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mA ^..^iiomkul ^z

Of CANADA,

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Of,

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KNOWLEDGE

AOL. T T I .

AN ILLUSTRATED

MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE

PLAINLY WORDED -EXACTLY DESGRIBED

CONDUCTED BY EICHARD A. PROCTOR.

' Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Tennyson.

VOLUME III.
JANUARY TO JUNE, 1883.

LONDON:
WYMAN k SONS, 7 4-7C, GREAT QUEEN STREET,

LINCOLN'S-INN FIELDS, W.C.

1883.

-^

I

INDEX TO VOLUME III.

GENERAL.
Abet., Professor, and the raanufactare of dynamitp,

183
Abuse of Evolution, 1<M

Academr, the, and the Knowlrdgb Library Series, 79
Accumuliiitora, or secondary batteries, 2W
Acoustic experiment, *.M>
Ady, John Em-st, the great international fisheries

exhibition. 319, 337; natural history department

(illustrated), 351, 3^
Ace of the Missouri, 3:i7
Allen, Grant, a naturalist*!) year, winter heliotrope,

20; porse bloasoms, 40; the peewit cries, 61;

willow catkins, 112; snow-drop and snow-flake, 113;

char jump, 175; the ptarmigan, 2'>3; the marsh

toari^old, 2U ; a peolo^cal excursion 2o9 ; two

little creeniah flowers, Z76 ; the blackcap sings,

303; among the grasses, 336; concerning bats,

3«7
Amateur electrician, the, electrical measurement

(illustrated), 70, 102, 206.238 ; the batteries, 323
America and protective tariffs, 215
Ancient bird traek^t. 3

Annual summary of the Registrar-GenenU, 329
Anonvmuncule, oae of the word by Charles Reade,

Answers to correspondents. 79

Antique water conduit at Posilippo, 33

Aqueduct of Betilienus at AllHri, 31

Archa?oloi,'ical discoveries in Mexico, 120

Archer Fish, the (illustra(od), 230

Artistic and Literary Correspondence Society, 313

Astronomv, some books on (review), 5*i

Aurora, electrical nature of. 96; periods of the, 207

Australia, flying foxes in, 279

Australian ajits, 373

Australian artesian welU, 96

Austrian Government sanitary conocil and life-saving

. 109

Automatic clock at the Stock Exchange, 174

BiBTXOSiA and Assyria, libraries of, 131, 3u7

Baldness, 3r9

Ballet-dancers and the electric li^ht, Gi

Balloons as prerentive of collisions at sea during
fog, 230

Belladonna, optical effects o', 63

Bell, Sir Francis D., on the vitalitv of the people of
New Zealand, 18

Bell Telephone, an improved, 213

Belt case, the, 3

Bessemer Eteel, statistics of, 112

BSt«, remarks on the gender of, 392

Birds, hovering of, 96 ; in cold weather, 131

Birmingham, new railwav station at, 174

Birth and growth of myth, 19, 51, 83, 129, 159, 2^1,
273, 320, 352. 3^7

Bishop, Mr. Irring, and thought-reading wagers, 377

Bishop Wtlberforce and his nickname, 13

Blasphemous libel, the law of, 156

Bodies, our, muscles, 8 ; life and work, 39 ; skull and
spine (illustrated), 67; the trunk and the limbs,
115; the processes and functions of the body, 144;
how the Dody'a duties are performed, 178; ab-
sorption and blood repair, 2<H ; the blood, 230-
the circulation of the blood, 2tX); the income ana
expenditure of the body, 3u6

Bog, a moving, %•)

Bombay hunt, the, and the Egrptian war, 2

Borelly, M., discovery of a minor planet by, 298

Bread and honev, 135

Brightness, laws of, 30t. 321, 310, 372

at, 173

Briiith Workman, the. on temperance. 362

Browning, John, noM-ltiea in tricycle«, 71; bicycles
and tricylea for 1883, 9^, 130, 176 ; two-speed
gearings, 205; how to use our eyes, 111,149; com-
plementary colours, 161, (illustrated) 193, 261 ; on
a tov tricvcle, 291; social tricycles, S6S

