be created where the hearthstone rests on wood, unless the hearth itself be protected. It was therefore my duty to find out a means of protecting the hearth. With this view, experiments have been made with ash-pans with double bottoms and a small air-space between the ash-pan and the hearth. The results are shown in the specimens of cotton-wool, wood, etc., which have been exposed under ash-pans of various constructions. My conclusion is that two inches of artificial asbestus at the bottom of an ash-pan would render any hearth safe. Such an ash-pan may be named a "Hearth-Protector." Another caution should be given against erecting one of these improved fireplaces where there is no projecting chimney-breast, lest there should be insufficient depth of brick between the back of the fire and the wood-work of a room at the other side.
"Kitchen Refuse"—In some households there are certain portions of kitchen refuse which are apt to find their way into the dust-bin, instead of the pig-tub. You here see the remains of refuse, consisting of celery-stalks, potato-parings, etc., which have been roasted in a wire cage underneath my kitchen-fire in the chamber closed by the "Economizer." The wire cage is necessary to allow the heat to reach the under surface of the refuse.
Having now for four years done my best to persuade the public to take measures in reference to fireplaces which will confer upon them a saving in the cost of fuel, a saving in the labor of servants, an increase in the warmth and comfort of rooms, a lessening of the soot in the atmosphere of towns, and a possibility of reduction of scavenging rates, it is no little satisfaction to feel that my views are at last making way, and acquiring a momentum of their own.
It only remains for me now to bring my address to a conclusion with the words of the Roman poet—
"Nonfumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem."
—which I will translate in the words of one of our greatest Latin scholars, the late Professor Conington:
"Not smoke from fire my object is to bring,
But fire from smoke, a very different thing."
| SCRATCHING IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. |
By Professor SAMUEL LOCKWOOD.
FOR nearly two weeks, one midwinter, my studies were pleasantly interrupted by a nightly visit of that funny arachnidan, Phalangium dorsatum, Say. We often hear it called Daddy-long-legs, which name in England is given only to the long-legged dipteran, the Tipula, or crane-fly. My visitor's domicile was a nook somewhere in the
