Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/587

Rh point, beyond which he is hedged in by custom; and nearly all the affairs of state are transacted at the audience hall, where every man has his say and perfect freedom. The state is situated between Cashmere and the Hindu Kush Mountains.

Making the House Healthful.—The relation of the house to the prevention and treatment of disease is set forth by Dr. G. V. Poore, in The Practitioner, as a matter of prime importance. The danger of the communication of infectious disease to the other inmates of the house in which it appears has long been recognized, and the list of diseases communicable in this way is extending; yet sufficient account of this danger is seldom taken in planning and constructing the dwelling. The main object to be kept in view in building a house, and especially in building a house for invalids, is the supply of fresh air. Too much care can not be taken to insure that all the channels of internal communication—hall, passages, staircases—have independent ventilation of their own. Unless there be means of getting these internal channels blown out by through draughts, the house can not be wholesome; and in the event of any air-borne contagion getting a footing in the house, the liability to spread is enormously increased. These internal channels must have light also. If the house be of several stories, the ventilation of the staircase has an importance that bears a direct proportion to the height of the house. The shafts for elevators require independent ventilation as much as the staircases. One of the chief defects in the construction of city houses is the absence of provision for effective ventilation; so that the internal channels of communication, instead of serving for the supply of fresh air, merely facilitate exchange of foul air. This defect of construction is dangerous in proportion to the size of the building and the number of persons it contains. The suggestion has been made to place the secondary staircase (in invalid homes) between the wards and the sanitary offices, so that the staircase well forms a cut-off, with cross-ventilation between the ward on one side and the various sinks, closets, and baths on the other side. The point which requires more attention than any other in building a house is the aspect. This is too often neglected. A house should receive its maximum amount of sun. The best aspect for a house is generally conceded to be that which allows its chief rooms to look to the southeast. In this way the morning sun is enjoyed, and the rooms do not get the glare of the afternoon sun. It may be advisable to build a house in the form of a veritable sun-trap. The sanitary advantage of a large area for a house is very great indeed. In hospitals we now recognize that infinitely the most important element of the "cubic space per bed" is the floor area, and that a deficient floor space is not to be compensated for by giving great height to the wards. The same reasoning is applicable to a house.

Irrigation of the Nile Valley.—In projecting the irrigation works for the Nile Valley Engineer Scott-Moncrieff first undertook to restore the barrage built by Mohammed Ali—two stone bridges of seventy-one and sixty-one arches respectively thrown across the Rosetta and Damietta branches where they bifurcate. The arches were intended to be fitted up with gates, by lowering which the water would be dammed up and turned into three great brick irrigation canals. The idea of these works was excellent, but the execution was feeble, and they had so far failed to accomplish their purpose. They were again taken in hand and completed in 1890, since when the barrage has given no trouble. The three great canals carry off all the river supply from above it, so that practically now the low Nile is emptied every season at the barrage, and no water escapes to the sea. Attention was next directed to providing for the storage of the surplus waters of the upper Nile. The first scheme was to build a great dam at Philæ, to be one hundred and fifteen feet high, eighty-five feet at the base, and a mile and a quarter long, pierced by sluices large enough to allow the whole Nile at highest flood to rush through. The lake formed would have been one hundred and twenty miles long. The execution of this plan would have drowned the island of Philæ with its splendid Ptolemaic temples built on the sites of older buildings that disappeared centuries ago; and the civilized world protested against the vandalism, though