Brfinn, the model theatre at. 2:30

Brush dynamo-electric maclune (illustrated), 295

Butterfly in winter, IS, 150

Buying power of gold, 283

Calipoesia tree, a, 2

Cambridge and Oxford boat-race, the, 173

Canon Farrar and astrology, 18

Carte, Mr. D'Oyley, and easy egress to theatres, 18

Cattle, imports of, 142

Central telegraph ofBce, the, 220

Chalk-boring at Boutbampton. 80

Chemistry of cookery, the, 33; the boiling of water,

65; cooking und'er water, 97, 128. 153, 191,218,

246, 274, 30.^, (illustrated) 3M, 370
Chess, regarded as a home game, 363; remarks on the

international toiiniament, 363
Chess Column : — game played in Sussex championship

tournament, 1883, 94 ; game played between

Messrs. Hoon and Tarrant, 124; what constitutes

a stron^j player, 139 ; chess players usually

distinguished for general mental ability, 186;

Oxford f. Cambridge, 186; endgame from actual

play, 200 ; Edgar Allan Poa on chess players, 2^8 ;

the international chess tournament, 212, 2'yi, */71,

281, 301, 317, 33;J, 319, 365. 3-»2, 397 ; the

Viryanagram tournament, 365; au international

tournament in Germanv, 397 ; see also 16, 39, 46,

61, 78, 103. 15^*, 171,213
Chinese cabinet ministers and the comet, 31
Church of England Guild of St. Matthew, and

blasphemous libel, 187
" Clerk" or "dark," 95
Clocks and watches (review), 16 1
Clodd, Edward, the birth and growth of mvth, 19, 51,

83. 131, 159, 234, 273. 320, 352, 387
Coal output in Ohio, 47; coal-loading andthe electric

light, 155
Colliers, geology among the, 323
Collisions at sea during fog, 103; collisions and the

Society of Arts, 230
Comet, the great, of 1S^2 (illustrated), 1*47, 165, 195;

as observed in Tasmania, 2U
Cometic collision with the sun. Professor Young on a,

79
Comets, tails of, 72, (illustrated) 100; Mr A. Davis

on the formation of the tail, 239; see also 292
Comma, improper uses of the, 376
Commercial products of the sea (review), 361
Continental floods, effects of, 33
Cookery, the chemistry of, 33 ; the boiling of wate.',

65; cooking under water, 97, 12^, 158, 191, 218,

246, 274, 3)8, (illustrated) 311, 370
Corpulence, 73, S7. 118
Corseted women, health of, 69
Cost of telegrams, 183
Cremation. 311

Crystal Pala«je district gas company, 1 13
Crystal Palace electric and gas exhibition, 8t,

(illustrated) 196; final notice, 2^4
DABwixanJ a future state of existence, 17; his theory

of ancestral derivation, 03
Death at theplav, 297
Death of worlds," 263
Deep-sea fish, a new (illustrated), 250
Depopulation of the llighlands, 31
Diokens, Charles, and compositors' punctuation, 376
Discoveries at Tel-el- .\Iaskhuta, 145
Dirided skirt, the, 362
Dolphin at the Untjhton Aquarium, 360
Dream of infinity, 262
Dynamite, account of, 173

Eahthslip near Fort de I'Ecluse, near Genera, 43
Earth, sun-views of the (illustrated), 25, 55, 117, 1S3,

2:J7, 310, 375, 393
Earth, the past of the (review), 344
Edison incandescent lamp, the, 95
Edison lamps in America and Europe, 113
Edison svstem in Paris, 216
Editorial gossip, remarks on, 29^
Education, Professor Iluxlev on, 125
Edwards, Amelia B., was Ra neses II. the Pharaoh of

the oppression? Tel el-Ma'^khuta v. the Raamses

of the Bible, 21 (conclusion), 36; discoveries at

Tel-el-Maskhuta, 113
Edwards, Miss, and the Pharioh of the oppression, 17
Edwin Drood, iienounneni of, 32
Egyptian eiploratiou committee and Mifs A. B.

Edwards, 141
Electric illumination (review), 71
Electrician, the amateur, electrical measurement

(iUnstrated), 70, 102, 206, 239 ; the batteries, 323
Electric light companies. 35 ; the effect of the light on

plants, 110 ; the electric light (renew), 378
Electrical experiments, 197 ; the electrical light in

surgical diagnosis (illustrated), 281
Elementary teachers, blunders of, 203
Elements of weather-knowledge (review), 165
Elliott, G. W., the Warner observatory (illustrated),

232
Elm colliery, Flintshire, discovery of a spring of

mineral oil at. 6t
Elm-leaf beetle, hibernation of the, 110

Elphinstone and Vincent dynamo-machine, ©rperirae'ila
with the, 197

Energy, 193

Engineering and metal trades* exhibition, the, 142

Engineering geology (review), 311

English sea-nide health resorts, laud and sea-winds,
217

Etchings of Mr. Whistler, 208

Etna, 142

European mineral waters (review), 313

Evolution, abuse or, livt; evolution of life (review),
119

Eyes (il'ustrated), how to use them. 111, 149 ; comple-
mentary colours 161, (illustrated) 193, 261

