taking a second, or even third, transfer from the original letter. This process recommends itself for simplicity and cheapness, and seems likely to prove as useful as the ordinary copying press.

Preservation of Iron.

PROFESSOR BARFF offers the suggestion that iron may be protected from rust and the action of corrosive vapors by covering it with its own magnetic or black oxide. This oxide gives the iron an exceedingly hard, black surface, and adheres so tenaciously that even if a spot is left bare and the ordinary oxidation begins it will not spread on the surface, as is often the case with paints. The method employed to produce this oxide is to expose the iron to the action of the superheated steam under a high temperature, when a film of black oxide is formed, varying in thickness and hardness, according to the temperature and the time of exposure. At a temperature of 500° Fahr. for five hours, a surface is obtained that will resist a moderate exposure to the weather. A temperature of 1,200° Fahr. for seven hours will give a hard, black surface that will resist a file, and will bear unlimited exposure to the atmosphere out of doors without rusting. So far, only small articles have been coated with the oxide, and new and larger appliances are being prepared to test the value of Barff's discovery when applied to girders and bridge iron.

New Process in Making Steel.

A NEW process for making a high quality of toolsteel has been under experiment for some time, and its manufacture upon a commercial scale is now announced. A highly magnetic ore is selected and crushed in a Blake machine. The crushed ore is sifted, and the coarser part is put into a disintegrator and reduced still finer, and in this way a fine iron-ore sand is produced. The sand is then passed through a self-acting magnetic separating machine, in which the iron is extracted by means of magnets. This pure, rich, metallic powder is mixed with powdered charcoal and resin, and after being warmed, is made up into blocks in a common brick machine. The carbonaceous matter is intended to combine with the oxygen of the ore, and thus effect its reduction, and the proportion used is somewhat in excess of the oxygen to be removed. These bricks are then placed in a gas retort having tight doors at each end, and then submitted to a full red heat for twenty-four hours. By this time gas ceases to flow, and the carbonaceous matter having been burned out, the ore is reduced to a red hot powder. The next step is to remove this and to allow it to cool down, without coming in contact with the air. To accomplish this common gas is turned into the retort at the discharging end to produce an outward pressure and exclude the air, and at the same time an iron receiver is pushed up closely to the discharging end of the retort. Gas is then turned into the feeding end of the retort, and the door is opened sufficiently to admit the entrance of tools to push the hot powdered iron out of the retort into the receiver.

It is there kept closed from the air till it is cold. It is then passed once more through the disintegrator and magnetic separator to select the iron from the ash and refuse mingled with it. The pure metallic powder thus obtained is then mixed with resin and with manganese, or any other alloy, and pressed into cakes, is put into crucibles and melted in the ordinary manner employed in making crucible steel. This steel is reported to give highly satisfactory results in point of toughness and endurance.

Memoranda.

IN selecting corn for seed, it is often the practice to merely choose large ears from the general crop. It is suggested that this is not the best method, for, while the plant may be strong and vigorous and bear large ears, the corn may have been fertilized by pollen from feeble or stunted plants near it, and the seed may retain and repeat these adverse qualities in spite of the vigor of the plant on which it grew. It is said that a better plan would be to plant some of the seed in a small plot by itself, at a distance from the main crop, and to give this patch plenty of room and high culture. When the tassels appear in this seed-bed every plant should be examined, and all feeble stalks should be pulled out or cut off below the tassel before it has an opportunity to bloom. By this arrangement both the plant on which the ears grow, and the pollen scattered from its own and neighboring tassels, will be alike strong and vigorous, and the seed will partake of the strength of both its parents.

Les Mondes reports a new method of cleaning wool by means of gas. The wool is placed in a receiver made air-tight, and is treated with a current of air at a temperature of about 40° Fahr. This is followed by a current of dry, cool hydrochloric acid gas that quickly decomposes any vegetable matter clinging to the wool. After this a stream of pure air is turned through the receiver to drive out the acid gas and the receiver is raised to a temperature of 1300 Fahr. to finish the destruction of the vegetable refuse. To remove all traces of the hydrochloric gas, ammoniacal vapor is then driven through the wool, and the work is finished. The process is said to leave the wool perfectly clean and unharmed.

The beautiful iridiated glass so much admired in the Cesnola and other collections has been successfully imitated, and promises soon to appear upon a commercial scale. The process consists in submitting common glass to the action of water charged with 15 per cent. of hydrochloric acid at a pressure of two atmospheres, and at a temperature of 248° Fahr. for about seven hours. The interest shown in the hardened glass (the La Bastie glass already described in this department) has resulted in a new hard glass, obtained by submitting fluid glass to heavy hydraulic pressure. No other tempering is required, and the pressed glass is reported to be even stronger than the La Bastie glass, and to show a fibrous instead of a crystalline fracture when broken.

So Reason, plodding on the shore, Watched Love's frail shallop floating,

And thought," Though walking is a bore, It's very risky boating.

Hallo! young ímp, you will be wrecked, Your bark is very frail."

But Love sang gayly, "I expect

To have a jolly sail!"

"Keep off the rocks and cataracts, They oft beguile a stranger."

Quoth Love-A truce to stupid facts! I rather like the danger.

The stream is smooth, the sky is clear, You need not come to measure

The crystal deeps through which I steer, My pilot shall be Pleasure!"

