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SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

A WEEKLY JOURNAL OF PRACTICAL INFORMATION, ART, SCIENCE, MECHANICS, CHEMISTRY, AND MANUFACTURES.

NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 24, 1877.

Vol. XXXVI.--No. 8. [NEW SERIES.]

$3.20 per Annum [POSTAGE PREPAID.]

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SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

ESTABLISHED 1845

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VOL. XXXVI., No. 8. [NEW SERIES.] _Thirty-second Year_. NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1877.

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CONTENTS.

(Illustrated articles are marked with an asterisk.)

Academy of Sciences, New York. 117 Answers to correspondents. 123 Arts, lost, in New York. 113 Augers and drills (16). 123 Bain, Alexander. 121 Blue glass deception, the. 113 Blue glass science. 121 Boilers for small engines (2,14). 123 Business and personal. 123 Caffeone. 114 Chromate of lime, acid (18). 123 Circle problem, the three (8). 123 Clock collector, a. 119 Coal, burning small (19). 123 Cremation temple, proposed*. 119 Dark days (11). 123 Dates and the date palm*. 111 Diseases, infections. 121 Dyeing process, a cold (9). 123 Engines for boats (12). 123 Floors, filling for hardwood (6). 123 Friction at rest (15). 123 Frost plant of Russia, the*. 116 Glass making, toughened. 121 Greenhouses, tar paint in (3). 123 Harness cockeye, improved*. 118 Heating ranges (17). 123 Heating rooms (7). 123 Hemi-plunger, the.* 115 Hens, Leghorn. 114 Ink, purple marking. 117 Iron trade in England. 117 Laboratory manipulations. 117 Lathe chuck.* 118 Lathe, screw-cutting.* 118 Lead, sea water and. 119 Moneyed men. 122 Mortar, black (10). 123 New books and publications. 122 Ornaments in winter, natural. 118 Papin's steam engine.* 120 Patent decision, a. 115 Patent matters in Washington. 116 Patent office annual report. 117 Patents, American and foreign. 122 Patents, official list of. 124 Planing mill machinery. 115 Posterity, for--a suggestion. 112 Railroad, the Wetli mountain.* 114 Rock sections for microscopy. 117 Roofs, leaky slate (1). 123 Rose bushes, soot for. 119 Salicylic acid for the feet. 115 Sawdust in rough casting. 114 Seed-distributing panthers. 111 Self-reliance and success. 121 Snow a fertilizer. 119 Something to do. 121 Spectroscope prisms (11). 123 Steam engine, Papin's. 120 Steam engine, the Brown. 120 Suicide statistics. 116 Telegraph, the speaking. 120 Trolling hook, improved*. 114 Watch, position of a (13). 123 Waterproofing, suint for. 114 White color in animals. 114 Wire, crossing a river on a. 121 Wool, purifying. 114 Zinc roofs (4). 123

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TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT, No. 60, For the Week ending February 24, 1877.

I. ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS.--Artificial Production of Ice by Steam Power--The American Roller Skate Rink, Paris, 1 engraving.--The Little Basses Light House, 4 figures.--The Souter Point Electric Light.--On the Minute Measurements of Modern Science, by ALFRED MAYER.--Method of Measuring by Means of the Micrometer Screw furnished with the Contact Level; Method of Electric Contact Applied to Measurements with the Micrometer Screw, 2 engravings.--Abstracts from Report of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers on the Metric System.--New Turret Musical and Chiming Clock for the Bombay University, with 1 page of engravings.--Water Gas and its advantages, by GEO. S. DWIGHT.--Brattice Cloths in Mines.--Eight Horse Power Portable Steam Engine, with dimensions, particulars, and 1 page of engravings.--Clyde Ship Building and Marine Engineering in 1876.--Four Masted Ships.--New Bridges at and near New York city.--The Sutro Tunnel.--Independent Car Wheels.--Passenger Travel, New York city.

II.--TECHNOLOGY.--Design for Iron Stairway, and Iron Grilles, with 3 engravings.--The Process of Micro-photography used in the Army Medical Department.--Direct Positives for Enlarging.--A Monster Barometer.--Architectural Science, Carpentry Queries and Replies.--The Carpet Manufactures of Philadelphia. How the Centre Selvage is Formed, 3 figures.--Glass of the Ancients.--On the Preservation of Meat; a resume of the various methods now practiced.--California Pisciculture.--Savelle's System of Distillation, 2 engravings.--New Bromine Still, by W. ARVINE, 1 engraving.--The Phoenix Steam Brewery, New York.--French Cognac Distillation, 1 engraving.--Schwartz's Sugar Refinery, London. General description of the establishment.--Vienna Bread and Coffee.--How Pictorial Crystals are Produced and Exhibited.

