broke, while during the winter half seventy-seven broke, although the traffic was less.

Mineral cotton, to be used as a non-conducting packing for steam boilers and pipe, may be made by blowing a jet of steam through a current of liquid slag.

Slag answers admirably for road-making and for preparing concrete.

Petroleum has been successfully applied in St. Louis to the refining of crude cast-iron and its conversion into bar and malleable iron. Common Iron Mountain pig-iron is said to have been converted into the best flange boiler iron by a single application of the liquid fuel in the puddling furnace.

Perfect anesthesia may be produced and sustained for a long time without the usual danger by administering a subcutaneous injection of hydrochlorate of morphine about a half an hour before the inhalation of chloroform. (Mrs. L. Labbé and G. Guyon.)

There are no leeches or mosquitoes in Thibet, nor are maggots or fleas ever seen there, and in Dingcham or Thibet proper there are no bees or wasps. A curious disease, known as goomtook, or the laughing disease, at times attacks both the men and women of this country. It is attended by excruciating pain in the throat, and often proves fatal in a few days. (Dr. Campbell, Superintendent of Darjeelling.)

The diving-bell has been successfully used in mines in Westphalia that were flooded with water, for the purpose of repairing the valves of the pumps.

The restoration of the writing on manuscripts charred by fire may, it is said, be accomplished by separating the charred paper into single leaves, immersing them in a solution of nitrate of silver (forty grains to the ounce of water). The operation is to be conducted in a dark room, and when the writing is sufficiently legible the excess of silver solution should be washed out with distilled water and dilute solution of hyposulphite of soda. (Am. Artisan.)

M. Quetelet holds that virtuous and vicious acts are products not merely of the individual who does them, but of the society in which they take place. "The wealthy and educated classes, whose lives seem to themselves as free from moral blame as they are from legal punishment, may at first hear with no pleasant surprise a theory which inculpates them as sharers in the crimes necessarily resulting from the state of society which they are influential in shaping."

The remains of pterodactyls, or winged reptiles, found by Prof. O. C. Marsh in the cretaceous shale of Western Kansas, show for one individual an expanse of both wings equal to nearly twenty feet, and for another twenty-two feet. America therefore not only possessed its pterodactyls, but they are the largest that have as yet been found.

Electricity is developed in metallic wires by merely bending them, and the development appears to be independent of any thermic action.

The great stone monuments of England, like Stonehenge, are supposed by Mr. James Ferguson to be military trophies, erected in the time of King Arthur on the battle-fields by the victorious armies.

Dr. Shaw states that the diamonds of South Africa originally belonged to some metamorphic rock, probably a talcose slate, which occupied the heights during the upheaval of the trap which has given to the country its physical features. This upheaval was fol. lowed by a period of lakes, the traces of which still exist, and it is in the soil of these dried-up lakes that the diamonds are found. Prof. T. R. Jones, on the contrary, thinks that the diamonds are supplied both from metamorphic and igneous rocks, and that the gravel in which they are found has been conveyed by glacial action from very remote mountains.

Water-proof leather for various purposes is now prepared by exhausting the air from the pores of the leather and filling them up with a substance which unites with and permeates the material without injuring the elasticity.

In Saxony the children of the lower classes are compelled by law to attend the evening schools for three years during the time they are apprenticed to a trade. The education of such children is thus forced beyond the mere rudiments, and Saxony, hitherto in the van of the educational movement, promises still to hold her place.

Through the agency of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain, important improvements in puddling through the use of machinery are to be introduced, and the iron manufacture relieved from the uncer

tainities of the present system of hand puddling. This desirable result is entirely owing to the efforts of the society in question, and is an illustration of the great advantages resulting from united action among manufacturers.

The Zoological Station soon to be established at Naples is to be placed about 100 feet from the Mediterranean Sea and furnished with great tanks, through which a continuous stream of sea water is to pass. In these aquaria various creatures from the adjoining waters are to be placed, and their reproduction and ological and physiological laboratories and accommodevelopment studied by competent observers. Zo

dations for the officers are also to be furnished, and every facility afforded for the study of embryology. The important results to be obtained from the systematic, careful investigation of such phenomena cannot be overestimated, and it is to be hoped that we may before long record the establishment of similar stations in our own country.

