ya ae PO Z am i = ESS Sa 1d) >» DD = o> Si > Tae > > > “pei S) ae 8 D> = — Sa > => a Cig 32> =e 3S > 2p ne. q me ges J > a Ds —— > 5) 22> S wise > »y »> > * >. ’*2») WHITNEY LIBRARY, MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. £ ° AS iw oO Pana Fe hee THE INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER REVIEW OF NATURAL HISTORY MICROSCOPIC RESEARCH AND RECREATIVE SCIENCE VOLUME XI. ILLUSTRATED WITH PLATES IN COLOURS AND TINTS, AND NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD LONDON GROOMBRIDGE AND SONS. PATERNOSTER ROW. “Mp CCCLXVII. HARRBILD, PR'HTER, EONDON, es Wa - ; Ancient JEWELRY. By Witutam Dutuin, With a Coloured Plate...... NIE TS oe y's ee Winds reel pes yok On THE Form, GRowTH, AND ConstTRUCTION oF SHELLS. By the late Dr. S. P. Woopwarp, F.G.S. With Illustrations ...sveevevwees oad apd Mims. CAMERON'S PHOTOGRAPHS ...... 2. cece eens vuiele WWE ST He's NIST AS Tue Coat Mines or tHe Unitrep Strarzes or Norrw America. By F. M. LuBBREN ...... eee ae vs bs oars yet tts eA ote > WRhtew er ie otees On TELEGRAPHIC CoMMUNICATION BY Mrans oF A Numurican Copz. By Laer, J, FUERSCHEE, BoE oo earl ocvreesivqwe kee ee mvt aa ge pte we fal « th vis : Resvxts or METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS MADE AT THE Kew OBsER- vAtoRY. By G. M. WHIPPLE......% «0 atte Soypte wvset ote wale he « refs afeteres Licur Spots iy THe Lunar Nicur.—Tux Crater Liswt.—Occurrartions. By tite Revel. W.. Wass, A.Ma FARASS, . osccisrreien ds craw niore cones oes Tue Fossin Forest or ATANAKERDLUK .......eeeeees srerath acene wth aie Tue Manerove AND ITs Auuies. By Joun R. JAcKSON........06. OE ei THe MamMorH AND ITS EPOCH ........6. 0000s. chia lm water Hetoteybpe re eevee On THE “Grass Ropr’’? Hyatonema. By Proressorn WyvitLE Tuomson, With Coloured Plate and two Lilustrations ....-. ee ¢ We wwwarerayl hs Tue Star Cuamper: Its Practice AnD PROCEDURE. By Franeis W. re fk Wheelie oa tifa a de, nie Ae Mate vee cymes ° Inp1An Insects, Hous Visirants. By the Rev. R. Hicaiae, M.A. Tue CiimaTE or GREAT Britain. By Ricuarp A. Proctor, B.A., F.R.A.S. THE VEGETABLE SHEEP or New Zeatanp. By Joun R. Jackson ...... PrEAsANT Ways In Scienczr. No. V.—Rapiant Forcus .........+ ete% Scurérer’s Mrrzors.—Tur Lunar Cassint.—Crimson Star.—Occunra- fiom Soy phe huy, LT. W./Wupp; AM. iF Ribs Qe eet eevee werieewe Scumipt on Linné ...... Sete joe if « azacvee Shor epew « np tercurane vatang the ope 9 Economic UsEs or SHELLS AND THEIR INHABITANTS. By Henry Woen- warp, F.G.8., F.Z.8. With Tinted Plate ...... Sein Wiel « oe" Wet sole tes . FATIO ON FEATHERS: THEIR DECOLORATION ......seeeceeees wrere’ere wg of ate SILVERED Mrrror TELESCOPES, THEIR MERITS AND DISADVANTAGES .... + Cuemicat Ams to Art. By Prorzssor A. H. Cuurcn, M.A., F.C.S... A Ramsre in West Suropsuire. By the Rev. J.D. La Toucue ...... Roumination In Fisu, tue Scarus or THE ANcrIENTS. By the Ruv. W. BovenTon, MyA;, Fi.S.......... 00080. dis v0 sie otpyitetata rea at sigeaps ae Lunar DELinEarIoN. ee Lunar ARISTILLUS AND ceil By the Rey. T. W. Wess, M.A., F.R.A,S. ie sia\e'e'a pidryraenianaty ity cuatity s On A Fresu Water VALVED 9 SE ‘Sy Henry J. Sakon, ¥.G, S., ME TLRS. 6. ccc rcsnccsacers Ta o Saale AAMC E MACE OG wee Brexa’s Comer. By W. T. Lynn, B.A., F. R. A. S. With Tinte sd Plate PAGE ‘4 10 18 30 34 40 44 —~OL 61 65 70 81 1V Contents, ; PAGE FresH Notes oN THE CraTER LINNE, AND SUPPOSED Eruption ........ 215 Tue New Oax-Frxpine Sirkworm or Cuina. By Joun R. Jackson ,., 241 An Ercut Days’ RamsBie 1n Care Cotony. By Grorce E. Burcer.... 246 Ancient Surriy or Water to Towns. By the Rev. W. Hoveuron, F.L.S. 257 On THE Botanicat Oricin oF WuEat. By Joun R. Jackson.......... 262 Luyan Penspecrive. By Ws R. Brat, F.BLAS. 5... .000s0.00e eee Rep Star.—Dovsie Stars.—NeEBuL«z.—Linn£ AND ARISTOTELES.—OccuLT- aTions. By the Rev. T. W. Wess, M.A., F.R.AS. . 2738 GRAPTOLITES: THEIR STRUCTURE AND bioneiies Havens By Wrius Cam prnmre, FOG. a Sneak desees bonne pinebtaut he tin ‘ che ceee poe 283 A Wurre Croup Intumination ror Low Powers. By Hunk J. Suack, FSA, Bows eC BAB Si 5.5646 sea a's onl d UGA N Cee oe Oe ; 292 REsutts OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS MADE AT Krew Cramiraiheile By G. Mi. Weaver ¢ caving tee A abe » Mobile Os bshakiwee +o Reeae ~. 294 BioGRAPHY OF SWEDENBORG ........ ils laine sOcdts ae en cn tus Pee .. 3800 British WoopPEcKkERs. By G. Epwarp inet With a Coloured Plate 321 On THE APPLICABILITY OF THE Exxcrric Licut to Licntuouses. By Paoredon MONO", 5 Pe oe it oh4 65> noe clea eke soe 325 Tue Low BaroMETER OF THE ANTARCTIC TEMPERATE ZONE. By RicHarp A; Procron, "B.A., FR.A.S. Sifastrated.. .. isc ica ncclc od s pao neue . 304 A Ramsie 1n West Suropsurre. By Rey. J. D. La Tovcue ....... . 348 Picture Notes—THE Royvat ACADEMY .....0ce.sveseee es Synth sa ae 357 GRAPTOLITES: THEIR STRUCTURE AND SYSTEMATIC Pastel, Pins IIl.— By Wiiiiam Carrvutuers, F.L.S. With @ Plate .......ceeceeeeee . 3865 Pivine Macumas 44... 2004.8aeaee ws hents so nth ee ee Arges ey ei . 374 Ture Lunar APPENINES.—CLUSTERS AND NEBUL#,—OccuLTATION, By the Rey TW. Wass, 2M) PAS: tae ob Ga eee eae vik. s ee Oe Moon CoLouRs ......0.0. esa baeae roo © he's 3 W's seu kins acs 6 yaa ee 388 PROBABLE CoNNECTION oF CoMETS wiTH SuHooTinc Stars. By W. °. Linh, BAS FRAG S264 528 an ahank CLLR EMER LUAS rey 5% . 3890 CamMEo oF THE Emrreror Avcustus IN THE Buiacas CoLiEcTion. By Tuomas Wricut, M.A., F.S.A. With a Coloured Plate .......... -. 401 Cuemicat Aips To ArT. No. IJ.—By Prorrssor CHURCH.........++. .- 409 Tue Puttosopuy or Brrps’ Nzsts By A. R. Watuacs, F.Z.8., Ete. .... 4138 ON THE VARIOUS MODES oF PRorELLING VessELs. By ProFEsson McGautey. 421 Sun Viewine anp Drawine. By the Rev. F. Howrett, M.A. F.RS. 429 VEGETABLE Monsrrosities AND Raczs, By Cu. Wavpin. ........ csaens AncrenT Men or WIRTEMBERG ........ 0005 dia bia'e wa be RS hie Rik aie eee Oe 450 Mr. Granam’s Recent Discovertrs—TnE ABsoRPTION AND D1IALyTIC ‘ SEPARATION oF GasEs By CoLtLoip Sepra—TueE Occrusion or Gases. 452 CiusTEeRs AND NresuL®.—SovuTHERN Oxssects.—DovusiEe Stars,—OccuLta- tions. By Rev. T. W. Wzzs, A.M., F.R.A.S. aye a On tHE Eaos or Cornrxa Mercenanrta. By Dr. T. L. Paeediia, F. C: 8... 467 ARROW BOLOGIA eee esos Pe Uae. rp 74, 152, 223, 307, "393, 470 PwOGHESS OF EeyvENTION* 40466 His Fees Goede Sia . 63, 156, 226, 310, 396, 473 ProceEDiInes OF LEARNED SOCIETIES .......0e0 000s .. 159, 288, 316, 897, 476 Notrres AND MEMORANDA ..........- h-wed gar ..... 79, 159, 239, 319, 399, 479 1h from the originals by 2 ane Zl 186%, | “ANCIENT JEWELRY, SOAte, BY WILTIAN, DUTHIE. | ~ (With 2 Coloured Plate.) , acnte, learned, and. indefatigable, Weve taken _ 9 describe, among other ancient remains, the Egy tian jewelry which have been disedvered in eit might - unnecessary to treat of oa ke the elaborate explanations of Prisse iD : Daly, ee Gardiner Wiican, Dr. Birch, and : ley i ornate, and the voluminous account of: Assyrian antiquities, there might m prewarption in any attempt to onlarze nad hows aleimedy amply and o> abiy ‘ eS re. osah et “tatty y theve woos and ~ gritdiipa relics ae z ome ardivanclag:s al nf of view, hive: meron sere way as i he eee } Sek S98 in this light it is purposed we ther it is evident that, so sd tnaidceed they —< ery iwteresting field, not merely for speculation, but e. . seca! ualation of proofs directly tending to show the ogres le pen the finer mechanical = of art-work- | in those early ages. To a workman, testing them by int | I knowledge, - they’ may give evidence of a rc 5 ee ub from, and not less interesting than, that Me antiquarian and the philosopher. — 4 idea, the picces of jewelry in the Colovred | be nse 2cted: as much for the purpose of Hlastrating — i ay workmanship, as for their marked “haracter El ob -» show, in fact, what advance the tians vou was head made ia the arts of at, ing er’ sng wto ro! and other more technical hae 2 obj ott ornaments, It is believed that objec 38 her bliblee been engraved, and these - 3L—n0. t : B ay ‘ay ae pe: a . a ee’ ans sera w Soe ae a ee : oie 4 Cees ti: ” f ? ; : THE INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER. PHRBBUARY,: 1867. ANCIENT JEWELRY. BY WILLIAM DUTHIE. (With a Coloured Plate.) ANTIQUARIANS, acute, learned, and indefatigable, have taken such pains to describe, among other ancient remains, the specimens of Heyptian jewelry which have been discovered in recent times, that it might appear unnecessary to treat of them further. After the elaborate explanations of Prisse d’Avennes, Daly, Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, Dr. Birch, and others, of Hgyptian ornaments, and the voluminous account given by Mr.. Layard of Assyrian antiquities, there might appear to be a certain presumption in any attempt to enlarge upon a subject which had been already so amply and so ably treated. But, however carefully these ancient and interesting relics may have been described in an archeological point of view, they have never yet been dealt with in a practical way as pieces of workmanship ; and it is in this light it is purposed to consider them here. It is evident that, so considered, they offer a very interesting field, not merely for speculation, but for the accumulation of proofs directly tending to show the progress made in the finer mechanical processes of art-work- manship in those early ages. ‘To a workman, testing them by his own special knowledge, they may give evidence of a character different from, and not less interesting than, that offered to the antiquarian and the philosopher. Acting upon this idea, the pieces of jewelry in the Coloured Plate have been selected as much for the purpose of illustrating certain points of workmanship, as for their marked character and beauty ; to show, in fact, what advance the Egyptians and Assyrians had made in the arts of casting, chasing, soldering, stone-cutting, and other more technical processes in the manufacture of personal ornaments. It is believed that the objects chosen have not hitherto been engraved, and these VOL. XI.—NO. I. B 2 Ancient Jewelry. are represented in some cases in the state in which they were worn, instead of in their present dilapidated condition. With the exception of No. 1, an earrmg reduced from many examples of the same ornament on the colossal figures of the Assyrian bas-reliefs, the specimens shown are to be found in the cases of the British Museum. ‘The very curious and beautiful collection of relics discovered at Thebes, and exhibited by the Pasha of Egypt at the English International Exhibition of 1862, would not have served the writer’s pur- pose equally well, the majority of them not coming within the category of jewelry, being testimonial pieces, or symbols of office. These relics have been fully explained by Dr. Birch, and carefully copied and illuminated by Mr. Kiddle, of the War Office.* They are, it is believed, the most ancient specimens of art-workmanship in the precious metals in existence, dating from about B.c. 1800, or 3600 years ago. They will be again referred to. . : It is surprising how far into the imner life of a people an examination of the works under review may lead; for the existence of one fact, proved to demonstration by the work itself, helps to establish other facts not so patent, and to suggest consequences of great interest, and of the utmost import- ance in determining the condition of art-manufacture at the period referred to. When, in opening some ancient British tumulus, the antiquarian unearths a rude ornament of gold, probably the breast or neck decoration of a chief, and finds it to consist of a simple thin plate, beaten mto something like shape to serve its important purpose. having no mark of chasing-tool or graver, and, above all, no union by solder of two parts together, he must inevitably come to the conclusion that the goldsmith’s art, at the time the ornament was made, must have been in the most primitive condition. It must be at once evident that here is simply a piece of hammer-work, in the making of which little taste and less skill have been exerted. On the other hand, every little addition to the naked piece of metal is not only a proof of a higker state of art in itself, but is evidence of progress in other directions of a kindred nature. Even so small a thing as a piece of wire is a sign of a decided advance in art upon the original crude plate ; and, moreover, it shows progress in mechanical appliances ; for the production of a piece of wire implies the possession of tools of an exact and complex character. Hxamined in ‘this _ way, the process of manufacture of a simple piece of jewelry will serve to show the existence of other arts than that*of the goldsmith. : * Fac-similes of the Egyptian Relics Discovered at Thebes, 4to,, London, 1863. Ancient Jewelry. 3 The same antiquity cannot be claimed for the specimens chosen for illustration as for the relics of Queen Aah-hept ; but the most recent example is of about the year B.c. 300. ‘The Assyrian earrings, Nos. 1 and 5, are from Kouyunjik (Nineveh), of about 700 years before Christ. The necklace, No. 2, and the earrings, Nos. 4 and 7, are from Babylon, of probably a-somewhat later date. The ring, No. 3, representing the figures of Serapis, Isis, and Horus, is of the Ptolemaic period, about B.c. 300 years. The bracelet, No. 8, is inscribed with the name of Namrut (Nimrod), an Egyptian prince of the twenty-second dynasty, from Sais, and therefore dates from about 500 years before Christ. The numbermg has been arranged on the principle of taking the most simple forms and workmanship first, havmg some regard also to age. The earrme, No. 1, although not actually existing as a gold specimen, is found so repeatedly on the colossal bas-reliefs of the Nimrod collection, that it may be taken as a very common type of ornament, and although certainly elegant in form, 1s of very simple construction. It may have been cast solid, or struck with a punch in two pieces, and soldered together. It is scarcely probable that 1t was cast solid, as in that case its excessive weight would render it painful and even unsafe to wear. That the Assyrians certainly, and probably the Egyp- tians also, were in the habit of casting ornaments in metal, we have distinct evidence in the ring moulds discovered by Mr. Layard, and exhibited in the Nineveh collection. Not only have we there a mould for casting rings—not a mould of sand, as used in modern times, but of some chalky or clayey substance, in which the subject is cut in both halves of the mould, with a proper gate wherein to pour the melted metal, — and radiating lines to admit of the escape of the air—but also small bells and weights, on which the distinct ridge left by the juncture of the mould is still visible. But even for so rude a piece of jewelry as a cast earring, some mechanical appliances are necessary beyond the mould and the metal. Some sort of furnace must have been erected, with probably wood for fuel, and an inflated pig-skin for a bellows. The workman must also have had crucibles, and some kind of iron pincers to lift his gold out of the fire. But it is more probable that the earring in question was hollow—struck by means of a punch in two: halves, and soldered together. ‘This is undoubtedly the method pursued in the manufacture of the chain, No. 2; and adopting this con- clusion, we must pre-suppose the carving or moulding of iron or bronze punches, and the knowledge of the several delicate operations which go to complete a soldered juncture of metals. We have no difficulty in determining the fact of the use. of 4 Ancient Jewelry. carved punches in the manufacture of jewelry, for there are abundant evidences of it in the necklaces and other ornaments which are exhibited in the British Museum. One necklace of shells and cornucopie, placed alternately, is especially remark- able. Itis of silver, and each kind of ornament is so exactly similar, that they must necessarily have been struck off the same punch. A bead necklace offers the same evidence ; and it is not at all improbable that many of the aphes, cobras, scarabzi, and other symbolical ornaments which we find embedded in opaque glass, were struck from carved punches out of thin gold plate. The question then arises, how were these punches made? Were they also cast in moulds, say in bronze? Or were they forged, and worked up by file and graver into the required form? We have no evidence of the existence of a file at this period; and a file, besides that it must be of steel - to be of any service, even upon bronze, is a really artistic pro- duction. There is no proof that steel was known at so remote a date, and the probabilities are against such a supposition. Cast iron is a modern invention; and regarding the matter from all sides, one is almost forced to the conclusion that these punches were cast in bronze, and finished for use by such cutting gravers or other tools as sharpened iron would furnish. The suggestion that these exactly similar ornaments might have been struck in dies offers many difficulties, for a die is an implement of manufacture much more difficult of production than a hand-punch. Ther arises the question of soldermg. These duplicate pieces, struck with a punch, and made of an equal height by being snipped round their edges with shears, and rubbed down on a stone, must now be united by solder—not mere tin or pewter, but what is technically known as hard solder, 1.e., a metal only so far inferior by the addition of alloy to the metal it is to unite, that it is fusible at a somewhat lower degree of heat. But to solder in this way requires tools and appliances ofa more delicate nature than we ‘have as yet had to deal with. The preparation of solder itself, with its careful and minute proportioning of alloy, and its no less careful fusion—its thin- ning into plate, and its reduction by some means, by shears or by file, into small particles for use—requires considerable skill and indispensable tools. Then it is impossible to solder without some species of flux, to prevent the oxidation of the - two surfaces to be united, during the process. What flux had the Egyptians or the Assyrians? It isa fact that im many parts of the East Indies to this day the native jewelry, although admirable in many points of execution, is not soldered together, but dovetailed, in a manner of speaking, by a series of minute “spitzens.” The fineness of the gold employed admits of Ancient Jewelry. 5) this process, and the work does not depend for its strength upon its connected parts. The setting of their gems is invariably effected in this way, and with a little force may be lifted off bodily. Borax is the immemorial flux of the jeweler all over the world, and it is not at all improbable that the Hgyptians possessed this valuable medium; especially as, although now an artificial compound of its element, boracic acid and soda, manufactured to meet the demands of commerce, it is found, and was to be found doubtless in that remote time, as a natural production. But given the borax, the solder, the shears, or the file, we still require the charcoal, or some equivalent for it; and what is more, we still require the blow-pipe. His inflated pig-skin would not serve the Assyrian here; something more manageable was necessary—something which possessed both force and precision. It is held by scholars that Pliny (the younger) speaks of borax under the title of chrysocolla, and it is not at all unreasonable to suppose that borax, under this or some other name, was known at a much earlier date than his time. If the Egyptians had not discovered charcoal—and it is very possible they had, considermg their necessarily constant use of wood—it would not be difficult to find some lhght porous stone to answer its purpose ;* and the origin of the blow-pipe is so involved in obscurity, that there is scarcely any date too early to fix for its discovery. Moreover, although the blow-pipe of the modern chemist is a very scientific implement, it must be remembered that the jeweler’s blow-pipe to this day is simply a piece of bent tubing, smaller at one end than the other. It is at least certain, then, that to solder, the ancients must have possessed some knowledge of alloy, and had for tools the blow-pipe, shears, or files, charcoal, or some analogous non-conductive substance, and must have known the valuable uses of borax as a flux.. This question of alloys is of more consequence than may at first sight appear ; for, as a rule, the gold used in these ancient ornaments was in nearly a pure state; and it is not unreason- able to suppose that a knowledge of the ready fusion of certain other metals therewith might have tempted the workmen of antiquity to deteriorate the precious metal, as is systematically done in modern times. The universal use of fine gold suggests also one other solution of the solder difficulty: it is that fine gold, and fine gold alone, may, by the help of a flux, be “sweated,” or brazed together instead of soldered; but it is a careful process, and can only be done with heavy pieces of work. It is true there are some examples of framework for 7 % mie is an excellent substitute, but not likely to be found among the sands of BY Pt. 6 Ancient Jewelry. inlaying in the cases of the British Museum which have a Suspicious aspect, scarcely compatible with purity of material, but they are the exception to the rule; and, on the other hand, it is certain that many legitimate uses, of a less pure but harder gold, were altogether unknown. ‘Thus, there are no joints to earrings, or spring fastenings to any of the ancient ornaments. ‘The earloops are simply the attenuated ends of fine gold wires, which, once passed through the ear, were bent round till they held in their places, to be again straightened, should the earring require to be removed—a thing, it may be presumed, not often done. The bracelets, again, are permanent ornaments, and could scarcely have been removed without the aid of the jeweler. No. 3 is a copy of a ring of the Ptolemaic period, and is made of woven wire, from which spring three cast and chased figures of Serapis, Isis, and Horus. Although generally effective, the workmanship of this rimg is ex- ceedingly coarse. It may be here remarked that nothing is So general as the introduction of chasing in all Heyptian jewelry, and indeed in all their metal work. There are even frequent examples of attempts at embossing, or repoussé work. This chasing, as a rule, is very rude, and consists of little more than outlines, but there are cases in which it is much more finished, and indeed very effective. The claw of a hawk in one of the upper cases of the Mummy Room of the British Museum is an example in point. The earring, No. 4, a relic of Babylon, is one specimen of modelling, casting, and chasing, although by no means one of a high order; and the Assyrian earring, No. 5, discovered by Mr. Layard at Kouyunyjik (Nineveh), and which has a pearl at each end, is, no doubt, chased all round, and chased after the present method ; that is to say, by being first filled with bituminous matter, in order to offer a sufficient resistance, and no more, to the blow of the chasing tool and hammer. The bitumen, resin, or gum with which the earring is now filled is ‘probably an after arrange- ment, and in this respect it is similar to the loaded jewelry made even down to the present day in the Hast Indies. The earloop is conjectural, as the original one is lost. The cylinder seal-ring, No. 6, is anadmirable example of a type common among the Hegyptians, and shows well the very general use among them of thin wire-work. Wire was made to serve as ornaments on plain surfaces in very many cases, and in its then use may fairly be taken as the origin of filagree, to which, in some instances, 1t bears a resemblance. ‘The great use of wire is a fact to be noted, for the manufacture of this gold thread is by no means a simple process. It could not have been produced by mere hand labour, and must have Ancient Jewelry. 7 been drawn then, as now, through a graduated series of holes, made in some much harder substance than itself. Indeed, it seems difficult to conceive of a wire draw-plate in any less durable and compact metal than steel. A mere rude hole in a piece of iron would not answer the purpose, as it would rip and break the metal—the more so with so soft a metal as fine gold—and at the best would only produce wire of its own shape. A wire draw-plate is a very exact piece of workman- ship, in which the holes are carefully graduated in size, so as ngt to produce too great a strain upon the metal at one time, and brightly polished so as to cause as little friction as possible, as well as to produce a wire of a perfectly round and smooth surface. Hven when made of the finest steel, such plates wear rapidly, and the modern improvement is to substitute an eyelet of sapphire, or similar hard gem, in which the hole is made, instead of in the bare metal. Notwithstanding these diffi- culties, we must suppose that the Egyptians possessed some more or less perfect wire draw-plates, and, in addition, the. vice and draw-plyers, in some shape or other, without which the first would be useless. The consideration of the earring, No. 7, and the bracelet, No. 8, has been reserved to the last, because they present features of a character very different to the other examples. The earring, which is from Babylon, is, to judge from its elaborate character, the most recent production of any here shown. It is not without a certain beauty of form, and is peculiar in the number of pieces of which itis composed, and in the fact that it is a “mounted” piece of work. Its com- ponent parts are neither cast nor struck with a punch, but made up in pieces from thin plate, soldered together, and filled with gum. It is made, in fact, in the same way as it would be made at the present day, with the exception of the gum; and could only be executed by a skilful hand with the aid of small round and flat plyers. Here, again, we are forced to the belief that such tools were known to the Babylonians at least, if not to the Hgyptians. The lozenge-shaped stones are inlaid and flat, supported by the gum; the others are cut cabochon. The bracelet, although apparently a complicated piece of workmanship, is in reality very simple; and this again is “mounted” out of thin flat plate and chaneer, 7. e., hollow wire. Its great peculiarity is that it is jointed. The skill required, and the tools necessary for the drawing of wire, has already been dwelt upon, but the difficulty of making hollow wire from flat plate is even greater. Yet thisis no new feature in Egyptian jewelry, for among the relics of Queen Aah-hept, 8.c. 1800, 3600 years ago, is a bracelet having a jomt containing fifteen divisions, technically called “ knuckles ;”” 8 Ancient Jewelry. that is to say, seven divisions fitting into eight, like a well- made modern snuff-box. In both these bracelets there are two joints, and they are placed just so wide apart as to admit of the passage of the wrist, when the pin was again passed into the open joint, and the bracelet, or rather armlet, thus became per- manently fastened. There remain still two points to be considered; the manu- facture of gold plate and the process of inlaying, of which latter art both the last described earring and the bracelet are good examples. It is difficult to understand how the gold plate, of which the Egyptians made so great a use, can have been produced, without the aid of some machinery of the nature of the flatting-mill of the present day. It is certainly possible to hammer fine gold into a thin sheet, but this can only be done by placing it between vellum, or some similar substance, and subjecting it to heavy blows by the hour. On the naked anvil it would be scarcely possible to produce an even surface, and then only by means of finely-polished steel ham- mers, which the ancients can scarcely have possessed. Yet it is easier to believe that they hammered their gold into plate on the anvil than that they possessed so complicated as machine as arolling or flatting-muill. As to the inlaymg, Dr. Birch tells us, speaking of the relics of Queen Aah-hept, that “they are encrusted in a kind of cloisonné of opaque glass of blue and red colour, and are not enamelled. ‘This latter class of work not beg known prior to the Roman Empire.” Again: “ the principal substances used for this purpose by the Egyptians were lapis-lazuli, root of emerald, or green felspar, jasper, obsidian, and opaque glasses imitating them, and the delicate blue of the turquoise.” The bracelet before us appears to have been inlaid mainly with lapis-lazuli, alternating with thin plates of gold, also inlaid, and altogether representing that peculiar zigzag which was employed by the Egyptians to represent running water. The present drawing has been taken from the side, instead of the front, of the bracelet, in order to represent*this more fully. The question now arises, by what means did the ancients cut, their precious stones and coloured glasses into the required shapes? We know they were expert engravers on stone, but it is hardly to be supposed that they had invented the lathe, and engraved their figures and inscription by means of the points and small disks of the modern seal-engraver. et something of this kind they must have done; for, assuming that their seal-devices and writings were cut by small chisels, or by friction with the points of harder stones, which is pos- sible, but extremely laborious, how’ could they have shaped their seal-stones for setting or for inscription without a lapi- Ancient Jewelry. | 9 dary’s mill? Even more necessary would such an implement be for the purposes of inlaying; for granting that the Kgyp- tian or Assyrian workmen were able, by some rude means, to fit their separate pieces of mosaic into the places prepared for them, how would they level the whole surface, as they have undoubtedly done, smoothing it and polishing it to a high degree, without the action of some machine, revolving with rapidity, which should make a clean sweep of it? It is impossible to answer these questions. The utmost we can do is to make careful guesses from visible facts. It may be said that it was quite possible for the ancients to effect all they did in the manufacture of jewelry without any of the tools of the modern art workman, given the requisite time and patience. Doubtless, this is one solution of the difficulty; for we know from later works, executed under difficult circum- stances by prisoners and others, that it is almost impossible to impose too hard a task on the ingenuity and perseverance of man. But then, in such cases, time and labour must count for next to nothing. Whatever the implements at his command, it is clearly evident that the Egyptian and the Assyrian workman could melt and alloy the precious metals; could flatten them into thin plate, draw them into fine wire, prepare punches to strike them into ornamental shapes, and solder these shapes together. Further, that he could chase and engrave; that he could “mount” the metal he had prepared into any form his taste might suggest, and could inlay his mounted work with coloured glasses and stones. Also, that he could make moulds, and cast solid ornaments, could gild metal, and weave wire-chains. Lastly, that he could cut, engrave, and polish the hardest stones ; could set them in rings and as amulets; and that his taste had.in it so much of vitality that it lives and inspires his Successors even to this hour. In fact, we may deny this ancient craftsman the possession of many tools which appear to us indispensable at the present day, to effect the same object, but in doing so we only acknowledge, and must the more admire, his skill and his perseverance. 10 Trial of the Pyz. TRIAL OF THE PYX. In the days of our remote ancestry, when mints existed in different parts of Great Britain, and were superintended by various individuals known as moneyers, it was no doubt necessary that frequent examinations of the various coins issued from those establishments should take place. Such examinations constituted valuable checks upon those who were engaged in, the manufacture of the State monies, and were a guarantee to the public that those monies were of the legal standards of weight and of fineness. For many centuries, however, trials of the Pyx took place within the mints themselves, and were conducted by officials connected with the mints. They were made at stated intervals, usually once . in every three months, and they came to be considered part and parcel of mint duties. It is not essential for our present — purpose to inquire into the mode of operation pursued in those primitive days of English minting, and, if it were attempted, the task would prove to be one of extreme difficulty, from the fact that the sources of information are few and unsatisfactory. We may, therefore, more profitably consider the subject of the trial of the Pyx from the period when, according to the best histerical data, it became a public ceremony, and when our monarchs not unfrequently took part in it. Ruding, in his elaborate and erudite work known as the Annals of the Comage of Great Britain and its Dependencies, fixes this time very precisely, for he states that the first public trial occurred on the 24th February, 1248, the 32nd year of Henry ITI., before the Barons of the Exchequer, the jury being com- posed of twelve discreet and lawful citizens of London, with twelve skilful goldsmiths of the same: place. The first known writ for such a trial is dated, nevertheless, at a later period, namely, 1281, and, in the reign of Edward I., and itis pretty clear that the trial of the Pyx,* or Mint-box, as now practised, and as against the Master of the Mint, was really instituted in the year last named. It was certainly not till 1279 that the royal mints were consolidated under one mint master, and that the latter became party to an agreement with the king (Edward I.) for the execution of the coinage of the realm, and thus made himself individually responsible for its genuineness. _ An ordinance was passed in the same year called Rotulus de Monet, or the Roll of the Mint, and intended to regulate the proceedings there. A copy of this ordinance exists, and it ordains: 1. That a standard should be made and kept at the Exchequer, or where the king wished, and that the com should _* Derived from the Greek TMvéts, a box. eS ee Trial of the Pyw. Il be made according to the standard of identical goodness. (Premeurement ge hom doit fere un estandart qe doit demorer al Hschekar, ou en quel lieu qe nostre Seignor le Roy vodra. Kt selone la forme del estandart serra fete la moneye, et de tiel bonte come lestantar). In the sixth clause of the Ordi- nance reference is distinctly made to a Pyx-box, in which was to be deposited a sterling coin out of every ten pounds weight struck for the purpose of making the assay or trial. It also gives explicit instructions as to the custody of the keys of the box, of which there were to be two, one for the Master, and one for the Warden of the Mint. The system of holding trials of the Pyx, obtained with more or less regularity, once in three months, until the reign of Queen Hhzabeth, and Ruding quotes the following from an account of such proceedings which took place in her reign— “And uppon reasonable warning thereof given, it (the Pyx- box) shall be op’ned once in three monnethes before some ot the Queen’s Counsell assigned, in the presence of the said Warden and Master; and ther shalbe maid assaies as well of the finness as of the waight of the said monies of gold and silver by enie meannes in the said box.” Pending the troublous times of Charles I., trials of the Pyx were held at very irregular and uncertain periods, the probability being that they were deemed of much less conse- quence than the trials of strength continually waged between that unhappy sovereign and his parliamentary antagonists. Durmg the Commonwealth it is believed that only one public examination of the coinage took place, and that a long time after Cromwell’s accession to supreme power, namely, in 1657. The warrant for this is still extant, and, since, it is very brief, it may not be uninteresting to. quote it entire. It runs as follows :— “Oliver P. “ Whereas, amongst other weighty affairs of the Common- wealth, the care of assaying and trying the monies thereof by the standard of Hngland, according to the ancient custom of the realm, is not the least. We, judging it necessary that the trial and assay of the said money be forthwith made, do there- fore hereby signify such our will and pleasure to be, command- ing you forthwith to cause a trial and assay to be made of the Pyx, now being in the Mint, within the Tower of -London, by a Jury of Goldsmiths of our said City of London, of integrity and experience, to be empannelled on a day certain to be by you in that behalf appointed, in the place accustomed, within our Palace of Westminster, and that the Lords Commissioners of our Treasury, the Justices of the several Benches, and Barons of the Exchequer, or some of them, be then there present and 12 Trial of the Pyzx. counselling and assisting you in the execution of our service.” “ Given at Whitehall, the 9th day of November, 1657. “To our trusty and well-beloved Nath. Fiennes and John Lister, Lords Commissioners of our Great Seal of England.” From the period of the Restoration to the time of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, trials of the Pyx have occurred at very uncertain intervals, generally, however, on the appoint- ment of a new Master of the Mint* the ceremony is performed, it being held desirable to relieve the retiring officer of all responsibility, and to transfer it to his successor. No other specific rule exists either on the authority of a Royal Warrant or an Act of Parliament for regulating the time when such trials shall take place. The practice, however, of late years _ has been to determine this point by the contents of the Pyx- boxes themselves. When those receptacles become filled with ~ coin, it is physically essential that they should be eimptied, and, in order to accomplish this feat, the cumbrous machinery of the State has to be put m motion. There are two Pyx-boxes deposited in a strong room at the Mint, and the rapidity, or otherwise, with which they are charged, depends on the activity of the stamping presses of the establishment. One of the boxes is for the receipt of gold and the other of silver coin. Hach of the boxes is furnished with three distinct locks, and the keys of which are retained respectively by the Master, the Deputy Master and Compiroller, and the Queen’s Assay Master. In the boxes a single coin from every journey weight} of gold or silver money transferred to the Mint office from the coining department is deposited. At the close of each day’s weighing of coins at the central- office of receipt and’ delivery, the Pyx coins, corresponding in number with that of the journeys passed through the scales, are put up im a paper parcel, and sealed by at least two of the officers just mentioned. ‘They are then placed in their sacred prisons, and securely locked up until the day of trial. It may be stated, in passing, that other pieces are retained day by day from the current work, and tested both as to weight and fine- ness by the Deputy Master and the Assayer. These operations are known as the Mint Pyx Assay, and they are always completed before the bulk of coin to which the trial pieces. pertain are forwarded to the Bank of England. * The office is now held as a life appointment, and has been so held since 1851. Formerly it was a ministerial post. + A “journey” of gold consists of 180 ounces, or 701 pieces (sovs.), and a ‘journey of silver of 720 ounces, the number of pieces being dependant on the denomination of coin. The word journey is believed to be a corruption of the French word journée. ie Trial of the Pyz. 13 Whilst treating of this part of our subject, it will not be out of pie to mention that each pound troy of gold is coined into 463% sovereigns, and that the standard degree of fineness of the coin is twenty-two carat, that is, twenty-two parts fine gold and two parts of alloy, in accordance with the Act 56 Geo. 3, c. 68, s. 11. The pound weight of silver is coined into 66 shillings, the same rate being observed with all other denominations of silver money, its standard degree of fineness being eleven ounces two pennyweights of fine silver, and eigh- teen ~ penny weights of alloy, in pursuance of section 4 of the same Act of Parliament. Having thus explained, with, it is hoped, as much distinct- ness as will make the arrangements intelligible, the mode of charging the Mint Pyx- boxes, let us proceed to detail the ceremonial processes intermittently practised for the discharge of their precious contents. The repletion of the boxes being officially made known by memorial to the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer moves Her Majesty in Council, and an Order in Council, appointing an early day for the trial of the Pyx, is the result of this action. The Chancellor of the Exchequer also issues his warrant to the Comptroller General of the Exchequer, directing that officer to produce, at the specified date, the standard trial plates* and standard weights in the custody of the Exchequer office. Immediately before the trial the Pyx chamber is formally opened by officers of the Treasury and Exchequer, and the plates, removed from their sealed deposi- tories, are forthwith curtailed to a slight extent of their fair proportions, the cuttings bemg reserved for assay in the manner presently to be mentioned. Simultaneously with these proceedings, notice is given by the Treasury to the Lord Chancellor and to the Queen’s “Remem- brancer of the day of trial. The great law officer next issues a precept to his loving friends: the Wardens of the Mystery of Goldsmiths of the City of London, and requiring them to nominate a jury of sufficient and able freemen of the com- pany, ‘‘ skilful to judge of and present the faults of the coins, if any be found,” and to be present at the day and hour appointed for their trial. When the fell moment has arrived, the various persons whose duty it is to sit in judgment upon the imprisoned coins assemble at the office of the Comptroller General of the Exchequer, in a room appointed for that purpose; those per- sons, according to a recently published official paper, to which further reference will have to be made presently, comprise * For full description of standard plates, vide INrELLuCTUAL OBSERVER, vol, vi., page 82. 14 Trial of the Pyx. “Certain members of the Privy Council, who constitute the Court, with the Lord Chancellor for president ; the Comptroller General and other officers of the Exchequer, the Serjeant-at- Arms attending the Great Seal, the Queen’s Remembrancer and his officers, the Master of the Mint, the Queen’s Assay Master, and other officers of the Mint, the jury, freemen of the Goldsmiths’ Company, including in their number their Assay Master, together with the Clerk of the Goldsmiths’ Company — and their attendants.” his back. As the living snail continued to grow, he came in due course around his own axis to the spot where the dead snail still remained fixed, and being unable to disconnect it, he formed his new shell over his attached companion, and thus in death they remain united. | Sea-snails certainly take many seasons to attain maturity, even supposing them to grow twice a year. Dredging is usually only carried on in the spring and summer months; yet a large proportion of the mollusca taken are immature. Hulima grows a whorl at a time, then thickens its lip and rests ; ultimately a straight line is found down one side of the shell, caused by the coincidence of these “rests.”* In Ranella the line of “rests” is also coincident; but as it only grows half a turn between each, there are two rows down the spire. In Triton (the shell usually represented being blown as a horn by sea-deities attendant upon Neptune and Amphitrite) the “periodic mouths’ form alternating nodes up the spire to the slender apex. ‘The Muwricide are extremely varied in form by 20 On the Form, Growth, and Construction of Shells. having three rows of spinous fringes produced at nearly coincident intervals on each whorl of the shell, and becoming longer with age. ‘‘ Venus’s comb,” Murex tenwispina, is an instance of this, the canal of the shell being produced to twice its length, and fringed with three rows of long and slender spines, slightly curved, like the teeth of a harrow. In the Coloured Plate we give a less common example, the Murex adustus (Coloured Plate, Vol. x., p. 241, Fig. 7), the spines of which are extremely picturesque, reminding one of the branching fir-tree. In the “ Wentle-trap,” Scalaria pretiosa (see Plate, p. 21, Fig. 2), the periodic mouths encircle the shell-whirls, which are sometimes separate, and contribute not a little to the beauty of this once costly conchological treasure. Just as with the growth, we see periodic markings on the external surface of the shell, so also in the section of almost any spiral shell we see a repetition of folds around the columella, or internal pillar of the shell, and sometimes upon the sides of the whorls (see Plate, Vol. x., p. 245, Figs. 6 and 8). But the most marked character in adult univalves is pro- duced by the formation of a final aperture and ultimate lip to their shells. This.is well seen in the “ spider,’’ or “ scorpion- shell,” Pteroceras, from China, in which the apex of the shell is concealed in a long, claw-like spine, while six others extend from the outer lip, and the canal is curved to correspond with the apical spine. In the great fossil Rostellaria ampla, from the middle eocene formation of Barton, Hants, the adult animal puts forth a widely expanded lip, as broad as one’s hand. In Vermetus (Fig. 9, Coloured Plate, Vol. x., p. 241) and Stliquaria (Fig. 10) the whorls become disunited in age. In Aspergillum (Fig. 13), each periodic growth is marked by an additional frill to its siphonal tube; and when adult, it forms the curious perforate disk from which it obtains its name. ~The “ Cowry” (Cyprea), so common an iimastiatsnt upon the mantel-piece, when young, is a thin spiral shell; but when it becomes adult, it thickens its aperture enormously by repeated depositions of shell-matter, until we fail to discern the apex at all. In the Plate, Vol. x., p. 245, Fig. 7, is represented a transverse section of Oyprea turdus, which well illustrates this peculiarity. See also figure of Cypreea guttata (Plate, p.21, Fig. 4; _ drawn from a specimen in the British Museum valued at £40). But perhaps the most marked change which takes place in adult shells is to be seen in’ certain land-snails belonging to the Helicide. In Gibbus Lyonetti, from Mauritius, the shell, after forming five ordinary convolutions, suddenly makes a complete double in its growth, and remains hump-backed for Fig. 1. Conus gloria maris, Fig. 2. Scalaria pretiosa. Fig. 3. Carinaria vitrea, hina. Fig. 6. Conus cedo-nulli, Fig. 7. Mitra Stainforthii, g. 8. Mitra zonata. Fig. 9. Voluta reticulata. Fig. 10. Voluta piperita, Fig. 11. Voluta Junonia, ' Swan River, Gulf of Mexico, FORMS OF MARINE SHELLS. ee Se eershessasieoeeseeeetia On the Form, Growth, and Construction of Shells. 23 9 rest of its days. We have figured in our Coloured Plate, Vol. x.,p. 241, the upper and under view ofa still more eccentric land- snail, the Helix (Anastoma) globulus (Figs. 4 and 5), from Brazil. This snail, after growing hike an ordinary Helix hortensis, or arbustorum, suddenly pulls up, and, twisting his mouth up tight, produces the aperture on a plane with the spire | Many of these land snails not furnished with opercula fortify the entrance to their shell by secreting a number of shelly _ plates, or teeth, around the aperture (see Coloured Plate, Vol. x., p- 241, Fig. 4), so as to lead one to marvel how the occupant of the shell managed to get in or out of his own house, and still more how the eges were excluded. In operculated Gasteropoda (snails with a door to their houses), the growth of the shell necessitates a corresponding enlargement of the lid, or oper- culum; this constantly receives fresh shelly layers from the mantle of the animal, and in those snails with a closely-fitting operculum the growth is always in proportion to that of the shell. Snails having spiral opercula (see Coloured Plate, p. 241, Fig. 3, and Plate, p. 245, Vol. x., Figs. 1 and 3) rotate their oper- culum slowly as they grow, so that the addition always takes _ place along that portion of the margin which is next the columella, or axis of the shell. The interior and exterior surface of shelly opercula are very diverse, as seen in Figs. 1, 2, and 3 of the Plate, Vol. x., p. 245. It is absolutely essential that the mantle sioala cover any part of the shell to which additions are required; any injury therefore beyond the reach of the mantle externally, must be repaired from the interior. This will explain why the broken apices of univalves, and the eroded umboes of the river-mussel, are never repaired externally, but always by deposits within | the spire or the valves of the shell. In the Coloured Plate which accompanied the earlier pages of this article, in November last, p. 241, we gave a number of illustrations to show the extreme variation in the form and growth of shells. In the plate which accompanies the present part, at p. 21, we offer an additional series, in which we not only notice variations in form, due to growth, etc., but also a great variation in ornamentation resulting from colour. There are few shells more persistent in form than are the “ Cowries ” (Cyprea) and Cones (Figs. 1, 4, 5, and 6); but the former | numbers upwards of 150, and the latter more than 200- species, chiefly distinguished by the diversity of their colouration. The Mitras (Figs. 7 and 8) are even more numerous than the Cones (having some 400 species), many of which are striking illustrations of brilhancy of colour. The Volutes (Figs. 9—11), though a less numerous generic division, contain nevertheless, many shells remarkable for 24 On the Form, Growth, and Construction of Shells. variety and richness of painting. These four genera include probably the rarest and most costly shells that are known, and few persons, we think, can fail to appreciate their beauty. Yet the shell in the Cowry and Volute is concealed within the folds of the mantle; in the Cone, it is covered by a thick and rough epidermis, which has to be removed before its hidden beauties are discovered. ‘‘ God’s works,” writes Prof. Forbes,* “are never left unfinished. None is too minute for the display of infinite perfection. The microscope has exhibited to our wondering eyes beauties of structure that have been concealed from mortal sight for long ages. It would almost seem as if only glimpses of those excellencies of creation, are permitted to man to behold, whilst the full contemplation of such wondrous charms is reserved for immortal and invisible admirers.” — But living mollusks not only secrete shell-matter; they have likewise the power to absorb the internal convolutions — and columella of their shells, either completely, or until it is reduced to the thinnest film. The cone removes all but a paper-like portion ofits inner whorls (see Plate, Vol. x., p. 245, Figs. 4, 5, longitudinal and transverse section of Conus tesselatus), and the Cyprea (Fig. 7) often goes still further in removing all trace of its axis. The Olive and Neritidce likewise remove the internal spiral column of their shells; aud the Auriculide, among land-snails, do the same. This power of dissolving shell is also used by the Muricidee in removing those external spines which would interfere with the continued growth of the sheil. Hermit-crabs in like manner increase the accommodation of their houses by breaking away the internal axis and convo- lutions of the shell they inhabit. In the writer’s cabinet is a Bulmius shell from the Antilles, mhabited by a land hermit- crab (the Cenobita Diogenes), which has been completely cleared from its columella, and made into one commodious chamber within. Nearly all the peculiarities in the form of shells relate to some special function or habit of life of the animals which inhabit them. Perhaps one of the most important functions which requires to be provided for is that of respiration. We have already seen that in many of the burrowing bivalves, the siphons cause the shell permanently to gape at the end to accommodate them. Again, in the univalves, the aperture of the shell is usually found to be characteristic of the division to which the animal belongs; the mouth being entire in most ‘of the * British Mollusca, Introduction, p. xv. On the Form, Growth, and Construction of Shells. 25 vegetable meters (or Holostomata) (see Coloured Plate, Vol. x., p- 241, Figs. 2, 3, 4), and notched, or produced into a canal im the carnivorous families (or ‘Siphonostomata) (see same Plate, Fig. 7—and Plate, p. 21, Figs. 7—11). But this canal, or siphon, is_ respiratory im its office, and must not, therefore, be taken as a certain indication of the nature of the animal’s food. Thus, for example, Scalaria pretiosa (Plate, p- 21, Fig. 2) has a holostomatous aperture, but is known _to be carnivorous in its diet. If we refer back to the figures of the dog-whelk (Nassa reticulata, Vol. x., p. 247), and the common whelk (Buccinum undatum, p.248), we shall see the long incurrent siphon protruding from the canal of the shell and turned upwards. Into this tube the water passes, and enters a vaulted chamber (formed by an inflection of the mantle of the animal), which contains the pectinated, or plume-like gills. After traversing the length of the gills, it returns and escapes through a posterior siphon, generally less developed than the anterior one, but very long in Ovulum volva, and formed into a tube in Typlus. The object of the long siphon in the whelk is to enable it to respire freely while burrowing in the sand in search of its prey—the poor defenceless Mya, and other bivalves. The Ampullaria has also an extremely long siphon, which enables it to breathe, wlien it retires deep beneath the river mud during the dry season. In the ear-shell (Haliotis), found living on the rocks at low-water in the Channel Islands and elsewhere, and so com- mon a mantel-piece ornament, on account of its pearly interior ; the excurrent siphon is accommodated by a hole near the lip of the shell, repeatedly renewed with the growth of the © animal. In the key-hole limpet (Fissurella), the anal siphon passes through the perforation on the summit of the shell. In Siliquaria (see Coloured Plate, Fig. 10, Vol. x., p. 241), the notch for this siphon remains unclosed, so that as the shell grows, it prolongs the fissure through the whole length of its tube. In those mollusks whose shell is reduced to a mere rudi- mentary organ, we still find that its design and object is, primarily, to protect the heart and breathing organs. Thus, in Testacella (Fig. 4, Vol. x., p. 245) it covers the hemal, or heart- region, and again in the keel-shell, Carinaria (see Plate, p. 21, Fig. 3), in which the shell is less than one-seventh part the size of the body of the animal, its only use is to cover the branchiee. Lamp-shells (Brachiopoda).—These curious bivalves are symmetrical in form, and nearly always have the dorsal valve smaller than the ventral, the latter being produced into a 26 On the Form, Growth, and Oonstruction of Shells. beak, through which is an aperture for the passage of the pedicel, by which the shell is attached to foreign bodies in the sea. The ancient Htruscan and Roman lamps have so much the general form of these shells as to have given rise to the name “jJamp-shells,”’ the beak with its pedicel corresponding to the spout of the lamp through the hole in which the wick passes. On the Coloured Plate (see Vol. x., p. 241, Fig. 11) we figure Waldheimia (Terebratula) Australis, an elegant form, named after the accomplished Russian naturalist, Fischer de Waldheim. The visitor to the shell-gallery of the British Museum may see in the Brachiopod case, a stone dredged up by Professor J. Beete Jukes, in Port Jackson Harbour, Sydney, New South . Wales, to which more than thirty. specimens of Waldheimua are attached. The shell-valves of the Terebratula are articulated bref | by two curved teeth arising from the border of the ventral, or beaked valve, which fit into two sockets in the other. So complete is this hinge that it cannot be separated without injury to the shell; nor can the valves of Waldheimia be opened more than one-eighth of an inch without applying force. If we rupture the hinge of any recent specimen we shall see that the muscles and digestive organs of Terebratula occupy an extremely small space near the beak of the shell, and are partitioned off by a membrane from the general cavity, which is occupied by the fringed arms that give rise to the name (Brachiopoda), it having been supposed that these organs corresponded with the foot of the Gaster opod, But it seems more correct to consider the pedicel as the true repre- sentative of the molluscan foot. These ciliated arms are variously modified in the different genera. They form two separate spiral coils m Rhynchonella and Lingula, but are united together by a membrane, and are vag spiral at their tips, in Terebratula and Discina. In Waldheimia, the smaller, or dorsal Rice which is fitted with the hinge- sockets, is also provided with a shelly loop in its interior, for the support of the fringed arms. These fringed arms correspond with the labial tentacles of the ordinary bivalves and the ciliary organs around the mouths of Polypes. i'ew mollusks present points of greater interest than do the Brachiopoda. They all inhabit the sea; the fully developed shell being always found attached to rocks, or stones, branches -of coral, or to. other shells. The young (although their development has not as yet been recorded) are doubtless unattached, and able to swim freely, like the fry of On the Form, Growth, and Construction of Shells. 27 other bivalve mollusca, until they meet with suitable places for attachment. They are found from low water to one hundred and twenty fathoms, and probably even deeper, and are distributed almost in every sea at the present day, whilst their range in geological time is only equalled by such forms as the microscopic Fora- minifera and Hntomostraca ; species of fossil Lingule being met with in our oldest Cambrian and Silurian formations. At present only seventy living spectes have been met with, but as they are for the most part inhabitants of deep water, no doubt many more will be discovered, for good marine dredges are a comparatively modern invention, and deep-sea dredging is no easy task, as the writer can testify from personal experi- ence on the coast of Spain. More than one thousand extinct species of Brachiopoda have been described, representing, of course, a succession of geo- logical periods, so that it is not improbable that they are nearly, if not quite, as numerous at the present day as formerly. Some of the fossil species attained a very large size, and the palzozoic genera present remarkable variations in form from each other, and also from any now living. Dr. Gustaf Lindstrém has lately separated one group entirely, and placed them in a separate order, to be called, Operculated Radiata of the order Rugosa. | Floating Shells.—The Pteropoda,* or “ wing-shells,” furnish good illustrations of this form of molluscan life (see Coloured Plate, Vol. x., p. 241, Fig. 1, Cleodora pyramidata). “This little group consists of animals whose entire life is passed in the open sea, far away from any shelter, save what is afforded by | the floating Gulf Weed, and whose organization is specially adapted to that sphere of existence. In appearance and habits they strikingly resemble the fry of the ordinary sea-snails, swimming, lke them, by the vigorous flapping of a pair of fins. ‘To the naturalist ashore they are almost unknown, but the voyager on the great ocean meets with them where there is little else to arrest his attention, and marvels at their delicate forms and almost incredible numbers. They swarm in the tropics, and no less in Arctic seas, where by their myriads the water is discoloured for leagues (Scoresby). They are seen swimming on the surface in the heat of the day, as well as in the cool of the evening. Some of the larger’ kinds have prehensile tentacles, and their mouths armed with lingual teeth ; so that, fragile as they are, they probably feed upon still smaller and feebler creatures (e.g., Hntomostraca). In high latitudes they are the principal food of the whale, and of many sea-birds. Their shells are rarely drifted on shore, but * So called from mrepoy, a wing, and mova, wodo0, a foot, 28 On the Form, Growth, and Construction of Shells. abound in the fine sediment brought up by the dredge from great depths. A few species occur in the Tertiary strata of England and the continent; in the older rocks they are unknown, unless some comparatively gigantic forms (Conularia and T’heca) have been rightly referred to this order.” (Wood- ward’s Manual of Mollusca, p. 202.) It has been stated that the specific gravity of floating shells is lower than that of any others, and such may be the case with “the Paper Nautilus,’ Argonauta, Lanthina, Carinaria (see Plate, p. 21, Fig. 3), and Pteropods (see Coloured Plate, Vol. x., p. 241, Fig. 1). But none of these will float in the water by themselves. Janthina is rendered buoyant by the ‘air- vesicles attached to its foot, and the others are sustained by incessant muscular exertion in swimming. The Nautilus and Spirula are in no degree indebted to their specific gravity, but solely to the air-chambers with which their shells are furnished. © For the shell of the Spirula is wholly composed of nacre, and the pearly lining of the Nautilus constitutes the greater part of the thickness of the shell. Nacre, we have seen, is Arago- nite in its physical character, and has a higher specific gravity than the ordinary shell. The internal pen of the Calamary (Loligo vulgaris) 1s composed entirely of Conchioline, and is consequently lighter than any floating shell ; but it would sink, nevertheless, if deprived of the airit contains. The “ cuttle- bone,” or shell of the Sepia, swims, because it is full of air. The author has seen it floating im the middle of the Bay of Biscay, and hence, no doubt, that many -such shells are wafted by “‘ Remell’s current”’ from the coast of Portugal, and stranded on our own south-west shores. Professor Forbes remarked that he had never dredged a cuttle-bone, but multitudes were found cast ashore on all the coasts of Asia Minor. The Spirula has never been taken alive, and rarely with any portion of the animal attached to the shell; but it must be abundant in the tropical Atlantic, as well as in the Coral Sea. In Brazil and the West Indies most likely, is its home. Millions of the shells, floated across the Atlantic by the Gulf Stream, are strewn on the shores of the Canary Islands. They are less common at Madeira and along the Iberian coast, and very rare in Devon and Ireland. The dead shells of Nautilus abound in the Coral Sea, and are cast ashore in such profusion that many tons weight are ‘collected at New Caledonia and the Feejee Islands, and con- veyed to Sydney, where they sell for three halfpence each; or to the Navigator and Friendly Islands, where, not living, they are worth one shilling a piece. The young shells, of which ornaments are made, when polished, fetch a high price. It seems superfluous to endeavour to explain the ‘ floating ” On the Form, Growth, and Construction of Shells. 29 of the Nautilus, since we have no positive assurance that it does ever visit the surface except when driven up by storms. From its form it is most likely an indifferent swimmer ; no doubt it can swim backwards, like its relatives. The shell, when placed in a bucket of water, turns over and floats with its mouth downwards; if, however, a half ounce weight is placed in the opening, its centre of gravity is altered, and it then floats with the spire turned more to the surface, so that the weight is sustained in the shell without falling out. It has generally been taken for granted that the Pearly Nautilus could rise and sink at will, and, as most authors have attributed the fabulous properties of the Argonaut to its Oriental relative, we might be misunderstood if we passed it over in silence. All writers before Buckland, and some at the present day, have explained the hydrodynamic parts by attributing a second, no less fabulous power, namely, of pumping out the water from its chambers in order to rise, and admitting it again when it wished to sink. Nor was the difficulty of explaining this feat the principal cause of its rejection. But the author of the Geological Bridgewater Treatise knew that in the beautiful Nautilus zic-zac of the Tertiaries, the siphuncle consisted of a succession of shelly funnels, fitting continuously, into one another, and totally excluding all communication with the chambers, which were closed cells, forming a permanent float. The Doctor was thus compelled to limit his hydrostatic theory to the siphuncle itself, a most inadequate apparatus ! But the specific gravity of a body is not altered by altering its form; and, if no other means exist, the Nautilus must still depend on swimming to sustain itself in the water. The patentees of the Nautilus machine, have hit upon a real method of varying the specific gravity of a submerged body, which may some day come into use (whether the Nauti- lus employed it or no). Teleology of Form.—The first explanation which presents itself to our mind, in accounting for the variety in the form and construction of shells, is the universal law that “ nature never repeats,” and that, when things are different, the difference extends to every part of their organization. In the structure of shells there is a general adaptation to the wants of the animal to which they belong. Thus we see light shells for the floaters and swimmers, strength for the Limpet and Periwinkle, space in the Cone and Nerite, conceal- ment in Phorus, and roughness of surface in many others, which invite parasitic growth, or colours assimilated to the surface of attachment which the sedentary and fixed forms affect. In considering the Origin of variations in the form of shells, 30 Mrs. Cameron’s Photographs. we should need a much more extensive and intimate know- ledge of those which preceded the present races, in order to show that their relationship was that of descent. All we can now say is, that the present races closely resemble their imme- diate predecessors, and are more and more unlike the shells of older geological times. One fact is very apparent, that a great many have become extinct because they could not change and adapt themselves to new external conditions. Many have also become extinct in the regions where they once abounded, but still linger, in diminished numbers, in out-of- the-way localities, where the hostile influences were less severe. MRS. CAMERON’S PHOTOGRAPHS. In a former number we made some remarks on Photography asa Fine Art, and spoke of the success which had attended Mrs. Cameron’s efforts to produce works more in accordance with the productions of great painters, than had hitherto been done by mechanical and chemical means. Since then we have examined a great many of this lady’s photographs, and the high opinion we formed of them, not only on account of their individual merit, but also as tending to found a distinct school of photography, characterized by very remarkable qualities,— artistic and manipulative, have been confirmed. Like ail in- novators, Mrs. Cameron has had, and we might say has still, much prejudice to overcome; but if our readers will pay a visit to her portfolios, which may be seen at the well-known establishment of Messrs. Colnaghi, we are quite sure that those who possess the greatest knowledge of pictorial art, and the finest perceptions of beauty, will be the warmest in their admiration, and the loudest in their praise. Finely executed works by photographers of established reputa- tion, no doubt exhibit qualities of a very meritorious kind, but it is very rarely that they produce anything like the feelings and sensations which arise in our minds, on contemplating pictures of, or fine engravings after, such artists as Correggio, Van Dyck, or Sir Joshua Reynolds. We accept the human face done into photography, as a species of translation into a language, imperfectly capable of expressing the required ideas, and rendering them, so far as it can do so, rather by an artificial and non-natural idiom, than by a simple and satisfactory phrase. Many things that adda charm to the countenance, such as the very delicate gradations of light and shade, which Mrs. Cameron’s Photographs. 31 give the sense of roundness, softness, and smoothness to the cheek, the transparent shadowiness lurking amongst tresses of hair—the varying tones of flesh colour—the suggestions of life and movement, which delight us in real figures possessing the requisite beauty, and in suitable positions, and which meet us in the delineations of the great masters, are wanting in the ordinary photograph, and have been marvellously introduced by Mrs. Cameron, in her processes of photographie art. The most remarkable instance of this artist’s success, is to be found in the child’s head, ‘“‘ Number 6 of the series of twelve life-sized heads”? and called “ Alice.” It has all the properties of a fine sepia drawing by a great master. It is rich in gradations of tint. The hair flows freely in fine masses, as if the wind had caught it: stray locks have swept across the forehead, and their delicate shadows give an exquisite softness to the brow. Beautiful hair, left free, is one of the most poetic of nature’s productions, and very subtle and sympathetic are the combinations of light and shade which it exhibits, and which defy the efforts of ordinary artists to reproduce. Few of the old painters did justice to hair. They usually painted it in forms too stiff, and the ordimary photography reduces it to wires, or threads. Alice’s hair is a masterpiece of art, and Mrs. Cameron has made her photographic apparatus succeed in producing those delicate transparent shadows which sorely _ test the manipulative skill of the oil painter. | This head of ‘ Alice”? exemplifies other fine qualities usually absent from photography. A good photographer of the common sort seldom approaches a grand mode of treatment. If his lights and shadows are strong and in conspicuous masses, they are generally damaged in artistic effect by the violence of | their contrasts. ‘The depths are too black, and the lights too white, and there is a want of half-tones. Another common photographic defect is giving too much prominence to detail, as the early artists did, and as the modern Pre-Raphaelites continue to do. Mrs. Cameron has advanced photography beyond this stage. In “ Alice,” and in other productions, she has introduced breadth and generalization ; her contrasts are strong, but not violent, and she has been singularly successful with half-tones. The qualities we have mentioned belong to what we may call the technical, or manipulative branch of art; and they are essentials to success ; but something more is wanted : a true work of art is also a work of mind, and Mrs. Cameron has rescued photography from mere copying. In her life-sized heads, as well as in her composition pieces, she has evinced rare faculties of dealing with the emotions of her sitters. She does not take them anyhow, but draws them out, and induces in them such a condition of mind and feeling as a 32 Mrs. Cameron’s Photographs. gives rise to a vivid and pictorial expression of feature. Her process is not a quick one, and she must have unusual tact and skill in keeping her subjects happy, and in the mood she wants. One cause of failure in the expression of ordinary photographic portraits no doubt arises from the uncomfortable situation in which the subjects find themselves. Who can look interesting or natural in a glass garret, bothered with directions to stare at a brass knob: told when to wink, and ordered to sit still. “ Wet your lips, and wink your eyes,” were the directions to a party of ladies at one establishment; and others may, for aught we know, have recourse to Dickens’ ‘ prunes, prisms, and papa,’”’ to get the mouth into the required state. Those portrait painters who have been most successful in giving life- like expression to their works, have possessed the art of influencing the mental condition, and drawing out their subjects; and those photographers who wish to rise above the mechanism of their profession, must cultivate it, and must arrange their studios so as to make comfort, and natural expression, possible in them. No. 12 of Mrs. Cameron’s “life-sized heads” is so far a misnomer as it is enlargement of life, admirably done. It represents a noble-looking boy, a sort of young Jupiter, but with a touch of Mercury’s mischief and fun. We have noticed that the size of this head puzzles many ordinary people, who would have admired it on a smaller scale, and it wants some little artistic education to appreciate any figures verging on the colossal. Placed at a suitable distance it is simgularly effective, and artists view it with delight. In this piece Mrs. Cameron has thrown aside all tame conventionalism. The vigorous, free, natural treatment of the subject is worthy of , a great sculptor, and if we regard “Alice” as the most pictorial of her portraits, this may be called the most statuesque. We have not seen the original children of these portraits, and therefore can offer no opinion of how far Mrs. Cameron’s process realizes a likeness, but we should imagine, from the vivacity and depth of expression, her success in this particular must be great. What is, however, most remarkable is, the extent to which she has made her portraits works of art. No one unconnected with the family would care to have photo- graphs of Miss Brown or Master Jones, as such things: are ordinarily done, even if the children were above the average in good looks, but a child painted by Correggio or Guercino is another thing. We do not ask the name of the model, but we prize the picture for qualities higher than those of mere resemblance to a particular person. Mrs. Cameron’s “ Alice” and the Jupiter-like boy belong to this rare and high class of Mrs. Cameron's Photographs. 30 portrait which every one of artistic perception is so glad to possess. Those of our readers who live in, or visit London will, no doubt, go to Coinaghi’s, and look through the large collection of Mrs. Cameron’s “works, which are on sale at very moderate prices, and we recommend them to pay particular attention to her dramatic and composition pieces. Some effective theatrical pieces, with portraits of popular actors, have often been taken by the ordinary photographers, but Mrs. Cameron has set to work in a different way, and has made her pictures by getting her friends or acquaintances to form tableaux vivants, and then photographing them with her peculiar skill. We can only allude to this important branch of her new art, one of the est specimens of which is a ‘“ Prospero and Miranda,” marked “from life.” This piece will be a great favourite as it becomes known, because 1t tells its tale so forcibly, and is remarkably pleasing in its character. A fine old Prospero, with vigorous features, long white beard, and intellectually- developed forehead, recounts to an intensely-listening, earnest- looking Miranda the story of her birth, and his expulsion from his dukedom. Atthe moment of the picture, Prospero is standing up, and Miranda, leaning forward, clasps one of his hands as if to give assurance that her soul was in his tale. The light glances down Prospero’s forehead with its strong - lines of thought, on Miranda’s face,. and on a portion of her simple dress. The background is very dark, and while Miranda’s figure is distinct, Prospero’s is only indicated—not shown: We have very few artists who could paint half so fine a picture of the scene as Mrs. Cameron has given us in this piece. We could fancy she had fished up a leaf of Prospero’s “drowned” book, and rescued his staff from its burial-place * certain fathoms in the earth,’”? when we notice the skill with which in this case, and in ‘‘ Queen Hsther,”’ and several others we might name, she has composed her living pictures, and made her apparatus give them a permanent form. It will soon become the fashion to admire these productions. Their novel merit now charms the few who know how to think for themselves on matters of art, and the many will bring their later, but useful homage, when fashionable sothoriiee have told them it is the correct thing to do. Mrs. Cameron has only to persevere, and she will found a school of “ Came- ronians,” though not after the fashion of the grim sect so named. Her productions are eminently genial, and from this quality and from their beauty they will find their appropriate resting-places in cultivated homes. VOL. XI.—NO. I. D 34 The Coal Mines of the United States of North America. THE COAL MINES OF THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA.* BY F. M. LUBBREN. In the United States coal is abundant, and can never be exhausted. Between the western extremity of the Appa- lachian coal-fields and Cincinnati, the different formations, from the Devonian to the Lower Silurian, come up to the surface in succession. At Portsmouth, next the lower coal measures, comes the inferior, or conglomerate grit, or mill- stone; next it, the Waverly sandstone, the equivalent of the Devonian. Then succeed the Upper Silurian slates and lime- stones, and lastly, at Cincinnati, the lower Silurian groups appear in the hills and beds of the Ohio. There is one vast. coal-field extending from New York to Alabama, which covers nearly one hundred thousand square miles. Another coal-field in Indiana embraces about fifty-five thousand square miles. Another in Michigan covers about twelve thousand square miles. The grand total amounts to two hundred and twenty-five thousand square miles, and the whole amount of coal, estimating the average thickness of the beds to be fifty feet, would be three millions and a half of cubic miles, a quantity absolutely inconceivable. Before the late civil war, the average price of coal in Pennsylvania was five dollars per ton, and in New York not far from six dollars per ton.t The relative cost of trans- portation to New York and to, London from the mines was then about the same. The principal portion of the coal used in the United States for domestic purposes is brought from Pennsylvania. This coal is anthracite, or hard, and the only large deposits of this species of coal of a good quality in the United States, so far as-is known, are found in that region. Anthracite coal exists in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, but it is much less com- bustible than in Pennsylvania. The remainder of the vast coal-fields which we have enu- merated comprise coal which is more or less bituminous, and is more commonly used in this country for generating steam than for domestic purposes. It is similar, however, to the English * State Survey of Pennsylvania. By Professor H. D. Rogers. Statistical Report on the Iron and Coal of Pennsylvania. Prepared by Dr. Charles M. Wetherell, and published in a work entitled Science and Mechanism, 1853-4. State Survey of New York. By My. Wall. .Albany, 1843. State Survey of Virginia. By Professor W. B. Rodgers. + Since the civil war the price of coal is more than double. eS The Coal Mines of the United States of North America. 