touches
the floor. A hundred other sticks do precisely as the second one did, and
the result is that there are soon a hundred loops of paper, each loop con-
taining eighteen feet. The elevated railway of parallel chains on which the
sticks from which the paper is looped are traveling turns corners of the
building at will, and soon the blotching machine has run the whole web
out, and it is hanging in loops over a system of steam pipes, which dry it so
fast, as it moves along, that it is perfectly dry before it reaches the farther
end of the chain railway, where a boy with a reel winds it back into web
form again.
The designs are first sketched out on paper and then transferred by an
ordinary process on the faces of rollers made to suit the size required an
eighteen inch design, for instance, requiring a roller six inches in diameter.
May be the design requires printing in twelve colors (that is the highest
number ordinarily run); to do this twelve rollers would be prepared, each
having the design upon it and each of a size exactly equal to that of the
others. When the rollers are all prepared the artist will direct skilled work-
men who are with him to fix one up to take the brown, another red, another
yellow, and so on with all the other colors. Let the brown color serve as
an example for all.
The workman takes it to his bench, where there is a vise and hammers
and files and piles of brass made into thick ribbons and rods. Here he seta
the roller in the grasp of the vise and goes to work on it. Every bit of the
design which is to be in brown is traced out for him and he reproduces it in
relief on the roller with his bronze wires and rods and ribbons, which he
drives into the hard wood so solidly that they stick there as if they had
grown. The brass wire can be given any ordinary shape necessary by draw-
ing it by machinery through a hole of corresponding shape in a steel bar.
This is the way that the roller, which will print in brown, is first fitted up.
When it is finished it bears on its face, in raised brass, fragments of leaves
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. 269
and parts of birds and ears of wheat, and little and apparently unnecessary
and unshaped points of metal, all of which at the proper place and time will
put the brown coloring and shading m exactly the place where the designer
wants it to go.
When the roller has had all its share of the design hammered into it, it
is taken away to a turning-lathe, when the face of all the brass work is
struck on one side by pumice stone and on the other by a file, and gradually
brought down to perfect smoothness and evenness and the exact size
needed. All the other rollers are treated in the way indicated, each getting
its share of the design hammered into its face in brass work and each after-
ward being reduced to smoothness and the proper size by the file and
pumice stone. It sometimes costs one thousand dollars to get up a set of
MANUFAnrOBE OI TTJBPENTIXE, BESIN AND TAB. FIG. 1.
rollers hi this fashion, and they, may be, take three or tour weeks in
preparation.
When the rollers are prepared they are taken to a press which consists
of a very large cylinder of the width of ordinary wall paper. Around the
bottom and sides of this cylinder are grooves into which the rods on the ends
of the rollers fit, the faces of the rollers just touching the cylinder when
they are in position. To each of the rollers comes from below it an endless
cloth band, which works upward from a color pan in which the coloring
matter to be used on the particular parts of the design carried on the roller
in question is lying in the shape of a thin liquid. Each of the rollers is
registered, that is, turned so that the portion of the design upon it will ex-
actly strike in the spot necessitated by the relative position of the other
rollers. When all is thus arranged and the paper, which has previously
passed through the blotcher, is conducted between the cvlinder and th$
270 CYULOP^DIA OF VSEFVL KNOWLEDGE.
first roller, the machine ia started; cylinder and rollers revolve at once,
each of the latter printing its color just where it was intended, and a steel
ecraper called a doctor, lying at each of the endless cloth bands spoken of,
seeing to it that not too much liquid from the other pans gets on the rollers.
The press works very rapidly, throwing off ten rolls of the paper a minute,
and each roll centains sixteen yards.
Turpentine, Resin and Tar The long-leaved pine of the South-
ern States furnishes the chief source of supply of turpentine, resin, tar and
pitch. This tree grows from the northeastern boundary of North Carolina,
along the Atlantic coast to Florida, across that State to the Gulf, and thenco
to Louisiana, in a belt averaging one hundred miles in width.
The first step is to obtain the crude turpentine. This is the natural juice
MANUFACTURE OP TUBPENTTOE, BESIK AND TAB. FIG. 2.
of the pine tree, and it is sometimes called white turpentine and gum tur-
pentine. It is a mixture of the essential oil known as spirits of turpentine
and of resin. A half-moon shaped box is cut in the tree, as near as possible
to the surface of the ground. The shape of this "box" will be seen in
Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4. The box cutting commences about the first of Decem-
ber and continues till March perhaps a few weeks longer if the spring is
late. After cutting, the boxes are " cornered " by taking out a triangular
piece at each end of the half moon. This is the commencement of the regu-
lar season, and the boxes are now all tasked off. A " task " is usually ten
thousand boxes, but we have known hands to tend eighteen thousand.
These must be cornered once, and " hacked " about six times, from the first
of spring until into November. The dipping (shown in Fig. 2) is done by
task work, too, so many barrels or boxes per day being a task. This is
accomplished with a spoon-shaped instrument and a peculiar twist of thq
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
m.
wrist, only well done by long practice. Two dippers generally attend one
hacker. Hacking is the making a groove-shape cut on each side, downward
to the center of the half moon. The grooves can be seen in all the cuts.
The "hacker "is used with a downward stroke, and has at the lower
end of the handle a weight of lead or iron, to give great impetus to the blow.
The barrels for filling are placed at intervals through the woods; the dipper
gathers his gum in a rude bucket, and empties it into the barrels, which,
when filled, are hauled off. A frequent mode of hauling is seen in Fig. 1;
the same cut shows a primitive but cheap mode of " rolling " tar to market.
Both articles are frequently rafted to a seaport between sticks of hewr
timber.
The first year's operation produces "virgin dip," the second "yellor
MANUFACTURE OF TURPENTINE, RESIN AND TAR. FIG. 3.
dip," the third some common yellow dip and scrape; then the further pro-
duct of the trees is all " scrape." The virgin dip is, when carefully
gathered, a honey-like gum, of whitish appearance. From it are produced
No. 1, pale, extra, and window-glass resins. It yields about seven gallons of
spirits, and not quite three-fourths of a barrel of resin to the barrel (two
hundred and eighty pounds). Yellow dip yields over three-fourths of resin,
and about six gallons of spirits to the two hundred and eighty pounds of
gum. Scrape yields about the same. " Scrape " is the guru which gathers
on the face of the tree or box when worked up three, four or more feet
higher. It is a white and cheesy-like substance. The operation of chipping
the box face and gathering the scrape is seen in Figs. 3 and 4. With care a
very light resin can be made from it.
The operation of distilling the gum is carried on in turnip-shaped copper
atilla of a capacity from ten barrels up to sixty the ordinary uizs being;
272 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
twenty and thirty barrels. They are bricked tip at the sides, and the fire
strikes directly on tht> bottom. The top has a large hole for the " cap,'"
which connects with the worm for condensing the spirits, and a small hole
through which the " stiller " examines the state of his charge, and lets hi
water as it may be deemed necessary. The resin, being a residuum, is let off
on one side into vats, through strainers, from which it is dipped into barrels
to cool. Many attempts have been made to use steam as a heating agent,
but not yet with success. If the resin is not entirely free of either spirits
or water it is opaque and loses value.
The rear of the stills and the resin vats are shown in Fig. 5. Probably
the largest distillery in the country is at Wilmington, N. C.
In trees deadened by fire, stumps of trees cut down when the sap is up,
MANTJFACTUBE OF TUKPENTINE, BESIK AND TAB. FIG. 4.
and old box trees left standing, a peculiar transformation of the wood takes
place; all its pores become filled with pitchy matter, it increases greatly in
weight, and will take fire almost as readily as gunpowder. In this state it
is called " light wood," because it is used for kindling, and with the poor as
a substitute for candles or other light. The smothered burning of this wood
is the source of tar. The wood is split into billets three or four feet long
and about three inches in diameter. To form a tar kiln the operation is com-
menced by scooping out of the ground a saucer-shaped foundation, making
a hole in its middle, and thence running a wooden spout outside the rim of
the foundation. Billets of wood are then placed radiating to this center hole
and piled upward, each upper and outer stick lapping a little over, so that
when finished, the pile (as shown in Fig. 6) resembles a cone with the point
cut off, small end down; logs of wood and green twigs are then piled around,
and the k|1n thus made is covered with dirt, the top as well as sides, The
VffFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. 273
fire is then lighted at the top eaves of the kiln, and the tar trickles down to
the center hole, whence it runs out through the spout. A kiln yields fifty,
one hundred or more barrels of tar, according to its size. Large iron retorts
have been used, but the project is not sufficiently greater or more cleanly
to pay for increased cost. In process of distillation a tar and pitch are
obtained. Pitch is tar boiled down until all its volatile matter is driven off.
Paper Money. In the Treasury Department at Washington every
dollar of United States money is made. Almost a million of dollars of old,
worn-out money is counted and destroyed there daily. Of course new bills
are printed to supply the place of those worn out and destroyed.
When they are destroyed they are first counted by several persons, so
that there can be no mistake, and the amounts marked. The money is then
MANUFACTUBE OF TURPENTINE, EE8IN AND TAB. FIG. 5.
placed hi a large receiver of iron, which is nearly the shape of two tin pans
with the edges shut together, only very much larger six or seven feet in
diameter. To this iron receiver there is a door which is locked with three
locks, each lock requiring a different kind of key. Three men, who are ap-
pointed La accordance with law to witness the destruction of this money,
have each one of the keys to this door. No one of the men can lend his key
to either of the others or to any other person. Now, at the proper time of
day these three men get together, and each one takes his key, and they un-
lock the three locks of the door, which is then opened. All this old money
eo mar.y hundreds of thousands of dollars is then carefully placed in the
receiver, the door is closed, and the three men securely lock it. Water is
then let in through a pipe, and a machine inside beats and grinds all these
hundreds of thousands of dollars into the finest pulp. When it is sufficiently
ground it is taken out and used to make paper of.
274 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
As previously stated, new bills are printed to take the place of those
destroyed, and also to supply money required to be used in the country. If
you will look very carefully indeed at a new bill, you will notice that it is
made of a peculiar kind of paper, very different from newspaper. It is very
tough. Take a new bill, and you will find in the paper itself something that
looks like a fine kind of hair running through each bill in one particular
place. Now, that paper is made just so in order that no one may be able to
counterfeit the bills, for the Government takes care that no one shall ever
pet even a sheet of that paper. So if a bill hasn't got those hairs running
through it in a particular place, we know at once it is worthless, or a
" counterfeit" bill.
This paper is first made in large sheets, and every sheet that comes in
to be printed is carefully counted, so that if a single sheet were stolen or
MANUFACTURE OF TUKPENTINE, EESIN AND TAB. FIG. 6.
lost the theft or loss would be promptly detected. When the paper comes
in, in great packages of these large sheets, each sheet is carefully moistened,
so that it will take up the ink properly, and is then placed under a press,
when a die or stamp of the most perfect workmanship makes an impression,
of one color only, on one side. When it becomes dry it is moistened again,
and is again placed under a press, and another impression of another color
is made, and this process is repeated many times, till all the colors of both
sides have been impressed. This printing is done in sheets, several bills
being printed at once on one sheet. After this is done the sheets are dried
and put under great pressure to take all wrinkles out and make them
entirely smooth. The bills are then trimmed and separated by machinery,
and numbered by a curious little machine that changes its number at
every impression, thus, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., so that no two bills of the same kind
bare the same number on them.
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. 275
Postal Cards The country uses over three hundred million postal
cards a year. This is a million a day, or several tons every twenty-four
hours. They are manufactured by private corporations or firms, the Gov-
ernment inviting bids and awarding the contract for their manufacture at
stated intervals. The sheets are about thirty by twenty-two inches in size,
and are just fitted by the plates from which the cards are printed, each plats
covering forty cards, four in width and ten in length. The printing is done
on Hoe super-royal presses, by skillful pressmen, and as each sheet passe*
into the press the number of cards is unprringly recorded by registers
attached to the presses, and which are carefully locked every night to pre-
vent any tampering. The sheets are then piled up and allowed to dry, in
order that they may not be damaged by future handling. After drying thor-
oughly, the sheets are then passed through the rotary slitter a machine
fitted with circular knives, which cuts them into strips of ten cards each,
and trims the edge of the outside strip. The strips are then passed trans-
versely through the rotary cross-cutters, the mechanism of which is similar
to the "slitters." The cross-cutters divide the strips into the single cards,
which drop into a rotary hopper containing ten compartments. As soon an
each compartment has received twenty-five cards, the hopper revolves and
throws the cards out upon a table. A number of girls then take them, an<l
bind the perfect ones in packs of twenty-five each. Other girls then take
the packs, and, after recounting them, put them in pasteboard boxes con-
taining twenty packs, or five hundred cards each. The cards are then,
ready for shipment to the various post-offices throughout the country. B/
the stipulation of the contract the manufacturers are required to keep >\t
least ten million potal cards in store all the time.
Postage Stamps. In printing, ateel plates are used, on which two
hundred stamps are engraved. Two men are kept hard at work covering
them with colored inks, and passing them to a man and a girl, who are
equally busy at printing them with large rolling hand-presses. Three of
these little squads are employed all the time, although ten presses can be
put into use in case of necessity. After the small sheets of paper upon which
the two hundred stamps are engraved have dried enough they are sent into
another room and gammed. The gum used for this purpose is a peculiar
composition, made of the powder of dried potatoes and other vegetables,
mixed with water, which is better than any other material; for instance, gum
arable, which cracks the paper badly. This paper is of a peculiar texture,
somewhat similar to that used for bank notes. After having been again
dried, this time on little racks, which are fanned by steam power, for about
an hour, they are put between sheets of pasteboard and pressed in hydraulic?
presses, capable of applying a weight of two thousand tons. The next thin;;
is to cut the sheets in half, each sheet, of course, when cut, containing a
hundred stamps. This is done by a girl, with a large pair of shears, by hand
being preferred to that of machinery, which method would destroy too many
stamps. They are then passed to other squads, who, in as many operations,
perforate the paper between the stamps. Next they are pressed once more,
and then packed and labeled, and stowed away in another room, prepara-
tory to being put in mail bags for despatching to fulfill orders. If a single
stamp is torn, or in any way mutilated, the whole sheet of one hundred
stamps is burned. Five hundred thousand are burned every week from
this cause. For the past twenty years not a sheet has been lost, such care
has been taken in counting them. Each sheet is counted eleven tuaea.
276 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Envelopes. A modern envelope machine is one of the moat interesting
of mechanical novelties. All tLe manual labor that is required in attending
to the machine is limited to the supply from time to time of a pile of envel-
ope blanks, aud the occasional removal and banding of the finished envel-
opes. Thus the entire and various processes of feeding, gumming, stamping,
folding, delivery, and collection are performed automatically by a series of
mechanical operations devised with the utmost ingenuity and carried out
in perfection; the machine withal being excessively compact and well ar-
ranged. The pile of envelope blanks being placed in position on a plate at
one end of the machine, which may be done either at rest or in motion, the
feeding process is effected by the simple aid of intermittent suction. An
elastic tube has a trumpet-shaped brass mouthpiece which descends on the
uppermost blank, and at the moment of contact the air is exhausted by a
stroke of the air-pump, when the mouthpiece rises with the blank attached;
the suction being maintained just sufficiently long to enable the arm and
grippers, rapidly projected from the other side of the machine, to seize the
blank, when the attachment to the mouthpiece ceases and the arm shoots
back, drawing the blank into position over the folding-box, and there rap-
idly releasing it. At this moment the stamping is effected by the action of a
hammer and die, and the gum ia applied in due place on the edges of the
side flaps, whereupon a plunger-head, of the rectangular form and size of
the envelope, descends, carrying the blank down into the folding box; the
naps, thus raised into a vertical position, are then inclosed and folded down
in proper sequence by slides working in the thickness of the folding box;
and finally the bottom of the box rises and completes the operation by press-
ing the whole against the slides, so that the edges are made sharp and the
adhesion is effected and secured. The slides are then withdrawn, and the
bottom of the folding-box drops, allowing the envelope to drop in a vertical
position into the delivery-trough underneath, running across the machine,
wherein, by a simple contrivance and combination of guides, holders, and
pressers, the envelopes as they drop from the folding -box are successively,
uniformly and regularly arranged, and worked along the trough ready for
removal and banding by the attendant. These manifold operations are suc-
cessively wrought with such speed that the finished envelopes are turned
out complete at the rate of fifty per minute, or three thousand per hour.
Paper Car Wheels, Etc. Paper car wheels are 'composed entirely
of paper rings pressed together iinder a weight of six tons, and then fastened
by means of bolts and steel tire put on them, when they are ready for use.
Laid loosely, the rings stack as high as the shoulders of an ordinary man.
Under treatment they sink to the thickness required. If the tire should
wear or fall off the wheel, or the tm.in run from the track, there would be
no danger of their breaking, as they are very flexible, and would spring.
A paper ball can be rendered so solid that nothing but a diamond tool can
cause an indentation into it. At the mill is a square block of compressed
paper fastened on a turning lathe, and so hard that, if a fine steel chisel ia
held against it when it is moving, instead of cutting the paper it will break
the chisel into a hundred pieces. The strength is astonishing. You can
take a 5 note of the Bank of England, twist it into a kind of rope, suspend
three hundred and thirty-nine pounds upon one end of it, and it will not in-
jure it in the slightest degree. Bath tubs and pots are formed by com-
pressing the paper made out of linen fibres and annealed that is, painted
over with a composition which becomes a part thereof, and is fire-proof.
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
277
The tubs last indefinitely, never leak, and, put in the fire, will not burn up.
You can beat on them with a hammer and not injure them. Plates com-
pressed and annealed are very durable; you cannot only wash them, but
drop them upon the floor and stand upon them. The fork can be used for
any practical purpose, and the knife can always be kept sharp. Paper can
be substituted for wood, converted into picture-frames and colored like wal-
nut, cherry, and the like. Bedsteads are fashioned the same as car wheels,
only of long strips instead of rings. They are very beautiful and lasting.
Cooking or heating stoves are also annealed, and it is impossible to burn
them out. They are less costly than iron. A house can be literally con-
structed and furnished with every convenience in paper. The printing-
press, type, and all the fixtures of the office could be concocted of this ma-
terial, and more cheaply than of the ordinary kind. A complete steam-
engine can be thus manufactured and do all required duty. Clothes and
shoes will come in the future. Twenty-nine hours are needed to transfer
linen fibre into a car
wheel.
Nails. Formerly, all
nails were hand made, by
forging on an anvil; and
vast quantities are still
made in this manner, being
preferable, for many kinds
of carpenter's work, to
those made by machinery.
The iron used for hand
nail-making is sold in bun-
dles, and is called nail-
rods; it is either prepared
by rolling the malleable
iron into rods or small
bars of the required thick-
ness which process is
only employed for very
fine qualities or by cutting plate iron into strips by means of rolling-shears;
these shears consist of two powerful revolving shafts, upon which are fixed
disks of hard steel with squared edges. The disks of one shaft alternate
with those of the other; they are of the thickness of the plate to be cut, and
the shafts are so placed that a email portion of one set of the disks are in-
serted between those of the other set. When the shafts are revolving a plate
of iron is pressed between the disks, and it is forcibly drawn through, the
steel disks cutting the plates into strips with great rapidity. The quantity
produced in this way is enormous, some mills turning out at the rate of ten
miles per hour of nail-rods. Several inventions, in which America took the
lead, have been introduced, and are successfully worked, for making nails
direct from plate iron, either by cutting them out cold or hot; and a very
large proportion of the nails in use are made in this way. Nail-making by
machinery was originated in Massachusetts in 1810.
Lead Pencils. A lead peusil is in itself a small affair, but considered
as a manufactured product, it rises into much importance. To start a first-
class factory with improved machinery and stock of well-seasoned wood.
NAIL FORGE.
278 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
requires a capital of about $100,000; the ground covered is about half an acre,
chiefly occupied by drying houses for the storage of red cedar. The Florida
red cedar is mostly used in this country and in Europe some " iben " wood,
as the Germans call it, or English yew, is used in Germany white pine is
occasionally used for a common grade of a carpenter's pencil. The " lead "
of the pencils is the well-known graphite or plumbago; the best ol this is
the natural, found in a pure state in masses large enough to cut into strips.
Of this there is but one mine up to the standard, which is in Asiatic Siberia.
What was formally refuse in cutting the graphite is now ground, cleaned,
and refined, and then mixed with a fine clay. In mixing the clay and graph-
ite, great care must be taken iu selecting and cleaning the clay and getting
the proper proportions; the mixture with water, after being well-kneaded,
io placed in a large receiver and strongly compressed and forced out through
a small groove in the bottom, in the shape of a thread the thickness and
style required either square, octagon, or round. This thread or lead wire
is cut in bars of proper length (done by little girls), and then straightened,
dried at a moderate heat, And packed in air-tight crucibles and placed in
the furuaces; the grade of the lead depends upon the amount of clay used
in mixing and the quality of the plumbago. The coloring of the lead is by
various pigments. The wood, after being thoroughly seasoned, is cut into
thin strips and then dried again, then cut into strips pencil length. These
strips are grooved by machinery, then carried on a belt to the gluing room,
where the lead is placed in the groove, and the other half of the pencil glued
on. After being dried under pressure, they are sent to the turning-room
and rounded, squared, or made octagon by a very ingenious little machine,
which passes them through three cutters and drops them ready for polishing
or coloring the former is done on lathes by boys, and the latter by a ma-
chine which holds the brush and turns the pencils fed to it through a hop'
per. After the pencil is polished, it is cut the exact length by c, circular saw,,
and the end is cut smooth by a drop knife, the pencil resting on an iron bed.
The stamping is done by a hollow die, which is heated; the gold or silver
foil is then laid on the pencil, which reste on an iron bed, and the die is then
pressed on it by a screw lever.
Steel Pens. First the steel is rolled into big sheets. This is cut into
strips about three niches wide. These strips are annealed; that is, they
are heated to a red heat and permitted to cool very gradually, so that the
brittleness is all removed and the steel is soft enough to be easily worked.
Then the strips are again rolled to the required thickness, or rather thin-
ness, for the average steel pen is not thicker than a sheet of thin letter paper.
Next, the blank pen is cut out of the flat strip. On this the name of the
maker or of the brand is stamped. Next, the pen is molded in a form
which combines gracefulness with strength. The rounding enables the pen
to hold the requisite ink and to distribute it more gradually than could be
done with a flat blade. The little hole which is cut at the end of the slit
serves to regulate the elasticity, and also facilitates the running of the ink.
Then comes the process of hardening and tempering. The steel is heated to
a cherry-red and then plunged suddenly into some cool substance. This at
once changes the quality of the metal from that of a soft, lead-like sub-
stance to a brittle, springy one. Then the temper of the steel must be
drawn, for without this process it would be too brittle. The drawing con-
sists of heating the pen until it reaches a certain color. The first color that
appears is a straw color. This changes rapidly to a blue. The elasticity of
TJSEXUL ARTS AND MA N UFA CTURE8
279
the mtal varies with the color, and is fastened at any point by instant plung-
ing in cold water. The processes of slitting, polishing, pointing and finish-
ing the pen are operations requiring dexterity, but by a long practice the
workmen and workwomen become very expert. There have been few
changes of late years, and the process of manufacture is much the same
that it was twenty years ago, and the prices are rather uniform, ranging
from seventy-five cents to four dollars a gross, according to the quality of
the finish.
Needles. Needles are made from soft steel wire, which is received
from the manufactory in coils. The wire is cut by fixed shears into length
sufficient to make two needles. Those blanks, being bent, require straight-
ening, which is done by placing several thousand of them between two broad
heavy rings, and heating them to redness in a furnace. They are then re-
moved and placed, still in posi-
tion within the rings, on a flat iron
plate, and by means of a curved
bar, termed a smooth file, rolled
back and forth until perfectly
straight. Each piece is then
sharpened at both ends. The
workman takes up a number at a
time and holds the ends against a
grindstone, forming the points.
By means of a die and counterdie,
two grooves are stamped by a
press on each side of the wire,
which is next pierced under a
press with two holes forming the
eyes. A number of pieces are
then strung on two fine wires and
broken each in two by filing and
bending. The roughness about
the head is removed by filing,
several at a time being placed in MANUFACTUHE OF NEEDLES. DRILLING
a small vice. During these pro-
cesses the needles, having become
somewhat bent, are straightened by rolling on a flat plate, as before. They
are now brought to a red heat, and tempered by plunging them into oil.
Fifty thousand at a time are then put in a canvas bag with emery, oil, putty-
powder, and soft-soap, and rolled to and fro under pressure until they be-
come bright. The better class of needles have their eyes drilled. The final
process is polishing the points, which is effected first by a rotating hone,
and afterward by a buff- wheel. Of late years machines have been introduced
by which needles are formed from the roll of wire without the intervention
of hand labor.
Kid Gloves. The best skins generally come from middle and south-
eastern France. Fine seasons improve the quality of the skin greatly, a
the animals are kept in the open air. In wet weather it is necessary to keep
the kids housed. The pelt, as taken from the animal, is dried; then, through
a series of baths, the hair and grease are removed, and the skin cleaned
thoroughly. A moat difficult stage of the business is tanning and dyeing
THE EYES.
^> -S
the leathers, BO much skill being requisite to obtain the desired shades and
colors. This is accomplished with the best success in France, as the French
possess the art of leather-dyeing to a degree not yet attained by other
nations. In order afterward to make the skin soft, lull and flexible, it is fed
with actually absorbing quite a quantity of a preparation of eggs, flour
and egg-yelks. Subsequently the parts around the neck and shoulders,
where the skin is thickest, are shaved with a sharp knife to render it uni-
form in thickness throughout. The leather fully prepared is carefully ex-
amined for imperfections; perfect skins are retained, imperfect ones laid
aside. The cutting of material for kid gloves can only be done by hand,
each piece being carefully measured in order to allow the proper stretching
space. The stamping, which comprises cutting out the form of the glove, is
done by machinery rapidly, as three pairs are usually stamped at one time.
From the cutter they pass to the embroiderer, thence to the sewer, then to
the button-hole maker, afterward to the finisher, who binds the wrist, and
finally to the person whose business is to pair and press them. The long
mosquetaire gloves generally consume the entire skin of one kil.
Tacks. Described in a few words, the process of making tacks is as
follows: The iron, as received from the rolling mills, is in sheets from three
inches to twelve inches wide and from three feet to nine feet in length, the
thickness varying, according to the kind of work into which it is to be made,
from one-eighth to one thirty-second of an inch. These sheets are all cut
into about three-feet pieces, and by immersion in acid cleaiied of the hard out-
side flinty scale. They are then chopped into strips of a width correspond-
ing to the length of the nail or tack required. Supposing the tack to be cut
is an eight-ounce carpet tack, the strip of iron, as chopped and ready for the
machine, would be about eleven-sixteenths of an inch thick and three feet
long. The piece is placed firmly in the feeding apparatus, and by this ar-
rangement carried between the knives and machine. At each revolution of
the balance-wheel the knives cut off a small piece from the end of this plate.
The piece cut off is pointed at one end, and square for forming the head at
the other. It is then carried between two dies by the action of the knives,
and these dies coming together form the body of the tack under the head.
Enough of the iron projects beyond the face of the dies to form the head,
and, while held firmly by them, a lever strikes this projecting piece into a
round head. This, as we have said before, is all done during one revolution
of the balance-wheel, and the knives, as soon as the tack drops from the
machine, are ready to cut oflf another piece. These machines are run at the
rate of about two hundred and fifty revolutions a minute.
Brass, Etc. Brass is a compound metal, or, as it is properly called, am
aUoy of copper and zinc; it was well known in the earlier stages of the arts,
long before pure zinc was discovered, being made of copper and calamina
stone, which is an ore of zinc. The manufacture of brass is said to have
been introduced into England in 1649 by a German who settled at Esher in
Surrey. Good brass is of a fine yellow color, ductile and very malleable
when cold; when heated it is brittle, being hi this respect a curious contrast
to the zinc of which it is partially composed. Brass is the most convenient
metal for making large fine screws, astronomical instruments, microscopes,
and many other things requiring great exactness; as, notwithstanding ita
compactness of texture, it is easily wrought at the lathe. Britannia metal is
composed of block tin, a small portion of antimony, and less than one-third
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. 281
as much copper or brass. This compound, which is bright and silvery-
looking, is now extensively used instead of pewter, and for many purposes
to which pewter was never applied. It is very easy to work, both by roll-
ing, casting, turning, and planing, as well as by stamping in dies; conse-
quently, the articles made of it are almost unlimited in variety, and very
cheaply produced; teapots, candlesticks, and spoons are among some of the
most frequent applications of this metal. Pewter is a dull-looking alloy,
used for making plates and dishes, beer measures, and larger vessels. For
the first purpose it has very much gone out of use, being superseded by
earthen ware; but in former times all houses were supplied with pewter arti-
cles, and no small portion of the " plate," belonging to the wealthy, was of
this material. Good hard pewter is made of tin, copper, and antimony; but
a very inferior kind, and that most frequently met with, is made chiefly of
lead, with a very small proportion of tin and copper in addition.
Sulphur Sulphur is a solid non-metallic mineral known from the
remotest antiquity; it is hard, yellow, brittle, and has a disagreeable smell.
Sulphur is found native in veins or beds mostly near active volcanoes; it is
also found combined with iron, copper, lead, and antimony, forming the
most abundant ore of those metals. Native sulphur is found massive, pow-
dery, or cellular, and not unfrequently in large crystals, some of which
measure four inches in length. Sulphur abounds in the mineral kingdom,
but traces of it are found in both the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The
bad smell of some plants, as asafcetida and garlic, is to be attributed to the
sulphur they contain; it exists too in eggs and some other animal products;
thus it is that eggs discolor silver spoons. The native sulphur imported
comes mostly from Solfatra in Sicily, but large quantities are procured from
iron and copper pyrites. These minerals are heated, and the sulphur being
volatile flies off in fumes which are conveyed by pipes to a condensing
room. If left in the powdery state in which it condenses it is called floiir of
sulphur; but, if melted and cast it makes roll sulphur. It is used in
bleaching, for making gunpowder and matches; it is also used in medicine.
One of the combinations of sulphur, sulphuric acid, called in commerce
vitriol, is so largely used in the arts and manufactures, that it has been said
the commercial prosperity of a country may be fairly estimated by the
amount of sulphuric acid it consumes.
Slate Pencils. In making slate pencils broken slate is put into a mor-
tar run by steam and pounded into small particles. Then it goes into a mill
and runs into a " bolting " machine, such as is used in flouring mills, where
it is " bolted," the fine, almost impalpable flour that results being taken to
a mixing tub, where a small quantity of steatite flour similarly manufac-
tured, is added together with other materials, the whole being made into a
stiff dough. This dough is thoroughly kneaded by passing it several times
between iron rollers. Thence it is conveyed to a table where it is made
into " charges," or short cylinders, four or five inches thick and containing
eight to twelve pounds each. Four of these are placed in a strong iron
chamber or " retort," with a changeable nozzle so as to regulate the size of
the pencil, and subjected to tremendous hydraulic pressure under which the
composition is pushed through the nozzle in the shape of a long cord, and
pass over a sloping table slit at right angles with the cords to give passage to
a knife which cuts them into lengths. They are then laid on boards to diy s
and after a few hours are removed to sheets ol corrugated zinc, the corru-
282 CYCLOPEDIA Of trSEFVL KNOWLEDGE.
gation serving to prevent the pencil from warping during the process of
baking, to which they are next subjected, in a kiln, into which superheated
steam is introduced in pipes, the temperature being regulated accordiug to
the requirements of the article exposed to its influence. From the kiln, the
articles go to the finishing and packing room, where the ends are thrust for
a second under rapidly revolving emery wheels, and withdrawn neatly and
smoothly pointed. They are then packed in pasteboard boxes, each con-
taining one hundred pencils, and these boxes are in turn packed for ship-
ment in wooden boxes, containing one hundred each, or ten thousand pen-
cils in a shipping box. Nearly all the work is done by boys.
Rubber Boots. The gum used is imported directly from Africa, South
America, and Central America, that from Central America being best, while
the African gum is the poorest. The raw gum, which is nearly white, is
ground several times between immense fluted iron rollers, after which it
passes through the composition room, which process is secret, but when it
comes out, the gum has the black appearance of common rubber. The
next process is that of passing the rubber between chilj^d iron cylinders,
of many tons weight, which are kept very hot and very smooth. A part of
the rubber intended for " uppers," is here spread upon and fastened to long
sheets of cloth. The heels and taps are stamped out of sheets of gum of the
required thickness. The rubber is now carried to the cutter's room, where
it is cut out and sent to the bootmakers. The boots are made by men, the
shoes or ordinary rubbers by girls, while the overshoes are made by either.
One man will make twelve or fourteen pairs of boots a day, and receive
1 wenty cents a pair. An active girl will make from twenty-five to thirty
pairs of rubbers. After the bootmaker is through they are placed in -an
oven, where for twelve hours they are subjected to a temperature of three
hundred degrees. They are then ready for boxing and shipping. In one
factory about four thousand pairs of boots, rubbers, and overshoes are
turned out daily.
Rubber Balls. The rubber balls used in games are made in the fol-
lowing manner: The sheets of rubber are cut into strips of double convex
shape, or like the rind of an orange. The edges of the strips are moistened
with a liquid, made of rubber and naptha, by which they are joined firmly
together. This part of the work is generally done by girls, who soon be-
come skillful workers. When the strips are joined, the ball is about the
shape of a Brazil nut. Before the last opening is closed, some carbonate of
ammonia is put inside. This causes the rubber to expand and fill out the
ball mold. The molds are iron plates of the required shape. The ball is
placed in its mold, and then, being heated, is pressed round. Sometimes
explosions occur in molding, for rubber has considerable expansive force.
Thimbles. The manufacture of thimbles is very simple, but singularly
interesting. Com silver is mostly used, and is obtained by purchasing coin
dollars. The first operation strikes a novice as almost wicked, for it is no-
thing else than putting a lot ot bright silver dollars, fresh from the mint,
into dirty crucibles, and melting them up into solid ingots. These are
rolled out into the required thickness, and cut by a stamp into circular
pieces of any required size. A solid metal bar of the size of the inside of the
intended thimble, moved by powerful machinery up and down in a bottom-
less mold of the outside of the same thimbles, bends the circular disks into
the thimble shape as fast as they can be placed under the descending bar.
USXFUt A&T8 AN to MANUFACTURER. 283
Once in shape, the work of brightening, polishing, and decorating is done
upon a lathe. First, the blank form id fitted with a rapidly revolving rod.
A slight touch of a sharp chisel takes a thin shaving from the end, another
does the same on the side, and the third rounds off the rim. A round steel
rod, dipped in oil, and pressed upon the surface, gives it a lustrous polish.
Then a little revolving steel wheel, whose edge is a raised ornament, held
against the revolving blank, prints that ornament just outside the rim. A
second wheel prints a different ornament around the center, while a third
wheel, with sharp points, makes the indentations on the lower half and end
of the thimble. The inside ia brightened and polished in a similar way, the
thimble being held in a revolving mold. All that remains to be done is to
boil the completed thimbles in soapsuds, to remove the oil, brush them up,
and pack them for the trade.
Crackers. Inspecting one of the largest bakeries in Now York City, a
a visitor found a praiseworthy cleanliness in every part. On the second
floor of the building there are five " reel " or cylinder ovens. These ovens,
about twenty feet in diameter, have the fires at the bottom, and above the
fire is a large wheel or cylinder. On the outer frame of this wheel are ten
swinging trays. On these trays the crackers, as they are turned out from
the stamping machine close by, are placed, and the wheel revolves slowly,
lowering the next tray into position. Thus the wheel is kept in constant
motion, the biscuit being removed from the trays after making one revolu-
tion of the cylinder.
In this bakery the weekly supply of materials is six hundred barrels
of flour, three thousand pounds of butter, twenty thousands pounds of lard,
eighty barrels of sugar, twenty-five barrels of molasses, fifteen barrels of
currants, together with eggs, honey, cornstarch, and other necessary in-
gredients.
The mixing of the dough, the rolling and the stamping, are done by ma-
chine. The mixing machine is on the second floor of the building. One
shoot leading into this mixer, which is a large wooden cylinder, supplies the
proper proportion of flour; another supplies the milk, another the sugar, an-
other the water, etc.
In the mixer there are three spoons or bars revolving alternately, which
thoroughly mix the dough. It is then taken to the floor above, where a row
of boxes is placed, in one of which the dough is put to " rise." When ready
for baking, it is taken again to the floor below, unless it is to be used in
making soft crackers. Here it is placed on large trays, and as the workmen
knead it they slice off large pieces of the dough and place it in a rolling ma-
chine. It is rolled four or five times until it becomes of the proper thick-
ness, and it is then placed on the cracker-making machine. Before reaching
the die it is passed beneath another roller, and at either side of the tray on
which it is placed are knives, which trim it to the proper shape. From the
roller the sheet of dough runs under the die, which cuts out the crackers,
and at the same time stamps the name or other device and makes the " pin-
holes."
In stamping square crackers, such as soda-biscuits, there is but little
waste; but in cutting out other shapes fully one-half of the dough is not
used. The finished shapes and waste material are passed upon a cloth
roller, an iron bar with a toothed edge being so set, at a short distance
from the die, that, as they pass upon another cloth band, the cracker*
are pushed down upon the original roller, being thence carried to
284 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
the end of the machine, where they fell upon the trays, which, as soon as
they are full, are put upon the swinging shelves in the " reel " oven. The
" trimmings " are taken up and again passed through the machine. This
same plan is pursued in making all hard crackers, the quantity and kinds
of ingredients, together with the flavoring used, varying according to the
special variety to be made from the dough.
On the third floor the soft crackers, such as macaroons, lady fingers,
butter-scotch, honey cake, etc., are made. Four mixers for the dough of
which these are made are placed on this floor. These goods are baked in
square ovens.
Some of the finer varieties of crackers are made by hand, but others,
even of these, are made by ingeniously contrived machines. The visitor
stood by and saw the method of making " cocoanut drop cake." A tray
placed in a machine moved under an upright receptacle filled with the soft
dough forming the body of the cake. "This was fed through five or six holes,
slowly dropping upon the pan. Another man then took the pan, and, turn-
ing it upside down, pressed the soft cakes upon a surface of desiccated
cocoanut spread on a sheet resting upon water in a tank. The cakes were
then placed in one of the square ovens, and in less than five minutes the
visitor had positive knowledge that a cocoanut drop cake is a delicious
morsel.
The fruit for fruit-crackers, the visitor was assured, is the best quality
of dried currants. They are washed and dried, and are then carefully
picked over by boys, and all imperfections removed. To make fruit-
crackers, the process is much the same as with other hard crackers. One of
the newest and most peculiar designs is the " charcoal " cracker, in which a
small proportion of charcoal is mixed with dough. This variety is in de-
mand by dyspeptics, as are also oatmeal and graham crackers.
Sardines. These little finny creatures are caught in nets, and after
being well washed the heads are cut off and the fish are sprinkled lightly
with fine salt. After lying for a few hours they are placed on girds in rows
almost perpendicular. The frames are then placed in pans containing boil-
ing olive oil. This oil is changed as often as it becomes too black and dirty
for continuing the cooking process. As soon as the fish are considered
sufficiently cooked they are withdrawn from the pans of oil, and the girds
are placed on tables covered with zinc, the surface of the tables inclining
toward a groove in the center. The oil is thus carried to a vessel prepared
to receive it. Around these tables stand the women whose business it is to
pack the fish closely and uniformly in boxes. The boxes being full, the fish
are covered with fresh oil, and the lids of the boxes are then soldered down.
Thus hermetically sealed they are placed in a wire basket and immersed in
boiling water. The smaller boxes are thus boiled for about an hour, and
the larger ones somewhat longer, in proportion to the size of the box. The
fish are then ready for the market, and being packed in cases, are sent to
the ends of the earth.
Shoe Pegs The timber used in the manufacture of shoe pegs is black
and yellow birch, which is cut into pieces four feet ia length, varying in
diameter from eight to fourteen inches, and again cut into slices or blanks
of the thickness desired for the length of the pegs. These are sorted and
the knots cut cut, and are then passed on to a long bench containing ma-
chines composed of fluted rollers. The blanks are then run between these
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. 285
rollers, which crease on both sides. They are then run through again to
cross crease, or mark out the exact sizes of the pegs. They then go to the
splitting machines, which are set with double knives, and cut the blanks
into pegs. As they pass the last machine they are sorted, and all knots and
discolored ones removed as they are brushed off into large baskets. The
next process is bleaching, which is accomplished by the fumes of brimstone.
They are then placed hi large cylinders, which hold eleven barrels, and
have six hundred steam pipes running through them, and revolve one and
one-half times to the minute, drying two charges per day to each cylinder.
They are then passed into large wooden casks, or cylinders, which, re-
volving rapidly, polish them by the friction, the refuse falling through wire
sieves or screen openings, after which they are again passed into a sifter,
which separates all the single pegs and drops them into tubs or boxes,
leaving those which have not been separated in the machine. They are
then put m barrels ready for market.
Cashmere Shawls The greater part of the wool for these exquisite
fabrics, and we refer to the true cashmere shawls, is supplied not only from
the Cashmere Valley, but from Thibet and Tartary the cashmere goat
being distributed over certain portions of Central Asia. It is only the sum-
mer wool that is used, and this is bleached by a preparation of rice flour.
On plain shawls, the weaving is effected by a long, heavy and narrow
shuttle, but thie is superseded by wooden needles when the more ordinary
variegated shawls are to be made. For each colored thread, a different
needle is used. So slow is the process when the design is elaborate, that
the completion of a square inch will occupy three persons for a day, and a
shawl of remarkable beauty would take this number a year for its execution;
but a number are engaged on the same shawl, according to the speed
required. Singularly enough, it is only the inner side of the shawl that is
exposed to the view of the workman, he being guided by the design placed
before him and the directions of a skilled supervisor of the work. The
thread is previously spun and dyed by women. The shawl worked with the
needle is, however, far inferior to that in which the pattern is woven in.
Sulphur fumes are employed to give the shawls the beautiful yellow color
so much in request in the East.
Sealskin Sacques. Few of those wearing a sealskin sacque have any
knowledge of the process by which the skins are prepared for use. Seen
when first taken from the animal they little resemble the warm, glossy skins
worn upon our streets, for until dyed and cured they are of a light brown
hue, coarse and full of sand. Before becoming valuable they are shaved
down on the flesh side until not thicker than paper, the long hairs are pulled
out and the fur dyed. The cost of the article is due to the labor expended
upon it. The raw skins are sold in London, where the finishing is done, and
then shipped back to America, where they are sold with a heavy duty
added. The killing season in Alaska begins about the 12th of June, and
the one hundred thousand skins are usually ready for shipment a month
later. The work of slaughtering the animals is done by natives who live
upon the St. Paul and St. George Islands, and the process is an interesting
one. When skins are wanted, the natives go to the rockeries, station them-
selves along the shore, between the seals and the water, and, at a givo.
signal, spring to their feet and make as much noise as possible. The
frightened victims, timid as deer, then stampede up the beach, and are
286 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
driven like sheep a few miles inland until their captors 'attack them with
hickory clubs. Being knocked senseless, they are stabbed with long sharp
knives, and the skins are quickly stripped from the bodies.
Matches. Large planks are cut up into blocks, double the length of
the match, and put one at a time upon the cutting machine. Two large
knives, converging at the points, are driven back and forth upon the block,
and numerous little clamps beneath, wide enough apart to pass one match
between, are pressed up, each taking off a match at every passage of the
knives, at the rate of sixty a minute. The particles are packed in square
frames and placed in a kiln dryer, over the furnace, where they remain
twenty-four hours. They are taken out, and by means of curious machines
are coiled upon an ordinary cotton band. On each coil there is a gross, or
one hundred and forty-four matches, and the band is between each layer.
A curious arrangement of the machine is, that it will coil nothing but a per-
fect match, and throws the defective ones aside. The coiling is slow, and
and one man can tend five machines, which will ordinarily coil about one
hundred and fifty gross per day. After the coil is made up, the ends are
planed down ven and put upon a hot iron, which opens the pores of the
wood. Both ends are then dipped into melted brimstone, into a composition
of phosphorus, glue and other materials, and hung upon racks for ten min-
utes, at the end of which they are dry. The coils are then unrolled, the
matches put in the square frame, cut in two in the middle, boxed and
packed ready for shipment. The boxing is mostly done by boys and girls.
Mirrors. Looking-glasses used to be made by covering the plate with
an amalgam of tin and mercury; but this has been superseded by deposit-
ing a coat of real silver upon the glass, thrown down in a smooth film by
adding oil of cloves or other organic substances to a solution of ammonia-
nitrate of silver, retained upon the plate by a raised rim of wax. The trouble
with the process has been that, though cheaper, the plates are inferior in
luster, and lack the " black " color which silversmiths regard as indicating
perfection of polish. The long-looked-for process of imparting the brilliancy
of the mercurial coating to the cheap and durable film has at last been ac-
complished by chemical reaction. After the silver plating is complete the
film is flooded with a weak, aqueous solution of the double cyanide of mer-
cury and potassium; slow decomposition takes place, and the mercury is
precipitated, which immediately amalgamates with the silver film. The re-
sult is said to be thoroughly satisfactory, the amalgam of silver being quite
as brilliant as that of tin, and less subject to change, while the new process
has the advantage of being readily applicable to the largest plates, which by
the old method could be treated only with great difficulty, if at all.
Combs. One of the greatest comb manufactories in the world is in
Aberdeen, Scotland. In this establishment there are an immense number
of furnaces for preparing horns and tortoise shells for the combs, and be-
tween one and two hundred iron screw-presses are constantly employed in
stamping them. Steam power is employed to cut the combs, the operation
being performed by this means with great efficiency. The coarse combs are
stamped or cut out, two being cut in a place at one time by ingenious machin-
ery. The fine dressing-combs and all small-tooth combs are cut by fine circu-
lar saws, some eo fine as to cut forty teeth in the space of one inch, and they
revolve thousands of times in a minute. There are about two thousand
varieties of combs made, and the aggregate number produced, of all these
USEFUL ART8 AND MANUFACTURES. 287
different eortB of combs, is about nine millions annually. The annual con-
sumption of ox-horns, hoofs, tortoise shell and buffalo horn is, of course,
prodigious; even the waste, consisting of horn shavings and partings of
hoofs, amounts to hundreds of tons in a year, and this becomes a valuable
material in the manufacture of prussiate of potash, etc.
Soda. Soda is an alkali which was formerly obtained in large quanti-
ties from the ashes of kali and various other marine plants growing on the
shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and to which ashes the name of barilla is
given; a more impure soda was obtained from kelp, which ia the ahs of
different sea- weeds found on the coasts of Ireland and Scotland; a large
trade was formerly carried on in these articles, but it is now found cheaper
to make soda by the decomposition of salt. The salt is put into a furnace,
and sulphuric acid poured upon it; the heat first melts it, and then roasts
it into sulphate of soda, or salt-cake, as it is called; this is afterward put into
another furnace with an equal weight of carbonate of lime, either in the
form of limestone or chalk, and half its weight of small coal; the whole is
subjected to intense heat, during which many chemical changes take place.
The mass, when finally raked out to cool, consists of black ash and ball
soda, or British barilla; it is afterward separated front insoluble impurities
by being dissolved in warm water; and, after being further purified in the
furnace, becomes the soda of commerce, which is in fact carbonate of soda-
Isinglass. One of the most notable industries of Eussia depends upon
the sturgeon, the swim-bladder of which is manufactured into isinglass.
The bladder is first placed in water, and left there for some days, with fre-
quent changes of the water, and removal of all fatty and bloody particles,
the warmer the water the more rapid being the operation. The bladders,
on being removed, are cut longitudinally into sheets, which are exposed to
the sun and air, being laid out to dry, with the outer face turned down, upon
boards of lime-tree wood. The inner face is pure isinglass, which, when
dried, can be removed from the external lamellae. The inner sheets thus
obtained are placed between cloths to keep them from flies, and are then
subjected to a heavy pressure, so as to flatten them out and render them
uniform; and after this they are assorted and tied in packets. The packets
composed of the isinglass of the large sturgeon usually contain from ten to
fifteen sheets, and weigh a pound and a quarter; and those of others con-
tain twenty-five sheets, weighing a potind. Eighty of these packages are
usually sowed up in a cloth bag or enclosed in sheet lead.
Marbles. The chief place of the manufacture of marbles those little
pieces of stone which contribute so largely to the enjoyment of boys is at
Oberstein, on the Nahe, in Germany, where there are large agate mills and
quarries, the refuse of which is turned to good paving account by being
made into small balls, employed by experts to knuckle with, and are mostly
sent to the American market. The substance used in Saxony is a hard, cal-
careovis stone, which is first broken into blocks, nearly square, by blows
with a hammer. These are thrown by the hundred or two into a small sort
of mill, which is formed of a flat, stationary slab of stone, with a number oil
eccentric furrows upon its face. A block of oak or other hard wood
of the diametric size, is placed over the stones and partly resting
upon them. The small block of wood is kept revolving while water flows
upon the stone slab. In about fifteen minutes the stones are turned into
spheres, and then, being fit for gale, are henceforth called marbles.
288 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
One establishment with but three mills, turns out sixty thousand marbles
each week.
Lace. Lace is a species of net-work made of silk, thread, or cotton,
upon which, in old times, patterns were embroidered by the needle after its
construction. They are now, for the most part, formed during the knitting
itself. The best laces are made at Mechlin, Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, and
Valenciennes. Point lace is that embroidered by the needle and, from
the great labor required, is the most expensive. In lace knit by hand as
many threads are employed as the pattern and breadth require. These are
wound upon the necessary number of bobbins made of bone (whence the
name bone-lace), which are thrown over and under each other in various
ways, so that the threads twine around phis stuck in the holes of the pattern
(a stiff parchment stretched on a pillow), and by these means produce the
openings which give the desired-figure. In that made by machinery, the
meshes are all formed by a continuation of a single thread.
Amber. The following facts in regard to this substance will interest
curious readers: Amber is the fossil resin produced by upward of six kinds
of coniferous trees in prehistoric times. Two of these trees, of which im-
mense forests covered the regions now producing amber, have been proved
to be nearly related to the existing Weymouth pine and the modern fir-tree.
While the wood of the trees rotted away, the resin oozed out of the stem of
the tree as well as out of the roots, and was deposited eventually in immense
quantities in the soil. In some of the pieces of the amber, bits of the wood
and bark of the trees are found imbedded, and through this lucky accident
have been preserved from decay. On examining this wood with the micro-
scope, it is at once apparent that the trees were as intimated above, closely
related to our modern coniferae, but were not absolutely identical with any
of the existing species. Ages ago, the whole region now covered by the
eastern part of the Baltic Sea was covered by these amber-producing trees.
The largest European amber deposits are found on the Baltic shores of
Northeastern Prussia. There, about eighty tons a year are at present dug
up, and I'-.e supply appears practically inexhaustible.
Celluloid. Celluloid is a composition of fine tissue paper and camphor,
treated with chemicals by a patented process. A rather common impression
that it contains gun-cotton is a mistake, which arises from confounding it
with collodion. Celluloid, it is said, is entirely non-explosive, and burns
only when in direct contact with flame. When crude it looks like trans-
parent gum, and its color is a light yellow-brown. It can be made as bar;
as ivory, but is always elastic, and can be molded into any conceivable form.
With equal ease it can be colored in any tint desired, the dye running
through the entire substance, and being therefore ineffaceable, "it can also
be mottled to imitate the finest tortoise-shell. It is largely used in the man-
ufacture of combs, hair brushes, hand mirrors, jewelry, knife handles, col-
lars, cufls, and many other articles.
Clothes Fins. Insignificant as the common wooden clothes pin is in
itself, its manufacture forms no mean part in American industries, and the
numerous factories in the New England and other States furnish employ-
ment to thousands of persons. Beech, white birch, and poplar are the
woods used in making the article, the birch and poplar being considered the
best. The machinery employed is very simple. The wood is first sawed in
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. 289
logs four feet in length and then cut into small square sticks by means of a
cutting machine. Each stick, after being rounded in a lathe, is passed into
another machine, which throws out a number of perfectly formed pins at
one cut and with great rapidity. The pins are then thrown into a large re-
volving cylinder and smoothed by friction with each other.
Screws. The process of making a screw is very interesting. The
rough, large wire in big coila is, by drawing through a hole smaller than
itaelf, made the size needed. Then it goes into a machine that at one mo-
ment cuts it a proper length, and makes a head on it. Then it is put into
sawdust and "rattled," and thus brightened. Then the head is shaved
down smoothly to the proper size and the nick put in at the same time.
Alter " rattling " again in sawdust the thread is cut by another machine,
and after another " rattling," and thorough drying, the screws are assorted
by hand (the fingers of those who do this move almost literally like light-
ning), grossed by weight, and packed for shipping. That which renders it
possible for machines to do all this is a little thing that resembles and opens
and shuts like a goose's bill, which picks up a single screw at a time, carries
it where needed, holds it until grasped by something else, and returns for
another.
Whalebone. Whalebone represents an enormous development ol the
gum of the whale, and exists in the living animal in the form of two rows of
plates, which, like a great double fringe, hang or depend from its palate.
From one hundred and fifty to two hundred of these plates exist in the
mouth of a whale, and the largest plates may measure from eight to ten or
twelve feet in length. The inner edges of these whalebone plates exhibit a
fringed or frayed-out appearance, and the whole apparatus is adapted to
serve as a kind of gigantic sieve or strainer. Thus, when the whale fills the
mouth with water, large numbers of small or minute animals, allied to
jelly-fishes aud the like, are engulfed and drawn into the capacious mouth
cavity. The water is allowed to escape by the sides of the mouth, but its
solid animal contents are strained and entangled by the whalebone fringes,
and when a sufficient quantity of food has been captured in this way, the
morsel is duly swallowed.
Spools. The birch from which spools are made is first sawed into SUCKS
four or five feet long and seven-eighths of an inch to three inches square,
according to the size of the spool to be produced. These sticks are thor-
oughly seasoned. They are sawed into short blocks, and the bloqks are
dried in a hot-air kiln. At the time they are sawed a hole is bored through
them. One whirl of the little block against sharp knifes, shaped by a pat-
tern, makes the spool at the rate of one per second. A small boy feeds the
spool machine, simply placing the blocks in a spout and throwing out the
knotty or defective stock. The machine is automatic, but cannot do the
sorting. The spools are revolved rapidly in drums and polish themselves.
For some purposes they are dyed yellow, red, or black. They are made
into thousands of shapes and sizes. One factory turns out one hundred thou-
sand gross a day, and consumes two thousand five hundred cords of birch
wood annually.
Fins. A snappish, voracious little dwarf of a machine pulls in the wire*,
bites it off by inches incessantly, one hundred and forty bites a minute, and
just as it seizes each bite a saucy little hammer, with a concave face, hits
290 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
the end of the wire three taps, and " upsets " it to a head, while he grips ii
in & countersunk hole between his teeth, and lays it sideways in a groove,
where levers and springs, playing like lightning, point the pins, and whence
they are dropped into a box. The pins are then polished, and two very in-
telligent machines reject every crooked pin. Another automaton assorts
half a dozen lengths, and a perfect genius of a machine hangs the phis by
the heads and transfers them to slips of paper, and by one movement sticks
them all through two corrugated ridges in the paper, when the work is
dnished. The pin machine is one of the nearest approaches to the dexterity
of the human hand that has been invented. It is about the size of a sewing
machine, which it closely resembles.
Musk. Muak, a strong odor procured from the musk-deer, ia very
largely used in the manufacture of bouquets. It is one of the most powerful
perfumes known, and articles onrwhich it is used retain their odor for years.
One of the most striking examples of this is illustrated in the Mosque of St.
Sophia, in Constantinople, the mortar used in the building of which was im-
pregnated with this substance; and although centuries have elapsed since the
building was erected, the scent of the musk is yet plainly discernible. The
best musk comes from Tonquin and Thibet, but the deer is found through-
out the whole length of the Himalayan chain. The scent is found beneath
the skin, and near the navel of the animal, which is not bigger than a gray-
hound, and is often caught in snares, though it is generally hunted as we do
hares.
Shot. A shot tower is an immense brick structure, one hundred and
fifty feet high, resembling a lighthouse more than anything else. Visitors
are conducted up a spiral staircase inside to the top, where a fine view is
obtained for miles about, but the view down the inside is not so pleasant.
The opening where the shot descends becomes narrower and narrower,
until nothing is seen at the bottom but darkness. At the top of the tower
are the furnaces for smelting. From these lead is poured into pans set in
the tower, with perforated sheet-iron bottoms. The melted lead comes
through these holes and enlarges on the other side, formed into globules
before it falls down to the well beneath holding several feet of water. The
large shot drop the whole height of the tower to the bottom, but the smaller
izes only about half as far. One peculiar thing is that smaller shot gen-
erally expand in falling, and the larger sizes contract.
Gum Arabic. After the rainy season in Morocco, a gummy juice ex-
udes spontaneously from the trunk and branches of the acacia. It gradu-
ally thickens in the furrow down which it runs, and assumes the form of
oval and round drops, about the size of a pigeon's egg, of different colors,
as it comes down from the red or white gum tree. About the middle of De-
cember the Moors encamp on the borders of the forest, and the harvest
lasts a full month. The gum is packed in large leather sacks, and trans-
ported on the backs of camels and bullocks to seaports for shipment. The
harvest occasion is one of great rejoicing, and the people, for the time being,
almost live on the gum, which is nutritious and fattening.
Putty. The best putty is made of raw linseed oil and whiting, tha
latter being simply chalk, ground in a mill like flour. It comes out with a
flue flint grit in it. Before making putty out of it a few old-fashioned men,
who believe in making the best of everything, wash the grit out. The fuw
USEFUL ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. 291
flour is then dried. If it is not dried perfectly it takes up more oil than is
desirable or profitable. From five hundred to six hundred pounds about
fifteen per cent, by weight of raw oil to eighty-five per cent, of whiting are
put in a chaser and thoroughly mixed. The chaser is a circular trough, ten
feet in diameter. From a vertical shaft in the center two arms extend, on
the ends of which are heavy iron wheels that rest in the trough. When the
shaft revolves the wheels chase each other around the trough. When
mixed it is packed in bladders for convenience in handling.
Buttons In making metal buttons, circular disks, called " blanks,"
are first cut out of sheet brass or other metal by means of fly-presses, usu-
ally worked by girls. The fly-press consists of a vertical iron screw with a
triple thread, to which screw is attached a horizontal arm, bending down-
wards at the end to form a handle. A punch attached to the press rises and
falls with the motion of this handle, and rapidly cuts out the blanks. When
large quantities of one pattern are required, a self-feeding, self-acting ma-
chine is used, which cuts out the blanks in rows at one blow, turning them
out at the rate of two thousand gross per day. After being annealed, the
blanks are next made convex by a blow from a etamp. The shanks are
formed of wire by a separate machine, which cuts off pieces, and bends them
into loops of the required form. When these are soldered on, the buttons
are dressed on a lathe. They are then gilded and burnished; some, how-
ever, are only lacquered; and some, though gilt, are finished in a dead or
frosted style. Buttons with holes, technically called " four-holes," " three-
holes," and "two-holes," when of pearl shell, wood, bone, or ivory, are cut
with a tubular saw, turned separately in a lathe, and drilled. When of
metal, the blaukd are punched, then stamped in dies to the required form;
the holes are punched, and " rymered " to round the sharp edges that would
otherwise cut the thread. Glass buttons are most largely made by taking
a rod of glass of any color, softening the end by heat, and pressing it into a
mold, each half of which is fixed to one limb of a pair of pincers. The shank
is placed into a hole in the mold before the melted glass is inserted.
Chewing Gum Forty thousand dollars' worth of chewing gum is
gathered in the State of Maine every year. The gum is found chiefly in the
region about Umbagog Lake and about the Eangely lakes. A number ol
men do nothing else in the winter season except collect gum. With snow-
shoes, ax, and a sheboygan, on which is packed the gum, they spend days
and nights in the woods. The clear, pure lumps of gum are sold in their
native state, the best bringing one dollar per pound. Gum not immediately
merchantable is refined by a peculiar process. Sieve-like boxes are covered
with spruce boughs, on which is placed the gum. Steam is introduced
underneath. The gum, as melted, is strained by the boughs, and then
passes into warm water, where it is kept from hardening until the packer
takes it out, draws it into sticks, and wraps it in tissue paper, when it is
ready for market.
TKEES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
Tea. Tea is composed of the loaves of a shrub grown chiefly in China,
and Japan, of which countries it is a native. It is an evergreen, grows to
the height of from four to six feet, and bears pretty white flowers, resem-
bling the wild rose. There are several va-
rieties of the tea plant; those most culti-
vated are Thea boltea and Thea viridis; it
was formerly believed that these two plants
yielded the black and green teas, and from
this belief they derived their names; but it
is now proved that the difference arises in
the mode of preparing, and that either kind
of tea can be made from either plant with-
out any difficulty.
In China there are great numbers of
tea-farms, generally of small extent, situ-
ated on the upper valleys, and on the
sloping sides of the hills, where the soil is
light and rich, and well drained. The
plants are raised from seed, and generally
allowed to remain three years before a
crop of leaves is taken from them, as this
operation of course injures their growth;
even with care they become stunted, and
unprofitable in about eight or ten years.
^^^ the Cr P ta readv > the leave8 are
carefully picked by hand one by one, and
there are usually three or four gatherings in each year, the first crop in the
spring being of the most value; a well-grown bush, well treated, will pro-
duce two or three pounds of tea annually.
The method of preparation is as follows: For green tea, the leaves are
only allowed to dry for an hour or two after gathering, before they are
thrown into heated roasting-pans placed over a wood-fire; they are stirred
quickly with the hands, and allowed to remain for a few minutes; they are
next rolled by hand on a table covered with mats, and afterward roasted
and rolled again; the color is by this time set, and the after-processes of
sorting and refiring, which, for the finer sorts, are repeated several times,
may be deferred to a leisure time. In the preparation of black tea the
leaves are allowed to remain a long time, say a whole day, drying, before
they are fired; they are tossed about and patted while cooling, and are
finally dried over a much slower fire.
The tea is sent from the farms to the coast for exportation, mostly by
coolies, who carry the chests over the mountains till they reach some navi-
gable river or canal, by which it can be conveyed to the coast. It is said to
be a ctyioua sight to watch, from the top of a wild mountain-pass, long
TEA-PLANT, FLOWER AND LEAF.
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETG. 293
trains of coolies laden with chests of tea, which they carry on their shoul-
ders or balanced at each end of a bamboo, winding along in one direction,
and others returning laden with cotton goods and other merchandise
received in exchange.
Tea was first brought to Europe in 1610 by the Dutch East India Com-
pany; and it must have been in use in England by the year 1660, as appears
from an act of Parliament passed in that year, in which a tax of Is. 6d. was
laid on every gallon ot tea sold at the coffee-houses. There is also the fol-
lowing entry in "Pepy's Diary," dated September 25, 1651: "I did send fora
A TEA FARM.
cup of tea (a China drink), of which I had never drunk before." In six years
more it had found its way into his own house, as this entry shows: " Home
found my wife making of tea, a drink which Mr. Felling the potticary tells
her is good for her cold," etc. About this time the East India Company or-
dered " one hundred pounds weight of goode tey " to be sent home on specu-
lation. The price was about fifty or sixty shillings the pound, and two
pounds three ounces of the best tea was not deemed an unfitting present
from the East India Company to the king. But so greatly has the exporta-
tion increased, that now more than fifty thousand tons of shipping are em-
ployed in. its transportation, while it is consumed at the present moment by
294 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
probably not less than five hundred millions of men. Still, so vast is the
home consumption that it is alleged that, were Europeans arid Americans
to abandon its use altogether, the price would not be much diminished in
China.
Coffee. Coffee is the seed of an evergreen shrub, the Cqffea Arabica,
which is said to have been discovered in Abyssinia by the Arabs. It is
chiefly cultivated in Arabia, the Southern States of North America, Costa
liica, Brazil, and other tropical portions of South America, the East and
A COFFEE PLAOTATION.
West Indies, Java, and Ceylon; but the climate of Arabia, where it was first
cultivated, appears to be most suited to its growth; frequent rains, and the
brilliant unshaded light of its almost cloudless sky, stimulate vegetation,
and cause the secretion of those principles on which depend the delicate
aroma.
Elevated situations are most suitable for the growth of coffee, and the
plantations have much the appearance of pleasure-grounds. The trees are
raised from slips, which are allowed four or five years to grow before they
are cropped; they attain the height of eight or ten feet, and continue in
TRESo, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
295
Dearing from thirty to Jfty years. The shrub or tree resembles a hand-
some laurel, and bears a profusion of clusters of fragrant white flowers,
which are succeeded by brilliant red berries, sweet and pulpy, which ripen
to a purple color each containing two coffee-seeds, or stones.
The process of preparing coffee for market, says a writer in Scribner's
Magazine, is as follows: The ripe berries when picked are at first put
through a machine called the " despulpador," which removes the pulp; the
coffee grains are still covered with a sort of glutinous substance which ad-
heres to the beau; they are now spread out on large " patios," made
specially for this purpose, and left there, being occasionally tossed about
and turned over with
wooden shovels un-
til they are perfectly
dry. They are then
gathered up and put
into the " retrilla," a
circular trough in
which a heavy wood-
en wheel, shod with
steel, is made to re-
volve, so as to thor-
oughly break the
huak without crush-
ing the bean. The
chaff is separated
from the grain by
means of a fanning-
mill, and the coffee is
now thoroughly dry
and clean. After
this, it is the custom
of some planters to
have it spread out on
long tables and care-
fully picked over by
the Indian women
and children, all the
bad beans being
thrown out. It only
remains then to have
it put into bags,
weighed and marked, THE CACAO TBEE.
before it is ready for
shipment to the port. On some of the larger plantations this process is
greatly simplified, with considerable saving in time and labor, by the use of
improved machinery for drying and cleaning the coffee.
Cocoa and Chocolate. Cocoa is the bruised seed of various species
of Iheobroma, a tree which grows wild in the West India Islands, Brazil,
and various parts of Central America, where it is generally found growing
at the height of six hundred feet above the level of the sea. The cocoa, or,
as it should be written, cacao, tree is an evergreen, and is said to bear some
resemblance to a young cherry-tree; the leaves are large and simple, the
296 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL
flowers grow in clusters, the pods are not unlike cucumbers in form, and of
a yellowish red color; they contain from twenty to thirty nuts, about the
size of large almonds, violet, or ash-gray colored, and containing each two
lobes of a brownish hue. A wet soil is needful in cultivation, and the
plants also requiring shade, they are generally placed between rows of largo
trees, which render the plantations very charming spots in tropical regions;
the plants are raised from seed, and are seven or eight years in coming to
perfection, but require so little attention that one man ca i superintend one
thousand plants; the usual times of gathering the crop are in June and De-
cember, and not more than one pound and a half of seeds is the average
produce of each plant. The fruit of the wild plants is frequently gathered.
In preparing the cacao for market, the seeds, after being freed from the
pod, are dried either in the sun or by artificial heat; they are then either
simply bruised, which makes cocoa-nibs, or crushed between rollers, which
makes flake cocoa; or they are ground and made into a paste, in which state
they are very often adulterated.
Chocolate is so called from chocolalt, the Mexican name for the cacao-
tree. The produce of several of the finest kinds is not exported ; the best
that reaches us is from Caraccas, Guatemala and Berbice. The method of
preparation is as follows: The cacao-beans are gently roasted, shelled and
reduced to a paste, when vanilla, cloves, cinnamon, rice, almonds, or
starch, etc., are frequently added to it; it is put into molds, and always
improves by keeping.
Cotton. Cotton is a downy substance produced on the seeds of the cot-
ton plant, Gossypium, which is herbaceous, and of a height varying from
four to twenty feet, according to the species; it has downy lobed leaves, and
flowers similar in form to those of the common mallow, to which it is re-
lated; in some species the flower is yellow, and in others of a dull purple
color. The seed-vessel is a capsule, which opens into from three to five
lobes, and shows the seeds, which are quite covered with cotton; in some
cases this is of a bright buff color, and sometimes it is white. Plants are
often covered with hairs in different parts, some having downy stalks, and
some downy leaves like the mullein; but it is remarkable that hairs on the
seeds are not at all common, being in fact very much confined to those
plants Avhich are allied to the cotton-plant. The cotton-plant seems to have
been indigenous in both the Old World and the New; it has been known in
India from time immemorial, and still grows wild in many parts. When the
Spaniards first landed in America they found it growing wild there; the
species native to the different continents are very dissimilar; but both are
grown in the present day in India as well as in America. Dr. Livingstone,
the great modern discoverer, in describing the new land he has brought to
light in Central Africa, says that both cotton and indigo grow wild over the
face of the country, which appears eminently fitted for their cultivation.
In every mode of spinning cotton the ends to be accomplished are, to
draw out the loose fibres of the cotton-wool in a regular and continuous
line, and after reducing the fleecy roll to the requisite tenuity, to twist it
into a thread. Previous to the operation of spinning, the cotton must have
undergone the process of carding, the effect of which is to comb out,
straighten and lay parallel to each other its entangled fibres. The cotton
was formerly stripped off the cards in loose rolls, called cardings or
slivers, and the only difference between the slivers produced by the old
hand-cards and those produced by the present carding engine is, that the
TUEtiS, PLANTS, t'RVlTS, ETC.
297
THE COTTON PLANT.
former were in lengths of a few iuches, and the latter are of a length of
Borne hundreds of yards. Let it he remarked that the sliver of carding re-
298 CYCLOPEDIA Of VSEFVL KNOWLEDGE.
quires to be drawn out to a considerably greater fineness before it is of th6
proper thickness to be twisted into a thread. The way in which this is
now accomplished is by two or more pairs of email rollers placed hori-
zontally, the upper and lower roller of each pair revolving in contact; the
eliver of cotton being put between the first pair of rollers is, by their revolu-
tion, drawn through and compressed; whilst still passing through these
rollers, it is caught by another pair of rollers placed immediately in front.
PICKING COTTON.
which revolve with three, four or five times the velocity of the first pair,
and therefore draw out the iliver to three, four or five times its former
length and degree oi fineness. After passing through the last pair of rollers
the reduced sliver is attached to a spindle and fly-wheel, the rapid revolu-
tions of which twist it into a thread, and at the same time wind it upon a
bobbin. It is manifest that, by increasing the length of roller and the num-
ber of slivers, a hundred or a thousand threads could be drawn out and
spun as easily as one, This is the invention generally ascribed to Sir
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC. 299
.Richard Avkwright, but which others attribute to a John Wyatt, whose
partner, a man named Lewis Paul, took out a patent in 1708 for this very
machine. Auother invention was made in about 1764, by a poor man named
Hargreaves; ho called it a spinning jenny, and it is said that ho received the
original idea of it from seeing a common one-thread spinning-wheel over-
turned upon the floor, when both the wheel and spindle continued to revolve;
this suggested to him the notion of making a frame in which a number ol
upright spindles should revolve side by side, and all be turned by the
motion of the wheel. At first only eight spindles were attached to a frame,
but more were added and many other improvements made. These two
machines were used to spin all the cotton yarn up to the year 1779, when
another improved machine, called the mule-jenny, was invented by Mr.
Samuel Crompton, who was himself a weaver, and worked his new machine
with his own hands in an attic. The great feature of this new invention was,
that it stretched the yarn very gently and steadily after it was twisted, and
this produced a much stronger and finer material than any that had been
made before. Until the use of this machine it was thought impossible to
spin more than eighty hanks of thread, each measuring eight hundred and
forty yards, from one pound of cotton, whereas with U three hundred and
fifty hanks of the same length have been spun from the same weight.
The seed of the cotton is planted in March, April and May; and the cotton
is gathered by hand a day or two after the pods burst, which is hi August,
September or October. It is carefully planted in rows five feet apart, and
with a foot and a half between each plant; it is well weeded, thinned, and
pruned. In India the cultivation is much more careless, and the quah'ty of
the cotton is consequently very inferior. A field of cotton ready for gather-
ing is very beautiful, when the globes of snowy or cream-colored wool are
relieved against the dark glossy leaves; and in the hottest climates this
effect is still further heightened by the beautiful yellow or purple flowers
being still out on many plants, while others bear the ripe cotton.
It is stated that all the countries in the world could never have prepared
for use the quantities of cotton now consumed had it not been for the inven-
tion of the cotton-gin, by Mr. Eli Whitney, of Connecticut. Cotton that re-
quired a hand a day to clean a pound, by this machine could be prepared
better for market at the rate of three hundred pounds per day. The cotton
is seized by rows of teeth formed of strong wires projecting from a roller, or
by teeth like those of a saw, made upon circular plates of iron. These pass
between grate bars, set so closely together that the seed cannot pass
through, but the cotton is drawn in, and afterward swept off by a cylindrical
brush. The importance of this invention cannot be overrated. It gave an
impetus to the cultivation of cotton, and consequently its consumption, that
revolutionized the industrial interests of the country.
There is both a tree and shrub cotton; the former grows in India, China
and Egypt, an <! some other parts of Africa. The cotton shrub is more cul-
tivated than the tree, and more closely resembles the herbaceous kind. The
best cotton grows on the sandy shores and small low islands along the sea
coast of South Carolina and Georgia. The, cotton plant likes a dry sandy
soil, with a great admixture of salt, and if the plants be within the influence
of the salt sea spray, the fibres of the cotton will be longer and finer in con-
sequence. This best kind of cotton, which is commonly called Sea-Island
Cotton, is much longer in its fibre than any other; it is strong and even
silky in texture, and has a yellowish hue. It is believed that Persia is the
native country of this species of cotton.
800 CYCLOPEDIA OP USEPVL
Flax. The most common variety of the flax plant has a very slender
erect stem, two or three feet high, branching only near the top, so as to form
a loose corymb of flowers. The leaves are small, distant, and lanceolate;
the flowers of a beautiful blue, rarely white, rather broader than a sixpence;
the petals slightly notched along the margin; the sepals ovate, three-
nerved, ciliated, destitute of glands; the capsules scarcely longer than the
calyx, not bursting open elastically, but firmly retaining their seeds, which
are dark brown, glossy, oval-oblong, flat-
tened, with acute edges, pointed at one end,
and about a line in length. This plant is
highly valuable both for the fibres of its
inner bark and for its seeds. The fibres of
the inner bark, when separated both from
the bark and from the inner woody, portion
of the stem, are flax or lint, the well-known
material of which linen thread and cloth are
made, and used equally for the finest and
coarsest fabrics, for the most delicate cam-
bric or exquisite lace, and for the strongest
sail-cloth. The seeds yield by expression
the fixed oil called linseed oil, so much
used for mixing paints, making varnishes,
etc.; whilst the remaining crushed mass is
the linseed cake, or oil cake, greatly
esteemed for feeding cattle, and when
ground to a fine powder, becomes the Un-
seed meal so useful for poultices.
When the seeds are beginning to change
from a green to a pale brown, is the best
time for pulling flax. Where the crop grows
of different lengths, these lengths should be
pulled and kept separately, uniformity in
this respect being of great value in the alter-
processes. The process first gone through
after pulling is rippling which consists in
tearing off the bolls by pulling the stalks
through a series of iron teeth eighteen inchet
long, placed within a distance of half an inch
of each other. These are fastened in a
block of wood, which is placed at the end of
a plank or long stool on which the operator
sits. The next process is to obtain the flaxen
fibre or lint free from the woody core, or
boon, of the stem. This is effected by steep-
ing the bundles hi water till the boon begins
to rot, in which state it is readily separated from the fibre. The operation
is called rotting or retting, and requires to be managed with great care, as by
continuing it too long, decomposition might extend to the fibre, and render
it useless; while by discontinuing it too soon, the separation could not be
effected with sufficient ease. The time is generally determined by the
nature and temperature of the water and the ripeness of the flax. After
being sufficiently steeped, the flax is spread out on the grass, to rectify any
defect in the retting, and ultimately to dry it for the breaking. It is now
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
30i
ready to be freed completely of its woody particles. This is effected by
scutching. Previous to this, however, the flax is passed through a brake or
revolving rollers, in order thoroughly to crack the boon. The brake, worked
by manual labor, consists of a frame, in the upper side of which are a number
of grooves; a movable piece is hinged at one end, anfl provided with a simi-
lar grooved piece on its lower side, but so placed that the projections pass
into the hollows of the lower. The flax, placed between these, and struck
by bringing down the hinged part, is broken, but the fibre remains uninjured.
Hemp. Like flax, hemp adapts itself to diversities of climate, and ia
cultivated equally
under the burning
sun of the tropics,
and in the northern
parts of Russia. It
is, however, readily
injured by frost,
particularly when
young; and in many
countries where it
is cultivated, it suc-
ceeds only because
their summer is
sufficient for its
whole life. It varies
very muchin height,
according to the soil
and climate, being
sometimes only
three or four feet,
and sometimes fif-
teen or twenty feet,
or even more. The
flowers are yellow-
ish green, small and
numerous; the male
flowers in axillary
racemes on the up-
per parts of the
plant; the female
flowers in short ax-
illary, and rather
crowded spikes.
The female plants
are higher and stronger than the male. The stem of hemp is hollow or only
nlled with a soft pith. This pith is surrounded by a tender, brittle sub-
stance, consisting chiefly of cellular tissue, with some woody fibre, which
is called the reed, boon, or shove of hemp. Over this is the thin bark, com-
posed chiefly of fibres extending in a parallel direction along the stalk, with
an outer membrane or cuticle.
Hemp is cultivated for its fibre in almost all countries of Europe, and hi
many other temperate parts of the world; most extensively in Poland, and
in the center and south of European Russia, which are the chief hemp-ex-
302 CYCLOPAEDIA 01' USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
porting countries. The finer kinds are used for making cloth; the coarser,
for sail-cloth and ropes. Hemp sown thin produces a coarser fibre than
that which is sown thick. Something also depends upon the time of pulling,
for the crop is pulled by hand. When a rather fine fibre is wanted, and the
seed is not regarded, the whole crop is pulled at once, soon after flowering;
otherwise, it is usual to pull the male plants as soon as they have shed their
pollen, and to leave the female plants to ripen their seed, in which case the
fibre of the female plants is much coarser. The treatment of hemp, by ret-
ting, etc., is similar to that of flax.
Sugar. This well-known article may be made from various products,
but the ordinary sugar of commerce is that made from the juice of the sugar
cane, a native of tropical and eub-tropical countries. It is usually propa-
gated by cuttings. For this purpose the top joints are used. The cuttings
are planted in rows three or four ' feet apart, and at intervals of about two
feet in the rows. The largest varieties, in rich moist soils, attain a height of
twenty feet; but in dry, poor soil, the height is sometimes scarcely more
than six feet. The plant titters like wheat, but not to the same degree. The
cane ground is kept clean by hand-hoeing, or by the plough. Hand-hoeing
was formerly universal in the West Indies, but the plough is now very gen-
erally used where the nature of the ground permits. The best varieties are
ready for cutting in about ten months from the time of planting, but other
varieties require a longer period of growth, from twelre to twenty months.
When the canes are fully ripe, they are cut a little above the ground, and
tied in bundles to be conveyed to the mill. Fresh canes, called raUoons,
spring from the root, so that the plantation does not require to be renewed
for several years; but the canes of the first crop are the largest, and a' grad-
ual decrease of size takes place. The ordinary practice on sugar estates is
to renew a part of the plantation every year.
The extraction of juice from the sugar-cane is effected by simple pres-
sure. The canes, freed from all loose leaves, are passed between the
rollers of the machine, under great pressure. From one hundred pounds
of cane sixty-five to seventy-five pounds of cane juice will be expressed.
This juice, which has a sweetish taste and is of the color of dirty water,
passes direct from the mill to a small reservoir, where it usually receives a
small dose of quicklime, and without delay runs off to large iron or copper
vessels, heated either by a fire underneath, or by steam-pipes in the liquid.
As the temperature of the juice rises, a thick scum comes to the top, which
is either removed by skimming, or the warm juice is drawn off from below
the scum. The concentration of the juice is partly effected in a series of
large open hemispherical iron pans about six to eight feet in diameter, of
which five or six are placed in a row, with a large fire under the one at the
end. This one fire, which runs along under the whole row of pans, is found
sufficient to make two or three of them nearest the fire boil violently, and in
addition, it warms the juice in the pans farthest from the fire. As the juice
first enters the pans farthest from the fire, it gets gradually heated, and the
vegetable impurities rise in scum to the top, and are carefully removed. As
the juice is ladled from one pan to the next, it boils with greater and greater
vigor as it approaches nearer the fire, until in the pan immediately over the
fire it seethes and foams with excessive violence; and this seems to be es-
sential to the successful making of sugar. After the concentration has
been carried to a given point, and all the scum has been got rid of, the ap-
plication of a high heat, which would act with an increasingly destrugtive.
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
303
effect aa the condensation becomes greater, is suspended, and the liquor,
now of the color of turbid port wine, and of the consistency of oil, is drawn
into the vacuum-pan, where the concentration is completed at the lowest
possible temperature, generally about 150 Fahrenheit. The vacuum-pan
GATHERING SUGAR-CANE.
is generally made of copper, of a spherical form, and from six to nine feet in
diameter. The bottom is double, leaving a space of an inch or two for the
admission of steam between the two bottoms, and there is generally a long
coiled copper pipe of three or four inches diameter above the inner bottom,
so as to still further increase the amount of heating surface. This ap-
paratus 18 made perfectly air tight arid steam tight. Leading from its upper
304 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
dome there is a large pipe communicating with a condenser, into which a
rush of cold water is continually passing, so as to condense all the steam or
vapor that arises from the liquid boiling in the vacuum-pan. The water
which is constantly rushing into the condenser is as steadily withdrawn
again by the pump. There is thus a constant vacuum in the pan, and, con-
sequently the liquid in it will boil at a much lower temperature than it
would in an open pan or boiler.
As the concentration of the liquid in the vacuum pan proceeds, crystals ot
sugar begin to form, and the skill of the sugar boiler is shown by the uni-
formity of the crystals he produces. The boiling is commenced by filling in
only a third or fourth of the quantity the vacuum pan will hold, and grad-
ually adding more liquid as the crystals increase in size. The sugar boiler
is able to watch the changes going on in the vacuum-pan by means of small
samples he withdraws from it by means of a suitable apparatus. The
sugar-boiler holds those drops of thick fluid on his finger and thumb, be-
tween his eye and a strong light, and is thus able to detect those minute
changes in its condition which show that it is time to add an additional
quantity. By the time the vacuum-pan is full, the contents have thickened,
by the formation of crystals of sugar, into a mass ol the consistency of thick
gruel; it ia then allowed to descend into a vessel called the heater, where it
is simply kept warm until it can be run out into the " forms," which, in the
sugar-growing colonies, are generally conical earthen pots, holding from
one to two cwts. of sugar. It is allowed to cool and complete its crystalliza-
tion before the plugs, which close the bottom of the pots, are withdrawn.
"When this is done, from one-fourth to one-third of the contents of the form,
which has remained in a fluid state, runs off into gutters leading to large
tanks, from which it is again pumped up into the vacuum-pan, and rebelled,
yielding a second quality of sugar. This rebelling of the drainings is re-
peated, with a continually decreasing result, both as to quantity and quality
of the solid sugar obtained, and it is rarely carried beyond the fourth boil-
ing. If the planter wishes to obtain Muscovada or unclayed sugar, the pro-
cess is now complete, and the sugar is turned out of the forms, and packed
for shipment. In some cases, the sugar is run direct from the vacuum pans
into casks or hogshead, which replace the forms, holes being bored in the
bottoms of the casks, to admit of the uncrystallized portion of the sugar
draining out.
If clayed sugar is to be made, the forms are allowed to stand for a few
iays until all the molasses has drained out; and a quantity of thin mud,
about the consistency of good thick cream, is then poured over the sugar, to
the depth of one or two inches. The water contained in this thin mud slowly
steals down through the sugar, and mixing with the coatings of molasses
still adhering to the outsides of the crystals of sugar, renders them less
viscid, and facilitates their descent to the bottom of the form. The mud re-
mains, at the end of a few days, in the form of a dry hard cake on the top of
the sugar, and none mixes with the sugar. The process of claying sugar is
simply washing off a coating of black and yellow molasses from a crystal of
sugar, which is always white. This operation is possible without dissolving
the crystal of sugar, simply because the molasses has a greater affinity for
water than the crystallized sugar has. Into the various processes of sugar
refining we have not space to enter.
Tobacco. Tobacco is a herbaceous plant, with large broad leaves, and
everywhere covered with clammy hairs. It is. a. native of the warm parts of
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETV.
303
the United States and other tropical countries. It is cultivated on account
of its narcotic property, which resides iu all parts of the plant, though tho
leaves are almost exclusively used. The Virginian tobacco attains at ma-
turity a height of five or six feet, has leaves from six to eighteen inches long,
ani rose-colored flowers. The cultivation of tobacco is not difficult, and,
although a warm climate suite it best, it is successfully raised in compara-
tively cold latitudes. The usual plan in the great tobacco producing coun-
tries is to sow the seed in seed-beds of rich soil, and as the seed is extremely
minute, it is first mixed largely with sand or wood ashes, to assist in
spreading it thinly. In Virginia, which may be taken as one of the best
tobacco-growing districts, this is usually done in the first week in January.
After the seed-beds have been carefully prepared and sown, small branches
of trees are laid over, to protect the seed when it germinates from the
sftects of frost; but these are removed as soon as can be done with safety,
and the plants then grow rapidly, and are ready
for transplanting into the fields about the be-
ginning of June. The land in the fields is very
carefully prepared, and small hillocks are
raised up in rows; each is about a foot in
diameter, and flattened at the top. With the
first appearance of rain, the plants are care-
fully raised from the seed-beds, and carried,
usually by children, who deposit one on each
hillock, on which it is carefully planted by ex-
perienced men, who follow after the children.
Only wet weather will do for planting, so that
this operation often lasts until the end of
July. When planted, the tobacco crop requires
much careful attention to weeding, and a watch-
ful eye to prevent the ravages of various insect
enemies. Much of this latter work is done by
flocks of turkeys, kept on purpose by the plant-
ers. As soon as the plants begin to throw up
the flower shoot, it is nipped off; otherwise it
would weaken the leaves; but this process is
neglected in some countries, especially in
Turkey and Greece, where small leaves are
preferred, and where, in some cases, as in the TOBACCO.
celebrated Latakia tobacco, both leaves, buds,
and flowers are used. The time generally chosen for cutting it is mid-day,
or when the sun is powerful, and the morning and evening dews absent.
