Direct, too, is the binding machine for magazines and cheap books, which simply stitches with wire the whole together at the back, as if so many thicknesses of cloth. With the same immediacy we have wall-papers printed directly from the oak or maple they are to represent. Indeed, veneers are now so cheap and good as to be used instead of paper as wall coverings. In the province of art Mr. Hubert Herkomer has accomplished a notable feat in the way of directness, dispensing with the camera, or any of the etcher’s preliminaries of biting or rocking. He paints in monochrome on a copper plate as he would on a panel or canvas, covers his painting with fine bronze powder to harden the surface, from which he then takes an electrotype. A supreme feat of directness was the invention of a machine which relates itself to art, science and business, the phonograph. Forty years ago Faber constructed a talking machine of bellows to imitate the lungs, with an artificial throat, larynx, and lips affording a weird and faulty imitation of the voice. Edison, bidding sound-waves impress themselves directly on a plastic cylinder, reproduces human tones and other sounds with vastly better effect. Faber sought to copy the method of voice production. Edison set himself the task of taking tones as produced and making them impress a surface from which they can be repeated at will. Contrivances Which Pay a Double Debt. A lamp commonly used by camping parties, and well worthy of wider employment, is at once a source of heat and light; while it boils a kettle it sheds an ample beam upon one’s table or book. Just this union of two services may be found in the crude lamp of the Eskimo. Many processes of manufacture once separate are now united with economy of time and power. Steam cylinders for mangling, ironing and surfacing paper, effect smoothing and drying at one operation. Green lumber for making furniture is bent and seasoned at the same time. Wire is tempered as drawn. At first reflectors were distinct from lamps; in an excellent form of incandescent bulb the upper part of the container is silvered, increasing the efficiency of reflection in decided measure, as shown on page 75. Ascertaining Solid Contents.