when the Chinese imitation of the serious and reverent mediteval work will be looked upon as shocking by all who have feeling enougli to imagine what modem religious art might be; and we are quite sure that a great many architects share this sentiment. Let us think, for example, of the martyrs of the early Christian Church, and picture to ourselves the scenes with which the Catacombs were familiar, the groups of starved and trembling friends gathered about the victims brought in bleeding from the arena; the love-feasts, where nobles and slaves met to exchange the kiss of Christian peace; the humble funerals of the hunted and proscribed people whose only happiness in this world had been their hope of the next. Of all these sufferings and consolations the Catacombs still speak, in the inscriptions and symbols cut by affectionate but unskilful hands upon their walls; and among the symbols, none is more eloquent than the rude figure of the Lamb of God, which is repeated frequently, as if those oppressed, but resolute souls found in the thought of the Divine patience an admonition which they needed to have constantly before them. It is characteristic of the present religious art, that the modern explorations of the Catacombs, instead of leading to the study of the history of the people who kept the Christian religion alive in them, through years of persecution, seems to have suggested only the idea that the symbols which they left might be made commercially valuable as a sort of fetish; and Alpha-Omegas, XP’s, and so on, are set up everywhere, with the professed object of exciting religious thoughts in persons who have not the slightest idea what they stand for. Moreover, the commercial idea is, naturally, that if a thing is good, the more specimens of it there are in circulation the better; and, as there is a limit to the wall-space in churches available for carving or painting these hieroglyphics, they are applied, with shockingwant of feeling, to the floor; and, to this day, the manufacturers advertise “ full lines of Agnus Dei tiles for pavements,” without exciting the disapproval of any one, except a few architects and archseologists. It would be interesting to hear what the martyrs would say to an invitation to trample on their most beloved emblem, in their promenades about the buildings which purport to be devoted to the faith for which they died; and even in some less sacred representations, which are to be introduced into the floor at Cologne, such as those of the Four Elements, to say nothing of the coats-of-arms of some of the arrogant and worldly archbishops, there is a flavor of falseness, and wilful disregard of historical and scientific truth, which would repel the great mediasval doctors of the church perhaps even more strongly than modern men of education.
I
T is astonishing to find a technical journal of the ability and influence of the Wiener Bauindustrie-zeitung bewailing the “ rash and radical ” pursuit of novelty, which, “ in London, Paris, New York, Boston, Vienna and Budapest,” among other towns, has led to the “tossing overboard” of the good old custom of having pumps and wells in city dwellings. In old times every town house had its court-yard, and in every courtyard was a well; and to this day a regulation stands on the statute-book of many cities, as, for example, of Munich, by which every house is required to have a well. The Bauindustrie-zeitung regrets that even court-yards are left out of many modern houses, while wells are omitted still more frequently, the people who build the houses depending upon the public water-supply to provide them with what they need. This seems to the Bauindustrie-zeitung very foolish. If the public water-supply should give out, which, as it says, frequently happens through the freezing of the pipes in winter or during droughts in summer, the householder is helpless unless he has a well to fall back upon. It is true that in cities the public water-supply should generally be used for cooking and drinking, leaving the well-water for washing; but, in emergency^ it says, the well-water may be used for drinking. Moreover, it thinks that a well is a valuable resource in case of fire, and says that the information which is gained in digging a well in the court-yard, in regard to the geological formation under the foundation, is of great practical value.