The cutting is done by hand, and only such plants are chosen as are ready,
which is known by a clammy exudation which forms over the leaf, often
giving it a spotted appearance. If the plants are very large, the stalk is
often split down, to facilitate the drying. They are then removed from the
field to the tobacco house, around which are erected light scaffolds, to which
the plants are suspended, generally by passing a thin stick through a split
in the stalk of each, and so placing a number of plants on each stick, just
near enough to prevent them touching each other. After some time hang-
ing in the open air, the plants on the sticks are removed, and suspended in
a similar way inside the curing house, until the drying is completed. The
leaves are removed from the stalks, and all bad ones rejected. The chosen
onea are tied up in bundles called hands; these are solidly packed in hogs-
306 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
heads, and in this condition are transported to market. The consumption in
nearly all parts of the world is very great.
The India Rubber Tree The India rubber tree is found in parts
of Mexico, Central and South America,
and in the East Indies, and is one of
the noblest and most picturesque of all
the trees of the forest. In Assam, be-
yond the Ganges, it is found in inex-
haustible abundance. It is either soli-
tary, or in two or three fold groups; is
large and umbrageous, and may be
distinguished from other trees at a dis-
tance of several miles by the striking
beauty of its dense and lofty crown.
The main trunk of one of the Assam
trees measured seventy-four feet in
circumference, and the area covered by
its expanded branches had a circum-
ference of six hundred and ten feet.
The height of the central tree was one
hundred feet. It has been estimated
that there are over forty-three thou-
sand such trees in one district within
an area of thirty miles by eight. It
grows on the slopes of the mountains
from the valleys up to an elevation of
twenty-two thousand feet. The raw
seeds are poisonous to man and quad-
rupeds, but macaws eat them, and
they are used as bait for fish. Long
boiling deprives them of their poison.
A large proportion of the quantity
of rubber or caoutchouc furnished to
commerce comes from Brazil. The
tree is tapped in the morning, and dur-
ing the day a gill of fluid is received in
a clay cup placed at each incision in
the trunk. This when full is turned
into a jar, and is ready at once to be
poured over any pattern of clay, the
form of which it takes as successive
layers are thus applied. It comes from
the tree purely colorless, like milk, but
when dried by the sun it is white with-
in and a yellowish-brown without. Ita
drying and hardening are hastened by
exposure to the smoke and heat of a
fire, and it thus acquires it? ordinary
black color. Complete drying by the
sun requires several days' exposure; during this time the substance is
soft enough to receive impressions from a stick, and is thus ornamented
with various designs. The natives collect it upon balls of clay in the forma
THE INDIA RUBBER TREE.
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
307
of bottles and/various fanciful figures, in which shape it is often exported.
The clay mold over which the bottles are formed, being broken up, is ex-
tracted through the open neck. Usually it has been brought to this country
in flat cakes; but a method has been devised by which the liquid is shipped
in air-tight vessels of tin or glass just as it comes from the tree.
Gutta Percha. This substance, in many respects similar to caout-
chouc, or India rubber, is the dried milky juice of a tree which is found in
the peninsula of Malacca and the Malayan Archipelago. It is a very large
tree, the trunk being sometimes three feet in diameter, although it is of little
use as a timber tree, the wood being spongy. The leaves are alternate, on
long stalks, somewhat leathery,
green above and of a golden color
beneath. The flowers are in little
tufts in the axils of the leaves,
small, each on a distinct stalk.
The present mode of obtaining the
gutta percha is a most destructive
one. The finest trees are selected
and cut down, and the bark
stripped off; between the wood
and bark, a milky juice is found,
which is scraped up into little
troughs made of plantain leaves.
This is the gutta percha, which, as
it hardens, is kneaded into cakes,
and exported. It has a very light
reddish-brown, or almost a flesh
color, is full of irregular pores
elongated in the direction in which
the mass has been kneaded. It
has a cork-like appearance when
cut, and a peculiar cheese-like
odor. Before it can be used, it
has to undergo aome preparation.
This consists in slicing the lumps
into thin shavings, which arei
placed in a deviUing or tearing ma-'
chine revolving in a trough of hot
water. This reduces the shavings
to exceedingly small pieces, which
by the agitation of the tearing
teeth are washed free from many impurities, especially fragments of
the bark of the tree, which, if not separated, would interfere with the
compactness of its texture, which is one of its most important qualities.
The small fragments, when sufficiently cleansed, are kneaded into
masses which are rolled several times between heated cylinders, which
press out any air or water and render the mass uniform in texture.
It is then rolled between heated steel rollers into sheets of various
thickness for use, or is formed into rods, pipes for water, or speaking-
tubes, and an endless number of other articles. Gutta percha differs very
materially from caoutchouc or India rubber in being non-elastic, or elastic
only in a very small degree.
GUTTA PEBCHA.
308 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The Cork Tree. The cork tree ia a species of oak which grows
abundantly in Spain, Portugal, Italy and the northern part of Africa. It
grows to a height of from twenty to forty feet, and has long evergreen
leaves. The bark in trees or branches from three to five years old acquires
a fungus appearance, new layers of cellular tissue being formed, and the
outer parts cracking from custension, until they are finally thrown off in
large flakes, when a new formation of tho same kind takes place. Cork in-
tended for the market is generally stripped off a year or two before it would
naturally come away, and the process is repeated at intervals of six or eight
years. The bark of young trees and branches is either useless or of very
inferior quality; it is only after the third peeling that good cork is produced.
The removal of the cork being not the removal of the whole bark, but only
of external layers of spongy cellular tissue, all or greater part of which has
ceased to have any true vitality, and has become an incumbrance to the
tree, is s:> far from being injurious, that when done with proper care, it
rather promotes the health of the tree, which continues to yield crops of
cork for almost one hundred and fifty years. In stripping off the cork,
longitudinal and transverse incisions are made to the proper depth, and
each piece is then cut away from the tree by a curved knife with two
handles. The pieces are soaked in water, pressed flat, dried and super-
ficially charred, to remove decayed parts and conceal blemishes, before
they are packed in bales for the market.
The Castor Oil Plant. The castor oil plant belongs to an order
whose affinities have not yet been accurately limited by botanists; but it is
supposed to comprise at least one thousand five hundred species, dis-
tributed in each quarter of the globe from the equator to latitudes as high
as Great Britain; sometimes in the form of large trees, frequently of bushes,
still more usually of diminutive weeds, and occasionally of deformed, leaf-
less, succulent plants, resembling the cacti. The plant is highly valuable
for the excellent medical virtues of the oil which it furnishes; its root is said
to be diuretic. The positions of the flowers are shown in our illustration;
but it is from the seed that the oil is extracted, three of which, of an oblong
flattish form, are enclosed in each receptacle. The oil is prepared chiefly
in the East Indies and in the West India Islands, the United States, and
also in the south of Europe. In extracting the oil, the seeds are first
bruised between heavy rollers, and then pressed in hempen bags under a
hydraulic or screw press. The best variety of oil is thus obtained by press-
ure in the cold, and is known as cold-drawn castor oil; but if the bruised
and pressed seeds be afterwards steamed, or heated, and again pressed, a
second quality of oil is obtained, which is apt to become partially solid or
frozen in cold weather. In either case the crude oil is heated with water to
212, which coagulates, and separates the albumen and other impurities.
Exposure to the sun's light bleaches the oil, and this process is resorted to
on the large scale. When pure and cold drawn, castor oil is of a light-yel-
low color; but when of inferior quality, it has a greenish, and occasionally a
brownish tinge.
The Camphor Tree. Tho Lauruscamphwa of China is an evergreen
of the laurel family, having glossy leaves and bearing clusters of yellowish
flowers, which are succeeded by bunches of fruit resembling black currants.
This valuable tree, which often adorns the banks of the rivers, was in sev-
eral places found by Lord Amherst's embassy above fifty fset high, with ita
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
THE CASTOB OIL PLANT.
trunk twenty feet in circumference. The Chinese themselves affirm that it
sometimes attains the height of more than three hundred feet, and a circuru-
310 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
ference greater than the extended arms of twenty men could embrace.
Camphor is obtained from the branches by steeping them, while fresh cut,
in water for two or three days, and then boiling them till the gum, in the
form of a white jelly, adheres to a stick which is used in constantly stirring
the branches. The fluid is then poured into a glazed vessel, where it con-
cretes in a few hours. To purify it the Chinese take a quantity of finely-
powdered earth, which they lay at the bottom of a copper basin; over this
they place a layer of camphor, and then another layer of earth, and so on
until the vessel is nearly filled, the last or topmost layer being of earth.
They cover this last layer with leaves of a plant called poho, which seems to
be a species of mentha (mint). They now invert a second basin over the
first, and make it air-tight
by luting. The whole ia
then submitted to the
action of a regulated fire
for a certain time, and
then left to cool gradually.
On separating the vessels
the camphor is found to
have sublimed, and to
have adhered to the upper
basin. Repetitions of the
same process complete its
refinement. Besides yield-
ing this invaluable in-
gredient, the camphor tree
is one of the principal tim-
ber trees of China, and is
used not only in building
but in most articles of
furniture. The wood is
dry and of a light color.
In the Island of Suma-
tra there is a variety of
the camphor-tree which ia
much larger than that of
China, under the bark of
which the gum is found
in a concrete form, and
from which it is brushed
down carefully with long
brooms. Another variety of the same tree yields its gum in the form of
pith. In this case the gatherers first pierce the trees with an axe to dis-
cover their worth, as no outward sign betrays whether the heart of the tree
will be found to contain oil, a resinous pitch, or gum. After the axe has
disclosed the white and shining substance for which they seek, the tree is
cut down, divided into lengths of about three feet, and split open very care-
fully, when the gum is taken out in solid rolls, often as large as a man's
arm, and all ready for market. One tree sometimes furnishes as much as
eleven pounds of gum, of so fine a quality is to be valued by the Chinese at
fifty times the price of that produced by their own trees. This superior
quality, of which the Island of Sumatra yields only about three hundred
pounds a year, ifl rarely, if ever, exported.
THE CAMPHOK TBEE.
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
3U
Peppermint. -The mint family of plants, of which the most important
species are peppermint, spearmint and penny-royal, all contain an aromatic
essential oil, possessing medicinal qualities. The peppermint plant is widely
distributed over the temperate parts of the world, is easily propagated and
readily recognized by the peculiar pungency of ita odor. Wayne County,
PEPPERMINT.
New York, produces about two-thirds of the peppermint crop of the United
States. It is grown on black ash swamps, which have been under-drained
thoroughly, from roots which are planted as hops are. When cut it is par-
tially dried and taken to a still, where the oil is extracted. The oil sells
from $2.50 to $5 per pound, and when it brings $3 the crop is a paying one.
312
Of
KNOWLEDGE.
About seventy thousand pounds are used annually in producing medicines,
manufacturing candies, and making cordials.
Wine Growingf. In Spain, Portugal, Prance, Italy and elsewhere the
manufacture of wine from grapes is an important industry of the people.
It is said that in the south of France, wine is drank almost as freely aa
water in other countries. The peasant women of these localities labor
almost exclusively out of doors, and may be seen, not only engaged in gath-
ering the grapes, but in carrying huge baskets of them to the wine-pressea.
Attar of Roses. The rose gardens of Ghazepore are fields in which
11 rose-bushes are planted in rows. In the morning they are red with
WINE GBOWTNO.
blossoms, but these are all gathered before mid-day, and their leaves dis-
tilled in clay stills, with twice their weight of water. The water which
comes over is placed in open vessels, covered with a moist muslin cloth, to
keep out dust and flies, and exposed all night to the cool air, or to artificial
cold as we set out milk to throw out its cream. In the morning, a thin
film of oil has collected on the top, which is swept off with a feather, and
carefully transferred to a email phial. This is repeated night after night,
till nearly the whole of the oil is separated from the water. Twenty thou-
sand roses are required to yield a rupee-weight of oil, which sells for $50.
Pure attar of roses is, therefore, seldom to be met with. That which ia so
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC. 318
in the Indian bazars is adulterated with sandal-wood oil, or diluted with
sweet salad oils. What we obtain in America is generally still more diluted,
as the price we usually give for it sufficiently shows.
Apricots. The apricot is a species of the same genus as the plum, and
is a native of Armenia, and of the countries eastward to China and Japan;
a middle-sized tree of fifteen to twenty or even thirty feet high, with smooth,
doubly-toothed leaves on long stalks, white flowers which appear before the
leaves, and fruit resembling the peach, roundish, downy, yellow, and ruddy
on the side next the sun, with yellow flesh. More than twenty kinds are
distinguished, amongst which some excel very much hi size, fine color,
sweetness, and abundance of juice. The apricot is generally budded on
plum or wild cherry stocks. The fruit keeps only for a very short time, and
is either eaten fresh, or made into a preserve or jelly. Apricots split tip,
having the stone taken out, and dried, are brought from Italy as an article
of commerce; in the south of France, also, they are an article of export hi a
preserved and candied state. Dried apricots from Bokhara, the kernels of
which are perfectly sweet, are sold in the towns of Kussia.
Rice. -Kica is cultivated extensively hi the Southern States of America,
China, India, Japan, and elsewhere. The grains of this plant grow on
separate pedicles, or little fruit-stalks, springing from the main stalk. The
whole head forms what a botanist would call a spiked panicle; that is,
something between a spike like wheat, and a panicle like oats. The grain
is sown hi rows, hi the bottom of trenches. These ridges lie about seven-
teen niches apart, from center to center. The rice is put hi by the hand,
and is never scattered, but cast so as to fall in a line. This is done about
the 17th of March. By means of flood-gates, the water is then permitted to
flow over the fields, and to remain on the ground fivo days, at the depth of
several niches. The object of this drenching is to sprout the seeds, as it is
technically called. The water is next drawn off, and the ground allowed to
dry, until the rice is risen to what is termed four leaves high, or between
three and four inches. This requires about a month. The fields are then
again overflowed, and they remain submerged for upwards of a fortnight,
to destroy the grass and weeds. These processes occupy till about the 17th
of May, after which the ground is allowed to remain dry till the 15th of
July, during which interval it is repeatedly hoed, to remove such weeds as
have not been effectually drowned, and also to loosen the soil. The water
is then, for the last time, introduced, in order that the rice may be brought
to maturity; and it actually ripens while standing in the water. The har-
vest commences about the end of August, and extends into October. After
being cut the rice is bound up into bundles, and afterward threshed with
a flail. The next process is to detach the outer husk, which clings to the
gram with great pertinacity. This is done by passing the rice between a
pair of millstones, removed to a considerable distance from each other.
The inner pellicle, or film, which envelopes the grain, is removed by tritura-
tion in mortars under pestles weighing from two hundred and fifty to three
hundred pounds. The pestles consist of upright bars, shod with iron,
which being raised up by the machinery to the height of several feet, are
allowed to fall upon the rice, the particles of which are thus rubbed against
one another until the film is removed. It is now thoroughly winnowed,
and, being packed in casks holding about six hundred pounds each, ia
ready for market.
314 CYCLOPAEDIA OF VSEPVL KNOWLEDGE.
The Tapioca Plant. The tapioca plant is a native of Central and
South America, and much cultivated there. It is now al3o largely grown in
Western Africa, where it is called cassava. The plant grows in a bushy
form, with stems usually from six to eight feet high. The roots are very
large, from three to eight growing in a cluster, usually from a foot to two
feet long. The starch in the roots is separated from the fibre, and from this
starch the tapioca of com-
merce is made by heating
it on hot plates and stir-
ring with an iron rod; the
starch grains burst, and
the whole forms into
small, irregular masses,
such aa we find in the
stores.
Nutmegs. The
spice known in commerce
under this name is the
kernel of the seed of My-,
ristica fragrans, a dice-
c i o u s evergreen tree
about fifty or sixty feet
high, found wild in the
Banda Islands and the
neighboring country ex-
tending to New Guinea,
but not to The Philip-
pines. The leaves re-
semble the laurel; the
flowers are white, two or
three on & peduncle.
The nutmeg proceeds
from a reddish knob in
the center of the flower,
yet not more than one-
third ripen. The fruit is
the size of an apricot,
pear-shaped. When ripe
it opens and displays the
nutmeg in a black and
shining shell, inclosed in
THE NTJTMEO. a network ofscarletmace.
The shell is like that of
A filbert; it is dried with care, and when the nutmeg shakes in it is broken,
and the nutmeg soaked in sea-water and lime to preserve it from insects.
The trees yield fruit in eight years after sowing the seed, reach their prime
in twenty-five years and bear for sixty years or longer. The tree bears all
the year round, but the chief harvest takes place in the later months of the
year, and a smaller one in April, May, and June.
Ginger. This is the root, or rather the underground stem, of a plant
which i a native of the East Indies; but is now grown in many other trop-
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC. 315
ical countries. The stem grows two or three feet high, and is reed like; the
flowers are borne on a separate stalk, of a dark purple color, and appear
from between broad scales. Our supply comes from both the East and
THE CLOVE TEEE.
West Indies; and is imported in the root, which differs much in appearance
and quality.
Cloves. Cloves are the unopened flowers of a small evergreen tree that
resembles in appearance the laurel or the bay. It is a native of the Molucca
or Spice Islands, but has been carried to all the warmer parts of the world,
and it is now cultivated in the tropical regions of America. The flowers are
small in size, and grow in large numbers, in clusters, to the very end of the
branches. The cloves we use are the flowers gathered before they are
316 CYCLOPEDIA OP USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
opened, and while they are still green. After being gathered they are
smoked by a wood fire, and then dried in the sun. Each clove consists of
two parts of a round head, which ia the four petals, or leaves, or flowers
rolled up, inclosing a number of small stalks or filaments: the other part of
the clove is terminated with four points, and is, in fact, the flower-cup of
the unripe seed-vessel. All these parts may be distinctly seen if a few
cloves are soaked for a short time in hot water, when the leaves of the flower
soften, and readily
unroll. Both the
taste and the smell
of cloves depend on
the quantity of oil
they contain. Some-
times the oil is sepa-
rated from the cloves
before they are sold,
and the odor and
taste are, in conse-
quence, much weak-
ened.
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is the bark
of a small tree, the
Uinnamonum Zey-
lanicum, which, as
its name imports, is
a native of Ceylon,
and chiefly culti-
vated there, though
it is raised also in
Java. The tree is
very graceful; the
leaves, which are red
in spring, become
thick, leathery, and
glossy-green as the
summer advances;
they are netted with
raised veins on the
under side, and are
placed opposite each
other on the stem;
the flowers are greenish- white, and grow in small, loose clusters at the ter-
mination of the branches. The trees require a rich, light soil, and also
shade; they are, therefore, planted in open glades of the forest, where a few
large timber trees remain to shelter them; this greatly contributes to the
beauty of the cinnamon harvest, when the natives assemble to strip the
bark, their graceful figures and bright-colored clothing forming picturesque
groups in the forest glades, and the whole air being loaded with the scent
of the spice. Cinnamon peeling begins in May, at the end of the rains, and
lasts till November. The peeling simply consists in slitting the bark and
cutting it across, so as to turn it back; it is then soaked to remove the outer
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
317
ALLSPICE.
rind, and rolled up into quilla about three feet long, and it is then fit for
exportation. Cinnamon contains volatile oil, tannin, a mucilage, vegeto-ani-
mal coloring matter, an acid and a woody fibre.
Allspice. Pimento, or Jamaica pepper,
otherwise called allspice, is a small berry, the
fruit of a beautiful tree, about thirty feet high,
with a straight trunk much branched above and
covered with a very smooth, gray bark. Its
dense and ever-verdant foliage gives it, at all
times, a refreshing appearance. The leaves vary
in shape and size, and are usually about four
inches long, resembling those of the bay, and are
of a dark, shining green. The tree exhales an
aromatic fragrance, especially during the months
of August and September, when the trees are in
full bloom, the blossoms consisting of small,
white flowers, which form a most delightful con-
trast with the dark green leaves. The rich per-
fume which is ex-
haled and wafted
by the gentlest
breeze makes a
plantation of the
trees one of the
most delightful spots imaginable. The ber-
ries, as they reach us, are of different sizes,
usually about as large as a small pea, of a
brownish color, and when broken present
two cells, each containing a black seed.
They have a fragrant odor, thought to re-
semble that of a mixture of cinnamon, cloves
and nutmegs; hence the name allspice, by
which they are best known in this country.
Pimento is a native of the West Indies and
South America, and is abundant in Jamaica,
whence it received its name, Jamaica pepper.
The berries are gathered after having at-
tained their full size, but while yet green,
and are carefully dried in the sun and put
in bags and casks for exportation.
Pepper. Pepper is the fruit of a climb-
ing or creeping plant called Piper nigrum,
which has alternate leaves, jointed stems,
and spikes of naked flowers; the berry is
small, round, and fleshy. This plant grows
abundantly in Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and
THE ALMOND. the Malay Peninsula. The pepper vines, as
they are called, are trained to trees and
shrubs, and are allowed to grow four years without gathering the crop; this
takes place while the berries are still green, betore they are ripe, and they
are dried quickly on mats in the sun, which turns them black, therefore it
318 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
is called black popper; -white pepper is produced by soaking the berries till
the outer skin peela off readily. Long pepper is the fruit of the Piper Ion-
gum, also a native of the East Indies; in long pepper the spike and half-ripe
berries are all dried together, which makes it resemble the catkins of the
birch; the flavor is like that of black pepper. Cayenne pepper is the dried
and ground fruit of the Capsicum, a genus of plants related to the woody
THE COCOANUT TREE.
nightshade; these fruits are fleshy, and bright scarlet or orange, very pun-
gent, and much used in flavoring, both in their unprepared state and ground.
Almonds. Almonds come from Spain and Italy, but they grow spon-
taneously in many other warm countries. The almond-tree, Amygdalus
communist, greatly resembles the peach in growth, leaves and blossoms; it
flowers in the early spring, and produces fruit in August. The fruit is cov-
ered with a tough skin, and is enclosed in a rough shell. There are two
kinds of almonds, the sweet and the bitter, only differing from each other iii
the flavor of the nut. Valentia almonds are sweet and large; Italian not
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC. 319
either BO large or sweet. Jordan almonds come from Malaga; they are long,
and not very pointed, and are the best kind imported; the bitter almonds
come chiefly from Mogadore, on the northern coast of Africa.
Cocoanuts. Cocoanuts are the fruit of the Oocos nucifera, or cocoanut
palm, a lofty and elegant palm-tree which grows abundantly in most trop-
ical countries; it is from fifty to sixty feet in height, its simple column-like
stem being crowned with a beautiful plume of feathery leaves from twelve
to fourteen feet long. The nuts grow in several long clusters depending
from the base of the leaves; they are about the size of a man's head, the
THE PINEAPPLE.
thin outer rind covering a large mass of fibres, which are used in many
countries for the making of mats, cordage, and coarse sail-cloth. Within
this fibrous coating is the shell of the nut, which is oval and very hard, and
often serves for a drinking cup. The kernel is firm, white, and pleasant;
the interior hollow, and filled with sweet milky juice; when unripe, it is
entirely filled with this juice. The cocoanut palm abounds in the East In-
dies, throughout the tropical islands of the Pacific, and also in the West
Indies and South America. On the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of In-
dia immense groves may be seen. In Ceylon, which is peculiarly well suited
for their cultivation, it is estimated that twenty millions of these trees are
growing. Here it stands at the head of all trees in its usefulness to man,
every particle of stem, leaves and fruit being put to use, and the Cingalese
love to repeat to strangers the hundred uses to which they apply it. The
320 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
following are only a few of the countless uses of this invaluable tree: Tk
leaves, for roofing, for mats, for baskets, torches or chules, fuel, brooms,
fodder for cattle, manure. The stem of the leaf, for fences, for pingoes (or
yokes) for carrying burdens on the shoulders, for fishing-rods, and innu-
merable domestic utensils. The cabbage, or cluster of unexpauded leaves,
for pickles and preserves. The sap, for toddy, for distilling arrack, and for
making vinegar and sugar. The unformed nut, for medicine and sweet-
meats. The young nut and its milk, for drinking for dessert; the green husk,
for preserves. The nut, for eating, for curry, for milk, for cooking. The
oil., for rheumatism, for anointing the hair, for soap, for candles, for light;
and thepoonafc, or refuse of the nut, after expressing the oil, for cattle and
poultry. The shell of the nut, for
drinking-cups, charcoal, tooth-
powder, spoons, medicine, hook-
ahs, beads, bottles and knife-
handles. The coir, or fibre which
envelopes the shell within the
outer husk, for mattresses, cush-
ions, ropes, cables, cordage, can-
vas, fishing-nets, fuel, brushes,
oakum, and floor-mats. The
trunk, for rafters, laths, railing,
boats, troughs, furniture, fire-
wood; and when very young,
the first shoots, or cabbage, as a
vegetable for the table.
Pineapples. The pineap-
ple has a number of long, ser-
rated, sharp-pointed, rigid
leaves, springing from the root,
in the midst of which a short
flower-stem is thrown up, bear-
ing a single spike of flowers, and
therefore a single fruit. From
the summit of the fruit spring*
a crown or tuft of small leaves,
THE BANANA THEE, capable of becoming a new plant,
and very generally used by gar-
deners for planting. The pineapple is a native of tropical America; it is
found wild in sandy maritime districts in the northeast of South America,
but it has been very much changed by cultivation. It has also been gradu-
ally diffused over tropical and subtropical countries, and not only as a culti-
vated plant, for it is fully naturalized in many parts both of Asia and Africa.
It delights in a moist climate.
Bananas. This much-prized tropical fruit conies chiefly from Central
America and the West Indies. There are many varieties, some of which
grow upon large trees, but the majority are of the dwarf species, which aro
propagated from cuttings and renewed every year. Nine months after a
cutting has been planted a purple bud appears in the center of the unfold-
ing leaves that shoot out from the head of the parent stem. The stem on
which the bud appears grows rapidly above the main aiftllt. As the bud im-
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC. 32}
creases in weight the stem bends downward by a graceful curre, on the ex-
tremity of which this bud continues to grow till, the purple blossoms falling
off, little shoots appear as the embryo truit. Each fruit has a yellow blos-
som at its outward extremity. At the end of from three to four months the
fruit has grown to maturity, and is picked long enough before it is " dead
ripe " to preserve it in marketable condition. From the roots of the parent
stalk other shoots appear, which are trimmed out or left to grow, as the cul-
tivator may deem best. A single stalk, therefore, bears only one bunch or
crop as itd life work. In regions where no frost ever reaches, bananas are
found in all stages of growth, ripening their fruit every month and every day
in the year. An estimate by Humboldt claims that forty-four thousand
pounds of bananas can
bo produced on the
soil that would be re-
quired for one thou-
sand pounds of pota-
toes, and that the same
area that would be re-
quired to raise wheat
enough for one man,
would produce enough
bananas to feed twenty-
five men.
Dates. The date
is the fruit of a tall and
graceful palm, Fhwiix
dactylifera, which
shoots up a single
straight stem to the
height of fifty or sixty
feet, and then expands
into a beautiful crown
of leaves. It is abun-
dant in Barbary, Ara-
bia, Persia, and the ad-
jacent countries, par-
ticularly on the con-
fines of the deserts and
in the oases. The fruit
somewhat resembles a
plum, but is rather longer in proportion; it contains a long oblong kernel,
grooved on one side. The pulp is soft, sweet, and slightly astringent; it is
rich in sugar, gum, and other vegetable matter, affording the most whole-
some nutriment. Dates form a staple article of food to the inhabitants o(
many countries where they are grown. The fruit, when gathered quite
ripe, is often pressed into large baskets, and thus forms a hard, solid cake,
called " adjoue," which is afterward cut up and sold by the pound. Date-
stones are soaked in water and given to the cattle.
Raisins. A strip of land bordering ou the Mediterranean, somewhat
less than one hundred miles in length, and in width not exceeding five oj
six, is the raisb producing territory of Spain. Beyond these boundaries tb/
322 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
muscatel grape, from which the raisin is principally produced, may grow
and thrive abundantly; but the fruit must go to the market or the wine-
press. When the grape begins to ripen in August, the farmer carefully in-
spects the fruit as it lays on the warm, dry soil, and one by one clips the
clusters as they reach perfection. In almost all vineyards slants of masonry
are prepared, looking like unglazed hot-beds, and covered with fine peb-
bles, on which the fruit is exposed to dry. But the small proprietor pre-
fers not to carry his grapes so far; it is better, he thinks, to deposit them
nearer at hand, where there is less danger of bruising, and where the bee
and wasps are less likely to find them. Day by day the cut bunches are ex-
amined and turned, till they are sufficiently cured to be borne to the house,
usually on the hill top, and there deposited in the empty wine-press till
enough has been collected for the trimmers and packers to begin their work.
At this stage great piles of rough dried
raisins are brought forth from the wine-
press and heaped upon boards. One
by one the bunches are carefully in-
spected, those of the first quality being
trimmed of all irregularities and im-
perfect berries, and deposited in pilea
by themselves. So, in turn, are treated
those of the second quality, while the
clippings and inferior fruit are received
into baskets at the feet of the trimmers,
and reserved for home consumption. A
quantity of small wooden trays are now
brought forward, just the size of a com-
mon raisin box and about an inch deep.
In these, papers are neatly laid, so as
to lap over and cover the raisins evenly
deposited in the trays, which are then
subjected to a heavy pressure in a rude
press. After pressing, the raisins are
dropped into the boxes for market.
Fig's. The fig is a low, deciduous
tree or shrub, with large deeply-
THE FIG. lobed leaves, which are rough above
and downy beneath. The branches are
lothed with short hairs, and the bark is greenish. The fruit is produced
singly in the axils of the leaves, is pear-shaped, and has a very short stalk;
the color in some varieties is bluish-black; in others, red, purple, yellow,
green, or white. The varieties in cultivation are numerous. In warm cli-
mates, the fig yields two crops in the year one from the older wood (mid-
summer shoots of the preceding year) ; and a second from the young wood
(spring shoots of the same year), but in colder regions the latter never
comes to perfection. Fig-trees are propagated by seed, by suckers, etc. ;
very frequently by layers or by cuttings. They are successfully grown in
warm climates in nearly all parts of the world. For exportation figs are
dried either in the sun or in ovens built for the purpose.
Prunes. Prunes are made and not grown. Plums are grown, and
some sorts of them, when treated in a certain way, become the prunes of
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
383
THE ORANGE.
commerce. It is not every plum that can be dried into a prune, as many
are inclined to think. Prunes are produced in the various countries of Con-
tinental Europe, France, Spain, Germany,
and Turkey taking the lead. The plums
that are suited for prunes form a distinct
group, the most noted variety being the St.
Catherine. The plums that are to be made
into prunes are left on the trees until they
are fully ripe; in fact, until they drop of
their own weight. To prevent injury by the
fall the ground beneath the trees is either
made soft by working it with the plow and
harrow, or is covered with straw. The
fallen fruit is picked up each day, or every
alternate day, washed, if soiled, and then
spread out separately on frames of wicker-
work, where it is exposed to the rays of the
sun. Later on in the drying, the plums
are put in ovens similar to the baker's oven,
when they are subjected- to a heat of about
170 degrees Fahrenheit. At the end of
twenty-four hours the fruit is removed from
the oven, and when cold is turned upon the
trays. The oven is heated again, in the
meantime, to about 220 degrees, and the
fruit placed in again, when it remains another day. After another cooling
and turning the oven is heated to 258 degrees and a third drying given,
ivhich usually completes the process. The drying is known to be properly
done if there is a certain elasticity to prunes when pressed with the fingers.
The object of all the different parts of the pro-
cess of drying is to dry the fruit as far as pos-
sible without breaking the skin, which, in the
well-dried prune, should shine as if it had been
given a coat of varnish.
Oranges. The orange-tree grows abun-
dantly in almost all the warm soft climates of
southern Europe, northern Africa, and many
temperate parts of Asia and America. Those
consumed in the Northern States are brought
from the islands of the Atlantic and the South-
ern States. St. Michael, one of the Azores, ia
famed for producing the most favored variety.
The orange gardens are encompassed by high
walls, not only to protect the trees from plun-
derers, but from high winds, which often do
serious damage. The orange trees are usually
branched almost, if not quite, from the ground;
their leaves are evergreen, and their flowers
white and very elegant; they yield a delicious
perfume. On many trees the flowers and ripe fruit hang together; and,
when thus loaded the fruit, some of light-green color, others of pale yellow,
Others of a deep orange, and all set off by the deep glossy-green foliage th
THE LEMON.
324 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
trees are superb. The fruit is gathered in December, or even earlier, a lit-
tle while before it is ripe; and large baskets being filled by boys who take
them from the gatherers, they are carried away at once to the packers, who
most commonly sit in groups on the grass; the oranges are poured out in a
heap with as little concern as if they were coals; each orange is wrapped in
a husk of Indian corn; these are prepared by children, who hand them to
a man, who wraps up the orange and passes it to another, who places it in
the chest; this ia all dono with amazing rapidity. The box is filled, thin
boards are bent over it
by a carpenter, and
secured with willow
bands, and then it ia
ready to be carried to
the port and shipped.
Lemons. The
lemon is a tree which
has by many botanists
been regarded as a va-
riety of the citron, and,
like it, a native of the
north of India. Its
leaves are ovate or ob-
long, usually serru-
late, pale green, with
winged stalk; the
flowers are streaked
and reddishou the out-
side; the fruit is ob-
long, wrinkled or fur-
rowed, pale yellow,
with generally concave
oil-cysts in the rind.
In the common variety,
which is very exten-
sively cultivated in
many tropical and sub-
tropical countries, the
pulp of the fruit is very
acid, abounding in cit-
ric acid. There ie,
however, a variety called the sweet lemon occasionally cultivated in the
South of Europe, of which the juice is sweet.
The Olive Tree. The olive tree, Olea Europa, grows abundantly in
all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. It thrives upon the
most rocky calcareous soils, seldom exceeds twenty feet in height, but is
much branched and spreading; it lives to a great age, and increases very
much in bulk, so that one tree may easily, at a little distance, be mistaken
for a group. There is an olive tree at Pescio seven hundred years old, and
twenty-five feet in circumference. The trees also grow abundantly in Judea,
and there are some still standing in the garden of Gethsemane, which are
i so large and old that they are thought to have been in existence ever since
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC. 325
the time of our Saviour. Josephns tells us that when Titus destroyed Jeru-
salem, he cut down all the trees within one hundred furlongs of the city;
still it is very probable that these trees may have grown up from the roots
of the old ones, because it is quite a characteristic of the olhe-tree to shoot
up again, however frequently it may be cut down. They are wild olives of
extreme old age, and their stems quite rough and gnarled. The leaves of
the tree are evergreen, stiffish and pointed; the flowers white, growing in
clusters, succeeded by an oval drupe, or plum, which is violet-colored when
ripe, bitter and nauseous. The preserved olives, common as a table luxury,
are the unripe fruit pickled in a strong solution of salt. Salad oil is made
from olives. The ripe fruit is gathered in November, and bruised in a mill,
the stones of which are set so wide apart as not to bruise the nut or kernel;
the pulp is then gently pressed in bags made of rushes; the first oil that
flows is of the most value, a second quality is obtained by breaking the
refuse, mixing it with warm water, and returning it to the press; and after
this a third very inferior kind is obtained.
Limes. The little island of Montserrat, one of the most charming and
salubrious of the British West Indian Colonies, with an area of but forty-
seven square miles, or considerably less than that of London, contains the
most extensive and best cultivated plantations of the lime-fruit tree in the
world. The cultivation of the plant, which involves a large outlay of capi-
tal, with no immediate return, was not at first attended with any commer-
cial success, but the Montserrat Company now owns six hundred acres of
land, bearing one hundred and twenty thousand trees, from which a crop is
gathered nearly all the year round, the heaviest harvest extending for three
months, from September to January. The appearance of the trees with
their dark-green leaves growing thick and bushy, and relieved at one and
the same time by the bright fruit in different stages of ripeness, from green
to a rich, ruddy yellow, and by the fragrant white flowers, resembling orange
blossoms is one of extreme beauty, and a lime-tree orchard is perhaps un-
equaled by any other similar plantation. The very leaves of the tree emit a
delicious perfume, and are largely used in the West Indies for the purpose
of scenting water for toilet and other purposes. The trees do not bear fruit
till they are seven years old, and during that period they require careful
attention and pruning; they are otherwise easy of cultivation, flourishing
best in light soils near the sea. The production of fruit is very large; and
the process of extracting the juice is easy, the fruit being simply sliced and
pressed, and the juice at once placed in casks ready for exportation. A sec-
ondary product is citric acid, which is procured from the inferior fruit, and
by a subsequent manipulation of the refuse from the first process of
squeezing.
The Jak Tree The bread-fruit tree, originally found in the south-
eastern parts of Asia and the islands of the Pacific, though now introduced
into the tropical parts of the western continent and the West Indies, is one
of the most interesting as well as singular productions of the vegetable king-
dom. There are two species of it the bread-fruit, properly so called, with
the leaves deeply gashed, or divided at the sides, which grows chiefly in the
islands, and the jack-fruit, or jak tree, which grows chiefly in the main land
of Asia.
Ihe bread-fruit is a beautifu! as well as a uieful tree; the trunk rises to
ft height of about forty teet, and in a ^ill-sjrowu tree is from a foot to fifteen
SH CYCLOPAEDIA Of VSEFVL KNOWLEDGE.
THE JAK TREE.
inches in diameter; the bark is aeh-colored, full of little chinks, and cTcred
by small knobs; the inner bark is fibrous, and use* in the manufacture of
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
827
a sort of cloth; and the wood ia smooth, soft, and of a yellow color; the
branches come out in a horizontal manner, the lowest ones about ten or
twelve feet from the ground, and they become shorter and shorter as they
are nearer the top. The leaves are divided into seven or nine lobes, about
eighteen inches or tw.o feet long, and are of a lurid green. The tree bears
male and female flowers the males among the upper leaves, and the
females at the extremities of the twigs. When full-grown, the fruit ia about
nine inches
long, heart-
shaped, of a
greenish color,
and marked
with hexagonal
warts, formed
into facets. The
pulp is white,
partly farina-
ceous and part-
ly fibrous; but
when quite ripe
it becomes yel-
low and juicy.
The whole
tree, when hi a
green- state,
abounds with a
viscid, milky
juice, of so
tenacious a na-
ture as to be
drawn out in
threads.
The bread-
fruit tree con-
tinues produc-
tive for about
eight months hi
the year. Such
is its abund-
ance that two
or three trees
will suffice for
a man's yearly
supply, a store
being made in-
to a sour paste
called make in islands, which is eaten during the unproductive season.
When the fruit is roasted until the outside is charred, the pulp has a con-
sistency not unlike that of wheaten bread, and the taste is intermediate be-
tween that of bread and roasted chestnuts. It is said to be very nourishing,
and is prepared in various ways. The jak, or jack, grows to the same or
even to a larger size than the bread-frui* of the Society Islands, but it ia
neither BO palatable nor so nutritious. The fruit often weighs more than
TWINING HYACINTH OF CALIFORNIA.
328 CYCL VPJED1A Of UKEfUL KNOWLEDGE.
thirty pounds, and contains two or three hundred seeds, each of them four
timea as large as an almond. December is the time when the fruit ripens;
it is then eaten, and the seeds or nuts also are eaten, after being roasted.
There are many varieties of the jak tree, some of which can hardly be dis-
tinguished from the seedling variety of the true bread-fruit. The fruit, and
also the part of the tree in which it is produced, vary with the age. When
the tree is young, the fruit grows from the twigs; in middle age it grows
from the trunk, and when the tree gets old it grows from the roots.
Twining Hyacinth of California. Our engraving represents a
wonderfully singular and beautiful plant, which grows among the moun-
tainsof California.
It twines iteelf in-
to and around
every bush o r
shrub within its
reach, and does
not stop climbing
till its slender
stem has reached
the top of its sup-
port, even if it
should be ten feet
high. When it has
gamed the top, it
seems to rest for
a while as if to
look about it and
feel sure o f its
position, then lets
go its hold upon
the earth, and
without any con-
nection with the
ground, or any
sustenance from
it, goes on bloom-
ing and ripening
its seed, month
after month, no
more affected ap-
parently, by the
scorching heat of the sun by day, nor the chill of the mountain air by night,
than if it had an anchoring root like an oak tree. The leaves are long and
narrow, resembling blades of grass; the flowers are a fine pink, or deep
rose color, and as you may judge from the picture, very beautiful. This
strange plant blooms constantly from May to September.
The Bigf Trees of California. The mammoth evergreen and red-
wood trees of California have a world-wide notoriety. They are found in
small groves in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, at a height of four thousand
five hundred feet above the sea level. In Calaveras County there is a grove
of one hundred and three trees, each of which measures from seventy to
THE BIG TEEES OF CALTFOENIA.
inety-three feet iu circumference. The grove in Mariposa County contains
one hundred and thirty-four trees of over fifteen feet in diameter, many of
them being from twenty-five to thirty-five feet, and nearly three hundred
smaller ones. The Tulare-Fresno forest, which is seventy miles long and
about ten miles wide, consists mainly of these mammoth trees. On one
occasion ten men on horseback attempted to form a circle around one of
them. Each horse stood with his head close to the tail of the one before
him, yet they reached but halfway round the tree. The height of the
largest trees is from three hundred to four hundred feet, and some of those
that have been felled indicate an age of from two thousand to three thou-
sand years.
The Ivory Plant. So different are the products of the animal from
those of the vegetable kingdom, that even the most careless observer may
be expected at once to distinguish them. Yet multitudes are in the daily
use of ivory buttons, boxes and small ornaments, who never doubt that
they are made from the tusks of the elephant, while they are really the pro-
duct of a plant. The ivory plant is a native of the northern regions of South
America, extending northward just across the Isthmus of Panama, large
groves of it having been recently discovered in the province of that name.
It is found in extensive groves in which it banishes all other vegetation
from the soil it has taken possession of or scattered among the large trees of
the virgin forests. It has the appearance of a stemless palm, and consists of
a graceful crown of leaves, twenty feet long, of a delicate pale green color,
and divided like the plume of a feather into from thirty to fifty pairs of long
narrow leaflets. It is not, however, really stemless, but the weight of the
foliage and the fruit is too much for the comparatively slender trunk, and
consequently pulls it down to the ground, where it is seen like a large ex-
posed root, stretching for a length of nearly twenty feet in the old plants.
The long leaves are employed by the Indians to cover the roofs of their
cottages.
Each flower of the ivory plant does not contain stamens and pistils, as in
most of the British plants, but like our willows, one tree produces only
staminal flowers, while another has only pistillate ones. Such plants are
said by botanists to be dioecious. Both kinds of the plants of the vegetable
ivory have the same general appearance, and differ only in the form and ar-
rangement of the flowers. In the one kind an innumerable quantity of
staminal flowers is born on a cylindrical fleshy axis, four feet long, while
in the other a few pistillate flowers spring from the end of the flower-stalk.
Each plant bears several heads of flowers. Purdie, who visited the plants
in their native locality in 1846, says: "The fragrance of the flowers is most
powerful, and delicious beyond that of any other plant, and so diffuse, that
the air for many yards around was alive with myriads of annoying insects,
which first attracted my notice. I had afterwards to carry the flowers in my
hands for twelve miles, and though I killed a number of insects that fol-
lowed me, the next day a great many still hovered about them, which had
come along with us from the wood where the plant grew. The group of
pistillate flowers produce a large roundish fruit, from eight to twelve inches
in diameter, and weighing when ripe about twenty-five pounds. It is
covered by a hard woody coat, everywhere embossed with conical angular
tubercles, and is composed of six or seven portions, each containing from six
to nine seeds. These seeds, when ripe, are pure white, free from veins, dote,
or vessels of any kind, presenting a perfect uniformity of texture surpassing
830 CYCLOPAEDIA Of VSEFVL KNOWLEDGE.
the finest animal ivory; and its substance is throughout so hard that the
slightest streaks from the turning-lathe are observable. Indeed, it looks
much move like an animal than a vegetable product; but a close comparison
will enable one to distinguish it from the ivory of the elephant by its bright-
ness and its fatty appearance, but chiefly by its minute cellular structure.
This curious hard material is the store of food laid up by the plant for the
nourishment of the embryo, or young plant contained in the seed. It cor-
responds to the white of an egg of the hen, and has been consequently called
the albumen of the seed. In its early condition this ivory exists as a clear
THK IVOilY PUkXT.
insipid fluid, Tfith which travelers allay their thirst; afterwards the liquor be-
comes sweet and milky, and in this state it is greedily devoured by bears,
hogs and turkeys; it then gradually becomes hard. It is very curious that
this hard mass again returns to its former soft state in the process of germi-
nation. The young plant for some time is dependent upon it for its food,
and if the seed be taken out of the ground after the plant has appeared, it
will be found to be filled with a substance half pulp and half milk, on which
the plant lives until it is old enough to obtain its food on its own account.
From the small eiae of the seed, the largest not being more than two
TREES, PLANTS, FKUITS, ETC. 831
inches across its greatest diameter, the vegetable ivory can be employed in
the manufacture of only small articles, such as beads, buttons, toys, etc.
What is wanting in size is, however, often made up by the skill and in-
genuity of the workmen, who join together several pieces so as to make a
THE BETEL NOT THEE.
long object, when it is easy to hide the joints from view, or make a lid from
one seed, and the box from another.
The Betel-Nut Tree. The betel-nut tree is one of the moat graceful
of the palm tribe. It is a native of all the countries of Asia within tho
832 CYCLOPEDIA OF VSEFVL KNOWLEDGE.
tropics, and is cultivated all over India for the sake of the nut, which is in
high esteem. It grows to a height of forty or fifty feet, begins to bear fruit
at five years, and continues in bearing for sixty or seventy years; but when
it has been twenty-five or thirty years in perfection it begins to decay. The
tree is in flower most of the year. The nut is about the size of a hen's egg,
enclosed in a membraneous covering, and of a reddish yellow when ripe.
There are two crops in the year. The quantity of nuts yielded by a single
tree varies considerably in different places; on the Coromandel coast the
average number of nuts obtained from a single tree is usually about three
hundred. The betel-nut is dried, cut into slices, usually four; these slices
are wrapped up in the leaf of the black pepper vine and sprinkled with
quicklime. Thus prepared, it is chewed, and is enjoyed by the people as a
universal luxury.
The Cow Tree. Alexander Humboldt remarks that among the many
very wonderful natural phenomena which he had during his r extensive
travels witnessed, none impressed him in a more remarkable degree than
the sight of a tree yielding an abundant supply of milk, the properties of
which seemed to be the same as the milk of a cow. The adult Indians
would go each morning with their slaves from the village or station on the
slope of the mountain chain bordering on Venezuela, where Humboldt was
stopping, to a forest where they grew, and making some deep incisions into
the trees, in less than two hours their vessels, placed under these incisions,
would be full. All present would then partake of the milk, on which the
slaves grew fat, and a quantity would be carried home to be given to the
children and to be mixed with cassava and maize. The tree itself attains a
height of from forty-five to sixty feet, has long alternate leaves, and was
described by Linden as Brosimum galactodendron. The milk which flows
from any wound made in the trunk is white and somewhat viscid; the flavor
is very agreeable. An analysis of the substance made several years ago
by M. Boussingault, a French chemist, shows that this vegetable milk
most certainly approaches in its composition to the milk of the cow; it con-
tains not only fatty matter, but also sugar, caseine and phosphates. But
the relative proportion of these substances is greatly in 4 favor of the vege-
table milk, and brings it up to the richness of cream, the amount of butter
in crrtun being about the same proportion as the peculiar waxy material
found in the vegetable milk, a fact that will readily account for its great
nutritive powers.
Th Soap Plant. A species of cacti called Amole is found in various
parts of the American continent from Mount Shasta on the north to a simi-
lar latitude in South America, and from the Pacific Coast to east of the Rio
Grande, through New Mexico and Western Texas. The flower stalks are
destitute of leaves, but are plentifully supplied with branches about eighteen
inches long, from which flowers of white and yellow color are suspended in
the flowering season. The bulbous root is from one to six inches hi diame-
ter and from six to eighteen inches long. A saponaceous juice is pressed
from the root, and the fibre of the leaves is heckled for the manufacture ol
mattresses, cushions, and chair seats. The vegetable soap extracted from
the root has been used by the Indians, Mexicans, and others for many years
as a hair wash, and exceeds in purity our manufacture from animal sub-
stancca. The preservative qualities of the aoap are veil known, and its use
jives the hair a fine natural glow, and prevent* decay.
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
333
The Talipat Palm Tree. The Talipat or Great Fan Palm is the
noblest palm of the East Indies, a native of Ceylon, Malabar, etc. It grows
THE TALIPAT PALM TBEE.
to the height of sixty, seventy, or even one hundred feet, and has a straight
cylindrical trunk, crowned with a tuft of enormous palmate plaited leaves,
which are divided near the outer margin into numerous segments, and are.
334 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
united to the trunk by spiny leaf-stalks. The leaves are usually about
eighteen feet long, exclusive of the leal-stalk, and fourteen feet broad; a
single one being sufficient to protect fifteen to twenty men from rain. At
the age of thirty or forty years, the tree flowers, and after ripening fruit,
generally dies. It produces a long conical erect spadix, rising to the height
of thirty feet from the midst of its crown of leaves, and dividing into simple
alternate branches, the lower of which sometimes extend laterally twenty
feet, the whole covered with whitish flowers, and forming a very beautiful
and magnificent object. The fruit is very abundant, globose, and about an
inch and a half in diameter. The leaves are used for covering houses, for
making tents, and for many other purposes. On occasions of ceremony,
every Cingalese noble is followed by an attendant, who carries above his
head a richly ornamented palm leaf, which is capable of being folded up
like a fan, and is then not thicker than a man's arm, and wonderfully light.
The leaves of this palm are used in Malabar for writing upon, characters
being traced upon them with an iron style. They are prepared for this pur-
pose by boiling, drying, damping, rubbing, and pressing. The soft central
part of the stem, pounded and made into bread, has often been of great use
in times of scarcity.
The Bamboo. This is a genus of grasses, of which most of the species
attain a great size, many of them twenty or thirty feet, some seventy or one
hundred feet in height. The species are numerous, and are found in tropi-
cal and subtropical regions, both of the eastern and western hemispheres.
They are of great importance to the inhabitants of the countries in which
they grow. All of them have a jointed subterranean root-stock which
throws up stems from ten to one hundred feet high. These are generally
straight and erect; although one large species (B. agrestis), common in dry
mountainous situations in the south-east of Asia, has crooked, and some-
times creeping stems. The stems grow to their full height unbranched, but
afterwards throw out straight horizontal branchfis, especially in their upper
parts, forming a dense thicket. Some of the smaller kinds are often planted
as hedges. The stems are jointed like those of other grasses, very hard, but
light and elastic, hollow, containing only a light spongy pith, except at the
joints or nodes, where they are divided by strong partitions. They are,
therefore, readily converted into water-vessels of various sorts; and when
the partitions are removed, they are used as pipes for conveying water.
They are also much employed for house-building, for bridges, etc. The
smaller stems are converted into walking-sticks, and are exported under
the name of bamboo cane. In China, the interior portions of the stem are
used for making paper. The stems of different species vary very much in
the thickness of the woody part, and so in their adaptation to different pur-
poses. The external covering of the stem is, in all the species, remark-
ably silicious; the stem of B. tabacaria is so hard that it strikes fire when
the hatchet is applied. This species is a native of Amboyna and Java; its
slender stems are polished, and used for the stalks of tobacco-pipes. The
leaves of some kinds are used for thatch, and the Chinese plait hats of them;
of the external membrane of the stems of some, they make paper. From
the knots of the bamboo there exudes a saccharine juice, which dries
upon exposure to the atmosphere, and which the Greeks call Indian
Honey. The young shoots of some kinds of bamboo are eaten like as-
paragus, or are pickled in vinegar. Those of B. Ttilda, a common Beu-
galese species, are used for these purposes wben about two feet
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC. 335
long. The seeds of some species are used as rice, and for making a kind
of beer. Bamboos are generally of very rapid growth, and they are often
found in arid situations, which would otherwise be destitute of vege-
tation.
The Star Fish Cactus. All plants of the cactus kind are so wouder-
THE BAMBOO.
fully made that they are able to bear the heat and dryness of very hot cli-
mates without showing any evil effects. They draw in the heavy dews that
fall at night, literally drink them ia, and then, when the heat of the day
cornea on, this moisture supports the p/ant, and givee it health and strength.
336 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Flowers often grow out of the cacti in a very unexpected fashion and of very
THE STAB FISH CACTUS.
curious forms. We give an illustration of a variety, whose flower very
much resembles a starch,,
TREES, 1'LANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
337
A Peruvian Forest. Peru is exceedingly rich in vegetable produc-
tion, and each of its natural regions has its own flora. The coast district
has not many plants, but east of the Andes the species are exceedingly
numerous. Mauy species of medicinal Lerbs, and a great variety of aro-
matic balsams, oils, and gums are produced. Trees and shrubs which
yield seven different kinds of wax are known, and, according to Peruvian
writers, this territory is a new world in itself. Almonds, ginger, the balsam
of copaiba, gum copal, etc., are all said to abound. On the coasts, and the
west slopes of the Andes, are produced the cabbage-palm, the cocoanut, the
chocolate-nut, the cotton shrub, the pineapple, tumeric, plaintain, and
A PEBUVIAN FOEEST.
eugar-cane, besides some trees that have only Peruvian appellations. The
coffea racemosis is found in the interior, and the berries are used in th
same way as those of the cultivated species. The large flowered jasmine,
and the datura arborea are very abundant hi the vicinity of Lima, and are
much used by the women for wreaths, and for braiding in their hair. No
fewer than twenty-four species of pepper, and five or six of capsium are
reckoned natives; there are several species of sclanum, or plants of the
potato genus, and the potato commonly called the Irish was originally
brought from Peru. Tobacco and jalap are abundant in the groves at the
foot of the mountain; and many of the varieties cultivated in the green-
houses and gardens in other countries fjrov: vdld in the forests. Cotton ii
338 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
found in great abundance in a wild state on the banks of the Amazon and its
tributaries. Among the numerous shrubs wliich clothe the highlands, the
different species of cinchona or Peruvian bark are the most valuable. It ia
scattered along the skirts of the Andes over an extent of 2,000 miles, at an
elevation of from 2,800 to 9,500 feet, and therefore thrives in a great variety
of climates. On the east declivity of the Andes it forms a continued forest
for many miles. Caoutchouc is procured from the inspissated juices of a
variety of different plants. The tree-ferns range between one thousand five
hundred and five thousand feet above the sea; beyond the height of ten
thousand five hundred feet arborescent vegetables disappear; between six
thousand five hundred and thirteen thousand five hundred feet the Alpine
plants are found; species of the Winiera and EscaUonia occur between nine
thousand two hundred and ten thousand eight hundred feet, and form
scrubby bushes in the cold and moist climate.
The Laughing Plant In Palgrave's " Central and Eastern Ara-
bia " we are told some interesting facts concerning this singular plant. The
active principle appears to reside principally in the seeds. These seeds,
when powdered and administered in full judicious quantities, produce
effects similar to those produced by laughing gas. The person to whom the
drug is administered laughs, sings, dances, and conducts himself in the
most extravagant and ludicrous style. After an hour of this intense excite-
ment he falls asleep; and upon awaking, he is totally unconscious of any-
thing that he said or did while under the influence of the drug. It is a com-
mon joke to put a small quantity into the coflee of some unsuspecting in-
dividual, in order to enjoy a laugh at his antics; and it is said that, when
judiciously given, it has never produced any evil consequences. An over-
dose would be dangerous. The plant which bears these berries grows only
in Arabia. In Kascem it hardly attains the height of six inches above the
ground, while in Oman it has reached the height of three or four feet, with
wide-spreading limbs. The stems are woody, and when stripped of the
bark have a yellowish tinge; the leaf is of a dark-green color, and pinnated
with about twenty leaflets on either side; the stalks are smooth and shining;
the flowers are yellow, and grow in tufts, and the anthers numerous. The
fruit is a capsule, stuffed with a greenish padding, in which lie embedded
two or three black seeds, in size and shape much like French beans. Their
taste is sweetish, but with a peculiar opiate flavor. The smell is overpower-
ing and almost sickly.
The Fountain Tree. These are very extraordinary vegetables, grow-
ing in one of the Canary Islands, and likewise said to exist in some other
places, which distill water from their leaves in such plenty as to answer all
the purposes of the inhabitants who live near them. Of these trees we have
the following account, in Glasse's " History of the Canary Islands ": " There
are three fountains of water in the whole island of Hiero, wherein the foun-
tain tree grows. The larger cattle are watered at those fountains, and at a
place where water distills from the leaves of a tree. Many writers have made
mention of this famous tree, some in such a manner as to make it appear
miraculous; others again deny the existence of any such tree, among whom
ia Father Feyjoo, a modern Spanish author. But he, and those who agree
with him in this matter, are as much mistaken as those who would make it
appear to be miraculous. The author of the ' History of the Discovery and
Conquest ' has given us a particular account of it, as follows;
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC. 339
" ' The district in which this tree stands is called Tigulabe; near to which,
and hi the cliff or steep rocky ascent that surrounds the whole island, is a
gutter or gully, which commences at the sea, and continues to the summit
of the cliff, where it joins or coincides with a valley, which is terminated by
the steep front of a rock. On the top of this rock grows a tree, called, in the
language of the ancient inhabitants, garse, sacred or holy tree, which for
many years has been preserved sound, entire, and fresh. Its leaves con-
stantly distill such a quantity of water as is sufficient to furnish drink to
every living creature in Hioro, nature having provided this remedy for the
drought of the island. It is situated about a league and a half from the sea.
Nobody knows of what species it is, only that it is called til. It is distinct
from other trees, and stands by itself. Its fruit resembles the acorn, and
tastes something like the kernel of a pineapple, but is softer and more aro-
matic. The leaves of this tree resemble those of the laurel, but are larger,
wider, and more curved; they come forth in a perpetual succession, so that
the tree always remains green. Near to it grows a thorn, which fastens on
many of its branches, and interweaves with them; and at a small distance
from the garse are some beech-trees, bresoep, and thorns. On the north
side of the trunk are two large tanks or cisterns, of rough stone, or rather
one cistern divided, each half being twenty feet square, and sixteen spans
in depth. One of these contains water for the drinking of the inhabitants;
and the other, that which they use for their cattle, washing, and such like
purposes.
" ' Every morning, near this part of the island, a cloud or mist arises
from the sea, which the south or easterly winds force against the foremen-
tioned steep cliff; so that the cloud, having no vent but by the gutter, grad-
ually ascends it, and from thence advances slowly to the extremity of the
valley, where it is stopped and checked by the front of the rock which ter-
minates the valley, and then rests upon tne thick leaves and wide spreading
branches of the tree, from whence it distills in drops during the remainder of
the day, until it is at length exhausted, in the same manner that we see water
drip from the leaves of trees after a heavy shower of rain.
" ' This distillation is not peculiar to the garse or til, for the bresoes,
which grow near it, likewise drop water; but their leaves being but few and
narrow, the quantity is so trifling, that, though the natives save some of it,
yet they make little or no account of any but what distills from the til, which,
together with the water of some fountains, and what is saved in the winter
season, is sufficient to serve them and their flocks. A person lives on the
spot near which this tree grows, to take care of it and its waters, and is al-
lowed a house to live in, with a certain salary. He every day distributes to
each family of the district seven pots or vessels full of water, besides what
he gives to the principal people of the island.' "
The Groaning Tree. The history of the groaning tree is this: About
forty years ago a cottager who lived near the center of the village of Bades-
ley, near Lymington, England, heard frequently a strange noise behind his
house, like that of a person in extreme agony. Soon after it caught the at-
tention of his wife, who was then confined to her bed. She was a timorous
woman, and, being greatly alarmed, her husband endeavored to persuade
her that the noise she heard was only the bellowing of the stags in the forest.
By degrees, however, the neighbors on all sides heard it, and the thing be-
gan to be much talked of. It was by this time plainly discovered that the
groaning noise proceeded from an elm which grew at the end of the garden.
340 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
It was a young, vigorous tree, and to all appearance perfectly sound. In
a few weeks the fame of the groaning tree was spread far and wide, and peo-
ple from all parts nocked to hear it. Among others it attracted the atten-
tion of the then Prince and Princess of Wales, who resided at that time for
the advantages of a sea-bath, at Pilewell, the seat of Sir James Worsley,
which stood within a quarter of a mile of the groaning tree. Though the
country people assigned many superstitious causes for this strange phenom-
enon, the naturalists could assign no physical one that was in any degree
satisfactory. Some thought it was owing to the twisting and friction of the
roots. Others thought it proceeded from water which had collected in the
body of the tree, or perhaps from pent air. But no cause that was alleged
appeared equal to the effect. In the meantime the tree did not always
groan, sometimes disappointing its visitants; yet no cause could be assigned
for its temporary cessations, either from seasons or weather. If any differ-
ence was observed, it was thought to groan least when the weather wad wet,
and most when it was clear and frosty; but the sound at all times seemed
to arise from the root. Thus the groaning tree continued an object of as-
tonishment, during the space of eighteen or twenty months, to all the country
around; and, for the information of distant parts, a pamphlet was drawn up
containing a particular account of all the circumstances relating to it. At
length the owner of it, a gentleman by the name of Forbes, making too rash
an experiment to discover the cause, bored a hole in its trunk. After this
it never groaned. It was then rooted up, with a further view to make a
discovery; but still nothing appeared which led to any explanation of the
cause. It was universally believed, however, that there was no trick in the
affair, but that some natural cause really existed, though never understood.
The Whistling Tree In Nubia and the Soudan groves a species of
acacia is described as existing, whose scientific appellation, as well as its
popular name, is derived from a peculiar sound emitted by the branches
when swayed by the wind. The Arabic name is the " soffa," or pipe, and
the specific name of fistula, also meaning a pipe, has been given to it for the
same reason which prompted the natives to give it its local designation.
The tree is infected with insects, whose eggs are deposited in the young
shoots and extremities of the branches. A sort of gall-like excrescence about
an inch in diameter is produced at the base of these shootw, and when the
larva has emerged from this nidus, it leaves a small circular hole, the action
of the wind in which causes it to produce a whistling sound like that pro-
duced by a flute or by blowing into any hollow pipe. When the wind is vio-
lent, the noise caused by thousands of these natural flutes in a grove of
acacias is most remarkable. The description given by Dr. Schweinfurth of
these bladder-like galls leaves it uncertain whether they are true gall-nuts
or whether they are the secretion of a species of lac insects. The valuable
Indian lac insect thrives on two or three species of acacia, while one variety
(thfi A. Arabica) also produces a pod or gall-nut, which is useful for tanning.
In either case, these natural " whistles " of the whistling tree would form a
valuable article of commerce if they could be easily and regularly collected
and exported.
The Banyan Tree. This tree, a native of India, is remarkable for
its vast rooting branches. It is a species of fig; has ovate, heart-shaped,
entire leaves, about five or six inches long, and produces a fruit of a rich
scarlet color, not larger than a cherry, growing in pairs from the axils of the
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC.
341
aves. Tho branches send shoots downwards, which, when they have
rooted, become stems, the tree in this manner spreading over a great sur-
face, and endur-
ing for many
ages. One has
been described
as having no
fewer than three
hundred andfifty
stems, equal to
large oaks, and
more than three
thousand small-
er ones, covering
a space sufficient
to contain _ seven
thousand people.
The branches are
usually covered
with monkeys,
birds, and enor-
mous bats. The
monkeys eatboth
the fruit and
leaves. The veg-
etation of the
banyan seldom
begins on the
ground. The
seeds are depos-
ited by birds in
the crowns of
palms, and send
down roots
which embrace
and eventually
kill the palm. As
the banyan gets
old, it breaks up
into separate
masses, the orig-
inal trunk de-
caying, and the
props becoming
separate trunks
of the different
portions. The
wood of the ban-
yan is light, po-
ous, and of no
value. The bark is regarded by the Hindoo physicians as a powerful tonic,
and is administered in diabetes. The white, glutinous juice is used to re-
lieve toothache, and also as an application to the soles of the feet when in-
THE BAOTAN TREE.
842 CYCLOPEDIA OP USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
flamed. Bird lime is also made from it. The banyan tree is beautifully
described by Southey in his poem, " The Curse of Kehama."
The Tallow Tree. This is a remarkable tree, growing in great
plenty in China, so called from its producing a substance like tallow, and
which serves for the same purpose; it is about the height of a cherry tree,
its leaves in form of a heart, of a deep shining red color, and its bark very
smooth. Its fruit is inclosed in a kind of pod, or cover, like a chestnut, and
consists of three round white grains, of the size and form of a small nut,
each having its peculiar capsule, and a little stone within. This stone is en-
compassed with a white pulp, which has all the properties of true tallow,
both as to consistence, color, and even smell, and accordingly the Chinese
make their candles of it. All the preparation they give it is to melt it down,
and Tni-E a little oil with it, to make it softer and more pliant. The candles
made of it yield a thicker smoke and a dimmer light than do those made
from animal tallow; but those defects are owing in a great measure to the
wicks, which are not of cotton, but only a little rod of dry light wood,
covered with the pith of a rush wound round it, which, being very porous,
serves to nitrate the minute parta of the tallow, attracted by the burning
stick, and by this means is kept alive.
The Paper Tree. The name of this tree is Aouta. It is a mulberry-
tree, found at Otaheite, in the South Sea, from which a cloth is manufac-
tured that is worn by the principal inhabitants. The bark of the tree is
stripped off, and deposited to soak in running water; when it is sufficiently
softened, the fibres of the inner coat are carefully separated from the rest
of the bark; they are then placed in lengths of about eleven or twelve yards,
one by the side of another, till they are about a foot broad; and two or three
layers are put one upon another. This is done in the evening; and next
morning the water is drained off, and the several fibres adhere together in
one piece. It is afterwards beaten on a smooth piece of wood with instru-
ments marked lengthways, with small grooves of different degrees of fine-
ness; and by means of this it becomes as t.liin as muslin. After bleaching
it in the air, to whiten it, it is fit for use.
The Stinging Tree. The " stinging tree " of Queensland is a luxu-
rious shrub, pleasing to the eye but dangerous to the touch. It grows from
two or three inches to ten or fifteen feet in height, and emits a disagreeable
odor. Says a traveler: Sometimes while shooting turkeys in the scrubs, I
have entirely forgotten the stinging tree until warned of its close proximity
by its smell, and have often found myself hi a little forest of them. I was
only once stung, and that very lightly. Its effects are curious; it leaves no
mark, but the pain is maddening; and for months afterward the part when
touched is tender in rainy weather, or when it gets wet in washing, etc. I
have seen a man who treats ordinary pain lightly roll on the ground in
agony after being stung, and I have known a horse so completely mad after
getting into a grove of the trees that he rushed open-mouthed at every one
who approached him, and had to be shot. Dogs, when stung, will rush
about whining piteously, biting pieces from the affected part.
Mahogany The mahogany tree is found in Florida, and may thus be
claimed as indigenous to the United States; and there is no reason to doubt
that it may and hereafter will be planted and cultivated to great advantage.
But hitherto it has been cut chiefly in the native forests of the Bahama*, the
TREES, PLANTS, FRUITS, ETC. 343
West India Islands, Honduras and Yucatan. Full-grown, it is one of the
inonarchs of the forests of tropical America. Its vast trunk and massive
arms rising to a very lofty height, and spreading with graceful sweep over
immense spaces covered with beautiful foliage, bright, glossy, light and
airy, clinging so long to the spray as to make it almost an evergreen pre-
sent a rare combination of loveliness and grandeur. The leaves are very
small, delicate and polished like those of the laurel. The flowers are small
and white, or greenish yellow. The fruit ia a hard, woody capsule, oval, not
unlike the egg of a turkey in size and shape, and contains five cells, in each
of which are inclosed about fifteen seeds. The mahogany lumbermen, hav-
ing selected a tree, surround it with a platform about twelve feet above the
ground, and cut it above the platform. Some dozen or fifteen feet of the
largest part of the trunk are thus lost. Yet a eingle log not unfrequently
weighs from six or aeven to fifteen tons, and sometimes measures as much
as seventeen feet in length, and four and a half to five and a half feet in
diameter, one tree furnishing two, three or four such logs. Some trees have
yielded twelve thousand superficial feet, and at average piece prices have
sold for $15,000. Messrs. Broad wood, London, piano manufacturers, paid
3,000 for three logs, all cut from one tree, and each about fifteen feet long
and more than three feet square.
Rosewood. It has puzzled many people to decide vrhy the dark wood
so highly valued for furniture should be called " rosewood." Its color cer-
tainly does not look much like a rose; so we must look for some other rea-
son. Upon asking, we are told that when the tree is first cut, the fresh wood
possesses a very strong rose-like fragrance hence the name. There are a
half dozen or more kinds of rosewood trees. The varieties are found in
South America, and in the East Indies and neighboring islands. Some-
times the trees grow so large that planks four feet broad and ten feet in
length can be cut from them. These broad planks are principally used to
make the tops of pianofortes. When growing in the forest, the rosewood
tree is remarkable for its beauty; but such is its value in manufactures as
an ornamental wood that some of the forests where it once grew abundantly
now have scarcely a single specimen. In Madras the government ha
prudently had great plantations of this tree set out, in order to keep up the
GREAT INVENTIONS.
The Steam Engine. The Marquis of Worcester is commonly re-
garded as the inventor of the steam engine; but perhaps the most that can
be justly said is, that he was the first person who imagined the possibility
of constructing such a machine. The individual who actually first con-
structed an engine for raising water by the alternate force and condensation
of steam, was Captain Savary, who-published an account of his invention in
a small tract, called the " Miner's Friend." In 1705, Newcomen obtained a
patent for an improved steam engine, and in 1717 Henry Beighton made some
further improvements, one of which is generally allowed to have been that
of causing the steam cock to be opened and shut by the machinery a man
having been previously employed for the express purpose. A few other im-
provements were made by different persons, but they did not affect the gen-
eral action of the engine; and although defects in its power had been
noticed, their cause was unknown till 1765, when, happily for the prosperity
of the arts and manufactures of Britain, the subject engaged the in-
genuity of Mr. Watt. The model of a Newcomen's engine fell into his hands
to be repaired, and in this he presently observed the immense loss of steam
occasioned by its admission into the cylinder, just cooled for condensations;
indeed, he went so far as to ascertain by experiment that half the steam of
the boiler was thus lost. But the circumstance that excited his greatest
surprise was that the injection water gained infinitely more heat than if a
quantity of boiling water, equal to that required to form the steam, had
been added to it. In this dilemma, he is understood to have consulted the
celebrated Dr. Black, whose discoveries on the subject of heat were then
the theme of general wonder, and from him he obtained such an explanation
of the difficulty as enabled him so to alter the construction of the engine,
that with rather less than one-third of the quantity of steam it could pro-
duce the same power as one of equal dimensions on Newcomen's plan. But
great as was this improvement, it formed but a small part of the successful
achievements of Mr. Watt in this department of mechanics. The application
and utility of the engine he extended in various important ways, and at last
arrived at that climax of improvement which consisted in making the steam
serve to elevate as well as to depress the piston. An engine upon this plan,
executed at Mr. Watt's manufactory at Soho, near Birmingham, was first
employed at the Albion Mills, in 1778.
George Stephensou is emphatically the engineer to whose intelligence
and perseverance we owe the introduction of railroads into England, and
consequently into the United States. It was at Killingworth Colliery that
he constructed his first locomotive. At firat, it was not very efficient; but,
subsequently, the grand improvement of the "steam blast " earned his ex-
periment to a triumphant issue. Further improvements followed, and in
1821 Stephenson was appointed engineer for the construction of the Stockton
and Darlington Railway; the line, on its completion, being partially worked
by means of his great invention. The rapid growth of the trade of South
GREAT INVENTIONS.
345
Lancashire, together with the unpopular management of the Bridgewater
Canal, gave rise, in 1821, to the project of a railway between Liverpool and
Manchester. Stepheneon was chosen engineer. That he proposed to work
the line with an engine which was to go at the rate of twelve miles an hour,
was a fact held up as of itself sufficient to stamp the project as a bubble.
"Twelve miles an hourl" exclaimed the Quarterly lieciew "as well trust
one's self to be fired off on a Congreve rocket." When the bill ultimately
passed, on 16th of March, 1826, Stephenson was appointed principal engineer,
with a salary of 1,000 a year. After inconceivable difficulties, the line was
completed in 1829. There then ensued the memorable competition of
engines, resulting in the complete triumph of Mr. Stephenson's " Rocketj"
which, to the astonishment of every one except himself, was found capable
GEORGE STEPHENSON'S FIKST LOCOMOTIVE.
of traveling at the till then undreamt-of rate of thirty-five miles an hour.
" Now," exclaimed one of the directors, " George Stephenson has at last
delivered himself."
The first locomotive built in the United States was invented by the vener-
able Peter Cooper, of New York. His engine was built at the stage shops
of Reedside, Stockton & Stokes, in Baltimore; the foreman, Richard Imlay,
being the directing mechanic. Mr. Reedside remembers the trial trip
made by Mr. Cooper with his engine to the Relay House and back. The
boiler was not much larger than that of a modern kitchen range. It stood
upright in the car, and the part above the furnace was filled with sum*
vertical tubes. The cylinder was about three inches and a half in diametei,
and the speed was gotten up by gearing. To create sufficient draft to
846 CYCLOPEDIA OF tsSEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
generate steam, a blowing apparatus was used. This was driven by a fly
pulley passing over a drum, attached to one of the car wheels. Subse-
quently an open car was attached to the locomotive, which did not weigh
more than a ton, and the directors and officers of the road were carried to
Ellicott's Mills, Mr. Cooper acting as engineer and fireman. It is said that
he made fifteen miles an hour. But the inventor was doomed to be greatly
chagrined on this trip. Stockton and Stokes had two splendid gray horses
hitched tandem to a car, waiting at the Belay House on one of the tracks lor
the return of Cooper's party from Ellicott's Mills. The race began, the
start being even. The gray horses took the lead, and were soon nearly a
quarter of a mile ahead; but by and by Mr. Cooper got steam up, and the
iron horse began to gain, and with a wild hurrah Cooper's passengers as
they swept by greeted those drawn by the horse team. Just then the band
which drove the blowing apparatus slipped off the drum, and although Mr.
Cooper mangled his hands vainly trying to readjust it, the steam went down,
and Stockton's gray horses beat Cooper's iron horse into the city. The
boiler of Cooper's engine is now in the shops of the Baltimore and Ohio
Bailroad at Mount Claire.
The Telegraph,. It has been reserved for our own day to develop
into practical use the capabilities of electricity and magnetism as a means
f distant communication; although in earlier times, the possibility of such
a use of this natural power had been frequently suggested. The public use
of the electric telegraph dates not earlier than 1844; but the idea that mag-
netism could be applied for distant communication is at least two centuries
and a half old. Galileo, in one of his dialogues on the rival astronomical
systems, written in 1632, puts in the mouth of one of his speakers, a refer-
ence to a secret art, by which, through the sympathy of a magnetic needle,
it would be possible to converse across a space of two or three thousand
miles. In 1753, a letter appeared in the Scats Magazine, bearing the initials
C. M., and headed " An Expeditious Method of Conveying Intelligence," in
which we must recognize the first perception of the uses to which telegraphy
might be put. This interesting letter starts with the remark that it " is welt
known to all who are conversant in electric experiments, that the electric
power may be propagated along a small wire from one place to another
without being sensibly abated by the length of its progress; " and it goes on
to describe an arrangement of wires corresponding in number to the letters
of the alphabet, to be fixed in glass or jewellers' cement at intervals of
twenty yards, and to convey, from an electric machine or rubber, a current
which would lift each letter, " marked on bits of paper, or other substance
that might be light enough " to rise to the electrified ball which formed the
terminal of each wire. The apparatus proposed is crude and clumsy, yet we
can hardly fail to recognize, in the letter of this man, the full appreciation
of what the electric telegraph might become. From a period shortly an-
terior to the date of the letter in the Scots Magazine, down to 1837, a large
number of proposals, more or less ingenious, are on record.
In the year 1832, Samuel F. B. Morse, an American artist and inventor,
while on a voyage from Havre to New York, conceived the idea of a mag-
netic telegraph. He was at first laughed at as a man of visionary ideas, and
" as crazy as old Morse " was a common epithet in those days. Having but
scanty means, Professor Morse was unable himself to apply his invention,
and for six years he vainly petitioned Congress to appropriate a sum suffi-
cient to make the experiment. Ha struggled on until 1843, when, as he had
QREAT INVENTIONS. 347
almost yielded to despair, Congress, at midnight, and the last moments of
the session, appropriated $30,000 for an experimental line between Washing-
ton and Baltimore. This line was completed in the following year, and the
first message sent over it was: " What hath God wrought ? " For his great
invention, of such incalculable service to mankind, Professor Morse was re-
warded by testimonials, honors, orders of nobility and wealth. Several
European States joined in presenting him a purse of 400,000 francs, and
banquets were given him in London and Paris.
An electric telegraph consists of three essential parts: 1, the battery, or
source of electrical power; 2, the wire, or channel along which that power is
conveyed to the required distant point; 3, the instrument, by which the
electricity gives its signals, or makes evident to the observer its presence or
absence, its direction or degree of intensity of action.
The leading principle in the Morse and other allied instruments is, that
by the depression of a key or other method, an electric circuit is " closed "
or completed, and a signal is transmitted along the wire to a distant station,
where, on its arrival, it reproduces the signal by the action of an electro-
magnet or otherwise. Electrically the Morse consists of the transmitting
key and the electro-magnet and armature; while mechanically, it consists of
a lever, with circular wheel or disc, attached to the armature, and a clock-
work arrangement, by which the paper tape to be printed upon is carried
forward under the disc. In the first Morse instruments the marks were
made on the paper with a pointed style (the instrument being thus known
as the embosser); but by the invention of the ink-writing arrangement of
Siemens, the legibility and permanency of the record were secured, besides
the advantage that a very light current will serve to make the marks. The
passage of a current draws down the armature, and elevates the disc, caus-
ing a straight mark on the tape so long as the current flows. When it
ceases, the spring draws back the armature and the mark is discontinued.
Thus the duration of the current determines the nature of the mark, a mo-
mentary passage causing a dot and a longer depression of the key a dash.
The Morse alphabet of dots and dashes is familiar to most readers.
The Printing Press. Originating at the middle of the fifteenth, the
art of printing continued to be conducted until the middle of the seven-
teenth century in a very clumsy manner. The press resembled a screw-
press, with a contrivance for running the form of types under the point of
pressure; force having been thus applied, the screw was relaxed, and the
form withdrawn with the impression executed on the paper. The defects of
this very rude mechanism were at length partially remedied by an ingenious
Dutch mechanic, Willem Janseu Blaeu, who carried on the business of
a mathematical instrument-maker at Amsterdam. He contrived a press
in which the carriage holding the form was wound below the point of pres-
sure, which was given by moving a handle attached to a screw hanging hi a
beam having a spring, which spring caused the screw to fly back as soon as
the impression was given. This species of press, which was almost entirely
formed of wood, continued in general use in every country in Europe till
the beginning of the present century.
The first real improvement upon the printing press was made by the
Earl of Stanhope. He constructed the press of iron, and that of a size suf-
ficient to print the whole surface of a sheet, and he applied such a combined
action of levers to the screw as to make the pull a great deal less laborious
to the pressman, the mechanism altogether being such as to permit much
&8 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
more rapid and efficient working. A multitude of improvements speedily
succeeded that of Earl Stanhope, in most of which the screw was dismissed,
the pressure being generally effected by levers, or by the simple and
efficient principle of straightening a joint. The Columbian press, the inven-
tion of Mr. George Clymer, of Philadelphia, Pa., which was first exhibited hi
1818, was a gignal improvement upon all its predecessors. The pressing
power in this instance is procured by a long bar or handle acting upon a
combination of exceedingly powerful levers above the platen, the return
of the handle or levers being effected by means of counter-poises or weights.
Printing by hand-presses of an improved kind continues to be used
in the case of limited impressions, or where extra care and elegance in
typography are required; also where machinery is unattainable; but
in general circumstances, and more particularly to meet the demand for
popular reading, printing is now executed by one or other of the varieties
of cylinder-presses, moved by steam-power. On approaching a cylinder
press when at work, we perceive two cylinders, as large as hogsheads, re-
volving en upright supports; two smaller cylinders or drums revolving
above them; and beneath, within the framework, a table, on which lie the
types at both ends, going constantly backward and forward. A belt from a
steam-engine, acting upon a shaft in the frame, gives motion to the whole
apparatus. A boy, standing on the top of some steps, feeds in sheets of
paper, each of which, on being delivered, is swept round the first cylinder
(being held on by tapes), gets its impression below from the types, is car-
ried over and betwixt the drums above, and then brought round on the
second cylinder; now it gets its second side printed, and is delivered on a
table completely p rinted. On minutely examining the parts, we observe
that at each end there is an apparatus of rollers taking ink from a ductor or
reservoir of that material, and placing it upon a portion of the moving table
beneath; here other rollers distribute it, while others take it off and roll it
upon the pages of types, ready for each impression. The cylinders have a
continuous rotary motion towards each other, given by two large-toothed
wheels, whilst the type carnages move backward and forward under them.
The movements are so contrived that the type carriage shall have gone and
returned to the same point during the period that the cylinders have made
one entire revolution; consequently, each successive impression is taken
from the types by the same part of each cylinder. The two drums placed
between the cylinders are for the purpose of causing the sheet of paper to
pass smoothly and accurately from one printing cylinder to the other. To
preserve the sheet in its proper place on the cylinders, and carry it forward
through the different parts of its joiirney, there is an extensive apparatus of
tapes. These tapes are half an inch broad, and are formed into a series of
endless bands, arranged at certain distances apart, so as to fall into the
interstices and margins of the forms, and therefore escape being crushed
between the types and the cylinders. The machine may be stopped at any
instant by turning the handle of a lever.
Many years ago the fact became manifest that for daily newspapers of
large circulation, the entire editions of which must be printed within a few
hours, a press such as that just lescribed was entirely inadequate. Re-
course had to be made to an entirely new method of printing, the invention
of which is due to Mr. Richard Hoe, of New York. Mr. Hoe's process con-
sisted in placing the types (for which stereotype plates were afterward sub-
stituted) on a horizontal cylinder revolving on its axis, against which the
sheets were pressed by exterior and smaller cylinders. The forms of type
GREAT INVENTIONS.
349
occupied only a portion of the main cylinder, the remainder affording space
for the inking apparatus. The smaller surrounding cylinders for effecting
\
the pressure were arranged in a framework, in connection with slopes, by
which the sheets were fed in blank and came out printed on one side. The
eize of the main cylinder, the number of exterior cylinders, and the rate of
speed determined the number of impressions printed per hour. Such waa
860 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
the method of working Hoe'a rotary machines, which, as wanted, were made
with two, four, six, eight or ten subsidiary cylinders.
But Mr. Hoe's original invention, just described, was but the commence-
ment of that state of perfection to which the art of newspaper printing has
since attained. A modern newspaper printing-machine, such as that shown
in our illustration, prints from a continuous roll of paper and from a single
form of type, delivering the newspapers folded and ready for the reader at
the rate of twenty-two thousand perfect papers per hour. Such a press
weighs twenty-five tons, and contains five thousand separate pieces, and so
accurately must each part be adjusted that three decimals, .001, are used in
measurement. Over one hundred patents cover the mechanism of the ma-
chine, at.d the entire time of an army of workmen is employed for many
months in the construction of one of them.
The Electric Light The following description of the Electric Light
is extracted from " Qately's Universal Educator," by Professor Charles E.
Beale and M. K. Gately (Boston, Mass.: M. K. Gately):
" When Faraday in 1846 made the discovery that light could be produced
by the separation of two carbon rods conducting electricity of considerable
intensity, the possibility of electric lighting on a large scale was first pre-
sented to the minds of scientists. The effect appeared due to the rarefac-
tion of the air by the great heat of carbon in rapid combustion, and to the
passage of mean descent particles of carbon from pole to pole, thus reducing
the resistance always offered by air to the passage of electricity.
" Years spent in the study of the subject seem to have satisfied the ad-
vanced scientists that such a division of the electric light as would be neces-
sary to the lighting of extensive areas was impossible; but fortunately there
were men so little scientific in theory that they were not prevented from ex-
perimenting until they succeeded in producing practical results. And within
a year, two classes of lights have been produced which seem specially
adapted to the uses made of them.
The first is called the arc-light, and its principle has already been stated
above as consisting in passing an electric current between two carbon points.
In order, however, to produce an electric tension of sufficient fores to allow
any considerable sub-division of this light, it was necessary to invent pow-
erful machines that would give a uniform motion to the current: and this
has at last been accomplished in the dynamo-electric machine, and particu-
larly that of Gramme. But, in order to use this machine, a gas or steam
engine, or some mechanical power, is required to give rapid motion to the
coils; and some of this power is lost in overcoming the friction of machinery,
BO that in no case can more than two-thirds of the force of the engine be
utilized. Where water-power can be used, it will be most economical.
" On account of the great resistance offered by the atmosphere and car-
bons at the arc, the power of sub-division of the light is comparatively lim-
ited. In one light the candle-power may be as high as one-tenth of the
number of foot-pounds of power employed; but when the attempt is made
to divide a light for instance, of four thousand candle-power into twenty
arc-lights of two-hundred candle-powerit cannot be done, for much electro-
motive force presents itself at each arc in an opposite direction to the ad-
vancing current. A division can, however, be made with considerable loss
of power at each arc, though the largest number of arc-lights yet produced
by one machine is forty.
" The carbons which produce the arc-light are gradually consumed;
ORE AT INVENTIONS. 351
hence the space between the points would continually increase with loss of
lighting-power were it not for a self-regulating apparatus, which keeps the
points uniformly at the same distance apart. This light is said to show pre-
cisely the same spectrum as does sunlight, and is claimed to be identical in
action.
