Part 19

=Doulton Potteries.=--Sir Henry Doulton, head of the Lambeth potteries, whose death, November 17, 1897, has been recorded in the Monthly, preferred devoting himself to the factory to engaging in the study of a learned profession for which his parents intended him, and himself did much of the largest work produced there in the earlier days of his connection with it. As the factory was enlarged, it made drain pipes, vessels and appliances of stoneware for chemical and other similar uses, for which it gained prizes at the great exhibitions of 1851 and 1862; ale pots and mugs of traditional and original designs; terra-cotta vases; and first exhibited articles of higher artistic merit at Paris in 1867. It showed a magnificent collection at Vienna in 1873, and its exhibit at Philadelphia in 1876 was one of the marked features of our Centennial. The chief styles of its work are the ornamental salt-glazed stoneware known as Doulton ware, and the underglaze-painted earthenware called "Lambeth faïence." Sir George Birdwood ascribes as the great merit of Sir Henry's life work his adherence to the two principles of making, as far as possible, every piece intended for decoration on the wheel, and of giving the utmost scope to the designer into whose hands the piece fell for ornamentation. Four hundred designers, mostly women, and some of them real artists, are engaged at the potteries, and each has her way and signs her name to her work; so that "Sir Henry Doulton succeeded in creating a most prolific school, or rather several schools, of English pottery, the influence of which has been felt in the revival of the ceramic arts in all the countries of the Old World"--where they had been demoralized by the use of machinery; and through the influence of his example, working since 1871, the United Kingdom now produces "the most artistic commercial pottery of any country in the world."

MINOR PARAGRAPHS.

A little over a year ago Professor Fraser published the results of some researches which showed that the bile of several animals possessed antidotal properties against serpents' venom, and against the toxines of such diseases as diphtheria and tetanus, and that the bile of venomous serpents is an antidote to their venom. The results from an extension of these first experiments have been recently published in the British Medical Journal. The most important conclusions are as follows: The bile of venomous serpents is the most powerful antidote to venom, and is closely followed in efficiency by the bile of innocuous serpents. Regarding the antidotal power of bile on the toxines of disease, Professor Fraser found that the bile of venomous serpents had more antidotal power than that of the majority of the other animals examined. It is curious that among the non-venomous animals the rabbit's bile is the most powerful in antidotal properties.

Three ways are mentioned by Prof. W. A. Herdman in which disease may be communicated through oysters to the consumer; viz., by the presence in the animal of inorganic, usually metallic, poison; or of organic poison; or of a pathological organism or definite disease germ. From experiments in the inoculation and disinfection of oysters, it was found that all traces of these organisms could be removed by proper washing. Good currents passing the beds are an important factor in keeping the oyster healthy, and make it possible for the animal to absorb large quantities of sewage and dispose of it. The effect of this is to purify the water; but in the sifting process, while the sewage is passing through, the animal retains disease germs, and may pass them on to the consumer. Oysters should therefore be given an opportunity to purify themselves, as is done in France, where they are kept for a time in clean tanks before being sent to market. Oysters may be effectively washed in fresh water. Sea water is unfavorable to disease germs. Greenness in oysters is caused by food administered to improve their quality; by the presence of copper; and in some American oysters by an inflamed condition of the mantle. Green spots are also produced by wandering cells getting under the epithelium. These cells are loaded with granules which give a copper reaction.

The most interesting result of the massacre and sack of Benin, the Saturday Review says, was the capture of a large series of brass plaques, statuettes, box lids, pipes, etc., which have been brought to England. The various articles are all castings, and their elaborate ornamentation bespeaks for their makers great skill in metal working. Most African tribes have smiths who hammer pieces of brass rod and wire into simple ornaments; but these Benin brasses represent a stage of metal working far more advanced than anything recorded for the native races of Africa. Nothing like them is being made by any negro race at present, and nothing is known that can be regarded as a precursor of them. A statuette in the Liverpool Museum of a negro holding a flint gun fixes their date as not earlier than about 1630. In trying to account for them, many think they were due to the influence of some comparatively advanced tribe that reached Benin from the central Soudan and brought with them a knowledge of brass work derived from early, possibly Egyptian, sources; and others attribute the work to some prisoner or trader who lived at Benin in the seventeenth century.

NOTES.