FaCB of the sky, Jan. 5 to Jan. 19, 11; Jan. 19 to
Feb. 2, 42; Feb. 2 to Feb. 16, 75; Feb. 16 to
March 2, IOj ; March 2 to March 16, 131 ; March

16 to March 3), 160 ; March 30 to April 13, 197 ;
Aprill3 toApril27, 236; April 27 to May 11, 252;
May 11 to May 3i. 282; May 25 to June 8, 3 2;
June 8 to June 22. 3t6 : June 22 to July 6, 379

Faith, science as an aid to (review), 3oO

Fellowship of learned 8ocietie<8, 43

Ferns, where to find them (review) , 311

Finns, the savage state of, 155

First cousin marriages, 357

Fish, a queer, 1 10 ; a new deep-eea species (illustrated),

250
Fisheries exhibition, the great international, 319;

introductory, 337 ; natural history department

(illustrated), 354, 3'^9
Flying foxes in Australia, 279
Forettry, the Journal of, 2 44
Foreets, wa^te of, 119
Foster, Thomas, a theory of Mercury, 12, 3S; and

home music, 157
Fotherunll. Percival A., F.R.A.3., cremation, 341
Founding a town in one night, 61
Freeman, E. A., LL.D., "clerk" or "dark." 85
Freethinker prosecution, remarks on the, 156
Frost, its effects on stone, 1
Frostless winter, cost of a, 1 13
Galaxy, star-clouds in our, 351
Gastroscope, view of application of the (illustrated),

2S1
General Assembly Hall, Edinburgh, and its new

lightning conductor, 229
Geological excursion, a, 259
Geologv of the Isle of Man (illustrated). 277; a field

geology (renew), 311 ; a-noag the colliers, 323
Gigantic birds of a remote geolo^^ical period, 2
Glasgow Herald, the, and Mr. Proctor, 376
Gold in Victoria, 80 ; the buying power of, 293
Goschen, George J., the bnving power of L'old, 283
Great Britain, sun-views of"{illustrated), 3 »0
Great comet, the. of 1893, 127, (illustrated) 147, 160,

(illustrated) 195
Great international fisheries exhibition, the, 319;

(introductoryt , ;137 ; natural history department

(illustrated), 351, 339
Great Pyramid, rerie'-v of Mr. Proctor's work on.

17 ; was the principal pyramid designed for a
tomb? 392

Great sun spots, 54

Great telescope, a, 356

Greek, the study of, 34i

Grensted, Fred. F., comets' taiU, 73

Guidance for youth (reriew), 3U

Hampden, Mr., and his theory of the earth's flatness,

95, 151, (illustrated) 181 ; his denunciatory

articles, 18^ ; his treatment in Ksowlbdob, 201
Harding, Martin J., butterflies in winter, 150
Harrison, W. Jerome, F.G.S., the geology of the Isle

of Man (illustrated), 277
Hariland, Alfred, M.Ii.C.S., English seaside health

resorts, land and sea wind*, 217
Hawthorne, Mr. Julian, 32
Health of corseted women, 69
Health resorts, English seaside, land and aea winds,

247
Heavenly bodies, the (review). 361
Herbert Spencer in America, 97
Highlands, depopulation of, 31
Hogs, how they destroy pine forests, 47
Holborn Viaduct, the lighting of, 95
Holme^", Prof. "Wendefl, on his eiporiences as ao

author, 47
Home music, 157
Honey and bread, 13j

House of Commons and the electric li^ht, 215
Hovering of birds, 96

KNOWLEDGE .

General— <ro n/Jnii«(l.
llow to ufo oureros (iUuatrat«d), 111, 119; Romp1<

mcntary colouM. Ktl. (iltustrntodj 193,201
HiimanitT and natural hUtorv, 5
HunBarinn stAtc rnilvrajs, 325
lluxloy, Profo^or, on education, 125
llydrogon, nuvins for separation of, from a mixture (

TuPBRssiONH of AmcrJeft, bv Mr. Herbert Spencer, 1
Inliniry. a dream of. 2«2
Ink, formula for a ^ood and cheap kind, 2-U
International che^s (oumament, observntioi
Iron, effect of, on the surface of the earth in (
with clcctricitv, 174