" The coolness of the electric light is due to the absence of that large ex-
cess of less refrangible or heat-radiating rays, which is found nearly alike
in all other modes of artificial lighting; and this absence of heat-rays is due
to the almost perfect combustion of carbon material, and the consequent
transformation of nearly all the heat, on account of its great intensity, into
light. This light is used for lighting large areas, as streets of cities.
" The other class of electric light is simpler in construction and more
direct in action. It is called the incandescent light. To produce this light,
beside the usual generating machine and conducting wires, it is necessary
to have at each lamp, to receive the current of electricity and transform it to
heat and light, a rather poor conductor of electricity formed into a wire
loop or curve; and it must be either non-combustible in air, or unchange-
able in a vacuum. Carbon seems to be the best substance for this purpose,
because, as compared with the only other substance, platinum, which can
be used in this way, it is infusible. It has, however, been found difficult to
manage, on account of its combustibility; yet, by repeated experiments and
indomitable perseverance, Mr. Edison, of New York, and Mr. Swan, of Eng-
land, at about the same time, succeeded in producing lamps which give
satisfaction to all who use them. The lamps are substantially the same in
principle, though Mr. Edison's proves more durable; Mr. Swan using a fine
carbonized paper filament, while Mr. Edison's lamp consists of a single curl
or loop of carbonized bamboo, no thicker than a hair, placed in an exhausted
glass bulb. Notwithstanding the extreme fineness of the loop, it possesses
the elasticity of a steel spring, and will endure electric currents of great
force.
" These lamps were not serviceable at first, because the air was not
sufficiently exhausted from the bulb and the carbons were soon consumed
by oxidation; but a more perfect vacuum was finally formed by passing a
greater current of electricity through the carbon in the bulb than it would
subsequently be subjected to, and at the same time exhausting the air.
The bulb is sealed while these actions are taking place.
" Each lamp is subjected to this process, and is made air and water tight.
Each carbon, by a wire passing through the bottom of the lamp, is broughi
imto connection with the conducting wires from the battery or dynamo-
machine, upon screwing the lamp into a socket prepared for it. Apparatus
has been invented by which the amount of electricity can be regulated, and
the same effect produced as by partially turning on or off a current of gas in
case of gas-light. In order to light a lamp it is only necessary to turn a
cock exactly similar to a gas-cock, and matches are not required. The de-
sirableness of this lamp consists not alone in its soft, clear light, but in its
freedom from the heating and air-vitiating qualities of other artificial lights.
" The subdivision of this light is limitless, and depends only upon the
quantity of electricity produced, and not upon the- tension or electro-motive
force, as does the arc-light. The success of this subdivision was only secured
after numerous experiments, and yet, when obtained, seemed so simple thai
the inventor undoubtedly was vexed at his stupidity in not at once thinking
of it; but it is one of the greatest accomplishments of the age.
" It is effected by running the conducting wires side by side and placing
852 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
the lamps between them in connection with both, so that, as the electricity
hi quantity moves along the conducting wires, a sufficient amount passes
into each lamp to produce the light, and the greater the quantity the
brighter the light. It has been illustrated by one scientist in this way: Two
canals conveying water are cut along the side of a hill, one above the other,
at a distance of & or 1^5 of the height of the hill. The upper canal is
connected with the lower at fifty or one hundred places by sluices, in each
of which is a water-wheel; and, as the upper canal is always kept full, each
sluice will have a sufficient quantity of water pass through it to the lower
canal to keep its wheel running, and if any wheel gets out of order it in no
way affects the others. Mr. Edison is now engaged in laying five hundred
miles of underground mains in the city of New York, under agreement to
furnish each dwelling with light at the same rate as gas is now furnished.
" The arc-lamp is more economical than the incandescent lamp for the
reason that it admits of electrical action of greater intensity; thus producing
heat of a higher temperature and lessening the quantity expended, while in-
creasing the brilliancy of the light. As at present constituted, the carbons
of the incandescent lamps will not endure the high temperature of the arc-
lamps, hence require a greater quantity of electricity at a comparatively
low temperature; but their construction will in time undoubtedly be so im-
proved as to render them more economical.
" The incandescent light admits of unlimited sub-division, because the
circuit is not broken; hence the resistance is only that of the conducting
wires; while the arc-light is limited in division because it only acts by the
breaking of the circuit. Mr. Brush, however, of the Brush Arc-Light Com-
pany, claims to have lately increased the power of his machines by so ar-
ranging the commutator as to cut off that portion of the wires which is in-
active during polarization, thus reducing the resistance;, and ne also claims
to have discovered a way by which he can store the superfluous electricity
which his machine generates during the day, and make use of it during the
night, so as not to necessitate the running of the machine at night."
The Sewing Machine. Like the stocking-frame, which in principle
it closely resembles, we owe the invention of the sewing machine to the in-
genuity of a poor mechanic, striving to lessen the labor which he saw was a
real hardship upon his wife and other poor women. Elias Howe, a native
of Massachusetts, surrounded by a young family for whom he was obliged
to labor during the day, devoted his after-hours to the construction of a
sewing machine. This was about the year 1841, and his career since that
period forms a striking chapter in the annals of intelligent labor, and fur-
nishes another proof of the saying that " fact is stranger than fiction." After
incessant labor, during the latter part of which he and his family were in-
debted to a friend for the means of subsistence, he completed the first work-
ing sewing machine, the patent for which was granted to him in May, 1841.
He did not succeed in inducing the people of the United States to see the
value of his patent, and came to England where, after patenting it there
also, he met with so much discouragement that he sold the patent for 250
and a royalty of 3 per machine to a staymaker, Mr. Thomas, of Cheapside,
London, who used it successfully in his own business, but did so little
towards making it public that for several years its existence was only known
to a very few individual manufacturers. When Howe reached his own
country again, he found his American patent pirated by a wealthy company;
but with admirable spirit he asserted his rights, and succeeded in establish-
GREAT INVENTIONS.
353
ing them; and it is gratifying to know that his talent, industry and perse-
verance were rewarded, for he became a wealthy man. Howe's machine
worked what is called the lock-stitch, but since his invention became
known, numerous improvements and modifications have been introdiiced by
other inventors. The principal of these are as follows: 1. Machines which
sew with one thread; of which one kind makes the through-and-through or
shoemaker's sttich, the thread being held and pushed through with pincers,
one pair on each side of the material to be sewn. The needle is pointed at
each end, and being pushed through by the pincers on one side, is taken
hold of by the corresponding pair on the other, and the thread is thus pulled
through backwards and forwards. Only a small length of thread can be
used by this machine, hence it is of but limited application. 2. Another
single-thread machine makes the running-stitch. In this, the needle is
stationary, and receives a continuous supply of thread from a reel, the two
small-toothed wheels are so arranged that their teeth, pressing into one an-
other, crimp the two pieces of
cloth, and push them forward
against the point of the needle,
which, as it gets filled, is relieved
by the operator, who keeps
drawing the sewn cloth off at the
eye-end of the needle. This ma-
chine answers admirably in cases
where loose tacking is required.
It is the invention of an Ameri-
can of the name of Bostwick. 3.
The chain or tambour stitch is
also a single-thread stitch,
the machine for which was in-
vented by M. Thimmonier, a
Frenchman, in 1848. In this, the
thread is looped upon itself by
means of a curved shuttle after
it has passed through the cloth.
This kind of stitch, though very
useful for some kinds of work, is
easily pulled out. 4. Wheeler
and Wilson's is a double-thread machine, and besides the vertical eye-
pointed needle, has a curved shuttle or hook working below, with &
revolving reel inside its curve. The reel is of metal, each side being con-
vex externally; and so adjusted on the axle that the edges are so near to-
gether as to admit only one thickness of the thread to pass through. It fits
easily within the nearly circular hook, and gives off its thread as required.
The thread passes partly round the outer edge of the hook upon a slightly
grooved bevel which forms a loop, and passes it between the needle and the
thread which it carries with it in descending; the loop is held in position as
the needle ascends, and the cloth being moved on, the next descent of
the needle takes it through the loop and receives another below it, which
renders the first one tightly locked. Sewing machines have been patented
in America and England by another American named Blake for sewing the
soles on boots and shoes; and so rapid are they in their work, that it is
said during the war in the United States as many as one hundred and fifty
pairs of soles have been sewed on army boots in one day by a single
SHUTTLE OF THE WHEELER AND WILSON
SEWING MACHINE.
354 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
machine. Special sewing machines are also in use for sewing the upper
leathers of boots and shoes, for gloves, for embroidery, and for various
other purposes.
The Telephone. This instrument is designed to convey sounds to a
distance by electricity. Sound being propagated by vibration of air, the
scientific requirement of the telephone is that it should, by the vibration of
a tongue or membrane, represent different sounds; and to do this the cur-
rents of electricity must vary continuously in the proportion of the velocity
of the movements of air producing the sounds. In the telephone of Ileis, of
Frankfurt, produced in 1860, the " transmitter " consisted of a membrane
which, by means of a simple contact-breaker, sent a series of currents along
the line, producing in the " receiver " a series of ticks, their varying rapidity
reproducing, though somewhat- faintly, the quality and tone of the trans-
mitted note. In 1874, Elisha Gray, of Chicago, adapted the telephonic prin-
ciple to " nraltiplex " telegraphy over a single wire, the vibrations of a
series of tuning forks affording the different tones in which several individ-
ual messages could be simultaneously sent. The telephone of A. Graham
Bell, an Edinburgh gentleman resident in America, attracted much attention
at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. The transmitter ehows a mem-
brane, bearing on its center a small piece of iron, placed opposite the poles
of an electro-magnet. The receiver, an upright tube enclosing an electro-
magnet, has fixed on the top a thin disc of iron, left free to vibrate. The
sounds are produced by the vibrations of this disc, corresponding to cur-
rente of electricity from the other end, sounds made before the transmitter
being reproduced with startling fidelity. Speeches made and songs sung
have been distinctly heard at a distance of eighteen miles; and in a paper read
before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in May, 1876, Mr. Bell
stated that when two persons spoke before the transmitter, both sounds
could be distinguished at the other end. The telephone has come into gen-
eral use in all parts of the United States, and is undoubtedly one of the
most important and valuable of modern inventions.
The Microphone. This instrument, invented in 1878 by Professor
Hughes, doeg for faint sounds what the microscope does for matter too
mall for sight the fall of a bit of tissue paper or the tread of a fly being
rendered audible at many miles distance. In principle the microphone
illustrates the action of sonorous vibrations on the strength of an electric
current. One of the most sensitive substances for microphonic action is
willow-charcoal, plunged in a state of white heat into mercury. The theory
is that in a homogeneous conductor the compressions and dilatations of the
molecules balance each other, and no variation of current ensues, while
under minute sub-division, with electrical continuity, sonorous waves
affect the strength of an electric current, and variations in the current re-
produce sonorous waves. One form of microphone consists of a piece of
mercury-tempered carbon an inch long, placed vertically between two car
bon-blocks hollowed to receive its ends, wires connecting the blocks wiru
the battery and the receiver by which the sounds are to be heard. " A
piece of willow-charcoal," says the inventor, " me size of a phi's head is
sufficient to reproduce articulate speech." Two nails laid parallel, with
wire connections, and a third nail laid across them, make a simple form of
microphone. A few cells of anj form of battery may be used. A continu-
ous sound is made by the mutual interaction of the microphone and tele-
GREAT INVENTIONS. 355
phone, each instrument in turn repeating the sound made by the other.
Many useful applications of the microphone have been made.
The Cotton Gin. Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, was
born at Westborough, Massachusetts, December 8, 1765, and was educated
at Yale College, where he paid his expenses partly by school teaching, partly
by mechanical labor. Having graduated in 1792, he went to Georgia as a
teacher; but finding a generous patron in the widow of General Greene, of
the revolutionary army, he resided upon her estate and studied law. The
cotton culture at this period, especially that of the best kind, the " green
seed," was limited by the slow and difficult work of separating the cotton
from the seed by hand; but Mrs. Greene told her complaining neighbors that
she was sure Whitney could help them out of their trouble, for he could
make anything. At their desire, he set to work under great disadvantages,
for he had to make his own tools, and even draw his own wire; but the re-
ports of his success prompted some lawless people to break into his work-
shop and steal his machine and get others made before he could secure a
patent. He, however, formed a partnership with a Mr. Miller, in 1793, and
went to Connecticut to manufacture cotton gins; but the lawsuits in defense
of his rights took all his profits, likewise $50,000 voted him by the State of
South Carolina. He afterward amassed a fortune in the manufacture of fire-
arms, but received but barren honor from the gin, one of the most important
of the whole series of inventions connected with the cotton manufacture. The
machine invented by Mr. Whitney is composed of a hopper, having one side
formed of strong parallel wires placed so close together as to exclude the
passage of the seeds from within. The cotton is dragged through the aper-
tures by means of circular saws attached to a large roller, and made to re-
volve between the wires, the seeds sinking to the bottom of the hopper.
The Spinning Jenny. The modern system of cotton manufacture
dates no further back than about 1760. Prior to the mechanical inventions
of Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton and Cartwright, the arts of spuming
and weaving were entirely domestic, and the instruments of manipulation
much the same as those which had been in use in the East for centuries be-
fore. By means of the ancient distaff and spindle, or the more recent spin-
ning-wheel, only one thread at a time was produced, and the process, as
may be imagined, was tedious, and not very remunerative; besides which,
only a very inferior yarn was the result. Altogether in the middle of the
eighteenth century the machinery for spinning was much more imperfect
than that for weaving, and the weavers of the time were often at a stand for
want of yarn to go on with.
This state of things had long occupied the attention of the thinking por-
tion of the spinners, but without any practical result until the invention of
the " jenny," by Hargreaves, about 1767. By this machine, eight threads at
a time could be spun against the one of the spinning- wheel. Hargreaves
was much abused by the populace of his native town and neighborhood, who
feared that the invention would deprive them of all employment; the ma-
chine was destroyed, and the inventor compelled to leave his birthplace.
Genius, however, ultimately triumphed, and the " spinning jenny " was
patented at Nottingham in 1770. The year previously, Arkwright had pat-
ented his " water-frame," or " throstle," for spinning by rollers, by means
of which a stronger and much firmer yarn was produced. It was about
this period that fabrics composed entirelv of cotton were woyep for the first
866 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
time, the "jenny " supplying the weft, and the " throstle " the warp. A few
years later, Mr. Crompton brought out a new piece of mechanism, which he
styled the " mule jenny," from its combining the [principles of both Har-
greaves' and Arkwright's patents; but it had an advantage over both, inso-
much as it produced a much finer yarn than either. The " mule " came into
full play in or about 1780, which is the period assigned for the birth of the
muslin trade. There was now no longer a scarcity of yarn; the fear was
that that there would be too much, for it was clear that the hand-loom
weavers of the time could nut keep up with the improved spinning ma-
chinery. But the invention of the " power loom," by Dr. Cartwright, in
1785, set aside all doubts in this respect.
The first " mule jenny " contained about thirty spindles, which, instead
of being stationary, as in the "jenny" and "throstle," were placed on a
carriage, which was moved outwards in order, while twisting, to increase
the fineness of the thread, and inwards again to wind the yarn on the spin-
dles. This required the constant attendance of a spinner to wheel the car-
riage backwards and forwards; but subsequent improvements have gone so
far as to produce what
is called the self-act-
ing mule, two or three
of which only require
the assistance of one
person, generally a
boy or girl, whose
place it is to piece any
of the threads which
may break during
spinning. Mules of this
construction are made
with as many as one
thousand or two thou-
SPINNING JENNY. 8and spindles, some-
times more; and with
the self-actor, as now improved, a single thread has been produced meas-
uring upwards of one thousand miles in length, and yet weighing but one
pound.
The Type-Setting 1 Machine. The first type-composing machine
on the records of the English Patent Office appears to be that of Mr. W.
Church, and the specification of his patent is dated March, 1822. This, after
a lapse ot twenty years, was followed by a number of others, scarcely a
year passing without one or more being made the subject of a patent. For
at least half a century, therefore, the construction of a useful type-setting
machine has been a problem which a number of ingenious men have tried
to solve, but it is only within the last year or two that there has been any-
thing more than the mere appearance of success. If the reader will look
carefully at a page of printed matter, he will notice that the spaces between
the words are not equal, and he will readily understand that to reduce this
inequality to a minimum, requires skill and experience if the work is to go
on swiftly. It is in the doing of this, which is called "justifying," where a
machine fails, because another operator must afterward space the machine
setting into lines of equal length. It is comparatively easy to construct a
which will, by some mechanical arrangement, drop any required
GREAT INVENTIONS. 357
letter from a series of files or reservoirs of types, through a channel which
conveys to a composing stick that is, which will set up type in any required
order, but with exactly equal spaces between the words; but the difficulty of
justifying has not yet been got over. Still, as that operation can be per-
formed by girls at comparatively little cost, there is a decided advantage in
favor of the machine.
In the early composing-machine by Church, the types are arranged in
files in a case at the top, each file being directly over a slit in a horizontal
frame. One of a number of jacks protrudes through each of these slita,
each jack Ijeiug connected with a key in a manner somewhat similar to the
jacks and keys of a harpsichord. On the depressing of any particular key,
the undermost typo of the file is pushed into a race, from which it passes to
a composing stick. It is surprising how closely this description conveys to
us the leading idea in most of the type-composing machines invented since
1822. Hattersley's machine, for example, which was patented in 1857, has
somewhat analogous movements, but the keys are arranged more like those
of a concertina, and the details are different. This machine, which occupies
a space of about two feet by three, has a horizontal top stage on which ia
placed a partitioned tray, containing the rows of types running from back to
front, each row being of course all the same letter. Descending vertically
along the front of this tray is a series of as many wires with pistons as there
are rows of types, an J these pistons are depressed by the keys acting by
bell-cranks, and then returned to their first position by means of india-rub-
ber bands or springs. A propeller kept in a state of tension by an india-
rubber spring is placed in the rear of each row of types, and draws them
forward to the piston. When the girl working the machine presses down, say
an e key, it depresses the e piston, which pulls down with it an e type, and
drops it into a tube or channel which conveys it to what represents the com-
posing stick, and so on with every other letter, figure, comma, or "space."
The series of channels converge to a focus or common outlet, through which
every type in succession passes to its proper place. Machines on Hattersley's
principle, with the details much improved by Mr. Fraser, of Edinburgh, are
at present in use. With one of these machines a girl can compose from
" copy " at the rate of from ten thousand to twelve thousand types per hour,
but this rate can hardly be maintained continuously, the strain of such
rapid setting being too great for the operator. The types are set in long
lines, and require afterwards to be "justified." This is done by another
girl, who, with the aid of a slip of brass of the desired length of the line,
forms the matter into pages, spacing out each line as she proceeds.
The want of an efficient distributing machine has hitherto been the great
drawback to the adoption of composers, but Mr. Fraser has met this diffi-
culty by constructing a distributer which bids fair to supply the want. It
separates the different letters by a series of switches acted upon by keys
similar to those of the composing machine. On the depression of a key,
the corresponding switch is opened, and the type guided to its proper com-
partment ia the composing-machine reservoir. Type-setting and distrib-
uting machines like the above in their plan of working have been in opera-
tion for several years. Another composing machine, by Mr. Mackie, of
Warrington, England, deserves notice for the ingenuity shown in its con-
struction. It is much more elaborate than any of those above referred to.
The first operation is to perforate slips of stiff paper, which is done by a
separate machine. These slips, when perforated, represent the words to be
composed, and are then passed to the composing-machine proper. In it the
458 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
types are placed by hand in a series of boxes above the circumference of a
large wheel, which is made to revolve, and at each revolution a certain part,
acting in concert with the previously perforated paper, comes in contact
with mechanism which releases the desired types at the proper time, and
carries them forward to a point, where they are pushed off into lines in the
composing stick.
Tlie Type-Writer The writing machine called the Type- Writer waa
invented at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1867, by C. Latham Sholes, Samuel W.
Soule and Carlos Glidden, and patented in 1868. Mr. Gliddeu's suggestion
that such a machine ought to be made was his principal contribution to the
enterprise. It was Mr. Soule who suggested pivoted types sei in a circle,
and Mr. Sholes who suggested the letter-spacing device. The other minor
details of the first crude machine were the work of Mr. Soule. The labor
spent in experimenting extended "over a period of nearly ten years, during
which many machines were made and condemned, although each was an
improvement upon its predecessor. But when at length the first complete
and finished type-
writer was made and
offered to the public
by Messrs. E. Kem-
ington & Sons, of
Ilion, New York, to
whom its manufac-
ture had been en-
trusted, it was recog-
nized at once as one
of the great inven-
tions of modern
times. The types are
at the end of levers,
so arranged as to
strike at a common
printing point, the operator having but to depress keys, arranged with refer-
ence to rapidity of motion in the necessary order. The paper is passed
along by a species of clock-work machinery. An expert operator can write
with this machine more than twice as fast as with the pen. It is in much
favor with business men, who, by employing an operator likewise familiar
with stenography, may in a few moments dictate a mass of correspondence
which would otherwise perhaps consume a day's time in execution. It is
likewise of inestimable service to lawyers and others, for by the use of car-
bon paper, several copies of any writing or instrument executed upon the
type-writer may be taken. The Standard Type- Writer is still manufactured
under the original patents by Messrs. E. Bernington & Sons, and sold ex-
clusively by the firm of Wyckoff, Seamane & Benedict, of New York, who are
sole agents for the world.
The Mower and Reaper. In the first century of the Christian era
Pliny the elder found a reaping machine in Gaul. He described it as a van,
with projecting teeth on the edge, which was driven upon two wheel*
through the standing grain by an ox yoked in a reverse position. This rude
affair tore off the ears, abandoning the straw. Four centuries later Palla-
dius found a similar appliance for reaping grain in Gaol.
THE TYPE-WKITEB.
GREAT INVENTIONS. 359
In modern times the idea of a mechanical reaper appears to have origi-
nated with a Mr. Capel Lloft, an Englishman, who, in 1785, suggested a ma-
chine very little superior to the rude appliance above described. In the
early part of the present century numerous patents were granted in Great
Britain for mechanical reapers, and the llev. Patrick Bell, a Scotchman, in
^826, constructed a simple machine, several features of which are observ-
able in the reapers of the present day. All of these machines, however, were
more or less crude and experimental, and the real credit for the invention
of the mower and reaper is due to two Americans, Hussey and McCormick.
In 1833 Obed Hussey invented the reciprocating wave-edged knife, and
his machine, having been tried in the State of Ohio, was patented the same
,vear. In 1834, C. M. McCormick, a Virginian, patented a reaper which
comprised many improvements, but in which Mr. Hussey's knife was
adopted. In the early days of the reaper the sheaves were delivered di-
rectly in the rear of the machine, whereby a sufficient number of men were
required in the harvest field to bind the grain as fast as cut. Subsequently
the platform of the machine was made of a quadrant shape, the sheaves be-
ing delivered at the side. The delivery of the sheaves by manual labor was
early abandoned, and many improvements in the self-raking attachments
were invented and patented. In recent years the entire attention of the
manufacturers of patented harvesters has been devoted to the invention of
an attachment for binding the grain as it is cut. Some of these binders use
wire, others cord, the latter being preferred.
The Sand Blast. Among the wonderful and useful inventions of the
times is the common sand blast. Suppose you desire to letter a piece of
marble for a gravestone; you cover the stone with a sheet of wax no thicker
than a wafer, then cut in the wax the name, date, etc., leaving the marble
exposed. Now pass it under the blast and the wax will not be injured at
all, but the sand will cut the letters deep into the stone. Or, if you desire
raised letters, a flower or other emblem, cut the letters, flowers, etc., in the
wax, and stick them upon the stone; then pass the stone under the blast
and the sand will cut it away. Bemove the wax and you will have the lei-
ters raised. Take a piece of French plate glass, say two feet by six, and
cover it with flue lace; pass it under the blast and not a thread of the lace
will be injured, but the sand will cut deep into the glass wherever it is not
covered with lace. Now remove the lace and you have a very delicate and
beautiful figure raised upon the glass. In this way beautiful figures of all
kinds are cut in glass, and at a little expense. The workmen can hold their
hands under the blast without harm, even when it is rapidly cutting away
the hardest glass, iron, or stone, but they must look out for their finger
nails, for they will be whittled off right hastily. If they put on steel thim-
bles to protect the nails, it will do little good, for the sand will soon whittle
them away, but if they wrap a piece of soft cotton around them they are
safe. You will at once see the philosophy of it. The sand whittles away
and destroys any hard substance, even glass, but does not affect substances
that are soft and yielding, like wax, cotton, or fine lace, or even the human
hand.
Accidental Discoveries Valuable discoveries have been made and
valuable inventions suggested by the veriest accidents An alchemist,
while seeking to discover a mixture of earths that would make 'the moet
durable crucibles,, one day found that he had made porcelain.
360 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The power of lenses, as applied to the telescope, was discovered by a
watch-maker's apprentice. While holding spectacle glasses between hia
thumb and his finger he was startled at the sudden enlarged appearance oi
a neighboring church spire.
The art of etching upon glass was discovered by a Nuremberg glasscut-
ter. By accident a few drops of aqua fortis fell upon his spectacles. He
noticed that the glass corroded and softened where the acid had touched it.
That was hint enough. He drew figures upon the glass with varnish, ap-
plied the corroding fluid, then cut away the glass around the drawing.
When the varnish was removed the figure appeared raised upon a dark
ground.
Mezzotinto owed its invention to the simple accident of the gun-barrel of
a sentry becoming rusty with dew. The swaying of a chandelier in a cathe-
dral suggested to Galileo the application of a pendulum.
The art of lithographing was 'perfected through a suggestion made by
accident. A poor musician was curious to know whether music could not
be etched upon stone as well as upon copper. After he had prepared his
slab his mother asked him to make a memorandum of such clothes as he
proposed to be sent away to be washed. Not having pen, ink and paper
convenient, he wrote the list on the stone, intending to make a copy at hia
leisure. A few days later, when about to clean the stone, he wondered
what effect aqua fortis would have upon it. He applied the acid, and in a
few minutes saw the writing standing out in full relief. The next step was
simply to ink the stone and take off an impression. Hence the lithograph.
It is said that the rolling of cold iron was first suggested by the fact that
a workman who was placing a piece of hot iron in the rolls carelessly per-
mitted his tongs to be drawn in. He noticed that they were rolled, and not
broken. He called the attention of the superintendent to the occurrence,
and this led to investigation and experiment and the discovery that cold
rolled iron is equal to steel for shafting purposes. The process of rolling
iron cold was not long afterward patented, and millions of dollars have
been made out of the patent.
There are many similar instances where observing workmen have called
attention to valuable processes. A signal one was in the early period of the
cotton manufacture, when a good deal of trouble was caused by the cotton
sticking to the bobbins. All the workmen in the mill were delayed by the
necessity of stopping work to clean the bobbins. At last one -workman
found a way to obviate the trouble. He, atd he alone in all the mill, had
clean bobbins. For a long time he kept his secret to himself. He finally
revealed it on the promise of a pint of beer a day for life. His secret was to
" chalk the bobbins." That little scraping of salt on the bobbins saved mil-
lions of dollars a year, and the observing workman got not only his beer,
but a competence.
The Age of Inventions. The number of inventions that have been
made during the past fifty years is perhaps unprecedented hi the history of
the world. Of course inventions of benefit to the human race have been
made in all ages since man was created; but looking back for half a hun-
dred years, how many more are crowded into the past fifty than into any
other fifty since recorded history! The perfection of the locomotive, and
the now world traversing steamship, the telegraph, the telephone, the audi-
phone, the sewing machine, the photograph, chromo-lithographic printing,
She cylinder printing press, the elevator for hotels and other many etoried
GK.EAT INVENTIONS. 3C1
buildings, the cotton gin and the spinning jenny, the reaper and mower, the
steam thresher, the steam fire engine, the improved process for making
steel, the application of chloroform and ether to destroy sensibility in pain-
ful surgery cases, and so on through a long catalogue.
Nor are we yet done in the field of invention and discovery. The appli-
cation of coal gas and petroleum to heating and cooking operations is only
trembling on the verge of successful experiment, the introduction of the
steam from a great central reservoir to general use for heating and cooking
is foreshadowed as among the coming events, the artificial production of
butter has already created consternation among dairymen, the navigation of
the air by some device akin to our present balloon would also seem to be
prefigured, and the propulsion of machinery by electricity is even now
clearly indicated by the march of experiment. There are some problems
we have hitherto deemed impossible, but are the mysteries of even the
most improbable of them more subtle to the grasp than that of the ocean
cable or that of the photograph or the telephone ? "We talk by cable with
an ocean rolling between; we speak in our own voices to friends one hun-
dred miles or more from where we articulate before the microphone.
Under the blazing sun of July we produce ice by chemical means, rival-
ing the most solid and crystalline production of nature. Our surgeons
graft the skin from one person's arm to the face of another, and it adheres
and becomes an integral portion of his body. We niako a mile of white
printing paper, and send it on a spool that a perfecting printing press un-
winds and prints, and cuta, and delivers to you folded and counted, many
thousands per hour. Of a verity this is the age of invention, nor has the
world reached a stopping-place yet.
Coincidences in Inventions. Coincidences in invention and dis-
covery are the rule rather than the exception. When any notable advance
is made in the knowledge of the laws of nature, or in applying that knowl-
edge, old or new, to the service of man, it is hardly ever one person alone
who makes the discovery or the application. Almost always more than one
claimant appears, and frequently several make good their claims to the
honor of having pursued independently and to valuable results the same
line of thought or experiment that has made one of their number famous by
associating his name permanently with the great invention or discovery. Le
Verrier and Adams almost simultaneously reasoned out the existence of the
planet Neptune, and directed astronomical observers how to point their tele-
scopes in order to find it. Professor Morse's title to distinction as the in-
ventor of the magnetic telegraph was stubbornly contested by men who had
labored with the same idea before it occurred to him. Half a dozen others
had toiled upon the problem of steam navigation before Fultou solved it.
Morton, Jackson, and Wells were experimenting with anaesthetics at the
same time, and the merit of the discovery is still claimed for each of them.
Bell and Gray invented their respective telephones almost at the same
time. Edison and Hughes dispute each other's claim to priority in the in-
vention of the microphone. In some of these cases probably one claimant
has knowingly or unconsciously borrowed something from his rival; but
those where two or more persons have pursued independently substantially
the same line of research and experiment, tending to the same reault, *re
yery numerous.
MINING.
Gold. Gold has been known and regarded as the most precious of th
metals from the earliest ages of the world, and has heen universally em-
ployed as a medium of exchange. Although the quantity of gold which is
found, when compared with that of many other metals, is small, yet there
are few parts of the glohe in which it does not occur more or less abun-
dantly. In the native state, it occurs crystallized, the primary form being
the cube, or in plates, ramifications, or nodules popularly known as
nuggets which sometimes are of very considerable size. It is almost
always alloyed with silver, and sometimes with tellurium, bismuth, lead,
etc. It sometimes occurs in small quantity in metallic sulphides, as in
galena, iron and copper pyrites.
In its compact state, it possesses a characteristic yellow color and high
metallic lustre, is nearly as soft as lead, and is the most malleable of all
metals. It can be beaten into leaves of a thinness not exceeding 1-200,000,
or, according to some authors, 1-280,000 of an inch, through which light
passes with a green tint; one grain may thus be distributed over fifty-six
square inches of surface, and the ductility of the metal is so great, that the
same quantity may be drawn out into five hundred feet of wire.
Gold was, in all probability, one of the earliest discovered of the metals.
The fact of its being found very generally distributed over the surface ot the
earth, and that, too, in its simple metallic state, combined with its beautiful
color, and many valuable properties, would cause it very early to attract
the attention of man. Accordingly we learn that gold was used by the He-
brews, the Egyptians, and other ancient nations, for much the same pur-
poses as it is at the present day.
Previous to the great Californian discovery in 1847, Europe was to a
great extent supplied with gold from Mexico, Brazil, New Granada, Chili
and Peru in North and South America; a large quantity was also obtained
from Asiatic Kussia and the islands of. the Indian Archipelago; the east and
west coast of Africa furnished a less but still considerable quantity. All
these countries still produce gold, but their total yield, including Europe,
is only about one-fourth that of California and Australia.
The rich gold region of California was discovered in September, 1847.
Mr. Marshall, the contractor for a saw-mill on the estate of Captain Snter
a Swiss emigrant, settled on the banks of the Sacramento Eiver detected
particles of gold in the sand of the mill-race, and on further examination, it
was found that valuable deposits existed throughout the bed of the stream.
Intelligence of the discovery soon reached the town of San Francisco, whose
scanty population at once abandoned their usual occupations to join in the
exciting search for gold. The supply was soon found to be abundant over a
large area, p.nd emigranto quickly poured in from all parts of the American
continent, r.nd ere long from Great Britain, Germany, and other European
countries, till the population of San Francisco alone rose from under two
hundred in 1845 to forty thousand in 1858, and in 1870 it waa one hundred
MINING. 63
and fifty thousand. At first it was thought that the supply of gold f *ni
this region would BOOU fail, but though the supply, which continued for
several years at upwards of $85,000,000 per annum, had ,n 1874 fallen to
between six and seven millions, which, moreover, included the yield of the
adjoining States of Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, future mining
prospects are far from being discouraging.
In 1851, before the excitement of the Californian discovery had time to
subside, the world was startled by the announcement of another, or rather
by a series of others, of not less importance, in Australia. It is a curious
fact that not only Sir R. Murchison, but also the Eev. W. B. Clarke, a native
geologist, had pointed out the likelihood of gold being found in the eastern
chain of the Australian mountains several years before the value of tho
gold fields near Bathurst was discovered by Mr. Hargraves in April, 1851.
This discovery was no sooner made, however, than several other places in
Bathurst and the adjoining counties were found to contain rich deposits; so
that, before many months had passed, six thousand persons were employed
at these diggings. In August of the same year, further discoveries of gold
were made at Ballarat, in Victoria, which excelled in richness those of the
Sydney district; and these, in turn, were soon surpassed by fresh discov-
eries in the Moxint Alexander range. During the climax of the excitement
created by the Victoria gold fields, the number of diggers rose to such a
pitch as to withdraw for a time the great mass of the population from Mel-
bourne and Geelong.
The modes of working adopted at the first start of the diggings were
necessarily rude and wasteful; the fortunes of the gold seekers, too, were
of course very variable under such a system, many of them having made
large profits as much in a few instances as five thousand dollars and up-
wards in a single week but many more met with notbfng but disappoint-
ment. A more systematic plan of mining, however, has now been intro-
duced, by which the auriferous deposits are more completely worked out,
and mining undertakings rendered less precarious. But notwithstanding
the improved methods of working, the average annual produce of gold in
the Australian colonies for the five years ending 1874, was only about $35,-
000,000, which was less than two-thirds of the yields of some earlier years.
In the London International Exhibition of 1862 there was a gilded pyramid
ten feet square at the base and forty-five feet high, representing the maas
of gold exported from Victoria between the 1st of October, 1851, and the 1st
of October, 1861. Its weight in solid gold would have been 26,162,432 ounces
troy, which, taken roundly at $20 per ounce, gives its value as $523,248,640.
The produce of California since the discovery of its gold fields in 1847, up
to the present time, may be estimated at about 50,000,000 ounces, and its
value at $1,000,000,000.
Since the two great gold regions of California and Australia became
known, three new ones of considerable promise have been discovered one
of them in British Columbia, the value of which was proved in 1858, although
previously it was to some extent known to the Hudson's Bay Company; an-
other is being successfully developed in Nova Scotia; and a third in the
province of Otago, New Zealand. It would appear that there is a great
similarity between the general rock systems and auriferous deposits of this
region and those of Australia. Before passing from the subject of recent
gold fields, it is worth noting that a few years ago, Dr. Livingstone, the
African traveler, discovered gold near Tete on the Zambesi a district
which may be found to be rich in the precious metal, when more di>
** CYCLOPEDIA OP USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
liberately surveyed. Its position is remarkable as occurring in the center
of a coal field.
The annual produce of gold in the whole world at the present time is
somewhere between one hundred and fifty and two hundred millions of dol-
lars. "Wherever gold is found, its origin can generally be traced to quartz
veins in the primary or volcanic rocks, such as granite, gneiss, porphyry,
clay-slate, or greenstone. As these rocks became decomposed by the action
-ji the weather, portions of the auriferous veins were earned down by
streams and floods, and so found their way into the deposits of sand, clay
and shingle in river beds, and in the gullies and flats of hills. Many aurif-
erous drifts are of great thickness, formed by long-continued wasting of the
rocks of neighboring hills, and therefore require mining to a considerable
depth. Gold for the most part is found in small grains, or scales, called
gold dust; some of it, however, in pieces, or nuggets of considerable size.
One found at Ballarat in 1858, called " The Welcome," weighed 2,166 ounces,
and its value was about $40,000. Another discovered in Donolly District,
Australia, in 1869, weighed 2,520 ounces, and its value was about $45,000. A
good deal of the Mexican and European gold is obtained from auriferous
pyrites.
Nearly all the metals except gold are most usually found as ores chemi-
cally combined with oxygen, sulphur, or other substances; and they there-
fora require to be separated by chemical processes, Gold ores, if we may
use the term, require to be mechanically treated by the processes of crush-
ing, stamping and washing; the amalgamation process being resorted to
when the gold occurs In a state of fine division.
One kind of crushing mill consists of two large cast-iron rollers, which
break the auriferous quartz into small pieces as it passes through between
them. More usually now, a stamping mill is used with iron-shod piles of
wood, wrought by an axle with projecting cams, after the fashion of flint
mills and beetling machines. The oro pounded by the stamps is next
washed, and for doing this there is an almost endless number of con-
trivances. In one of the richest quartz districts of California, it is carried
by a current of water over coarse woolen blankets laid on sleeping boards.
By this plan, the lighter particles of quartz are carried away, and the par-
ticles of gold become entangled in the fibres of the wool. The blankets are
washed at intervals in a tank, where the gold and other matters caught on
their surface accumulates. It is then ready for the amalgamation process.
The gold of auriferous drift is partly extracted by waking, but there still
remain minute particles invisible to the naked eye mixed with the gangue;
indeed, some auriferous soils contain all their gold in a state of extreme
division. To recover the gold either from this or stamped quartz, an amal-
gam 13 made; that is, it is mixed with mercury, which has the power of
seizing on and dissolving the gold particles, however minute. The mercury
is afterwards distilled off in a retort, leaving the gold nearly pure. Gold
has of late been profitably extracted from sulphuretted ores by Plattner's
process, which converts it into a liquid chloride, and the gold is then pre-
cipitated from the solution by metallic copper.
Silver. Silver is a metal which, in its compact state, is of a brilliant
".. hite color, possesses the metallic lustre to a remarkable degree, is capable
ji being highly polished, and evolves a clear ringing sound when struck. It
is harder than gold, but softer than copper, and is one of the most ductile of
the metals. It is malleable, may be hammered into very thin leaves, and
MINING.
365
may bo drawn ont into very fine wire, the thinnest silver leaf having a thick-
ness of only l-100,000th of an inch, and one grain of the metal being capable
of yielding four hundred feet of wire. It possesses a high degree of tenacity,
a wire with a diameter of l-12th of an inch being able to support a weight of
nearly one hundred and eighty-eight pounds. It requires a heat of 1873
Fahrenheit to fuse it, and on cooling, expands at the moment of solidifica-
tion. It is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity, and is not affected
by exposure even to a moist atmosphere at any temperature.
Silver, like gold, has been known and prized from the earliest ages. The
silver mines of Mexico were, until quite recently, by far the richest known
to exist. Their estimated annual yield is about 1,600,000 pounds troy of the
pure metal. Until the remarkable discoveries of silver ore in Nevada and
A SILVEB MINE,
adjoining States and Territories in 1859 and 1860, Chili and Peru had long
stood next to Mexico in their yield, each furnishing about one-sixth of the
produce of that country. Bolivia is also rich in silver; but the recent ex-
traordinary development of silver mining in the Western regions of the
United States, appears to have raised their produce to at least a par with
that of Mexico, so that these two countries now furnish three-fourths of all
the silver obtained in the world. Of European countries, Spain is the most
productive, the richest mines being those of Hiendelaencina, in the province
of Guadalaxara, which were first extensively opened in 1846. These have
yielded immense wealth, but their produce has much declined since 1858.
Silver glance is the principal ore, although several others are found, in-
cluding quantities of the formerly rare mineral freieslebenite. which, contains
366 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
about 23 per cent, of silver. Next to Spain, Austria, Saxony and the liar?
district in Northern Germany yield the largest supplies. The silver
mines of Kongsberg, in Norway, are likewise valuable, and have been long
famous.
As previously stated, the great natural deposits of silver in the Rocky
Mountain region were not discovered until the years 1859 and 1860. Pros-
pectors and pioneers traversing Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, and
other Territories in the far West in search of gold, by mere accident dis-
covered the greatest silver mine ever known. The celebrated Comstock
lode in Storey County, Nevada, twenty miles from Reno, on the Union
Pacific Railroad, was found in 1859 by James Shinney and Henry Cometock.
So little did these men understand the value of their discovery that they
parted with their interest for a mere trifle. A company was formed, and
work was commenced in 1861. By 1865 the mine had yielded to the
value of $30,000,000, and Virginia City, with a population of 20,000, had
sprung up in the locality, and was nourishing in a manner truly remarkable.
In 1876 the mines of the Comstock lode yielded silver ore to the value of
$36,500,000. Such an unparalleled result naturally produced a " silver
fever," and extensive prospecting at once began in various parts of Colorado,
Idaho and Montana. The mines of Leadville were not discovered until
1877, but shortly after yielded $16,000,000 in a single year.
The forms in which silver is found in nature are numerous, but we need
only notice a few of them. It is frequently found native in crystallized and
amorphous masses, which are sometimes of considerable size. But the
quantity of silver found in nature in the metallic state is comparatively
small. Its principal ores are the different sulphides or sulphurets viz.,
silver glance, or sulphuret of silver, containing when pure, eighty-seven
parts of silver and thirteen of sulphur; brittle silver ore, or sulphuret of
silver and antimony, of which the composition is, silver 68'5, antimony 14'7,
and sulphur 16 - 4; and red silver ore, called also ruby silver, of which there
ia a dark and a light kind, the composition of the former being similar to
brittle silver ore, but it is a little less rich in silver, and the latter only
differs in containing arsenic instead of antimony. The bulk of the silver ob-
tained in Mexico and South America is got frcm these ores. The only other
of much importance, except the mixed ores, is horn silver, or chloride of
silver. In a pure state, it consists of silver seventy-five, and chlorine
twenty-five. It occurs extensively in Mexico and Peru. Besides the ores
named above, a good deal of the silver of commerce is obtained from mixed
ores, that is, the ores of other metals are frequently found to contain it.
In many cases, the amount of silver falls greatly short of one per cent.
These ores are for the most part sulphurets of lead, arsenic, copper, zinc
and iron.
The reduction of silver ore is a heavy manufacturing business, requiring
extensive and complicated machinery and appliances, and rather more than
the usual proportion of skilled labor. Step with me, if you care to see an
illustration, into a complete mill, and watch the ore turn, in due process, to
bars of bullion.
Outside is a small hill of ore, transported by wagon, at a cost of from
four to six dollars a ton, from the mines ten miles distant. The ore is
simply a hard quartz, infiltrated with various metals. Unless the ore is
very rich you can seldom discover, even by the aid of a glass, any of the
minute particles of silver. Some ore looks like gray limestone. The Pahr-
anagat ore ie almost prismatic, heii> spotted yellow by decomposed lead,
MINING. 367
blue by copper, brownish red by iron, and dark lead color or black by sil-
Ter. The ore is carried in ox-hide baskets to the crushing-room, where it
is weighed and registered. Then it is poured outiii the stamp-room, where
a man with a long-handled shovel feeds it under the stamps.
The ton stamps are simply upright iron hammers, weighing six hundred
and fifty pounds each. Their province is to crush the ore into a dust as fine
as flour. The dust cannot escape from the stamps until it flies through
sieves in powder so minute as to be almost impalpable to the touch. A ton
of oro can be sufficiently crushed in two and one-third hours.
The next step is to roast your fine powder (or pulp, as it is called) in
order to burn up all the base metals in it except silver, gold and copper.
The " roasters " are ordinary ovens, like those used for baking bread, ex-
cept that the flues are admitted to the chamber whore the pulverized ore is
deposited. Workmen called " roasters " also stir the dust with long-handled
shovels, keeping up a cherry red heat. Each of the five furnaces has a ca-
pacity for half a ton of dust, and the time consumed in roasting the pulp is
six hours. Your dust, when thoroughly roasted, contains nothing but gold,
silver and copper in powdered quartz. The other metals have been effected
by fire and large quantities of salt thrown in to chlorodize them.
The roasted dust is raked out on the opposite side of the furnace and
conveyed into the amalgamating pans, or large tubs filled with hot water,
where it is further ground in a sort of iron fan- wheel, and where five pounds
of quicksilver are thrown in for every pound of silver you estimate the ore
to contain. The union made, the amalgam of the two metals sinks to the
bottom of the tub, and the quartz powder runs off in a muddy rill from an
orifice above.
Next, the amalgam is taken from the bottom of the tubs and strained
through canvas bags, in order to get rid of any superfluous quicksilver. The
amalgam, after this straining, is five parts quicksilver, and one part silver.
It looks and feels like a silvery sort of wet, white sand. The amalgam is
now ready for the " amalgamator," the most important artisan about the
mill, and the one who generally has charge of both mill and workmen. * He
places the amalgam in a face of his own, and builds a fire hot enough to
send the quicksilv er off in a vapor, leaving a residuum of silver. The flying
vapor is condensed in water and returned to its original form of quicksilver,
ready to be used again, having lost but one per cent, of its bulk. The silver
left in the retort looks like rusty chips of ragged metal, and is anything but
precious in appearance.
The process of casting the silver bar (its usual weight is about eighty-
five pounds) is simple enough. The silver chips are placed in a black lead
mold, melted, and come out in a bar of silver, or rather, a bar about eioiit
hundred parts silver and two hundred parts copper. Such is the bullion of
commerce, and such a- bar is worth from $1,200 to $1,300 in coin. The cop-
per is laueii out in tue minis in such, t maun* 1 -'' as to save it.
A good silver mill, with its branch buildings, covers two acres, and is
crowded in all parts with machinery. The milling process, e* best, does not
save over eighty-five per cent, of the silver in the ore. The olher iif**en per
cent, is sensibly lost in the various stages of reduction. A ten-stamp mill
burns twelve cords of wood per day, and consumes one thousand five him
dred pounds of salt. Other supplies and labor run up its daily expense *.
$500. If it has $109 ore, its receipts are $100. But $100 ore is a high grade
and not very abundant in any mines, in Nevada, so far a.s they have ber
penetrated by the pick,
368 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Diamonds. The most valuable of all precious stones with the excep-
tion of the ruby, and the hardest of all known substances, is the diamond.
It consists of carbon, a simple or elementary substance, crystallized, and in
its greatest purity. Diamonds are commonly colorless and as clear as
water; although, sometimes from some slight foreign intermixture, they are
white, gray, yellow, green, brown, and more rarely orange, red, blue or
black. The lustre is adamantine and very high, and it becomes positively
electric by friction. Its hardness renders it incapable of being scratched by
any other substance, and in cutting and polishing diamonds diamond dust
is employed. The estimation in which it is held as a precious stone is due
to its remarkable hardness, rarity and brilliancy. The art of cutting
diamonds, although long practiced in India and China, was not known in
DIAMOND MINING IN AFRICA.
Europe till after the middle of the fifteenth century, when it was discovered
by Louis van Berguen of Bruges. Previous to that time, diamonds were
set without being cut, and in that state they have often a rough, dull and
uneven surface. Diamonds are indeed found not only in the form of per-
fect crystals, but also in rolled grains; and they are obtained partly from
alluvial soils and the sands of rivers, and partly from rocks, chiefly a quartzy
sandstone or conglomerate, in which they are often associated with gold. A
number of localities in India have long been celebrated as productive of
diamonds, particularly Golconda; they are found also in Malacca, Borneo,
and other parts of the East; nor were any diamonds procured in any other
part of the world till the beginning of the eighteenth century, when they
were discovered in remarkable abundance in the district of Serra do Frio, in
the province of Mioas Geraee, in Brazil. Previous to that time, diainoud.8
MINING. 869
found in Brazilian gold mines had been disregarded as mere pebbles; their
nature became known in consequence of some of them accidentally finding
their way to Europe. In 1829, they were discovered in the Ural Mountains.
They have also been found in Butherford County, North Carolina; in Hale
County, Georgia; in the province of Constantino, Algeria; in Australia; and
in South Africa. Diamond mines consist in general of more diggings and
washings of alluvial deposits. In Brazil, the method pursued is to rake the
alluvial matter backwards and forwards on inclined planes, over which a
stream of water is made to run, till the lighter particles are carried away,
when large stones are picked out by the hand, and what remains is carefully
examined for diamonds. The work is carried on by slaves, and when a
diamond of seventeen carats is found, the slave who finds it is entitled to
his liberty. Large diamonds are comparatively rare among those of Brazil,
all the notable diamonds in the world being Indian. Brazil produces yearly
from twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand carats of diamonds, of which,
however, not more than nine thousand carats are capable of being cut, the
rest being either very small or of inferior quality. The small and inferior
diamonds are called bort, and command a ready sale for their use in the
arts, being pounded in a steel mortar, and much employed in the form of
diamond-dust by lapidaries for cutting and polishing diamonds and all lands
of gems, and even for polishing rock-crystals for spectacles. Minute frag-
ments or splinters of bort are also used for making fine drills, which are
used for drilling small holes in rubies and other hard stones to be employed
in watch-making, gold and silver wire-drawing, etc., and for piercing holes
for rivets in china, in artificial enamel teeth, etc. The use of small diamonds
by glaziers for cutting glass is well known. The diamonds so used are un-
cut, and they are so mounted as to act upon the glass not by an angle, but
by a curvilinear edge of the crystal. The cut is only to the depth of about
one two-hundredth part of an inch, but is sufficient to make the glass readily
break in accordance with it.
Diamonds are cut into various forms, but principally into brilliants and
rose diamonds. The brilliant cut is the most expensive and difficult, but ia
also that which best brings out the beauty of the stone; it has an upper or
principal octagonal face, surrounded with many facets, and other things be-
ing equal, the greater the number of facets the more valuable is the dia-
mond. The lapidaries of the East, however, sometimes multiply facets to
hide imperfections of the stone. Rose diamonds have a flat base, above
which are two rows of triangular facets, the six uppermost uniting in a point.
Rose diamonds are made of those stones which are too broad in proportion
to their depth to be cut as brilliants. Stones still thinner are cut as table
diamonds. The art of sawing diamonds, when too thick in proportion to
their surface, was invented by a Dutchman named Dalbeck in the beginning
of the nineteenth century.
CoaL The minerals of the carboniferous formation, at least those
which occur in beds or strata, as coal and clay ironstone, are mined in a
different way from metallic veins. Originally deposited in a horizontal po-
sition, they have been so altered by movements in the earth's crust, that
they are rarely found so now. They are more generally found lying in &
kind of basiu or trough, with many minor undulations and dislocations.
But however much twisted out of their original position, the different seams,
more or less, preserve their parallelism, a fact of great service to the miner,
since beds of shale, or other minerals, of a known distance from a coal
870 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
seam, are often exposed -when the coal itself is not, and so indicate where it
may be found.
The great progress made of late years in the science of geology has made
us so minutely acquainted with all the rock formations above and below the
coal-measures, that it is now a comparatively easy matter to determine
whether, in any given spot, coal may or may not be found. Nevertheless,
large sums are still occasionally, as they have in past times been very fre-
quently, wasted in the fruitless search for coal, where the character of the
rocks indicates formations far removed from coal-bearing strata.
When there are good grounds for supposing that coal is likely to be found
in any particular locality, before a pit is sunk, the preliminary process of
" boring " is resorted to, in order to determine whether it actually does
exist there, and if in quantity sufficient to
make the mining of it profitable. The usual
mode of " winning " or reaching the coal
is to sink a perpendicular shaft, but
sometimes a level or cross-cut mine,
and at other times, an inclined plane, or
"dook" is adopted. Before the intro-
duction of pumping-engines, all coal-workings were drained by means of a
level mine called a day-level, driven from the lowest available point on the
surface, and no coal could be wrought at a lower depth than this, because
there were no means of removing the water.
When the shaft has been sunk to the necessary depth, a level passage,
called the dip-head, or main-level, is first driven on each side, which acts as
a roadway or passage, and, at the same time, as a drain to conduct the
water, which accumulates in the workings, by means of a gutter on one side,
to the lodgment at the bottom of the shaft. This level. is the lowest limit of
the workings in the direction of the dip, and from it the coal is worked out
as far as is practicable along the rise of the strata. There are two principal
methods of mining the coal. One is termed the " post-and-stall " or " stoop-
and-room " system, and is used for thick seams; the other is called the
" long-wall " system, and ia adopted for seams under four feet in thickness,
MINING.
371
The long-watt system consists in extracting the entire seam of coal at the
first working, the overlying strata being supported by the waste rock from
the roof of the workings. It is necessary, however, to leave large stoops at
the bottom of the shaft for its support, as in the stoop-and-room method.
In long-wall workings, roads of a proper height and width require to be made
for communication with the different parts of the mine.
The collier's usual mode of extracting the coal from its bed is this: With
a light pick, he undercuts the coal seam, technically termed " holing," for
two or three
feetinwardj
and then,
by driving
in wedges
at the top
of the seam,
he breaks
away the
p o r t i o n j
which has j
been holed.
Blasting is
occasional-
ly, but not
often re-,
sorted to. |
Forthe past
ten years
machines,
some for
"holing"
and others for both "holing"
and hewing down coal-seams,
have been more or less in use.
They usually work with com-
pressed air, but sometimes with
steam or water. It is still pre-
mature, however, to express any decided opin-
ion as to their efficiency as compared with hand-
labor. The coal, when separated from its bed,
is put on tubs or hutches, which are generally
drawn by horses, but sometimes by engine-power, along the
roads to the bottom of the shaft, and hoisted to the surface.
The proper ventilation of any mine, but especially of a
coal-mine, is of very great importance. It clears the mine COAL-CAKS.
of the dangerous gases, fire-damp and foul damp, dries the
subterranean roadways, and furnishes the miners with a supply of pure air.
It is very difficult to secure efficient ventilation through all the zigzag
windings of a mine; hence the frequent and terrible explosions of fire-
damp, or light carburfitted hydrogen, which explodes when mixed with a
certain proportion of atmospheric air; hence, also, the occasional accumula-
tion of foul-damp (carbonic acid) in some pits, which suffocates any one
breathing it. This doadly gas is always produced in large quantity by an
explosion of fire-damp, and chokes many who have survived the violence of
372 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
the explosion. Many collieries are BO free of fire-damp that the miners
work with naked lights, but in others it is necessary to use the safety lamp.
Copper. Copper when pure is of a singularly red color, exceedingly
malleable and ductile; it can be hammered when red-hot; it is not so hard
as iron, but nearly as tenacious; and is remarkable for not corroding by ex-
posure to the air; immense quantities of it are used in this country for cop-
pering the bottoms of
ships, for coinage,
and for a multitude
of household u t e n -
sils, etc., as well as
for making brass.
Copper appears to
have been well known
to the nations of an-
tiquity, and often
when brass is men-
tioned in old books,
copper must bounder-
stood; as for example,
the passage in Deu-
teronomy, which de-
scribes " a laud whose
stones are iron, and
out of whose hills
t h o u mayest dig
brass." Copper, both
for working by itself
and for the manufac-
ture of brass, was
early obtained from
Egypt, one of the
chief sources of the
wealth of the Pha-
raohs being the cop-
per mines of the ad-
j a c e n t countries of
Nubia and Ethiopia;
copper was known too
in Greece, from the
earliest settlement of
the country. There
is a curious collec-
tion of Scandinavian
antiquities at Copenhagen, in which are many swords, knives, and daggers,
the blades of which are made of gold or copper, with an edge of iron;
proving, by the parsimony with which the latter metal was used, how much
more abundant were the other two.
The mines which supply the copper of commerce are situated in almost
all part* of the world, a large proportion of which are worked by English
companies, and made tributary to the great smelting establishment in South
Wales. Copper mines are worked on the range of the Andes, the Cordil-
INTEBIOK OF A SHAFT.
373
leras of Central America, and the Appalachians of North America, the geo-
logical formations of these mountains beiug productive of copper ore. In
the Eastern and Middle, Southern and Western States, copper mines exist,
the most famous of which are those of Lake Superior.
All that is visible on the surface of a copper mine is usually several
buildings, more or less rude in structure, containing the engine, the
steam-pump, etc., and a number of sheds where the copper ore is stowed
as it is brought to the surface, and picked over by women and girls, who,
with a little mallet knock off the unproductive pieces; leaving only such as
will pay the expense of working it; all that they throw out is carried away
in barrows, and added to the heap of refuse, which in time becomes one of
the most conspicuous features of the mine, when seen from a distance.
Another characteristic, too, is the mountain stream, which, instead of run-
ning clear and pxire as before it reaches the mine, flows on thick and black,
or dingy gray, and so charged with metallic matter as to be anything but
fertilizing in its progress. There is a curious copper mine in Cornwall,
only a few miles from the Land's End, which is called the Botallack Mine.
Approaching it, you see the various buildings and machinery connected
with the mine, not grouped together on the level ground or hillside, as
is usual, but scattered up and down the precipitous face of the cliff, on all
the available ledges of rock, where there would appear to inexperienced
eyes to be only space enough for a gull's nest, the sea breaking and roaring
at the bottom. This mine, which is worked to a very great depth, is
carried out several hundred yards from the shore, below the bottom of
the sea; and as you traverse its narrow and dark passages, you may hear
the low moaning of the ocean far above your head; when the weather is
rough, and the sea runs high, this dim, mysterious sound is increased into
a roar, tierce and awful beyond all imagination; and such is the horror of
the miners, that, though so long accustomed to the spot, they seldom con-
tinue working when a storm occurs, but find their way back to the upper
air. The galleries of this mine are very damp, the salt water from above
forcing its way through numerous crevices too minute to be seen, and drip-
ping slowly on the floor.
Sometimes, in small quantities, copper is found pure, and veins of cop-
per are not unfrequently visible in cliffs laid bare by the sea. It is re-
markable that, while there are hardly more than four of five different sorts
of tin ores, and only one at all common, those of copper are almost innum-
erable; in one collection in Cornwall a thousand varieties are shown. One
poor ore, the green carbonate of copper, is now become familiar to the
world as the beautiful green stone called malachite; which is used for orna-
mental purposes. The richness of the ores varies very much, and conse-
quently their value. A large quantity of the Cornish copper ore is conw-
veyed to South Wales to be smelted there, because of the abundant supply
of fuel which the Welsh coal mines afford; the vessels which convey the
copper ore, load back with coal to feed the mining steam engines.
To obtain pure copper, the different ores are well mixed, this being de-
sirable, as one ore often acts as a flux to others; the whole is then calcined,
remaining twelve hours in the furnace, from which it is raked out black
and powdery. The next process is smelting, during which the slags,
or earthy parts, rise to the surface and are cleared off, the metal being
run out into pits filled with water, which causes it to become granulated.
These two processes are repeated twice more, and then the metal ia
roasted again; which oxidizes the iron and other metals still combined
374 CYCLOPEDIA Off V8EFVL KNOWLEDGE.
with the copper. Nothing now remains to be done but refining and toughen-
ing; the latter is a curious process; the etal in the furnace is covered with
charcoal, and a pole of birch wood is stirred in it, this causes ebullition,
and the grain gradually becomes finer, the color a lighter red, and the
metal more malleable.
Salt. Salt in its popular sense is a crystalline mineral substance, white
and sparkling, with a sharp pungent taste; and is used to cure and season
ENTRANCE TO THE MINE.
many arti- ~
c 1 e s of
food. Com-
mon salt is
not altered in its composi-
tion by heating it to a red
heat; it is not soluble in
spirit; and, which is remark-
able, hot water scarcely dissolves a larger portion than cold; crystals of salt,
therefore, cannot be obtained by cooling a solution of it, but by evaporation.
The natural form of the crystals of salt is a cube, but when formed at
a high temperature they are deposited much more rapidly, and are hollow
pyramids.
Salt being one of the necessaries of life, we find it by the kind care of
Providence stored up in every land; every nation has access to it either in
the form of salt springs or mines, or can obtain it from the sea. Theae
MINING.
375
sources form " the inexhaustible storehouses of our household salt ali iaat
we employ in our fisheries, iu our meat-curing establishments, in our agri-
culture, in our soda manufactories all that fuses our glass, and fertilizes
our fields, imparts the detergent quality to our soap, and gives us salt her-
riugs and salt pork; and every thing else salt that is the better for being so,
down to our dinner celery and our breakfast eggs."
In preparing salt from the brine springs, the brine is pumped by steam
power into reservoirs in which are placed pieces of rock salt, that no fuel
may be wasted by evapo-
rating an unsaturated so-
lution; from these reser-
voirs it is drawn off as
wanted into evaporating
pans; these are made of
wrought iron; they are
shallow and oblong, and
contain from six hundred
to one thousand superfi-
cial feet; there are three
or four fires in each pan.
The various kinds of salt
are produced by the dif-
ferent degrees of tempera-
ture at which the water is
evaporated and the crys-
tals formed; the less heat
is applied the larger the
crystals are. The time oc-
cupied varies from twelve
hours employed in mak-
ing stove-salt to five or
six days needful to
make large-grained or
fishery salt; when the
crystals are formed at the
bottom of the pan they
are raked out and heaped
up in conical baskets to
drain.
Besides the rock salt
found in England, salt
mines have been discov-
ered in Austria, Hungary,
Russia, the Tyrol, Sweden,
and many other parts of
Europe; the principal of these are the mines of Bocknia and "Wieliczka, be-
longing to the Austrian government. They were originally worked in the
year 1250, and were carried on in a very rude manner for five hundred
years.
The mine of Wieliczka measures with all its galleries thirty English
miles, its greatest depth is one hundred and forty-five fathoms; it is divided
into three distinct compartments, called fields; each of these consists of five
etories one below the other, and each story is made up of numeroms cham-
PASSAGE TO THE MINE.
376 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
bers, cells and caverns, connected by passages; the descent is made by
staircases and shafts; the staircases are carved in rock salt, and are some of
them very magnificent, no dirt or disorder is visible anywhere; and as there
are no springs of water at so great a depth, the air is quite dry, and every-
thing is kept in the most perfect state of preservation, there is a strong cur-
rent of fresh air through the passages, and noxious gases are never met
with in salt mines.
Many of the excavated chambers in this mine are one hundred or ono
hundred and fifty
feet high, and
eighty or one
hundred feet
long and wide;
some are used as
storehouses, and
others as
chapels, ball-
rooms and din-
ing-balls on oc-
casions of festiv-
ity. In the chap-
els every thing
is carved out of
rock salt; altars,
walls, ceilings,
doors, crucifixes,
niches, pedestals and stat-
ues upon them; all solid,
and yet so translucent that
a torch held behind one of
the statues shows light through
its thickest part; and all spark-
ling and glittering as with
countless diamonds.
These halls are left in the
process of excavation, and
where any addition is required
it is built with salt and water;
in this manner, masses of salt
are piled one upon another,
and water is thrown over them,
which dissolves a portion of
the salt; the crevices are thus
filled up, the water evaporates
and leaves the whole a solid
mass; columns of salt are always left to support the roof. In some mines
the chambers after excavation are flooded with fresh water, which, after
remaining several months to get saturated, is drawn off and evaporated in
the usual manner. In other places, where weak brine springs occur, the
solution is allowed to drip over compact bundles of fagots, or to trickle
down ropes; by which means it is much exposed to the air, and part of the
water is economically evaporated before boiling commences. When sea
water is used for making ealt it is always exposed to the sun in shallow
MINING. 37'
ponds until the quantity is very much reduced. In Russia, Persia, Abys-
sinia, an! many other countries, salt deserts occur; tracts of land where
salt is so abundant, both on the surface and beneath it, that it can be ob-
tained with little more trouble than collecting it; these tracts are quito
barren, and after a shower are covered with a white incrustation of salt re-
sembling a fall of snow. At Cardona, in Spain, the rock salt appears on the
surface, and even forms a precipice four or five hundred feet high, over-
looking the valley; this is quarried as any ordinary rock might be, and the
salt is so pure aa to need only grinding to fit it for use.
A lady writer gives the following entertaining description of a visit to an
Austrian salt mine:
" We started at nine o'clock one morning in August to visit the wonder-
ful salt mines at Berchtesgaden, about twelve miles from Salzburg, on the
Tyrol- Austria. A regular business is made by the government of exhibiting
this mine, so we experienced no delay in getting tickets of admission, a
guide and change of dress. We were provided with coarse dresses, the
ladies removing part of their garments, and putting on pantaloons, with a
dress or sort of coat, extending to the knees, a funny-looking woolen cap
with white bands for head, a belt around the waist, with miner's lamp hung
on in front, altogether forming an odd costume. The gentlemen were
changed into miners (in appearance), with rough felt hats, and rougher
coats.
" We employed a guide, and followed him, first passing through a door-
way into long narrow passages, about ten feet high and six feet wide, for a
distance of five hundred feet. These passages were splendidly walled with
granite. When the granite walls ceased, the same passage continued
through crystal salt, which is so solid as to need no walling. We passed up
one hundred and twenty-six granite steps and down others. Pipes were on
each side of the passage, one for salt water, and one fresh. We traveled on
for some time, passing various passages branching off from the one we were
on. Suddenly we were startled by the scene presented. I hardly know how
to describe it. Imagine a salt lake in the center of the mountain, three hun-
dred feet long, two hundred wide, brilliantly illuminated by over two
hundred lamps. The ceiling was of solid rock salt, twenty feet above, and
had no supports, and needed none, although some thousand feet of moun-
tain " clothed with pines " was over our heads. A boat was moored to the
shore of the lake, and in this we took seats, and were soon rowed to the
opposite side of the lake, landed on a platform, and shown the manner in
which the fresh water drips through masses of crystal salt.
" Passing on, we came to a long flight of steps, a place where it was nec-
essary to avoid the weariness and time caused by descending the stairs by
sitting on a board at the bide of the stairs, and slide! First, the guide took
a seat, then we followed singly, with our Lands on the shoulders of our
companion in front of us, in the same way as boys coast down hill. Our
guide regulated our speed by a guide-rope, which he allowed to pass rapidly
through his heavily-gloved hand. We slid down a distance of eighty feet,
at an angle of forty-five degrees. It was a frightfully rapid journey, but
thanks to the skill of the miner, he landed us on our feet at the bottom
with scarcely a perceptible jar.
"Soon we came to a huge cave, a gallery surrounding it hewn out of
rock, and provided with a railing. Looking down, it was one hundred feet
deep, and about as many wide, feebly lighted by miners' lamps, the mineri
being busy at work. Again we came to a point where another sliding board
878 CYCLOPAEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
was erected, down which we slid the hundred feet intervening between us
and the bottom of the cave. The bottom was reached as safely as before.
We reascended to another part by means oi an inclined plane used for haul-
ing the rock salt out of the cave, then our guide led us through a long pas-
sage hewn out of rock salt until we came to a small illuminated chamber.
After admiring the novelty of the scene, we were invited to sit astride a long
bench, with wheels fitting into a rail-track. The guide sat in the front end
of the bench, having control of the brakes. "We dashed along, turning curves
at railroad speed; our lamps were extinguished by the rapid speed, and
when we at last could perceive, a long way ahead of us, a glimmer of day-
light, the sensation was pleasing. On we sped, until suddenly we flew out
into the open air, and landed safely at the point from which we started, and
found a crowd of visitors, arrayed in miner's garb ready to enter."
Lead Lead was largely worked by the Bomans in Great Britain, and
pigs with Latin inscriptions have been frequently found near old smelting
works. The mining of lead in England was formerly regulated by curious
laws; some places, such as the King's Field, in Derbyshire, having special
privileges. It was the custom in this district not to allow the ore to leave
the mine till it was measured in the presence of an official called a bar-master,
who set aside a twenty-fifth part as the king's cope or lot. Up to a compara-
tively recent period, persons were allowed to search for veins of the ore
without being liable for any damage done to the soil or crops.
Lead ore is pretty generally distributed, but by far the largest supply of
this metal is obtained from Great Britain and Spam, the former country
yielding some seventy-five thousand tons per annum, and the latter prob-
ably an equal supply. Nearly a fourth of the total British produce is pro-
cured from the Northumberland and Durham district, where there exists, at
Allenheads, one of the largest mining establishments in the world. Scotland
and Ireland furnish only a very small quantity. In the region of Lake Su-
perior, in the States, of Michigan and Wisconsin, are extensive and valuable
lead mines.
With the exception of a little from the carbonate of lead, all the supplies
of this metal are obtained from the sulphide of lead or Galena. This min-
eral contains a little silver, and sometimes copper, zinc, antimony, or selen-
ium. It is of a lead gray color, with a metallic lustre, is found massive, or
sometimes granular, or crystallized in cubes or octahedrons. It is very
easily broken, and its fragments are cubical. It occurs in veins, beds, and
imbedded masses, often accompanying other metallic ores, in primitive and
secondary rocks, but most of all in what is known as transition or mountain
limestone.
The lead ore, when taken from the mine, is broken up into small pieces,
" botched," and washed, to separate impurities. Sulphide of lead, when
tolerably pure, is smelted with comparative ease. It is first roasted in a
reverberatory furnace. From twenty to forty hundredweight of galena are
put into the furnace at a time, either with or without lime. In about two
hours the charge becomes sufficiently roasted. During the process, tho
larger portion of the ore takes up four equivalents of oxygen, and becomes
sulphate of lead; a little oxide of lead is also formed, while another portion re-
mains unaltered as sulphide of lead. After it is roasted the ore is thoroughly
mixed together, and the heat of the furnace suddenly raised. This causes
* reaction between the unchanged and tho oxidized portion of the ore, and
reduces much of the lead, sulphureous acid being at the same time evolved.
MINING. 379
In the third stage, lime is thrown in and mixed with slag and unreduced
ore. When this becomes acted on, the whole of the lead is practically sepa-
rated from the ore. and is then run off at the tap-hole.
In some districts the roasted ore is smelted on a separate ore-hearth
called the Scotch furnace, where the heat is urged by bellows. Peat and
coal are used as the fuel. This is a slower mode of smelting than the last,
but yields a purer lead.
During the operation of smelting a considerable quantity of lead is vola-
tilized and carried off 0,6 fume or smoke, which, when allowed to escape into
the atmosphere, not only involves a loss of lead, but destroys all vegetation
for some distance around the works, and poisons cattle and other animals
feeding near them. Much attention has of late been paid to the obviating of
these evils, and several plans are hi use for the purpose. Where it can be
done, no method is more effective than simply conducting the smoke from
the furnaces through a long horizontal flue say a mile in length to a ver-
tical stack. The fume condenses on the sides, certain openings being left
for the purpose of collecting it. About thirty-three per cent, of the fume
thus recovered consists of metallic lead.
When lead contains antimony and tia as impurities, they are separated
by fusing the metal in shallow pans, and allowing it to oxidize at the sur-
face. In this way the antimony and tin form oxides, and as such are
skimmed off. Lead reduced from galena always contains a little silver, ol
which eight or ten ounces to the ton is a very common proportion, although
it often exists in much larger quantity.
Tin. Tin is a white metal, bright and silvery; it is elastic, and conse-
quently sonorous; ductile, very light, and it fuses at a much lower tempera-
ture than is necessary to heat it red hot.
Tin is found in America, England, and some parts of Germany; but the
largest supply comes from the Malay peninsula and the adjacent islands;
this is called Banca tin from the place of its export.
The tin mines of England early attracted more civilized nations to their
shores; the Phoenicians traded there for tin six hundred years before Christ,
and are said to have first given a name to Cornwall, in which county the tin
mines of England are chiefly situated, calling it from its form and projecting
position by a Phooenician word, which signified a liorn, from which appella-
tion are derived both the Latin Cornubia and the English Cornwall. Tha
Greek colonists at Marseilles, and the Romans, came also to England for
tin, and these last gave the name of Cassiterides, or Tin Islands, to the
Scilly Isles, or perhaps to St. Michael's Mount, and some adjacent rocks,
where, as Diodorus Siculus relates, the natives carried their tin in little carts
at low water, to barter with their more civilized visitors for the much cov-
eted produce of southern climes.
The ancient mines were probably stream-works open to the surface,
where the metal is exposed by washing. Pickaxes of holm, boxwood, and
even of horns of different animals, hava often been found in these kinds of
works; the rude instruments of a people little removed from barbarism.
During the time of the Normans great wealth accrued to the Earls of Corn-
wall from dues and imposts on tin payable to them, and these still continue
to be paid to the Dukes of Cornwall, the blocks of tin being coined or stamped
with the seal of the duchy after the dues have been paid.
Tin is found in veins or fissures called locally lodes their direction is
mainly from east to west, and they branch out and divide like the boughs
380 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
of a tree, diminishing till they terminate in mere threads. Tin is also fonnd
in a dispersed form in loose stones, which, when found continuously, are
called streams. The most common tin ore is very hard and glass-like.
Tin mining is carried on with great activity, and often at a great expense,
which arises from the galleries having to be supported with large timber.
The most remarkable mine in England is one which has long been aban-
doned on account of its danger; this, the Huelcok, is carried under the bed
of the ocean below low-water mark; and, in one place, where the rich vein
ran upward, the improvident miners pursued it till only four feet of rock
were left between the mine and the bed of the sea, which could be distinctly
heard howling and roaring, the rolling of the masses of rock moved by the
waves sounding like repeated peals of thunder. Another mine, called the
Huel Ferry, is entirely submarine.
Zinc. Zinc is a metal which has been comparatively lately discovered
m its ptire form, though one of its ores, calamine stone, has long been known
and used. It abounds in China, and the Chinese were the first to use it;
they also exported it in large quantities to India, whence much was imported
to England, until it was discovered that they possessed ores of it themselves.
The largest proportion of zinc, or spelter, as it is frequently called in ita
metallic form, is obtained from the German states, who not merely supply
the home markets, but have superseded the Chinese in the trade in India.
Zinc is a hard, bluish-white metal, not malleable when cold, breaking read-
ily under the hammer, and showing particularly brilliant crystalline frac-
ture; but at a moderately high temperature it possesses great malleability
and ductility, can easily be drawn into wire and rolled into plates, and
worked in other ways. Zinc is well suited for casting figures; it melts read-
ily, liquefies completely, and therefore copies every line of the mold more
accurately than harder metals. A cast can be made in zinc for one-sixth or
one-eighth the cost of bronze, and can afterward be bronzed so as to look
almost as well as that metal. Zinc plates are used for many purposes, and
in roofing they are valuable for their lightness, being about one-sixth part
the weight of lead ones; they are not liable to rust or corrode from exposure
to the air; many vessels are now made of zinc, and for galvanic apparatus
this metal is used.
Quicksilver. The metal used in barometers and thermometers to
show the changes in the atmosphere, is called Quicksilver or Mercu-i-y. It
is white, rather bluer than silver, and as it is from its great fusibility habitu-
ally fluid, it readily unites with many other metals and imparts to them a
degree of its characteristic quality; when these metallic mixtures contain
sufficient mercury to render them semifluid at a mean temperature they are
called amalgams. Mercury is likewise employed for silvering looking-
glasses and for gilding, in which latter process the gold and mercury are laid
on together in the form of an amalgam, and the mercury afterward dissi-
pated by the action of heat. It is also employed in the preparation of sev-
eral powerful medicines, and in the manufacture of vermilion. But by far
the largest quantity of mercury is used for amalgamation with native gold
and silver to facilitate the extraction of the pure metal. The chief mines of
mercury, or quicksilver, are in Spain, in the provinces of Asturias anu An-
dalusia; there are mines, too, at Idria, in Carniola, which are very produc-
tive, and others in Tuscany and California. Mercury is found both native
and mixed with sulphur, in which state it forms the red ore called cinnabar.
WONDERS OF THE SEA.
Sea Anemones. Brilliant as the hues of the rainbow, and as varied
in color, a group of anemones in their native element might be compared to
a basket of freshly gathered flowers. In examining the delicate fringes, as
they wave gracefully in the water, one can almost imagine a fragrance aris-
ing from blooms so perfect. Ancients thought they were flowers. Poets
sang of the " Roses of the Sea; " and in reading their lines of mystery, one
cannot but exclaim:
"Oh, ye delicious fables! When the wave
And wood were peopled, and the air, with things
So lovely, why, ah, why has science grave
Scattered your great imaginings ? "
Believing them to be flowers, I was once examining some beautiful
orange-colored specimens, fully expanded. While watching the graceful
waving of the tentacles, a shrimp was suddenly grasped by them, held, and
literally " tucked in " the opening of the anemone.
Calling in dismay a scientific friend, I learned that the beautiful object
was an animal, that boasted of a ravenous appetite and strong digestive
organs; but yet, though obliged to accept the disagreeable fact " that all
things beautiful are not what they seem," I must confess that my interest
increased rather than diminished.
The anemone is a polyp which word means " many-footed." Its anat-
omy is most peculiar. It is formed of two tubes, or sacks, one within the
other, and has the appearance of having been originally one long tube, the
end of which has been turned in, leaving a round margin, crowned with
many rows of tentacles, which make a thick, soft fringe.
The inner tube, with an opening at the bottom, is the stomach, and the
outer tube, with closed, flat base, is the body. There are vertical parti-
tions between the stomach and body, which divide the space into chambers
,nd openings in these partitions, through which, in connection with the
opening in the stomach, currents of water circulate.
The mouth is the large opening at the top, and into it is taken an in-
credible quantity of food. The shrimp is the favorite morsel, but worms
and small mollusks are by no moans ignored; the latter are swallowed
whole, the shell after a time being ejected.
Each one of the tentacles, which are so graceful and appear so harmless,
is provided with a number of coiled-up threads, called lasso-cells, so minute
that they can be seen only with a microscope, and which, when thrown out,
both poison and entangle the prey.
The flesh of collectors of marine animals is often badly poisoned by
them. When food is secured, it is grasped by the tentacles and passed into
the stomach, though many a dainty morsel is snatched away by a neighbor-
ing marauder. When food is taken the anemone withdraws its tentacles,
folds up, and whilo digestion is going on, appears to sleep. After a time it
expands slowly, by fi'.ling with water, which is taken in chiefly at the mouth.
882 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Yet, though having BO ferocious an appetite when food can be obtained,
the anemone is so constituted as to exist months without nourishment.
Naturalists reason that this is a compensation of nature when animals are
unable to go in search of food.
This creature, though so beautiful in structure, has no intelligence and
but little instinct. It does not seem to be even conscious of prey until the
prey actually comes in contact with the tentacles. These are sensitive
when touched, however, and shrink up quickly into a solid round mass.
The large tanks at the" New York
Aquarium were connected, and one
of the naturalists who is considered
good authority told me that when
feeding animals in a tank near the
anemones, they became agitated,
and fully expanded the tentacles.
This would prove that
there is a slight sense
or smell, or
^--^g^^ s o in o iu-
?j^ stinct yet
unackno wi-
ll edged.
A 1 m o st
pi incredibleis
1? the fact that
the anem-
ones are re-
produced in
four ways.
The first
and most
reasonab 1 e
is by eggs,
which, are
formed and
deve 1 o p ed
upon the
WL walls of the partitions. When
mature they drop down, and
entering the digestive cavity,
\ are ejected from the mouth
into the water with refuse
food.
The stomach is wonderfully
TBOPICAL ANEMONE. accommodating, and fulfills a
multitude of functions, re-
ceiving, swallowing and rejecting, a continual rejecting seeming a normal
condition.
They increase, also, by budding like trees and shrubs. A slight swell-
ing arises on the side of the body, or at the base, then gradually enlarges,
becomes perfect in form, and drops off. Several have been seen on one pa-
rent.
They also multiply by self-division, or by being cut into particles with a
WONDERS OF THE SEA,
388
knifo. I hare often severed them vertically also, horizon tally, and each sec-
tion has become a perfect anemone. The fourth and strangest reproduction
is when detached particles become perfect specimens.
The anemone attaches itself to foreign substances by the flat base, and a
parent in loosening its hold will often tear away and leave little particles;
each of those will very soon
assume life and form, and
move off unconcernedly
search of new
quarters. Young
anemones have at
first but one row
of tentacles, but
they increase
gradually outside.
Anemones often
assume an hour-
glass-shape, and
freak in form, hav-
ing double discs
and double bodies.
There is no dis-
tinction in sex,
each animal being
perfection in itself.
Though seem-
ing at most times
station ary, the
anemones are able
to move them-
Belves slowly by a
successive c o n -
traction and loos-
ening of the base,
thus stretching
forward one side
and gradually
drawing along the
other. They vary greatly in size, dif-
fering from one-eighth of an inch to
one foot in diameter; they are com-
monly, however, from half an inch to
three inches.
Small or medium-sized anemones
should be chosen for stocking a tank,
as they absorb a great deal of sub-
stance and are very prolific. In large
public tanks, an excess often has to be
removed. When needed for dissecting purposes, drop in cold fresh water
to kill.
These animals are hardy and long-lived, and accounts are given us
where people have kept them five, ten and fifteen years. I know of a piece
of rock covered with anemones being taktn from the water at Wood's Hole,
FBINGED ANEMONE.
384 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Mass., during the summer. It was left to dry on the beach for twenty-four
hours as an experiment, then returned to the water, and each animal as-
sumed life and perfect form.
In our climate, as winter approaches, the anemones loosen their hold and
sink into deeper and warmer water. There is a European anemone which
attaches itself to the shell of one variety of 'hermit crab, and is carried
about gallantly. It is an established fact, also, that the hermit when taking
up abode in a new shell loosens the anemone from the old one and carries
it and places it on the new.
It would be a difficult matter to decide which of the anemones, either in
form or color, are most beautiful. Those from the tropics are most bril-
liant, and look like flowers from dreamland. Stems of shaded orange are
crowned with tentacles of gray, tipped with crimson; light pink standards
bear fringes of white, and a .base of velvet-like crimson often supports
streamers of pink, white and gray.
Some anemones erect themselves to the height of four and six inches,
and have the finest and daintiest of fringe. The " crassicornis " is shorter
and wider mouthed, and has thick, short tentacles. The white armed
anemone is more slender, and is so transparent that all organs are discerni-
ble.
There is a beautiful maroon anemone with green spots, found in English
waters, with medium-fine tentacles, and crassicornis varieties less brilliant
than our own. I recently saw a variety of German anemones (the first ever
exhibited in this country), and in beauty of form and variety of color, they
excelled anything I have ever seen. They were attached to the fat, round,
German oysters, and fully expanded. The fringes were beautifully deli-
cate, and the shades, of clear orange, cream, velvety-gray and pure white,
could not be equalled by the dyes of our choicest silk velvets. Ida Batty
Roberts.
The Diver. The first sensation in descending under water in a suit of
armor is the sudden, bursting roar in the ears, caused by the air driven
into the helmet from the air-pump. The flexible air-hose has to be strong
enough to bear the pressure of twenty-five to fifty pounds to the square
inch. The drum of the ear yields to the strong external pressure, the
mouth opens involuntarily, the air rushes into the tube, and strikes the
drum, which strikes back to its normal state with a sharp, pistol-like crack.
Peering through the goggle eyes of glass in his helmet, the diver sees the
strange beauties about him clearly and in their own calm splendor. Above
him is a pure golden canopy, while around him and beside him are tints
and shimmering hues, including all colors, which are indescribably elegant.
The floor of the sea rises like a golden carpet, inclining gently to the sur-
face. The change in familiar objects is wonderful. The wreck of a ship
seems studded with emeralds, glittering in lines of gold; piles of brick as-
sume the appearance of crystals; a ladder becomes silver, every shadow
gives the impression of a bottomless depth.
The following interesting information is given in a diver's own words: " I
remember years ago going down to have a look at the wreck of the Forfar-
shire. I dived just out of curiosity, and saw the old hooker plain enough.
Off that same coast I've been down in water so bright that I've stood among
the weeds as tall as this room, a beautiful garden of them, and watched 'em
with delight, almost to forgetting the job I was down there for, and I saw all
kinds of fish swimming about and appearing quite close through the glass
WONDERS OF THE SEA.
885
in my helmet, though if I put out my hand to them I found them to be
fathoms away. As a rule I can't see- no more than if I was looking through
a London fog. And then take a ship. Suppose you were to come into this
room at night without a light you couldn't see. So it is with a ship's hold
and cabin under water. It's pitch dark. A man can only grope. But it is
not dangerous when you're used to it. A bit of a sea above is often incon-
venient by making the vessel on the surface roll and tauten the tackle for
heaving up the cargo, and so running up a mass of dead weight on a sudden
before you're ready, and then letting it come down crash again. A ground
swell I mean the swell at the bottom is also troublesome, for it'll swing a
man to and fro a
distance of seven
foet and more.
But this is only
on deck. It's
quiet enough in
the hold. Even
should such a
swell dash a
diver against
anything, how-
ever, it wouldn't
hurt him. The
dress makes him
so light. I have
fallen through many a yawn in the ship's decks,
fit to break a man's neok and back, you might
think for the depth of it, and have came up
again just as quietly. Very few know how to
converse under water. If you were to stand up
face to face with another man each might burst
himself with yelling without producing the
faintest sound. The way we hear is by lying
down. You and your mate must lie down on
your breasts head to head or side by side,
close, and in that position you'll hear one an-
other as easily as two persons in a room. When
I foutd this out I spoke to another diver about
it, and he would not believe me. Well, one
day we happened to go down to a wreck to-
gether. I told him beforehand what position
to put himself in, and after we had been to
work some time we came together and lay
down as agreed, and I said: ' Jim, are there many more casks left in the
hold?' 'Heaps,' he answered right off. 'And so you can hear me?'
said I. ' Aye,' he answered, ' wonderfully plain,' and with that he
laughed, and so did I, and we both heard each other's laugh just as we
heard each other's words. We were in about eleven fathoms of water at
the time."
The Corals of the Indian Ocean Of all the wonderful sights in
tliis land of wonders, there are none greater than the wonders of the reef
wjieu the tide is low. The ideas about 3oral which people have wtyo have
THE DIVEB.