35 coal, and could be as readily burned in grates. The coal formations of this country, although the mineral differs in character, are of the same geological era. The difference in the amount of bitumen is caused by the greater disturbance to which some portions of the coal-fields have been subjected. The hard coal is found on the slopes of the Alleghanies, where, by the upheaval of heated mineral masses, the bitumen has been expelled, and the coal converted into anthracite. The bitumen in coal increases as the beds pass westward towards the Mississippi, where, as well as on the Pacific shores, the quantity of bitumen is equal to that in English sea-coal. _ There are three great anthracite coal-fields in Pennsyl- vania, namely, the Southern, Middle, and Northern. I. The southern coal-field is divided into four mining Fstricts, the Lehigh, the Schuylkill, the Swatara, and the Susquehannah. Il. The middle coal-field is north of the southern, having the Beaver meadow mines in the eastern extremity, and the Shamokin and Mahony mines on the Susquehannah. The Shamokin mines, are worked horizontally by digging into the mountain. This coal is called the “ Peacock,” on account of the brilliant golden purple and green tints it pre- sents to the eye, but it is not as durable as the coal from the Pottsville and other mines, burning either to a white or red ash. It ignites easily, and burns very brightly. Tif. The northern coal-field lies twenty-five to thirty miles east of the Middle Basin, including the Wyoming and Lack- awanna valleys, and finds its market in New York. The following remarks will be confined to a brief notice of | the southern coal-field. Canals and railroads have been constructed here with a boldness of design and magnificence of enterprise that will compare with any works of the kind in this or the old world. This field is sixty-five miles in length, and averaging about four miles in width, and enclosed or bounded by a continuous mountain, which separates it by about ten miles from the second coal-field, forming a longitudinal basin. This boun- dary is called Broad Mountain on the north, and Sharp Moun- tain on the south, and is: penetrated by the rivers Schuylkill and Swatara, which afford the inlets for the necessary canals and railroads. 1. The nearest anthracite coal-field to tide-water is on the Lehigh river. The Lehigh river, however, unlike the Schuyl- kill and Swatara, does not penetrate the coal-field, and hence the coal-mines could only be reached by ascending and descending, through inclined plains and railways, Sharp 386 The Coal Mines of the United States of North America Mountain at its greatest elevation. From the basin, when thus reached, the coal is transported by stationary power a distance of nine miles to the navigation at Mauch-Chunk. There is nothing in the States that surpasses the enterprise here exhibited, to overcome the obstacles presented by the surface of the country between these mines and the river Lehigh, and nothing would have justified the outlay but coal mines. ‘The mines in this district are worked lke an open quarry on the slope of a mountain, and the coal is conveyed as stated by a self-acting railroad down a declivity from 100 to 140 feet per mile to the canal. This navigation was completed in 1820, and 3657 tons delivered that year in Philadelphia, and in 1847 the quantity increased to 643,272 tons, and the trade has been increasing at a ratio, per annum, of twenty per cent. The capacity of this navigation by the Delaware division of the Pennsylvania canal and the Morris canal has been con-. sidered fully equal to the transport of a million and a half tons of coals. 2. The Schuylkill district is the centre of the basin, and is very extensive, embracing more than one-half of the entire field, viz., the mines of Tamaqua (which adjoin the Lehigh mines), Tuscarora, Port Carbon, Pottsville, Minersville, and Tremont. In this anthracite coal-field of Schuylkill county, whose outlets are at Mount Carbon, Port Carbon, Schuylkill Haven, and Port Clinton are one hundred and eleven collieries, of which fifty-eight are red ash coal and fifty-three white ash ; sixty-two of these col- lieries are working coal out above water-level, and forty-nine below water-level. There was shipped from this region a total of 2,450,950 tons in the year 1852. The thickest vein worked is thirty feet, and the smallest two feet. 3. The Swatara district commands a rich and most valuable portion of the coal-field, and is. mined through the channels of the Union Canal Company, and Susquehannah and Tidewater Canal. It averages about eighteen miles long by six broad, containing 69,120 acres of coal-land. In this | mining district are seven hills from 300 to 800 feet in height, running parallel, or nearly so, separated by narrow valleys, which in some places, remote from the streams, are nearly level with the mountain ridges, but which near the gaps are worn down by the water-courses which drain the coal-basin. In these high ridges are deposited the veins of coal; they are called the Sharp Mountain, the Red Mountain, the Coal Mountain, the Little Lick, the Big Lick Mountains, the 'Thick Mountain, and the Broad Mountain. The Swatara river or its branches are broken through all these ridges, except the Broad Moun- tain, at which it penetrates. The coal of the Sharp Moun- tain is of the red ash variety. It is a free burning coal, ignites The Coal Mines of the United States of North America. 37 easily, leaves but little residuum, burns with a bright yellow blaze, without smell or smoke, and is an excellent article for blacksmithing, as well as for parlour purposes. ‘The expen- diture in this region up to 1847 has not been great. In that year 61,000 tons were exported. ‘ my NT |e 1 Na Yee LaN fay ile. mu M ett gana pans a R PV vee itis. h, ut wt aust POLL on PTL ae UN _aotille- SHARP MOUNTAIN OF THE SWATARA MINING DISTRICT, PENNSYLVANIA. Seale 400 Feet to the Inch. South Conglomerate, about 120 feet | Diamond Vein, 3 feet thick. thick. Furnace Vein, 6 ” South Vein, 5 feet thick. From South Conglomerate to Furnace Peacock Vein, 8 Ps | Vein, 1680 feet. Zimmerman Vein, 4 is The Sharp Mountain lies next to the southern boundary of the coal-field. Its length in the Swatara Mining District is more than twenty miles, rising in some places 800 feet from its southern base. On the west side of Lorberry Creek Gap, the pinnacle called the Panther’s Head is 725 feet higher than the railroad. The Great Conglomerate is at the southern base of the mountain. Here are no “horizontal heaves,” or derangement of the coal-measures, as is the case in the Schuyl- kill district. The vems at Lorberry Creek run directly across the creek, from the mountain on one side to the mountain on the other. Their course on both sides of the gap, is north 68° east. Those in the southern half of the mountain having a south dip of about 74°, and those in the northern half about 67°. The Conglomerate, which forms thé general base of the coal-measures, is 1500 feet thick in the Sharp Mountain near Pottsville; whereas it has only a thickness of 500 feet about thirty miles to the north-west, and dwindles gradually away to thirty feet. The Limestones, on the other hand, of the coal measures, augment as we trace them westward. Similar observations have been made in regard to the Silurian and Devonian formations in New York; the sandstones and all the mechanically-formed rocks thinning out as they go westward, 38 The Coal Mines of the United States of North America. and the limestones thickening as it were at their expense. It | is therefore clear that the ancient land was to the east; the deep sea with its banks of corals and shells to the west; and from the identity of fossil plants and the relative position of the anthracite, it must be of the same age as the bituminous. We find the coal most bituminous where it remains level and unbroken, and that it becomes progressively debituminized towards the more bent and distorted rocks. The diagram exhibits the veins of coal by a geological section across the Sharp Mountain at Lorberry Creek. It is an end vein of the Panther’s Head on the west side of the gap. For further particulars consult A Report to the Legislature of Pennsylvania, containing a description of the Swatara Mining District, illustrated “by Diagrams, with a very large map. 61 pp., Harrisburg, 1839. 4. The Susquehannah district embraces the western ter- — minus of the southern coal-field, branching out into two divisions towards the Susquehannah—the southern, or Stony Creek coal region, and the Lyken’s Valley. The basin is thirty-two miles long by four and a half in breadth. The primitive posi- tion of the vein of coal of this region is generally unchanged, aS a consequence rendering their investigation and develop- ment much more easy, and less lable to the occurrence of» those “ faults’ and “ breaks’? which have proved so disastrous to capital and discouraging to labour in other regions. The thickness of the beds of coal in this region is estimated at twenty-nine feet, yielding at least 60,000 tons to. the acre. Over half a million tons of coal are sent annually hence to market. The coal-lands are generally owned by ‘corporations or wealthy individuals, and are leased to operators, who pay a certain fixed sum for every ton mined. ‘The coal is consigned to commission-merchants, by whom it is sold by the cargo, generally upon contracts ‘made early in the season. The coal is procured by driving drifts into the mountain ends, or by sinking sloping shafts and putting engines upon the veins. When the first level of a slope is sunk down, the coal is mined with comparative facility and little expense. This level will last from four to six years if the veins and the run upon it be fair, but at the end of that time a new level ‘must be sunk, and the slope must be doubled in depth; in fact, a new mine must be created 550 feet below the surface, and when “ faults” are met, bankruptcy often ensues. Indeed, few have ever successfully overcome the third level of a slope. Fy rom statistics of coal mined in the United fisted during . — a The Coal Mines of the United States of North America, 39 the year 1860, ending on June Ist, it appears that the total amount of anthracite coal mined was 9,398,332 tons. Of this, 1000 tons came from Rhode Island, and all the rest from Pennsylvania. ‘The amount of bituminous coal mined in the same year was 5,842,559 tons. Of this, Pennsylvania sup- plied about 2,700,000 tons. The anthracite coal was valued at 11,874,574 dollars, and the bituminous at 7,526,681 dollars, making a total of 19,401,255 dollars. ADDENDA. On the roofs of the coal seams are shales with distinct impressions of ferns, as the Pecopteris lonchitica, the Newrop- teris cordata, and stems and trunks are found of the Lepido- dendron, Oalamites, Sigillaria and Stigmaria, of which latter there is an abundance in the mines at Blossberg, Penn- sylvania, often several yards long with their leaves and rootlets attached. | Sratistics or Coat Mines in tee Unirep ‘States IN THE. YEAR ENDING JuNE lst, 1860. The following statistics of the coal mined in the United States during the year 1860 appeared in the report of the last census :— BITUMINOUS. ANTHRACITE, Starzs. .., BDushels. | Value. | Tons. Value. Ritode faland ............... 95,000 $28,500 1,000 $9,000 Pennsylvania ............... 66,994,295 2,833,959) 9,397,332) 11,719,574 Tene 11,200,000 461,338 4) 28,339,910; 1,589,713 SO ae 379,035 27,000 Tilinois ae aieiaia Gin s.0 sie waracc weiss 14,258,120 964,187 ee Pa eer 72,500 6,500 SE 97,000 8,200 URMNIGHBOO, es... 005%. s 4.0 3,474,100 413,662 CS 6,732,100 476,800 eee 11,229,675 725,678 aR) ise. s ce odessa, 10,000 1,200 NN aa vsasndeiay x oes ve nn. 48,000 4,800 Washington Territory ... ‘134,350 32,244 Nar iii cesicaes. sins, 146,068,975| $7,526,681 Twenty-five bushels to a ton is 5,842,559 tons. ae OE eee ne ee pe ee 9,398,332 $11,874,574 TAAL, 5 digs cist oo «Winey op npi'pe b> + enmpmene 5,842,559 - 7,526,681 $19,401,255 Value of coal mined in 1850, agreeably to census returns ......... $7,173,750 Memmenne( D7) DOP OGUb a) pois ily bikes von.qecdevinse tonspignersbiane $12,227,505 A) On Telegraphic Communication. ON TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION BY MEANS OF A NUMERICAL CODE. BY LIEUT. J. HERSCHEL, R.E. Tur object of telegraphy is the transmission of a series of WORDS, signs, or symbols, representing ideas; and this object will be best attained when those words, signs, and symbols are transmitted with the least possible expenditure of labour and time, consistently with a minimum risk of error. To arrive at a just conclusion as to the means to this end, 1t 1s necessary to consider the nature of these words, signs, and aan and, possibly, of the ideas which they represent. The signs and symbols which it is required to transmit are few in number as compared with the words: the letters of the alphabet, the ten numerals (not necessary since they have names, or may be represented by words), and a very limited number of symbols, such as punctuation signs, algebraical signs, etc. (which may for the most part, if not entirely, be known, hke the numerals, by their names, or the words representing them) ; these include all that, in practice, it is desirable to transmit of this class. The principal medium of communication of ideas is words. All words are susceptible of scription in letters, and existing telegraphy does transmit them by means of the letters which compose them, or at any rate by the transmission of the more important letters which form the words. By -s. word a understand any combination of letters which has an accepted signification, whatever place that combination or word may have in syntax or grammar, or whatever its signification may be. Existing telegraphy therefore may be understood to com- municate ideas by the transmission of a series of combinations, simple or complex, of a limited number of symbols and letters. Assuming that telegraphy can, in practice, only transmit simple signals, out of which can be formed a variety of com- binations, it is clear that the simplicity of communication must depend on that of the combinations necessary to repre- sent the words, etc., communicated. Now the primitive signals are but two in number, by the repetition and arrangement of which letters, symbols, and numerals are represented. ‘I hése latter may be called the telegr (ae alphabet ; and it is evident that the more extended this alphabet, the greater the variety of the arrangement of the primitive signals must be. Accord- ing to the existing system this alphabet contains at least forty individuals. It is the object of these remarks to show that ¢en will suffice ; and even should it appear that the actual On Telegraphic Communication. Al number of “telegraphic letters” transmitted for a given message, would be greater with such a curtailed alphabet, than would be the case with the existing one, it is contended that the immediate gain from this reduction would outweigh the disadvantage which a more copious alphabet labours under, of requiring a more elaborate arrangement and a greater number of repetitions of the primitive signals. But in point of fact the actual number of telegraphic letters transmitted would also be less. For words are special combinations, and since a vast number of possible combinations are excluded, which do not form words, the existing combinations which do form words must contain a much larger number of compo- nents than would be the case were every available combination occupied by arecognized word. We shall not be far wrong if we assign five as the average number of letters inan English word. Perhaps the true average is a fraction less than five, but if we take into account the habitual omission in telegraphy of un- important words (which are always short), the estimate will stand good. Now the number of possible combinations of ten symbols, five or less in each, is 100,000. This is clearly greater than the actual number of recognized words in the English (or any) language which has the command of twenty- six symbols, and is not restricted even to twelve or fifteen of them in the formation of any word. Not only then may every useful word of the English language, and of the French _ too, be represented by a different combination of five symbols out of ten, but a large margin will remain available for almost any conceivably useful variety of signs or phrases. ‘They will not require the transmission, on the whole, of a greater number of symbols or “telegraphic letters” than are now © transmitted ; but, on the other hand, will require a very much smaller number of “ primitive signs” or impulses. What, now, are the disadvantages of such a system of signals? ‘The principal one is the necessity of a dictionary. A telegraphic dictionary would have to be compiled, and invariably used at both ends of the wire (but not necessarily at intermediate repetition stations). A vast amount of care, and knowledge, and foresight might be spent with advantage in the compilation of this dictionary, whereby the saving of signals would be immense, as for instance, all words of three letters (or less), besides a great number of the more common words of more letters, might be assigned numbers between ten and 1000, whereby the bulk of messages would be sus- ceptible of transmission by combinations of three symbols only—by “telegraphic three-lettered words” so to speak. Nearly, if not actually, the whole of the remaining words of the language might be assigned numbers from 1000 to 10,000, 42 _ On Telegraphic Communication. and might thus be transmitted by “telegraphic four-letiered words.” As Arabic numbers are universally recognized in Europe, such a system would obviate the principal inconvenience of foreign telegraphy ; for each nation and language might have its own dictionary ; and since there would be less risk of error in the actual transmission and receipt of a message by the telegraph officials when once it was converted into telegraphic language, so also would there be greater control over the conversion and reconversion, in the hands of the sender and receiver. Since there is no reason why certain numbers—say those from ten to thirty-six—should not be assigned to the letters of the alphabet, the proposed system does not forbid or imter- fere with the use of cipher, or with the transmission of words or names omitted in the dictionary, or newly coined, or wrongly spelt, or otherwise unrepresented. The scheme is a perfectly feasible one. An ordinary octavo page of the dictionary might contain 200 words, so that 5 to 10 pages would contain the bulk of common short words, 50 to 100 would contain nearly the whole language; while an ordinary octavo volume of 500 pages would contain all that the ingenuity of the compiler could find to put into it. No attempt is here made at a complete enumeration of all the advantages which such a codification would possess, nor indeed to enter fully mto the many bearings of the question. lt is sufficient for my present purpose to point out the enormous advantage of signalling by numbers instead of by letters. I append rough data for comparison with the estimates I have made above of the use of words and letters. “A well educated man in England, who has been at a public school and at the university, who reads his Bible, his Shakespeare, the Times, and all the books in Mudie’s library, seldom uses more than 3,000 or 4,000 words* in actual conver- sation. Actual thinkers and close reasoners, who avoid vague and general expressions, and wait till they find a word that exactly fits their meaning, employ a larger stock, and eloquent speakers may rise to the command of 10,000.”—Maa Miiller’s Lectures, p. 254. “‘ Shakespeare,” he says, “uses about 15,000 (a greater * It is not quite clear from the context what is to be understood by the term “word” as here used. It probably excludes inflectional forms. If so, then, considering that most substantives have one, most verbs three, inflections, it will be necessary to double the estimates here made, to accord with my use of the term. But this will not affect the broad question of the advantages of codification materially. ia) On Telegraphic Communication. 43 number than any other writer), Milton about 8,000; while the Old Testament contains but 5,642 words.” In the Times of the 12th November, 1866, the usual tele- ‘gram column furnishes the following estimate of the number of letters per word :— Words of 1. letter 1 giving 1 letter 2 letters 37'-,, 74 letters yaaa ae VS 2a Fh RBG) TAO oa .5y a ay A5 b>) aks io Poe: ae tee re RSe ” 17 23. 136 ” 9 or more 21 ,, say 210 _ ,, < CONT oO OT CO 3) es Total 200 words containing 966 letters Average 4°8_,, * The paucity of five lettered words is not unworthy of note. It possibly is due to the step from monosyllabic to bisyllabic utterance. 44, Meteorological Observations at the Kew Observatory. RESULTS OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS MADE AT THE KEW OBSERVATORY. LATITUDE 51° 28’ 6” N., LONGITUDE O° 18’ 47” w. BY G. M. WHIPPLE. 1866. Reduced to mean of day. Temperature of Air. At 9°30 a.m., 2°30 P.m., and5P.M., ee respectively. Calculated. S tp +4 H ; eae oS by Be i eae eae Fi of Rain— Day Ea S ee a, | co @ | oo teal read at of Sey oe ne de te Peo 1 al we os : 9°30 Meaney eyes a Le der eg duo cht | ee Direction of Wind. A.M. pee ie le ee eel es fA = ee tea % inches. | 6 © inch.| © ° 0—10 inches. Oct. 1 | 30°062) 55°0) 53°5| *95/ +442) 60°2 | 53:1) 7:1) 8,10, 9 NE, NE, N. 0°000 59 2 | 29°988/57°0 56:0, -97|-473) 61°7 | 52°8) 8°9)10,10, 8 NNE, ENE, NNW. 000 3, 3 |30°051|60°8 56:9) °87\:537) 66°7 | 55:2) 11°5) 2,10, 3 —, NNE, N by W. “000 ‘ie 30°089) 56'3 562 99} -462| °60°8 | 55:1) 5°7/10, 10, 10 NNW, N by W, N. “000 >, 5» |80°288) 53°5 oa "92):420) 57°0 |53°3! 3°7|10,10,10} NNW, N by E, NNE. 000 », 6 | 80°452) 55°5|.53°8) +94) -450) 59°8 | 53°5) 6°3)10,10,10) NE by N, N, NNW. 000 oe. BR eR se cli Scie mcevip ee eR e. MaeT He wey Ho “000 5 8 |80°341)56°6 50°4) -81/-467| 64:1 | 46°7/17-4) 9, G, 1 NE by N, E, ENE. “000 55 9 |30°190/53°3 47-0, °81|:417) 59°3 |51°7, 7:6) 9, 8, 8| Eby N, ENE, ENE, 000 | », 10 | 30:035) 53'3) 45°6) “77/°417) 584 | 50°) 7°9).9, 7, 9 EK, E, E by N. "000 | | 55 11 | 80:030) 52°5) 45°8) °79/°406) 56°3 |48°7| 7°6) 9,10, 8° ENE, NE by E, ENE. “000 {| 5) 12_| 29°985) 51°6 47°6| *87)°394) 57-6 | 40°81 118) 9, 9, 8 NE, E, H. “000 | », 18 | 29°915] 47°0| 42°3) °85)°337) 55-9 | 35°) 20°1/10, 1, 9 —, 8, SSW. “000 6 8 ae eS reas ee 54°2 | 40°3) 13-9) 037 », 15 |380°153 47°71) 385) -74 338 53°3 | 35°2/18'1) 4, 3,10 SW byS, Why, NWbyW.| 003 », 16 | 380°197| 42°6) 88:0) *85)°289| 51°6 | 310) 206) 0, 7, 0 —, NE, NE. “000 55 17 | 30°018) 49°6) 39-7) 71/368) 55°1 | 38°7) 16:4, 0, 8, 3) ESE, E by 8, E byS. ‘000 », 18 | 29°864) 49-2) 50°1| 1:00) °363) 53:1 | 44°6; 8°510,10,10) - E by S, E, E. 177 », 19 | 30°043) 58°1) 56°7| 95) -491) 64°5 | 48°6, 15°90, 8, 7 S, 8S, S by E. ‘573 5, 20 | 30°172\ 56°4) 56°3; °99| 463) 610 | 52°6 8:4) 9,10,10) Eby N, E by N, E 010 iy OL 1 REC RE a, ria eg Ee Sz ese ie 032 | », 22 | 29°918 53°6 53-2) -98)-422) 62°2 | 51°3/ 10°9)10, 10, 10 ENE, W, W by N. 010 », 23 | 30°129) 52°4| 51-4) +96 -405) 57°8 | 38°6) 9:2) 9,10,10| SW, SW, SW by W. "280 | 5» 24 | 29°857| 52°0) 47°2) +85) :400) 58°5 | 47°0/11'5) 5, 7, 6 8, SW, S. 000 », 25 | 29°666) 42°9) 41:0) °93/-292) 49°1 | 44-1) 5°0)10,10,10| N by Ww, NW by W, N. 320 | 55 26 | 29°9380) 47:2) 42°7) *86/°339) 52°1 |43°8) 8:3) 7, 2, 7IN by W, NNE, NW by N.| -084 | 5, 27 | 30°008) 43°5) 41°5) °93/°298) 51°38 | 3171) 20210, 4,10 —, SSW, 8. 000 | TS SE en emery Or eres mi gt ey Cee sid a "057 , 29 |30°354! 44°4) 40°3| -87/-308! 52°7 | 327) 200] 1,10,10/ WSW, S by W, SW. ‘000 | 5, 30 | 29°815|52°5| 499} *91/°406) 568 | 40-9) 15°9/10,10, 9} SW by S, WSW, W. 010 3, 81 | 30°098) 45°2| 40°0}. -84)°316) 52° | 36°8) 15°7) 0, 1, 1 WSW, W, WSW. 040 | Daily } $0°061) 51°4) 47:9). 88) “BO7i—... | one [11S] ane i on 1633) eans, | : 5 : * To obtain the Barometric pressure at the sea-ievel these numbers must be increased by *037 inch. 4d Meteorological Observations at the Kew Observatory. I Ee HOURLY MOVEMENT OF THE WIND (IN MILES), AS RECORDED BY ROBINSON’S ANEMOMETER.—Octrosnr, 1866. Hourly Day. |1]/2|/8/4/5/6/7]8]9/10/11/ 12 16/17/18] 19| 20} 21] 22 | 23 | 24! 25 | 26] 27| 28| 29/30/31 koe Hour. 12 {10}. 7| 8) 6} 6) 10)’ 6|* S| 9): 4) zal BL a) “gh Ble TI ol Ty 9 4) 18 9] 1] 5) 4! 16! 4 69 Pa Gs a Ol 6) Bl ceBH Bie OF 8] Tat" Blah we ele Fl ely 9 2} 6 11) 1] 8) 4/14) 61 4 2 a 7) Le Ge O.. 8l oo) B) 7) 8). 12) 28 l= 8) amie se ai acel ae 10 4) 5/10!) 2] 5) 41147] 6 68 3 9) 6) 1:11) .9) 4) Al 8). 8) 7] 18). a). 4) gl a). Bel qe 11 8} 2/ 10': 3) ‘7 4/16). 6 66 | 4 | 10; 8 2) 5) 9} 6 4) 9] 10) 12] 13)- 8 3) 4] 2) 2a} 4! qo Y 5} 3/11) 1! 6 5/17] 4| 66 gee? 10) 7} 1) 10) 8 7], 4) 10} 19).-13) 11)--a)* a Bl. 9). 9) gl og 6 5} 3] lo} 2] 5] 4) 19] 4| 65 a) & | 18 6, 2) 6 6 7 6) 8] 18) 12] 13) 2] a} 4) 8) 4] 8! 10 6 5} 3) 9} 2] S| 519] sl 66 > iets 8)! St 6) shor 7 Fr 348i; v1 11 49> gh Bl zh Bl gig 5 “| 4) 10' a] 7 Bl isi 4) 70 S | 18) 9] 4) 5} 4% 10) 8| 10] 12] 15/12] 4) 93) 9! ‘a! 1] asl a7 6 ) 10 7; 8! 2] 15] 5] 25) 4] 8-2 A jot) Blo 2ha6) 8) WQ)-°%) Lolwsl16) 14) wie gkeo gl opie aletglay 5} 7 11} 4) 10} 2/16) 6] 25! 4] g4 10 | 10; 8} 1; 6 9} 8] 11] 14| 17] 12] 12) 6| 4} ai si al 24 13 195188127 12} 5) 12] 92/18] 6] 24] 4] 96 \11 | 31) 9} 4! 6) 8| 9] 12] 13} 17) 15] 13] 7} 3| 5] 8] 4 24 13 16} 6} 11] 7} 20] 11! 29] sl 10-8 12. | 18) 7 8 6 9} 10] 18] 15) 16] 191 18} 9] Bl 9] 4) 6 a1 11 19} 7| 13} 3} go] 12) 24] 6} 11-4 F 2 i 30)-8| 8) 5) 8) yal a6) wel 17) 16h He slo} “el Bl 91 13 | 18} 8) 11} 3] 28] 1c] 20) 4 10-7 | 2 9} &) 6) 4) 8) 7 10] 16) 16) 14) 16] Jo} 3) 8) 7] 6 17 11 29 17| 4 10) 3] 17| 18) 16] 5] 100 3 BS Cl 7) AA LB) Lin 1) ISEB S| Soh Sel ele 9 14, 7} 8! 2/16} 11/14) 47 8-9 | A 6; 4) 4) B77) 1ol” Bh SI 14) 1al- 6] 9) d4l ah aldo 9 ot ae 6} 7] 4/11] 9/10! 5] 7-9 gz | 6 7| 3} 5) 6 9) 5) 10) 8) 18] 16} 12) 2 1) 36) 1] 3) 13 8 6 10} 6} 2] 6} 9) 9) 11) 5} 7-7 a 7; 1 6G 4! 5) 7] 6} 10} 13] 14] 12] oO] 92] 14) al. 6 14 8 8| 9} 6| 6 4) 8 9} 10] 5] 75 py | 7 o} 2), B Bie 4) OF Sf. Oo] F918) 10) a rude! 9) yh 7 R) Sicw7 |. Fe 8) alee aay Bl 7-6 8 SB) 4) Seti a) GO) lols F118) 24 -O) nol slaps Ss lo ty 10 5| 8! 6; 1) 3] 6] 10] 9| 6 72 | 9 8-5) 6 6) 6) 8 Of. 9] 11) 18) ©9] Sti 4lers! V1 <8! 10974] (8 6| 9} 5) 2] 3] 4/12] 8} 4] 72 10 8} 5) 3) 3] 7} 9] 10/ 9] 9] x8} 5] oF 2] 18) 3! 8! 10 10 4|. 10> 9) ote 2 4018! 7) 5] 6-9 (11 6) 3 & 4 9 6) O10) Fig) BLSa4e oS! sl ol Fo 46 9 5| 11] 9] 1) 4] 5/14) 9] 8} 6g 12 , | Gry | | Tomer meme A hrc ere fc fe to sn ee ee ee PR a eT A Ce | ie ee rs ee a ee Total | | | | | |_| ely 234/142) 82)134/176 181/194.247 289'310/283] 89) 58/174! 811 95300) 464 229/142/190, 638 an 388/118] 7:7 ove- Here ES OSes | ane a a a pa ma re eee NE EES ES ee ee ee Ge 46 Meteorological Observations at the Kew Observatory. RESULTS OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS MADE AT THE KEW OBSERVATORY. LATITUDE 51° 28’ 6” N., LONGITUDE 0° 18’ 47” w 1866. Reduced to mean of day. Temperature of Air. At 9°30 a.m., 2°30 p.m., and 5 P.M. | as: aa ae respectively. Calculated. | St aT 2 # Se ti bas | aa Pe, : | . bh Rain— OQ te & = s'6 ae] i o As d at Day ees here te ni eT A es Besa “9°30. oh. | so | etal ele les [es} 8] Se sD A.M. Month. 83 cy hd = ad a Bel as Direction of Wind. oH H St ea el =a Seth Sgt id Oa eel ee lee £8 ogy 3 Se he og ae tee 2° Be pe 1? | Bel eae a e fais tas ESS ia iibsee a Pa (| ee a ieee are = ——E inches.| , | o inch.) 2 0—10 inches. } Nov. 1 | 99-945| 51-7 47°5| °87/°395 55:0 , 397/15°3!10,10,10, WbyS,WbyS,8. | 0-000 » 2 | 29°790| 54-4! 52-0} -92)-433) 59°5 | 47-6111-9]10, 9, 10 S by W, SW, SSW. “023 » 8 | 99-636] 52-2' 49°3| -90!-462) 57°6 |50°5) 7-1/10, 8, 8| SSW, SW, SW byS. ‘012, ae) Bla Tee PS Eee SP PL i on 053° » 5 | 99-917| 54-0! 50°8} “90-427, 57-7 | 45°5|12-2| 9,10, 10| SW by 8S, WSW, WSW. | -005] » 6 | 30:075| 52°4/ 47-2} “84/405, 57-2 |50°5| 67] 0, 4, & WSW, W, W. ‘000 Oe a 80-051) 52 ‘6 47°5| *84)-408 55°5 | 43°7/ 118110, 9,10/ W,SW by W, WbyS. | -000) » 8 | 99-805! 53°7/ 49°8} *88/ -423) 57-9 | 51°83) 6°6| 8,10,10/ SW, SW by W,SW. ‘010 | » _9 | 99-896) 441) 36-4, *76) 305] — |38°0) —| 0, 4, 0| N, Wby N, WSW. 315, » 10 | 39-120) 34.0 342) 1:00) 214) 55-8 | 29°6|26-2\10, 10, — —,—,—. 000 | ‘>| Pion ieee Rc ee Bron ed eee rs a" 300 » 12 | 99-889) 48-5 45°5, +90) 354, 58°6 | 38-0/ 20°6/10, 10,10) |WSW, SW by S, S. “000 » 18 | 99-695) 52-0| 45-4) -80|-399| 56°9-/ 47-31 9°6/10, 7, 2) _ W by S, W, W. 134, 14 | 99-989) 44°5/ 34-0 -69) -809 49-7 |41°5| 82/0, 4, 4| Wby N, Wby N, W. | -040 » 15 | 30-019) 44°5| 39°4| 84) -309 47-7 |33-4,14°3) 9,10 10] _SW, Sby W, SSW. ‘000 »5 16 | 99-988) 51:9) 45°9) -81)-398 56:6 | 42°7/13°910, 5, 4) SW by 8S, Wby 8, W. | 017) 1s 17 | 30-256) 35°3/ 25-0) -69| -224 40°3 |32°6] 7°7).0, 1, 4, SW, NWby N,NW. | 010) a Ea ER ae end Beenie cat = ‘230 » 19 | 99-946) 35-1) 20°8| -60) -222 38°8 | 35-0, 3°83, 0, o| NW,NW,NWby W. | ‘090 » 20 | 30-185] 32:8 24°7 29°0/ 8:9 0, 0, ONW by W, NW by W, W,) ‘000 ~T Or i) =) nr (Ju) “i ide) » 21 | 30-101 38°6| 34°6) °87!-251 44°6 | 25°9)18'7| 7, 0, 7] WSW, WNW, SW by W.| 000) 5 22 139-200] 42:8 40°8) “93/291 45°8 | 33-9|11°9/10,10,10| SW, WbyS,WSW. | :000 » 23 |99-777| 46-0] 43°2) -91|-325 49°6 | 41-1] 8'5'10,10,10] SW, W by 8, WSW. 036 24 |99-911| 41-1/ 37°2| ‘87/274 45°5 |37-1/ 84 1,10,10) W, SW by W, SW by W.| — meee te Lihat | | ae (08 Sel “000 1 26 | 99-977| 49:9, 34°8| °75|-292 486 |36-0/12°610, 3,10/ NW, NW, WSW. -000 » 27 | 99-968] 45:6 37°3| °75| 821 49°5 |41°5| S'0l 9, 8, 11 NW by W, NW,NW. | , 000 » 28 | 30-266) 38°3' 35°1| -89|-249 45°5 |30°4/15'1| 0, 0, 0| SSW, W, W by 8. 000 » 29 | 30-259) 40:9|36'1| -85|-273' 469 |29°8'17°1) 7, 1,10 , 8 by B, BE. ‘000 » 30 | 30-054) 35°3, 27°7| °76|°224 40°1 0, 0, 0 ‘000 Re a a ee a | Daily : | Means, 29°959) 44°8, 39:3 "83) °320 * To obtain the Barometric pressure at the sea-level these numbers must be increased by *037 inch, 47 Meteorological Observations at the Kew Observatory. HOURLY MOVEMENT OF THE WIND (IN MILES), AS RECORDED BY ROBINSON’S ANEMOMETER.—Noyv., 1866. 1/2/1/8/4!15/6/7{8| 9 |10/11/12/18/14| 15] 16/17] 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 28 | 24) 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 be g| 5 4| 2] sl 1g! 7} 10| 7] 38! 241 6] 21) 20; 8 19) 17; 7 10/15) 7| 8 8) 15) 16) 11) 18) 6 1/14) 100 y| of 6 4/111 12) 8| 11! 7| 98] 25] 6] 21) 22) 7 20) 16) 12) 10) 12) 38 4) 6) 16) 16) 11) 15) 4) 1) 15) 10-8 9} 2! §| 2/19/11! 7] 11) 9] 8] 26] 8} 28) 18) 5] 17; 18) 8 8 10) 6 4) 6) 18) 15) 11) 12) -b) J) 20) 10-0 si 3] 10| 81:14 11) 12) 12) 7] 1| 27| 6) 22) 19} 6] 19).12) 10) 8 11). 5) 6} 7 15) 16) 13) 11) 4) 3 18) 10-4 6| 2/101 8! 15] 11/ 11/ 18] 9} 2) 20' 6! 21) 19) 6] 20) 10) 17; 14; 9) 7 4) 7 18) 16) 12) 14) 4) 2) 7} 10-8 11; 1! ¥| 6] 14] 12} 9! 15] 10} 1] 15) 6] 22) 19} 6] 20) 12) 16) 12) 8 6 4 6 8 13) 7] 10) 4) 1) 8) ga 8| 5) 10| 6] 18] 10) 18] 15) 10, 1] 17] 6} 28) 20, 7| 22) 9/ 17) 11; 8 6 1) 7| 9 12) 8 18) 4) 2) 9) 1o-8g 8| 6111! 71718! 10| 18|.16|.10) 9] 18 7} 24) 21) | 21) 11) 20) 12) 9} 7} 4) 11) 9) 16) 12) 18 4) 2 11) 11:8 8| 6| 14{ 6) 15) 9| 18] 17| 11] 2] 21) 4) 26) 24 6] 22) 10, 19) 15) 5) 7 6) 18) 6 18) 15) 16) 4) 1) 18) 11-7 8| 61141 71 18| S| 17] Qa 15) 2] 18) 6] 17) 25; 8) 22) 10) 18) W838; 6 7 6) 12) 8 11) 16) 14) 4) 2) 15) 11-7 2! 11| 17] 111 20] 16] 19] 24! 18] 1! 15} 7] 10] 28) 10) 22] 10) 20; 16) 9} 10) 7} 15) 12) 17) 19; 17; 6 Oj 12) 13:5 18] 14| 26] 13] 21! 16) 24) 26) 20) 92 14] 10] 12) 24) 14) 27) 11) 17! 17) 9} 12) 65) 80) 10) 20) 20) 19) 6 2 14) 151 13} 15} 15/'14} 29! 15} 19; 28) 19} 2| 19] 10) 16} 25) li 28| 12/ 18| 19] 10| 14! 5! 14) 12) 21) a8] 17} al 2! 12) day 8| 12] 9] 18] 24) 16] 18] 25) 15] 2 19) 7) 16) 20) 11) 26) 12) 17) 17) 11) 13; 6) 15) 7 16) 18) 18 4 6] 12] 13-3 9} 10) 13] 14] 22) 15] 17| 24) 16) 9g] 17} 9] 19) 18) 12) 26) 10) 17) 17) 10) 12) 6/ 14) 5 17; 14] 18) 4) 6) 12} 13°38 6} 11] 14) 11) 17) 11] 17] 23] 10} 9] 12] 10) 18) 13) 16) 26) 7| 14) 14) 6 6) 6) 16) 7 20) g 10) 4 4) GS) 11-4 6| 9} 10] 18] 18; 9/ 18! 28) 8! g| 9] 10) 16) 12) 17) 24) 6) 18) 12) 4; 5 6; 16) 6 14) 9g}, 8} 2 2 | 106 5} si si iyi isi 9] 12] 22) 6 3) Z| 7] 11) 9] 15) 201 5 6) 10) 6 6 4) 20) 10) 15) 6G 6} 2 4/12) og 6} 6! 6 12] 15' 8/11] 22) 4) 9 5) 9] 18] 9] 17] 20; 8| 6] 10; 7 6) 4,15) 7 12) 6 8 2 8} 7 B89 9 5] 4 181 18! 9! 18) 17| 27/10) 7] 14) 12} 9} 15) 26) 7| 8 30) &B| 4 4) 17) 12) 18) g| 8 2 4 11) 101 6| 9| 4] 141 12 si a4| 7] 6! gi 7! 19| 10] 12] 15] 23] 5] 7] 10} 4} 38] 4} 18] 10) 11) 6| 8 2 4 6] ge 4} °7| 3] 19] 12| 5] 12/ 11) 6] 14 6] 20/11] 9] 16) 24) 38) 7) 18) 4 4| 4) 17) 11) 10) 7 6 1, 6 5 9-0 3} 5| 4] 11| 12} 6| 11/138) 4| 29) 8] 21/13) 9/17) 20) 2) 9) 14) 5} 8) 5) 18) 18) 10) 10) 6 J 12 5| 9-9 3} 5) 4) 11 2 7; 9| 65] 4) 20) 7} 22) 15) 9} 20) 28 + 8 16) 4| 4) 8] 18 16 9 13 6} 1) 8 5| ov | | ae eee | ee ee ee oe, ee ee ee eS a ee ae ee ee Se ee 178]164. 225|218'368|257/324/408|24'7|119 363/225]41.0/407|273/522/216/31.1 308/185 162) 108/820 259/342)272/290) 81) 78/253 10'9 | | " | | 48 _ Afeteorological Observations at the Kew Observatory. RESULTS OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS MADE AT THE KEW OBSERVATORY. LATITUDE 51° 28’ 6” N., LONGITUDE 0° 18’ 47” w. 1866. Reduced to mean of day. Temperature of Air. At 9°30 a.m., 2.30 p.m., and 5 p.m., respectively, ” | E Saas ge - Be | x Sd Bae ee lie tg oe Da Bet dS daz SB ol chon a dat b oh set oe ee 0 92) 2 1 Ah ae ee) ae Seek ge ee Month. | ge) ela lg|s | ts |88ie_) 28 Direction of Wind. $2.) 8.) £4) eae?) ae eee | ae Be oe te eh eg am J ot on a EB S| a\# 8 a x 9 x ae |als inches. 4 ‘ inch. $ 5 a 0—10 Dec. 1 | 29°782) 33:4) 28°1| -83)-209] 35:6 | 27-6} 8-010, 10, 10 E, E by N, E. Pe eG. iwi eel hi | Ge ee Bodl doo... » 8 | 29°782| 49°5| 47°5| -93) -367) 52°6 | 33-8/18-8| 9,10,10/ SW by S,SW, SW. 3» 4 | 29°717/ 53°7, 51-1) 92) 423) 55-4 | 46-5! 8-9,10,10,10/ SW, SW by W, SW. » 5 | 29°778 531) 53:0) -99)-415; 54°6 | 52-7] 1:910,10,10) SW by 9, SW, SW. » 6 |29°746, 52°5/50°0; -92/-406) 56°6 | 46:5/10110, 10,10) —§ by W, SSW, SW. », 7 |29°520, 46-6) 39°3) +78| 332} 49°3 | 47-9; 1-410, 7, 2) SW by S, W by S, WSW. y3 8 |30°326! 38°8/ 32°0) -79|-253} 44-1 | 36:0] 81] 0, 2, 0 W, WNW, W. See Panett, he ere | aire] Boe Le. » 10 |80-097) 44-7) 39°3} -83/-311| 48-9 | 39-4] 9:5| 4, 7, 1) NW, NW by W, NW. » 11 |30°302|34°7/34°6| -99/-219/ — | 30-0] — 10, 9,10] WN by BE, ENE, B by N. », 12 | 29°793] 52'1/48°3) -88]}:401] 53-4 | 33-0) 20°4:10, 9,10 Ww, W, W by S. » 18 | 29-432) 50°7| 46°7| -87|-382| 55°8 | 47-3| 8-5/10,10,°2) SW by S, W by S; W. 55. 14 | 29°457| 43°7) 38°3) -83)°300] 48-5. |39°9} 8-6! 0, 8, 8 Wsw, W, SW. »> 15 | 29-418) 45°6/ 41°5) -87|-321) 50°8 | 36:0} 14-810, 10, 9 SSE, W, W. EE ER locks oe | cae | ee | AS MT nL aa on ie »5 17 |30°211) 47-0) 45°9| -96)-337| 51°6 | 34-9} 16°7/10, 10, 10S by W, SW by W, SWby S.} ° 55 18 |30°260) 50°4|49°7) +85|-378) 53-7 | 41-3} 12°4,10, 10, 1] SW, WSW, SW by S. 3» 19 |30°356) 44°8) 35°8) -73)-312) 49°7 | 45-1] 4°6] 0, 1, 0} W by N, W by N, N. », 20 |30°465) 36°1| 84°7| -95|-230, 36°9 | 25°4/11:5.10, 8,10 » 21 |30°318/ 37:1) 34°6) -92!-238) 39:8 | 26-1/13°7/10, 1, 2| WSW, Sw v by W, SW. 55 22 |80°416) 57°7| 37°4) +99] 244) 42°3 | 28-6] 13°7/10, 10, 10 SW, S, 8. 23 Sear liceh ons 1 weed ven, |) S'S. (Bowl Ob ty #E Seat s¥e 3, 24 |80°299) 39:8) 39°1| 97] 262] 42°6 | 38:5] 4-1/10, 10, 10 SSW, S, S. SE ee Pee ero eee he ee Ge | x am » 26 | 29:976| 45°9) 43°2) -91|:324) 49-4 |38:5]10°9/10, 5, 5| SSW, SSW, SW by 8. 5 27 |29°857| 44°6| 36°6| -76|°310) 47-7 | 43:3) 4:4) 1, 9, 1 W, W, W. 55 28 | 29-987] 48:1] 40°4) -77/°350]} 51°7 | 43-6] 8-1! 6, 9,10 WSW, W, WNW.” 3» 29 | 29-671} 48-2] 42°0} -81/°351) 51°3 | 44-3] 7:0] 3,10, 9 SW, W, W by 8. be | eds Eh. a bck ewan d aoey 8 MB TBAB) 7/0)! ie ing » BL | 29-299} 31:0] 28°6] -92} 192} 33:5 | 26-6] 6-9] 3, 7, 2 SW by W,—, —. (eal }| 29-980] 443] 40°5| “88] *314 10-4 Means. u eee eee : * To obtain the Barometric pressure at the sea-level these numbers must be increased by *037 inch, 49 Meteorological Observations at the Kew Observatory. HOURLY MOVEMENT OF THE WIND (IN MILKS), AS RECORDED BY ROBINSON’S ANEMOMETER.—Decemper, 1866. a ac a a er NR a Se a Ee Se OS eT ey Gn ee aD ‘Day. |1/2}3] 4) 5/6] 7] 8 | 9 |10/11]12/ 13/14] 15] 16/17) 18} 19) 20| 21) 22) 23 24) 25] 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 31 [Hourly = Hour. | 12 | 5! 9} 20] 24) 19 7] 26/ 10; 0} 17] 4| 4) 18] 10) 8} 18} 4) 8) 19) 1) 6) 1) 2 5 1) 18) 34) 10) 16) 16) 4) 1141 (1 | gl 5) os ol 14 of 26 8| 3/17] 2] 5} 16] 10) 9] 18] 4) 9) 20) 2 7 of 2} 5] 38] 19] 25/ 11] 16 14) 6] 108 2 | zl sl aol o3| 1a\ ai 21/ lol 2 19| 2] G| 20] 12) 7 17| 5] 11] 20] 1} 7] of 1I 4) 2 17] 2u/ 11) 12| 13] 5| 103 3 | 4! al isi a4] ial 7] gal 9} 3] 13] 2] 6] 22] 14] 8} 22} 3) 12] 21) 1) 5] 1) 2} 2) 3} 19) 23) 11) 12] 12) 5} 10-2 ; 9| 5| 10 27| 138| 8 20] 10/ 6] 11} 1) 10) 23; 13] 7/17} 2} 12] 19) 1) 4] 1) 4] 2) 2} 15] 25] 11] 15/ 12} 6] 101 4} 5 | 4) 5} 10, 24) 14 5 20, 6 5 12) 2 Io] 19 11) 5] 1% 2) 18) 19) OF 4 1) 8 1} 1} 13] 20] 12] 12) 12) 5] 92 i. 6 | 6] 5| 10, 26 16 8| 24) 9 5) 11; 2) 10) 21) 9 G 21| 2) 13) 16, OF 8 1) 4 3) 4 41) 18) 12) 13) 14 4 9-9 9| 6| 13] 26/ 141 7 22) 9] 6 11; 4/11] 20] 9] 5) 22] 1) 10/17] 0} 2 Of 3) 2 2 9! 19] 10] 10) 14, 4} 9°6 8 | gl 4/41] 27115 6 23) 7] 10! 9! 4] 18) 221 9] 4/13} 3] 10/ 10| 0] 2 o| 4) 7 4] 6/15} 11) 15) 12) 4) 9°5 9 | 40] 7/17] 25/18! 6 19] 5) 11; 11/ 3] 12] 20] 10| 6] 12} 7| 10) 10] 0] 3} 1) 8} 9) 5] 17] 16] 19] 12} 14} 3] 101 10 | io! 7| 19] 221 18| 14, 23! 10] 16| 9} 6] 17] 22/ 121 9/ 13] 8| 12] 11) 1) 6 1) 4 9 7 10) 19] 11] 19] 16} 2| 117 LQ1 |g} gi) 29) a6/25! 211 23! 1ol 21] 10] 1] 19] 26] 11) 13| 15] 7/11) 12) 2| 5 3] 5] 6 5] 8 18/ 17] 18] 18} 4) 129 12 | 40] 7| 25] 25] 24| 231 26) 10] 25| 18| 2) 17) 25] 10) 10] 15, 12) 14/ 14/ 1] 4 1} 7 6 10} 10] 12/ 21) 17| 18] 3) 135 (1 | 40] 5] 24! 24] 201 25] 25) 10} 23] 10| 2] 21) 26] 13/’ 8} 12} 10| 16) 10; 1] 5] 2] 5] 5] 10) 14) 19) 21) 17] 20 oj 13-4 2 | io] 4| 211 27/ 21/ 23) 26} 8] 25/ 9! 1] 18] 22] 16} 9) 9/12) 19] 7) 1) 6| 3] 7 4) 12] 13) 17) 22] 19) 19) 2) 133 8 |g} gi a1| 27| 19 25| 25| 5) 25] 4} 3/ 16] 19] 10] 18] 27; 8/16) 4) 2} 4| 1) 4 8 12] 14) 17| 19] 20) 15} 1) 12°3 4 | 40] 4] 23/ 261 16| 281 26| 5 27/ 4; 2] 16] 16] 10| 26) 6/10/16, 4] 1) 3) 1) 4 7 14] 12) 17] 17] 23] 14) 0) 125 re | 5] 27| 27/ 10. 30| 21! 4; 26] 4) 3] 15] 11| 10| 21) 6] .7| 10} 2] 2] 3) 1} 4] 6] 14} 14] 12) 18) 19) 10} 1) 11:3 =} © | 8| 12] 29 80] 13 80 23) 2) 27) 3) 4) 18) 11) 12) 17) 7 9 10) 3 I 2) 1) 5| 3] 12} 21] 14] 18] 23} 9| 1) 116 9| 15] 26] 29) 6| 31/19; 2 25/ 2] 2] 10! 10] 12] 20] 7 10) 12) 5] 1) 2 1] 7 2 15) 29) 15) 15) 23} 9} of 118 | 8 | gl 14] 35] 24) 4| 32] 12! 1) 26} 4} 1| 10] 12) 11/17] 5} 7} 8] 5] 2| 2) 1) 2 1j 13) 24) 15) 14) 23) 7 1) 106 | & 9 | 6 10] 18/ 21! 101 34 13/ 9] 25} 3! 1| 10] 12| 11] 20| 5] 10, 14 1} 3) 2 1) 4) 1) 14) 33) 14) 15) 19) 7 1) 110 |g 10 | g| 13/ 26| 21; 8| 33| 12) 2) 21; 4} 1/11/11] 8} 20] 4/ 11] 16, 2 6 3] 1| 8 2 18) 82) 14) 14) 19) 5) 2) 115 | & r r| 13| 22) 21; 7] 29| 9| 1/47] 4) 2| 16] 13] 8] 17| 4/12) 20) 2) 3) 2| 2) 6| 1) 1s! 36] 16) 12) 15) 7 4) 11 Sere (OR ea I apm See te dg ee ele ee 9p OC eR ee K Total | | | | 3 Daily | |176|175/477 600/351/451'506 155'377|214| 56|301/437/261/290|292|166|302 253] 33) 92 nw ares 434|345/407/307|168| 11:2 | > -; Tae t* ment. 50 Meteorological Observations at the Kew Observatory. 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"| A 7 / : y? > \ \ al , , e~i ole : c I MARCH... 1867. “GLASS-ROPE” HYALONEMA. ® veorvseoR WYVILLE YaoMSON. | | (WUh @ Colowred Plate) | * nm 2- 46 300 threads of tzansparent silica, glisten- : Say lustre, like the most brilliant spun glass ; id about 18 invlies long; in the middle the thickness needie, and gradually towards either e point; the whole bundle coiled like « strand of @ len; thened spiral, the threads of the middle aud cathy = “veewanyetd compactly coiled by ® permanent. vist ; the upper portions of the coil at ut, ss y threaie stand separate from 3 a rik brist mp? a glitterinfy brash ; the lower 2 inthedded perpeadicularly in thé middle of _ hermisph- ae souicsl undvubted spaage, and mrgcl ) i Savery portion of tlie silicions col and part of | : > with a brows leathery coating, whose merfece pepe ong pn saree ik (Gee ee, cumplute specimen of # { earvidiien cofepion fiset bro brought | ga, | ihe, celebrated naturalist and tra-- fe Beeb tad ow tebe fad moe oro perfect, ‘ang be So » ing out abow © sc the water ; and, tainly sae up “constant sighyte. This complicated soraon 2a multitude of powstatitios, Was Hystmmoe: 4 rnaigeal b X1.—xo. tl, THE INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER. ON THE “GLASS-ROPE” HYALONEMA. BY PROFESSOR WYVILLE THOMSON. (With a Coloured Plate.) A BUNDLE of from 2- to 300 threads of transparent silica, glisten- ing with a satiny lustre, like the most brilliant spun glass ; each thread about 18 inches long ; in the middle the thickness of a knitting needle, and gradually tapering towards either end to a fine point; the whole bundle coiled like a strand of rope into a lengthened spiral, the threads of the middle and lower portions remaining compactly coiled by a permanent twist of the individual threads ; the upper portions of the coil frayed out, so that the glassy threads stand separate from one another, like the bristles of a glittering brush; the lower extremity of the coil imbedded perpendicularly in the middle of a hemispherical or conical undoubted sponge, and usually part of the exposed portion of the silicious coil and part of . the sponge covered with a brown leathery coating, whose surface is studded with the polyps of an equally undoubted zoantharian zoophyte. Such is the general effect of a complete specimen of Hyalonema Sieboldi (Gray), a marvellous organism first brought to Europe from Japan, by the celebrated naturalist and tra- veller Von Siebold ; and now to be found, more or less perfect, _ in most of the European Museums. When the first specimen of Hyalonema was brought home, it stood in this peculiar position, that nothing had been seen inthe | least like it before, and the history of opinion as to its relations is curious. ‘The being consisted of three very distinct parts :— first, and infinitely most remarkable, the twist of silicious need- les; then the sponge, whose lower surface had evidently been attached to some foreign body, and which served as a sort of pedestal, from the top of which the flinty brush projected, spreading out above it in the water; and, thirdly, the ap- parently constant zoophyte. This complicated association suggested a multitude of possibilities. Was Hyalonema a natural VOL, XI.—NO. II. a &2 On the “ Glass-Rope” Hyalonema. organism at all? Wasit complete? Were the three parts essentially connected together? and, if not, were all the three parts independent? or, were two of these parts the same thing ? and, if so, which two? As my present object is merely to give a general sketch of the various attempts which have been made to solve this riddle, and to indicate the doubts and difiiculties which still hinder its solution, while endeavouring, of course, to establish « harmony of opinion with my reader, I will trouble him as little as possible with technical details; nor do I feel called upon to work out the bibliography of the subject further than is necessary for my special purpose. HHyalonema was first described and named in 1835, by Dr. J. EH. Gray, who has since in one or two notices in the Annals of Natural History, and elsewhere, vigorously defended the essential points of his original position. Dr. Gray associated the silicious whisp with the zoophyte, and regarded the sponge as a separate organism. He looked upon the silicious coil as the representative of the horny axis of the sea-fans (Gorgome), with which it certainly presented many analogies in minute structure, and the leather-like coat he regarded as its fleshy rind. He supposed, that between this zoophyte thus con- stituted, and the sponge at its base, there subsisted a relation of guest and host, the zoophyte being constantly parasitic in the sponge ; and in accordance with this view he distinguished for the reception of the zoophyte, anew group of Alcyonarians, under the name of WSpongicole, as distinguished from the Sabulicolee (Pennatule) and the Rupicole (Gorgome). Dr. Gray’s view seemed in many respects a natural one, and it was adopted, in the main, by Dr. Brandt of St. Petersburg; who in 1859, published a long memoir describing a number of specimens brought from Japan to Russia. Dr. Brandt illus- trates fully the structure of this zoophyte, and refers it to a special group of sclerobasic orsign with a° silicious axis. In October last Dr. Gray published in the Annals and Ragazine of Natural History an additional note on the “ glass- rope” Hyalonema. While acknowledging his error m hayimg referred the polyp incrusting /M yalonema to the barked Aleyo- narians, an error of little moment if we admit the close relation of Antipathes to the typical zoantharia, the author adheres resolutely to his original view, and imagines that it has received full confirmation from the observations, hereafter to be noticed, of Senhor de Bocage; and in a short communication to the Annals for December, Dr. Gray alludes to a statement (which I can confirm) that the sclerobase of some Gorgonic contains silica. I will not at presen dwell farther upon these papers, On the “ Glass-Rope” Hyalonema.. 83 as most of the points upon which Dr. Gray relies for the defence of his opinion are more or less fully discussed in these pages. — One consideration militated strongly against the hypothesis of Gray and Brandt. No known ceelenterate zoophyte had a purely silicious axis ; and such an axis, made up of loose separate spicules, seemed strangely inconsistent with the harmony of the class. Silicious spicules of all forms and sizes, were con- ceivable in sponges; and in 1857, Milne Edwards, on the authority of Valenciennes, who was thoroughly versed in the structure of the Gorgonic, combined the sponge and the sili- cious rope into a single organism, and degraded the zoophyte to the rank of an incrusting parasite. Anything very strange coming from Japan, is to be re- garded with considerable distrust. ‘The Japanese are wonder- fally ingenious, and one favourite aim of their misdirected industry, is the fabrication of all kinds of impossible monsters, by the curious combination of parts of different animals. It was therefore quite conceivable that the whole thing was an imposition; that some beautiful spicules separated from some unknown organism, had been twisted into a whisp by the Japanese, and then manipulated so as to have their fibres naturally bound together by the sponges and zoophytes, which are, doubtless, rapidly developed in the Mongolian rock- pools. Hhrenberg, when he examined Hyalonema, took this view. Heat once recognized the silicious threads as the spicules of a sponge, quite independent of the zoophyte with which they were encrusted ; but he suggested that they might have been artificially combined into the spiral coil, and placed under artificial circumstances favourable to the growth of a sponge of a different species round their base. The condition in which many specimens reach Europe is certainly calculated to throw some doubt on their genuineness. It seems that the bundles of spicules, made up in various ways, are largely sold as ornaments, in China and Japan. The coils of spicules are often stuck upright, with their lower ends in circular holes in stones. Mr. Huxley exhibited lately to the Linnean Society a beautiful specimen of this kind, now in the British Museum—a stone has been bored, probably by a colony of boring Mollusks, and a whole family of Hyalonemas, old and young, are apparently growing out of the burrows ; the larger individuals more than a foot in length, and the young ones down to an inch or so, like tiny camel’s hair pencils. All these are incrusted by the usual zoophyte, which also ex- tends here and there over the stone (glued on probably) ; but there is no trace of the sponge. Such an association, as we shall see hereafter, is undoubtedly artificial. Professor Max Schultze, examined with great care several 84 On the “ Glass-Rope”? Hyalonema. perfect and imperfect specimens of Hyalonema, in the Museum of Leyden, and in 1860, published an elaborate description of its structure. I can entertain no doubt of the soundness of Professor Schultze’s conclusions. The present sketch has been chiefly abstracted from his memoir, though I may add that T have lately had an opportunity of verifying his observations in almost every detail. ‘The conical sponge, which forms the base of the fabric, I believe to be the body-mass of Hyalonema Sieboldi, a sponge allied to the genus Alcyoncellum, Quoi and Gaimard (Huplectella, Owen) ; and the silicious coil to be an appendage of the sponge, formed of modified spicules, and recalling in some respects the fringe of long calcareous styles surrounding the osculum in our common little Sycon ciliatum. The zoophyte is of course a distinct animal altogether, whose only connection with the sponge is that it is apparently almost constantly parasitical upon it. This style of association is not at all uncommon; take for example Pagurus Prideauxi and its attendant Adamsia, and especially Palythoa aazinelle (Schmidt), a constant parasite upon Azinella cinnamomea, and A. verrucosa, two Adriatic sponges. On looking over Dr. Bowerbank’s papers on sponges in the Philosophical Transactions, I at first took for granted that he adopted the views of Valenciennes and Schultze. In an answer which he published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History for November last to Dr. Gray’s paper, he, however, distinctly states that he has ‘‘ always maintained that the silicious axis, its envelopment, and the basal sponge were all parts of the same animal.” The polyps he regards as “‘oscula,”’ forming with the coil a “ columnar cloacal system.”’ This view, I confess, I do not fully understand. At all events, Dr. Bowerbank thinks that the so-called ‘‘ polypigerous crust” is a part of a sponge. That this position seems to me to be utterly untenable, my description of the Palythoa will suffi- ciently show. | In 1864, Senhor J. V. Barboza de Bocage, director of the Museum of Natural History of Lisbon, communicated to the Zoological Society of London the interesting intelligence that a species of Hyalonema had been discovered on the coast, of Portugal, and in 1865 he published, in the proceedings of the same society, an additional note “on the habitat of Hyalonema Lusitanicun.” It appears that the fishermen of Setubal, on the Portuguese coast, frequently bring up on their lines, from a considerable depth, coils of silicious threads, closely resem- bling those of the Japanese species, which they even surpass in size, sometimes attaining a length -of about two feet. ‘The fishermen seem to be very familiar with them. They call them “sea-whips,” but, with the characteristic superstition of their On the © Glass-Rope” Hyalonema. 85 class, they regard all these extraneous organisms as “ unlucky,” and usually tear them to pieces, and throw them into the water. _ Senhor de Bocage has, however, succeeded in procuring several specimens, and one of these he has sent to the British Museum. This specimen I had an opportunity of examining, through the kindness of Dr. Gray. Judging from it and from Senhor de Bocage’s figure, the “ glass-rope”” of the Portuguese form is not so thick as that of H. Sieboldi. I think there is some slight difference in the sculpture of the long needles, but I have not had an opportunity of making a minute microscopic examination of these. The thin (lower) end of the coil is entirely covered by the investing zoophyte, which extends uniformly over about two-fifths of the whole length. The polyps are oval, they project but slightly from the general surface, and are arranged regularly in spiral lines lke the scars on the stem of a tree-fern. According to Senhor de Bocage, the granular appearance of the surface of the crust is not produced, as in the Japanese species, by agglutinated grains of sand, but by ‘‘an infinite number of club-shaped spicules bristling with points;” and, according to the same authority, “‘each polyp is supported by a silicious framework of filiform spicules, disposed longitudinally and at equal intervals on the internal wall of the body cavity.” ‘This latter point of structure is altogether peculiar, but in these and in other details H. Iusitanicum stands in need of the minute and careful study and illustration which it will doubtless receive from its discoverer. _ Senhor de Bocage most accurately describes the mouth of the polyp as surrounded by a crown of not less than sixty | minute, triangular, compressed tentacles, and justly suspects that the supposed difference in the number of tentacles between the Portuguese form and that described by Brandt might arise from an error of observation, depending, possibly, upon the bad condition of the specimens examined by the Russian naturalist. Although dead and somewhat dried up, in the specimens as procured by Senhor de Bocage the zoophyte was still soft, it had a strong fishy smell, and ap- peared to have been fresh when taken from the sea. No sponge-body has as yet been found in connection babi any of the Portuguese specimens. With regard to the essential nature of the organism, Senhor de Bocage leans to the view advocated by Gray and Brandt. He believes that as recovered from the deep by the Setubal fishermen it is homogeneous and complete. I have no hesitation whatever in expressing a most decided opinion that in this—as, indeed, in all such cases—the zoophyte is a para- site investing a coil of spicules which formed originally an 86 On the * Glass-Rope” Hyalonema. appendage of a sponge. The discovery at Setubal proves the interesting fact that a species of Hyalonema lives somewhere on the Portuguese coast, or, at all events, m the course of some one of the strong currents which wash the Lusitanic peninsula. ‘The coil is hard, elastic, and insoluble—nearly indestructible. I believe that during the life of the sponge the Palythoa attaches itself to that portion of the coil just above the sponge body, and that after the disintegration of the sponge it creeps downward, naturally spreading towards that end of the coil where the spicules remain in contact. The very fact that im all the Portuguese specimens the whole of the thin end of the coil is invested by the zoophyte, would suggest to me that the immediate neighbourhood of the coast of Portugal may not be the habitat of the Hyalonema, but that the isolated coils may have been gently drifted along the surface of the mud from a distance, and during a considerable space of time. Hyalonema seems to be generally distributed. Dr. Leidy states that there is a small specimen in the museum of the Academy of Sciences at Philadelphia, said to have come from Santa Cruz. I will now describe, a little more in detail, the structure and arrangement of the different parts of this singular sponge. The large silicious spicules form, as I have already mentioned, a briliant coil, in large specimens upwards of a foot and a half long. The spicules on the outside of the coil stretch its entire length, each taking about two and a half turns of. the spiral. One of these long needles is about one-third of a line in diameter in the centre, gradually tapering towards either end. The spirally twisted portion of the needle occupies rather more than the middle half of its entire length. Inthe lower portion of the coil, which is imbedded in the sponge, the spicule becomes straight, and tapers down to an extreme tenuity, ultimately becoming so fine that it 1s scarcely possible to trace it to its termination. Above, where the coil opens out, the spicule likewise becomes straight and tapers, but in all the specimens which have been examined the upper ends of the spicules have been broken off. The surface of the middle and lower portions of the spicule 1s perfectly smooth, but the upper part, where the coil is frayed out, has a Sostied look, _ and feels rough to a finger drawn along it upwards. This roughness depends upon a series of little crest. like elevations, armed with minute teeth, which stretch about half way round the needle on alternate sides, at short intervals ; or sometimes two of the crests unite into an irregular spiral ridge (Plate, Vig. 1). | ni dl the microscope, by transmitted light, the spiculum On the “‘ Glass-Rope” Hyalonema.. 87 throughout its entire length is minutely and delicately striated. These strize are not superficial, they indicate the edges of, or the intervals between, a series of extremely thin concentric silicious layers of which the wall of the spicule is composed. A distinct double line running down the centre marks the central canal, so characteristic of all sponge spicules. A transverse section, or an irregular fracture, shows distinctly the concentric silicious layers (Plate, Vig. 9). One point in connection with the central canal is important as establish- ing a relation between the spicules of the coil and those of the sponge-body. About the middle of the spicule, at its thickest part, the canal sends out two transverse branches, or sometimes fourin the shape of across. ‘hese branches are extremely short, only displacing slightly a few of the mner silicious layers; the outer layers gradually resume their straight course, so that no bulging or distortion is to be seen on the surface of the thread, and the poimt, where the branching occurs, can only be dis- covered with difficulty by transmitted light, and with,a magni- fying power of 300 diameters. When the sponge is fresh, the spicules of the coil are covered from end to end with an erganic film, and there are likewise films of sarcodic matter between the silicious layers. This can be shown by heating the spicule over a lamp, when the organic matter shows out brown by the separation of freecarbon. The spicules are stiff, but somewhat elastic. When forcibly bent, and then freed, they instantly resume the spiral curve which was stamped upon them during their growth. The spicules on the outside of the coil are all of the same size and length, but in the interior they are shorter and finer, diminishing to an inch or so in length and to a hair-like fineness, so that new spicules are added to the coil from within. In good-sized specimens the sponge-body is from five to six inches high, and about three inches in its widest diameter. The surface is shaggy with the ends of irregular bundles of spicules, and is closely dotted over with small round openings about a line across. Round each of these apertures there is a stellate arrangement of ridges, the ridges round one opening running into those round the opening next it, so as to cover the whole surface of the sponge with an irregular raised net- work. In the dried specimens from which, as. yet,. all our information is derived, these ridges, and indeed the whole substance of the sponge, consists simply of interwoven silicious spicules of various forms, with a mere trace of organic matter between them, cementing them loosely together. In most sponges with silicious spicules, the skeleton is partly made up of membranes, or threads, or granular masses of a horny sub- stance. A net-work of horny fibres is the most common form, 88 On the ‘* Glass-Rope’”? Hyalonema. and usually the spicules are scattered loosely among the threads, though in some cases the spicules are contained within the threads ranged along their centre. In all these cases the sarcodic living matter coats and surrounds both the threads and spicules. In some silicious sponges, however, the horny substance, in its firm condition, is entirely wanting, and the skeleton seems to be made up of silicious needles alone, with incrusting soft incoherent protoplasm. Hyalonema seems to be nearly in the latter condition, for a structureless film only, easily soluble in caustic potash or soda, coats and connects the spicules of which its framework is built up. .The interior of the sponge is formed of a loose irregular network of threads of interwoven needles. ‘Towards the base of the sponge there are several large irregular openings nearly half an inch wide, leading into passages lined by an open imperfect membrane of meshed spicules. Within the sponge these passages divide and pass into connection with a sort of lacunar system, which communicates with the round apertures opening externally on the surface of the sponge. The lower end of the silicious coil penetrates the sponge vertically nearly to its base. After entering the sponge it becomes slightly thicker for an inch or so, and then rapidly diminishes to an extremely fine produced point. The needles of the coil are here intimately interwoven with the ordinary spicules of the sponge which pass in among them. The cord- like fibres of the sponge-mass flatten out as they approach the coil, and the so-formed irregular plates are felted as it were into the coil vertically between and upon its outer needles, so that the arrangement of the tissue of the sponge bears an evident relation to the position of the silicious axis. The connection between the body of the sponge and ‘the lower end of the coil is so close that considerable violence is necessary to separate them ; indeed, it is absolutely impossible to do so completely without injuring the infinitely delicate ends of the long needles. ‘This circumstance alone, although it may not be conclusive against the parasitical nature of the sponge, entirely disproves the artificial arrangement of nae needles of the coil. The form of the silicious spicules which build up the ties of the body of the sponge is most varied. Most abundant, interlaced to form the great bulk of the threads of the spongy texture, and accumulated especially towards the surface, are long spindle-shaped needles about a line in length. These spicules (Plate, Figs. 4 and 5) are frequently smooth, and pointed at both ends; but sometimes one end is pointed and the other clubbed, and very frequently either one end or both ends, or the whole length of the needle, is studded with short On the “ Glass-Rope” Hyalonena. 89 pointed projections, usually turned towards the point of the needle, rarely bent backwards like barbs from either end towards the centre. In all these awl-shaped spicules a delicate central canal is very apparent, and, in all of them, at or near the middle of their length, one or two fine cross canals cut the central canal at right angles, exactly as in the long needles of the coil. When the cross canals have an appreciable length, two or four slight bulgings on the outer surface of the needle indicate their position (Plate, Fig. 5). From this form we pass by an easy transition to a second class of very generally distributed spicules. In cases where a single cross canal only is developed, this canal has become produced into two arms at right angles to the original spicule, and the primary and secondary branches together form a cross (Plate, Fig. 8). When two transverse canals are produced, a star of four secondary branches cross the main shaft, giving origin to the remarkable six-spoked forms (Plate, Fig. 6). The larger of this group are usually nearly smooth, but very minute spicules of the same type, with all the branches feathered and their ends curved (Plate, Fig. 10), are very common, clustermg in groups round the larger styles. Fre- quently one of the halves of the needle is undeveloped, and a form is produced in which the single long shaft, represent- ing one half of the original spicule, stands out from a whorl of four transverse branches; all the rays are feathered. Such spicules line in large numbers the internal cavities and passages of the sponge. ‘The cross is placed against the bounding’ felt of spicules, and the long barbed ray projects into the space, tere to prevent the entrance of foreign matters (Plate, ig. 2). The. most remarkable spicules are the two forms repre- sented in Plate, Figs. 3 and 11. The larger of these (Plate, Pig. 3) consist of a strong shaft roughly tuberculated, with a well-marked central canal showing the characteristic cross processes. From either end of the shaft from seven to nine long teeth curve gracefully backwards, ending nearly opposite the centre of the shaft in fine points. These singular spicules are most abundant in the cortical layer, though they are found likewise scattered irregularly through the substance of the sponge. The other set (Plate, Fig. 11) are exceed- ingly minute, only to be detected by a power of about 300 diameters ; they resemble those just described in general form, but the recurved hooks are united by a kind of silicious web, beyond which the point of the hooks project slightly, so that the expanded ends of these spicules are singularly like umbrellas. ‘hey resemble most remarkably in form and size the “ amphidisci’’ of the gemmules of Spongilla ; they are not, 90 On the ‘ Glass-Rope” Hyalonema. however, found in connection, but are scattered along with the small cross spicules (fig. 10) in great numbers throughout the whole of the sponge substance. Many spicules of the awl-shaped and simple cross types, especially short spicules, represented in Fig. 7, are met with within the silicious coil to its very centre, and, in cases where the coil has been brought home without the sponge, such needles can be shaken out from the interstices of the threads. The spicules of Hyalonema are marked in their character, and all the forms described above are found in all specimens of the sponge imbedding the cha- racteristic bundle of enormous spicules; so that there cam be no reasonable doubt of the specific identity of the sponge im all cases. Within the round apertures on the surface of the sponge there is usually a brownish orange-coloured membrane. At first sight one would never dream of doubting that this mem- brane forms part of the sponge, but, on examining it with a high power in order to make outits minute structure, Professor Schultze found, to his surprise, that it presented the marked characters of a polyp tissue; in fact, that it was the remains of a minute parasitic polyp, probably alcyonarian, which inhabited the oscula and their passages during the life of the sponge. ‘The thread cells of the polyp membrane are quite distinct, and it has even been possible to isolate entire extremely minute fringed tentacles, richly clad with almost linear thread-cells. | The view adopted by Gray and Brandt, that the silicious coil is the axis of a zoantharian zoophyte allied to the Antipathes, is founded upon the circumstance that the coil of silicious spicules is almost always coated to a greater or less extent, by a dark leathery layer, studded with the projecting bodies of true polyps. ‘The outer surface of the mvesting layer is rough with included particles of sand, shells of foraminifera, and sponge spicules, chiefly those of Hyalonema, and these spicules usually become very numerous in the polyp layer in the immediate neighbourhood of the body of the sponge. Beneath this layer, with its contained foreign bodies, there is a thick band of a nearly transparent matrix, with scattered, oval, yellowish, granular masses. Within these ovals are imbedded very characteristic groups of thread-cells, oval, half filled with granules, and half with a delicate, spirally-coiled thread. Such thread-cells are generally distributed throughout the coenosare, and in the walls of the polyp bodies. A. third, loosely-areolated, thin layer grasps .closely the surface of the silicious threads. Some doubt arose at first whether this third layer belonged to the zoophyte or to the sponge. It most likely forms the basement membrane of the coenosarc of the — On the “ Glass-Rope’? Hyalonema. of former, as a still thinner membrane, with a somewhat stellate arrangement of its substance, can sometimes be detected beneath it, and spreading along the large spicule beyond the portion incrusted by the zoophyte. This, the most delicate of _all the investments, very probably consists of a dried-up layer of sarcodic sponge matter. I have lately dissected carefully the species or variety of Palythoa, which gives its peculiar character to Brandt’s Hya- locheeta Possiett. In this species the projecting polyps are cylindrical, and in some cases about a line in length. In their retracted state, they show a small round opening in the centre of a mammillary projection, the opening surrounded by about twenty obscure radiating lines. When softened by being steeped in dilute acetic acid the polyps become quite plump, and are almost as easily examined as if they were fresh. The external body-wall consists as usual of two layers, of which the outer is thickly coated with imbedded grains of sand. In the specimen [ last examined, I could not detect in this layer a single characteristic spicule of Hyalonema; fragments only of linear needles were mixed here and there with the sand. In other specimens, however, I have found the surface crowded with Hyalonema spicules; but I am confident that in these cases they were embedded simply as grains of sand, or any other foreign bodies might have been. The peristomial space contains a crown of at least sixty tentacles, in three alternating rows, those of the outer row the larger. The ten- tacles are short and conical, with the peculiar curve which is characteristic of Zoanihus and its allies; rather large oval thread cells are scattered sparingly in their walls.* The digestive sac is fluted and corrugated, and its upper portion only is attached to the body wall by about twenty membranous mesenteries. There is no trace of spicules, either silicious or calcareous, in the inner layer of the body wall, in the wall of the stomach, or in the mesenteries. There seems tome to be no character whatever to separate this zoophyte from the well-known zoantharian genus Faly- thoa, to which, following Professor Schultze, I have already referred it. I have not yet had time to examine many specimens with due care, but my present impression is that we are acquainted with three species of Palythoa incrusting the coils of two species of Hyalonema —1. the Palythoa with round, depressed, irregularly-arranged polyps, parasitical upon most of the specimens of Hyalonema Sieboldi from Japan ; * The crenated tentacle figured by Schultze (Taf. 5, Fig. 4) is not that of Palythoa, as stated by Dr. Gray (Ann. and Mag., Nat. Hist., Oct. 1866), but is a tentacle of the minute Alcyonarian parasite, which Professor Schultze detected within the pores and passages of the sponge. 92 On the “ Glass-Rope” Hyalonema. 2, the form with produced polyps, investing the same species, and distinguishing Hyalocheta Possiett of Brandt; and, 3, the species with oval polyps more regularly arranged, which seems to be constantly associated with Hyalonema Lusitani- cum. Such is an outline of the structure of Hyalonema, so far as it can be made out from dried specimens. After the careful microscopic observations of Schultze, I think there can be no doubt whatever that the silicious coil and the sponge form one organism. Perhaps the most conclusive proof of this is the essential correspondence in structure and plan of growth between the long spicules of the coil and the spicules of the body of the sponge; and the peculiarity of that mode of erowth distinguishes Hyalonema from most other sponges. Since Professor Schultze’s memoir was written, many additional specimens have been brought to Europe. All of these, so far as I know, are in the same dried and partially mutilated state. I saw, I should think, nearly a hundred in London last year. Most of them had lost all traces of the sponge, and almost all were coated through the greater part of their length with Palythoa. The zoophyte was often continued quite down to the lower end of the coil, which in all these cases was more or less truncated and injured. Many of the specimens had the egg-bags of a small shark or dog-fish attached to them. From the appearance of all I have little doubt that the coils had first of all got disengaged from their investing sponges by the decay of the sponges or by a storm, and that afterwards the Palythoa, and other animals and plants, attached themselves to the free coils lying between the rock-pools or between tide-marks. The two specimens figured in the woodcuts are among those in the Museum of Queen’s College, Belfast. In one of these (Fig. 1) the thin end of the coil is entirely coated with the incrusting zoophyte. ‘The polyps stand out considerably from the general surface of the crust, and here and there the ceenosare and the polyps run together into irregular, projecting, knob-like masses. ‘l'his specimen must clearly be-referred to the form named by Brandt Hyalocheta Possicti, indeed, it closely resembles the specimen from which Brandt’s figure was taken. One of the terminal polyps has been broken off, and’ the truncated, somewhat worn end of the coil has been thus exposed. As the thin end of the coil is always uncovered by the zoophyte when it is inserted imto and connected with the sponge, and as the coil could not possibly have been poised in the sponge without any attachment, and in its present condition, it is evident that in this case the “ polypigerous crust”? must have been extended over the end of the coil after the latter had become separated from the sponge. Sy : =o \ a i fF G. Sis tits Es aAK TN aes hy Ni ce MSS eet Woy SUT: ~ ») — has Waza Wi ma > es SEA Si fay Si) Yeas ENS K Ws ne , ae ay, 2 De cc hy : , i. a abs RE i Mid A ot Ne Pete eet.) 4 . bss S a ee ERS Se Ly Dige i. Bh SE Gee iM ate ee ee *, RG, A ® dy RY A - Vi 6 a a = A , Se adil ie A age Ns, Rat _ the Japan Hyalonema, which appear to On the “ Glass-Rope’”? Hyalonema. 93 Admitting , this, the zoophyte must have . grown over the lower end ofthe \\\W coil as it might have grown over any other foreign body, and this appears to me to be totally RN) inconsistent with the idea that the \W coil was originally secreted as an |W axis by the same animal. In the other specimen (Fig. 2), both ends of the coil have been frayed out, probably by long drifting in shallow water. The Palythoa occupies the central portion, and in extending in both direc- tions it has coated several of the indi- vidual spicules. Some of these are uni- formly incrusted by the arenaceous layer, the polyps standing out at intervals. This can be explained by no mode of branching of which we have any experi- ence. In Gorgoma or Antipathes, as in most other branching organisms, a young branch is a repetition of the early de- velopment of the stem from which it springs. A branch of Hyalonema, were this an animal or a colony capable of branching, would undoubtedly contain as its axis a fascicle of growing needles. A week or two ago, Dr. Gray received at the British Museum two specimens of me to be highly instructive. I was in the Museum when they arrived, and Dr. Gray, with characteristic generosity, placed them at my disposal for examination, before he had even had time to look at them carefully himself. In one of these the basal sponges was uninjured. No trace whatever of the Palythoa was to be seen on the coil. Wi It is well known that the Japa- }} nese often strip off the crust to im- prove the appearance of their j specimens. There are few things yy more fragile or more offensive than a loosely .meshed silicious Fie. 2. D4 On the “ Glass-Rope’? Hyalonema. sponge in its fresh state, and it is very unlikely that where the bark was so thoroughly removed, the sponge should have been saved. In the other specimen ‘the sponge was wanting, but the lower part of the rope was well coated with Palythoa. Into and through its crust were twined and twisted the suspending cords of the egg of a dog-fish, and in several places the indiscriminating zoophyte had erred from the glassy coil, and coated with a uniform and impartial layer, the cords of the dog-fish’s egg ! The glassy whisp of Hyalonema is certainly very remark- able, but it is not entirely without analogy. Hyalonema seems to represent the extreme form of a little group of sponges, including, with probably a few other known forms, Hwplectella (Alcyoncellum) speciosa (Quoi and Gaimard), and H. cucwmer (Owen). ‘The latter of these is an oval sponge, with silicious spicules whose form is somewhat analogous to that of the spicules of Hyalonema. From one end of the sponge a tuft of long silicious threads, resembling in structure those of the Japan sponge, twine round a stone, or other foreign body. Dr. Bowerbank isolated one of these spines of Huplectella, three inches lone. DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATE. Fig. 1. Hyalonema Sieboldi (Gray), from a specimen.in the British Museum. Vig. 9, fragment of the upper part.of one of the large needles of the coil ; ; Figs. 2—8, 10, various forms of spicules. . The Star Chamber: its Practice and Procedure. 95 THE STAR CHAMBER: ITS PRACTICE AND 7 PROCEDURE.* BY FRANCIS W. ROWSELL, Barister-at-Law. Tar only complete treatise on the practice and procedure of the Court of Star Chamber which has come down to us was written by William Hudson, Barrister, of Gray’s Inn, who practised in the court. Hudson did not publish his book, having, probably, before his eyes the terrors of a tri- bunal that fined, without respect to the salvo contenemento clause of the great charter, all who spoke “ with great severity against it,” and which ‘sometimes invented punishments in some new manner for new offences.” So wholesome a fear had the author of his subject, that even in the manuscript (which he did not mean to publish) he declined to discuss the nature of the jurisdiction of the court. ‘“ 1 will not,” he says, *“ dispute de jure et de facto, but declare, as briefly as I can, what matters are there usually determined.” Hudson left the manuscript to his son, who gave it, as appears by a note appended to it, to Chief Justice, afterwards Lord Keeper, Finch, on the 19th December, 1635. ‘The book was first _ printed and published in 1791-2, in the Collectanea Juridica, two volumes of Tracts relating to the Law and Constitution of England. ‘The original manuscript is No. 1226, vol. i. of the Harleian MSS. From the printed copy im the British Museum the following particulars relative to the Court of Star Chamber » have been chiefly drawn. As to the name of the court, Hudson says it was not derived from the ornaments of the room in which the sittings were held. He says, “I suppose the name to be given accor- ding to the nature of the judges thereof’; and to explain what he means, he talks some nonsense about the judges being stars who shine by the light reflected from the king, the sun of their system. He further says, that the name could not be derived from the ornaments, for they were in the room because they were the device on the seal of the court. Content with * 1. A Treatise of the Court of Star Chamber. By William Hudson. “This treatise was compiled by William Hudson, of Gray’s Inn, Esquire, one very much practised and of great experience in the Star Chamber, and my very affectionate friend. His son and heir, Mr. Christopher Hudson (whose handwriting this book is) after his father’s death gave it to me, 19 December, 1635. “Jo. Fincn.? (Lord Keeper—temp. Chas. I.) 2. An Essay upon the Original Authority of the King’s Council. By Sir Francis Palgrave, K.H. Published by the Record Commissioners, 1834. 