III. LESSONS IN MECHANICAL DRAWING. New Series. By Professor C.W. MACCORD; with several engravings.

IV. ELECTRICITY, LIGHT, HEAT, SOUND, ETC.--Magnetic Action of Rotatory Conductors.--The Sensation of Sound.--Sympathetic Vibration of Pendulums.--Protection from Lightning.--Musical Tones, photograph of.

V. MEDICINE, HYGIENE, ETC.--On the Treatment of Typhoid Fevers. By ALFRED L. LOOMIS, M.D.--Hydrophobia Cured by Oxygen.--The efficacy of Lymph, by M. HILLER.--Success of Chloral Hydrate for Scalds and Burns.--Uses of Cyanide of Zinc.--Dr. Brown-Sequard on Nerve Disease.

VI. MISCELLANEOUS.--Geological Notes.--A Geological Congress.--The last Polar Expedition.--Old Men of Science.--Pre-glacial Men.--Post-glacial period, Esthonia.--Northern Pacific Formations.

TERMS:--SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT, one year, postpaid, _five dollars_. One copy of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN and one copy of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT, one year, postpaid, _seven dollars_. CLUBS.--One extra copy of the SUPPLEMENT will be supplied gratis for every club of five SUPPLEMENT subscribers at $5.00 each.

All the back numbers of the SUPPLEMENT, from the commencement, January 1, 1876, can be had. Price 10 cents each.

NOW READY.--The SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT for 1876. Complete in two large volumes. Over 800 quarto pages; over 2,000 engravings. Embracing History of the Centennial Exhibition. New Illustrated Instructions in Mechanical Drawing. Many valuable papers, etc. Price five dollars for the two volumes, stitched in paper; or six dollars and fifty cents, handsomely bound in stiff covers. Remit by postal order. Address

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PUBLISHERS' NOTICE.

New subscriptions to the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN and the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT will, for the present, be entered upon our books to commence with the year, and the back numbers will be sent to each new subscriber unless a request to the contrary accompanies the order.

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DATES AND THE DATE PALM.

Even those whose knowledge of the customs of the Orient extends no further than a recollection of the contents of that time-honored story book, the "Arabian Nights," are doubtless aware that, since time immemorial, the date has been the chief food staple of the desert-dwellers of the East. The "handful of dates and gourd of water" form the typical meal and daily sustenance of millions of human beings both in Arabia and in North Africa, and to this meager diet ethnologists have ascribed many of the peculiar characteristics of the people who live upon it. Buckle, who finds in the constant consumption of rice among the Hindoos a reason for the inclination to the prodigious and grotesque, the depression of spirits, and the weariness of life manifest in that nation, likewise considers that the morbid temperament of the Arab is a sequence of vegetarianism. He points out that rice contains an unusual amount of starch, namely, between 83 and 85 per cent; and that dates possess precisely the same nutritious substances as rice does, with the single difference that the starch is already converted into sugar. To live, therefore, on such food is not to satisfy hunger; and hunger, like all other cravings, even if partially satisfied, exercises control over the imagination. "This biological fact," says Peschel, "was and still is the origin of the rigid fastings prescribed by religions so widely different, which are made use of by Shamans in every quarter of the world when they wish to enter into communication with invisible powers." Peschel and Buckle, however, are at variance as to the influence of the date diet as affecting a race; and the former remarks that, "while no one will deny that the nature of the food reacts upon the mental powers of man, the temperament evoked by different sorts is different;" yet "we are still far from having ascertained anything in regard to the permanent effects of daily food, especially as the human stomach has, to a great degree, the power of accommodating itself to various food substances, so that with use even narcotics lose much of their effect." The same author also adds that the date "trains up independent and warlike desert tribes, which have not the most remote mental relationship to the rice-eating Hindoos."