SW 'CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
never Been it in its living state are generally erroneous. They know it as a
beautifully white ornament under a glass shade, or in delicate pink branches
in their jewelry, and they imagine living coral is like these. Their ideas
are helped along by the common misnomer of trees and branches, as ap-
plied to coral. I have never seen it in the South Sea Islands, but
throughout the Eastern seas the most common variety takes a laminated
form, not unlike the large fungi to be met with any summer's day in an
English wood growing out of the older trees. Flat, circular tables of dingy
brown, growing over one another, with spaces under each. These attain a
great size, extending for yards without a break, so that the bottom of the
sea is perfectly level. Thia kind is much sought after by tbe lime-burners.
Another species grows in detached bosses, like thick-stemmed plants which
the gardener has trimmed round the top. These clumps grow out of the
Band and stand up in dull brown against the white flooring. A third pat-
tern is spiked like stags' horns tangled together, and ifl ot a dingier brown
than the first; its spikes collect the drifting weeds, and its appearance is
consequently untidy. There are scores of varieties of corals and madre-
pores, but the three mentioned are those which principally make up the
mass which is ever growing uuder the still waters inside the reef. At
Maheburg the reef is distant seven miles from the shore, and the whole of
this great lagoon is in process of filling up by coral. There are one or two
holes, left capriciously, and a channel which the river has cut to the reef,
which it pierces in what is locally called "a pass." Everywhere else the
bottom is only a few feet under water, and is always slowly rising. The
various corals, the patches of silver sand, the deep winding channel, lend
each a tint to the water sapphire blue, where it is deepest, sea-green with
emerald flecks, or cerulean blue shot with opaline tints, in the shallows.
The reef is a solid wall, shelving toward the shore, absolutely perpendicu-
lar toward the ocean, and varies in width from twenty to one hundred
yards. Against the outer face the rollers rage incessantly. Swell follows
swell smoothly and regularly. There is no hurry, for here there is no
shelving bottom to keep them back. On they come, separating their ink-
blue masses from the tumble of the ocean, rearing aloft their crests, like
live things anxious to try their strength, and fall with a roar on its edge as
it stands up to meet them. You can stand within a few feet of the practi-
cally bottomless sea and Watch them tumble, with the water no further
than your knees, as the surge of their onward rush carries across the reef.
To stand so and watch them coming on appears, to one unused to the sight,
to court destruction, the wave is so vast, its crest rising higher as it ad-
vances, shuts out the sea beyond, nothing can be seen but a wall of water
rolling on; its strength is apparently so irresistible, and the pause it appears
to take as the top curls over seems to check your breath. The rocks and
lumps of dead coral with which storms have strewed the reef are high and
dry; the pools of limpid water in the holes sink down and drain away, their
surface glassy, and their depths full of color and strange-shaped living
things; then the roller breaks and sends a surge of water hissing by, and
the reef has sunk beneath the foam and bubbling water.
Coral Fishing Coral fisheries on the coasts of Italy and Sicily begin
about the middle of February, and continue till the middle of October. The
value of the coral varies according to its color and size; the pale pink is the
most prized, especially if it be of a uniform color throughout, without
etaina. Off Torre del Greco, near Naples, a large quantity of coral is 1'ound
WONDERS OF THE SEA. 387
every year; from four hundred to six hundred boats are sent out in search
of it, each boat being of from six to ten tons' burden, with a crew of at least
twelve men, and costing from $2,500 to $3,000 a boat. The valuable pink
coral is found chiefly off the coast of Sicily. In the year 1873 a bed was
discovered in the Straits of Messina, in which the coral, though found only
in small quantities and of a small size, was of immense value, owing to its
beautiful pink, of a uniform color, and without any of those stains which
detract so much from its worth. Unfortunately, the supply of coral in this
bed seems to have run short, and for the last few years coral merchants
have not found it worth their while to send boats in search of it.
In 1875 a local bed was discovered about twenty miles off the coast of
Sciacca, in Sicily, which was invaded for the next two years by seven hun-
dred boats. This number, all crowded together in one spot, caused grea<
SHELLS OF THE INDIAN OCEAN.
confusion, and the Italian Government sent a man-of-war to keep order
among the fishermen. Another similar bed was discovered hi 1878, about
ten miles farther from the coast, and in 1880 yet another still farther. The
coral found off the coast of Sciacca does not grow, as at other places, at-
tached to rocks, but is found clinging to any small object it can lay hold of,
such as a shell or a fragment of coral. It is supposed that its dark red or
black color is caused by the muddiness of the water in which it lives, al-
though the depth of the sea at such spots is from three hundred to foui
hundred and fifty feet. This coral is not much esteemed in the English
market, but is prepared in large quantities for the Indian market at Cal-
cutta, by being exposed for months to the heat of the sun, and by being
kept moist, when in time the black color gradually disappears. A few years
ago a large quantity of Japanese coral found its way into the market at
Naples, and fetched as much as $750 the kilo, in raw branches, in spite of
its being a bad color and somewhat cloudy. This high price was given on
account of its extraordinary size it was the largest real coral ever knowp.
888 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Nothing has been heard of it since, excepting that the fishery was prohibited
in Japan.
Shells of the Indian Ocean No sea shells are so beautiful aa
those found in the Indian Ocean. As the vegetation of tropical countries is
of surpassing beauty, so do the waters of these climates yield the most
wonderful and beautiful things. Our illustration will convey an idea of the
magnificent shells found upon the shores of Southern Asia.
Fearl Pishing. The most famous pearls are those from the East; the
coast of Ceylon, or Taprobane, as it was called by the Greeks, having from
the earliest times been the chif locality for pearl fishing. They are, how-
ever, obtained now of nearly the same quality in other parts of the world, as
Panama in South America, St. Margarita in the West Indies, the Coro-
maudel Coast, the shores of the Sooloo Islands, the Bahrein Islands, and
the islands of Karak and Corgo in the Persian Gulf. The pearls of the
Bahrein fishery are said to be even finer than those of Ceylon, and they form
an important part of the trade of Bassora. These, and indeed all the for-
eign pearls used in jewelry, are produced by the pearl oyster. The shells
of the molluscs which yield the Ceylon, Indian, and Persian ones, are some-
times as much as a foot in diameter, and are usually about nine inches.
Those of the New World, although the shells are smaller and thicker, are
believed to be the same species. The chief locality of the Ceylon pearl
fishery is a bank about twenty miles long, ten or twelve miles from shore,
opposite to the villages of Condatchy and Arippo on the northern coast.
The season of the fishery lasts about three months, commencing at the be-
ginning of February, and is carried on under government regulations. The
boats employed are open, and vary in size from ten to fifteen tons burden;
they put out at night, usually at ten o'clock, on a signal gun being fired from
the fort of Arippo, and make for the government guard vessel, which is
moored on the bank, and serves the double purpose of a guard and a light-
ship. The divers are under the direction of a manager, who is called the
Adapanaar, and they are chiefly Tamils and Moors from India. For each
diver there is provided a diving stone, weighing about thirty pounds, which
is fastened to the end of a rope long enough to reach the bottom, and having
a loop made for the man's foot; and in addition to this, a large network
basket, in which to place the pearl oysters as he collects them. These are
hung over the sides of the boat; and the diver, placing his foot in the loop
attached to the stone, liberates the coils of the rope, and with his net-basket
rapidly descends to the bottom. To each boat there is usually allotted a
crew of thirteen men and ten divers, five of whom are descending while the
others are resting. This work is done very rapidly; for, notwithstanding
the stories to the contrary, the best divers cannot remain longer than eighty
seconds below, and few are able to exceed sixty. The greatest depth they
descend is thirteen fathoms, and the usual depth about nine fathoms. When
the diver gives the signal by pulling the rope, he is quickly hauled up with
his net and its contents. Accidents rarely happen; and as the men are very
superstitious, their safety is attributed to the incantations of their shark-
charmers, performed at the commencement of the fishing. Sir E. Tennent,
however, attributes the rarity of accidents from sharks, usually so abundant
in tropical seas, to the bustle and to the excitement of the waters during the
fishery frightening away those dreaded creatures. The divers are soroe-
\ times paid fixed wages, others agree for one-fourth of the produce. Wheg
WONDERS OF THE SEA. 389
a boat-load of oysters has been obtained, it returns to shore, and the cargo,
sometimes amounting to twenty or thirty thousand, is landed and piled on
the shore to die and putrefy, in order that the pearls may be easily found.
The heaps are formed in small walled compartments, the walls surround-
ing each being one or two feet in height. Several of these compartments
surround a small central enclosure, in which is a bath, and they slope
towards this bath, and are each connected with it by a small channel, so
that any pearls washed out from the putrefying mass by the ram may be
carried into the bath. When the animals in the shells are sufficiently de-
composed, the washing commences, and great care is taken to watch for the
loose pearls, which are always by far the most valuable; the shells are then
examined, and if any attached pearls are seen, they are handed over to the
clippers, who, with pinchers or hammer, skillfully remove them. Such
pearls are used only for setting; whilst the former, being usually quite
round, are drilled and strung, and can be used for beads, etc. The work-
men who are employed to drill the pearls also round the irregular ones,
and polish them with great skill. The method of holding the pearls during
these operations is very curious; they make a number of holes of small
depth in a piece of dry wood, and into these they fit the pearls, so that they
are only partly below the surface of the wood, which they then place in
water. As it soaks up the water and swells, the pearls become tightly fixed,
and are then perforated, etc. These operations are all carried on on the spot.
For many miles along the Condatchy shore, the accumulation of shells
is enormous, and averages at least four feet in thickness. This is not to be
wondered at, when it is remembered that this fishery has been in active
operation for at least two thousand years. The place itself is exceedingly
barren and dreary, and, except during the fishing season, is almost deserted;
but at that time it presents an exceedingly animated spectacle; thousands
of people, of various countries and castes, are here drawn together some
for the fishery, others to buy pearls, and others to feed the multitude. They
chiefly reside in tents, so that it appears a vast encampment.
The pearls vary much in size; those as large as a pea, and of good colot
and form are the best, except unusually large specimens, which rarely
occur, the most extraordinary one known being the pearl owned by the late
Mr. Hope, which measured two inches in length and four in circumference,
and weighed eighteen hundred grains. The smaller ones are sorted into
sizes, the very smallest being called seed-pearls. A considerable quantity
of these last are sent to China, where they are said to be calcined, and used
in Chinese pharmacy. Among the Romans, the pearl was a great favorite,
and enormous prices were paid for fine ones. One author gives the value
of a string of pearls at one million sesterces, or about $40,000. The single
pearl which Cleopatra is said to have dissolved and swallowed was valued
at $400,000; and one of the same value was cut into two pieces for earrings
for the statue of Venus in the Pantheon at Eome. Coming down to later
times, we read of a pearl, in Queen Elizabeth's reign, belonging to Sir
Thomas Gresham, which was valued at $75,000, and which he is said to
have treated after the fashion of Cleopatra, for he powdered it and drank it
in a glass of wine to the health of the Queen, in order to astonish the am-
bassador of Spain, with whom he had laid a wager that he would give a
more costly dinner than could the Spaniard.
Sponges. While handling sponge in its prepared state, as we see it in
the shope, it is difficult to believe that it belongs to the animal kingdom.
390 CYCLOPEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Sponge, however, is not the animal itself, but only its skeleton, or frame-
work, as it were. That which constitutes the living portion ot the animal ia
removed in preparing the sponge for market. The animal proper covers
the framework, and is of a jelly-like appearance, like that of other low forms
of animal life. Various openings and channels allow the passage of water
through all parts of the mass, and the gelatinous portion has microscopic
hairs, which are capable of rapid motion, and by their means water is drawn
into and forced out of the sponge. When divided, the living sponge seems
to suffer no inconvenience, but each part sets up on its own account, lives
on as if nothing had happened, and it becomes two sponges.
The best sponge of commerce is found in the Mediterranean, and is
known as Turkey or Smyrna sponge; this is obtained by divers. Bahama
A LIVING SPONGE.
or West India sponge is coarser, and is sold at a much less price. Much
sponge is gathered off the coast of Southern Florida. Indeed, the Florida
sponge fisheries furnish employment to many men and boats.
When a vessel arrives at the fishing ground in the Bahama Islands, it is
anchored, and the men in small boats proceed to look for sponges in the
water below. The water is a beautiful light-blue color, and so clear a six-
pence can easily be seen on the white sandy bottom in thirty-five to forty
feet of water. Of course when there is no wind, and the surface of the water
is still, the sponges are easily seen, but when a gentle breeze is blowing a
" sea-glass " is used. A sea-glass consists of a square pine box about
twenty inches in length, a pane of glass about tea by twelve inches placed
WONDERS OF THE SEA. 191
in one end, water-tight. To use it, the glass end is thrust into the water,
and the face of the operator is placed close to the other. By this means the
ware motions of the water are overcome, and the bottom readily seen.
Sponges when seen on the bottom attached to the rocks, look like a big black
bunch. They are pulled off their natural beds by forked hooks, which are
run down under the sponge, which is formed like the head of a cabbage, and
the roots pulled from the rocks.
When brought to the surface it is a mass of soft, glutinous stuff, which
to the touch feels like soap or thick jelly. When a small boat load is ob-
tained they are taken to the shore, where a crawl is built in which they are
placed to die, so that the jelly substance will readily separate from the firm
fibre of the sponge. These crawls are built by sticking pieces of brush into
the sand out of the water, large enough to contain the catch. It takes from
five to six days for the insect to die, when the sponges are beaten with small
sticks, and the black glutinous substance falld off, leaving the sponge, after
a thorough washing, ready for market.
Tie "Conch. Pearl." Many people, says the Scientific American,
have doubtless frequently seen and admired the delicately tinted, pink-
faced shells which are extensively used in the United States for bordering
garden walks and other ornamental purposes, but few probably are aware
that in the conch which forms and inhabits this shell is occasionally found
a very lovely gem, known to lapidaries as the conch pearl. When perfect,
the pearl is either round or egg-shaped and somewhat larger than a pea, of
a beautiful rose-color, and watered that is, presenting, when held to the
light, the sheeny, wavy appearance of watered silk. It is, however, a very
rare circumstance to find a pearl which possesses all the requirements that
constitute a perfect gem, and when such does happen, it proves an ex-
ceedingly valuable prize to its fortunate finder. A good pearl is very valu-
able indeed, some having been sold in Nassau for no less a sum than four
hundred dollars. Although many of these pearls are annually obtained by
the fishermen in the Bahamas, not more than one in twenty proves to be a
really good gem, and hence probably their high price.
Pink is the most common and only desirable color, although white, yel-
low and brown pearls are occasionally found. Even among the pink ones
there is usually some defect which mars their beauty and materially injures
them; some are very irregular in shape, and covered, apparently, with
knobs or protuberances; others are too small, while many lack the watering
which gives them their great value and chief beauty.
The conch abounds in the waters of the Bahamas, and thousands of them
are annually obtained and destroyed" for their shells, which form quite an
article of commerce, but in not one conch in a thousand is a pearl found.
When this is taken into account, and the other fact, that not more than one
in twenty of pearls found turns out to be perfect, it will at once be seen that
a good conch pearl will always be a rare and costly gem. In fact, their
value within the last few years has almost doubled, and the demand fcr
them is steadily increasing.
A Sea Aster Attached to a Crab.- The species of sea aster oftea-
est found on the coast of New Jersey and northward, though not among th
most attractive, ia nevertheless a very interesting specimen. Me is gener-
ally of a dingy Or creamy white, striped and dotted with a rich brown, and
above all crowned with an ibuadant spread of pink and white feathery t-
892 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
tacles. Unlike most of his race, he does not delight in solitary and local
position, and so seems to have caught the spirit of his native land, and seeks
for new scenes; and, not to be behind his biped neighbors, he prefers that
ethers should give him a free ticket for all his journeys. He glues himself
A SEA ASTEB ATTACHED TO A CRAB.
to the shell of some crab or periwinkle, and takes a gratuitous ride to any
place where it may feel disposed to carry him.
The Floor of the Ocean Here ia an end of all romance about
hidden ocean depths. We can speculate no longer about peris in chambers
of pearl, or mermaids, or heaped treasures and dead men's bones whitening
in coral caves. The whole ocean floor is now mapped out for us. The re-
port of the expedition sent out from London in Her Majesty's ship " Chal-
lenger " has recently been published. Nearly four years were given to the
examination of the currents and floors of the four great oceans of the world.
WONDERS OF TSS SEA. 393
The Atlantic, we are told, if drained, would be a vast plain, with a moun-
tain range in the middle running parallel with our coast. Another range
crosses it from Newfoundland to Ireland, on top of which lies a submarine
cable. The ocean is thus divided into three great basins, no longer " un-
fathomable depths."
The tops of these sea mountains are two miles below a sailing ship, and
the basins, according to Reeius, are fifteen miles, which is deep enough for
drowning, if not for mystery.
The mountains are whitened for thousands of miles by a tiny creamy
shell. The depths are red in color, heaped with volcanic masses. Through
the black, motionless water of these abysses move gigantic abnormal crea-
tures, which never rise to upper currents.
There is an old legend coming down to us from the first ages of the
\vorld on which these scientific Dead Sea soundings throw a curious light.
Plato and Solon record the tradition, ancient in their days, of a country in
the western seas where flourished the first civilization of mankind, which,
by volcanic action, was submerged and lost. The same story is told by the
Central Americans, who still celebrate, in the fast of Izcalli, the frightful
cataclysm which destroyed this land with its stately cities.
De Bourbourgh and other archaeologists assert that this land extended
from Mexico beyond the West Indies. The shape of the plateau discovered
by the "Challenger" corresponds with this theory. What if some keen
Yankee should yet dredge out from its unfathomed slime the lost Atlantis ?
At the Bottom of the Indian Ocean Who can tell of all the won-
drous things that live in the sea ? In the Indian Ocean, many feet below
the surface of the water, grow woods quite as luxuriant as any jungles or
thickets we read of in South America. Some of the trees grow as high as
two houses piled on one another. They are called by a hard name " Nero-
cysten." The roots resemble coral, and from the slender stem grows a
cluster of very long leaves. Other trees grow almost as high, and end hi
one single huge leaf that is about the size of our forest trees. Bushes
green, yellow and red are dotted here and there, and a velvety carpet of
diminutive plants covers the ground. Flowers in all the tints of the rain-
bow ornament the rocks, and large leaves of the iris, of dazzling pink and
red, float among them, and sea-anemones, as large and brilliant as cactus-
flowers, form beds in the moss. Blue, red, purple and green little fish dart
here and there, and between the bushes glides like a serpent the long
silvery ribbon fish. Thus beautiful it is in the day; but when night comes
on, and you suppose all creatures gone to bed, the landscape grows more
lovely still. Little crabs and medusas light up the sea; the sea-pen quivers
with green phosphoric light; what was brown and red in the day is changed
into bright green, yellow and red; and among all these glittering jewels the
moonfish floats like a silvery crescent.
A Murderous Sea Flower One of the exquisite wonders of the
sea is called the opelet, and is about as large as the German aster, looking,
indeed, very much like one. Imagine a very large double aster, with a
great many long petals of a light green color, glossy satin, and each one
tipped with rose color. These lovely petals do not lie quietly in their
places, but wave about in the water, while the opelet clings to the rock.
How innocent and lovely it looks on its rocky bed! Who should suspect
that it would eat anything grosser than dew and sunlight? But thos
SM CYCLOPEDIA OP VSEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
beantiful waving arms, as you call them, have rises besides looking pretty.
They have to provide for a large, open mouth, which is hidden down deep
among them so hidden that one can scarcely find it. Well do they per-
form their duty, for the instant a foolish little fish touches one of the rosy
tips, he is struck with poison as fatal to him as lightning. He immediately
becomes numb, and in a moment stops struggling, and then the other arms
wrap themselves around him, and he is drawn into the huge, greedy mouth,
and is seen no more. Then the lovely arms unclose, and wave again in the
water.
A Singular Star Fish The most singular of all the star fishes is
the splendid Astrophyton. Its center is not unlike the gorgeous appear-
A 8INGULAK 8TAK FISH.
ance of a Chinese wheel; but what a curious tie of twisting and twining ten-
tacles. From the central disc five stout arms branch out, which are sub-
divided at once, and these again in turn; and so on continuously until more
than eighty thousand branches are formed, puzzling the eye to search out
the mass of ramifications. All these tentacles are extremely flexible, and
are generally kept wreathing and twisting; but when the animal chooses,
they can be so closely drawn up as to give the shape of a globular basket;
hence the creature is often called by the fishermen the " Sea Basket." By
stretching out this maB of long tentacles, the animal forms a large net, by
means of which it effects its captures and holds the victim to its mouth.
FAMILIAR SCIENCE.
The Earth. To a spectator so placed as to have an unobstructed view
all ronnd, the earth appears a circular plain, on whose circumference the
vault of heaven seems to rest. Accordingly, in ancient times, even philoso-
phers long looked upon the earth as a flat disc swimming upon the water.
But many appearances were soon observed to be at variance with this idea,
and even hi antiquity, the spherical form of the earth began to be suspected
by individuals. It is only by assuming the earth to be spherical, that wa
can explain how our circle of vision becomes wider as our position is more
elevated; and how the tops of towers, mountains, masts of ships, and the
lake come first into view as we approach them. There are many other
proofs that the earth is a globe. Thus, as wo advance from the polea
towards the equator, new stars, formerly invisible, come gradually into
view; the shadow of the earth upon the moon during an eclipse is always
ronnd; the same momentary appearance in the heavens is seen at different
hours of the day in different places on the earth's surface; and lastly, the
earth, since 1519, has been circumnavigated innumerable times. The ob-
jection to this view that readily arises from our unthinking impressions of
up and down, which immediately suggests the picture of the inhabitants ol
the opposite side of the earth our antipodes with their heads downwards,
Is easily got over by considering that on all parts of the earth's surface,
down is towards the earth's center.
It is not, however, strictly true that the earth is a sphere; it is slightly
flattened or compressed at two opposite points the poles as has been
proved by actual measurement of degrees of latitude, and by observations
of the pendulum. It is found that a degree of a meridian is not everywhere
of the same length as it would be if the earth were a perfect sphere, but in-
creases from the equator to tffe poles; from which it is rightly inferred
that the earth is flattened there. A pendulum, again, of a given length is
found to move faster when carried towards the poles, and slower when car-
ried towards the equator, which shows that the force of gravity is less at the
equator than at the poles, or, in other words, that the center, the seat of
gravity, is more distant at the former than at the latter. The diminished
force of gravity at the equator has, it is true, another cause, namely, the
centrifugal force arising from the rotation of the earth, which acts counter
to gravitation, and is necessarily greatest at the equator, and gradually les-
sens as we move northwards or southwards, till at the poles it is nothing.
But the diminution of the force of gravity at the equator arising from the
centrifugal force amounts to only 1-289 of the whole force; while the diminu-
tion indicated by the pendulum is 1-194. The difference, or 1-580 nearly,
tamains assignable to the greater distance of the surface from the center at
the ,*ouator than at the poles.
We have now seen that the earth is a sphere slightly flattened at its pole*
what is called by geometers an elliptical spheroid ef a me&n radius ot
somewhat Jeeg tb'aJJ four thousand, miles, Wo have next to consider ita
896 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
mass and density. Nothing astonishes the young student more than the
idea of weighing the earth; but there are several ways of doing it; and un-
less we could do it, we never could know its density. (1.) The first method
is by observing how much the attraction of a mountain deflects a plummet
from the vertical line. This being observed, if we can ascertain the actual
weight of the mountain, we can calculate that of the earth. In this way,
Dr. Maskelyne, ha the years 1774-1776, by experiments at Schihallion, in
Perthshire, a large mountain mass tying east and west, and steep on both
sides calculated the earth's mean density to be five times greater than that
of water. The observed deflection of the plummet in these experiments
was between 4" to 5". (2.) In the method just described, there must al-
ways be uncertainty, however accurate the observations, in regard to the
mass or weight of the mountain. The method known as Cavendish's experi-
ment is much freer from liability to error. This experiment was first made
by Henry Cavendish on the suggestion of Michel, and has since been re-
peated by Keich of Freyberg, and Mr. Francis Baily. The apparatus used
by Mr. Baily has two small balls at the extremities of a fine rod suspended
by a wire, and their position carefully observed by the aid of a telescope.
Large balls of lead, placed on a turning-frame, are then brought near them
in such a way that they can affect them only by the force of their attraction.
On the large balls being so placed, the small ones move towards them
through a small space, which is carefully measured. The position of the
large balls is then reversed, and the change of position of the small balls is
again observed. Many observations are made, till the exact amount of the
deviation of the small balls is ascertained beyond doubt. Then by calcula-
tion the amount of attraction of the large balls to produce this deviation is
easily obtained. Having reached this, the next question is, what would
their attraction be if they were as large as the earth ? This is easily an-
swered, and hence, as we know the attractive force of the earth, we can at
once compare its mean density with that of lead. Mr. Baily's experiments
lead to the result that the earth's mean density is 5'67 times that of water.
(3.) A third mode has lately been adopted by the Astronomer-royal, by
comparison of two invariable pendulums, one at the earth's surface, the
other at the bottom of a pit at Harton Colliery, near Newcastle, one thou-
sand two hundred and fifty feet below the surface. The density of the
earth, as ascertained from this experiment, is between six and seven times
that of water; but for various reasons this result is not to be accepted as
against that of the Cavendish experiment, and it is said that the Astronomer-
royal was himself dissatisfied with it, and meant to repeat the experiment
with new precautions. The density of the earth being known, its mass is
easily calculated, and made a unit of mass for measuring that of the other
bodies in the system. It is found that the mass of the earth compared with
that of the sun is -0000028173.
The earth, as a member of the aolar system, moves along with the other
planets round the sun from west to east. This is contrary to our sensible
impressions, according to which the sun seems to move round the earth;
and it was not till a few centuries ago that men were able to get over this
illusion. This journey round the sun is performed in about three hundred
and sixty-five and a qiiarter days, which we call a year (solar year), "ue
earth's path or orbit is not strictly a circle, but an ellipse of small eccentri-
city, in one of the foci of which is the sun. It follows that the eartn is not
equally distant from the sun at all times of the year; it is nearest, or in peri-
helion, at the beginning of the year, or when the northern hemisphere haa
FAMILIAR SGIENOE. 397
printer; and at its greatest distance, or aphelion, about the middle of the
year, or during the summer of the northern hemisphere. The difference of
distance, however, is comparatively too small to exercise any perceptible
inlluence on the heat derived from the sun, and the variation of the seasons
has a quite different cause. The least distance of the sun from the earth is
over ninety-four millions of miles, and the greatest over ninety-six millions;
the mean distance is commonly stated at ninety-five millions. If the mean
distance be taken as unity, then the greatest and least are respectively re-
presented by 1-01679, and 0'98321. It follows that the earth yearly describes
a path of upwards of five hundred and ninety-six millions of miles, so that
its velocity in its orbit is about ninety-nine thousand feet, or nineteen miles
in a second.
Besides its annual motion round the sun the earth has a daily motion or
rotation on its axis, or shorter diameter, which is performed from west to
east, and occupies exactly twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes, four sec-
onds of mean time. On this motion depend the rising and setting of the
sun, or the vicissitudes of day and night. The relative lengths of day and
night depend upon the angle formed by the earth's axis with the plane of
its orbit. If the axis were perpendicular to the plane of the orbit, day and
night would be equal dui-ing the whole year over all the earth, and there
would be no change of seasons; but the axis makes with the orbit an angle
of 23>2, and the consequence of this is all that variety of seasons and of
climates that we find on the earth's surface; for it is only for a small strip
(theoretically, for a mere line) lying under the equator that the days and
nights are equal all the year; at all other places, this equality only occurs
on the two days in each year when the sun seems to pass through the ce-
lestial equator, i. e., about the 21st of March and 23d of September. From
March 21, the sun departs from the equator towards the north, till, about
June 21, he has reached a north declination of 23.'i, when he again ap-
proaches the equator, which he reaches about September 23. He then ad-
vances southward, and about December 21 has reached a south declination
of 23>z, when he turns once more towards the equator, at which he arrives
March 21. The 21st of June is the longest day in the northern hemisphere,
and the shortest in the southern; with the 21st of December it is the re-
verse.
The velocity of the earth's rotation on its axis evidently increases gradu-
ally from the poles to the equator, where it is about equal to that of a mus-
ket-ball, being at the rate of twenty- four thousand eight hundred and
forty miles a day, or about one thousand four hundred and forty feet in a
second.
A direct proof of the rotation of the earth is furnished by its compression
at the poles. There are indubitable indications that the earth was origi-
nally fluid, or at least soft; and in that condition it miist have assumed the
spherical shape. The only cause, then, that can be assigned for the fact that
it has not done so, is its rotation on its axis. Calculation also shows that
the amount of compression which the earth actually has, corresponds
exactly to what its known velocity and mass must have produced. Experi-
ments with the pendulum, too, show a decrease of the force of gravity from
the poles toward the equator; and though a part of this decrease is owing
to the want of perfect sphericity, the greatest part arises from the centrifu-
gal force caused by the motion of rotation. Another direct proof of the
same hypothesis may be drawn from the observation, that bodies dropped
from a considerable height deviate towards the east from the vertical Jine.
398 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
This fact has been established by the experiments of Benzenberg and others.
In former times, it was believed that if the earth actually revolved in the
direction of the east, a stone dropped from the top of a tower would fall, not
exactly at the foot of the tower, but to the west of it. Now, as experience,
it was argued, shows that this is not the case that the stone, in fact, does
fall at the bottom we have here a proof that the pretended rotation of the
earth does not take place. Even Tycho Brahe and Eiccioli held this objec-
tion to the doctrine to be unanswerable. But the facts of the case were just
the reverse. Newton, with his wonted clearness of vision, saw that, in con-
sequence of the earth's motion from west to east, bodies descending from a
height must decline from the perpendicular, not westward, but eastward;
since, by their greater distance from the earth's center, they acquire at the
top a greater eastward velocity than the surface of the earth has at the
bottom, and retain that velocity during their descent. He therefore pro-
posed that more exact observations should be made to ascertain the fact;
but it was not till more than a century afterwards that experiments of suf-
ficient delicacy were made to bring out the expected result satisfactorily.
It is difficult to find an elevation sufficiently great for the purpose, as several
hundred feet give merely a slight deviation, which it requires great
accuracy to observe. If a height of ten thousand feet could be made avail-
able, the deviation would be not less than seven and one-half feet. The
analogy of our earth to the ether planets may also be adduced, the rotation
of which, with the exception of the smallest and the most distant, is dis-
tinctly discernible. Finally, an additional proof of the earth's rotation was
lately given by Leon Foucault's striking experiment with the pendulum.
The principle of the experiment is this: That a pendulum once set in motion,
and swinging freely, continues to swing in the same plane, while at any
place at a distance from the equator the plane of the meridian continues to
change its position relative to this fixed plane. The objection taken to the
doctrine of rotation from the fact that we are unconscious of any motion, has
little weight. The movement of a vessel in smooth water is not felt, though
far less uniform than that of the earth; and as the atmosphere accompanies
the earth in its motion, there is 110 feeling of cutting through it to break the
illusion of rest.
If the turning of the earth on its axis is thus proved to be the cause of
the apparent daily motion of the heavens, it is an easy step to consider the
annual motion of the sun through the constellations of the zodiac as also ap-
parent, and arising from a revolution of the earth about the sun in the same
direction of west to east. If we consider that the mass of the sun is about
three hundred and fifty-nine thousand times greater than that of the earth,
and that by the laws of mechanics, two bodies that revolve round each other,
must revolve about their common center of gravity, the idea of the sun
revolving abut the earth is seen to be simply impossible. The common
center of gravity of the two bodies being distant from the center of each in-
versely as their respective masses, is calculated to be only two hundred and
sixty-seven miles from the center of the sun, and therefore far within his
body, which has a diameter of eight hundred and eighty-two thousand
miles. But by help of a figure, it is easy to show that the apparent motion
of the sun on the ecliptic naturally arises from a motion of the earth about
the eun. The motions of the planets also, that appear BO complicated and
irregular as seen by us, can only be satisfactorily explained by assum-
ing that they too revolve round the sun in the same direction as the earth,
the interior of tUe earth is the seat of intense heat ie a familiar
FAMILIAR SCIX2TCS. 399
truth. Volcanic phenomena give us ocular demonstration of it. Mining
experiences, moreover, have furnished us with an almost uniform rate at
which the heat increases, and this is generally computed to be about one
degree Fahrenheit for every fifty-five feet of descent. But mining experi-
ences are necessarily very limited. The deepest mine in England, that of
the Rosebridge colliery, near Wigan, takes us down only two thousand four
hundred and forty -five feet, and to a temperature not much exceeding
ninety degrees Fahrenheit. It is hot enough to make the work exceedingly
trying to the miners, but that is all. This, however, is (so to speak) scarcely
traversing the earth's epidermis. But if we may assume a uniform increase
of heat in descending, the temperature at a depth of fifty miles may be ex-
pressed in figures as four thousand eic;ht hundred degrees Fahrenheit. In
other words, at less than an eighth of the distance which lies between the
circumference of the earth and its center, the heat would be about twenty-
two times the heat of boiling water at the sea level. Proportionate figures
might, of course, express the heat at greater depths still, but figures fail to
convey any idea to the mind of that which must necessarily transcend all
imagination, Suffice it to say, that in a descending series we must eventu-
ally come to a heat so great that no substance with which we are acquainted
could, under any conditions which we can imagine, exist in it in either solid
or fluid form. And we conclude, therefore, that if the earth's center be not
itself in a gaseous condition (and there is reason to think that it may not be
BO) there must be a gaseous zone somewhere between a solid center and a
solid circumference. "Facilis descensus Averni" is proverbially treated as
a truitim. But if the classic authors are to be our guides, and if in the cen-
ter of our planet Acherontiau Shades and Elysian Fields are to be localized^
there will be found practical difficulties of access which might well discour-
age even so substantial a personage as a ghost. Nor can the all-powerful
imagination accomplish the descent with any approach to ease. The dis-
tance we may suppose to be nearly four thousand three hundred miles;
but along a lino of this length connecting the surface of the earth with its
center, we may safely assume that conditions would vary greatly, and (since
heat and pressure have to be balanced one against the other) probably by
no means uniformly. We can measure the power of pressure upon the sur-
face, but in the nether depths its power is in part open to conjecture, nor
can we say how soon we may reach a debatable zone, at which the expan-
eiveness of heat may overcome the compressive force of gravitation. Nor,
again, could we venture to expect to find that zone itself always at a uni-
form depth. Here and there it seems to approach the surface. The vol-
cano is nature's safety-valve, and the cavernous rumbles of the earthquake
warn us that there are imprisoned gases beneath our feet, which pressure
but imperfectly prevents from escaping. Upon other grounds, also, it is
quite evident that our experience, limited as it is to the surface of the earth,
may tend to mislead us in regard to what lies beneath the surface; for, if
pressure increased uniformly with depth, the average density of the earth
would be much greater than what, upon astronomical data, we know it to
be. The earth as a whole, is about five and a half times as heavy as it
would be if it were entirely composed of water; or, technically expressed,
the density of water is one, and the mean density of the globe is five and a
half. But five and a half is only about double the density of rock matter
upon the surface; whereas, if nothing but steadily increasing pressure be
upposed, it would vastly exceed this. There is, therefore, only one possi-
ble explanation, Heat, intense heat, somewhere or ether, overcomes pres-
400 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
sure and converts everything into gas; and if it were in our power to try
experiments, and to feed the subterranean crucible with the most intracta-
ble substance asbestos, fire-proof safes, or what we will all would there
ehare the same fate instant evanescence.
Th.e Sun. The following interesting information regarding the sun is
from the stenographic report of a lecture by Professor Garrett P. Serviss,
secretary of the American Astronomical Society: " No one present probably
knows how grand a planet the sun is. Its size cannot be conceived. But
let us weigh it and get some idea of its great dimensions. Put the sun and
earth in the scales and add the planet Jupiter to the latter and the sun
would weigh more, and yet Jupiter weighs three times as much as all the
other planets put together. We will then throw all the other planets in the
cale with the earth and yet the sun will not move. Aladdin's wonderful
lamp would not make the sun budge. Don't let us give it up, however, but
throw in one hundred thousand globes and then altogether we will have
three hundred thousand globes, but still the sun would not budge. We'll
add thirty thousand more worlds and the sun then moves until it just bal-
ances the enormous weight of three hundred and thirty thousand worlds.
By this it will be seen that the attractive power of the sun must be very
great to keep such au enormous mass in control. The earth weighs six
eextillions of tons. If a man possessed the same number of dollars and be-
gan counting them out at the rate of ten dollars a minute, the time which
would have elapsed since the time of Adam and Eve, nearly six thousand
years, would be a mere incident in comparison to the period during which
the calculation would have to continue. The weight of the earth is so great
that it is flying through the air only controlled by the laws of gravitation.
The velocity of this globe is so great that it goes through space at the rate
of eighteen miles a second. The distance of the sun from the earth is
estimated at about ninety-five million miles, and yet it is held secure by
the resistless arms of gravitation. The earth canuot get away, for the sun
holds it in its power. Look at Jupiter, the gigantic; it is fifteen times larger
than the earth, and yet the sun holds Jupiter. The planets are the slaves
of the sun, which by the wonderful power of gravitation holds everything in
the power of the great orbit. The sun is the source of all life, and the heat
from it is so great that we are able to live only on account of it. If the sun
was to lose its heat for one month the earth would die. During the past three
years the surface of the sun has been covered with spots, commonly called
" sun epots." They have been so large in some instances that they have
been seen without the aid of a telescope. Some .of these spots are larger
than the earth. They appear on the surface like holes into which streams
of molten metal seemed to continually pour. The sun is simply a ball o*
gases, and the matter found in it is composed of iron, gold and silver, cop-
per and granite. Indeed these substances are so great that they would
make three hundred thousand globes like that in which we live and work.
The spots are like vapors, which appear and disappear at times. Last year
the sun was full of these spots. It has been noticed that they appear about
once in every eleven years. The cavity is so enormous in some of the spots
that the earth could be dropped into it and disappear like a billiard ball.
On the 16th of April, 1882, the lecturer watched these spots, and he found
the surface of the great body change in a most wonderful manner. They
gave a terror to the scene. Juat as the sun disappeared below the horizon
it was noticed that a pale green arch of light appeared aboye the horizon,
FAMILIAR SCIENCE.
401
just over tho point where tho sun had gone down. This was followed in
time by bright streams of light shooting up to the zenith, after which the
aurora borealia was visible in tho sky. There was no sound, and the flam-
ing heavens were as silent as death. It was a pantomime played by
ghosts of fire. The lecturer then referred to the corona of the sun. It ap-
peared to be a shell of scarlet fire, and was only to be seen at a total
eclipse; but it had lately been ssen by aid of powerful telescopes in the day-
light. The sun is a globe of matter heated to a gaseous condition. The
sheet of scarlet fire is supposed to have been caused by long ago and con-
stant eruptions, sending up showers of red flames and heat from the inside
of the sun. The sun will doubtless die in the course of the next ten million
years. We will wait till that time and see what happens. It is now going
through a process of cooling. All life would cease throughout the solar
system and the earth would
be lighted only by the stars.
At present an envelope or
crust is being seen on the
edge of the great orbit of
day. This will in time cover
the entire surface, and then
the radiant splendors of the
sun will be invisible."
Herscliel's Theory of
Sun Spots Sun spots
consist of a black center or
nucleus called the umbra,
and a grayish envelope or |
border called the penumbra.
These again are surrounded
by bright streaks or patches
of light called f acute. But
they vary in appearance.
Sometimes the nucleus is
seen without a penumbra,
and again it is not seen at
all. They constantly change
in size, position and num-
ber. Some come and go
in a day, while others
last weeks without much change. The generally received opinion seems
to be that the sun is an opaque body, surrounded by three cloud-like
envelopes, each several thousand miles in thickness. The one nearest the
sun is a clondy atmosphere, reflecting light, but giving out none. The sec-
ond, called the photosphere, is luminous, and the source of the sun's light.
The third is transparent, and surrounds the other. Sun spots are supposed
to be openings or rifts in these different envelopes. The openings are sup-
posed by Sir John Herschel to be caused by changes of temperature, like
those which produce our whirlwinds. Another interesting fact is that when
there are most sun spots the beautiful aurora borealis is most frequently seen.
The Moon. The moon is the satellite of the earth, around which it
revolves from west to east in a period of one month, and in consequence
THKORY OF RTTN SPOTS.
a a, the photosphere; h h. thf> clond envelope;
A, spot with nncleufl and penumbra; B, spots
without pennmbra; C, penumbra without
nucleus.
402 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL
accompanying the earth In its motion round the sun. As the moon, it) an
observer on the earth, advances more than 13 to the east daily, whilst the
corresponding advance of the sun is barely 1, her progress among the stars
is much more notable than that of the latter. This rapid angular motion,
the continual and regular variation of her illuminated surface, and her large
apparent size (being nearly equal to that of the sun), have rendered the
moon an object of general interest; while her importance as the principal
nocturnal substitute for the sun, and her special value to navigators and
geographers in the determination of longitudes, have rendered the lunar
theory the object of the most thorough and careful investigation.
The first peculiarity about the moon that strikes a casual observer, is the
constant and regular change of her illuminated surface from a thin crescent
to a circle, and vice versa, and a corresponding change in the time of her
appearance above the horizon. . These changes depend upon the position of
the moon relative to the earth and the sun, for it is only the half of the
moon facing the sun that is illuminated by his rays, and the whole of this
illuminated portion can only be seen from the earth when the sun, earth and
moon are in a straight line (the line ofsyzygies), and the earth is between
the sun and moon. When the moon is in the line of syzygies, but between
the earth and the sun, no part of her illuminated disc can be seen from the
earth. In the former case, the moon is said to be futt, and in the latter,
new. A few hours after " new moon," the moon appears a little to the east
of the sun as a thin crescent, with the horns pointing towards the east, and
as she increases h^r angular distance from the sun at the rate of about 12
daily, the crescent of light becomes broader, till, after the lapse of a little
more than seven days, at which time she is 90 in advance of the sun, she
presents the appearance of a semi-circle of light. The moon is then said to
have completed her first quarter. Continuing her course, she becomes
" gibbous; " and at the fifteenth or sixteenth day from new moon, attains a
position 180 in advance of the sun, and now presents the appearance known
as full moon. From this point she begins to approach the sun, again ap-
pearing gibbous, and after a third period of more than seven days, reaches
a point 90 west of him, and enters her last quarter. Here, again, she
appears as a semi-circle of light, the illuminated portion being that which
was not illuminated at the end of the first quarter. The moon now rapidly
approaching the sun, resumes the crescent form, but this time with the
horns pointing westward, the crescent becoming thinner and thinner, till the
moon reaches the position of new moon, and disappears. From " full
moon " to " new moon," the moon is said to be waning; and from " new
moon " to "full moon," waxing. The earth as seen from the moon presents
similar phases, and has, consequently, at the time of new moon, the appear-
ance of a round illuminated disc, and aj full moon, is invisible. This ex-
plains the peculiar phenomenon occasionally observed when the moon ia
near the sun (either before or after new moon), of the part of the moon's
face which is unilluminated by the sun appearing faintly visible, owing to
the reflection upon it of strong earth-light. This phenomenon is designated
by the Scottish peasantry as " the new mune wi' the auld mune in her
airms." At new moon the moon of course comes above the horizon about
the same time as the sun, and sets with him, but rises each day about fifty
minutes later than on the day previous, and at the end of the first quarter,
rises at midday, and sets at midnight, continuing to lag behind the sun.
When at the full, she rises about sunset, and sets about sunrise, and at the
commencement of her last quarter, she rises at midnight and sets at mid-
FAMILIAR SCIENCE, 408
day, Prom repeated observations of the taoon'g horizontal pai'aUafy and of
the occultation by her of the fixed stars, her mean distance from the earth
has been estimated at 237,600 miles, and as her angular diameter averages
31' 26", her actual diameter is 2,153 miles, or a little leas than 3-llthfl of
the earth's diameter. Her volume ia therefore about 1- 19th of that of the
earth, and her density being only '577 (that of the earth being taken as
unity), her mass is only l-88th of the earth's mass; consequently, the force
of gravity at her surface is so much less than it is at the surface of the
earth, that a body which weighs one thousand pounds here, would at the
moon weigh only one hundred and sixty-three pounds.
The moon revolves round the earth in an elliptic orbitj with the earth in
the focus; the eccentricity of the ellipse being equal to '05491 of half ita
major axis, or more than three and one-quarter times that of the earth's
orbit. The plane of her orbit does not coincide with the ecliptic, but is in-
clined to it at an angle of 5 8' 47'9'', and intersects it in two opposite points,
which are called the Nodes. The point at which the moon is nearest to the
earth is called her perigee^ and that at which she is farthest from it her
apogee, and the line joining these two points is called the line of apsides.
Were the moon's orbit a true ellipse, which, owing to various irregularities
known as perturbations, it is not, the lunar theory would be exceedingly
simple; but these perturbations, which, in the case of the planets, produce
a sensible variation in their orbit only after many revolutions, cause, in the
case of the moon, a distinct and well-marked deviation from her previous
course in a single revolution. The retrogradation of her nodes along the
ecliptic causes a continual change in the plane of her orbit, so that if, during
one revolution round the earth, she occults certain stars, at the next revolu-
tion she will pass to one side of them, and will remove farther and farther
from them in each successive revolution. A little consideration will show
that by this continual change of her orbit, the moon will, in course of time,
pass over or occult every star situated within 5 24' 30" of the ecliptic. The
motion of the nodes is so rapid that they perform a complete circuit of the
orbit in 6793 - 39 mean solar days, or 18'6 years. Another important change
in the moon's orbit is the revolution of the line of apsides, by which the
perigee and apogee are continually changing their position relative to the
earth and sun. This revolution is more than twice as rapid as that of the
nodes, being performed in 3232'57 mean solar days, or 8'85 solar years.
The moon, like all other satellites, as far as at present known, revolve*
round her own axis in precisely the same time that she revolves round thci
earth: she thus presents always the same face to us, and consequently.,
though her comparative proximity has enabled us to become better ac-
quainted with her surface than with that of any other heavenly body, our
knowledge is confined to one-half of her surface, with the slight exception
of the knowledge obtained from her libration. To the inhabitants of the
side of the moon next the earth if the moon had inhabitants, which is very
improbable the latter would appear as a luminary about 2 in diameter,
immovably fixed in their sky, or at least changing its position only to the
extent due to the moon's libration. The earth would thus seem to them to
have a disc about fifteen times larger than that of the sun.
The surface of the moon, as seen from the earth, presents a most irregu-
lar grouping of light and shade. The dark portions were named by tho
earlier astronomers as seas, lakes, etc., and still retain these names,
although there is strong evidence against the supposition that the moon, or
at least that portion of it presented to us, contains any water. The brighter
404 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
parts of the moon are mountainous, as is proved by the fact of their casting
shadows when the sun'a rays fall upon them obliquely, and also by the
ragged appearance presented by the interior illuminated border of the moon,
an appearance which can only bo satisfactorily accounted for on the supposi-
tion that the surface of the moon is not level, in which case the higher por-
tions will be illuminated some time before the light reaches the level parts;
and it is observed that as the illumination proceeds, bright spots start up in
advance of it, and when the moon is on the wane, these same spots continue
to shine for some time after the surrounding surface is immersed in gkx m.
The mountains occur either singly, when they are generally of a circular
form, and are called craters, or in groups, which are mostly annular, and
form a sort of wall enclosing a deep depression or plain, iu which are situ-
ated one or more conical mountains. The craters are not unfrequently eight
or ten miles in diameter, and some of the walled plains measure more than
one hundred miles across. The principal mountain range is the Appenines,
which crosses the surface from northeast to southwest, and attains, accord-
ing to some authorities, an altitude of about twenty thousand feet, though
Sir John Herschel gives about two miles as the probable limit of elevation
above the moon's surface. The heights are estimated from a micrometric
measurement of the length of their shadows, a method not, in this case,
susceptible of much accuracy. The moon everywhere presents traces of
volcanic agency, but no active volcanoes have yet been discovered, nor is
there any sign of recent volcanic action. Seen through the telescope she
presents a bleak, desolate appearance, without indications of animal or veg-
etable existence. She appears to be devoid of an atmosphere, or if one
exists, it must be of exceeding rarity.
The influence of the moon in causing tides has long been well known,
and there is some reason for supposing that she produces a similar effect on
the atmosphere, combining with other causes in the generation of winds.
Those winds which prevail about the time of new and full moon, and at the
vernal and autumnal equinoxes, are particularly ascribed to her influence.
On the supposition that the moon might also affect organic nature, experi-
ments were instituted by Mead, Hoffman and others ; but no certain results
were attained. The periodicity which has often been noticed in certain dis-
eases, especially in insanity (hence called lunacy), was long supposed to
have some connection with lunar influence, and this opinion is held to some
extent at the present day. The chemical effects of the moon's rays are, so
far as is at present known, feeble, though in particular instances they ex-
hibit an actinism as powerful as that of the sun. Decomposition of animal
matter takes place more rapidly in moonshine than in darkness, and the
moon's rays, when concentrated, have a sensible effect on the thermometer.
The Planets. The planets are those heavenly bodies (including the
fiarth) which belong to our solar system, and revolve in elliptic orbits round
the sun. They are often denominated primary phi nets, to distinguish them
from their moons or satellites, which are- called secondary planets. The
name planet is of considerable antiquity, and was applied to these depend-
ants of the sun to distinguish them from the myriads of luminous bodies
which stud the sky, and which present to the naked eye no indication of
change of place. The planets at present known are, in tho order of their
distance from the sun, Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, the Planetoids,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Six of these, Mercury, Venus, the
Earth (which wasAnot, however, then reckoned a planet), Mars, Jupiter,
FAMILIAR SCIENCE. 405
and Saturn, were known to the ancients; Uranns was discovered by Sir
William Herschel in 1781; and Neptune, after having its position and ele-
ments determined theoretically by Leverrier and Adams, was discovered by
M. Chain's, and afterwards by Dr. Galle, in 1846. The Planetoids, of which
more than two hundred and twenty are now known, have all been discovered
during the present century. Six of the planets, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, are attended by one or more satellites; Ura-
nus (generally), Neptune, almost the whole of the Planetoids, and all the
satellites except the Moon, are invisible to the naked eye. The visible
planets can be at once distinguished from the fixed stars by their clear
steady light, while the latter have a sparkling or twinkling appearance.
The comparative proximity of the planets may be proved by examining them
through a telescope of moderate power, when they appear as round lumi-
nous disks, while the fixed stars exhibit no increase of magnitude. The
planets, as observed from the Earth, move sometimes from west to east,
sometimes from east to west, and for some time remain stationary at the
point where progression ends and retrogression commences. This irregu-
larity in their movements was very puzzling to the ancient astronomers,
who invented various hypotheses to account for it. The system of Coper-
nicus, by assuming the sun, and not the Earth, as the center of the system,
explained with admirable simplicity what seemed before a maze of confusion.
The planetary orbits differ considerably in their degrees of eccentricity,
the Planetoids, Mars, and Mercury being most, and the larger planets least
eccentric. No two planets move exactly in the same plane, though, as a
general rule, the planes of the larger planets most nearly coincide with
that of the ecliptic. The latter are consequently always to be found within
a small strip of the heavens extending on both sides of the ecliptic, while the
others have a far wider range. According to Kepler's Laws, the nearer the
planet is to the sun the shorter is the time of its revolution. The arrange-
ment of the planets in the solar system bears no known relation to their
relative size or weight, for though Mercury, Venus, and the Earth follow
the same order in size and distance from the sun, yet Mars, which is farther
from the sun, is much less than either the Earth or Venus, and the Plan-
etoids, which are still farther off, are the least of all. Jupiter, which is
next in order, is by far the largest, being about one and one-half times as
large as all the others together; and as we proceed farther outwards, the
planets become smaller and smaller, Saturn being less than Jupiter, Uranus
than Saturn, and Neptune than Uranus.
With reference to their distance from the sun, as compared with that of
the Earth, the planets are divided into superior and inferior; Mercury and
Venus are consequently the only " inferior " planets, all the others being
" superior." The inferior planets must always be on the same side of the
Earth as the sun is, and can never be above the horizon of any place (not in
a very high latitude) at midnight; they are always invisible at their superior
and inferior conjunctions, except when, at the latter, a transit takes place.
The superior planets are likewise invisible at conjunction, but when in op-
position they are seen with the greatest distinctness, being then due south
at midnight. The time which elapses from one conjunction to its corre-
sponding conjunction is called the synodic period of a planet, and in the case
of the inferior planets must always be greater than the true period of revo-
lution.
Mercury, the planet which is nearest the sun, is also, with the exception
of the Planetoids, the smallest (being only three times the size of the moon),
k06 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE*
and performs its revolution round the sun in the shortest time. Its greatest
elongation is never more than 28 45', and consequently it is never above
the horizon more than two hours after sunset, or the same time before sun-
rise; on this account, and from its small apparent size (5" to 12"), it is sel-
dom distinctly observable by the naked eye. It shines with a peculiarly
vivid white or rose-colored light, and exhibits no spots.
Venus, the next in order of distance and period, is to us the most brilliant
of all the planets. Its orbit is more nearly a circle than any of the others,
and when at its inferior conjunction, it approaches nearer the Earth than
any other planet. Its apparent angular dimensions thence vary from 10" at
the superior, to 70" at the inferior conjunction. Its greatest elongation varies
from 45 to 47 12', and therefore it can never be above the horizon for
much more than three hours after sunset, or the same time before sunrise.
While moving from the infeiior to the superior conjunction, Venus is a
morning star; and during the other half of its synodic period, an evening
star. When this planet is at an elongation of 40, its brilliancy is greatest,
far surpassing that of the other planets, and rendering a minute examina-
tion through the telescope impossible. At this period it sometimes becomes
visible in the daytime, and after sunset is so bright as to throw a distinct
shadow. Astronomers have repeatedly attempted to ascertain the nature
and characteristics of its surface, but its brightness so dazzles the eyes as t
render the correctness of their observations at best doubtful. From the
changes in the position of dusky patches on its surface, which have been
frequently noticed, it is concluded that it revolves on its axis, and that its
equator is inclined to the plane of its orbit at an angle of 75; but many as-
tronomers (Sir John Herachel included) profess to doubt these conclusions.
Both Venus and Mercury necessarily exhibit phases like the moon.
The Earth, the next planet in order, is described elsewhere; it has a
single satellite, the Moon.
Mar*, the first of the superior planets, is much inferior in size to the
two previous, its volume being about one-half of the Earth's, and, after
Mercury, its orbit is much more eccentric than those of the other planets.
When it is nearest to the Earth (i. e., in opposition), its apparent angular
diameter is 30"; but when farthest from it (i. e., in conjunction), its diam-
eter is not more than 4". It shines with a fiery red light, and is a brilliant
object in the heavena at midnight when near opposition; when seen through
the telescope its surface appears to be covered with irregular blotches, some
of them of a reddish, others of a greenish color, while at each pole is a spot
of dazzling white. The red spots are surmised to be land; the green, water,
while the white spots at the poles are with some reason supposed to be
snow, since they decrease when most exposed to the sun, and increase
under the contrary circumstances. Two email satellites of this planet were
discovered in August, 1877.
The Planetoids. After Mars in order come the Planetoids, formerly, but
improperly, called Asteroids. They are a numerous group of very email
planets situated in the solar system between Mars and Jupiter. The num-
ber now known is two hundred and twenty; They are believed to be frag-
ments of one older planet; their distances from the sun are from 200,000,000
to 300,000,000 miles, and the largest is not over three hundred miles in
diameter.
Jupiter, the next in order, Is the largest of all the planets, its bulk being
more than one thousand four hundred times that of the Earth, though, from
its small density, its mass is only three hundred and thirty-eight times
Jf AMI LI AH SCIENCE, 40?
more. After Venus it is the brightest of all the planets and tlie largest ill
apparent size, its angular diameter varying from 30" to 45'\ When looked
at through a telescope, it is seen to be considerably flattened at the poles,
owing to its rapid revolution on its own axis; and its surface is crossed in a
direction parallel to its equator by three or four distinct and strongly-marked
belts, and a few others of a varying nature. Spots also appear and remain
for some time on its surface, by means of which its revolution on its axis has
been ascertained. This planet is attended by four satellites, which are
easily observable through an ordinary telescope, and which have rendered
an immense service in the determination of longitudes at sea, and of the
motion and velocity of light. The satellites, which were discovered by Gali-
leo, were proved by Sir William Herschel to revolve on their own axes m
the same time that they revolve round their primary. The smallest is
about the same size as our moon, the others are considerably larger.
Saturn, next in position, is about seven hundred and thirty-five times
larger in volume, though only about one hundred times greater in mass
than the Earth. Its apparent diameter when in opposition is 18", and there
is a considerable flattening towards the poles. Its surface is traversed by
dusky belts much less distinctly marked than those of Jupiter, owing doubt-
less in great part to its inferior brightness; its general color is a dull white
or yellowish, but the shaded portions, when seen distinctly, are of" a glau-
cous color. The most remarkable peculiarity of Saturn is its ring, or series
of concentric rings, each one parallel and in the same plane with the others
and with the planet's equator; the rings are at present supposed to be three
in number, the two outermost are bright like the planet itself, while the
innermost is of a purplish color, and is only discernible through a powerful
telescope. The rings are not always visible when Saturn is in the " oppo-
site " half of its orbit, for when the plane of the rings is intermediate be-
tween that of the Earth's orbit and of the ecliptic, their dark surface is turned
towards us, and when the sun is in their plane only the narrow edge is illu-
mined; in both of these cases the ring is invisible from the Earth. Its plane
being inclined at an angle of 28 to the ecliptic, we see the two surfaces of
the ring alternately for periods of fifteen years at a time; and at the middle
of each period, the rings attain their maximum obliquity to the ecliptic, and
are then best seen from the Earth. It is hardly necessary to remark that at
the end of each period they become invisible. Saturn has also no less than
eight satellites, seven of which revolve round it in orbits little removed from
the plane of the ring, while the eighth, which is the second in size, is con-
iderably inclined to it. The satellites are all situated outside of the ring,
and the largest of them is nearly equal to the planet Mars in size.
Uranus, the next planet in position, was discovered accidentally by the
elder Herschel, on March 13, 1781, and was named " the Georgium Sidua "
and " Herschel," but these names soon fell into disuse. It is about ninety-
six (some astronomers say eighty-two) times greater than the Earth in volume
and twenty (according to others, fifteen) times in mass; but though so large,
its distance is so much greater in proportion that astronomers have been un-
able to gain much information concerning it. No spots or belts have hitherto
been discovered on its surface, and consequently its time of rotation and the
position of its axis are unknown. It is attended by a number of satellites,
but so minute do these bodies appear, that astronomers hitherto have been
unable to agree as to their exact number; Sir William Herschel reckoned
six, while other astronomers believe in the existence of four, five, and eight
reepeatively. That there are at least four ia without doubt.
408 CYCLOPEDIA Of VSEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Neptune is the next and outermost member of the solar system, and, at a
distance of nearly 3,000,000,000 miles from the center of the system, slowly
performs its revolution round the sun, accomplishing the complete circuit
in about 165 solar years. It is about 84 times larger than the Earth, but
from its extreme remoteness is of almost inappreciable magnitude when
seen through an ordinary telescope. It was the disturbance in the motion
of Uranus caused by the attractive force of this planet which led Leverrier
and Adams to a calculation of its size and position, on the supposition of its
existence; and the directions which were given by the former to Dr. Galle,
of Berlin, specifying its exact position in the heavens, led that astronomer
to its discovery on September 23, 1846. Mr. Lassell, of Liverpool, has dis-
covered that Neptune is attended by one satellite. The satellites of Uranus
and Neptune differ from the other planets, primary and secondary, in the
direction of their motion, which is from east to west, and in the case of the
former, in planes nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic. Both Uranus and
Neptune were observed long before the times of Herschel and Leverrier, but
they were always supposed to be stars. Uranus is known to have been ob-
served by Plamsteed between 1690 and 1715, and Neptune by Lalande
in 1795.
The, Stars. Stars are distinguished from planets by remaining appar-
ently immovable with respect to one another, and hence they were early
called fixed stars, a name which they still retain, although their perfect fix-
ity has been completely disproved in numerous cases, and is no longer be-
lieved in regard to aiiy. Twinkling, or scintillation, is another mark which
distinguishes stars from planets.
The first thing that strikes the observer is the apparent daily motions of
the stars. The greater part appear to rise in the east, describe smaller or
greater arcs in the heavens, and set in the west; while others describe com-
plete circles round a point north of the zenith, that described by the so-
called polar star being the smallest visible to the naked eye. These ap-
parent motions arise from the rotation of the earth on its axis. Had the
earth only this rotary motion, the aspect of the starry heavens at any spot
on the earth's surface would be the same at the same hour of the night all
the year round; which is known not to be the case. In consequence of the
earth's motion round the sun, or the apparent advance of the sun among
the stars, the aspect of the heavens at a particular hour is always changing.
The same position of the stars recurs four minutes earlier each night, and
only at the same time after the lapse of a year.
With few exceptions, the distance of the fixed stars is still unknown, and
must in all be enormously great. Since the time of Bradley, many attempts
have been made to measure what is called the yearly parallax of the stars,
and thus determine their distances. When we consider that the motion of
the earth round the sun brings us at one time a whole diameter of its orbit
(184 millions of miles) nearer to a particular region of the heavens than we
were six months before, we should expect a change in the relative distances
of the stars as seen from the two points that as we approach them they
should seem to separate. But no such change is seen to take place; and
this was one of the early objections to the theory of Copernicus. The only
answer that the CopernicanB could give was, that the distance of the stars
from us is so great that the diameter of the earth's orbit is as a point com-
pared with it. The detection of the parallax of the fixed stars depended
upon the perfection of instruments. The parallax of a star is the minute
FAMILIA& SCIENCE. m
angle contained by two linea drawn from it, the one to the sun, the other to
the earth. If that angle amounted to a second, the distance of the star
would be 206,000 times that of the sun; and when the measurement of
angles came to be reliable to a second, and still no parallax was discernible,
astronomers could aay that the distance of the nearest stars must be more
than 206,000 times that of the sun i. e., 206,000 times ninety-two millions of
miles, or about twenty billions of miles. It is only since between 1832 and
1838 that anything like positive determinations of parallax have been made,
chiefly by Henderson, Bessel, and Peters. The first published (Dec., 1833)
was that of the double star sixty-one in the constellation of the Swan, by
Bessel, who made the parallax 0"-37, giving a distance over 550,000 times
that of the sun, or fifty-two billions of miles, so that the light of this star is
about eight and two-thirds years in reaching the earth. The nearest of all
the stars yet measured is a Centauri, the finest double star in the southern
heavens, whose parallax was determined by Henderson and Maclear at the
Cape of Good Hope to be 0"'9128 (the observations were made in 1832-1833;
the result read before the Astronomical Society, Jan., 1839), or as subse-
quently corrected, 0"'976, corresponding to a distance of about twenty billions
of miles, and requiring three and one-third years for its light to reach ua. To
Sirius, the brightest of the stars, a parallax of 0"'15, has been assigned, im-
plying a distance six times that of a Centauri. It has been considered
probable, from recondite investigations, that the average distance of a star
of the first magnitude from the earth is 986,000 radii of our annual orbit, a
distance which light would require fifteen and one-half years to traverse;
and further, that the average distance of a star of the sixth magnitude (the
smallest distinctly seen without a telescope) is 7,600,000 times the same
unit to traverse which, light, with its prodigious velocity, would occupy
more than one hundred and twenty years. If, then, the distances of the
majority of stars visible to the naked eye are so enormously great, how are
we to estimate our distance from those minute points of light discernible
only in powerful telescopes ? The conclusion is forced upon us that we do
not see them as they appeared within a few years, or even during the life-
time of man, but with rays which proceeded from them several thousanda
of years ago!
The stars have been divided into groups called Constellations from the
earliest times. The several stars belonging to the same constellation are
distinguished from one another by Greek letters, beginning the alphabet
with the brightest; and when these are not sufficient, by Roman letters and
by numbers. Many of the most brilliant stars have special names. They
are also divided according to their brightness into stars of the first, sec-
ond, third, etc., magnitudes a division which is necessarily somewhat ar-
bitrary. The smallest stars discernible by a naked eye of ordinary power
are usually called stars of the fifth magnitude; but an usually sharp eye
can discern those of the sixth and even seventh magnitude. All below are
telescopic stars, which are divided in a very undetermined way down to the
twentieth magnitude. Sir J. Herschel has determined that the light of Sirius,
the brightest of all the stars, is 324 times that of a mean star of the sixth
magnitude. By processes of photometric observation and reasoning, it is
concluded that the intrinsic splendor a Centauri is more than twice that of
our sun, and that of Sirius 394 times. Among stars of the first magnitude
in the northern hemisphere are usually reckoned Aldebaran (in Taurus),
Arcturus (in Bootes), Atair (in Aquila), Betelgeux (in Orion), Capella (in
Auriga), Procyon (in Canis Minor), Eegulus (in Leo,) Yega (in Lyra), In
410 CYCLOPAEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
the southern hemisphere are Achemes (hi Eridanus), Antarea (in Scor-
pio), Canopus (in Argo), Rigel (in Orion), Sirius (in Canis Major), Spica (in
Virgo), and a Centauri and a Orucis that have no special names.
No apparent magnitude, in the proper sense of the word, has yet been
observed in any star. In the best and most powerful magnifying telescopes,
even the brightest stars of the first magnitude appear, not with small discs
as all the planets do, but as luminous points without any visible diameter,
and always the smaller the better the telescope. We are therefore totally
ignorant of the real size of the fixed stars; nor could it be determined
though we were sure of their distances, for the apparent diameter is an es-
sential element in the calculation. We cannot, then, say whether the
greater brilliancy of one star, when compared with another, arises from its
greater nearness, its greater size, or the greater intensity of its light. It is
certain that all the fixed stars are self-luminous. By the spectroscope sev-
eral facts regarding their physical constitution have been made out; there
are great differences in their spectra; the existence of several known ele-
ments is considered demonstrated. Sirius contains hydrogen, sodium, and
magnesium.
The number of the stars is beyond determination. Those visible by the
naked eye amount only to a few thousands. Stars of the first magnitude
are usually reckoned at 15 to 20, of the second at 50 to 60, of the third about
200, of the fourth at 400 to 500, of the fifth at 1100 to 1200. But in the follow-
ing classes the numbers increase rapidly, so that stars of the sixth and
seventh class amount to above 12,000. Stars are most dense in that region
of the heavens called the Milky Way, which is mostly composed of stars of
the eleventh and twelfth magnitude. W. Herschel observed 116,000 stars
pass the field of his telescope in a quarter of an hour, while directed to the
densest part of the Milky Way.
That the fixed stars are not really immovable, as their name would im-
ply, is seen in the phenomenon of Double or Multiple Stars, which are sys-
tems of two cr more stars that revolve about one another, or rather about
their common center of gravity. As they can be seen separate only by
means of a telescope, and in most cases require a very powerful one, their
discovery was possible only after the telescope was invented. Galileo him-
self discovered their existence, and proposed to make use of them in deter-
mining the yearly parallax of the fixed stars. After a long lapse of time,
Bradley, Maskelyne, and Mayer again directed attention to the phenomena
of double stars; but nothing important was made out respecting them till
the elder Herschel made them the subject of a protracted series of observa-
tions which led to the most remarkable conclusions as to their nature. The
united observations of Struve, Savary, Encke, South, and especially those of
Herschel the younger, continued for four years in the southern hemisphere
at the Cape of Good Hope, have raised the number of observed double, or
rather multiple, stars to more than 6,000, of which the greater part are
binary, or composed of two, but many are triple, some quadruple, and a
few even quintuple, or consisting of five stars. The distance between the
stars composing these systems is always apparently small (varying from
less than 1" up to 32"); but apparent nearness does not always constitute a
double star, for two really distant stars are not unfrequently so nearly in
the same line, as seen from the earth, that they appear to be close together.
In real multiple stars, the individuals are not only comparatively near to one
another, but they revolve around one another. Among stars of the first
three magnitudes, every sixth is a multiple star; among the smaller star*
FAMILIAR SUlEyCE. 411
the proportion is much loss. In somo cases, one of the stars is much larger
than the other, as in the star Rigel in Orion, and in the polar star; but
oftener the connected stars are nearly equal in luminous power. The two
members of double stars are mostly of one color, but a difference of color is
observed in about one-fifth of the whole number. In many of these cases,
the one color ia the complement of the other, and it is possible that the
color of the smaller star may be subjective, arising from the action of the
other upon the eye.
Several stars exhibit well-marked periodic alterations of a striking nature,
and are hence called variable stars. A considerable number have been ob-
served, of Which the most remarkable are Mira (the " wonderful ") in Cetus,
and Algol in Perseus. The first attains its greatest lustre every 334 days,
and appears for fourteen days as a star of the second, and even at times of
the first magnitude; it then decreases for two or three months, till it be-
comes of the sixth and even tenth magnitude, so as to be for half a year in-
visible to the naked eye and usually to telescopes. After this it begins
again to increase, but more rapidly than it decreased. It is visible to the
naked eye for three or four months of its period. Of all the variable stars
yet observed in Perseus, Algol has the shortest period, being sixty-eight
hours forty-nine minutes. It appears for about sixty hours a star of the
second magnitude, then decreases for four hours, and appears for a quarter
of an hour of the fourth magnitude, after which it increases again for four
hours. Various explanations have been offered of these mysterious appear-
ances; the stars are supposed to turn on their axis, and to have their sur-
faces equally luminous in different places; or a large dark body is assumed
to be revolving about the luminous one, so as to intercept more or less of
its light in different positions; or the stars are lens-shaped, etc. There is
nothing, however, inadmissible in the supposition that the intensity of the
light itself may vary; and if in other suns, why not in our own ?
Allied to the variable stars are the new or temporary stars that appear
suddenly in great splendor, and then disappear without leaving a trace. A
number of instances are on record. It is not impossible that these also may
be periodic.
From the appearances connected with the Milky "Way or Galaxy, Sir W.
Herschel came to the conclusion that the stars forming our firmament do
not extend indefinitely into space, but are limited in all directions, the mass
having a definite shape. He conceived the shape to be something like that
of a huge millstone, having one side cleft, and the two laminae set apart at
a small angle. This supposition accounts for the appearance of the Milky
Way, and all subsequent observations have tended to confirm the conjec-
ture. Situated as we are within the system, we cannot hope ever to attain
more than a rude notion regarding it; to get a definite outline, we must bo
placed without it.
But this star system, which we may call our own, as our sun belongs to
it, is but an item in the stellar universe. The appearances known as
nebulae, in many cases at least, are believed to be similar agglomerations of
suns, separated from our system and from one another by unfathomable star-
less intervals. Their forms are very various, but in general pretty well de-
fined and not without symmetry. The aspect of some of them is even startling.
Comets. The word comet is derived from the Gr. kom.e, hair, a title
which had its origin in the hairy appearance often exhibited by the haze or
luminous vapor, the presence of which is at first sight the most striking
412 CYCLOPEDIA OF VSEFVL KNOWLEDGE.
characteristic of the celestial bodies called by this name. The general fea-
ture of a comet are a definite point or nucleus, a nebulous light surround-
ing the nucleus, and a luminous train preceding or following the nucleus.
Anciently, when the train preceded the nucleus as is the case when a
comet has passed its perihelion and recedes from the sun --it was called the
beard, being only termed the tail when seen following the nucleus as the
sun is approached. This distinction has disappeared from all modern as-
tronomical works, and the latter name is given to the appendage, whatever
its apparent position. Neither this luminous attendant, the tail, nor the
nucleus, is now considered an essential cometary element, but all bodies
are classed as comets which have a motion of their own and describe orbits
of an extremely elongated form. There are several plain points of differ-
ence between comets and planets. The planets move in the same direction,
from west to east, which is astronomically called " direct motion; " but the
movements of comets are often from east to west, or retrograde. The orbits
of all the planets are confined to a zone of no great breadth on either side
of the ecliptic; but the paths of comets cut the ecliptic in every direction,
some being even perpendicular to it. The orbits of all the planets are nearly
circular; or, more properly speaking, are ellipses of very small eccentricity.
The orbits of comets, on the other hand, present every variety of eccen-
tricity, some of them being ellipses or elongated closed orbits of various de-
grees of elongation; others, hyperbolas; while the majority have a form ol
orbit not differing sensibly from the parabola, which is the limiting form of
curve to which both the ellipse and hyperbola approximate under given
conditions.
The discovery that comets are celestial bodies, extraneous to our at-
mosphere, is due to Tycho Brahe, who ascertained the fact by observations
of the comet of 1557. Newton succeeded in demonstrating that they are
guided in their movements by the same principle which controls the planets
in their orbits; and Halley was the first, by determining the parabolic ele-
ments of a number of comets from the recorded observations, to identify the
comet of 1682 with one which had been observed in 1607 and the observa-
tions recorded by Kepler and Longomontanus, and also with a comet ob-
served in 1531 by Apian, at Ingolstadt, and thus confidently to predict the
return, at the end of 1758 or beginning of 1759, of a comet which would have
the same parabolic elements.
The celebrated comet of 1680, which furnished Newton with the occasion
for proving that comets revolve around the sun in conic sections, and that,
consequently, they are retained in their orbits by the same force as that
which regulates the movements of the planets, appears to have been about
the most remarkable for brilliancy of any of which we have authentic
accounts. This comet is supposed to be identical with the one that appeared
about the time of Caesar's death (44 B.C.), with that which was seen in the
reign of Justinian in the year 531, and with another in the year 1106, in the
reign of Henry II, the period of revolution, according to the orbit calculated
for it by Whiston, being about 575 years. There is, however, gome doubt
among astronomers as to the real form of its orbit, the one assigned to it by
Encke giving it a period of 8,813 years. This comet approached nearer to
the sun than any known, except perhaps the comet of 1843, the calculation
of whose perihelion distance, from the paucity of observations, has little
certainty. The comet of 1680 approached the sun within the 163d of the
semi-diameter of the earth's orbit. The tail of a comet is nearly always
away from the sun, frequently assuming a curved form. It increases in
FAMILIAR SCIENCE. 413
length with its proximity to the sun, but does not acquire its greatest length
till after passing the perihelion. These are usual characteristics of comets,
which were exemplified by this one in a remarkable degree. These
phenomena might be accounted for if we were to regard the train as vapor-
ization produced by the intense heat to which the body of the comet is
exposed in its approach to the sun.
In the present century, the comets most remarkable for brilliancy have
been the comet of 1811, that of 1843, that of 1858, and that of 1882.
Spectroscopic investigation, so far as yet pursued, points to the conclu-
sion that the nucleus is self-luminous, but that the tail shines with reflected
light. It has been discovered recently, in determining the tracks of those
streams of dark bodies that cause meteoric showers, that some of the tracks
coincide with the orbits of well-known comets. From this, it is inferred
that star showers and comets may be only different manifestations of the
same thing.
The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. This is the name
given to the luminous phenomenon which id seen towards the north of the
heavens by the inhabitants of the higher latitudes. During the winter of
the northern hemisphere, the inhabitants of the arctic zone are without the
light of the sun for months together, and their long, dreary night is relieved
by the light of this beautiful meteor, which occurs with great frequency in
these regions. Those who have explored the southern seas have seen the
same phenomenon in the direction of the south pole, so that the term polar
lights might be more appropriate than northern lights to designate the
aurora. The appearance of the aurora borealis has been described by a
great variety of observers, all of whom give substantially the same account
of the manner in which the phenomenon takes place. It is briefly as fol-
lows: A dingy aspect of the sky in the direction of the north is generally the
precursor of the aurora; and this gradually becomes darker in color, and
assumes tbe form of a circular segment surrounded by a luminous arch, and
resting at each end on the horizon. This dark segment, as it is called, has
the appearance of a thick cloud, and is frequently seen as such in the fading
twilight before the development of the auroral light. Its density must,
however, be very small, as stars are sometimes seen shining brightly
through it. This dark segment is bounded by a luminous arch of a bluish-
white color, which varies in breadth from one to six diameters of the moon,
having the lower edge sharply defined, and the upper edge only when the
breadth of the arch is small. This arch may be considered to be a part of
a luminous ring elevated at a considerable distance above the earth's sur-
face, and having its center corresponding with some point near the north
pole. An observer several degrees south of this auroral ring would see
towards the north only a small arc of it, the larger part being hid by the
earth; to one situated not so far south, it would appear as a larger and
higher arch; to one placed below it, it would be seen as an arch passing
through the zenith; and to one situated within the ring and farther north,
it would be found as an arch culminating in the south. On this supposition,
nearly all the various positions of the auroral arch may be accounted for.
The center of the ring corresponds probably with the magnetic north, which
is at present situated in the island of Boothia-Felix. Hence it is that in
Greenland, which is situated to the east of this island, the auroral arch has
been seen stretching from north to south, with its highest point in the west.
The luminous arch, once formed, remains visible for several hours, and is
414 CYCLOPAEDIA OP USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
in a constant state of motion. It rises and falls, extends towards the east
and towards the west, and breaks sometimes in one part, and sometimes in
another. These motions become all the more observable when the arch ia
about to shoot forth rays; then it becomes luminous at one point, eats in
upon the dark segment, and a ray of similar brightness to the arch mounts
with the rapidity of lightning towards the zenith. The ray seldom keeps
the same form for any length of time; but undergoes continual changes,
moving eastward and westward, and fluttering like a ribbon agitated by the
wind. After some time, it gradually fades in brightness, and at last gives
way to other rays. When the aurora attains its full brightness and activity,
rays are projected from every part of the arch, and if they do not rise too
high, it presents the appearance of a comb furnished with teeth. When the
rays are very bright, they sometimes assume a green, sometimes a violet, a
purple, or a rose color, giving to the whole a variegated and brilliant effect.
When the rays darted by the luminous arch are numerous and of great
length, they culminate in a point which is situated in the prolongation of
the dipping-needle, somewhat southeast of the zenith. There they form
what is called the boreal crown; and the whole heavens, towards the east,
west and north present the appearance of a vast cupola of fire, supported by
columns of variously colored light. When the rays are darted less brilliantly,
the crown first disappears, then, here and there, the light becomes faint and
intermittent, till at last the whole phenomenon fades from the sky.
The intimate connection between the aurora borealis and the magnetism
of the earth is shown by various facts. During the occurrence of the phe-
nomenon, the magnetic needle appears very much disturbed, sometimes
deviating several degrees from its normal position, and appearing to be
most affected when the aurora is brightest; and this oscillation is frequently
perceived far beyond the district where the aurora is seen. The vertex,
likewise, of the luminous arch is almost always found to be in or very near
the magnetic meridian, and the boreal crown has its seat in the prolongation
of the freely suspended needle. There seems, moreover, to be a connection
between the magnetic poles of the earth in regard to the aurora, for, so far
as has been ascertained, the meteor occurs simultaneously at both. The
aurora borealis appears to be an electric discharge connected with mag-
netic disturbance. If one of Gassiot's vacuous tubes be brought near an
electric machine, or between the poles of an induction coil, flashes of light
pass between the ends, which bear a striking resemblance to the aurora
borealis. A comparison of the spectra of the two goes far to establish
identity. The auroral spectral line, according to Angstrom, is a yellow line
near the sodium line, and is the same as the air line seen in the solar light
when the sun is near the horizon. Other lines, however, have been seen,
which cannot as yet be produced by the physicist from any known Hub-
stance.
Sound. Sound is the impression produced on the ear by the vibrations
of the elastic medium, such as air or water, in which it is plunged. That
this is the case is proved, first, by the fact that a bell or tuning fork in
vacua gives no sound when struck, second, by ftie fact that mere currents,
as such (winds, running water, etc.) do not produce the sensation of sound
until they are frittered down into vibratory motion by obstacles.
The most untutored ear distinguishes at once between a mere noise and a
musical note. It of course distinguishes a loud sound from a faint one.
Moreover, it distinguishes musical notes from one another by their shrill-
FAMILIAR SCIENCE. 416
n88 or gravity, or, as it is technically called, their pitch. Again, as in the
case of vowel-sounds sung to the same musical note, or, as in the case of
different instruments (flute and violin, for instance) playing the same note,
it distinguishes something further which is called the quality of the note.
It is on the pitch of notes that the theory of music is based, for the quality
is only of importance in giving variety, as in orchestral music or in giving
richness of tone in a solo. The most perfect music, so far as theory goes,
may be executed on the poorest instrument, but it gives little pleasure, from
the want of richness or quality. In the same way a singer may possess
faultless intonation, yet the performance, though musically perfect, may,
from the harsh quality of the voice, be unpleasant. We intend, in the pres-
ent article, to avoid everything connected with music, and have made these
remarks to show that there is something in the theory of sound more pro-
found than is contemplated in the theory of music.
The questions we have now to discuss are:
1. What constitutes the difference between a mere noise and a musical
note?
2. On what does the pitch of a note depend ?
3. On what does its quality depend ?
The answers to these queries are all contained hi the following statement:
" Every musical note consists in the repetition, at equal small intervals
of time, of some definite noise; the pitch depends on the rate of repetition;
and the quality upon the nature of the fundamental noise."
If, for instance, the edge of a card be held to a revolving toothed-wheel,
a definite noise is produced as each tooth bends the card and allows it to
spring back. While the wheel revolves slowly, we can distinguish these
successive noises; but when it is revolving so fast that they are no longer
separately distinguishable, the character of the sound changes completely.
It now becomes continuous, and, so far as the ear can detect, uniform, and
thus becomes a musical note. As the wheel is made to revolve faster and
faster, the pitch of the note rises, till it becomes a sort of shriek, and finally
becomes inaudible. The " Sirene " gives another excellent illustration. In
this case, the fundamental noise is produced by a puff of air escaping from
an orifice; and we observe, just as before, that the greater the number of
such puffs per second, after they have become so frequent as to be sepa-
rately undistinguishable, the higher is the nitch of the musical note pro-
duced.
Now, if by machinery we arrange matters ;3O that the sirene and the
toothed-wheel give the number of puffs and the number of impacts on the
card the same per second, the musical note produced by each has the same
pitch. But the notes differ greatly in quality, the one being exceedingly
soft and pleasant, and other harsh and grating. The pitch, therefore, de-
pends on the number of noises per second, and the quality upon the nature
of the fundamental noise.
As the velocity of sound is ten times greater than that of wind in the
most violent hurricane, it is not air itself which is transferred from place to
place, but a state of disturbance (condensation or rarefaction) of {he air.
Each successive layer of air in the path of the sound suffers this disturbance
hi turn, and by virtue of its elasticity, passes it on to the next.
Newton was the first who attempted to deduce from mechanical princi-
ples the velocity of sound, but only for the particular case in which each
particle of air, in the path of the sound, is supposed to move backwards and
forwards according to the same law as the bob of a pendulum. He showec"
.6 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
that this species of motion is consistent with the elastic properties of air, ia
given by Boyle's or Mariotte's Law, viz., that the pressure of air is propor-
tional to its density. The velocity of sound in this case is of course to be
found from the time which elapses between the commencement of the motion
of any one particle of air, and that of another at a given distance from it,
in the direction in which the sound is moving. The numerical result de-
duced by Newton with the then received experimental data for the com-
pressibility of air, was 979 feet per second. This investigation was very
defective, applying, in fact, solely to the special case of a pure musical note,
continually propagated without lateral divergence; yet the solution obtained
by Lagrange from a complete analysis of the question, gave precisely the
same mathematical result.
But, by direct measurements, carefully made, by observing at night the
interval which elapses between- the flash and the report of a cannon at a
known distance, the velocity of sound has been found to be considerably
greater in fact, about 1,090 feet per second, at the temperature of freezing
water.
Newton seeks for the cause of this discrepancy between theory and ob-
servation in the idea that the size of the particles of air is finite compared
with their mutual distance; and that sound is instantaneously propagated
through the particles themselves.
This is not one of Newton's happiest conjectures for, independent of the
fact that such an assumption would limit definitely the amount of com-
pression which air could undergo, and, besides, is quite inconsistent with
the truth of Boyle's law for even moderate pressure, it would result from it
that sound should travel slower in rarefied, and quicker in condensed air.
Now, experiment shows that the velocity of sound is unaffected by the
height of the barometer; and, indeed, it is easy to see that this ought to be
the case. For in condensed air the pressures are increased proportionally
to the increase of condensation, and the mass of a given bulk of air is in-
creased in the same proportion. Hence, in a sound-wave in condensed air,
the forces and the masses are increased proportionally, and thus the rate
of motion is unaltered. But the temperature of the air has an effect on
sound, since we know that the elastic force is increased by heat, even when
the density is not diminished; and therefore the velocity of sound increases
with the temperature at the rate of about 4,^ feet per Fahrenheit degree as
is found by experiment.
Newton's explanation of the discrepancy between theory and experiment
being thus set aside, various suggestions were made to account for it; some,
among whom was Euler, imagining that the mathematical methods em-
ployed, being only approximate, involved a serious error.
The explanation was finally given by Laplace, and is simple and satis-
factory. When air is suddenly compressed (as it is by the passage of a
sound-wave), it is heated; when suddenly rarefied, it is cooled, and this
effect is large enough to introduce a serious modification into the mathe-
matical investigations. The effect is in either case to increase the forces at
work for, when compressed, and consequently heated, the pressure is
greater than that due to the mere compression and, when rarefied, and
consequently cooled, the pressure is diminished by more than the amount
due to the mere rarefaction. When this source of error is removed, the
mathematical investigation gives a result as nearly agreeing with that of
observation as is consistent with the unavoidable wrors of all experimental
data. It is to be observed that, in noticing this investigation, nothimg has
FAMILIAR SCIENCE. 417
been saia '.* to the pitch or quality of the sound, for these have nothing to
do with the velocity. It must, however, be remarked here that, in the
mathematical investigation, the compressions and rarefactions are assumed
to be very small; i. e., the sound is supposed to be of moderate intensity.
It does not follow, therefore, that very violent sounds have the same velocity
as moderate ones, and many curious observations made during thunder-
storms seem to show that such violent sounds are propagated with a greatly
increased velocity. It is recorded that in one of Parry's arctic voyages,
during gun-practice, the officer's command " Fire," was heard at great dis-
tances across the ice after the report of the gun.
