cessfully with foreign companies in an export trade.

Rag and List Carpets.-These, the first floorcoverings made in America, have by no means disappeared. The German settlements of Pennsylvania excel in them, and produce rag carpets the texture and colorings of which show of late years a very decided advance.

Wages. Carpet-weavers, as a rule, earn good wages, and live in as much comfort as journeymen in any other industry. The factory region of Philadelphia is well provided with comfortable brick dwellings, which rent at reasonable figures, and like satisfactory conditions exist around the mills of New England and New York. Practiced weavers earn fifteen to twenty dollars a week. A large percentage of the weavers are of English, Scotch, and north of Ireland origin or descent, and some of the most conspicuous successes in Philadelphia have been by foreigners, who started there as humble toilers on rude hand looms. Not a few such are to-day the owners of factories of great magnitude.

Noteworthy Events.-Certain important changes which have happened within a brief period can best be illustrated by reference to particular industries: The Alexander Smith & Sons Carpet Company, at Yonkers, from being former ly ingrain-makers only, will, during 1884, have 350 looms engaged on tapestry-Brussels, and 218 looms on moquette carpet; the whole having a total daily capacity of 27,500 yards; 500 hands will also be added, in 1884, to their working-force, making the total of persons employed 3,000. Horner Brothers, of Philadelphia, who in 1876 began on Brussels with six looms, have but just finished a factory of vast proportions, and are now among the largest Brussels producers in the world. They have undertaken, also, the weaving of tapestryBrussels. John Bromley & Sons, noted ingrain-weavers, of Philadelphia, have of late discontinued all but the Brussels manufacture, and have an extensive factory whose foundation was laid in the humblest way. John & James Dobson, at the Falls of the Schuylkill, have now body-Brussels, Wiltons, velvets, and tapestries on their lines, and conduct an industry famous here and abroad for its magnitude and the variety of its products. McCallum, Crease, & Sloan, of Philadelphia, one of the oldest and most successful firms making ingrains only, now weave Brussels and Wilton carpets of the highest standard, and are just completing an extensive factory. Ivins, Dietz, & Magee, Philadelphia, have completed and entered a stately Brussels and ingrain mill, and will reintroduce a costly fabric once made by them, known as tapestry-ingrain. The Lowell Manufacturing Company, at Lowell, Mass., have of late doubled the number of their Brussels-looms, enlarged their mill, and placed themselves in the front rank on this fabric. The Hartford Carpet Company, in addition to Brussels and ingrains, has begun the manufacture

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of moquette, and alone shares the honor with the Smith Company, at Yonkers, of making this fabric in the United States. Hon. Stephen Sanford (Amsterdam, N. Y.) has reared an industry of great extent, employing 200 looms on tapestry carpets.

These facts indicate, not the movements merely of individuals and firms, but are cited rather to show recent enterprise in directions limited a few years since to the efforts of perhaps a half-dozen firms. The achievements of numerous others, though hardly less signal, must of necessity be omitted here.

Cocoa-Matting. Floor-matting and foot-mats made in East India from the cocoa-fiber, and formerly imported fully manufactured from that country, are now woven equally well in America, and factories are successfully employed on these goods in Brooklyn, N. Y., Philadelphia, and Chester, Pa. Cocoa-fiber is admitted into the United States free of duty, and the fabrics made from it are found preferable to those produced in India.

Floor Oil-Cloths.-The consumption of floor oil-cloths, which diminished considerably with the cheapening of carpets, has revived very greatly, especially in the South and West, and the annual yield of the medium class of goods is greater by far than at any former period. The floor-cloth industries of the several States are as follow: Maine, 3; Massachusetts, 2; New York, 6; New Jersey, 4; Pennsylvania, 3; total in the United States, 18. There is also on Long Island, N. Y., a factory engaged in making linoleum, a cork floor-cloth, used for like purposes as the ordinary floor oilcloth.

The jute fabrics, or "foundations," used in the manufacture of floor oil-cloths, are imported mainly from Scotland. The Dolphin Company's jute-mill, at Paterson, N. J., and that of the Planet Mills, in Brooklyn, N. Y., have each successfully made the canvas on which the wide cloths, 18 to 24 feet in width, are prepared. The Chelsea Jute Works, of New York city, for the first time in America, are now about producing power-woven, narrowwidth jute canvas or burlap. (See JUTE.)

Fewer factories are engaged in making sheet oil-cloths-goods 12 to 24 feet wide-than existed ten years ago, and the production consequently has been very much lessened. Out of the oil-cloth factories enumerated, three only give particular attention to the sheet-widths. Narrow-width oil-cloths, 3 to 73 feet wide, on the contrary, are made in vastly larger quantities than ever before, their low price and useful qualities rendering them exceedingly popular. A machine for printing the colors, of recent invention, has been adopted by one or two firms, which secures a more rapid production than by the block or hand method of printing.