96 The Star Chamber: tts Practice and Procedure. this derivation of the name, Hadson goes on to show how ancient a name it was, and quotes from a complaint made in 40 Edward III., by Elizabeth Studley on account of some wrong done to her by James Studley, upon which James Studley was ordered to appear before the Chancellor and other lords of the council, assembled in “ le chambre de estioles pris de la receipt ”? (Exchequer) at Westminster. The name has been derived from the Saxon yceopan, “ to steer or govern;” and also from the crimen stellionatus, ““cozenage,’ which the court punished; whilst Blackstone suggests the most reasonable origin of all when he observes that before the banishment of the Jews from England by Edward I., the Jewish covenants or contracts were called starra or starrs, a corruption of the Hebrew shetar. These covenants were, by an ordinance of Richard I., directed to be enrolled and kept in chests under three keys, in certain places, one of which was the Exchequer at Westminster; and no starr was valid unless it could be found in one of these depositories. The room in which they were kept in the Exchequer was pro- bably called the “ starr’’ chamber ; and Blackstone suggests that when the Jews were driven out, their covenants were destroyed, and the room in which they had been kept was appropriated to the use of the Privy Council. Sir Francis Palgrave, in his Hssay on the Original Authority of the King’s Council, says, ‘When Parliament assembled at Westminster, some of the principal chambers of the ancient and splendid palace were allotted for the despatch of business. ‘The Commons sat in the Chapter-house of the adjoining abbey. But the Painted Chamber, the White Chamber, and the Chambre Markolph— probably so-called from the legendary tale relating the trials to which the wisdom of Solomon was subjected by a Syrian peasant, depicted on its walls—were occupied by the triers and receivers of petitions. The council itself, whether ‘Parliament ’ was assembled or not, held its sittings in the ‘Starred Chamber,’ an apartment situated “in the outermost quadrangle of the palace, next the bank of the river, and con- sequently easily accessible to the suitors, and which at length was permanently appropriated to the use of the council.” It has been a common error to date the foundation of the Star Chamber from the third year of Henry VII. Even Lord Andover, who, in 1640, had charge of the bill which passed into “an act for regulating the Privy Council, and for taking away the court commonly called the Court of Star Chamber,” erroneously referred to 3 Henry VII. c. 1, asthe statute which had first founded the court. ‘This,’ he says, ‘ was the infancy of the Star Chamber. But afterwards the Star Chamber was, by Cardinal Wolsey, in the 8 Henry YIII., The Star Chamber : its Practice and Procedure. 97 raised to man’s estate, from whence (being now altogether unlimited) it is grown a monster.” The truth is, the statute of Henry VII. was the first statute that recognized the exist- ence of the Star Chamber, and conferred upon it judicial power; but the court or council, or both in one, existed long before Henry’s reign. If we go to the length Hudson does, we shall have to believe what he certainly suggests, that the Star Chamber was “ the council”? referred to when a man was told that he stood “in danger of the council”? for saying to his brother “ Raca.”? But without carrying the matter quite so far back, it will be found thatin Edward the First’s time distinct mention is made of the Star Chamber, which appears to have exercised the mixed functions of a judicial and governmental council. At this time it was composed of the chancellor, the treasurer, the justices of either bench, the escheators, serjeants, some of the principal clerks in Chancery, “ and such others— usually, but not exclusively, bishops, earls, and barons—as the king thought fit to name.” Palgrave says: ‘ Oncertain occa- sions it appears that the official members sat and acted alone ; but that on others they were united to the rest.” This council is the same body which is alluded to in very many statutes subsequently to Hdward I. as that before which offenders in certain cases are ordered to appear, and by some of which authority is given to the ‘‘ King’s Council” to do certain things. Hudson says, when ridiculing the notion that his favourite court was established by the statute of Henr VIL., that it is ‘a doating which no man that hath looked upon the records of the court would have lighted upon.” In order rightly to understand the constitution of the court, and to trace the source whence it derived its authority, it should be remembered that there were three councils known, in practice at least, to the English law—the Commune Con- cilium, the Magnum Concilium, and the Privatum Concilium. Of these three, the first was the general assembly of the military tenants of the crown, answering to the House of Lords of to-day ; the second was that large committee of the first to which the king looked for advice in his government, and to which he referred petitions and complaints made to himself ; the third was a select committee of the second council, supple- mented by certain judges and serjeants, who sat as assessors. To this select committee were sent, in the course of time, not only all questions as between subject and subject, which had been submitted by petition to the king, or his Magnum Con- cilium, but also all complaints—and they seem to have been pretty numerous—of misconduct and injustice on the part of the royal officers. If the second council may be said to have borne to the first the same relation that the Privy Council now VOL. XI.—NO. II. H 98 The Star Chamber: its Practice and Procedure. bears to the House of Lords, the third council may be said to have borne to the second a relation somewhat similar to that which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council now bears to the Council itself. From hearing complaints upon petition, to instituting pro- ceedings on its own account, whether by causing the Attorney- General to bring informations against particular persons before it, or by summons under the privy seal, was neither a long nor a difficult stage in the progress of the court; and we find— the troublous times of Henry VI. favouring the growth of excesses of all kinds—that in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV. the select committee of the Privy Council, while discharging those judicial functions of the council which it derived from the parent council, the House of Lords, arrogated to itself a power in criminal causes which was often bene- ficially exercised, but was too unbounded not to tempt the wielders to abuse it. A glance at the headings of many of the earlier statutes, a cursory glance at the roll of the Exchequer, will show the crying need there must have been for some supreme and powerful judicial arm to overawe the passions of vindictive officers acting in the king’s name, and to counteract the wide- spread disease of the “itching palm,” which caused the judges to sell, delay, and pervert justice. The fact that statutes were passed against judicial crookedness and rapacity, is proof enough that such crookedness and rapacity existed; and when we find entries on the roll of the Exchequer of so.many hens, of a butt of wine, of money given to the king that the giver might “have justice,’ we are tempted to ask, Who guarded the guardians of the right? The 52 Henry III. (the statute of Marlbridge) c. 11, forbids the payment of a fine to the judge to induce him to grant a fair hearing; the statute of Westminster the First, 3 Ed. I. c. 25, forbids the clerks of the court to encourage litigation for the sake of the court fees ; the 38 Kd. III. st. 1. c.12, provides a punishment for jurors who take bribes; the 20 Ed. III. st. iv. c. 1 and 2, prohibit the judges from taking fees, or giving counsel in suits to which the king is a party; and there are others of a like nature here and there in the statute-book, down to the 3 Hen. VII. c. 1, which last act shows in its preamble the necessity that still pre- vailed for curbing judicial wickedness in high places. The statute 3 Hen. VII. c.1,1is called An Acte geving the Court of Star Chamber authority to punyshe dyvers mysde- meanors. It recites that “the King our Sovereign Lord remembereth how, by unlawful maintenance, giving of liveries, signs, and tokens, and retainers by indenture, promises, oaths, writing or otherwise, embraciaries of his subjects, untrue The Star Chamber: its Practice and Procedure. 99 demeaning of sheriffs in making of panels, and other untrue returns, by taking of money by juries, by great rots and unlawful assemblies, the policy and good rule of this realm is almost subdued”’; and then goes on to ordain that ‘the Chancellor and Treasurer of England for the time being, and the Keeper of the King’s Privy Seal, or two of them, calling to them a bishop and a temporal lord of the King’s most honourable Council, and the two Chief Justices of the King’s Bench and Common Pleas for the time being, or other two justices in their absence, upon bill or information put to the said Chancellor for the king, or any other, against any person for any misbehaving afore rehearsed, have authority to call before them, by writ or privy seal, the said misdoers ; and them and others by their discretions to whom the truth may be known to examine; and such as they find therein defective, to punish them after their demerits, after the form and effect of statutes thereof made in like manner and form as they should and ought to be punished if they were thereof convict after the due order of the law.” The reasons why such a court as the Star Chamber should exist, and the sort of authority Parliament intended to give it, are thus set forth, at the same time that it is evident the power conferred by the act is given to a court already in exist- ence, and specially described as ‘the Court of Star Chamber.” Lord Bacon, writing of the Star Chamber, says: ‘“ This court is one of the sagest and noblest institutions of this kingdom. For in the distribution of courts of ordinary justice, besides the High Court of Parliament, in which distribution the King’s Bench holdeth the pleas of the crown, the Common Pleas pleas civil, the Exchequer pleas concerning the king’s revenue, and the Chancery the pretorian power for mitigating the rigour of law, in case of extremity, by the conscience of a good man; there was, nevertheless, always reserved a high and pre- eminent power to the King’s Council in causes that might, in example or consequence, concern the state of the common- wealth, which, if they were criminal, the council used to sit in the chamber called the Star Chamber; if civil in the White Chamber, or Whitehall. And as the Chancery had the pre- torian power for equity, sothe Star Chamber had the censorian power for offences under the degree of capital. This court of Star Chamber is composed of good elements, for it consisteth of four kinds of persons—counsellors, peers, prelates, and chief judges. It discerneth also principally of four kinds of causes—forces, frauds, crimes various of stellionate, and the inchoations or middle acts towards crimes capital or heinous, not actually committed or perpetrated. But that which was principally aimed at by this act was force, and the two chief. 100 The Star Chamber: its Practice and Proceduyre. supports of force, combination of multitudes, and maintenance or headship of great persons.’’* Up to the time when, as Palgrave says, “ the Star Chamber raged with savage vigour for the punishment of mere political offences,” it would not seem that the court had drawn any great amount of odium to itself by acts of tyranny done in the name of justice. There were, now and again, complaints made that the council took notice of causes which ought to be tried at common law; but, on the whole, the court had worked for the public good, discharging some of the functions which are now exercised by the courts of Chancery, Queen’s Bench, Admiralty, and Probate, and constituting, in criminal matters, a kind: of court of conscience, administering justice rather according to the particular circumstances of the case than the law of it,,and having the advantage of freedom from the forms and trammels of the common law procedure. It could adjourn a case for further evidence, which a law court could not ; it could examine and cross-examine the principals in a cause civil or criminal, and it was entirely free from the highly technical system of pleading which -often worked injustice in the common law courts. Whether a civil and a criminal court, erected out of distinct committees of the Privy Council, sat at the same time and by virtue of the same authority, as Lord. Bacon would seem to suggest, is a question involved in much obscurity ; but it is at least not irreconcilable with his state- ment to suppose that the same members of the Privy Council discharged both the civil and criminal functions of. that body, only changing their place of meeting according to the business * Tt is but right to state what that great father of English law, Sir E. Coke, who was to Francis Bacon what the Chief Justice of to-day is to the youngest barrister that is “sure to make his way,” says on the subject of the Star Chamber. Sir E. Coke (Jnstitutes, Part 4, c. 5) begins by showing out of the Rolls of Parliament and Year Books the nature of the cases triable in the Star Chamber. These are identical with those set forth in the present paver. He then says that formerly the Court sat rarely, because it was not often that flagrant occasion was given for its interference; and because then it did not meddle with causes which the other Courts were competent to try. He goes on to show that the statute of Henry VII. did not originate the Court of Star Chamber, and claims to the credit of the Court that it dealt with offences “especially of great men,” . : “to the end that the medicine may be according to the disease, and the punish- ment according to the offence.” Sir E. Coke says the Court is named of “ Star Chamber ” because “ the*roof is starred.” He explains the holding of the Court coram rege et concilio to mean, 1. Before Lords and others of his Majesty’s Privy Council. 2. Before the Judges of either bench, and the Barons of the Exchequer. 3. Before the Lords of Parliament, who however were not standing Judges unless they were also Privy Councillors. And hehad so high an opinion of the Court that he says, “It is the most honourable Court (our Parliament excepted) that is in the Christian world, both in respect of the Judges of the Court, and of their honourable proceedings according to their just jurisdiction, and the ancient and just orders of the Court.” The Star Chamber: its Practice and Procedure. 101 they had to transact. Sir Francis Palgrave, however, would appear to think that the criminal jurisdiction of the Privy Council was alone vested in the Court of Star Chamber, the jurisdiction in civil causes being retained by the body of the council. For, after stating that the statute of Henry VII., which declared the authority of the court, and the 21 Henry VIII. c. 20, which added the President of the Council to the other members, “ virtually created the Court of Star Chamber as it existed under the Tudors,” says: ‘‘The Privy Council, sitting as such at Whitehall and Greenwich, gradually aban- doned its criminal jurisdiction to those of its members who assembled at Westminster, conjointly with the justices of either bench, and under the direction of the Lord High Chan- cellor.” Though itis quite likely that the Privy Council reserved to itself the right to hear any complaint which might be brought before it, notwithstanding it had delegated so much of its judicial power to its committee—a right which privy counsellors sometimes questionably claimed to exercise by taking their seats at the board in the Star Chamber, though they were not regular members of that court—it is certain the council, as such, did not, at least under the ‘l'udors and the Stuarts, habitually sit as a court of appeal or as a court of first instance. Whatever the theory might have been, the practice was, since the declaratory act of Henry VII., for the Star Chamber to discharge both the criminal and civil business of the council. It will be as well here to ascertain what power was actually wielded by the Star Chamber, what the procedure in the court was from summons to execution, and then to indicate the causes which led to its ruin. | The Court of Star Chamber had jurisdiction both in civib and criminal causes, and could enforce its sentences by any punishment short of death, and dispossession of frecholds.. Even these two extreme punishments it was able to inflict by indirect means, as will be shown later on. As a court of civil law, it entertained suits by the king’s. almoner for the delivery of deodands, and the goods of" suicides, felons, etc. It also took cognizance of “great matters. of interest betwixt the king and his subjects, which are accom- panied with conveniency of state as well as mewm and tuum.” One large branch of its practice lay in the hearing of causes against corporations, abbeys, great lords, and others whom it was difficult to reach through the common channels of the law. It was a reason very frequently given for applying to the council that the defendant was a person of so great influ- ence that a fair trial could not be had at common law. Alien merchants, women who had been cheated of their jointure, suitors in testamentary matters, in prize claims, in actions for 102 The Star Chamber : its Pract and Procedure. collisions at sea, and the people of Jersey and Guernsey, appeared as parties to actions in this court. No other means of redress were available for them, and so long as the Star Chamber furnished the means, it was doing good service, and no one felt disposed to question too closely the soundness of its jurisdiction. Whenever a question arose involving the title to a freehold, the practice of the court was to send the issue to be tried in one of the common law courts, and when the return was made to proceed with the cause to which such question had been meidental. As a court of appeal, it does not seem to have done much, though theoretically an appeal lay to it from the courts of the Wardens of the Marches, the courts of the Stanaries, and those of the counties Palatine ; and there are instances recorded of writs of certiorari addressed to these courts, ordering cases which had been brought before them to be transferred to the Court of Star Chamber. As a criminal court, the jurisdiction extended to “ cases which in strictness of law cannot be otherwise questioned, and may be here examined”; causes of special limitation by Act of Parliament ; and causes which were also cognizable by the courts of common law. The way in which the court laid hold of offences of the class last mentioned may be best stated in Hudson’s own words. He says: “‘ Being now to treat of criminal causes I must begin with the highest, and therein I shall show that all offences may be here examined and punished, if it be the king’s pleasure, as treason and murder, felony and trespass; but then are not all these offences punished as trespasses, and not capitally ; for if it please the kg to remit his justice, and yet not so that the world shall have notice of the offence, he may call a traitor to this bar, and take acknowledgment, and fine and ransom him.” ‘Thus it was under a show of mercy, of a desire to mitigate the severity of the law, without setting the law aside, that cases which were properly triable at common law, were brought into the Star Chamber ; and the benefit supposed to accrue to a man in consequence was deemed to outweigh the disadvantage of trial by persons who were not his peers, nor sworn to do justice th his particular case. Hudson is of opinion that this last was very far from being a disadvantage, for he says, ‘‘ subjects may ‘as safely repose themselves in the bosoms of those honourable lords, reverend prelates, grave judges, and worthy chancellors, asin the heady current of burgesses and meaner men, who run too often in a stream of passion after their own or some private man’s affections.” ‘The tender considerations of the prince for his erring subjects, his refusal even at the cost of violations of the constitution, to hand them over to condign ———— The Star Chamber : its Practice and Procedure. 103 punishment, which would only have the effect of hardenmg or destroying them, are ingeniously put by the apologist of the court; but though there might be some ground for this assertion with reference to Plantagenet times—but then the criminal jurisdiction of the Star Chamber was not developed —people will not be disposed to give the princes of the House of Tudor still less of the House of Stuart, credit for so much disinterestedness and exalted virtue. They will, it is to be feared, rather think that the power to “take acknowledgment, fine, and ransom,” of people who else would be destroyed or imprisoned at the king’s expense, for their offences, was the reason why common law offences should have been drawn into the Star Chamber. As a matter of fact this was so. Hmpson and Dudley set the hateful example of exacting enormous fines under colour of a judicial sanction, which was not based upon any known rule of law, but was dictated by the caprice of the judge or the emptiness of the exchequer at the moment. Though these men were punished for their temerity, their ex- ample had many imitators. Ruinous fines were inflicted for offences perfectly venial, without any regard to that clause of the Great Charter, which forbids the imposition of such a fine as will disable a man from earning his livelihood. Even Hud- son speaks of the fines as “trenching to the destruction of the offender’s estate, and utter ruin of him and _ his posterity.” : The causes which “in strictness of law cannot be otherwise questioned, and may be here examined,” included forgery, perjury, riot, maintenance, fraud, libel, and conspiracy. The perjury was not merely that committed by a witness coram jwdice. For such an offence punishment was provided by 5 — Elizabeth c. 9, which inflicted a fine of twenty pounds, or in default sentenced the delinquent to the pillory and nailing of both ears. In considering punishment, the Star Chamber acted analogously to the statute, but extended its authority very much further. It punished perjuries committed by jury- men, who gave a verdict against the evidence, or sold their verdict, or did anything which the Star Chamber, judging of fact, law, and punishment, deemed to constitute perjury ; and this last came to mean that any jury which had given a verdict contrary to what the court thought should have been given, was “in danger of the council.” There are many instances of heavy fines imposed upon juries, one of the most celebrated being that of the jury in 4 and 5 Philip and Mary, which acquitted Throckmorton of treason, upon evidence which the Star Chamber thought sufficient to warrant a conviction. The jurors were imprisoned, and some of them attempting to jus- tify themselves before the council, were fined in sums varying from two thousand pounds to a thousand markseach. Other 104. The Star Chamber: its Practice and Procedure. cases there are in abundance, but Hudson’s words are conclu- sive to show the practice of the court toward those whom it considered to have broken their oaths to ‘ well and truly try, and true deliverance make.” He says, ‘‘ And in the reigns of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Queen Mary, and the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, there was scarce one term pretermitted but some grand inquest or jury was fined for acquitting felons or murderers.” In this way the Star Chamber which refrained from sentences of death, sometimes intimidated juries into ver- dicts which were against their consciences and their oaths, for it was not often a jury made such a stand as that which acquitted Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. But before condemning wholly the practice of the court in regard to juries, it will be as well to ascertain whether there was any ground on which its practice might rest, and very little search will prove that there actually was such ground. Hudson cites a number of cases in which the jury had been “laboured” beforehand, and gave their verdict without regard to the evidence ; but a less partial witness than he, Sir Francis Palgrave, in his treatise on the Privy Council already quoted, says, “ trial by jury has been, and may be, so affected by the general position of society as to become an active instrument of mischief and oppression. ‘l'riak by jury may now be called a tribunal composed of the peers of the defendant or of the accused. It has become so, at least in theory, by the alteration of the law, which allows the jury to be the judges of the truth of the evidence given before them, but this practice is comparatively recent, and engrafted upon the ancient institution.” The jurors in former times were in fact the witnesses, being summoned for the very reason that they knew or were supposed to know, about the facts in the cause to be tried. ‘The sheriff was bound to summon such persons whose knowledge was often derived from no more than mere gossip, the hearsay of the village or the district. Jurors with minds already prejudiced, or so well informed upon the facts of the case as to allow of prejudices previously enter- tained having play, were the triers; and it is not remarkable that they often arrived at verdicts both i improper and untrue. In much later times the difficulty has been experienced of procuring the only verdicts warranted by the evidence — e.g., Welsh juries—imbued with local or national sympathies, © and when the potency of such sympathies in remote ages, coupled with the constitution of the juries as already described is taken into consideration, one. is able to see at least a possi- ble need for the interference of the council in order to keep clean the fountains of justice. In the 33 Edward L., the king and council agreed upon a definition of ‘ conspiracy,” which was intended to include jurors. Those who bound themselves The Star Chamber: its Practice and Procedure. 105 “by oath, covenant, or alliance, that each will aid and sustain the other in falsely and maliciously indicting or causing to be indicted, or in falsely acquitting, or in raising and maintaining any false plea,” were to be deemed conspirators. The courts of law, however, held that jurors were not within this defi- nition, and the evil which the king and council intended to remedy, remaining unabated, the sovereign arm was kept stretched out until the evil having disappeared, while the remedy grew ever more powerful, it became itsalf to be an unbearable nuisance. But originally this was not so. Besides taking notice of perjury in the common law courts, the Star Chamber punished the same offence when committed in the Keclesiastical, Stannary, and Chancery courts. Riot included unlawful assemblies, forcible entries and de- tainers, waylaying for the purpose of committing an assault, assaults on privileged persons, and duels. ‘These were, most of them, common law offences, but were triable in the Star Chamber by virtue of that extraordinary power which the court arrogated to itself in the course of time, and which was confirmed by 3 Henry VII. c. 1. With regard to duellists, though at times they were severely punished, especially if there had been any knavery in the arrangements for carrying out the duel, at other times the punishment imposed on them was no more than that the reprimand of the court should be read by the judge of assize, on his next arrival in the neigh- bourhood where the duel had taken place. Fraud included conveyances and gifts in order to defraud creditors. Maintenance was not only the factious support given by great men to their inferiors in order to enable them to maintain their suits at law till the defendant, a person inimical to the lord, was weary to pursue his right or was ruined, but it included the meaner sins of pettifoggers who backed up a doubtful or a dirty case on the understanding that costs should come out of the other side. Of the law of libel, which was moulded in the Star Cham- ber, Hudson says, “In all ages libels have been severely punished in this court, but most especially they began to be frequent about the forty-second and forty-third of Eliza- beth, when Sir KH. Coke was her Attorney-General. In the eye of the court a man was guilty of libel who “ scoffed at the person of another in rhyme or prose”; if he personated him “thereby to make him ridiculous”; if he annoyed him by parading his effigy in a contemptuous manner; “ or by writ- ing of some base or defamatory letter, and publishing the same to others, or some scurvy love-letter to himself, whereby it is not likely but he should be provoked to break the peace ; or to publish disgraceful or false speeches against any eminent 106 The Star Chamber: tts Diasicn and Procedure. man or public officer.” There are cases of convictions for libel where the accused “ spoke certain words against the Lord Cardinal ”’; used uncivil words to the Sheriff of London ; and in Klzabeth’s time a man was pilloried for saying Lord Dyer was a corrupt judge. Whitelocke, a barrister, was charged before the court for having advised a client that a commission issued by James I. was illegal. John Selden was, in the same reign, summoned on account of a passage in his History of Tithes, whereby he had thrown doubt upon the clergy’s claim of divine right to them. Some students of Lincoln’s Inn were brought before the court for having at a wine party drunk ‘ Confusion to the Archbishop !” (Laud). The informer against them was their own servant, and the Earl of Dorset, who sat at the council board, took advantage of the circumstance to excuse the stu- dents by suggesting that the man being constantly in and out of the room, had heard only part of the toast, which, he said, probably was, ‘ Confusion tothe Archbishop’s enemies!” The students were dismissed with a severe reprimand. Publishers of a libel were as severely punished as the makers; and ‘“‘ to hear it sung or read, and to laugh at it, and to make merriment with it, hath ever been held a publication in law,” says Hud- son, who would also appear to be the high priest of that im- moral doctrine, until recently taught by the English law, that the greater the truth the greater is the libel. For when citing a case in which a “scandalous letter’ had been sent, he says with some show of indignation, “and yet the defendant would have undertaken to have proved the contents of the letter to have been true, he thereby charging himself (the plaintiff) with bribery and extortion in his place.” Further on he mentions “‘two gross errors. 1. That it is no libel if the party put his hand unto it. 2. Thatit is not alibelif it be true; both which have been long since expelled out of this court.” Conspiracy included false accusations and malicious prose- cutions. A man named Lee was pilloried, lost his ears, and was branded with F. A. on the face, for accusing some lords of the Gunpowder Plot. In virtue of its high jurisdiction, “which by the arm of sovereignty punisheth errors creeping into the Commonwealth, .... yea, although no positive law or continued: custom of common law giveth warrant toit,” the Star Chamber punished disobedience to royal proclamations ; attempts to coin, to com- mit burglary or murder; and to extort money from foolish young men through the medium of infamous women feigning themselves married. It also punished uncivil conduct towards magistrates ; arresters of privileged-persons, the keepers of dicing-houses, and bowling alleys; enticers of young men into unthrifty marriages; engrossers of wares in order to raise the The Star Chamber: its Practice and Procedure. 107 price ; spreaders of false news; entanglers of young men in money difficulties; invokers of evil spirits. Favouritism by sheriffs, troublesome behaviour on the part of members of guilds, misconduct of privy councillors, abuse of authority by officials—as when Latcher and Skinner whipped Mrs. Nevill in Bridewell—were all punished in the Star Chamber; “ina word, there is no offence punishable by any law, but if the court find it to grow in the Commonwealth, this court may lawfully punish it, except only where life is questioned.” ) Arrests were made under a privy seal, or on the warrant of the board. Summonses were issued by the same authority. The accused was privately examined, and encouraged to confess and submit himself to the mercy of the court, whereby he often met a lighter sentence than if the law were allowed to run its ordinary course with him. “ But in all these cases this is a court rather of mercy than of justice, for if those capital offences should be proceeded against capitally, then must men be tried by course of indictment by their peers per legem terre” (Hud- son). Jf the prisoner confessed, his admission was written down, and shown to him when he was brought to the bar, and then if he recognized it, sentence was passed according to the discretion of the court; if he denied it, witnesses were called to prove it, and Hudson says that in such cases the court in _ his time often strained the confession unfairly against the pri- soner. There was no jury, and the court needed not to be unanimous. ‘he president had a casting vote. Concerning punishments, Hudson says they are “now of late imposed secundum qualitatem delicti, and not fitted to the estate of the person so that they are rather in terrorem populi than for the true end for which they were intended.” If this was true of Hudson’s time, it was much more true of the time of the next and last generation of practitioners in the Star Cham- ber. The fines imposed by the court in Charles the First’s reign were so wildly extravagant that they defeated the object of the imposers, unless, as was the case with the last judgments pro- nounced by the Star Chamber, the intention was to imprison indefinitely as well as to ruin irretrievably. Imprisonments were ordered in the Fleet, in the Tower, and formerly in the Marshalsea, Loss of ears was the lot of “ perjured persons, infamous libellers, scandalors of the state, and such like.” Brand- ing in the face and slitting the nose were the punishments of forgers of false deeds, conspirators to take away the life of in- nocents, false scandal upon the judges, and first personages of the realm.” Whipping was used in “great deceits,” and in cases where ‘a clamorous person in jformd pauperis prose- euteth another falsely, and is not able to pay him his costs.” There was also the punishment of “wearing papers,” which, 108 The Star Chamber: its Practice and Procedure. notwithstanding, Hudson saysit “ hath been used in all ages,” IT have not been able to ascertain what it was. It seems to have been at one time the punishment for perjury, “‘ but since Blizabeth, a punishment for oppressors and great deceits.” ““Sometimes the punishment is by the wisdom of the court invented in some new manner for new offences, as for Traske, who raised Judaism up from death, and forbade the eating of swine’s flesh. He was sentenced to be fed with swine’s flesh when he was in prison.”? In a civil cause damages were assessed by the court, the intervention ofa jury being a oe unknown there. The orders and sentences of the Star Chamber were en- forced, and contempts were punished by fine and imprison- ment ; but Hudson says, and we may without any effort believe him, “there was scarce a man found so impudent as would struggle with the sentence of this high court.” Such were the practice and procedure of the Star Chamber administering the judicial powers of the Privy Council. So great an authority, so undefined, and so avowedly beyond the control of either statute or common law, could not fail to be abused, however beneficial the exercise of it might originally have been. As satisfying a want which the known law did not meet, as a corrector of abuses, ‘‘ creeping into the Com- monwealth,” as the curber of licentious and violent persons, and as the means of putting in action the king’s patria potes- tas for the protection of women, wards, and adolescents, and for other domestic purposes, the Star Chamber was -well suited to the men and manners of a half-barbarous era. It was, also, perhaps, justified by the exceptional position in which Hliza- beth and her government found themselves, and it is certain that in Elizabeth’s reign the authority of the Star Chamber was at its height. But such an institution was altogether un- fitted for Englishmen of the time of James I. and Charles I. The ills which it was designed to remedy had, many of them, disappeared, and such as remained the common law courts and the Court of Chancery were quite able to cope with. Asa matter of fact, the Star Chamber had of late years.relinquished to those courts a vast amount of its business. It applied itselfas an instrument of state rather than of law, to the punishment of ““mere political offences,” and gradually intensified the extra- _ vagance of its decrees till it raged with that “ savage vigour” which procured its overthrow. Almost the first business of the House of Commons in the first Session of 1641 was to take into its serious consideration the petitions of Prynne, Burton, Bastwtick, Alexander Leigh- ton, and Lilburne, who had suffered the worst of the Star Chamber’s terrors, for offences purely political, and some of The Star Chameer: tts Practice and Procedure. 109 them so trifling, even when judged by the Star Chamber’s rules, that had there not been vengeance to satisfy, much more than a desire to prevent inconvenience to the State, the petitioners could not have been sentenced to the dreadful punishments of which they underwent the most ignominious part. The debate, as reported by Rushworth, will well repay the labour of read- ing it. The result of the debate was the appointment ofa ~ committee, upon whom was laid the duty of examining into the merits of the petitions. The petitioners were released from the dungeons into which they had been flung by the patria potestas ; and Lord Andover, upon the report of the committee, obtained leave to bring in his Bill for the abolition of the Star Chamber. Hither intentionally or ignorantly, probably the former, he gave the go-bye to the fact that the Star Chamber had existed before the statute of Henry VII., and taking that statute for his standpoint, as the first which had recognized the court at all, he proceeded to show how the authority con- ferred by it had been abused. The House of Commons passed the Bill, and sent it to the Upper House. Their lordships de- sired a conference, and proposed that the Star Chamber, instead of being abolished, should be once more restricted in its operation to the statute of Henry VII. But the Commons were determined to wipe out the blot altogether from the Con- stitution, and after a slight resistance the Lords passed the Bill. The 16 Charles I., c.10, An Act for the Regulating the Privy Council, and for taking away the Court commonly called the Star Chamber, recites a number of statutes relating to the council, and the two statutes relating to the Star Cham- ber, and with special reference to the 3 Henry VIL., c. 1, says, “‘ But the said judges have not kept themselves to the points limited by the said statute, but have undertaken to punish where no law doth warrant, and to make decrees for things haying no such authority, and to inflict heavier punishments than by any law is warranted”; and because matters taken before the Star Chamber can be taken in the ordinary course of justice, elsewhere and by common law; ‘‘ and forasmuch as the reasons and motives inducing the erection and continuing of that court do now cease, and the proceedings, censures, and decrees of that court have by an experience been found to be an intolerable burden to the subjects, and the means to intro- duce an arbitrary power and Government”; and also because of the mischievous meddling of the court in civil causes, whereby “great and manifold mischiefs and inconveniences have arisen and happened, and much uncertainty by means of such proceedings hath been conceived concerning men’s rights and estates,” the Act goes on to abolish in the-most sweeping 110 Indian Insects—House Visitants. way the hateful court, and to forbid the restoration of it or the erection of any court like it. This was a bitter morsel for Charles to swallow. It de- prived him of the power to enrich his treasury by fines which could be imposed at the discretion of his own councillors; and it took away that power, yet dearer to arbitrary men, of vin- dictively pursuing and cruelly punishing those who dared to resist his ordinances. It was tendered for his assent along with the bill for abolishing the High Commission; and when, on the 3rd July, 1641, the king came down to the House of Lords to give his assent to a number of bills, it was supposed these two would have been among them. The discontent which followed upon the discovery that these bills were held over, expressed itself so strongly that it reached the king’s ears. Charles came down on the 5th July, and assented to the abolition bills, and referring to the discontent, said, ‘‘ Me- thinks it seems strange that anyone should think I could pass two bills of that importance that these were, without taking some fit time to consider of them; for it is no less than to alter, in a great measure, those fundamental laws, ecclesiastical and civil, which many of my predecessors have established.” INDIAN INSECTS—HOUSE VISITANTS. BY THE REV. R. HUNTER, M.A. Towarps the middle of June, when the Indian hot season is about to terminate, let the eye turn where it will, it sees vegetation languishing and all but dead. For eight months previously there has scarcely been a shower; for two anda half there has blown a wind, hot as the blast of a furnace, which has reduced rivers of respectable magnitude to brooks, and has left streams of inferior size literally dry channels. Trees or plants with leaves of a lively green are scarcely to be met with, except in gardens where appliances exist for arti- ficial irrigation. ‘The animals have crept away into corners, and are at no season of the year less obtrusive. Indeed, one great section of the animal kingdom—the insect class—is almost wanting, the greater number of its varied tribes exist- ing at that season in the chrysalis state. But by and by, clouds, escaping over the tops, or through the passes of that great rocky rampart which figures in maps as the Western Ghauts, pile themselves around the central Indian sky. After having several times threatened rain, and again withdrawn the menace, till the repeated crying of “ wolf, Indian Insects—House Visitants. — 111 wolf” has produced the usual effect of making people pay little or no attention to the warning voice, even when it sounds more earnest than usual, they finally begin to discharge themselves on the earth. Sometimes the rainy season (caused by the south- west monsoon) comes on gradually: more commonly, how- ever, a magnificent thunder storm inaugurates its reign. The dry and thirsty land in a few hours becomes green as emerald, and the animals reassert their place in creation. It would scarcely be relevant to the present subject to point out the several elements which go to constitute the wondrous transfor- mation so gladdening to the eye: it 1s enough to note the phe- nomena presented by the insect world. Within a week after the rainy season has established itself, the number of insects which have quitted the state of suspended animation, if one can call it so, and flown forth from their livine graves, is very great, nor are their beauties withheld from human observation. The night has just set in, outside the atmosphere is moist, inside it is somewhat close, and Pater- familias, in sitting down to tea, directs that the doors shall be thrown open. ‘The order is carried out, when a multitude of uninvited guests at once present themselves, attracted, it must in justice be stated, not by his viands, but by the argand lamp which burns so brilliantly upon his table. They are msects of very varied families. On the first two or three occasions when this occurs, the novelty of the spectacle makes one reluctant to interfere with it in any way; but before long scientific ardour receives a check of an unromantic character. As roughs may intermingle with thoroughly respectable pro- cessionists, so flying bugs, especially a black species, troop in at the door with the rest of the insect world, and, being some- what clumsy in their flight, are exceedingly prone to fall full length into the cups of tea. Their smell is precisely that of the domestic pest to which they have so close an affinity ; and we fancied, though it may have been no more than fancy, that they imparted both that, and a peculiar taste to the tea into which they tumbled, so that in all cases the cup degraded by the presence of such visitants was sent away. It was therefore found the best policy to keep the doors closed till tea was over, and then fling them open, to afford ingress to the insect crowd waiting outside. When at length leave was granted, the rush began. In they trooped, great and small, representatives of this, and representatives of that order: all directing their way to the common centre of attraction, the lamp upon the table. It was impossible to prevent many from burning their wings or perishing in the flame. The Coleoptera figured in large numbers, many distinct families sending each a contingent to the general muster. One 112 Indian Insects—House Visitants. or two predatory Cicindelas were there, though smaller in size, and more sombre in colour than the pretty species of this country. The lamellicorn beetles came; but there was no- thing to wonder at in this: it being very common, even when other insects were absent, for a species of this tribe, belonging to the genus Bulboceros to wing its droning flight in at the door, and up and down the room, after which it was wont to tumble backwards on the ground, and lie struggling for some time before it could regain its footing, or acquire lever power sufficient to rise upon the wing. Species of genera with soft elytra were, beyond others, numerous in individuals; and this was remarkable about them, as it was indeed more or less of all the other families, that every fortmight or so, the species changed, those that were common at the beginning growing more rare, and those of which there had been seen but a single individual or two becoming numerous. One of the Cimicide has been already mentioned. Other Hemiptera presented themselves for observation, the one that left the deepest trace upon the memory being a large Reduvius, which on being seized, would turn round, and with its suctorial mouth inflict a deep envenomed wound on the finger. The Orthoptera sent to the assembly some species of the locust family, this being noticeable about their habits that, whereas the other insects, while they remained with us, kept with tolerable steadiness to the table, and somehow managed to take themselves off altogether before morning, these, after having had enough of the table, manifested certain proclivities towards the wall, with which they soon made acquaintance and from which they were in no hurry to depart, for they were often to be seen standing there in a sleepy way after sunrise. A very interesting Neuropterous insect, though not abund- ant, was still occasionally to be met with—the Myrmecoleon or ant lion. It was like a dragon fly, but had much more conspicuous antenne, and doubtless came from the neighbour- ing hill, where its larvee might be disinterred from the bottom of small funnel-sbaped holes in the light sandy soil. But of all the Neuroptera none figured so conspicuously as the Termites or white ants. ‘They were in company with a large black ant of the Hymenopterous order, to which they seemed in some way mysteriously drawn. The Termites which flew around the lamp had four gauzy wings, but attached to them so lightly that when they dashed against any solid body, their wings flew off, and they became degraded into creeping things, very much like ear-wigs but without the forceps. _ : The curious insect-drama never looked more anomalous than when it was enacted during the time of divine service in church. The Climate of Great Britain. 113 In all probability the lights on either side of the pulpit were brighter than those in other parts of the sacred edifice, and, in consequence, the stream of insect church-goers winged their way thither in quest of enlightenment. Some, loving it “ not wisely but to well,” soon fell a sacrifice to their ardour ; others, directing their course more skilfully, danced in mazy circles around the attractive object, as planets might revolve about a central sun. Some white ants struck the face of the preacher, _ others deemed his neck the proper target against which to direct their energies, and impinging upon it, fell as creeping things upon, or occasionally inside his dress; while, if he aimed at reading correctly, it was necessary for him from time to time to brush away the wings from his book. It were well worth the while of those British entomologists who have correspondents in India to obtain from them all the species that frequent these tea-table gatherings, requesting at the same time that accurate note may be taken of the date at which each species first appears, the time when it reaches its maximum in point of numbers, and that again at which it has so far declined that it can scarcely be met with. Such an in- vestigation, if prosecuted simultaneously in various parts of India, and the results compared, the identifications of course not being left to the iocal observers but undertaken by eminent entomologists at home, could not fail to prove interesting in a high degree. ee THE CLIMATE OF GREAT BRITAIN. BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR, B.A., F.R.A.S. Ir there is one feature in the material relations of a country which may be considered as characteristic—as of itself sufficient to define the qualities of the inhabitants, and the position they are fitted to occupy in the world’s history—it is climate. “It includes,” says Humboldt, “all those modifications of the atmosphere by which our organs are affected—such as tempe- rature, humidity, variations of barometric pressure, its tran- quillity or subjection to foreign winds, its purity or admixture with gaseous exhalations, and its ordinary transparency—that clearness of sky so important through its influence, not only on the radiation of heat from the soil, the development of organic tissue and the ripening of fruits, but also on the outjlow of moral sentiments in the different races.” I do not propose, however, to deal with the constitution of the climate of Great Britain, under this general view. To do so, indeed, would VOL. XI.—NO. II. I 114 The Climate of Great Britain. require somewhat more space than the readers of the InrELtuc- TUAL OpsERVER would willingly see allotted to a single subject. I wish chiefly to consider the subject of temperature (mean annual and extreme winter or summer); though I may, per- haps, have a few words to say respecting that feature of our climate, which most foreigners consider to be its chief defect— the want of transparency or clearness m our skies as compared with those of some other Huropean countries. The mean annual temperature of a country is less im- portant to the welfare of the mhabitants than the extreme range of temperature exhibited in the course of the year. Of two countries which have the same mean annual temperature, one may have a climate most admirably adapted to the welfare of its inhabitants, while the other may have a climate offering such fierce and violent extremes of heat and cold that its inhabitants resemble the unfortunates described by Dante, doomed “_____ g, soffrir tormenti caldi e geli.” However, J shall deal first with this feature—mean annual temperature—as affording a starting point from which to pro- ceed to other considerations. If the surface of the earth were perfectly uniform, or sym- metrically distributed into districts of land and water arranged in zones along latitude-parallels, and if the strata of the soil were thr oughout of like density, radiating power, and elevation, the lines of. equal mean temperature would be parallels of lati- tude. This hypothetical condition of things is, we know, very far from representing the true condition of the earth’s surface. Land and water are distributed in a manner which hardly pre- sents the semblance of law; elevations and depressions, not merely of areas of limited extent, but of whole countries, are exhibited in each hemisphere ; and endless diversities of soil, contour, and distribution, disturb that mathematical init. mity and exactness, which could alone produce the co-ordina- tion of climates under latitude-parallels. It is to Humboldt that we owe the Saisie propeditig | that maps of the world should exhibit parallels of heat, as well as latitude- parallels ; ; and no atlas is now considered complete without maps in which isotherms, or lines of equal mean annual temperature, isochimenals or lines of equal winter heat, and 7so- therals or lines of equal heat in summer, are exhibited. These lines are usually presented in maps on Mercator’s projéction, an arrangement which has some advantages, but is not, on the whole, very well suited to exhibit the true conformation of the isothermal lines—the study of which, it has been well remarked, constitutes the basis of all climatology. In Figs. 1 and 2, the northern hemisphere of the earth is i ; ‘ a eS The Climate of Great Britain. 145 ~ — Se) eee . h 9 —SSereeror r en Fre. 1.—Midwinter and Mean-Aunual Isotherms of London. ) LAY Le ‘\ Wry ee CS Fic. 2.—Midsummer and Meéan-ditiinal Tsotherms of London. 116 The Climate of Great Britain. presented on a projection (the equigraphic) which has been already discussed in these pages.* The smallness of the scale would not readily permit of the introduction of the system of isothermal lines usually presented, therefore I have only intro- duced the isotherm which passes through London. In both figures this isotherm is represented by a dotted closed curve passing across the south of England, thence across the Atlantic in a south-westerly direction, and across the continent of America nearly on the latitude of New York. After it has entered. the Pacific Ocean, the isotherm passes somewhat north- wards, but trends southwards again as it nears the Asiatic continent, reaching its greatest southerly range in the sea of Japan, traversing Asia nearly on the latitude of the Aral sea, and thence passing somewhat northwards through the Crimea, Vienna, and Brussels to London. Along its whole extent the isotherm nowhere has a higher latitude than where it crosses the British Isles; in other words, the mean annual temperature of Great Britain is higher than that of any country lying between the same latitude-parallels. The advantage of this arrangement is second only inimportance to that which Eng- land will be seen to possess, when we come to consider the extreme range of temperature during the year. In fact, England is thus brought to the centre of the true temperate zone of the northern hemisphere ; since the consideration of Figs. 1 and 2 will show that the isotherm of London approaches as near to the tropic of Cancer in one part of its spa to the Arctic circle in another. Before leaving this part of the subject, let me note a cir- cumstance, not immediately connected with the climate of Great Britain, but geographically interesting. In examining the polar presentation of the London isotherm, we see that in two parts of its course it exhibits a tendency to travel north- wards, and becomes, in fact, convex towards the pole. If we traced in isotherms of greater mean temperature—that is, nearer the equator—we should find this peculiarity gradually diminishing. But if we traced in isotherms of lower mean temperature, we should find the convexities gradually becoming sharper and more defined, approaching each other more and. more nearly, until finally they would meet, and the isothermal curve be divided into twoirregular ovals. Proceeding to trace out curves of still lower temperature we should find the two ovals closing in towards two poles of cold. These are indicated in Figs. | and 2 by two black spots, one north of the American, the other north of the Asiatic continent. It is to be noted, however, that at the American pole the mean annual tempera- * See the number for July, 1866. The term isographic is etymologically preferable to the hybrid word equigraphic. The Climate of Great Britain. 117 ture is not quite so low as at the Asiatic pole, the former tem- perature being 33°, the latter 1° Fahrenheit. Returning to our subject, let us consider the all-important question of range of climate. The effects of climate, unim- portant to the stronger inhabitants of a country, but largely influencing the health and comfort of the majority, are chiefly felt through the changes that occur during the year. Now, we have seen that the line of mean annual temperature of England departs in a very marked manner from coincidence with a latitude-parallel; but we shall find the limes indicating the extreme temperatures of the year much more irregular; and the peculiarity of climate, which their conformation illustrates, much more important. In Fig. 1 the isochimenal, or the line of equal winter heat, through London,. is indicated by a strongly marked closed curve. Its form is remarkable. It passes nearly in a north and south direction, along the length of England and Scotland, approaches suspiciously near to Iceland, but turns sharply southwards and travels across the Atlantic in a direction which brings it to the American continent near Washington; still approaching the tropics, it travels through the northern parts of ‘Texas, where it reaches its greatest southerly range. Pass- ing gradually northwards to the neighbourhood of the Aleutian Islands, it thence trends southwards again, passes through the Corea, traverses the Asiatic continent nearly on the latitude- parallel of Nankin; thence travelling slightly northwards, it crosses the southern part of the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, the north of ‘Turkey, and passes through Venice and Paris to London. On the continents the isochimenal falls outside (that is, south of) the annual isotherm, while on the oceans the reverse holds. The projection of the isochimenal thus appears as an irregular oval, whose greatest length lies on the conti- nents. We see here, again, the indication of a tendency to form two curves, and thus of the presence of two poles of ex- treme winter cold in the northern hemisphere. The isochi- menals of greatest cold hitherto traced in the two continents, are shown by two broken curves in Fig. 1. The cold of the Asiatic curve is very much greater than that of the American, the former curve marking a winter cold of —40° Fahrenheit (72° below freezing), the latter a winter cold of —26° 5’, only—if one may apply such an adverb to a cold of 58° 5’ below freezing. Professor Nichol remarks that, “if a polar projection were made of these regions for January, it would be found that the two coldest spaces of these continents form a continuous band passing across the pole of the earth.” I cannot but think that this isa mistake. I believe that if the isotherms traced, in 118 The Climate of Great Britain. part, in Fig. 1 could be completed, they would be found to form two ovals. The American oval would enclose the Ameri- can pole of mean temperature, but very eccentrically, showing that the pole of extreme winter temperature lay westwards and southwards, probably near Victoria Land. ‘The Asiatic oval would not probably enclose the Asiatic pole of mean tempera- ture ; and the position indicated for the Asiatic pole of extreme winter cold les on or near the Arctic circle, where it is crossed by the river Lena. At the true pole of the earth the extreme winter cold is probably not nearly so intense as the cold at either of the points here indicated. From the direction of the isochimenal through London, it is evident that the Eastern Counties and Kent experience the coldest winters of ail places in the British Isles, while Cornwall and the south-westerly parts of Ireland enjoy the mildest winter climates. In fact, winter in Cornwall is not more severe than in Constantinople; and in south-west Ireland the winter is still milder, approaching, in this respect, to the winter climate of Teheran. The contrast, when we turn to the isotheral of London, is remarkable. Instead of travelling nearly northwards, this curve passes in a south-westerly direction, reaching its greatest southerly range in the central part of the Atlantic Ocean; thence it travels with a northerly sweep through Nova Scotia and Canada, till it reaches its greatest northerly range near the Rocky Mountains.* Thence it turns sharply southwards, crosses Vancouver’s Island, sweeps nearly to latitude 45° in the central part of the Pacific, whence passing slightly northwards it crosses the southern part of Saghalien Island. Here it turns sharply northwards, crosses that very district of Siberia which, in Fig. 1, is occupied by the isochimenal of intexsest winter cold, traverses Siberia, and passes near St. Petersburg, through Berlin and Amsterdam to London. The relations thus presented by the isotheral of London are precisely the reverse of those exhibited by the isochimenal. The isotheral forms a closed, irregular oval, whose greatest length hes on the two oceans. Here it falls outside the line of mean annual heat, while on the continent it falls far within this line. In another respect the isotheral presents: a noteworthy contrast to the isochimenal. While the latter encloses an area largely exceeding the area enclosed by the mean annual line, the isotheral encloses an area noticeably smaller.+ * It is noteworthy that the minimum distance of the isotheral from the North Pole here attained, is exactly equal to the minimum distance of the isochimenal from the equator. + Here an important advantage of the isographic projection is exhibited. The relation pointed out is altogether obliterated in Mercator’s projection, and could only be roughly inferred from any but an isographic projection. The Climate of Great Britain. 119 A tendency to break up into two curves is exhibited in the isotheral, even more markedly than in the two other curves. But singularly enough, here, where one would expect more certain information of the existence of poles of cold, since so much more of tne northern hemisphere can be traversed in summer than in winter, we have no satisfactory evidence. In fact, the irregular curve marked in near the pole in Fig. 2 is the most northerly isotheral yet determined... The temperature corresponding to this isotheral is 36° Fahren- heit, or four degrees above freezing. From a consideration of the form-variations of the isotherals as they travel northwards, I have been led to the opinion that there exist three poles of | summer cold, and that these fall not very far from the posi-. tions indicated by the small dark circles in Fig. 2. From the direction of the isotheral line through London, it is evident that along the southern coast of England the heat of summeregis greater than in any other part of the British Isles. On the other hand, the northern parts of Scotland, which we have seen, enjoy a winter climate fully as warm as that of London, have a muck cooler summer climate. The south-western parts of Ireland exhibit a change even more remarkable. For whereas the winter climate in these parts is the same as that of Persia, the summer climate is the same as that of the very portion of Siberia in which (most probably) the greatest cold ever observable in our northern hemisphere is experienced in winter. The summer of the Orkney Islands,. again, is no warmer than that of the southern parts of Iceland. It appears, then, that the inhabitants of Hngland enjoy three notable advantages as respects climate. First, a higher mean annual temperature than that of any other country so- far from the equator; secondly, a moderate degree of cold in winter; and, lastly, a moderate degree of heat in summer. The last two advantages resolve themselves into one, viz., small range of temperature throughout the year. Our range of climate is from about 36° in winter to 623° in summer, or in all, 263° Fahrenheit. Compare with this the climate of the country near Lake Winnipeg, with a winter cold of 4° below zero, and a summer heat scarcely inferior to that of London ; so that the range of climate is no less than 65°. Yet more remarkable is the variation of climate in parts of Siberia, near Yakutsk; here the range is from —4U° in winter to 62° in summer—a variation of !02°, or four times the’variation of our London climate. Other parts of the British Isles have, however, a yet smaller range even than that of London. Thus in the south-western parts of Ireland, and in the Orkney Isles, the variation is less than 19°. _ Nor is it difficult to assign sufficient reasons for the mild- 120 The Climate of Great Britain. ness of the British climate—for our warm winters and cold summers. It will appear, on examination, that nearly all the constant causes affecting the temperature of a climate operate to raise the mean temperature of our year, while, of variable causes those which tend to generate increased heat operate in winter, while those which have a contrary effect operate in summer. Humboldt enumerates among the causes tending to exalt temperature, the following non-variables :—The vicinity of a west coast in the uorthern temperate zone; the configuration of a country cut up by numerous deep bays and far-penetrat- ing arms of the sea; the right position of a portion of the dry land, %.e., its relation to an ocean free of i ice, extending beyond the polar circle, or to a continent of considerable extent which hes beyond the same meridional lines under the equator, or at least in part within the tropics; the rarity of swamps which continue covered with ice through the sprig, or even anto summer; the absence of forests on a dry, sandy soil; -and the neighbourhood of an ocean-current of a higher tem- perature than that of the surrounding sea. All these causes, it will be observed—except the neighbour- ‘hood of a tropical continent on the same meridian—tend to in- crease the mean heat of the climatein England. The great Gulf Stream probably exercises a more important influence than | -any of the others. Its position is indicated in Figs. 1 and 2. Humboldt attaches a high importance to the presence of a tropical continent on the same meridian ; and he considers that the climate of Europe is warmer than ‘that of Asia, because Africa, with its extensive. heat-radiating deserts, hes to the south of Hurope, while the Indian Ocean lies to the south of Asia. There are objections, however, to the reasoning he adopts. In the first place, if the heat-radiating power of a continent really influenced the country lying to the north, it should tend to lower rather than raise the temperature, for the ascending currents of air would strengthen the currents of colder air pouring in from the north, and these currents— on Humboldt’s assumption that the country directly to the north is that affected—would lower the mean annual tempera- ture. It would only be exceptionally that the warmer returning currents would descend, and thus exalt the tempera- ture. It seems clear, however, that Asia is the continent chiefly affected by the heat- radiating power of Africa; since she cold currents from the north travel eastwards, while the warm return-current has a westerly motion. We should thus attribute the milder climate of Hurope rather to the influence of the tropical parts- of the Atlantic Ocean, than to the cause assigned by Humboldt, and we should invert the effects he The Climate of Great Britain. 121 attributes to oceans and continents respectively. With this change—somewhat a bold one, I confess *—we may say that all the non-variable causes tending to exalt temperature operate in England’s favour. The constant causes tending to lower temperature are simply the converse of those above considered. Of variable causes increasing temperature, the principal are a serene sky in summer, and a cloudy sky in winter. It may appear, at first sight, paradoxical to assign opposite effects to a cloudy sky. It must be remembered, however, that clouds: considered with reference to temperature, have two functions: they partially prevent the access of heat to the earth, and they partially prevent the escape of heat from the earth. Now, in summer the first-named influence is more important than the second : the days are longer than the nights ; that is, the earth is receiving heat during the greater part of the time in summer. A cause, therefore, which affects the receipt of heat is more important than a cause affecting the escape of heat. On the other hand, in winter, the nights are shorter than the days, and the influence of clouds in preventing the escape of heat becomes more important than their effect on the receipt of heat.; In fact we may compare the influence of clouds to the effects of certain kinds of clothing; flannel, for instance, is as suitable an article of dress for the cricketer as for the skater. Now the climate of England is remarkably humid both in winter and summer. And this humidity is shown, not so much by the quantity of rain which falls, as by the frequent presence of large quantities of aqueous vapour in the atmo- sphere. Skies, even, which we in England consider clear, are overcast compared with the deep-blue skies of France or Italy. What the influence of these humid palls may be “ on the out- flow of moral sentiments ’? which Humboldt considered to be so favourably influenced by transparent skies, I shall not here pause to inquire. It isclear, however, that the influence of our cloudy skies tends to modify the severity both of our winter and our summer seasons; and these benefits are so great thatwe may * Not unsupported, however, by good authority. Thus Professor Nichol, speaking of the climate of Europe, writes: ‘The air that rises in Africa blows rather over Asia than Europe. ‘Lhe cradle of our winds is not in Sahara but in America.” Again, Kaemtz notices, that if the effects of oceans and continents were those assigned by Humboldt, we should find in the western parts of America a colder climate than in the eastern parts ; the reverse, however is the case. + Gilbert White noticed long ago—apparently without understanding—the influence of a clouded sky on the temperature. ‘We have often observed,” he says, “that cold seems to descend from above; for, when a thermometer hangs abroad on a frosty night, the intervention of a cloud shall immediately raise the mercury ten degrees; and a clear sky shall again compel it to desceud to its former gauge. ' 122 The Climate of Great Britain. cheerfully accept them as more than a counterpoise for hypo- thetical injurious effects on “the outflow of our moral senti- ments,” whatever that may be. I proceed to consider the actual variations presented in the course of a year in England. Assome selection must be made, I shall select the series of observations which have been made at Greenwich during the present century. It will be gathered from the preceding pages that the range of temperature at Greenwich is at least not less than the average range of the British Isles. Greenwich, also, from its neighbourhood to London, and from the number and accuracy of the observa-. tions made there, is obviously the best selection that could be made. It must not be forgotten, however, that the climate of Greenwich is not the climate of the British Isles, and that careful observations made in other places have sufficiently indicated the existence of local peculiarities, which, therefore, it may fairly be assumed, characterize also the Greenwich indications. In Fig. 8 the annual variations of mean diurnal tempera- ture are represented graphically. The figure was formed im the following manner:—A rectangle having been drawn, each of the longer sides was divided into 365 parts, and a series of parallel lines joining every tenth of these divisions was pencilled in. The spaces separating these lines represented successive intervals of ten days throughout the year. The shorter sides were divided into thirty-three parts and parallel lines drawn, joining the points of division. Of these longer parallels the lowest was taken to represent a temperature of 32° Fahrenheit (7.e., the freezing point) and the others in order, successive degrees of heat up to 65°. Then, from the Green- wich tables, which have been formed from the observations of forty-three years, the temperature of each day was marked in, at its proper level and at its proper distance from either end of the rectangle. ‘Thus 365 points were marked in, and these being joined by a connected line, presented the curve exhibited in’ Fig. 3. The lines bounding the months, and the lnes | indicating 35°, 40°, etc., Fahrenheit, were then inked in and the figure completed. The resulting curve is remarkable in many respects. In the first place, it was to have been expected that a curve representing the average of so many years of observation would be uniform; that is, would only exhibit variations in its rate of rise and fall, not such a multiplicity of alternations as are observed in Fig. 38. And this irregularity will appear the more remarkable when it is remembered that the temperatures used as the Greenwich means are not the true average tempera- tures. ‘They were obtained by constructing a curve from the 123 The Climate of Great Britain. Temp JANUARY FEBRUARY) | MARCH APRIL ate em JANUARY |FEBRUARY| MARCH L APRIL may | gune | uty | AUGUST [SEPTEMBER] OCTOBER |NOVEMBER Poems | Fie, 3. —Annual Variation of Mean Diurnal Temperature at Greenwich. 124 The Climate of Great Britain. true averages, and taking a curved line (the curve of Fig. 3, in fact) in such a way as to take off the most marked irregu- larities of the true curve of averages ; or, to use the words of the meteorologist who constructed the Greenwich table of means, Mr. Glaisher, a curved line was drawn which passed through or near all the points determining the true curve of averages, “and in such a way that the area of the space above the adopted line of mean temperature was equal to that below the line.””? Despite this process, the curve exhibits no less than fourteen distinctly marked maxima of elevation, and a much larger number of variations of flexure. The sudden variations of temperature at the beginning of February, early in April, and early in May are very remarkable; they have their counterparts in the three variations which take place between the latter part of November and the end of the year, only these occur in much more rapid succession. The nature of the curve between June and August is also remark- able, as are the three convexities which are exhibited in the September, October, and November portions of the curve. If we follow our leading meteorologists in taking the curve of Fig. 3 as representing the true annual climate of London, how are we to assign physical causes for the remarkable varia- tions above indicated? Not easily, [takeit. Jt were, indeed, aS easy as inviting to speculate on cosmical causes ;—to follow KErtel, for instance, in assigning effects to those zones of meteorites which are known to intersect the earth’s orbit, and others which may fairly be assumed to fall within or without that orbit. It may be, perhaps, that the fifty-two recognized shooting-star periods have, some of them, their counterparts in heat-changes ; but certainly the time has not yet come to pronounce a consistent theory of such effects. The evidence afforded by the Greenwich curve on this point is unsatisfactory to say the least. The elevation at the beginning of January, and the marked irregularity in February, correspond to Hrtel’s views ; so also the fact that large aerolites have frequently fallen in the first week in April, about the 20th of April, about the 18th of May, early in August,* about the 19th of October, and early in December, seems to correspond to elevations in the curve ; while the depression opposite the 12th of May, might be referred to the intervention of the zone of meteors, which causes the now celebrated November shower. But, the negative evidence is almost equally strong. Where, for in- stance, is the elevation which one would expect, on Hrtel’s theory, in November? Also, if the cause of the observed irregularities were that suggested by Hrtel, the curves for other * Reference is not made here to the August shooting-star shower, which takes place a week later than the epoch alluded to, The Climate of Great Britain. 125 countries in the northern hemisphere should exhibit similar irregularities on corresponding dates, which does not appear to be the case. In fact, if there really exist effects due to cos- mical causes, these are not likely to be educed from observa- tions of the variation of mean diurnal temperature, since it is clear that a cause of variation due to objects external to the earth could affect only the temperature of certain hours of one day, or of several days. A cluster of meteors between the earth and the sun mizht diminish the mid-day heat; one exter- nal to the earth’s orbit might increase the nocturnal tempe- rature ; and though in either case the mean diurnal tempera- ture would be affected, yet it is obvious that the effect would be masked in taking the mean, or even that two or more oppos- ing influences might cancel each other. If it could be shown that the curve for mid-day, or for midnight heat corresponded to the curve of mean heat, Ertel’s theory would be overthrown at once; since, for its support it 1s necessary to show that depressions in the mean curve are due to mid-day loss of heat, and elevations to midnight gain of heat. There are, however, terrestrial causes to which the irregu- larities of our curve (which irregularities, be it remembered, represent regularly recurring irregularities of heat) may be ascribed. For instance, there can be no doubt that our climate is considerably affected by the changes which take place in the Polar seas; and it may not unfairly be assumed that the processes by which different regions of Polar ice are succes- sively set adrift (to be carried southward by the strong under- current known to exist in the northern Atlantic Ocean), take place at epochs which recur with tolerable regularity. And it may be that the irregularity of the rising, as compared with | the falling half of the heat-curve is due to this cause; since the breaking-up of ice-fields, and their rapid transport southwards would clearly produce sudden changes, having no counterpart in the effects due to the gradual process of freezing.* It may well be, however, that the observations of forty- three years are not sufficient to afford the true mean diurnal temperature for a climate so variable as ours. Indeed, if the curves given by Kaemtz for continental climates be as accu- rately indicative of observed changes, as that of Fig. 3, we must either accept such an hypothesis, or else assume that the English chmate is marked by regularly recurring variations altogether wanting in continental climates; and it is to be noted that the regular recurrence of changes is a peculiarity wholly distinct from variability of climate, properly so termed, and seems, even, inconsistent with such a characteristic. It * Icebergs have been seen travelling southwards against a strong northward surface-current, aud even forcing their way through field-ice in so travelling. 