Since sound consists in a wave-propagation, we should expeit to find it
exhibit all the ordinary phenomena of waves. Thus, for instance, it is
reflected according to the same law as light. It is refracted in passing from
one medium to another of different density or elasticity. This has been
proved by concentrating in a focus the feeble sound of the ticking of a
watch, and rendering it audible at a considerable distance, by means of a
lens of collodion films filled with carbonic acid gas.
Sounds interfere to reinforce each other, or to produce silence; just as
the creat of one wave may be superposed on the crest of another, or may
apparently destroy all motion by filling up its trough. The simplest mode
of showing this is to hold near the ear a vibrating tuning-fork and turn it
slowly round its axis. In some positions, the sounds from the two branches
reinforce, in others they weaken, each other. But if, while the sound is
almost inaudible, an obstacle be interposed between the ear and one of the
branches, the sound is heard distinctly.
To give an idea of the diminution of loudness or intensity of a sound at
a distance from its source, let us consider a series of spherical waves di-
verging from a point. The length, of a wave, as we know from the theory,
does not alter as it proceeds. Hence, if we consider any one spherical
wave, it will increase in radius with the velocity of sound, but its thickness
will remain unaltered. The same disturbance is thus constantly transferred
to masses of air greater and greater in proportion to the surface of the
spherical wave, and therefore the amount in a given bulk (say a cubic inch)
of air will be inversely proportional to this surface. Bvt the surface of
spheres are as the squares of their radii hence the disturbance in a given
mass of air, i. e., the loudness of the sound, is inversely as the square of the
distance from the source. This follows at once from the law of conservation
of energy, if we neglect the portion which is constantly being frittered down
into heat by fluid friction. All sounds, even in the open air, much more
rapidly in rooms, are extinguished ultimately by conversion into an equiva-
lent of heat. Hence sounds really diminish in intensity at a greater rate
than that of the inverse square of the distance; though there are cases on
record in which sounds have been heard at distances of nearly 200 miles.
But if, as in speaking-tubes and speaking-trumpets, sound be prevented
from diverging in spherical waves, the intensity is diminished only by fluid
inction, and thus the sound is audible at a much greater distance, but of
course It is confined mainly to a particular direction.
As already remarked, the purest sounds are those given by a tuning-
fork, which (by v be laws of the vibration of elastic solids) vibrates according
to the same law as a pendulum, and communicates exactly the same mode
of vibration to the air. If two precisely similar tuning-forks be vibrating
with equal energy beside each other, we may have either a sound of double
the intensity, or anything less, to perfect silence, according ts tbsic rslatj
418 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
phases. If the branches of both be at their greatest elongations simultane-
ously, we have a doubled intensity if one be at its widest, and the other
at its narrowest, simultaneously, we have silence, for the condensation pro-
duced by one is exactly annihilated by the rarefaction produced by the
ther, and vice versa. But if the branches of one bo loaded with a little
wax so as to make its oscillations slightly slower, it will gradually fall be-
hind the other in its motion, and we shall have in succession every grade of
intensity from the double of either sound to silence. The effect will be a
periodic swelling and dying away of the sound, and this period will be
longer the more nearly the two forks vibrate in the same time. This phe-
nomenon is called a beat, and we see at once from what precedes, that it
affords an admirable criterion of a perfect unison, that is, of two notes whose
pitch is the same. It is easy to see, by the same kind of reasoning, that if
two forks have their times of "vibration nearly as 1 : 2, 2 : 3, etc. i. e., any
simple numerical ratio there will be greater intervals between the beats
according as the exact ratio is more nearly arrived at.
Light. Light ie the subject of the science of optics. Every one knows
that light diverges from a luminous center in all directions, and that its
transmission in any direction is straight. It travels with great velocity,
which has been ascertained, by observations on the eclipses of Jupiter's
satellites and other means, to be 186,000 miles per second. Shadows are a
result of ita straight transmission; and it follows from its diverging in all
directions from a luminous center, that its intensity diminishes inversely as
the square of the distance from the center. When it falls on the surfaces of
bodies, it is reflected from them, regularly or irregularly, totally or partially,
or is partly or wholly transmitted or refracted through them. The facts of
observation on which catoptrics is founded are two: 1. in the reflection of
light, the incident ray, the normal to the surface, and the reflected ray ar*
in one plane; 2. The angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence,
Similar to these are the physical laws on which dioptrics is founded. When
a ray of homogeneous light is incident on a refracting surface: 1. The in-
cident and refracted ray lie in the same plane as the normal at the point o/
incidence, and on opposite sides of it; 2. The side of the angle of incidence,
whatever that angle may be, bears, to the angle of refraction, a ratio de-
pendent only on the nature of the media between which the refraction taket
place, and on the nature of the light. In stating these laws, we have hinted
at light being of different kinds. At one time it was not supposed that
color had anything to do with light; now, there is no serious dispute but
that there are lights of different colors with different properties, thougk
obeying the same general laws.
Two hypotheses have been advanced to explain the different phenomena
of light, viz.: the theory of emission, or the corpuscular theory, and the
theory of vibration, or the undulatory theory. According to the former,
light is an attenuated imponderable substance, whose colors depend on the
velocity of its transmission. It regards reflection as analogous to the re-
bounding of elastic bodies; while to explain refraction, it assumes that there
are interstices in transparent bodies, to allow of the passage of the particles
of light, and that these particles are attracted by the molecules of bodies-
their attraction combining with the velocity of the particles of light to cause
them to deviate in their course. The undulatory theory assumes that light
is propagated by the vibrations of an imponderable matter termed ether.
On this view, light is somewhat similar to sound. Newton was the authot
FA MIL I Alt SCIENCE. 411
f the former theory, and Huyghens may be regarded as the author of the
latter. The theories were long rivals, but now no doubt remains that the
theory of undulations hai triumphed over the other. Its soundness may be
said to rest on similar evidence to that which wo have for the theory of gravi-
tation; it had not only satisfactorily accounted for all the phenomena of light,
but it has been the means of discovering new phenomena. In fact, it has
supplied the philosopher with the power of prescience in regard to its subject.
Heat. Heat is the unknown cause of the sensation of warmth, and of
a multitude of common phenomena in nature and art. In considering this
subject scientifically, it is necessary, at the outset, to discard the ideas con-
veyed by the popular use of such words as heat and cold. A number of
bodies, however different, left for a long enough time in the same room,
must acquire the same temperature, or become in reality equally warm.
Yet in popular language, some, as metals, stones, etc., are pronounced to be
cold, and others, as flannel and fur, warm. The touch, then, is not a means
by which we can acquire any definite idea of the temperature of a body.
A heated body is no heavier than it was before it was heated ; if, there-
fore, heat be a material substance, as it was long considered, it must be
imponderable. And, in fact, under the name of caloric or phlogiston, it is
classed, in almost all but modern treatises, as one of the family of imponder-
ables. But if it were matter, in any sense of the word, its quantity would be
unchangeable by human agency. Now we find that there are cases in which
heat is produced in any quantity without tiame, combustion, etc., as in
melting two pieces of ice by rubbing them together, and also cases in which
a quantity of heat totally disappears. This is utterly inconsistent with the
idea of the materiality of heat. The only hypothesis that at all accords with
the phenomena is, that heat is a form of motion.
Whether it be a vibration, such as light and sound (in some cases, it cer-
tainly is), or consist in a succession of impacts of the particles of bodies on
each other (as in some cases it has been considered to be), it is none the
less certain that the amount of heat in a body is to be measured by the vis-
viva of moving particles. But as we cannot observe those particles so as to
ascertain their vis-viva, we must have some means of measuring the tem-
perature of a body, depending upon an effect of heat. Whatever that effect
may be, it is obvious that, as the laws of nature are uniform, it will afford
us a reproducible standard, by which we can estimate its amount at any time
and in any place, and compare that amount with another observed some-
where else; just as the French metre is reproducible at any time, being the
ten-millionth part of a quadrant of the meridian.
Now, the most general and notable effect which heat produces on matter
is to expand it. The length of a metallic bar varies with every change of
temperature, and is ever the same at the same temperature. The fixing of
the tire of a cart wheel is a very good instance. No hammering could fit an
iron hoop so tightly on the wood-work of the wheel as the simple enlarging
of the tire by heat, and its subsequent contraction by cold. It is thus pos-
sible to slip it on, and an enormous force is secured to bind the pieces to-
gether. In almost every kind of structure, the expansion and contration
from changes of temperature require to be guarded against. Watches and
clocks, when not compensated, go faster in cold weather, and slower in hot,
an immediate consequence of the expansion or contraction of their balance-
wheels and pendulums.
Jf flask full of water or alcohol be dipped into hot water or hel<J OTer 9
430 CYCLOPAEDIA. OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
lamp, a portion of the liquid rims over; a glass shell which floats in a ves-
sel of water, sinks to the bottom when the water is heated; and as water is
heated, the hotter water continually rises to the surface. Indeed, if the
latter were not the case, it would be impossible to prevent explosions every
time we attempted to boil water or any other fluid. If a bladder, partly
filled with air, and tightly tied at the neck, be heated before a tire, the con-
tained air will expand, and the bladder will be distended. As it cools, it
becomes flaccid again by degrees.
Regarding specific heat, the thermometer indicates the temperature of a
body, but gives us no direct information as to the amount of heat it contains.
Yet this is measurable, for we may take as our unit the amount of heat re-
quired to raise a pound of water from to 1, which is of course a definite
standard. As an instance of the question now raised Is more heat (and if
so, how much more) required to heat a pound of water from zero to 10,
than to heat a pound of mercury between the same limits ? We find by ex-
periment that bodies differ extensively in the amount of heat (measured in
the units before mentioned) required to produce equal changes or tempera-
ture in them.
It is a result of experiment (sufficiently accurate for all ordinary purposes)
that if equal weights of water at different temperatures be mixed, the tem-
perature of the mixture will be the arithmetic mean of the original tempera-
tures. From this it follows, with the same degree of approximation, that
equal successive amounts of heat are required to raise the same mass of
water through successive degrees of temperature. As an instance, suppose
one pound of water at 50 to be mixed with two pounds at 20, the resulting
temperature of the mixture is 30; for the pound at 50 has lost 20, while
each of the other two pounds has gained 10. But if we mix water and
mercury at different temperatures, the resulting temperature is found not
to agree with the above law. Hence it appears that to raise equal weights of
different "bodies through the same number of degrees of temperature, requires
different amounts of heat. And we may then define the specific heat of a
substance as the number of units of heat required to raise the temperature
of one pound of it by one degree.
By the definition of a unit of heat, it is at once seen that the specific heat
of water is unity; and, in general, the specific heats of other bodies are less,
and are therefore to be expressed as proper fractions. For example, il
equal weights of water and mercury be mixed, the first at 0, the second ai
100, the resulting temperature will not be 50 (as it would have been had
both bodies been water), but 3 0- 23 nearly in other words, the amount of'
heat which raises the temperature of one pound of water 3 '2, is that which
would raise that of one pound of mercury 96'77, or the specific heat of mer-
cury is l-30th of that of water. The following may be given as instances ol
the great differences which experiment has shown to exist among bodies in
respect of specific heat: Water, I'OOO; turpentine, '426; sulphur, '203; iron,
114; mercury, -033.
It is mainly to the great specific heat of water that we are indebted fot
the comparatively small amount of it required to cool a hot body dropped
into it; for its comparatively small loss of temperature when it is poured
into a cold vessel, and the enormous effects of the water of the ocean i
modifying climate.
We are now prepared to consider the somewhat complex effects produced
by heat on the molecular constitution of bodies; and conversely, the rela-
tions of soUditv, fluidity, etc., to heat. All bodies (except carbon, which
FAMILIAR SCIENCE. 421
has been softened only) have been melted, by the application of a propei
amount of heat. The laws of this fusion are:
1. Every body has a definite melting-point, assignable on the thermome-
tric scale, if the pressure to which it is subjected be the same.
2. When a body is melting, it retains that fixed temperature, however
much heat may be applied, until the last particle is melted. The last, re-
sult ia most remarkable. The heat applied does not raise the temperature,
but produces the cliange of stale. Hence it seems to disappear, as far as th
thermometer is concerned, and was therefore called latent heat.
A pound of water at 79 C. added to a pound of water at 0" C., produces,
of course, Iwo pounds of water at 39 1- 5. Hut, a pound of water at 79 0.
added to a pound of ice at (P C., produces two pounds of water at 0.
Heat, then, has disappeared in the production of a change from solidity to
fluidity. And this we might expect from the conservation of energy, for
actual energy in the shape of heat must be consumed in producing the po-
tential energy of the molecular actions in the fluid. For every pound of ice
melted, without change of temperature, seventy-nine units of heat are thus
converted into change of molecular arrangement.
We give a few instances of latent heat of fusion: Water (as above), 79'0;
zinc, 28-1; sulphur, 9'4; lead, 5'4; mercury, 2'8.
In law 1, it is mentioned that constancy of pressure is necessary. In
fact, the freezing (or melting) point of water ia lowered by increase of pres-
sure, while those of sulphur and wax are raised; but these effects, though
extremely remarkable, are very small. Most bodies contract on solidifying;
ome, however, as water, cast-iron, type-metal, etc., expand. Thus, a se-
vere frost setting in after copious rain splits rocks, etc., by the expansion of
freezing water; and thus also we obtain in iron the most delicate and faith-
ful copy of a mold, and in the fusible alloy a clear-cut copy of a type. The
modern dynamical theory of heat enables us to see that a perpetual motion
would be procurable, if bodies which contract on solidifying had not their
melting point raised by pressure, and vice versa.
Analogous to the fusion of a solid is its solution in a liquid, or the mutual
onversion into liquids of two solids which are intimately mixed in powder.
Here, also, we should expect actual energy in the shape of heat, to be used
up in producing the potential energy of the fluid state; and, indeed, such is
always the case. Such changes of arrangement destroy heat, or produce
cold; but this in many cases is not the effect observed, as heat is generally
developed by the loss of potential energy, if there be chemical action be-
tween the two substances. Hence, in general, the observed effect will be
the difference of the heat generated by chemical action, and that absorbed in
change of state.
If a quantity of pounded nitrate of ammonia (a very soluble salt) be
placed in a vessel, an equal weigh't of water added, and the whole stirred
for a minute or two with a test-tube containing water, the heat required for
the solution of the salt will be abstracted from all bodies in contact with
the solution, and the water in the test-tube will be frozen. In this sense,
the compound is called & freezing mixture.
Of course the converse of this may be expected to hold, and latent heat
to become sensible when a liquid becomes solid. As as example, when a
saturated solution of sulphate of soda begins to deposit crystals of the salt,
the temperature rises very considerably; and it is the disengagement of
latent heat that renders the freezing of a pond a slow process, even after
the whole of the water has been reduced nearly to the freezing-point.
422 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Almost all that has been said on the subject of fusion is true of vapori-
zation, with the change of a word or two. Thus, however much heat we
may apply to a liquid, the temperature does not rise above the boiling-
point. Heat, then, becomes latent in the act of vaporization, or rather is
converted into change of state. It is found by experiment that 540 units of
heat (each sufficient to heat a pound of water 1 C.) disappear in the con-
version of a pound of water into steam. Hence a pound of steam at 100 C.
is sufficient to raise 5' pounds of water from zero to the boiling-point.
There are at least three distinct ways in which heat is communicated,
and these we will take in order.
First, as to conduction: Why is it that if one end of a poker and of a glass
or wooden rod be put into a fire, we can keep hold of the other end of the
latter much longer than we can of the former ? The reason is, that heat is
more readily transmitted in the" iron from particle to particle, than it is in
glass or wood. This is conduction. It is to be noticed, however, that in
this experiment a great portion of the heat which passes along each rod is
given off into the air by the surface. The mathematical theory of conduc-
tion has been most exquisitely investigated by Fourier, and after him by
Poisson, but on the supposition that the rate at which heat passes from a
warmer to a colder portion of a body is proportional to the difference of tem-
perature. As most of the experiments which have been made with the ob-
ject of ascertaining the conductivity (not conductibility, the erroneous word
in common use) of different bodies have been made in this way, it is not
surprising that our knowledge on this point is very meagre indeed. We
know that silver conducts better than most other metals, and that the
metals in general conduct better than other solids; but here our present
information ends. It is satisfactory to know, however, that the defects of
the old methods are now fully acknowledged, and that the important ele-
ment of conductivity will shortly be accurately known for all important sub-
stances. Forbes has recently shown that the conductivity of iron dimin-
ishes as its temperature increases; and the same is probably true of othe;r
bodies. This invalidates the conclusions of the mathematical theories abovu
mentioned, but the necessary corrections will be easily applied when tho
experimental data are completely determined.
In conjunction with their radiating power, the conductivity of bodies is
most important as regards their suitableness as articles of clothing for hot
or cold climates, or as materials for building or furnishing dwelling houses.
We need but refer to the difference between linen and woolen clothing, or
to the difference (in cold weather) of sensation between a carpet and a
bare floor, in order to show how essential the greater or less conducting
power of bodies is to our everyday comfort.
By radiation is understood the passage of heat, not from particle to
particle of one body, but through air or' vacuum, and even through solid
bodies (in a manner, and with a velocity quite diff erent from those of con-
duction) from one body to another. There can be no doubt whatever as to
radiant heat being identical with light, differing from red light, for instance,
as red light differs from blue i. e., having longer waves than those cor-
responding to red light. This idea might easily have arisen during the con-
templation of a body gradually heated. At first it remains dark, giving off
only rays of heat; as its temperature increases, it gives us, with the het a
low red light, which, by the increase of the temperature, is gradually ac-
companied by yellow, blue, etc., rays, and the incandescent body (a lim-
ball, for instance) finally giva % Ueht 84 white &a that of the gun. an4
FAMILIAR SCIENCE. 423
which, therefore, contains all the colors of sunlight in their usual propor-
tions. In fact there is great reason to believe that the sun is merely a mass
of incandescent melted matter, and that the radiations it emits, whether
called heat or light, merely differ in quality, not in kind. Taking this view
of the subject at the outset, it will be instructive to compare the properties
of radiant heat with those of light throughout.
Light, then, moves (generally) in straight lines. This is easily verified in
the case of heat by the use of the thermo-electric pile and its galvanometer.
Placing the pile out of the line from a source of heat to an aperture in a
screen, no effect is observed; but deflection of the needle at once occurs
when the pile is placed in the line which light would have followed if sub-
stituted for the heat.
A concave mirror, which would bring rays of light proceeding from a
given point to a focus at another given point, does the same with heat, the
hot body being substituted for the luminous one, and the pile placed at the
focus. Heat, then, is reflected according to the same laws as light. A burn-
ing lens gives a capital proof of the sun's heat and light being subject to
the same laws of refraction. When the solar spectrum is formed by means
of a prism of rock-salt, the thermo-electric pile proves the existence of heat
in all the colored spaces, increasing however, down to the red end of the
Bpectrum, and attaining its maximum beyond the visible light, just as if heat
were (as it must be) light with longer waves.
Some bodies, as glass, water, etc., transmit, when in thin plates, moat of
the light which falls on them; others, as wood, metal, colored glass, etc.,
transmit none or little. A plate of rock salt, half an inch thick, transmit*
96 per cent, of the rays of heat which fall on it; while glass, even of a thick-
ness of one-tenth of an inch, transmits very little. In this sense rock-salt is
said to be diathermanous, while glass is said to be adiathermanous, or only
partially diathermanous. Most of the simple gases, such as oxygen, hydro-
gen, etc., and mixtures of these, such as air, oppose very little resistance to
the passage of radiant heat; but the reverse is the case with compound
gases. Some experiments by Tyndall seem to show that the vapor of
water is exceedingly adiathermanous. The question, however, cannot be
considered as finally settled, since some of Tyndall's results are so start-
ling as to require further research and confirmation.
Again, light can be doubly refracted, plane polarized, circularly polarized.
All these properties have been found hi heat by Principal Forbes.
The beautiful investigations of Stokes and Kirchoff on the solar spectrum
have shown us that bodies, which most easily absorb light of a particular
color, when heated, give off most freely light of that color; and it is easily
shown by experiment, that those surfaces which absorb heat most readily,
also radiate it most readily. Thus, it was found by Leslie, that when a
tinned-iron cube full of boiling water had one side polished, another rough-
ened, a third covered with lamp-black, etc., the polished side radiated little
heat, the roughened more, while the blackened side radiated a very great
quantify indeed. And again, that if we have (say) three similar thermom-
eters, and if the bulbs be (1) gilded, (2) covered with roughened metal, (3)
Bmoked, and all be exposed to the same radiation of heat, their sensibility
will be in the order 3, 2, 1. A practical illustration of this is seen in the fact
that a blackened kettle is that in which water is most speedily boiled, while
a polished one keeps the water longest warm when removed from the fire.
Again, if a willow-pattern plate be heated white-hot in the fire, and then ex-
amined in a dark room, the pattern will be reversed a white pattern being
424 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL Rfr
seen on a dark ground. This experiment of Stewart's is very remarka^e,
and virtually constitutes an anticipation of KirchofTs results leading to the
explanation of the fixed lines in the spectrum. It is this law of radiation
and absorption that mainly gives rise to the superior comfort of white
clothing to black in winter as well as in summer; radiating less in winter, it
absorbs less in summer.
Much has been argued about the separate existence of cold, from such
facts as these: A piece of ice held before the thermo-electric pile, produces
an opposite deflection to the galvanometer to that due to a hot ball. If a
freezing mixture be placed at one focus of a spheroidal mirror, and a ther-
mometer with a blackened bulb at the conjugate focus, the latter will fall
speedily, though very far off from the mixture. Now, the real explanation
of such observations is to be found in what is called the "Theory of Ex-
changes," first enunciated by Prevost, and since greatly extended and care-
fully verified by Stewart, which is to this effect: " Everybody is continually
radiating heat in all directions, the amount radiated being (nearly) propor-
tional to its own temperature." Hence the apparent radiation of cold in the
experiments above mentioned is due to the fact of the pile or thermometer
radiating off more heat than it receives, as ita temperature is higher than that
of the freezing mixture to which it is opposed. From this it is evident that
any number of bodies left near each other, tend gradually to assume a com-
mon temperature. By this theory of exchanges, we explain the cold felt in
sitting opposite a window in a frosty day, even when there is no draught.
A hot body cools faster in a current of air than in a still atmosphere of
the same temperature, evidently because fresh supplies of the colder air
are continually brought into contact with it. It is by convection mainly that
heat is conveyed from particle to particle in liquids and gases. Thus, when
a lamp is applied to the bottom of a vessel of water, the heat does not dti-
fuse itself in the water as it would (by conduction) in a mass of metal, but
the expansion of the heated water at the bottom rendering it lighter, bulk
for bulk, than the superincumbent fluid, causes it to rise to the surface; and
thus, by convection, the heat is diffused through the mass. Conduction,
properly so-called, can scarcely be shown, even if it really exist, in liquids
or gases, on this account. The tremulous appearance of any object, as seen
by light which passes near a hot surface, as that of a boiler or a red-hot
poker, is due to the convection of heat in the air, the warm current refract-
ing light less than the cold air.
The sources of heat may be, so far as we know, ultimately reduced to
two chemical combination, and mechanical force; and, indeed, in all
probability, the former is only a variety of the immensely different forms in
which the latter is manifested.
Combustion is the term applied to the process of burning, which usually
consists in the oxygen of the air uniting with the constituents of the com-
bustible substance. Thus, the combustion of coal is due to the oxygen of
the air passing into a state of chemical union with the carbon and the hydro-
gen of the coal, forming carbonic acid and water-vapor. Such chemical
eombinations are always accompanied by the production of more or lees
feeat, as in the case of decaying wood and other vegetable matter; but it ia
only when the action is so rapid as to evolve intense heat accompanied by
light, that the process is called burning or combustion. Though the gaseous
oxygen has as much to do with the process as the more solid material, coal,
wood, paper, or cloth, yet the latter is alone styled the combustible or burn*
ing body, whilst the oxygen is invariably named the supporter of combua-
FAMILIAR SCIENCE. 425
lion. A fe ff substances burn at ordinary temperatures, such aa phosphorus,
which glows when exposed to the air; but the generality of substances, such
as wood, coal, etc., require to be raised in temperature or be set fire to be-
fore they possess the power of combining with the oxygen oi the air. The
amount of heat given out by the various combustibles when burned, is
capable of being measured, and is definite. The same weight of the same
jombustible invariably evolves the same amount of heat during its complete
combustion; but different combustible substances give off different amounts
of heat. The mode in which the heat evolved may be measured, is either
(1) To observe the quantity of ice which a given weight of the combustible
will melt when burning; (2) To notice the weight of water which the com-
bustible will convert into steam; or (3) To estimate the number of pounds
of water which the burning body will raise from 32 to 212 Fahrenheit.
The last plan is the more easily managed and accurate.
Electricity This is the name used in connection with an extensive
and important class of phenomena, and usually denoting either the unknown
cause of the phenomena or the science that treats of them. Most of the
phenomena in question are classed under the three chief heads of frictional
electricity, galvanism and magneto-electricity.
Thales, about 600 B. o., refers in his writings to the fact that amber, when
rubbed, attracts light and dry bodies. This was the only electric fact known
to the ancients. The science of electricity dates properly from the year
1600 A. D., when Gilbert of Colchester published a book entitled "De Arte
Magnetica," in which he gives a list of substances which be found to pos-
sess the same property as amber, and speculates on magnetic and electric
forces. He is the inventor of the word electricity, which he derived from
the Greek word electron, amber. Otto von Guericke, burgomaster of Magde-
burg, in his work "Expenmenta Nova Magdeburspca " (1672), describes,
among his other inventions, the first electric machine ever made, which con-
sisted of a globe of sulphur turned by a handle, and rubbed by a cloth
pressed against it by the hand. Hawksbee (1709) constructed a machine in
which a glass cylinder, rubbed by the dry hand, replaced Guericke's sulphur
globe. Grey and Wehler (1729) were the first to transmit electricity from
one point to aother, and to distinguish bodies into condiictors and non-
conductors. Dufay (1733 to 1745) showed the identity of electrics and non-
conductors, and of non-electrics and conductors, and was the first to
discover the two kinds of electricity, and the fundamental principle which
regulates their action. Between the years 1733 and 1744, much attention
was given in Germany to the construction of electric machines. Up to this
time, notwithstanding the inventions of Guericke and Hawksbee, the glass
tube rubbed by a piece of cloth which Gilbert first introduced, was used in
all experiments. Boze, a professor at Wittenberg, taking the hunt from
Hawksbee's machine, employed a globe of glass for his machine, and
furnished it with a prime conductor. Winkler, a professor at Leipsic, was
bhe first to use a fixed cushion in the machine. The Leyden jar was (1746)
discovered accidentally at Leyden by Muschenbroek; but the honor of the
discovery has been contested also in favor of Cuneus, a rich burgess of that
town, and Kleist, canon of the cathedral of Gamin, in Pomerania. Franklin
(1747) showed the electric conditions of the Leyden jar, and (1752) proved
the identity of lightning and electricity by his famous kite experiment.
This last was performed with the same object about the same time, and quite
independently, by Bomas of the town of Nerac, in France. In 1760 Franklin
426 CYCLOPEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
made the first lightning conductor. Canton, Wilke and JEpinus (1753 to
1759) examined the nature of induction. Ramsden (1768) was the first to
construct a plate machine, and Nairn (1780) a two fluid cylinder machine.
The electrophorus was invented by Volta in 1775, and the condenser by the
same electrician in 1782. In 1786 Galvani made the discovery which led to
the addition of the new branch to the science which bears his name, and
which now far exceeds the older branch in extent and practical value. In
1787, Coulomb, by means of his torsion-balance, investigated the laws of
electric attraction and repulsion. In 1837, Faraday published the first of his
researches on induction. Armstrong, in 1840, designed hia hydro-electric
machine.
The fundamental facts regarding frictional electricity may be thus
stated: Bodies which do not conduct electricity, or non-conductors, are
capable of electrical excitation from friction, and are, in consequence, termed
electrics, and that conductors not so affected are called non-electrics.
The fundamental principles of electricity are illustrated by the electric pen-
dulum. A glass tube bent at right angles, so as to project horizontally, is
placed on a convenient stand. On the hook in which its upper end ter-
minates, a cocoon thread is hung, to the end of which a pith-ball is attached.
The ball is thus doubly insulated by the glass and the silk thread. If a
tube of glass be rubbed by a dry silk handkerchief, and brought near the
ball, the ball is at first briskly attracted, and then as briskly repelled; and
if the tube be then moved towards it, it moves off; keeping at the same dis-
tance from it. The ball being so affected, or charged, as it is called, a rod
of shell-lac or of sealing wax, after being rubbed with flannel, attracts it, if
possible, more briskly than before, and again sends it off exactly as the
glass had done. If the glass tube be now again taken up and rubbed a sec-
ond time, if necessary, the ball will act towards it as it did towards the
sealing wax. The same aeries of attractions and repulsions would have
taken place if we had begun with the sealing wax instead of the glass tube.
We interpret this experiment in the following way: When glass is rubbed
with silk, and the silk removed, it is charged with what is called positive
electricity. The ball is attracted by it, and becomes on contact also charged
with positive electricity, and is then repelled. When sealing wax is rubbed
with flannel, and the flannel removed, it becomes charged with negative
lectricity, which is the counterpart of positive electricity, for it attracts the
positively charged ball, and communicating its own electricity to it, finally
repels it. From such an experiment as this, we conclude that bodies elec-
trified either positively or negatively, attract neutral bodies and bodies
affected with electricity of an opposite name to their own, but repel those
affected with electricity of the same name; and that electricity can be com-
municated from one body to another by contact. For positive and negative
(written also + and ), the terms vitreous and resinous are also employed,
as glass and resin are the typical substances from which they may be ob-
tained. Contact is not the only way in which electricity is communicated.
We find, when we deal with larger bodies than the pith ball of the experi-
ment, and sometimes even with it, that the passage of a spark between two
bodies without contact communicates the electricity of the one to the other.
The part played by the rubbers in the above experiment must not be over-
looked. The silk handkerchief employed to rub the glass assumes the
resinous or electrical state, and the flannel rubber of the sealing wax the
vitreous or +. This cannot, however, be clearly shown, as the experiment
is performed, for the rubbers are in each case tightly embraced by the hand,
FAM1L1AU SUltitlUE. 427
which neutralizes their peculiar electricity. We can perform our funda-
mental experiment in a way clearly to show this. Let us take for our rub-
bing and rubbed surfaces two india rubber balloons inflated with air (such
as children play with), and hold them tightly one in each hand. They may
be in all respects perfectly alike. Let us then rub them briskly on eaca
other, and then hold the rubbed sides closely together. On bringing the
two in contact near the pith ball, it remains indifferent to them; but if we
pull them apart, and put one on each side of the pith ball, the ball plays
actively between them, being attracted and repelled by each in turn. The
fact of no attraction occurring when the balloons are together, shows that in
the rubbing both electricities are generated in equal quantities, for they
neutralize each other when brought near; and the fact that the balloons
must be separated proves that all electric phenomena take place in an elec-
tric field, with positive electricity at its one termination, and negative
electricity at its other. The non-conducting nature of the india rubber pre-
vents the electricities finally neutralizing in contact, and disappearing by
the hands when apart. It is also instructive that as force is exerted and
work is done in pulling them apart, we have the equivalent of that work in
the form of an electric field capable of doing work. The motion of the pith
ball, and the heating caused by the tiny sparks which charge it, are evi-
dences of the truth of the statement. It is again worthy of note that both
balloons appear exactly alike, and yet they assume opposite electricities.
In most cases of friction, the nature of the rubbing and rubbed surfaces
determines the kind of electricity which each assumes. Thus, if glass be
rubbed by a cat's fur instead of silk, its electricity is instead of +. In
the following list, each body, when rubbed by any one preceding it, is nega-
tively electrified; by any one succeeding it, positively: cat's fur, smooth
glass, linen, feathers, wood, paper, silk, shell-lac, ground glass. When two
pieces of the same material are rubbed together, the colder or smoother be-
comes positively excited. Metal filings rubbing against a plate of the same
metal determine electricity in themselves, and + electricity in the plate.
When a white silk ribbon is rubbed by a black one of the same texture, the
white one becomes -f . A plate of glass becomes + when a stream of air is
directed against it from a pair of bellows. The friction caused by steam of
high tension issuing from a narrow pipe develops electricities in the steam
and pipe which depend on the material of the latter. This fact has been
turned to advantage by Armstrong in the construction of a boiler electrical
machine ol immense power.
There are two theories which have played an important part in the
history of the science the two-fluid theory of Dufay, and the one-fluid
theory of Franklin. According to the former, matter is pervaded with two
highly elastic imponderable electric fluids one, the vitreous; the other, the
resinous. These are supposed to repel themselves, but attract each other.
Neutral bodies give no evidence of their presence, for they are neutralized
the one by the other; but when by friction or other operation the fluids are
separated, each body observes the attractions and repulsions of the fluid it
happens to have. According to the latter, there is only one electric fluid
which repels itself, but attracts matter. Friction determines a gain of the
fluid to the positive, and a loss to the negative body. Faraday's theory of
electric induction by contiguous molecules appears to be gaining ground.
- ft explains satisfactorily how conductors and ncn-conductors are alike in
J2nd; how the charge on a conductor can only reside at the boundary of the
>nflm>.tor and non-conductor, ot wkich is the same thing the surface of
428 CYCLOPAEDIA Of USKtVL tCNOWLKDftK.
the conductor; bow the charge resides in the dielectric; how the polarity of
the galvanic circuit is effected; how a battery current originates in and
effects chemical decomposition; and how the velocity of discharge is de-
pendent on the conformation of the circuit."
Galvanism is that branch of the science of electricity which treats of the
electric currents arising from chemical action, more particularly from that
attending the dissolution of metals. It is sometimes called dynamical elec-
tricity, because it deals with current electricity, or electricity in motion, and
is thus distinguished from frictional electricity, which is called statical in
consequence of its investigating the electric condition of bodies in which
electricity remains insulated or stationary. These terms, although in the
main thus properly applied, are in all strictness applicable to both sciences.
Frictional electricity, though small in quantity, can pass in a sensible cur-
rent, and galvanic electricity, though small in tension, can be made to mani-
fest the attractions and repulsions of stationary electricity. Thus the series
of discharges which are transmitted in a wire connecting the prime con-
ductor of a machine in action with the ground, possesses, though feebly,
the characteristics of a galvanic current; and the insulated poles of a many
celled galvanic battery, manifest before the current begins the electric ten-
sion of the friction machine.
Magneto-electricity includes all phenomena where magnetism gives rise
to electricity.
Air. Atmosphere is the name applied to the gaseous envelope which
surrounds the earth. The existence of an atmosphere is to us a matter of
vital importance. We owe to its influence the possibility of animal and veg-
etable life, the modifying and retaining of solar heat, the transmission of
sound, the gradual shading of day into night, the disintegration of rocks,
and the occurrence of weather phenomena. In consequence of the action
of gravity, the atmosphere assumes the form of a spheroidal stratum con-
centric with the earth, aiul presses heavily on its surface. It exhibits, in
common with all fluid bodies, the usual characteristics of hydrostatic pres-
sure, but its internal condition differs from that of a liquid inasmuch as its
particles repel each other, and can only be held in proximity by external
force. From this circumstance, it follows that the volume of any portion of
air varies much more under the influence of external pressure than that of
an equal volume of water; hence, the stratum of air nearest the earth is
denser than the strata in the upper regions, where, from their being sub-
jected to the weight of a smaller mass of superincumbent air, the repulsive
force of the particles has freer play.
That air possesses weight, is illustrated by the following simple experi-
ment. If a hollow glass globe of five or six inches in diameter be weighed
first, when filled with air, and then, after the air has been extracted from it
by means of the air pump, it will, when thus exhausted, weigh sensibly less
than it did before, and the difference of the two results will represent the
weight of the quantity of air which has been withdrawn. It has been de-
termined by Biot and Arago that 100 cubic inches of dry air, when the
barometer is at 30 inches, and the thermometer at 60 Fahrenheit, weigh
31'074 grains. The law of Archimedes, that a body immersed in a fluid
loses a part of its weight equal to the weight of the volume of fluid displaced
by it, finds its application in the atmosphere, as well as in water. If a glass
globe filled with air and closed be suspended at the extremity of the beam
of a delicate balance, and be kept in equilibrium by a brass weight at tho
FAMILIAR SCIENCE. 429
other extremity, and if the whole be then placed under the receiver of an
air-pump, and the air extracted, the equilibrium previously existing in air
will be disturbed, and the larger body will become the heavier. The rea-
son of this is, that when first weighed, they each lose as much of their own
weight as that of the respective volumes of air displaced by them, and are
therefore made buoyant, though iu different degrees, the ball with the
larger volume having the greater buoyancy. In a vacuum, they are de-
prived of this buoyancy, and the larger body, suffering the greater loss,
becomes sensibly heavier than the other. In like manner, a balloon filled
with heated air or hydrogen gas is lighter than the volume of air displaced
by it. It is therefore forced upwards till it reaches a stratum of such den-
sity that the weight of the volume of air there displaced by it equals the-
weight of the balloon itself. In this stratum it will remain poised, or move
horizontally with the currents to which it may be exposed.
In endeavoring to determine iheform of the atmospheric envelope, it is
necessary to bear in mind that, according to the law of fluid-pressure, in
order to produce a state of equilibrium at the level of the sea, the pressure
of the atmosphere must be equal at that level over the whole of the earth's
surface. Gravity acts with less force on the air at the equator th an on that
at the poles, in consequence of the spheroidal form of the earth. It has
there, in addition, to contend with the centrifugal force, which entirely fails
at the poles, and which has a tendency to lighten the air by acting contrary
to that of gravity. Hence we infer, that in order to produce the same pres-
sure at the level of the sea, the atmospheric height at the equator must be
greater than that at the poles, and that the atmosphere must therefore pos-
sess the form of an oblate spheroid, whose oblateness is considerably greater
than that of the earth itself. The greater heat at the tropical regions must
also have the effect of increasing the obiateness.
The height of the atmosphere has not yet been determined. That it
must have a certain limit, is evident from the consideration that there must
be a point at which gravity on the one hand, and centrifugal force and the
repulsive action of the particles on the other, are poised, and beyond which
the latter forces on balancing the former force, the aerial particles would
be borne away from the earth. As, however, the law of the diminution of
temperature, which materially affects the repulsive action, is unknown for
the upper regions of the air, it is impossible to calculate the height of the
atmosphere from the relations of these forces. From the observation of
luminous meteors, it is inferred that it is at least 100 miles high, and that,
in an extremely attenuated form, it may even reach 200 miles.
The pressure of the atmosphere is one of its most important properties.
Its effect is exhibited in the action of the ordinary water-pump. The piston
is fitted air-tight in its cylinder; and on being drawn up, creates a vacuum.
The water within the pump being thus freed from pressure, while that out-
side of it is exposed to the pressure of a column of air reaching to the sur-
face of the atmosphere, is at once forced up by reason of the weight of air
which it must rise to balance. The ascent of the water takes place till the
piston has reached the height of nearly 34 feet, from which we conclude
that a column of air is equal in weight to a column of water of the same
horizontal section, and of the height of nearly 34 feet. As mercury is 13'6
tunes heavier than water, a mercurial column freed from atmospheric
pressure at the one extremity, and subjected to it at the other, is 13'6 time*
less in height than the column of water, or about 30 inches. From the more
jonvcaient size of uxio cclv.r>^n. mercury has been adopted as the standard
430 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
for atmospheric pressure, and is employed in our ordinary barometers. A
mercurial column of 30 inches in height, and one square inch in section,
weighs 15 Ibs. (more accurately, 14'73), which gives us the equivalent
weight of a column of atmospheric air of the same section. The word at-
mosphere is often employed to express this weight or pressure on a square
inch of surface, so that when we speak, in mechanics, of the pressure of
steam on a boiler as amounting to three atmospheres, we mean a pressure
of 45 Ibs. on the square inch. The pressure on a square inch being thus as-
certained, we have merely to multiply it by the number of square inches on
the earth's surface to obtain the total weight of the atmosphere. It amounts
to 11-67085 trillions of Ibs.
Recent chemical researches give the following as the mean composition
of 100 volumes and of 100 grains of dry air:
Volumes. Grains.
Nitrogen 79-02 76-84
Oxygen 20-94 23-10
Carbonic acid 0-04 0-06
100-00 100-00
Besides the substances just named, other gaseous matters occur, but in
quantities so small as not sensibly to increase the bulk of the atmosphere,
euch as ammonia and aramoniacal salts, carburetted and sulphuretted hy-
drogen, carbonic oxide, sulphurous and sulphuric acid, nitric acid and per-
haps iodine, the quantity and even the presence of which are affected by
local and meteorological causes. Eoughly speaking, then, dry air may be
said to consist of four volumes of nitrogen, and one of oxygen, with a slight
admixture of carbonic acid, and a mere trace of several other substances.
As, however, the air of the atmosphere is never found dry, we must add to
the constituents already named watery vapor, the amount of which is con-
stantly changing, according to locality, weather, wind and temperature. It
is stated that of 1,000 grains of atmospheric air, the proportion due to aque-
ous vapor varies from a minimum of four to a maximum of sixteen grams.
By far the most active chemical constituent of the atmosphere is oxygen, to
the agency of which are owing the existence of animal life, the maintenance
of combustion, the rusting of metals, and the occurrence of several other
chemical phenomena too numerous to be detailed. The nitrogen which
forms the bulk of the atmosphere possesses few chemical properties of im-
portance, but performs the important part of diluting the oxygen, which, if
it occurred alone, would act with too great intensity. The presence of car-
bonic acid in the air is shown by the production of the white carbonate of
lime in lime-water freely exposed to its influence. Carbonic acid is pro-
duced in all processes where carbonaceous matter unites itself with the
oxygen of the air, such as in animal respiration, in combustion, in fermenta-
tion, in putrefaction, and similar processes. The green leaves of plants, on
the other hand, possess, in presence of sunshine, the power of decomposing
carbonic acid into its elements, absorbing the carbon for their own tissues,
and restoring the oxygen to the atmosphere in its original purity. Between
the processes above mentioned, on the one hand, and the action of plants
on the other, the quantity of carbonic acid in the air is kept nearly constant.
From the table it will be seen that 10,000 volumes of atmospheric air con-
tain four volumes of carbonic acid. If it occurred in a much larger propor-
tion, being poisonous, it would become dangerous to animal life; and if it
occurred in a much less proportion, the vegetable world would lack its
FAMILIAR SCIENCE. 431
requisite nourishment. The other substances, of which a trace is always or
only sometimes found in atmospheric air, are difficult to detect in the air
itself, but are generally found dissolved in rain-water, more especially in
that which has fallen immediately after a long drought. Of these, by far
the most important and widely diffused are ammonia and aoimoniacal salts,
which are of essential importance to the vegetable economy, because, dis-
solved in the rain, they furnish plants with the nitrogen required by them
for the production of their flowers and fruit. Nitric acid is detected in the
air after thunder-storms, sulphuretted hydrogen in the tainted air of sewers
and such like places, and sulphurous and sulphuric acid only in the neigh-
borhood of chemical or smelting works. A considerable quantity of car-
bonic oxide and carburretted hydrogen escapes unconsumed from our fur-
naces; and although the latter gas is in addition given off to the air in
marshy and bituminous districts, the two occur in almost inappreciable
quantity in the atmosphere.
In addition to its gaseous constituents, the atmosphere contains solM
substances in a state of exceedingly fine division, the presence of which i
revealed in the sunbeam. Many of these minute particles, being the seeds
or germs of plants and animals, must exert an important influence on the
organic substances on which they may finally settle, inducing in many o*
them the conditions of disease or putrefaction.
Water. in a state of purity, at the ordinary temperature of the air ,
*ater is a clear, colorless, transparent liquid, perfectly neutral in its reac>
tion, and devoid of taste or smell. At a temperature below 32 it freezes,
crystallizing in various forms derived from the rhombohedron and six-aider' i
prism. It appears from the researches of Arago and Fresnel, that notwitb.
standing the gradual dilatation of water below 39, its refractive power on
light continues to increase regularly, as though it contracted. Its density
at 60, and at the level of the sea, is taken at TOGO, and forms the standard
of comparison for all solids and liquids, hydrogen being similarly taken an
the standard of comparison for gases and vapors. Distilled water is 81?
times heavier than air; a cubic inch weighs, in air at 62, with the barometer
at thirty inches, 252-458 grams, and in vacua, 252*722 grains, the grain being
1-7000 of the avoirdupois pound. For all practical purposes, water may bo
considered as incompressible; but very accurate experiments have shown
that it does yield to a slight extent when the pressure employed is very
great; the diminution of volume for each atmosphere of pressure being
about fifty-one millionths of the whole. Water evaporates at all tempera-
tures, and under the ordinary pressure of the atmosphere, boils at 212,
passing off in the form of steam, which, in its state of greatest density a*
212% compared with air at the same temperature, and with an equal elastic
force, has a spec. grav. of 0'625. In this condition it may be represented an
containing, in every two volumes, two volumes of hydrogen and one volumo
of oxygen.
Water is the most universal solvent with which the chemist is acquainted,
and its operations in this respect are equally apparent, although on very
different scales, on the surface of the globe and in the laboratory. This
solvent action is usually much increased by heat, so that a hot aqueous
saturated solution deposits a portion of the dissolved matter on cooling.
Some substances are so soluble in water, that they extract its vapor from
tlw atmosphere and dissolve themselves hi it Moreover, when water is
heated in a strong closed vessel to a temperature above that of the ordinary
482 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNO'WLELGE.
boiling-point, 212, its solvent powers are much increased. All gases are
soluble in water, but water dissolves very unequal quantities of different
gases, and very unequal quantities of the same gas at different tempera-
tures. Some gases are so extremely soluble in this fluid, that it is necessary
to collect them over mercury. For example, at 32 one volume of water
dissolves somewhat less than l-50th of its volume of hydrogen, and exactly
l-50th of its volume of nitrogen, while it dissolves 506 and 1,050 volumes of
hydrochloric acid and ammonia gases; and while at 32 water dissolves T8
times its volume of carbonic acid, it dissolves only half that volume of the
gas at 60.
It is less than a century since the ancient view, that water was one of the
four elements, has ceased to be believed in. It is now known that it is a
compound of oxygen with hydrogen in the proportion of one equivalent of
each. Hence its symbol is HO, and its combining number 9. When con-
verted into vapor, 9 grains of steam occupy the bulk of 8 grains of oxygen at
the same temperature; hence the combining volume of aqueous vapor is
equal to 2, if the combining volume of oxygen be taken as 1.
Wind Wind is air in motion. All wind is caused, directly or indirect-
ly, by changes of temperature. Suppose the temperature of two adjacent
regions to become, from any cause, different, the air of the warmer, being
lighter, will ascend and flow over on the other, whilst the heavier air of the
colder region will flow in below to supply its place. Thus, then, a differ-
ence in the temperature of the two regions gives rise to two currents of air
one blowing from the colder to the warmer along the surface of the earth,
and the other, from the warmer to the colder, in the upper regions of the
atmosphere; and these currents will continue to blow till the equilibrium
be restored.
Winds are classed into Constant, Periodical and Variable Winds.
The trade wind is a constant wind, and is thus explained: When the part
of the earth's surface which is heated is a whole zone, as in the case of the
tropics, a surface-wind will set in towards the heated tropical zone from
both sides, and uniting will ascend, and then separating, flow as upper
currents, in entirely opposite directions. Hence, a surface current will flow
from the higher latitudes towards the equator, and an upper-current
towards the poles. If, then, the earth were at rest, a north wind would
prevail in the northern half of the globe, and a south wind in the southern
half. But these directions are modified by the rotations of the earth on its
axis from west to east. In virtue of this rotation, objects on the earth's sur-
face at the equator are carried round toward the east, at the rate of 17
miles a minute. But as we recede from the equator, this velocity is con-
tinually diminished; at lat. 60 it is only eight and one-half miles a minute,
or half of the velocity at the equator; and at the poles it is nothing. A
wind, therefore, blowing along the earth's surface to the equator, is con-
stantly arriving at places which have a greater velocity than itself. Hence,
the wind will lag behind, that is, will come up against places towards which
it blows, or become an east wind. Since, then, the wind north of the eqvia-
tor is under the influence of two forces one drawing it south, the other
drawing it west it will, by the law of the composition of forces, flow in an
intermediate direction, that is, from north-east to south-west. Similarly,
in the southern tropic, the wind will blow from south-east to north-
west.
Land and sea breezes are the most general of the periodical winds
FAMILIAR SCIENCE.
433
These winds are caused during the day, by the land getting more heated
than the sea, consequently the air over it ascends, and the cool air from
the sea flows over on the land to supply its place; and during night, by the
temperature of the land falling below that of the sea, and the air becoming
thereby heavier and denser, flows over the sea as a land breeze.
WIND CLOUD.
Variable winds depend on purely local or temporary causes, such as the
nature of the ground, covered with vegetation or bare; the physical con-
figuration of the surface, level or mountainous; the vicinity of the sea or
lakes, and the passage of storms. Storina are sudden and violent winds,
resembling whirlwinds, hereafter treated.
THE SIMOON.
484 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Whirlwinds and Waterspouts. Whirlwinds seldom continue
longer than a minute at any place, and sometimes only a few seconds; their
breadth varies from a
few yards to nearly a
quarter of a mile; dur-
ing their short continu-
ance, the changes of the
wind are sudden and vio-
lent; and the barometer
is not observed to fall.
The direction of the
eddy of the whirlwinds,
especially when the di-
ameter is very small,
differs from the rotation
of winds in a storm, in
that it may take place
either way right to left,
or left to right accord-
ing to the direction of
the stronger of the two
winds which give rise to
the whirlwind. Thus,
suppose it to arise from
a north wind blowing
side by Bide with a south wind, and to the west of it, then, if the north
wind be stronger, the whirl will be north, west, south, and east; but it will
be in a contrary direction if the south wind be the stronger. Whirlwinds often '
originate within the trop-
ics during the hot season,
especially in flat sandy
deserts; these becoming
unequally heated by the
sun, give rise to ascending
columns of heated ah*. In
their contact with each
other, the ascending cur-
re n t s result hi eddies,
which draw up with them
large clouds of dust, and
the whole is borne forward
by the wind that may hp-
pen to be blowing at the
time. This is the origin of
the dust whirlwinds of
India. These dust-storms
are frequent in dry warm
regions; and hi the case of
the Simoon, which may be
regarded as a succession of
such whirlwinds, they appear on a scale of the most appalling grandeur.
Extensive fires, such as the burning of a prairie, and volcanic eruptions,
&10o cause whirlwinds, by the conflicting currents of heated air they occa-
WATERSPOUTS.
FAMILIAR SCIENCE. 435
eion; and these, as well as the whirlwinds already mentioned, are generally
accompanied with heavy rains, hail and electrical displays.
Waterspouts are whirlwinds occurring on the sea or on lakes. When
fully formed, they appear as tall pillars of cloud stretching from the sea to
the sky, whirling round their axes, and exhibiting the progressive move-
ment of the whole mass precisely as in the case of the dust whirlwind. The
soa at the base of the whirling vortices is thrown into the most violent com-
motion, resembling the surface of water in rapid ebullition. It is a popular
fallacy that the water of the sea is sucked up in a solid mass by water-
spouts, it being only the spray from the broken waves which is carried up.
Observations of the rain gauge conclusively prove this.
Dew. For any assigned temperature of the atmosphere, there is a cer-
tain quantity of aqueous vapor which it is capable of holding in suspension
at a given pressure. Conversely, for any assigned quantity of aqueous
vapor held in suspension in the atmosphere, there is a minimum tempera-
ture at which it can remain so suspended. This minimum temperature is
called the dew-point. During the day time, especially if there has been
sunshine, a good deal of aqueous vapor is taken into suspension in the at-
mosphere. If the temperature in- the evening now falls below the dew-
point, which after a hot and calm day generally takes place about sunset,
the vapor which can be no longer held in suspension is deposited on the
surface of the earth, sometimes to be seen visibly falling in a fine mist. This
is one form of the phenomenon of dew, but there is another. The surface of
the earth, and all things on it, and especially the smooth surfaces of vege-
table productions, are constantly parting with their heat by radiation. If
the sky is covered with clouds, the radiation sent back from the clouds
nearly supplies an equivalent for the heat thus parted with; but if the sky
be clear, no equivalent is supplied, and the surface of the earth and things
growing on it become colder than the atmosphere. If the night also be
calm, the small portion of air contiguous to any of these surfaces will be-
come cooled below the dew-point, and its moisture deposited on the surface
in the form of dew. If this chilled temperature be below 32 Fahrenheit the
dew becomes frozen, and is called hoar-frost.
Rain At a given temperature, air is capable of containing no more
than a certain quantity of aqueous vapor invisibly dissolved through it, and
when this amount is present, it is said to be saturated. Air may at any
time be brought to a state of saturation by reducing its temperature; and if
it be cooled below this point, the whole of the vapor can now no longer be
held in suspension, but a part of it passing from the gaseous to the liquid
state, will be deposited in dew, or float about in the form of clouds. If the
temperature continues to fall, the vesicles of vapor that compose the cloud
will increase in number, and begin to descend by their own weight. The
largest of these falling fastest, will unite with the smaller ones they en-
counter in their descent, and thus drops of rain will be formed whose size
will depend on the thickness and density of the cloud. The point to which
the temperature of the air must be reduced in order to cause a portion of
its vapor to form cloud or dew, is called the dew-point.
Hence, the law of aqueous precipitation may be stated: Whatever lowers
the temperature of the air at any place below the dew-point, is a cause ci
ram. Various causes may conspire to effect this object, but it is chiefly
brought about by the ascent of the air into the higher regions of the atmoa-
436 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
phere, by which, being subjected to less pressure, it expands, and in doing
eo, its temperature falls. Ascending; currents are caused by the heating of
the earth's surface, for then the superincumbent air is also heated and con-
sequently ascends by its levity. Air currents are forced up into the higher
parta of the atmosphere by colder, drier, and therefore heavier wind cur-
BAIN CLOUD.
rents getting beneath them, and thus wedgeways thrusting them upwards;
and the same result is accomplished by ranges of mountains opposing their
masses to the onward horizontal course of the winds, so that the air, being
forced up their slopes, is cooled, and its vapor liberated in showers of rain
or snow.
FAMILIAR SUIENCE.
437
Snow. Snow is the frozen moisture which falls from the atmosphere
when the temperature is 32 or lower. It is composed of crystals, usually
in the form of six-pointed stars, of which about 1, 000 different kiuds have
been already observed, and many of them figured. These numerous forms
have been reduced to the following five principal varieties: 1. Thin plates,
the most numerous class, containing several hundred forms of the rarest
SNOW CLOUD.
and most exqi:isite beauty. 2. A spherical nucleus or plane figure studded
with needle-shaped crystals. 8. Six or more rarely three-sided prismatic
crystals. 4. Pyramids of six sides. 5. Prismatic crystals, having at the
ends and middle thin plates perpendicular to their length. The forma of
the crystals in the same fall of snow are generally similar to each other.
The crystals of hoar-frost being formed on leaves and other bodies disturb-
438 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
ing the temperature, are often irregular and opaque; and it has been ob-
served that each tree or shrub has its own peculiar crystals. Snow-flakes
vary from an inch to 7-lOOths of an inch in diameter, the largest occurring
when the temperature is near 32, and the smallest at very low tempera-
tures. As air has a smaller capacity for retaining its vapor as the tempera-
ture sinks, it follows that the aqueous precipitation, enow or rain, is much
less in polar than in temperate regions. The white color of snow is the
result of the combination of the different prismatic rays issuing from the
minute snow crystals. Pounded glass and foam are analogous cases of the
prismatic colors blending together and forming the white light out of which
they had been originally formed. It may be added that the air contained in
the crystals intensifies the whiteness of the snow. It is from ten to twelve
times lighter than an equal bulk of water. From its loose texture, and its
containing about ten times its bulk of air, it ia a very bad conductor of heat,
and thus forms an admirable covering for the earth from the effects of radia-
SNOW CBYSTALS.
tion it not unfrequently happening, in times of great cold, that the soil is
40 warmer than the surface of the overlying snow.
Hail.- The word hail, in English, is unfortunately used to denote two
phenomena of apparently different origin. In French, we have the terms
grale and grestl the former of which is hail proper; the latter denotes the
fine grains, like small shot, which often fall in winter, much more rarely in
summer, and generally precede snow. The cause of the latter seems to be
simply the freezing of rain drops as they pass in their fall through a colder
region of air than that where they originated. We know by balloon ascents
and various other methods of observation, that even in calm weather differ-
ent strata of the atmosphere have extremely different temperatures, a
stratum far under the freezing point being often observed between two
others comparatively warm.
But that true hail, though the process of its formation is not yet perfectly
understood, depends mainly upon the meeting of two nearly opposite cur-
rents of air one hot and saturated with vapor, the other very cold
is rendered pretty certain by such facts as the following: A hailstorm is
generally a merely local phenomenon, or at most, ravages a belt of land of
no great breadth, though it may be of considerable length. Hailstorms
occur in the greatest perfection in the warmest season, and at the warmest
period of the day, and generally are most severe in the most tropical
climates. A fall of hail generally precedes, sometimes accompanies, and
rarely, if ever, follows a thunder shower. A common idea, which baa found
FAMILIAR SCIENCE. 439
its way, as many popular prejudices continually do, into scientific treatises,
assigns electricity as the origin of hail. But all obseivation, rightly inter-
preted, seems to show that electricity and hail are results of the same com-
bination of causes.
When a mass of air, saturated with vapor, rising to a higher level, meets
a cold one, there is, of course, instant condensation of vapor into ice by the
cold due to expansion; at the same time, there is generally a rapid produc-
tion of electricity, the effect of which upon such light masses as small hail-
stones is to give them in general rapid motion in various directions succes-
sively. These motions are in addition to the vortex motions or eddies,
caused in the air by the meeting of the rising and descending currents. The
small ice-masses then moving in all directions impinge upon each other
sometimes with great force, producing that peculiar rattling sound which
almost invariably precedes a hail shower. At the same time, by a well
known property of ice (Regelation), the impinging masses are frozen to-
gether; and this process continues until the weight of the accumulated mass
enables it to overcome the vortices and the electrical attractions, when it
falls as a larger or smaller hailstone. On examining such hailstones, which
may have any size from that of a pea to that of a walnut, or even an orange,
we at once recognize the composite character which might be expected from
such a mode of aggregation. Hailstones are reported to have fallen in
tropical countries sometimes as large as a sheep, sometimes as large as an
ox, or even an elephant I But it is probable that the aggregation in these
cases was produced by regelation at the surface of the earth, when a series
of large masses had impinged on each other, having fallen successively on
the same spot. Whether this be the true explanation or no, it is certain that
in British India, at the warmest season, hailstones have remained of con-
siderable size for many days after their fall.
The Tides It has long been admitted that the tides, or the flowing
and ebbing of the waters of the ocean, is caused by the moon; but this gen-
eral theory admits of some modifications, or explanations. The attractive
power of the sun is felt by the ocean; and high winds serve to increase or
retard the rise and fall of the sea. The relative distances of the moon, at
different times, are also to be considered, in accounting for different heights
of the tides. The sun and moon exert an influence on our globe, by attrac-
tion, which is found to exist in all bodies. The force of this attraction, in
such large bodies of matter as the sun and moon, is very great. The sun
being far the largest of these bodies, would attract the earth in a mnch
greater degree than the moon does, except that the latter is but a small
distance from our globe, compared to the sun. When the sun and moon are
in the same line, as to the earth, their combined influence is greater than
that of either separate. And when the moon is at her quarter, as it is
called, or farthest from the line from the sun to the earth, then the influence
of the moon on the earth is less than in a different position. And then the
tides do not flow BO high, or are not so powerfully attracted by the moon;
the attraction of the sun being to a different direction, or at a different part
of the earth (for the attraction is perpendicular, or operates in straight
lines).
The tyro is ready to ask, how there are two high tides in twenty-four
hours. He sees by the above theory, that when the moon is at the meridian
of any place (or rather a little later, unless other causes are in operation),
the waters rise to the highest, at such place, by the moon's attraction. Bat
440 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
the difficulty is, as to another high tide directly on the opposite side of the
earth. The moon attracts the earth, as well as the ocean, though not with
so great apparent effect. The water of the sea is more easily affected.
The whole earth is attracted by the moon; and thus the water of the ocean
farthest from the moon, or on the opposite side of the earth, is drawn
towards the moon, and leaves the water less attracted; which, in effect and
appearance, rises higher, than in a state, where no attraction was felt on the
earth or ocean. Thus there is a high tide on the side of the earth opposite
to the moon, as well on the side next the moon, and nearly where the moon
is in the meridian. In the one case, the water is attracted (being lighter
than the earth) towards the moon, and rises to the highest point; and in
the other, the whole earth is attracted towards the moon, and the water
opposite to and farthest from the moon is left behind (as it were) and rises
higher, compared to the earth near it, than it would otherwise appear.
But there are other considerations to be noticed in explaining the phe-
nomenon of the tides. We have said that the highest tides happen at the
new and full moon, when the sun and moon are in a line with the earth;
but the waters do not yield instantly to the action exerted upon them, nor
cease their motion caused by the attraction of the moon, at the moment the
moon is in the meridian; the influence exerted continues to operate, or the
effect continues. Thus the spring tides occur about a day and a half after
the time indicated. For a similar reason, the real time of high water, in
daily tides, occurs nearly three hours after the moon passes the meridian.
The motion given to the waters of the ocean by the attraction of the moon,
continues after the attraction has operated. An impetus is given which
causes the water to move for some time after the cause of the motion ceases.
This is agreeable to the general laws of matter and motion.
Pliny noticed the phenomenon of the tides eighteen centuries ago, and
considered the cause to be the attraction of the sun and moon. Galileo and
Kepler wrote on the subject three hundred years since, and Newton after-
wards. His theory is generally adopted, and he shows that in a system of
three bodies, the motion of one about another, and relative to the latter, is
disturbed and irregularities produced, by the difference of the attractive
forces of the sun on the earth and moon.
Earthquakes The term earthquake is that which is applied to any
tremor or shaking of the solid crust of the earth. It is well known that the
surface of the globe is never free from sensible evidence of the continued
operation of earthquake agency that in some quarter or another tremors
or slight shakings are always taking place. When these are of a serious
nature, whole cities have been destroyed; fertile districts, with all their
fruit and grain, have been laid waste; and enormous masses of human
beings have lost their lives. No less than 60,000 perished in the great Lis-
bon earthquake; while in that of Calabria, in the end of the last century,
40,000 were destroyed. It is estimated that as many as 13,000,000 of the
human race have thus perished.
No portion of the earth's surface is exempt from the influence of earth-
quakes. Nor is the bed of the ocean exempt; records of many subaqueous
earthquakes exist, taken by vessels at sea, sometimes passing over the
point of greatest disturbance at the moment of the shock. In like manner
earthquakes have been active at every period of the earth's existence, break-
ing up its solid crust, elevating or depressing its surface, and doing as much
as any other single agent to bring ^t into it* present condition. They hava
aw
FAMILIAR SCIENCE. 441
been probably at some periods more active than at others, just as we find
that some districts are now more liable than others to their visitation.
The phenomena connected with earthquakes have been variously de-
scribed. Many writers refer to appearances in the heavens, or changes in
the atmosphere, which to them seem to have some connection with the ca-
tastrophes they narrate. They tell of irregularities in the seasons preceding
or following the shock, of sudden gusta of wind interrupted by sudden
calms, of violent rains at unusual seasons, or in countries where such phe-
nomena are almost unknown, of a reddening of the sun's disc, of a haziness
in the air often continued for mouths, and similar phenomena. But these
are so irregular in their appearance, and have been BO seldom observed
associated with more than a single earthquake, that, in the absence of any
decided reason to the contrary, there seem good grounds for believing they
have no real connection with the earthquake. It is different with under-
ground noises, which frequently precede, accompany, or succeed the occur-
rence of earthquakes, or some of the shocks of them. They are undoubt-
edly intimately connected with the shock, yet earthquakes occur, even of
the greatest violence, which are unaccompanied by any sound whatever.
Different descriptions have been given of these subterranean noises. In
some earthquakes, they are likened to chains pulled about, increasing to
thunder; in others, the sound is like the rumbling of carriages, growing
gradually louder, until it equals the loudest artillery; or like heavy wagons
running away upon a road; or distant thunder; or like the hissing produced
by the quenching of masses of red-hot iron in water.
All theorists are agreed as to the connection between volcanoes and
earthquakes; that they are produced by the same subterranean agency.
The existence of molten matter in the interior of the earth is the starting-
point in all theories, but a complete and satisfactory solution of the entire
problem yet remains to be given.
Whirlpools. A whirlpool is a circular current in a river or sea, pro-
duced by opposing tides, winds, or currents. It is a phenomenon of rare
occurrence on a large scale, but illustrations in miniature may be noticed
in the eddies formed in a river by means of obstacles or deflections. The
Maelstrom, the most famous whirlpool in the world, is situated on the Nor-
wegian coast, between Moskoe and Moskenas, two of the Loffoden Isles.
The tremendous current that rushes between the Great West Fjord and the
outer ocean, through the channels between the Loffoden Isles, creates
many other dangerous currents, such as the Galstrom, Napstrom, etc.; but
these are not to be compared with the famous Maelstrom. The current runs
for six hours from north to south, and then six hours from south to north,
producing immense whirls. The depth of the water has been ascertained
to be about 20 fathoms, while immedi ately to the west of the straits the
soundings are from 100 to 200 fathoms. The whirlpool is greatest at high
or low water; and when the wind blows directly against the current, it be-
comes extremely dangerous, the whole sea for several miles around being
so violently agitated that no boat can live in it for a moment. In ordinary
circumstances, it may be traversed even across the center without appre-
hension. The stories of ships, whales, etc., being swallowed up in the vor-
tex, are simply fables; at the same time, there can be no doubt that a ship,
once fairly under the influence of the current, would certainly either founder
or be dashed upon the rocks, and whales have often been found stranded
on the Flagstadt coast from the same cause-
LAW FOR THE MASSES.
[This department is made np of a series of extracts, republishea oy permission
of the publisher, from a valuable and comprehensive work entitled " How TO BE
YOUR OWN LAWYER," a complete instructor for everybody in all the ordinary
legal affairs of life, adapted to every State and Territory. The book is a large
12mo of more than 500 pages, neatly bound in cloth. Its price is $1.50, and it is
published by M. T. RICHARDSON, Nos. 21 to 27 New Chambers St., New York.]
Bonds. A bond is any writing under seal in which a debt or obligation
is acknowledged, or in which the maker shows that he intends to bind him-
self to the payment of a fixed sum of money.
The person making a bond is called the obligor.
The person to whom it ia made is called the obligee.
No particular words are required, provided the intention of the parties
can be learned from the instrument.
The words "Held and firmly obliged " are usually used.
The obligor has the benefit of the doubt in all cases where the intention
of the parties is not clear, as the condition of the bond is considered the
agreement and assent of the obligee and made for the benefit of the obligor.
No immaterial alteration of a bond would make it void, but it is advisa-
ble to make no alterations after it has been signed and sealed, as it might
give rise to a suit.
Many suits arise from the difficulty in deciding whether the sum men-
tioned in the condition of the bond is to be considered " a penalty " or
" liquidated damages." If it is regarded as a penalty, the court will re-
duce it to the actual amount of damages suffered; but if it is regarded as
liquidated damages (damages which have been agreed upon at the time of
drawing the bond), the court will not interfere if the sum named is not ex-
cessive, but will allow full payment to be enforced.
If the amount is to be a penalty, the words " penalty or forfeit" should
be used; but if liquidated damages are intended, it should be stated that
the parties have agreed to consider the sum mentioned in the condition as
liquidated damages, and all words such as " penalty " and " forfeiture " or
any reference to them, should be omitted.
The intention of the parties as to whether it was intended to be consid-
ered as a penalty or liquidated damages, even though either term is used,
is to be learned from the surrounding circumstances and the bond itself.
The first part of the bond is considered the obligatory part, and is ex-
plained by the condition.
A bond being under seal is not barred by the Statute of Limitations until
the lapse of twenty years.
The surety to a bond is under the same obligation to the obligee as is
the obligor. If any alteration is made in the instrument without the knowl-
edge or consent of the surety, he will be freed from his liability.
A bond should be entirely finished before execution and delivery.
LAW FOR THE MASSES. 443
If a surety does not wish to be bound unless some other person or per-
sons sign, he should state that he executed it on this condition; the bond
should make mention of this fact.
A bond will be considered valid when it conforms substantially to what
is required by the statues, and does not vary in any manner to the preju-
dice of the person for whose benefit it is to bo given.
1. COMMON FOBM OP BOND FOB PAYMENT OF MONET.
Know all men by these presents, that I, A. B., of the town of , in the
county of , and State of , am held and firmly bound unto C. D., of
the said town, in the sum of dollars [inserting the penal sum, which is
commonly double the amount of the principal sum intended to be secured],
lawful money of the United States, to bo paid the said C. D., his executors,
administrators, or assigns, ior which payment well and truly to be made I do
bind myself, my heirs, executors, and administrators, firmly by these presents.
Sealed with my seal, and dated the day of , 18 .
The condition of this obligation is such, that if the above bounden A. B.,
his heirs, executors, and administrators, or any of them, shall well and
truly pay, or cause to be paid, unto the above-named C. D., his executors,
administrators, or assigns, the just and full sum of dollars [insect the
principal to be secured], with interest thereon at the rate of per cent,
per annum, on the day of , which will be in the year one thousand eight
hundred and , without any fraud or other delay," then this obligation ia
to be void, otherwise to remain ia full force and virtue.f
A. B. [Seal.]
Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of
[Names of witnesses.]
2. BOND WITH INTEBEST CLAUSE GIVEN WITH A MOBTGAGE.
[Use Form 1 as far as t> then as follows:]
And it is hereby expressly agreed, that, should any default be made in
the payment of the said interest, or of any part thereof, on any day where-
on the same is made payable, as above expressed, and should the same re-
main unpaid and in arrear for the space of days, then and from thence-
forththat is to say. after the lapse of the said days the aforesaid
principal sum of dollars, with all arrearage of interest thereon, shall, at
the option of the said C. D., or his executors, administrators, or assigns, be-
come and be due and payable immediately thereafter, although the period
first above limited for the payment thereof may not then have expired, any-
thing hereinbefore contained to the contrary thereof in anywise notwith-
standing.
A. B. [Seal.]
Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of
[Nameu of witnesses.]
3. BOND WITH INSTJBANCE CLAUSE.
[Use Form 1 as far as f, then as follows:]
And it is expressly agreed by and between A. B. and C. D., the parties
to these presents, that the said A. B. shall and will keep the buildings
erected and to be erected upon the lands above conveyed, insured against
loss and damage by fire, by insurers, and in an amount approved by the
said C. D., and assign the policy and certificates thereof to the said C. D.;
and in default thereof, it shall be lawful for the said C. D. to effect such in-
surance, and the premium and premiums paid for effecting the same shall
be a lien on the said mortgaged premises, added to the amount of the said
bond or obligation, and secured by these presents, and payable on demand
with interest at the rate of per cent, per annum.
In witness whereof the said A. B. has hereunto set his hand and seal
this day of , 18 .
[Signature.] [Seal.]
Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of
[Signature of witness.]
444 GTGLOPMD1A OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE
Mortgages. A mortgage is a conveyance of an estate or property by
way of pledge for the security of a debt, and to become void on the pay-
ment of it. A mortgage of real property is one form of a lien upon it to
secure the performance of some obligation, generally the payment of money.
All kinda of personal and real property which are capable of absolute
sale may be the subject of a mortgage.
Any conveyance of land intended by the parties at the time of making it
to bo security for the payment of money or the doing of some specified act,
is a mortgage.
Mortgages are oi two kinds, legal and equitable.
A legal mortgage is in form a deed of land with a condition that if a cer-
tain sum of money be paid, or services be rendered, the deed shall be void.
The condition ia called the defeasance.
An equitable mortgage is a-lien upon real estate of such a character that
it is recognized in equity as a security for the payment of money, and is
treated as a mortgage. Such a mortgage may arise by a deposit of the title
deeds, and by an agreement to execute a mortgage, by proof that a deed,
absolute on its face, was intended as a mortgage. The lien of vendor for
unpaid purchase money is also an equitable mortgage.
The mortgage should have all the requisites of a deed; that is, it should
be signed, sealed, and delivered.
It should bo witnessed, acknowledged, and recorded. The mortgage is
security for the payment of money. The debt for which the mortgage is
given is the principal thing; consequently, if the debt is sold, the mortgage
passes with it
The party giving the mortgage is called the mortgagor; he to whom it is
given the mortgagee.
A power of sale, in case of default in payment of interest or an instalment,
is usually inserted, which enables the mortgagee to enforce payment.
Mortgages ai-e made with or without a personal promise to pay the debt.
Where no personal promise in writing is made, the mortgagor is not person-
ally liable for the sum secured; the mortgage being in such case only a lien
on the land.
Mortgages are frequently made to secure a contingent liability or future
advances. A mortgage given for such purpose should state that fact.
A covenant is usually inserted in a mortgage to pay the debt, and a bond
or note is given for it, which fact is mentioned in the mortgage, and it is
stated in the mortgage that it is given in addition to the personal security.
It is common to provide, in case buildings are on the promisee, that the
mortgagor shall keep them insured and assign the policy to the mortgagee.
It is usual also to insert what is called an interest clause, which states that
if interest remains unpaid for a certain mimber of days after it falls due, the
mortgagee may elect to require payment of the principal at once.
For the better security of the mortgagee, ho should require the wife of
the mortgagor to join in the execution of the mortgage. It is not necessary
that the wife of the mortgagor join in the execution of a mortgage for the
purchase money. Mortgages should be acknowledged or proved the same
SB deeds in order to be recorded.
The mortgage can be assigned. The assignee then stands in the position
of tbe mortgagee. The assignee of the mortgage should get a statement
from the mortgagor as to the validity of the mortgage and the amount due.
The assignee should give notice of the assignment to the mortgagor, and
should record his assignment. If the mortgagor should make two assign-
LAW FOR THE MASSES. 445
ments, the first recorded, if taken without knowledge of the previous assign-
ment, would have the preference. The assignee may himself assign. A
mortgage may be discharged by a release of the debt; by payment of the
debt, by a tender of the mortgage debt on the day that it is due, even though
the money is not accepted, by the holder of the mortgage acquiring title to
the property, by the expiration of twenty years from the time the mortgage
is due or from the time of last payment.
The mortgagor on payment of the mortgage should obtain a satisfaction
piece from the mortgagee and have it recorded.
If a mortgagor places two mortgages on the same property, the first re-
corded, if taken without knowledge of the previous mortgage, would have
the preference. For example: If A mortgages his property to B, and subse-
quently mortgages the same property to C, who, without knowledge of the
previous mortgage, records his mortgage, C's lien on the property will be
prior to that of B.
The mortgagor usually pays for drawing the mortgage and searching the
title. The mortgagee should have the mortgage recorded immediately after
the execution and delivery of it.
Gtiattel Mortgage A. chattel mortgage is a mortgage of personal property.
It is a transfer of the title to chattels, and is given as security for a debt or
liability.
It is given upon condition that the transfer shall be void if the debt is
paid or discharged. If the mortgagor makes default in the payment of the
debt at the time agreed upon, the mortgagee becomes the absolute owner,
and may take possession of the property. The mortgagor has a right to
redeem the property unless there has been a sale, in which case the right
ia lost.
The mortgage states the liability or the debt to be secured. The prop-
erty mortgaged should be so described as to enable it to be identified. It
is usual to insert a description of the property in the schedule annexed, and
referred to hi the mortgage. The property generally remains in the pos-
session of the mortgagor until default in payment of the debt.
The mortgagee, for his own protection, should file his mortgage if the
mortgagor retains possesdion of the property. If he fails to file his mort-
gage, and the mortgagee subsequently sells or mortgages the same prop-
erty to another, who is ignorant of the existence of the previous mortgage,
he loses his lien on the property. The mortgage, or a true copy thereof,
must be filed in the office of the clerk of the town where the mortgagor re-
sides. If the mortgagor is out of the State it should be filed with the clerk
of the town where the property is located.
In Now York every mortgage ceases to be valid ae against creditors or
subsequent purchasers, or mortgagees in good faith, after the expiration of
one year from the filing thereof, unless within thirty days next preceding
the expiration of the said term of one year, a true copy of such mortgage,
together with a statement exhibiting the interest of the mortgagee in the
property thereby claimed by him by virtue thereof, is filed in the office of
the clerk of the town where the mortgagor shall then reside.
SHOKT FOKM OF MORTGAGE.
This indenture, made the day of in the year one thousand eight
hundred and between A. B., of in the county of and State
of of the first part, and C. D., of in the said county, of the sec-
ond part, wimesseth: That the said party of the first part, for and in con-
446 CYCLOPEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
eidoration of the sum of dollars, grants, bargains, sells, and confirms
unto the said party of the second part, and to his heirs and assigns, all
[here insert description], together with all and singular the hereditaments
and appurtenances thereunto belonging or in any wise appertaining. This
conveyance is intended as a mortgage, to secure the payment of the sum
of dollars, in [here state terms of payment], according to the condi-
tion of a certain bond, dated this day, and executed by the said party of the
first part to the said party of the second part; and these presents shall be
void if such payment be made. But in ca8e default shall bo made in the
payment of the principal or interest, as above provided, then the party of
the second part, his executors, administrators, and assigns, are hereby em-
powered to sell the premises above described, with all and every of the
appurtenances, or any part thereof, in the manner prescribed by law; and
put of the money arising from such sale, to retain the said principal and
interest, together with the costs and charges of making such sale; and the
overplus, if any there be, shall be paid by the party making such sale, on
demand, to the party of the first part, his heirs or assigns.
In witness whereof, the said party [or parties] of the first part has [or
have] hereunto set his hand and seal [or their hands and seals], the day
and year firet above written.
[Signature and seal.]
Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of
[Signature of witness.]
SATISFACTION OF MOBTGAGE.
STATE OF )
COUNTY OF J ss
I,E. F., of county of State of do hereby certify, that a
certain indenture of mortgage, bearing date the day of one thou-
sand eight hundred and made and executed by A. B. (and wife) of
county of State of to me to secure the payment of dol-
lars and recorded in the office of county of in liber of mort-
ages, page on the day of in the year one thousand eight
undred and , o'clock in the is paid.
And I do hereby consent that the same be discharged of record.
Dated the day of 18 .
In presence of E. F.
[Signature of witness.]
[The satisfaction piece should be acknowledged before the proper officer.]
Liens A ii en j s a hold or claim which one person has upon the prop-
erty of another as a security for some debt or charge. A lien differs from
a mortgage in that it attaches as an incident to the matter of the debt by
act of the law, while a mortgage is made for the express purpose of the se-
curity. A lien is the right to retain the property of another on account of
labor employed or money expended on that specific property.
Other liens are on property never in the possession of the holder, but
which, like that hi favor of material men, mechanics and maritime lenders,
show a peculiar equity in favor of the creditor as regards the particular
property.
A particular lien arises out of labor or money applied to a specific arti-
cle in the possession of the creditor.
A general lien is a right to retain property in possession for a general
balance.
Inn-keepers, warehousemen, tailors, common carriers, repairers, bro-
kers, sellers, and pawnbrokers have particular liens for services rendered
or for money advanced on the property in their possession.
LAW FOB TEE MASSES. 447
Attorneys have a general lien on the papers of their client and also upon
judgments obtained by them. Bankers have a general lien on all securi-
ties left with them for moneys advanced at any time after the receival of
the securities. These are the common law liens and are allowed in every
State without any statute. When possession is given up the lien is lost.
Maritime liens are those of a shipper on the vessef for the value of the
goods sent, of the owner of the ship on the goods for freight, of the master
of a ship for wages and disbursements, of a seaman for wages, of a material
man for supplies, etc/, furnished; of injured parties in case of a collision,
and of the part owners for extra advances.
Promissory Notes. A. promissory note is a written promise to pay
a certain sum of money at a future time unconditionally.
The party signing the note is called the maker, and the party in whose
favor it is drawn the payee.
If payment is to be made only to the payee, the note is not negotiable;
but if made payable to him, his order, or to bearer, it has the necessary
qualifications of negotiable paper.
A promissory note, after it has been endorsed by the payee, is similar to
a bill of exchange, and is governed by most of the rules which apply to bills.
The essential qualities to give validity to a note are that it be paid abso-
lutely and at all events (that is, that its payment is not to depend on any
condition), and in money.
A note passes by endorsement, which may be in full or in blank, as in
the case of bills of exchange.
If endorsed In blank it can be transferred through any number of hands
without further endorsement until presented for payment, when the holder
of the note writes over the last endorsement an order to pay the note to him
or his order. It is always advisable, however, to have the endorsement of
each party through whoso hands the note has passed.
Notes bear interest only when so stated therein.
After maturity, all notes bear interest.
Three days, called " days of grace," are allowed after the time men-
tioned in the note for payment.
If the last of these days falls on Sunday, the note must be paid on the
previous Saturday.
If a note having no days of grace falls due on Sunday, it need not be
paid until the following Monday.
The same rule holds good with reference to legal holidays, in which case
the note must be paid on the day previous if it has days of grace, otherwise
on the day immediately following.
Notes payable ou demand are not entitled to " days of grace."
Notes obtained by fraudulent means are void.
It is usiial, and sometimes necessary, especially in Pennsylvania and
Now Jersey, to use the words, " without defalcation or discount, for value
received " in a noto.
If an endorser does not wish to be held liable on a note he should write
the words " without recourse " before his name. Written words in a note
prevail over written figures at the top or bottom. A material alteration in a
note discharges all the parties who have not consented to the alteration.
As between a maker and a payee of an accommodation note, the payee
cannot enforce payment; but if he has endorsed the note, and it has passed
into the hands of an innocent holder for value, the maker is liable.
i48 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
If no place of payment is mentioned, demand for payment of a note must
be made of the maker at his residence or usual place of business by the
holder or his authorized agent on the day the note falls due, and if pay-
ment is not made, notice must be immediately given to the endorsers in
order to hold them liable.
If a note is not paid when it falls due, it is said to be dishonored.
If the parties reside in the same city or town, notice of dishonor must be
served personally on them by leaving notice at their homes or places of
business; but if the parties reside in different places, notices must bo
mailed to them not later than the next day after demand and refusal.
Each endorser is allowed a day in which to serve notice on his immedi-
ate preceding endorser. No precise form of notice is necessary.
Notices of dishonor and protest are usually sent by notaries public, for
the reason that in most States "the protest and certificate of such an officer
are regarded a,aprima facie evidence of the facts stated therein.
Bank Checks. A check is a written request addressed to a bank or a
banker by a person having money on deposit with either, directing that a
certain sum of money be paid by said bank or banker to a person named
therein, or his order, or to the bearer.
A check on a bank should be presented for payment at once or within a
reasonable time.
The drawer of the check is not discharged from liability by delay in the
uresentment, unless he can how that he has suffered injury by the de-
lay, as, for example, by the failure of the bank on which the check was
drawn.
If a bank pays a check which has been forged, it must bear the loss.
An acceptance of a check is not a discharge of the debt, unless the par-
ties intended it to be such.
Checks are transferred by endorsement on the back, and this may be in
full or in blank, as in cases of bills of exchange.
Payment and Tender. Payment is the fullfilment of a promise, or
the performance of an agreement, or the discharge in money of a sum due.
Payment must be iu money or in something accepted in its stead, by
some one authorized to receive it. The legal tender established by law id
regarded as money. United States coins of all denominations and treasury
notes are such.
Negotiable bills and notes of individuals may be taken in payment of a
debt, but only have the effect of, and operate as, payment, when taken with
that object in view; in Maine and Massachusetts they are presumed to be
taken in payment if the contrary is not expressly shown. Giving one's own
promissory note is no payment of a debt unless so understood by both par-
ties. If a note or bill is taken on a debt, due diligence must be taken to
collect it at maturity, or it will operate as payment by being treated as the
bill of the receiver, and discharging the parties to it.
6iiving a check is not payment until it is cashed, or an unreasonable
time has been allowed to elapse after the receipt of the check, and the
check has been lost thereby.
A receipt is prima facie evidence of payment. Other evidence, such ab
thje possession of a note by the maker, etc., go to prove payment.
Payment to an agent or attorney is good if the agent is authorized to re-
eeive payment, and so also is payment to the wife, if she is authorized to
LAW FOR THE MASSES. 448
rive it. An agent, however, can not receive anything but money in pay-
ment, unless specially empowered to do BO.
Sometimes it is necessary to make a formal tender, if payment will not
be taken, or proof of the offer is desired.
Tender should be made to the party entitled to receive payment. The
exact amount in strict legal tender money should be offered, stating the
amount, and offering it unconditionally, except that hi paying a note the
note may be required to be given up as a condition of the tender.
A receipt can not, however, be insisted upon without vitiating the Under.
It is commonly supposed that a receipt can be demanded and insisted
upon when money is paid. There ia no law to compel a man to give a re-
ceipt when he receives money, and he can refuse to do BO.
Tender, if good and sufficient, stops interest and accruing damages on
the debt.
Guaranty. A guaranty is an undertaking to answer for another's lia-
bility, and is collateral thereto, or, in other words, it is a contract by which
one person ia bound to another for the fullnlment of a promise or engage-
ment of a third party. It differs from a warranty, which ia given in refer-
ence to the title, quality, or quantity of a thing sold. No special words are
necessary to constitute a guaranty. If the party clearly shows that it ia his
intention to guaranty, it is sufficient.
In order that the guarantor may be held, the guaranty should be in
writing, signed by him. It the guarantor pays his principal's debt he ia
entitled to all the securities of the creditor.
The conditions of the guaranty must be strictly followed, otherwise the
guarantor will not be held.
The guaranty must be founded on a consideration, otherwise it ia of n<j
force.
It is a sufficient consideration if the party for whom the guaranty u
given derives a benefit, or the party to whom it is given suffers an injury,
because of his acting on the faith of the guaranty. No consideration need
pass from the party receiving the* guaranty to the guarantor. The agree-
ment of both parties is necessary to make a guaranty binding on the
guarantor. The guarantor can be held only for the amount agreed upon,
or for the time mentioned in the guaranty.