CENTRAL AMERICA. The following five independent republics constitute the Spanishspeaking portion of Central America:

There was a plan on foot in 1883 to reunite the five republics in one confederacy, to be called the United States of Central America. This scheme was started in Guatemala, which, under President Don Rufino Barrios, has a tendency to exercise a sort of hegemony over the remaining states, and the idea probably originated in the mind of Gen. Barrios himself, who has an ambition to be elected President of the Union, should the project meet with the assent of the people at large. For the present the plan has failed, owing, as was supposed, to the avowed or secret jealousy and intrigues of Don M. A. Soto, ex-President of Honduras, while he was the executive of that republic. Don M. A. Soto, however, left his country, and retired into voluntary exile in the summer of 1883, residing in San Francisco, California, where he published some letters provoking replies from Gen. Barrios. Finally, he resigned his office. The alleged main obstacle to the projected union thus seems to have disappeared. (See articles on the several republics.)

CEREBRAL LOCALIZATION. The whole tendency of recent anatomical study has been toward greater accuracy in minute details. Such knowledge as was to be gained by the scalpel and forceps in the way of dissection has long since been acquired. The microscope still remains, however, and much is to be learned of the minute anatomy and functions of parts the gross appearances and relations of which have Jong been understood.

The theory of cerebral localization," briefly stated, is this: The brain is not a homogeneous organ, but a mass composed of a certain number of diverse organs, to each of which belong certain definite physiological properties and functions. The object of recent study has been to locate these different functions each in its own portion of the nerve-substance of the brain. In a crude way, the general fact of a certain amount of cerebral localization has long been admitted. For example, the sense of sight has been located in a certain portion of the cerebrum, as has the sense of smell in another. The gray matter of the cerebral hemispheres was supposed to be especially associated with mental power, and the amount of the former to be an index of the amount of the latter. The nerve-fibers of the medullary portion and the large ganglia at the base of the brain were supposed to be especially connected with the act of locomotion. Further than this, paralysis limited to the leg had been connected with disease of one of the large ganglia (the corpus striatum) and

the adjacent medullary fibers at the anterior portion of the organ; while paralysis limited to the arm had been similarly associated with disease of another ganglion (the optic thalamus), and the surrounding medullary fibers at the posterior part of the brain. It was known that, when the arm and leg were both affected, the disease would probably be found in the base of the brain, rather anteriorly if the leg were chiefly affected, and posteriorly if the paralysis were greater in the arm. The respective functions of the anterior and posterior tracts of the spinal cord were also known, and the cerebellum or smaller brain, to which the posterior or sensory tracts of the cord were traced, was held to be on this account the especial seat of sensation. In 1863 a still further advance was made in locating the cerebral center of articulate speech. The disease known as aphasia consists either in a loss of the memory of words, so that the sufferer is unable either to speak or write the particular word he wishes to use, or else in a loss of the power to articulate a particular word or words, though the sufferer remembers them perfectly, and can write them correctly. In either of these cases it is evident that the diseased point in the brain must be either at the center controlling the muscles of articulation, or in the center of articulate speech itself. Careful examinations of the brains of such patients resulted in locating the lesion at a certain point in the anterior or middle portion of the frontal lobe of the left side, known as the "island of Reil," and supplied with blood by the left middle cerebral artery. It was at first supposed to follow necessarily from these investigations that the function of speech was confined to the left side of the brain; that as speech is learned by use, in most persons only one side of the brain had been educated for that purpose; and that as a person is right-handed as respects movements, he is left-handed as respects the faculty of speech. More thorough study has weakened the supposed force of the first discoveries, and although it still seems to be a fact that in most cases the center of speech is in the left anterior portion of the brain, there have been several reported cases of aphasia in which the lesion was plainly at the corresponding point on the opposite side.

These and a few other similar conclusions constituted about all that was definitely known as to the functions of the different parts of the brain till within the past few years. The field of study has always been attractive, both for

the anatomist and the physiologist, and their labors have been well repaid. The following account of the experiments of Dr. R. W. Amidon, of New York, may be of interest. They were based upon the following propositions: 1. Marked local variations in the temperature of the cephalic contents may be demonstrated by the use of specially constructed surfacethermometers. 2. Cerebral cortical localization is now sufficiently far advanced to warrant the assertion that the psycho-motor centers for one half of the body occupy a certain area in the cerebral cortex of the opposite hemisphere. 3. Functional activity of an organ implies increased blood-supply and tissue-change, and

F

cured to the head by buckles. The desirable points in the subject to be experimented upon are, a well-shaped head, thin hair, well-developed and trained muscles, power of facial expression, especially of unilateral facial movements, and the ability to contract individual muscles, and moderate intelligence. A man is preferable to a woman, and a European to an African.

The arrangements being completed, the subject of the experiments is made to exercise repeatedly a certain muscle or set of muscles; for example, to move repeatedly the right arm. The thermometer which registers an increase of temperature as a result of the movements is

consequent elevation of the temperature of that organ. 4. Willed contraction of muscles presupposes an increased activity of the volitional motor-center of those muscles in the cerebral cortex. From this it was natural to make the deduction that voluntary activity in a peripheral part would cause a rise of temperature in the psycho-motor center for that part, which might be indicated by thermometers applied to the skull over such center. Numbers of selfregistering surface-thermometers were applied to the surface of the skull to be tested, by passing them through holes in rubber straps se

supposed to be placed over the part of the brain controlling such movements, and in this way the cerebral center for movement of the arm is localized.

