Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 24.djvu/433

Rh of articles which he has contributed to the "Uniao Medica" and the "Jornal do Commercio" of that city, on such subjects as "Animal Emanations," "The Sewers of Rio de Janeiro and their Influence upon the Public Health," and "Popular Counsels on Matters of Hygiene."

vivid presentation of the ills which follow in the track of the botching plumber and drain-builder is this by Dr. Teale. Convinced that pictures are more effective than words, the author depicts in seventy plates various faults of sewerage, most of them actual cases, and accompanies each with a few paragraphs of explanation or history. The course of sewer-gas is indicated by blue arrows, and the flow, the leakage, and infiltration of sewage are also represented in blue. Among the faults described are untrapped waste and overflow pipes passing directly into a soil-pipe, traps emptied by evaporation or by the flow of water past their outlets, drain-pipes of poor quality or badly joined, and drains running uphill. A particularly striking group of pictures, entitled "How People drink Sewage," shows the danger to be expected from drains passing near or over wells. Among the interesting histories is the following: "Enteric (typhoid) fever broke out in a gentleman's house, from which it spread into the village. On examination I found that the water-closet was in the center of the house, and that the soil-pipe discharged into a common stone drain running under a tiled entrance-hall. This drain was almost without fall, so much so that it had become blocked, and the sewage had found its way under the flooring of the passage and rooms. It goes to a man's heart to take up a tiled hall in order to inspect a drain. Moral—the drain ought never to have been placed under the hall." Some twenty additional defects are noted without plates, and methods for detecting the escape of sewer-gas are given. The book contains also some hints on ventilating houses and carriages.

modest aim of the author of this book has been, in the absence of any work exclusively devoted to limestones and marbles known to him, to present the facts and speculations of original writers "so selected and arranged as to illustrate the value of limestones in some departments of geology, but more especially their use in the mechanic and fine arts, and their history in civilization." These stones are so abundant and so diversified, their uses are so multifarious, and they play so important a part in every field, that there is certainly room and use for a book of this kind. Mr. Burnham does not claim that he has entirely filled the vacant place. That would be more than it were possible for one compiler to do at a first effort. But he has made a creditable attempt, and has produced a book embodying a large amount of authentic information concerning limestones in all parts of the globe, and their uses in all periods of history. The first chapters are devoted to a scientific consideration of limestones, describing the different classes, the fossils so abundant in them, and of which many of them are so largely composed, and the general divisions of geological time. The more particular account of the several classes of limestones and marbles follows, beginning with those of the United States, which are grouped by "regions"—Atlantic, Mississippi, and the Rocky Mountains and Pacific coast. Other limestones are classified and described as those of British America, the West India Islands, Mexico, and South America. European stones are similarly described, by countries, as well as those of Asia, Australia, and Africa. The description of the Grecian marbles is accompanied with a few remarks on their application in Greek art; and in the later chapters are given accounts of the "Antique Marbles," "Antique Alabasters, Serpentines, Basalts, Granites, and Porphyries," "Antique Stones and Works of Art in Modern Rome," and "Antique Stones used to decorate Roman Churches." The appendix gives tabular views of the "Age and Locality of the Principal Limestones," "French Marbles," and