If the principal fails to pay the debt, the guarantor should be notified.
A guaranty is always revocable until it has been acted upon.
GTTABANTY OF PAYMENT OF NOTE.
For value received, I hereby guarantee the payment of the within note.
[Date.] [Signature.]
GUARANTY OF PAYMENT OF BONO.
In consideration of the sum of one dollar to me in hand paid by C. D., I
hereby guarantee the payment of the foregoing bond.
Witness my hand [and seal], the day of 18 .
[Signature, with or without seal.]
Warranty Warranties which accompany a sale of personal property
are of two kinds in respect to their forms, express and implied.
An express guaranty is one by which the warrantor covenants or under-
takes to insure that the thing which is the subject of the contract ia or ia not
s there mentioned, as, for example, a horse is sound.
Au implied guaranty is one which, not being expresily made, the Jatf
i50 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
liM by the fact of the sale. For example, the seller is understood to
warrant the title of the goods he sells when they are in his possession at
the time of the sale. If they are not in his possession when sold and no
affirmation of title is made, the buyer purchases at his risk.
As a general rule there is no implied warranty as to the quality of the
goods sold.
If a 'buyer asks for or receives a warranty, it is his fault if it docs not
cover as much ground and give him the protection he intended it should.
It is always in the power of a purchaser to demand a warranty, and if he
purchases without one he does so at his own risk.
No precise words are necessary to constitute a warranty. It is sufficient
if the words used show an intention on the part of the owner that the
article sold ia in every respect as represented.
For the protection of the purchaser he should have the warranty reduced
to writing and signed by the owner.
Receipts. A receipt is a written acknowledgment of payment or de-
livery of money or property.
It is made by the party receiving the money or goods. A receipt is the
party's admission of the delivery to him. It is simply presumptive evidence
of the delivery and not conclusive at all on the party. The rule which ap-
plies to written agreements, that they can not be varied by parol evidence,
does not apply to a receipt; but the party may show the circumstances
under which it was given, and may avoid its effect not only by showing that
he was led to give it by fraud, or by some serious mistake, but generally by
any clear proof that the money receipted for was not actually paid.
Raceipts "in full " of a specified debt, or " in full of all accounts," or
" all demands," are much more conclusive, and though not then operating
as a release, extinguishing the debt itself, still are evidence of a compromise
and mutual settlement of the rights of the parties. Greater force is given
to a receipt if a seal is affixed.
A receipt is evidence in any matter to which it is an incident. A receipt
cannot be demanded as a condition of payment of a debt, nor can the party
receiving payment be compelled to give a receipt. It is always the safer
course to pay the debt in the presence of witnesses.
Releases.__A release, nnlike a receipt, is the giving up or abandoning
a claim or right to the person against whom the claim exists or the right is
to be exercised or enforced, while a receipt is simply evidence which may
show that a claim is extinguished, but does not, however, itself extin-
guish it.
A release cannot be varied by testimony or outside evidence.
In general, a release should express a consideration; and it is usual to
state a nominal consideration if there is no other; and the instrument should
also be under seal.
A release by one of several persons who must sue together, given to
one of several persons who must have been joined as defendants if an
action had been brought, is valid, and has the effect of discharging all the
debtors, if it be under seal; but it is competent for the parties to prevent
this effect by expressing in the release that it is not to discharge the other
joint debtors.
Recovery of Debts. Several of the States have abolished arrest and
imprisonment for debt. In all the States, however, if it can be shown that
LAW FOR THE MASSES. 451
fraud was committed in the contraction of the debt, or that the debtor is
about to abscond, arrest and imprisonment are still allowed.
Writ of attachment and the garnishee or trustee process are allowed
quite universally throughout the States.
By the trustee or garniahee process, a person who has money or prop-
erty in his possession belonging to a defendant, which money or property
has been attached in his hands, and who has notice of such attachment, ia
bound to keep the property in his possession to answer the plaintift's claim
until the attachment is dissolved or he is otherwise discharged.
Deeds. A deed is any written instrument containing a contract or
agreement signed, sealed and delivered as the act of the person making it.
It is a term used more commonly in reference to conveyances of lands,
tenements and hereditaments.
The requisites of a deed are that it be printed or written on paper oi
parchment, and be made by a person capable of contracting and with a per-
son capable of being contracted with, and contain the names of the grantor
and grantee; there must be something to be contracted for; it must contain
the requisite parts and be sealed and delivered, and should be signed and
witnessed, and for the purpose of being recorded should be acknowledged
in the manner required by statute in the State or Territory where the prop-
erty is situated. The deed should be signed by the grantor and by hia
wife, if he has one, and be acknowledged by both unless there be a statute
rendering this unnecessary. The consideration should be expressed in thfl
body of the instrument, even though it be for the nominal sum of on>
dollar.
In those States where the wife has dower, the grantor, if married, oan-
not give a good title, unless his wife signs the deed with him. She cannot
be compelled to sign. The grantee should refuse to accept a deed without
her signature in those States where dower has not been abolished. Tha
grantee should see that words showing that the wife releases her dowei
and right of dower are used in the deed.
It is advisable to have a deed witnessed by at least two disinterested
persons. Although a seal may not always be required, it is more pruderf
to affix one at the end of each signature.
The grantor pays for drawing the deed; the grantee pays for searching
the title.
For the greater security of the grantee he should have search made fol
the following incumbrances on the property: Transfers, mortgages, Us
pendens, commissioner's loans, judgments in the county clerk's office and in
the U. S. district and circuit courts, taxes and tax sales, sheriff's and
marshal's sales, insolvent and general assignments, appointment of re-
ceivers and appointment of trustees of absconding, concealed, non-resident
or imprisoned debtors; mechanics' and other liens, and exemptions unde
the homestead act.
The grantor is the party making the deed and the grantee the party in
whose favor it is made and to whom it is delivered. The usual covenants
in a deed are that the grantor is lawfully seized; that he has a good right
to convey; that there are no encumbrances on the property; that the
grantee shall have quiet enjoyment, and that the grantor will warrant and
defend the title against all lawful claims. The grantor signs his name, or
it is done by some person in his presence and by Li direction, or by an
agent authorized by an instrument under seal to do no. If a grantor
452 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
rcqncita it or cannot read, the instrument mnt be read over to him before
its execution. If the grantor is unable to write, he makes
his
" bis mark," as, for example, James X Brown.
mark
If a corporation transfers property, the president usually signs the deed
as president and affixes the corporate seal.
All erasures or interlineations should be noted at the foot of the instru-
ment, and just above the signatures of the witnesses.
All blanks in a deed should be filled before execution.
Any material alteration in a deed after execution makes it void.
There should be a delivery and acceptance of a deed to make it opera-
tive.
A deed poll is one which binds only the party making and executing it.
A deed is construed in a manner favorable to its validity, and is gov-
erned by the law of the place where the land is situated as to form and
requirements.
It is the duty of the grantee to have the deed recorded immediately after
it is delivered to him. If he should fail to do so, and the grantor should
make another conveyance of the same property to a third party who was
ignorant of the first sale, he would lose his title, provided said third party
recorded his deed immediately. For example, if A sells land to B, who
neglects to record his deed, and A afterward, and before B's deed is re-
corded, sells the same property to C, who is ignorant of the sale to B, B
would lose his title to the property, provided C recorded his deed before
B's was on record. The deed should be recorded in the office of the
register or clerk of the county where the property is situated.
WABBANTY DEED.
This indenture made this day of in the year one thousand eight
hundred and between A. B., of the city of and State of mer-
chant [and C. B. his wife], of the first part, and E. F., of in said county,
farmer, of the second part, Witnesseth: That the said party [or parties] of
the first part, in consideration of the sum of dollars, lawful money of
the United States, to him [or them] in hand paid by the said party of the
second part, at or before the ensealing and delivery of these presents, the
receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, and the said party of the second
part, his executors and administrators, forever released and discharged
from the same, by these presents, has [or have] granted, bargained, sold,
aliened, remised, released, conveved and confirmed, and by these presents
does [or do] grant, bargain, sell, alien, remise, release, convey and con-
firm unto the said_ party of the second part, and to his heirs and assigns
forever, all [here insert description], together with all and singular the
tenements, hereditaments and appurtenances thereunto belonging or in any
wise appertaining; and the reversion and reversions, remainder and re-
mainders, rents, issues and profits thereof; and also all the estate, right,
title, interest [dower and right of dower], property, possession, claim and
demand whatsoever, both in law and in equity, of the said party [or par-
ties] of the first part, of, in, and to the above-granted premises and every
part and parcel thereof, with the appurtenances. To have and to hold the
above-mentioned and described premises, with the appurtenances and
every part thereof, to the said party of the second part, his heirs and
assigns, forever.
And the said A. B. and his heirs, the above-described and herebv
granted and released premises, and pvery part and parcel thereof, with
the appurtenances, unto the said party of the second part, his heise and
\ assigns, against the said party [or parties] of the first part, and his [or
LAW FOB THE MASSES. 453
their] heirs, and against all and every person and persons whomsoever,
lawfully claiming or to claim the same or any part thereof, shall And will
warrant and forever defend.
In witness whereof the said party [or parties] of the first part has [or
have] hereunto set his baud and seal [or their hands and seals] the day and
year first above written.
[Signatures and seals.]
Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of
[Signature f witness.]
QUIT-CLAIM DBED.
Enow all men by these presents that I [or we], A. B., of connty
of State of [and C. B. his wife], in consideration of dollars to me [or
us] paid by E. F. of the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, have
remised, released, and forever quit-claimed, and by these presents do for
myself, my [or ourselves, our] heirs, executors and'adnuuistrators, remise,
release, and forever quit-claim unto the said E. F., his heirs and assigns,
forever, all such right, title, interest [dower, right of dower], property,
possession, claim, and demand as I [or as we, or either of us] have or to
have in or to all [insert description of premises.]
To have and to hold said premises unto the said E. F., his heirs, and
assigns, to his and their only proper use and behoof forever, so that neither
I, the said A. B., or any other person in my name and behalf [or we, the
said A. B. and C. D.. or either of us, or anv other person in our or either of
our names and behalf], shall or will hereafter claim or demand any right or
title to the premises or any part thereof, but they and every of them shall
by these presents be excluded and forever barred.
In witness whereof, I [or we] have hereunto set my [or our] hand[sj
and seal[s] this day of 18
[Signatures.] [Seals.]
Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of
[Signatures of witnesses.]
Acknowledgment and Proof of Deeds Acknowledgment is the
act of a person who has executed a deed in going before a competent officer
or court and admitting the genuineness of the instrument and that it was
made voluntarily. This acknowledgment is certified to by the court or offi-
cer who takes it, according to the laws of the State in which the acknowl-
edgment is taken.
The deed or instrument is proved when the subscribing witness or wit-
nesses come before the proper officer and declare its genuineness, and the
declaration is certified to by the officer.
The certificate of the officer can not be altered after it is made unless
there is a re-acknowledgment.
The acknowledgment authorizes the deed to be read in evidence without
other proof of its execution, and at the same time entitles it to be placed on
record, and should be required by the purchaser for his own security.
The officer taking the acknowledgment should sign his name and official
title.
It is always prudent to have a witness to a deed, even though it is ac-
knowledged, although this necessity has been done away with by statutes
in many of the States. If the deed is not acknowledged, always hav two
witnesses.
Delivery Delivery is the act of transfer of the written title to prop-
erty (deeds), or of written promises to pay (notes), or of property itself ac-
cording to contract. It is the final act which completes the contract and
makes it irrevocable. When the deed is finally and intentionally handed to
454 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
the purchaser, his title to the land becomes as good as it formerly was
when he was actually given a portion of a sod, or a twig, and put into pos-
session before witnesses who were told of the intention of the parties, but a
deed may be delivered in trust, conditionally, not to be complete till the
happening of some specified event.
There is no particular form or method of delivery, which may be as va-
rious as the ways of giving any other paper, though an intention to deliver
with all that it implies must exist, and the receiver must accept, with the
intention of taking possession of the property conveyed, before the delivery
is complete.
Delivery of a note is entirely similar, though it is oftener conditional,
and more apt to be imperfect or fraudulent, the paper being less formal.
But the imperfect delivery of a note, check, or draft may become binding
on the maker if the paper gets into the hands of a holder in good faith who
paid value for it, on account of the negotiable quality of the paper. Great
care should be token not to give up notes, etc., until the consideration of
them is fully realized, or the contract under which they are given is thor-
oughly understood and complete. Notes should not be given in advance of
a definite settlement or to evidence debts, for many persons have thus been
held firmly to a promise they did not intend to make. A contract of sale,
exchange, or gift is completed by the delivery of the personal property it-
self, which is simply giving it up into the possession or dominion of the
proper party. It may be symbolical, as by the delivery of a key; the affix-
ing of a mark, by measuring out or Betting aside, but always with the in-
tention to part with the property.
The contract of sale is not, however, always followed by delivery, as the
article may by agreement remain with the seller. Such agreements are
often given to defraud creditors, however, and should be closely watched.
Contracts A contract is an agreement between two or more parties
to do or not to do some particular thing.
Contracts are made orally, in writing, or in writing under seal. There
must be parties to a contract, a consideration, assent of the parties, and
subject matter.
If any one of these essentials is wanting there is no contract. The thing
to be done must be one not forbidden by law. If the assent of either party
is obtained through fraud, fear, or compulsion, the contract is voidable, for
the reason that the assent must be voluntary. There is always an implied
consideration in a written contract under seal. There must be a meeting of
the minds to make a valid contract. That is to say, the parties must under-
stand the same thing in the same sense. The intention of the parties
should be expressed clearly, and care should be taken to avoid the use of
any doubtful word or words. The contract is governed by the law of the
place where made, or the law of (he place where it is to be performed. The
parties to a contract must be capable of contracting.
Suits are constantly arising from ihe difficulty of learning the intention
of the parties to the contract, because of the use of words whose meaning is
doubtfuJ or indefinite.
As a general rule, a contract can not be enforced against married women,
& person under twenty-one years of age, an imbecile, an insane person, or
against a person who was grossly intoxicated at the time the contract was
made. It is advisable to have all contracts reduced to writing and signed.
Sach party should keep a copy of the contract.
LAW FOR THE MASSES. 455
The following agreements are void, unless there is some note Ox- memo-
randum thereof in writing expressing the consideration, and signed by the
person to be charged therewith, or his authorized agent:
Every special promise to answer for the debt, default, or miscarriage of
another person.
Any agreement made upon the consideration of marriage, unless it is a
mutual agreement to marry.
Any agreement which by its terms is not be performed within & year
from the time it was made.
Every contract for the sale of goods, wares, or merchandise for the price
of fifty dollars or upward is void, unless the buyer shall accept and actually
receive part of the goods sold, or pay some part of the purchase-money, or
there be some memorandum of the contract in writing signed by the party
to be charged by such contract, or his authorized agent.
All contracts in reference to land, except leases for a period not longer
that one year, must be in writing. If the party to be charged can not write,
his mark will be sufficient to bind him to the contract. Where the parties
have reduced their intentions to writing, the written instrument is consid-
ered the best evidence of what was intended.
In case of important contracts it is usual to affix seals to the instrument,
and have the execution acknowledged.
GENEBAL FOKM OF CONTBACT, WITH PROVISION FOB LIQUIDATED DAMAGES IN
CASE OF BBEACH.
This agreement, made the day of one thousand eight hundred
and by and between A. B., of the town of county of State of
of the first part, and C. D. , of county of State of of the second
part, Wltnesieth: That the said party of the second part covenants and
agrees to and with the party of the first part, to [here insert the subject-
matter of the agreement]. And the said party of the first part covenants
and agrees to pay unto the said party of the second part, for the same [here
insert the consideration and the terms of payment].
And for the true and faithful performance of all and every of the cove-
nants and agreements above mentioned, the parties to these presents bind
themselves, each unto the other, in the penal sum of dollar*, as liqui-
dated damages, to be paid by the failing party.
In witness whereof, the parties to these presents have hereunto set their
hands and seals, the day and year first above written.
[Signatures.] [Seals.]
Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of
[Signatures of witnesses.]
Consideration. A contract or promise, for which there is no consid-
eration, can not be enforced at law.
Considerations are good or valuable. A good consideration, is one of
natural affection, love, or of blood. A valuable consideration is such as
marriage, money, or something which can be converted into money.
A valuable consideration is the only one which is vaHd against a third
party.
Mxitual promises, to submit a matter in dispute to arbitration, are a valid
consideration.
A promise not to take legal proceedings upon a valid claim is a valid
consideration for a promise.
Trust and confidence are sufficient consideration. As for example, iJ
A intrusts B with money or property to be delivered safely and in good
order to C, the trust is a sufficient consideration for the promise of B to
4K CYCLOPEDIA OP USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
deliver, and B would be liable for loss or damage which occurred through
hia negligence, even though his promise were gratuitous.
A promise for a promise is a good consideration. For example, A prom-
ises to teach B a certain trade. This is a consideration for a promise on B'a
part to remain with A a certain length of time to learn the trade and serve
him during that time.
As a general rule, the contract is void if any part of the consideration
is illegal. If the consideration proves to be worthless, the contract is not
binding.
Work and services rendered at the request of the promisor, are a suffi-
aient consideration for a promise.
Assignments. An assignment is the transferring and making over to
another the entire interest which the person making the assignment has in
the thing assigned.
The person making the assignment is called the assignor, the person to
whom it is made the assignee.
Every demand connected with the right of real or personal property, such
as estates, interests in lands, a term of years, rent to become due, debt for
goods sold and delivered evidenced by book account, a judgment, a bond,
balance of account, policy of insurance, promissory notes, checks, bills of
exchange, etc., may be assigned.
The pay or commission of an army or navy officer can not be assigned,
nor can the salaries of judges, nor a right of action for a tort or fraud.
The proper technical words in an assignment are, " assign, transfer, and
set over," although any words which show the intent of the parties to make
a complete transfer of their interests will answer.
An assignment will not hold good if not made in good faith, and any
party in interest may object to it, and if he can show fraud on the part of
the assignor it will be overturned.
The assignee of a debt should immediately after the assignment give
notice of that fact to the debtor.
If the debtor has no notice of the assignment and pays the assignor, he
is released from his indebtedness, but not so if notice has been given
him.
The assignee takes the debt subject to all the claims which the debtor
may have had against the assignor at the time of the assignment, or before
the debtor had notice of said assignment, and has no better title than the
assignor had.
Formerly an assignee was not allowed to sue in his own name, but by
statutes in some of the States, especially in New York, Maryland, Ohio,
Missouri, California, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the assignee of
a debt may bring suit in his own name in a court of law.
The assignment should be in writing. This is not always necessary, but
it is always better in order to be on the safe side.
A consideration for the assignment is only necessary for the purpose of
ustaining it against creditors and third parties.
An assignment of a mortgage should always be acknowledged in order
that it may be recorded, and it is advisable to have it sealed.
In order to make a valid assignment of an insurance policy ihe consent
of the insurers should be previously obtained.
The rules governing assignment of an insurance policy, if an assignment
u allowed, will be found incorporated in the body of the policy.
LAW FOR TffS MASSES. 457
FORM OF ASSIGNMENT WHICH MAT BE ENDORSED ON THE INSTRUMENT
ASSIGNED.
In consideration of the sum of dollars [or For valued received], I
hereby assign the within [here give the name of the instrument assigned]
unto John Smith.
[Date.] [Signature.]
Bills of Sale. A bill of sale is a written conveyance of personal prop-
erty, by which one person transfers all his right and interest in the prop-
erty to another.
It is advisable to have the conveyance under seal, although it is not al-
ways necessary.
If there is a delivery or part payment, no written instrument in needed;
but it is always better to have one as evidence of title to the property.
If the seller continues in possession of the property after the sale, the
sale is presumptively void as to subsequent purchasers and mortgagors
who were ignorant of the transaction, unless the purchaser can show that
there was no fraud in his purchase, and that he had good reasons for allow-
ing the seller to retain possession of it.
A COMMON FORM.
I, Joseph Gay, of the town of county of State of party of
the first part, in consideration of the sum of dollars, lawful money of
the United States, to me in hand paid by John Crump, of the town of
county of State of do grant, bargain, sell, and convey to said
John Crump [here name in detail articles or interest sold].
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this day
of 18 .
[Signature.]
Signed, sealed, ftnd delivered in the presence ol
[Names of witnesses.]
Power of Attorney. A power of attorney is a written instrument by
which one person is empowered to act for another. A person acting under
a power of attorney is called an attorney in fact. The power of attorney to
authorize a person to execute a sealed instrument for his principal, should
be under seal, executed, attested, and acknowledged the same as a deed.
These powers are general and special, and empower the holders thereof to
act the same as general or special agents, and are subject to the same laws
of revocation as are the powers of agents.
A party dealing with an attorney in fact should examine his power, to
see that he is authorized so to act.
All conditions in the power should be strictly followed out.
By the statutes of New York, if one of the attorneys in fact should die,
the survivors can continue to act.
All the attorneys should join in executing their power.
In a conveyance of land the attorney should always use the name of his
principal in the body of the instrument, and execute and acknowledge it
in the name of his principal, with his own name as attorney. An attorney
is not authorized to appoint a substitute, unless he is speflW" -mnowered
to do so by his power of attornty.
A SHORT FOR*.
Know all men that I, John Smith, of the town of in the county ot
State of do hereby make, constitute, and appoint James Brown, of the
town of county of State of my true and lawful attorney for
468 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
me and in my name to [here insert what the attorney is authorized to dpi
and to do and perform all acts or things in the execution of the aforesaid
business, as fully and completely as I might do were I present.
In witness whereof. I have hereunto set my hand and seal this day
of 18 .
[Signed by person granting the power.]
Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of
[Signature of witnesses.]
Wills. A will is the disposition of one's property to take effect after
death.
Any one of sound mind and of the age of twenty-one years, or majority,
may make a will of real property.
A will must be signed by the party in the presence of witnesses who see
(he party sign, and who must sign in his presence and in the presence of
each other.
The party must request the witnesses to eign his will.
The number of witnesses required in most of the States is two, but three
are required in the District of Columbia, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire,
New Mexico, and South Carolina.
A gift of real property is termed a devise; a gift of personal property a
bequest or legacy.
All persons may take personal property by bequest, and all persons
capable in law of holding real property may take real property by devise.
Corporations, however, cannot take real property by devise, unless they
are specially authorized to do so by their charters or other laws. And by
a recent act in New York, it is provided that, no person having a husband,
wife, child, or parent, shall devise or bequeath to any benevolent, cnarita-
ble, literary, scientific, religious, or missionary society, association, or cor-
poration, in trust or otherwise, more than one-half part of his or her estate,
alter the payment of debts; and such devise or bequest shall be valid to
the extent of one-half and no more.
No particular words are needed to constitute a will. With an exception
in favor of soldiers and sailors, who from necessity the law allows to make
wills verbally called nuncupative wills -there must be a written statement
of the testator's wish, signed by him. Any statement, however, which
makes the testamentary character apparent, is sufficient to give the instru-
ment the character of a will.
In no case does a will have any operation until a testator's death. And
it may be made upon condition, so that even then it will not take effect ex-
cept under the circumstances specified. Two persons can make a conjoint
or mutual will.
It is very common to commence wills with a formal preamble, reciting
the testator's capacity to make a will, and the feelings which move him to
the act. These phrases are not, however, of any legal efficacy, and may be
inserted or not at pleasure. It is advisable to affix a seal to a will, although
it is not required in all of the States, to give validity to it.
Wills may be avoided by cancellation or revocation, or by the execution
of a will of later date. Marriage, with the birth of issue, amounts to an im-
plied revocation.
A bequest to a wife in lieu of her dower must be clearly expressed, or
ahe will be entitled to both; provided that the claim of dower is not inoon-
iistent with the provisions of the will. The courts, however, require clear
LAW FOK TffE MASSES. 459
proof of the inconsistency. Such bequest, however, will not deprive her of
her dower, but she has her choice between the two.
A codicil is a supplement or an addition made to a will by the testator,
annexed to the same, and to be taken as a part of it; being intended for its
explanation or alteration, or to make some addition to, or subtraction from,
the former dispositions of the testator. It should be executed in the same
manner and with the same formality as the original will.
A codicil, like a will, may (unless controlled by statute) be either written
or nuncupative.
Wills should be drawn carefully so as to express plainly and exactly the
wishes of the testator.
Soldiers and sailors in active service may make a declaration of their
will by word of mouth to any witnesses who may be convenient. There
should be three witnesses. The witnesses reduce the oral declaration to
writing and attest it.
In general, a beneficial devise or bequest to a subscribing witness is
void, unless there are the requisite number of other competent subscribing
witnesses, so that the will may be proved without resort to the testimony of
the interested witness.
It is usual and proper, but not essential, to write at the end of the will,
below or at one side of the testator's signature, a statement of the place,
time, purpose and circumstances of the signatures and execution, and to
let the witnesses sign below. This statement is called the attestation
clause. The advantages of such a statement is in facilitating the probate
of the will. If a witness has no recollection of his attesting the will, but
recognizes his name under such a statement as written by himself, and
testifies that he should not have written it there had he not known the
statement to be true, the courts will generally receive this as supplying his
defect of memory.
The attestation must, except in a few States, be in the presence of the
testator, but need not necessarily be in the same room, if he is so placed as
to see the act. Against the name of every witness his residence or address
should be written. In some of the States this is required by law, and in all
cases it is convenient and always advisable; but the absence of this, even
where it is required, does not invalidate the will.
WILL OF BOTH REAL AND PEKSONAL ESTATE.
I, A. B., of , in the county of , and State of , merchant,
being of sound and disposing mind and memory, do make, publish and de-
clare this to be my last will and testament, hereby revoking all former wills
by me at any time heretofore made.
And as to my worldly estate, and all the property, real, personal, or
Tnixed, of which I shall die seized and possessed, or to which I shall be en-
titled at the time of my decease, I devise, bequeath and dispose thereof in
the manner following, to wit:
My will is, that all my just debts and funeral expenses shall, by my
executors hereinafter named, be paid out of my estate, as soon after my
decease an shall by them be found convenient.
I give, devise and bequeath to my beloved wife, C. B., all my household
furniture, my horse and chaise, and the chaise harness; and also
Collars in money, to be paid to her by my executors, hereinafter named,'
si thin months after my decease; to have and to hold the same to her
and her executors, administrators and assigns forever. I also give to her
the use, improvement and income of my dwelling-house, land, and its ap-
purtenances, situated in aforesaid [describing the same], and my land
460 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
situated in [describing the same], to have and to hold the same to her for
and during the term of her natural life.
I give and bequeath to my honored mother, E. B., dollars in
money, to be paid to her by my executors hereinafter appointed, within
months after my decease; to be for the sole use of herself, her execu-
tors, administrators and assigns.
I give and bequeath to my daughter, L. B., my shares of the stock
of the President, Directors, and Company of the Bank in
County of , and State of , which are of the par value of
dollars; to have and to hold the same together with all the profits and
income thereof, to her. the said L. B., her heirs, executors, administrators
and assigns, to her and their use and benefit forever.
I give, devise and bequeath to my son, H. B., the reversion or remain-
der of my dwelling or mansion house and its appurtenances, situate in
aforesaid [describing it], and all profits, income, and advantage that
may result therefrom, from and after the decease of my beloved wife, C. B.,
to have and to hold the same to him, the said H. B., his heirs and assigns,
from and after the decease of my said wife, to his and their use and behoof
forever.
I give, devise and bequeath to my son, J. B., the reversion or remainder
of my land situated in [describing it], and its appurtenances, and all the
profits, income and advantage that may result therefrom, from and after
the decease of my beloved wife, C. B., to have and to hold the same to the
said J. B., his heirs and assigns, from and after the decease of my said wile,
to his and their use and behoof forever.
All the rest and residue of my estate, real, personal and mixed, of which
I shall die seized and possessed, or to which I shall be entitled at my de-
cease, I give, devise and bequeath, to be equally divided between and
among my said sons, H. 15. and J. B.
And, lastly, I do nominate and appoint my said sons, H. B. and J. B., to
be the executors of this my last will and testament.
In witness whereof, I, the skid A. B., have to this my last will and
testament, consisting of sheets of paper, subscribed my name and
affixed my seal this day of , in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and
Signed, sealed, published, and de- "| A. B. [Seal.]
clared by the said A. B., as and
for his last will and testament,
in the presence of us, who at his
request and in his presence, and
in the presence of each other,
have subscribed our names as
witnesses thereunto.
residing at in county.
[Signatures of witnesses.] residing at , in county,
residing at , in county.
Executors and Administrators. An executor is a person whom
\3ie testator appoints by his will to carry out his wishes therein expressed.
As a general rule, all persons capable of making wills and many others
tail be executors.
Executors can be appointed by will or codicil; explicit words of ap-
pointment are not necessary, although usual.
An administrator is a person appointed by the proper court to taKe
charge of and distribute the estate of an intestate or of a testator who has
no executor. An administrator with the wiH annexed is a person appointed
by the court to manage and distribute the estate of the testator when no
executor is named in the will, or the person appointed in the will refuses
t act. or il* executor dies before he has completed hia duties as such ex-
LAW FOli THE MASSES. 461
ccutor. Both executors and administrators are regarded as the personal
representatives of the deceased, having in their hands his means for the
purpose of paying his debts, completing his contracts, and of carrying into
effect his will if he has left one.
The proper persons to take out letters of administration are, as a gen-
eral rule, the husband or wife; then the children, male preferred to female;
then the father or mother; then the grandparents; and in many of the
States a creditor can apply for letters of administration if the proper per-
sons refuse or delay to apply. In general, anybody can be an adminis-
trator who can make a contract, but the above parties have the preference.
The authority of an executor dates from the moment of his testator's
death; that of an administrator does not exist until letters have been
granted to him, and then it reverts back to the time of the death of the de-
ceased, and then only for the purpose of protecting the estate.
The executor is, as a general rule, required to give a bond before letters
testamentary are issued to him, unless this requirement is done away with
by statute, or the testator expressly directs in his will that no bond be re*
quired.
A bond is always required of an administrator.
The duties of executors and administrators being BO similar, what fol-
lows will be applicable to both.
Immediately after letters testamentary or of administration are issued
to a person he must prepare an inventory of the property and file it. He
must pay the funeral expenses. Within a convenient time alter the death
of the deceased he should collect the goods if he can do so peacefully; if
not, he should take legal measures; he must collect the goods and chattel*
and the claims inventoried; he should give notice of his appointment as re-
quired by statute, and should advertise for debts and credits; if he is an
executor he must follow the directions of the will in reference to personal
effects; but it an administrator, he must collect, appraise, and sell the
whole; he must keep the money safely, and may be charged interest on it;
he must pay the debts in the following order first, funeral expenses, as
referred to above; then United States, State, county, and town debts; then
general creditors, after which the legacies are to be paid. If a sufficient
amount to pay the debts of the deceased is not realized from the sale ol
personal property, an application is made to the court issuing the letters,
for an order to be allowed to sell the real property. After payment ol
debts an account of proceeding must be filed in the court issuing the letters;
this usually must be done within a year from time of entering on the duties.
Neither an executor nor an administrator can act outside of the State in
which he was appointed. If either, while in the performance of his duties,
make a bill or note and signs it, adding, " as executor," or " as administra-
tor," he is personally liable, unless he expressly limits his promise to pay
by the words, "if the assets be sufficient," or some equivalent words, but
such a note or bill would not be negotiable because on condition.
Executors and administrators usually receive a commission for their ser-
vices. If there are two or more executors and one of them die, the sur-
vivors or survivor continue to act. If all die, an administrator is appointed
by the court on the application of the proper person.
The executor should notify all parties in interest that on a certain day
he proposes to produce the will for probate and apply for letters.
Both executors and administrators should give notice to the parties ia
interest of their Intention to file a final account and ask for a discharge,
'462 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
After the expiration of a certain length of time, usually one year, any party
in interest can apply to the court issuing the letters to compel the executor
or administrator to account.
FOBM OF A PETITION FOB LETTEBS OF ADMINISTBATION.
[To be addressed to the Court of Ordinary, Court of Probate, Orphans'
Court, County Court, or Surrogate (as the case may be), of the proper
County.]
To the Court of Ordinary of in the State of :
The petition of widow [or son or daughter, etc., as the case may
be], of late of deceased, respectfully shows: That on or about
the day of 18 , the said died, leaving goods, chattels, rights,
credits, and real estate in aforesaid; that, to the best of the knowledge
and belief of your petitioner, no last will and testament was left by the
said deceased; that the deceased has left a widow your petitioner,
aged years, and two children, aged years, and aged years;
and that the deceased was, at and immediately preceding his death, an in-
habitant of
Your petitioner therefore prays that letters of administration may be
granted on the estate of the said deceased, and that he [or she] may be ap-
pointed the administrator thereof.
[Signature.]
Dated this day of A. D. 18 .
FOBM OF ADVEBTISEMENT FOB GBANTING LETTEBS OF ADMINISTBATION.
NOTICE. Whereas letters of administration upon [or testamentary to, in
in case of an executor] the estate of late of have been granted to the
subscriber, all persons indebted to the said estate are requested to mak
immediate payment, and those having claims or demands against the same,
will make known the same without delay to
[Signature.]
Dated this day of 18 . Administrator.
INVENTOBY OF PBOPEBTY.
A true and perfect inventory and just appraisement of all and singular
the goods and chattels, rights and credits, which were of late of
county of and State of deceased, at the time of his death, to wit:
[Here append the inventory, estimating bonds, notes, book-accounts,
and the like, under the headings of "good," " doubtful," and " bad." If
real estate is to be appraised, include that in the same inventory, adding
up, however, the inventory of the personal property separately.]
Taken and appraised by us, the day ot 18 .
[Signatures.]
County, ss.
Personally appeared before me, Justice of the Peace [or any proper
officer], in and for the said county and who upon their solemn oath
[or affirmation], do depose and say, that they, at the request of [as the case
requires], did well and truly, and without prejudice or partiality, value and
appraise the goods, chattels, and credits which were of deceased, as set
forth in the inventory hereto annexed, and in all respects performed their
duties as appraisers, to the best of their skill and judgment.
[Signatures.]
Subscribed and sworn [or affirmed] to before me, this day of
18 .
[Name and title of officer.]
APPOINTMENT OF APPBA1SEBS.
Estate of deceased. I, administrator of deceased, do hereby
certifv that I have selected and summoned [here insert names of persons
summoned], disinterested and competent persons, to appraise the personal
LAW FOE THE MASSES. 463
property elected to be taken and kept by widow of under the [recit-
ing section and Act under which claim is made].
Witness my hand this day of 18
[Signature.]
FOBM FOB APPRAISEMENT.
The undersigned having been selected and summoned by adminis-
trator of deceased, to appraise the personal property retained by
widow of deceased, under the provisions of [reciting as above], and
having been respectively sworn [or affirmed], do value and appraise the
same as follows, to wit: [inserting articles retained and value of each].
Witness our hands and seals this day of 18 .
[Signatures.] [Seal.]
[Seal.]
[Seal.]
Partition. Partition is the division which is made between several
persons, of lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or of goods and chattels
which belong to them as co-heirs or co-proprietors. The division is either
voluntary or compulsory.
Voluntary partition is made by the mutual consent of the owners, and
is effected by mutual conveyances, without covenants of warranty, or by
release to each person of the share which he is to hold, executed by the
other owners.
Compulsory partition is made without regard to the wishes of one or
more of the owners, and is effected by special laws provided for the pur-
poae in each State.
Trusts and Trustees. A trust is a right of property, real or per-
sonal, held by one party for the benefit of another. It is founded on confi-
dence, and out of it grow two different estates, or property rights, the legal
title of which is in the trustee, and the equitable or beneficial title in the
person intended to be benefited by the property.
The objects for which trusts in lands may be expressly created are: 1.
To sell lands for the benefit of creditors. 2. To sell, mortgage or lease
lands for the benefit of legatees, or for the purpose of satisfying any charge
thereon. 3. To receive the rents and profits of lands, and apply them to the
use of some person named in the instrument creating the trust. 4. To
receive the rents and profits of lands, and accumulate them.
Express trusts are created in express terms, in the deed, writing or will.
They are usually found in sealed agreements, such as marriage articles,
agreements for the purchase of lands, assignments for the payment of debts,
and for carrying out bequests in wills to charities.
There are also implied trusts which are raised or implied by law from
certain transactions, mostly being the expression of legal duty.
No particular form of words is necessary to the creation of a trust. Oral
words may be sufficient to create a trust in personal property, but writing
is necessary in the case of real property.
The person holding property for the benefit of another is called a trustee.
Executors, administrators, guardians, and assignees are trustees, to a
certain extent, and the law of trusts is applicable to them.
A trustee is held to strict honesty in the disposition of the property. He
can not retain any of the profits nor purchase the property upon its sale,
nor can he speculate with the trust property.
464 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
A trustee is chargeable for the good and business-like management ol
the trust property.
The court will appoint new trustees on the death or disability of the
original or any succeeding trustees.
A trustee may renounce or refuse to accept a trust, but having entered
into it he can not rid himself of its duties unless he ia legally discharged by
the court, or the consent of all concerned. He can not delegate his powers
to another, for the office is one of personal confidence.
Where there are several trustees they must act jointly by the majority,
and can not act and bind the trust separately, though executors may.
Marriage. Marriage is a contract made in due form of law, by which
a man and woman reciprocally agree to live with each other during their
joint lives, and to discharge toward each other the duties imposed by law
on the relation of husband and wife.
The promises must be reciprocal; that is, there must be a promise on
the part of each party.
It is not necessary that the promises to marry be made at the same
time, provided that the offer is accepted before being recalled, or within a
reasonable time after being made.
The contract to marry is completed by an acceptance of the offer.
After the contract is made, either party can bring an action for a breach
of it on the part of the other party, unless the breach is committed by a
party under legal age.
A marriage contract differs from other contracts, as it can not be re-
scinded at the will of the parties.
All persons are able to con tract marriage, unless they are under the legal
age or unless there are other disabilities.
At common law the age of consent is twelve for females and fourteen
for males. If either party marries before arriving at the age of consent,
the younger can, on arriving at that age, avoid the marriage.
If either party is an idiot, or insane, the marriage is void.
Force or fraud renders a marriage voidable; that is, it may be set aside,
and a divorce must be granted on the application of the injured party only.
The parties must be willing to enter into the relation of husband and
wife to make the marriage valid. If the willingness to marry is obtained
through fraud, the marriage may be set aside. The ferce or fraud must be
extreme and certain, otherwise the marriage will not be set aside.
Consanguinity and affinity within the rules prescribed by the laws of the
various States and Territories render a marriage void.
Corporeal impotence renders a marriage voidable. This impotence must
have existed at the time of the marriage, and must be incurable.
If either party has a husband or wife living, the marriage is void.
The parties must actually make a contract of marriage. The require-
ments and form will be governed by the laws of the State where the cere-
mony is performed.
The following are the proper persons to perform the ceremony of mar-
riage:
Ministers of the gospel and priests of every denomination, mayors, re-
corders, and aldermen of cities, judges of county courts, and justices of the
peace.
When the marriage is performed by a magistrate, no particular form is
required, except the parties must solemnly declare in the presence of
LAW FOR THE MASSES. 465
magistrate and a witness that they take each other as husband and wife.
There should always be one witness to the ceremony.
The person performing the ceremony must, on application of either
party, furnish a certificate signed by him, which must give the names and
residences of the parties; the names and residences of the attesting wit-
nesses; and the time and place of the marriage.
The statutes in some of the States require licenses to be taken out and
notice of the intended marriage to be given.
In nearly all civil cases marriage may be proved by cohabitation, ac-
knowledgment by the parties, reception by the family, and general
reputation.
Dower. Dower is the provision which the law makes for a widow out
of the lands or tenements of her husband for her support and the nurture
of her children. The word " dower" has reference to real estate exclu-
sively. .
In order to entitle the wife to dower there must have been a legal mar'
riage which has not been dissolved, seizure of the husband, and his death.
In those States and Territories where dower is allowed, it is necessary
that the wife join in a conveyance of the husband's real estate, in order to
give the grantee a good title. In general, if there is no statement in the
conveyance that the wife releases her " dower and right of dower," she can
enforce it at the death of her husband.
The wife's dower or right of dower may be lost or barred by joining
with her husband in a conveyance of land; by adultery on her part, and sub-
sequent divorce, by foreclosure of a mortgage given by a husband before
marriage, or by husband and wife after marriage; by a release of dower,
and by a marriage settlement made previous to marriage in lieu ol dower.
The wife must have been of age when she joined with her husband in a
conveyance of land in order to bar her dower or right of dower. The
widow has dower in that part of the estate which remains after all the eja-
cumbrances and liens against the same have been paid.
Dower is allowed in all the States and Territories except Arizona, Cali-
fornia, Colorado, Dakota, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Texas and
Utah.
In Nevada, on the death of the husband, the wife takes the entire com-
munity property [that is, property owned by the husband and wife in com-
mon], after paying the debts, family allowances, and expenses of adminis-
tration.
In New Mexico the wife has no dower except her private property, but
she has one-half of all the other property remaining after paying the debts
of the estate.
In Washington Territory the wife takes one-half of the common property,
subject to the debts of both.
In Wyoming Territory the wife takes the entire estate, both real and
personal, after paying the debts, provided that the estate does not exceed
the sum of $10,000.
Husband and Wife The husband is bound to provide his wife with
all the necessaries of life as far as compatible with his means and their
position in life.
If he furnishes a home for his wife, he cannot be held for her board if
she does not occupy it. He can purchase and sell personal property with-
466 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
nt her consent, and can purchase real property, but cannot sell it free
from her claims without her consent, as she has a dower right in it. This
right of dower has been abolished in some of the States, and where such is
the case he can act as freely with his real as with his personal property.
As a general rule, the wife's personal property belongs to the husband,
unless there is some statute to the contrary; and at common law, if a child
is born alive before the death of the wife, he has a life estate in her real
property.
The rights of the husband over the wife's property depend largely on
the statutes of the different States.
The wife can call on the husband to furnish her with the necessary food
and clothing according to his means and their position in life, and if he
neglects or refuses to furnish them, she can get them on his account, and
he will be bound to pay lor them. She is entitled to dower in all the real
property of which he died seized. Under the common law, by marriage
the wife loses the title 4o her personal property and the use of her real
property.
Parent and Child. The parent is under legal duty to support the
minor child. It is now held by high authority that a minor child who is not
supported by its parent may purchase necessaries on credit, and the
tradesman may then sue the parent, on the theory of an implied contract,
but if the parent supplies reasonable necessaries the tradesman cannot hold
the parent liable. If the child is in better circumstances than the parent,
the father will not, as a general rule, be obliged to support it.
No man is bound to support the children of his wife by a former hus-
band, nor can be compel them to pay him for their support if he provides
for them.
The child cannot compel its parent to educate it. The child has a claim
on its parent's estate for bare maintenance only.
The parent is not liable for the wrongful acts of the child. The father
has the right to the custody of the child against all persons except the
mother, and between him and her the court will decide.
The father has a right to the services of the child; consequently, if it be
employed by another person, the father can collect its wages. The parent
may give the child its time, in which case the child would be entitled to its
wages.
The parent can bring suit for personal injury to the child.
The child is obliged to support its indigent parent if it is able to do so,
but cannot be compelled to pay bills which the parent may contract. This
obligation to support an indigent parent is enforced by the Superintendent
of the Poor.
Divorce. Divorce is the dissolution or partial suspension by law of the
marriage relation. Marriage is often called a contract, but it is one that
establishes a relation or status and cannot be broken or dissolved by
mutual consent, nor is the wrong-doing of either party sufficient to
authorize a dissolution or break the contract until a solemn judgment of the
court or act of legislature formally dissolve the relation. So that usually,
if there is no defence to a suit for divorce, the case does not go by default,
but is heard, so far as to show its justice or otherwise, and the desire of
both parties for the same result, going so far as to produce connivance
between them, is ground for denying the divorce. If the ofience has been
LAW FOR TUE MASSES. 467
forgiven or condoned, none is granted. So, if the cause is adultery and
both are guilty of the same offence.
A degree of the nullity of a marriage is commonly called a divorce. It ia
granted when one of the parties is shown to have been married to a living
party and not divorced, or the marriage was only pretended, forced or
fraudulent, or between parties within the prohibited relationship, but these
are also general causes of divorce.
A legal separation which was formerly granted more frequently than at
the present time, and which left the parties married with none of the rights
of marriage, is called a divorce from bed and board. It grows less common
as the laws of divorce grow more liberal. It was granted for causes that
are now grounds for a full divorce.
The canonical or scriptural ground of divrce is for adultery only;
though impotency is also a general ground for divorce. Adultery and im-
potency are, as a general rule, grounds for a divorce in all the States and
Territories.
Minors. A minor, usually called an infant, is any person who has not
yet attained the age of twenty-one years.
A minor can not enter into a binding contract, except for necessaries.
The contracts of a minor are not void, but voidable.
A void contract is one binding on neither party, while a voidable con-
tract is binding on the adult, but not on the minor, who may, during his
minority, or within a reasonable time after he becomes of age, avoid the
contract, if he so desires. A minor may make a binding contract for neces
saries for both himself and for his wife and children.
The word ' ' necessaries " includes food, clothing, shelter, medical atten-
dance, and other provisions for health and education.
The " necessaries " for a minor depend largely upon his social position.
In some cases watches and jewelry are regarded as necessaries. Although
the law requires the minor to pay the value of the necessaries of life, it does
not bind him necessarily to pay the price set by the tradesman. The
jury are to determine the value and the price where the bill is dis-
puted.
If a minor gives his note for necessaries, although he is held on the note
he can be compelled to pay only the value of the necessaries. If a rninof
enlists in the army or navy he can not avoid the enlistment.
He is liable for his frauds and torts.
If a minor fraudulently represents that he is above the age of twenty-one
years, and by means of these representations obtains credit for goods not
necessaries, an action for fraud may at once be maintained.
If the articles are sold to a minor without fraudulent representations,
and are in his possession when he rescinds the sale, the seller may retake
them.
If a ninor makes a voidable contract and advances money on it, and
afterward avoids it, he can not recover back the money so advanced.
A minor can not disaffirm his contracts in relation to real property until
he becomes of age. To confirm a contract touching real estate some posi-
tive act is required. A minor or his personal representatives are the only
ones who can take advantage of his minority.
As a general rule, no male under the age of eighteen years nor female
under the age of sixteen years can make a will of personal property. Both
must be above the age of twenty-one years to will real property.
468 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The responsibility of a minor under tho age of fourteen years rests on
evidence of knowledge of the nature of the act committed.
Servants. A servant is a person who lets, hires, or engages his or her
services to another to be employed at some particular occupation or at any
occupation for the benefit of the employer, for a certain sum.
The servant must render services for the entire time of the contract, and
on this depends his right to recover wages. Thus, if A should agree to
work for B for one year and should leave without cause before that period
had expired, he could not recover on his contract.
The master must employ the servant for the entire time of the contract,
and should he discharge him without cause he would be liable to a suit for
damages. It would be the duty of a servant in a case of this nature to en-
deavor to secure employment and thus reduce the amount of the damages.
If he should fail to secure employment, his damages would be the amount
of wages he would have received had he not been discharged.
If before the expiration of the term the servant leaves without cause he
forfeits his wages.
The master may dismiss the servant before the expiration of his time for
willful disobedience, immoral conduct, habitual neglect, and the servant
will not be entitled to recover his wages.
The master must furnish the servant with suitable tools and implements
of labor, and will be liable for injury which may result to the servant from
any defectiveness in such tools which was known to him. If the servant's
negligence contributed to the injury he can not recover.
If the tools and implements are not defective the master will not in gen-
eral be responsible, as the servant is supposed to take into consideration
the risks when he agrees for certain wages to accept the position. The
master must use reasonable care in selecting competent and trusty servants.
Where proper care has been exercised in the selection of servants, the
master is not responsible for an injury caused to one servant by the care-
lessness of another while both are engaged in the same service.
The master is bound by all contracts made by the servant within the
scope of his authority. He is not bound to provide medicines and attend-
ance in case the servant is sick.
The master is responsible for what his servant does during his regular
employment. This is especially true in the fulfillment of contracts.
He is liable for injuries occasioned by the neglect or unskillfulness or the
injurious acts of the servant during his regular employment.
In order to hold the master the act must be negligent and done during
the servant's employment.
Real Property Eeal property is something which may be held by
tenure, or which will pass to the heir of the possessor at his death.
It includes lands, tenements, and hereditaments, or, in other words, it
includes the land and ordinarily whatever is erected, or growing, upon the
same, as well as whatever is contained within it, or beneath its surface, as
minerals, etc. Whatever is erected on the land by the owner is real prop-
erty, and passes with the land. Growing crops planted by the owner of the
soil are real property, but, if sold by him when fit for harvest, they become
personal property. Manure made upon the farm in the usual manner, by
consumption of its products, would be real property; so also whatever is
fitted for, and actually applied to, real estate, if of permanent nature.
LAW FOR THE MASSES. 469
Personal Property. Personal property is the right or interest which
a man has in things personal. It consists in general of everything which a
man can move around with him, such as household turniture, checks, notes,
bonds, mortgages, books, copyrights, patents, stock of goods in a store, cat-
tle, tools, farming utensils, hay, fodder, and whatever erections he may put
on land which have not become fixtures.
The personal property of a person who dies without a will goes to the
next of kin, and is divided up among them according to the statue of dis-
tributions in the several States.
Whatever is erected on the lands of another by permission of the owner
is personal property; so also whatever a tenant erects for trade, domestic
or manufacturing purposes, provided it can be removed without too great
damage and is removed within a reasonable time.
Growing crops sold by the owner when fit for harvesting are personal
property; so also are crops planted by a tenant, if fit for harvesting, or if
his term of tenancy is uncertain.
Trees sold to be cut, without any right to have them stand to occupy the
land and trees growing in a nursery, are personal property.
Landlord and Tenant The term " Landlord and Tenant " is used
to denote the relation which exists by reason of a contract, expressed or
implied, between two or more persons for the possession or occupation ol
lands, houses, or tenements, either for a certain fixed time, for life or at
will.
The instrument for creating and defining this relation is called a lease.
It is not necessary that the contract for hiring real estate be reduced to
writing if it does not exceed one year.
The relation of landlord and tenant is implied whenever there is an
ownership of land in one, and an occupation of it by permission by another.
The existence of this relation may be inferred by receiving rent from the
occupant.
If there is a lease, the rights and obligations of the parties are regarded
as commencing from the date of the lease if no other time has been agreed
upon, or from the delivery of the papers. If the lease be oral, it will go
into effect from the day the tenant enters and takes possession. The right
of possession remains in the landlord until the tenant enters, when the right
passes over to him, and remains in him during his tenancy.
The landlord can bring an action for any permanent injury to his prop-
erty, such as destroying fences, cutting timber, or breaking doors and win-
dows. He can go on the premises for the purpose of making repairs and
demanding rent, but must use no force to effect an entrance.
The landlord is not liable for any injury which may result to a stranger
or to his property from neglect to repair, unless he expressly agreed to keep
the premises in repair.
If the landlord agrees to repair, and fails to do so, the tenant cannot quit
and discharge himself from payment of rent unless it is agreed between the
parties that a failure to repair on the part oi the landlord is to have such
effect. The agreement to pay rent and the agreement to repair are inde-
pendent of each other. The landlord can not violate the rights of his ten-
ant by a sale of the property.
The tenant is entitled to quiet possession of the premises, and it is the
duty of the landlord to see that he is not disturbed by one having a better
title. The landlord must not disturb the tenant. Unless it is otherwise
470 CYCLOPEDIA Of USEFffL
agreed upon, the landlord must pay the taxes and assessments on the
premises.
The landlord is under no obligation to repair unless he expressly agrees
to do so, nor can the tenant make the repairs at the expense of the landlord.
After the tenant has entered, the right of possession passes to him and
he can bring an action against any person who trespasses on his premises,
or disturbs him in his possession of them. He is obliged to repair fences
and public roads, and is liable for injury which may result from their ruin-
ous condition.
The tenant must so manage his property that others are not injured
by it.
He must do the property no substantial injury, and is bound to make
general repairs without an agreement, and must keep the premises in ten-
antable condition. He must keep the buildings wind and water tight, keep
the fences in repair, and replace doors and windows broken during his
occupation. He is not answerable for ordinary wear and tear, nor is he
compelled to put a new roof on a building.
The tenant of a farm is bound without express covenant to manage and
cultivate it in a good and husbandlike manner, and to repair the fences and
and to keep the dwelling-house in repair. The outbuildings and erections
on the farm must be repaired and kept up by the landlord or the tenant,
according to the custom of the country where the farm is situated.
The tenant must preserve the timber and ornamental trees.
His chief duty is to pay rent, and it is no answer to a demand for rent
that the premises are not in a fit and proper state for the purposes for which
they were hired. In the absence of a particular agreement between the
parties, the tenant pays for the time he has had possession of the premises.
If he is deprived of possession by a person having a title superior to that of
his landlord, or if his occupation of the premises is rendered so uncom-
fortable by acts on the part of the landlord as to justify his removal, he
cannot be forced to pay rent.
If the tenant substitutes another tenant hi his stead without the consent
of the landlord, he is still liable for the payment of rent.
A tenancy for life terminates at the death of the life tenant.
If a person enters into possession with the consent of the landlord, but
without any express bargain, h becomes a tenant at will.
A tenancy at will may be determined by the will of either party.
Either party is entitled to reasonable notice before the tenancy can be
terminated.
It is a general rule that in the absence of statutes notice must cover the
whole of one of the regular intervals between payments.
A notice of but one month is sufficient in New York.
A tenancy from year to year can only be terminated by a similar notice
And for a like time.
Where the lease is for a definite period, no notice is necessary. No par-
ticular form of notice is necessary.
In a notice to quit there must be a reasonable certainty hi the descrip-
tion of the premises of the parties and in the statement of the time when
the tenant must quit. A tenancy may be terminated by a purchase of the
property by the tenant, and also by a surrender of the lease by the tenant
and an acceptance of it by the landlord.
After the tenancy has ended, the landlord may re-enter upon the prem-
i*es if ke can do so without violence.
LAW FOR THE MASSES. 471
If the tenant holds over, the landlord should call in the law to assist
him in getting possession.
The tenant must yield up quiet possession.
If a tenant's estate is terminated by an uncertain event, as,
for instance, if he is a tenant at will or from year to year, he is
entitled to the crops growing at the time of the termination of the
tenancy.
Whatever the tenant erects on the premises with the consent of the land-
lord, he can take away with him. Whatever he erects with the consent of
the landlord for the purpose of improving the premises, he can remove at
the expiration of his tenancy. In general it may be said that what-
ever he has erected during his occupation for his comfort, profit,
or convenience, he may remove, if he can do so without injuring the
premises, unless he has so connected it with the premises as to become
a part thereof.
Leases. A lease is a contract for the possession and profits of lands
and tenements, either for life or for a certain fixed time, or during the
pleasure of the parties.
Leases must be drawn and signed in duplicate, each party retaining a
copy.
The party making the lease is called the lessor; he to whom it is made
the lessee.
A lease must be for a shorter period than the duration of the lessor's
interest in the land.
The formal parts of a lease by deed are the date, the names of the par-
ties, the consideration, the description of the premises, and, lastly, express
covenants, if any, are to be inserted.
Leases generally have a forfeiture clause in case the tenant refuses to
pay rent or breaks any of the covenants. The forfeiture clause permits the
landlord to re-enter and eject the tenant.
If the lease is for a period exceeding one year it should be in writing,
and the parties should, as a general rule, have it recorded.
Leases of agricultural lauds for more than twelve years are prohibited
in the State of New York.
If it is intended that the lessee shall insure the premises, there should
be a covenant to that efiect on his part, which should state in whose name
the insurance is to be effected, and for what amount. Obligations to repair
depend on the terms of the lease. The lessee must keep the premises in
as good a state of repair as when he took possession, subject, however, to
the ordinary wear and tear. He is not obliged to improve a dilapidated
building.
The lessee is not obliged to rebuild a building which has been accident-
ally destroyed by fire.
If a lessee enters into a general covenant to repair without making any
exceptions, he is bound to restore any building which may be destroyed by
tempest, lightning, fire, or other accident.
Leases usually contain a covenant by the lessee not to assign or under-
let without the consent of the lessor.
A lease may be terminated at any time before the expiration of the term,
if the premises are taken for public uses, or are wholly destroyed, or are
used for purposes of ill- fame. The same result would follow should the
the tenant purchase the property-
472 CYCLOPEDIA OP VSUfVL KNOWLEDGE.
LEASE WITH BIGHT TO BE-ENTEB IN CASE DEFAULT SHALL BE MADE IN ANT
OF THE COVENANTS OB IN PAYMENT OF BENT.
This indenture, made the day of one thousand eight hundred
nd between A. B., of county of State of party of the first
part, and C. D., of county of State of party of the second part,
Witnesseth: That the said party of the first part has letten, and by these
presents does grant, demise, and to farm let, unto the said party of the
second part [here insert a description of the property], with the appur-
tenances, for the term of from the day of one thousand eight
hundred and at the yearly rent or sum of dollars, to be paid in
equal [weekly, monthly or quarterly] payments.
And it is agreed that if any rent shall be due and unpaid for days
after the same is due, or if default shall be made in any of the covenants
herein contained, then it shall be lawful for the said party of the first part
to re-enter the said premises, and to remove all persons therefrom. And
the said party of the second part does covenant to pay to the said party of
the first part, the said yearly rent as herein specified. And at the expira-
tion of the said term, the said party of the second part will quit and sur-
render the premises hereby demised, in as good state and condition as
reasonable use and wear thereof will permit, damages by the elements
excepted. And the said party of the first part does covenant that the said
party of the second part, on paying the said yearly rent, and performing the
covenants aforesaid, shall and may peaceably and quietly have, hold and
enjoy the said demised premises, for the term aforesaid.
In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and seals this
day of in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred
and . A. B. [Seal.]
C. D. [Seal.]
Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of
[Signatures of witnesses.]
Partnership. A partnership exists when two or more persons com-
bine their property, labor and skill, or one or more of them, in the trans-
action of business for their common profit.
The partnership may be special or confined by the articles of agreement
to a single transaction, or one or more particular lines of business.
The partnership is general when it is confined to no stated line of busi-
ness. In the absence of stipulations as to the kind of partnership, and when
there is no evidence from the course of trade, a partnership is presumed to
be general.
The partners may own all the property of the firm together, or one part-
ner may put in all the capital and the other furnish the skill or time in
managing the business. Any one is a partner who participates in the profits
and losses of the firm by agreement.
The partners ar individually liable for the debts of the firm after the
partnership funds kave been exhausted.
A person may in most ol the States become a special partner and limit
his liability to the possible loss of the amount of capital contributed by him.
In case of such a limited partnership, the partner must conform to the
requirements of the statutes or he will be held as a general partner.
There must be general partners, and the names of the special partners
must not appear in the firm name. They have all the duties and powers of
active partners.
The rule of personal liability being general, such other arrangement must
be in writing, acknowledged before some magistrate and recorded and
advertised so that it will be actually or constructively known to all dealing
with the firm.
LAW FOR TltE MASSES. 473
A partnership may hold real estate for the purposes of the business or
for the common profit, and in as far as it is partnership property, it ia
treated as personal property and is chargeable with the debts of the firm.
Land purchased with the funds of the firm is liable for its debts.
Joint ownership of property, however, does not necessarily make a part-
nership. It must be dealt with as a basis or means of making money to in-
dicate a partnership.
Giving employees a share in the profits of the business as compensation
for services does not make such employees partners, and hence liable for
the firm's debts. Partners own the profits as they arise, not after the per-
formance of stated services.
No writing nor express agreement is necessary to constitute a partner-
ship. When men join property and efforts in any enterprise for profit, the
law lays down a code of rules. It recognizes a partnership no matter what
the name used, even if the name of one only of the partners appears. All
of the parties share the profits and losses equally, unless otherwise stip-
ulated. Each can represent all, and can bind the company in any partner-
ship business or in any transaction which seems to be within the scope of
the partnership business.
Any one of the partners may terminate the partnership at any time, un-
less it is for a stated period of time. The death or insolvency of any one of
the partners in itself produces the same result. When a company is wound
up and any of the partners are dissatisfied with their allotted share of the
assets, they may apply to the court for a receiver, who shall convert the firm
property into money, and under the direction of the court divide the pro-
ceeds according to the contribution of each partner to the capital of the firm.
It is advisable to have the partnership agreement in writing, although a
partnership may be formed without a written agreement.
In any case partners have a very broad power of acting for each other.
Either may deal with the common property as if he were the owner. He
can bind the firm by notes signed in the firm name, and can contract debts
in its name.
All the partners must join in executing a sealed instrument in the name
of the firm, and in making a general assignment for the benefit of creditors,
with preferences.
Dissolution may be provided for by the articles of partnership, or may
take place by the insanity, death, or other absolute incapacity of one of the
partners, or by his assignment of his interest to a stranger.
After the dissolution and a notice of the same to the public at large
through the papers, and special notices to all customers and correspondents,
no partner can increase or continue the liabilities of the other members,
nor is he bound for any further debts of the firm.
Joint stock companies are partnerships whose capital is divided up into
shares which are assignable, but in this country corporations are so gen-
erally resorted to that these are rarely formed.
Highways. A highway is every passage, road, bridge or street, which
a citizen has a right to use.
Highways are created by a legislative act, by necessity, and by dedica-
tion. When private property is taken by a legislative act for a highway, a
just compensation is given, which amount is usually determined by a jury,
or by commissioners.
If a highway becomes impassable from any cause, the public hare
iU CYCLOPEDIA Of VSEFVL KNOWLEDGE.
a right to go on the adjoining land, even though there is a crop on the
same.
The owner of land may dedicate it to the public for a highway by allow-
ing it to be used as such without exercising control over it. The dedica-
tion may be evidenced by deed or by act of the owner, or his silent acquies-
cence in its use for twenty years. There may be a gift of the land on the
part of the owner and acceptance on the part of the public.
By taking or accepting laud for a highway, the public acquires only the
right of way, and the incidents necessary to enjoying and maintaining it,
subject to the regulation of the towns. All trees within the highway, except
only such as are requisite to make or repair the road or bridges, on the
same land, all grass thereon, and the minerals below, are for the use of the
owner or occupant of the land.
The owners of the land on the opposite sides own to the center of. the
highways. If at any time the highway is abandoned the owner recovers
the land.
The liability to repair is determined by statute, and, as a general rule,
devolves upon the towns.
The commissioners of highways in the several towns have the care and
superintendence of the highways and bridges within their respective towns.
It is their duty to repair the bridges and roads and to regulate and alter
such of them as a majority of the commissioners shall deem inconvenient;
to divide their respective towns into so many road districts as they shall
deem convenient; to assign to each of the said road districts such of the in-
habitants liable to work on highways as they shall think proper, having re-
gard to the proximity of residence as much as may be.
It is their duty to require the overseers of highways from time to time,
and as often as they shall deem necessary, to warn all persons assessed to
work on the highways to come and work thereon; to lay out on actual sur-
vey such new roads in their respective towns as they may deem necessary
and proper, and to discontinue such old roads as shall appear to them on
the oath of twelve freeholders of the same town to have become unneces-
sary; to cause mile-boards or stones to be erected on such public roads as
they may deem proper to repair and keep in order.
It is the duty of overseers of highways in each town to repair and keep
in order the highways in the several districts for which they were elected;
to warn all persons assessed to work on the highways in their respective
districts; to cause all noxious weeds within the highway to be cut down or
destroyed, twice in each year; to collect all fines and commutation money;
to cause all loose stones lying on the beaten track of every road to be re-
moved; to keep up and renew the mile-stones and guide-posts; when neces-
sary, to make another assessment on the residents in the town to keep the
roads in repair.
Every person owning or occupying land in the town in which he or she
resides, and every male inhabitant over twenty-one yeais, residing in the
town where the assessment is made, shall be assessed to work on the roads
in such town, and all moneyed or stock corporations, and the land of non-
residents within any town, are subject to assessment for highway labor.
Ministers of the gospel, paupers, idiots, and lunatics are exempt from high-
way labor.
Any person liable to highway labor may commute for the same in whole
or in part, at the rate of one dollar per day, to be paid to the overseer with-
in twenty-four hours after receiving the notice to appear and work.
LA IF FOB THE MASSES. 475
It is the duty of the overseer to give twenty-four hours' notice to persons
assessed to highway labor.
Every person refusing or neglecting to appear and work when notified
by the highway overseer is subject to a fine for each day, and every hour
such person or his substitute may be delinquent. If any such person or sub-
stitute shall remain idle, or not work faithfully or hinder others from work,
euch offender shall for every offence forfeit the sum of one dollar.
Overseers shall have power to require a cart, wagon, or plow, with a
pair of horses or oxen, and a person to manage them, from any person hav-
ing the same within his district; if he furnish them, according to order, he
will be entitled to a credit of three days for each day's service therewith.
If he neglect or refuse to furnish them, he is liable to a fine of three dollars
per day for each day that he may be assessed.
No private road can be laid out over the lands of any person without his
consent or the decision of a jury.
When a commissioner of highways has determined to lay out a new
highway, or to alter or discontinue an old road, he must file such deter-
mination in writing at the office of the town clerk.
Any person aggrieved by any determination of the commissioner of
highways, either in laying out, altering, or discontinuing any road, or in
refusing to lay out, alter, or discontinue any road, may, at any time within
sixty days after the commissioner's determination shall have been filed,
appeal to the judge of the county, who shall appoint three disinterested
freeholders, residents of the county, but not of the town, to hear and deter-
mine the appeal.
Trespass. A trespass is any wrong-doing, or act of one person where-
by another is injuriously treated or made to sustain damages.
Its more primary signification is any unlawful act committed with vio-
lence to the person, property, or rights of another.
Another restricted sense is any unauthorized entry on the real estate of
another.
An act may be trespass though no damage be done, though damage is
necessary to make a cause of action against the trespasser on the land of
another person; the breaking of a blade of grass is said to be enough to
constitute a trespass.
An action for trespass may be brought for personal injury, such as as-
sault, battery, wounding, imprisonment and the like, for injuries to the
person of another, directly injuring the complainant in his rights as a mas-
ter, parent, etc., for injuries to personal property in taking it away; strik-
ing or chasing, if alive, and carrying away personal property, to the damage
of the plaintiff.
Trespass on real property is consequent on entering, without right, on
another's inclosure, though there may be none but an imaginary fence.
Easement. Easement is a right which the owner of one parcel of land
has by reason of his ownership to use the land of another for a special pur-
pose not inconsistent with a general property in the owner, or, in other
words, it is the privilege without a profit which the owner of one piece of
land has in the land of another.
The land to which the right attaches is called the dominant estate, while
that in or over which the right is to be exercised is called the servient estate.
The following are a few of the many easements:
476 CYCLOPEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The right of way which the owner of one piece of land has over the land
of another; the right of receiving and discharging water over the land of an-
other; the right of having support to buildings from the land of another; the
right of the owner of one piece of land to have the natural flow of water pass
from his land over the land of another; the right to go on the land of another
and clear a mill stream or repair its banks; also the right to light and air.
The right of the public to use a highway is an easement.
An easement frequently arises from a continued use for a long period f
time. The use in this case must be adverse, continued, and uninterrupted
for the requisite period of time (usually twenty years), as, for example, the
continued and uninterrupted use by the public of a road for twenty years.
Easements are divided into two classes --affirmative and negative.
Affirmative easements are those where the servient estate must permit
something to be done thereon, as, for example, to pass over it or to di&-
charge water upon it.
Negative easements are those where the owner of the servient estate is
prohibited from doing something otherwise lawful on his estate because it
will affect the dominant estate, as for example, excavating his land and there-
by removing the support of a building standing on the dominant estate.
All easements must originate in an express grant, an implied grant, or,
in prescription.
These easements may be extinguished by abandonment, release, and by
merger, as, for instance, where the owner of the one estate acquires the
title to the other.
Libel and Slander. Libel and slander are injuries to one's reputa-
tion. Libel is that which is written or printed, which reflects on the
character of another and is published without lawful justification or excuse,
whatever the intention may have been; or in other words, it is inflamma-
tory matter addressed to the eye.
Pictures, effigies and other visible signs may be libelous.
Slander differs from libel hi that it is addressed to the ear. Criminal
libel is a malicious defamatory matter made known to a third person by
writing, by pictures, or by signs which are calculated to injure the living,
to blacken the memory of the dead, and to hold them up to hatred, con-
tempt and ridicule.
Civil libel is a malicious defamatory matter made known to a third person
by writing, by pictures, or by false signs, which are intended to injure the
living, or any publication which has a tendency to disturb the public peace
or the good order of society.
It is a slander to charge a person with being guilty of a crime, or with
having some contagious disease which renders him unfit for society; or to
make a charge which affects a person hi his trade, profession or business.
In these three cases it is not necessary to prove that the person slandered
has suffered special damages. In all other cases of slander by speaking
defamatory words, special damages must be proved.
The slander is supposed to be false until the contrary is shown.
The slander must be published, which is done when communicated to a
third person.
A repetition of a slander already in circulation, renders the person
repeating it liable to an action.
Malice, which is essential to support an action for slander, is always
presumed until the contrary is proved.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLA-
NEOUS.
Population of American Cities. The following table gives tha
population of the principal cities of the United States according to the cen-
sus of 1880:
New York, N. Y 1,206,500
Philadelphia, Pa 846,984
Brooklyn, N. Y 566,680
Chicago, 111 503,304
Boston, Mass 362,535
St. Louis, Mo 350,522
Baltimore, Md 332,190
Cincinnati, 255,708
San Francisco, Cal 233,956
New Orleans, La 216,140
Cleveland, 160,142
Pittsburgh, Pa 156,381
Buffaio,N. Y 155,137
Washington, D. C 147,307
Newark, N. J 136,400
Louisville, Ky 123,645
Jersey City, N. J 120,728
Detroit, Mich 116,342
Milwaukee, Wis 115,578
Providence, R. I 104,850
Albany, N. Y 90,903
Rochester, N. Y 89,363
Alleghany. Pa 78,681
Indianapolis, Ind 75,074
Richmond, Va 63,803
New Haven, Conn 62,882
Lowell, Mass 59,485
Worcester, Mass 58,295
Troy, N. Y 56,747
Kansas City, Mo 55,813
Cambridge, Mass 52,740
Syracuse, N. Y 61,791
Columbus. 51,665
Paterson, N. J 50,887
Toledo, O 50,143
Fall River, Mass 49,006
Minneapolis, Minn 46,887
Reading, Pa 43,280
Hartford, Conn 42,553
Wilmington, Del 42,499
St. Paul, Minn 41,498
Lawrence, Mass 39,178
Dayton, 38,677
Lynn, Mass 38,284
Denver, Col 35,630
Oakland, Cal 34,556
Utica, N. Y 33,913
Springfield, Mass 33,840
Portland, Me 33,810
Memphis, Tenn 33,593
Manchester, N. H 32,630
St. Joseph, Mo 32,484
Grand Rapids, Mich 32,015
Wheeling, W. Va 31,266
Harrisburgh, Pa 30,762
Savannah, Ga 30,681
Omaha, Neb 30,518
Trenton, N. J 29,910
Peoria, 111 29,315
Evansville, Ind 29,280
Bridgeport, Conn 29,148
Erie, Pa 27,730
Quincy, 111 27,275
><ew Bedford, Mass 26,875
Terre Haute, Ind 26,040
Lancaster, Pa 25,769
Wilkesbarre, Pa 23,339
Augusta, Ga 23,023
Des Moines, Iowa 22,408
Dubuque, Iowa 22,254
Auburn, N. Y 21,924
Holyoke, Mass 21,851
Area and Population of the Continents. The area of the five
continents of the globe, with its population according to the last census
taken, is given in the following table:
Area.
Europe 3,830,357 square miles.
Asia 16,415,758
Africa 11,556,650
N. and S. America 16,014,058
Australia 4,388,025 "
Population.
. . 312,000,000
. 765,000,000
. . 188,000,000
. . 87,000,000
. . 4,000,000
478 VYCLOP^DIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Population, Etc., of the States and Territories. In the follow-
ing interesting table will be found the population and area in square miles
of all the United States and Territories, likewise the electoral vote and date
of admission to the Union of each of the several States:
STATES.
Popula-
tion.
Area In
Square
Miles.
Electoral
Vote.
Admitted to
the Union.
Alabama
1 262 794
50 722
10
Dec. 4, 1818.
Arkansas
802564
52198
7
June 15, 1836.
California
864 686
188 981
8
Sept. 9, 1850.
Colorado
194649
104,500
3
July 4, 1876.
Connecticut *
622 683
4,674
6
Jan. 9, 1788.
Delaware*
146 654
2120
3
Dec. 7, 1787.
Florida
267 351
59268
4
March 3, 1845.
Georgia*
1 539 048
58,000
12
Jan. 2, 1788.
Illinois
3 078 769
55,410
22
Dec. 3, 1818.
Indiana
1 978 362
33 809
15
Dec. 11 1816.
Iowa
1 624 620
55 045
13
Dec. 28, 1846.
Kansas
995 966
81 313
9
Jan. 29, 1861.
Kentucky
1 648 708
37 600
13
June 1, 1792.
Louisiana
940 103
41 346
g
April 8 1812.
Maine .
648 945
31 776
6
March 4 1820.
Maryland*
934 632
11 184
8
April 28 1788.
Massachusetts*
1 783 012
7 800
14
Feb. 6 1788.
Michigan
1 636 331
56 451
13
June 26, 1837.
780 806
83 531
1
Feb. 26 1858.
Mississippi
1 131 592
47 156
9
Dec. 10 1817.
Missouri
2'l68'804
65 350
16
March 2 1821.
Nebraska
452433
75 995
5
March 1, 1867.
Nevada
62265
112090
3
March 21, 1864
New Hampshire*
346 984
9 280
4
June 21 1788.
New Jersey*
1 130 983
8320
9
Dec. 18 1787.
New York*
5 083 810
47 000
36
June 26, 1788.
North Carolina*
1 400 047
50 704
11
Nov. 21, 1789.
Ohio
3 198 239
39964
23
Nov. 30, 1802.
174 767
95 244
3
Feb. 14 1859.
Pennsylvania*
4 282 786
46 000
30
Dec. 12 1787.
Rhode Island*
276 528
1 306
4
May 29, 1790.
South Carolina*
995 622
29385
9
May 23 1788.
Tennessee
1 542 463
45 600
12
June 1, 1796.
1 592 574
237 504
13
Dec. 29 1845.
Vermont
332 286
10 212
4
March 4 1791.
Virginia*
1 512 806
40 904
12
June 26, 1788.
West Virginia
618 443
23 000
6
Dec. 31 1863.
Wisconsin
1 315 480
53 924
11
March 3 184*.
Total of States
49 369 595
2 054 666
401
District of Columbia
177 638
60
TERRITORIES.
40 441
113 916
Dakota
135 180
147 490
32 611
90 932
Montana
39157
143 776
New Mexico
118 430
121 201
Utah
143 906
80 056
Washington
75*120
69 944
Wyoming
20 788
93 107
Total United States
50,152,866
2,915,048
* One of the thirteen original States.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS.
479
Area, Population, Etc., of the Principal Countries of the
World. In the following table are given the area, population, national
debt, and names of capitals of the principal countries of the world:
1
COUNTRY.
Sq. Miles.
Population.
National Debt.
Capital.
Chinese Empire
3 924 627
433000000
Unknown
Pekin.
British Empire
7 778 347
237 391 788
$3 888 907 980
London.
Russian Empire
8 404 767
86 952 347
2 840 597 635
St. Pet'sb'rgh.
United States
3 026 504
50 152 559
1,942 172 295
Washington.
German Empire
208,744
42 727,262
3,000,000,000
Berlin.
Austria-Hungary
240,940
37,700,000
1,625,096,042
Vienna.
France
204,096
36,905,738
3,513,724,650
Paris.
Japan
156,604
33,200,000
145,000,000
Tokio.
G't Britain and Ireland. .
Turkey
121,230
860 562
34,160,000
31 669 147
3,888,907,980
1,212 772 200
London.
Const'tin'pla.
Italy
114406
27 769 475
1,977,117,845
Rome.
Spain
105 775
10835 506
2,401,612,001
Madrid.
Brazil
13,275,326
10 108 291
368,351,139
R. de Janeiro.
Mexico
761 640
9 276 079
395 000 000
Mexico.
Persia
648000
6 500 000
No Debt.
Teheran.
Morocco
260000
600000
3000 000
Morocco.
Siam
310,000
5 700000
No Debt.
Bangkok.
Roumauia
49262
5 376 000
90000000
Burcharest.
Belgium '.
11 373
5 336 185
232 684,553
Brussels.
Egypt
212 600
5 250000
450 000 000
Cairo.
Portugal
35 812
4 441 037
428 997 613
Lisbon.
Norway and Sweden
Canada
170,980
3 483 952
4,429,713
3 602 321
39,241,142
112 248 378
Stockholm.
Ottawa
Holland (Netherlands). . .
Abyssinia
12,680
158000
3,579,529
3 000 000
391,242,322
Unknown.
Amsterdam.
Miigdalla.
Colombia
432400
2 951 211
15390 304
Bogota.
Switzerland
15 991
2 776 035
6 225 000
Peru
502,760
2 669 945
213 402 680
Chili .'
130977
2 375 971
60 741 469
14 553
1 912 142
52 000 000
122,280
1 806 900
13 526 128
368 235
1 784 197
62 651 687
Bolivia
500 870
l' 742' 352
17' 500*000
Argentine Republic
871,000
18 787
1,715,681
1 720 270
68'416'043
5 000 000
Buenos Ayrea.
19 941
1 457 894
98 012 000
Guatemala
40 778
1 190 754
3 877 384
Ecuador
218 984
1 100 000
17' 500' ooo
Quito
Hay ti
29000
1 000 000
'548'022
25 000
1 000 000
San Salvador
9 500
600 000
5 000 000
70 000
455 000
43 615 000
49 000
300 000
9 000 000
Paraguay
57 223
221 000
12* 098* 417
Honduras
47 092
351 700
37 000 000
Costa Rica
21 495
185 000
12 000 000
i
i
Length, of the Principal Rivers In Europe. The Danube,
1,800 miles; Dnieper, 1,260; Don, 1,120; Rhine, 691; Elbe, 800; Rhone, 650;
Volga, 2,800-
In Asia. Ganges, 1,970; Irrawaddy, 2,600; Indus, 2,300; Euphrates,
1,750; Araoor, 2,800; Yang-tse-Kiang, 3,300; Hoang-Ho, 2,700; Zambesi, 800;
Yenesi, 3,250; Obi, 2,700.
In Africa. Nile, 2,500; Niger, 2,600; Senegal, 1,900; Gambia, 1,700.
In America. Missouri to the Mississippi, 3,100; Missouri to the Gulf,
4,350; Mississippi, 3,160; Amazon, 3,600; River De La Plata, 2,240; St. Law-
rence, 2,100; Orinoco, 1,600; Rio Grande, 1,800.
480 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Presidential Vote for Sixty Years. The following table gives
the popular and electoral votes for Presidents of the United States, from
1824 to 1884 inclusive, likewise the name of each candidate and of the party
to which he belonged:
Tear.
ffame of Candidate.
Party.
Papular
vote.
Elec.
vote.
1824
Andrew Jackson
Democrat
155 872
99
John Q. Adams
Federal
105 321
84
ii
W. H. Crawford
Republican
44282
41
it
Henry Clay
46587
37
1828
Andrew Jackson
Democrat
647 231
178
John Q. Adams
Republican
509 097
8*
1832
Andrew Jackson
Democrat
687 502
ai>
Henry Clay
National Republican
530 189
49
ii
John Floyd
Whig
11
M
William Wirt
7
1836
Martin Van Buren
Democrat
761 549
167
W. H.Harrison
Hugh L. White
Whig I
(73
J 26
ii
Daniel Webster
" :""":::::::::::::
736,656
1 14
11
W. P. Mangam
" :. ..::...::...::::..]
ill
1840
Martin Van Buren
Democrat
1 128 702
40
W. H. Harrison
Whig
1 275 Oil
234
ii
J. G. Birney
Liberal
7 059
1844
James K. Polk
Democrat
1 337 243
170
Henry Clay
Whig
1,299,068
105
ii
J G Birney
Liberal
62 300
1848
Zachary Taylor
Whig
1 360 099
163
Lewis Cass
Democrat
1 220544
127
11
Martin Van Buren
Free Soil
291 263
1852
Franklin Pierce .
Democrat
1 601 474
254
Winfleld Scott
Whig
1 386 578
42
11
John P. Hale
Free Soil
155 825
1856
James Buchanan
Democrat
1 838 169
174
Republican
1 341 262
114
ii
Millard Fillmore
American
874 534
1860
Republican
1 866352
180
Democrat
1 375*157
72
u
J C Breckenridge
845 763
39
11
John Bell
589 581
12
1864
Republican
2 216*067
212
Geo B McClellan
Democrat
1 808 725
21
1868
U S Grant
Republican
3 015 071
214
Horatio Seymour
Democrat
2 709 613
71
1872
U S Grant
Republican
3 597 070
286
Horace Greeley
Liberal and Democrat. . . .
2 834079
I!
Charles O'Conor
11
Temperance
1876
R. B Hayes
Republican
4033295
185
Samuel J Tilden
Democrat
4 284 265
184
,i
81 737
,,
G C Smith
Prohibition
9 522
u
2 636
1880
Republican
4454416
214
W S Hancock .
Democrat
4 444 952
155
u
James B Weaver
308 578
1884
James G. Blaine
4 851 981
182
4 874 986
219
ii
Benjamin F Butler .
Greenback
175 370
u
John P St. John
Prohibition
150369
Railroads in the United States. We have 120,000 miles of rail-
road in operation. They are capitalized, cost and water, at $10,000,000,000.
Their income is many times greater than that of the United States
government.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 481
Presidential Statistics. The names of all the Presidents of the
United States, with date of birth, inauguration and death, likewise the name
of the State in which born, are given in the following table:
Born.
Inaugurated.
Dtea.
Native of
George Washington
John Adams
Feb. 22, 1732
Oct. 30, 1735
April 30, 1789
March 4, 1797
Dec. 14, 1799
July 4, 1826
Virginia.
Mass.
Thomas Jefferson. . .
James Madison
James Monroe
April 2, 1743
Mar. 16, 1751
April 2 1759
" 4, 1801
" 4, 1809
" 4 1817
July 4, 1826
June 28, 1836
July 4 1831
Virginia.
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson...
Martin Van Buren..
Win. H. Harrison..
*Jolm Tyler
July 11, 1767
Mar. 15, 1767
Dec. 5, 1782
Feb. 9, 1773
Mar. 20 1790
" 4, 1825
" 4, 1829
" 4, 1837
" 4, 1841
April 5 1841
Feb. 23, 1848
June 8, 1845
Dec. 27, 1862
April 4, 1841
Jan. 17 1862
Mass.
S. Carolina.
New York.
Virginia.
James K. Polk
Nov. 2 1705
March 4 1845
June 15 1849
N.Carolina.
Zachary Taylor
*Millard Fillmore..
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan. . .
Abraham Lincoln..
* Andrew Johnson . .
Ulysses S. Grant
RutherPd B. Hayes.
Nov. 24, 170
May 7, 1800
Nov. 23, 1804
April 23, 1791
Feb. 12, 1809
Dec. 29, 1808
April 27, 1822
Oct. 4, 1822
4,' 1849
July 10, 1850
March 4, 1853
" 4, 1857
" 4, 1861
April 15, 1865
March 4, 1869
" 5 1877
July 9, 1850
March 8, 1874
October 8, 1869
June 1, 1868
April 15, 1865
July 31, 1875
July 23, 1885
Virginia.
New York.
New Hamp.
Pennsylva.
Kentucky.
N.Carolina.
Ohio.
James A. Garneld..
Chester A. Arthur.
NOV. 19, 1831
Oct. 5, 1830
" 4, 1881
Sept. 19, 1881
Sept. 19, 1881
Vermont.
Grover Cleveland. . .
Mar. 18 1837
March 4 1885
N. Jersey.
* Elected Vice-Presidents, and succeeded to the Presidency upon the death
of the President.
Area and Depth of Inland Seas In the following table are given
the area and depth of the principal lakes and inland seas of the world:
Name. Size. Depth.
Caspian Sea 176,ooo square miles 250 feet.
SeaofAral 30,000 " loo
Dead Sea 303 ' 200
Lake Baikal 12,000 ' 750
Lake Superior 32,000 ' 1,000
Lake Michigan 22,400 ' l,ooo
Lake Huron 21,000 ' 1,000
Lake Erie 10,815 204
Lake Ontario 6,300 ' . 336 "
Lake Nicaragua 6,000 ' 300 "
LakeTitacana 3,012 ' 800 "
SaltLake 1,875 ' 1,400 "
Lake Tchad 14,000 " 350 "
Lake Ladoga 12,000 " 1,200 "
Area of Oceans. The area of the five oceans of the globe is as fol-
lows:
Pacific 71,000,000 square miles.
Atlantic 30,000,000 "
Indian 28,000,000 "
Antarctic 8,500,000 "
Arctic 4,500,000 "
Census of the United States The following table exhibits the
population of the United States according to each census taken:
6th. 1840 17,069,453
7th. 1850 23,191,876
8th. 1860 31,443,32.
9th. 1870 38,558,371
1st. 1790 3,929,328
2d. 1800 5,305,925
3d. 1810 7,239,814
4th. 1820 9,638,131
6th. 1830 12,866,026
10th. 1880 50,152,S6
482 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Height of Mountains The height in feet and miles of the highest
mountains on the globe is thus given:
Feet. Mttes.