This is but one of the many means of investigation which have been employed in the study of this question. A study of Fig. 1 will show the normal arrangement of a human brain as seen from the side; and Fig. 2 shows what has been accomplished in the way of localization as regards the surface of the organ-what is known in anatomy as the gray matter of the cerebral convolutions, or of the cortex. These

the faculty of speech is affected to any extent, it is safe to conclude that the lesion must be in one of three places nearly connected with each other-the island of Reil, the base of the third frontal convolution, or the white substance lying between the third frontal convolution and the base of the cerebrum. It will also, in most cases, be upon the left side, as already shown. Paralysis of motion affecting only the upper extremity, leads to a location of the lesion on the side of the brain opposite the affected arm, and either confined to or involving the ascending convolutions of the frontal and parietal lobes. In the same way, the affected point may be predicted, with an approach to certainty, in paralysis of the leg, of the muscles of the face, of the eyes, etc. Supposing, now, that a patient affected with certain forms of paralysis, either of motion or sensation, with difficulty of speech, or with a certain variety of strabismus, gives a history of an injury at some time long passed, to the head. The surgeon concludes that as a result of such injury the bones of the skull have become gradually thickened until the pressure of new bone upon the brain-substance is causing the symptoms which he observes. From the muscles and parts affected he is enabled, in some cases with almost absolute exactness, to predict where the thickened bone on the inner surface of the skull will be found, and by the use of the trephine upon this point he may cure the disease -a result which could not be obtained without the accurate knowledge which has resulted from the study of cerebral localization. Abscess in the substance of the brain, following a few weeks after an injury is by no means uncommon. Such abscesses may be treated as abscesses are in other parts of the body, by opening them and allowing pus to escape, provided only they can be located with sufficient exactness, so that the trephine may first be used to remove a portion of the skull and thus allow the plunging of a knife into the brainsubstance and reaching the abscess-cavity. Suppose that a person who has been injured on the head develops aphasia, or the loss of words, after a few weeks. The indications are all in favor of the diagnosis of an abscess in the anterior part of the brain on the left side, and an operation at this point may save the patient's life, and has done so.

The surgical importance of these discoveries may be still further exemplified. Thus, if a person receive a severe injury on one side of the head, and there follows a paralysis of the hand and arm on the same side of the body, instead of on the opposite side, any surgical interference is contraindicated; for the reason that, were the injury to the brain confined to the seat of the wound, the paralysis would be on the opposite side of the body; but, being on the same side, it is proved that the brain-injury must be on the opposite side; in other words, that the brain has been extensively damaged, so extensively that the side opposite the point of

injury is also deeply affected, and therefore surgical interference is probably useless. Again, the completeness of the paralysis may indicate that the brain-disease is not confined to the surface, but has involved the deeper portions, and that the operation of trephining is likely to do little if any good.

The celebrated "American crow-bar case," which was for a time looked upon with incredulity as a "Yankee invention," has recently been appealed to as an argument against the fact of cerebral localization, and as a proof that the most extensive injury may be done to that portion of the brain supposed to be the center of voluntary motion, without causing paralysis. The case was that of a man, aged twenty-five years, who was tamping a blastingcharge in a rock with a pointed iron bar three feet seven inches long, 1 inch in diameter, and weighing 13 pounds. The charge exploded prematurely, and the bar entered with its pointed end at the left angle of the patient's jaw, passed through the skull and out at the forehead, and was picked up at some distance, covered with blood and brain. The patient was stunned, but within an hour after the accident he was able to walk up a long flight of stairs, and give an intelligent account of the injury to the surgeon who attended him. He ultimately recovered, after an illness which it was supposed must necessarily end fatally, and lived twelve and a half years, dying of epileptic convulsions, without medical supervision. The skull was subsequently exhumed, and may now be seen in the Medical Museum of Harvard University.

The case is generally cited as one in which the man suffered no permanent damage from the injury, either mental or bodily; but a more careful study of it, made by Charcot, proves quite the contrary, and in fact brings it within the ranks of the proofs of cerebral localization. An examination of the parts of the brain which must have been lacerated by the projectile, proves that the whole track of the bar was in the præ-frontal region, and that the absence of paralysis was exactly what should have been anticipated from experimental research. The outer root of the olfactory bulb may also have been injured, and if such were the case there should have been a partial loss of the sense of smell; but on this point the history is silent. There should have been also more or less intellectual disturbance, and on this point the history by Dr. Harlow is conclusive: "His contractors, who regarded him as the most efficient and capable foreman in their employ previous to his injury, considered the change in his mind so marked that they could not give him his place again. The equilibrium of balance, so to speak, between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities seems to have been destroyed. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference to his fellows, impatient of restraint