OUR PARTS LETTER.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 246, 10 February 1875, Page 2

OUR PARTS LETTER.

November 28. In the adoption of tramways, Paris has been somewhat behind other cities and even indeed many of the provincial towns in France, the cause may be attributed to the old omnibus interest ; for that system merits to be called “old,” which persists in running public vehicles on ordinary roads as in times gone by, when their rolling on rails secures greater rapidity, economy, and a less expenditure of force. But the object now is to replace horses on tramways by some cheap and convenient motive power. The future is perhaps not so distant, when our actual cabs, carriages, Broughams, and Victorias, will be vehicles of luxury like Sedan chairs. What is wanling is a cheap, mechanical carriage which by turning a button or a valve, we can set in motion and direct at our ease. No more steady or unsteady drivers will be then required. No more horses, no more grooms, no niore stables. Ordinary locomotives are unsuitable for street traction, and the cable towage so much practised in mines, has serious drawbacks. The Chicago experiment is about being tested here, which is simply storing up a supply of boiling water in a compartment of the vehicle, turning a cock by means of which the water under pressure becomes transformed into steam, feeds the pipes, and turns the wheels. At certain periods the boiling water is renewed, just as in the case of the lead warming paus for the feet on the French railways. In fact tlie furnace, the boiler, the coal, and the water supply, instead of being dragged after the vehicle, are wisely left in a depot. Each generator of steam is enclosed between layers of substances to prevent the loss of carbonic, just on the principle of the Norwegian oven. In any case the coaling is slow, as after 15 hours work, one of these generators —containing over a cubic yard of water exercising a pressure equal to eleven atmospheres, was still able to drag an omnibus twothirds of a mile. The loss of pressure per hour is estimated at one-fifth of an atmosphere. A train thus fitted up, and conveying forty passengers, weighs about four tons : the conductor has thus one hand on the starting lever and the other on the break; at the terminus of each journey the boiling water is replenished. The speed of the vehicle is the same as with the ordinary tram car. The principle then is this, over heat water, store it like compressed air, in a suitable resevoir, carry and use it as you wish. It is portable steam or power, that may be applied to a yacht as well as to an omnibus, and its applications can go farther. The idea of this kind of locomotion belongs to Professor Thomas of Paris, as, long ago he laid down, that there is no inconvenience in high pressure in small and cold generators, because it cannot be increased owing to the absence of a furnace, and 22 gallons of water, surcharged with heat, can furnish during an hour, a force equal to four horse power. To Mr. Lamon belongs the honor of practically applying the idea. The principle is also in operation on the London Metropolitan Railway to a certain degree, where, to avoid smoke, the engineer causes the pressure to mount rapidly before starting, by passing a powerful blast into the chimney, then he closes the ash box and hooks the chimney; he thus stores up sufficient steam for the journey. The system in question could not be adopted on lilies of great extent; an ordinary locomotive represents' 600 horse power, and must be worked at certain pressure, the draw-back to the steam-train is, that it has to work sometimes under high, sometimesunderlowpressure. Similar attempts have been made with liquified carbonic acid and amonia as motive powers. Steam has this superiority that it can be had wherever there is water, though density for density, amAoniacal gas produces three times more motive power than steam, and is exempted from many drawbacks. Compressed air is less advantageous than water surcharged with heat; under similar pressure, a cubic yard of air is forty times less strong than a cubic yard of steam, and weighing besides less, would exact a more voluminous reservoir to produce an equal result of work. The new steam train bus is practical for distances of ten miles, and effects an economy of 50 per cent. Dr. Lendet has drawn attention to the consumption of alcohol by the well-to-do classes, and while admitting that their constitution can be frequently morbidly effected, it is no easy matter to recognise the seat of the disease. Ulceration of the stomach particularly undergoes various alterations, sometimes better and sometimes worse, and jaundice and liver complaint are more common with the rich, than the poor toper; in any case gout, diarrhoea and paralysis are maintained and aggravated by an abuse of alcohol. Chloroform recals at once, those persons addicted to such drink, and weak doses of opium quickly renders them insensible. Addiction to alcohol is more difficult to determine among the inhabitants of southern climates. Dr. Cuignetadvoeates in the generality of cases of fracture oceuring during war, to preserve the member rather than amputate it especially since the means of transporting the wounded have become more perfect. Much will depend on the mental condition of the patient. At the commencement of the siege of Paris, during the months of September and October, all the wounded apart from their mode of treatment, recovered, but from November, every wounded was reckoned as a man dead. The same fact was observed at Sedan, a few weeks after the catastrophe, and when all the horrors of the invasion stood revealed, the wounded reflected this moral depression in the sudden increase of the death rate. Professor Donders of Utrecht shows, that, the exchange of gases in the lungs during respiration, displaces, but does not modify the constitution of the particles of matter; in the tissues the contrary takes place under the action of oxygen, which gas quits the blood, though it cannot be detected in the tissues, or secretions, and while so fixed brings about these chemical acts of nutrition ; the carbonic acid which is formed being taken up by the blood. Dr. Nicolas is not opposed to ladies wearing corsets, provided the pressure acts uniformly and does not separate the visceral organs by pushing one part of them upwards, and the other downwards, to produce the execrable wasp-like waist. Respiration does notthe most suffer, for il is by the the upper region of the sides, which are not compressed, that the play of breathing is mostly effected in the case of females ; hence, the facility by which actresses in melodramas can express their emotions.

The muscles of women being less strong than men, owing to their indulging in less exercise, require an aid by which they can, without much effort, re-erect the vetebral column. M. Launy draws attention to tha increase of deformities in the shape of supernumerary fingers and toes, as well a s to where the latter adhere to each other. These deformities would appear to be hereditary, having been recognised as far back as five generations. Anne Boleyn had six fingers en her right hand. Bartholin described a skeleton which had seven fingers ou the right, and six on the left hand; eight toes on the right foot, and eleven on the left.