Kunchainyunga, Himalayas 28,178 5>
Sorata, Andes, highest in America 25,380 5
Illimani, Bolivia 21,780 4>
Chimborazo, Ecuador 21,444 4}
Hindoo-Koosh, Afghanistan 20,600 3%
Cotopaxi, Ecuador 19,408 3}
Autisana, Ecuador 19,150 3%
St. Elias, British America 18,000 3>
Popocatepetl volcano, Mexico 17,735 3>
Mt. Roa, Hawaii 16,ooo 3
Mt. Brown, highest Rocky Mountain peak 15,900 3
Mont Blanc, highest in Europe 15,776 3
Mowna Roas, Owhyhee 15,700 3
Mount Rosa, Alps, Sardinia .- 15,530 3
Pinchinca, Ecuador 15,200 2%
Mt. Whitney, Cal 15,000 2%
Mount Fairweather, Russian possessions 14,796 2%
Mount Shasta, California 14,450 2%
Pikes Peak, Colorada 14.320 2%
Mount Ophir, Sumatra 13,800 2%
Fremont's Peak, R. M., Wyoming 13,570 2%'
Long's Peak, R. M., California 13,400 2>
Mount Ranier, Washington Territory 13,000 2>
Mount Ararat. Armenia 12,700 2%
Peak of Tenerifle, Canaries 12,236 2)
Miltsin, Morocco 12,000 2M
Mount Hood, Oregon 11,570 2%
Simplon, Alps 11,542 2M
Mount Lebanon, Syria 11,000 2}
Mount Perdu, France 10,950 2
Mount St. Helen's, Oregon 10,158 1%
Mount Etna, Sicily 10,050 1%
Olympus, Greece 9,754 13
St. Gothard, Alps 9,080 \\
Pilate, Alps 9.050 \\
Mount Sinai, Arabia*. 8,000 1)4
Pindus, Greece 7,677 1)4
Black Mountain, New Caledonia 6,467 l}f
Mount Washington, New Hampshire 6,234 1%
Mount Marcy, New York 5,467 1
Mount Hecla, Iceland 5,000 1
Ben Nevis, Scotland 4,400 X
Mansfield, Vermont 4,280 %
Peaks of Otter, Virginia 4,260 &
Ben Lawers, Scotland 4,030 %
Parnassus, Greece 3,950 M
Vesuvius, Naples 3,932 X
Stromboli 3,850 %
Snowdon, England 3,500 %
Ben Lomond 3,280 X
Mount Carmel 2,000
Gibraltar 1,470
The Area and Population of China. The area of China proper
measures 1,348,870 square miles, being about half the size of Europe, seven
times that of France, and fifteen times that of Great Britain. Each of the
eighteen provinces, therefore, is on an average almost as large as England.
Though not so densely peopled as at one time supposed mistaken esti-
mates having been circulated by travelers who had not penetrated
the country away from seaboard or river it is yet thickly populated.
The population of China probably exceeds 200,000,000 of " Celestials." In-
teresting information regarding China and the Chinese will be found in the
department of " Travels, Manners and Customs, Etc."
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS.
485
A Useful Table. The following table shows the number of days from
* given date in one month to the same date in any other month:
te]
TO
K
January.
February.
March.
ft
1
>,
a
X
I
>-.
"3
h>
g,
p
H
September.
October.
November.
December.
January
365
31
59
90
120
151
181
212
243
273
304
834
February
884
365
28
59
89
1*>0
150
181
212
242
273
303
306
337
365
31
61
92
122
153
184
2H
245
275
April. . .
oyi.
806
334
365
SO
61
91
190
158
188
014
244
May
245
276
304
335
365
81
61
92
123
153
185
214
June
214
245
273
304
334
365
30
61
92
122
153
183
July . .
184
015
243
274
304
335
365
31
6^
90
V>8
153
August
158
184
212
243
273
304
884
365
81
61
9?
122
September
1<>0
158
181
212
242
273
303
884
365
80
61
91
October
q->
T>8
151
182
212
243
273
80-1
885
865
81
61
November
61
90
120
151
181
212
242
273
304
334
365
30
December
81
6
90
121
151
182
212
243
074
804
885
365
Example. To find the number of days from June 16th to October 16th:
In the left hand column find June. Bun your eye along to the right
until it reaches the column headed October at the top. At the intersection
of the two columns you will find the answer, 122 days.
Locomotion of Animals and Velocity of Bodies. The follow*
ing table is interesting as showing the average power of locomotion of
animals as compared with the velocity of various bodies:
Per hour. Per second.
A man walks Smiles, or 4feet,
Ahorsetrots 7 " or 10 "
Ahorseruns 20 " or 29 "
Steamboat runs 18 " or 26 "
Sailing vessel runs 10 " or 14
Slow rivers flow 3 " or 4
Rapid rivers flow 7 ' or 10
A moderate wind blows 7 ' or 10
Astorm moves 36 ' or 52
A hurricane moves 80 ' or 117
A rifle ball moves 1,000 ' or 1,466
Sound moves 743 " or 1,142 "
Light moves 192,000 miles per second.
Electricity moves 288,ooo "
The astounding velocity of electricity and light in comparison with that
of other bodies, may well excite surprise and wonder.
484 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Height of Monuments, Towers and Structures The height,
in feet, of the most lofty monuments and other structures in the world is
given in the following table:
Feet.
Washington Monument, Washing-
ton, D. C 555
Pyramid of Cheops, Egypt 543
Antwerp Cathedral, Belgium 476
Strasburg Cathedral, France 474
Tower of Utrecht, Holland 464
St. Stephen's Steeple, Vienna 460
Pyramid of Cephenes, Egypt 456
St. Martin's Church, Bavaria 456
St. Peter's, Rome
Salisbury Spire, England 410
St. Paul's, London, England 404
St. Peter's, at Hambro' 395
Cathedral at Florence, Italy 384
Cremona Cathedral. Italy 372
Seville Cathedral, Spain 360
Pyramid of Sakkarah, Egypt 356
Distances from Washington to Various Points The air line
distances from the city of Washington, D. C., to the various points indicated
are given in the following table:
Feet.
Notre Dame Cathedral, Munich 348
Dome of the Invalides, Paris 347
Madgeburg Cathedral 337
St. Mark's Church, Venice 328
Assinelll Tower, Bologna 314
Bartholdi Statue, New York 305
Trinity Church, New York 283
Brooklyn Bridge To wers 281
Column at Delhi, India 262
Porcelain Tower, China 242
Canterbury, Tower, England 235
Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris 232
Bunker Hill Monument 220
Leaning Tower, Pisa, Italy 202
Monument, London 202
Monument, Place Vendome, Pans. 153
Trajan's Pillar, Rome 151
Miles.
Alexandria, Egypt 5,275
Amsterdam, Holland 3,555
Athens, Greece 5,005
Auckland, New Zealand 8,290
Algiers, Algeria 3,425
Berlin, Prussia 3,847
Berne, Switzerland 3, 730
Brussels, Belgium 3,515
Batavia, Java 11,118
Bombay, Hindostan 8,548
Buenos Ayres, A. C 5,013
Bremen, Prussia 3,500
Constantinople, Turkey 4,880
Copenhagen, Denmark 3,895
Calcutta, Hindostan 9.348
Canton, China 9,000
Cairo, Egypt 5,848
Cape Town, Cape Colony 6,684
Cape of Good Hope 7,380
Caraccas, Venezuela 1,865
Charlotte Town, P. E. 1 820
Dublin, Ireland 3,076
Delhi, Hindostan 8,368
Edinburgh, Scotland 3,275
Frederickton, N. B 670
Gibraltar, Spain 3,150
Glasgow, Scotland 3,215
Halifax, N. S 780
Hamburg, Germany 3,570
Havana, Cuba 1,139
Honolulu, S. 1 4,513
Jerusalem, Palestine 5,495
Jamestown, St. Helena 7,150
Lima, Peru 3,515
Lisbon, Portugal 3,190
Liverpool, England 3,228
London England 3,315
City of Mexico, Mexico 1,867
Montevideo, Uruguay 5,003
Montreal, Canada 471
Madrid, Spain 3,485
Moscow, Russia .,..,,,.,. 4,436
Miles.
Manilla, Phil. Islands 9,360
Mecca, Arabia 6,598
Muscat, Arabia 7,600
Monrovia, Liberia 3,645
Morocco, Morocco 3,305
Mourzouk, Fezzan 5,525
Mozambique, Moz 7,348
Ottawa, Canada 462
Panama, New Gran 1,825
Parana, A. C 4,733
Port au Prince, Hayti 1,425
Paris, France 3,485
Pekin, China 8,783
Quebec, Canada 601
Quito, Ecuador 2,531
Rio Janeiro, Brazil 4,280
Rome, Italy 4,365
St. Petersburg, Russia 4,296
Stockholm, Sweden 4,055
Shanghai, China 8,600
Singapore, Malay 11,300
St. John's. N. P 1,340
San Domingo, S. D 4,300
San Juan, Nicaragua 1,740
San Salvador, A. C 1,650
Santiago, Chili 4,970
Spanish Town. Jamaica 1,448
Sydney, C. B. 1 975
Sydney, Australia 8,963
St. Paul de Loanda 5,578
Timbuctoo, Soudan 3,395
Tripoli, Tripoli 4,425
Tunis, Tunis 4,240
Toronto, Canada 343
Venice, Italy 3,835
Vienna, Austria 4,115
Valparaiso, Chili 4934
Vera Cruz, Mexico 1,680
Warsaw, Poland 4,010
Yeddo, Japan 7.630
Zanzibar, Zanzibar 7,078
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS.
485
Distances from New York to Important Cities The follow-
ing are the distances from New York City, as the crow fliss, to the points
indicated:
Miles.
Albany, N. Y 146
Atlanta, Ga 1,000
Baltimore, Md 185
Boston, Mass 236
ButtUlo, N. Y 469
Burlington, Vt. 301
Charleston, S. C 764
Chicago, 111 898
Cincinnati, Ohio 744
Cleveland, Ohio 588
Denver City, Col 1,980
Detroit, Mich 679
Galveston, Tex 1,800
Harrisburg, Pa 182
Hartford, Conn 133
Indianapolis, Ind 838
Little Rock, Ark 1,400
Long Branch, N. J 36
Louisville, Ky 845
Memphis, Tenn 1,200
Milwaukee, Wis 1,100
Mobile, Ala 1,352
Montgomery, Ala 1,220
Nashville Tenn 1,019
Newark, N. J 9
Newburg, N. Y 53
New Haven, Conn 76
New Orleans, La 1,597
Miles.
Newport, R. 1 160
Omaha, Neb 1,430
Philadelphia, Pa 87
Pittsburg, Pa, 431
Portland,Me 344
Providence, R. 1 183
Raleigh, N. C 538
Richmond, Va 353
Rochester, N. Y 401
Salt Lake City, Utah 2,430
San Francisco, Cal 3,306
Savannah, Ga 854
Saratoga Springs, N. Y 183
St. Louis, Mo 1,090
St. Paul, Minn 1,450
Washington, D. C 225
Calcutta, India 8,300
Dublin, Ireland 3,130
Edinburgh, Scotland 3,586
Frankfort, Germany. 3,530
Havana, Cuba 1,930
London. England 3,206
Madrid, Spain 3,140
Montreal, Canada 401
Paris, France 3,567
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 4,550
Rome, Italy 4,396
St. Petersbnrgh, Russia 4,860
Chronological History of Discovery and Progress. 1180 Glass
first used for windows.
1200 Mariner's Compass first used.
1234 Coal first dug for fuel.
1240 Spectacles invented.
1302 Paper first made from linen rags.
1320 Gunpowder invented.
1436 Printing invented
1457 Almanacs first printed by Purback, in Vienna. Newspaper, first in
the world issued, called The Gazette, printed at Nuremburg.
1462 Metal Type in matrices first made by Peter Schoeffer, at Nuremburg.
Bible first printed, at Mentz.
1471 Printing Press first set up, by Caxton.
1473 Musical Notes first used, but not printed until 1502.
1476 Watches first made at Nuremberg.
1516 Post-office first established for general public use, between Vienna and
Brussels.
1517 The True System of the Universe, discovered by Copernicus. Luther
began to preach in the same year.
1521 Luther summoned before the Diet of Worms.
1526 Xavier, the first great missionary of modern Christianity, planted the
cross in India.
1527 Wood Engraving invented by Albert Durer.
1530 Spinning Wheel set in motion by Jergens.
1532 Henry VIII, of England, finally and forever broke with the Pope.
486 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
1535 Ignalius Loyola founded the Order of the Jesuits. First English Bible.
(Coverdale's).
1545 Modern Needles first came into use.
1552 Books of Geography and Astronomy destroyed in England, as being
infected with magic.
1555 Wheeled Carriages first used in France.
1559 Steel Knives first used in England, and Coaches introduced about the
same time.
1562 Religious Liberty granted to the Huguenots in France, and was fol-
lowed by the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 1572.
1568 Clocks first made in England.
1590 Telescopes were invented, and the first was probably used in England
in 1608. Spencer, Shakespeare, Bacon, Kepler, Tycho Brake, were
contemporaries in this year.
1607 First Settlement in America, Jamestown, Virginia.
1615 Daily Newspaper first issued, Frankfort Gazette. Still published.
1616 Potatoes landed in Ireland by Sir Walter Baleigh, said to have been
brought by him, vrith tobacco, from Virginia.
1622 The First Newspaper was published in England; the first attempt at
Parliamentary reporting in 1641; the first advertisement appeared in
1648; and the first paper devoted exclusively to advertisements and
shipping in 1657.
1629 Printing Press first introduced into the United States, at Cambridge,
Mass.
1650 First Air Pumps manufactured.
1670 Organs first introduced into churches by Pope Vitalianus.
1690 First American Newspaper published at Boston, September 25th, a
monthly sheet, headed " Publick Occurrences, Foreign and Domes-
tick." Soon suppressed.
1702 First English Daily Newspaper published in London, and was called
Daily Gourant. Gas first used for illuminating.
1704 Newspaper first permanently printed in America, at Boston, called
Boston News-Letter.
1711 Piano-forte invented by Father Wood, an English monk at Rome.
1731 First French Newspaper published at Paris, called Gazette de France.
First Public Library established, at Philadelphia, July 31st.
1736 Union Fire Company, Philadelphia, organized December 7th, the first
volunteer fire company in America, and probably in the world.
1751 Pennsylvania Hospital, established February 7th; the first in America.
1752 Fire Insurance Company firet formed in America, " The Philadelphia
Contributionship." Lightning Rods first used. Put up by Benjamin
Franklin at his house in Philadelphia. Theatre first opened in Amer-
ica, at Williameburg, Va.
1753 Steam Engine first introduced into use in America, and was brought
from England.
1777 American Flag adopted by Congress.
1780 Sunday Schools first established by Robert Eaikes, in Gloucester,
England.
1781 Bank of North America incorporated at Philadelphia, May 26th.
First banking institution in America. Capital $400,000.
1783 BaUoon ascension first made, June 5th, near Lyons, France.
1784 Daily Paper first published in the United States, The Penntylvanim
Packet, or General Advertiser.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 487
178ft Vessel navigated first by steam, Philadelphia, July 20th, by John
Fitch.
1787 Copper Cent first coined at New Haven, Conn.
1803. Steel Pens first made.
1807 First Steamboat plied the Hudson, the Ctennont, by Robert Fulton.
1811 Lead Pencils first made in the United States, by William Munroe, at
Concord, Mass.
1813 Coal first mined in Philadelphia, sold at $21 per ton. There are $50,-
000,000 worth now produced annually. Electric LiglU first made prac-
tical by Sir Humphrey Davy.
1815 First religious newspaper, the Boston Record, established.
1816 Pins first manufactured in the United States.
1818 Steamer first crossed the Atlantic, the Savannah, from New York to
Liverpool, in twenty-six days.
1824 Steam Ferry Boats first used between New York and Brooklyn.
1825 Gas first used in New York for illuminating purposes. Homoeopathy
introduced into the United States. Passenger Railroad first opened,
September 27th, in England.
1826 Kwosene first used for illuminating purposes. Railroad, first in
United States, extended from granite quarries at Quincy, Mass., to
Neponset Eiver, three miles. Now nearly 100,000 miles hi the United
States.
1828 Passenger Railroad, first in America opened, the Baltimore & Ohio.
1829 Lucifer Matches first made; came into general use about 1834.
1830 Steam Railroad, first in New York State, was from Albany to Schenec-
tady, 23 miles. Iron Steamship first built, omnibuses first intro-
duced for travel in New York City.
1832 Telegraph invented by Morse.
1888 Telegraph Wire of any practical importance first in England, was laid
from Paddington to West Dray ton; the first in Scotland in 1841; and
in Ireland 1854. Passenger Steamships began regular voyages across
the Atlantic; the Sirus, from London to New York, in 17 days, and
the Great Western, from Bristol to New York, in 15 days.
1839 Envelopes first used for letters, etc.
1840 Postage-Stamps first used in England.
1844 Telegraph Wire first laid in America was between Washington and
Baltimore. Anaesthesia discovered.
1846 Sewing-Machine patented, by Elias Howe.
1847 Postage-Stamps first used in the United States.
1848 Gold first discovered in California.
1853-- CH/staZ Palace, N. Y., opened. Burned Oct. 5, 1858.
1858 -Cable Dispatches first sent across Ocean.
1863 Emancipation proclamation.
1866 Atlantic Cable successfully laid.
1871 Great Fire in Chicago.
1877 Telephone first put into public use. Phonograph, Edison's, first
brought to public attention.
1878 Elevated Railroad commenced running in New York City August
26th.
1883 Brooklyn Bridge opened May 24th. Cars began to run Septem-
ber 2d.
1884. Discovery of Cocoaine, the most remarkable of anasthetica.
1885 Tlie Bartholdi Statue erected upon Bedloe's Island, New York,
488 CYCLOPEDIA 01' USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Popular Sobriquets of American States, Cities, Etc Acadia,
the original, and now the poetic, name of Nova Scotia.
Athens of America, a name sometimes given to Boston, Mass.
Badger State, a name popularly given to the State of Wisconsin.
Hay Slate, a popular name of Massachusetts, which was originally called
the Colony of Massachusetts Bay.
Bayou State, a name sometimes given to the State of Mississippi, which
abounds in bayous, or creeks.
Hear State, a name by which the State of Arkansas is sometimes desig-
nated, on account of the number of bears that infest its forests.
Blue Hen, The, a cant or popular name for the State of Delaware.
Buckeye State, the State of Ohio, popularly so called from the Buckeye
tree, which abounds there.
City of BrotTterly Love; Philadelphia is sometimes so called, this being the
literal signification of the name.
City of Churches, a name popularly given to the City of Brooklyn, New
York, from the unusually large number of churches which it con-
tains.
City of Elms, a familiar denomination of New Haven, Conn., many of the
streets of which are thickly shaded with lofty elms.
City of Magnificent Distances, a popular designation given to the city of
Washington, the capital of the United States, which is laid out on a very
large scale.
City of Notions, a popular name for Boston.
City of Rocks, a descriptive name popularly given to the city of Nashville,
Tenn.
City of Spindles, a name popularly given to the city of Lowell, Mass., the
largest cotton-manufacturing town in the United States.
City of the Straits, a name popularly given to Detroit, Mich., which is situ-
ated on the west bank of the river or strait connecting Lake St. Clair
with Lake Erie. Detroit is a French word, meaning " strait."
Columbia, a name often given to America, from a feeling of poetic justice
to its discoverer. The application of the term is usually restricted to
the United States.
Corn- Or acker, The, a popular nickname or designation for the State of
Kentucky. The inhabitants of the State are often called Corn-crackers.
Cradle of Liberty, a popular name given to Faneuil Hall, a large public
edifice in Boston, Mass.
Creole State, a name sometimes given to the State of Louisiana, in which the
descendants of the original French and Spanish settlers constitute a
large proportion of the population.
Crescent City, a popular name for the city of New Orleans.
Dark and Bloody Ground, The, an expression often used in allusion to Ken-
tucky, of which name it is said to be the translation.
Diamond State, a name sometimes given to the State of Delaware, from ita
small size and great worth, or supposed importance.
Empire City, the city of New York, the chief city of America.
Empire State, a popular name of the State of New York, the most populous
and the wealthiest State in the Union.
Excelsior State, the State of New York, sometimes so called from the motto,
" Excelsior," upon ita coat of arms.
Fatt City; Louisville, Ky., popularly so called from the falls which, at tuil
place, impede the navigation of the Ohio Elver.
8'fAflSTlOAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 489
Father of Waters, a popular name given to the river Mississippi on account
of its great length (3,160 miles), and the very large number of its tribu-
taries, of which the lied, the Arkansas, the Ohio, the Missouri, the
Illinois, the DCS Moines, the Wisconsin, and the St. Peter's or Minne-
sota, are the most important. The literal signification of the name,
which is of Indian origin, is said to be " great river."
rtnnr City, a popular designation of the city of Rochester, N. Y., a place re-
markable for its extensive manufactories of flour.
/'/o'/vr Oily; Springfield, 111., the capital of the State, which is distinguished
for the beauty of its surroundings.
Forest City; Cleveland, 0., so called from the many ornamental trees with
which the streets are bordered. Also, a name given to Portland, Me.,
a city distinguished for its many elms and other beautiful shade trees.
Freestone State, the State of Connecticut, sometimes so called from the
quarries of freestone which it contains.
Garden City, a popular name for Chicago, a city which is remarkable for the
number and beauty of its private gardens.
Garden of the West, a name usually given to Kansas, but sometimes ap-
plied to Illinois and others of the Western States, which are all noted
for their productiveness.
Garden of the World, & name frequently given to the vast country, com-
prising more than 1,200,000 square miles, which is drained by the Mis-
sissippi and its tributaries a region of almost unexampled fertility.
Gate City; Keokuk, la., popularly so called. It is situated at the foot of
the lower rapids of the Mississippi (which extend twelve miles, with a
fall of twenty- tour feet), and is the natural head of navigation. A por-
tion of the city is built on a bluff one hundred and fifty feet high.
Gibraltar of America, a name often given to the city of Quebec, which,
from its position and natural and artificial means of defense, is the most
strongly fortified city in America.
Gotham, go'tham, a popular name for the city of New York, first given to it
in " Salmagundi " (a humorous work by Washington Irving and Wil-
liam Irving and James K. Paulding), because the inhabitants were
such wiseacres.
Granite State, a popular name for the State of New Hampshire, the moun-
tainous portions of which are largely composed of granite.
Green- Mountain State, a popular name of Vermont, the Green Mountains
being the principal mountain range in the State.
Hawkeye State, the State of Iowa, said to be so named after an Indian chief,
who was once a terror to voyageurs to its borders.
Hoosier State, hoo'zhur, the State of Indiana, the inhabitants of which are
often called Hoosiers. This word is a corruption of husher, formerly a
common term for a bully throughout the West.
Hub of the Universe, a burlesque and popular designation of Boston, Mass.,
originating with the American humorist, Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Iron City, a name popularly given to Pittsburgh, Pa., a city distinguished
for its numerous ana immense iron manufactures.
Key of the Gulf, a name often given to the island of Cuba, from its position
at the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico.
Keystone State, the State of Pennsylvania, so called from its having been the
central State of the Union at the time of the formation of the Constitu-
tion. If the names of the thirteen original States are arranged in the
form of an arch, Pennsylvania will occupy the place of the keystone.
490 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
King of Waters, a name given to the River Amazon, in South America.
Lake State, a name popularly given to the State of Michigan, which borders
upon the four lakes, Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie.
Land of Steady Habits, a name by which the State of Connecticut is some-
times designated, in allusion to the moral character of its inhabitants.
Little Rhody, a popular designation of Rhode Island, the smallest of the
United States.
Lone Star State, the State of Texas, so called from the device on its coat of
arms.
Lumber State, a popular designation for the State of Maine, the inhabitants
of which are largely engaged in cutting and rafting lumber, or of con-
verting it into boards, shingles, scantling, and the like.
Mason and Dixon's Line, a name given to the southern boundary line of the
free State of Pennsylvania,, which separated it from the slave States of
Maryland and Virginia. It was run except about twenty-two miles
by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two English mathematicians
and surveyors, between November 15, 1763, and December 26, 1767.
During the excited debate in Congress, in 1820, on the question of ex-
cluding slavery from Missouri, the eccentric John Randolph, of Roanoke,
made great use of this phrase, which was caught up and re-echoed by
every newspaper in the land, and thus gained the celebrity which it
still maintains.
Modern Athens, a name often given to Boston, Mass., a city remarkable for the
high intellectual character of its citizens and for its many excellent
literary, scientific, and educational institutions and publications.
Monumental City, the city of Baltimore, so called from the monuments which
it contains.
Mother of Presidents, a name frequently given to the State of Virginia,
which has furnished six Presidents to the Union.
Mother of States, a name sometimes given to the State of Virginia, the first
settled of the thirteen States which united in the Declaration of Inde-
pendence.
Mound City, a name popularly given to St. Louis on account of the numer-
ous artificial mounds that occupied the site on which the city is built.
Nutmeg State, a popular name for the State of Connecticut, the inhabitants
of which have such a reputation for shrewdness that they have jocosely
been accused of palming off wooden nutmegs on unsuspecting pur-
chasers, instead of the genuine article.
Old Colony, a name popularly given to that portion of Massachusetts in-
cluded within the original limits of the Plymouth colony, which was
formed at an earlier date than the colony of Massachusetts Bay. In
1692, the two colonies were united in one province, bearing the name of
the latter, and, at the formation of the Federal Union, became the
State of Massachusetts.
Old Dominion, a popular name for the State of Virginia, The origin of
this term has been differently accounted for by different writers.
Old North State, a popular designation of the State of North Carolina.
Palmetto State, the State of South Carolina, so called from the arms of the
State, which contain a palmetto.
Panhandle, The, a fanciful and cant name given to the most northerly por-
tion of the State of West Virginia a long, narrow projection betweea
the Ohio River and the western boundary of Pennsylvania.
Peninsula State, the State of Florida, BO called from its shape.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 491
Pine Tree State, a popular name of the State of Maine, the central and
northern portions of which are covered with extensive pine forests.
Prairie State, a name given to Illinois, in allusion to the wide-spread and
beautiful prairies, which form a striking feature of the scenery of the
State.
Puritan CUy, a name sometimes given to the city of Boston, Mass., in allu-
sion to the character of its founders and early inhabitants.
Quaker City, a popular name of Philadelphia, which was planned and set-
tled by William Penn, accompanied by a colony of English Friends.
Queen City, a popular name of Cincinnati, so called when it was the undis-
puted commercial metropolis of the West.
Queen City of the Lakes, a name sometimes given to the city of Buffalo,
N. Y., from its position and importance.
Queen of the Antilles, an appellation sometimes given to Cuba, which, from
its great size, its rich natural productions, its fine harbors, its varied
and beautiful scenery, and its commanding geographical position, ranks
first among all the islands of the West Indian group.
Queen of the West, a name sometimes given to Cincinnati.
Railroad City: Indianapolis, the capital of the State of Indiana, is some-
times called by this name, as being the terminus of various railroads.
Salt River, & cant name for an imaginary river up which defeated political
parties are supposed to be sent to oblivion.
Smoky City, a name sometimes given to Pittsburgh, an important manu-
facturing city of Pennsylvania.
Sucker State, a cant name given to the State of Illinois, the inhabitants of
which are very generally called suckers throughout the West.
Turpentine State, a popular name for the State of North Carolina, which pro-
duces and exports immense quantities of turpentine.
Wolverine State, the State of Michigan, popularly so called from its abound-
ing with wolverines.
Incorrect Language. To expose the mistakes of contented igno-
rance is hopeless. There is no cure for these but a general improvement
in education. There are, however, errors which well-instructed persons
sometimes fall into, from mere habit or thoughtlessness. Such errors, like
the " fears of the brave and the follies'of the wise," have only to be brought
home to the consciousness of those who commit them to be discarded at
once.
A very common mistake, even with good writers and speakers, is the
substitution of had for woulsl, before the adverbs rather, sooner, better, lief,
and some others. "I had rather stay than go," instead of "I would
rather." " I had as lief take one as the other," instead of " I would as
lief." The origin of the error is evident enough. The two words had and
would have the same contracted form when combined with a pronoun. " I'd
rather " may be a contraction of either " I would rather," or " I had rather."
This contracted form is that which we almost always use in common speech.
Even when we are inclined to lengthen it, we rarely give the full pronuncia-
tion. We say " I'ud rather," leaving the verb doubtful to the listener's ear,
and perhaps to ourselves. When driven to write it, we feel naturally in-
clined to take the shortest word, without much regard to the strict gram-
matical meaning of the phrase. That the expressions " I had rather " and
" I had as lief" are incorrect, will be made evident by simply converting
rather into its synonym more willingly, and Zte/into the corresponding gladly.
4t (JYVLOfjtoDlA OJf USEFUL
Yet it must be admitted that these incorrect forma are warranted by such
high authorities, from Shakespeare to some of the best writers of our own
day, that they are entitled to be regarded, if not as established idioms, at
least as tolerated solecisms.
The confusion of lay with lie, and of set with sit, is among the most com-
mon errors of speech, though well-educated persons are usually able to
avoid it in writing. Every one who is familiar with the idiom of our lan-
guage knows, or ought to know, that lay and set are what are called transi-
tive verbs, and that lie and sit are intransitive. In other words, the two
former can take a noun after them in the objective case, and the two latter
cannot. We say, " Lay the book down; " " Set the post up." To say, " Lie
the book," or " Sit the post," would be ridiculous. The error usually com-
mitted is in the opposite direction the transitive verbs being used in an
intransitive sense. Many persons, not deficient in education would say,
" Some of the children are laying on the grass, and the others are setting in
the parlor." That the error prevails in the very highest circles of society
and of scholarship cannot be doubted when we find it allowed to mar the
effect of one of the finest verses in Byron's well-known apostrophe to the
ocean.
" Man's steps are not upon thy paths; thy fields
Are not a spoil for him ; thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashed him again to earth there let him lay."
Next let us note the persistency with which many well-educated, as
well as most uneducated persons, use the objective pronouns me, lier,
him, them, after the various tenses of the substantive verb to be, in spite of
the injunctions of grammarians. The habit of saying, " It is me," " It is
him, " instead of " It is I," " It is he," is so universal and so fixed that
some modern writers on English philology have been disposed to regard it
as allowable.
Possibly to the same cause we may ascribe the general disuse, in ordi-
nary speech, of whom as the objective case of who. Instead of " the man
whom I met," almost every one would say, " the man that I met;" or, more
briefly, "the man I met." Both of these modes of expression are in ac-
cordance with grammatical rules. Not so is the equally common form of
interrogation, " Who did you meet?" " Who were you speaking to?" Here
whom would be correct, and yet would seem so stiff, that many who know
the right would yet pursue the wrong way deliberately. A little alteration
of the phrase, in such a case, will often make it more satisfactory in every
way; as, for example, " Who was the person you were speaking to?"
The word anticipate is frequently misused in the sense of expect. Thus:
" I anticipate seeing her this evening." Now, " anticipate " means, by de-
rivation, to take beforehand, and its proper meaning in English is to take
first possession of, or to take before the proper time. A man may antici-
pate another in doing something which both intend doing; that is, he may
succeed in doing it first. But his looking forward to doing either of these
acts is not anticipation; it is expectation. " Particle " is strangely used to
mean " at all," or " degree," aa we very colloquially use " bit." Thus,
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 493
Did I hurt you?" asks a gentleman who has accidentally stumbled
gainst another. " Not a particle," is the answer. He means not at all.
Particle literally means the smallest possit le division of matter; and it ia
BO material and mechanical in its signification, that the use of it to express
degree, and especially degree of pleasure or pain, is, to say the very least,
in the worst possible taste. Remember and recollect are not synonymous
terms, since we all remember many things which we cannot readily
recollect, or re-collect. Therefore the expression, " I don't remember,
but I will try to recollect," is not only correct, but it sets forth a con-
dition of the mind expressible in no other way, and to speak of which
wo have frequent necessity. The pronoun " their " is commonly misused
with reference t > a singular noun. " If a person is poor, they should make
the best of it," writes a would-be moralist. This is an extreme instance of
the straits to which we are driven by the lack in English of a pronoun oi'
common gender meaning both he and she, his and her. But, admitting this
lack, the fact remains that his is the representative pronoun, as mankind
includes both men and women. To use " his or her " in cases of this kind
is to the last degree pedantic. Many people use the word ascetic as if it
meant elegant, refined. Describing the library of a gentleman of fashion, it
is said that "It was just such a collection of books as a man of his ascetic
tastes would select." Now ascetic really means austere, rigid. A hermit's
habits of life are ascetic. The writer of the sentence just quoted should
have substituted the word luxurious, or cultivated.
Children closely follow the example of their elders, particularly if said
example chances to be a bad one. It would be better for our youth if its
teachers corrected the slang and mistakes of everyday life, and illustrated
the rules they teach; for one child in a class speaking impure language will
certainly infect the rest. The children of some households speak with a
refined method, as if by instinct, but it will generally be traced to parents,
for we are all influenced by our surroundings. A child lately questioned in
Sunday school admitted, " I done it," and a young man immediately after
remarked, " They've went," in&tead of " They have gone." By such teach-
ing children are unconsciously influenced. Well-bred persons usually
speak slowly, with proper emphasis and without abbreviations. Every man
cannot possess a rich, full voice; it is a heritage of some families, and
refreshing to listen to among the shrill, thin voices one meets so often. But
cultivation does a great deal, and nothing is more useful than to think of
each word and speak the simplest language without haste, yet at the same
time without drawl or affectation. The abandonment of superfluous ad-
jectives would greatly improve our language. I was talking of a poem to a
young girl lately, and she said it was " elegant," and when I described a
new kind of taffy she said it was " perfectly lovely." There was neither
sense nor reason in this mixture of terms. Another young girl is very
pretty until she opens her mouth. Then her first words are likely to be,
"Land sakes!" or " Clara an' me are goin'," clipping words and misplac-
ing them till one is reminded of poor Hannah Jane, who spelled kiss with
one s.
The following are examples of exceedingly vulgar yet by no meana
uncommon errors of speech. The italicized words are the incorrect ones:
The dinner was ate in silence. Say eaten.
The doctor has not came yet. Say come.
I see him last week. Say saw.
I Uave rang several times. Say I have rung, or I rang
494 CYCLOPAEDIA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Was you reading when I came in ? Say were.
She can read better than me. Say better than I.
It was given to you and J. Say you and me. You would not say it waa
given to I, neither should you say " you and I."
I have a new pair of gloves. Which is new, the pair or the gloves ? Say
a pair of new gloves.
James lost near about ten dollars. Say nearly ten dollars.
I eat this cake. Say ate.
A summer's morning is beautiful. Say summer morning.
Simple Rules for Spelling Words ending in e drop that letter be-
fore the termination able, as in move, movable; unless ending in ce or ge,
when it is retained, as in change, changeable, etc.
Words of one syllable ending in a consonant, with a single vowel before
it, double that consonant in derivatives; as ship, shipping, etc. But if end-
ing in a consonant with a double vowel before it, they do not double the
consonant in derivatives; as troop, trooper, etc.
Words of more than one syllable, ending in a consonant preceded by a
single vowel, and accented on the last syllable, double that consonant in
derivatives; as commit, committed; but except chagrin, chagrined.
All words of one syllable ending in Z, with a single vowel before it, have
double II at the close; as mill, sell.
All words of one syllable ending in I, with a double vowel before it, have
only one I at the close; as mail, sail.
The words foretell, distill, instill and fulfill, retain the double / of their
primitives. Derivatives of dull, skill, will and full, also retain the tt when
the accent falls on these words; as dullness, skillful, willful, fullness.
Words of more than one syllable ending in I have only one I at the close;
as delightful, faithful; unless the accent falls on the last syllable; as in
befall, etc.
Words ending in Z double that letter in the termination ty.
Participles ending in ing, from verbs ending in e, lose the final e; as have,
having; make, making, etc.; but verbs ending in ee retain both, as see, see-
ing. The word dye, to color, however, must retain the e before ing.
All verbs ending in ly, and nouns ending in ment, retain the e final of the
primitives; as brave, bravely; refine, refinement; except words ending in
dge; as acknowledge, acknowledgment.
Nouns ending in y, preceded by a vowel, form their plural by adding s;
as money, moneys; but if y is preceded by a consonant, it is changed to ies
in the plural; as bounty, bounties.
Compound words whose primitives end in y, change the y into i; as
beauty, beautiful.
The Use of Capitals.--!. Every entire sentence should begin with a
capital.
2. Proper names, and adjectives derived from these, should begin with
a capital.
3. All appellations of the Deity should begin with a capital.
4. Official and Honorary Titles begin with a capital.
5. Every line of poetry should begin with a capital.
6. Titles of books and the beads of their chapters and divisions are
printed in capitals.
7. The pronoun I, and the exclamation O, are always capitals.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 495
8. The days of the week, and the months of the year, begin with capi-
tals.
9. Every quotation should begin with a capital letter.
10. Names of religious denominations begin with capitals.
11. In preparing accounts, each item should begin with a capital.
12. Any word of very special importance may begin with a capital.
An Exercise in Pronunciation. The following rather curious
piece of composition was once placed upon a blackboard at a teachers' in-
stitute, and a prize of a Webster's Dictionary offered to any person who
could read and pronounce every word correctly. The book was not carried
off, however, as twelve was the lowest number of mistakes in the pronunci-
ation made: " A sacrilegious son of Belial, who suffered from bronchitis,
having exhausted his finances, in order to make good the deficit, resolved
to ally himself to a comely, lenient, and docile young lady of the Malay or
Caucasian race. He accordingly purchased a calliope and coral necklace of
a chameleon hue, and securing a suite of rooms at a principal hotel he en-
gaged the head waiter as a coadjutor. He then dispatched a letter of the
most unexceptional caligraphy extant, inviting the young lady to a matinee.
She revolted at the idea, refused to consider herself sacrificable to his de-
sires, and sent a polite note of refusal; on receiving which he procured a
carbine and bowie-knife, said that ho would not now forge letters hymeneal
with the queen, wont to an isolated spot, severed his jugular vein and dis-
charged the contents of the carbine into his abdomen. The debris was re-
moved by the coroner."
A Glossary of Wall Street Phrases. Headers interested in stocK
speculations will find the following vocabulary of terms used in Wall Street
worth remembering:
A Butt is one who operates to depress the value of stocks, that he may
buy for a rise.
A Bear is one who sells stocks for future delivery, which he does not
own at the time of delivery.
Bear Market When the market is heavy ana falling, and lower prices
are expected, in consequence of the efforts of the " bear." A " bull market "
is the reverse.
Bear the market i. e., operate for a decline. A bear is naturally
" short " of stocks, and expecting to profit by a decline. To " bull the mar-
ket " is to operate for a rise in values.
Short is when a person or party sells stocks when they have none, and
expect to buy or borrow in time to deliver.
Long is when a person or party has a plentiful supply of stocks.
Overloaded is when the Bulls cannot take and pay for the stock they
have purchased.
Borrowing and loaning stocks When a party has sold stock short and
has not bought in by the time the delivery must be made, he "borrows "
the stock for the purpose of making the delivery, paying the owner the
market price on demand, or at a fixed time, the lender of the stock paying
the borrower an agreed rate of interest on the money, or the borrower pay-
ing the lender an agreed vremium for the use of the stock, as the case may be.
Cover, to " cover one's shorts " Where stock has been sold short and the
seller buys it in to realize his profit, or to protect himself from loss, or to
make his delivery. This, is " covering short sales,"
496 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
A call The privilege obtained, for a consideration, of calling for a cer-
tain number of shares of stock, at a given price, within a time named.
Carrying slock Holding stock by a broker for his customers on a mar-
gin.
Clique A combination of operators formed for the purpose of artificially
influencing the market by their combined operations.
Corner When the market is oversold, the shorts, if compelled to de-
liver, sometimes find themselves in a " corner."
Curbstone Brokers Men who are not members of any regular organiza-
tion, and do business mainly upon the sidewalk.
Flyers Is a small side operation, not employing one's whole capital, or
not in the line of his ordinary operations.
Lamb A very green " outsider " who essays stock speculation.
Limited order An order to buy and sell within a certain fixed price,
above or below which the party giving the order does not wish to go.
Margins Where one buys or sells for speculation, and deposits with his
broker a percentage of value to enable the latter to " carry " the stock and
protect him against loss from fluctuations in value.
Milking (he streets The act of cliques or great operators who hold cer-
tain stock so well in hand that they cause any fluctuations they please. By
alternately lifting and depressing prices, they "milk" the small operators
and the outside.
Put To buy a " put " is to obtain the right, for a consideration, to de-
liver a stock at a certain agreed price within a given number of days.
Slop order An order to sell out stock in case it should decline to a cer-
tain price or to buy short stock in case it should advance to a certain price.
A means adopted by a party " long " or " short " of a stock to limit his loss
to a certain figure.
Turn slocks Consists in buying for cash or regular way and selling a
like amount of the same sto.sk at the same time, on " option," thereby mak-
ing six per cent, interest and difference that may exist at the time between
the market price of the stock for cash and an option; or selling for cash and
buying on option, when the stock is hard to carry and the holder, hoping
for a rise, does not want to get out of it.
Washing Is where one broker arranges with another to pay a certain
stock when he offers it for sale. The bargain is fictitious, and the effort,
when not detected, is to keep it quoted and afford a basis for bona-fide
sales. It is not countenanced by the rules of exchange, and if discovered
renders members engaged in it liable to the penalty of expulsion.
Commerce of the World. France exports wines, brandies, silks,
fancy articles, furniture, jewelry, clocks, watches, paper, perfumery and
fancy goods generally.
Italy exports corn, oil, flax, flour, wines, essences, dye-stuffs, drugs, fine
marble, noap, paintings, engravings, molasses and salt.
Prussia exports linen, woollens, zinc, articles of copper, iron and brass,
indigo, wax, hams, musical instruments, tobacco, wines and porcelain.
Germany exports wool, woollen goods, linens, rags, corn, timber, iron,
lead, tin, flax, hemp, wines, wax, tallow and cattle.
Austria exports minerals, raw and manufactured silk thread, glass, wax,
tar, nutgall, wine, honey and mathematical instruments.
England exports cottons, woollens, glass, hardware, earthenware, cut-
lery, iron, metallic wares, salt, coal, watches, tin, silk and linens,
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 497
Russia exports tallow, flax, hemp, flour, iron, linseed, lard, hides, wax,
duck, cordage, bristles, fur and potash.
Spain exports wines, brandies, iron, fresh and dried fruits, quicksilver,
sulphur, salt, cork, saffron, anchovies and woollens.
China exports tea, rhubarb, musk, ginger, borax, zinc, Bilks, cassia, fili-
gree work, ivory ware, lacquered ware and porcelain.
Turkey exports opium, silks, drugs, gums, dried fruits, tobacco, wines,
camels' hair, carpets, shawls, camlets and morocco.
Hindostan exports gold and silver, cochineal, indigo, sarsaparilla, va-
nilla, jalap, fustic, Campeachy wood, pimento, drugs and dyestuffs.
Brazil exports coffee, indigo, sugar, rice, hides, dried meats, tallow,
gold, diamonds and other stones, gums, mahogany and India-rubber.
The West Indies export sugar, molasses, rum, tobacco, cigars, mahog-
any, dye-woods, coffee, pimento, fresh fruits and preserves, wax, ginger,
and other spices.
East India exports cloves, nutmegs, mace, pepper, rice, indigo, gold,
dung, camphor, benzine, sulphur, ivory, rattan, oandalwood, zinc and nuts.
The United States export principally agricultural produce, tobacco, cot-
ton, flour, provisions of all kinds, lumber, turpentine, agricultural imple-
ments, sewing machines, cotton goods, cutlery, builders' hardware, furni-
ture, locomotives, munitions of war, gold, silver, quicksilver, and so forth.
Curious Facts in Natural History Man generally flatters him-
self that his anatomy is about the highest effort of Divine skill; yet that
of the insect is far more complicated. No portion of our organism can
compare with the proboscis of the common fly. Man can boast 370 mus-
cles. Lyonet, who spent his whole life in watching a single speciea of cat-
erpillar, discovered in it 4,000. The common fly has 8,000 eyes, and certain
butterflies 25,000. M. Pouchet treats it as an established fact that so fine
are the sensory organs of ants, that they converse by means of their an-
tennae. Consequently the strength and activity of insects far surpasses
ours in proportion. In the whole field of natural science there is nothing
more astounding than the number of times a fly can clap its wings in a
second. As the fly passes through space at the rate of six feet in a second,
it must in that point ot time vibrate its wings five or six hundred times.
But in rapid flight we are required to believe 3,600 is a moderate estimate.
The mind is stupefied if it attempts to realize these results.
Toads are not the only animals which have the power of living for a con-
siderable time without nourishment and communication with the external
air. Two living worms were found in Spain in the middle of a block of
marble which a sculptor was carving into a lion for the royal family. These
worms occupied two small cavities, to which there was no inlet that could
possibly admit the air. They subsisted, probably, on the marble, as they
were of the same color. This fact was verified by Captain Ulloa, a fam-
ous Spaniard, who accompanied the French Academicians in their voyage
to Peru for the purpose of ascertaining the figure of the earth. He asserts
that he saw these two worms. A beetle of the species called capricom was
found in a piece of wood in the hold of a ship at Plymouth. The wood had
no external mark of any aperture. We read in the Affiches de Province,
June, 1772, that an adder was found alive in the center of a block of marble
thirty feet in diameter. It was folded nine times round in a spiral line: it
was incapable of supporting air, and died a few minutes after. Upon ex-
amining the stone, not the smallest trace was to be found by which it could
498 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
have glided in, or received it. Misson, in his travels through Italy, men-
tions a cray-nsh that was found alive in the midst of a mass of marble in
the environs of Tivoli. M. Peyssonel, king's physician at Guadaloupe, hav-
ing ordered a pit to be dug at tne back of his house, was told by the work-
men that live frogs were found by them in beds of petrifaction. M. Peys-
eonel, suspecting some deceit, descended into the pit, dug the bed of rock
and petrifactions, and drew out green frogs, which were alive and exactly
similar to what we see every day.
Serpents are said to obey the voice of their master. The trumpet-bird
of America follows its owner like a spaniel, and the jacana acts as a guard
to poultry, protecting them in the field all day from birds of prey, and es-
corting them home at night. In the Shetland Isles there is a gull which de-
fends the flock from eagles; it is therefore regarded as the privileged bird.
The chamois, bounding over the mountain, are indebted to their safety in
no small degree, to a species of pheasants. The bird acts as the sentinel;
for as soon as it gets sight of a man, it whistles, upon hearing which, the
chamois, knowing the hunters to be near, sets off at full speed. The arti-
fices which partridges and plovers employ to delude their enemies from the
nest of their young, may be referred to as a case in point, as well as the
adroit contrivances of the hind for the preservation of her young; for when
ehe hears the sound of dogs, she puts herself in the way of the hunter, and
starts in a direction to draw them away from her fawns. Instances of the
effect of grief upon animals are no less remarkable. The writer already
cited says: " I knew a dog that died of sorrow at the loss of his master, and
a bullfinch that abstained from singing ten entire months, on account of the
absence of its mistress. On her return it immediately resumed its song."
Lord Kaimes relates an instance of a canary which, while singing to a mate,
hatching her eggs in a cage, fell dead; the female left the nest, and finding
him dead, rejected all food, and died by his side.
Toads become torpid in winter and hide themselves, taking no food for
five or six months.
Serpents of all species shed their skins annually, like sea-crabs and
lobsters.
Turtles and tortoises have their skeletons partly outside hi place of
within then: bodies.
It is believed that crocodiles live to be hundreds of years old. The
Egyptians embalmed them.
In South America there is a prolific honey-bee which has not been fur-
nished with a sting.
In the darkest night, fishes pursue their usual movements the same as
by daylight.
Seals are as intelligent as dogs, and can be trained to perform many
tricks like them.
The head of the rattlesnake has been known to inflict a fatal wound after
being severed from the body.
If the eye of a newt is put out, another perfect one is soon supplied by
rapid growth.
Fishes have no eyelids, and necessarily sleep with their eyes wide
open.
Alligators fall into a lethargic sleep during the winter season, like the
toad.
The power of serpents to charm birds and small quadrupeds is a well
authenticated fact.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 499
Duration of Life of Various Animals. -Elephant, 100 years and
upward; Rhinoceros, 20; Camel, 100; Lion, 25 to 70; Tigers, Leopards,
Jaguars and Hyenas (in confinement), about 25; Beaver, 50; Deer, 20;
Wolf, 20; Fox, 14 to 16; Llamas, 15; Chamois, 25; Monkeys and Baboons,
16 to 18; Hare, 8; Squirrel, 7; Babbit, 7; Swine, 25; Stag, under 50; Horse,
30; Ass, 30; Sheep, under 10; Cow, 20; Ox, 30; Swans, Parrots and Ra-
vens, 200; Eagle, 100; Geese, 80; Hens and Pigeons, 10 to 16; Hawks,
30 to 40; Crane, 24; Blackbird, 10 to 12; Peacock, 20; Pelican, 40 to 50;
Thrush, 8 to 10; Wren, 2 to 3; Nightingale, 15; Blackcap, 15; Linnet, 14 to
23; Goldfinch, 20 to 24; Redbreast, 10 to 12; Skylark, 10 to 30; Titlark, 5 to
6; Chaffinch, 20 to 24; Starling, 10 to 12; Carp, 70 to 150; Pike, 30 to 40; Sal-
mon, 16; Codfish, 14 to 17; Eel, 10; Crocodiles, 100; Tortoise, 100 to 200;
Whale, estimated, 1,000; Queen Bees live 4 years; Drones, 4 months; Worker
Bees, 6 months.
Origin of the Names of States. Maine takes its name from the
province of Main in France, and was so called in compliment to the queen
of Charles I, Henrietta, its owner.
New Hampshire, first called Laconia, from Hampshire, England.
Vermont, from the Green Mountains. (French: vert mont.)
Massachusetts, from the Indian language, signifying the country about
the great hills.
Rhode Island gets its name from the fancied resemblance of the island
to that of Rhodes in the ancient Levant.
Connecticut's was Monegan, spelled originally Quon-eh-ta-cut, signifying
"a long river."
New York was so named as a compliment to the Duke of York, \hose
brother, Charles II, granted him that territory.
New Jersey was named by one of its original proprietors, Sir George
Carter, after the Island of Jersey in the British Channel, of which he was
governor.
Pennsylvania, as is generally known, takes its name from William Penn,
and the words "Bylvania," meaning woods.
Delaware derives its name from Thomas West, Lord De la Ware, gov-
ernor of Virginia.
Maryland receives its name from the queen of Charles I, Henrietta Maria.
Virginia got its name from Queen Elizabeth, unmarried, or virgin queen.
The Carolinas were named in honor of Charles I, and Georgia in honor
of Charles II.
Flonda gets its name from Kasquas de Flores, or " Feast of the Flowers."
Alabama comes from a Greek word, signifying " the land of the rest."
Louisiana was so named in honor of Louis XIV.
Mississippi derived its name from that of the great river, which is, in the
Natchez tongue, " the father of waters."
Arkansas is derived from the Indian word Kansas, " smoky waters," with
the French prefix of " ark " a bow.
Tennessee is an Indian name, meaning " the river with the big bend."
Kentucky also is an Indian name" Kain-tuk-se," signifying " at the head
of the river."
Ohio is the Shawnee name for " the beautiful river."
Michigan's name was derived from the lake, the Indian name for fish-
weir, or trap, which the shape of the lake suggested.
Indiana's name came from that of the Indians.
600 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Illinois' name is derived from the Indian word " Illini " men, and the
French affix, " ois," making " tribe of men."
Wisconsin's name is said to be the Indian name for a wild, rushing
channel.
Missouri is also an Indian name for muddy, having reference to the
muddiness of the Missouri Eiver.
Kansas is an Indian word for smoky water.
Iowa signifies in the Indian language " the drowsy ones," and Minnesota
" a cloudy water."
Origin of the Names of Countries The following countries, it
is said, were originally named by the Phoenicians, the greatest commer-
cial people in the world. The names, in the Phoenician language, signified
something characteristic of the places which they designate.
Europe signifies a country of" white complexion, so named because the
inhabitants were of a lighter complexion than those of Asia and Africa.
Asia signifies between or in the middle, from the fact that the geogra-
phers placed it between Europe and Africa.
Africa signifies the land of corn or ears. It was celebrated for its abund-
ance of corn, and all sorts of grain.
Siberia signifies thirsty or dry very characteristic.
Spain, a country of rabbits or conies. It was once so infested with these
animals that it sued Augusta for an army to destroy them.
Italy, a country of pitch, from its yielding great quantities of black pitch.
Calabria, also, for the same reason.
Gaul, modern France, signifies yellow-haired, as yellow hair character-
izes its inhabitants.
The English of Caledonia is a high hill. This was a rugged mountainous
province in Scotland.
Hibernia is utmost, or last habitation; for beyond this westward the
Phoenicians never extended their voyages.
Britain, the country of tin, great quantities being found on it and adja-
cent islands. The Greeks called it Albion, which signifies in the Phoenician
tongue either white or high mountains, from the whiteness of its shores, or
the high rocks on the western coast.
Corsica signifies a woody place.
Sardinia signifies the footsteps of men, which it resembles.
Syracuse, bad savor, so-called from the unwholesome marsh on which it
stood.
Rhodes, serpents or dragons, which it produced in abundance.
Sicily, the country of grapes.
Scylla, the whirlpool of destruction.
.aStua signifies a furnace, or dark or smoky.
Origin of Popular Fables Few persons are aware that many of
the most popular nursery rhymes and stories have an origin quite different
from what is usually supposed. Thus, it is generally thought that the
story of Cinderella was invented by some one in a happy fit of imagination;
but it is said to be founded on facts. The Greek historian and geographer
Strabo says that one day as a lady, named Rhodopsis, was bathing in the
Nile, the wind carried away one of her sandals and laid it at the feet of the
king of Egypt, who was then holding a court of justice in the open air, not
far off. His curiosity was excited by the singularity of the event, and by
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 501
the elegance of the sandal, and he offered a reward for the discovery of the
owner of it. The lady claimed it, and it was found to fit her exactly. She
was very beautiful, and the king married her. She is remembered in
history as the " rosy-cheeked queen " of Egypt, and she lived 2,000 years
before the Christian era.
The story of Blue Beard has also been traced to a historical basis. Giles
de Laval, Marshal of France, in 1428, was distinguished for his military
abilities, but he rendered himself infamous by his extraordinary impiety
and debaucheries, and by murdering his wives. He had a long beard of a
blue-black color, whence he was called Blue Beard. He employed those
who pretended to be sorcerers to discover hidden treasures, and he cor-
rupted young persons of both sexes to attach them to him, after which he
killed them for the sake of their blood, which he used for his incantations.
By order of the Duke of Brittany he was burned alive in a field near
Nantes, in the year 1440.
Jack the Giant Killer has been supposed to be derived from the wars of
King Arthur with his rebellious Cornish vassals, who figure as ogies and
giants, while the king appears as Jack. Many more cases may be cited.
" The House that Jack Built " had interesting antecedents. This famous
jingling legend, believed to be an imitation of a medieval Hebrew parable
in the form of a hymn, was commemorative of the principal events in the
history of the Jewish people. The original is to be found in the Jewish col-
lection called the Sepher Aaggahah, volume 23, and an interpretation of it
was given to the world so far back as 1731. by P. N. Lebrecht, of Leipsic.
There are ten verses. The first consists of two lines and a short refrain,
thus: " A kid, a kid my father bought for two pieces of money." (Refrain),
" A kid, a kid." This refrain is repeated at the end of each verse. The
second verse commences with the words: " Then came the cat and ate the
kid that my father bought for two pieces of money." The third verse runs:
" Then came the dog, and bit the cat that ate the kid," etc. The fourth is:
" Then came the staff, and beat the dog, that bit the cat," etc. The fifth is:
" Then came the fire and burned the stick, that beat the dog," etc. The
sixth is: "Then came the water, and quenched the fire that burned the
staff," etc. The seventh is: " Then came the ox, and drank the water, that
quenched the fire," etc. The eighth is: "Then came the butcher, and
slew the ox, that drank the water," etc. The ninth is: " Then came the
angel of death, and killed the butcher, that slew the ox," etc. The tenth
and last runs: " Then came the Holy One, blessed be He, and killed the
angel of death, that killed the butcher, that slew the ox, that drank the
waler, that quenched the fire, that burned the staff, that beat the dog, that
bit the cat, that ate the kid, that my father bought for two pieces of money;
a kid, a kid." It is evident that this is the model of " The House that Jack
Built."
Origin of Familiar Quotations. Thomas Norton is the author of
that " cute " saying, " What will Mrs. Grundy say ? " while Washington
Irving gives us " The Mighty Dollar." " God tempers the wind to the
shorn lamb," not infrequently attributed to Scripture writer, is from Law-
rence Sterne. Dean Swift says that " Bread is the staff of life," and "A little
learning is a dangerous thing." The same sentiment is expressed in Pope's
well-known line, " Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring." It is not at
all unlikely that he derived it from Lord Bacon, who in bis " Essay on
Atheism," saya:
502 C YCL P jEV I A OF USEF UL KNO WL El) ffK
" A little philosophy inclineth man's '.aind to Atheism, but depth in
philosophy bringeth man's mind about to religion." Pope tells us to
" shoot folly as it flies; " was it suggested by Dryden's " and shoots thc.r
treasons as they fly?" found in his Absolom. Lady Wortley Montague
eays: " I admired Mr Pope's 'Essay on Criticism ' at first very much, be-
cause I had not then ruad any ot the ancient critics and did not know that
it was c.U s'.olen." This is, of course, not to be taken literally, but it is a
well-known, indisputable fact that poets and not they only are imitators
and borrowers, and to put it mildly, unconscious plagiarists. Of course,
Byron was but jesting when he said to Moore, who, observing a book beside
him full of paper marks, asked him what it was, replied: "Only a book
from which I am trying to crib, as I do whenever I can, and that's the way
I got the character of an original poet." He wrote, however, in his journal,
"As for originality, all pretentious to it are ridiculous; there is nothing new
under the sun."
" Like angels' visits, few and far between," found in Campbell's Pleas-
ures of Hope, seems to bo an echo of this from Blair's Grave: "Its visits,
like those of angels, short and far between."
Cowper's oft-quoted line,
" England, with all thy faults I love thee still,"
is almost verbatim this found in Churchill's Farewell,
" Be England what she will
With all her faults she is my country still.''
"Variety is the spice of life," and "Not much the worse for wear,"
Cowper. " Man proposes but God disposes," Thomas a Kempis. " Of
two evils choose the least," and " The end must justify the means," are
from Matthew Prior.
Origin of Genius. Columbus was the eon of a weaver and a weaver
himself.
Rabelais, son of an apothecary.
Claude Lorraine was bred a pastry cook.
Moliere, son of a tapestry maker.
Cervantes served as a common soldier.
Homer was a beggar.
Hesiod was the son of a small farmer.
Demosthenes of a cutler.
Terence was a slave.
Bichardson was a printer.
Oliver Cromwell, the son of a brewer.
Howard, an apprentice to a grocer.
Benjamin Franklin, a journeyman printer.
Doctor Thomas, Bishop of Worcester, son of a linen draper.
Whitfield, son of an inn-keeper at Gloucester.
Sir Cloudosley Shovel, Bear- Admiral of England, was an apprentice to a
shoemaker, and afterward a cabin boy.
Bishop Prideaux worked in the kitchen at Exeter College, Oxford.
Cardinal Wolsey, son of a butcher.
Ferguson was a shepherd.
Neibuhr was a peasant.
Thomas Paine, son of a staymaker at Thetfbrd.
Dean Tucker was the son of a small fanner in Cardignehire, and per-
formed journeys to Oxlord on foot.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 503
Edmund Halley was the son of a soap boiler at Shoreditch.
Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, son of a farmer at Ashby do la Zouch.
William Hogarth was put apprentice to an engraver of pewter pots.
Dr. Mountain, Bishop of Durham, waa the Bon of a beggar.
Lucian was the son of a statuary.
Virgil of a potter.
Horace of a shopkeeper.
Plautus, .TI baker.
Gay was apprenticed to a silk mercer.
Dr. Samuel Johnson was the son of a bookseller at Litchfield.
Akenside, son of a butcher at Newcastle.
Collins, son of a hatter.
Samuel Butler, son of a farmer.
Ben Jonson worked for some time as a bricklayer.
Eobert Burns was a plowman in Ayrshire.
Thomas Chatterton, son of the sexton of Redcliffe Church, Bristol.
Thomas Gray was the son of a money scrivener.
Matthew Prior, son of a joiner in London.
Origin of Plants. The potato is a native of South America, and is
still found wild in Peru, Chili, and Montevideo. The first notice of it by
Europeans was in 1588. It is now spread over a great part of the world.
Wheat and rye originated in Siberia and Tartary, where they are now in-
digenous. Oats are found wild in Abyssinia, and may be justly considered
natural to the country. Maize, or Indian corn, is a native of Mexico and
other parts of North America. It was not known in Europe till after the
discovery and possession of Mexico by the Spaniards. The bread-fruit tree
was first found in Otaheite and other South-sea islands. Near the close of
the last century, it was transplanted in the West Indies. Tea is found only
in China and Japan. The cocoa-nut is found indigenous in the equatorial
regions. Coffee is a native of Arabia, and of that part called Arabia Felix,
but is now grown in the East and West Indies. The apple is found on most
parts of the globe. But in its wild or natural state, it is merely the crab
apple, and has been varied and improved by cultivation. The peach is a
native of Persia, but in its natural state is small and bitter, or acid, and
considered unwholesome. Tobacco is a native of South America and c?
Mexico. A species of this plant has been lately found in New Holland.
Asparagus was brought from Asia; cabbage and lettuce from Holland; rice
from Ethiopia and from the East Indies, and onions from Africa and some
parts of Asia. The sugar cane is a native of China, and the manufacture of
sugar was known there from the remotest antiquity. It was thence car-
ried to Arabia, thence to Egypt, and thence by the Moors into Spain, and
thence to the West Indies and Brazil. Many flowers are from Java and
Ceylon, from Cappadocia, from Syria and Italy.
Dying Words of Famous Persons " It is well." Washington.
" I must sleep now." Byron.
"Head of the army." Napoleon.
" Don't give up the ship." Lawrence.
" Let the light enter." Goethe.
" Independence forever." Adams.
" Is this your fidelity?" Nero.
" Give Dayroles a chair." Lord Chesterfield.
504 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
"It is the last of earth." J. Q. Adaras.
" God preserve the emperor." Haydn.
"A dying man does nothing well." Franklin.
" Let not poor Nelly starve." Charles II.
" What, is there no bribing death?" Cardinal Beaufort.
" All my possessions for a moment of time." Queen Elizabeth.
" It matters little how the head lieth." Sir Walter Raleigh.
" Clasp my hand, my dear friend, I die." Alfleri.
" I feel as if I were to be myself again." Sir Walter Scott.
" Let me die to the sound oi delicious music." Mirabeau.
"I have loved God, my father and liberty." Mme. de Stael,
" It is small, very small indeed " (clasping her neck). Anne Boleyn.
" I pray you see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for
myself" (ascending the scaffold). Sir Thomas More.
" Don't let that awkward squad fire over my grave." Burns.
"I resign my soul to God and my daughter to my country." Thomas
Jefferson.
" I wish you to understand the true principles of the Government. I
wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." Harrison.
" I have endeavored to do my duty." Taylor.
"You spoke of refreshment, my Emilie; take my last notes, sit down to
my piano here, sing them with the hymn of your sainted mother; let me
hear once more those notes which have so long been my solacement and
delight." Mozart.
" God bless you, my dear." Dr. Johnson.
" God bless you I IB that you, Dora?" Wordsworth.
" Now it is come." John Knox.
" Dying, dying." Hood.
" How grand these rays; they seem to beckon earth to heaven " (the sun
was shining brilliantly into the room in which he was lying.) Humboldt.
Idiosyncrasies of Men of Genius. Most geniuses and men of
great talent have been known for some peculiar habit or striking idiosyn-
crasy. Napoleon would tremble with fear at sight of a cat. General El-
liott, of Gibraltar fame, was always accompanied by a number of them.
Johnson liked to imbibe floods of tea or wine, and yet be none the worse lor
it. Porson drank everything that came in his way. Visiting once a friend's
house, when evening came they desired to feed the lamp, but the bottle was
empty. Porson had drank the spirits on the sly, not knowing it was intended
for the lamp. Douglas Jerrold could not bear the smell of apples. Caven-
dish hated women. If he met one of his own female servants by accident
in any part of the house, she was instantly dismissed. Garrick was vain
almost to the degree of insanity. Rousseau was vain and could not write
except when dressed as a fop. Bulwer Lytton, it is said, could write best
when dressed in a court suit. Marlborough was a miser, mended his own
stockings to save paying for it, and would walk home ever so late at night
rather than pay for a "chair." Napoleon did his "thinking" and
formed hia plans for conquest while pacing in a garden, shrugging his
shoulders now and then as if to help and " coir press " thought. When
Thiers was engaged in his long and oratorical displays he always had be-
aide him a supply of rum and coffee. The coffee he got direct from Mecca.
Gibson dictated while walking in his room, like Scott and many others.
Moliere wrote with his knees near the fire, and Bacon liked to study in a
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLA NEOtfS. 505
small room, which, ho said, helped him to condense his thoughts. George
Stephenson used to lie in bed for two or three days, the better to " think
out " his plan. It would be better if people do this who have much thinking
to do, as rest favors thought, and those who have not a vigorous circulation
find the supply of blood to the brain assisted by a recumbent position.
Pate of the Apostles. Matthew is supposed to have suffered mar-
tyrdom, or was put to death by the sword at the city of Ethiopia.
Mark was dragged through the streets of Alexandria, in Egypt, until he
expired.
Luke was hanged upon an olive tree in Greece.
John was put in a cauldron of boiling oil at Rome and escaped death.
He afterward died a natural death at Ephesus, in Asia.
James the Great was beheaded at Jerusalem.
James the Less was thrown from a pinnacle or wing of the temple and
then beaten to death with a fuller's club.
Philip was hanged up against a pillar at Hierapolis, a city of Phrygia.
Bartholomew was flayed ah' ve by the command of a barbarous king.
Andrew was bound to a cross, whence he preached to the people till he
expired.
Thomas was run through the body by a lance near Malipar, in the East
Indies.
Jude was shot to death with arrows.
Simeon Zelotes was crucified in Persia.
Matthias was first stoned and then beheaded.
Peter was crucified with his head downwards.
Paul, the last and chief of the apostles, also died by violence.
Statistics of the Globe. The earth is inhabited by about 1,300 mil-
lions of inhabitants, viz:
Of the Caucasian race 360,000,000
Of the Mongolian 550,000,000
Of the Ethiopian 190,000,000
Of the Malay 200,000,000
Of the American Indian 1,000,000
There are about 3,064 languages spoken in the world, and its inhabi-
tants profess more than 1,000 different religions. The number of men is
about equal to the number of women. The average of human life is about
33 years. One-quarter die previous to the age of 7 years, one-half before
reaching 17, and those who pass this age enjoy a felicity refused one half of
the human species. To every 1,000 persons, only 1 reaches 100 years of
life; to every 100, only 6 reach the age of 65; and not more than 1 in 500
lives to 80 years of age. There are on the earth 1,000,000, 000 inhabitants; of
these 33,333,333 die every year, 91,824 every day, 3,730 every hour, and 60
every minute, or 1 every second. The married are longer lived than the
single, and above all, those who observe a sober and industrious conduct.
Tall men live longer than short ones. Women have more chances of life
in their favor previous to their being 50 years of age than men have, but
fewer afterward. The number of marriages is in the proportion of 75 to
every 1,000 individuals. Marriages are more frequent after the equinoxes,
that is, during the months of June and December. Those born in the spring
are more robust than others. Births and deaths are more frequent by night
than by day. The number of men capable of bearing arms is calculated at
one-fourth of the population.
506 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Leading Governments of the World. - Of the leading govern-
ments of the world fourteen are constitutional monarchies and thirteen are
republics, while nine are despotisms. They may be enumerated as follows:
1. British Empire, constitutional.
2. Denmark, constitutional.
3. Norway and Sweden, constitutional.
4. Russia, despotic.
5. Holland and Belgium, constitutional.
6. Hanover, constitutional.
7. German Empire, constitutional.
8. Switzerland, republic.
9. Austrian Empire, constitutional.
10. France, republic.
11. Spain, constitutional.
12. Portugal, constitutional.
13. Italy, constitutional.
14. Greece, constitutional.
15. Turkish Empire, despotic.
16. Persia, despotic.
17. Afghanistan and Beloochistan, constitutional.
18. Tartary, despotic.
19. Hindostan, constitutional.
20. Indo-China, despotic.
21. Chinese Empire, despotic.
22. Egypt, despotic.
23. Abyssinia, despotic.
24. United States, republic.
25. Mexico, republic.
26. Central America, republia.
27. Granada, republic.
28. Brazil, constitutional.
29. Peru, republic.
30. Bolivia, republic.
31. Chili, republic.
32. Aracania, despotic.
33. La Plata, republic.
34. Paraguay, republic.
85. Uruguay, republic.
36. Hayti, republic.
The Sovereigns of Christendom. There are at the present me-
ment thirty-six reigning sovereigns in Christendom, from the Queen of Eng-
land, to whom 237,000,000 of human beings own their allegiance, to the
Prince of Monaco, whom 5,742 subjects acknowledge as their leige lord. Of
these princes, ten are nominally Roman Catholic, namely, the Emperors of
Austria and Brazil, the Kings of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Bavaria,
Saxony, the Princes of Lichtenstein and Monaco. Of the remaining twenty-
six, two belong the Greek Church, though the Czar and the King of the Hel-
lenes belong to different branches of it. The other twenty-four are Protes-
tants, sixteen being called Lutherans, four (including the German Emperor)
belonging to the "Evangelical" confession, three to the "reformed"
Church, and one being the " supreme head on the earth " of the Church of
England, but the vast majority ef Queen Victoria's subjects (130^000.00?)
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 507
are neither Protestant nor Catholics, but Hindoos, while the Mahommedans,
40,000,000 in number, are themselves more numerous than the Protestants
of all denominations in the empire.
Wealth, of the Presidents General Grant, previous to his recent
losses, was estimated to be worth $200,000. Hayes is not rich, though in a
well-to-do condition. Andrew Johnson and Abraham Lincoln each left
$50,000. James Buchanan died worth $200,000. Franklin Pierce entered the
White House poor, but went back to Concord worth $60,000. Millard Fill-
more made a snug fortune out of the law, and was comparatively rich when
he became President. General Taylor saved his army salary, and was in
independent circumstances when elected to the presidency. He held the
office hardly a year and a half, and left a property worth $50,000. Tyler
was a bankrupt when the death of Harrison made him President, and he
married a fortune in Miss Gardiner. He went out of office a rich man, but
he became a leader in the Confederacy and his property was sunk in the
general ruin occasioned by the war. James K. Polk had good opportunity
to make money befor. '". election, and he was an economist by nature.
He left $150,000. Martin Van Buren was the richest of all our Presidents,
his estate being estimated at $800,000. He made money as a lawyer and
also as a politician, and his real estate purchases became immensely profita-
ble, but his money has been almost entirely wasted by his heirs. Andrew
Jackson was not a money-making man. He lived nine years after the ex-
piration of his term of office, and left only a large landed estate commonly
known as the Hermitage. John Quincy Adams was a methodical business
man and an economist. He left about $60,000, which at that time was a
large sum. James Monroe was so poor in his old age that he became the
guest of his son-in-law, Samuel L. Gouverneur, of New York, where he
died. Madison was more successful in taking care of his money, and left
his widow a nroperty which enabled her to live handsomely in Washington
till the end of her days. Jefferson passed his last days in much distress, and
was really afraid that his place would be sold by the sheriff. He was
an object of public charity, and subscription was opened in his behalf in
New York, but his death occurred so soon that the benevolent effort was
not required. Old John Adams left an estate worth $30,000. Washington
was a rich man for his day, his wealth being solely due to marriage.
Mount Vernon was not a productive property, but Mrs. Custis brought him
a large fortune which she inherited from her first husband. Viewing our
Presidents in a mere pecuniary estimate, there are a hundred men in New
York each of whom could buy out the whole of them. When one contem-
plates their true worth, however, one sees how utterly poor mere wealth
becomes in comparison.
American Wonders. The greatest wonder in the world is the Falls
of Niagara, where the water from the great upper lakes forms a river of
three-quarters of a mile in width, and then, being suddenly contracted,
plunges over the rocks, in two columns, to the depth of one hundred and
seventy feet each.
The greatest cave in the world is the Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky,
where any one can make a voyage on the waters of a subterranean river,
and catch fish without eye.
The largest lake in the world is Lake Superior, which is truly an inland
eea, being four hundred and thirty miles long, and one thousand feet deep.
508 CfCtOP^DiA Of USEFUL
The greatest natural bridge in the world is the Natural Bridge over
Cedar Creek, in Virginia. It extends across a chasm eighty feet in width
and two hundred and fifty feet in depth, at the bottom of which the creek
flows.
The greatest mass of solid iron in the world is the Iron Mountain of
Missouri. It is three hundred and fifty feet high, and two miles in circuit.
The greatest suspension bridge in the world is the East River Bridge,
connecting the cities of New York and Brooklyn. Its length is more than
one mile.
The greatest monument in the world is the Washington Monument, at
Washington, D. C. Its height is 555 feet.
The greatest statue in the world is the Bartholdi Statue, on Bedloe's Is-
land, New York Bay, presented to America by the people of France. Its
height is 305 feet.
The largest number of whale ships in the world is sent out by Nantucket
and New Bedford, Mass.
The greatest grain port in the world is Chicago.
The largest aqueduct in the world is the Cro f ,. Aqueduct, in New York.
Its length is forty and a half miles, and it cost twelve and a half millions of
dollars.
The largest deposits of anthracite coal in the world are in Pennsylvania,
the mines of which siipply the market with millions of tons annually, and
appear to be inexhaustible.
Insignificant Origin of Great Works. It is not the tools that
make the workman, but the trained skill and perseverance of the man him-
self. Some one asked Opic by what wonderful process he mixed his colors.
" I mix them with my brains, sir," was the reply. It is the same with every
workman who could excel.
Ferguson made marvelous things such as his wooden clock, that actu-
ally measured the hours, by means of a common penknife, a tool in every-
body's hand, but then everybody is not a Ferguson.
A pan of water and two thermometers were the tools by which Dr. Black
discovered latent heat; and a prism, a lens, and a sheet of pasteboard en-
abled Newton to unfold the composition of light and the origin of color.
An eminent foreign savant once called upon Dr. Wollaston, and requested
to be shown over his laboratory, in which science had been enriched with
so many important discoveries, when the doctor took him into a little study,
and pointed to an old tea tray on the table, containing a few watch glasses,
test papers, a small balance, and a blow pipe, and said: " There is all th
laboratory I have."
Stockhardt learned the art of combining colors by closely studying butter-
flies' wings; he would often say no one knew how much he owed to thes
tiny insects.
A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas.
Bewick first practiced drawing on the cottage walls of his native village,
which he covered with his sketches in chalk; and Benjamin West made his
first brushes out of the cat's tail.
Ferguson laid himself down in the fields at night in a blanket, and made
a map of the heavenly bodies, by means of a thread with small beads on it,
stretched between his eyes and the stars.
Franklin first robbed the thunder cloud of its lightning by means of a
kite with two cross sticks and a silk handkerchief.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 509
Watt made his first model of the condensing steain engine out of an old
anatomist's syringe, used to inject the arteries previoua to dissection.
Gifford worked his first problem in mathematics, when a cobbler's
apprentice, upon small scraps of leather which ho beat smooth for
the purpose, while liittenhouse, the astronomer, first calculated eclipses
on his plow handle.
How Money Accumulates. The following shows how easy it is to
accumulate a fortune, provided proper steps are taken. The table shows
what would be the result at the end of fifty years by saving a certain amount
each day and putting it at interest at the rate of six per cent:
Daily Savings. The Result. \ Daily Savings. The Result.
One cent $ 950 | Sixty cents $ 57,024
Seventy cents 66,528
Ten cents 9,504
Twenty cents 19,006
Thirty cents 28,512
Forty cents 38,015
Fifty cents. 47,520
Eighty cents 76,032
Ninety cents 85,537
One dollar 95,041
Five dollars 475,208
Nearly every person wastes enough in twenty or thirty years, which, if
saved and carefully invested, would make a family quite independent; but
the principle of email savings has been lost sight of in the general desire to
become wealthy.
How to Calculate Interest. The following rules are so simple and
true that every boy and girl deep in the mysteries of arithmetic should put
them by for reference. There being no such thing as a fraction in them,
there is scarcely liability to error or mistake:
Six per cent, Multiply any given number of days of interest desired by the
principal; separate the right-hand figure and divide by six; the result is the
true interest, in cents, on such sum for such number of days at six per cent.
Eight per cent. - -Multiply any given amount for the number of days upon
which it is desired to ascertain the interest, and divide by forty-five, and
the result will be the interest on such sum for the time required at eight
per cent.
Ten per cent. Multiply the same as above and divide by thirty-six, and
the result will be the amount of interest on such sum for the time required
at ten per cent.
How Man is Constructed. The average weight of an adult man is
140 pounds 6 ounces.
The average weight of a skeleton is about fourteen pounds.
Number ol bones, 240.
The skeleton measures one inch less than the living man.
The average weight of the brain of a man is three and a half pounds; of
& woman, two pounds eleven ounces.
The brain of man exceeds twice that of any other animal.
The average height of an Englishman is five feet nine inches; and of a
Belgian, five feet six and three-quarter inches.
The average weight of an Englishman is 150 pounds; of a Frenchman,
136 pounds; a Belgian, 140 pounds.
The average number of teeth is thirty-two.
A man breathes about twenty times a minute, or 1,200 times an hour.
A man breathes about eighteen pints of air in a minute, or upwards of
seven hogsheads in a day.
610 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
A man gives off 4-08 per cent, carbonic gas of the air he respires; re-
spires 10,666 cubic feet of carbonic acid gas in twenty-four hours, equal to
125 cubic inches common air.
A man annually contributes to vegetation 124 pounds of carbon.
The average of the pulse in infancy is 120 per minute; in manhood, 80;
at 60 years, 60. The pulse of females is more frequent than that of males.
Remarkable Works of Human Labor. Nineveh was fourteen
miles long, eight miles wide, and forty-six miles round, with a wall one
hundred feet high and thick enough for three chariots abreast. Babylon
was fifty miles within the walls, which were seventy-five feet thick and one
hundred feet hjgh, with one hundred brazen gates. The temple of Diana,
at Ephesus, was four hundred and twenty feet to the support of the roof. It
was one hundred years in building. The largest of the pyramids was four
hundred and eighty-one feet in height, and eight hundred and fifty-three
feet on the sides. The base covers eleven acres. The stones are about
sixty feet in length and the layers are two hundred and eight. It employed
320,000 men in building the labyrinth in Egypt, and it contains three hun-
dred chambers and twelve halls. Thebes, in Egypt, presents ruins twenty-
seven miles round, and contained 350,000 citizens and 400,000 slaves. The
Temple of Delphos was so rich in donation that it was plundred of $50,000,-
000, and the Emperor Nero carried away from it two hundred statues. The
walls of Home were thirteen miles around.
Atlantic Cables. Eleven Atlantic cables in all have been successfully
laid, and the first two are dead or lost. Of the nine cables, only four are in
really good order, the other five being old and having little chance of con-
tinued life. The average life of a cable is only ten years. One of the nine
was laid in 1869, another in 1873, a third in 1874, a fourth is the cable of
1866, repaired in 1880, while a fifth was laid in 1875. The more recent are
the French (Pouyer Quertier) cable of 1879, the two new Gould and the
Bennett and Mackey cables.
The oldest company, the Anglo-American, is the owner of the four oldest
cables, including the patched one of 1880. Three of these it laid, while the
cable of 1869 was laid by the French company, and came to the Anglo-
American when it absorbed that company. These four old cables are rep-
resented by a capital of $12,582,550, preferred 6 per cent, shares, a like
amount of deferred shares, and $9,834,900 of ordinary shares in all, $35,-
000,000. Their total length is 12,319 milea, and the capital is, therefore,
$2,765 per mile.
Largest of Their Kind. I. The largest ocean in the world is the
Pacific. 2- The largest sea is the Mediterranean. 3. Eiver, the Amazon.
4. Gulf, Mexico. 5. Cape, Horn. 6. Lake, Superior. 7. Bay, Bengal. 8.
Island, Australia. 9. City, London. 10. Public building, St. Peter's, Rome.
11. Hotel, Palace, San Francisco. 15. Steamer, Great Eastern. 13. Desert,
Sahara. 14. Theatre, Grand Opera House, Paris. 15. State, Texas. 16.
Territory, Dakota. 17. Park, the Phoenix Park, Dublin. 18. Highest
mountain, Kunchaiuyunga, Himalayas. 19. Sound, Long Island. 20.
Largest Railroad, Union Pacific and Central Pacific. 21. Canal, Grand
Canal, China. 22. Suspension Bridge, Brooklyn. 23. Largest railroad de-
pot, St. Pancras, London. 24. Largest room in the world under single
roof, military one, St. Petersburg. 15. Strongest fort, Gibraltar. 26. Long-
est ship, the Romsdal. 27. Sailing ship of greatest tonnage, the Three
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 611
Brothers. 28. Largest Monument, Washington. 29. Largest statue, Bar-
tholdi.
Marvels of the Microscope. Leuwenhoeck tells us of animated
insects Been with the microscope, of which twenty-seven millions would
only bo equal to a mite. Insects of various kinds are observable in the
cavities of a common grain of sand. Mould is a forest of beautiful trees,
with the branches, leaves, flowers and fruit fully discernible. Butterflies
are fully feathered. Hairs are hollow tubes. The surface of our bodies ia
covered with scales like a fish; a single grain of sand would cover 150 of
these scales; and a single scale covers 500 pores; yet through these narrow
openings the sweat exudes like water through a sieve; how minute, then,
must be its particles! The mite makes five hundred steps in a second. Each
drop of stagnant water contains a world of animated beings, swimming with
as much liberty as whales in the sea. Each leaf has a colony of insects
grazing on it like oxen in a meadow.
Measurements of the Great Lakes. The following measure-
ments of the great lakes have been taken by Government surveyors: The
greatest length of Lake Superior is 335 miles; its greatest breadth is 160
miles; mean depth, 688 feet; elevation, 827 feet; area, 82,000 square miles.
The greatest length of Lake Michigan is 300 miles; its greatest breadth,
108; mean depth, 690 feet; elevation, 506 feet; area, 23,000 miles. The
greatest length of Lake Huron is 300 miles; its greatest breadth is 60 miles;
mean depth, 600 feet; elevation, 274 feet, area, 20,000 square miles. The
greatest length of Lake Erie is 250 miles; its greatest breadth is 80 miles; its
mean depth is 84 feet; elevation, 261 feet; area, 6,000 square miles. The
greatest length of Lake Ontario is 180 miles; its greatest breadth is 65
miles; its mean depth is 500 feet; elevation, 261 feet; area, 6,000 square
miles. The total of all five is 1,265 miles, covering an area of upward of
135,000 square miles.
Wedding Anniversaries. Many are interested in marriage anni-
versaries, and so we give their definitions: First anniversary, iron; fifth
anniversary, wooden; tenth anniversary, tin; fifteenth anniversary, crystal;
twentieth anniversary, china; twenty-fifth anniversary, silver; thirtieth an-
niversary, cotton; thirty-fifth anniversary, linen; fortieth anniversary,
woolen; forty-fifth anniversary, silk; fiftieth anniversary, golden; seventy-
fifth anniversary, diamond.
Nature's Barometers. Certain movements on the part of the ani-
mal creation, before a change ol weather, appear to indicate a reasoning
faculty. Sueh seems to be the case with the common garden spider, which,
on the approach of rainy or windy weather, will be found to shorten and
strengthen the guys of his web, lengthening the same when the storm is
over. There is a popular superstition that it is unlucky for an angler to
meet a single magpie; but two of the birds together are a good omen. The
reason ia that the birds foretell the coming of cold or stormy weather; and
then, instead of their Beaching for food for their young in pairs, one always
remains on the nest. Sea gulls predict storms by assembling on the land,
as they know that the rain will bring earthworms and larvae to the surface.
This, however, is merely a search for food, and is due to the same instinct
which teaches the swallow to fly high in fine weather, and skim along the
ground when foul is coming. They simply follow the flies and gnats which
512 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
remain in the warm strata of the air. The different tribes of wading bird*
always migrate before rain, likewiue to hunt for food. Many birds foretell
rain by warning cries and uneasy actions, and swine will carry hay and
straw to hiding places, oxen will lick themselves the wrong way of the hair,
sheep will bleat and skip about, hogs turned out in the woods will come
grunting and squealing, colts will rub their backs against the ground,
crows will gather in crowds, crickets will sing more loudly, flies come into
the house, frogs croak and change color to a dingier hue, dogs eat grass,
and rooks soar like hawks. It is probable that many of these actions are
due to actual uneasiness, similar to that which all who are troubled with
corns or rheumatism experience before a storm, and are caused both by the
variation in barometic pressure and the changes in the electrical condition
of the atmosphere.
Facts Regarding 1 the City of London.. London (with all its
suburbs) covers within the fifteen miles radius of Charing Cross nearly 700
square miles. It numbers within these boundaries over 4,000,000 inhabi-
tants. It contains more country-born inhabitants than the counties of
Devon and Gloucester combined, or thirty-seven per cent, of its entire
population. Every four minutes a birth takes place in the metropolis, and
every six minutes a death. Within the circle named there are added to the
population 205 persons every day, and 75,000 annually. London has 7,000
miles of streets, and on an average twenty-eight miles of new streets are
opened and 9,000 new houses built every year; 1,000 vessels and 9,000
sailors are in port every day. Its crime is also in proportion to its extent.
Seventy-three thousand persons are annually taken into custody by the po-
lice, and more than one-third of all the crime in the country is committed
within its borders. Thirty-eight thousand persons are annually committed
for drunkenness by its magistrates. The metropolis comprises consider-
ably upward of 100,000 foreigners from every quarter of the globe. It con-
tains more Koman Catholics than Home itself, more Jews than the whole of
Palestine, more Irish than Belfast, more Scotchmen than Aberdeen, and
more Welshmen than Cardiff. Its beershops and gin-palaces are so num-
erous that their frontages, if placed side by side, would stretch a distance
of sixty-two miles. If all the dwellings in London could thus have their
frontages placed side by side they would extend beyond the city of York, a
distance of 172 miles. London has sufficient paupers to occupy every house
in Brighton. The society which advocates the cessation of Sunday labor
will be astonished to learn that sixty miles of shops are open every Sunday.