126 The Climate of Great Britain. may happen, therefore, that the observations of ils next thirty or forty years will afford a curve of different figure ; and that by comparing the observations of the eighty or ninety years, which would then be available, many, or all of the irregularities exhibited in Fig. 3 might be removed. In this case we might expect our climate-curve to assume the form indicated by the light line taken through the irregularities of Fig. 8. It willbe observed that this modified curve exhibits but one maximum and one minimum. It is not wholly free, however, from varia- tions of flexure. It presents, indeed, six well-marked con- vexities, and as many concavities ; in other words, no less than twelve points of inflexion. The most remarkable irregularity of this sort, is that exhibited near the end of November; and it is noteworthy that this irregularity is presented by conti- nental climate-curves also. It has been ascribed by Ertel to the effect of the meteor-zone, which causes the November shower. But as it is exhibited by the curves of horary as well as of diurnal means, while the meteor-zone cannot by any possibility affect the temperature of the earth’s following hem- sphere, and as, further, it does not correspond to the true date of the shower, this view may be looked upon as doubtful. The August curve occurring near the maximum elevation— where slow change was to be expected, is also well worthy of notice ; as are the January and May flexures. Jt will be noticed that nothing has been said of extreme heat or cold occasionally experienced in England. As such visits generally last but for a short time, their effects are not very injurious, save on the very weak, the aged, or the invalid. Corresponding to the passage of an intense heat-wave or. cold- wave, there invariably occurs a sudden rise in the mortality- returns ; but almost as invariably the rise is followed by a nearly equivalent, but less sudden, fall ; showing, conclusively, that many of the deaths which marked the epoch of severest weather occurred a few weeks only before their natural time. The weather during a part of the late winter was somewhat severer than our average English winter-weather. ‘I'he ther- mometer, however, at no lime. descended below zero, as it did on January 3, 1854; and the diurnal mean did not descend at any time so ‘low as 10° 7 7, as it did on January 20, 1838. There is no foundation for the opinion, sometimes expressed, that our winter-weather is changing. An examination of the columns in the Greenwich meteorological tables, show that the " successive recurrence of several mild winters is not pecuhar to the last decade or two. The observations of Gilbert White, imperfect as they are compared with modern observations, point the same way. Among severe, but short intervals of cold weather, may be The Olimate of Great Britain. 127 noted that which occurred in January, 1768. The frost was so intense, says Gilbert White, “that horses fell sick with an epidemic distemper which injured the winds of many and killed some; meat was so hard frozen that it could not be spitted, nor secured but in cellars; and bays, laurustines, and laurels were killed.” 7 White’s account of the summer of 1783 will fitly close our sketch of British weather-changes. ‘This summer,” he says, “was an amazing and portentous one, and full of horrible phenomena; for, besides the alarming meteors and tremendous thunder-storms that affrighted and distressed the different counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze, or smoky fog, that prevailed for many weeks in this island, and in every part of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary appearance, unlike anything known within the memory of man. By my journal, I find that I had noticed this strange occurrence from June 23rd to July 20th, inclusive, during which period the wind varied to every quarter, without making any alteration in the air. The sun at noon looked as blank and ferruginous as a clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferru- ginous light on the ground and floors of rooms, but was par- ticularly lurid and blood-coloured at rising and setting. All the time the heat was so intense that butchers’ meat could hardly be eaten the day after it was killed ; and the flies swarmed so in the lanes and hedges, that they rendered the horses half frantic, and riding irksome. The country people began to look with a superstitious awe at the red, lowring aspect of the sun. Mil- ton’s noble simile, in his first book of ‘ Paradise Lost,’ fre- quently occurred to my mind; and it is, indeed, particularly applicable, because towards the end, it alludes to a superstitious | kind of dread, with which the minds of men are always im- pressed by such strange and unusual phenomena :— ‘As when the sun new risen, Looks through the horizontal, misty air, Shorn of his beams ; or, from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.’ ” 128 The Vegetable Sheep of New Zealand. THE VEGETABLE SHEEP OF NEW ZEALAND. BY JOHN R. JACKSON. Curator of the Museum, Royal Gardens, Kew. (With a Coloured Plate.) Ir may, perhaps, be thought from our heading that we are about to note the discovery of a new phenomenon in the animal kingdom ; on the contrary, the sheep of which we are about to speak is a true plant, and belongs to the same family as our common daisy. ‘This family—the Composite—is one or the most extensive and widely diffused in the whole vegetable kingdom. It numbers some 1,000 species, and no part ot the globe is without some of its representatives. Lindley says that the Composite order alone comprehends at the present day more species than Linnzus knew as belonging to the whole vegetable kingdom. In so large an order, with such a wide geographical distribution, we might be naturally led to expect a great variety of forms, which indeed there are, for while the bulk of the Composites with us are small annuals, in other countries they are frequently seen as shrubs, or even trees. These arborescent forms seem to increase as we approach the equator. Most of the Composite in the island of St. Helena attain to a large size. The Tasmanian Dogwood, Bedfordia salicina, Dec., grows to a height of twenty-five feet, and furnishes a very hard word. ‘'he muskwood, also, Hurybia argophylla, Cass., is a tree about thirty feet high, and abundant throughout the island in damp localities. This latter tree is a near ally to our common aster, or Michaelmas Daisy. Though so variable in form and general appearance, the minute struc- ture of the Composites are particularly alike, so that an observer cannot fail to recognize the affinities of the various plants. New Zealand is the head-quarters of the most singular forms of Composite ; such forms, indeed, as are there found would at first puzzle many to determine what they were, or even, indeed, if they were a vegetable at all. Pecvliar-looking patches are to be seen upon the sides and tops of the mountains, which in the distance look like so many sheep, and even upon nearing them their shaggy appearance help rather to confirm the first impression than to dispel’ such - anotion. Upon a somewhat closer examination, however, we should possibly be ready to believe that these hemispherical masses are those of a gigantic moss. These tufts are, in reality, masses of plants belonging to the genus faoulia, one species of which is known to the New Zealand settlers as the ee VEGETABLE, ame 0 | cd 107K R JARO. - Tr snay, pexluage, die Ahoaght from oar. wading about to we ep tcpouna new eee “ee mt . ~ =o 1,000. species, part. .of ii yeaa, ok OE CO Onna cs vepresentatives, Lingle aan ot. Keds tee hacsoaont voi od oe cenyo ro ht resent der mare Mees haa pegs Sort ge ie | wei _— bispplatin sail idl rr ae ee cow on A usta ah Mee f rhe Comprseltcs ith ea we et weathered Choy ote irequensey teen Hangs ; tree Phare chorionic. doreat- sa ae the oyaejat-. Moet of the Compose of St. Hetena ati aia om a large size. ‘The Bedfardis aalin 2, Dee., grows to % and farnicues a very bord word. ‘The i, also, Hu ( wrgephyba, Cass, is « tree about thisty feet high and abunda thesaghoat the islaud i: damp localities. This) latterdreeria; ater alle 9 our common satex, or seme $ Bey pariarie i= torte anc ccmerat rue Fan by im upon. de ees ad bone SE Mowe taihe, eicoh om the distance look like so milage shorn, Ae. Pe a SE Ming theaw-their shavey appear = hep ee ee sagen Leeson ge vai gu “a avtion. ie ° “utelaeiat closer examination, } ,aamagenre - showld ps i vite bp believe that hp ae arica) menees cre thins ae ae a ay reality, CRS é rnecies of Praia “a ao the » Newt . i ia al bow'vs - VW .Filoh . de! The Vegetable Sheep of New Zealand. 129 “vegetable sheep.” The shepherds themselves are often deceived by them when calling in their sheep from the moun- tains. Our plate will give an idea of the general appearance of the plant, to the right of which is represented another singular plant, Haastia pulvinaris, of which we shall also give a brief description. Rwoulia is very nearly allied to Gnaphaliun and Helichrysum, to which latter genus the everlasting flower, or immortelle of the French, belongs. ‘The principal difference exists in the narrow receptacle of the flower-heads of Raoulia compared with that of the other two genera. The singular habit and general appearance of the plant are also prominent distinguishing characters. Dr. Hooker says it is “a genus founded on habit more than on any good characters that can separate it from Gnaphalium, section Helichrysum. Its her- baceous habit distinguishes it from Ozothamnus. It contains two natural and most distinct sections, of which one, contain- ing R. subulata, eximia, grandiflora, mammilaris, and bryoides has a convex, often hispid, receptacle ; achenes with very long, silky hairs, a thickened areole at their base, and stout, rigid, opaque, pappus hairs, thickened at the tip. These probably constitute a good genus, to which the name Raoulia may be retained; the others may, perhaps, fall into Gnaphaliwm or Helichrysum; but until all the Gnaphalioid Composite are worked up, it is impossible to settle the limits of the genera.” Though there is a difference in the habits of the two genera, Gnaphalium and fRaoulia, the woolly appearance occurs in both, for the leaves, stems, and flowers of many species of the former genus are completely covered with a greyish, soft, velvety down. ‘Twelve species of Raoulia have been discovered in New Zealand, where the plants are alone found. ‘These species have ail been named and described by Dr. Hooker, as well as the genus itself, which is in honour of M. Raoul, a surgeon in the French navy, who has paid some attention to New Zealand plants. It may be interesting to our readers if we give a description of each of the species, abridged from the Handbook of the New Zealand Flora. 1. Raoulia Australis, Hf. A small, moss-like, densely- tufted plant, stems one to two inches high, branches slender, leaves minute, laxly or densely imbricate, half an inch long, covered with silky, appressed wool. Heads one-eighth of an inch long, outermost scales spathulate, inner linear, shining yellow or pale brown, not dark at tips, nor white and radiating ; florets about twelve, outer few, pappus hairs excessively slender, subpilose, not thickened at the tips. Achene glabrous. This species is found on lofty, rocky hills in the Northern Island, on the Nelson Mountains, Otago, and other places in the Middle Island. VOL. XI.—NO. II. K 130 The Vegetable Sheep of New Zealand. 2. R. tenuicaulis, Hf. Stems generally slender, loosely tufted, prostrate, creeping, one to ten inches long, with ascending branches. Leaves loosely imbricating, spreading and recurved, one-twelfth of an inch long, grey, with appressed silvery tomentum. Heads very similar to those of R. Australis, but involucral scales, with brown acute tips. Found in the eravelly beds of rivers in Northern Island, and also at Kowai River, Middle Island, at an altitude of one to two thousand feet. 3. R. Haasti, Hf. A small, densely tufted, nearly glabrous plant, stems rather stout, prostrate, branches one inch high. Leaves densely imbricate, one-sixteenth of an inch long, broadly sheathing, broadly ovate, coriaceous, obscurely woolly or silky. Flower-heads similar to those of 2. Australis, but narrower, with six to eight florets; imvolucral scales obtuse, not brown, nor with a white radiating tip. Found in gravelly terraces at Kowai River and Waiauna Valley. 4. R. Munroi, Hf. Stems slender, creepmg, with very long, wiry, filiform rootlets. Branches slender, ascending, one to two inches high. Leaves laxly imbricate, one-eighth to one- sixth of an inch long, linear, cbtuse, uniformly clothed with erey, silky tomentum. Heads narrow, one-sixth of an inch long; involucral scales glabrous, linear, green, with rather dilated, scarious brown tips; florets about twelve; pappus as in R. Australis. The wiry stems and very long fiiform rootlets are prominent characters, as are the uniformly grey, silky, linear leaves, and narrow heads, with brown-tipped, involucral scales. The plant has been found in Waihopai. Valley and Canterbury Plains. | 5. BR. subulata, Hf. A small, very densely tufted, mgid, moss-like species, quite glabrous throughout, blackish when dry, stems stoutish, branches half an inch high. Leaves most densely imbricate, patent or suberect, rigid, subulate, acuminate. Heads large for the size of the plant, one-sixth of an inch in diameter ; involucral scales linear, oblong, scarious, shorter than the leaves ; receptacle convex, hispid : florets of cireum- ference in several rows, pappus of rigid, scabrid hairs, rather thickened at the tips. Achene silky. A remarkable and very small species, differing much from the foregoing in the pappus, hispid receptacle, and foliage. This species is found on the Nelson and Otago Mountains, at an altitude of from five to six thousand feet. 6. R. eximia, Hf. The vegetable sheep. A small, most densely-tufted, hard little plant, forming large woolly balls on the mountains, enveloped im soft, velvety, white tomentum ; branches very short, with the leaves forming cylindric or mammilliform knobs, one quarter of an inch in diameter ; The Vegetable Sheep of New Zealand. 131 leaves most densely compacted, wholly hidden amongst woolly hairs, nvbricated all round in many series, one-eighth of an inch long, membranous, broadly linear or obovate oblong, ‘rounded at the tip, bearmg at the back, above the middle, a dense thick pencil of white velvety hairs, these bundles of hairs, meeting beyond the leaves, envelope the whole. Heads minute, sunk amonesst the upper leaves, involucral scales about ‘ten, linear, with subulate or obtuse tips, and a tuft of hairs on the back above the middle: receptacle convex, naked ; florets about ten. Pappus of few rigid hairs, thickened upwards. Achene with a thickened areole at the base, silky, with very long hairs; very nearly allied to &. mainmilaris. Found in the Middle Island, at Ribband Wood Range, Mount Arrowsmith, and Dobson, at an elevation of 5500 to 6000 feet. 7. R. Hectorit, Hf. Most densely tufted, one to two inches high; branchlets erect, densely leafy, silvery at the tips. Leaves closely imbricate one-twelfth of an inch long, broadly ovate, obtuse, coriaceous, upper half covered with appressed silvery, shining tomentum ; back grooved longitudinally when dry. Heads small, sunk amongst the uppermost leaves; in- volucral scales scarious, linear-oblong, obtuse, yellowish, gla- _brous, receptacle convex, pilose ; florets about twenty. Pappus of few, rigid, scabrous hairs, thickened upwards. , i Sone hanes) 1a St ae a -080 ” 14 | 29875, 22-0, ... | ... |189} 29°8 |105/19:3| 0, 0, 0| SW, NW by W, —. -000 » 15 | 29°913)27-0) ... | ... |°167) 31°3 | 143)17-0) 0, 1, 5 N, N, NW by N. ‘000 3 16 | 29°759| 30°9| 25°5 | 83/191) 34-7 | 24-1 10°6) 5, 10, 10 N, NNE, N. ‘000 5 17 | 29°509 268) ... | ... |"165) 29°8 | 27-9, 19) 7, 7, 2) NWbyN,N,NW. | -000 », 18 | 29°545) 28-0; ... | ...|°173] 3171 | 23-3] 78/10, 7,10) W by N, NW, N by BE. 000 3» 19° 29868) 26-0), .... |... |°160| (82:0 |. 21-2] 10:31 5, ——) SW, —, ‘017+ a coe ak ~3iQ Shedd CL NOM, aOR ok ier ‘000 91 | 29°858.27-7) 20°4) -77|-171) 29°3 |28-0| 1310, 9,10] E by N, E by N, E by N. | ‘000 3» 22 | 30°014 25:0 22°7) -92)°155) 26°6 | 23-0) 3°6/10, 10, 10 SE, ESE, E by 8. ‘000 ” 93 | 29°692! 46-4) 46:2) +99) 330] 49:9 | 21-0 28-910, 10, 10/8 by W, SW by 8, S by W.| 090 , 24 |29°471) 506 48:2| -92/-381| 54°8 45:5! 9310, 9, 8] SW,SW by W, SW. ‘009 , 25 |29°602| 445] 88-1} 80-309} 49°8 | 838-111-7110, 8, 3|W by 8, W.by N, W by N.| 020 4, 26 | 29°984) 41:0) 37°8| -89)°278 ct vit 15: 2.10, 10,10] WSW,S by E, 8S by E. | ‘000 bgp 27 pO ed | weet Qe “4, | 40°7| 15° i a ae "260 28 | 29°848; 50°0| 46°0| -87| *378] 52°8 | 49-3) 3°5/10,10, 3 SW, SW, W by 8S. ‘006 » 29 | 29°989| 466 43°3) -89) 832) 52°2 |39-4)12°8] 3,10,10/ 8 by W, SW, SW. ‘000 »» 80 | 29°686) 48:1) 45:4) -91)°350/ 51°8 |44-5 7-3) 7,10,10) SW by W, SW, SW by 8.| ‘080 wy 31 |30°173| 42-2) 38:1| -73|°285) 46°9 |37°8 9-1] 1, 5,10] Wby N, Wby N, SSW. | 404 => 2] | a a re, ccc cs gear a cee ba oe te Pa Ga Daily | | 29°649 34’8|(35-8)|(-86)| 235]... |... {120} ... ras 1 3'378 Means | | Z ILL AL | A a a a TRO GS ma |e I i. a, ea ee ae Be Ba Te ee. * To cbtain the Barometric pressure at the sea-ievel these numbers must be increased by *037 inch, + Equivalent of snow in rain, +t Melted snow and rain, 295 Meteorological Observations at the Kew Observatory. DE SSSSSSS M44) 9 HOURLY MOVEMENT OF THE WIND (IN MILES), AS RECORDED BY ROBINSON'S ANEMOMETER.—Janvany, 1867. Day. |1/)2|)3|4/5/6/ 7/8] 9 |10]/11}12/18/14/15!16/17!18| 19] 20 21 29 23 | 24) 25 | 26 | 27 | 28| 29! 30] 31 es Hour. | | ta | 5) 5} 1) 1} oj 80) 16) 40) 18] 23) 7} 8] 10} 3} 7 15/-19] 6! 4) 17 29/18) 10 18) 2) 19) 19, 17) 7 22) 14) 18-0 (1 | 10 6 3) 2 1 82 17| 38} 15] 25) 9| 8 10, 1) 3] 15| 20) 4| 3] 23) 241 14, 91 191 4| 15/ Isl lal Bl 20 18) 13-2 3 | 18,12; 1) 8 0 38] 18) 39} 17] 20) 7| 7 10, 2 3} 17) 21) 6! 4l 28) 24) 10; 10 193] 101 18 15] 7| 24] 1al 13-2 8 | 11,16} 1) 2) 1) 20 18| 43] 15/19! 8} 7} 8| 3| gol 17} agli 5] 5) 29 28, 13] 6 20) 3) 10| 19 15] 18) 24) 15/ 136 4 | 17) 16) 2} 1) 1) 17) 20) 53] 17] 23] 8| 6 6| 1] 131 16 19! 6| gl 25 80, 14) 4) 30' 3] 6/ 15] 18| 12} 22) 14] 14-1 ;} ® | 11) 22) 0} 4) 4) 18) 17 33] 19/19} 8) 3/9} 4) 10] 19) 18] 5| 4! 26| 29 101 12 26 4] si 15! 19 14] 15! 1s| 18.9 => 6 | 13] 35] 3] 1} 1) 16] 18| 40 17/27] 101 5/10] 3] 8] 22l a7} 4| ql ail ay 11; 9| 19} 2! 5] 15] 18] 12] 16| 12) 13°5 “| 7 | 15) 24) 2) 3} 8, 19) 19] 35] 20] 17} 13] 8] 6| 0} 9] 21/ 16) 5 4] 32] 35, 10; 7) 16} 4) 4) 29] 19| 15] 18) 10| 13°8 8 | 13] 88) 3/ 4) 7 18, 21) 31) 23/17 12) 7} 9| of 7| 22) 14) 5 ol 30| 37 101 10 18, 4! 5| 16| 19 191 11 8| 13°8 9 | 12).29) 3) 1) 8 12) 22) 38, 20] 18) 12) 9| 7 4) 7) 17] 13) 5! 3] 29] 86 10| 9/191 e| 5) 17 21| 20 14) 11| 14°0 10" | 14/30) 3) 2) 9 8 29) 28) 29] 16 17] 13} 10] 3] 6| 23] 15! 6! -5| 301 32 81131 18) 4| al 17/ 911 181 asl Isl 14° U1 | 13| 27) 2} 1) 8) 7 28| 30] 20) 17) 16] 17] 11) 4| 7| 231 17/ | ol s7/-81. 13+ 14/ 20] 13) al a7| ail 211 asl as! Io's 12 | 11) 26) 2) 2) 6 6) 25) 26) 23] 19) 15 13| 10 3) 11] 27/ 19| 4) 8] s4/ 32 12] 15) 93| 13| 7| 19| 991 93 16) 22} 15'9 ( 2 | 10/24) 2) 9 131 5] 23| 91} 28] 16) 15] 13) 11) sl 1a] 25) 17| 5| al 35 3010) 11) 17} 17| 6| 15] 21] 24) 16) 19] 154 2 {| 7/23) 3| 0) 17, 5) 19) 24) 32] 16! 13} 11} 10, 8 10] 25| 14] 5/10] 31] 281-101 9; 19! 14/6] 13\ 18| 211 8| i6l 140 3 | 6/16] 3] 0} 19, “2! 21) 19] 82] 14} 14) 16} 51 4! | 211 131 6! Jol 30 24) 11) 11/ 16| 18] 7| 10] 19| 19| 13| 13] 13° 4.| 4/15] 8) 2 22, 4 20) 16) 28) 15) 9] 14) 4} 5] 10] 19} 12] 5| 9] 36) 3c! 101 11] 12) 161 10) 11/ Jel 21/ 191 Gl 133 g{® | 6 7 3] 1) 23) 4! 24} 14) 29] a3) 10] 18] 8} 9] 11) 18] 14] @| 7] 3al 24 Jel dB tol ol 73 6| 13'1 ;7 & | 4 9 5] Of 26, 2 27) 18] 26) 10) 9 12) 2] 3| 15] 18] 10| 7/ 19] 87| 26 11) 19\ 12| 15) 17 4} 14°2 Boe 7) | ae 6] ta) tel oB 2 25| 14) 20) 8} 9] 16) 5] 4) 13] 16| -8) 7| 18] 38| 25! 16/17, 4! 14/ 17 7| 13°7 8 | 4| 5 3) 1 26 10) 27/ 14 22] 10) 10, %| 2} 3] 14! 16} 8, 5] 13) 40] 19] 17| 20 6) 161 49 9] 13°5 2 | 3}. 3} .4) 0} 25) 10 27) 13] 23/ 9] 10) 7 5] 5) 16] 18} 5] 5/14) 38] 17| 13) 15| 5) 16] 26 6| 12°8 10 | 3] 3} 2] 1) 29) 18 34) 14) 25] 10; 9] 10] 5] 5] 161 19! 9] 6! 10] 38| 20\ 13/ 21) 6! 18) 90 4. et 5} 2) 3) oj 25) 14) 38) 17) 21) 8) 11) 10) 3} 2} 13) 17] 6} 7] 14) 35) 24) 11} 17/4) 17| 18 3'3 Milas Total | | | | Daily | |212/394) 59) 28'299/301 546 653)520/379|259|240|171| 66|287/465 343/130 164/753 \665 287 292 375 237 2601366/419|4351483.296| 13-8 Move- | | | | ment. | | | . ee eeeenenemeemeeenen annem ee 296 Meteorological Observations at the Kew Observatory. RESULTS OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS MADE AT THH KEW OBSERVATORY, 1867. 25 | fo) Month, Barometer corrected to Temp. 32°.* Temperature of Air, inches. 30°099 30°054 46°6 45°1 43°5 42°9 43°2 40°5 49°8 47-2 29°538 29°280 28°911 29°664 29°387 29°948 Ss WOON OF Whe 30°124) 42°1 30°245) 48°2 30°357| 46°1 30°291| 46°7 29°890) 48°8 29°790) 49°8 30°433) 41°9 30°342)| 46°2 30°476) 49°7 30°515| 47°6 30°427| 46°8 30°481| 47°4 30°160} 44°5 30°010) 39°0 36:067| 37:1 30°236| 38°0 Meang, } | 80-080) 44-9 LATITUDE 51° 28’ 6” N., LONGITUDE 0° 18’ 47” w. Reduced to mean of day. Calculated. | Dew Point. Relative Humidity. Tension of Vapour. % inch, 46°0 33°7 315 *298 292 295 °269 41°9 41-2 37°6 27°3 45°1 39°1 339 284. "351 °326 333 "358 ‘371 32°2 45°0 43°7 41-1 39°9 46°4 282 328 ‘369 344, 42°3 4.3°9 43°6 43°9 43°6 37°3 34] -309 O55 239 246 35°1 36:0 26°0 28°0 | 39°2|} °82)|°316 oo ew iS 371 334, Temperature of Air. At 9°30 a.m., 2°30 p.m., and 5 p.m. Ne respectively. he as BS a a BS a od tay st] ES . a Direction of Wind, fe |85)3] £8 nee ae o's Bae l= 5 & 43 a ° © © 0—10 500 | ... | ... |10,10,10) SW, SW, SW by 8. 49:2 |439 5:31 0, 5, 4| WSW, W, W by aN. 46°4 | $2°0) 14-4, 494 | 36-2/13-2110,10, 6) SSW, SW, WbyS. 54-1 | 35-2) 18-9} 9,10, 10 SSW, S by W, SW. 49°8 |41-1) 8-7/8 5, 3 W, W, W by S. 52°6 | 36°0/16-6| 0, 5,10/ WbyN, W, SW by W. 54°7 | 39°61 15-1 10, 10, 8) W,SW by WwW, WSW. 52°6 | 43'5/ 9-1 0, 6, 10 W, WSW, SW. 51:8 | 45°0| 6:8 “as a 46:5 | 401] 6-4| 0, 9, 8| WNW, W, WSW. 50°9 | 40°6; 10°3/10, 10, 10) W by S, WNW, W by N 49°5 | 44°6] 4-9110, 10, 10, WSW, W by S, SW by W 50°4 | 45°1) 53/10, 7, 0 E, E by N, ENE. 54°8 | 41°2)13°6) 2, 8,10) BE by N, SSE, 8 by W. 55'8 | 44°4/11-4 9, 5, 7 S by E, SSW, S. 558 | 44e1) 11-7 a 46°2 |41'1, 5-110, 10, 10| E by §, E by S, SH by E. 51:1 | 40°1/11-010, 10, 10| SE by E, SE by §, SSE. 54°8 | 44°3)10-5'10, 2, 2 SSW, W; SW by W. 51°6 | 41°0/ 10-6)10, 10,10) SW, wsw, SW by 8. 50°8 | 46:0 4°8 10, 10, 10| SSW, WSW, WSW. 52°4 | 41°9)10°5| 7, 2, 6|NWhy N, NW byN, Why N. 52°7 | 371) 15°6 ; 49°8 |37°1|127| 7, 9, 8 W, W, W by S. 41-5 |40°5| 1:0'10,10,10} * N, WNW, W. 40.7 | 36°8| 3:9,10, 10, 10 E, E by N, E by S. 429 | 341) 8-8) 9, 6, 7 E, NE, NE. 9°9 : ee | eC --— inches. 0°:000 ‘000 *000 010 "101 174. "005 °190 025 "055 *234 ‘000 "004 ‘000 “000 090 331 *000 ‘000 “000 "000 ‘000 ‘000 “OO1 } ‘000 ‘013 ‘020 ‘000 1:253 ee ee ee ee Oe Se SR See Se mamma mmmmpeenattnae ee am * To obtain the Barometric pressure at the sea-level these-numbers must be increased by *037 inch, 297 Meteorological Observations at the Kew Observatory. HOURLY MOVEMENT OF THE WIND (IN MILES), AS RECORDED BY ROBINSON’S ANEMOMETER.—Fez., 1867. Day. |1/2/)3]4|/5)6/7)8/ 9 |10/11]12/13]14/15 16/ 17/18/19) 20/21) 22/23 | 24/25} 26 27 | og |Our Hour. 2s 2 Ses oe ae ee ee a Se ce Se ee ee ee ee a ee 2 5 ee _ 12 | (1 | 20} 15) 8} 16] 13) 24| 16) 28) 27/ 12) 27/16) 7] 6 11) 17 3] 2) 5) 8| | 10} 44) 7] 11) 25] 2) 6] 12:5 g | 13|17| 5] 13) 14} 23] 17| 18] 26] 14| 19] 16) 4} 7} 14/14 2| 2} 5] 3] | 11) 13] 7] 9| 23) 2] 8) 11-9 3 | 15) 15) 9] 16] 12| 30] 18] 18) 24] 16) 8| 14) 4| 10} 18| 16, 1) 4) 8] 4jtsoi 6| 9| 8| 6| 20 Oo] 9] 116 4 | 15| 15] 6] 18) 11] 42] 14/ 17| 19] 16, 9] 15) 5] 7/19/18] 1) 4) 5] 5 5| 7| 7| 9} 20) 2) 7 118 _| 5 | 16] 16| 9| 19] 11) 33) 10] 18] 21) 18 5) 15) 7% 9) 14) 14) 1) 4) Bl 5 5} 5) 8) 10/19) 4) 9| 11-4 4 g | 15/13] 5] 17| 13| 24] 10| 25| 20] 20, 9] 11) 5| 7 13/13] 1] 6| 5] 3 5) 7) 11) 7] 16) 9) 10) 11-4 24 DR: aes COR fase RES bie dew hae or) la "062 25 29°625 46°8| 45°8) 97/334) 53°1 | 45-3| 7°8/10,10,10/ SW, SE by 8,8 by W. | 000 3» 26 | 29°379) 50:0; 41-2) *74) 373) 55°9 | 47-3] 86] 5, 4, 4. SW by S, NW, NW. "100 59 27 |29°312) 47-3] 41-7| -82)-340] 54°3 | 42-4] 11°9/10, 10, 7 SW, SSW, SW. ‘000 5 28 | 29°412) 44-9] 32°8| -66/°313) 51:8 |34°3/17°5| 38, 6, 2) Wby N, SW, WNW. | 023 »» 29 | 29°623) 44-7| 32-4] -65/°311) 50°3 | 34-8] 15°5| 5, 8,10) W by N, WNW, W by N. | -000 9, 30 |29°729) 44-7/ 36-9} °76| 311] 52:5 |35°8)16°7| 4, 7, 9} |W, W by 8, WSW. ‘000 ae 47°9 |36°2/ 11-7}... irs om ‘080 Soon 5] 29°740 37-0| 32:0] *83| +244 11-2 1:980 * To obtain the Barometric pressure at the sea-level these numbers must be increased by *037 inch. + Melted snow and rairi, HOURLY MOVEMENT OF THE WIND (IN MILES), AS RECORDED BY ROBINSON'S ANEMOMETER.—Maxzca, 1867. 299 16) 16 Meteorological Observations at the Kew Observatory. 208/353)487/439)/372 341 309 261 0} 30 8| 34 6\ 33 7 38 7|- 82 7| 24 6 19 5| 16 9) 14 8} 14 11) 13 16} 14 16) 13 20! 18 22] 15 25) 15 27| 16 291 17 29| 12 30] 10 33} 9 33| 10 32] 11 30; 9 10 ig} 13 12) 16) 16 17| 19 16 14 18 24, 28 27 36 36 44. 35 38 32 28 33 39 30 13 | 14 me | re | certs | | | | 30 29 22 23 19 18 21 19 21 21 21 20 17 16 15 14 16 15 16 18 15 10 10 9 426 |4.26]2138]592'741/435 15 | 16] 17 | 18 | 19 | 20; 21 =) co ep) e op) _ ND H = MmMoOoonwnonna eat ~T > bo dD GW GO DS OO rs iJ) -- Or — © ps S Co xT AT OH CO ATO DH CO 229) 241)501/563/359)|292/338 alice 10 teige 358 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 12) 17| 17} 15}. 6| 7| 6) 28 9) 17). 19) 13) 7 9) 7) 25 6} 15] 25| 11| 6] 6] 8) 24 8| 15 29) 9) 6] 8| 10] 20 9| 16; 26) -9|- 6} 7 10) 18 6) 11/525) Ia}--6| > 8} 2) 15 4| 14; 30) 12) 6} 7) 10) 17 4) 12) 32} 15] 7 5) 4 21 8| 17) 35} 18] 8} 9} 14) 20 12} 17} 31) 18} 10} 11) 19} 19 13) 19} 32} 17) 11) 14] 17; 21 15; 17| 31; 16] 14; 13) 16} 19 15) 17| 31] 17} 12) 13) 20] 18 12) 17) 82) 18) 11) 12) 24) 15 17| 21/ 31} 9] 15) 15) 25] 15 19) 22) 33] 14] 16] 13) 26] 18 21} 23) 28) 15] 18) 15) 20; 11 15} 14| 25) 12! 10) 12) 18] 11 15| 25) 22) 8/ 14, 10) 16) 8 14) 17} 18} 6) 41) 11) 15) 5 15) 19} 15) 4] 10) 11) 15) 5& 22) 16) 12) 5; 6] 9) 11) 1 24) 20) 14) 5) 7) 12) 19) 4 20; 18} 15} 6) 6| 7| 18) 8 | | 315/416|608 278 mee 358 351 | 300 Biography of Swedenborg. BIOGRAPHY OF SWEDENBORG.* A NEw life of Swedenborg, with an account of his writings, in two bulky volumes, might seem a somewhat perilous experiment upon the taste of the public, and still more so when, as is the case with Mr. White’s labours, they can scarcely expect to be accepted as representing the views of the small though ener- getic sect of which the celebrated Swede is the apostle and prophet. As is the case with nearly all the biographical works that are produced in these days, the present one has the faults of diffusiveness and prolixity. It is written from a point of view remote from that of philosophical criticism, and, in many passages, almost equally so from that of faith in the pretensions of its subject. Mr. White may, perhaps, object to the latter part of this remark, and it is only fair to cite his concluding words, in which he exclaims, “time only adds to the power and clear shining of my author’s fame,’ and affirms that although his claim is “‘ an awful one,” “yet the more I study his writings, and learn to disregard their extraneous encum- brances, the more credible does the claim become.” The popular idea of Swedenborg is simply that of a clever man suffering from cerebral derangement, and taking the visions of a disordered imagination for a positive insight into the mysteries of the spirit-world. A little investigation into the personal character and proceedings of the mystic philoso- pher, as he is displayed in Mr. White’s pages, will somewhat modify this idea. ‘Those who accept Swedenborg’s claims as prophet and seer, will, of course, deny that he laboured under chronic hallucination, or that cerebral derangement: tinctured and characterized all his speculations. On the other hand, those who can see no reason for supposing the illustrious Swede to have been supernaturally endowed, or enlightened, will regard his case as worthy of careful study, upon psychological and medical grounds, and will be induced to place him amongst a class of persons who, in various ages.of the world, have exercised great and often enduring influence over their fellow- men, and in whom the normal action of the intellectual powers was modified, though not entirely dominated, by delusion and disease. In many mystics a much greater excitation of the moral and emotional nature was manifested than Swedenborg displayed. In him, the rationalizing and philosophical element predominated all through, and his visions revealed nothing that was not in accordance with the general tenor of thought, proceeding logically from the facts which he was acquainted * Emanuel Swedenborg : his Life and Writings. By William White. 2 vols. Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. i Biography of Swedenborg. 301 with, and the premises which he accepted. His method of reasoning was defective, but it was a method, and not a hap- hazard performance; and when, what most observers would consider his insanity was at its height, it seems to have left his thinking faculties clear, and to have misled him almost exclusively, by inducing him to mistake internal impressions for external facts. Some peculiarities of Emanuel Swedenborg were derived from his father, concerning whom Mr. White gives many curious particulars, accompanied by a portrait, in which a strong tinge of insanity is apparent. Jesper Svedberg, the father of Emanuel, rose from humble origin to be bishop of Skura. His father’s name was Isaksson, and the appellation Svedberg—which by royal orders became lengthened into Swedenborg, in Emanuel’s honour—was derived from a piece of property which the family owned. Jesper Svedberg was a remarkably self-satisfied, self-contained man, with an inflexible obstinacy of purpose,and a determination to get on in the world. ‘He believed that angels spoke with him and assisted his plans. Having attained to a respectable pecuniary position, he married a rich wife, and after spending six months with her, obtained permission to absent himself from his duties as Chaplain to the ‘Life Guards of Charles XI., and employed nearly a year in visiting Germany, France, Holland, and England. On his return to Stockholm, he found his wife had presented him with his first son, and a few years later, on the 29th January, 1688, his second son, the future mystic, Hmanuel, was born. Jesper Svedberg was always active, whether as simple clergyman or as bishop, and in the main must have been a useful man, though wanting in consideration for the thoughts and feelings of other folks. Svedberg lost his first wife in 1696, and in the following year espoused a second. ‘T'he lady upon whom his choice fell had been twice a widow, and he engaged himself to her without having seen her. He states that he was unexpectedly informed of her goodness, piety, excellent housekeeping, sufficiency of property, and absence of children. ‘‘ What more could be desired?” the shrewd Jesper exclaims, in his narra- tive. “ Ina word, she seemed a woman who would suit me well. I wrote to her, and laid bare my thoughts, and she acceded to my request. ‘T'wo days before my wedding, I went to Stockholm, whither she also, by agreement, repaired. I was put into a room where she was sitting alone; but I did not know, and never imagined it was she, for no man had told me. . . . At length she said, ‘ What do you think of our bargain, M. Professor?’ I replied, ‘What bargain do you refer to?? ‘That which you have written about,’ she said. 302 Biography of Swedenborg. ‘I do not know what you méan,’ I answered. ‘ Are we not,’ She said, ‘to be man and wife to-morrow?” Hereupon Jesper Svedberg jumped up, shook hands, and gave a loving embrace to his wife elect ! , Swedenborg’s father was thus a strange character; hard- working, vigorous, self-seeking, yet duty-loving; quite sure that angels talked with him, and able, as he states, to exorcise devils, and turn them out of mind or body. Further curious. particulars concerning Jesper Svedberg will be found in Mr. White’s book; but enough has been said to indicate some of the peculiarities which he transmitted to his son Emanuel. In 1709, at the age of twenty-one, Emanuel took his degree as Doctor of Philosophy, at Upsala, and in the follow- ing year paid his first visit to London, and spent four years in England, Holland, and France. During this period, physical science and mechanical invention chiefly occupied his thoughts, and he designed a ship to float under water, a mode of lifting weights by means of a syphon, a mode of constructing sluices in places where there is no fall of water, by means of which large ships and their cargoes may be raised to any height within an hour or two, a flymg chariot, and many other things, amongst which was “a method of discovering the desires and aflections of the minds of men by analogies.” In 1716, Charles XII. appointed Swedenborg Extraordinary Assessor in the College of Mines, and also availed himself of his services as engineer. After the death of Charles XII. he continued his scientific pursuits, and complained bitterly of the neglect which useful novelties then experienced in Sweden. Methods of finding the longitude by means of the moon, observations and speculations in geology, propositions for reforming weights, measures, and currency, so as to facilitate calculation—these were among his studies ; and as they brought him no employment, he again took to travellmg, writing, and publishing. His revelations of trade secrets in mining and metallurgy being objected to, he replied, that ‘‘ whatever is worth knowing should, by all means, be brought into the great and common market of the world. Unless this be done, we can neither grow wiser nor happier with time.” Attempting to trace how the physical frame of things began, he assumed motion to have originated in a point, which he defined as the simplest existence, and proceeding immediately from the Infinite. This point he described as pure and total motion. By a union or combination of “ points,”’ the first finite is derived, having two natural poles formed by the spiral motion of the points, and revolving on its axis. By further combinations he fancied other finites were composed, the — Biography of Swedenborg. 303 fourth being ether, and the fifth air, and “in a state of still closer compression, water.” Water, he thought, according to _the erroneous belief of the time, to have no elasticity, and, therefore, he did not regard it as belonging to the elemental kingdom. He says, ‘ It is purely the first material finite. In a globule of water is contained all that had previously existed from the point downwards, like box within box.”? With these “points” as materials, it was easy to develope a cosmogony, and show how the sun and the planets were produced, and something like the nebulous theory seems to lurk in the ex- pressions cited by Mr. White. A fundamental doctrine of Swedenborg is that ‘‘ matter is everywhere the same in great as in little.’ This he applied in all his cosmical and chemical speculations, and also made it the foundation of his theories concerning spiritual worlds, which he conceived to correspond in almost all their facts and conditions with the lower world of matter and mortal life. Anatomy and physiology occupied much of Swedenborg’s time, and he thought to find the soul in the finest and most subtle tissues of the body. The red blood he supposed to be divided into a purer blood, and a purest, which he called “ spi- rituous fluid,’’? and he described the blood as the most com- plex of allthings, and asserted that it contained “ salts of every kind, both fixed and volatile, and oils, spirits, and aqueous elements; in fine, whatever is created and produced by the three kingdoms of the world—the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral.” He fancied red blood globules to be composed of white globules, aggregated in sixes round cubes of common salt, and inside the ultimate globules he placed the “ animal spirits,” imaginary entities generally believed in at that date. From common salt, by truncation of its angles, and various arrangements of its particles, he thought acids and alkalies were formed. | The animal spirits were in his philosophy the vesture or body of the soul, and the soul itself was ‘a fluid most abso- lute.” Respiration he conceived to be amode of feeding upon aerial food, in which the lungs sucked ether from the air, and converted it into white blood. Looking to Swedenborg’s scientific attainments, no one can doubt that he was a man of remarkable talent, knowledge, and ingenuity ; but there is a wide difference.between an in- ventive man, well stored with the current facts and processes of his day, and a great original thinker and observer in science. Those who claim the latter position for Swedenborg seem to us to exaggerate the merit of his lucky guesses, and to over- look his palpable blunders and absurdities. Although he professed the doctrine that experience was the basis of know- 304 Biography of Swedenborg. ledge, he was continually unable to discriminate between what was actually ascertained by means of experience, and what was simply imagined by pursuing a theory to its ultimate results. Modern philosophers have completely given up the vain attempt to know what matter isin its essence. They con- tent themselves with studying its actions and effects, and the doctrine is becoming prevalent that all forces are modes of motion of material particles, whatever such particles may be. The supposition that mathematical relations of quantity prevail all through nature, from the smallest and subtlest, to the largest and most concrete forms, originated with the old Greek philosophers ; and Swedenborg can lay no claim to originating such an idea. ‘That he had glimpses of real laws and truths not recognized in his day, we may fairly concede, but his philosophy was a jumble, in which fact and fancy, rationality and delusion, were mixed. He united, to a degree seldom witnessed, the opposite faculties of acquiring extensive and accurate knowledge in experimental and observational sciences, and of being under the influence of dreams and hallucinations, during the continuance of which scientific principles of verification were freely aban- doned. His mind was remarkably inventive, and when not engaged in endeavouring to make new applications of physical science, he invented in the realms of social, psychological, and theological speculation. He stands alone amongst the mystics for extensive acquisition of positive knowledge, and for zeal in its diffusion. The oriental mystics lost sicht of earth, in their imaginary contemplations of heaven—Swedenborge always had an eye to the practical, and his speculations were intended, and often did tend, to the improvement of mankind. The place assigned to Swedenborg as a scientific man will vary with the notions of what constitutes discovery, which his critics or admirers entertain. Most important discoveries have been imperfectly shadowed forth in the sayings or statements of those who did not know how to give them a definite and enduring shape; and, perhaps, no clever man, in any age of the world, has ever speculated much upon difficult problems, without sometimes coming near truths reserved for later thinkers to see more clearly and unfold. In mechanical invention how many thousands get a vague notion of what ought to be done, but fail to discover how to doit. It is the same in speculative science, and he only ought to be held as a discoverer who leaves his work definite, intelligible, and complete. If Sweden had offered more scope for the engineering and metallurgical talents of Swedenborg, his career might have been materially changed, and instead of being the mystical prophet of a small though important sect, his visions might have wandered less Biography of Swedenborg. 30d freely through imagined realms of spirits, and have been chiefly confined to regions in which his statements could be tested, and his alleged facts subjected to proof. From his father, Swedenborg inherited what he took for the faculty of spirit intercourse. “From his childhood, when on his knees at prayer, his breath was curiously holden within him; strange rays of light, from the sun of another country, from time to time had broken in through his darkness.” These words are his biographer’s, but he tells in his own, how flames of various colours appeared to him while he was writing one of his books, as evidences of the truth he was recording ; and “this was before the spirits began to speak with him as man with man.” The development of the visionary faculty took place at a comparatively late period of his life, and is placed by Mr. White as lasting from his fifty-fifth year to his death at eighty-five. In 1858 a small volume was offered for sale to the Royal Library at Stockholm. It proved to be a diary kept by Swedenborg between 1743 and 1744, and the extracts cited by Mr. White show that he passed through well-known stages of relicious madness. A. sense of desolation was experienced, though in a mild form; but soon, he says, ‘all was heavenly, clear at the time, but inexplicable now.. In one word I was in heaven and heard speech, that no tongue can utter, nor the glory and the innermost delight which followed this speech.” He next believed that Jesus Christ appeared to him in person, and in the whole of his subsequent life he believed himself to be a divinely chosen instrument for conveying religious truth to man. As a curious instance of his mode of interpreting his visions, we find this entry. | “ Dr. Morsus appeared to be courting a handsome girl, and she allowed him to do with her what he liked. I joked with her because of her easy consent. She was a handsome girl, and grew taller and prettier. This means that I should obtain information and meditate about the muscles.” In London he appears to have gone quite out of his mind, stripping himself naked, and rolling in a deep, muddy gutter, but he did not remain in this condition, and was soon able to take care of himself, and act rationally until his death, though seeing visions, and receiving spiritual visitants nearly the whole time. Returning home he resumed his official duties, and employed his leisure in learning Hebrew; but believing himself to have'a divine mission, he soon resigned his assessorship, and devoted the rest of his life to theological pursuits. The theological career of Swedenborg could only be fairly traced in connection with the history of religious thought. VOL. XI.—NO, IV. 5 306 Biography of Swedenborg. His followers consider that the reality of his alleged visits to heaven and hell, and the truth of his opinions are shown by the force of mternal evidence. No one doubts Swedenborg’s veracity or honesty, and those whose minds impel them to accept his system as a matter of faith, find no difficulty in believing that he was favoured above other mortals with a spiritual insight. Others, while admitting that his multi-- tudinous writings contain many beautiful and true ideas, see no reason for entirely separating his case from thousands of others, in which cerebral disorder has existed, and given rise to analogous hallucimations. We do not intend to discuss or describe his theological views. They are tolerably well-known, and his followers circulate them abundantly in tracts and pub- lications easily obtained. One very fine thought occurs in his delineation of the spirit worlds, which he conceives to be un- trammelled by lmitations of space. Nearness of mind and heart, according to his philosophy, cause spirits to appear in each others presence, and no physical journeying is necessary to bring together those whom active love and sympathy unite. Asarule his statements concerning heaven and hell are nothing more than ingenious applications of the notion that terrestrial existence is the type of all existence. Joys and pains, temp- tations, clothes, houses, etc., etc., are, according to his descrip- tions, much the same in the spirit worlds as on earth, and it is difficult to understand how any one can see im such deli- neations proof of anything more than an ingenious constructive faculty, acting more or Jess under the stimulus of cerebral disease. Great stress has been laid by some on Swedenborg’s apparent knowledge of events not within the reach of ordinary faculties to discover. _ For example, at Gutten- burg he is reported to have described a fire then raging at Stockholm, 3800 miles distant, and after appearing to watch the progress of the flames, he exclaimed, “ ‘hank God, the fire is extinguished the third door from my house ;”” which proved to be correct. A few other stories of an analogous nature are handed down with evidence of authenticity more or less complete. Such narratives are, no doubt, puzzling. They belong to a very numerous class ; and in all ages visions, dreams, and presentiments have occasionally proved true. ‘fo affirm that such cases cannot possibly be more than chanc coin- cidences would be to assume a knowledge we do not possess, while to maintain that they are proofs of supernatural agency is to invent an explanation not warranted by the evidence. Those who wish to know more of Swedenborg will do well to consult Mr. White’s volumes, which contain much curious mat- ter, and furnish specimens of his writings on various subjects, Archeologia. 307 We should have recommended Mr. White to have employed a more dignified tone in some of his controversial remarks; but he has, on the whole, produced a work that exhibits unmis- takeable marks of dustry and research, and will enable Swedenborg to be better understood by general readers than heretofore. ARCH AOLOGIA. Av a recent mecting of the British Archeological Association, on April 10, a number of rorGED ANTIQUITINS were exhibited, differmg in many respects from the forgeries in lead and cock-metal from the manufactory in Rosemary Lane, to which we have now been so long accustomed. This new class of forgeries seems to have made its appearance about the month of November last, and the articles are usually represented as having been found at Brooks’s Wharf, Queen- hithe. The objects produced on this occasion were all made of zinc, and had been washed or dirtied so as to give them an appearance of age. ‘The first was a small kneeling figure holding an open book, evidently copied from some one of the plaster casts commonly hawked about the streets, but with the addition of a nimbus, Another was a small vase, or ampulla, bearing a figure of St. Barbara; and this same figure is repeated on a brooch pretended to have been discovered in January last. There was also a pin in the shape of a sword, four inches long; a gauntleted hand and arm, as if broken off from a statuette; a small label inscribed ‘‘ Amurs,”’ intended to appear as if it had formed the foot-rest of a small effigy ; another small ampulla; two horn-shaped vessels about four inches long; a brooch in form of a helmet; another gauntleted arm; a small gauntlet, and a right leg incased in armour, having the look of a part of the Manx arms. Several of these articles are furnished with rings, to give them the appearance of having been worn as personal ornaments. A very prevailing form of ornament upon them consists of pellets arranged in rows, circles, and other devices. Mr. Heroyd Smith has sent us a copy of his Notabilia of the Archeology of the Mersey District, in which he gives a much more complete account of the antiquities found of late years on this part or THE CHESHIRE coast than in the report published in the Lteliquary from which we gave some notes in our last. We were ourselves led into error, it appears, in an important, circumstance in regard to these antiquities. They are not, Mr. Smith informs us, “washed up” on the beach. ‘‘They are washed out, and often down, but never wp. Thousands lie in all probability buried under the Great Hoyle Bank far extending to the eastward, and over the site of the early settiement or village.” It appears that there was here anciently a promontory, on which the Romans formed a settle- ment, and which was subsequently occupied by Saxons and Normans; — it was known in the middle ages by the name of the Meols; but 308 Archeologia. the sea has for centuries been gradually gaining upon it, until now nearly all that remains above water consists of a sand-bank at some distance from the shore. In his pamphlet, which is a reprint from the Zransactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Mr. Kcroyd Smith has given interesting sections of the present coast, showing the different strata of deposit, which repre- sent different periods, Roman, Saxon, and Medieval, with an indica- tion of the class of objects found in each. Perhaps one of the most interesting discoveries recorded here by Mr. Smith, is that of a number of leaden pans, undoubtedly of the Roman period, found at a depth of ten feet near the bank of the river.Weaver, at Northwich in Cheshire, and first announced to the public by Dr. Kendrick, of Warrington. They were no doubt used by the Romans for boiling the water to extract salt; in fact, Roman brine-pans. Northwich, like most of the places with names in which this syllable wich enters, such as Nantwich and Droitwich, are nearly always sites occupied by the Romans for salt-making, and Dr. Kendrick suggests that this may have been the Roman Saline, which others have placed at Droitwich; but there may have been several places to which the Romans gave this same name. These brine-pans furnish an inte- resting illustration of the manner in which the Romans in this island manufactured their salt. It is a curious fact that in early medizval charters connected with Droitwich, the brine-pans are termed plum- beria, indicating that they were made of lead, and a certain number of them are stated to have constituted a bullertwm, or boiling. All these discoveries are of very great importance to the physical and moral history of the district, and too much praise cannot be given to Mr. Hceroyd Smith for the zealous care with which he has collected and recorded the facts. We are glad to be able to announce that the town of Liverpool has decided on rendering an honourable act of justice to the name of one of its most eminent and distinguished townsmen, to whom, among many other benefits, it owes the gift of a noble museum of antiquities (which has just been removed into the building newly destined for its reception), by erecting a staruE To Josepu Mayer. It is to be executed by Signor Fontana, who is now, we believe, at Liverpool, engaged upon it, and to be placed in St. George’s Hall. - A remarkably interesting discovery of .ROMAN sSEPULCHRAL REMAINS has recently been made in a field between Silsby and Barrow-on-Soar, in the county of Leicester, about three miles west- ward of the fosse-way running from Late (Leicester) to Lindum (Lincoln), and six miles north of the former town. The accidental excavations to which we owe this discovery appear to have extended over part of a regular Roman cemetery, which con- tained above a dozen separate interments, and furnished a certain number of objects, which have been presented to the Leicester Town Museum. We have before us a beautiful photograph and a lithograph of the greater part of these objects, and a plan of the site of the excavations, with the places marked on which each object was found. Among the latter were no less than five large wide-mouth glass vessels, which contained burnt human bones, each taken from a separate interment. Four of them were rectangular, or four- Archceologia. 309 sided, and the fifth was six-sided, and one had two handles. One was found inclosed in a chest of limestone. Only one clay cinerary urn was met with; but in one grave was found a large, almost globular, amphora, two feet six inches in height, and two feet in diameter, computed to hold fifteen gallons, which had perhaps been used as a sepulchral urn, for it was found in a fragmentary state. It should be added that the mouths of two of the glass vessels were almost hermetically sealed with lead. Near the limestone cist con- taining one of the glass vessels were found together two iron lamp- stands, with the iron moveable rods attached, by which they might be suspended to a wall. They had perhaps been used to support lighted lamps in a small sepulchral chamber or cist, and lamps have been found not unfrequently under similar circumstances in Roman interments in our island. Among other fragments was a piece of a vessel made of the red glazed pottery, which our antiqua- rians seem now agreed in calling Samian ware. Besides, these interments of burnt bones, there were found five skeletons, the remains of bodies which had been buried entire. It is evident from many similar discoveries, that the two practices of cremation and burial of the body entire prevailed in Britain during the whole Roman period, and that the adoption of one or the other was a mere question of individual choice. After the second century, the practice of burning the dead began rapidly to be discontinued in the south, until it disappeared entirely under the Christian emperors. But it is probable that the influence of the imperial laws and regulations in such matters as this extended but slowly into the distant provinces ; in the more fashionable parts of Roman Britain we find both modes of interment intermixed in the same cemetery, while, as we approach what must have been the remote districts, the burial of the body entire occurs less frequently. In the cemeteries at Wroxeter, the Roman Uriconium, a very large town, which was not destroyed till the very close of the Roman period, down to the present time no single instance has been found of burial otherwise than by crema- tion. The ashes of the dead were usually deposited in an earthen- ware vessel, generally of a form which was no'doubt made for this peculiar purpose. Sometimes, when they were perhaps made in a hurry, for the necessity of the moment, in localities where they were not always to be had ready made, they are of very rude and imper- fect work. ‘The glass vessels used for this purpose are less common, and, as they are usually of very good material and workmanship, they were, probably, only used by people of a superior class. We may suppose that this cemetery at Barton-on-Soar belonged to people of a superior position in society, who not only used glass vessels for interment when they still practised cremation, but who had adopted to a considerable extent the more fashionable mode of burying the body entire. The urn itself, whether of earthenware or glass, was sometimes buried, as here, in a cist or coffin; and sometimes, as we have found in many instances in Britain, it was placed within an amphora, the upper part of which had been skil- fully broken off to allow of the urn being put inside. Weare informed that the amphora found at Barton-on-Soar had been filled with charred wood, among the remains of which were found large nails ; 510 Progress of Invention. these globular-shaped capacious amphore are not common. An instance of one used, probably like this, for inclosing the ashes of the dead, was found at Colchester some years ago. In a grave in the Roman cemetery at Cirencester (Coriniwm) an urn receptacle was found, which appeared to have been one of the stones of a cylindrical column, sawn in two, a hole made in the centre to receive the urn, and then the two parts united again. In the middle of this cemetery opened: at Barton-on-Soar was found a square area covered by a rubble floor, which no doubt served some important purpose connected with the burial place. While speaking of Roman interments, we may state that two ROMAN LEADEN COFFINS have recently been discovered near Milton- next-Sittingbourne in Kent, one containing the skeleton of a female, the other that of an old man. It is said that, when first opened, a white beard, descending to the breast of the Jatter, was distinctly visible. One earthern and two glass vessels were found accompany- ing it. These leaden coffins of the Roman period are found rather frequently in Britain. Perhaps they belong to a rather late date, as, in at least one instance, an interment in a leaden coffin, evidently in the Roman manner, has been found in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery, as though the practice had continued after the close of the Roman period. a 4 ge PROGRESS OF INVENTION. New Source or tHe Tanninc Principre.—Notwithstanding all our improvements in arts and manufactures, it may still be said, with truth, that ‘‘there is nothing like leather.’”’ This valuable substance has often been imitated, but it has never been-superseded, and probably never will. ‘To facilitate and cheapen its manufacture is, by consequence, a matter of considerable importance. The tanning principle obtained from vegetables is more or less limited in supply, and therefore costly ; and a natural attempt to economize it results but too often in the production of an inferior leather. Artificial tanning has been proposed, but as it has hitherto been best obtained from resin, it also is expensive. Recent experiments have shown that it may be formed with great facility, and at a trifling cost, from bituminous coal or lignite; the latter answering best on account of its permeability by liquids, a property of some importance from the nature of the process employed. .This consists merely in heating the coal or lignite for a considerable time with nitric acid, and then evaporating todryness. The residuum, a dark brown substance, is entirely soluble in alcohol, ether, concentrated . sulphuric acid, the alkalies, and their carbonates ; but it consists of two portions, one of which only is soluble in water, the solution having an acrid and bitter taste, and being capable of precipitating albumen and gelatine. Should it be found an efficient substitute for the tanning principle of vegetables, which is not unlikely to be the case, the cheapness and abundance of the source whence it may be obtained will considerably affect the economic production of leather. Progress of Invention. 311 PecuntAR APPLICATION OF Hxxorricity.—The brilliancy of the electric spark very soon suggested it as a means for obtaining artificial light, and numerous experiments were made with the object of utilizing it in that way. These experiments, though not altogether unsuccessful, led to no practical results. Among the difficulties experienced in the application of machine electricity to the purposes of illumination, one of the most serious was the im- possibility of obtaining perfect insulation. This does not exist to the same extent with galvanic electricity, and hence the application of this form of electricity to illuminating purposes has been attended with better success; and the improved modes of producing it, and other forms of that agent having a controllable intensity, has given an impetus to the efforts of those who count on the application of the electric light to practical purposes. One of the most curious instances of this application is, perhaps, that recently made in Paris for the production of theatrical effect. Light metallic crowns, having slight interruptions, were worn by some of the performers; and when the galvanic current from a concealed battery was trans- mitted through these crowns, brilliant stars of light were produced at the interruptions. The most costly diamonds would not have afforded an equally brilliant effect. The danger of so powerful an agent as a strong galvanic current in the hands of the inexperienced or the neglectful, was illustrated, at the same time, by the fact that one of the performers was seriously injured, the head having been allowed to form a part of the circuit. Sonorous ViprRations, A Means or Muasurinc Minurse Portions or Timz.—An apparatus recently perfected by M. Niaudet-Breguet affords a simple means of measuring, with ease, extremely minute portions of time. In its earlier forms, this apparatus was employed only to record graphically the vibrations of sonorous bodies. It originally consisted of a tuning fork, on one branch of which was fixed a point, that, when the fork was set in vibration, described a sinuous line on a cylinder covered with lamp black, and made to revolve by clock work. To render the vibrations con- tinuous, instead of lasting but a very short time, each branch of the tuning fork was alternately attracted by an electro-magnet, which was placed very near it, and which was, at suitable intervals, placed in connection with a galvanic battery, by means of the apparatus usually employed for making and breaking connection with the ordinary induction coil. The apparatus was so arranged that the sound produced by the apparatus for making and breaking contact was in unison with, or some octave of that of the tuning fork ; which was effected by turning the regulating screw. The next improvement introduced into the apparatus, was the substitution of one of the branches of a tuning fork, having a pitch corresponding to the tuning fork attached to the apparatus for graphic delineations, instead of the vibrating metallic slip, used with the induction coil. M. Niaudet-Breguet’s improvement consists in the use of an horological instrument, in which the pendulum is replaced by a tuning fork; the movement of the wheel work being controlled by 312 Progress of Invention. the vibrations of the fork, and the vibrations of the fork being rendered continuous, by means of the impulses derived from the wheel work. Hands and a dial indicate the velocity of vibrations. The tuning fork constituting the pendulum being connected with that of the apparatus for graphic delineations, and made to corres- pond with it, as to pitch, the dial will tell the number of vibrations made by the tuning fork of the recording apparatus. Tuning forks of various pitch may be used with the horological apparatus, since” their rates of vibrations are not affected by the intensity of the moving power. Or one tuning fork may be regulated to different pitches, by symmetrical and equal weights, which are made to slide along the branches. For small changes, screws fixed in the branches, and moving in and out parallel to the axis of the fork will afford a sufficient power of regulation. This instrument enables us to measure very minute intervals of time, to regulate the velocity of the movements communicated to astronomical instruments, and to obtain synchronism between two apparatus, at considerable distances apart, and notwithstanding great variations in the intensity of the motive power, a matter of great importance in telegraphy. APPLICATION ON SULPHURET OF CARBON TO THE PREPARATION OF Perrumes.—The ordinary tedious, and wasteful mode of obtaining odoriferous principles from flowers, is likely to be superseded by one far more simple. It consists in an application of the affinity which the sulphuret of carbon has for these principles. A flask con- taining the petals of flowers recently gathered, having been filled up with the sulphuret is corked and shaken. It is then left at rest for about six hours, after which, the sulphuret being decanted into a flask containing the petals of similar flowers, it is corked, agitated, and left to rest as before. The same thing is done with a third anda fourth flask of petals. The sulphuret will then be found deeply coloured, and floating on the water which it has driven out from the pores of the flowers. Having been separated from the water, if the quantity is small, it may be evaporated by mere exposure to the air, and the residue treated with alcohol. Or it may be mixed with oil of sweet almonds, then shaken several times a day for three or four days, and afterwards placed in an open vessel and exposed to the air. If the mixture of sulphuret and oil of sweet almonds is considerable in quantity, it should be distilled atthe lowest sufficient temperature, in a water bath. Were the temperature allowed to become too high, some of the sulphuret of carbon would be lost, and some of the aromatic matter destroyed. qual parts by weights of petals and sulphuret, and a little more than one-third. of the weight obtained of the petals oil, are very suitable proportions. The perfumed oil in this way answers well for every purpose requiring the use of aromatic essences. Srpte Mope or Giipina Porcetarn.—A bright coating of gold, without the use of the burnisher, may be produced on porcelain by very simple means. For this purpose two compounds are first to be prepared. The first is formed by dissolving thirty-two parts gold in aqua regia formed with equal quantities nitric and hydrochloric acid, Progress of Invention. 313 and then adding to the solution one-fifth part tin and one-fifth part butter of antimony, and, after the application of heat, diluting with five hundred parts water. The second compound is formed, by gently heating sixteen parts sulphuric acid, sixteen parts Venice turpen- tine, and thinning the uniform dark brown mass thus obtained with fifty parts oil of lavender. The two compounds are to be mixed and well stirred, heat being applied, until a uniform liquid is obtained. The water and excess of acid separates, on cooling, from the resin- ous mass, which having been well washed with water, and then freed from moisture, is “to be thinned by the addition of sixty-five parts oil of lavender, and one hundred parts oil of turpentine, the perfect incorporation of the constituents being hastened by heat. Five parts basic nitrate of bismuth are now to be added to the resulting uniform mass, and after the mixture has been allowed to rest, the clear portion is to be poured off. This is the material used for gilding. It is applied to the porcelain in any convenient way, and dries very quickly. After the porcelain has been subjected to a high temperature the gilded portions are very brilliant. New Textite Fisres.—There are many plants found in great abundance, that would furnish large quantities of excellent textile fibres, were it not found extremely difficult to separate them from the woody portions. It has been found that this difficulty may be overcome by very simple means. The stalks are first to be passed between rollers for the purpose of disaggregating them. Having then been placed in a vessel containing a very weak solution of commercial soda, steam, haying a pressure of four or five atmos- pheres, is to be passed into the solution, which is to be kept at a boiling temperature for a time, whick varies with the nature of the plant. The yellow brown cellulose thus cbtained, is to be washed with water, to which a small quantity of hydrochloric or sulphuric acid has been added, to neutralize any alkali that may be present, and is then to be placed in any bleaching fluid. When removed from this, to prevent colorization being again produced, it is to be washed in any extremely dilute solution of carbonate of soda, and is then to be left in a weak solution of chloride of lime. The brown colour first produced by this latter treatment, is suceeeded by a brilliant and permanent whiteness. Panoramic Puorocrapus.—Very simple means have been re- cently devised for producing panoramic views of almost any extent with the ordinary camera, and the results thus obtained are such as leave nothing to be desired. For this purpose the camera is made to revolve on a centre, the positions to be given to it in succession being indicated by a graduation on the plate upon which it rests ; and the glass plate is made to slide in a groove, so that different portions of it may come successively into the "required position behind the objective, the proper changes of position being indi- cated by notches. Such an arrangement will, it is evident, in theory, secure the desired effect ; but in practice it is, as might be expected, found, irom the impossibility of making the boundary of one part of the view exactly to correspond with that of the succeed- 314 Progress of Invention. ing, that the union of both is indicated by a line, a circumstance quite sufficient, if irremediable, to render the contrivance inadmis- sible. This difficulty is, however, easily obviated by the use of a suitable diaphragm placed within the camera at a proper distance from the objective and the glass plate. There is thus produced a kind of penumbra in one position, which is rendered perfect by exposure during the next position. ‘The impressions corresponding | to the successive portions of the view being in this way made to blend with each other, so that no line of demarcation between them can be perceived. Five or six movements of the camera and the plate are found quite sufficient for a very extended view. APPLICATION OF AIR CHARGED WITH COMBUSTIBLE VAPOURS.— Inflammable gases are frequently rendered capable of imparting a more brilliant light, during combustion, by charging them with hydrocarbon vapours. Experiments are, however, being made at present in Russia with atmospheric air charged with these vapours, and the result is said to be the production of a combustible gas capable of affording a heat sufficiently intense to melt steel. Atmo- spheric air is forced through oil of turpentine, and carries along with it an amount of the fluid sufficient to cause, during its com- bustion, not only the evolution of an intense heat, but the emission of a clear and brilliant light, It is intended, in this way, to provide fuel for some small steamboats which are intended to run on the Neva. Such an arrangement may be found convenient, and even economical, in certain circumstances; but if it is used, it will be necessary to guard against the danger of explosion. This, how- ever, may be done by very simple means. Miscettannous.—New Application of Photography.—Photography now enables us to obtain the picture of a projectile passing out of the mouth of a gun. For this purpose it-is necessary to havea col- dion which requires a very short exposure, and a means of rendering the exposure and the ignition of the charge perfectly simultaneous. The latter, which would be impossible to any degree of manual dexterity, is effected by very simple and infallible means. The current of galvanic electricity which by rendering a thin platina wire incandescent, explodes the charge, excites an electro-magnet that raises a disc from the front of the lens of the camera. When the wire has melted, that is, when the ignition of the charge is complete, the disc falls in front of the lens.——Rem- forcement of Photographic Negatives.—A negative may be imperfect from insufficient exposure, in which case the details will not be well brought out: or from the collodion, the silver bath, or the developer being out of order, in which cases it will not be sufficiently opaque. The former imperfection may be rerhoved by means of pyrogalic acid, to which has been added citric acid and a few drops of aqueous solution of nitrate of silver. The latter, by | means of, first, an aqueous solution, containing three per cent. of chlo- ride of copper, then washing with water, applying an aqueous con- centrated acid solution of sesquichloride of iron ; again washing, then applying an aqueous solution of iodidé of potassium, which has been saturated with pure iodide of silver, and finally washing. If Progress of Invention. | 315 both defects are present at once, the two remedies must be employed in succession.——Lstimation of Silex mm Wheat.—It has long been known that silex is a necessary constituent of the wheat stalk, a deficiency of it leading to a tendency. in the wheat to be easily over- thrown by wind or rain; hence the application of siliceous manures. On the other hand, it has been found that wheat-straw containing even more than the normal amount of silex is liable to the danger of being prostrated. M. Isidore Pierre has enabled us to reconcile these apparent contradictions. The silex is found in very different quantities in the leaves, the knots, and the spaces between the knots —the leaves containing, for a given weight, far the largest quantity. The more luxuriant the leaves, therefore, the greater the amount of silex, but the greater also the weight to be borne by the stalk ; and the less capable it is of bearing it, being hindered from becoming dry on account of the free access of air being prevented. The errors on this subject have, therefore, arisen from estimating the silex as a whole, and not considering by itself the portion found in the stalk. Not that the entire of what is found in the leaves is inef- fective: for a part of the leaf is in the form of a sheath, which adds to the strength of the stem. But this sheath is not proportionately increased when the leaf becomes very luxuriant. Weight, therefore, but not at the same time strength, is added, when the leaves are greatly developed. Hence the advantage sometimes found in. thinning the leaves before the ear begins to form. Water- proof Cement.—It has been found that the addition of coal-dust to ordinary cement renders it completely water-proof, and imparts to it great solidity. For this purpose two parts of fine cement, one part coal-dust finely pulverized, and one and a half parts slaked lime, may be used, the whole being brought to a proper consistency by the required amount of water. Sensitive Litmus Paper.—We have given an extremely sensitive test for acids; but as litmus paper is, in ordinary circumstances, very convenient, it is desirable, if possible, so to prepare it as that it may be relied upon. This is easily done. It is highly sensitive only when its colouring matter consists of the red principle of the litmus, combined with sub- carbonate of potash. Any substance having a greater affinity for the red principle than the potash will decompose it. Commercial litmus paper often contains the red principle, united with sub- carbonate of lime, instead of subcarbonate of potash, a compound decomposed with considerable difficulty. To prevent the presence of the calcium compound, the paper should, before the application of the colouring matter, be immersed in a weak solution of hydrochloric acid, which removes the lime, and thus secures the production of a test paper containing only the highly sensitive compound. 316 Proceedings of Learned Societies. PROCEEDINGS | OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. SOIREE OF THE ROYAL MICROSCOPIC SOCIETY. THe annual soirée of the Royal Microscopical Society was held at King’s College on the 24th April; James Glaisher, Hsq., F.R.S., the President of the Society, receiving the company, which was unusually numerous, and of a distinguished character. The supply of microscopes was very large, and. the objects of greater variety and interest than usual. Mr. Sorby exhibited his excellent plan for comparing the spectrum of any object under the microscope with a standard absorption spectrum, obtained by transmitting light through quartz of a given thickness. Mr. Browning showed the same apparatus, carried out as devised by Mr. Sorby. Mr. Sorby likewise exhibited his dichroiscope, a new instrument for the examination of crystals, to which we shall revert on another occasion. Mr. Ross and Mr. Baker exhibited Mr. Slack’s adjustible diaphragm for eye-pieces. Messrs. Powell and Lealand showed their binocular arrangement for high powers. Mr. Baker showed a variety of new apparatus, including his travelling microscope. Mr. Highley showed waistcoat-pocket and other portable microscopes, a new hydrocarbon demonstrating lantern, for exhibiting objects on a screen, etc. Messrs. Murray and Heath brought anew pocket micro- scope, and other useful novelties. Prof. Smith’s mechanical finger was shown by Mr. Bailey, and by Mr. Browning in a simplified and economical form. Among the most important objects were a beau- tiful series, shown by Dr. Carpenter, illustrating the development of the comatula, from its pentacrinoid larva; Mr. Whitney’s prepa- rations, showing the development of the breathing apparatus of the tadpole; the structure of the hyalonema, and its encrusting polyps, by Mr. C. Tyler; some new and rare forms of rhizopoda, etc., obtained by Major Owen, by surface-skimming of the mid ocean ; a diamond, containing an appearance of organic structure, by Mr. W. H. B. Hunt, ete., etc. Mr. Norman brought a very fine series of objects, and the tables of Ross, Powell, R. and J. Beck, Baker, Pillischer, . How, Crouch, Collins, etc. .. were very attractive. In the course of the evening, Mr. Highley exhibited, with the oxyhydrogen lantern, some heantifal views of scenes in Australia and Africa, “lent by Mr. Baines. The picture of the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi was much admired, and a view of that remarkable plant, the Welwitchia mirabilis, attracted great attention. In a living state the leaves are of a beautiful green, and lke enormous ribbons stretching along the ground, while the flowers are fine red. Altogether, this soirée was the most successful that the Society has given. Interary Notices. | 317 LITERARY NOTICES. Hanpsoox or Asrronomy, by Dionystus Larpyer, D.C.L., for- merly Professor of Natural Ph:losophy and Astronomy in University College, London. Third Edition. Revised and Edited by Epwarp Dunk, F.R.A.S., Superintendent of the Altazimuth Department, Royal Observatory, Greenwich, with illustrations on stone and wood. (J. Walton.)—The plan of this work is to give first brief descriptions of methods and instruments, then to describe the earth, the moon, the tides and trade-winds; then to pass to the sun, the planets, comets, and fixed stars. Thus a large range of subjects is included in a comparatively small well-printed work, which contains the kind of matter required by general students. The illustrations are very numerous, and generally good; but those of nebula and clusters cannot be commended, and must be taken with large grains of allowance; that, for example, of the Great Orion nebule would scarcely be recognized by any one acquainted with its telescopic appearance. The chapter on the sun required more revision than it has been subjected to, and it is somewhat absurd on turning to “ Stellar Clusters and Nebule,” to find the latter spoken of as all resolvable if sufficient telescopic power were employed. Some defects of this description are corrected in an appendix ; and, on the whole, the new edition may take its place among the useful manuals of the day. Tue Evecrric Trevecrapy, by Dr. Larpner. A new Edition, Revised and Re-written by Epwarp B. Bricur, ¥.R.A.S., Secretary of the British and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company, With 140 illustrations. (James Walton. )—An interesting volume well brought down to date by its editor, and containing ina small compass a large quantity of important matter. We should have recommended the disuse of such a phrase as ‘the electric fluid is deposited in a latent state in an unlimited quantity in the earth,” etc. Tlectric science certainly knows nothing of deposits of electric fluid, though the phrase may be excusable in newspaper paragraphs; and the depo- sition of fluid in latent state sounds absurd, unless it were a slang periphrasis for hiding a barrel of beer. There are many other passages to which objections might be taken, but, on the whole, it is a good popular work. A Dicrionary or Science, Literature, AND Art, comprising the Definitions and Derivations of the Scientific Terms in General Use, together with the History and Description of the Scientific Principles of nearly every branch of Human Knowledge. Fourth Edition, Reconstructed and Iixtended by the late Dr. T. Branpz, D.C.L., V.R.S.L. and H., of Her Majesty’s Mint; and the Rev. Grorct Witttam Cox, M.A., late Scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, assisted by Contributors of Scientific and Literary acquirements. (Longmans, Part xii. April, 1867.)