"SIOONEY."

Croquet.

THE "National Game" of base ball has had its grand congresses and wonderful match-games, with a special paper in New York to publish the scores. The champion clubs with red stockings and white stockings have roamed around the country, daring any one to tread on their coat-tails or to knock a chip from their shoulders, until, to the infinite disgust of respectable people, the "institution" has degenerated from an innocent and healthy exercise to the gambling and rowdyism of too many of our regattas and horse-races. During these years the quiet and social home game of croquet has been steadily gaining ground, and to-day its devotees, not without justice, claim for it the distinction of the true and only "National Game" of America.

It has been the constant wish of every expert croquetist that some method could be devised to secure a successful croquet congress that should be acknowledged authority on the rules of the game. It is, indeed, remarkable that the game should have flourished notwithstanding the absence of all system in playing. But such a convention or congress has been rendered impossible or impracticable by the very element that has withheld croquet from the unfortunate fate of base ball. Croquet is evidently a home game, and croquet clubs have never flourished to any great extent in this country except in large cities, because every family and neighborhood can have a ground and a game. Therefore, whenever a croquet congress has been suggested, the proposition has proved barren because there have been no organizations to send accredited delegates; and the unarbitered debate still rages between the advocates of tight croquet and loose croquet, booby and no booby, flinch and no flinch, double points and waived points, rover and no rover.

It may be of little consequence which of a halfdozen recognized authorities is adopted to govern the playing on any croquet ground, but every ground should adopt some one code of rules and stick to it. Without fear of successful contradiction, it may be asserted that of every twenty croqueteries in use

throughout the country, and probably of every fifty, not more than one is used with strict regard on the part of the players to any acknowledged authority in the game.

Much of this is due to the short-sighted and niggardly policy of the manufacturers, who, in order to save the sum of two or three cents in the cost, put out with their croqueteries garbled and condensed books of rules which are worse than useless. Every ground should be governed by some one set of rules, and every player should cheerfully agree to them while on the ground.

If no printed rules can be found that are satisfactory, all amendments or changes should be made in writing, and inserted in the proper places for convenient reference. Such a course will soon convince any one that it is much easier to find fault with the rules than to compile a satisfactory and consistent set, but any other method is always productive of disputation and unpleasantness.

As at this season many are purchasing new implements, some advice concerning style and quality may be of interest. For those who have regard only to economy, nothing can be said. When a complete set of croquet balls, mallets, etc., put up in a case, is manufactured so as to be retailed, after the addition of two profits, for from three to four dollars, quality cannot be taken into account.

Among our native woods few are suitable for croquet-balls and mallet-heads, and none superior to good rock-maple or sugar-maple, and for balls no other should ever be used. Turkey boxwood has been very popular among expert players, and is certainly very durable; but it is the general opinion that in order to keep the proper relative proportion between the weight of the mallet-head and the ball, without making the head too large for convenience or elegance, the material for the head should be of greater specific gravity than the ball. For this reason boxwood mallets and rock-maple balls have formed a very popular combination with experienced players, but for children and others who do not understand the game they are not desirable, because the balls are used up more rapidly than with a lighter and softer mallet.

For mallet-heads no wood is superior to Honduras rosewood. This wood is somewhat rare in the market during certain seasons, but is very durable and quite elegant when polished, although not as

beautiful as the dark soft rosewood, which is, however, absolutely useless for croquet.

Many players have mallets of peculiar size, weight, and form for their own use. In the accompanying cut a mallet is presented, the handle of which is about eighteen inches long; the head is larger at one end than the other, and the handle is inserted nearer the large end, so as to balance well.

The large convex face is for ordinary use, and the small end for the tight croquet, although some prefer the small end for all purposes.

There is no occasion for the long handles now in

common use, unless the sledge-hammer style of stroke is to be adopted,-which is, let us suggest, better suited to slaying oxen than playing croquet,— -or the spoony style, by which some old Betty in pantaloons secures accuracy of stroke at the sacrifice of all elegance and grace.