The Committee of the British Association on Meteorological Photography reported that the result of their determinations of the heights of clouds showed the existence of greater altitudes in hot weather under thunderstorm conditions, when clouds may occur at five or six different levels, extending as high as ninety thousand feet. A rise of cloud takes place in hot weather, also during the morning and early afternoons, while the lowest altitudes are found during cyclones.

M. Maige, by varying the condition of exposure of plants to light, and keeping flowering branches in the dark, has succeeded in transforming the latter into sterile creeping or climbing branches. Inversely, he has been able, by means of the localized action of light, to transform creeping or climbing into flowering branches. These results were obtained at the vegetable biological laboratory of Fontainebleau.

F. L. Washburn, of the State University of Oregon, reports that the condition of the Eastern oysters introduced to the Oregon coast waters two years ago leaves nothing to be desired. The specimens have withstood two winters successfully, and have made phenomenal growth, "far exceeding what they would have made in the same time in their native waters. Further, they spawned." The experiments in artificial fertilization were not so successful. The spawn suffer from the serious difficulties of sudden variations in the temperature and salinity of the water resulting from the change of tide and strong winds. It is hoped that better conditions may be found at Yaquina Bay.

The population of Egypt has been gradually increasing during the past hundred years. It is stated to have been about two and a half million in 1800, and is now estimated at nearly ten million. There are about 112,000 foreigners, of whom 38,000 are Greeks; the remainder being chiefly Italians, 24,000; English, 19,000; French, 14,000; Austrians, 7,000; Russians, 3,000; and Persians and Germans, about 1,000 each. Only about five per cent of the population can read and write, and nearly two thirds are without any trade or profession.

Our record of deaths among men known in science includes the names of Dr. Henriques de Castro, a Dutch archæologist of Portuguese descent, member of many learned societies of the Netherlands; John Eliza de Vry, of the Netherlands, one of the chief authorities on the chemistry and pharmacy of the cinchona alkaloids, at The Hague, July 30th, in the eighty-sixth year of his age; Dr. Eugenio Bettoni, director of the Fisheries Station at Brescia, Italy, August 5th, aged fifty-three years; Professor Arzruni, mineralogist in the Polytechnic Institute at Aix; Heinrich Theodor Richter, director of the School of Mines at Freiberg, Saxony; Dr. J. Crocq, professor of pathology in the University of Brussels; Dr. C. G. Gibelli, professor of botany and director of the Botanical Institute at Turin; Don Francisco Coello de Portugal, president of the Geographical Society of Madrid, and author of an atlas of Spain and its colonies; Dr. B. Kotula, author of Researches on the Distribution of Plants; Surgeon Major J. E. T. Aitchison, a distinguished botanist, particularly in the botany of India, and author of numerous papers on the subject, September 30th, in his sixty-fourth year; M. Thomas Frédéric Moreau, a French archæologist, author of a collection of Gallic, Gallo-Roman, and Merovingian antiquities, in his one hundred and first year; M. Gabriel de Mortillet, the eminent French anthropologist, in Paris, November 4th, aged sixty-seven years; Sir George Smyth Baden Powell, political economist, aged fifty-one years; Sir John Fowler, engineer in chief of the Forth Bridge, aged eighty-one years; Dr. James I. Peck, assistant professor of biology in Williams College, and assistant director of the Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole; George Vestal, professor of agriculture and horticulture at the New Mexico Agricultural College, October 24th, aged forty-one years; Dr. W. Kochs, docent for physiology at Bonn; M. J. V. Barbier, a distinguished French geographer; M. N. J. Raffard, an eminent French mechanical engineer, author of many valuable inventions; Latimer Clark, F. R. S., an eminent English electrician, one of the founders and a past president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, whose name is associated with the history of electric telegraphy and with many inventions, and author of several books that are standard with the profession, at Kensington, London, October 30th, in his seventy-sixth year; Count Michele Stefano de Rossi, a distinguished Italian seismologist; M. de Meritens, a French electrical engineer, inventor of one of the first practical dynamos, and of other valuable electrical apparatus, aged sixty-five years.

Transcriber's Notes:

Words surrounded by _ are italicized.

Words surrounded by = are bold.

Obvious printer's errors have been repaired, other inconsistent spellings have been kept.

Illustrations were relocated to correspond to their references in the text.