WE had thought that, at this late day, the dangers of city wells were generally understood, but it seems that people need occasionally to be reminded of them. One of the last wells which was left open to public use in London
is known to have caused the death of more than a thousand people during a cholera epidemic; and it is not too much to say that every well in such a city as New York or Paris or Vienna is liable to become a focus of typhoid fever, or cholera, or diphtheria infection. It is useless to try to prevent people who have the well-water from drinking it. Unless it is brackish, like the water of some of the New York wells, it is generally much sweeter and more sparkling than the water drawn from the city pipes, and is always cooler, so that it will be used for drinking, regardless of the risk. Nor is it only ignorant persons who use it. For a long time, the offices in the Western Union Building in New York were regularly furnished with drinking-water from an artesian-well in the cellar, and it has been found in most of our cities that nothing short of a compulsory filling of wells will prevent the dangerous use of water from them. Whether it is possible to regulate them so that they can be used without risk is doubtful. In New York, where water is comparatively dear, many wells are bored or driven in business buildings to supply water for the elevator-tanks, and sometimes for the plumbing apparatus, and perhap>s for the boilers; but it may be presumed that the water from all of them is contaminated with sewage, and, even if no one drank it, there is a possibility that its evaporation, after washing the floor or walls with it, might set free germs which, floating in the air, would be ready, on meeting with a favorable subject, to propagate terrible diseases. As to the use of wells in case of fire, it is hardly necessar}r to say that an ordinary well would not supply an American steam fireengine for five minutes, and that no other means of raising the water in it, and applying it to the fire, would be of much service; and the idea that any information as to the strata under the building could be gained by digging a well, which could not be equally well obtained by boring, at a small fraction of the expense, will amuse architects.
A MONSTROUS microscope is being built at Munich, by the Poeller Physical-Optical Institute, for exhibition at Chicago in 1893. It is intended for projecting images upon a screen, and electricity is used, not only for producing the necessary light, but for regulating the focus, centering the specimen to be examined, and cooling the apparatus. The last object, which is a very desirable one, as the heating of the instrument by the artificial light, which, in this case, is an arc of eleven thousand candle power, sets up disturbing currents of air, deranges the focus by expansion, and affects the objects unfavorably, is attained in an ingenious manner. A small copper cylinder, filled with liquid carbonic acid, under a pressure of about three hundred and fifty pounds to the square inch, is connected with the microscope in such a way that the opening of a valve throws a drop of the acid, in fine spray, over the portions of the instrument most exposed to the heat. The liquid immediately evaporates, producing intense cold, and reducing the temperature of the metal with which it is in contact to the desired point. The opening of the valve is automatically effected by an electric regulator, and the consumption of the liquefied gas is very slow. The magnifying power of the instrument is enormous. Under ordinary conditions it is arranged for magnifying eleven thousand diameters, but, by immersing the lenses in vaseline oil, more powerful objectives can be used, which will magnify sixteen thousand diameters. Some idea of the effect may be had by reflecting that, with the more powerful objective, one of the almost invisible worms known to children as “ vinegar eels ” would appear on the screen as a serpent more than a hundred feet long; while the finest flour would be shown as a heap of enormous boulders. The cost of building this gigantic instrument is said to be only about nine thousand dollars. Lf it could be bought for anything like that sum, it would be well worth securing for this country. It will, presumably, be utilized at Chicago for revealing the secrets of Lake Michigan and Schuylkill River water to American audiences, at so much a head; but for certain purposes, as, for instance, in the study of botany and vegetable physiology, it seems as if it might be valuable, after its career as a scientific show is over.
F
ROM mere suggestion to perfect performance is in these days so short a step that architects will do well to consider the ways and means of laying-on cold air to their buildings,
after one of the methods described in another column.
I
T is astonishing to find a technical journal of the ability and influence of the Wiener Bauindustrie-zeitung bewailing the “ rash and radical ” pursuit of novelty, which, “ in London, Paris, New York, Boston, Vienna and Budapest,” among other towns, has led to the “tossing overboard” of the good old custom of having pumps and wells in city dwellings. In old times every town house had its court-yard, and in every courtyard was a well; and to this day a regulation stands on the statute-book of many cities, as, for example, of Munich, by which every house is required to have a well. The Bauindustrie-zeitung regrets that even court-yards are left out of many modern houses, while wells are omitted still more frequently, the people who build the houses depending upon the public water-supply to provide them with what they need. This seems to the Bauindustrie-zeitung very foolish. If the public water-supply should give out, which, as it says, frequently happens through the freezing of the pipes in winter or during droughts in summer, the householder is helpless unless he has a well to fall back upon. It is true that in cities the public water-supply should generally be used for cooking and drinking, leaving the well-water for washing; but, in emergency^ it says, the well-water may be used for drinking. Moreover, it thinks that a well is a valuable resource in case of fire, and says that the information which is gained in digging a well in the court-yard, in regard to the geological formation under the foundation, is of great practical value.
