method, the imagination playing a subordinate part to the note-book. Mr. Boyesen succeeds in making his characters interesting, not by a volley of detail so familiar to readers by actual experience that they exclaim at its likeness to life,-the most commonplace incident being therefore regarded as the most typical, but rather by making their metaphysical relations engaging. Indeed, where some authors suffer from a surplus of superficial life-likeness which is not organic life, Mr. Boyesen goes to the other extreme, and misses the vividness of complete characterization by too little attention to externals and trifles. His fancy has plenty of sail but not enough ballast. The reader is apt to be less interested in his people as human beings than in their dramatic embodiment of an idea. The personalities are distinct as far as they go, but it is a difference in dramatic attitude rather than of mental constitution. There are single exceptions to this in the two stories above named, and in "Annunciata," but it is rare that a good story is made up of but one good character without loss of dramatic force-flint must have flint to strike-and next to poetic quality, dramatic force is what Mr. Boyesen chiefly has. Characters like these it would seem that he has a thorough conception of: others he has only met. When he only intends to set forth a principle, this slightness of treatment is not an objection, for the sense of proportion is at the heart of all good constructive work. Moreover, it is easier to supply deficiencies of description than to forgive the overweighting of trivial things, a fault so obtrusive in much of Dickens's work. Still, the demands of the age for substantiality and for perfection in detail can be met without going to either extreme.

Once having granted the author's starting-point, and yielding oneself a little to the illusion, Mr. Boyesen's narrative is spirited and well wrought. He is especially happy in a shrewd use of symbolism to heighten a situation. Cranbrook, about to make love to his friend's sweetheart, finds her copying the group of Briseis led away from Achilles by the messengers of Agamemnon. Even this would have been stronger if Cranbrook had known the relations between the others: Hawthorne would have made this intellectual device a pervading and brooding dread in Cranbrook's mind. The same is true of both authors as to the statue of the Roman senator who reflects the moods of Cranbrook. The passiveness of the Italian girl is skillfully portrayed, and the grapple of the two friends in the dark is told with a quick, flashing, stiletto-like sentence. The most human character in the book is Ilka. She stands for an element in life of which we never tire-the attractiveness of a simple, unreasoning love; but it is a question whether the reader would not prefer to take this element unmixed with so much dross as the author thinks needful to give contrast to Ilka. The vulgar Hahns, for instance, though vigorously drawn, are uninteresting and, since Ilka is never really in any danger from either, are hardly worth elaboration.

As a whole, even when least life-like, Mr. Boy. esen's stories are always vital-as one might infer

from the strong hold they take on the affections of many readers. They are never written aimlessly or

for the sake of an ingenious plot, and those which deal with Norwegian-American life have opened a new field for the sympathies of readers, and have done a valuable service to the cause of political lib. erty in the next republic of Europe.

Storrs's Oration on Wycliffe.*

IF any English orations of the present time are to become classic, those of Dr. Storrs may well be included among them. To whom else should we look for examples of this kind of literature fitter to survive? Gladstone is a wonderful orator, but although we may despise the sneer of his great rival at the literary quality of his work, it is evident that a style so involved and reverberant needs the interpreting cadences of the author's voice: his orations are never altogether pleasant reading. John Bright is a famous tribune of the people; but his themes have been local, while his culture is provincial. Mr. George William Curtis has spoken some admirable orations, but his busy life affords too little opportunity for the cultivation of an art in which he excels. The erratic Mr. Wendell Phillips, of Boston, has uttered occasional speeches of remarkable penetration and force. But Dr. Storrs has delivered several orations which, for the nobleness of their themes, the thoroughness of their treatment, and the beauty and propriety of their diction, may be ranked among the masterpieces of the oratorical art of our day. The last, and in some respects the best, of these is his oration on Wycliffe. More than half the oration is devoted to the development of the Protestant principle in English history; but this is necessary to a comprehension of Wycliffe's work. The picture of the man and the story of his life are sketched with a bold but careful hand; the ample learning of the orator is felicitously used: and although the style is rather more restrained and less rhetorical than is his wont, there are occasional passagesnotably the exordium, in which the completion of the Cologne cathedral and of the English Bible are beautifully associated, the picture of the imperialism of the medieval church, and the account of the effect of Wycliffe's Bible upon English life—that are touched with the light of imagination.

