Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885
    Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885
    Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885
    Ebook197 pages2 hours

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885

    By Various Various

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885

    Read more from Various Various

    Related to Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Antique Tobacco Pipe

      Oct 31, 2021

      The Antique Tobacco Pipe
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Nursery Of Inventions

      May 10, 2023

      A Nursery Of Inventions
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Lure Of History

      May 26, 2021

      The Lure Of History
      7 min read

    • Article

      A House Through Time

      Jun 9, 2023

      A House Through Time
      5 min read

    • Article

      The World Of Stonehenge

      Mar 24, 2022

      The World Of Stonehenge
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Bulletin

      Dec 8, 2023

      The Bulletin
      3 min read

    • Article

      Books & co

      Aug 13, 2021

      by Julian Dutton This engrossing study of life on the water looks, as the title suggests, at both rivers and canals. We are introduced to boat life and boating families from medieval times onwards – and as author Julian Dutton explains, there are sev

      4 min read

    • Article

      Creative CHAOS

      Mar 6, 2024

      Creative CHAOS
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Philanthropist’s Palace

      Jun 2, 2021

      ‘A man who dies rich dies disgraced,’ thundered my hero Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919). In an essay – his foundational work on philanthropy, The Gospel of Wealth – he wrote, ‘The problem of our age is the proper distribution of wealth, so that the ties

      4 min read

    • Article

      HOUSE HISTORY: Discovering Stories

      Sep 10, 2021

      One of my most memorable historic houses that I have had the privilege to investigate is Leyden House, in Mortlake, West London. I carried out the documentary research for the then owners who had lived in the house for over 30 years. They obviously h

      9 min read

    • Article

      Anniversaries

      Sep 28, 2023

      Anniversaries
      4 min read

    • Article

      Star Sales

      Apr 30, 2020

      Star Sales
      2 min read

    • Article

      Hickory Dickory Dock

      Nov 4, 2020

      Hickory Dickory Dock
      5 min read

    • Article

      Colour And Cupidity

      Sep 29, 2021

      Colour And Cupidity
      3 min read

    • Article

      Quality And Quirkiness

      Oct 6, 2021

      Quality And Quirkiness
      3 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Aug 25, 2021

      Letters To The Editor
      2 min read

    • Article

      October

      Aug 25, 2022

      As the days become more blustery, cooler and rainier, a hat stand could be just the thing for keeping all those beanies, berets, scarves and snoods off the floor and neatly stowed. The hat stand has been present in the home since at least the early 1

      7 min read

    • Article

      ‘Every Year It Astounds Us’: The Orkney Dig Uncovering Britain’s Stone Age Culture

      Feb 15, 2022

      If you happen to imagine that there’s not much left to discover of Britain’s stone age, or that its relics consist of hard-to-love postholes and scraps of bones, then you need to find your way to Orkney, that scatter of islands off Scotland’s north-e

      6 min read

    • Article

      Wearing The Years Well

      Nov 11, 2020

      ON October 7, I wrote here of a fragment of a mid-18th-century waistcoat that had a plausible claim to have been worn by the Young Pretender in Edinburgh in 1745. This week, we have a letter certainly written by him, 2½ years earlier, when he was see

      4 min read

    • Article

      Archaeological Discoveries

      Sep 15, 2022

      Archaeological Discoveries
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Miraculous Survival

      Nov 10, 2021

      A Miraculous Survival
      6 min read

    • Article

      ‘To Decorate Life’

      Aug 10, 2022

      ‘To Decorate Life’
      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Oct 25, 2023

      EARLIER this year, I entered premises at 36, King George Street, Tel Aviv, Israel, and found myself in book heaven (‘Doing it by the book’, October 11). Run by two German ladies, with impeccable English, it is an antiquarian and rare-books establishm