The War of the Roses.

IN Celia's cheek the red rose and the white,
So fairly mingle, we must deem it best,
That both should conquer in the equal fight,
And as they mingle put all strife at rest;
For blushes as they come seem half ashamed,
And paleness steals, from 'neath the radiant

glow,

Till, like carnations in the drifted snow,
Which is the brightest none can ever know.
Ah! had she lived five hundred years ago,
Sweet truce had ne'er been broken, treason
blamed,

Nor York, nor Lancaster had struck a blow,
But both in homage bowed, both been content,
Upon so fair a queen, to see their colors blent.
R. T. W. DUKE, JR.

JEALOUSY.

To a Gorilla in a Menagerie.

"O MIGHTY ape!
Half beast, half man,
Thy uncouth shape
Betrays a plan

The gulf of Being at a bound to span.

Thou art the link between ourselves and brutes,
Lifting the lower to a higher plane;
Thy human face all cavilers refutes,

Who sneer at Darwin as a dreamer vain.
How camest thou beneath this canvas tent?
Within this cage? behind these iron bars?
Thou, whose young days in tropic lands were
spent,

With strange companions, under foreign stars?
Art thou not lonely? what is life to thee
Thus mewed in prison, innocent of crime,
Become a spectacle for crowds to see,
And reckless boys to jeer at all the time?
Hast thou no feelings such as we possess?
Art thou devoid of any sense of shame?
Rise up, O brother, and thy wrongs redress;
Rise in thy might, and be no longer tame!"

I paused in my apostrophe; the animal arose; He seized the bars that penned him in; my blood in terror froze;

He shook the cage from side to side; the frightened people fled;

Then in a tone of savage wrath the horrid monster said:

"I'm hired by the wake to wear the dhirty craythur's shkin;

I come from Tipperary, and me name is Micky
Flynn."
F. W. CLARKE.

Compensation.

THIS large and flabby man, with the big voice, Adroit to wheedle and fawn in public life, Reveals, in private hours, the frequent choice Of bullying his frail sallow little wife.

But she, in turn, feeling his rude words gall, Stabbed cruelly by his hard imperious sneer, Striving her best on scantiest wherewithal

To fitliest serve the meager household cheer,

Will sometimes, her meek patience overthrown,
Assail in petulant and querulous way,
Her maid-of-all-work, wearied to the bone,-

A pale gaunt drudge who toils for trivial pay.

These taunts the ill-used factotum calmly bears, Yet vents her dudgeon later in fierce jeers Hurled at a timorous kitchen-maid down-stairs,A shabby little waif with monstrous ears.

Then she, this injured scullion, goes to seek

An old lame cur that in the back-yard dwells, And having found him, with malicious tweak She pulls his stumpy tail until he yells.

The poor cur, thus maltreated without cause,
Hobbles away in dismal spleen at that,
And watches for an hour, with sullen jaws,
Beside a certain hole where dwells a rat!
HUGH HOWARD.

look them over, that I am at a loss what to take and what to reject. The subject, archery in general, outside of any personal experience, is a charming one. The bow and arrows are as old as man. If the origin of any implements of human invention can be accepted as of prehistoric date, the archer's curved stick and feathered missiles are entitled to the honor of being placed first on the list. Of the venerable monuments of ingenuity discovered by our remotest ancestors, not one is so surely traceable through the shadows of doubtful history to an existence beyond the limits of tradition. Nor has any implement of ancient or modern times ever been so universally used. Of the gods, Apollo, Diana, Cupid and others were represented as archers. The arrow was the bolt of vengeance or the pang of love. To this day the poets recognize no other implements of the chase or of war in their mellowest strains. "Sharp as an arrow," "Swift as an arrow," "Straight as an

arrow," ""The shafts of envy, hatred, malice," and other like expressions, are everywhere found in poetry, while "Swift as bird-shot," "Round as a Chicago pellet," "The No. 2's or B. B's of envy," would be ridiculous even in prose.

Many nations and tribes of men have been famous for their archery. The Parthians, Carduchians, Scythians and Persians are mentioned by the old writers as mighty bowmen. Some of the American Indians are very expert, though by no means graceful or powerful archers. Much has been spoken and printed of the wonderful effect of Indian arrows at long range. It is all imagination. The best Sioux, Navajo, or Comanche archer would rarely be able to hit a man at eighty yards. But the yeomen of" Merrie Englande" were the world's most excellent, archers. No doubt they, too, have been favorably misrepresented by loving historians. We should not be slow to forgive those who doubt the difficult feats in the story of Robin Hood. He never did hit a willow wand three hundred or two hundred yards, three shots in succession; nevertheless, those bowmen who followed the old lords of England in the days of Crécy and Agincourt, and Flodden Field and Bannockburn and Neville's Cross, were crack shots, and sent their shafts with such force that it took the best Spanish mail to withstand them. No doubt Robin Hood performed a good deal of fancy shooting; but that he "told " every rivet and joint

of a knight's armor at long range with his arrow points is a pretty tough story for an archer to believe. For one, however, I gladly accept the stories of Robin's poaching proclivities, and the great havoc he made with the game wherever he chose to hunt.

Taking wild game has nearly ceased to be reckoned among the means of gaining a livelihood, and has fallen, or risen, as one may view it, to the level of a sport or means of recreation from the exhaustion and depression consequent to the civilized