The Correspondence of Goethe's Mother.t "FRAU AJA," whom all literary and many political celebrities of the last century delighted to honor, and whose friendship was courted even by princes, would have had a claim to distinction as a most

John Wycliffe and the first English Bible. An Oration, by Richard S. Storrs, D. D., LL. Ď. New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Company.

† Goethe's Mother. Correspondence of Catharine Elizabeth Goethe with Goethe, Lavater, Wieland, Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar, Friedrich von Stein, and Others. Translated from the German, with the Addition of Biographical Sketches and Notes. By Alfred S. Gibbs. With an Introductory Note by Clarence Cook. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1880.

charming type of a German woman, even if she had not been the mother of Germany's greatest poet. Fragments of her correspondence have hitherto been published in English, but, so far as we know, a complete collection, embracing her letters to all her numerous friends and admirers, has not until now been presented to the English-speaking public.

Even in Germany these quaint letters, abounding in terse descriptions and mother wit, are only to be found in half a dozen volumes of different size and type; and a collection like the present, giving a complete characterization of Frau Aja, as far as it can be gathered from her own utterances, will therefore be very welcome both to students of Goethe and to that part of the public who seek merely entertainment in the record of a past historic period. For, after all, the importance of the book as an historic document is hardly secondary to its interest as a mere personal recital of small events, connected more or less remotely with the life around which all the minor satellites of German literature for more than half a century revolved. It is the way men thought and spoke a hundred years ago which is here recorded, and it is in their typical capacity that such queer mixtures of religion and charlatanism as Lavater, intellectual epicureans like Wieland, and sweet, healthy, and realistic natures, like Frau Aja, primarily enchain our interest.

Barnard's "Knights of To-day."'*

Of these seven short romances, at least three are likely to have a wide popularity among readers who do not care so much for serious subject-matter or substantial character-drawing as for an amusing and ingenious plot. They are of the Jules Verne order of writing, which seeks to make probable the most incongruous connections of romance and modern science, and would turn to account in a fictitious narrative the very figures in the census. The agen

cies employed by Mr. Barnard to give zest and progress to his love-stories are such trifles as the electric telegraph, the heliograph and air-locks, and yet not one of these stories is dull, though "Put Yourself in Her Place" is every way inferior to the others. In "Kate" (-), the pioneer

and the best of the seven, first published in this magazine, and in "A Sanitary Measure," the plots are interesting and not overlaid with the mechanical lore which in places gives a little look of threadbareness to the others. "Kate" was a "hit," and is of itself worth preservation in book-covers. Mr. Barnard writes out of full knowledge, and in a simple, rapid style, adapted to a story of action, but not otherwise making pretensions to literary effect.

*Knights of To-day, or, Love and Science. By Charles Barnard. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1881.

Improved System of Ventilation.

Ir is now recognized that all household waste is more or less harmful, and that the pipes in which it escapes must be continually flushed with air or water, or our "modern improvements" will be only clever devices for digging early graves. Soil-pipes are ventilated by being carried to the roof and left open at the top. This is very well, as the injurious products of decomposition do escape that way, yet sometimes, in calm weather, they fall like so much invisible water on the roof and over the eaves into the street or windows below. Better results have been obtained by placing the ventilating pipe within the chimney, and thus gaining the power to throw the escaping gas high out the chimney. This works well as long as the fire burns. When it is out, the current in the pipe may, in certain states of the weather, be inverted and overflow into the chimney, and thence into the house. A more recent and radical change is to make the kitchen fire do the work of ventilation. By placing a common "waterback" in a stove or range and using it as an airheater, a system of drain ventilation has been devised that appears, from experiment and reliable testimony, to be both safe and useful. In an old and familiar system of mine ventilation, there are two shafts leading from the surface of the ground to the bottom of the mine. One of these is called the

