scheme is its expense. The product would necessarily cost about as much per ton as good coal, without being at all as serviceable. The next attempt was the production of "gaseous coke." Here the object was to convert small coal, by the addition of coal-tar, either pure, or mixed with naphtha, into a well-mixed mass. It was then to be put into an oven and coked; afterward it was to be broken into suitable blocks for use. There were several modifications of this process, but as they all more or less involved the previous manufacture of their most essential ingredient, coal-tar, the anticipations of the projectors were not realized.
In 1823 a step was taken in the right direction by the combination of bituminous and anthracite coals, and converting them, by partial carbonization in an oven, into a kind of soft coke. In 1845 Frederick Ransome introduced a plan for cementing together small coal by means of a solution of silica dissolved in caustic soda, the small refuse coal so treated to be then compressed into blocks suitable for use. In 1849 Henry Bessemer proposed simply to heat small coal sufficient to soften it, and thus render it capable of being easily pressed into moulds and formed into solid blocks. The coal, according to this plan, might be softened either by the action of steam or in suitable ovens. Coal alone was used, no extraneous matter of any kind being employed. In 1856 F. Ransome brought forward one of the best plans yet offered. He placed the small coal in suitable moulds, which were then passed into an oven, and there heated just sufficiently to cause the mass to agglomerate.
Though the writer in the Mechanic commends highly the Ransome and the Bessemer plans, it is clear that they do not fully solve the problem, for inventors are still busy on both sides of the Atlantic devising other and better methods. Perhaps, however, the successful working of the Cranston "Automatic Reverberatory Furnace," which is adapted for the consumption of powdered coal, will cause such a demand for small coal as will leave these utilizing processes without material to work on.
Quatrefages on Human Crania.—Quatrefages is engaged on a work entitled "Crania of the Human Races," and recently laid before the Paris Academy of Sciences a synopsis of the results which he there proposes to establish. The materials he has at hand for this investigation are abundant—no less than 4,000 skulls; and he acknowledges the valuable assistance rendered to him by the most eminent savants both of France and of the rest of Europe. He holds that the fossil races are not extinct, but that, on the contrary, they have yet living representatives. He regards the skull discovered in 1*700 at Caustadt, near Stuttgart, as the type of the most ancient human race of which we have any knowledge. This skull is dolichocephalous—that is, having a length greater than its breadth. With the Canstadt skull he classes those of Enghisheim, Brux, Neanderthal, La Denise, Staengenaes, Olmo, and Clichy—the last-named three being the skulls of females. Among the representatives, in historical times, of the dolichocephalous race, M. Quatrefages reckons Kay Lykke, a Danish statesman of the seventeenth century, whose skull is portrayed in the forthcoming work; Saint Mansuy, Bishop of Toul in the fourth century, whose skull is also figured; and Robert Bruce. Whether the cranium is long or short—dolichocephalous or brachycephalous—is a question which has nothing to do with the intellectual status of the man, according to M. Quatrefages.
Heart-Disease and Overwork.—The early break-down of health observed among Cornish miners, and commonly regarded as an affection of the lungs—"miners' phthisis"—is declared, by competent authority, to proceed rather from disturbed action of the heart; and this, according to Dr. Houghton, the distinguished Dublin physiologist, is caused by the great and sudden strain put upon the system by the ascent from the pits, at a time when the body is not sufficiently fortified with food. In his valuable address on the "Relation of Food to Work," Dr. Houghton says: "The labor of the miner is peculiar, and his food appears to me badly suited to meet its requirements. At the close of a hard day's toil the weary miner has to climb, by vertical ladders, through a height of from 600 to
