Decoration of the New Houses of Parlia- Gilding, Real and Spurious, 179.

Education, Science, and Art, 24.
Egyptians, Wisdom of the Ancient, 35.
Electric Clock, 186.

Progress, 107.

Telegraph, 56.

Glass and Iron, New Method of Making, 132.

British, 35.

Origin of, 123.
Painting, 115.

Stoppers, Drawing from Decanters, 144.
to Break in any Required Direction, 119.
Glossary, Letter A, 57, 65, 73, 81, 89; B, 89,
97, 105, 113, 121; C, 121, 129, 137, 145, 153,
161, 169, 177, 185, 193.

Glue, 151.

Method of Improving, 136.

Gold and Silver Inks, 144.

Mines of the Ural Mountains, 21.
Size, 112.

Government School of Design, 63, 148.
Gothic Architecture, 179.
Gothism, 85.

Gravitation, 40.

Grease Stains, &c., to Remove, 119.
Great Britain, 139.

Grecian Architecture, 37.
Green Paint, 136,

a Description of, 2, 11, 19. Ground Glass, 200.
Extension of, 135.

Electricity, Velocity of, 99.
Elizabethian Architecture, 16.
Endless Leathern Strops, 80.
Envelopes, 199.

Establishment, Immense, 57.
Etching on Glass, 120.
Euclid, 16.

Explosions,

zines, 48.

Prevention of, in Powder

Exports of Manufactured Cotton, 111.

Gun-Cotton, 26, 72.

First Arrival of, in India, 7.

Gunpowder, Invention of, 142.

Engine, 192.

Gun Trade, Origin of, in Birmingham, 10.
Gutta Percha, 24.

Gymnasium at Primrose-hill, 191.

Maga-Hall-Chair, Design for a, 149.

Foliage as applied to Ornament, 20, 36, 44, 52,

60, 108.

Fontainbleau, 40.

Foul Air, 8.

Effects of, 83.

Franklin's Grave, 29.

French Polish, 197.

Fresco, Definition of, 24.
Paintings of India, 24.

Fresque Mixturale, 30.

Fresh Water, 16.

Furniture, to Polish, 51.

Hann's Treatise on the Steam-Engine, 8.
Hard-Wood, &c., on the Modes of Working
into Shape, 111.

Heights which cannot be Measured, to obtain,

Phosphorescence of the River Wye, 183.

Lodging-houses, Experimental, in Glasgow, 86. Photographic Instruments, 55.

Mensuration of Superfices, 134, 138, 149, 157, Propelling Power, a New, 159.

London: Published by WILLIAM GIBBS, at No. 17, Holywell-street,

the Editor are to be addressed); and to be had of all Booksellers.-Saturday, November 13, 1847.
Printed by W. COOLE, Lumley Court, Strand..

The Acanthus Leaf of the Corinthian column. The origin of its adoption by the

Capital.

architects of ancient Greece, is, as usual with most subjects of artistical tradition, accounted for by an incident handed down to us by the Or the various natural objects adopted by the historians, and which, if it be not authentically ancients as the leading feature of their archi- true, yet deserves, at all events, as the Italians tectural decorations in detail, there is no orna- say, that it should be so. The versions of the ment more fitted, from the graceful convolu- story in question vary slightly in detail, but tions of its outline, the luxuriance of its foliage, the main incident is connected with the custom and the breadth of its masses of light and sha-prevalent from the earliest ages of antiquity, dow, to the enrichment of capitals, than the and still extant in our own day, of placing on celebrated acanthus leaf of the Corinthian the tombs of the dead, flowers, fruits, and other

pleasing objects, as offerings to the shades of the departed, or as affectionate tokens of regretful remembrance. A nurse of Corinth, so runs the tale, as preserved by Vitruvius, had placed, as a tribute of this interesting nature, a small wicker-basket filled with fruit, near the tomb of a little child, and, as a precaution against its being displaced, or the contents plundered by birds, had deposited over it a large flat tile. The mortuary tribute chanced to be placed exactly on the root of that species of the dock-plant known as the acanthus mollis or spinosa acanthus (prickly dock-leaf), which, in the course of time, burst forth and spread itself in graceful and fantastic folds around the weighted basket, which obstructed its growth. Calamachus, a celebrated Athenian sculptor in marble, happening to pass by the tomb, was struck with the elegant appearance of the basket thus decorated by the luxuriant acanthus, whose leaves and flowrets, being depressed in the centre, had grown up in graceful convolutions around it; the tips of the leaves and the flowrets, finding themselves resisted by the angles of the tile, were forced to convolve in the form of volutes the angular flowrets forming the helices of the capital (of the Corinthian column, to which Calamachus subsequently adapted and modified his discovery), the central ones the caulicoles, the basket the campana or bell, and the tile the abacus. The various purposes to which the acanthus foliage is applied will be illustrated hereafter with original designs, and made applicable to every branch of manufacture.