upcast" and the other the "downcast." A fire is kept burning at the foot of the upcast, and the heat and smoke rise through it to the surface. This creates a vacuum below, and to replace this, fresh air continually flows down the downcast and through the mine to the fire, thus securing a fair degree of ventilation. The new system of drain ventilation employs this idea by making the soil| pipe reaching to the roof the downcast, and a second pipe in the kitchen chimney the upcast. In the stove is placed a common cast-iron water-back or other simple casting, arranged on the same "flow and return" principle. The return, or lower side of the casting, is connected by a wrought-iron pipe with the house-drain, just above the trap. flow, or escape-pipe, passes out of the stove into the chimney, and then upward to the open air. When the fire is started, the air in the casting is expanded and driven upward through the pipe, and thence out at the top of the house. The expansion of the air at once causes a flow of air from the interior of the drain and downward through the soilpipe from every opening in sinks or closets, and all the air-spaces that may exist. Were the pipe, which is now the downcast of the ventilating system, closed at the top, the suction of the air would unseal all the traps, but this is prevented by always leaving the pipe open at the top, and thus securing a constant flushing of fresh air through the entire drainage

The

system of the house. As soon as the fire obtains a good start, the temperature of the iron box rises to 400° Fahrenheit, or even more, and as all the air must pass through the highly heated box, all organic life and germs of disease are burned to ash and rendered harmless. The air, after passing through the hot box, is reported to be completely purified, as far as germs of life are concerned, only a fine ash escaping from the top of the chimney. Anything more that might be unchanged by the high temperature is simply thrown out in a highly heated and expanded condition at the chimney-top. The objection may suggest itself that this passing the ventilating pipe through the kitchen fire might be dangerous, on account of leaks in the apparatus. From experiments with an apparatus purposely cracked or perforated, it was found that the flow of air was from the fire into the pipe or casting. When the fire is out the apparatus is equally safe, because both the upcast and downcast are open at the top, and there is no chance for pressure to force the air out of any leaks that might exist. A better plan, it is found, is to have a small gas-burner attached to some part of the upcast pipe, and to thus keep the system in constant operation. The apparatus examined seemed to be placed under very trying circumstances and to be working with entire success. Reliable testimony would also appear to warrant the belief that this idea of causing the air of the drains to pass through a suitable casting, bedded in a hot and constant fire, works successfully.

New Copying Processes.

A GREAT number of experiments have been made to find a simple and inexpensive actinic method of copying plans, drawings, and diagrams, but only one of these has proved of any particular value in actual business. Two new formulas are now announced that have the merit of being comparatively simple and of giving positive reproductions in black on a white ground. A solution is prepared by dissolving twenty-five parts of gum arabic in one hundred parts of water, and then adding seven parts of bichromate of potash and one part of alcohol. Good, well sized drawing-paper is then coated with a film of the solution laid on evenly with a flat brush, and is then dried in the dark, and, if kept in the dark, will retain its sensitiveness indefinitely. The drawing to be copied (on thin paper) is laid over the sensitive paper and exposed to diffused light for from five to ten minutes. It is then placed in water, in a dark room, for twenty minutes, to wash out the chromated gum that has not hardened under the action of the light. After drying with blottingpaper the drawing will be found developed in dull lines on a bright or shining ground. To intensify the effect, the drawing is then inked. The ink to be used is made by dissolving five parts of shellac in one hundred parts of alcohol and adding fifteen parts of "vine black" (carbon black would prob. ably do as well). This ink is spread over the paper with a sponge, and the print is then placed in a two per cent. bath of sulphuric acid till the color can be

rubbed off with a stiff brush, when the print will appear in black on a white ground. The only objection raised to this process is that it does not copy fine shadings or the half-tones of the original.

Another formula employs well sized drawing-paper floated in a solution of one part of gelatine in thirty parts of water. To sensitize the paper, it is dipped in a solution (one in twenty-five) of bichromate of potash, and dried in the dark. After exposure, as before, the sheet is laid in cold water to remove the excess of gelatine, when the print is found to be developed by the swollen gelatine rising in relief. The paper is then laid in a water bath of about 87 Fahr. (30°C.), when the gelatine becomes sticky. It is then dried on a smooth surface with blotting-paper, and carbon black is spread over the print with a dry brush. It may then be dried before a fire and, when completely dry, the excess of carbon black may be washed off by gentle rubbing in water, leaving the print in black on a white ground. Colors may be used, if desired. Highly artistic effects have been obtained by this process, but the first is the more simple and likely to be more generally useful.