11. Mr. Matthew Arnold c
chomistrj coli

31.'i

Iftoiah of Jeruiialc

Jaoo, William. F.C.3.,
Bait). 353. 385

Jar Gould. Mr., and Xe

Jefferies Ki hartl, h'lma

Jupiter, the red spot on. 2i>;t

Kbw QardenA, earlier opening of, lf>9

Kiiiff, Mrs., on the divided skirt, 302

KifowLGnnB, sonnet on, 2

Land iunction proposed betweea Great Britain nn.l
Ireland, 392

Lantern readings (review) . 373

Laws of brinhtness, 3'11, 32 1, 311, 372

Learning languages, 6G; the Hamiltonian system, S)i*,
146. 17(;

Lecture experience, 31

Lecture notes, 25, 49

Lectures and the London papers, 217 ; neglect of, bv the
London press. 229

Lectures at Brighton by Mr. Richard A. Proctor, 17:i

LeicesttT, enthusiastic reception of Mr. Proctor at, IS

Leopold Shakespeare, the (review), 209

Leasepa, M. de, and the Sjihara sea-scheme, 21 »

LevelHog action of mountains, 79

Lewis, Dr. D., health of corseted women. fi9

Libraries of Babylonia and Assvria, 131, 3j7

Library of English literature. 209

Life, evolution of (review), 119

Life-saving vn railways, 10;*

Light (review), 10

Light given by a gas-flame, amount of, 171

Lighting: the sides of steamships, 9S

Lightning, curious effect of, 69

Limits of telescopes. 376

Liquids, on the spheroidal condition of. 257

Lockyer, Mr. Norman, and Kvowledgb, 229

Lopcal puzzle, a, 7, 26, 132, 198

Loisettian school of memory, 156

London frgs, composition of, 1

Loss bv worn silver, 216

Love dances of a king lory, 96

Luck in chess, 313

Luminous paint, directions for mnking, 2

Lunar craters, imitations of the forms of, 110

Lunar lessons. 335

Magkbtism, Professor Hughes on, 339

Marriage and the colour of women's hair, 33i)

Marriages of first cousins, 357

Mathematical Column :— notes on Euclid. 15. 28, -15 :
how to determine the attraction of a spherical shell
on an eitemtl particle, 60 ; a pretty problem, 76 ;
compound proportion, 93, 107; cfouble rule of
three, 93 ; easy lessons in the ditferential calculus,
169. 241; a mathematical letter, 133; absorption
of light by air, 213 : geometrical problems, intro-
duction, 332 ; construction, 31S ; analysis and
synthesis, 3Sl, (illustrated) 331, 3J7; see also 270,
301, 316

M«y frosts and the moon, 296

Messier (crater in the moon), 294

Meteor, a strange. 64

Meteorolo;,ncal otlice. the weather forecasts of the, 3m0

Microbe of hen-cholera, 110

Microphone, ingenious experiment with the, 174

Microphonic action under the microscope. 230

Microscope, plea«.ant hours with the, disease gertn'^.
7, 34, 82, 114, 163, 19J, 219, 245, 238, (illustrated*
322, 358, 383

Middlesbrough, the electric light in. 31

Mineral oil spring, discoverv of, in Flintshire, 61

Mineral waters (review), 345

Mines, respiration in, 216

Misletoe, spelling of, 18. 32, 59

Missouri, age of the, 327

Monkey, intelligence of a, 109

Monotremes, remarks on. 64

Mont Credo, slipping of the sides of, 79

Moon, the, has it an atmosphere? 10 ; the moon and
May frosts. 29i; as seen through a three-inch
telescope (illustrated), 222, 265, 291, 326, 390

Moving bog, a, 80

Moving dune, a. 126

Moving sand-hill, a. 63

Music for the homo, 157

Myth, the birlh and growth of, 19, 51, 83, 129, 159,
234, 273, 320, 352, 33"

Nat, the naturalist (revicv), 10

National street railway association in America, 30

Natural laws. 18f>

Natural philojophy, treatise bv Sir W. Thomson and
Professor Tail. 2 U

Naturalist, year of a. winter heliotrope, 20; gorse
blossoms, 49 ; the peewit cries, 81 ; snow-drop and
snow-flake, 143 ; t-har-jnmp. 175 ; the ptarmigan,
203; the marsh ni'trigold. 231; a geological ex-
cursion, 259; two little greenish flowers, 276 ; the

blaokoup 8iD((8, 303; among the gnuei, 33d;

conoetmng bats, 367
Natural, the, in the spiritual (review). 312
New xhip canal between the Baltic and the North Sea,

6!»

