Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/369

Rh heated steam for the disinfecting chamber. The engines supply power to all the different pumping systems in the vessel; and fitted as the Wadsworth is with such powerful and complete pumps and hose system, she can be used as a fire boat should occasion require.

There are pumps for hot water, for cold water, for sea water, for bichloride solution, and for soda solution. The salt-water pump is made of composite metal. Ball-nozzle hose are used.

The sulphur furnace has four pans, each large enough to contain a couple of pails of sulphur. The sulphur fumes are collected and retained in a tank above the furnace, and drawn off as needed by a rotary fan, to be distributed through a huge system of supply pipes. About four pounds of sulphur to one thousand feet of cubic space is used. After the sulphur dioxide is forced through the pipe system, the sulphur can be cut off and fresh air forced through the same pipe system.

In disinfecting a vessel the soda solution is used to remove grease and render accessible surfaces in constant use, which are then washed down with the bichloride solution, which is followed by a thorough rinsing of sea water.

The crew's quarters of the Wadsworth have a separate freshwater tank and separate bathing and toilet facilities. Cedar is the wood used throughout the forecastle, which is finished so that whitewash can be readily applied. All parts of the vessel that carry the disinfectant plant are finished so that they can be thoroughly hosed down without danger of the waste being carried to the bilge. The ventilation is as nearly perfect as possible; all the rooms and quarters have plenty of light and air.

The clothing can be treated in a very few minutes, and the rest of the process is both rapid and efficacious. The boat is in commission, and the tests have all proved satisfactory.

Now that such progress has been made in the right direction, we shall expect to see our local health departments equipped with something similar, that is at once compact and capable of cleansing and disinfecting either a room or a district at short notice.

of the oldest French almanacs, described by M. Gaston Tissandier in La Nature, is Le Kalendrier des Bergiers, or Shepherds' Calendar, printed at Lyons in 1504. It contains many curious things, among them a calendar of feast days, which are calculated by counting on the fingers and joints. This is followed by some astronomical information, and then by articles—most of them curiously illustrated—on the tree and branches of the vices, the pains of hell, the book of the salvation of the soul, the "nathomie" of the human body, the art of "fleubothomie" of the veins, the astrology of shepherds, the sayings of birds, the judgments of "phigonomie," how to know the planet under which a child is born, etc.