Various

“ The radical difference between the two countries in this respect we take to be this: that while Japan loves change for the sake of change, China dislikes it, and will only adopt it when it is clearly demonstrated to her that change is absolutely necessary. To the Japanese change appears to be a delightful excitement, to the Chinese a distasteful necessity; to the former whatever is must be wrong, to the latter whatever is is right. As a consequence of this difference between the two peoples, when China once makes a step forward it is generally after much deliberation, and is never retraced. ”

“ The ability to read character in the form of the human face and figure is a gift possessed by comparatively few persons, although most people interpret, more or less correctly, the salient points of human expression. The transient appearances of the face reveal temporary phases of feeling which are common to all men; but the constant qualities of the mind should be expressed, if at all, in the permanent forms of the executive instrument of the mind, the body. To detect the peculiarities of the mind by external marks has been the aim of the physiognomist of all times ”

“ To the blandishments of pushing diplomatists or acute promoters, the Chinese are deaf. However we may felicitate ourselves on our inventions, scientific appliances, "the railway and the steamship and the thoughts that shake mankind," our progress, the newspapers, the penny post, and what not, China will not adopt them simply because we have found their value and are proud of them. ”

“ There is much yet to be brought out by the engineers, to whom the subject more properly belongs.
In the mean time, although elevators claim many of the objectionable features in the business of water supply, most of them are not of a nature that should condemn their use; on the contrary, I hope that with the joining of our experience there will be an improvement in the methods of their supply. Inasmuch as they must be furnished with water, all that can be done is to adopt such rules and fix such rates as will compensate in some degree for their objectionable qualities. ”

“ During these researches I have remarked a peculiar property of magnetism, viz., that not only can the molecules be rotated through any degree of arc to its maximum, or saturation, but that, while it requires a comparatively strong force to overcome its rigidity or resistance to rotation, it has a small field of its own through which it can move with excessive freedom, trembling, vibrating, or rotating through a small degree with infinitely less force than would be required to rotate it permanently on either side. ”

“ If we take a rod as described, with its polarities evident when held vertically, and its neutrality also evident when its ends are reversed in the same magnetic field, we find that its polarity is equal at both ends, and that it is in every way symmetrical with a perfect magnet. If we gradually reverse the ends and take observations of its condition through each degree of arc passed over, we find an equal symmetrical diminution of evident external polarity, until we arrive at neutrality, when it has no external trace of inherent polarity ”

“ Japan is constantly undertaking new schemes with little care or thought for the morrow, but with the applause of injudicious foreign friends. In a short time she discovers that she has underrated the expense or exaggerated the results, and her projects are straightway abandoned as rapidly and thoughtlessly as they were commenced. Swift suggested as a suitable subject for a philosophical writer a history of human projects which were never carried out; the historian of modern Japan finds these at every turn. ”

“ The mind, as a function of part of the body, partakes of its perfections and its defects, and exhibits parallel types of development. Every peculiarity of the body has probably some corresponding significance in the mind ”

“ When a train is running, uniform air pressure exists throughout its length--that is to say, the main reservoir on the engine, the pipe from end to end of train, the triple valves and supplementary reservoirs on each vehicle, are all charged ready for work, the brake cylinders being empty and the brakes off. The essential principle of the system is, that maintaining the pressure keeps the brakes off, but letting the air escape from the brake pipe, purposely or accidentally, instantly applies them. ”

“ Showing how little people who use motors or elevators or fountains realize the quantity of water they consume. This class of consumers may be placed on one footing, to wit, a class who, in spite of the fact that they are supplied with water for much less than any other, feel that they are imposed upon, and cannot be made to think otherwise.
Though not as large as for elevator supply, water motors require liberal openings in the mains, and frequently the fault of having too small supply pipes is sought to be remedied by openings in the water mains much larger than needful. ”

“ Waters with much temporary hardness are most objectionable in this respect, and the evil is so great where the heating is effected in a coil of pipe, as practically to prevent, in towns with hard water, the use of this most convenient method of heating water. The property of being softened by boiling which temporarily hard water possesses is not of much domestic use, for water is, as a rule, either not raised to a sufficiently high temperature or not kept at it for a long enough time. ”

“ Elevators have become an established institution, and in cities of any commercial importance are regarded as a necessity, hotels, jobbing houses, factories, and office buildings being considered as far behind the times when not thus provided, as a city without a water supply or a community without a "boom." The use of elevators has made it practicable and profitable to erect buildings twice as high as were formerly thought of. ”

“ One of the greatest causes of waste from elevators is the wearing out of the piston packing, this being particularly troublesome in most of the Western cities, where the water supplied is to a large extent from turbid streams, carrying more or less fine sand or "grit," which cuts out the packing of the pistons very rapidly. The only practicable remedy for this is close inspection, to see that the pistons do not allow water to pass, a fact that can readily be determined from the noise made in the cylinder when the elevator is in motion going upward. ”

“ If we magnetize a wire placed east and west, it will retain this polarity until freed by vibrations, as already remarked. If we pass an electric current through this magnetized wire, we can notice the gradual rotation of the molecules, and the formation of the circular neutrality. If we commence with a weak current, gradually increasing its strength, we can rotate them as slowly as may be desired. There is no sudden break or haphazard moment of neutrality: the movements to perfect zero are accomplished with perfect symmetry throughout. ”