It remains for the reader to reconcile this disagreement of learned doctors according to his own judgment. The evidence of those who subsist on the date is certainly overwhelming in its favor. The Assyrians, tradition says, asserted that it was such a great gift to them that its worth could not be too extravagantly told; for they had found, for the leaves, the fruit, the juices, and the wood of the tree, three hundred and sixty different uses. The Mohammedans adopt the date palm into their religion as an emblem of uprightness, and say that it miraculously sprang into existence, fully grown, at the command of the Prophet. Palm branches still enter as symbols of rejoicing into Christian religious ceremonies; and throughout Palestine constant reference is found to the date and the palm in the naming of towns. Bethany means "a house of dates." Ancient Palmyra was a "city of palms," and the Hebrew female name Tamar is derived from the word in that language signifying palm. In Africa there is an immense tract of land between Barbary and the great desert named Bilidulgerid, "the land of dates," from the profusion of the trees there growing.

In this country, the date as an article of food is classed with the prune, the fig, and the tamarind, to be used merely as a luxury. We find it coming to the markets at just about this time of year in the greatest quantities, packed in baskets roughly made from dried palm leaves. The dates, gathered while ripe and soft, are forced into these receptacles until almost a pasty mass, often not over clean, is formed. Their natural sugar tends to preserve them; but after long keeping they become dry and hard. This renders them unfit for use; but they still find a sale to the itinerant vendors who, after steaming them to render them soft (of course at the expense of the flavor), hawk them about the streets. Dates in the pasty condition are not relished by those who live on them; nor, on the other hand, would we probably fancy the dried, almost tasteless fruit which, strung on long straws, is carried in bunches by the Arabs in their pouches.

The date palm (_phoenix dactylifera_) is the most important species of the dozen which make up its genus. Though slow in growth, it shoots up a magnificent stem, to the height sometimes of eighty feet, the summit of which is covered with a graceful crown of pinnated leaves. The trunk is exceedingly rough and spiny; the flower spathes, which appear in the axils of the leaves, are woody, and contain branched spadices with many flowers; more than 11,000 have been counted on a single male spadix. As the flowers are dioecious, it is necessary to impregnate the female blossoms artificially in order to insure a good crop; and to this end the male spadices are cut off when the pollen is ripe and carefully shaken over the female ones. At from six to ten years of age, the tree bears, and then remains fruitful for upward of 200 years. An excellent idea of the palm in full bearing may be obtained from our illustration, which represents the mode of gathering the dates, of which a single tree will often yield from one to four hundredweight in a season. The fruit varies much in size and quality; and in the oases of the Sahara forty-six varieties have been named.

The utilizations of the date palm and its products are very numerous. The stem yields starch, and timber for houses, boats, fences, fuel, etc., as well as an inferior kind of sago. The leaves serve as parasols and umbrellas, and for material for roof covering, baskets, brushes, mats, and innumerable utensils. At their base is a fiber, which is spun into excellent rope. When the heart of the leaf is cut, a thick honey-like juice exudes, which, by fermentation, becomes wine (the "toddy" of India), or vinegar, and is also boiled down into sugar. The young shoots, when cooked, resemble asparagus; and the dates themselves are dried and ground into meal, from which bread is prepared.

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PANTHERS AS SEED DISTRIBUTORS.

It is well known that bees carry pollen from flower to flower, and that eggs of marine animals are often carried long distances in the stomachs of aquatic birds. A very curious instance of this kind, showing how vegetable species may be diffused by means which no botanist, however acute, would be likely to think of, is mentioned by Mr. Alfred Smee, who states that, attached to the skin of a panther recently shot in India, were found numerous seeds, each of which had two perfect hooks, manifestly designed to attach themselves to foreign bodies. As the panther moved about it collected the seeds on the skin and carried them about wherever it went; but when it rubbed against the shrubs, it of necessity brushed some off, and thus distributed them. One of the seeds produced a handsome plant, and beautiful clusters of tubular flowers. It was immediately recognized to be the _Martynia diandra_--a plant which, although introduced into England as far back as 1731, has scarcely ever been cultivated, although it has been commented on by botanists and other writers.

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FOR POSTERITY--A SUGGESTION.

The Irish gentleman who declined to aid an enterprise for the benefit of posterity, remarking that posterity had never done anything for him, was, after all the sport made of him, no unfair representative of the bulk of mankind. There is talk enough about doing great things for the advantage of future ages, but the real motive is apt to be something very different. To perpetuate their own name or fame, men or nations often set up lasting monuments, and sometimes unintentionally convey thereby to after times a few more or less instructive indications of the artistic or industrial skill of their day and generation. To further their own immediate ends, or to secure some benefit to their immediate descendants, men frequently undertake great material enterprises, and sometimes the work so done remains for ages the source of perennial good. But very rarely, if ever, can it be said that any work of man was undertaken solely, or even chiefly, for the benefit of posterity--more rarely still, for remote posterity.