      4 min read

    • Article

      Sleepers Awake

      Sep 13, 2023

      THE internet is an immense boon that makes it easy for historians, journalists and researchers of all sorts to acquire all sorts of information with previously unimaginable ease and speed. The first rule of investigative journalism was always ‘know w

      4 min read

    • Article

      Embroidery

      Feb 27, 2020

      Embroidery
      4 min read

    Reviews for Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 - Various Various

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Scientific American Supplement, No. 514,

      November 7, 1885, by Various

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885

      Author: Various

      Release Date: April 3, 2004 [EBook #11761]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN 514 ***

      Produced by Jon Niehof, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks

      and the DP Team

      SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 514

      NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 7, 1885

      Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XX., No. 514.

      Scientific American established 1845

      Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.

      Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.

      ROMAN REMAINS AT LEICESTER, ENGLAND.

      The Roman tessellated pavement in Jewry Wall Street, Leicester, discovered in the year 1832, is well known to archaeologists; it has also been known as difficult of access, and hardly to be seen in a dark cellar, and, in fact, it has not been seen or visited, except by very few persons. Some time ago the Town Council resolved to purchase the house and premises, with the object of preserving the pavement in situ, and of giving additional light and better access to it, and, this purchase having been completed in the beginning of the present year, the work of improvement began. It was now seen that the pavement was continuous under the premises of the adjoining house, and under the public street, and arrangements were at once made to uncover and annex these adjoining parts, so as to permit the whole to be seen at one view. The pavement thus uncovered forms a floor which, if complete, would measure 23 feet square; it lacks a part on the west side, and also the entire south border is missing. It is a marvel of constructive skill, of variety and beauty in form and color, and not the least part of the marvel arises from the almost beggarly elements out of which the designer has produced his truly harmonious effects. No squared, artificially colored, or glazed tesseræ, such as we see in a modern floor, are used, but little pieces, irregularly but purposely formed of brick and stone. There are three shades of brick—a bright red, a dull or Indian red, and a shade between the two; slate from a neighboring quarry gives a dark bluish gray; an oolite supplies the warmer buff; and a fine white composition resembling limestone is used for the center points and borders. In addition, the outside border is formed with tesseræ of rather larger size of a sage green limestone. Speaking generally, the design is formed by nine octagon figures, three by three, surrounded and divided by a guilloche cable band; the interspaces of the octagons are filled by four smaller square patterns, and the outer octagon spaces by 12 triangles. Outside these is a border formed by a cable band, by a second band of alternate heart-shaped, pear-shaped, and bell-shaped flowers, and by alternate white and gray bands; and outside all is the limestone border already described. This border is constructed with tesseræ about five-eighths of an inch square. The remaining tesseræ vary from one half to one-quarter inch of irregular rhomboidal form. The construction of the pavement is remarkable. There is a foundation of strong concrete below; over it is a bed of pounded brick and lime three to four inches thick, and upon this a layer of fine white cement, in which the tesseræ are laid with their roughest side downward. Liquid cement appears to have been poured over the floor, filling up the interstices, after which the surface would be rubbed down and polished.

      As to the probable date and occupation of the floor, it may be observed that the site of this pavement was near the center of the western Roman town. It is near the Jewry Wall, that is, near the military station and fortress. It was obviously the principal house in the place, and as clearly, therefore, the residence of the Præfectus, the local representative of the imperial power of Rome. The Roman occupation of the district began with the proprætorship of Ostorius Scapula, A.D. 50. He was succeeded in 59 by Suetonius Paulinus, who passed through Leicester from the Isle of Anglesea when the insurrection under Boadicea broke out. In the service of Suetonius was Julius Agricola, who was elected consul and governor of Britain about the year 70. He is commonly described as a wise and good governor, who introduced the arts of civilized life, taught the natives to build, and encouraged education. He left Britain about the year 85, and from that time to the decline of the Roman power is but about 300 years. We shall not be far from the truth, therefore, if we assign this work to the time or even to the personal influence of Agricola, 1,800 years ago.—London Times.