Photographic Enlargements.

By a recent improvement in enlarging and copying photographs, the scope of solar printing has been greatly extended, and photographs can be produced on fabrics 4.57 meters (15 feet) square. Instead

of putting the sensitized sheet (whatever its material) into a camera, as in solar printing, and exposing it to the sun, a large room is prepared by dividing it by wooden partitions into closets, or dark rooms, each in the shape of a segment of a circle. Each closet thus becomes a camera, in which the operator carries on his work. In the studio examined, a part of one floor was divided by matched board partitions into two segments, each about five meters deep. The points of the two segments met, and were cut off just enough to admit a large lens. Doors were provided for each room, closed by heavy drapery curtains to exclude the light. Outside, in the larger room, and just at the meeting of the two closets, was placed an electric light. In each closet was laid a track, and on this moved a car carrying an easel. By this arrangement the sensitized canvas, stretched on a frame, can be easily rolled forward or backward to get the right focus. The operator thus stands within the camera and uses electric light to obtain his prints. This makes it possible to make enlargements from even very small negatives up to prints as large as a drop scene in a theater. The prints taken in this manner are on muslin, the fabric itself being sensitized. The advantage claimed for this new style of photographic material is that there is no film, or skin, to peel off or crack, and that the print is indelibly fixed in the muslin, and will neither

fade nor wash out.

Gas Fuel.

THE manufacture of coke, which is carried on in this country, outside of ordinary city gas-works, upon an enormous scale, appears to be accompanied by a

waste of good fuel that would be criminal were not the coal so cheap and abundant. It is reported, on good authority, that in one Pennsylvania coke-making center not less than twenty-four million feet of good gas is daily thrown away into the air and disappears in smoke that becomes a nuisance to all the country round about. To save this waste of fuel, a new form of coke oven has been devised that enables the coke-burner to make from the bi-products of his ovens a good heating gas of about eight candle power. It is useless for lighting, but for fuel it is invaluable, as it is clean, lights instantly, requires no stoking, and leaves no ash behind. Experiments appear to show that the gas can be made (or saved) on a commercial scale, and may be sold for about ten cents a thousand feet. For a puddling furnace using the gas as a fuel, the cost would be about three dollars a day, for a battery of steam boilers about one dollar, and for an ordinary dwelling about ten cents a day. The use of gas fuel is steadily growing in this country, and if, as is claimed, it can be produced at this low price, it will prove of the greatest possible advantage in all cities, particularly in the West, where the smoke question is so troublesome. Gas is, undoubtedly, the fuel of the future, and it is only a matter of surprise that the gas companies do not make some effort to produce a cheap gas. Perhaps the rapid spread of the electric light will force them out of the rut of conservatism into which they appear to have fallen.

Combined Plow and Harrow.

HITHERTO the two processes of turning over the soil in plowing and breaking it up into suitable condition to form a seed-bed for the future crop have

row.

been performed by two separate processes and old and familiar types of machines. In a new implement that appears to be finding much favor in the Middle States, plowing and harrowing may be done by one man and team at the same time. The apparatus consists essentially of a double plow and a scarifier, for tearing the clods turned over by the plow and breaking them up into a loose powder. The plow consists of an iron beam carrying two shares. The first one is the smaller of the two, and moves in advance, its duty being to cut off a thin slice of the sod and to invert it in the usual manner. The depth of cut of this share is regulated by a wheel in front. Behind this comes the larger share, following in the same line, and turning a deeper furBeside this share is a large iron wheel, running freely on an axle at the end of the plow beam. This wheel is of wrought iron, and armed on the inside with numerous sharp-edged, pointed teeth. As the plow advances the wheel revolves, and as it is directly opposite the rear share, the soil raised by the share is turned directly into the wheel and over the teeth. The result is, the clod is torn to pieces and thrown behind the wheel in a shower of powder and broken lumps, completely breaking it up and leaving a fine, smooth surface, in good condition for immediate seeding. The machine requires two or three horses and can be managed by one man. The scarifying wheel is balanced by a loose wheel at the opposite side of the plow, to sustain the weight of the machine and cause it to run steadily. It will be observed that the first share inverts the sod while the second covers it, and the toothed wheel beats it down and breaks up the covering soil ready for seeding.