Hence it happens that we owe far more to accident, to fire, rapine, volcanic outbursts, and the protecting care of desolation, for the knowledge we have of times long past, than to any intentional legacies of art or learning left us by the men of those times. The lost and abandoned tools, weapons, and ornaments of the stone age are all that we have to tell us of the childhood of humanity. Had no fiery disasters ever overtaken the pile-dwellers of the Swiss lakes, we should probably have never heard of such a people.

To the mud and ashes of Vesuvius, rather than to the historians of the Roman Empire, we owe the best of our knowledge of how Roman cities looked and Roman citizens lived eighteen hundred years ago. In the fragments of a _terra cotta_ library, buried in the ruins of a royal palace, we find almost our only records of the arts and sciences of ancient Assyria. Under the ash heaps of a forgotten age, in Cyprus, Cesnola finds the only known vestiges of a primitive civilization, reaching far back into the domain of mythology. Thanks to the destroyers of Troy and Mycenæ, and the protective care of temporary oblivion, Schliemann is now able to verify tradition and lay before an astonished and delighted world numerous precious relics of heroic ages hitherto remembered only in song.

Who can estimate the value of these and similar findings to us--the value of the revelations they bring of man's condition in those remote ages? Who can say how many or how few the ages will be ere the time comes when the antiquaries of the future will be rejoicing over equally fragmentary vestiges of the doings and possessions of our day?

On the other hand, who can estimate the value of the knowledge lost beyond hope of recovery, or the checks to human progress experienced, in the repeated wiping out, so to speak, of the higher races and the civilizations they embodied? And who can say that similar disasters may not come again and again to humanity?

Suppose a pestilence peculiarly fatal to the white race should fall upon the world to-day, crippling, perhaps exterminating, the now dominant civilized nations; how long would the material elements of our science and art or general culture remain with power to enlighten the barbarous tribes that would inherit the earth? Human progress has more than once been set back for centuries by such natural or unnatural causes, leaving the sites of once splendid civilizations to be overrun with barbaric hordes knowing nothing of the better times that went before.

Suppose, again, that, by one of those geologic changes so numerous in the history of our unstable globe, the existing continents should sink a thousand feet. Every center of modern civilization would be submerged. The great social and political organizations of humanity would be broken up, and in the wreck of nations that would ensue very little of the glory and culture of the race could survive. The earth is dotted with vestiges of lost and forgotten empires. Can we reasonably assume, in the face of such facts, that the nations of to-day are immortal?

The question is: Shall we continue to trust to chance, as all other civilizations have, for the preservation of the conquests we have made among the forces and secrets of nature; or shall we do something positive for posterity, and leave the ages to come some certain and abiding legacy of our treasures of art and learning?

It may be that human progress will go on and on to the end of time without a break; that in the course of centuries mankind will surpass us in civilization, knowledge and power, as much as we surpass the earliest and rudest men we have yet found traces of: maybe infinitely more.

In such a case, what would not the scholars of, say the year 5000 A.D., or any other future age, be willing to give for a comprehensive picture of humanity as it exists to-day--for a reasonably complete library of our literature, science, and art? We may safely assume that nothing of the sort will be possible if matters are left to take their natural course. By that time every structure, every machine, every book, every work of art, now in use or stored away in our libraries and galleries of art, will have disappeared, a prey to time, the elements, or the more destructive violence of man.

On the other hand, it may be that, through repeated disasters of one sort or another, mankind, three thousand years hence, will have lost all the knowledge men ever possessed, and be slowly struggling upward for the hundredth time from inherited barbarism. In such a case, what enormous benefits might not accrue to man from a fortunate opening up of the wealth of knowledge we possess!

In any supposable case between these extremes of progress or degradation, a legacy of art and learning, such as we might easily set apart for remote posterity, would certainly be acceptable, perhaps extremely useful. Besides, it might be possible for us to set such a worthy example to those who shall come after us that, come what might, humanity would never be left absolutely void of the means of instruction, nor any worthy human achievement be absolutely lost or forgotten. The experience of these later years has demonstrated the value of such legacies even when unintentional, unselected, and wretchedly fragmentary. It has made clear also how a legacy deliberately made may be indefinitely preserved.

Roughly outlined, the carrying out of such a truly philanthropic enterprise would involve nothing more difficult than--

_First_. The construction of a practically indestructible treasure chamber in some secure place; and

_Second_. The preparation of a library well calculated to withstand the corroding tooth of time.