The one great cause of the universal popularity of croquet is the fact that it can be played on almost any size or form of ground, although ordinarily it is desirable that the ground be nearly twice as long as wide. By setting the bridges and stakes according to the accompanying diagram, a very good game can be played on a ground nearly square. The side bridges, being out of line, can be placed rather nearer together than the end bridges, because under any circumstances it is impossible to run the three at one blow. Even where the ground is of the usual proportion, this arrangement of the side bridges is considered by many to be better than any other; by it the possibility of running the three bridges at one stroke is avoided, as it is in the nine bridge arrangement, where one bridge is set in the center. Fighting around the center bridge, which forms an objection to the latter arrangement, is obviated by this plan.

Roses.

THE Rose requires a deep, rich, loamy soil, unshaded or smothered by trees or shrubs; good drain

age, careful waterings, if the season is dry, and close, judicious pruning.

The soil should be well intermixed with thoroughly decayed manure; and during the heat of summer it should be mulched with straw manure, to keep the roots moist and cool, and encourage a strong growth.

All the wood which produced flowers last season should be cut clean out, or back to the strong, fresh growth of the past year; and these free shoots can also be pruned one-third or more of their length.

This may seem to the amateur gardener a terrible waste of material, but it will make the rose throw out stronger flowering shoots, and produce flowers of extra size and beauty. So spare not the knife! As early in the spring as is practicable, cut back the branches with a will.

Hybrid Perpetual Roses have been the fashion of late years; but they are not as free bloomers as the Bourbon and Hybrid China. Their name is also a misnomer, for, though they may bloom again in the autumn, they will not flower as profusely as in June, nor will their blossoms be as handsome, unless the shoots are trimmed back in July to within two or three eyes of the main stem.

The old fashioned Moss, Damask, and Provence Roses of our childhood far excel these so-called Perpetuals in fragrance, and they are rapidly coming into favor again.

Cristata, or the Crested Moss Rose, is one of the loveliest of its class. The plant from which all this species of roses is descended was discovered years ago, growing in the crevice of a wall at Friburg, Switzerland. There is a difference of opinion among florists as to what particular species the Cristata belongs, and it is thought by many to be more like the Provence Roses than the true Mosses, for, when fully developed, it resembles the old Cabbage or Provence species. Its buds are perfection! The calyx is divided into a fringe or mossy crest, clasping and half surmounting the rich pink petals, as they strive to unfold their many leaves. The moss is more abundant and longer than that on other Moss Roses, and the buds are very large. This variety requires a deep, rich, moist soil for its perfect development; and when thus grown, it will command greater admiration than any other rose.

Roses are easily propagated by cuttings, but the shoots should be old enough to be free from softness, yet not too woody or hard. It is best to cut off the shoots just below a joint, trimming off the leaf attached to it, and leaving two or three buds above it, with leaves on them; but when they are too luxuriant cut off a part, for if they wither the cutting will not strike root.

Sand is far better than loam for rooting cuttings : so fill up your tiny pots with it, and insert the cuttings close to the edge of the pot, keeping it thoroughly wet-for if the sand dries the tiny roots will die. Then sink the pots in a hot-bed made of manure, or in a pan of hot water, changing it as it cools.

Bottom heat is a necessity-without its aid there is

little use in attempting to strike tender roses; and a glass shade, to retain the heat and moisture, is also needful. Another way to strike cuttings is to fill a large flower-pot half-full with a little rich loam and two or three inches of sand; then plant the cuttings close to the edge, about half an inch apart, and cover them with a pane of window-glass. Place the pot in a pan of hot water, in a window, and, if you change the water three or four times a day, you will have a good hot-bed for striking tender cuttings of all kinds. It will take from three to five weeks for delicate roses to become rooted, and they must be kept well watered all the time. In planting cuttings, the sand must be firmly pressed around the base, so that it is in the closest contact with it.

Our roses are often ruined by the slug and the green fly. A few days of neglect, and every bush will be shorn of its glory. But if air-slacked lime is scattered over the leaves while wet with morning dew it will usually prove an effectual remedy.

A pint of common soft soap, with a pint of fine salt added to ten gallons of warm water, syringed over the bushes, is also a good insect destroyer. No one can expect to cultivate flowers without trouble. So as soon as the green leaves appear we must begin our fight against their insect enemies.

Rose-bugs are routed by shaking the stems containing them over a dish of hot water, or by handpicking and burning.

