Various

“ The bleak, barren promontory whereon stands the light is swept clean of its summer dust by the violent raking of cold hurricanes across it, and coated with ice from the wind-dashed spume of the great breakers hurled against the narrow sand spit which makes the eastern terminus of the island. ”

“ I have not desired to fetter you with dogmatic rules, but I have sought, by general illustrations, to show you the principles on which sanitary science rests. That science is embodied in the words, pure earth, pure air, pure water. In nature that purity is insured by increasing movement. ”

“ The great inventive powers which have been applied to the w.c. pan are an evidence of how unsatisfactory they all are. Many kinds of water-closet apparatus and of so-called "traps" have a tendency to retain foul matter in the house, and therefore, in reality, partake more or less of the nature of small cesspools, and nuisances are frequently attributed to the ingress of "sewer gas" which have nothing whatever to do with the sewers, but arise from foul air generated in the house drains and internal fittings. The old form was always made with what is called a D-trap. Avoid the D-trap. ”

“ Taking circumstantial and pathological evidences into consideration, the hope of the person thus poisoned rests solely upon lack of vitality in the serpent and its venom, and in his personal idiosyncrasies, habits of life, condition of health, etc., and the varied chapters of accidents. To look for a specific, in any sense of the word, is the utmost folly! The action of the poison and its train of results follow inoculation in too swift succession to be overtaken and counteracted by any antidote, supposing such to be a possible product, even if administered hypodermically. ”

“ Chemistry is not only powerless to solve the enigma of its action, and the microscope to detect its presence, but pathology is at fault to explain the reason of its deadly effect; and all that we know is that when introduced even in most minute quantities into an open wound, the blood is dissolved, so to speak, and the stream of life paralyzed with an almost incredible rapidity. ”

“ Scarcely a morning has dawned for two months but that several of the poor birds have been picked up at the foot of the light house tower with the broken necks which have mutely told the story of death, reached by plunging headlong against the crystal walls of the dazzling lantern overhead the night before. ”

“ A reward of more than a quarter of a century's standing, and amounting to several thousand pounds, is offered by the East India Government for the discovery of a specific for the bite of the cobra, and for which no claims have ever been advanced; and the "snake charmers" or jugglers in whom this superior knowledge is supposed to center are so well aware of the futility of specifics, and the risk to which they are subjected, that few venture to ply their calling without a broad-bladed, keen-edged knife concealed about the person as a means of instant amputation in case of accident. ”

“ No drain should be constructed so as to pass under a dwelling house, except in particular cases when absolutely necessary. In such cases the pipe should be of cast iron, and the length of drain laid under the house should be laid perfectly straight—a means of access should be provided at each end; it should have a free air current passing through it from end to end, and a flush tank should be placed at the upper end. 5. Every house drain should be arranged so as to be flushed, and kept at all times free from deposit. ”

“ A larger quantity is required of sand or gravel. If the earth after use is dried, it can be applied again, and it is stated that the deodorizing powers of earth are not destroyed until it has been used ten or twelve times. This system requires close attention, or the dry earth closet will get out of order; as compared with water closets, it is cheaper in first construction, and is not liable to injury by frost; and it has this advantage over any form of cesspit—that it necessitates the daily removal of refuse. ”

“ Great as the science is, however, it is yet far removed from perfection; and there are substances so mysterious, subtle, and dangerous as to set the most delicate tests and powerful lenses at naught, while carrying death most horrible in their train; and chief of these are the products of Nature's laboratory, that provides some sixty species of serpents with their deadly venom, enabling them in spite of sluggish forms and retiring habits to secure abundant prey and resent mischievous molestation. ”

“ When once well fixed, it has no tendency to move. I would, therefore, advocate cast iron in lieu of lead soilpipes. In fixing the soilpipe which is to receive a water-closet, the trap should form part of the fixed pipe; so that if there is any sinking the down pipe will not sink away from the trap. It is, however, not sufficient to provide good material. There is nothing which is more important in a sanitary point of view than good workmanship in house drainage. ”

“ I certainly do not wish to apologize for or extenuate the crimes of the convicts and colonists, against which the most vigorous protests have been raised both in England and in the colony itself, but neither war nor social disasters have been the principal cause of the disappearance of the Tasmanians. They have perished from that strange malady which Europeans have everywhere transplanted in the maritime world, and which strikes down the most flourishing populations. ”