—This number isa very thick one, commencing with Sigurdh, and ending with Zymotic, thus closing the work. We have very often expressed our opinion of this work. On the whole it is well done, and calculated to serve the ordinary requirements of educated families. The subjects of the articles are 318 Literary Notices. well selected, and they are for the most part well written. The weak part is the natural history and microscopy. Physics, che- mistry, astronomy, music, and a host of other subjects, are judiciously treated, and the general promise of the prospectus fairly carried. out. Licut; irs Inrnvence on Lire and Heattra, by Fores WIx- stow, M.D., D.C.L. Oxon. (Hon.), etc., etc. (Longmans).—Dr. Winslow’s work is popular rather than scientific. It is pleasantly written, and well adapted for family reading. The chapters on the supposed influence of the moon on disease, and especially on insanity, contain much important evidence in favour of ascribing such action to our satellite, but such a subject requires much more elaborate and scientifie treatment than Dr. Winslow has given to it. With the very common tendency of diseases to periodicity, it would be expected that in a great number of instances their times of dimi- nution or increase would coincide accidentally with the periods of any regularly recurring series of events. For example, the tides ebb and flow at fixed intervals, and it is a very common popular belief that the ebbing of the tides influences the termination of human life, and creates a period of maximum death. Now ina populous country nothing could be easier than to obtain an immense number of instances in which death paid its visits as the waters flowed away; but amore complete analysis would dispose of the theory by exhibiting numerous instances of its failure. In lke manner, a doctor having a lunar theory will readily find apparent confirmation, but another doctor not possessed with such a theory would discover abundance of facts that did not coincide with it. The influence of the moon on the weather has been a prevailing belief in all centuries and ages, and yet how very few propositions affirming such action can be considered as at all substantiated.- The moon may influence weather and may influence disease in more ways than one, but its influence may be so mixed up with other influences as to be difficult to disentangle, and by no means sure to dominate. It is rather surprising to find a physician of Dr. Forbes Winslow’s standing citing with approbation the nonsensical remark of Mr. Steinmetz that sunshine consists of a metallic shower because the solar photosphere appears to contain incandescent metallic vapours. ' The ascription of physiological effects to the “iron vapour” of a sunbeam is more comical than scientific. In the first place there is not a particle of evidence that the sun sends us through his beams a supply of iron from his own body, and in the next place if a sun- beam were imagined to contain iron at all, the quantity would put to shame the infinitesimal doses of the homceopathists, at which Dr. Winslow would, no doubt, laugh. Sunbeams are practically imponderable in the finest balances, though if we conceive them as a motion of particles, the particles may have weight, though to an inappreciable extent. A great mass of concentrated sunbeams weigh nothing, or nothing appreciable, and yet they may contain iron enough for a medical dose! *We.hope Dr. Winslow will never overdose a patient after such a theory of infinitesimal action. Tue Norru-Waest Peninsuta or Icenand; being the Journal of a Notes and Memoranda. 319 Tour in Iceland in the Spring and Summer of 1862. By C. W. SuepHerD, M.A., F.Z.S. (Longmans.)—An elegant little book, with two coloured plates of Icelandic scenery, and containing a readable ‘narrative of exploration into parts of the island which have escaped previous tourists. The picture of the hardships to be endured by travellers among the hospitable, but poorly provided Icelanders, is not very inviting, and agrees substantially with the experience of other travellers. Scattered through the work are many interesting illustrations of the physical geography of the island, and of the effects of its severe winters. Of a valley near the Dranga Jokull, the writer remarks, ‘‘ No place could show the awful effects of the breaking-up of an Icelandic winter more than the valley before us. It was itself a deep ditch with mountain walls. Through the centre ran several broad glacier streams, white and rapid, inter- secting one another in every possible manner and direction. Huge snow-drifts also climbed the mountain sides, and large masses of rock and earth were strewn about, having descended from the heights above. One mass in particular drew our attention. We saw it long before we reached it, and thought it was a house in the distance. it had bounded into the centre of the valley, and was so strongly held together by the turf upon it, that it remained unbroken, and presented the shape of an arch with a span of ten feet, and would almost admit of my walking under it.” The account of an eider duck island is likewise very interesting, and the book will well repay perusal. NOTES AND MEMORANDA. DEVITRIFICATION OF Guass.—M. Clemandot has a paper in Comptes Rendus in which he states that desiring to make a very simple and very dispersive crown - glass, he used silica and soda exclusively, without any lime, and with great excess of the first material. While in complete fusion at a high temperature he withdrew a portion of the glass which remained unchanged for ten years, but the mass left in the crucible underwent devitrification as it cooled. He adds that glass is most solid and most unalterable when it contains the greatest number of bases in its composition, but that an excess of any material leads to devitrification. VARIATION OF SpEcIES.—M. C, Dareste brings before the French Academy an instance of the progeny of a hen near Lille resembling the so-called Poules de Padoua, as Polish fowis are improperly called. Two chickens, which died before they were hatched, exhibited the peculiar protrusion of the brain between the frontal bones, which characterises this breed, although no trace of its having been at any time crossed with the Lille fowls could be discovered. In another case a cow and calf assumed the characters of a bovine race of South America, the nata, or nidta, which had a peculiarly short dog-like head, and which seems to have com- pletely disappeared. Several other cases are mentioned in the same paper. Hvuaeins oN THE Specrrum or Mars.—Mr. Huggins’ paper in Monthly Notices shows that the C line in the solar spectrum exists also in the spectrum of Mars. A strong line distant from C, at about one fourth the distance from C to B, which does not exist in the solar spectrum, was satisfactorily determined. Faint lines were seen on 14th Feb., on both sides ef D, similar to those which appear when the sun’s light traverses the whole of the atmosphere, and which were in like manner to be produced by the atmosphere of Mars. Mr. Brownine’s Sun Screen.—Mr. Browning has adopted a modification of Foucault’s proposal to silver an object-glass by Liebig’s process, and view the 320 Notes and Memoranda. sun through the transparent metallic film, which diminishes the light, and pre- vents the heat reaching the eye. He has used with success a carefully prepared flat dise of glass, silvered on one side, and placed at the mouth of his silvered mirror reflectors. With such an apparatus, applied to Mr. Barnes’ 83-inch telescope, he observed the eclipse of March 6, and saw the mountains on the dark margin of the moon beautifully projected on the luminous disc behind, the protuberances on the S.E. being most prominent. He also noticed that the minimum tempe- rature was not attained in Mr. Barnes’ garden (Camden Road, N.W.) till half an, hour after the maximum of the eclipse.— Monthly Notices. BRooKE on Evectric Eneray.—An important paper by Mr. Charles Brooke, F.R.S., will be found in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, No. 91, the gist of which is that light, heat, electricity, etc., are modes of motion of the particles of matter, and not of an imponderable ether filling-up the interstices of matter. He supposes that space is filled with a highly attenuated, but still ponderable sub- stance (ether), which transmits light and heat which is not miscible with our atmosphere any more than oil is with water, but floats upon it. Copper will transmit electricity at the rate of 250,000 miles a second, and other appropriate kinds of matter may in like manner transmit light and heat. CASSELLA’S Empbossina SELF-RECORDING ANEMOMETER.—One of these instruments has recently been erected at Kew Observatory. It has the hemisphe- rical cups of Dr. Robinson, but the registering apparatus has been devised by Mr. Cassella and Mr. Beckley. A narrow slip of paper, sufficient to last a month or six weeks, is wrapped round a roller; this strip is unwound by a clock movement, which marks each hour by embossing an arrow upon it, and figures, expressing the wind’s velocity in miles, are embossed on one edge. We are informed that the performance of this ingenious instrument works is highly satisfactory. Stow Incunatine Sink-Mota Hees.—M. Guérin Méneville describes in Comptes Rendus a race of silkworms whose moths only produce one generation in two years, and the incubation lasts eighteen months. This variety was raised in South America from eggs sent from Europe, and their peculiar behaviour in this hemisphere was first noticed in Italy. Preuistoric Art.—M. Peccadeau de L’Isle exhibited recently to the French Aeademy specimens of wrought flints, barbed arrows, etc., from Bruniquel, and among them a figure which he said might have been intended as a fantastic creation by its author, or possibly meant for an elephant, sculptured on a piece of reindeer horn. i ; Tur NovemsBer Merrrors.—Professor Adams has communicated to the Royal Astronomical Society the result of his investigation as to the true orbit of these bodies. Upon calculating the perturbations caused by the action of Venus, Jupiter, and the earth upon the node of the nearly circular orbit, having a period of about 11 days less than that of the earth, in which the meteors have been supposed to travel, he finds that the result is not sufficient to produce one-half of the observed motion. He was therefore driven to the alternative of adopting an elliptical orbit, with a period of 334 years, extending beyond Uranus, and he then found that perturbations caused by Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, the only planets now likely to affect the meteors, produced exactly the required amount of motion inthe node. He proceeded to ascertain all-the elements of the orbit, which were found to be almost identical with those of Tempel’s comet, thus cor- roborating the speculation as to the identity of these bodies very remarkably. Tun Vaainicora VatvaTa.—Mr. J. G. Tatem, of Reading, informs us that the valved vaginicola described by Mr, Slack in our last number is common in that neighbourhood. a s CZo~ Ge RATA MM 4;-© eG. SOWA MasenR. (With @ Cstoured Plate.) . i r leks Oe ee AR J . put three true British gnecies, thongh six others have the list of British binds, om the growads of one a ia » to which the pectoral, or wing +, fa the present genus, whore food 3 eet in forests, and whose fight i cum! ep tho distis.: one treo ty syne, the THE INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER, eUN Bs 1867, BRITISH WOODPECKERS. BY G. EDWARD MASSEE. (With a Coloured Plate.) Tas group Scansores, or climbers, is represented in the British Isles by three families, which include seventeen species, out of which eight only can be considered indigenous ; the remaining nine being merely visitors of rare occurrence. The genus Picus contains but three true British species, though six others have been added to the list of British birds, on the grounds of one or two of each having been capt red or seen here. The places most frequente | by woodpeckers. are forest districts, where, amongst the mterstices of the bark, and the decayed portions of the trees, *hey find a constant supply of insects and their larve, which constitute the principal part of their food, and for the capture of which their whole frame is admirably adapted. The hemal spines, which in most of the vertebrata are distinct, are coalesced in birds into a single bone, called the stermwm, or -breastbone, which is subject to - various modifications in different families. Birds whose food is principally taken on the wing, or who have to fly long distances to procure it, have in general a broad breastbone, furnished with a prominent keel or ridge descending from the median line of its under surface, to which the pectoral, or wing- muscles, are attached. In the present genus, whose food is principally procured in forests, and whose flight is rarely extended beyond the distance from one tree to another, the crest, or central ridge of the breastbone, is remarkably small. Their powerful toes, two of which are directed forwards and two backwards, are furnished with large, deeply curved claws, by which they are enabled, with the assistance of their stiff and pointed tail feathers, to move along the trunks and branches of trees in all directions. The beak is long, straight, and tapering from base to apex. The tongue is retractile, and the tip is armed with barb-like bristles, by which their insect prey is impaled. VOL. XI.—NO. V. Pf 322 British Woodpeckers. The Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis, Linn.) is best known and most widely distributed amongst British species, but, in common with the rest of the genus, it possesses the facility of quickly moving its position on the trunk of a tree so as to interpose an efficient screen between itself and any observer, its green plumage harmonizing with the surrounding objects, and its shy and retiring habits, lead to the behef that this bird is more rare than it really is. During the sprmg months the silence of the forest is often broken by the loud monotonous cry of this bird, which, once heard, will never be forgotten ; it is most frequently uttered before impending rain, and thus serves as a barometer to the woodman, as does the pimpernel to the shepherd. Its flight is heavy and undulated, but on the rough surface of a tree its movements more resemble those of a snake than of a bird, its brilliant crimson crown flashing like flame when lighted by the sun’s rays, as it glides in a spiral manner round the stem, tappmg the bark to dislodge the numerous insects which shelter amongst its irregularities. It may elso be frequently seen on the ground in the vicinity of ant-hills, feeding on the ants and their eggs, to which it is very partial. The nest is placed in a decayed tree, the cavity beg excavated or enlarged to suit its wants; the eggs are pure white, from four to six m number, and are deposited on a layer of decayed wood without any other liming. This bird is often dislodged from its breeding place by the common starling, which, though inferior in size, invariably succeeds in taking possession of the contested cavity, in which it builds its nest. The Great Spotted Woodpecker (Picus major, Linn.) 1s less frequent than the preceding species, which, however, it much resembles in its habits, with the exception that 1 1s more frequently seen apart from woods, in places where old posts or stumps abound, under the decayed bark. of which live innumerable insects, on which it feeds, both in the larval and imago, or perfect state. . ; 3 Mr. Gould, in his Birds of Europe, speaking of this species, says, ‘Nor are they free from plundering the fruit-trees of the garden, and, in fact, commit great havoc among cherries, plums, and wall-fruit in general.” Having succeeded in keeping a bird of this species in confinement for nearly two years, my observations lead me to form an opinion differing from that stated by the above-mentioned author. The young wood- pecker was taken from the nest before the quill feathers © were developed, and was kept in a small box, where it was fed with various kinds of insects and spiders. When it was two months old I placed it in a small canary cage. The bottom and the sides, to the height of two inches, were composed of beechwood, which was rather decayed, and British Woodpeckers. 323 perforated in all directions by the larve of a small beetle (Ptinus pectinicornis). The remainder of the cage was com- posed of wire, through which it tried to escape, but finding it impracticable, commenced beating in quick time at various parts of the woodwork with its beak. About ten minutes after leaving the room in which the cage was, I was called by the servant, who said that the bird had escaped and flown up the chimney. It was with difficulty that I captured it, and on taking down the cage I found to my surprise that in so short a time it had bored a hole sufficiently large in the bottom of the cage to allow of its escape. Whether it had pecked away the wood in search of the beetles, or with the intention of escapmg, I cannot say. After fixing a stouter piece of wood over the hole in the cage, I returned it, but it repeatedly succeeded in efiecting its escape, when it would perch on the head of any one present, and invariably commence an attack on the face and eyes. I afterwards placed it in a cage, composed wholly of wire, and provided it with wood, which, if suitable, was perforated in all directions. It never became tame, but regularly attacked my hand when I offered it food. The cat, too, kept at a con- siderable distance from the cage, after having once received a severe peck on the nose from the point of its powerful beak, while looking for a space large enough for the introduction of her foot. Its food consisted of insects, and during the winter months, when these could not be procured, I found a good substitute in uncooked meat, but fruit, nuts, or seeds of any description were invariably rejected. It never attempted to sit on the perches that were provided for it, but scrambled round the sides of the cage by clinging to the wires after the manner of parrots, with the exception that it never made use of its bill to assist its movements. It is generally believed that these birds convey to a distance from the place, the chippings which are made during the excavation of the nest, which would, if allowed to remain at the root of the tree, lead to the detection of the nest. A care- ful observation of the habits of them, both in confinement and in their native woods, has led me to the conclusion that this is not their usual practice. When a piece of wood was given to my caged bird, it at once proceeded to test its soundness, by dealing in quick succession a series of hard, blows with the point of its beak, on various parts of the surface. If it proved to be perfectly sound, it was left untouched; but if at all decayed, the bird would drill first a small hole with the point of its beak, which it afterwards enlarged by pecking off minute pieces from the circumference until it was as large as desired. While engaged in this task it would stop at intervals, and climb round the sides of its cage apparently for the sake of viewing 324 British Woodpeckers. its work from all points; at the same time uttering a peculiar low chuckle, as if satisfied with its performance. Of the dif- ferent kinds of wood given to it, the favourite piece was either beech or fir, and if these two were placed in the cage together, it invariably commenced upon the beech. I never found amongst the debris a chip larger than a grain of wheat, but, the greater portion was like fine sawdust. The holes bored were always round. Now it is well known that these birds always choose for their breeding-place trees which are decayed or hollow in the centre. Inside the bark, where the wood is partly decayed, the woodpecker scoops out a hollow sufficiently large to contain its eggs, generally selecting for this purpose a position about a foot below the entrance, and the debris made during the construction of the nest falls into the hoilow of the tree. Last year the upper part of an old oak was blown down in Castle Howard park. In the remaining portion of the trunk was a woodpecker’s nest, found by me before the accident occurred to the tree, but which I could not reach from the outside. On climbing up the shattered trunk, I found the centre hollow, and round the circumference were five woodpeckers’ nests, one of which contained four eggs, and at the bottom of the tree was a large accumulation of particles of decayed wood, the result of the labours of these birds, while making their nests, or searching for insects. The Great Spotted Woodpecker is inferior in size to the Green Woodpecker; the general colour of its plumage is black and white, the crown and the feathers near the undertail coverts are bright crimson. Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Picus minor, Linn.). This is the rarest, as well as the smallest of the British woodpeckers ; its total length not exceeding five and a half inches. In the colour of its plumage this bird somewhat resembles the last- mentioned species, but may be distinguished from it by its smaller size, and by the greater amount of white on the wings. {t frequents woods, orchards, and isolated trees in search of food, which, like that of its congeners, consists of insects. It is exceedingly shy, and when surprised, seldom seeks safety in flight, but trusts to its activity in keeping a branch between itself and the object of its alarm. Its note is loud for so small a bird, and is lke the noise made by the turning of a crank, whence its local name of crank-bird. The eggs are white, like those of the two preceding species, and are found in the same situations. ‘The three following birds are natives of North America, and are separately described in Wilson’s American Ormithology, Jameson’s edition :— Downy Woodpecker (Picus pubescens, Linn.). Applicability of the Electric Light to Inghthouses. 325 Golden-winged Woodpecker (Picus awratus, Linn.). Hairy Woodpecker (Picus villosus, Linn.). Surely Montagu was mistaken in supposing that this species was common in the North of England. Great Black Woodpecker (Picus martius, Linn.). The nest of this bird, containing four eggs, was found by my friend Mr. Wise in the New Forest, Hants. Three-toed Woodpecker (Picus tridactylus, Linn.). This and the preceding species are not uncommon in certain districts of the Huropean continent. Middle Spotted Woodpecker (Picus medius, Linn.). This is now proved beyond doubt to be the young of the Great Spotted Woodpecker (Picus major, Linn.). DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATE. Fig. 1. Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis); Fig. 2. Great Spotted Woodpecker (Picus major); Figs. 3 and 4. Male and female of the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Picus minor). ON THE APPLICABILITY OF THE ELECTRIC LIGHT TO LIGHTHOUSES. BY PROFESSOR M‘GAULEY. Nornine can be more important to any maritime country, but especially to one having so extended a commerce as ours, than the subject of lighthouses. Their importance is evident from the fact that the sudden and unexpected extinction of one of the lights on our coasts might cause the loss of many lives, and the destruction of many hundreds of thousands of pounds of pro- perty ; and accordingly we consider it good policy to spend very large sums annually in the construction and maintenance of lighthouses. Warning the mariner of the dangers which he incurs on his approach to land is not a mere modern practice. Beacon fires are of high antiquity; they are alluded to by Homer and several ancient writers. The celebrated Pharos of Alexandria was erected about three hundred years before Christ ; but whether its light was that of a fire, or was pro- duced by some more elaborate contrivance, cannot now be ascertained. It is said to have been visible at the distance of forty miles, but this is more than improbable. The famous Colossus of Rhodes, one of the wonders of ancient times, an immense statue of bronze, was erected about the same period ; but, after a very few years, it was thrown down by an earth- 326 Applicability of the Hlectrie Inght to Lighthouses. quake, and it remained where it fell until the close of the seventh century of the Christian era, when its materials were sold to a merchant of Edessa for a sum equivalent to thirty-six thousand pounds of our money. ‘The Tour de Cordouan, at the mouth of the Garonne, is one of the most ancient of the modern lighthouses; a fire of wood was first used m it, then one of coal, and afterwards lamps and reflectors. To it was” first practically applied the dioptric apparatus, which has brought lighthouse illumination to such a state of perfection. Until a comparatively recent period, grates with burning coals continued to be employed to warn the mariner. One of these is still to be seen at Lucerne in Switzerland, in the very place where it was long exhibited for the purpose of guiding the boatmen on the lake at night ; and to it is most probably due the name of the interesting old town, where it still attracts the attention of the traveller. The ingenuity of modern times was not satisfied with the contrivances with which the rude nations of antiquity were content. The clumsy grate, with a wood or charcoal fire, was superseded by the more steady and brilliant light of lamps: and means were devised for directing the light thus obtained, in all its intensity, to those points at which it was required. Reflectors were first used for the purpose; and as, from their nature, they are easily acted on and deteriorated by the atmosphere, it was often sought to supersede them by lenses, but long in vain. The imperfect figure of the lenses which would be sufficiently large for the purpose, the impossibility. of obtaining considerable masses of glass free from serious imperfections, the large quan- tity of ight absorbed by such great thicknesses even of the most transparent material, all conspired to render the numerous experiments made on the subject unsuccessful; until the perse- vering ingenuity of scientific men eliminated every difficulty, and at length produced the magnificent dioptric apparatus now in use. Buffon endeavoured to diminish the .absorption of light which oecurs with large lenses, by cutting away their super- fluous portions, and causing them to consist of a number of concentric zones or rings; but the impossibility of properly polishing the complicated surface, caused at one side of the lens by the different zones, also the liability to irregularity of curve, and the certainty of flaws in the large masses of glass required, rendered the expedient, however ingenious, inapplicable in practice. But all these obstacles to complete success were overcome by the sagacity of Sir David Brewster, who, through a long and valuable life, has done so much for optical science. He built. up the lens of separate rings, and the rings even of sepa- Applicability of the Electric Light to Inghthouses. 327 rate pieces, in 1811; and thus what was carried into practice eleven years after by Fresnel, and has been considered his invention, is merely the application of the polyzonal lens of Sir Dayid Brewster. These improvements, and the substitution of totally reflectme prisms by Alan Stephenson, for reflectors previously employed with the new dioptric apparatus, seem to leave nothing more to be desired in this department of light- house construction. But, ike other valuable discoveries and inventions, that of Sir David Brewster, notwithstanding all its advantages, came but slowly mto use. Jrance was the first to avail itself of so important a contrivance. In 1822 Fresnel built up a lens, and, as suggested long before by Sir David, used it in conjunction with mirrors in the lighthouse of the Tour de Cordouan. In 1834, in consequence of the recom- mendation of the House of Commons, a revolving light, on the same principle, was placed on Inchkeith, and a fixed light on the Isle of May. The attention of scientific men, as far as lighthouses are concerned, is now almost confined to the discovery of the best mode of producing the light. That in ordinary use leaves little to be desired, when the weather is tolerably clear: since a first- class oil light, at the height at which it is usually elevated, is visible from the masthead when the vessel comes above the horizon of the hghthouse—the nature of our climate would not allow a greater elevation to be given to the lights. It 1s, therefore, in hazy weather that a more intense light becomes desirable. Science furnishes more than one suchlght. Among these is the Drummond Light, which possesses both advan- tages and disadvantages when applied to lighthouses—the preponderance of the one over the other not being, however, very decided ; and the electric light, which may in time super- sede all others on the mainland, especially if some of the imconveniences by which it is accompanied are removed, or even lessened. ‘he necessity for a steam-engine, when it is employed, renders it inapplicable on rock stations, such as the Eddystone Lighthouse, and the Bell Rock. In the employment of the electric light, two very important matters are to be considered: the production of the electricity, and its transformation into light. The most obvious mode of effecting the former would be the use of the galvanic battery : and, accordingly, numerous experiments have been made with that object. Among others, a most important series, in the central workshops of the Administration of Lighthouses in France from 1848 to 1857. So far as the mere production of am itense light was concerned, the success of these experi- ments was complete. But the expense of the battery was very great, and the irregularity of the results obtained was very 028 Applicability of the Electric Light to Lighthouses. serious. It was therefore concluded that galvanic electricity is not suited to the purposes of lighthouse illumination. Within the same period, a new mode of obtaining the electric light, founded on the production of currents by mag- netic induction, was tried with great success. In 1853, Professor Holmes made experiments on the light obtained by means of electro-magnetic machines, which had been used by a Parisian company for the decomposition of water, with the object of its constituents being used for combustion, but, com- mercially, without success. The apparatus was imperfect ; nevertheless, the results were very encouraging; and they became still more so when a better apparatus was used. Holmes’s apparatus was tried at the South Foreland lighthouse, in 1859: and its performance was favourably reported on by Mr. Faraday. But, after some time, its use was discontinued there, because it was considered that the light produced by it might, on account of its great intensity, be visible when other lights on the same coast would no longer be perceptible, through foggy weather: and that vessels might thus be fatally led astray. With a magneto-electric machine, the electricity is obtained by causing soft iron, round which insulated wire has been coiled, to revolve in front of one or more permanent magnets. The inductive action of the permanent magnets causes temporary magnetism in the electro-magnets, constituted by the soft iron on which the insulated wire has been coiled. For, as the cir- culation of electric currents around soft iron causes it to be magnetized, so the magnetization of soft iron causes the circu- lation of currents round it, and therefore in the imsulated wire coiled upon it. When it approaches the permanent magnet, a current in one direction is generated ; and when it recedes from it, and returns to its natural state, a current in the opposite direction. A very simple contrivance, called a commutator, causes both currents to proceed in the same direction, and therefore to produce a combined effect: and these currents may be called into existence so rapidly, as-to render the hght emitted by them, so far as our senses are concerned, continuous and uniform. . It is obvious that the production of light, in this way, is merely an example of the correllation of the physical, forces, and of a change of the imponderables, successively, one into the other. Luminous calorific and actinic rays, emitted by the sun—it cannot ever be conjectured how long ago—were ab- sorbed by the vegetable which gave rise to the coal : these, in the furnace of the steam boiler, are liberated in the form of heat: this heat is changed by the steam-engine into motion: this motion is changed into electricity by the magnet: and this Applicability of the Electric Inght to Lighthouses. 329 electricity is restored to its original form of light, in its passage between the charcoal points of the electric lamp. It is equally _ easy to trace the changes which take place, when the motion of the magneto-electric apparatus is produced by muscular force, instead of by the steam-engine. It is not necessary to use permanent magnets, in the de- velopment of electricity by means of induction. Recent experi- ments by Mr. Siemens show that the permanent magnets may be replaced, in such experiments, by electro-magnets. And he even believes that such a substitution would be advantageous, under the supposition that the permanent magnets become im- paired in power, by use in this way. But both the French and English official experiments on the applicability of the electric light to lighthouses, have shown the contrary to be the fact. Wilde’s magneto-electric machine is intermediate between the ordinary magneto-electric machine and that suggested by Siemens’s experiments. It is constructed on a principle long since brought forward by M. Seguin the elder. In Wilde’s apparatus, electricity is produced by permanent magnets, in an armature which is an electro-magnet of a peculiar form, and is made to revolve rapidly. The electric current, thus generated, in the armature, is used to excite a system of electro-magnets ; and these develope a more intense current in a second electro- magnetic armature, which also revolves rapidly. This second current is used to excite a second system of electro-magnets ; and these develope a still more intense and extremely powerful current in a third electro-magnetic armature; which, like the others, revolves rapidly. Hach armature makes about three thousand revolutions in a minute; and it is the wear and tear which must arise from heavy masses moving with so high a velocity that constitutes the great objection to this very in- genious and most powerful machine. Mr. Holmes’s apparatus was transferred from the South Foreland to Dungeness, in 1862. It was fixed over an oil lamp apparatus, lest any accident should render it incapable of being used. The Elder Brethren of the Trinity House refuse to sanction the use of the electric light, unless when, in case of its failure from any cause, it can be instantly replaced by the ordinary oil apparatus. Moreover, with the electric light, a duplicate of every portion of the apparatus is required, lest any of it should get out of order. The apparatus at Dungeness consists of one hundred and twenty permanent magnets of about fifty pounds each, ranged on the periphery of two large wheels. One hundred and sixty soft iron cores, surrounded by coils of insulated wire, are made to revolve past the magnets one hundred times in a minute, by steam power. ‘The streams of electricity, thus produced, are 330 Applicability of the Hlectrie Light to Lighthouses. collected together by means of a commutator, the alternate positive and negative currents being brought into one direction. The combined current 1s conveyed, by a thick wire, from the engine-house to the illuminating apparatus, where it forms a continuous and brilliant spark. between two charcoal points, which are maintained at a proper distance apart by means of a, balance arrangement, and an electro-magnet, round which the wire coils. The charcoal points are consumed in about three hours and a half; after which period they are changed, without extinguishing the light, as it is the kindling of the second pair which puts out the first. In more recently con- structed machines, a smaller number of magnets and soft iron cores are employed. At the close of 1859, experiments were commenced by the French Lighthouse Engineers, with an electro-magnetic machine obtained from the Alliance Company. This apparatus consisted of fifty-six magnets, distributed in seven equidistant planes, on the angles of a right octagonal prism. The electro- magnetic armatures, which were fixed on dises turning round the axis of the prism, and were made to revolve by a steam-en- gine of two-horse power, passed between the groups of magnets. The alternate currents were brought into the same direction, and united into one, without a commutator. Sixteen changes of direction corresponded to every revolution of the disc; and a maximum of intensity was obtained, when the machine made about four hundred revolutions in a minute ; in which case, the current was reversed six thousand four hundred times in a minute. The electric lamp, ssdliih was used with these experiments, is so contrived as that the charcoal points approach each other, according as they are consumed, without, in any case, coming ito contact. When they are at the proper distance apart, two forces, one derived from a spring, the other from an electro- magnet, the coil of which is traversed by the current, balance each other, and the points remain at rest; but when, on account of increased distance between these points, the power of the current is diminished, the spring comes into action, and causes the points to approach, until their motion is stopped by the restoration of energy to the electro-magnet. This apparatus may be adjusted to the power of any given current; and, notwith- standing its delicacy, it has been found to work with great precision. Much, however, depends on the nature of the charcoal points ; those made from the deposit on the interior of gas retorts, and obtained in commerce, do not give complete satisfaction, and it is not easy to obtain others of a better kind, and quite free from objection. The want of homogeneity in the charcoal causes constant variations in the light, however Applicability of the Electric Inght to Lighthouses. 331 uniform the electric current may be. The same injurious effect is produced by very slight alterations of the distance between the points, and by changes of the luminous arch from one side of the points to another, an occurrence which sometimes takes place. A slight displacement of the focus would throw the rays too high, or depress them too low. No displacement, however, greater than five millimetres, has been observed, which would raise or depress the bundle of rays only through two degrees; and the light sent from the hghthouse to the horizon would still be in excess of that from the very best oil apparatus. A report was made to the French government, regarding these experiments, in 1868. Two magneto-electrie machines have been placed in the double lighthouse on the Cap de la Héve; and other nations are followme the example of England and France, in attempting the introduction of the electric light into lighthouses. The reports made to both the English and French govern- ments, on the application of the electric hght to hghthouses, in a great degree coincide, and they enable us to form a very fair idea of the advantages and disadvantages which attend. its use. Both agree in the assertion that there has not yet been time to form a final judgment regarding the matter. Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of the electric light; no other light can compete with it. Faraday estimates its power at eight times that of a first-class ordinary ight; and he found that it was comparable with that of the sun, when both were seen together. When seen with the ordinary oil heht, the extinction of the latter produced no perceptible diminution of effect, nor its bemg re-lighted, any augmentation. ‘The peculiar bluish - tint of the electric light is rather an advantage, since it causes it to be more easily distinguished from other lights. But it may be made of any colour, and imtermittent, according to any law. lis capability of beg instantaneously extin- guished, and re-lighted, at pleasure, would enable it to be used on parts of the coast where, on account of the difficulty hitherto experienced, of producing lights casily distinguishable, it has not been found advisable to erect lighthouses. The same property also fits it well for signalling ; and 1t would be very easy to make any lighthouse in which it is used, tell its own number, by means of certain periodical extinctions. It is entirely free from the enormous shadow cast by the oil appara- tus, its descending rays being unabsorbed. The intensity of the electric light is not, however, so great an advantage as might, at first, be supposed. The oil light now in use can, as we have said, be scen quite as far, in fine weather ; and in fogs, sufficiently dense to hide the sun, both become invisible. But, when it ceases to be visible, the engine 332 Applicability of the Electric Inght to Lighthouses. required for obtaming it may be turned to good account in bell-ringing, and the production of other sounds much louder, and therefore audible to a much greater distance, than those which are possible with the means at present employed. It is only in intermediate states of the atmosphere that the electric light has advantages over the ordinary light. At other times, its intensity is considered by the French engineers, even as a disadvantage, since it causes the eye to be dazzled, and therefore renders it incapable of seeing distinctly. Com- parisons have been made between it and a first-class oil light, in hazy states of the atmosphere; and it has been found that its advantage rapidly diminishes as the state of fog is ap- proached. But, with the electric light, the greatest power of the rays may be directed a little below the horizon, so as to give more intensity to the plunging rays ; which is impossible, with the ordinary light, without reducing the distance at which it will be visible. And the necessity for having a duplicate steam-engine makes it easy, without much additional expense, to double the power of the apparatus, which increases the penetrative capability of the hight. ‘Thus, when an electric hight, of a given power, in a given state of the atmosphere, will be visible for the distance of not quite sixteen kilometres, a light of double the power will be visible, in the same state of the atmosphere, for more than seventeen kilometres. The hght of a first-class oil apparatus, in the same circumstances, would be visible only for the distance of about thirteen kilometres. The optical apparatus required by the electric light is less expensive than that which must be used with a light of the ordinary kind. ‘The optical apparatus must, in every case, bear a relation to the light in its focus; and the oil light is far larger than the electric. With the ordinary optical apparatus, the electric light would not have sufficient divergence ; and the rays would be thrown into the form of a ring, either whole or broken, When an oil light requires an optical apparatus 1°84 met. in diameter, one 0°30 met. in diameter will be large enough for the electric light. If, therefore, a new lighthouse is to be erected, there will be, with the electric light, a great saving in the item of optical apparatus; but, if the electric light is to be substituted for the ordinary oil light, the aug- mentation of expense, attendant on its use, will be considerable. The cost of the electric light, both in its application and maintenance, is very serious; though not sufficiently so to justify its rejection, should it be found, in other respects, advantageous. The Elder Brethren of the Trinity House state that the cost of the apparatus which it requires, and even the maintenance of the light, far exceed those of an ordinary dioptric light of the first order. The apparatus at Dungeness Applicability of the Electric Light to Lighthouses. 833 cost £6,626 6s. 3d.; and the annual expense of maintaining the light is £724 16s. 4d. But they admit that, as yet, no definite opinion can be formed on this point. In the report made to the French government, it is stated that, when a first- class lighthouse is to be erected, the cost will be considerably less, if the electric light is used; that, if the electric light is merely substituted for an oil light, there will still be a saving, though not to such an extent ; and that the cost of maintaining the electric light is far less than that of maintaining an ordinary oil ight. There can, however, be no doubt that the necessity for keeping duplicates of the apparatus, including even the steam-engine and boiler, and an oil apparatus, all ready to work at a moment’s notice, as required by the Trinity House, must seriously augment the expense, both of first construction and maintenance. The complexity of the apparatus increases the liability to derangement, and the cost of repairs. It can be worked only by men of a superior class, and, therefore, who demand higher pay than the ordinary hghthouse employés. The engineer, especially, who keeps the apparatus in order, musi be such a person as cannot always be had; and in the case of misconduct, sickness, or death, it might be difficult to replace him, particularly at remote stations. But there is nothing to prevent one engineer from having charge of several neighbouring lighthouses. The last consideration to which we shall direct the attention of our readers, is the most important of all—the reliability of the electric ight. Ifit cannot be entirely depended on, it can never come into general use for lighthouses. It has, indeed, attained a certainty and steadiness that has given entire satis- faction to the Hlder Brethren; nevertheless, they insist on precautions in using it, which add very much to the expense. In justification of their strictness, in this regard, it must be admitted that, both in this country and on the continent, the electric light has occasionally gone out, and, in some instances, for not inconsiderable periods of time. In most cases, but not all, these interruptions have arisen from neglect on the part of those in charge of the apparatus; but this is precisely a source of failure which it will always be most difficult effectually to guard against. The management must necessarily be carried on in two places—the engine-room and light-rodm. In the former there is great danger of disarrangement, or neglect ; in the latter, there can be no absolute security against some unfortunate accident. The electric lamp now in use, is, it is true, very certain in its operation; but it is of extremely delicate construction, and cannot, without risk of derangement, be committed to the charge of imexperienced and unskilful persons. 334 The Low Barometer of the Antarctic Temperate Zone. It must be borne in mind, in weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the electric light, that no new contrivance has ever been rendered perfect, at once. For any other pur- pose but that of a lighthouse, the electric light is sufficiently reliable ; and it 1s only because the slightest interruption of the light, in a lighthouse, would be fraught with the most imminent peril to life and property, that extraordimary pre- cautions are deemed necessary by the Trinity House— precautions which are rarely justified by an actual failure of the electric ight, but which, from its possible occurrence, are indispensable. Should improvement advance so far, that the electric light will become entirely reliable, which, however, seems very 1m- probable, if not impossible, duplicates of at least the more solid portions of the apparatus might be dispensed with, and an oil ap- paratus, In conjunction with the electric, would not be required. The cost of the electric hght would then, most probably, be less than that of the ordinary oil ight; while the advantages it would secure would make it greatly preferable to any other light that could be applied to lighthouses. THE LOW BAROMETER OF THE ANTARCTIC THMPHRATE ZONE. BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR, B.A., F.R.A.S. Taz great difficulty presented by the science of meteorology lies in the intricate combination of causes producing atmo- spheric variations, and the impossibility of determining, by experiment, the relative efficiency even of the most important -agents of change. As Sir W. Herschel well observed, we are in the position of a man who hears at intervals a few fragments of a long history narrated in a prosy, unmethodical manner. “A host of circumstances omitted or forgotten, and the want of connection between the parts, prevent the hearer from ob- taining possession of the entire history. Were he allowed to interrupt the narrator, and ask him to explain the apparent contradictions, or to clear up doubts on obscure points, he might hope to arrive at a general view. ‘The questions that we would address to nature, are the very experiments of which we are deprived in the science of meteorology.”’* It is, therefore, but seldom in the study of this science that we meet with phenomena to which we can assign a definite * Kaemtz’s Ietcorology. The Low Barometer of the Antarctic Temperate Zone. 335 cause, or which we can explain on simple principles. Hven those marked phenomena which appear most easily referable to simple agencies, present difficulties on a close investigation, which compel us at once to recognize the efficiency of more causes than one. For instance, the phenomenon of the trade- winds, as explained by Halley, appears ai first sight easily intelligible ; but when we look on this phenomenon as a part merely—as indeed it is—of the marvellously complex circu- lation of the earth’s atmosphere—when we-come to inquire why these winds blow so many days in one latitude, and so many in another, or why they do not blow continually in any latitude—when we consider the character of these winds as respects moisture and temperature, the variation of the velocity with which they blow, and of the quantity of air they transfer from latitude to latitude—we encounter difficulties which require for their elucidation the comparison of thousands of observations, or which baffle all attempts at elucidation. There is, however, one atmospheric phenomenon—that which I have selected for the subject of this paper—which presents a grand simplicity, rendering the attempt at a simple solution somewhat more hopeful than is usually the case with meteorological phenomena. ‘T'he discovery of this phenomenon formed one of the most interesting results of Captain Sir J.C. Ross’s celebrated expedition to the Antarctic Ocean. He found, as the result of observations conducted during three years, that the mean barometric pressure varied in the following manner at the latitudes and places specified :— South latitude. Height of the barometer. Place. PW 29°974 in. At sea. is . 0 30°016 — he 30°085 — 34 48 30°023 Cape of Good Hope & Sydney. A253 29-950 Tasmania. 45 0 29°664 At sea. 49... 8 29°469 Kerguelen & Auckland Isles. 51 33 29°497 Falkland Isles. 54 26 29°347 At sea. 55 52 29°360 Cape Horn. 60 O 29°114 At sea. 66 O 29:078 — (2 on) 28°928 — We see here a gradual increase of barometric pressure from the equator to about 30° south latitude, and from this point at first a gradual diminution—so that in about 40° south latitude we find the same pressure as at the equator, and thence a more rapid diminution. The rate of change is illus- aa (ah, ee tl i i‘ AAA Tm ni | va RET i a be | : : 2 : | Dy A | WN I poles there is a mark erence in the rate of diminution of pressure in the h following table b Schow is sufficie 9°853 in. 30°002 30°004: 30°069 30°006 | 30°011 29°943 29°960 29°835 29°623 29°722 NO es The Low Barometer of the Antarctic Temperate Zone. 337 so much more complicated in the northern than in the southern hemisphere. Neglecting these (as in Fig. 2, which represents for the northern hemisphere the relations corre- sponding to those exhibited for the southern hemisphere in Fig. 1), we see that there is a much greater resemblance between the rise and fall of barometric pressure as we proceed northwards than as we proceed southwards. In fact, the curve is almost exactly symmetrical on either side of 30° north lati- tude to the equator on one side, and to latitude 60° on the other. From 60° the pressure continues to diminish for awhile, but appears to attain a minimum in about latitude 73°, and thence to increase. In the southern hemisphere, if there is any corresponding minimum, it must lie ina latitude nearer the south pole than any yet attained. | The most marked feature in the comparison of the two hemispheres is the difference of pressure over the southern and northern zones, between latitudes 45° and 75°. This is a peculiarity so remarkable, that for a long time many meteoro- logists considered that the observations of Captain Ross were insufficient to warrant our concluding that so important a difference really exists between the two hemispheres. But not only has Captain Maury—from a comparison of 7000 ob- servations—contirmed the results obtained by Ross, but, in meteorological tables published by the Board of Trade, the same conclusions are drawn from 115,000 observations, taken during a period of no less than 13,000 days. In fact, it is now shown that the difference is yet greater than it had been supposed to be from the observations of Captain Ross.. From a comparison of observations made in the Antarctic Seas with those of Captain Sir Leopold McClintock, it appears that the average difference of barometric height in the northern and southern zones, between latitudes 40° and 60°, is about one inch. Figs. 1 and 2 exhibit a relation midway between these later results and those tabulated above. Assuming an average difference of only three-quarters of an inch in the northern and southern zones, between latitudes 40° and 60°, let us consider what is the difference of pressure on these two zones of the earth’s surface. The area of either zone is 21,974,260°5 square miles, and the pressure on a square mile due to a barometric height of three-quarters of an inch is about 670,000 tons, therefore the pressure on the northern zone, between the latitudes named, exceeds the pressure on the southern zone by no less than 14,500,000,000,000 of tons. Including all latitudes within which there has been ascertained to be a difference of barometric pressure in the two hemi- spheres, we shall probably be within the mark if we say, that the atmospherical pressure on the northern hemisphere is VOL, XI.—NO, V. Z 338 The Low Barometer of the Antarctic Temperate Zone. 20,000,000,000,000 tons greater than the atmospherical pres- sure on the southern hemisphere. Such a peculiarity as this may almost deserve to be spoken of in the terms apphed by Sir J. Herschel to the distribution of land and water upon. our earth, it is “‘ massive enough to call for mention as an astronomical feature.’ I propose ta examine two theories which have been. suggested im explana- tion of this feature of the earth’s envelope. These theories are founded on local peculiarities, and the feature considered appears as a dynamical one—that is, asa peculiarity resulting from states of motion in the aérial envelope. I shall endeavour to establish a theory founded on a consideration of the: earth’s mass as a whole, and presenting the atmospheric feature in question as a statical one. The first theory I have to notice is one founded on the configuration of land and water upon the northern and southern hemispheres of the earth’s globe. In the northern hemisphere, and more especially in that part of the northern hemisphere in which barometrical observations have been most persistently and systematically conducted, there is much more land than in the southern hemisphere. Now barometrical observations are referred to the sea-level, and observations made in Kurope and America may be considered as referred to the level of the northern parts of the Atlantic Ocean. It is _ argued that the North Atlantic, compared with southern oceans, is little more than ‘‘a large lake, having elevated banks east and west.” ‘ Pr actically, the air there is a portion of the solid globe, so that the unconfined air will rest upon and rise above the former, as if it were solid and a portion of the earth; so that the altitude of the air over the North Atlantic will be increased some hundreds of feet, and the barometer at the sea-level will be pressed upon, not only by the free air clear of the earth’s banks, but also by the air confined in the basin, much as if the air were at the bottom of a mine.’* © Presented in the above form, the theory that the higher northern barometer is due to the contour of the northern hemisphere scarcely deserves serious comment. T’o speak of the confined air of the North Atlantic Ocean 1s surely unreasonable. An ocean 2000 miles across, swept by more frequent storms than are experienced in any other part of the globe, cannot be very aptly compared to “the bottom of amine.” An inelastic fluid flowing steadily over a rugged surface shows no trace, or but the slightest trace, of the nature of that surface by any variations of its own level. But ib is still less conceivable * From a letter addressed to the editor of the Atheneum, by Dr. H. Muirhead. The Low Barometer of the Antarctic Temperate Zone. 339 that an elastic fluid should be influenced in the manner sug- gested. In fact, if this happened we should no longer be enabled to determine the heights of mountains by barometric observations; for according to the theory the air should extend to a greater height above mountains than above plains; and as regards comparison between a barometer at the foot of a mountain and one at the summit, we might argue that the barometer in the valley, compared with a barometer at the same level in a plane district, “is pressed upon, not only by the air clear of the mountain tops, but also by the air confined within the valley,” so that the altitude over the valley is greater by some hundreds of feet than the altitude over a plain at the same level as the valley; and thus, before we could determine the height of the mountain above the level of the plain, we should have to determine the exact effects due to the confinement of the air in the valley. We know that, on the contrary, the average barometric pressure in the most confined valley does not differ appreciably from the average pressure over the most widely extended plain at the same level. We may, however, reasonably inquire whether the presence of continents in the northern hemisphere might not operate in another manner. .If we place any mass within a vessel con- taming fluid, it is clear that we increase the fluid pressure over every point of the vessel’s bottom, because this pressure depends wholly on the depth of the bottom below the level of the fluid, and the level rises when any solid substance is placed within the vessel. Now if we suppose a globe covered all over by water to be surrounded by a perfectly uniform atmo- spheric envelope, the mean pressure of this envelope at the water-level would certainly be increased if continents were supposed to be raised in any manner above the surface of the water; and if the atmosphere over one half of such a globe were supposed to be prevented in any way from mixing freely with the atmosphere over the other half, then it is clear that the mean pressure at the water-level would be greatest on that half-elobe over which the most extensive and highest conti- nents had been raised. On the assumption, then, of some such arrangement over our own earth—an arrangement, that is, which should prevent the northern air from mixing with the southern—one might see in the northern continents a true cause of increased barometric pressure at the sea-level of the northern hemisphere. We have, however, not only no evidence that such an arrangement exists, but very strong evidence of an atmospheric circulation which carries air from hemisphere to hemisphere, and mixes in the most intimate manner the whole mass of 340 The Low Barometer of the Antarctic Temperate Zone. gases which form the earth’s atmospheric envelope. The whole question of the circulation of the air is vestigated in Maury’s interesting work on the Physical Geography of the Sea, and he appears to establish in the most convincing manner, the interchange of air between the northern and southern hemispheres. And even if we could assume that the atmospheric covering of any portion of the earth’s surface was in any way prevented from passing freely to other regions, yet the cause assigned would be inadequate to account for the difference of barometric pressure actually existing between the two hemispheres. All the land above the sea-level in the northern hemisphere, if uniformly distributed over the surface of that hemisphere would be raised to a height of less than 200 feet above the present sea-level, and the actual difference of level correspond- ing to the observed difference of barometric pressure is more than four times as great. Passing over this theory as neither consistent with the known laws regulating the motions of elastic fluids, nor suffi- cient even if the consideration of those laws were neglected, we come to the theory suggested by Captain Maury—a theory deserving of much more attentive consideration. I shall quote his own words, as the fairest method of presenting his theory ; after stating the observed difference of a barometric pressure in the two hemispheres, and mentioning the expulsion of air from the northern hemisphere as the cause of this difference, he writes :—‘ To explain the great and grand phenomena of nature, by illustrations drawn from the puny contrivances of human device, is often a feeble resort, but nevertheless we may, in order to explain this expulsion of air from the watery south, where all is sea, be pardoned for the homely reference. We all know, that, as the steam or vapour begins to form in the tea-kettle, it expels air thence, and itself occupies the space which the air occupied. If still more air be applied, as to the boiler of a steam-engine, the air will be entirely ex- pelled, and we have nothing but steam above the water in the boiler. Now at the south over this great waste of circumfluent waters, we do not have as much heat for evaporation as in the boiler or the tea-ketile ; but, as far as it goes, it forms vapour, which has pr oportionately precisely the same tendency tliat the vapour in the tea-kettle has to drive off the air above, and occupy the space it held. Nor is this all. This austral vapour, rising up, is cooled and condensed. ‘Thus a vast amount of heat is hberated in the upper regions, which goes to heat the air there, expand it, and thus by altering the level, causes it to flow off.” The theory thus divides itself into two parts: we have first The Low Barometer of the Antarctic Temperate Zone. 341 the expulsive effects due to the vapour raised from southern oceans; and, secondly, the expansive effects due to the liberation of heat as the vapour is condensed. Now I would, in the first place, submit that we cannot assign to the second cause the effects here considered. The amount of heat liberated as the vapours rising from southern oceans are condensed is undoubtedly great, but it cannot be more than the equivalent of the amount of heat rendered latent as the vapours are formed, and therefore the expansive effects due to the liberation of heat cannot be greater than the contrary effects due to the prior imprisonment of heat. It is quite true, and has been accepted as the undoubted explanation of many climatic effects, that if vapour be raised in one place and condensed over another, then the temperature of the air over the latter place is raised. But when we have to consider a phenomenon extending over a zone twenty or thirty degrees in width, we cannot argue in this manner. Nay, it is necessary to the force of Maury’s second cause that the condensation of vapour should take place over the very zone in which the vapo- risation is proceeding. ‘To assign similar effects to both processes, is to require that the winding up and the loosening of the spring should take place in the same direction. Whatever effects, then, are due to the constant evaporation going on in the southern hemisphere must not be derived from changes of temperature. So far as these are effective at all, they must depend on the excess of evaporation over con- densation (since the excess cannot possibly le the other way), and therefore represent diminution of heat or increase of pressure, the contrary effect to that we have to account for. We have, therefore, only to consider the first cause mentioned by Maury; that is the expulsive effects due to the formation of aqueous vapour. At first sight, this process of expulsion appears simple enough, and seems further to coincide with many well-known phenomena. ‘The theory supposes that over a wide zone of the southern hemisphere aqueous vapour is continually rising ; that as it rises it displaces in part the heavier air over these regions ; and that equilibrium being thus disturbed, the excess of air flows off continually towards the equator. Now we know that the prevailing surface-winds over that zone of the southern hemisphere in which the barometer exhibits the peculiarity we are considering, blow from the equator ; that is, they tend to sweep the lower strata of the atmosphere towards the south pole. They therefore tend to increase the quantity of humid air in high southern latitudes. We know also that the prevailing upper currents over the southern zone we are considering, blow towards the equator. They tend, therefore, 342 The Low Barometer of the Antarctic Temperate Zone. to carry the drier portion of the air towards the equator. Ali this seems in accordance with Maury’s theory, and, indeed, if the prevailing upper and lower currents flowed in directions contrary to those indicated, the theory would fall at once. | Again, although we find no evidence in barometric pressure . over the south tropical zone of that increase which Maury’s theory would lead us to expect (since the surplus air is carried first to this zone), yet 1t might be argued that the surplus is so distributed, as to appear in another way., It is evident that if the atmospheric envelope normally appertaining to the southern hemisphere were, through the effects of the causes assigned by Maury, increased in extent, this increase might show itself, not in an increase of pressure over the south tropical zone—that is, not in an increase of heiyht there—but in the extension of the surplus atmosphere into the northern hemisphere. This would be shown by the extension of the southern trade-wmds to or beyond the equator, so that the (so-called) equatorial zone of calms should lie north of the equator. As this is really the position occupied by the belt of calms, Maury’s theory appears to gain additional force by the coincidence. Another argument may be drawn from the analogy of the low barometer in moist weather. In fact, it is well known that Deluc explained this phenomenon in a manner precisely accordant with the views expressed by Maury. Despite the apparent force of these arguments, and others that might be adduced, it will not be difficult, I think, to show that neither is Maury’s theory consistent with known physical laws, nor (passing over this objection) is the theory sufficient to account for the grand phenomenon under consideration. It is quite true that a volume of aqueous vapour weighs less than an equal volume of air; it is equally true that a volume of moist air weighs less than an equal volume of dry air at the same tension. But water, quietly evaporating in the open air, does not displace the air, but penetrates into its interstices, according to the well-established law regulating the mixture of vapours. The aqueous vapour which thus intimately mixes itself with the air produces no effect whatever, either by its ‘weight, or by its elasticity, on the movements of the atmosphere. The experiments of Gay-Lussac, Dalton, and others, have long since proved that the actual effects of the quiet evaporation of water are those here described. It is on this account that Deluc’s hypothesis in explanation of the fall of the barometer when the air is moist is now no longer accepted. It has been shown that the observed fall is not due to the moistness of the air, but to imcrease of temperature. Hot winds bring (in Europe) moist air, and thus moist air and a low barometer are found to be coexistent phenomena. But they are not in the The Low Barometer of the Antarctic Temperate Zone. 343 relation of cause and effect. In fact, in New Holland, where hot winds bring dry air, we find the barometer low when the air is dry. Tt follows from what has just been said of the manner in which aqueous vapour associates itself with air, that atmo- spheric pressure is imcreased instead of diminished by the process of quiet evaporation, since the weight of the vapour is added to that of the air. Therefore, all things being equal, we should expect to find the barometer higher in the southern or watery hemisphere than in the northern. It might seem unnecessary to consider Maury’s theory further, but as some doubts may still remain whether some process of the kind conceived by him may not take place,* I proceed to consider the efficuency of such a process to account for the great phenomenon we are dealing with. It must be remembered, in the first place, that the theory requires that there should be a greater volume of mixed air and vapour over the southern temperate zone, than there is in the corresponding northern zone, otherwise there would not be that continual overflow towards the equator which is required by the theory. So far as it goes, this increment of volume implies an increment of weight. The increase of volume is more than compensated (in theory) by diminution of ‘specific eravity, but it must be held in mind that the increase of volume has to be accounted for by the theory as well as the difference in barometric pressure. Again, the theory requires that the upper regions of air should be dry, for it is the upper air that is carried towards the equator; andif this air were moist, we should no longer have the different proportions of moist and dry air which are required by the theory. We must have an aggregation of moist air in high southern latitudes, and of dry air towards the equator. Again, we must call to mind that one-half of the northern hemisphere is covered by water, and a part of the southern hemisphere is not so covered, so that the effects suggested by Maury are (1) not peculiar to the southern hemisphere, nor (2) do they prevail over the whole of that hemisphere. _ Lastly, we must remember that the process conceived by Maury must be wholly or principally a diurnal process, and so * In fact, Sir. J. Herschel, in his work on Meteorology, assigns as a cause of the low barometric pressure near the equator, compared with that near the tropics, a process similar to that conceived by Maury, only depending on the excess of heat near the equator. I cannot but agree with those meteorologists who consider that the notion of any appreciable uplifting of the air by the rising vapour of water is a mistaken one. But whether it be so or not, it is evident that Herschel’s view would require a regular increase of pressure from the equator to the antarctic pole, and therefore is opposed to Maury’s explanation. 344 The Low Barometer of the Antarctic Temperate Zone. can only take place (on an average) over one half of the southern zone at any one time. All these considerations tend to diminish very importantly the efficiency of the cause assigned by Maury. Let us, how- ever, consider what is the maximum value that efficiency could have if all these circumstances were neglected. We shall see~ that even in this case, which assigns an efficiency at least three or four times as great as would be consistent with actual facts, we Shall still find the cause assigned by Maury inadequate to the production of the phenomenon under consideration. The greatest weight of aqueous vapour which is ever present in a given volume of air is equivalent to about one- sixtieth part of the weight of the air. Now, if we suppose the barometer at thirty inches, and the whole column of air above the barometer to be impregnated with air in the above- named proportion—a view very favourable to the theory, since the cold of the upper regions of air largely diminishes the pro- portionate weight of aqueous vapour—it is clear that one- sixtieth part—or half an inch—of the barometer’s height is due to the presence of aqueous vapour. Now, at mean tensions the specific gravity of aqueous vapour is about three- fifths of the specific gravity of air, so that the proportion of one-sixtieth part of weight corresponds to a proportion of one-thirty-sixth part of volume; in other words, our column of air owes, one-thirty-sixth part of its height to the presence of aqueous vapour. If we suppose this thirty-sixth part to flow off—not from the upper regions only, but in such a manner that one complete thirty-sixth part of the volume of the column should pass off—then, instead of standing at a height of thirty inches, the barometer would stand at a height of 29% inches, less by only one-third of an inch than the height of 293 inches due to the dry air alone. Now,we cannot, in accordance with Maury’s theory, legitimately add the five-sixths of an inch of barometric pressure to the height of the barometer under a neighbouring column. For we have no evidence to show that the air assumed to be expelled from the southern temperate zone is heaped over the southern tropical zone ; on the contrary, we have a barometer in the latter zone not quite so high even as the barometer in the corresponding northern zone. Therefore if air is expelled in the manner supposed by Maury, it must be distributed over a very much ereater portion of the globe’s surface than it had been expelled from. Hence, returning to our imaginary column of air, but a small fraction of the five-sixths of an inch due to over- flow must be added to the barometér under a neighbouring air-column. ‘The latter barometer originally at 293 may be fairly assumed to rise at most to about 293 inches. We The Low Barometer of the Antarctic Temperate Zone. 845 have, then, a difference of 293—29+ inches, or two-thirds of an inch; so that despite all the opposing considerations we have neglected, we still have a difference less by one-third than that for which we have to account; and, indeed, so far as the comparison between the northern and southern temperate zones is concerned (and this is the true question at issue), we are only entitled to consider the third part of an inch lost by overflow, as the true measure of the efficiency of this cause. So far as I am aware, the theory I am about to present in explanation of the phenomenon of a low antarctic barometer, is original. It is sufficiently simple ;—perhaps, if we remember how very seldom physical phenomena admit of a simple expla- nation, one may say that the theory labours under the dis- advantage of simplicity. It is obvious that the centre of gravity of the solid por- tion of the earth’s globe lies somewhat to the south of the centre of figure. ‘his arrangement has long been accepted as the explanation of two remarkable geographical features— the prevalence of water over the southern hemisphere, and the configuration of nearly all the peninsulas over the whole globe. Whether or-not those parts within the antarctic regions which have not yet been explored, are occupied by land (chiefly) is a question which has little more bearing on our views respect- ing this point, than has the counter question—whether the unexplored north-polar regions are or are not occupied by a north-polar ocean.* Supposing these arrangements to exist, it is evident that they form mere local peculiarities. The general tendency of water towards the southern hemisphere 1s very obvious, and, so far as I am aware, no other explanation of the peculiarity has ever been offered than that founded on * Captain Maury holds the affirmative on both points. I have already had occasion to discuss in these pages his theory of a ¢idal north-polar ocean, and I think the theory cannot be maintained. But the theory of a polar ocean com- municating with the Atlantic and Pacific is a sufficiently probable one. The theory of an antarctic continent is hardly in the same position, since antarctic explorations have given us but faint indications, here and there, of the habitudes of the south-polar regions. But I may note, in passing, a very singular argument used by Captain Maury in favour of the existence of such a continent. He states if as a physical law that land is scarcely ever antipodal to land; “therefore,” he says, “since the north-polar regions are probably occupied by a vast ocean, the south-polar regions are probably occupied by a vast continent.’”’? He seems to forget that it by no means follows that because land is seldom antipodal to land, water should seldom be antipodal to water. Since the extent of water is nearly three times that of land, it is absolutely necessary that nearly two-thirds of the water should be antipodal to water. The supposed peculiarity that nearly all the land is antipodal to water (one-twenty-seventh only being antipodal to land), is in reality no peculiarity at all. It would have been far more singular if any large proportion of the land (which occupies little more than one-fourth of the globe) had been antipodal to land. ? 