“ In tempered steel the molecules are extremely rigid, and in soft iron its molecular elasticity is at its maximum. Its free motion differs entirely from that given it by torsion or stress. We may assume that a molecule is surrounded by continuous ether, more of the nature of a jelly than of that of a gas; in such a medium a molecule might freely vibrate through small arcs, but a rotation extending beyond its critical limit would involve a much greater expenditure of force. ”

“ Each degree of hardness indicates the destruction and waste of 12 lb. of the best hard soap by 10,000 gallons of water when used for washing. Hard water frequently becomes softer after it has been boiled for some time. When this is the case, a portion at least of the original hardening effect is due to the bicarbonate of lime and magnesia. These salts are decomposed by boiling into free carbonic acid, which escapes as gas, leaving carbonates of lime and magnesia; the latter being nearly insoluble in water, ceases to exert more than a very slight hardening effect, and produces a precipitate. ”

“ Cow's milk, immediately after calving, contains more butter and less caseine than milk produced some time later, when the specific character of ruminants begins to appear in the calf, that is to say, when it commences to graze the milk coagulates in the stomach. As in other mammals, an excess of fat helps digestion by subdividing the caseine and emulsifying it. But the milk of an animal recently calved is reserved for its young, and it is not until the time of weaning that the lacteal fluid is offered for human consumption. ”

“ We can perceive this effect of free rotation in a limited space in all classes of iron and steel, being far greater in soft Swedish iron than in hard iron or steel. A similar phenomenon takes place if we magnetize a rod held vertically in the direction of earth's magnetism. It then gives greater polarity than if magnetized east or west, and if magnetized in a contrary sense to earth's magnetism, it is very feebly magnetized, or, if the rod is perfectly soft, it becomes neutral after strong magnetization. ”

“ We might here suppose that the earth's directing force had rotated the molecules to zero, or transversely, which in reality it has done, but only to the limit of their comparatively free motion; for if we reverse the rod to its original position, its previous strong polarity reappears at both extremities, thus the central point of its free motion is inclined to the rod, giving by its free motion great symmetrical inclination and polarity in one direction, but when reversed the inclination is reduced to zero. ”

“ Thousands of dollars are sometimes expended on a single elevator, the cars are miniature parlors, and the mechanism has perhaps advanced to nearly the perfection of the modern steam engine. If then they have become such a firmly established institution, their bearing upon the water supply of cities is a subject to be carefully considered.
As before intimated, there are many questions involved in the use of hydraulic elevators, that particularly concern towns supplied by direct pumping, and perhaps other places where the supply by gravity is somewhat limited. ”

“ The contents of tank, N, must be thoroughly mixed by means of the air pump. The quantity of lime to be used for each tankful of water must depend upon the hardness of the water, 3⁄4 oz. being required for each tankful for each degree of hardness. It is desirable, however, always to have an excess of lime in the tank, N, so as to insure obtaining a saturated solution of lime. When first mixed the contents of the tank, N, will have a creamy appearance, but when the superabundant lime has subsided the supernatant liquid will be a perfectly clear saturated solution of lime. ”

“ In order to use water to the best advantage, the full pressure in the main, so far as practicable, should be had at the jet, but in order to accomplish this it is not necessary to use as large taps as are ordinarily demanded, but to provide supply pipes of sufficient capacity to deliver the water to the point of discharge with the least possible friction. Lately this theory has been put in practice to some extent by us, and the result has shown that in this manner we are able to supply motors through smaller taps than beforehand with as satisfactory results. ”

“ Hard steel preserves its structure, but its molecular rigidity is so great that we obtain but mere traces of any change of polarity by torsion. I have found, however, that fine cast drill steel, untempered, of the kind employed by watchmakers, is most suitable; these are generally sold in straight lengths of 30 centimeters. Wires 1 millimeter in diameter should be used, and when it is desired to increase the force, several of these wires, say, nine or ten, should be formed into a single rod or bunch.
The wire as sold is too rigid to give its maximum of molecular rotation effect. ”

“ Some enthusiastic advocates of the germ theory of disease believe that many, if not all, the so-called disease germs may be transplanted into the human system with the food ingested. But whatever may be the real truth in regard to this subject, it has been positively demonstrated that many diseases of the human body may be produced by unwholesome food. The specific symptoms produced in man by the various grain diseases are not accurately known, consequently our remarks upon this subject must be of a very general character. ”

“ Even for greater power they possess advantages over steam engines which, to a considerable extent, compensate for the large water rates that ought to be paid for their supply. These advantages are in the first cost of a motor, as compared with a steam engine, the saving in attendance and fuel, the convenience and cleanliness, and in some cases a saving in insurance by reason of their being no fire risks attendant upon its use. ”

“ The food, no doubt, has some influence upon the composition of the milk of animals of the same species, but every animal can secrete something independent of any food, just as one kind secretes musk, another castor, etc. Yet it would not be an anomaly if an excess of caseine in proportion to the other substances was a true characteristic of ruminants. ”

“ The triple valve, as will be seen, is simply a small piston, carrying with it a slide valve, which can be moved up or down by increasing or decreasing the pressure in the brake pipe. As soon as the air from the main reservoir is turned into the brake pipe, by means of the driver's valve, the piston is pushed up into the position shown, and air is allowed to feed past it through a small groove into the reservoir. At the same time the slide valve covers the port to the brake cylinder, and is in such a position that the air from the latter may exhaust into the atmosphere. ”

“ The apparatus needed for researches upon evident external polarity requires no very great skill or thought, but simply an apparatus to measure correctly the force of the evident repulsion or attraction; in the case of neutrality, however, the external polarity disappears, and we consequently require special apparatus, together with the utmost care and reflection in its use. ”