      Some time ago we published the fact that the Empress of Germany had offered a prize of $1,000 and the decoration of the Order of the Red Cross to the successful inventor of the best portable field hospital. Wm. M. Ducker, of No. 42 Fulton St., Brooklyn, sent in a design for competition. A few days ago Mr. Ducker received notice that his invention had won the prize. Another instance of the recognition of American genius abroad.

      THE BARBARA UTTMANN STATUE AT ANNABERG, SAXONY.

      The question whether Barbara Uttmann, of Annaberg, Saxony, was the inventor of the art of making hand cushion lace, or only introduced it into Annaberg, in the Saxon mountains, has not yet been solved, notwithstanding the fact that the most rigid examinations have been made. It is the general belief, however, that she only introduced the art, having learned it from a foreigner in the year 1561. The person from whom she acquired this knowledge is said to have been a Protestant fugitive from Brabant, who was driven from her native land by the constables of the Inquisition, and who found a home in the Uttmann family. However, the probability is that what the fugitive showed Barbara Uttmann was the stitched, or embroidered, laces—points, so called—which are still manufactured in the Netherlands at the present time. It is very probable that the specimens shown induced Barbara Uttmann to invent the art of making lace by means of a hand cushion.

      BARBARA UTTMANN, INVENTOR OF HAND CUSHION LACE.

      Very little is known of the family of Barbara Uttmann, which was originally from Nurnberg; but members of the same migrated to the Saxon mountains. Barbara's husband, Christof Uttmann, was the owner of extensive mines at Annaberg, and was very wealthy. She died at Annaberg, Jan. 14, 1584.

      The art of making hand cushion lace was soon acquired by most of the residents in the Saxon mountains, which is a poor country, as the occupation of most of the inhabitants was mining, and it frequently happened that the wages were so low, and the means of sustaining life so expensive, that some other resource had to be found to make life more bearable. Barbara Uttmann's invention was thus a blessing to the country, and her name is held in high esteem. A monumental fountain is to be erected at Annaberg, and is to be surmounted by a statue of the country's benefactress, Barbara Uttmann. The statue, modeled by Robert Henze, is to be cast in bronze. It represents Barbara Uttmann in the costume worn at the time of the Reformation. She points to a piece of lace, which she has just completed, lying on the cushion, the shuttles being visible.

      Some point, Valenciennes, and Guipure laces are made on a cushion by hand, with bobbins on which the thread is wound, the pins for giving the desired pattern to the lace being stuck into the cushion. A yard of hand cushion lace has been sold in England for as much as $25,000. The annexed cut, representing the Barbara Uttmann statue, was taken from the Illustrirte Zeitung.

      A Boston paper tells of a man who built two houses side by side, one for himself and one to sell. In the house sold he had placed a furnace against the party wall of the cellar, and from its hot air chamber he had constructed flues to heat his own domicile. The owner of the other house found it very hard to keep his own house warm, and was astounded at the amount of coal it took to render his family comfortable, while the other fellow kept himself warm at his neighbor's expense nearly a whole winter before the trick was discovered.

      IMPROVEMENTS IN CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION.

      Portland cement concrete if made with a non-porous aggregate is impervious to moisture, and yet at the same time, if not hydraulically compressed, will take up a sufficient quantity of moisture from the air to prevent condensation upon the surface of the walls. It not only resists the disintegrating influences of the atmosphere, but becomes even harder with the lapse of time. It may also be made in several different colors, and can be finished off to nearly a polished surface or can be left quite rough. Walls built of this material may be made so hard that a nail cannot be driven into them, or they can be made sufficiently soft to become a fixing for joinery, and, if a non-porous aggregate be used, no damp course is required. Further than this, if land be bought upon which there is sufficient gravel, or even clay that can be burnt, the greatest portion of the building material may be obtained in excavating for the cellar; and in

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1