A Description of the Various Electric
Telegraphs in Present Use.

BEFORE entering, as it is our intention to do in our next number, on a popular explanation of the various systems of electro-telegraphic_communication at present in use in England and elsewhere, we may mention amongst the various modifications of the main principle, which have been from time to time proposed, and, in some instances, actually put in practice by scientific men, the very curious plan of Professor Vorselman de Heer de Deventur, who, in 1839, submitted the somewhat strange, but certainly by no means impracticable, proposition of employing, for the transmission of telegraphic signals or messages, slight electric shocks, which might be communicated to a correspondent at any distance, however remote. For this purpose, there was to be constructed, at each station, a finger-board composed of ten double keys. The clerk who transmits the signals, as well as the party who receives them, both keep their ten fingers on these keys. If the former presses down any two keys, he connects the battery with the conducting wires, and the other receives a shock in the two fingers that rest upon the two corresponding keys. By a combination of these two shocks, either by repetition or at regulated intervals, a perfectly sufficient number of different signals may be given and instantaneously received. Such was the general feature of de Heer de Deventur's plan, the principle of which appeared so ingenious, and, withal, subject to certain modificaHis Majesty Louis Philippe has just pre- tions, so feasible in practice, as to elicit from sented Lord Holland with a magnificent vase the celebrated Professor Jacobi a memoir in of Sevres porcelain, expressly designed and its favour, addressed to the Imperial Academy manufactured for the occasion. On one side of at St. Petersburg, January 8th, 1844, and acit is exquisitely enamelled a view of Twicken-companied by a few suggestions for its imham-house, where the present King of the provement, namely, that the number of conFrench resided for several years when an ducting wires, and of the fingers to be reexile in England, and where he was frequently moved, should be reduced to two; that the two visited by Lord Holland's father, with whom signs, or rather, shocks, should be given by an he was always on terms of the greatest friend- alternation of single and double, or even triple ship and intimacy. On the other side of the and quadruple strokes with the key, thus provase is a highly-finished view of the Palace of ducing at the other station two sensations very the Tuileries. The French papers, in which distinct from each other. "In the experithis truly royal gift is announced, justly desig-ments," adds Professor Jacobi, "that I made nate it as a memento of historical interest, and last winter on the ice of the Neva, and in as a mark of delicate attention and compliment which the distance between the stations was 9 on the part of Louis Philippe towards the verstes (about 1,800 yards), I derived a great family of Lord Holland. advantage, both in point of simplicity and in convenience of transport, in the employment of this 'Physiological Telegraph.' The instrument possesses something really curious and mysterious. We feel ourselves, so to speak, in corporeal contact with the person with whom we correspond. If the apparatus is properly arranged, we might, in the midst of a numeconventional signals, without any of the perrous society, both transmit and receive certain above description, our readers will perceive From the sons present perceiving them.' that the use of keys in the apparatus for electric telegraphs, is by no means of so modern a date as the public may, for various reasons, have been led to suppose.

ADVANTAGES OF REGISTERING DESIGNS FOR ARTICLES OF UTILITY.-(Under the New Designs Act, 6 and 7 Vic. c. 65.)-Protection for the whole of the three Kingdoms by one Act of Registration.-Protection for a term of three years.-Protection at a moderate expense (from €12 to £20).-Protection immediate (may be obtained in most cases within a couple of days). -Power of granting licenses for any of the three Kingdoms, or any of the cities, towns, or districts thereof, to one, two, three, or any greater number of persons.-Summary remedy for infringements.

The name (acanthus) is compounded of two Greek words, signifying pointed and flower (anthos) • maqui sua

In preference to the usually-adopted systems