Sonnets from the Afghanese.

IN venturing to publish a few specimens of the literature of a remote race, who have lately attracted the attention of the whole civilized world, I deem it necessary to offer a word of explanation, lest the reader should conclude that the colloquialisms of Cabool are too suspiciously like the slang of our own metropolis. Sir William Leslie, in his admirable work on the "Social Life and Manners of the

Afghans," says: "Their poetry is rude and simple, full of colloquial phrases, and celebrates only the primitive passions and most familiar surroundings of their daily life." It will be observed that this remark is eminently true, if the following sonnets are faithfully typical of Pushtaneh literature. In translating, I have been at some pains to preserve a natural atmosphere by substituting for the idioms of the Pushtu language such of our own colloquial. isms as most nearly correspond. In no other way could I preserve the viva voce tone of the originals.

No. 1.-TO A MULE.

A WEIRD phenomenon, O mule, art thou!

One pensive ear inclined toward the west, The other sou'-sou'-east by a little sou', The acme explicate of peace and rest. But who can tell at what untoward hour Thy slumbering energy will assert its function, With fervid eloquence and awakening power,

Thy hee-haw and thy heels in wild conjunction? War, Havoc, and Destruction envy thee!

Go! kick the stuffing out of Time and Space! Assert thyself, thou Child of Destiny,

Till nature stands aghast with frightened face! A greater marvel art thou than the wonder Of Zeus from high Olympus launching thunder!

No. 2.-TO A GOAT.

THOU hast a serious aspect, but methinks
Beneath the surface, Billy, I discern
A thoughtful tendency to play high-jinks,
A solemn, waiting wickedness supern.
Within the amber circle of thine eye
There lurketh mischief of exsuccous kind,-
A humor grim, mechanical, and dry;
Evasive, subdolous, and undefined.

I would I understood thee better, Bill.
Beseech thee of thy courtesy explain:
Now, doth the flavor of a poster fill

Thy utmost need? Of old hats art thou fain?
I pr'ythee, goat, vouchsafe some information;
Oh, say! come now! Get out! Oh, thunderation!

No. 3.-TO TAFFY.

HAIL, Taffy, new-born_goddess! Thou art come
Into the world emollient and serene,
With liberal hands dispensing balmy gum,

A sirup-mouthed, molasses-visaged queen!
What art thou giving us, O gracious one?
Thou dost assuage our daily cares and toils.
'Tis thine to mollify the rasping dun,

Thine to alleviate domestic broils; The lover seeks thy aid to win his joy, The statesman looketh toward thee, and the preacher,

The interviewer, and the drummer-boy,

Who drummeth wisely owning thee for teacher. The clam-dispenser toots thy tuneful praise, The lightning-roddist knoweth all thy ways.

The Middy of 1881.

I'm the dearest, I'm the sweetest little mid,
To be found in journeying from here to Hades.
I am also, nat-u-rally, a prodid-

Gious favorite with all the pretty ladies.

I know nothing, but say a mighty deal;
My elevated nose, likewise, comes handy;
I stalk around, my great importance feel-
In short, I am a brainless little dandy.
My hair is light, and waves above my brow,
My mustache can just be seen through opera.
glasses;

I originate, but flee from every row,

And no one knows as well as I what "sass is! The officers look down on me with scorn,

The sailors jeer at me-behind my jacket, But still my heart is not "with anguish torn," And life with me is one continued racket.

Whene'er the captain sends me with a boat,
The seamen know an idiot has got 'em ;
They make their wills and are prepared to die,
Quite certain they are going to the bottom.
But what care I? For, when I go ashore,
In uniform, with buttons bright and shining,
The girls all cluster 'round me to adore,

And lots of 'em for love of me are pining.

I strut, and dance, and fool my life away;
I'm nautical-in past and future tenses!
Long as I know an ocean from a bay,

I'll shy the rest, and take the consequences. I'm the dearest, I'm the sweetest little mid,

That ever graced the tail-end of his classes, And through a four-years' course of study slid. First am I in the list of Nature's-donkeys!