Soot is an excellent remedy for mildew: it must be dusted thickly over the plants while wet with dew, and in twenty-four hours syringed off. It is also an excellent fertilizer to the soil. Wood-ashes can be applied in the same manner for both mildew and insects.

The Florists' Catalogues offer us many roses with high-sounding names, a few of which we select for notice. Devoniensis is an unsurpassed tea-rose, creamy white, with a tinged center, and of most delicious odor. It is a delicate rose in northern latitudes, and must be carefully housed in the winter, though at the south it will endure an ordinary winter without protection.

Maréchal Niel is of an intense golden yellow, the finest known; its fragrance is unsurpassed; but, like the Devoniensis, it cannot endure the cold.

Madame Falcot is of a deep nankeen yellow, with a perfect bud. Céline Forrestier is paler and smaller, blossoming in clusters.

Fils Niphetos is pure white, with lemon center, and is not very hardy.

Plus the Ninth is the deepest, darkest rose that we possess. How perfectly its rich tints set off its more delicate sisters!

This exquisite pink, and model of symmetry, is Comtesse Chabrilland; and next to it is the Comte de Nanteuil, a summer rose sweet and bright, monthly in habit, and hardy in some latitudes.

Those rich, brilliant flowers are Alfred Colomb, exquisitely petaled; Charles Lefebre, beautifully

blended with crimson, purple and scarlet-its leaves as regular as those of a Camellia; Eugène Appert, deepest crimson, and Madame Charles Wood, claret crimson, among the largest roses grown.

Moss Roses add to the charms of a bouquet-such as Princess Adelaide; Countess Murinais, a pure white; Laneir, rosy crimson; William Lobb, purplish crimson; and Cristata, the peerless.

The white "Perpetuals," Madame Vidot, Sophie Coquerelle, and Mrs. Rivers are lovely models of their species, and are more or less flesh-tinged at the

center.

Dolly Vardens.

THERE are circumstances under which curiosity is laudable.

Perhaps we could find it in the Lives of Celebrated Women? Not there. Eminent Christians? Nor there. New England Celebrities? Female Martyrs? Noted Names of Fiction? Our forty-volume Cyclopædia?

Not a line about it in one of them! There was nothing left but to go to the great Library.

Behold us leaning over that classic railing, biographical dictionary in hand, turning the pages end-of-thealphabet-ward.

At VAR, the urbane attendant, whom we delight to honor, smiled knowingly behind his spectacles.

"You'll not find it there," he said. Barnaby Rudge."

"It's in

"Ah, thank you! The volume, please." "Sorry to say, we haven't it." "What! Not Barnaby Rudge? In a great library like this?"

"We have a hundred copies, madame; but they all are out. Everybody is reading up on 'Dolly Varden.""

The load was lifted. At the mere mention of Barnaby Rudge, the locksmith's pretty daughter stood before us. Strange that we could have forgotten her, the sweet, fresh, jaunty English lass, trim, neat and coquettish, with her bright quilted petticoat, and her gown caught up daintily and pinned at the back. The locksmith's daughter, as we know, was no heroine. She advocated no great public principle, suffered in no noble cause. She was just a good, pure, everyday girl-and that is why we love her. Her name is a character in itself. All Dickens's names are. It means freshness and spring-time and guileless dressiness. And so Dolly Varden is made the presiding genius of the dry-goods world to-day.

She comes in with the spring, as she should, when city folk search the highways for fresh fabrics and millinery as naturally as they would look for arbutus and apple-blossoms in the country. And, truly, it would be hard for forest, meadow or garden to rival the gayly-patterned goods that fill our great shops. Huge nosegays of garden flowers, delicate wild-wood blossoms, birds atilt in branches, birds darting through

space, and butterflies dizzy with the nectar of roses. All these have the dress goods, and more: pastoral scenes, a lady under a tree feeding chickens, and the ever-youthful shepherdess with her crook! Nay, a cottage has been seen with fence and shrubbery complete, all within a yard of calico. Poor Dolly Varden !

What an innovation upon the plain colors and nunlike simplicity of dress that have been in vogue so long! Why, of late, a lady to be gay had but to display a red bow at the neck of her black gown; to be gorgeous she had but to tie a bright sash over the same somber garment. Now the poor thing is dazed with a prodigality of form and color. At every counter, the clerks shake a whole summer of bloom before her eyes. A little spray, a blossom here and there might do. But this!