340 The Low Barometer of the Antarctie Temperate Zone. a shght displacement southwards of the earth’s centre of gravity. If, then, C is the centre of the black circle in Fig. 3, representing the solid part of the earth, the centre of gravity of this part lies (in the Fig.) slightly below C—between C and C’, let us suppose. Now we see that, owing to this slight displacement, the’ watery envelope of the earth tends southward. If the earth were a perfectly uniform spheroid, it is clear that there would be a tendency to some such arrangement as is represented (on a greatly exaggerated scale) m Hig. 3, im which the shaded part represents the sea—that is, a shell of water, thicker towards the south, would surround the solid earth. For our present purpose it is sufficient to consider this supposed ar- rangement, as minor mequalities of the earth’s surface-contour have clearly nothing whatever to do with the phenomenon we are considering. ; Let C’ be the centre of the spheroid which bounds the carth’s fluid envelope. Then it is very clear that if this en- velope were of the same specific gravity as the solid portion of the earth, the centre of gravity of the entire mass would lie very near C’, but slightly south of that point, on account of the slight southerly displacement of the centre of gravity of the solid portion. But when we consider that the specific The Low Barometer of the Antarctic Temperate Zone. 347 gravity of the fluid envelope is less than one-fifth of that of the solid globe, it is perfectly clear that the centre of gravity of the entire mass will not pe so far south as C’. For, of the entire mass, the northern half is the heavier, and therefore the centre of gravity must lie north of the centre of the entire mass—that is, north of C’. In fact, it must lie much nearer to C than to C’. Thus, the centre of gravity of the solid globe, and that of the entire mass, solid and fluid, both le between C and C’. Now it is evident that the central point, about which the earth’s atmospheric envelope tends to form itself as a spherical or spheroidal shell, is the centre of gravity of the entire solid and fluid terrestrial globe—that is, is a pomt north of CO’. There- fore, precisely as the effect of the fluid envelope collecting itself centrally about a point south of C is to cause the mean depth of water to be greatest in the southern hemisphere, so the fact that the atmospheric envelope collects itself centrally about a point north of C’ should result in giving a greater mean depth of air (referred to the sea-level) over the northern hemisphere. This arrangement is represented in Fig. 3, in which the unshaded part is supposed to represent the atmosphere. I have endeavoured to make the above explanation of my theory in explanation of the low antarctic barometer as com- plete and exact as possible; but there is another way of pre- senting the theory which, though less complete, may appear clearer to some minds :— Variation of mean barometric pressure, as we proceed from one place to another, may be due either to a variation of cir- cumstances of heat, moisture, and other lke relations, or to a difference of level. Maury’s explanation assigns to the low antarctic barometer a cause or causes falling under the former category. My theory amounts to the supposition that the low barometer is due to an absolute difference of level. I say that the sea-level, to which we refer barometric pressure, is not a yast level of reference when atmospheric pressure over the whole globe is the subject of inquiry, because the southern seas stand out to a greater distance than the northern seas from the true centre of gravity of the earth’s solid and fluid mass. Assuming my theory to be correct, we have a means— rough, it may be, but not uninstructive—of determining the displacement of the centre of gravity of the earth’s solid mass from the centre of figure. For, accepting one inch as the difference of barometric height at the two poles, it is easily calculated that this difference amounts to a difference of level of about 850 feet. In other words, the surface of the water at 348 A Ramble in West Shropshire. S. P. lies farther than the surface of the water at N. P. from the centre of gravity of the entire fluid and solid globe by about 850 feet. Hence this centre of gravity must lie about 425 feet north of C’ (which is the centre of the bounding sur- face of the water). Now, it is evident that both the centre of gravity of the entire fluid and solid mass, and that of the solid mass, must lie much nearer to C than to 0’. Hence both these centres of gravity le considerably within 400 feet of C, and C’ lies considerably within 825 feet of C. Thus the centres of figure and the centres of gravity of the earth’s solid mass, and of the entire fluid and solid mass, are collected within a space less than one-eighth of a mile in length—a distance almost evanescent in comparison with the dimensions of the earth’s globe. A RAMBLE IN WEST SHROPSHIRE. BY REV. J. D. LA TOUCHE. We left our tourist on the top of the Stiperstone range of hills, beholding a scene of mingled wildness and fertility, com- bined with considerable antiquarian and geological interest. Pleasant, indeed, is that remote region in the long summer days, where, knee-deep among the heather and whinberries, you pick your steps, sometimes not without trouble, by the path stretching along the ridge from one to the other of the picturesque masses of rock, over thickly-strewn fragments of quartz, glittermg lke frosted silver in the rays of the sun; and pleasant it is to recur, even in thought, to a scene so removed from the “ windy ways of man,” and where you can muse in perfect quietness on the miracles of nature around. : But we must not leave our traveller. here; there is much work before him if he is to dive into the mysteries of the thickly-bedded strata of the Llandeilo rocks, and when he has satisfied himself of the state of things in the primeval world, when trilobites and other creatures which have long passed away, inhabited the dreary, silent wastes, he will fmd ample occupation in tracing the manners and customs of ‘his own species, in the vestiges they have left behind them—the races who have, from time to time, lived in these now sequestered valleys, and, attracted by their mineral treasures, pursued their earnest search for wealth into the very heart of the earth itself, Our tourist now surveys, for the most part, that important subdivision of the Lower Silurian rocks, called the Llandeilo. A Ramble in West Shropshire. 349 The Stiperstone range, upon which he stands, is pronounced by Sir R. Murchison to be the equivalent of the Lingula flags of North Wales; and as he would find no perceptible differ- ence in the inclination of these two strata (the Lingula and the Llandeilo) in this neighbourhood, both dipping at an equally high angle towards the west, he might at first be led to suppose that they succeeded each other in point of time, as they do in position. There is, however, reason to believe, as Professor Ramsay has pointed out, that a stratum of great thickness, called the Tremadoc slates, was deposited between the era of the Stiperstone formation and that of the overlying Llandeilo flags. It would be impossible here to repeat all the reasons which the professor has set forth in his most interesting and instructive paper on ‘‘ Geological Breaks,”’ as leading him to this conclusion. But it will be of interest to state the circumstances under which, according to him, such breaks occur, since the geologist has frequent oppor- tunities of witnessing instances of them on a minor scale; indeed, every section of a gravel and sand-pit furnishes illustrations of them. The omission of such a stratum as this, found elsewhere, must, he says, arise from one of three causes: either, 1, the lower rocks were, at the time of its deposition, raised above water in the particular spots where it is omitted, and only submerged when it had been completed; 2, the deficient stratum may, indeed, have been deposited over the entire area, but was subsequently in parts washed away or denuded; or, 3, it may have been deposited in some parts, and not in others. Instances illus- trative of the two latter of these causes are seen in every river deposit. The stream, sometimes diverted from its ordinary channel by the impetus it receives in a high flood, deposits a quantity of debris from high grounds in places where there had been but little previously, while in others it carries off the sand and stones which had been deposited. Of course, illus- trations of upheaval can only be studied on a large scale; but it is possible, by attentively observing the layers of gravel so often exposed to view in a river bank or quarry, to arrive at a solution of some very interesting geological phenomena relating to this subject; and this study I would specially com- mend to persons who live far removed from the more striking manifestations of geological disturbances, in uninteresting (as they are called) and level countries, where, from the nature of the ground, the slow and sluggish streams wend their way, or on the sea-shore, where over banks of sand and mud, each ebb and flow of the tide leaves its own deposit, or carves out and modifies those previously made. Here, on a stupendous scale, it is believed that some such 350 A Ramble in West Shropshire. process must at one time have gone forward. Between the deposition of the Lingula flags of the Stiperstones, and the Llandeilo, which overlie them so regularly that there is nothing in this neighbourhood to suggest that they are not one stratum, there is believed to have been an enormous interval of time, since their fossils are widely dif. ferent. Well, in North Wales are found strata which, judged by their fossil contents, are the equivalents of those of the Stiperstone rocks, and again strata equivalent to the Llandeilo; but between them a huge slice, called the Tremadoc slates, with fossils of a character intermediate between those of the strata above and below it. It is, therefore, to be presumed that this slice is the representative of a vast cycle of change im the organic life of these regions, of which no vestige whatever is left in the neighbourhood we are now examining—a missing" link in the development of organic lfe is found, and a prob- lem solved which would otherwise be inexplicable. But, still farther, we are taught the important lesson of caution im our deductions from observed phenomena. It might have been inferred, from the sudden change in the organie life displayed by these successive strata, that its progress was capriciously interrupted and its character suddenly changed at a certain epoch ; ‘but this discovery of the Tr emadoc slates with their inter- mediate fossils, is an additional reason to believe in that gradual, progressive development of species which so many other lines of research would seem to affirm; and it, moreover, shows that when, in studying other parts of the great geological volume, we might occasionally be led to suppose exceptions to this great law, such a conclusion may arise from some other missing links, some other pages, or even entire chapters, having been torn rudely from the venerable record. At last we are prepared to descend through one of the numerous gorges, dingles, or cwms (as theyare sometimes locally called) which penetrate these strata, running into them from the west, and exposing the Llandeilo rock, dippme at a very high angle towards the same quarter. Their thickness has thus been estimated at not less than 3000 feet. For the most part they are barren of fossils, except at the very top or the very bottom of the beds; to use the familiar illustratiom of my friend Mr. Salter, like a thick piece of bread well buttered on both sides. Jt will be understood that the bottom strata con- stitute the high hills which we have just left, and the higher are found in the valleys upon which we are now entering. As I stated before, the only spots in which I am aware of fossils being found are the little hollows om the high grounds formed by the sheep for shelter. There are other places mentioned in Sir R. Murchison’s Silwria, such as Lord’s Hill, near the Chapul ; A Ramble in West Shropshire. 351 but I have not been so fortunate as to hit on the exact spot. Indeed, I recommend those who explore this region to be ‘moderate in their hopes. of making a collection of fossils. Some spots of extraordinary richness are occasionally found, from which it is possible to carry off a profusion of capital Specimens in an excellent state of preservation; but you may examine many a dreary cubic yard, or, I might even say, cubic mile of rock, without being repaid bya single fossil. A couple of summers ago, | was applied’ to by a gentleman, who pro- fessed to be an ardent collector, for some information as to the best localities in which to look for fossils; and havme given him as accurate directions as I possibly could, he started on a three days’ tour through the district. But when he returned, the whole of his spoils were contained in his waist- coat-pocket. This may appear discouraging, but it must not be supposed that all are equally unfortunate; on the contrary, some of my most satisfactory fossil-hunting days have been spent among the Llandeilo flags. I shall not attempt to enter upon the large subject of the fossils to be obtained here, since, to do it justice, ii would be necessary to copy largely from Sir R. Murchison’s important work ; armed with which, no one can be at a loss to ascertain and classify his spoils. Suffice it to say, that they consist. chiefly of tribolites of various kinds, orthoceras, and lingulas, interspersed with a few bivalve shells. The most interesting feature in the hthological character of the rocks of this neighbourhood, is the occurrence among them of several layers of what Sir R. Murchison describes as “‘felspathic aglomerates and ash beds, or volcanic grits, as well as slaty porphyries, with crystals of felspar. Some of them alternate in ridges with the schist containing tribolites, others constitute courses of a few inches thick only, and occasionally include fragments of Ogygia Buchii. Organic remains are also found in beds. composed almost exclusively of igneous mate- rials, thus showing that volcanic action was rife at the sea bottom in which these lower Silurian strata were accumulated.” And to account for these facts, that is, for the alternate layers of shale and felspathic rock, he supposes that these gritty beds were formed of the debris of submarine volcanoes. In recent times such have occurred, of which Graham Island, in the Mediterranean, is an instance. A cone of ashes and other volcanic products is formed, and is pushed upwards to a con- siderable height above the surface of the sea ; subsequently it is attacked by the waves, and the scoriz of which it was com- posed is spread out over the sea bottom. This in time is covered by the deposit of mud which, under ordinary con- ditions, is ever going on. A fresh eruption, and another cone would supply a second layer of felspathic ash, and so on 352 A fiamble in West Shropshire. till, as in this neighbourhood, some six or eight would be formed. With all respect for the illustrious propounder, if not the author of this theory, a tourist may be excused if certain questions suggest themselves to his mind before he can admit it, as a completely satisfactory solution of the problem; and. when he considers that the opinion of geologists, as to what are, and what are not really volcanic rocks, has of late years been considerably modified, he may desire to know something more of these “ felspathic ashes,’ their’ composition, history, and origin, before deciding the question. It is certainly very striking how frequently in rocks of this age, these alternate layers of shale and grit occur. At the Briedden they are con- spicuous, and Sir R. Murchison describes them as occurring in “The rocky tracts extending from Llandegley and Llandrindod by the hills of Gelli Gilwern, and Carneddan to Builth,” at Festiniog Tom-y-bwlch, and Cader Idris, etc. The occurrence, however, of somewhat similar alternations in other strata, - though not perhaps so distinct and striking as they are here, may lead some to conclude that a more general law may be found to account for them, and that possibly they may only be another instance of that segregative force which we have had occasion to remark upon already—a force dividing the elements of these primeval rocks into their constituent parts, the clay separating itself into distinct beds, and the gritty and the more crystallizable materials also uniting into a stratum. Possibly this very tendency to crystallization may be the prime mover in the whole process, just as, to use a familiar illus- tration, it will cause the sugary portions of a pot of jam which has been kept long enough, to segregate into a layer distinct from the less crystallizable portion. The Llandeilo rocks are succeeded, according to the opinions of the best geologists, by the Caradoc, or Bala series. These are largely exhibited on the east of the Longmynd, i.e., in the Caradoc, and the country to the north and south of that striking hill, but are not found on the west, where the Llandeilo are immediately succeeded by much more recent rocks, such as the Wenlock shale, the intervening strata being omitted. : That there is a real distinction between the Caradoc or Bala beds, and the Llandeilo beneath them, there seems to be reason to doubt. Professor Ramsay says, “‘ The community of the ordinary species of fossils in the Llandeilo and Caradoc or Bala beds induces me to treat them as one group ;” and Sir R. Murchison himself speaks very cautiously about their sepa- ration, saying, ‘It is not pretended that a line can anywhere be precisely drawn upon a map between these strata.” And, A Ramble in West Shropshire. — 353 accordingly, he has in the map which accompanies his work, shaded off the colour which indicates the one into that of the other, m that part of Montgomeryshire, where, as he believes, a distinction may be observed between the two. No doubt the fossils found in the two strata, as represented on each side of the Longmynd, are widely different, at least specifically, yet they may not be more so than might be expected in the upper and lower members of a stratum of such enormous thickness as this appears to be. If this be so, we may consider the rocks on this western side of the Stiperstone and Longmynd range, rising up as they do at a high angle towards the east, to be the continuation of a vast arch, of which the other extremity is the Caradoc and neighbouring hills, the great centre of up- heaval being along the axis of the Longmynd. This sketch of the geology of this district would be incom- plete without drawing attention to a much more recent forma- tion, which is very well displayed in some portions of it. This is the Llandovery, elsewhere divided into two members, the upper and the lower, but of these the former alone has left any traces here; it is in all these cases, however, seen to rest on very much older rocks, unconformably. Near Norbury it reposes directly on the Llandeilo, and it has left a small patch here and there (as will be seen by reference to the geological maps) in the great valley of Llandeilo, which we have been exploring; but at the southern extremity of the Longmynd, and along a considerable portion of its eastern flank, 1+ rests on the much more ancient Cambrian, bearing a strong re- semblance to a sea-beach. These facts suggest, that between the times of the depo- | sition of these strata a great change had taken place in the level and position of the underlying rocks, and it has been suggested as probable that the Longmynd, at the time of the formation of the Llandovery, presented the appearance of an island. It is here interesting again to notice the coincidence of a great change in organic life, with these evidences of a very long interval between the two formations. Out of the prodigious number of fossils found both in the Caradoc and the Llandovery rocks, only twelve species are known to be common to both. When we contemplate these strata, resting as they do upon the highly inclined rocks of the Langmynd, the mind is irresistibly carried back to reflect on the history of this region. ‘There was at first a period during which the 26,000 feet of the Cambrian was forming; then another, during which the Lingula flags of the Stiperstone range were depo- sited. ‘Then there was a vast interval, perhaps of subsidence, represented by the Tremadoc slates. hen again fresh de- posits commenced over the entire area, and 3000 feet of Llandeilo VOL, XI.—NO. V. AA 304 A Ramble in West Shropshire. flags were formed; after which, possibly, that great upheaval took place, during which a mighty fault along the Stretton Valley, estimated by Professor Ramsay at 2000 feet, was effected, and the strata of the Longmynd reared up into an almost perpendicular position, as may be seen around Church Stretton. Then came a long period of denudation, such as is at this moment going on over the whole surface of the country, by which the frost, the rain, and other atmospheric agencies are incessantly wearing down the whole surface, and carrying it off in rivers to the sea. Then, and not till then, were the Llandovery conglomerates deposited on the denuded edges of the previous rocks, sce which there has been a further upheaval, an interval of time measured by the more recent formations, nearly thirteen miles thick altogether, which are met with in succession as we cross England in an easterly direction, and the inconceivably slow process by which the whole surface of the country has been moulded into its present aspect, under atmospheric influences. Let us now turn our attention, though it must be more briefly than the subject deserves, to the objects of antiquity which abound in this district. ‘They are, for the most part, closely connected with the working of the lead mines, which in very early ages attracted to them the industry of the Romans. An interesting testimony to this fact is extant in a large ingot of lead which is in the possession of Rey. I’. More, of Linley Hall, and of which a sketch is here . presented. This ingot is stamped SN 77 Mi i a with the words 1. u. p. Hapriant = oe Ava., executed in well cut letters; its weight is just Ingot of Lead from Linley. 190 lbs., and it is the exact duplicate, I am informed, of another that was discovered in a different place, but in the same neighbourhood. On each side it is possible to trace the grain of oak wood, stamped, as it were, upon the lead, from which it is inferred ‘that the mould in which it was cast was made of that timber; but a more curious and interesting fact is the occurrence likewise on each side of the impression of a fern leaf, so distinct, that the species, Blechnum boreale, can be determined. How did this come here? Could that frail or ganism have permanence enou ch to impress its form on the molten mass as it was poured into the mould? Why one fern leaf on each side? Was it acci- dental or intentional, a kind of trade mark or private stamp ? Together with this relic of Roman industry, Mr. More, whose diligence in collecting and preserving these curious remains | A Ramble iv West Shropshire. 305 has been very great, has in his collection some ancient wooden spades of oak, and of a curious pattern. The handle was evidently inserted in the hole which is represented in the accompanying drawing, and tied to the short handle with which each was furnished ; thus afford- hou ing a tolerably effective implement when iron was yet an expensive metal. But lastly, Mr. More possessest wo precious relics, which, as being com- posed of far more perishable material, are justly prized by him very much ; they are two candles, apparently formed Spade found in Roman mine originally of tallow, but this has under- a ae a gone the change into adipocere, which frequently takes place with fatty substances when exposed for a very long time to certain atmospheric action, and by which it has become ex- tremely hard and almost chalky in its nature. The form, Roman (?) Candle found in Roman mine near Sheive. however, of these candles is quite preserved; they resemble our ordinary ‘dips,’ and a fracture in the side of one of them reveals an inner core, which would arise from their being formed by two successive dippings in the melted tallow. The wicks of both of them are made of hemp, cotton being then, of course, unknown. Both these and the spades were found in one of the workings of the. Roman mine; and it is therefore possible that they date as far back as the times of that people. But although, as Mr. Wright informs me, there is good evidence that the Romans used candles, a candlestick having actually been found at Wroxeier, it might not’ be easy to determine that these in- teresting relics are of so ancient a date as this, since, indeed, the mines from which they came seem to have been in constant work down to the present day, when ‘“ Limited Liability” projects, to enrich the fortunate shareholders, teem on every hand. In his antiquities of Shropshire, Mr. Eyton says of Shelve, that ‘‘it was famous in the twelfth and thirteenth century for its lead mines. In 1182, the king seems to have had the lead mines in his own hands. The sheriff had conveyed the king’s lead from Shrewsbury to Gloucester, at the cost of £3 8s. 9d., as certified by William Fitz Simeon and Warm Fitz Alric. He had further purchased 110 cart loads of lead for the king, at the cost of £38 10s. ‘This lead is expressed to be ‘ad operationes ecclesie de Ambresb.? ‘This explains the whole 356 A Ramble in West Shropshire. matter. The great Wiltshire nunnery of Aymesbury had been dissolved by Henry II. in 1177, on account of the immorality of itsmembers. ‘The house was newly inaugurated as an abbey on May 31 in the same year, and colonized with a purer sisterhood from the Abbey of Fontevrault. The King, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishops of Exeter and Norwich attended the ceremony. Henry II. left nothing undone which could contribute to the dignity of the new foundation, and Aymesbury became the select retreat for females of the aristocracy. The lead mines of Shelve doubtless furnished the roof of the con- ventual Church.” But it is time to draw our ramble to a close, although we have by no means exhausted the objects of interest in this neighbourhood, though we might with pleasure examine the curious circles of stones near the foot of Corndon, and the tumuli of departed heroes which are said to abound on its summit, and the relics of more recent times in the hypocaust and remains. of a Roman villa which still exist close to Linley Hall; and though by permission of the hospitable owner of that handsome place we could with profit linger over the mgenious and most instructive model which he has had made of the sur- rounding country, enough will have been said to show that a few days spent in the neighbourhood of the Stiperstones will not be thrown away ; and now that an excellent hotel (lam nota shareholder) is established at Church Stretton, a good centre of operations has been created, and a country for the most part inaccessible, if not inhospitable, has been ‘opened up to the lovers of science and of scenery. It may be hoped that its many objects of interest may be investigated as they deserve to be. Picture-Notes—The Royal Academy. 357 PICTURE-NOTES.—THE ROYAL ACADEMY. Tue picture exhibition of the Royal Academy for the present year is, on the whole, an interesting one; and it would be easy to make a pretty long lst of artists whose works evince considerable technical skill, and possess a fair amount of beauty in colour or form. If, however, we pass by those pictures which are simply pleasing, and take no account of many preposterous and crotchety failures, we have left a good many productions of artists whose labours command large prices, whose reputation stands high, and who aim, more or less successfully, at an elevated mark. Amongst these there are some who deserve great praise, while others—and they com- prehend several of the R.A.’s—have fallen far below their own fame. ‘The deplorable want of Hnglish artists is mental culti- vation and imaginative power. ‘l'hey rarely conceive their subjects in a fine spirit, and, as a rule, their pictures lack sentiment, dramatic vigour, and poetic treatment. The present exhibition shows these defects very glaringly, and chief amongst the defaulters are painters whose reputation has long been made. Sir Edwin Landseer sins most grievously against all rational principles of art in his big picture of the “Queen at Osborne in 1866.” The sentiment intended to be conveyed by this piece is that of the grief and loneliness of our sovereign in her widow- hood. The queen is represented in a black riding-habit, on a dark pony, held by a gilly who looks as if he had been borrowed from the undertaker. A little dog, standing on his hind legs, seems, from the colour of his coat, as if he had put on mourning during a temporary sojourn up the kitchen chimney ; the grass has the aspect of faded green baize, and a grey, drizzling cloud gives a damp, half-mouldy aspect to the scene. In his better moods Sir KH. Landseer could not have painted such a picture. It is not a grief as conceived by the artist, but as it might be arranged for exhibition by the under- taker. The gentlemen who “perform”? funerals could also erform” this sort of woe, and hundreds of their profession would thankfully supply the article by contract, according to weight or measure, as might be agreed. A true artist—Sir Edwin himself in his artistic moods—would have perceived the morbid affectation and unnaturalness of the method of treat- ment which he has adopted, and which is founded on the conceit, that an air of general discomfort pervaded the universe because an illustrious personage died. There is however no symptom of that power which might command the sympathies of external 308 Picture-Notes.—The Royal Academy. nature, fill the world with gloom, and “ let darkness be the burier of the dead.” ne eae ee rh Hava 1. Bie Os aati euatagls cries of ceils. + gi foun? za Britain, ali of them from the Llandeilo cs fossii named by Harkness, 2, triangulatus, is the ciderpo of Graptolithus convolutus, His. (Fig. 15).. Prof. Wy Thompson has pointed out to me that the earliest portion of this species was composed of distant tubular cells, ce ; resembling those of Rastrites. I find in my own specimens which confirm this opinion. The cell furnished with two spine-like appendages (Plate I, Fi It-cannot be determined whether these larger cells: h functional office to discharge.. Two ow Pinte IL., R. Linnci, Barr., me 9; and series. ig. 1 is G. 8 kit; Portl., origmally de r from the north. of ina te - Scot hvese: mam van oo Graptolites. | 369 name, and I gladly find another in the name of the original describer of the species. Fig. 3, cis the proximal end of the polypary. Fig. 7, G. Hall, Barr. Fig. 8, a and b are two perfect specimens of a beautiful small species, which at first 1 referred to G. millepeda, M‘Coy, but that species is certainly the proximal end of G. Becki, and this differs from it in having avery broad common base, from which the hydrothece rise. i have dedicated this species to my late friend, J. Morison Clingan, M.A., who was my frequent companion in rambles among the Moffat Hills. G. Clingani could not have been part of a compound organism, as Hall supposes, but is evidently complete in itself. Fig. 3, b represents a specimen of another species, in which both extremities are perfect; and, though I have never seen large specimens showing both extremities, yet fragments of the ends are not unfrequent, and these con- clusively show that the complete organism corresponded in structure with the small and more frequently perfect G. Clingani. G. convolutus, His., is represented at Fig. 15. 3. Cyrtograpsus, Car. Polypary compound; growing in one direction from the primary point. One species only is known from the Wenlock rocks. 4. Didymograpsus, M‘Coy. Polypary compound ; growing bilaterally, and consisting of two simple or double branches. In this genus I include Salter’s Tetragrapsus, some species of which would, perhaps, better be joined to Dichograpsus. Eleven species of this have been observed, all from the Llandeilo beds; except one, which is found in the Caradoc series. Fig. 12 is D. Murchisonu, Beck. sp.; Fig. 14, D. crucialis, Salt. sp.; and Fig. 16 is an undescribed species from the Moffat shales, for which I propose the name D. elegans. A young specimen is figured at 16, b, and c, showing the “ radicle,” which subsequently disappears, and the three processes on the convex side, which are always present in this, as in some other species of the genus. ®. Dichograpsus, Salt. Polypary compound; growing bilaterally, and branching rigularly ; the non-celluliferous bases of the branches invested with a corneous disc. Several species of this genus have been found in Canada, but hitherto only two have been detected in the Llandeilo beds of this country, of which D. aranea, Salt., Fig. 11, is one. 6. Clodograpsus, Car. Polypary compound; growing bi- laterally from the primary point, irregularly, and repeatedly branching and rebranching, and without a central disc. Two species of this genus occur in Britain, both in the Llandeilo beds, one of which, C. linearis, Car., is figured Fig. 17. It is a very slender species, and the drawing represents it as some- what too broad. VOL. XI.—NO. V. BB 370 Graptolites. 7. Dendrograptus, Hall. Polypary compound, with a thick common stem, giving off branches irregularly, which repeatedly sub-divide in a dichotomous manner. Two species have been noticed in Britain, one from the Llandeilo and the other from the Caradoc beds. Both species are founded on fragments of the polypiferous branches, but these agree sb exactly with the species described by Hall, that there can be little doubt as to the genus in which they should be placed. Section II.—Species with two series of cells. 8. Diplograpsus, M‘Coy. Polypary having a slender, solid axis, and with cells composed of true hydrothece. Nine species are known, and all of them from the Llandeilo beds. Fig. 2 represents one of the best known species, D. pristis, His. sp. The proximal end is furnished with three spines, all of which have the same origin ; the two lateral ones are not the ornaments of individual hydrothece, but have the same relation to the general polypary as the terminal one. Different forms of these spines are figured at 2,a,b,andc. Fig. 5 is D. folium, His., which is destitute of any ornament at the proximal end. The individual hydrothecze are marked by parallel ridges, as if they increased in size, shown in the en- larged portion at Fig. 5, b. Small specimens are figured at 5,c,and d. Figo. 4 represents an anomalous form, D. cometa, Gein., having a very small number of cells (3 or 4) on either side of the main axis, and these cells are very much produced, so as to appear almost parallel to the solid axis. _ 9. Climacograptus, Hall. Polypary, having a slender solid axis, and with the cells hollowed out of the body of the polypary. Three species are known in Britain, one from the Llandeilo beds, another from the Caradoc, and the third common to both series. Tig. 6 is CU. scalaris, Linn. sp., a species which has ‘been rejected by some authors as only a state in which almost any species might occur, and has been by others so misunder- stood, that it has appeared under no less than ten different specific names. ‘The relation between specimens preserved so as to show the cell mouths in profile (Fig. 6, b), and those exhibiting them in a front view, as transverse or.“ scalari- form” markings on the upper surface, is beautifully shown in a specimen figured (6, a), m which the polypary is’ so twisted as to show the one set of markings on its upper half, and the other onits lower half. I have noticed that the pro- longed axis of this species at the proximal end is frequently invested for a short distance by a sheath (Fig. 6, 5). 10. Retiolites, Barr. Polypary without a solid axis, cells rising from a central common canal, and in contact throughout Graptolites. 371 their whole course ; polypary reticulated on the outer surface. Two species of this singular genus have been found in the Wenlock beds of Britain (Plate I., Fig. 12). Srction III.—Species with single and double series of cells on different parts of the same polypary. 11. Dicranograpztus, Hall. This is proposed by Hallas a subgenus of Climacograptus ; -but as the form of the polypary has been used by all authors as the principal basis for the separation of genera, this must be recognized as a good genus. A single species, CO. ramosus, Hall, has only hitherto been described in Britain, and that is from the Llandeilo beds. It is figured (13). Srction 1V.—Species with four series of cells. 12. Phyllograptus, Hall. Polypary consisting of four laminz joined throughout their whole length to a common solid axis, and so giving four separate and independent sets of cells. A single species has been found in the Llandeilo rocks, but I have figured (Plate I., Fig. 5, a) an American species and (5, b) a transverse section, after Hall, which exhibits, better than the more imperfectly preserved British specimens, the structure of the genus. Systematic position.—There is, perhaps, no small group of fossils concerning which so many and so different estimates as to their systematic position have been entertained. Linnzus, as we have seen, considered that the species which he knew was not a true fossil. Bromel, as early as 1727, is believed to refer to graptolites in his account of the fossils of Sweden, when he speaks of the fossil leaves of grasses ; their vegetable origin has been maintained by several subsequent writers. Brongniart includes them among the Alge, and figures two species in his great work, Histoire des Végétaux Fossiles ; and in this opinion he was followed by several of the earlier American geologists, as Mather, Conrad, and Vanuxem. As equally erroneous, the opinions of Boeck, M‘Crady, and Nimmo may be at once set aside. Boeck considers them to have been hollow tubes, rent asunder in different ways before being buried in the mud in which they are preserved. They were probably, he thinks, the arms of radiata or cephalopoda, and the various forms described as different species are the result of the accidental tearing, and the irregular contraction of the substance of the tube. M‘Crady considers that the graptolites are the larve of echinoderms, because of their similarity in form to Miller’s published drawings. Nimmo thinks they are nothing more or less than the serrated spines of the Raja pastinaca, or an allied species. It does not appear 372 _ Graptolites. from Nimmo’s notice that he had ever seen a graptolite, and his absurd conjectures may be excused, while the folly of its publication evidently rests with the then editor of the Calcutta Journal. M‘Crady and Boeck, on the other hand, came to their conclusions after examining specimens; but the descrip- tions already given of the structure and general form of these fossils render it unnecessary to refute such notions. Walch is the first naturalist who recognized the animal nature of graptolites. In his work on the fossils of Knorr’s Museum, he figures two species, which he describes as small toothed orthoceratites. The one is most probably G. priodon, preserved in the round, represented externally in one figure, and in section in the other. Geinitz has mistaken the dark- coloured divisions between the cells shown on the surface of the polished slab for specimens of Lastrites peregrinus. The other species figured is G. convolutus. Walch’s opinion that they were minute cephalopods was entertained by many naturalists, among others by Wahlenberg and Schlotheim. Barrande at length set the matter at rest by clearly showing that they could not structur ally belong to this group, but must be zoophytes. Nilsson, the venerable Swedish naturalist, was the first to suggest their true affinities. Some thirty years ago he was engaged in the study of these fossils, and published an abstract in anticipation of a complete memoir, which he has never given to the world. At that time the classification of zoophytes was very imperfect, and in the family Ceratophyta, to which he referred them, were included a number of organisms now known to have no affinity with each other. Beck, in a note in Murchison’s Silurian System (1839), refers them to the neigh- bourhood of Pennatula, and he has been followed by Barrande and others. The possession of a solid axis, and of a free . polypary, are the points chiefly relied on by those who main- tain this view. M’Coy thinks they were Sertularians, because the form of their horny polypary and the polype cells were the same as in that family. Salter, Greene, and others would raise them much higher in the scale by placing them amongst the Polyzoa. In trying to estimate, if it be possible, which, of these opinions is the most accurate, it will be necessary to ‘ask first, what are the characters to which we have access in graptolites that are most important in throwing light on their systematic position. Some make the general “form of importance ; but, on the one hand, this is one of the most variable characters in the same family, and on the other, it is one which repeats itself in very different families. It would be impossible to dis- tinguish between the Hydrozoa and the Polyzoa from general Graptolites. 7 373 form. Besides, we find this very variable amongst the grap- tolites themselves. Nor is the fact that the polyparies were free of much significance, inasmuch as there are free forms among both the Polyzoa and Hydrozoa. The only trustworthy characters for the purpose we want are to be obtained, I believe, from the structure and relation of the individual parts of the polypary. In the Polyzoa there is a distinct septum cutting off the individual from the common canal, except by a comparatively small perforation. In the Hydrozoa the polype rises directly from the ccenosarc, and this also is the structure of the graptolite. ‘This would, then, at once set aside the Polyzoa, and restrict the inquiry to the humbler ccelenterate zoophytes. The general resemblance between the free Pen- natula, with its prolonged axis and bilateral arrangement of parts, and Diplograpsus, will not bear even a little scrutiny. The axis is slender and corneous, and is produced at the distal end of the organism, while in Pennatula it is thick and fleshy, and proceeds from the proximal end. ‘The cells containing the animals are dug out of the ccenosarc, and strengthened with calcareous deposits in Pennatula, while in the graptolites the polypary is corneous and external, agreeing in this respect also with the Hydrozoa. There are, no doubt, some struc- tures for which it is difficult to find anything corresponding among the Hydrozoa; but making every allowance for them, and considering the many and important points which they have in common, there is a strong case made out for the graptolites being Hydrozoa, although a somewhat abnormal form. | EXPLANATION OF PLATE II. Fig. 1. Graptolithus Sedgwickii, Port. Fie. 3. Graptolithus Hisingeri, Car. a, portion of the adult polypary; c, proximal end, with small cells; b, young specimen of an allied species. Vig. 7. Graptolithus Halli, Barr. Fig. 8. Two perfect specimens of Graptolithus Olingani, Car. Fig. 15. Fragments of Graptolithus convolutus, His. Fig. 2. Diplograpsus pristis, His. sp. a, complete poly- pary; ) and c, different forms of the proximal spines. Fig. 4. Diplog grapsus cometa, Gein. Three’ different forms. Fie. 5. Diplograpsus folium, His. sp. a, complete poly- pary ; “b, portion magnified ; ¢ and d, young individuals. ig. 6. Climacos graptus scalaris, Linn. Sp. Fig. 9. Lastrites Linnei, Barr. Fig. 10. Lastrites capillari is, Car. Fig. 11. Dictrograpsus aranea, Salt. Pig, 12. Didymograpsus Murchisonii, Beck. 374 Flying Machines. Fig. 14. Didymograpsus crucialis, Salt, sp. Fig. 16. Didymograpsus elegans, Car. a, portion of an adult specimen; b, young specimen, showing the primary point, or “radicle ;” c, the same magnified. Fig. 17. Cladograpsus linearis, Car. 6, portion magnified to show the form of the cells. ; FLYING MACHINES. ty all ages men have envied the powers of flight possessed by birds, and from ancient to modern times inventors and schemers have busied their brains with devices intended to confer upon humanity the desirable faculty of aérial locomotion. For the most part, such efforts have been made by a class of projectors whose folly and infatuation have thrown ridicule upon the idea. Over and over again, the most absurd contrivances have been represented as sure to achieve success—a little more money was the only thing required; and if a sympathizing public would only find the funds, blundering enthusiasts promised, and believed, that they would fly like jackdaws from the neigh- bouring steeple, or soar like eagles far above the haunts of men. The recent establishment of an “Aéronautical Society” in this country, under the presidency of the Duke of Argyll, and with a council containing such men as Sir Charles Bright and William Fairbairn, James Glaisher and F. H. Wenham, has already had the curious effect of raising expectations in scien- tific minds, that at last some form of flymg apparatus may be made to succeed. Of late years, a partial study of the wings of birds, and of their methods of action, seemed to show that flight was a physical impossibility forman. ‘The size of the bird’s wing was so large, in proportion to the creature’s weight, and it appeared to demand so.great an amount of muscular force for its movements, that it seemed perfectly hopeless to expect that human muscles could wield an appa- ratus of the required dimensions, and with the velocities demanded, or that any mechanism could be constructéd gene- rating sufficient force in proportion to its weight. Mr. Wenham’s researches into the matter have materially modified the opinions of those who heard his paper read, or who have perused it in the First Annual Report of the Aéronautical Society of Great Britain.* bath He has thrown much light upon that very complicated and * Published by Cassell and Co. Flying Machines. | 379 abstruse question, the flight of birds, and he has established good reasons for supposing that there has been much exagge- ration in the popular estimate of the force exerted in the operation. We hope our readers will have recourse to the publication we have named; but, as an incentive to consult it, and for the benefit of those who are not likely to see it, we shall proceed to give a condensed account of its contents. Mr. Wenham tells us that a weight of 150 lbs. suspended from a surface of the same number of square feet, will fall through the air at the rate of 1300 feet per minute, the force expended on the air being nearly six-horse power. Consequently, that power would be required to keep the same weight and surface suspended at a fixed altitude. A man can perform muscular work equal to raising his own weight, say 150 lbs., twenty-two feet per minute; but at this low rate of speed he would require to sustain him on the air a surface of 120,000 square feet, making no allowance for weight beyond his body. Thus, attempts to construct bird-like wings, by which a man could raise himself perpendicularly, appear quite impracticable. A pelican, shot by Mr. Wenham, on the Nile, was found to weigh 21 lbs., and its wings measured ten feet from end toend. During their flight, pelicans make about seventy wing strokes per minute, and when they float on the air,afew | strokes in each minute appear sufficient to sustain them, and . there is no symptom of powerful exertion. Mr. Wenham also noticed that flocks of spoonbills, flying at about thirty miles an hour, at less than fifteen inches above the Nile’s surface, did not create a sufficient commotion in the air to ripple the surface of the water. Studying the behaviour of an eagle impelled to activity by a charge of large shot rattling amongst his feathers, he also noticed that he had to run at least twenty yards before he could raise himself from the earth. Many other observations of birds are highly important, and enable us to form some conception of the way in which various kinds of wings perform their work. Citing Smeaton, Mr. Wenham informs us, that if a plane moves against the wind, or the wind against a plane, at the rate of twenty-two feet per second, 1320 feet per minute, or fifteen. miles an hour, a force of one lb. per square foot is obtained. When a falling body, having a weight of one Ib. to each foot of resisting surface, reaches that velocity, the atmospheric resistance balances its weight, and keeps it from descending faster. A man and a parachute, weigh- ing together 143 lbs., will not fall with a greater velocity if the parachute is kept in position, and has an area of 143 square feet. A fall of eight feet brings a body to the earth with the same velocity, which is not sufficient to destroy life or 376 Flying Machines. limb. Swallows have a wing surface of two square feet to the pound; some of the duck tribe, which fly well, httle more than half a square foot, or 72 inches to the pound. If such birds allowed themselves to fall perpendicularly, with out- stretched wings, they would reach the ground with an injurious velocity, but by descending obliquely, they alight with ease and” safety. This combination of a horizontal motion with a per- pendicular one is of the greatest importance ; and Mr. Wenham observes, “ In the case of perpendicular descent, as a parachute, the sustaiming effect will be much the same, whatever the figure of the outline of the superficies may be, and a circle attords, perhaps, the best resistance of any. Take, for example, a circle of twenty square feet (as possessed by the pelican), loaded with as many pounds. This, as just stated, will limit the rate of perpendicular descent to 1320 feet per minute. But instead of a circle sixty-one inches in diameter, if the area is bounded by a parallelogram ten feet lone by two broad, and whilst at perfect freedom to descend perpendicularly, let a force be applied exactly in a horizontal direction, so as to carry it edgeways, with the long side foremost, at a forward speed of thirty miles an hour—just double that of its passive descent— the rate of fall, under these conditions, will be decreased most remarkably, probably to less than one-fifteenth part, or eighty- eight feet per minute, or one mile per hour.” ‘This diminution _ of the descending velocity is occasioned by the resistance of the mass of air moved by the parachute in its horizontal course, and which necessarily becomes greater in proportion to the width of the parachute. Among the experimental illustrations suggested by Mr. Wenham is the action of a thin blade, one inch wide and a foot long, fixed at right angles to a spindle on which it can be turned. If such an apparatus is immersed ina stream running in the direction of the spindle, and held at rest, the force which the blade has to resist will be simplz that of the water current acting on its surface, and the current will be checked to a corresponding extent. Te, however, the spindle and blade are made to rotate rapidly, ‘‘ the retarding effect against direct motion will now be increased over tenfold, and is equal to that due to the entire area of the circle of revolution. By trying the effect of blades of various widths, it will be found that, for the purpose of effecting the maximum amount of resistance, the more rapidly the spindle revolves the narrower may be the blade.” It will be evident, that if a column of air were rotating in the same direction and with the same velocity as that of the vane and spindle, the movement of the vane would not be resisted by the air, and just to the extent to which the revolving Flying Machines. | 377 vane communicates its own motion to the air, the reaction of the air against the motion of the vane will be lessened. If at each moment of its progress in a horizontal direction the vane acted upon a stratum of air whose vis inertie had not been disturbed, the maximum of reaction would be obtained. Mr. Wenham, in a very ingenious way, applies these facts to the action of the long wings of swallows, and other birds charac- terized by the length of their. flyimg apparatus, and he shows very pointedly the great mechanical disadvantage at which a bird or a machine must operate in order to raise a weight per- pendicularly, as compared with raising it obliquely. He says it does not appear that any large bird can raise itself perpen- dicularly in a still atmosphere, but pigeons can accomplish it approximately to a moderate height, and the humming-bird, by the extremely rapid vibration of its pinions, can sustain itself for one minute in still air in the same position. ‘‘ The muscular force required for this feat being much greater than for any other performance of flight. The wings uphold the weight, not by striking vertically downwards upon the air, but as in- chned surfaces reciprocating horizontally like a screw, but wanting in its continuous rotation in one direction,” and, there- fore, with some loss of power from the rapid alternation of motion. ; A bird is sustained in the air by the weight of that fluid, and the sustaining power of its wings will depend upon the quan- tity or weight of air that would have to be displaced by its fall. By a wide stretch of wing, and a horizonal motion, the resistance is maximized, and a long-winged bird that has raised itself in the air may avoid falling by maintaining a certain horizontal velocity with a moderate expenditure of force. A kite is sustained and moved obliquely by the force of the wind, and the weight of the air which its fall must displace. Thus there is some analogy between a wing and akite, it being mechanically pretty much the same thing, whether a breeze blows against a resisting surface, or a resisting surface is moved against a mass of air. Mr. Wenham cites an experiment of Captain Dansey, in which a kite, having a surface of only 55 square feet, raised a weight of 924 lbs. in a strong breeze, and he considers that exploring kites might be safer and more con- venient than exploring balloons for purposes:of war, though their employment would be dependent on the force of the wind. Notwithstanding the ingenuity of the preceding explana- tions, the reader may scarcely be prepared to admit Mr. Wenham’s inference, that ‘‘man is endowed with sufficient muscular power to enable him to take individual and extended fights, and that success is probably only involved in a question of suitable mechanical adaptations.” An imitation of the 378 Flying Machines. bird’s length of wing is out of the question, as we have no means of constructing a mechanism equally strong and light, and of similar proportions in length and breadth to the weight that has to be carried. The possible solution of the problem is thus explained. ‘* Having remarked how thin a stratum of air is displaced beneath the wings of a bird in rapid flight, it follows, that in order to obtain the necessary length of plane for supporting heavy weights, the surfaces may be superposed, or placed in parallel rows, with an interval between them. A dozen pelicans may fly one above another without mutual impe- diment, as if framed together; and it is thus shown how two hundred weights may be supported in a transverse distance of only ten feet.” Can any mechanism, either moved by man, or by inorganic motive power, be constructed to operate successfully on the principles thus explained? After carefully reading Mr. Wen- ham’s paper, few scientific men would venture to pronounce the solution of the problem wmpossible, and we have reason to believe it has materially modified the opinions previously enter- tained by some of our best mechanicians and physicists. The paper is full of close reasoning, and differs entirely from the illogical speculations often put forth by enthusiastic projectors, who set to work according tv methods that ievitably lead to failure. From certain experiments described by Mr. Wenham, the nature of the difficulties to be overcome, and the kind of possi- bility that may be convertible into actuality, are made clearer than they were before, and many facts discovered of late years in reference to the action of screws as substitutes for paddles in steam navigation, and in relation to the flight of various shaped projectiles, may come in aid of the aéronautist. It is remarkable that previous to the invention of balloons, flying machines were pet schemes with many philosophers. The gas balloon especially threw them inte the shade, but the investigations of the infant Aéronautical Society operate in the reverse direction, and tend to createa belief that if aérial navi- gation is ever to assume practical importance, it must be through the agency of some mechanism more manageable and less liable to derangement than an enormous bag filled with a material that has the greatest possible aptitude for escaping through the minutest pores. The Lunar Apennines. 379 THE LUNAR APENNINES.—CLUSTERS AND NEBULAi.—OCCULTATION. BY THE REV. T. W. WEBB, A.M., F.R.A.S. Wecome now toaportion of the lunar surface remarkable for the unusual combination of great altitude, and comparative free- dom from that eruptive disturbance which has left its traces so abundantly in other elevated regions. Thus far, it has some similarity with the great mountain-chains of the earth, which it also resembles in its rapid slope in one direction, contrasted with the gradual declivity of the other side. The comparison, however, as Schmidt was the first to point out, fails in one important point here (and such indeed seems to be the case in all the lunar highland districts)—the absence of long valleys, such as either have been cut down by streams of water, or at least are now their recipients: and there is something in the structure of the N.W. edge different from the ordinary terres- trial central crest with its double slope: the massive pedestals of the loftiest peaks arise from it, but the peculiarity of their connection and their local division would, in Schmidt’s opinion, scarcely find anything analogous on the earth. ‘This district received from Hevel the designation of the Apenmnes, in accordance with his fancied analogy between the lunar and terrestial surface, and on our index-map is numbered 23. Schr. has ascribed to it a length of nearly 460 miles, with a breadth of 70 to more than 90 miles: B. and M. estimate its area at nearly 74,000 square miles: and though surpassed in height by several ranges upon the limb, it forms the most consider- able mountain-mass, in the clearly-distinguishable part of the visible hemisphere. On the H. it connects itself with the con- spicuous crater Hratosthenes (29), by a narrow prolongation of moderate height: southward it gradually declines in a great number of low ridges into the Sinus Avstuwm (H), the Mare Vaporum (F), and the region about Manilius (24): on the W. it borders on the already-described chain of Hemus, extending N.E. from Menclaus (15), and the Mare Serenitatis (Hi) : on the N. and N.E. it culminates in a long, lofty, steep crest, some- what curved in its general direction, and much indented in detail; this towers over the Mare Imbrium (I), with many insu- lated hills and long low ridges attending its base, in places ris- ing towards it in steps, and looking, as Schmidt observes, like great masses of debris detached from the main chain during its elevation ; perhaps it may be equally open to us to suppose that they may in part be the result of landslips from its edge at amore recent date. The earliest observers were astonished at 380 The Lunar Apennines. its evident height and precipitousness, and Galileo and Hevel naturally thought it the loftiest of the lunar mountains. Its shadow occasionally, about the time of the First Quarter, cuts out a broad and deep notch of the Mare Imbriwm reaching to the terminator, and extends for a length of about 83 miles; or, which comes to the same thing, a spectator at that dis- tance would see across the wide-extended plain its crest rising high enough into the sky to cover the disc of the rising sun ; as on the other hand, at sunset its summit withdraws into darkness when equally removed from the terminator. About the First Quarter, the broad illuminated line of the main ridge runs out so far into the lunar night, that 1b may even be dis- tinguished by a sharp eye without the telescope; and thougha similar irregularity is obvious when the terminator passes near Theophilus (85), yet, according to B. and M., it was the projec- tion of the Apennines which led Plutarch, and others of the ancients to infer the rugged character of the lunar globe. Hevel first measured, of course with avery rude kind of micro- meter, the distance of the extreme illuminated point from the terminator at the lunar sunset, and found it =1, of the moon’s radius,* giving a very fair approximation of 16,800 ft. From its steepness, it is scarcely free from shadow through four days, and the great crest bears traces of it even as late as 24h. before full. During the lunar afternoon and evening, the shadow on the abrupt N.H. descent is replaced by light, and a little before Last Quarter I have seen it, though falling very obliquely to the axis of the chain, reflected from the pre- cipices in a very beautiful and striking manner. ‘The whole mass is comparatively light in colour, unbroken by darkness, excepting where penetrated by deep valleys on the S.; and there being no luminous streaks here, and the M. Imbrium being of a deep grey, the Apennines can be readily distinguished under the highest illumination. A narrow strip along its loftiest edge reaches 7°—8° of brightness; a suggestive fact, in con- junction with many other instances of the like nature, especially in the rings of craters, and one which would come into con- sideration in selenological inquiries; though its uncertainty and irregularity occasion difficulty in its imterpretation. It would seem as though there must be a difference somewhere, either of material or of structure, in the original formation; or of internal arrangement or reflective power, superinduced at a later period in the process of cooling or consolidation, or from the presence, or relative absence, of some external in- fluence. Among these, singly .or in combination, would he * Galileo had previously estimated the projection of some elevations in various phases at more than 23 of the diameter (1'c of radius). Too large, but not amiss for him. The Lunar Apennines. 381 our choice of an explanation plastic enough to be moulded to the varying and capricious nature of the phenomenon; but there is an embarras de richesses: the number of alternatives causes difficulty in selection ; and after all, itis not wonderful that we should be perplexed by an appearance which we are obliged to study at a distance, which the highest available magnifying powers can only reduce to 200 or 300 miles. What would be the difficulties and the perplexity of the geologist if he were obliged to study the structure of the earth from a cor- responding remoteness, and in equal ignorance of its materials, the processes to which they have been subjected, and—save only in very rude outline—the causes and mode of their pre- sent conformation! However, this subject of varying reflective power or local colour deserves, and we may hope will some day receive, a greater amount of separate investigation than has yet been accorded to it. ‘Almost numberless,” say B. and M., “is the multitude of mountain ridges, separate peaks, and hills which cover the highland; and even with the strongest telescopic aid and the most invincible application, a delineation, entering as much into detail as is practicable, for instance, in the great maria, would here be unsuccessful.” They say that their map con- tains on the W. of the crater Conon, that is to say, in about 4 of the whole length of the chain, towards 500 summits, but that 2000 or 8000 would not have been enough to exhibit all which can by degrees be made out here under favour- able circumstances. ‘A three times larger scale, a gigantic telescope, and the special examination of years, would be requisite to produce a representation approaching in accuracy to one of our better terrestrial maps.” This complexity of structure had been noticed by Schr., whose 27f. reflector, with a power of 200, had shown him in 1795-6 the innumerable minor elevations of which the great masses are compacted together, in, so to speak, tangible dis- tinctness, though in part as minute as the smallest pins’ heads ; the labyrinth, in fact, is not difficult to be perceived; and I have seen something of it with a 3-2, inch object-glass. Beginning on the 8.W. from the end of Mt. Heemus, which forms the §.K. border of the M. Serenitatis, we come first to the gradual ascent of a wide-spread plateau, 180 miles from N. to $., and 165 in the opposite direction; an extent of which we may get an idea by comparing it with the distance from London to York, between 170 and 180 miles direct. The general elevation of this mass may be perhaps 6000f., much greater than the subsequent rise of the summits, which it bears. ‘The arrangement of most of these shows one of the peculiar parallelisms of the moon, from N.HE. to 8.W.: one 382 The Lunar Apennines. point among them reaches 8000f. The N. part of the Apen- nines is by far less connected with loftier and more insulated peaks: we find here a crater, Aratus, of great depth (Schr. thinks 38500f. or more) for its diameter of 7 miles; its 8° of brightness make it conspicuous even in the full moon; a summit close to it on the N. rises 10,400f. above the highland 380 miles to the W.; and another further to the N.W., visible from the plain towards the sunrise, mounts above that level to 14,300f. A short distance N. of Aratus, a high bright ridge in a meridian direction forms for some length the shore of the M. Imbrium. It was named Hadley by Schr., who gave it 13,400f. above the plain beneath; B. and M., 15,200f. —this latter about the same as our Monte Rosa, but with a far finer uprising from the neighbourimg level. A summit further S.E. was measured by Schr. at 12,600f. The extreme N. termination of the Apennines (Hadley 8, B. and M.) lies somewhat further out ;—an insulated headland of 8500f., com- manding a grand prospect over boundless plains through a great part of the horizon, broken in the N. by the extreme peaks of the Caucasus, and further E. by the great wall of Aristillus, and contrasted with the huge masses of Hadley on the opposite side. Rounding this promontory, and keeping along the edge of the M. Seren., we come to another consi- derable mountain (Hadley I’) worthy of notice, as the nearest vantage-cround commanding a view of the mysterious Linné, of which so much has lately been said, and overlooking per- haps at the present moment, though from a considerable distance, some of those wonderful processes by which the God of nature modifies the results of his own creation. This N. section of the Apennines contains more craters than the other parts; they are all small, bright, and very regular and sharp. One lying between Hadley I and Aratus, and marked 84 by Lohrm., is so conspicuous, that its omission by Schr. might lead to the idea of recent formation, had not the experience of the last few years fully proved the insecure nature of all such inferences. ‘l'hey are, however, of use so far as they tend to a closer examination of suspected districis. S.E. from Aratus lies a larger crater, Conon, the principal explosion-centre of the region; 10 miles in diameter, and, according to Schr., nearly 8500f, deep; B. and M. think more. A central elevation was seen by all these observers, as well as by myself with an inferior telescope; it was, however, missed by Lohrm., who, on the contrary, stands alone in mentioning a pass through the 8. part of the ring, containing, a little way out, a minute crater. B. and M. differ also from him in asserting the ready visibility of the crater in the full moon— trifles of detail, which may possibly be some day found more The Lunar Apennines. : 383 sionificant than they now appear. Chains of hills branch off from the neighbourhood with the usual S.W. parallelism nearly to Manilius, and the profusion of slightly curving ridges to the §.1is said to produce a beautiful effect. Immediately N. of Conon we find another of the great summits of the principal chain, Bradley A, which towers over the M. Imbriwm to a height, according to Schr., of 16,250f., overtopping by several hundred feet, and greatly surpassing in relative height, the monarch of our Alps. Jt sends down a bright spur into the plam; and some long low ridges at its foot have a direction not parallel to the grand chain, but nearly at right angles toit, and pointing to the magnificent ring- plain Archimedes (33). Further 8.H. is the rival summit Bradley, which, however, falls short of its neighbour by nearly 300f.; B. and M. give it but 14,400f. These masses stand in superb relief near the terminator. The next eminence towards the S8.H., after crossing a depression, is Huygens, the supreme culminating point of the whole chain; unless, as Schmidt remarks, there may be still loftier summits in positions further from the escarpment, where they would cast no measurable shadow. It is a ridge about 46 miles in length, commencing on the N. with a steep promontory, bearing a peak of 14,600f, (15,400 Schmidt), and rising gradually to a height, according to B. and M., of 18,000f. There is a difficulty in the measurement, owing to the interfering shadow of another promontory on its H. side (Huygens A, 12,250f.), and thus they explain the difference between their value and the 20,900f., the mean of four good measures by Schr., who also found 21,600f. by Hevel’s method. Hven at the lowest estimate, this is a colossal height, which, especially as taken in connection with the vicinity of the plain beneath, greatly overtops all the magnificence of Swit- zerland. On the very loftiest point is a minute deep white crater, detected by Lohrm.; but not a difficult object, as I have seen it with 32, in., and a power of 144. Such an arrangement is exceptional on the moon, and, as Schmidt observes, occurring on the summit of a long ridge, bears no analogy to the terrestrial crater at the apex of a cone. “The magnificent clearness,’ say B. and M., “ with which this whole steep edge presents itself at the time of the First Quarter in a bright telescope exceeds all description. Islands of light innumerable, each still more minute than the pre- ceding, rise up out of the black lunar night, and the scene changes itself under the observer’s eye, as new points are con- stantly becoming visible, while others are increasing and uniting themselves with their neighbours into long shining ridges,” 384 Clusters and Nebule. At some distance 8. of Huygens lies Marco Polo, an oval depression in the high ground, without a ring, visible chiefly in the wane, and remarkable as the centre of convergence of a number of narrow valleys. N. and N.W. of it the hill-grouping is beautiful. The eastern part of the Apennines is much of the same character : a plateau covered with slightly connected ridges and chains of hills, running chiefly parallel in a 8. direction. Its edge towards the IM. Imbriwm still nowhere descends below 6400 feet ; a lower chain runs parallel to it through the plain at eighteen miles distance. Towards its 8.H. extremity rises an almost separate mass, bearing numerous peaks, some of which attain 11,500 feet, and at this place it turns back at right angles to its previous direction, to form the N.W. shore of the Sinus Avstuwm (H). Beyond the angle, however, and beyond some narrow gorges uniting the two plains, the original range reappears in a small, nearly rectangular plateau, whose summit, Wolf, attains, according to Schr., 11,700 feet (B. and M., 11,000 feet). Then a narrow and interrupted chain of inferior eminences stretches on in advance like a row of gigantic stepping-stones, till it forms a singular connection with the wall of the great crater Hratosthenes (29), and so brings to an end one of the most magnificent as well as extensive mountain masses of our satellite.* CLUSTERS AND NEBULA. The time of year has now become unfavourable for the examination of the fainter objects in the heavens, and those which we are going to mention ought to have been pointed out earlier. However, they may still be found in clear and moon- less nights, and the knowledge of their position will prepare us for another examination under more advantageous circum- stances. The first is in a space so barren to the eye that, unless we possess the convenience of divided circles (when we should find it in R.A. xitih. 36m. D.N. 29° 1’), we must pick it up by sweeping. It lies about one-third of the distance from Arcturus to Cor Caroli, and not much out of the line; and if this part of the sky is carefully traversed, our finder will soon come across a misty speck, which in the- “telescepe will fully reward our pains. It is 41. The great cluster in Canes Venaticii—Gen. Cat. 3636.—M. 3. Smyth describes this as a brilliant and beautiful congregation of not less than 1000 small stars, &” or 6’ in diameter, blazing splendidly towards the centre, and compressed on the sf side, as having no outliers there ; * B. and M. observe a considerable and unusual difference between their map and Lohrmann’s “ Section” throughout this intricate region. Clusters and Nebule. : 385 somewhat resembling the luminous Medusa jellucens. H. calls it a most superb object; the stars, which he rates at 11—15 mag., form radiating lines and pointed projections from the mass, with many stragglers; and such was the power of his 184-inch mirror with front view, as to resolve it entirely, “wher not a star near it, even Arcturus, was visible to the naked eye for clouds.” With a 5,,-inch achromatic aperture I found it, though a beautiful object, hardly resolvable ; but its recent aspect with a 94-inch silvered speculum was different indeed. ‘There the resolution is carried very far, so that, not having looked at the preceding descriptions, I did not notice the blaze, and thought the increase of central density not greater than would be produced by an equidistant arrange- ment in a sphere, enclosed, however, as it would seem, by a more sparse and irregular stratum on every side. But what struck me most, in an independent observation, was the con- trasted magnitudes of the stars; two sizes at least were very evident, perhaps 103 and 12 or 18m. of Sm.’s scale. And it was not less certain that the arrangement of the larger stars had no reference to central condensation; they were sprinkled alike through (or in front.of) the mass and among the extreme outlers. ‘Their very aspect, as well as the concurring testi- mony of H., would prove that the difference of magnitude was a fact, and not, as he has stated in a case to be mentioned hereafter, an illusion depending upon the concurrence of several minute stars in the same visual line. The possessors of powerful instruments may be interested in knowing that 2 or 3m. (of R. A.) p is a small star, which Sm. and H. found with the great reflector to be “a fine first-class double star.” We must adopt a similar process of sweeping (if we cannot point to R. A. xuh. 45m. D. N. 41° 50’) about 23° n a little p, from Cor Caroli, to find 42. Gen. Cat. 3258.—M. 94. Sm. describes it as large and bright, brighter towards the middle, with evident symp- toms of being a compressed cluster. H. calls it “a very interesting object, being a nebula very suddenly much brighter in the middle on a great scale,” the nucleus being 10” or 15” in diam. with a light equal toa 9 mag. star. It had glimpses of stars, and was not resolved but resolvable. With my 3,3,- inch aperture it was like a beautiful comet; a power of 212, on 9% inches of silvered glass, led me to think it resolvable. Our next will be found thus: run a line from Arcturus through 7 Bootis, the 4 mag. star nearly W. of it, bend it gently upwards, and carry it rather more than twice as far again ; it will fall upon another 4 mag. star, v Come Berenicis ; about 1° f a little 1 of this we shall get in the finder a misty spot, which is VOL. XI.—NO. V. CC 386 Clusters and Nebule. 43. Gen. Cat. 3453.—M. 53. “ A highly compressed ball of stars,” Sm. 11—15m.; blazing in centre. H. calls it a most beautiful cluster, ‘with curved appendages, like the short claws of a crab, running out from the main body;” 5’ in diam., a few stars 12 mag., the rest of the smallest size, and innumerable. But to see it thus requires considerable advan- tages. With 3, inches I found it neither very large nor bright, and not very resolvable; the 94-inch mirror, however, masters it, showing not much central compression and many outliers, among which, as in the case of M. 3, are many of the brighter stars, there beme evidently several magnitudes. A. low power shows a pretty open pair s. Sm.’s remark upon this cluster may well be transcribed here: “the contemplation of so beautiful an object cannot but set imagination to work, though the mind may soon be lost in astonishment at the stellar dispositions of the great Creator and Maintainer. Thus, in reasoning by analogy, these compressed globes of stars confound conjecture as to the modes in which the mutual attractions are prevented from causing the universal destruc- tion of their system.” While on the subject of nebule, we may mention that a suspicion may perhaps be entertained of some variation in the dark rifts or “canals”? discovered by Bond in the Great Nebula of Andromeda (Int. Oss. IV., 846). When trying an 8-inch silver-on-glass speculum by Mr. With, 1864, Aug. 31, I have noted “both: canals traceable, though very feebly, for a long distance.” During the past winter I have been unable to make them out to any certainty with my 9{-imch mirror, which, though its figure is not yet quite complete, is competent to show a black division in y? Andromede ; and I find that the experience has been similar of Mr. Matthews with 101-inches, and of Mr. With in the use of a 1214-inch mirror of very fine quality. This point certainly deserves attention. It has been suggested by the latter observer, that a. rotation of the whole mass would be capable of producing such a result. Were its structure clearly gaseous, change would be less surprising ; but Huggins finds a continuous spectrum. It is true, however, that its red end is wanting, and that it is evidently crossed either by bright or dark lines; and these peculiarities, which are common to it, more or less, with 1949 (M. 81), 1950 (M. 82),* and the well-known and brilliant M. 13 (in Hercules), have naturally led to a suspicion on the part of that eminent observer, noticed in a previous number, that the apparent stars of some clusters may not be of what we commonly understand as a stellar character—that is, analogous to our * Int. Oss. VI., 348. Clusters and Nebulce.