With regard to churches and chapels, the Bishop of London, examined be-
fore a committee of the House of Lords in the year 1840, said: " If you pro-
ceed a mile or two eastwards of St. Paul's, you will find yourself in the
midst of a population the most wretched and destitute of mankind, consist-
ing of artificers, laborers, beggars, and thieves, to the amount of 300,000 or
400,000 souls. Throughout this entire quarter there is not more than one
church for every 10,000 inhabitants, and in two districts, there is but one
church for 45,000 souls."
About (reins. The finest emeralds come from Peru, and other parts
of South America, though they are sometimes brought from the East. They
are of a beautiful clear green color, some very dark, others paler, and are
much valued and used for ornamental jewelry. The Queen of Spain's
meralds were among the most beautiful jewels shown at the Great Lou-
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 513
don Exhibition. Kubies are very striking gems, being, when of the finest
sort, of a beautiful dark-red color, and very clear; they are not, however,
often of largo size, and are not so hard as many other gems the emerald
for instance. There is an inferior kind, of a pale-rose color, which are
brought from Balachan, in Turkey.
The sapphire is generally called a blue gem, and that is the color in-
tended when people talk of a " sapphire hue," but it varies so much in
color that there are sapphires which resemble, and as it were, counterfeit
other gems; these are called oriental emeralds, topazes, or whatever other
Btoue they resemble. The red sapphire, or oriental ruby, is one of the
most valuable gems, coming next after the diamond. Some sapphires pre-
sent when polished a beautiful effect, from a six-rayed star of light gleam-
ing in their center. This is the effect of the six-sided form of the crystal.
A carbuncle is a gem of a beautiful deep-red color, with a mixture of
scarlet, found in the East Indies. It is usually found pure, of an angular
figure; its usual size is nearly a quarter ol an inch in length, ano two-thirda
of that in diameter. When held up to the sun it loses its deep tinge, and
becomes exactly of the color of a burning coal.
The opal is only partially clear, and its great beauty consists in the play
of colors from its interior; yellow, red, and green, the most exquisite tints,
flash and gleam from it as it is moved about. The finest opals are as valuable
as diamonds; they are brought from Turkey, and sometimes from Hungary,
but it is seldom that any are found of large size.
The amethyst is a clear, hard stone of a beautiful violet color by day-
light, but looking brown by candlelight; it is nearly related to the quartz
rock-crystal, which is used for making spectacle glasses, and sometimes for
false diamonds. "We get the finest amethysts from Ceylon, the Brazils, and
the southern part of Spain. The turquoise is an opaque stone of a blue
color; it is very soft in comparison with most gems, and is therefore often
used for engraving upon; it is very easily imitated, and, consequently, a
large proportion of cheap jewelry pretends to be adorned with turquoises.
The topaz is of a bright golden yellow; the garnet, of a good deep red;
the latter is not very valuable, though very pretty. In some places small
garnets are crushed to use instead of emery; and in Germany, where gar-
nets are very abundant, they are sometimes used as a flux for iron ore.
The topaz is found in several parts of the East Indies, in Ethopia, Arabia,
Peru, and Bohemia; the oriental are the most esteemed. They can easily
be imitated.
The Jewels in European Crowns. The crown of England is be-
lieved to be the finest piece ot regalia in the world. The lower part of the
baud is a row of 129 pearls, the upper part of 112; between them, in front,
is a large sapphire; behind is a smaller sapphire, with six others and eight
emeralds. Between the two great sapphires are ornaments containing 286
diamonds. About tke band are eight sapphires, surmounted by eight dia-
monds and eight festoons, containing 160 diamonds. In the front of the
crown is the ruby given to the Black Prince by Pedro, King of Castile. This
is set in a Maltese cross, and forming the cross are seventy-five large dia-
monds. Three other crosses are round the upper part of the crown, con-
taining altogether 386 diamonds. Between the four crosses are four orna-
ments with four rubies in their centers, and containing respectively eighty-
four, eighty-six, eighty-five and eighty-seven diamonds. From the Maltese
crosses rise four arches composed of oak leaves an<J acorns, the leaves coo-
514 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
taining 728 diamonds. The thirty-two acorns are each of a single pearl, and
r set in cups made of fifty-four diamonds. Above the arches stands the
Mound, containing 548 diamonds, and above the mound is the cross, con-
taining a very large sappnire, four very large and 108 smaller diamonds.
The value of the whole is variously estimated, but is commonly believed to
be about $1,500,000.
The jewels of the crown of the King of Portugal are valued at 35,000,000
francs, and his diamonds weigh over 5,000 carats, their value being esti-
mated at more than 2,000,000. Among them is a diamond reported to
weigh 1.680 carats, which, if genuine, is the largest stone of the kind in the
world. It is, however, suspected be a white topaz, and the King will not
allow a critical examination to be made of it.
At the coronation of the present Czar and Czarina, two crowns were
made for the occasion, together with a necklace, and the Empress's crown
is thought to present to view the most beautiful collection of diamonds ever
gathered in a single ornament. It is uncertain whether Russia or Persia
possesses the finest collection of crown diamonds in the world, but the
honor belongs to one of the two.
One of the finest collections of crown jewels in the world ia possessed by
the most hopelessly broken down potentate, the Sultan of Turkey. Every
Sultan from the earliest times has made a point of collecting jewels and
selling none, and thus, through the course of ages, the collection has be-
come enormous. The jewel-rooms of the Turkish Sultan resemble nothing
so much as the descriptions in the " Arabian Nights."
Depth, of the Atlantic Ocean. The main theatre of sounding opera-
tions has been the Atlantic Ocean, which from its relation to the leading
commercial nations, and for intercontinental telegraph purposes, has been
more carefully surveyed than any other great body of water. Open from
pole to pole, participating in all conditions of climate, communicating freely
with other seas, and covering 30,000,000 square miles, it is believed to re-
present general oceanic conditions, and to contain depths nearly, if not
quite, as great as the other ocean basins of the world, although but little is
known, it is true, in this respect of the Indian, Antarctic, and Pacific seas.
The general result of its soundings would indicate that the average depth
of the Atlantic bed is not much more than 12,000 feet, and that there seem
to be few depressions deeper than 15,000 or 20,000 feet, a little more than
the height of Mont Blanc. Doctor Thompson sums up the general results
of the Atlantic soundings as follows: "In the Arctic sea there is deep water
reaching to 9,000 feet to the west and southwest of Spitzbergen. Extending
from the coast of Norway, and including Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Shet-
land and Orkney, Great Britain and Ireland, and the bed of the North sea
to the coast of France, there is a wide plateau, on which the depth rarely
reaches 3,000 feet; but to the west of Iceland, and communicating, doubt-
less, with the deep water in Spitzbergen sea, a trough 500 miles wide, and
in some places, nearly 12,000 feet deep, curves along the coast of Green-
land. This is the path of one of the great Arctic currents. After sloping
gradually to a depth of 3,000 leet to the westward of the coast of Ireland, in
latitude 50 degrees, the bottom suddenly dips to 10,000 feet at the rate oi
about fifteen to nineteen feet in 100; and from this point to within about 200
miles of the coast of Newfoundland, when it begins to shoal again, there is
a vast undulating submarine plain, averaging 12,000 feet in depth below tha
nrface the ' telegraph plateau.' A valley about 500 miles, and with a
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 515
mean depth of 15,000 feet, stretches from off the southwest coast of Ireland,
along the coast of Europe, dipping into the Bay of Biscay, past the Strait of
Gibraltar, and along the west coast of Africa. Opposite the Cape de Verde
Islands it seems to merge into a slightly deeper trough, which occupies the
axis of tho South Atlantic, and passes into the Antarctic sea. A nearly
similar valley curves around the coast of North America, about 12,000 feet
in depth, off Newfoundland and Labrador, and becoming considerably
deeper to the southward, where it follows the outline of the coast of the
States and the Bahamas and Windward Islands, and finally joins the cen-
tral trough of the South Atlantic off the coast of Brazil, with a depth of
15,000 feet.
Consumption of Timber. To make shoe pegs enough for American
use consumes annually 100,000 cords of timber, and to make lucifer matches,
300,000 cubic feet of the best pine are required every year. Lasts and boot-
trees take 500,000 cords of birch, beech, and maple, and the handles of tools
500,000 more. The baking of bricks consumes 2,000,000 cords of wood, or
what would cover with forest about 50,000 acres of land. Telegraph poles
already up represent 800,000 trees, and their annual repairs consume 300,-
000 more. The ties of railroads consume annually thirty years' growth of
75,000 acres, and to fence all the railroads in the United States would cosfc
$45,000,000 with a yearly expenditure of $15,000,000 for repairs. These aro
some of the ways which American forests are going. There are others;
packing-boxes, for instance, cost in 1874 $12,000,000, while the timber used
each year in making wagons and agricultural implements is valued at more
than $100,000,000.
Interesting Pacts. The Atlantic Ocean includes an area of 30,000,-
000 square miles, Suppose an inch of rain to fall upon only one-fifth of
this vast expanse, it would weigh 360,000,000 tons, and the salt which, aa
water, is held in solution in the sea, and which, when the water was taken
up as a vapor, was left behind to disturb the equilibrium, weighed 16,000,-
000 more tons, or nearly twice as much as all the ships in the world could
carry at a cargo each. It mighff fall in a day; but occupy what time it
might in falling, this rain is calculated to exert so much force which is in-
conceivably great in disturbing the equilibrium of the ocean. If all the
water discharged by the Mississippi River during the year were taken up
in mighty measure, and cast into the ocean at an effort, it would not make
a greater disturbance in the equilibrium of the sea than the fall of rain
supposed. And yet so gentle are the operations of nature that movements
so vast are unperceived.
How Caves Are Formed. It becomes an interesting question to
find out how this subterranean system was made; for in so many cases
valley passes into ravine, and that into a cave, that the cause which has
formed one must have formed all. It requires but a cursory glance to see
at once that running water was the main agent. The limestone is so trav-
ersed by joints and lines of shrinkage, that the water sinks rapidly down
into its mass, and collects in small streams, which owe their direction to
the dip of the water and the position of the fissures. These channels are
being continually deepened and widened by the mere mechanical action of
the passage of stones and silt. But this is not the only way in which the
rock is gradually eroded. The limestone is composed in great part of pure
carbonate of lime, which is insoluble in water. It is. bowevei\ readily dk-
516 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
olved in any liquid containing carbonic acid, which is an essential part of
our atmosphere, and is invariably present in the rain-water, and is given
off by organic bodies.. By this invisible agent, the hard crystalline rock is
always being attacked in some form or other. The very snails that take
refuge in its crannies leave an enduring mark of their presence in a surface
fretted with their acid exhalations, which very often pass current among
geologists for the borings of pholades, and are the innocent cause of
much speculation as to the depression of the mountain-tops beneath the
sea in comparatively modern times. The carbonic acid taken up by the
rain is derived in the main from the decomposing vegetable matter which
generally forms the surface soil on limestone. Its effects are to be seen in
a most marked degree in the bare, gray masses of rock termed " pave-
ments," that stand out like rocJies moutonnees from the purple heather, and
are worn and fissured into the strangest possible shapes. Sometimes the
surface is made up of a number of sharp points that look like a sheaf of
sword-blades; at others, there are ravines and caves in miniature; and very
generally the strata are divided into a series of large angular blocks, which
work with the greatest freedom. The minute fossil shells and fragments of
crinoids standing out in bold relief testify that the agent which removed so
much rock is chemical, not mechanical. The invisible agent is equally at
work in the caves as well as above ground, everywhere attacking the sur-
face, even out of the reach of the streams. The endless varieties of stalac-
tite and stalagmite are merely so much solid matter taken by it out of the
rock, and re-deposited where the excess of carbonic acid in the water hap-
pens to be taken up by a free current of air. To it, then, as well as to the
mechanical power of the stream, the formation and enlargement of caves
must be assigned.
Floating Islands. Gippsland is a province of Victoria. It is bounded
by the Australian Alps on all sides, except on the south, which the sea
washes for over one hundred miles. It may be called the Piedmont of
Australia; rich, fertile plains, intersected by rivers flowing into a lake sys-
tem, extending all along the coasts, and separated from the sea by a narrow,
sandy ridge, with one navigable opening. A local paper, the Gippsland
Times, gives the following description of " floating islands " on the lakes:
" As one of the Gippsland Steam Navigation Company's steamers was
recently crossing Lake Wellington, the man at the wheel suddenly observed
land right in the track of the steamer, apparently only a short distance from
the straits separating Lakes Wellington and Victoria. He called the cap-
tain's attention to the strange sight, and, on coming close, the land was dis-
covered to be a small island, about thirty yards in length by twenty broad.
It was covered by a rich coating of luxuriant grass; and small trees, tea-
trees, and bush-shrubs, appeared to be growing in profusion. The only
occupants of this remarkable apparition were a few pigs, feeding away con-
tentedly, and apparently enjoying their novel journey by water. A second
island of the same description, but much smaller, was noticed a little
farther on, but this had evidently detached itself from the larger piece of
land, or, most probably, had been separated by the rooting depredations
of the porkers.
" From what portion of the mainland this floating island came is, of
course, a matter of conjecture, but it is known that a portion of the soil at
Marley Point, on the southern shore of Lake Wellington, became detached
I recently, and floated miles across the lake, with some twenty or thirty head
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 817
of pigs aboard. As long as the wind drove in that direction, the island
drifted toward M'Lennard's Straits, but a change of wind brought it back
again, after a three days' trip, within a mile of the spot from which it had
broken away. We believe it is the opinion of the district surveyor that the
area of the Eoseneath run, West of Lake Wellington, has been increased
some twenty or thirty acres by the addition of drift islands."
Business Vocabulary. Acceptance. A draft drawn on a party and
by him indorsed on the face with hib agreement to pay it when due.
Account. A statement of indebtedness, etc.
Acquittance. A discharge in full.
Ad valorem. In proportion to value.
Annul. To cancel.
Assets. Funds or effects.
Assignment. A transfer of property on certain conditions for stated
purposes.
Assignee. A person to whom anything is assigned.
Assignor. The person who assigns.
Balance. Difference between two statements or accounts.
Bankrupt. A person unable to pay his debts.
Bill of Exchange. An order for money to be paid.
Bill of Sale. A contract signed and sealed for the sale of personal property.
Bills Payable. Name given to notes made and to be paid by a party.
Bills Receivable. Notes made and to be paid to a party.
Bond. An instrument or deed providing a money security.
Capital. The amount of assets on which a business is carried on.
Check. An order on a bank for the payment of money.
Capitation. A tax on every male who is of age.
Commission. The amount or proportion charged by an agent in a business
transaction.
Company. An association for transacting business.
Consideration. The sum of money or thing for which a transaction is made.
Consign. To send goods, etc., to a party.
Consignee, One to whom goods are consigned.
Consignor. One who consigns goods.
Contract. A bargain or agreement.
Conveyance. A document transferring property.
Days of Grace. Three days legally allowed beyond the date for payment.
Debit. To make debtor in an account or books.
Default. Failure to pay.
Discount. A sum taken from a bill or note.
Dividend. Interest on stock investments, etc.
Draft. An order for the payment of a certain sum.
Drawer. One who draws a draft, etc.
Drawee. The person on whom the draft is drawn.
Effects. Property of every description.
Entry. A record made in books of account.
EsiMcutor. One appointed to carry out the provisions of a will.
Exhibit. A writing or official statement.
Face. The sum named in a note, etc.
JaUure. A bankruptcy.
Firm. The style or name of a company under which it transacts busi-
ness.
S18 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE,
Foreclose. To deprive a mortgagor by legal process of hia right of
redemption.
Goods. A term applied generally to merchandise, etc.
Gross. Entire, as gross receipts. Twelve dozen.
Guarantee. A security.
Honor. To accept and pay a note, draft, etc.
Hypothecate. To make a security of.
Indorsement. A signature on the back of a bill, note, etc.
Insolvent. Unable to pay all debts.
Interest. A certain proportion of a sum as profit; a share.
Inventory. A catalogue, or list.
Joint Slock. Stock held by more than one person, or in company.
Judgment. Decree of court to pay in a suit.
Lease. A usually written contract for hiring of land or buildings.
Legal Tender. Money decreed by the Government to be legal and a proper
means of payment.
Letter of Credit. A letter giving a certain credit to a person named therein.
Letters Patent. A written instrument granting certain rights and powers.
Letters of Administration. The instrument granting authority to adminis-
trators.
Lien. A valid claim by reason of some debt.
Liquidation. The settling and adjustment of accounts.
Maturity. The time when a payment is due.
Mortgage. A conditional conveyance of property giving a right of
redemption.
Mortgagor. One giving such a conveyance.
Mortgagee. One to whom such a conveyance is given.
Net. The amount remaining after making all deductions.
Partnership. An association of two or more persons for the transaction ol
business.
Par Value The face value.
Payee. The person to whom a payment is due.
Protest. A notary's official notice of non-payment of a note, draft or check.
Rebate. A reduction in consideration of prompt payment.
Receipt. A written acknowledgment ol payment.
Salvage. Compensation for assistance in saving a vessel.
Schedule. A.n inventory.
Set-off. A claim off-setting a debt.
Sight. The time when a draft is presented.
Suspend. To stop payment.
Silent Partner. One who furnishes capital but whose name does not appear
in a firm.
Sterling. the British standard of coinage.
Scrip. A certificate of joint stock.
Staple. A standard commodity or production.
TeUer. A bank official who pays out and receives money.
Transfer. A conveyance of right, property or title.
Voucher. A document proving a receipt or other iact.
Nautical Vocabulary Abaft. Toward the stern.
About. To take the opposite tack.
Anchoi: The heavy piece of iron which holds the ship at rwt.
Alee. On the aide away from the wind.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 519
Astern. In the direction of the stern.
Athwart. In a line across the ship.
Beating. Sailing against the wind by tacking.
Bow. The front of a vessel.
Bend. To fasten; as, to bend on a rope.
Berth. A ship's anchorage, or a narrow shelf for sleeping on.
Block. A pulley.
Bolt Rope. The rope surrounding the sail to which it is sewed.
Brace. A rope attached to a boom or yard by which they are moved.
Boom. The spar at the bottom of a sail by which it is extended.
Bulkhead. A partition within the hull.
Bulwarks. The sides of a vessel surrounding and extending above the
deck.
Cable. A strong rope or chain.
Caboose. A kitchen on deck.
Camel. An arrangement for assisting a ship over shoals.
Carry Away. To break or lose a rope or spar.
Cat Block. The tackle block for hoisting the anchor.
Cat's Paw. A light puff of wind.
Caulk. To make tight the seams of a vessel.
Clew. To bind up.
dew Lines. Ropes for clewing.
Combings. The raised edges around the hatches.
Cock Pit. A room for wounded men in a war vessel.
Companionway. The cabin stairway.
Compass. An instrument showing the vessel's course.
Coxswain. The steerer of a small boat.
DeadligM. An iron shutter covering a port hole.
Dead Reckoning. The keeping the course of a vessel with the use of log
line and compass.
Deck. The covering or floor to a ship.
Draught. The depth of water required to float a vessel.
Fathom. Six feet.
Fender. A piece of wood or other material to prevent the contact of two
vessels.
Footrope. A rope extending along and under a yard on which the seaman
stand.
Fore and Aft. From bow to stern.
Forecastle. That part forward of the foremast.
Foremast. The mast nearest the bow.
Forge. To move slowly ahead.
Founder. To sink.
Furl. To roll up.
O-aff. The upper spar holding up a fore and aft sail.
GaUey. The kitchen.
Gangway. An entrance to a ship.
Grapnel. A small anchor.
Halyards. Ropes for hoisting sails.
Hatch, or Hatchway. An opening in the deck.
Heave to. To stop by bringing a ship's bow to the wind.
Hold. The ulterior of a vessel.
I full. The body only of a vessel.
. The inaet end of a boom or gaff.
RJO CYCLOPEDIA OX USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Jib. A triangular sail at a ship's bow.
Jibe. To shift a sail from one aide to the other.
Jurymast. A temporary mast.
Keel The lowest timber in a ship.
Knot. A nautical mile.
Launch. To let a ship slide into the water.
Lead. A mass of lead used in sounding.
Lee. Away from the wind.
Leeway. The lee motion or space of water.
Locker. A chest or box.
Log or Logline. A rope used for measuring the speed of a vessel.
Log or Logbook. The ship's record or diary.
Luff. To bring a ship nearer to the wind.
Manrope. A rope used in going up or down the ship's side.
Mast. An upright piece of timber set in a ship for supporting sails, rig-
ging, etc.
Masthead. The head or top of a mast.
Mess. A number of men eating together.
Midships. The middle, or widest part of a ship.
Mizzenmast; Mizzensatt. The hindmost when there are three.
Moor. To secure a ship in any position.
Nip. A short turn, as in a rope.
Painter. A rope used to secure a boat to anything.
Pay Out. To slacken or give out, as to pay out a rope.
Peak. The upper and outer corner of a boom sail.
Pintle. The bolt on which a rudder is hung.
Port. The left hand of a ship looking towards the bow; same as larboard.
Port or Port Hole. An opening in a ship's side to admit light and air.
Quarter. The stern portion of a ship's side.
Make. The inclination of a mast.
Reef. A portion of the sail which is clewed up when the wind is too high to
expose the whole.
Beef. To take up such a portion.
Reeve. To pass the end of a rope through a pulley, etc.
Rigging. A term applied generally to a vessel's ropes, etc.
Road. An open space of water where ships may anchor.
Rowlock. Arrangement for giving purchase to an oar in rowing.
Rudder. The contrivance which steers a vessel.
Scud. To sail before a heavy wind or gale.
Sad. The sheet of canvas which is exposed to the wind and gives motion to
the vessel.
Seams. Where the ship's planks join.
Sheet. A rope for controlling and moving a sail.
Shore. A prop under a beam.
Skipper. The name given generally to the master of a small vessel.
Sloop. A vessel with but one mast.
Sound. To ascertain the depth of the water.
Spar. A name applied to a mast, boom, gaff, yard, etc.
Stern. The rear portion of a vessel.
/Starboard. The right hand of a ship looking toward the bow.
Stay. A rope supporting or keeping in place a mast.
Tack. T f* against the wind in a zig-zag course, and to change a ship's
course by (shifting her rudder and saiie.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 521
Taut. Tight.
Thwarts. A boat's seats.
Tiller. A bar for moving a rudder.
Trick. A sailor's duration of time in steering.
Warp. To move a vessel by a line fastened at the end to an anchor.
Watch. A certain portion of time for duty.
Wake. The track left in the water by a moving vessel.
Weather. Toward the wind.
Weigh Anchor.- -To raise the anchor.
Waist. That portion of the deck between the quarter-deck and forecastle.
Windlass. A machine for raising the anchor or cargo.
Windward. The point from whence the wind blows.
Yachi. A sailing vessel used for pleasure.
Yard. A spar supporting and extending a sail.
Yardarm. Either half of a yard.
Yaw. A movement causing a temporary change of course.
Dictionary of Musical Terms. Accompaniment. A secondary part
added to the principal for the improvement of the general effect.
Adagio. A slow movement.
Ad libitum. Implies that the time of the movement is left to the discretion
of the performer.
AUegretto. With cheerful quickness.
Andante. Somewhat sedate; slowly.
Animato, Animaso, or Con Anima. Animated: with spirit.
Assai. Very; used as an adverb with another word.
A temp. In regular time.
Seat. An indication of a certain duration of time.
Ben. Implying well, as Ben marcato.
Calando. A gradual diminution in speed and tone.
Chromatic. Proceeding or formed by semi-tones.
Con. With; as Con expressione.
Crescendo. A gradual increase in tone.
Da. By. Delicato. With delicacy.
Dales or Dal. In a soft, quiet manner.
Doloroso. In a melancholy, sad style.
Espressico or Con esepressione. With expression.
Fine. the end. Fork, or For. Strong, loud.
Furioso. With great animation. Giusto. In perfect time.
Grave. The slowest time or movement.
Gusto, Con gusto. With style; taste. II. The.
Impetuoso. Impetuously. In. In; as In tempo.
Intrado, or Introduzione. An introduction to a piece of musi*.
Largo. A slow and solemn degree of time.
Legato. In a smooth, even manner. Leggiando. Lightly.
Marcato. In a marked manner. Meme. The same.
Mezzo. In a medium degree; as Mezzo forte.
Moderato. Moderately. Malto. Very; as Malto forte.
Movimento. Movement; time. No-bile. Grandly; impressively.
Obligate. An essential portion of a, composition.
Ottava or 8oa. An octave.
Peddle, or Fed. Signifies that performer must press down pedal.
Pen. A. little. Piano, or P. Soft
522 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Pianissimo, or PP. Very soft. Plus. More.
Poco a poco. Gradually; by a regular gradation.
Pomposo. Pompously. Precipttato.Very quickly; hurriedly.
Premiere. First; as Premiere fois; first time.
Presto. Very quick. Primo. As Yiolino primo, first violin.
Quasi. In the manner of; like. Quieto. With repose, quietly.
ftapido. Kapidly. Rinforzando. Einf. or Bf. with increase.
Rtienenie, Riienato. Decreasing in speed.
Begno. Sign, as al segno, go back to sign.
Sempre. Always, as Sempre piane. Serioso. Seriously.
jS'oZo, Kola Alone. A composition rendered by one person.
Sosttnvlo or Sost. Prolonged, sustained.
Spirito With spirit.
Staccato. Each note to be distinctly marked.
Stesso. The same.
Syncopation. Connecting the last note of a bar with the rirst note of the
following, thus forming one prolonged note with & duration equal to
the two.
Syncopate. In a syncopated style. TarUo or Ton. Not so much.
Tardo. Slowly. Tempo Comodo. Conveniently.
Iheme. A subject. Tranquitto. Tranquilly.
Tremendi. With terrific expression.
Tremando, Tremolo. The rapid striking of a note so as to produce a
tremulous effect.
2HBe or TriRo.h. trill or shake.
Trio. A composition for three performers.
Triplet. A group of three notes equal in duration of time to two notes of
the same value.
Un A. As un poco, a little.
Veloce. Rapidly.
Velocissimo. With great rapidity.
Vigoroso. With vigor.
Vivace. Vivamented; briskly.
Volti Subtto. Turn over quickly.
Dreams. Macknish describes dreams to be " the resuscitation or re-
embodiment of thoughts which have formerly, in some shape or other,
occupied the mind. They are old ideas revived, either in an entire state,
or heterogeneously mingled together. I doubt if it be possible," he
continues, " for a person to have in a dream any idea whose elements did
not, in some form, strike him at a previous period. If these break loose
from their connecting chains, and become jumbled together incoherently,
as is often the case, they give rise to absurd combinations; but the elements
still subsist, and only manifest themselves in a new and connected shape."
Tertullian describes dreaming as the refreshment of the soul. He re-
jects the doctrine of Epicurus in which dreams are disparaged as idle and
fortuitous, maintaining that they are agreeable to the course and order of
nature. Vain, frivolous, impure and turbulent dreams he attributes to
demons, while those that are pure and pleasant proceed from God or his
angels. Lactantius expresses his conviction of divine agency of dreams.
St. Cyprian states that he was divinely instructed in a dream to mix a littl*
water with the wine for the Holy Eucharist. St. Bernard was a firm bellevar
in dreams, which he treats of at great length in his remarkable ermon " On
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 518
Sleep." St. Thomas Aquinas affirms faith in dreams, but maintained that
only those which are suggested by angels may be investigated and inter-
preted, those inspired by demons and evil spirits being left alone.
A recent author expresses a strong and fixed faith in the divine inspira-
tion of dreams, and adduces many powerful instances from sacred and pro-
fane history to prove that the will of Omnipotence is often executed through
the medium of visions. The wonderful examples related by Scriptural
writers are liberally drawn upon. The case of King Abimelech, warned
against taking Abraham's wife (whom he had xmtruly called his sister), is
cited as an early instance, as are the warnings and directions given by God
to Jacob and Laban; also, the dreams and visions of Daniel, and of Joseph,
both with regard to the Blessed Virgin and the malice of Herod; the warn-
ing dreams of the three Eastern Kings, and that of Pilate's wife, all of which
are familiar to Bible readers.
Legal Holidays Throughout the United States. January 1st,
or New Tear's Day, is a legal holiday in all the States except Arkansas,
Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Bhode Island and North and South Carolina.
February 22d, or Washington's Birthday, is a legal holiday in all the
States but Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas,
Maine, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas.
May 3Qth, or Decoration Day, is a legal holiday only in Colorado, Con-
necticut, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Penn-
sylvania, Khode Island and Vermont.
January 8th, the Anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans; February
12th, the anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln; and March 4th, the
Firemen's Anniversary, are legal holidays in Louisiana.
July 4ih, or Independence Day, is a legal holiday in all the States and
Territories.
December 25th, Christmas Day, is a legal holiday in all the States and
Territories.
Thanksgiving Day and Public Fast Days, appointed by the President of
the United States, are legal holidays. Such days are legal holidays in such
States as may set them apart for religious observance by proclamation of
the Governor.
Days appointed for general elections, State or National, are legal holi-
days in California, Maine, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South
Carolina and Wisconsin.
Good Friday is a legal holiday in Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota and
Pennsylvania.
Shrove Tuesday is a legal holiday in Louisiana and in the cities of Mobile,
Montgomery and Selma, Alabama.
Memorial Day (April 26th,) is a legal holiday in Georgia.
March 2d, the anniversary of the independence of Texas, and Apr U 21st,
ihe anniversary of the battle of San Jacinto, are legal holidays in Texas.
Freezing 1 Points, Etc., of Various Substances Mercury
freezes at 40 below zero, and melts at 39. Ether freezes at 47 below
zero; wine freezes at 20; sea water freezes at 28.3. Alcohol has been
exposed to 110 and 120 below zero without freezing. Granite decompose*
at a red heat. The second's pendulum, of 39.139 ins., is lengthened by 30 ef
temperature 128th of an inch, or 8 vibrations in 24 hours.
62* CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
The heat conducting powers of metals, etc., are as follows: Goll, 1,000";
platinum, 981; silver, 973; copper, 898.2; iron, 374.3'; zinc, 363; tin,
303.9; lead, 179.6; marble, 23.6; porcelain, 12.2; fine clay, 11.4.
1 Ib. of coke melts 94 Ibs. of ice; 1 Ib. of coal, 90 Ibs.; 1 ib. of wood, 52
Ibs.; 1 Ib. of charcoal, 95 Ibs.; 1 Ib. of peat. 19 Ibs. The capacity of the
solar heat all over the globe is the ability to melt an icy covering 46 feet in
thickness.
Animal Wonders. In each grain of sand there are marvels; in every
drop of water a world. In that great spectacle called Nature, every being
has its marked place and distinct role; and in that great drama called life,
there presides a law as harmonious as that which rules the movement of
the stars. Each hour removes by death myriads of existences, and each
hour produces legions of new lives. The highest as well as the lowest or-
ganism consumes carbon and water to support life and its duties, and it is
not uninteresting to glance at the food, the habits, and the ways and means,
peculiar to some of the inferior animals. From the petrified ejections
we know what such fossilized reptiles as the plesiosaurus, etc., are, and
may some day be able to discover the fish and Crustacea they hunted
down.
Animals, when not living by their own respectable efforts, are either para-
sites or dependents; many would seem to have positive trades, or are con-
nected with branches of industry. There are miners, masons, carpenters,
paper manufacturers, and weavers, lace-makers even, all working first for
themselves, and next to propagate their kind. The miners dig into the
earth, form natural arches and supports, remove the useless soil; such as
the mole, the chinchilla of Peru, the badger, the lion ant, as well as certain
worms and mollusks. The masons build huts and places according to all
the rules of architecture, as the bees and tropical ants; there are fish that
construct boats that the waves never can upset, and Agassiz has drawn at-
tention to a fish which builds its nest on the floating sea-weed in the middle
of the ocean, and deposits therein its eggs. The wasps of South America
fabricate a sort of paper or pasteboard. Spiders are weavers as well as lace-
makers; one species constructs a diving-bell, a palace of lace. When the
astronomer has need of the most delicate thread for his telescope, he ap-
plies to a tiny spider. When the naturalist desires to test his micro-
scope, he selects a certain shell of a sea insect, so small that several mil-
lions of them in water could not be visible to the naked eye, and yet no mi-
croscope has yet been made sufficiently powerful to reveal the beautiful
variegated designs on the atomic shell. Aristotle remarked, and he has
since been corroborated, that a variety of plover enters the crocodile's
mouth, picks the remnants of food off the animal's tongue and from between
its teeth. This living toothpick is necessary, as the tongue of the crocodile
is not mobile. The Mexican owl, when ecjoying a siesta, pat* itself under
the guard of a kind of rat, that gives the alarm on the approach of danger.
Parasites are everywhere, dependent on no peculiar condition of the body,
and are as abundant in persons of the most robust as of the most debilitated
health. They are at home in the muscles, in the heart, in the ventricles oi
the brain, in the ball of the eye. They are generally either in the form of a
leaf or a ribbon, and are not necessarily, as was once supposed, confined to
a special animal. The parasites of fish have been detected living in the in-
testines oi birds; and there are some that, for the purpose of development,
must pass into the economy of a second animal.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 525
Ancient Clocks and Watches. In early times watches were often
Aade in the forms of skulls and coffins, suggested, doubtless, by the sol-
emnity of the flight of time.
A deaths-head watch, which formerly belonged to Mary Queen of Scots,
and was bequeathed by her to her maid of honor, Mary Setoro, on February
7, 1587, and afterwards came into possession of Sir John Dick Lander, is of
silver pilt, and is most elaborately ornamented. The forehead of the skull
bears the symbols of death, the scythe and hour-glass placed between a
palace and a cottage to show the impartiality of the grim destroyer. At the
back of the skull is Time destroying all things, and at the top of the head
are scenes of the Garden of Eden and the crucifixion. The watch is opened
by reversing the skull, placing the upper part of it in the hollow of the hand
and lifting the jaw by the hinge, this part being enriched by engraved rep-
resentations of the Holy Trinity, angels, and shepherds with their flocks.
The works of the watch form the brains of the skull, and are within a silver
envelope which acts as a musically -toned bell, while the dial-plate is in the
place of the palate. This curious work of art, which was made at Blois, is
too large to bo carried as a pocket watch. Another skull watch, which once
belonged to Mary Queeu of Scots, by its inscription and the date, 1560, shows
that Francis II, of France, presented it to his young wife many years before
watches were supposed to have been brought to England from Germany.
Several other of Queen Mary's watches are described. One in a case of
crystal, shaped like a coffin, and another made at Rouen, in which a thread
of cat-gut supplied the place of the chain used in the work of modern
watches. Early watches were sometimes so small as to be set in the head
of walking sticks, the clasp of bracelets, in rings, or in pendants, and we
read of a striking watch mounted in a ring, in the year 1542. At the Straw-
berry Hill sale Queen Victoria purchased a little clock of brass-gilt which
had been presented to Anne Boleyn by Henry VIII upon their marriage in
1532, for 110 5s. It is now at Windsor Castle, and in going order. It is
richly chased and engraved.
The clock placed in one of the towers at the palace at Hampton Court,
in 1551, is described as the oldest English made clock extant. When in ac-
tion it showed the motions of several oi the planets. The dial and several
of the wheels attached to the back of the dial still remain.
A Marvelous Stream.- At a distance of thirty miles south of the
river Diamante our route passed through a natural object of considerable
interest a stream, or rather rill, of yellowish white fluid, like petroleum,
issuing from the mountain side at a considerable height, and trickling down
the slope till lost in the porous soil of the valley below. The source from
which it flowed was at the junction where a hard, metamorphic rock, inter-
spersed with small crystals of agnite, overlay a stratum of volcanic stuff.
It was formed like the crater of a volcano, and full of black, bituminous
matter, hot and sticky, which could be stirred up to the depth of eighteen
inches. Floundering in it was a polecat or skiink (Memphetis vanans),
having been enticed to its fate by the desire of securing a bird caught in
the natural birdlime, till a bullet from the revolver of one of the party ter-
minated the skunk's struggles to extricate itself from the warm and adhe-
sive bath in which it was hopelessly held captive. The overflow from this
fountain was, as described, like a stream of petroleum two or three feet
wide trickling over a bed of pitch or some such substance, which extended
to a much greater width along the edge of the running stream at its ooutftct
626 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
with it. This material was of a very sticky nature, becoming gradually
harder as it spread farther out, assuming the appearance of asphalt when it
became mingled with the loose sand of the adjoining soil.
While engaged in examining this natural curiosity, we came upon two
small birds caught in the sticky substance at the edge of the stream. They
were still alive, but upon releasing them both the feathers and the skin
came off where they had come in contact with the bituminous matter, so
that we had to kill them to put an end to their sufferings. No doubt they had
been taken in by the appearance of water which the stream presented, and
had alighted to drink. Their fate suggested the idea that in a district so
devoid of water others of the feathered tribes must constantly become vic-
tims to the same delusion in a similar manner, and upon a close inspection
of the margin of the stream the correctness of this inference was established
by the discovery of numerous skeletons of the birds embedded in it; nor
were those of small quadrupeds unrepresented, among which we recog-
nized the remains of a fox.
Whale Fishing. The immense bulk and energies of the whale itself
do not constitute the least formidable among the terrors of this field of ad-
venture. The desolate and inclement region, which is the scene of enter-
prise, encompasses the pursuit with its worst hardships and dangers. In
this realm of eternal Winter, man finds the land, the sea and the air, equally
inhospitable. Everything fights against him. The intensest cold benumbs
his flesh and joints; while fogs or driving sleet often darken the sky, and at
the same time arm the frost with a keener tooth. The ocean over which he
moves, besides its ordinary perils, is crowded with new and strange horrors.
Sometimes the ice lies in fixed beds that bar all navigation as effectually
as would a wall of iron, and over whose rugged and broken surface he can
only make his way by leaping from point to point, at the risk of being en-
gulfed at every step. Sometimes it bears down upon him in vast floating
fields with such an impetus that, at the shock, the strong timbers of his
ship crack and give way like an egg-shell, or are cruehed and ground to
fragments between two meeting masses. Sometimes it rises before him in
the shape of a lofty mountain which the least change in the relative weights
of the portion above and that beneath the surface of the water may bring in
sudden ruin upon his head, burying crew and vessel beneath the tumbling
chaos, or striking them far into the abyss.
As for what may be dimly distinguished to be land, rimming with its
precipitous coasts these dreary waters, it may be most fitly described in the
lines in which the poet has pictured one of the regions of the nether world:
" Beyond this flood a frozen continent
Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms
Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
Of ancient pile; or else deep snow and ice."
At the farthest limit to which adventure has pierced, a night of four
months' duration closes each dismal year, throughout which human life has
indeed been sustained by individuals previously inured to a severe climate,
but the horrors of which have, in most of the instances in which the dread-
ful experiment has been either voluntarily or involuntarily tried by the
natives of more temperate regions, only driven the wretched sufferer
through a succession of the intensest bodily and mental tortures and then
laid them at rest in the sleep of death.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 527
Tie Worries of Authorship. There are many disappointments in
life, and among the saddest is that of the aiithor who finds no market foT
the products of his brain. This misfortune has befallen the brightest of in-
tellects. The coinage of their brains, stamped with genius, has found m
currency during the author's generation.
" Paradise Lost " brought John Milton only a paltry five pounds abouS
twenty-five dollars of our money.
Wordsworth once told Matthew Arnold that for many years "his poetry
had never brought him in enough to buy his shoestrings."
"Uncle Tom's Cabin," which has a world-wide tame, and has been
translated into many languages, went begging from publisher to publisher,
before one recognized its great merit.
Hawthorne for twenty years continued to be, to use his own words, " the
obscurest man of letters in America." " There is not much market for my
wares," he said at another time. But he ranks to-day among the American
classics.
Thoreau was another example. A thousand copies of his " A week on
the Concord and Merrimac Rivers " were struck off by his publisher. After
a year or so, the author received word that his work would not sell, and
that seven hundred and six copies were occupying cellar-room wanted for
other use. Accordingly, they were transported from Boston to Concord.
The work had gone forth in its nakedness and now returned in fine clothing
of calico and leather, back to the old homestead, as so many poor unfortu-
nates who have failed in the struggle of life have done. Thoreau gave them
kindly though sorrowful welcome. He laid them on his back and carried
them " up two flights of stairs to a place similar to that which they traced
their origin." With a sort of grim humor he said, " I have now a library of
nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself."'
Pire and Matches. Who first made fire, when and where, a little
child can easily ask, but a wise man cannot answer. The Persians, Phoeni-
cians, Greeks, and other nations assert that their ancestors were without
fire. Pliny says the ancient Egyptians were greatly delighted with fire,
which was exhibited by Exedus, the celebrated astronomer. Until recently
the inhabitants of the Philippine, Canary, and many other islands had never
seen a fire. The inhabitants of the Marian Islands at first believed fire an
animal that fed on wood. Fire and heat are both obtained by friction.
Probably man first obtained fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together.
Formerly a common practice among the people of the Sandwich Islands
was to place a block of very dry wood on the ground and rub it with a blunt
stick back and forth till a groove was made and ultimately fire. Captain
Cook states that the Australian takes a dry piece of soft wood, which is par-
tially sharpened at one end, and resting the point upon a block, revolves
the stick rapidly between the hands, and often gets fire in two minutes.
The natives of Terra del Fuego, "Land of Fire," made fire by striking flint
with iron pyrites, the sparks being caught on tinder. Our forefathers made
use of similar means. Centuries ago glass globes filled with water were
used to concentrate the rays of the sun and produce fire. Over two hun-
dred years ago it was discovered that phosphorus, by friction, would ignite
dry sticks dipped in sulphur. In 1836, Mr. A. D. Phillips, of Springfield,
Mass., patented a mixture of glue, phosphorus, chalk and sulphur, with
which friction matches were made, and soon they came into general use.
5ow seventy-five factories give work to twenty-five hundred employees,
528 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
one-third of whom are children. Annually 30,240,000,000 matches are
made.
Traveling Stones. Many have doubtless heard of the famous travel-
ing stones of Australia. Similar curiosities have recently been found in
Nevada, which are described as almost perfectly round, the majority of
them as large as a walnut, and of an irony nature. When distributed about
upon the floor, table, or other level surface, within two or three feet of each
other, they immediately begin traveling toward a common center, and there
lie huddled up in a bunch like a lot of eggs in a nest. A single stone, re-
moved to a distance of three and a half feet, upon being released, at once
started off, with wonderful and somewhat comical celerity, to join its fel-
lows; taken away four or five feet, it remained motionless. They are found
in a region that is comparatively level, and is nothing but bare rock. Scat-
tered over this barren region are little basins from a few feet to a rod or
two in diameter, and it is in the bottom of those that the rolling stones are
found. They are from the size of a pea to five or six inches in diameter.
The cause of these stones rolling together is, doubtless, to be found in tho
material of which they are composed, which appears to be lodestone or
magnetic iron ore.
A Valley of Death. A valley surpassing in reality of horrors the
fabled region of the upas tree is reported to have been discovered in the
island of Java. This island is volcanic, and in one spot the emanations
from the interior of the earth are so deadly that the place is called the Val-
ley of Death. As the traveler approaches it he is attacked by nausea and
giddiness. He also notices a suffocating smell. As he advances these
symptoms disappear, so that, after passing through the belt of fetid air
which guards the valley, the visitor is able to examine with less risk the
spectacle before him. A recent traveler describes the valley as being an
oval, about one mile in circumference, and from thirty to forty feet below
the level of the surrounding land. The floor of the valley is flat, dry, with-
out any vegetation; and scattered all over it are the skeletons of men,
tigers, wild boars, birds, and stags, lying among large blocks of stone. No
steam or smoke is to be seen, nor is any crevice apparent in the earth, which
appears to be as hard as a rock. The hills which hem in this valley of
desolation are clothed from base to summit with healthy trees and bushes.
The traveler from whom we have already quoted descended the side of one
bill, with the aid of a bamboo stick, to about eighteen feet from the bottom,
and he compelled a dog to go down to the plain. In five seconds the ani-
mal fell on its side motionless, although it continued to breathe for eighteen
minutes. Another dog died in ten minutes; and a fowl only resisted the
deadly air for a minute and a half, and was dead before he reached the bot-
tom. It is believed that the human skeletons are those of malefactors who
have sought refuge here, ignorant of the fatal influence of the air they came
to breathe. The neighboring mountains are volcanic, but they neither emit
eulphurous odors, nor do they present any indications of recent eruption.
A Wonderful Cave. Kent's cavern, in the vicinity of Torquay, in
Devonshire, England, is a remarkable cave, consisting of a great excavation
in the Devonian limestone. It is entered by a narrow passage some seven
feet wide and only five feet in height. The central cavern, which is almost
600 feet long, has a number of smaller caverns or corridors leading out
from it, Its farthest extremity is terminated by a deep pool of water. IB
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 529
the bod of this cavern modern research has been rewarded by some deeply
interesting discoveries. Over the original earth bottom of the cave is a bed
or layer of considerable thickness, in which are contained strange mixtures
of human bones, with tho bones of the elephant and the rhinoceros, the
hyena, the bear, and the wolf, intermingled with stone and flint tools, arrow
and spear heads, and fragments of coarse pottery. The animal remains
testify to the presence in the ancient forests of Britain of beasts of prey
which long since have become extinct. Speculation may be exhausted in
the endeavor to account for the curious intermingling in this cavern of the
remains of human beings and of wild animals. The place may have been
used for shelter successively by man and by the lords of the forest; or, aa
the presence of the rude weapons of man might seem to indicate, the beasts
of the field may have been brought into this natural recess as trophies of
the chase, and their flesh and skins used for purposes of food and clothing.
Nothing less than the most persevering and enthusiastic search could have
discovered the interesting remains which, for a vast period of time, had
been buried in this retreat, for the fossils were covered by a thick floor of
stalagmite which had been formed by great blocks of limestone, which had
fallen from time to time from the roof of the cavern, and had become ce-
mented into one mass by the perpetual percolations of limewater from
above.
The Richest Women in New York. It seems that the richest
women in New York are Mrs. John Jacob Astor, who has a fortune of
$8,000,000; Mrs. William Astor, worth $6,000,000; Mrs. Josephine Ayer,
worth $4,000,000; Mrs. Isaac Bell, Jr., worth $2,000,000; Miss Linda Blatch-
ford, worth $2,000,000; Mrs. James Brown, worth $4,000,000; Mrs. Franklin
Delano, $2,500,000; Mrs. William E. Dodge, Sr., $4,000,000; Mrs. Colemar
Dray ton, who has an income of $100,000 a year; Mrs. Robert Goelet, $ 3,000,-
000; Miss Sarah Hitchcock, $12,000,000; Mrs. Mason-Jones, $6,000,000; Mr*.
Bradley Martin has $1,000 a day; Mrs. John Minturn, $2,000,000; Mia.
Charles Morgan, $3,000,000; Mrs. E. W. Morgan has a life income from
several millions; Mrs. Marshall 0. Roberts, $10,000,000; Mrs. Archibald
Rogers, $3,000,000; Mrs. Edwin H. Stevens, $20,000,000; Mrs. Paran Stevens,
$6,000,000; Mrs. A. T. Stewart, $30,000,000; Mrs. Moses Taylor, who has a
life interest in an immense fortune; Mrs. Catherine Wolfe has an annual in-
come of nearly $500,000; Mrs. Abram S. Hewitt is worth $2,000,000; Mrs.
Jesse Hoyt, $6,000,000; Mrs. George Merritt, $2,000,000; Mrs. Frederick
Neilson has $80,000 a year; Mrs. George Osgood, $2,500,000; Mrs. Percy R.
Pyne has an income of $535,000 a year; Mrs. Henry Remsen has a fortune of
$3,000,000; Mrs. C. Vanderbilt, $1,500,000, and Miss George Quintard,
$6,000,000. These are lucky women, although there are many more whose
incomes range from $30,000 to $75,000 a year.
The Discovery of Silk and Satin The discovery of silk is
attributed to one of the wives of the emperor of China, Hoang-ti, who reigned
about two thousand years before the Christian era; and since that time a
special spot has been allotted in gardens of the Chinese royal palace to the
cultivation of the mulberry tree and to the keeping of silk-worms. Per-
sian monks who came to Constantinople revealed to the Emperor Justinian
the secret of the production of silk, and gave him some silk-worms.
From Greece the art passed into Italy at the ed of the thirteenth century.
When the popes left Rome to settle at Avignon, France, they introduced
630 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
into that country the secret which had been kept by the Italians, and LonU
XI established at Tours a manufactory of silk fabrics. Francis I founded
the Lyons silfc works, which to this day have kept the first rank. Henry II of
Prance wore at the wedding of his sister the first pair of silk hose ever made.
The word " satin," which in the original was applied to all silk stuffs in
general, has since the last century been used to designate only tissues
which present a lust-red surface. The discovery of this particular brilliant
stuff was accidental. Octavio Mai, a silk weaver, finding business very
dull, and not knowing what to invent to give a new impulse to the trade,
was one day pacing to aud fro before his loom. Every time he passed the
machine, with no definite object in view, he pulled little threads from the
warp and put them to his mouth, which soon after he spat out. Later oa
he found the little ball of silk on the floor of his workship, and attracted by
the brilliant appearance of the.threads, he repeated the experiment, and by
using certain mucilaginous preparations, succeeded in giving satin to the
world.
Ancient Babylon. Between 2,000 and 500 B. c., Babylonia was the
garden of the ancient world. The land, surrounded like an island by two
of the finest streams in the world, the Euphrates and Tigris the rivers of
Paradise is truly the gift of both. They flowed with swift current from the
Armenian highlands into the sea now known as the Persian Gulf. In the
course of centuries large masses of loam were rolled down and heaped at
their original mouths, and this is what we now call Babylonia. It was on
this soaked, fat and fertile soil that the oldest authentic civilization, not of
Asia merely, but of the world, developed itself. The melting of the Arme-
nian snows caused inundations which had to be checked by damming the
rivers with dykes and walls. Canals served for navigation, and also led off
the superfluous waters to parts unaffected by the overflow, and developed
to such a degree their fertility that wheat and barley often gave the laborer
two or three hundred fold. Near Bagdad the two rivers are so near that
only six hours are required to pass from one to the other. On this tongue
of land, which was once a fourth narrower, the great canal system com-
menced, and by means of still smaller arteries, the life-giving waters were
distributed to nearly every tree. The district between Bagdad and Hilla
(a three-days' ride), was formerly strewed with heaps of towns and villages.
To its south, in the very heart of the land, lay Babylon, " the gate of God."
Its commercial importance is described, its fortifications, the Euphrates
(half a mile wide), swarming with ships of every size, the large Euphrates
bridge, built by Nebuchadnezzar, the different quarters and great build-
ings, the royal bank, where important business, public and private was
transacted.
Why a Man Cannot Ply No combination of wings will enable a
man to fly until he can wield them with as much muscular power to the
pound of weight as a bird exerts in flying. If a man had in his legs the
muscular energy and leverage of a flea, he could jump a mile in three
leaps, and if his arms had in proportion to his weight the driving power cf
a wild pigeon's wing, he would have no use for railways or balloons. The
transportation problem would be solved. Moving himself so easily and so
swiftly, he would not need to move anything else. The albatross, weighing
twenty-eight pounds, can keep its wings, thirteen feet from tip to tip, in
motion all day, while the strongest man, weighing eix or eight timei 88
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 531
much, would exhaust all his strength in keeping even an albatross's wings
in motion half an hour. " We have in the bird," says the Engineer, " a ma-
chine burning concentrated fuel in a largo grate at a tremendous rate, and
developing a very large power in a small space. There is no engine in ex-
istence, certainly no steam engine and boiler combined which, weight for
weight, gives out anything like the mechanical power exhibited by the
albatross. Consequently, no machinery yet devised can operate wings with
sufficient power to sustain its own weight in the air, and there is no known
machinery by which a man can wield the force necessary to fly like a bird.
Keely's alleged discovery, or some new process of storing and exerting
great electric power in apparatus of light weight, might supply the de-
ficiency, but science has not learned how to develop in inanimate machinery
anything like the mighty nervous energy which acts in the bones, sinews,
and muscles of a living bird's wing."
A River of Hot Water. The great Sutro Tunnel, cut to relieve the
celebrated Comstock mines at Virginia City, Nevada, of the vast quantities
of hot water which are encountered in them, affords an outlet to twelve
million tuns every twenty-four hours, or about three billion gallons. Some
of the water, as it finds its way into the mines, has a temperature oi
195, while four miles from the mouth of the tunnel the temperature ranges
from 130 to 135. To obviate the inconvenience which would arise from
the vapor such a vast quantity of water would give off, the flow is conducted
through the entire tunnel, four miles, in a light flume of pine. At the point
of exit the water has lost but seven degrees of heat. Sixty feet below the
mouth of the tunnel the hot water is utilized for turning machinery belong*
ing to the company, from whence it is carried off by a tunnel eleven hun-
dred feet in length, which serves as a waterway. Leaving the wastewa^
tunnel, the water flows to the Carson River, a mile and a half distant. This
hot water is being utilized for many purposes. The boys have arranged
several pools where they indulge in hot baths. The miners and others use
it for laundry purposes, and arrangements are being made whereby a
thousand acres belonging to the company are being irrigated, It is pro-
posed to conduct the hot water through iron pipes, beneath the surface oi
the soil, near the roots of thousands of fruit trees which are to be planted,
and in a similar manner give the necessary warmth to a number of hot-
houses to be used for the propagation of early fruits and vegetables.
Australian Vastness. It is not easy to grasp the enormous bulk oi
the Australian continent the practically unlimited space within which the
colonies have room to grow. The colony of Victoria the smallest and at
the same time the most populous and highly developed of the continental
group is about as large as Great Britain. New South Wales has an area
five times that of England, but is not half so big as Queensland and only a
third of the size of South Australia. Western Australia is even larger and
more empty of population; after measuring acres with South Australia it
would have almost sufficient land to furnish out New Zealand and Tasmania,
and yet New Zealand compares in area with the British Islands, and
Tasmania is nearly as large as Scotland. The acreage under crop in the
Australian colonies in 1880 was 6,500,000 acres. That seems a respectable
total; yet it seems ridiculously small when we compare with it the illimitable
extent of land yet lying waste. To take the case of New South Wales,
while there are 635,900 acres in cultivation and 17,500,000 acres inclosed
532 CYCLOPAEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
there are 180,000,000 acres, much of it excellent land, still unalienated.
Even at the present rapid rate at which the land is being fenced, it will
occupy 180 years to dispose of it all. This colony alone contained the ex-
traordinary number of 32,400,000 sheep in 1880, besides 2,580,000 cattle and
nearly 400,000 horses. Before the close of the next decade it is expected
that the sheep stock of New South Wales will run to between 40,000,000
and 50,000,000 head.
Iowa's Great Wonder. The greatest wonder in the State of Iowa,
and perhaps any other State, is what is called the " Walled Lake," in
Wright County, twelve miles north of the Dubuque and Pacific Eailway, and
one hundred and fifty miles west of Dubuque City. The lake is from two
to three feet higher than the earth's surface. In some places the wall is
ten feet high, fifteen feet wide at; the bottom, and five wide on top. Another
fact is the size of the stones used in construction, the whole of them vary-
ing in weight from three tons down to a hundred pounds. There is an
abundance of stones in Wright County, but surrounding the lake to the ex-
tent of five or ten miles there are none. No one can form an idea as to the
means employed to bring them to the spot, or who constructed it. Around
the entire lake is a belt of woodland half a mile in width, composed of oak.
With this exception the country is a rolling prairie. The trees must have
been planted there at the time of the building of the wall. In the spring of
the year 1856 there was a great storm and the ice on the lake broke the wall
in several places, and the farmers in the vicinity were obliged to repair the
damages to prevent inundation. The lake occupies a grand surface of
two thousand eight hundred acres; depths of water as great as twenty-five
feet. The water is clear and cold, soil sandy and loamy. It is singular that
no one has been able to ascertain where the water comes from nor where it
goes, yet it is always clear and fresh.
Invention of Balloons. The admirers of crinoline will be proud to
learn that the invention of balloons is owing to a similar contrivance. The
French give a curious anecdote of a simple occurrence which led the in-
ventor of such machines Montgolfier to turn his attention to the subject.
It is to this effect: A washerwoman of the Eue aux Juifs, in the Marais,
placed a petticoat on a basket-work frame, over a stove, to dry. In order
to concentrate all the heat, and to prevent its escaping by the aperture at
the top, she drew the strings closely together which are used to tie it round
the waist. By degrees the stuff dried, became lighter, and the stove con-
tinuing to heat and rarefy the air concentrated under the framework, the
petticoat began to move, and at last rose hi the air. The washerwoman
was so astonished that she ran out to call her neighbors; and they, seeing
it suspended in the air, were amazed. One individual, however, a simple
paper maker from Annonay, named Montgolfier, as much astonished but
more sensible than the others, returned home, and without loss of time
studied the work of Priestly on different kinds of atmosphere. The result
was the discovery of the first balloon, called Montgolfier's, of which he was
the inventor. As the Nautilus probably gave the idea of a sailing vessel, 80
also do very simple causes often produce great and unexpected results.
A Wonderful Clock. A new perpetual clock was put up recently at
the Gare du Nord, Brussels, in such a position as to be fully exposed to the
influences of the wind and weather, and though it has not since been
touched, it has continued to keep good time. The weight is constantly
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 533
wound up by a fan placed in the chimney. As soon as it approaches the
extreme height of its course, it actuates a brake, which stops the fan; and
the greater the tendency of the fan to revolve, so much the more strongly
does the brake act to prevent it. A simple pawl arrangement prevents a
down draft from exerting any effect. There is no necessity for a fire, as
the natural draft of the chimney or pipe is sufficient; and if the clock is
placed out-of-doors all that is required is to place it above a pipe sixteen or
twenty feet high. The clock is made to run twenty-four hours after being
wound up, so as to provide for any temporary stoppage, but, by the addi-
tion of a wheel or two, it may be made to go for eight days after cessation
of winding. The inventor, a native of Belgium, showed his original model
at the Paris Exhibition in 1878, but he has since considerably improved
upon it.
The Gulf Stream. There is a river hi the ocean. In the severest
droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest flood it never overflows. Its
banks and the bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The
Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas. It is the
Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other so majestic a flow of water.
Its current is more swift than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its vol-
ume more than a thousand times greater. Its waters, as far as the Caro-
lina coasts, are of indigo blue. These are so distinctly marked that the
common sea water can be traced with the eye. Often one-half the vessel
may be perceived floating in the Gulf Stream water, while the other half is
in the common water of the sea, so sharp is the line and the want of affinity
between these waters; and such, too, the reluctance, eo to speak, on the
part of those of the Gulf Stream to mingle with the common waters of the
sea. In addition to this, there is another peculiar fact. The fisherman on
the coast of Norway are supplied with wood from the tropics by the Gulf
Stream. Think of the Arctic fishermen burning upon their hearths the
palms of Hayti, the mahogany of Honduras, and the precious woods of the
Amazon and the Orinoco 1
Ancestry of the Pen. The earliest mode of writing was on bricks,
tiles, oyster-shells, stone, ivory, bark, and leaves of trees, and Irom the
latter the term " leaves of a book " is probably derived. Copper and brass
plates were very early in use; and a bill of feoffment on copper was some
years since discovered in India, bearing date one hundred years before
Christ. Leather was also used, as well as wooden tablets. Then the papy-
rus came into vogue, and about the eighth century the papyrus was super-
seded by parchment. Paper, however, is of great antiquity, especially
among the Chinese; but the first paper-mill in England was built in 1588 by
a German, at Dartford, in Kent. Nevertheless, it was nearly a century and
a half namely, in 1713 before Thomas Watkins, a stationer, brought paper
making to anything like perfection. The first approach to a pen was the
stylus, a kind of iron bodkin; but the Romans forbade its use on account of
its frequent and even fatal use in quarrels, and then it was made of bone.
Subsequently, reeds, pointed and split, like pens as in the present day,
were used.
Limit of Perpetual Snow, and Growth of Trees. On the
Andes, in lat. 2 deg., the limit of perpetual snow is 14,760 ft. In Mexico,
lat. 19 deg., the limit is 13,800 ft.; on the peak of Teneriffe, 11,454 ft.; on
Mount Etna, 9,000 ft.; on Caucasus, 9,900 ft.; on the Pyrenees, 8,400 ft.; in
534 UYULOPjEUlA Of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
Lapland, 3,100 ft.; in Iceland, 2,890 ft. The walnut ceases to grow at an
elevation of 3,600 ft.; the yellow pine at 6,200 ft.; the ash at 4,800 ft.; aufl
the fir at 6,700 ft. The loftiest inhabited spot on the globe is the Port
House of Ancomarca, on the Andes, in Peru, 16,000 feet above the level of
the sea. The 14th peak of the Himalayas, in Asia, 28,178 feet high, is the
loftiest mountain in the world.
How an Insect Breath.es. If we take any moderately large insect,
say a wasp or a hornet, we can see, even with the naked eye, that a series
of small, spot-like marks run along either side of the body. These appar-
ent spots, which are generally eighteen or twenty in number, are, in fact,
the apertures through which air is admitted into the system, and are gener-
ally formed in such a manner that no extraneous matter can by any possi-
bility find entrance. Sometimes they are furnished with a pair of horny
Ups, which can be opened and closed at the will of the insect; in other cases
they are densely fringed with stiff interlacing bristles, forming a filter,
which allows air, and air alone, to pass. But the apparatus, of whatever
character it may be, is always so wonderfully perfect in its action that it
has been found impossible to inject the body of a dead insect with even so
subtile a medium as spirits of wine, although the subject was first immersed
in the fluid and then placed beneath the receiver of an air pump.
Alaska's Resources The resources of Alaska are abundant in
quantity and magnificent in quality. They are divided between the sea and
the land. The fisheries are described as being among the finest in the
world. As many as 7,000 salmon are often taken at a single haul of the
eeine, some of them weighing from forty-five to 100 pounds each. Those
aptured at Crook's Inlet average even heavier, and distance all competition
in Oregon or elsewhere. In the mining region near Sitka, ten well devel-
oped ledges of gold-bearing quartz have been uncovered, and eight mines
are already located and will soon be in active operation. These ledges,
which have been followed three miles or more, are pronounced, by a com-
petent Bussian engineer, capable of averaging $32 per ton. Experienced
miners who have examined them think the Alaska yield of gold and silver
will eventually be larger than that of California and Nevada combined.
American Inventive Genius The inventions of man have had an
immense influence in aiding the production of manufactured articles, and
it has been estimated that two-thirds of the aggregate wealth of the United
States is due to patented inventions. The patents granted by the United
States Government are nearly equal to those of both the English and the
French Governments combined.
A glance at one or two of our inventions will show us that the estimate
mentioned above is not without some foundation. We make in this country
annually about 1,000,000 sewing machines, which can do as much work as
formerly required 12,000,000 women to do by hand. A single shoe factory
in Massachusetts turns out as many boots as 30,000 bootmakers can in the
city of Paris. It will take the raw leather and in twenty minutes turn out a
pair of shoes ready for the wearer.
Fifty years ago all the spinning done in this country was done on a com-
mon household spinning-wheel. An active woman, working ten hours
a day, could spin a thread 3 8-10 miles in length, and she would walk
over five miles in doing it. Now, in one of our factories, you will see a girJ
of fifteen minding a machine which spins a thread 2,100 miles long in a day.
STATISTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. S35
Before tho cotton gin was invented, a man could only clean four pounds of
cotton a day. Now he can clean 4,000 pounds a day with the help of the
gin. The cotton crop of 1880, estimated at about 4,700,000 bales, under the
old process of cleaning it, would require 505,000,000 days work, which at $1
per day, would cost $505,000,000 for cleaning the cotton. The work is now
done by 1,614 men, at a cost of not over $500,000.
In the production of Bessemer steel rails in this country, the value of
patents in aiding production is quite as clearly seen. In 1868, the average
price of steel rails was $158 per ton. Now it is but $34 per ton. In 1883 we
produced 1,295,000 tons ot steel rails. This quantity in 1868 would have
coat nearly $160,000,000 more than it would cost in 1884.
To take a broader view of the siibject, we find that each operator in the
United States turns out $1,500 worth of goods per annum, while those of
Great Britain produce only $1,100 each; those of France about $1,000; and
those of Germany a little over $500. Averaging all Europe, the operatives
of the United States do double the value of work that the operatives of
Europe do. This is tho result of our inventive genius applied to our
improved machinery.
Life Thoughts. Tour life is what you make it.
The best philosophy a contented mind.
If you would be strong, conquer yourself.
Man should be ever better than he seems.
He dines sumptuously who dines out of debt.
No man can be free unless he governs himself.
Good company and good conversation are the very sinews of virtue.
The worst and most unendurable of all our ills are the imaginary ones.
Study books to know how things ought to be; study men to know how
things are.
The sins of ignorance are most numerous, but the sins of knowledge are
most dangerous.
Law is like prussic acid a dangerous remedy, and the smallest dose is
generally sufficient.
Our happiness does not consist in being without passions, but in having
control of them.
You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and
forge yourself into one.
The perfection of wisdom and the end of true philosophy is to proportion
our wants to our possessions, and our ambitions to our capacities.
One reason why the world is not reformed is because every man is bent
on reforming others, and never thinks of reforming himself.
The earth is a great factory wheel, which, at every revolution on its
axis, receives fifty thousand raw souls, and turns off nearly the same num-
ber worked up more or less completely.
If we save the moments of time we will have enough for every needful
work. Moments are the material of which days and years are made. If
these be well improved, we will have years devoted to profitable employ-
ment.
A man who can give up dreaming and go to his daily realities, who can
smother down his heart, its love or woe, and tak to the hard work of hia
hand, who defies fate, and, if he must die, dies fighting to the last that
man is life's best hero.
We are ruined, not by what we really w&nt, but by what we think we do;
636 CYCLOPEDIA OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
therefore never go abroad in search of your wants. If they be real wanUj
they will come home in search of you; for he that buys what he does not
want will soon want what he cannot buy.
The Number of Languages. The least learned are aware that
there are many languages in the world, but the actual number is probably
beyond the dreams of ordinary people. The geographer Balbi enumerated
eight hundred and sixty, which are entitled to be considered as distinct
languages, and five thousand which may be regarded as dialects. Adul-
guns, another modern writer on this subject, reckons up three thousand
and sixty-four languages and dialects, existing, and which have existed.
Even after we have allowed either of these as the number of languages, we
must acknowledge the existence of almost infinite minor diversities; for
almost every province has a tongue more or less peculiar, and this we may
well believe to be the case throughout the world at large. It is said there
are little islands, lying close together in the South Sea, the inhabitants of
which do not understand each other. Of the eight hundred and sixty dis-
tinct languages enumerated by Balbi, fifty-three belong to Europe, one
hundred and fourteen to Africa, one hundred and twenty-three to Asia,
four hundred and seventeen to America, one hundred and seventeen to
Oceanica by which term he distinguishes the vast number of islands
stretching between Hiudostan and South America.
Sounds During the Night The great audibility of sounds dur-
ing the night is a phenomenon of considerable interest, and one which has
been observed even by the ancients. In crowded cities, or in their vicinity,
the effect was generally ascribed to the rest of animated beings, while in
localities where such an explanation was inapplicable, it was supposed to
arise from a favorable direction of the prevailing wind. Baron Humboldt
was partially struck with this phenomenon when he first heard the rushing
of the great cataract of the Orinoco in the plain which surrounds the mission
of the Aures. These sounds he regarded as three times louder during the
night than during the day.
Some authors ascribe this fact to the cessation of the humming of in-
sects, the singing of birds, and the action of the wind on the leaves of the
trees; but Baron Humboldt justly maintains that this cannot be the cause
of it on the Orinoco, where the buzz of insects is much louder in the night
than in the day, and where the breeze never rises till after sunset. Hence
he was led to ascribe the phenomenon to the perfect transparency and uni-
form density of the air, which can exist only at night after the heat of the
ground has been uniformly diffused through the atmosphere. When the
rays ot the sun have been beating on the ground during the day, currents
of hot air of different temperatures, and consequently of different densities,
are constantly ascending from the ground and mixing with the cold air
above. The air thus ceases to be a uniform medium, and objects seen
through it are very indistinctly visible with a tremulous motion, as if they
were " dancing in the air." The very same effect is perceived when we
look at objects through spirits and water that are not perfectly mixed, or
when we view distant objects over a red-hot poker, or over a flame. In all
these cases the light suffers refraction in passing from a medium of one den-
sity into a medium of different density, and the reflected rays are constantly
changing their direction, as the different currents rise in succession. Analo-
gous effects are produced when sound passes through a mixed medium.
STATISTICAL AN!) MISCELLANEOUS. 637
Inelegant Language. Few people realize how many words are
need improperly in the course of ordinary conversation. Take, for exam-
ple, the word fix the strict meaning of which is to make fast, to settle.
But it is improperly used in many other ways, as " I fixed my hair, I fixed
the wagon, I fixed my gloves, I fixed the room," etc.; instead of "I
brushed my hair, I repaired the wagon, I sewed my gloves, I put my room
in order," etc. Another word, used still more loosely and widely, is " nice."
Thia properly means over-exact, punctilious, delicate, subtle. But it is
often employed to denote all commendable qualities. We often hear care-
less speakers say, " this apple is nice," instead of delicious; " she is a nice
girl," instead of good or agreeable; " a nice landscape," for a lovely land-
scape; " a nice cottage," instead of a snug one; " a nice man," instead of a
genial man; "a nice mountain," instead of a grand or lofty one; "a nice
drink of water," for a refreshing one; "a nice smell" to a flower, fora
pleasant odor; and so on without limit. Then there is the word awful,
meaning fearful or sublime. Yet, how frequently we hear of an awful nice
day or an awful-looking dressl The word " got " is another victim which is
dragged into service on all occasions. " I got up in the morning and got
my breakfast, got to work soon after and got home by ten," for example.
All these ineleganciea are unpleasant to the refined ear. To correct them,
when they have become a habit, repeat to yourself the correction, and con-
tinue to repeat it till it becomes ready and familiar in use. In this way
young persons may acquire the habit of using the best language, and the
longer it is continued the easier it will become.
The Origin of Postage Stamps. The origin of the postage stamp
had a tinge of romance in it. It was thirty-seven years ago that Rowland
Hill, while crossing a district in the north of England, arrived at the door
of an inn where a postman had stopped to deliver a letter. A young girl
came out to receive it; she turned it over and over in her hand and asked
the price of postage. Thia was a large sum, and evidently the girl was
poor, for the postmaster demanded a shilling. She sighed sadly and said
the letter was from her brother, but that she had no money, and so she re-
turned the letter to the postman. Touched with pity, Mr. Hill paid the
postage and gave the letter to the girl, who seemed very much embarrassed.
Scarcely had the postman turned his back, when the young inn-keeper's
daughter confessed that it was a trick between her and her brother. Some
signs on the envelope told her all she wanted to know, but the letter con-
tained no writing. " We are both so poor," she added, " that we invented
this mode of corresponding without paying for the letters." The traveler,
continuing his road, asked himself if a system giving rise to such frauds
was not a vicious one ? Before sunset Rowland had planned to organize the
postal service upon a new basis with what success is known to the world.
A Paper-Making Spider. In the heart of the African Continent,
where no other paper is manufactured, the spid* paper-maker does her
quiet work. Back and forth, over a flat service about an inch and a half
square, on the inside wall of a hut, the spider slowly moves in many lines
until the square is covered with a pure white paper. Under this she places
from forty to fifty eggs; and then, to fasten the square of paper more se-
curely to the wall, she makes a strip of paper about a quarter of an inch
broad, and with this glues the square carefully around the edges.
When all is done, the spider which is quite a large one places herself
638 CYCLOPEDIA OP VSEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
on the center of the outside of the little flat bag so carefully made, and be-
gins a watch, which is to last for three weeks without intermission. Appar-
ently the young spiders would have many dangers to fear, did not their
anxious mamma wage a fierce war upon the cockroaches and other insects
that come near. After three weeks of unremitting watchfulness, the mother-
spider leaves her nest in the day-time to hunt food, but she always returns
at night, until her young are strong enough to take care of themselves.
Statistics of Longevity. Dr. Farr, an English scientist, says that
if one could watch the march of 1,000,000 people through life the following
result would be observable: Nearly 150,000 will die the first year, 53,000 the
second year, 28,000 in the third year, and less than 4,000 in the thirteenth
year. At the end of forty-five years 500,000 will have died. At the end of
sixty years 370,000 will be still living; at the end of eighty years, 97,000; at
eighty-five years, 31,000, and at ninety-five years, 2,100. At the end of 100
years there will be 223, and at the end of 108 yeara there will be but eaa
survive*.
INDEX.
PAGK
Abysslnians, the 185
Adams, John 21
Afghan beauty, an 196
Africa, life in 165
Air 428
Alaska's resources 534
Allegheny River, the 214
Alligator, the 110
Allspice 317
Almonds 318
Alpine peaks 231
Alps, the herdsmen of the 187
Amber 288
American cities, population of 477
American history, chronological... 80
American States, cities, etc., popu-
lar sobriquets of 488
Anemones, sea 381
Animals, duration of life of 499
Animal wonders 524
Ant-eater, the 96
Ants, white 143
Apostles, the fate of 505
Apricots 313
Arabs, the 170
Arctic seas, in 226
Assignments 456
Astor, John Jacob 25
Atlantic Ocean, depth of the 514
Attar of roses 312
Aurora Borealis, the, or Northern
lights 413
Australian marriage customs 201
Australian vastness 531
Authorship, the worries of 527
Babylon, ancient 530
Bagdad customs 190
Balloons, invention of 532
Balls, rubber 282
Bamboo, the 334
Bananas 320
Bank checks 448
Banyan tree, the 840
PXOB
Barometers, nature's 511
Bartholdi Statue, the 212
Bats Ill
Bayard, Thomas F 56
Bear, the 88
Beauty, female 171
Beaver, the 102
Beecher, Henry Ward 36
Betel-nut tree, the 331
Bills of sale 457
Bird of paradise, the 129
Bison, the 90
Bittern, the 121
Blaine, James G 56
Bluejay, the American 133
Bobolink, the 135
Bonaparte, Napoleon 14
Bonds 442
Bookbinding 241
Boots, rubber 282
Borneo, weddings in 192
Braddock's defeat 76
Brass 280
Bryant, William Cullen 39
Bulgarian wake, a 202
Burmah, courting in 194
Business vocabulary 517
Butterflies 135
Buttons 291
Byron, Lord 17
Cables, Atlantic 510
Calico printing 252
California, the big trees 01 328
Camphor tree, the 308
Cape Horn in the Sierras 226
Capitals, the use of 494
Caribou or American reindeer, tfie. 101
Cashmere women 203
Castor oil plant, the 308
Catacombs of Rome, the 227
Cave, a wonderful 528
Caves, how formed 51*
Celluloid 288
640
INDEX.
PAGE
Chamois, the 100
Chewing gum 291
China and porcelain 258
China and the Chinese 144
China, the area and population of. . 482
Cinnamon 316
Clay, Henry 27
Cleveland, Grover 60
Clock, a wonderful 532
Clocks and watciies, ancient 525
Clothes pins 288
Cloves 315
Coal .369
Cocoa and chocolate 295
Cocoanuts 319
Coffee 294
Colugo, the 112
Combs 286
Commerce of the world 496
" Conch " pearl, the 391
Condor, the 119
Consideration 455
Continents, the area and population
of 477
Contracts 454
Cooper, James Fenimore 30
Cooper, Peter 47
Copper 372
Copper-plate printing 243
Coral fishing 386
Corals of the Indian Ocean, the 385
Corktree, the 308
Cormorant, the 128
Cotton 296
Cotton gin, the 355
Countries of the world, principal,
area, population, etc., of the 479
Countries, origin of the names of. . 500
Country without women, a 177
Cow tree, the 332
Crackers 283
Crane, the 126
Crested grebe, the 126
Crocodile, the 108
Crowns, European, the jewels in. . . 513
Cuckoo, the 123
Dates 321
Debts, recovery of 450
Deeds 451
Deeds, acknowledgment and proof
Of 453
Delivery 453
Dew 435
Diamonds 368
Dickens, Charles 38
Discoveries, accidental 359
Discovery and progress, chronologi-
cal history of 485
Diver, the 384
Divorce 466
Dower 466
Dreams 522
Eagle, the 125
Earthquakes 440
Earth, the 395
Easement 475
Edinburgh Castle 229
Edmunds, George F 61
Egyptians, the 183
Electricity 425
Electric light, the 350
Elephant, the 88
Elk, the 99
Emerson, Ralph Waldo 41
Envelopes 276
Evarts, William M 54
Everett, Edward 30
Executors and administrators 460
Fables, popular, origin of 500
Falcon, the 130
Famous persons, dying words of. . . 503
Fawn's Leap, Catskill Mountains.. 210
Ferret, the 105
Figs 322
Fire and matches 527
Fish, flying 113
Flax 300
Fountain tree, the 338
Franconia Notch, White Mountains 208
Franklin, Benjamin 19
Freezing points, etc., of various
substances 523
Frogs 112
Fulton, Robert 25
GarfieW, James A 49
Gems, about 512
Genius, origin of 602
Ginger 314
Giraffe, the 93
Gladstone, William E . . 44
Glass 256
' Globe, the, statistics of 05
INDEX.
541
PAGE
Gold 362
Gothic Chapel, Mammoth Cave,
Kentucky 216
Governments of the world, leading. 506
Grand Canon of the Colorado 219
Grant, Ulysses S 49
Great Falls of the Missouri River,
Montana 220
Great works, insignificant origin of 508
Greeks, the 191
Greeley, Horace 33
Groaning tree, the 339
Guaranty 449
Gulf stream, the 533
Gum Arabic 290
Gutta Percha 307
Hail 438
Hamilton, Alexander 23
Heat 419
Hedgehog, the 98
Hemp 301
Hendricks, Thomas A 61
Henry, Patrick 21
Heron, the 123
Highways 473
Hippopotamus, the 86
Holidays, legal, throughout the
United States . 523
Holmes, Oliver Wendell 46
Humble bee, the 137
Husband and wife 465
Iceland, life in 188
Indian Ocean, at the bottom of the. 393
India rubber tree, the 306
India, the castes and tribes of 156
Inquisition, or Holy Office, the 69
Insect, an, how breathes 534
Interest, how to calculate 509
Interesting facts 515
Inventions, coincidences in 361
Inventions, the age of 360
Inventive genius, American 534
Iowa's great wonder 532
Iron 254
Irving, Washington 31
Isinglass 287
Islands, floating 516
Italy, how they dance iu 191
Ivory plant, the 329
Jackson, Andrew .' 26
Jaguar, the 91
PAGE
Jak tree, the 326
Japanese, the 151
Jeflerson, Thomas 22
Kafflrland, polygamy in 201
Katrine, Loch 228
Kid gloves 279
Kingfisher, the belted 134
Lace 288
Lakes, the great, measurements of. 511
Landlord and tenant 469
Land of the midnight sun, the 204
Language, incorrect 491
Language, Inelegant 637
Languages, the number of 536
Lapp and his reindeer, the 188
Largest of their kind 510
Laughing plant, the 338
Lead 378
Lead pencils 277
Leases 471
Leather 365
Lemons 324
Leopard, the 92
Libel and slander 476
Liens 446
Life thoughts 535
Light 418
Limes 325
Limit of perpetual snow and
growth of trees 533
Lincoln, Abraham 32
Lion, the 86
Lithography 243
Locomotion of animals and veloc-
ity of bodies 483
London, the city of, facts regarding 512
Longevity, statistics of 538
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 39
Lowell, James Russell 47
Lyre-bird, the 117
Mahogany 342
Man, a, why cannot fly 530
Man, how constructed 509
Maple sugar 267
Marbles 287
Marriage 464
Matches 286
Melroae Abbey 230
Men o( genius, idiosyncrasies of 504
Mexican life 176
I Microphone, the 354
542
INDEX.
PAGE
Microscope, the, marvels of 511
Milton, John 14
Minors 467
Mirrors 286
Moles 106
Money, how accumulates 509
Monkeys, baby 107
Monuments, towers and structures,
height of. 484
Moon, the 401
Mortgages 444
Moscow, the burning of 79
Moslem marriages 199
Mountains, height of 482
Mourning customs 202
Mower and reaper, the 358
Musical terms, dictionary of. 521
Musk 290
Nails. 277
Natural Bridge, Virginia 215
Natural history, curious facts in ... 497
Nautical vocabulary 518
Needles 279
New York, distances from to im-
portant cities 485
Niagara Falls 205
nutmegs 314
Oceans, area of 481
Ocean, the floor of the 392
Olive tree, the 324
Oranges 323
Ostrich, the 117
Palestine, a dinner in 190
Talestine, religious customs in 169
Palisades of the Hudson River, the. 212
Paper 248
Paper car wheels, etc 276
Paper money 273
Paper nautilus, the 113
Paper tree, the 342
Parent and child 466
Paris 232
Partition 463
Partnership 472
Payment and tender . 448
Peabody, George 29
Pearl fishing 388
Penn, William 18
Pen, the, ancestry of 633
Pepper 317
Peppermint.-, 311
PAGE
Perfumery 265
Persia, a death in 198
Persian dinner, a 198
Persian wedding, a 197
Peruvian forest, a 337
Phillips, Wendell 35
Photography 244
Piano making 262
Pineapples 320
Pins 289
Piute Indians of Nevada, the 181
Plague of London, the 77
Planets, the 404
Plants, origin of 503
Porcupine, the 96
Postage stamps 275
Postage stamp, the origin of the . . . 537
Postal cards 275
Power of attorney 457
Presidential statistics 481
Presidential vote for sixty years 480
Presidents, the, wealth of 507
Printing 237
Printing press, the 347
Promissory notes 447
Pronunciation, an exercise in 495
Property, personal 469
Property, real 468
Prunes 322
Putty 290
Quicksilver 380
Quotations, familiar, origin of. 501
Railroads in the United States 480
Rain 435
Raisins 321
Rattlesnake, the diamond 108
Receipts 450
Reign of terror in Paris, the 73
Releases 450
Rice 313
Richest women in New York, the.. . 529
River of hot water, a 531
Rivers, principal, length of the 479
Roseate spoonbill, the 124
Rosewood 343
Russians, the, customs of 193
Sacques, sealskin 285
Salt 374
Salt Lake, Utah 222
Salutations 193
I Sand blast, the 369
INDEX.
543
PAGE
Sandwich Inland houses 195
Sardines 284
Screws 289
Sea aster, a, attached to a crab 391
Sea flower, a murderous 393
Sea horse, the 114
Seas, inland, area and depth of. 481
Servants 468
Servia, marriages in 200
Sewing machines, the 352
Shiikespeare, William 16
Shawls, cashmere 285
Shells of the Indian Ocean 388
Sheridan, Philip H 59
Sher-uan, John 53
Sherman, William T 57
Shoe pegs 284
Shoshone courtship 181
Shot 290
Siam 184
Siberians, habits of 196
Sicilian funeral customs 202
Sierras, the summit of the 225
Silk 249
Silk and satin, the discovery of. 529
Silver 364
Silver Cascade, St. Anthony's Falls. 218
Silver springs, Florida 217
Skylark, the 133
Slate pencils 281
Snow 437
Soap 263
Soap-plant, the 332
Soda 287
Solitaire, the 121
Sound 414
Sounds during the night 536
South America 178
Sovereigns of Christendom, the 506
Spain, mountain traveling in 189
Spectacles 261
Spelling, simple rules for 494
Spencer, Herbert 44
Spider, a paper making 537
Spiders 140
Spinning jenny, the 355
Sponges 389
Spools 289
Stag, the 100
Starch 265
Star fish, a singular ................ 394
PAGE
Star fish cactus, the. 335
Starling, the 134
Stars, the 408
States and Territories, population,
etc., of the 478
States, origin of the names of 499
St. Bartholomew, the massacre of. . 64
Steam engine, the -344
Steel 255
Steel pens 278
Stereotyping 241
Stinging tree, the 342
St. Lawrence, the rapids of the 208
Stones, traveling 528
Stork, the 125
Strasburg and its cathedral 233
Stream, a marvelous 526
Sugar 302
Sulphur 281
Sumner, Charles 37
Sun dance of the Sioux, the 182
Sun spots, Herschel's theory of. 401
Sun, the 400
Table, a useful 483
Tacks 280
Tailor-bird, the 131
Talipatpalm tree, the &*j
Tallow tree, the 342
Tapioca plant, the 314
Tartary, marriage customs in 200
Tea 292
Telegraph, the 346
Telephone, the 354
Tennyson, Alfred 43
Thimbles 282
Thrush, the 131
Thurman, Allen G 52
Tides, the 439
Tiger, the 90
Tilden, Samuel J 51
Timber, consumption of 515
Tin 379
Titlark, the 135
Tobacco 304
Trenton Palls, New York 211
Trespass 475
Trusts and trustees 463
Tunis, women in 203
Turkish life and customs 172
Turpentine, resin and tar 270
Turtles, Brazilian 115
544
INDEX.
FAOB
Twining hyacinth of California 328
Type setting machine, the 356
Type-writer, the 358
Tyrolese custom, a 204
United States, the, census of 481
Valley of death, a 528
Vatican, the 236
Venice 235
Vesuvius in eruption 234
Vienna 236
Vulture, the 120
Wall paper. 268
Wall street phrases, a glossary of. . . 495
Warranty 449
Washington, distances from, to vari-
ous points 484
Washington, George 13
Wasp, the 141
Watch making 260
Water 431
Waterloo, the battle of. 62
Water spider, the 142
Wattiaa Glen 2W
PAGB
Webster, Daniel 28
Wedding anniversaries 511
Wedding race, a 191
Weed, Thurlow 34
Whalebone 289
Whale fishing 526
Wheatear, the 132
Whirlpools 441
Whirlwinds and waterspouts 434
Whistling tree, the 340
Whittier, John G 42
Wills 458
Wind 432
Wine growing 312
Wolf, the 92
Wonders, American 507
Wood engraving 242
Works, remarkable, of human la-
bor 510
Yellowstone Park, the 221
Yosemite Valley, the 221
Zebu, the 6
Zinc 3c
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