WE had thought that, at this late day, the dangers of city wells were generally understood, but it seems that people need occasionally to be reminded of them. One of the last wells which was left open to public use in London
is known to have caused the death of more than a thousand people during a cholera epidemic; and it is not too much to say that every well in such a city as New York or Paris or Vienna is liable to become a focus of typhoid fever, or cholera, or diphtheria infection. It is useless to try to prevent people who have the well-water from drinking it. Unless it is brackish, like the water of some of the New York wells, it is generally much sweeter and more sparkling than the water drawn from the city pipes, and is always cooler, so that it will be used for drinking, regardless of the risk. Nor is it only ignorant persons who use it. For a long time, the offices in the Western Union Building in New York were regularly furnished with drinking-water from an artesian-well in the cellar, and it has been found in most of our cities that nothing short of a compulsory filling of wells will prevent the dangerous use of water from them. Whether it is possible to regulate them so that they can be used without risk is doubtful. In New York, where water is comparatively dear, many wells are bored or driven in business buildings to supply water for the elevator-tanks, and sometimes for the plumbing apparatus, and perhap>s for the boilers; but it may be presumed that the water from all of them is contaminated with sewage, and, even if no one drank it, there is a possibility that its evaporation, after washing the floor or walls with it, might set free germs which, floating in the air, would be ready, on meeting with a favorable subject, to propagate terrible diseases. As to the use of wells in case of fire, it is hardly necessar}r to say that an ordinary well would not supply an American steam fireengine for five minutes, and that no other means of raising the water in it, and applying it to the fire, would be of much service; and the idea that any information as to the strata under the building could be gained by digging a well, which could not be equally well obtained by boring, at a small fraction of the expense, will amuse architects.
A MONSTROUS microscope is being built at Munich, by the Poeller Physical-Optical Institute, for exhibition at Chicago in 1893. It is intended for projecting images upon a screen, and electricity is used, not only for producing the necessary light, but for regulating the focus, centering the specimen to be examined, and cooling the apparatus. The last object, which is a very desirable one, as the heating of the instrument by the artificial light, which, in this case, is an arc of eleven thousand candle power, sets up disturbing currents of air, deranges the focus by expansion, and affects the objects unfavorably, is attained in an ingenious manner. A small copper cylinder, filled with liquid carbonic acid, under a pressure of about three hundred and fifty pounds to the square inch, is connected with the microscope in such a way that the opening of a valve throws a drop of the acid, in fine spray, over the portions of the instrument most exposed to the heat. The liquid immediately evaporates, producing intense cold, and reducing the temperature of the metal with which it is in contact to the desired point. The opening of the valve is automatically effected by an electric regulator, and the consumption of the liquefied gas is very slow. The magnifying power of the instrument is enormous. Under ordinary conditions it is arranged for magnifying eleven thousand diameters, but, by immersing the lenses in vaseline oil, more powerful objectives can be used, which will magnify sixteen thousand diameters. Some idea of the effect may be had by reflecting that, with the more powerful objective, one of the almost invisible worms known to children as “ vinegar eels ” would appear on the screen as a serpent more than a hundred feet long; while the finest flour would be shown as a heap of enormous boulders. The cost of building this gigantic instrument is said to be only about nine thousand dollars. Lf it could be bought for anything like that sum, it would be well worth securing for this country. It will, presumably, be utilized at Chicago for revealing the secrets of Lake Michigan and Schuylkill River water to American audiences, at so much a head; but for certain purposes, as, for instance, in the study of botany and vegetable physiology, it seems as if it might be valuable, after its career as a scientific show is over.
F
ROM mere suggestion to perfect performance is in these days so short a step that architects will do well to consider the ways and means of laying-on cold air to their buildings,
after one of the methods described in another column.