—Occultation. . Far sun, or Sirius, or Wega. Setting aside for the present the inevitable inference from spectrum-analysis, it certainly seems very difficult to ascribe a starry nature to such luminous masses as the Andromeda nebula, or its analogue M. 81. Itis easy to find cases of resolution, separately, of either a very feeble mist, or a very brilliant and blazing nucleus. But 16 1s not easy to conceive the combination of these two in one object, as in those instances. The stars whose light compose that faint haze, so diffuse that it has no assignable termination, but dies imperceptibly into the dark sky, and can perhaps only be traced in its full extent by a rapid movement of the telescope, must be individually so excessively minute, that such an accu- mulation of them as would form a bright and vivid nucleus is quite beyond the bounds of probability. No justifiable stretch of imagination could compound the central blaze of those nebulz out of materials individually less perceptible than the 20th mag. of H., or the 13th of O.5. We might indeed have recourse to the supposition that the components all progres- sively increase in magnitude or luminosity towards the centre ; but this, not to mention that it finds little countenance in the known arrangement of stars of various sizes in globular clusters, of which two instances have been given in the present article, is liable to the grave objection of being a special and gratuitous assumption in order to escape from a difficulty. On the other hand, the bare inspection of these nebulz conveys the strong impression of an uniform material, capable either of great extremes of condensation and rarefaction, or of very vary- ing degrees of luminosity dependent upon unequal temperature, and therefore, in all probability, neither solid nor fluid, unless it might be in a state of extreme division. In short, we can conceive these objects to be an incandescence of either gas, or mist—that is, exceedingly comminuted fluid; or dust—that is, similarly attenuated solid matter; but we can scarcely reconcile their aspect with a stellar composition. Had the spectroscope told us unequivocally that we were wrong, we must have given way to its decision; but we see that its verdict is so far ambiguous as not altogether to shut up the inquiry. OCCULTATION, f June 15th, B.A.C. 5579, 5 mae. 7h. 7m. to 7h. 41m. oa8 Moon Oolours. MOON COLOURS. Tur observations on the lunar crater Linné, have established beyond a doubt, firstly, that changes, of an apparently volcanic nature, still occur on the surface of our satellite, and secondly; that alterations take place at a rate sufficiently rapid to hold out the hope that even a brief period of accurate study and comparison may sutffice to ascertain and demonstrate their occurrence. It may be that the enormous craters which form such conspicuous features in lunar scenery, belong to a past epoch, when the crust of the moon was in a plastic state, and fresh operations on so grand a scale may not be likely to occur. There would, however, remain the probability of our witnessing alterations which, if less gigantic, might be equally instructive, and for their ascertainment two things are requisite, an exact knowledge of forms and a similar knowledge of colours as they exist at any given time, and as they are modified by local action. ‘The great map of Beer and Midler, the maps of Lohrmann, etc., have done much for lunar forms, and the British Association map, on which Mr. Birt is engaged, will be of the highest value to future observers, although we must observe that the Moon Committee cannot arrive at a satis- factory result if they leave Mr. Birt to work with a telescope ridiculously small, and which cannot possibly show one quarter, perhaps not one-twentieth, of the minute objects he 1s expected to lay down with mathematical accuracy. An instrument—say a silvered glass reflector—of at least ten or twelve inches, must be regarded as indispensable, and we hope we may soon hear that he will be provided with a telescope equal to the majority of those which are employed in public and private obser- vatories. All astronomers perceive the importance of noticing and recording changes of form, but changes an colour may prove nearly as important, and no means of estimating them have yet come into general use. Admiral Smyth’s Sidereal Chro- matics suggested at the time of its publication the propriety of establishing similar standards for the moon, for it is clearly not sufficient to study variations in luminosity without also taking cognizance of modifications of tint or hue. Few observers can have watched the lunar seas and plains for any length of time without finding evidence that colour changes do occur. The green tint noticed on some spots seems especially to vary, and is often imvisible, while modi- fications appear in the neutral tint blues or ochrey browns. Although we see the moon as an opaque object, its tones of colour are extremely difficult to imitate by opaque pigments. Moon Colours. Ke 389 They are, on fine nights, more like the effect of white light seen _ through delicate transparent screens of different hues, and could probably be better imitated by transparencies than by drawings on paper, like the star colours of Admiral Smyth, which ought by the way to be imitated in transparent glass. Mr. Birt has shown us a series of tints on paper which could only be imitated by careful hand-colouring at considerable expense, and he also allowed’'us to examine an instrument which he terms a “homo-chromoscope,” which he brought before the Astronomical Society in 1861, and which is well worth serious consideration. It consists of a number of tints in circular patches painted on a glass slide, and moving in a frame, so that any one can be brought to a central aperture, - through which it is illuminated from behind, and observed in front. The light is intended to be reflected by a sheet of white paper suitably placed to catch the rays from a small lamp, and the observer would look with one eye through his telescope, and with the other at the ‘‘ homo-chromoscope” until he found a tint corresponding with that under his notice upon the moon’s surface. The instrument thus devised by Mr. Birt is only in an experimental stage of its existence, but we are anxious to call attention to it, as it could only be brought to a satisfactory state by the co-operation of other observers, and by securing for it, when completed, a sufficient sale. The first thing to do would be to get a moderate number of good observers, whose eyes are tolerably free from any form of colour-blindness, to agree upon the principal tints. From experiments we have made with a fine refractor of 3 inches, and with a 63 inch silvered mirror, we find that ordinary observers differ in the amount of yellow they see in the moon, in the quantity of purple they notice, and in their estimation of the greenish tint, which is often invisible to ordinary eyes, and which probably does not always exist. Dull, but clear ochrey-yellows, neutral tint blues, sometimes passing into browns, at others into purples and purple greys, all more or less differing from terrestrial colours, and therefore difficult to describe in terms usually applied to them, are what, perhaps, would be generally agreed to exist; but it would be worth while for a ‘‘ Moon Committee” to request a couple of good colour artists to paint on glass, in transparent tints as near as possible, the tints of Mare Serenitatis and Tranquilitatis, and send copies to ten or twenty observers, and ask for their reports. Many persons find themselves much assisted in esti- mating star colours or brown tints, by being told how others see them, and this must not be regarded as exciting a pre- judice in favour of the tint thus selected, but rather as indi- cating what delicate peculiarity is to be looked for. If a few 390 Probable Connection of Comets with Shooting Stars. of the most conspicuous lunar tints could be settled by the agreement of a moderate number of good observers, a foun- dation would be laid for further work. | If the plan of transparent disks should be preferred to tha of tints painted on paper, viewed by reflected light, a small, lamp should be agreed upon as the source of hght. Perhaps the benzoline lamps recently introduced from France would answer, or camphine, or the fluid called photogene might do. Paraffine, as usually burnt, is too yellow, but selecting a fluid, and a mode of burning it which gives an approximately white hight, and furnishing the lamp with a bluish tinted glass, would ensure the absence of any disturbing colour; and if appropriate lamps were made cheap, and sold in conformity with a recognized standard, they would be generally used in observatories, and help to secure a uniformity of result. Our object now is merely to start an idea. If lunar observers think proper to support it, the method of carrying it out will soon be found. Perhaps, instead of reflecting the light of a lamp from white paper, the best way would be to transmit it through the disks of ground glass, recommended by Mr. Slack to microscopists in our last number; but these, if used, must be made all alike. PROBABLE CONNECTION OF COMETS WITH SHOOTING STARS. BY W. ie LYNN, B.A., ¥.R.A.S., Of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Proressor ADAMs, at a recent meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, completely established as a fact, what had been previ- ously suspected by an Italian astronomer, named Schiaparelh, of Milan, that the shower of meteors, which is occasionally and at certain intervals witnessed in the month of November, moves round the sun in an orbit almost identical with that of a comet observed early last year (Comet I.,1866),* which performs a revo- lution in little more than 33 years. It has also been shown to be highly probable that the August meteors may be identified with a comet seen in 1862, and the April meteors with a comet dis- covered at New York in the spring of 1861. The conjecture naturally suggests itself that the comets in question compose i fact a kind of congeries, or assemblage of meteors, moving within small distances of each other, which, at a considerable distance, present the appearance of single bodies. * Discovered by Tempel at Marseilles in 1865, December 19. It was a very faint telescopic comet, and destitute of tail. Probable Connection of Comets with Shooting Starz. 391 _ From the feeble attraction which was known to hold toge- | ther the different parts of comets, it appeared not unlikely that they might suffer partial dispersion, and leave behind them a larger or smaller number of particles, which would cause, in the case of periodical, or regularly returning comets, the formation of a rg, more or less complete, along the orbit of the comet. If the comet paance through the plane of the earth’s orbit at about the same distance from the sun as the earth itself is, the earth, when it comes to that part of its orbit, must pass through the ring of meteors, causing 2 display of shootmg stars; so that if the rmg were quite complete, the earth would pass through it every revolution round the sun, and we should see a meteoric display every year at the same day of the year. But if the rmg be only partial, we shall only see a shower of meteors at intervals of several years. The ring therefore produced by the comet of 1862, causing the August meteors, would seem to be more complete than that produced by the comet of 1866, causing the November meteors. Indeed, the latter ring would seem to consist chiefly of but one branch, so to speak, “of some length ; so that we see a grand display only once in each revolution of the comet or meteors, when the latter are passimg through one of the nodes of their orbit ; but this occurs sometimes for two or rarely three years Im succession. ; Now, a very curious idea struck Professor Bruhns, of Leipsic, on considering these recent discoveries. Biela’s comet was observed in the year 1846, as we stated m detail m the April number of the IsTELLEcTUat OssERVER, to have sepa- rated into two fragments. Could this have been a consequence of its encountermg part of one of these meteoric rmgs, whilst the cohesion of its own separate particles of matter of the same kind was too weak to prevent their being diverted into parts with new centres of attraction by even the sheht impulse occa- sioned by their intermineling with the meteors? The result of his calculation showed that this was really by no means ibable. At the time of the comet’s separation, about the end of 1845, he was able to prove that it was, if not actually m, at least very near the orbit of the November meteors. This remark was followed by an equally imteresting one made by Professor d’Arrest, of Copenhagen. Quetelet, director of the Observatory of Brussels, and after him the celebrated Humboldt, had already called attention to a fall of aérolites, which frequently occurred early in the month of December. Now, d’Arrest noticed that this was at the very time that the earth passed through the orbit of Biela’s comet.* Hence it appeared probable that that comet had also left particles behind * Astronomische Nachrichten, No. 1633. 392 Probable Connection of Comets with Shooting Stars. it some time anterior to its well-known division in 1845-6 ; and if this afterwards took place to a still greater extent from the feebleness of coherence of that comet, its almost complete dispersion, and therefore its ceasing to be visible after 1852, would be accounted for. D’ Arrest particularizes the following dates of the December ~ showers :— 1741, Dee. 5. 1798, Dec. 6.—Brandes gives the number of shooting stars observed at’ Bremen at 2,000. 1830, Dec. 7.—Raillard reports an “extraordinary apparition of shooting stars.”—Comptes Rendus, vii., p. 177. 1838, Dec. 6.—Flaugergues, at Toulon, saw many meteors ‘from a point situated at the zenith at nine o’clock in the evening.” 1838, Dec. 7.—Edward Herrick, at New-Haven (America), “from a point of the sky situated near the chair of Cas- slopela.”’ In other years, Colla, Heis, and Quetelet observed many shooting stars on the same nights. According to Flaugergues the radiant-point lies in about R.A. 30°, declination 43° north. Herrick would give a somewhat less right ascension and greater declination ; Heis a less right ascension, and less declination ; but, at any rate, the December phenomenon differs from those of August and November in this respect, that the meteors appear, at a place in the parallel of central Kurope, to proceed from near the zenith. | The corresponding longitude of the earth is about 75° nearly enough coinciding with the descending node of Biela’s comet, the longitude of which, between1772 and 1832, decreased from 73° to 68°; and it is well known that at this nodal pas- sage the radius vector of the comet is about equal to the mean distance of the earth from the sun. - D’Arrest then calculated the place frem which particles moving in the orbit of Biela’s comet must appear to radiate at the rencontre with the earth at the nodal passage, and found it. to be about R.A. 25°, declination 51° north; so that, to an observer in the parallel of Toulon or New-Havyen, they would appear to come from a point in the neighbourhood of the zenith about nine o’clock in the evening of Dec. 5—6. It is ‘there- fore possible that they may become visible in the form of the December shooting stars, though d’Arrest says that in his mind the difficulties connected with the assumption are very reat, spas Can it be,” he asks, that the celebrated shower of meteors observed by F. Berthou, in Brazil, on the 11th of De- cember, 1836, belongs to those here noticed?” An extraordi- Archeeologia. ; 393 nary quantity of stones then penetrated into the ground to the depth of several feet, and were scattered over a radius of more than ten leagues.* Do the great showers of 1798 and 1838 point to a larger display at the end of six periods of 2435 days each, and may another large appearance be expected in 1878? We will conclude by translating the last paragraph of d’ Arrest’s interesting paper :— . “* Finally, it may be asked whether the intense northern lights, frequently observed coincidently with meteoric showers, may have been the united climmer of more distant portions of particles dispersed through the orbit of a comet? That some connection exists between meteoric showers and northern lights has been incontestably proved by Quetelet many years ago. If showers of shooting stars and rings of meteors really have any connection with cometary phenomena, the hope is afforded that some explanation may be arrived at concerning the nature of the aurora borealis, and also concerning magnetic scorms.”” The whole subject of the connection between meteors and comets is exceedingly interesting, and is accordingly en- erossing a large share of the attention of astronomers. We seem to be, as 1t were, on the eve of great discoveries. ARCH AXOLOGIA. Tue Rey. Canon GREENWELL has been again pursuing his interest- ing researches among the tumuLI of the YorxsHire woups. The tumuli which have been the scene of Mr. Greenwell’s recent labours are situated on the estates of Mr. B. Foord Bowes, on the mid-wold range, at Weaverthorpe, Cowlam, and Burrow, near Driffield. The one first opened was, in its present condition, a low mound of earth, fifty-six feet in diameter, and two in height. It contained a male skeleton, deposited in the centre, ina circular grave, sunk five feet six inches into the rock, and ten feet in diameter. The body had been laid on its left side, with the head to the north-east, the hands placed in front of the breast, and the knees drawn up to the elbows. With it was found the blade of a bronze dagger, which had had a wooden handle fixed to it by the three bronze rivets, the latter still remaining in their places. There was also a large flint knife, and an implement which is described in the printed account as “‘ a bronze awl or bodkin.”’ Beneath the chin lay five very large polished jet buttons, full an inch and a half in diameter, and one button of baked clay, of similar size and form, but ornamented with four lines radiating from the centre. One of the buttons had * Comptes Rendus, viii., p. 87. 394 _Archeologia. three holes on the back, the others two each. A fine bronze axe was found behind the skeleton; it appeared to have been set in wood. All the bronze articles bore a very fine patina. Vk. x. NO. VI. pD ” a Es a) Yon ee ty) 4.10 Chemical Aids to Art. and ivory black, with burnt siena, burnt umber, and similar pre- parations, may all be fixed to the prepared wall surface without injury. A great difficulty will be experienced at first in laying on the colours, smce no medium but water or lime-water is admissible. By keeping the wall constantly wet with lime- water, or baryta-water, this difficulty may be partially re- moved. All the water used in the process, from the prepara- tion or priming of the walls to the final fixing of the coloured surface, must be pure distilled water. ' This final fixing of the painting is accomplished as follows :—A weak solution of pure silicate of potash is prepared (several applications of a weak solution are much more effective than two or three applications of a strong liquor) by mixing the ordinary liquid silicate of potash of commerce with thrice its bulk of water. It is of course impossible to lay on the fixing liquor with a brush, which would infallibly cause the removal of much of the colour. A complicated spray-producer, or syringe of peculiar construction, was invented for the purpose, and has been used extensively. But I have found that a very cheap and effective instrument may be made by attaching, with an India-rubber tube, a small pair of hand bellows to the little contrivance familiarly known as La Bouffée, or L’Odorateur. The apparatus should be examined carefully to see that no drop of liquid—nothing but spray—is blown against the painting. The syringing is renewed at intervals of a few days, till—when the painting is dry—a wet. cloth removes no particle of colour. Over-silication will produce a glaze which renders the surface spotty, and unpleasant in appearace. No re-touching, after fixing, is permissible, unless the old colour be first removed by scraping. Any soluble efflorescence which may make its appearance on the wall in the course of a few months, may be removed by a thorough washing of the surface with hot distilled water; indeed, this treatment is in all cases desirable. Another kind of efflorescence also occa- sionally makes its appearance. This latter substance is, un- fortunately, insoluble in water and all usual solvents, and can scarcely be removed even by mechanical means. It consists chiefly of an insoluble silicate, and seems to arise from an in- sufficiency of alkali in the water-glass used. Jor it is a great mistake to suppose that the excess of potash in the original silicate can be safely removed, as some chemists have recom- mended, by the addition to it of gelatinous silica, or of a diluted solution of silica. Indeed, on the other hand, the introduction of asmall quantity of caustic potash to:the diluted medium is often desirable. When this second kind of efflores- cence has once appeared, the unpleasant bloom which it im- parts to the painting may be partially obviated by syringing Chemical Aids to Art. 411 the surface with pale copal varnish, diluted with twice or thrice its own bulk of spirits of turpentine. Since Professor J. Fuchs, of Munich, published his impor- tant paper on Water Glass (in 1825), this process, in which it is artistically employed, has developed greatly in the hands of Kaulbach, and other German artists, at Berlm and Munich, and also in this country likewise. Maclise, for imstance, has worked most successfully with it in the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords, but it remains to be proved that the works of these artists are safe against all the evils of the process. The silicious bloom has, in several instances, appeared upon the works of those who are thoroughly well versed in all the minute details of the process. It is probable that the method will have to be modified greatly, so as to get rid of its tech- nical difficulties and its chemical defects before it can command the general confidence of artists. In some of the other pro- cesses which we will now describe, there probably exist the germs of real improvements in these particulars. Professor Kuhlmann, of Lille, suggested, some years ago, the combined use of silicate of potash and aluminate of potash for the fixation of colours, as well as for the hardening of stone. One great objection to this process, in which the colours are mixed with | a solution containing both silicate and aluminate of potash, is the excessive alkalinity of the preparation. The union of these two caustic potash compounds yields a solid glassy substance, but this compound is far from being analogous, as has been alleged, to felspar in its constitution, for it contains many times as much alkali as that mineral. Nor is it wholly unchangeable, for it spontaneously undergoes a process of disintegration, although this does not occur generally for some time. A wall decorated by this process never dries, and retains its alkalinity for years, as may be easily shown by placing a piece of moist yellow turmeric paper upon the painted surface ; the alkali will change the yellow of the turmeric paper into brown. But if we leave the soluble silicates altogether, we shall find that there are other chemical compounds which can effect the same objects. If a ground for painting be prepared with lime, whitening, and sand, and the colours be mixed with a five per cent. solution of soluble phosphate of lime instead of with water, they will readily adhere, while no soluble salts whatever will be formed in the wall, insoluble bone-phosphate only being produced. Good proportions for the plaster are three parts of burnt lime and two of whitening, both ground together into a fine powder; five parts of pure sand, or of marble grit, are then mixed with this powder, and the whole made into a paste with baryta-water. ‘his material is spread 412 Chemical Aids to Art. in a thin layer upon the wall, and when dry affords a most retentive ground, which should be moistened with distilled water before it is painted upon. Nearly all the good vege- table colours, and many other pigments which are inadmissible in the two former methods of wall painting, may be freely used in this third method. Any portion of the picture not fixed when dry should be syringed with the soluble phosphate liquor till the desired effect is produced. Alternate syringings with phosphate lquor and baryta-water are very effective occasionally, but they lighten the shade of colour to which they are applied considerably. This process admits of much further elaboration, and, probably, of great and beneficial im- provements. ‘The soluble phosphate solution may be made by boiling one ounce of the best superphosphate of lime in three ounces of water: when the mixture is cold, the clear liquor is poured off for use. A fourth process will lastly demand a brief notice ; it is not essentially a new method, and can scarcely claim to be depen- dent upon a chemical action, similar to those which take place in the methods already described. It may be termed the copal process. Mr. Gambier Parry, the well-known amateur artist, has developed this method, and we shall follow his directions in describing how it is to be carried out. A dry wall is necessary. Ordinary plaster (not whitening), free from salt, etc.,is the surface on which the painting is to be executed. The colours are not mixed with oi], but with a medium thus made: take of white wax, four ounces by weight; elemi resin, one ounce by weight. ‘These substances are to be melted to- gether, and strained hot through muslin; they are then to be incorporated, by careful heating, with oil of spike lavender, six ounces by measure; fine copal varnish, twenty-two ounces by measure. When the mixture is uniform, it is to be allowed to cool, and is then ready for use. The colours should be ‘ground with it, and be preserved in covered pots. The surface is prepared by saturating it with two or three washes of the above medium, diluted with half its bulk of spirits of turpen- tine. The colours may be thinned, and the brushes cleaned with oil of spike or of turpentine ; but all kinds of fixed oil must be excluded. This process admits of the highest technical ex- cellence, and, although the painted surface does not acquire a rocky hardness, like that of the stereochromic and similar methods, it is certainly far less liable to change, and has a more complete hold of the wall than any ordinary system of applying colours. Very good examples of this method are to be seen in Mr. Parry’s church, at Highnam, near Gloucester, and more especially in one of the southern chapels of Gloucester Cathedral. The Philosophy of Birds’ Nests. — 413 The method, slightly modified, is also applicable—where most processes fail—to the retention and restoration of ancient ecclesiastical frescoes. In using the process, both for original work and for restorations, I confess I prefer to adopt a somewhat different plan for preparing the medium. I find the following directions to yield an excellent product, and to be very easy to carry out :—Dissolve three-quarters of an ounce of elemi in six ounces of oil of spike, in a flask, by the aid of heat: the fragments of bark in the elemi will sink to the bottom of the vessel; melt three ounces of white wax and one ounce of pure white paraffine in another flask; mix the two liquids together, and allow the impurities to settle. Put twenty-two liquid ounces of fine pale copal varnish—picture copal—in a tin can ; keep the can plunged in boiling water for half an hour or more; pour the elemi and wax mixture (also hot), into the can, stir it, and keep warm some time longer. This pre- paration may be used, diluted, etc., exactly as previously directed. | THH PHILOSOPHY OF BIRDS’ NESTS. BY ALFRED R. WALLACE, F.Z.S., ETC. Birps, we are told, build their nests by wstinct, while man con- structs his dwelling by the exercise of reason. Birds never change, but continue to build for ever on the self-same plan ; man alters and improves his houses continually. Reason ad- vances ; instinct is stationary. ‘This doctrine is so very general that it may almost be said to be universally adopted. Men who agree on nothing else, accept this as a good explanation of the facts. Philosophers and poets, metaphysicians and divines, naturalists and the general public, not only agree in believing this to be probable, but even adopt it as a sort of axiom that is so self-evident as to need no proof, and use it as the very foundation of their speculations on instinct and reason. A belief so general, one would think, must rest on indisputable facts, and be a logical deduction from them. Yet I have come to the conclusion that not only is it very doubtful, but absolutely erroneous; that it not only deviates widely from the truth, but is in almost every particular exactly op- posed to it. I believe, in short, that birds do not build their nests by instinct; that man does not construct his dwelling by reason ; that birds do change and improve when affected by the same causes that make men do so; and that mankind neither alter nor improve when they exist under conditions similar to those which are almost universal among birds. 4.14, The Philosophy of Birds’ Nests. Let us first consider the theory of reason, as alone deter- mining the domestic architecture of the human race. Man, as a reasonable animal, it is said, continually alters and improves his dwelling. This I entirely deny. As a rule, he neither alters nor improves, any more than the birds do. What have the houses of most savage tribes improved from, each as in- variable as the nest of a species of bird? The tents of the Arab are the same now as they were two or three thousand years ago, and the mud villages of Egypt can scarcely have improved since the time of the Pharaohs. The palm-leaf huts and hovels of the various tribes of South America and the Malay Archipelago, what have they improved from since those regions were first inhabited? The Patagonian’s rude shelter of leaves, the hollowed bank of the South African Karthmen, we cannot even conceive to have been ever inferior to what they now are. Even nearer home, the Irish turf cabin and the Highland stone shelty can hardly have advanced much durmg the last two thousand years. Now, no one imputes this sta- tionary condition of domestic architecture among these savage tribes to instinct, but to simple imitation from one generation to another, and the absence of any sufficiently powerful sti- mulus to change or improvement. No one imagines that if an infant Arab could be transferred to Patagonia or to the High- lands, it would, when it grew up, astonish its foster-parents by constructing a tent of skins. On the other hand, it is quite clear that physical conditions, combined with the degree of civilization arrived at, almost necessitate certain types of struc- ture. The turf, or stones, or snow—the palm-leaves, bamboo, or branches, which are the materials of houses in various countries, are used because nothing else is so readily to be obtained. The Egyptian peasant has none of these, nor even wood. What, then, can he use but mud? In tropical forest countries, the bamboo and the broad palm-leaves are the natural material for houses, and the form and mode of struc- ture will be decided in part by the nature of the country, whether hot or cocl, whether swampy or dry, whether rocky or plain, whether frequented by wild beasts, or whether sub- ject to the attacks of enemies. When once a particular mode of building has been adopted, and has become confirmed by habit and by hereditary custom, it will be long retained, even when its utility has been lost through changed conditions, or through migration into a very different region. As a general rule, throughout the whole continent of America, native houses are built directly upon the ground—strength and security being given by thickening the low walls and the roof. In almost the whole of the Malay Islands, on the contrary, the houses are raised on posts, often to a great height, with an The Philosophy of Birds’ Nests. AL5 open bamboo floor; and the whole structure is exceedingly slight and thin. Now: what can be the reason of this remark- able difference between countries many parts of which are strikingly similar in physical conditions, natural productions, and the state of civilization of their inhabitants? We appear to have some clue to it in the supposed origin and migrations of their respective populations. The indigenes of tropical America are believed to have immigrated from the north— from a country where the winters are severe, and raised houses with open floors would be hardly habitable. They moved southwards by land along the mountain ranges and uplands, and in an altered climate continued the mode of construction of their forefathers, modified only by the new materials they met with. By minute observations of the Indians of the Amazon Valley, Mr. Bates arrived at the conclusion that they were comparatively recent immigrants from « colder climate. He says :—‘ No one could live long among the Indians of the Upper Amazon without being struck with their constitutional dislike to the heat. . . . Their skin is hot to the touch, and they perspire little. . . . They are restless and discontented in hot, dry weather, but cheerful on cool days, when the rain is pouring down their naked backs.”’ And, after giving many other details, he concludes, ‘‘ How different all this is with the Negro, the true child of tropical climes! The impression gradually forced itself on my mind that the Red Indian lives as an immigrant or stranger in these hot regions, and that his constitution was not originally adapted, and has not since become perfectly adapted, to the climate.” The Malay races, on the other hand, are no doubt very ancient inhabitants of the hottest regions, and are particularly addicted to forming their first settlements at the mouths of rivers or creeks, or in land-locked bays and inlets. They are a pre-eminently maritime or semi-aquatic people, to whom a canoe is a necessary of life, and who will never travel by land if they can do so by water. In accordance with these tastes, they have built their houses on posts in the water, after the manner of the lake-dwellers of ancient Hurope; and this mode of construction has become so confirmed, that even those tribes who have spread far into the interior, on dry plains and rocky mountains, continue to build in exactly the same manner, and find safety i in the height to which they elevate their dwellings above the ground. These general characteristics of the abode of savage man will be found to be exactly paralleled by the nests of birds. Hach species uses the materials it can most readily obtain, and builds in situations most congenial to its habits. The wren, for example, frequenting hedgerows and low thickets, builds 416 The Philosophy of Birds’ Nests. its nest generally of moss, a material always found where it lives, and among which it probably obtains much of its insect food; but it varies sometimes, using hay or feathers when these are at hand. Rooks dig in pastures and ploughed fields for grubs, and in doing so must continually encounter roots and fibres. These are used to line its nest. What more natural! The crow, feeding on carrion, dead rabbits, and lambs, and frequenting sheep-walks and warrens, chooses fur and wool to ine its nest. The lark frequents cultivated fields, and makes its nest, on the ground, of grass lined with horsehair—mate- rials the most easy to meet with, and the best adapted to its . needs. The kingfisher makes its nest of the bones of the fish which it has eaten. Swallows use clay and mud from the margins of the ponds and rivers over which they find their insect food. The materials of birds’ nests, like those used by savage man for his house, are, then, those which come first to hand; and it certainly requires no more special instinct to select them in the one case than in the other. But, it will be said, it is not so much the materials as the form and structure of nests, that vary so much, and are so wonderfully adapted to the wants and habits of each species; how are these to be accounted for except by instinct? J reply, they may be im a great measure explained by the general habits of the species, the nature of the tools they have to work with, and the ma- terials they can most easily obtaim, with the very simplest adaptations of means to an end quite within the mental capa- cities of birds. The delicacy and perfection of the nest will bear a direct relation to the size of the bird, its structure and habits. That of the wren or the humming-bird is perhaps not finer or more beautiful in proportion than that of the blackbird, the magpie, or the crow. The wren, having a slender beak, long legs, and great activity, 1s able with great ease to form a well-woven nest of the finest materials, and - places it in thickets and hedgerows which it frequents in its search for food. The titmouse, haunting fruit-trees and walls, and searching in cracks and crannies for insects, 1s naturally led to build in holes where it has shelter and security; while its great activity, and the perfection of its tools (bill and feet), enable it easily to form a beautiful receptacle for its eggs and young. Pigeons, having heavy bodies, and weak ‘feet and bills (imperfect tools for forming a delicate structure), build rude, flat nests of sticks, laid across strong branches which will bear their weight and that of their bulky young. They can do no better. The Caprimulgide have the most imperfect tools of all, feet that will not support them except on a flat surface (for they cannot truly perch), and a bill excessively broad, short, and weak, and almost hidden by feathers and The Philosophy of Birds’ Nests. — 417 bristles. They cannot build a nest of twigs or fibres, hair or moss, like other birds, and they therefore generally dispense with one altogether, laying their eggs on the bare ground, or on the stump or flat limb of a tree. The hooked bills, short necks and feet, and heavy bodies of parrots, render them quite incapable of building a nest like most other birds. They can- net climb up a branch without using both bill and feet; they cannot even turn round on a perch without holding on with their bill. How, then, could they inlay, or weave, or twist the materials of a nest? Consequently, they all lay in holes of trees, the tops of rotten stumps, or in deserted ants’ nests, the soft materials of which they can easily hollow out. Now I believe that throughout the whole class of birds the same general principles will be found to hold good, sometimes distinctly, sometimes more obscurely apparent, according as the habits of the species are more marked, or their structure more peculiar. It is true that, among birds differing but little in structure or habits, we see considerable diversity in the mode of nesting, but we are now so well assured that important changes of climate and of surface have occurred within the period of existing species, that it is by no means difficult to see how such differences have arisen. Habits are known to be hereditary, and as the area now occupied by each species is different from that of every other, we may be sure that such changes would act differently upon each, and would often bring together species which had acquired their peculiar habits in distinct regions and under different conditions. But, it is objected, birds do not learn to make their nest as man does to build, for all birds will make exactly the same nest as the rest of their species, even if they have never seen one, and it is instinct alone that can enable them ‘to do this. No doubt this would be instinct if it were true, and I simply ask for proof of the fact. This point, although so important to the question at issue, is always assumed without proof, and even against proof, for what facts there are, are opposed to it. Birds brought up from the egg in cages do not make the characteristic nest of their species, even though the proper materials are supplied them, and the experiment has never been fairly tried of turning out a pair of birds so brought up into an enclosure covered with netting, and watching the result of their untaught attempts at nest-making. With regard to the song of birds, however, which is thought to be equally instinctive, the experiment has been tried, and it is found that young birds never have the song peculiar to their species if they have not heard it, whereas they acquire very easily the song of almost any other bird with which they are brought up. It is also especially worthy of remark that they must be taken VOL. XI.—NO. VI. EE A18 The Philosophy of Birds’ Nests. out of hearmg of their parents very soon, for in the first three or four days they have already acquired a knowledge of the parent notes, which they will afterwards imitate. This shows that very young birds can both hear and remember, and it would be very extraordinary if they could live for days and weeks in a nest and know nothing of its materials and the manner of its construction. During the time they are learning to fly and return often to the nest, they must be able to examine it inside and out in every detail, and as their daily search for food invariably leads them among the materials of which it is constructed, and among places similar to that in which it is placed, is it so very wonderful that when they want one themselves they should make one like it? Again, we always assume that because a nest appears to us delicately and artfully built, that it, therefore, requires much special knowledge and acquired skill (or their substitute, instinct) in the bird who builds it. We forget that it is formed twig by twig and fibre by fibre, rudely enough at first, but crevices and irregularities, which must seem huge gaps and chasms in the little eyes of the builders, are filled up by twigs and stalks pushed m by slender beak and active foot, and that the wool, feathers, or horsehair are laid thread by thread, so that the result seems a marvel of ingenuity to us, just as would the rudest Indian hut to a native of Brobdignag. But look at civilised man! it is said; look at Grecian and Kgyptian and Roman and Gothic and modern Architecture ! What advance! what improvement! what refinements! This is what reason leads to, whereas birds remain for ever stationary. Tf, however, such advances as these are required to prove the effects of reason as contrasted with instinct, then all savage and many half-civilized tribes have no reason, but build in- stinctively quite as much as birds do. Man ranges over the whole earth, and exists under the most varied conditions, leading necessarily to: equally varied habits. He migrates—he makes wars and conquests+one race mingles with another—different customs are brought into contact—the habits of a migrating race are modified by the different cir-* cumstances of a new country. The civilized race which con- quered Heypt must have developed its mode of building m a forest country where timber was abundant, for there is no possibility of the idea of cylindrical columns originating in a country destitute of trees. The pyramids might have been built by an indigenous race, but not the temples of Hl Uksor and Karnak.~ In Grecian architecture, almost every character- istic feature can be traced to an origin in wooden buildings. The columns, the architrave, the frieze, the fillets, the cante- levers, the form of the roof, all point to an origin in some The Philosophy of Birds’ Nests. 419 southern forest-clad country, and strikingly corroborate the view derived from philology, that Greece was colonised from north-western India. But to erect columns and span them with huge blocks of stone or marble is not an act of reason, but one of pure unreasoning imitation. The arch is the only true and reasonable mode of covering over wide spaces with stone, and, therefore, Grecian architecture, however exquisitely beautiful, is false in principle, and is by no means a good example of the application of reason to the art of building. And what do most of us do at the present day but imitate the buildings of those that have gone before us? We have not even been able to discover or develope any definite mode of building best suited for us. We have no characteristic national style, and to that extent are even below the birds, who have each their characteristic form of nest, exactly adapted to their wants and habits. 5 That excessive uniformity in the architecture of each species of bird which has been supposed to prove a nest-building instinct we may, therefore, fairly impute to the uniformity of the conditions under which each species lives. Their range is often very limited, and they very seldom permanently change their country so as to be placed in new conditions. When, however, new conditions do occur, they take advantage of them just as freely and wisely as man could do. The chimney and house-swallows are a standing proof of a change of habit since chimneys and houses were built, and in America this change has taken place within about three hundred years. Thread and worsted are now used in many nests instead of wool and horse-. hair, and the jackdaw shows an affection for the church steeple which can hardly be explained by instinct. The Baltimore oriole uses all sorts of pieces of string, skeins of ‘silk, or the gardener’s bass, to weave into its fine pensile nest, instead of the single hairs and vegetable fibres it has painfully to seek in wilder regions, and Wilson believes that it improves in nest- building by practice—the older birds making the best nests. The purple martin of America takes possession of empty gourds or small boxes stuck up for its reception in almost every village and farm in America, and several of the American wrens will also build in cigar boxes, with a small hole cut in them, if placed in a suitable situation. The orchard oriole of the United States offers us an excellent example of a bird which modifies his nest according to circumstances. When it is built among firm and stiff branches it is very shallow, but when, as is often the case, it is suspended from the slender twigs of the weeping willow, it is made much deeper, so that when swayed about violently by the wind, the young may not tumble out. It has been observed also that the nests built in 420 The Philosophy of Birds’ Nests. the warm Southern states are much slighter and more porous in texture than those in the colder regions of the north. Our own house-sparrow equally well adapts himself to circumstances. When he builds in trees, as he, no doubt, always did originally, he constructs a well-made domed nest, perfectly fitted to protect his young ones; but when he can find a convenient hole ita building or among thatch, or in any well-sheltered place, he takes much less trouble, and forms a very loosely-built nest. A curious example of a recent change of habits has occurred in Jamaica. Previous to 1854, the palm swift (Tachornis phenicobea) mhabited exclusively the palm trees in a few districts in the island. A colony then established themselves in two cocoa nut palms in Spanish Town, and remained there till 1857, when one tree was blown down, and the other stripped of its foliage. Instead of now seeking out other palm trees, the swifts drove out the swallows who built in the Piazza of the House of Assembly, and took possession of it, building their nests on the tops of the end walls and at the angles formed by the beams and joists, a place which they continue to occupy in considerable numbers. It is remarked that here they form their nest with much less elaboration than when built in the palms, probably from being less exposed. A fair consideration of all these facts will, I think, fully support the statement with which I commenced this article, and show that the mental faculties exhibited by birds in the construction of their nests are the same in kind as those mani- fested by mankind in the formation of their dwellings. These are, essentially, imitation, and a slow and partial adaptation to new conditions. ‘T’o compare the work of birds with the highest manifestations of human art and science is totally beside the question. I do not maintain that birds are gifted with reason- ing faculties at-all approaching in variety and extent to those of man. I simply hold that the phenomena presented by their mode of building their nests; when fairly compared with those exhibited by the great mass of mankind in building their houses, indicate no essential difference in the kind or nature of the mental faculties employed. If instinct means anything, it means the capacity to perform some complex act without teaching or experience. It implies mnate ideas.of a very definite kind, and, if established, would overthrow Mr. Mill’s sensationalism and all the modern philosophy of experience. That the existence of true instinct may be established in other ways is not improbable, but in the particular case of birds’ nests, which is usually considered one of its strongholds, I cannot find a particle of evidence to show the existence of any- thing beyond those lower reasoning powers which animals are universally admitted to possess. On the Various Modes of Propelling Vessels. A21 ON THE VARIOUS MODES OF PROPELLING VESSELS. BY PROFESSOR M°GAULEY. Some means of transport on water have been used from the earliest times; and as soon as the very rudest bark was in- vented, efficient modes of propelling it were devised. The principles applied tc the propulsion of boats and ships have never varied much. That of the oar, which undoubtedly was the first contrivance employed, is also that of the paddle- wheel and the screw propeller. There is good reason to believe that the ancients used oars only for sculling; and the highest authorities on naval matters affirm that this is the best mode of employing them. We use them almost exclusively for rowing. The wind offered a very convenient source of power, and, accordingly, navigators soon availed themselves of it. But the ancients placed more confidence in oars for the purposes of war; and hence, for either aggression or defence, they used biremes, triremes, quadriremes, etc., which have given anti- quarians such trouble, and the nature of which is still involved in great uncertainty. The employment of oared gallies con- tinued until a comparatively recent period; the Turks and Venetians retained them, long after sailing vessels of a very perfect form had been constructed, and we ourselves did not relinquish them until the reign of Henry VII. Since my purpose is chiefly to speak of mechanical modes of propulsion, the consideration of sails, as a means of obtain- ing motion, is almost beside my purpose. The small cost at which power is obtained from the wind will, however, probably cause sailing vessels to continue always in use. The disuse of them as ships-of-war seriously affects our position as the masters of the sea. : Oars, made to revolve in a plane parallel to the sides of a vessel, afforded a paddle-wheel ; and hence, in very early times, attempts were made to apply in that way the principle of the oar to the mechanical propulsion of ships. Paddle-wheels, similar to oars, were used by the Egyptians, the Romans, and the Carthaginians. But, until steam became applicable as a source of motion, no kind of mechanical propulsion could be equal to that obtained by means of oars. Hence the invention of the steam-engine, properly so called, and the practical adoption of the paddle-wheel were nearly simultaneous. Paddle-wheels give rise to a great loss of power, on account of the way in which they enter and leave the water, 422 On the Various Modes of Propelling Vessels. and great ingenuity has been devoted to the lessening or removal of this inconvenience. The advantage derived from feathering oars suggested the feathering of the float boards ; but, besides that every contrivance for such a purpose must be complicated, and therefore both expensive and lable to acci- dents, most of the modes of featherimg proposed are such*as attain their object only when the vessel is at rest, the current produced by her motion not being taken into account by their inventors. The shock and consequent vibration caused by the paddles, when entering and leaving’ the water, has, however, been greatly lessened by breaking them into portions which successively enter and leave the water. The unequal immersion of the paddle-wheels, on account of variations of the water line, is another serious mconvenience ; and plans have been employed for raising and lowering them, so as to accommodate them to circumstances; but no con- trivance for the purpose has been such as to merit its being adopted. | The short distance between the paddle shaft and the steam eylinders would give rise to an obliquity of the connecting-rod, with steam-engines of the ordinary form, that must cause a great loss of power. Hence marine engines are peculiar m their construction ; their stroke is shorter, the position of the cylinders is varied according to circumstances ; In some cases a connecting-rod is rendered unnecessary by the use of oscil- lating cylinders, and in others a piston-rod, by the use of trunk engines. Instead of the paddle-wheel, attempts have been made to use, at each side of the vessel, a chain, having paddles attached to it, and passing round two wheels, its lower part bemg near the water line; but it was found that the friction of a heavy chain and the complication of the apparatus were fatal to it. To get rid of the inconvenience arising from the paddles _ being too much or too little submerged, paddles entirely sub- merged have been tried. They were laid on their sides, so that their axes were vertical, one being at each side of the vessel, which was indented, so that only a portion of the paddles projected beyond its side. But, as may be supposed, the arrangement did not answer. On the whole, the paddle- wheel has retained, almost unchanged, the form given'to it by its first inventors. The screw propeller, which has nearly superseded the paddle-wheel, has been used for ages in China. ‘he operation of sculling may have suggested it. Oars placed, at an angle, on an axis which was made to revolve in a plane parallel to the vessel’s length, would be a screw propeller. It might have been suggested also by the windmill ; for a windmill with On the Various Modes of Propelling Vessels. 423 four vanes would be in reality a screw with four threads; and Bouquer, in a treatise published in 1747, mentions the applica- tion of revolving arms, like those of a windmill, to the pro- pulsion of a vessel. It would be suggested, likewise, by the smoke-jack. Bramah,in 1785, patented the application, to the stern of a ship, of a esl mich § inclined fans or wings, like those of a smoke-jack. He was the first to use a stuffing-box for connecting the screw with the prime mover within the vessel. In most of its early applications the screw was sus- pended at a distance from the stern, and motion was com- municated to 1t by very clumsy means. In its more perfect form, the screw propeller consists of threads or blades placed on an axis parallel to the keel, and forming segments of a helix or spiral. Its pitch is the dis- tance in the direction of the axis between any one thread and the same thread at the point where, if continued, it would complete its next convolution. When there is but one screw, it can be fixed only at the bow or thestern. If at the former, it acts on water at rest, which increases its effect; but it throws water against the bow, which retards the vessel. If at the stern, to prevent interference with the rudder, it is placed in the dead wood, or that portion of the ship which is immediately behimd the rudder. In 1768, Pancton suggested the use of one screw, either in the bow or the stern, or a screw at each side. But one of the earliest practical applications of the screw propeller was that by Bushnell, of Connecticut, in 1776. He employed one screw for raising or depressing, and another for propelling a submarine boat, ‘which was intended for the fixing of torpedoes to the sides of hostile ships. Perhaps no contrivance has afforded more etieuiniian to ingenious minds than the screw propeller; it has been made of every conceivable form, and fixed to the vessel in every con- ceivable way. The number of patents to which it has given rise are counted with difficulty. 1t came into very general use soon after it had attracted the serious attention of experimen- talists and projectors. But the Government were slow to adoptit. Smith, an Englishman, and an amateur, and Hricsson, a Swede, and an accomplished engineer, may be considered to have practically introduced it into use. Both of them en- deavoured to secure the patronage of the Admiralty, but only Smith, whose experiments appear to have been more satis- factory, succeeded ; and Hricsson left the country in disgust. Smith required gearing ; Ericsson’s professional resources enabled him to do without if. Smith used a single screw, con- sisting of one whole convolution, and also a double threaded screw, each thread of which was equal to half a convolution,— one-sixth of a convolution for each has since been found to 424 On the Various Modes of Propelling Vessels. answer much better: and he placed the screw in the dead wood. ‘Ericsson used two propellers, each consisting of short spiral ‘plates, attached to the periphery of a broad thin hoop, which was fixed on arms radiating from the axle. Both propellers were behind the rudder, and revolved round a common centre, the shaft of one being within that of the other, and one being*in front of the other. The hinder screw revolved with a greater velocity than the one in front of it, to enable it to act on water already in motion. But an equal advantage would be attained by the use of one screw of a larger diameter. The slowness of the ordinary marine engine opposed a serious difficulty in the earlier attempts to apply the screw pro- peller. To overcome this, gearing was used, a very large wheel being made to work into a pinion fixed to the screw shaft. But there are great objections to such an arrangement. Inde- pendently of the intolerable noise, the teeth wear out rapidly, and are liable to sudden fracture with any violent strain of the sea. At present, a sufficiently rapid motion is obtained directly from the engines ; nor is there any objection to this, since the supposition that the best speed for the piston is precisely that which is best for a canal horse, namely, 220 feet per minute, has for a considerable time been known to be a fallacy. The screw shaft exerts an enormous thrust, in the place at which it abuts within the vessel, the whele force of impulsion being imparted there; the plate against which 1t works has been rendered white hot, although a stream of water was constantly flowing over it. Various means have been used to overcome this difficulty. Thus, in some cases, the end of the shaft is made to work against a disc of hardened steel, fixed eccentrically with reference to the shaft, and having a slow motion communicated to it; and in others, against rolling sur- faces. In others, steel collars are placed on the end of the shaft, and being immersed in oil, are little liable to heat. Should, _ however, undue friction arise between the actual rubbing sur- faces, new ones come into play, since all the collars are moveable. Other expedients also have been employed for the same purpose. | | In the early days of the screw propeller, it was used only as an auxiliary to the sails. When not in use, if left in its ordinary position, it would retard the vessel, and other incon- veniences would arise from it. To obviate these, means were used for raising it when desirable, and even for closing the aperture in the dead wood, which if left open must seriously interfere with the steering. Centrifugal force disperses the water, causing the screw to throw it off in the form of a cone; it is far better that it should assume the shape of a cylindrical column. This has been On the Various Modes of Propelling Vessels. 425 effected by setting the blades, not at right angles to the screw shaft, but in such a way that they point outwards from the stern. Their tendency is, then, to concentrate to a point the water thrown off by them; and centrifugal force corrects this, so as to give the water the form of a cylinder. Such an arrangement gives excellent results. The action of the screw is greatly affected by adverse winds, currents, variation of the depths of immersion of the vessel, ete. But, as the velocity with which it revolves is almost in- variable, whether the progress made is great or little, the consumption of power is, in nearly all cases, the same. It is otherwise with the paddle wheel, which in similar circum- stances revolves more slowly. ‘To meet this difficulty, means of altering the pitch of the screw blades, according to circum- stances, have been devised; and of the plans proposed for the purpose, those of Bennet Woodcroft are the most remarkable for ingenuity and effectiveness. To obviate the loss of power from portions of the blades effecting very little more than a dispersion of the water, the leading edge of the screw has in some instances been made nearly at right angles with the axis of the shaft, the pitch increasing slowly at first, and then rapidly, so that the trailing edge should stand on a line with the axis of the shaft. But the large amount of rubbing surface thus produced neutralizes the theoretically excellent qualities of this form of blade; and it has been greatly improved by cutting away a considerable amount of its leading edge near the periphery. Not only has any interference of the screw with the steering been prevented, but it has been made a most effective auxiliary to, and even substitute for, the rudder. An application of the screw propeller in this way was suggested so early as 1800 by Shaler, and was carried into effect in 1803 by Dallery, who arranged it in such a way that it was turned with the rudder without its revolution being interfered with. Bennet Wood- croft, in 1851, devised a means of manceuvering the vessel, by causing the blades to feather, so as to pass edgeways through the water during one part of their revolution, and sideways during another. The application of the twin screw affords so excellent a steering apparatus, that by means of it a ship, even in still water, may be made almost to revolve on its centre. The twin screw has, besides, other advantages of so important a kind, that it is likely to be exclusively employed hereafter in the navy, and very generally in the mercantile marine. It affords a perfect substitute for the rudder, should the latter get out of order: if one screw is disabled by accident, there is still a propelling power: and it allows the vessel to be moved with equal velocity ahead or astern. It has been brought 426 On the Various Modes of Propelling Vessels. forward at various times since the screw propeller first attracted attention, but its excellent qualities were not completely utilized until each screw was worked by separate engines. Hven with these, which may be comparatively light and mexpensive, it secures great economy of space. A twin screw renders the navigation of the most difficult channels easy, and it is invalu» able with a turret ship. Of all the questions connected with the screw propeller, that of the slip is the most interesting and umportant. The screw propeller advances through the water—carrying the vessel along with it—in the same way as a metallic screw advances in a fixed solid nut. Were the nut of water im which the propeller works, as immovable as the fixed solid nut, the velocity of the ship and that of the screw would be equal. But, as the water must, to a certain extent, give way, the — velocity of the ship must be less than that of the screw ; and the difference of these velocities is termed the “ positive slip.” The latter is easily accounted for, to its full extent. Whatever may be the apparatus used for propulsion, any motion imparted to the water is so much lost, since none of it is communicated to the vessel. Fortunately this loss may be diminished ; with the paddle-wheel, it is lessened by enlarging the float-boards ; with the screw, by increasing its size, which may easily be made such as will render it superior to paddle-wheels. Care must be taken, however, that the additional friction produced does not counterbalance any advantage gained in this way. A large amount of positive slip may be due to centrifugal force. When the vessel is retarded by adverse winds or cur- rents, etc., the water may be so propelled centrifugally by the screw, that there will be an empty space at its centre. This may be prevented by deepening the screw in the water; the height of the column of fluid above it will then cause the par- ticles to flow in, so as to rapidly fill the space which would otherwise be vacant. The slip of the paddle-wheel cannot be decreased, like that of the screw, since the more it is enlargéd, the more ‘disadvan- tageous the angles at which the floats enter and leave the water. A paddle-wheel of small diameter, or a screw of small pitch, has a large power of traction, but with each the slp is considerable. Increasing the diameter of the screw, without altering the pitch, reduces the slip, without rendering it. neces- sary to change the velocity of revolution. If the slip is judiciously decreased, the screw propeller becomes superior im efficiency to the paddle-wheel. There is another variation between the velocity of the screw and the vessel, which, though it would seem impossible, undoubtedly exists. The vessel, in some cases, seems to go On the Various Modes of Propelling Vessels. 427 faster than if the screw worked in a solid substance; and this excess of velocity of the vessel above that of the screw has been termed the “ negative slip.” | _ The negative slip has been accounted for in various ways, and is, perhaps, due to a variety of causes. It may, to some extent, be explained by a twisting of the blades which is con- sequent on the strain, and is equivalent to an increase of pitch. Screws with a fine pitch are more liable to it than those witha coarse. A more effective cause of the negative slip is perhaps found in the column of water that always follows a ship to fill up the space which is left vacant by the progress of the vessel. The forward motion of this current may more than counter- balance the positive slip which must, im every case, occur. More pressure, and therefore more power of resistance, is given to the water in which the screw is immersed, than are found in the surrounding water, also, by the mass of fluid which is elevated, at the stern, by the screw itself. The constant action of these two causes must always render the apparent less than the real positive slip. The last mode of propulsion to which we shall direct the attention of the reader is the application of that reaction which is produced by fluid issuing from apertures. I shall say nothing of the numberless contrivances that have been constructed on the principle of ducks’ feet—opening when intended to act on the water, and folding up when they were to be drawn in the opposite direction. Some of these are very ingenious, but all of them, if liable to no other objection, are of necessity so complicated, and so liable to injury, that their adoption would be out of the question. : The reaction produced by a stream of fluid is the source of motive power in Hero’s engine, invented more than two thou- sand years ago at least, and of Barker’s mill; and it is used in the rocket, and many other kinds of fire-work. Nature herself employs it as one of her sources of propulsive power; the stream of water emitted by the gills of fish acting as an auxiliary to the action of their fins. The application of this principle to the propulsion of vessels holds out peculiar advan- tages. Like the screw, it affords a means of aiding the rudder, and even rendering it unnecessary; it is very easily applied, the apparatus used with it being very simple, and less liable than even the screw to injury from external causes. Contri- vances founded upon it were among the earliest which have been proposed as substitutes for the ordinary modes of pro- pulsion ; and, although they have been so long unsuccessful in the contest, there is some reason to suppose that they may yet supersede all others. They are beset, however, essentially with great difficulties, which the unskilfulness of the earlier experi- 428 On the Various Modes of Propelling Vessels. mentalists rendered more serious than they naturally are. But it still remains a question whether or not these difficulties may be so far overcome that any contrivance of the kind can com- pete, not only in efficiency, but—which is of, at least, equal importance—in economy, with those already in use. Toogood, in 1661, and after him Allen, in 1730, proposed to propel a vessel by means of a jet of water. Bernouilli, Linaker, Ruthven, and many others, at different periods, fol- — lowed in the same path. With all such apparatus there must be a loss of power, on account of the necessary changes in the direction in which the fluid moves, and the great friction arising from the large amount of rubbing surface. The fric- tion of fluids against solids is so great, that the advantage derived from a long sharp bow may be more than counter- balanced by the increased length of the vessel. ‘The friction was enormously increased in the earlier contrivances by the extreme narrowness of the waterways. This led to another evil,—the smallness of the issuing current. The reaction of the water against which this current impinges can be great, and therefore a sufficient amount of resistance can be obtained, only when the issuing stream is considerable. The principle of all such contrivances must be the same ; the only difference consists in the mode of applying it. This has been extremely varied. In some instances pumps have been used; in others, a horizontal water wheel, or turbine, inclosed in a case, the water being drawn in generally at the ~ bow or the bottom of the vessel, and emitted at the stern or the sides. In no department of practical science has the same thing been invented over and over again so often as in this. Some interesting experiments are being made in America with a vessel, at each side of which the fluid is made to issue from pipes that are near the water-line, and are capable of being turned either towards the stern or the bow, so as to impel the vessel ahead or astern; or, if those at opposite sides are turned in opposite directions, so as to turn it round. } Still more important experiments are being made in this country with the “ Waterwitch.” This vessel is fitted with a turbine wheel, fourten and a half feet in diameter, working in a chamber which, ordinarily, has no connection with the rest of the vessel. The water enters from the bottom of the’ vessel, through gratings, and issues by means of two pipes, run- ning the whole length of each side of the vessel, and so arranged that the fluid may escape from both orifices at the stern, or both at the bow, or from one at the bow and another at the stern, so as to turn the vessel‘on her centre. The issue of the water is regulated by sluices, which are under the control of an officer on deck, and can be worked without altering or Sun Viewing and Drawing. — 429 stopping the engines. Should the vessel leak, the water may be obtained from its hold instead of from the sea; and thus, by the very act of propulsion, the vessel will be kept afloat. Satisfactory velocities have been obtained by the ‘ Water- witch ;” but the real question is that of economy, and regarding this no satisfactory data has yet been given by the experiments hitherto made. The only novelty in either the American vessel or the ‘‘ Waterwitch” consists in ingenious combina- tion of details which have long been known. ‘The position of the exit tubes in the American experiment is evidently bad. They are exposed to injury, and the resisting medium is far inferior in efficiency to what it would be were they at some depth below the surface of the water. Oars have been in a great degree superseded by sails, sails by paddle wheels, paddle wheels by the screw, and now the screw appears not unlikely to be set aside by a contrivance founded on a principle which is perhaps as old as most of them. How many valuable principles are allowed to remain for ages without practical application? The most important triumphs of science, those which have had the most effective influence on progress, are but developments of facts and principles that were long known. SUN VIEWING AND DRAWING. A READY METHOD FOR OBSERVING AND DEPICTING SOLAR PHENOMENA, BY MEANS OF PROJECTING THE SUN’S IMAGE UPON A SCREEN. BY THE REV. FRED. HOWLETT, M.A., F.R.A.S. (With a Tinted Plate.) Sx~pom has the writer met with an instance wherein very simple means and cheap appliances have, at least in a certain special line of astronomical observation, commanded better results, than the one which it is proposed to make the subject of the following paper. With respect, then, to the investi- gation of the sun it is encouraging to amateurs to know how much good work may be done by the aid of only a very moderate-sized telescope, in combination with a few simple and imexpensive accessories presently to be described. Anyone possessing a good achromatic of not more than three inches aperture, who has a little dexterity with his pencil, and a little time at his disposal (all the better if it be at a somewhat early hour of the morning) shall be made acquainted with an easy method whereby he may deliberately and satis- factorily view, measure, and (if skill suffice) delineate most of 430 Sun Viewing and Drawing. those interesting and grand solar phenomena of which he may have read, or seen depicted, in various works on physical astronomy. We mean not to say, of course, but what very superior views of these phenomena may be obtained by means of those splendid instruments which are now to be found in the pos-- session of not a few devoted lovers of astronomy, both amateur and professional; and we are aware, too, that it is only m the new, and fascinating, and important field of spectrum- analysis, specially in the hands of such sagacious observers as Kirchhoff, Huggins, Miller, Secchi, Donati, Alexander Herschel, and others—armed with special and variously-modified apparatus for the purpose—tbat our knowledge of the chemical consti- tution of the sun and other celestial lights can be promoted ; but still it 1s not too much to say, that, with the sole exception of the much disputed ‘ willow-leaf,” or “ rice-grain” shaped entities (asserted by Mr. Nasmyth and other high authorities to he scattered in a nearly uniform but confused and interlacing stratum over the whole solar surface), a good achromatic telescope of only three inches aperture, and armed with a magnifying power of from 120 to 200 linear, will, if employed in the manner about to be explained, reveal nearly every solar phenomenon which up to the last ten or a dozen years was known to the scientific world. And even as regards these last mentioned “ entities’ (what to call them exactly, we know not), which were described as being about from two to three seconds in length by about one-eighth or so of those measurements in breadth, though they certainly are not individually and separately to be seen by the aid of a telescope of only three inches aperture, yet may they possibly be recognized (if indeed they really exist) flaked together in those small, irregular, closely-approximated masses termed the ‘ coarser granulations,”’ or the “‘ mottling” of the solar photosphere. _ This mottlng may be readily descried ‘on days of steady definition by direct vision by any tolerable telescope (using of course some kind of darkening-glass in order to protect the eye from the glare and heat) ; but a much more distinct view of this remarkable structure of the sun’s surface may be obtained by projecting the solar image on a screen, all due care.being taken to procure the best and most perfect effect, by attending both to the best amount of magnification, and to the sufficient darkening of your chamber or observatory. Many a reader, probably, of the IvrrLiectuaL Opsnrver has seen the solar spots by ordinary direct vision through a tele- scope ; and if the spots have been of a tolerable size, he will have been perhaps considerably interested in the sight. But, Sun Viewing and Drawing. | 431 unless exceptionally interested in the matter, he will soon probably be inclined to discontinue his observations (even - though well disposed towards them), both on account of the difficulty with which the details of any but quite the larger spots can be descried by a merely ordinary instrument, the tediousness of keeping them in the field of view, the difficulty of recovering them, often, when lost, especially when use is being made of the higher powers; and lastly, the heat and glare with which the investigations of the glowing face of Father Sol are, under such circumstances, attended. » The writer remembers well the discouragements with which, in his novitiate, he had to struggle; whilst nevertheless (owing to the urbane encouragement of a world-honoured name in science)* he continued his solar record, with perhaps a moderate amount of success, but certainly an immoderate amount of trouble. It had been long known, however, that an image of the sun could be thrown down the tube of the telescope upon a sheet of white paper (the focussing being duly attended to, and made a trifle longer than that required for direct vision), and that the existence of a solar spot could be readily made manifest by this method, as it is termed, .of projection. The writer had often noticed also that any specks of dust, or moisture, or what not, that might happen to be lying at the time upon the lenses of the eye-piece, were also faithfully though annoyingly projected likewise on the paper; though by rotating the eye-piece ever so little 1t was at once apparent which were solar and which mundane phenomena, inasmuch as the positions of the former were not at all affected by the _ rotation of the eye-piece, whilst the latter rapidly described portions of a circle, commensurate with the amount by which the eye-piece had been turned. So at length after various experiments with spots and specks, the question arose—Why not systematically examine, measure, and depict solar phenomena by means of projection, on the largest convenient scale, and under the most favourable circumstances attainable? And this question was soon put into practice ; the result being a collection of solar drawings and measurements, of about six years continuance, which, though exceeded certainly both in numbers, and in certain very important points, in scientific interest, by those of other indefatigable and sagacious observers,t as well as by the highly valuable photographic records carried on at Kew and at Hly, have not yet been excelled perhaps, as a collection, for minute- ness of micrometric detail. * Sir J. F. W. Herschel, Bart., of Collingwood, Hawkhurst. + Viz., Schwabe, Wolff, Pastorff, and last, not least, Carrington. 432 Sun Viewing and Drawing. Hence it is of great importance that these large hand drawings should be diligently maintained by as many competent observers and draughtsmen as possible, until Heliophotography shall have happily succeeded in obtaining abundance of detail of solar phenomena, on a very much larger scale, and with far more distinctness than has yet been accomplished, save in a few isolated instances. The difficulties, indeed, which beset Heliophotography are immense; but who can say what may not at last be accomplished by the talent, perseverance, and liberality of De La Rue, Selwyn, and their coadjutors and assistants, in the comparatively new and wonderful art of celestial photography? Very much has been done already, and we sanguinely hope that more is yet to follow. But we must now proceed to describe how these drawings were accomplished. ;) And first, as re- i gards the best | method of project- ing the solar image. Select a cham- | ber having a win- dow, if possible, looking towards 1 the east as well i as south; and havy- ing effectually i closed up all other | windows or sources of light, fasten neatly in the one | remaining window | a portable sort of i wooden frame, ; covered with Ame- ‘qerican cloth (A in | Fig.), or some other ; substance imper- i vious to light. In i the centre of this | cloth cut out a ver- y tical aperture about ; aninchorso broader vei ; than the tube of DARKENING SHUTTER, FOR VIEWING THE SUN vOuE telescope, and BY PROJECTION ON A SCREEN, y about two feet im length. In front of this aperture, set up, by means of slender wooden bars, yj : tae > ; ad | ‘ >. . ils | ene | 4, hs Abe maw eo" » k Pic ; a v ist ca chy Bs - — nat a a BAI: Io Ss, Els i if mas a he | i 7 \ ‘ \ + pe heey nS ws eo D3 Rule: ; : 7 if 4 if i : | ; h ( VEMILY BOLAR spore. _ PeGeriod cn a Screen; aii to the earne Scale} ARG 28 Obady oe mele by the ard only of 3 Paet rt ry ; a . we aperture, Power Ux) Ure eee 2, 9 pm. Pig. 4.—Jan. 9, Noon, Jan. %, 11 om, } Fig, $2808, Feb. 17, Be | | ace i Gccaie iy Mam, A “bizarre” spot, ‘oon : , Aug, 5, G90 om. A “grotesque” spot, “- Rebasured: Pit soca ably observers and draughtsmenas possi until Hels _ shall have happily succeeded in obtaining abundanee ef _ of solar phenomena, op a very much larger: welts mad ‘mors. distinctness than has. yet been. Becona few isolated instances. The: difficulties, . Heliophotography are immense; bub ho ca y what 1 not, at last be accom lished. by the talent, perseverance, and liberality. of De La. Rue, Se and. their condjutors ang assistants, im the comparatii new and wonderful ¢ celestial photography ? Very: much. has. been done. alreat | and we sanguinely hope: 1 tite follows. . ig Saal But we must now, proceed od deseribe how these dr: win rs of ight Preval | neatly, in. the one Pa =. + rae a i. a ae) OM ‘ of Re x ee 7 Se ) & [ess lot ‘out0 kp vers q “tice 1 aperture ak oub ‘aninchorso bre der i than pit tube. of your teleseope,and | about. ty oe om 2 : ae amy, Fie of this aperture, set. up, by mean of slanden DABKENING SHUTTER, FOR VIEWING THE BUN BY PROJECTION ON A SCREEN. - Minutes and Seconds of Celestial arc. A a alia eee a ee ec uy (NB. 142450 Males.) 