“ We shall not discuss further the arrangements which may be varied infinitely, but point out the principal properties of the oxide of copper, zinc, and potash battery. As a battery with a solid depolarizing element, the new battery presents the advantage of only consuming its element, in proportion to its working; amalgamated zinc and copper are, in fact, not attacked by the alkaline solution, it is, therefore, durable. ”

“ To do this, we must insure that a current of air shall be continually passing through the drains; both an inlet and an outlet for fresh air must be provided in the portions of the house drain which are cut off from the main sewer, for without an inlet and outlet there can be no efficient ventilation. This outlet and inlet can be obtained in the following manner: In the first place, an outlet may be formed by prolonging the soil pipe at its full diameter, and with an open top to above the roof, in a position away from the windows, skylights, or chimneys. ”

“ Breathing becoming retarded and laborious, the necessary supply of oxygen is no longer received, and blood still venous, in that it is not relieved of its carbon, is returned through the arteries, whereby the capillaries of the brain are gorged with a doubly poisoned circulation, poisoned by both venom and carbon. In this we have ample cause for the attending train of symptoms that, beginning with drowsiness, rapidly passes into stupor followed by profound coma and ultimate dissolution—marked evidence of the fact that a chemical agent or poison may produce a mechanical disease ”

“ The plant, of which we give illustrations opposite, is constructed to crush about four tons of seed per day of eleven hours, and the manual labor has been so reduced to a minimum that it is intended to be worked by one man, who moulds and puts the twenty-four cakes into the presses, and while they are under pressure is engaged paring the cakes that have been previously pressed. In crushing castor-oil seed, a decorticating machine or separator can be combined with the mill, but in such a case the engine and boiler would require to be made larger.—The Engineer. ”

“ Just consider; the drain pipes under the best conditions of aeration contain elements of danger, and those pipes are composed of a number of parts, at the point of junction of any one of which the poison may escape into the house. You thus perceive how necessary it is first to reduce the poison to a minimum by cutting off the sewer gas which might otherwise pass from the street sewer to the house drain, and in the next place being most careful in the workmanship of every part of your house drains and soilpipes. Reduce your danger where you can by putting your pipes outside. ”

“ The fangs proper, those formidable weapons whose threatening presence quails the boldest opponent, inspires the fear of man, and puts to flight the entire animal kingdom—lions, tigers, and leopards, all but the restless and plucky mongoose—and whose slightest scratch is attended with such dire results, are two in number, one in each upper jaw, and placed anteriorly to all other teeth, which they exceed by five or six times in point of size. ”

“ There is a method which you might find useful on a small scale to which I will now draw your attention, as it is applicable to detached houses or small barracks—viz., the plan of applying the domestic water to land through underground drains, or what is called subsoil irrigation. This system affords peculiar facilities for disposing of sewage matter without nuisance. There are many cases where open irrigation in close contiguity to mansions or dwellings might be exceedingly objectionable, and in such cases subsoil irrigation supplies a means of dealing with a very difficult question. ”

“ There are other smaller fishing boats, among which may be noticed the bateler, a powerful little vessel, 13 feet to 16 ft. long, about 51⁄2 ft. wide, and 2 ft. deep. They are sailed by one man, set a good spread of canvas, and are fast and handy. They are used for taking a species of cuttlefish which supplies a bait, and is caught by hook and line, the fishes being attracted by colored threads, at which they rush, when the hook will catch in their tentacles. There is a small well in the middle of the boat for keeping the fish alive. ”

“ The receptacles in which refuse is temporarily placed, such as ash pits and manure pits, should never be below the level of the ground. If a deep pit is dug in the ground, into which the refuse is thrown in the intervals between times of removal, rain and surface water will mix with the refuse and hasten its decomposition, and generally the lowest part of the filth will not be removed, but will be left to fester and produce malaria. ”

“ The oil from the presses is caught in an oil tank behind, from which an oil pump, worked by an eccentric, forces it in any desired direction. The cakes, on being withdrawn from the press, are stripped of the bagging and cut to size in a specially arranged paring machine, which is placed off the bed-plate behind the kettle, and is driven by the pulley shown on the main shaft. The paring machine is also fitted with an arrangement for reducing the parings to meal, which is returned to the kettle, and again made up into cakes. ”