At first she wanders in a state of bewilderment among the flower-bedizened silks and calicoes, with a shuddering sense of gay upholstery in her soul. But, after all, everybody must have at least one Dolly Varden costume; and so there is a little crowd and a twitter of excitement around these counte:s continually. Higher up, to where the great brooding elevators flit and settle, you see cruel effigies, dumb lay-figure Dolly Vardens" ready-made" things that would have unmade poor, simple, real Dolly at a glance. Only lady-wooers have they, but the coquetry of price keeps up the excitement, and murmurs of "lovely!" fill the air.

Besides the charm of novelty which makes the style attractive, they have also a vague home-like suggestion, perhaps because they have not yet been adopted as street costumes,—and to see all the world buying home-dresses seems to predict a reign of the domestic virtues. Then, undoubtedly, they gain a borrowed grace from their name, a cheerfulness which does not belong altogether to the painted roses and chickens, but to a certain phase of domestic life as drawn for us by the great novelist. Who does not remember with pleasant emotions the jubilant way in which Dickens drew the scenes of domestic life? Mrs. Crachit sweetened up the apple-sauce, Miss Belinda dusted the hot-plates, Master Bob mashed the potatoes, etc. Or, when Mrs. Whitney tells us how "we girls" made preparations for the party, it was like a merry-go-round, and so much better than the dull vapidities of fashionable calls, that every woman longed for an art kitchen and a rolling-pin at once.

The other day, at Stewart's, an old lady, who sat rather insecurely on one of the rotary seats near us, was caressingly fingering some red, red roses-calico ones, on a yellow calico ground-and saying to a matronly woman who accompanied her: "Exactly like the dress I wore the night I danced with the General"—but here the reminiscence was interrupted by the clerk, who said these Dolly Vardens were of the very newest pattern.

"Dolly Vardens and the newest pattern are they?

Well, well!" and the old lady nodded her head slowly as if she could give testimony on that subject. But she knew, as we all do, that it wouldn't be worth while, for if Fashion should declare that black was white the world would become color-blind.

What of it? The Dolly Vardens are not a whit the less new and stylish to-day because they were new and stylish in the days of our great-grandmothers.

Traveling Dresses.

"SEND us," writes Country Cousin, "something for a traveling dress which will be becoming, useful, and cool. Do not send us that bluish drab shiny poplin, which makes every one look like an elephant, or anything with a woolly feeling, which will be so detestable of a hot day in the cars.

Then we go to one of our great shops and get a Japanese silk called "Tussor," a most desirable fabric in soft buff, or durable brown. It costs two-anda-half dollars a yard, but will take one to California and back handsomely, and then wash like a piece of linen. It never wears out, nor fades, nor grows rough. Water does not injure it, nor does usage crumple it, or "custom stale its infinite variety." Also, there are China silks at one dollar a yard—not so durable, but very good; and a lovely material, called "Linen Batiste," of delicate shades, and with a satin stripe (still of linen) running through it-very elegant and durable and cool. But these dresses only answer for short journeys and sunny days, while the "Tussor" is a joy forever. For foreign traveling, where the climate is cooler than ours, alpaca, serge, and black silk suits are the most convenient, as they bear the dust and rain with equanimity, but here they are too warm for our hot, dry atmosphere and crowded cars. If a lady is going only for a day's journey something which will wash is the most desirable-some luxurious

ladies even traveling in white piqué. Brown and yellow linen, so much worn last summer, has the disad vantage of wrinkling and losing its shape, so that a lady arrives at her journey's end in a faded condition, rather like a yesterday's bouquet.

Bonnets, etc.

Of bonnets every charming thing imaginable can be said. They are larger, softer, more becoming than they have been for years. The refined straw, trimmed with a ribbon and a bunch of flowers; the stately Leghorn, with its feathers and buff ribbon; the coquettish lilac crêpe with a wreath of violets-all are fine.

The round hats of Leghorn with a wide brim and drooping feather find much favor; they are more becoming than the high, somewhat brazen hats of last summer, and they really shade the face from the sun. They are inconvenient for driving, and must then give place to those of stiffer brim. The most marked of all the spring fashions is a costume composed of two colors,-sometimes strongly contrasting, as