10,000 Miles. Seale in English Miles at the oS Sakae Centre of the si eer VARIOUS SOLAR SPOTS, As seen projected on a Screen; all to the same Scale; and as observed and measured by the aid only of 3 Inch aperture, Power 190 linear. . 1.—1864, Jan. 24, 2 p.m, Fig. 4.—Jan. 29, Noon. 2.—Jan. 25, 11 a.m. Fig. 5.—1865, Feb. 17, Noon. A “bizarre” spot. 3 --Jan. 28, Noon. Fig. 6.—1865, Aug. 5, 8.20 a.m. A “grotesque” spot, t | ad ee eS ' Stave we ae he 2 e 4 we ae | , (he a! ‘ q : : R as J f : ~~ j #: i 1% : 7 » t pe ] 3 « ery # se a ee « e le ‘ ‘ i . rs | air 5 4 if : -; ' oe ‘ f ba) 1g f ‘ 4 = Jie ‘ ‘ ; a5 be wh i cy d i ” #3 . =| . x : i - ‘ 4 a f : Pi ee Se | 1 + 28 ig © Yep aie ‘ oe o 1 te wr ~ pee wh pre de , » ey: sug 7 oe ih; - , ' by Sun Viewing and Drawing. — 433 two moveable pieces of stout pasteboard (P), or, rather, let us say one piece, cut horizontally into two. At the centre of this line of bisection cut out a semi-circular hole (B) from the upper piece of pasteboard, and a similar corres- ponding one (C) from the lower one; so that these two holes, when brought together, form a circle, which should be about two inches wider than the diameter of your tube. Round the edges of each of the semicircular orifices sew on (and glue likewise) a thickish piece of opaque vulcanized India-rubber (B and C), so that the elastic material may closely embrace your tube, but still allow your instrument a considerable range, both in altitude and azimuth. It will be far better, too, if the edge of the lower piece of the cardboard is arranged, so. that when closed it may overlap the upper piece: otherwise it will be exceedingly difficult to prevent extraneous beams of light from entering through the inter- stices, and seriously interfering with the definition of the solar image on the screen. For this end, indeed, it will be neces- sary that the orifices in both the pieces of India-rubber should be cut rather semi-elliptical than semi-circular. Tt will also be found extremely convenient to have pieces of tape (T T) fastened to the top of the lower piece of card- board, and then passing upwards over, and behind two bottle- corks screwed down to the bars of wood at H, E, and then passing down again, and pinned, when requisite, to the two long, flat pieces of cork glued to the bars at F, F. By this means, after having directed your telescope upon the sun, you may at once effectually close your pieces of pasteboard, with- out any possibility of the lower piece slipping down again, which otherwise would frequently and annoyingly happen. Notr.—The place occupied by the large vertical hole in the American cloth is indicated in the Fig. by the coarsely- dotted rectangular line, except where its outline is repre- sented, unbroken, between the two temporarily-separated pieces of pasteboard. Next prepare your screen. The one employed by the writer is a sheet of “ continuous drawing-paper,” three and a half feet in length by nearly three feet in breadth, fastened down by a slight wooden frame upon a foundation of mill- board. This is placed on an easel, the legs of which are furnished with holes and pegs, so that the screén may be set at any height, as well as also placed at any requisite angle. Provide, also, a large T square, of light wood, by means of which you may at any moment see that the face of the screen is adjusted (and maintained) at right-angles to the line of _ collimation of the telescope—to the visual axis, that is, of the tube. VOL. XI.—NO. VI. FY A34 Sun Viewing and Drawing. If now you draw apart the two semi-circular orifices above alluded to, you may readily direct your telescope upon the sun (without dazzling your eyes, as in the ordinary method whilst so doing), by so adjusting the tube, that the dark shadow cast by it upon the screen shall be a perfect circle. Then, having closely drawn the India-rubber round the tele- scope, and duly attended to the focussing, a perfectly definéd and most pleasing image of the magnified solar-dise will exhibit itself, on a scale more or less enlarged, according to the power of the eye-piece employed, or the distance the screen is placed from the telescope. As a general rule, about one yard may be recommended as a convenient distance for producing an excellent effect: with almost any eye-piece that the state of the atmosphere will admit of. — It will be found that, by shifting the tube slightly with the hand, the whole solar disc may be very rapidly and effectually scrutinized, with no more strain to the eyes than if it were being presented to you on a chart; and with a power of—say about sixty or eighty lnear—the most minute solar spot, properly so called, that is capable of formation (for the writer believes they are never less than three seconds in length or breadth), will be more readily detected than by any other method ; as also will any faculz, mottling, or, in short, any other phenomena that may then be existing on the disc.* The darker your chamber (your camera obscura, in fact) 1s, the more vivid and satisfactory are the results; and the writer will not easily forget the feelings with which he in this manner watched the progress of the solar eclipse of July 18th, 1860, along with his friends. | Drifting clouds frequently sweep by, to vary the scene, and occasionally an aérial hail or snow-storm, as mentioned b Mr. Browning in the number of the Register just alluded to ; and the writer has more than once seen a distant flight of rooks pass slowly across the disc with wonderful distinctness, _when the sun has been of a low altitude, and likewise, much more frequently, the rapid dash of starlings, which, very much closer at hand, frequent his church tower. A transit of any of the inferior planets is. also beautifully apparent by this method, as was witnessed by the Honourable Mrs. Ward, on November 12th, 1861, and agreeably- recorded by that talented lady in an illustrated article in the very first number of the InrertecruaL OBSERVER. * An instance of the facility of this method for detecting a very small spot is afforded by the fact, that, in the various accounts of the late eclipse of March 6th, 1867 (recorded in the Astronomical Register for the month following), almost all concur in stating that no spot was observed on the sun, whereas there most certainly was one spot visible about eight seconds in length. , ” Sun Viewing and Drawing. 435 Before proceeding to describe the method of measuring the spots, or other solar phenomena, it may be well to refer the reader to the Plate accompanying this paper, wherein may be seen micrometric drawings of various solar spots, the first four figures of which show the precise size and general appear- ance they presented on the screen (save that the attendant faculee are omitted), and as they were then and there depicted. The two last figures were originally viewed and drawn under optical appliances of double power, and have been consequently reduced one half, linear, in order that the same scale might serve for all alike, viz., about 27,000 English miles to the inch ; or, astronomically speaking, on this same scale one minute of celestial arc subtends one inch, and every second of this minute measures about 450 English miles near the centre of the disc; where the effects of foreshortening, produced by viewing objects on the surface of a sphere, are reduced to the minimum. Sir John Herschel has alluded* to the bizarre, and even grotesque appearance assumed at times by the solar spots. And truly this circumstance with regard to them is occasionally not a little remarkable ; and before describing more particularly the phenomena which frequently characterize an ordinary and well-developed spot, we would call attention to Figs. 5 and 6 in the Plate, wherein Fig. 5 (which is not in the slightest degree exaggerated in form and symmetry) will probably be allowed to bear a very close resemblance to the petal of a geranium, or perhaps, picotee, or other flowering plant, according to fancy ; whilst Fig. 6, affected, it is true, by a high degree of fore- shortening, the most advanced border of the spot being not | more than ten seconds from the preceding limb of the sun, may suggest to a lively imagination the belief that the uncouth gallinaceous bird, Didus ineptus (the Foolish Dodo), though said to be now extinct asa terrestrial species, is still to be reckoned among the fauna of the sun! By such comparisons, at any rate, may the mind be diverted occasionally, if only the whim be not allowed to warp the hand, whilst studiously trans- ferring a representation of the solar spots from the screen to the sketch-book. The writer has preferred to delineate this case of Didus meptus as an instance of the grotesque, rather than another one still more remarkable, simply because it so happens that.a photographic record of the occurrence of that rara avis was secured by Mr. John Titterton, of Ely, for Professor Selwyn, and to which, therefore, some of the readers of the InTELLECTUAL OzserveR may be able, perhaps, to refer, though they must be reminded that the photographs represent the solar image and * See Herschel on the Solar Spots, Quarterly Journal of Science, No. II., p. 224, 436 Sun Viewing and Drawing. phenomena on only a very small scale. A yet more striking instance of both the bizarre and grotesque combined might have been adduced by the writer in the case of a magnificent group of spots which was thus alluded to in a paper read by him before the Royal Astronomical Society :*—‘I have only one more subject to mention, and that is, that I hope some one else beside myself took notice of and depicted, or, better still, secured a photograph, of a most curious phantom-looking group of spots, which at 1 p.m. on the 4th January of this present year (1863) exhibited an appearance so wonderfully hke a human skeleton that, in a less superstitious age than the nineteenth century, its portentous shape might easily have raised considerable apprehension in the minds of the multitude. -Being Sunday when this was observed, and being much occupied with the more immediate duties of the day, I did not draw the group with micrometric correctness, but simply took a rough sketch of the phantom, which subtended about 5’ 40” of arc of the solar surface, or 153,000 miles, and respecting which (as I observed lately to Admiral Manners+) I am really not aware that any love for the marvellous induced me to exaggerate in any degree the singularity of its proportions. Sheet 96 exhibits this group as it appeared, when much altered, on January 7th.” Having already alluded to the most convenient way of pro- jecting the sun’s image on the screen, we now proceed to explain how the spots, etc., may be accurately measured. Cause your optician to rule for you on a circular piece of glass a number of fine graduations, the .,j,th part of an inch apart, each fifth and tenth line being of a different length, in order to assist the eye in their enumeration. Insert this between the anterior and posterior lenses of a Huygenian eye- piece of moderate power, say 80 linear. Direct your telescope upon the sun, and having so arranged it that the whole disc of the sun may be projected on the screen, count carefully the number of graduations that are seen td exactly occupy the solar diameter. A correct eye is requisite in order to judge precisely where any one diameter lies. By means of practice, however, this may soon be done with the greatest facility ; and, inasmuch as the sun’s disc is a perfect sphere, being neither oblate nor prolate in the slightest appreciable degree,t * See Monthly Notices, Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xxiii., p. 273, for Noy. 1863. + The Foreign Secretary of the. Royal Astronomical Society. { This is the dictum of our present Astronomer Royal, Professor Aivy ; ; and Professor Brayley, in a very interesting article,on the physical constitution of the sun, in the Companion to the Almanack, for 1864, says, that “the sun is the only body of the solar system having that ficure, and the only known iret of a perfect sphere in nature.” Sun Viewing and Drawing. | A37 it matters not in which direction you measure your diameter, provided only the sun has risen some 18° or 20° above the horizon, and so escaped the distortion occasioned by refraction, which he will have done at such an altitude as that just men- tioned, at any rate for any such purpose as we now are considering. — Next let us suppose that our observer has been examining the sun on any day of the year, say, if you choose, at the time of its mean apparent diameter, viz., about the first of April or first of October, and has ascertained that (as is the case with the writer) sixty-four graduations occupy the diameter of the projected image. Now the semi-diameter of the sun, at the epochs above mentioned, according to the tables given for every day of the year in the Nautical Almanack (the same as in Dietrichsen and Hannay’s very useful compilation), is 16° 2”, and, consequently, his mean total diameter is 32’ 4”, or 1924”. If now we divide 1924 by 64, this will of course award as nearly as possible 30” as the value in celestial arc of each graduation, either as seen on the screen, or as applied directly to the sun or any heavenly body large enough to be measured by it. Astronomers assure us, moreover, that the mean solar diameter is (according to the latest corrections) about 848,435 miles. Hence, if we divide this vast number of miles by sixty-four, we find that each graduation of 30” subtends also 13,256 miles, or about 442 miles to each second of arc on the sun’s surface. It is thus evident enough how any solar spot or facula, or other visible phenomena, may be readily measured. The telescope must simply be directed with the hand, so that any object that may be visible on the sun’s surface may be brought up to the graduations seen projected also on the screen. Remembering, as we have explained above, how every graduation is equivalent to 30”, or (since one second = 442 miles) to thirteen thousand two hundred and fifty-six miles. It certainly was very accommodating that each division on the glass of ~4,th of an inch should turn out to be equivalent to the neat amount of 30”, or half a minute precisely of arc; but so it was in the writer’s experience, in combination with a Huygenian eye-piece magnifying 80 times linear. : It might be tedious to the reader to explain how an exact (or approximately exact) estimation of solar measurements was attained to in the case of higher eye-pieces not provided with graduated glasses, which, by the way, do not of course improve the definition of the instrument, though they do not very much interfere with it so long as they can be kept free from dirt, but especially from moisture, which last, however, seems to have a special aptitude for condensing upon the 438 Sun Viewing and Drawing. J interposed disc of glass, so that it will be found expedient frequently to wipe it. The Huygenian lenses themselves always remain remarkably free from any such condensation, the cause for the difference resulting, probably, from the different qualities of the glass itself. It was observed above that the apparent size of any solar object visible on the screen was smaller or larger according to the distance which intervened between the screen and the eye-piece ; and it was eventually found that when a power of 120 linear was employed, and when the screen was placed just five feet two inches from the eye-piece, one of the gradua- tions cf 30” of arc, measured upon the screen exactly one inch. Hence, of course, half an inch upon the screen was equivalent to 15” of arc, and this scale is, perhaps, as convenient and instructive as any, for the purpose of depicting solar pheno- mena, which may be comfortably copied at once off the screen upon transparent. tracing paper, ruled across at regular intervals with faint lines, forming squares half an inch in size.* Lead pencils of the best quality should be employed in delineating the solar spots, the observer sitting in his camera obscura, with his back of course to the window shutter, and holding his tracing-paper somewhere or other within the cone of rays which diverge from the eye-piece, and which affords abundant illumination for the purpose in hand. When using the ordinary Huygenian astronomical eye-piece _ In connexion with the screen, the projected solar image will be seen reversed, but not inverted as when the sun is viewed by direct vision. The disposition of the image is, however, otherwise affected by projection (it is turned inside out, as it were), and in order to correct all optical freaks and represent the phenomena as they would really appear in the terrestrial eye-piece, it will be necessary both to reverse and also invert the drawings on the tracing-paper, gumming them down (if it is wished to preserve them) upon uniformly-sized sheets of very pale stone-coloured drawing-paper, which can be bound up into volumes for reference. The drawings are thus preserved from any possibility of being smudged, whilst at the same time the slightest mark of the pencil will be visible through the transparent tracing-paper. ‘The facule—a very delicate feature td deli- neate—should be carefully executed in Chinese white with a camel’s hair brush, avoiding a too abrupt and harsh outline. But inasmuch as the Chinese white is apt to be nearly oblite- rated when treated with the gum-arabic, the facule should _ * Messrs. Droosten and Allen, of the Strand, London, makes up eonvenient- sized block-books of this tracing-paper, interleaved (as is necessary) with a white Opaque paper, as a contrast to the pencil marks. Sun Viewing and Drawing. 439 at first be only very faintly indicated with the lead pencil m the drawing, and then the Chinese white applied after the drawing has been gummed down. ‘The object in using tinted paper as the foundation, is in order that the facule may be the more plainly apparent, by contrast. But there is another point of much importance, which should be attended to by any one who is making a study of solar phenomena; and that is, a good approximation at least to the ever-varying apparent positions of the sun’s poles and equator. Otherwise it would be impossible to determine whether avy group of spots or other phenomena were situated in the sun’s northern or southern hemisphere—a matter this of much interest. Jor it is by no means the case that the top or apparent zenith point of the sun’s disc is always his north pole, or the bottom or nadir point is always his south pole. In fact, not only has the solar pole a proper inclination of his own of about 7° to the plane of the earth’s ecliptic, but in consequence of the perspective effects produced partly by the earth’s revolution m her orbit, but much more by her daily rotation on her own axis, the sun’s poles (as referred to our horizon) are never the same for two minutes successively, save at about the hours of six a.m. and six p.m.; as the writer first discovered for himself, with no little mterest. Or again, | whilst at noon, in England, the sun’s north pole in antumn lies many degrees to the left of his zenith, it lies just as far to the right of it at noon m spring. Thus it is always shifting. How then is this knotty poimt to be ascertained? How can we declare where his north and south poles lie, bathed im their landmark-less imcandescent ocean of light? With an equatoreally mounted instrument this would be a comparatively easy matter, but we are supposed now not to be in possession of such a luxury. But any ordinary telescope may be readily furnished with a thin slip of semi-transparent mother-of-pearl about the sixteenth part of an inch in width, uated off into divisions the ;1,th of an inch apart (every fifth and tenth graduation made more conspicuous, as before) ; and having also an exceedingly fine wire stretched across it in the middle at right angles, and the whole inserted within the focus of your terrestrial eye-piece. When viewing the sun therewith by direct vision, the position of any solar spot may be laid down with suflicient accuracy for most purposes, by throwing the fine wire exactly in a line with the zenith and nadir points of the sun for the time being, and then, whilst it is in this position, bringing up the mother-of-pearl to the centre of the spot, and counting how many graduations it hes to the right or left of the wire; then upon revolving your eye-piece in its screw about ninety degrees (and so brmging the wire into 440 Sun Viewing and Drawing. a horizontal position), and bringing it up in that position to the spot, count how many graduations there are between the wire and either the zenith or nadir point of the sun, and lay your spot carefully down upon a ready-prepared circle drawn on paper by means of a rule, of which say every tenth of an inch shall be supposed to be the representative of each gradu- ation on your strip of mother-of-pearl. Three observations at least, on any three different days of one and the same spot must be made, taking care that they are as near as possible at the same hour and minute, otherwise tke observations would be useless. Sun Viewing and Drawing. 44] which commonly attend the life-history of a group of solar spots—observing, in passing, that usually they burst out more rapidly than they subside. Their formation commences gene- rally with the appearance in the photosphere of one or more small specks, of only a few seconds in diameter, which some- times are penumbral (grey) in their tint, and sometimes umbral, or blackish ; implying consequently a greater or less amount of profundity—the deeper the blacker. This stage is not shown in the Plate, because, in fact, the group had passed through it previously to its appearance upon the disc, which revolves, be 1t remembered, upon an axis, in about twenty-five days. Fig. 1 was drawn when the leading spot of the group had advanced about 31 minutes from the sun’s limb or margin, and which would therefore be on the third day after its first entrance upon the visible disc. At this time several bright streaks of facule lay to the left of the group, which from some cause or other is usually the side they are wont to affect ; though this rule is by no means invariable, for the faculze frequently he closely round the outer edge of a spot, and sometimes they may be seen scattered to the right as well as the left of a group. 442, Sun Viewing and Drawing. At this stage of the formation of the group (Fig. 1) it may be observed how the umbree or darker parts lie on the inner side of the penumbra or lighter parts—a circumstance this which is highly characteristic of a group of spots, especially the more subordinate outlying ones, and also in its earlier . stages, however it is to be accounted for, though it would seem to result from forces acting either from the centre, towards the circumference of the disturbed area, or vice versd. At this time the total portion of the photosphere displaced by the various spots composing this group amounted to upwards of 400,000,000 square miles—an enormous area, indeed, as com- pared with aught terrestrial, but still far less extensive than is often the case on the surface of the mighty sun. Indeed, within twenty-one hours after Fig. 1 was drawn, the displace- ment of photosphere had reached about 778,000,000 square miles (see Fig. 2), and the group even then was not fully developed, which occurrence took place on Jan. 26, and when the whole area of this group (and there were others on the sun at the time) amounted to the enormous sum of 1,545,000,000 square miles, or about eight times the superficies of the terraqueous globe! The writer has, however, observed them even larger than this. But to return to our group as it appears in Fig. 2. The umbra of the principal spot (which is almost invariably the preceding one in the order of their advance across the disc) was now well surrounded by penumbra on all sides, and it moreover consisted of matter of two distinct tints—each, however, much darker than the penumbra—and the lighter of which two constituted the umbra, and the darkest and deepest the nuclei, of which there were two or three. The way in which the penumbra is usually marked with streaks, radiating, as it were, from the umbra, is now very apparent; indicating a current of some sort setting in, either the circumference to the centre, or from the centre to the circumference, and perhaps also either a. down-rush or an up-rush of. gaseous matter. That it was a down-rush on the present occasion seems strongly indicated by a phenomenon to which attention is directed by the writer in vol. xxvii., p. 185, of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. He began to make a drawing of this spot at 11 a.m., Jan. 25, and observed at that time a small patch, of an almost umbral tint, at the -upper edge of the penumbra (this patch may be seen in Fig. 2). He drew it, as it then appeared, exactly on the margin. But by the time he had finished the spot, as well as others on the disc, upon looking over his work, he found that _ the small patch was no longer at the margin. Believing he must have blundered, he altered it; but m an hour or so afterwards he observed that it was conspicuously removed from Sun Viewing and Drawing. — 443° the edge of the penumbra. He watched it for another hour, when his impressions were put beyond a doubt, and he called in a friend, a good observer, to corroborate the observation. Both himself and companion saw that the patch was distinctly drawing rapidly in towards the central umbra, and by three o’clock in the afternoon it had advanced two-thirds of the distance (= 12”) between the margin of the penumbra and the umbra, at the same time becoming more condensed and elongated in the direction of the usual striations on the penumbra. Fig. 3 shows the spot as it appeared about noon on January 28th. It was now beginning to diminish in area from what it was on the 26th, and the subordinate spots of the group were also beginning to break up; the photosphere, m other words, was beginning to re-assume its ascendancy; a sort of cicatrizing process, 1f we may so say, was setting in. The spot was now, however, and had for three days pre- viously been interesting, from the presence of a well-defined but ragged promontory or bridge, which floated over the umbra and divided it into different portions, as may so often be observed in the solar spots. At this time the promontory was not more luminous than the general penumbra to which it was attached, and it was consequently, in all probability floating at about the same level with it, and of the same tem- perature. But on January 29th (see Fig. 4), not only had the pro- montory greatly altered in shape, but it was now as bright as the photosphere itself, with which indeed it seemed now in direct communication, by means of luminous streaks of con- siderable width, with which the penumbra had been invaded, showing either that the promontory of the previous day had risen up to the level of the photosphere and become equally luminous with it, or that it had sunk down altogether and melted away (as the writer and others have observed them to do), and that its position had been occupied in part by an indraught apparently of luminous matter from the vast circum- ambient ocean of photosphere. However this may have been, on January 30th the penumbra had again in turn inclosed and isolated the lumimous matter m question; though it did not permanently hold it a prisoner; for by January 31st the photo-. sphere had so energetically mvaded the principal spot from both sides, as to completely divide it into two spots. In short, the battle of the solar elements was decided ; and on February Ist (the last time the writer was enabled to see the group), the spots were still further dispersing and diminishing ; and had utterly disbanded themselves, and disappeared, ere * In the Plate these striations are rendered somewhat too distinctly. AA, Sun Viewing and Drawing. that portion of the sun by his rotation above alluded to, had again come round upon the disc. But, finally, what are the sun spots—what the facule— what the photosphere—what, in short, as Mr. Carrington asks, is a sun? A congeries of difficulties to grapple with! But let us hope that by means of the rapid march of science in the* departments of chemistry, electricity, spectrum analysis, and what not, the time is not far distant when many of these difficulties will be solved. Much depends upon our being able satisfactorily to demon- strate (which seems more and more probable) that the laws which govern terrestrial phenomena are the same as those which prevail upon and within our great central luminary, modified very possibly by the existence of conditions, and even perhaps chemical elements peculiar to himself, as the source -and dispenser of light, heat, and life, to the planetary worlds around him. This, at least, seems certain—viz., that the solar spots are negative and not positive, if we may so say, in their character. That is, that they are areas on the solar surface, where either the photospheric matter has been swept aside, or where it has subsided and become invisible through a change in its tem- perature and molecular condition; and not actually dark, intervening clouds of condensed, metallic, or other vapour, obscuring simply the subjacent photosphere, as Kirchhoff would have it. Still less we maintain are they (as other theorizers rather than actual observers maintain), scoria, or other hardened masses, capable of being rent asunder, and thus again dis- closing the photosphere below, in the shape of loops, bridges, or promontories. The minute and careful observations multiplied by Nasmyth, Dawes, De La Rue, Lockyer, Chacornac, and the writer, place all such theories out of the question. It is far more probable, if not indeed certain, that the bridges, promontories, and specks of more or less brilliant matter, which all the above observers have distinctly seen to traverse the umbre and even nuclei of solar spots, have either drifted away from the general mass of the surrounding photosphere, or are sometimes portions of photosphere which have only newly condensed and become visible ; other pre-existing portions having, on the other-hand, in their turn been seen to subside, apparently, or at any rate to dissolve and melt out of sight; and thus that the matter composing the photosphere may be visible or invisible, accord- ing as it is in the solid, liquid, or gaseous condition. | Professor Brayley considers it probable that in the photo- sphere, and probably the regions and strata lying below it, solid matter must be continually being produced, dissolved, and Sun Viewing and Drawing. — 445 reproduced by some such alternate process of refrigeration, breaking-up, and subsidence; and that it is from this more solid matter that the soler radiation of light and heat mainly proceeds. ‘“ An incandescent liquid or gas,” as the President of the Royal Astronomical Society, too, observes, “ such as we suppose the sun’s atmosphere to consist of, will not give out light. We want, therefore, something floating in it, or where could the light come from ?” While on this subject of crystallization and subsidence, the writer would here state how, on more than one occasion, he has been reminded of such a state of things by a curious and interesting (if not very analogous) phenomenon presented to view in the boiling salt-pans at Droitwich in Worcestershire. The crystals of salt, varying much in form and size according to the temperature of the liquor out of which they are pro- duced, first form on the surface of the hot brine, and then, after a while, begin to subside in patches not very unlike solar spots, or groups of spots. Other portions of the yet floating crust of salt may frequently be seen marked with bright blotches and reticulations, more nearly resembling solar faculee, so far as mere form is concerned, than any other object he could readily call to mind. It is not, however, here intended that we are to consider the sun as a merely vast mineral salt bath ; though sodium, at any rate, appears to be present there in sufficient abundance ; and the mean density of his mass is just about the same as that of the brine! A curious theory of the origin of solar spots, at present in increasing favour with some of our most philosophical observers* is, that they are produced by external planetary influences. Every twenty months or so, as they observe, the spots seem to assume the same sort of behaviour in their manner of forming and disappearing. With this circumstance is to be coupled the fact that every twenty months the planet Venus returns to the same position with reference to the earth, and that then, too, we see that, as any portion of the sun’s surface retreats from the neighbourhood of Venus, the solar spots on that portion have a tendency to increase, attaining a maximum atthe point furthest from Venus. And the inference they draw from this curious phenomenon —backed up by certain physical experiments in connection with heat, light, electricity, vaporization, pressure, etc., 18 that the sun is probably in such asensitive molecular condition that its mass may experience wonderful changes from very small outward influences. Now that the continuity of the outermost strata of the sun is, from some cause or other, subject to the most astonishingly extensive, and often rapid changes, is certain enough ; as may * Messrs. De La Rue, Balfour Stewart, Loewy, and others. 44,6 Vegetable Monstrosities and Races. é be sufficiently seen from the changes undergone in twenty-one hours in the group represented in Figs. 1 and 2 in the Plate. And the writer has often expressed his opinion that, along, perhaps, with other allied agencies, these changes are in some way connected with alterations m the magnetic conditions of the solar photosphere—an opinion with which the theory of- planetary configurations and influences is quite in harmony ; as also may be many other forces believed to be in operation on the solar surface, and probably also within the interior mass hkewise. In many respects, lastly, the forces they exhibit are as mighty in their operation as they are mysterious in _ their origm. We cannot doubt that, on the whole, they are necessary and beneficial to the several worlds which con- stitute the dominion of the sun; though they are occult and hidden in their nature; and may very possibly at times, and at the ordering of the Most High, rule over conditions of plague and scarcity, as well as of health and prosperity; for these circumstances, we can scarcely doubt, are in intimate con- nection with those terrestrial, magnetic, and atmospheric con- ditions over which the sun has been bidden to exercise his vast and. ever-varying, and, generally, benignant influences. VEGETABLE MONSTROSITIES AND RACES. ‘BY CH. NAUDIN. (From Comptes Rendus.) THE discussion recently excited by MM. Dareste and Sanson, as to whether monstrositics m the animal kingdom can give rise to distinct races, recalls to-my mind teratological facts, which appear to demonstrate that this may be the case in the vegetable world. ; To avoid doubt, it may be well to explain that I use the word monstrosity in its ordinary botanical sense, that of notable departure from forms, that are typical, or reputed to be such. There is a marked distinction between monstrosities incompatible with reproduction, and those which do not impair the reproductive faculty. It is of the last only I have now to speak. | 4 Well attested facts seem to me to place beyond doubt that considerable anomalies in the vegetable kingdom, that are usually classed amongst teratological facts, are faithfully transmitted from one generation to another, and become the Vegetable Monstrosities and Races. 44.7 ‘salient characters of new races. Horticultural practice might have furnished a great number of such instances if they had been collected, and verified by experiment; but I shall only cite a few, because they are the only ones which I know to have been examined scientifically, and they suffice to establish the principle of hereditary transmission of anamolies, by sexual propagation through an indefinite series of generations. The first fact of this sort shall be borrowed from Professor Géppert, of Breslau. A poppy exhibited the curious anomaly of the transformation of part of its stamens into carpels, from whence resulted a crown of secondary capsules round the normal and central capsule, whose development was complete. Many of the little additional capsules contained, as well as the normal capsule, perfect. seeds, capable of reproducing the plant. In 1849, Professor Géppert, hearing that.a field of these monstrous poppies existed a few miles from Breslau, caused to be sown in the following year a considerable quantity of seed taken designedly from the normal capsules, and almost all the plants springing from this seed exhibited to a greater or less extent the monstrosity of the preceding generation. I donot insist upon these facts, because observation of them was not . carried to a sufficient extent, and it might be found that the number of generations was not large enough to conclude from them the stability of the anomaly. | This doubt does not affect the following case :—Cultivators of ferns know that these plants are very subject to variation, and that some of them exhibit, even in a wild state, veritable monstrosities in the conformation of their leaves. ‘These monstrosities are much sovght after by collectors, and are regarded as excellencies, for which a high price was paid. Now they are easily and abundantly procured by simply growing spores taken from the abnormal part of a fertile frond. When the frond has remained in a normal state, the spores give rise to normal plants, while those from monstrous parts of the same frond are sure to produce plants affected by same kinds of change. During many years that this method of propagation has been employed, the transmission of the monstrosity has not been contradicted by experience. Very considerable anomalies, which even more than those just cited, may be called monstrosities, are observed in three species of edible gourds, plants which have been cultivated from time immemorial, and which have never been found in a wild state. ‘These anomalies have the peculiarity of characterising races that are sharply divided and very persistent, and which maintain themselves, in spite of change of locality and climate, and partially resist crossing with other races of the same species. ‘Ihe date of their origin is unknown, and we 44.8 Vegetable Monstrosities and Races. cannot now tell under what influences they were formed; but as the species are all domestic, it is probable that some, if not all, have been produced by cultivation. Among them is a race of common gourds (Cucurbita pepo), in which the tendrils convert themselves into a sort of branches bearing leaves, flowers, and often fruits. There are also numerous races of the same species producing deformed fruits, warty, and parti- coloured, and which transmit their peculiarities with their seed so long as they are not modified by crossing. A still more remarkable example is afforded by a small race of pumpkins, C. maaima, which we have received from China, and observed for many years in the Museum. It differs from the typical form of the species by the ovary, and the fruit being entirely free, and the tube of the calyx being reduced to a sort of disk (plateau), serving for the support of the carpels; notwithstanding, the complete adhesion of the ovary to the tube of the calyx is stated by authors to be an essential character of the family of the Cucurbitaceze. This example shows how great the extent of variation may be, and what fixity they may acquire when once produced. The next fact of which I have to speak is quite recent, and has already been brought before the Academy by Dr. Godron, Professor of Botany, at Nancy. In 1861 M. Godron found, in a crop of Datura tatula, a species with very spiny fruit, a single individual, in which the capsule was perfectly smooth, and unarmed. Seeds taken from this capsule gave, in 1862, a batch of plants, all of which reproduced the peculiarities of the individual from which they sprung. From their seed erew a third generation, similarly smooth, and in 1865 and 1866 I saw at the Museum the fourth and fifth generation of this new race, in all more than 100 individuals, not one of which manifested the least tendency to reproduce the spinous character of the species. Crossed with this last by M. Godron himself, the unarmed race produced mule plants, which in the succeeding generation returned to.the spiny form, and the unarmed form, being, in fact, genuine hybrids, endowed with fertility. M. Godron, from these facts, refers to one species, the Datura Stramonium, D. levis (of Bertoloni, not of Linneus), and D. Tatula, three constant forms previously regarded as good species, and adding to it D. Tatula-inermis, discovered by himself, and so to speak, born under his eyes. These four distinct forms have arisen by variation from a single type, not one of them wanting in any character assign- able to true species. | Here a point presents itself, to which I would call the attention of all who believe in the mutability of specific forms, and who attribute the origin of actual species to simple modifica- Vegetable Monstrosities and Races. AAO tions of more ancient species. Most of these observers admit that such modifications have been produced with exceeding ‘slowness through insensible gradations, so that thousands of generations may have been required to transform one species into a neighbouring species. We know not what may have happened in the course of ages; but experience and observa- _ tion teach us that at the actual epoch of anomalies, whether shght or profound, the alterations in what we, perhaps, arbi- trarily, call specific types—the monstrosities, in fact, whether they are of a transitory and individual character, or whether they give rise to new races, persistent and uniform, through an indefinite number of individuals—are produced abruptly ; and without any transitive forms between them and the normal form. A new race is born completely formed, and the first individual representing it exhibits the characters of the generations that will succeed if the variation is preserved. New modifications may be added to the first one, and occasion a subdivision into primary and secondary races; but these appear with the same suddenness as the first variation did. I am not defending the doctrine of evolution. I state merely that the biological phenomenon of one epoch do not justify, in any way, the hypothesis of an insensible degradation of ancient forms, and the necessity for millions of years in order to change the physiognomy of species. Judging from what we know, their transformations, if they have taken place, may have been effected in a much smaller lapse of time than is supposed. There may bealternations in the life of nature, and periods of immobility, apparent or real, may succeed other periods of rapid transformation, during which that which was — previously exceptional and abnormal, becomes a portion of the regular order of things. And we must not: forget that time is to us a succession of phenomena, and that whether the pheno- mena succeed each other quickly or slowly, it is all one for the doctrine of evolution. In either case the principle of con- tinuity is not assailed. VOL. XI.—NO. VI. GG 450 Ancient Men of Wirtemberg. ANCIENT MEN IN WIRTEMBERG. Tue following paper is taken from the Archives des Sciences. It gives an account of recent discoveries of the remains of human industry in Wirtemberg as described by Professor Fraas. In 1866, a mason of Schussenried, in Wirtemberg, was obliged to dig a long and deep channel to carry off some water that had been diverted by the drainage of an adjacent swamp. This work led to the discovery of a large quantity of fragments of bone and reindeer horn, and of implements wrought in flint and bone. Dr. Fraas had special diggings made to ex- plore this deposit, and examined the results with great care. The ground cut through in these diggings showed the follow- ing succession, beginning at the bottom—a bed of erratic gravel, a layer of tuff contaming terrestrial and fiuviatile shells, identical with living species, and lastly, a thick bed of turf, forming the existing surface. The bones and wrought objects were discovered in a sort of excavation, or pocket, dug in the gravel and filled with moss and sand. The moss, which formed a thick layer between the gravel and the tuff, was in a state of such perfect preservation, that the species could be exactly determined by M. Schimper. They were Hypnum sarmentosum (Wahl.), Hypnum adunewm, var. Greenlandicum (Hedwig), and Hypnum fluitans, var. tenuwissimum. These mosses now live either in high latitudes or at. considerable elevations above the sea-level, usually near the snow, or the nearly frozen water running from it. They belong to a very northern flora—about 70°,—and the Hypnum sarmentosum, mm particular, to the limits of perpetual snow. The lower gravel is evidently erratic, and the marshy plain which the cutting traverses rests against a gravel-hill, which is nothing but an ancient moraine, and M. Desor states that m the vicinity of glaciers, hollows are found similar to this one containing vari- ous objects, and believed by Dr. Fraas to-have been the rubbish hole of an ancient people, living at the time when the reindeer inhabited the neighbourhood. All the bones found in the moss, which is kept wet by numerous springs, are completely preserved, while those in the gravel are entirely decomposed. ‘he recent diggings exposed a prodigious quantity of bones and reindeer horns. ‘The bones are all broken, having been split to extract their marrow ; the horns were in great number, some whole, and belonging to young animals, others had been put to divers. uses, and rejected as worn out. It is curious that the teeth had been carefully extracted from the jaws, for what purpose is un- Ancient Men of Wirtemberg. 451 known. Except some fragments belonging to a species of ox, no bones of other ruminants were found, but there were some ‘remains of the horse. The presence of the glutton, of a bear, differing from that of the caverns, and resembling the arctic bear, of the wolf, the polar fox, and the swan, and the absence of the dog, appears made out. The fauna, like the flora, thus testifies to a northern climate, being composed of animals not fearing cold, and presenting no trace of that mixture observed elsewhere of northern animals with others belonging to temperate or southern regions. ‘The remains of human industry consist principally of wrought flints (600 pieces), lance-points, arrow-heads, etc. ; (no hatchets) some blocks (nucléus), together with needles, hooks, etc., of reindeer horn. Besides these, some rolled flints had evidently been used as hammers. Some flat stones, bearing traces of fire, and bits of charcoal testified also to the presence of man. There was no trace of pottery, nor of human bones. Nothing good, nothing whole, was thrown into this ditch ; it was simply a receptacle for rubbish. The fauna and the flora had, as we have seen, a peculiarly northern character; much more so than those of other stations of the reindeer epoch—that of Languedoc, for example. This remarkable fact gives importance to the discovery of Dr. Fraas. Must we conclude from it that the station of Schussenried belonged to a more ancient period? ‘This is probable, but requires to be confirmed by further investigation. We must notice the apparent inferior civilization of the people to whom these relics belonged. They do not seem to have been acquainted with the potter’s art, nor to have ornamented their implements with any sculpture. Hyidently, the station of Schussenried was posterior to the: glacial epoch, properly so called—that is to say, to the time when the glacier of the Rhine formed moraines and accumu- lated gravels. But we may conclude from the presence of northern mosses, and from the character of the fauna, that the country had not been long cleared of ice when the people, who left these traces, established themselves in it. It is probable that fresh researches at other points may lead to the discovery of new stations, and fresh means of comparison, which may, enable the age of that of Schussenried to be fixed: ADP, Mr. Graham’s Recent Discoveries. MR. GRAHAM’S RECENT DISCOVERIES : — THE ABSORPTION AND DIALYTIC SEPARATION OF GASES BY COLLOID SEPTA :—THE OCCLUSION .OF GASES. in a series of papers communicated to the Royal Society, Mr. Graham has detailed his beautiful researches into the diffusion of gases. ‘The subject of this paper is a brief account of his recent researches on the Absorption and Dialytic Separation of Gases by Colloid Septa. It is necessary to remember that all gases when existing under circumstances inwhich they do not chemically combine, yet diffuse themselves through one another and form a uniform mix- ture, even though their specific gravities may be widely different, and they be kept externally at perfect rest ; the law being that this tendency to diffuse varies in the inverse ratio of the square roots of their specific gravities. It must also be borne in mind that the same law regulates the diffusion of gases through septa possessing minute pores as when the gases communicate freely with each other. Mr. Graham has shown how a mixture of gases may be changed in composition by the escape of the lighter and, there- fore, more diffusible gas, this fact being well shown by passing an explosive mixture of one volume of oxygen and two volumes of hydrogen through the stem of a tobacco-pipe enclosed in an outer tube of glass, which is rendered vacuous, the hydrogen being more diffusive, streams through the porous walls so much faster than the oxygen that on issuing from the end of the pipe the mixture ceases to be explosive. But mixed gases must differ considerably in specific gravity in order to separate from one an- other to any great extent in their molecular passage into vacuum. In his recent researches Mr. Graham has employed—firstly, the soft colloid, india-rubber ; secondly, those metals to which a certain degree of colloid property might be imparted by means of heat. When atmospheric air is separated from a vacuous space by a septum, or bag of india-rubber, some air passes through it into the vacuum. In observing the passage of air and gases into vacuum, the Torricellian vacuum ‘was first employed. A plain glass tube, two millimetres in diameter and one metre in length, is closed at one end by a sheet of thin india-rubber strained over a porous plug of plaster of Paris, the tube is now filled with mercury and inverted, a vacuum being obtained into which air (or any gas. allowed to play upon the disk of rubber) gradually penetrates, passing through the film and depressing the mercurial column in the Mr. Graham’s Recent Discoveries. tube. 453 The following numbers represent the velocity with which the rubber is penetrated by different gases in equal times :-— Nitrogen. Carbonic oxide Atmospheric air Marsh gas Oxygen . Hydrogen Carbonic acid . 1 1113 1149 2°148 2°95 5° a 13°5 Air being a mechanical aed of 21 per cent. of oxyger and 79 per cent. of nitrogen, the constituents of atmospheric air are carried through a film of rubber into a vacuum nearly in the same relative proportion as the same gases penetrate it singly, hence the composition of air “ dialyzed” by the india- rubber septum is deducible by calculation— ON tage 70, xX Oxygen Nitrogen. Jn the experiment with the Torricellian vacuum, air entering through the 2°556 = 53676 = 4046 1 = (9 = 99°54 100°00 rubber was found to have eg the composition indicated by theory—40 per cent. oxygen and 60 per cent. nitrogen. Dr. Sprengel’s Mercu- rial Exhauster (Fig. 1) is now used instead of the Torricellian vacuum. It possesses the advantage of simultaneously main- taining the space vacuous, and delivering for exami- nation any air entering through the septum. The flow of mercury, from the funnel, 4, through the fail tube, c B, is regulated by the clip which compresses’ the caoutchouc tube, c. The receiver to be exhausted is connected with the fall tube by a branch arm, x. The descending stream of mercury draws the air Ay | IW NAN Ul 454 Mr. Graham’s Recent Discoveries. from the receiver and delivers it at r, a vacuum being ulti- mately produced. E represents a bag of silk, varnished with india-rubber, lined with felted carpet. After allowing sufficient time for the removal of the original air (representing the capacity of the bag), it will be found that» the air penetrating the bag, and delivered into the tube, R, possesses the power of rekindling a glowing splinter of wood ; analysis proving it to contain 40 per cent. of oxygen and 60 of nitrogen. The constituents of atmospheric air will also pass through rubber into a space containing some other gas, as hydrogen or carbonic acid, at the same relative velocities with which they enter a vacuous space. Later experiments have also proved that air may be changed in composition by escaping under a »ressure of two atmospheres through a rubber septum, the proportion of oxygen transmitted being slightly less than in the experiments with the vacuum. This penetration of india-rubber by gases is not due to diffusion through actual pores; if it were, the lighter gases would pass through with the greater velocity ; in the experi- ment with the rubber film, or bag, for instance, diffusion would favour the passage of nitrogen. It will be seen, from the table given on page 453, that those gases which penetrate the rubber most readily are those most easily liquified by pressure, and also generally highly soluble in water. Mr. Graham considers that the penetration of the gas through rubber is due to its previous absorption as a liquid in the soft, colloid substance of the india-rubber, the transmission bemg effected by the agency of liquid, and not gaseous diffusion. The rubber being wetted through by the liquified gas, the latter evaporates, and reappears on the other side of the membrane as a true gas. There is, moreover, experimental proof of this absorption. When india-rubber is ‘exposed to an atmosphere of carbonic acid gas, it takes up in one hour nearly its own volume, and this gas may be subsequently extracted by the action of the vacuum. Oxygen is twice as soluble in india-rubber as in water, and two and a half times more soluble in rubber than _ nitrogen is. These experiments are of great physiological interest. Respiration is probably due .to the liquid diffusion of gases through membranes. ‘The air-bladder of fishes, especially those without a pneumatic duct, must be filled by the same agency. In extending the inquiry to the passage of gases through metals, Mr. Graham employed tubes closed at one end, the The Occlusion of Gases. . 455 open end being placed in connection with Sprengel’s Mercurial Hxhauster. The metallic tubes were placed within porcelain ‘tubes; the gas under examination was allowed to circulate through the annular space between the two, and the arrange- ment admitted the subsequent application of heat. With a platinum tube, and air circulating outside it, the vacuum remained undisturbed, even when the temperature rose to a bright red heat: but when dry hydrogen was made to pass through the annular space, the platinum allowed the hydrogen to pass through into the vacuum, as soon as, but not until, the metal was raised to a red heat. In seven minutes the Sprengel tube delivered 15°47 cubic centimetres of gas, of which 15°27 cubic centimetres were pure hydrogen. ‘The pla- tinum tube employed was 1'1 millimetre in thickness, with an internal diameter of 12 millimetres. The surface actually heated was 200 millimetres (8 inches). The rate of passage of the hydrogen was therefore 489°2 cubic centimetres, through a square metre of platinum 1:1 millimetres thick in one minute. ‘The passage of other gases through the same tube was next examined, the experiments being conducted in exactly the same way, the metal being heated to bright redness. ‘'he most interesting fact developed itself, that while hydrogen could penetrate at the above rate, the following _ gases were incapable of passing, even to the extent of 0°2 cubic centimetres in one hour :—Oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine, hydrochloric acid, steam, carbonic acid, carbonic oxide, marsh gas, olefiant gas, hydrosulphuric acid, and ammonia. lt was, however, with a tube of palladium that the most. remarkable results were obtained, that metal permitting the permeation of hydrogen with far greater facility than platinum, and at a temperature short of redness. The closed palladium tube remained perfectly tight when connected with the Mer- curial Hxhauster, with air (or carbonic acid) outside the tube, both at the ordinary temperature, and at a temperature near low redness. When dry hydrogen was allowed to circulate in the annular space, none passed through in three hours at a temperature of 100° C., but when the temperature was raised to 240° C., the hydrogen began to come through at a gradually increasing rate, until 265° C. was reached, when the exhauster delivered 11:2 cubic centimetres in five minutes, or 423 cubic centimetres for a square metre of palladium one millimetre thick. It is interesting to compare the passage of hydrogen through the palladium with the penetration of the same gas into vacuum through a septum of india-rubber. The palladium, one millimetre in thickness, was seventy times the thickness of the rubber sheet. 456 Mr. Graham’s Recent Discoveries. The comparison follows, penetration of hydrogen through a square metre of the rubber in one minute, at a temperature of 20° C.=127 cubic centimetres, through the palladium—423 cubic centimetres, at a temperature of 265° C. It has been shown that oxygen could be partially separated from atmospheric air by the septum of india-rubber, while~ platinum and palladium only permit hydrogen to pass, apparently to the exclusion of every other gas. Therefore when the palladium tube was heated to 270° C. im an atmo- sphere of coal gas consisting of a mixture of 45 per cent. marsh gas, with 40 per cent. free hydrogen, the gas pene- trating the metal and delivered by the mercurial exhauster contained no trace of carbon compound, but was pure hydrogen. lt is now necessary to consider the nature of these trans- missions in the case of the rubber and metal respectively. In the passage of gas through the mdia-rubber, it has been shown that the colloid substance possessed the power of absorbing the gas. Is the penetration of the platinum due to the same cause ? The following experiments were devised in order to deter- mine this :— The metal was first carefully cleaned by washing in alkali, and subsequently with distilled water ; it was then introduced. into a porcelain tube glazed both inside and out, and provided with corks well covered with fused gutta percha, each cork was fitted with a fine quill tube. The one quill tube, a, being connected with the mercurial exhauster, the other being then closed. It is evident, therefore, that the apparatus afforded a means of heating the metal in vacuo, and of transferring any gas that might be distilled over. Fig. 2. == Wire of fnsed platinum weighing 200 grammes was heated to bright redness, and allowed to cool slowly in a stream of pure and dry hydrogen. The same wire on distillation in vacuo gave 2°12 cubic The Occlusion of Gases. 457. centimetres of gas, of which 1°93 proved to be pure hydrogen. 7 The weight of the metal being divided by its specific gravity (201+21°5) gives the volume of the metal=9°34 cubic centimetres; hence the one volume of platinum held (the gas being measured cold), 0°207 volumes of hydrogen. It must be admitted, therefore, that platinum has a power to absorb hydrogen at a red heat, and to retain it for an indefinite period, to this power Mr. Graham has given the name of occlusion (a shutting up) of hydrogen by the metal. Hammered platinum has a much higher absorbing or “‘ occluding”? power than the fused metal, probably owing to a mechanical difference in the texture, a specimen, in the form of tube, occluded 2°8 times its volume of hydrogen; the same platinum again charged with hydrogen was sealed up in a glass tube, after two months it gave on distillation m vacuo 2°28 times its volume of gas, tending to prove that the hydrogen had been retained by the platinum without loss. Jt has already been stated that the transmission of hydrogen through palladium was far more striking than in the case of platinum, the permeation taking place at a far lower tem- perature. The results given by the occlusion of hydrogen by this metal were also most remarkable. A specimen of foil rolled from wrought palladium, weighing 1°58 grammes, was exposed to hydrogen, at a temperature between 90° and 78° C. for three hours, and then allowed to cool slowly in a stream of the gas. The metal was then transferred to a glass tube, which was exhausted in the usual way, and on being heated with a gas flame the palladium gave off gas in a continuous stream for twelve minutes, when the evolution ceased. The volume of gas amounted to 85°56 cubic centimetres. ‘The palladium having occluded 643°3 times its volume of hydrogen. As in the case of the platinum the melted metal does not possess the power to the same degree as the wrought metal. The specimen examined absorbed about 347 times its volume of hydrogen. Hach metal exerts a selective power for gases. Copper wire occludes 0.3806 times its volume of hydrogen. Gold cornets* from the refuse of assays were examined without preliminary treatment, 93 grammes, having a volume of 4.83 cubic centimetres, gave, on heating in vacuo, 10.25 cubic centimetres of gas, which consisted principally of carbonic oxide. The same cornets, though they never assumed so much gas as they acquired in the muffle, still occluded 0.33 times their volume of carbonic oxide, and 0.48 times their volume of hydrogen. * When the button of gold is removed from the assay furnace it is rolled into a riband and twisted into a flat spiral, to which the name of “ cornet”’ is given. 458 Mr. Graham’s Recent Discoveries. Heated in air they absorbed 0.2 times their volume of gas, which was principally nitrogen, showing a remarkable indif- ference to oxygen. Silver was also examined, one specimen occluded in successive experiments 8.05 and 7.47 times its volume of oxygen, without any visible tarnish. it was with iron that results of the greatest commercial, as well as scientific interest, were obtained. Iron possesses the power to occlude hydrogen, but carbonic oxide is taken up far more largely than hydrogen, by slowly cooling the metal, from a dull red heat. In the process of converting iron into steel by cementation, the bars of malleable iron are imbedded in charcoal, and heated to redness in chests of fire-brick. The cause of the penetration of-carbon into the centre of the mass of iron has always been obscure. As Mr. Graham observes, the occlusion of carbonic oxide by the metal at a low red heat appears to be the first and necessary step in the process of “acieration.” The gas appears to abandon half its carbon to the iron, when the temperature is afterwards raised to a considerably higher degree. The process of cementation being thus divided into two distinct stages, the first at a low temperature, during which the carbonic oxide is occluded, the second at a higher temperature, in which carbon is separated. Lastly, in all these experiments, the metal was first heated in vacuo, in order to remove any gases that might have been occluded in the process of its manufacture. The natural gases of commercial wrought iron appear to be a mixture of hydrogen and carbonic oxide. It became, therefore, a point of great imterest to examine the natural gases of meteoric iron. A notice of the facts having ap- peared in a late number, it is only necessary to state that the iron of the Lenarto meteorite gave out on heating in vacuo 2.8 times its volume of gas; of which eighty-five per cent. was hydrogen. Thus a fall of meteoric iron on the earth brings to us the same gas that has been discovered by Messrs. Huggins: and Miller to exist in the atmosphere of many of the fixed stars. Olusters and Nebule. 459 CLUSTERS AND NEBULA).—SOUTHERN OBJECTS.— DOUBLE STARS.—OCCULTATION. BY THE REV. T. W. WEBB, A.M., F.R.A.S. Ir we suppose a line drawn from Arcturus to a Ophiuchi, and from near its centre drop a perpendicular to it for some dis- - tance, the latter will hit a 2 mag. star, the brightest in a considerable area, a Serpentis, which may be also identified from its lying in a ang line between two 3 mag. attend- ants, the one » p being 6 (which is double, No. 26 of our list, Int. Oss. 11., 56), the other s f (which is nearer a) being e. From this last star we must run outa line at something less than a right angle—say 80°—with that joining ¢ and 6, and of about equal length ; if we then sweep over the region where it ends, we shall find a 5 mag. star, 5 Serpentis, which should be visible to a keen sight, but will at any rate be conspicuous with slight optical aid: just » p, the finder will show us a patch of haze, and the telescope will reveal— 44. The Great Cluster in Inbra. Gen. Cat. 4083—M 5. Smyth calls this a most beautiful cluster of minute stars, greatly compressed in the centre, with outliers in all directions. In his achromatic of 5,2, inch aperture it was a superb object, with a bright central blaze, exceeding even M 3 (No. 41 in our last number) in concentration. ‘The progress of optical power is well illustrated by the fact that M., the discoverer, said of it, in 1764, “‘je me suis assuré qu’elle ne contient aucune étoile,”’ and Hf with the 40f. reflector, in 1791, counted about 200 in it, though they were undistinguishable from compression in the centre. H. with less aperture, but finer definition, describes it as “a most magnificent, excessively compressed cluster of a globular character. Stars 11—15 mag. Diam. in R.A.=10 see. of time: the more condensed part projected on [seen through ?] a loose irregular ground of stars. ‘The condensation is pro- gressive up to the centre, where the stars run together into a blaze, or like a snowball; the scattered stars occupy nearly the whoie field. The neighbourhood is poor in stars.” He has also given a beautiful figure, well exhibiting the general oo especially as to the varying sizes of the stars. With my 94 inch speculum I found it a very bright and beau- tiful object, the central body of minute stars being barely resolved, while many larger ones are scattered irregularly around and across, or throughout, the elittermg accumula- tion. I noticed, however, some features which do not appear either in the description or drawing of H. The brightest part of the condensed mass lies decidedly n p its general centre of 460 Clusters and Nebule. figure; the largest star in that portion is s f the centre; and n of the blaze, and beyond a comparatively vacant interval, there is a curved line formed by several of the brighter stars, pointing a ttle inwards at its p extremity, as though it were a portion of a large spiral. These are indeed minutie. But such minutiz not merely form the distinctive character of the object, but may be important in process of time as tests of the stability of a system, of whose real nature we know much less than we infer. It may be to this string of stars that the i. of Rosse alludes, in including the cluster among those in the exterior stars of which “‘ there appears to be a tendency to. an arrangement in curved branches, which cannot well be un- real or accidental.” Supposing the impression to be as accurate as it is strong, the brighter stars, of which there are many scat- tered in a surrounding low-power field, are not accidentally pro- jected in front of and around the mass, but form a constituent part of it; and if so, we have evidence of the combination of widely different magnitudes in one system, more distinct than even in the case of M 38, described in our last number. With a power of 450, which for such an object overpresses the hght of 9¢ in. of silver-on-glass, it 1s but a turbid speck. But words cannot express the magnificence of the spectacle could we be transported to the corresponding, or a still less distance, till that ‘‘ stellar swarm’? was expanded into a glittering mass of hundreds of suns of various sizes, occupying a widely ex- tended region of the sky. Such an object would surely force from the least attentive the exclamation which may well be drawn out even by the feeble approximation to such a sight m a competent telescope, “ Great and marvellous are Thy works, O Lord God Almighty ! ” The boundaries of Libra and Serpens are strangely tortuous and intermixed in this region ; in fact this cluster never should have belonged to the former, and has been boldly thrown out of it by Argelander in his Uranometria. It may be worthy of * notice that 5 Serpentis, the guide-star to the cluster, is marked by him as of 5 mag., while he gives only 6 mag. to 10 Serpentis, a star intervening with a southward bearing between it and ¢, but the two appear to me, with a beautiful field-glass, of the same brightness, as they are also marked in the 8. D. U. K. map. ‘The remark acquires value from Argelander’s. high reputation for accuracy ; and the stars may deserve watching. By way of an instructive comparison with this and similar objects in respect of the varying sizes of the stellar compo- nents received—we will add Sir John Herschel’s account of a glorious cluster in the §. hemisphere. We have another motive m doing this—that of gratifying the laudable anxiety of some of a point deserving of more consideration than it has. Clusters and Nebule. | 461 our colonial friends to become better acquainted with the wonders of their peculiar sky. Our readers at home will readily forgive an occasional addition of this kind to our previous plan, both as respects clusters and nebula, and double stars, especially as it is from description alone that the majority of them can ever acquire any idea of the riches of a part of the heavens which never rises in these latitudes ; and to those once familiarized by personal observation with a class of objects, the verbal account of others of a similar character is neither uninstructive nor uninteresting. ‘These southern additions will be indicated by Roman instead of Arabic numerals in our lists. We begin, then, with (i.) The Great Globular Cluster, w Centauri. Gen. Cat. d03l. R.A. xi. h. 18m. D.S. 46° 35’. Of this H. says, that it is beyond all comparison the richest and largest object of the kind in the heavens. Its diameter (in his 184 inch mirror) is full 20’, or 2 that of the moon: the stars are literally in- numerable, and there must be thousands of them, for it is very conspicuous to the naked eye as a dim cometic-looking star of 42 to 5 mag.; butas the total area is very considerable {not less than a quarter of a square degree), the same quantity of light concentred in a single point would very probably exceed that of a 3 mag. star. The whole mass, which is by gentlest degrees much brighter in the middle, is clearly resolved into stars; these, on a genera] view, appeared sin- gularly equal, and distributed with the most exact equality, the condensation being that of a sphere equally filled. On more attentive looking, however, he perceived that there were two sizes among them, 12 and 13 mag., without greater or less, and that the larger stars formed rings like lace-work over the mass. One of these rings, 14’ in diameter, was so marked as to give the appearance of comparative darkness in the centre, dike an oval hole divided into a double opening by a bridge of stars. ‘‘ Altogether,’ as H. concludes his description, “this object is truly astonishing ;” and his figure well cor- responds with these words. It is to be regretted that from its position, though it is above the horizon of Spain, Italy, or Greece, it does not attain a meridian altitude of 10° till we reach the latitude of Damascus. Beyond this limit, however, or, perhaps, even before it is attained, in thosepellucid skies, it must begin to exhibit its marvellous aspect. An attempt at allmeation on the part of one who has never seen the objects may not unfitly excite a smile, but we will attempt to mark its place by saying that it lies a trifle s of a line from a through € Lwpi, two very solitary and it may be presumed conspicuous 3 mag. stars nearly on the same parallel, and at about half their distance from the latter. 462 Clusters and Nebule. From a great many occasional inspections of this superb cluster, H. inclined to attribute the appearance of two sizes of stars to “ little groups and knots of the smaller size lying so nearly in the same visual line as to run together by the aber- rations of the eye and telescope: this explanation of an ap- pearance often noticed in the descriptions of such clusters is~ corroborated in the present instance by the distribution of these apparently larger stars in rings or mesh-like patterns, chiefly about the centre, where the stars are most crowded.” This ingenious supposition does not, however, quite account for the equality in size of the larger stars, which, as necessarily composed of groups varying in number, would, it might be expected, show more variety in brightness also. But how- ever correct 1t may be in this or other instances, it is evidently not applicable to cases such as we have recently described, M 3, and especially M 5, in which the larger stars occur as frequently among the stragglers, where such coincidences must of necessity be far less common. Computation, or even graphical projection, would show what, on the hypothesis of visual coincidence, ought to be the ratio of increase in such combinations as we approach the centre of the mass: the pre- liminary assumption of symmetry, whether in equidistant arrangement or progressive condensation, would, of course, be seldom fulfilled; but the effect of irregularities would be limited, and might be allowed for within certain bounds of pro- bability. And by working steadily on in this direction we might approximate more nearly to a true idea of the internal structure. To those possessed of adequate imstruments—to which must be added, a knowledge of the effects of perspectrve—the investigation of the mode of combination and distribution in these grand and mysterious aggregations may be pointed out as an interesting pursuit. We seem already to be upon the trace of some general laws. H. has taught us to look for larger and ruddier stars in a central position ; the Harl of Rosse has pointed out a tendency to curvature in the outlying branches, and the occasional presence of dark rifts or “ lanes ;” and 1b may fairly be expected that persevering examination, careful drawing, and systematic comparison of the principal clusters, may lead to the detection of other peculiarities, of some sig- nificance it may be, at least, to astronomers as yet unborn. _ However advanced we may deem ourselves—as we unques- tionably are—in some, and those very important respects, in others we must even now be satisfied with laying foundations. The “adhue plus ultra est” of Kepler will never be out of date. As it has been given to us to raise a noble superstruc- ture on the labours of earlier workers, so we must be content to do in turn the same preliminary office for future generalizers Clusters and Nebule. 463 of collected facts. And where movement is imperceptibly tardy, observation can but wait upon it with corresponding _ patience. In these matters we have reason to believe, though not to be absolutely confident, that motion is all but imper- ceptible; but we must recollect what has happened to the primitive belief as to the immobility of the so-called Fixed Stars. Change of place in the collective body, which has already been suspected by great observers, and which would be in harmony with the “ proper motions” of unnumbered solitary or binary stars, could only be dealt with in the majority of cases by appropriate methods of measurement; the graduated instruments of observatories would, of course, be always applicable, but perhaps seldom necessary, if Alvan Clark’s ingenious, beautiful, and far less costly micrometer for measuring large distances (Monthly Notices, xix. 324) were brought into use. The range of this apparatus being about a degree, the cases would not be many in which a cluster could not be compared, both in position and distance, with several surrounding stars; and though such comparisons would be singly of little weight, their precariousness would disappear under a multitude of repetitions, while the employment, where practicable, of several stars in different bearings, would detect any material error arising from proper motion amongst them. But besides this, each cluster possessing sufficiently salient points should be watched for a much more interesting phe- nomenon—internal change. This is so far less probable than spatial movement, as it is unsupported by any other except the most general analogy; but what, of such things, ought to be pronounced impossible? Some great authorities would not so pronounce it. And some clusters are well enough marked to show it, by the distinctness and individuality, or marked arrangement of their brighter components. Another noticeable feature in stellar clusters would be difference of colour in different parts. Such a variation is not without an analogy, which, however slight and distant, should no more be neglected in an investigation where we have so little to aid us, than some faint foot-print would be disregarded by the traveller in a pathless desert. Notwithstanding what may at first appear the fortuitous dispersion of colour among insulated stars, I have been led to notice so striking a pre- valence of an uniform tint in some regions, as to believe that a general and careful review of the whole heavens, with regard to this point, would be desirable. Not only would this be interesting in regard to possible change, but it might lead to some result as to the mode of distribution; and I have been gratified by observing that the idea is corroborated by the spectrometric researches of Secchi, who has detected a preva- 464 Clusters and Nebule. lence of green light among the stars of Orion. But what- ever may become of this attempt at analogy—if such it may be termed—the remark of H., already referred to, as to the frequent occurrence of a ruddy star in the midst of a group or cluster, will be full of additional significance when we com- pare his account of another ornament of the southern skies, to be inserted here :— 4k (i.) The Great Cluster 47 Toucant. Gen. Cat. 52. R.A. Oh. 18m. D.S. 72° 52’; immediately » the n part of the Nubecula Minor. This, according to H., is “a most glorious globular cluster—a stupendous object,’’? the last outliers of which ex- tend 2m. 16s. in R.A. from the centre. The stars are nearly equal, 12 to 14 mag.; immensely numerous, and compressed in three distinct stages—being first very gradually, next pretty suddenly, and finally very suddenly very much brighter up to a central blaze, 13°5s. 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