“ Sifted coal ashes and road dust are the remedy, kept in barrels till needed for use. A neat cask, filled with these absorbents, with a long-handled dipper, is placed in the closet, and a conspicuous placard directs every occupant to throw down a dipper full before leaving. The vaults, made to open on the outside, are then as easily cleaned twice a year as sand is shoveled from a pit. No drainage by secret, underground seams in the soil can then poison the water of wells ”

“ The water from the house is carried through a water-tight drain to the ground where the irrigation is to be applied. It is there passed through ordinary drain pipes, placed 1 ft. below the surface, with open joints, by means of which it percolates into the soil. Land drains, 4 ft. deep, should be laid intermediately between the subsoil drains to remove the water from the soil. The difficulty of subsoil irrigation is to prevent deposit, which chokes the drains; and if the foul domestic water is allowed to trickle through the drains as it passes away from the house it soon chokes the drains. ”

“ Cesspools in a house do not fulfill this condition of immediate removal. They serve for the retention of excremental and other matters. In a porous soil it endangers the purity of the wells. The Indian cities afford numerous examples of subsoil pollution. The Delhi ulcer was traced to the pollution of the wells from the contaminated subsoil; and the soil in many cities and villages is loaded with niter and salt, the chemical results of animal and vegetable refuse left to decay for many generations, from the presence of which the well water is impure. ”

“ Chemistry has made astounding strides since the days of the sixteenth century, when Italian malice and intrigue swayed all Europe, and poisons and poisoners stalked forth unblushingly from cottage and palace ”

“ Is it not worth our while to know, if we can, by impartial tests, whether the tax imposed on our working brains by the system of arithmetic in daily use is the necessary price of a blessing enjoyed, or an oppression? ”

“ Even the saliva of man, as well as certain other secretions, is at times so modified by anger as to rival the venom of the serpent in fatality, and it has no specific; and a careful analysis of the pathological relations of such poison proves that further experimentation and expectation is as irrational as the pursuit of the "philosopher's stone." ”

“ A cord that passes over a pulley, P, allows of the apparatus, properly so called, being let down to a certain depth in the water. What is registered is the velocity of the vanes that are set in action by the current, and to effect such registry each revolution of the helix produces in the box, C, an electric contact that closes the circuit in the cable, F, attached to the terminals, B. This cable forms part of a circuit that includes a pile and a registering apparatus that is seen at L, outside of the box in which it is usually inclosed. ”

“ When the required temperature has been obtained, the seed is withdrawn by a measuring box through a self-acting shuttle in the kettle bottom, and evenly distributed over a strip of bagging supported on a steel tray in a Virtue patent moulding machine, where it undergoes a compression sufficient to reduce it to the size that can be taken in by the presses, but not sufficient to cause any extraction of the oil. The seed leaves the moulding machine in the form of a thick cake from nine to eleven pounds in weight, and each press is constructed to take in twelve of these cakes at once. ”

“ It is a stronger pipe than a rainwater pipe. The latter will often be found to have holes. A lead joint cannot be made properly in a weak pipe, therefore the lead joint is to some extent a guarantee of soundness. Lead pipes will be eaten away by water containing free oxygen without carbonic acid, therefore pure rainwater injures lead pipes. An excess of carbonic acid in water will also eat away lead. You will find that in many cases pinholes appear in a soilpipe, and when inside a house that allows sewer gas to pass into the house. Moreover, lead is a soft material ”

“ In delicacy of organism and perfection in mechanism and precision, the inoculatory apparatus of the venomous reptile excels the most exquisite appliances devised by the surgical implement maker's art, and it is doubtful whether it can ever be rivaled by the hand of man. ”

“ Briefly, it has been discovered that the bacillus of the "rouget" of pigs undergoes an increase of virulence by being cultivated through a series of pigeons. Inoculations from the last of the series of pigeons give rise to a most intense form of the disease. It will be remembered that the discovery of the bacillus of "rouget" of pigs was due to the late Dr. Thuillier.—Lancet.
Very few persons realize the necessity of cultivating an equable temper and of avoiding passion. Many persons have met with sudden death, the result of a weak heart and passionate nature. ”