box, so that it fits snugly on all sides. The cover of the box is hinged on one side, and upon raising the cover the cushion can be removed and food can be put into or taken out of the pail at will. The outer pail is usually partly 5 filled with boiling water when food is to be cooked in it;

this water retains its high temperature until fresh air is allowed to reach it, when the cover of the box and pail is removed. The food is cooked in the usual way for a short time before being put into the pail. The heating 10 of the boiling water and that imparted to the food before putting it into the cooker is sufficient to prepare the dish, and the food is now left in the cooker until it is thoroughly done. A STUDENT'S THEME.

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HOW A GONDOLA IS ROWED

GONDOLA is in general rowed only by one man,

standing at the stern; those of the upper classes having two or more boatmen, for greater speed and magnificence. In order to raise the oar sufficiently, it rests, not on the side of the boat, but on a piece of crooked timber like the branch of a tree, rising about a foot from 20 the boat's side, and called a "forcola." The forcola is of different forms, according to the size and uses of the boat, and it is always somewhat complicated in its parts and curvature, allowing the oar various kinds of rests and catches on both its sides, but perfectly free play in 25 all cases; as the management of the boat depends on the gondolier's being able in an instant to place his oar in any position. The forcola is set on the right-hand side of the

boat, some six feet from the stern: the gondolier stands on a little flat platform or deck behind it, and throws nearly the entire weight of his body upon the forward stroke. The effect of the stroke would be naturally to turn the boat's head round to the left, as well as to send 5 it forward; but this tendency is corrected by keeping the blade of the oar under the water on the return stroke, and raising it gradually, as a full spoon is raised out of any liquid, so that the blade emerges from the water only an instant before it again plunges. A downward and lateral 10 pressure upon the forcola is thus obtained, which entirely counteracts the tendency given by the forward stroke; and the effort, after a little practice, becomes hardly conscious, though, as it adds some labor to the back stroke, rowing a gondola at speed is hard and breathless 15 work, though it appears easy and graceful to the looker

on.

If then the gondola is to be turned to the left, the forward impulse is given without the return stroke; if it is to be turned to the right, the plunged oar is brought forcibly 20 up to the surface; in either case a single stroke being enough to turn the light and flat-bottomed boat. But as it has no keel, when the turn is made sharply, as out of one canal into another very narrow one, the impetus of the boat in its former direction gives it an enormous 25 leeway, and it drifts laterally up against the wall of the canal, and that so forcibly, that if it has turned at speed, no gondolier can arrest the motion merely by strength or rapidity of stroke of oar; but it is checked by a strong thrust of the foot against the wall itself, the head of the 30 boat being of course turned for the moment almost completely round to the opposite wall, and greater exertion made to give it, as quickly as possible, impulse in the new direction.-RUSKIN, Stones of Venice. vol. ii, pp. 373-4 Dana, Estes & Co.

SIX

and chutes at the post office on Park Row, between 5 p. m., and 8 p. m. in three hours, one of the days before Christmas, gives an idea of what the holidays meant to 5 Superintendent Roome and his assistants. The letters had to be assorted and out of the building before the early morning mail arrived. But with pneumatic tubes, cancelling machines, and experienced clerks, tables that were piled high in the evening were emptied and waiting 10 for the incoming mail.

December, 1908, was a busy month for the postal department. Official figures from Postmaster Morgan give the receipts from the sale of stamps as $2,018,949, the largest in the history of the New York Post Office, 15 exceeding that of December, 1907, by $141,411.95. Several of the sub-stations during the past year had a most remarkable growth, particularly the one at the Hudson Terminal building, opened last July, where the sale of stamps for the first month was $18,000, and in December 20 six months later it was over $50,000, an increase of nearly 200 per cent.

From the chutes marked “Outgoing Domestic Mail” along Park Row and Broadway the mail is taken to tables where the primary assortment is made, i. e., separation 25 by States and Territories. The mail for the South and West is sent through pneumatic tubes to the Hudson Terminal Station and from there to the trains at Jersey City. En route, it is in charge of the railroad mail clerks,

who handled in 1908 nearly 20,000,000,000 pieces of first class matter and 35,000,000 of second class, and whose errors averaged one in about 12,000 pieces correctly distributed. The mail for the North and East is sent through tubes to Station H, and from there to the New 5 York Central, and New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroads.

Letters dropped into the chutes for "New York City Only" are at once dispatched to the nearest station, where they are given to the carriers for distribution.

It is the aim of the clerks to get rid of the mail as soon as it arrives, and never allow it to accumulate. With the enormous quantities received at the post office, the breaking down of a compressor or an accident at a substation would mean, perhaps, several hours extra work.

New mechanical labor-saving devices are often tried, and the three that have proved the most successful, and have done much toward making the present rapid handling of the mail possible, are pneumatic tubes, cancelling machines, and belt conveyors.

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15

20

Pneumatic tubes for transmitting packages, are of comparatively recent origin; yet the principle was exploited as long ago as 1667 by Denis Papin in England. Nearly two hundred years later, the International Telegraph Company, London, England, succeeded in sending 25 carriers by compressed air through a tube an inch and a half in diameter and about 660 feet long. Its success was so marked that others were installed larger in diameter, and instead of a single tube, there were two, one for sending and one for receiving.

The system developed in England has the tubes radiate from a central station to sub-stations in different parts of the city, with two to the largest and one to the smallest. The outgoing carriers are dispatched by air pressure of

30

about ten pounds to the square inch, which, with a corresponding vacuum, makes the speed of the carriers the same in both directions. The English Post Department operates sixty miles of tubes, forty of which are in 5 the London district.

Germany and other European countries have the Siemens system, differing in many respects from the English. In the Siemens the tubes are laid in circuits serving several stations, and the air is stored in large 10 tanks and turned into the tubes whenever a carrier is dispatched. Berlin has thirty miles in operation, while Paris and Vienna have nearly the same number.

The Batcheller system is used in New York and extensively in the United States. In this system a continuous 15 current of air flows through the tubes, and the carriers

containing the letters are inserted and removed without interfering with the flow of air; in fact, they travel with it.

From the post office on Park Row, there are five branches, with terminals at the Custom House, Brooklyn Post 20 Office, Station H (Grand Central), Hudson Terminal building, and Station L, One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and Lexington Avenue (West Side branch), the last two having been completed a short time ago. Before the branch to Station L was in operation, the mail was 25 carried in bags by the elevated trains, but this service has been done away with.

The Custom House or Produce Exchange branch has a single carrier station, at No. 60 Wall Street. The branches to Brooklyn and Hudson Terminal building have no 30 stations. The Grand Central has stations at No. 103 East Twelfth Street; Madison Square, between Twentythird and Twenty-fourth Streets, on Fourth Avenue; F, between Lexington and Third Avenues, on Thirtyfourth Street, and H, corner of Forty-third Street and