New skirt, the. 102, 220

Newspaper cuttings, fmbscribing for, 313

Newspaper science, 2jI

New York morality and Mr. Jay Qoutd, Oi

Nights with a three-inch tele«cope (illuHtrated), 39;
the moon in a, 222, 265, 294. 326, 390

Nitro-glTcerine, its discovery, 173

-Vobel, Alfred, and the origin of dynamite, 173

Noble, William. Saturn's ringfl, 118

Novelist, the value of the, 2

Oil, discovery of, in Flintshire, Qi

Oldest tree in the worid, the, 31

On a toy tricycle, 290

Optical effects of belladonna, 68

Optical experiment, an, 73

Organic chemistry (review), 315

Our bodies, muscles. 8 ; life and work. 39 ; skull and
spine (illustrated), 67; the tnink and limbs, 115;
the processes and functions of the body, 141; how
the body's duties are performed, 178; absorption
a d blood repair, 204; the blood, 236; circulation
of the blood, 260; the income and expeuditure
of the body, 306

Our chemistry column, sea salt, 353; the halogen^,
3S5

Our food supply, dependen-^e on foreign sources, 142

Oxv-hydrogen lantern, the use of, forbidden in tin
Brighton Pavilion, 376

Palmtbri, Professor, and new process for silvering
glass, 230

Paper-pulp rails as a substitute for steel, 188

Paper railway wheel*', 95

Paradise fish; the (illustrated), 291

Paradox comer :— A theory of Mercury, 12,28; is it
possible to grow giants? 58; the solar system all
equally illuminated by the sun, 92; flat earth c.
globe, 154, (illustrated) 184, 19S, 211

Paradoiers. strange wavs of, 201

Paradoxical philosophy (review), 313

ParafEne in basaltic rock, 216

Parasites in the human body, 156

Past, the, of our earth (review), 344

Peace-offering, a, 189

Penny readings, poems for (review), 343

Periods of the aurora, 207

Personal, 2S7

Petroleum in the Argentine Republic, 230

Phosphorus bronze a^ a conductor of electricity, 63

Photographing the solar corona, 4

Phrlloiera, a remedy for, 31

Physical optics (review), 10

" Pickwick " in phonographic shorthand, 244

Plants, effects of electric light on. 110

Pleasant hours with the microscope, disease gerni^,
7. 34, 82, 114, lt53, 190, 219, 245, 283, (illastrate.l)
323. 353, 333

Pneumatic tubes at Philadelphia, 80

Poems for penny readings (review), 345

Popular astronomy (review), 225

Practical geometry (review), 266

Prayer and weather, 177

Prayers, profanity of some, 125

Preece, Mr. "W. H., on electrical exhibitions, 1

Prevost, Dr.. bread and honey, 135

Pritchard, the Kev. Charles," and the study of Greek,
344

Proctor. Bichard A., the Belt case, 3 ; a logical puzzle.
7, 132 ; notes on Euclid. 15, 45 ; sun-views of the
earth {illustratedj. 24, 55, 117, 181, 237, 310, 375;
lecture notes, 25, 41; stays and strength, 50, 85;
some books on astronomy, 56 ; Sydney and Sunday
lecturing, 57 ; learning languages, 66; the Hamil-
tonian system, 99, 146, 176 ; study of logic, 71 ; the
vast and the minute (review). 83 ; double rule of
three, 93; collision at sea during fog, 103; the
abuse of evolution, ln4; clocks and watches
(review), 161; easy lessons in the differential
calculus, 169, 241 ; prayer and weather, 177;
natural laws, a peace-offering, 1S9 ; sun-worship,
204; absorption of light by air. 213 ; lectures and
the London papers, 217 ; popular astronomy, 225 ;
social dynamite, 244; study and stimulant (review),
252; the death of worlds. 263 ; personal. 287; the
laws of brightness. 305, 324. 3W, 372 ; geometrical
problems, introduction, 332; construction, 343;
analysis and synthesis, 364, 381 . 397 ; lunar lessons,
335; the post of our earth (review), 344; star-
clouds in our galaxy, 351 : science as an aid to
faith (renew) , 3G0 : the origin of whales, 369; Mr.
Proctor and the provincial press, 377 ; the recent
solar clipse, 334

Professor Hughes on magnetism. 330

Protective inoculation of animals, 32

Puddling furnaces in the United Kingdom in 1832, 230

Purifying air for breathing, 216

Qfbbb fisih, a, 110

Quincey, De, a dream of infinity, after Richter, 262

Railways in the United States, 32; railway invest-
ments in the United Kingdom, 48; extension of
railways in America, 64 ; their construction in the
United States. 174

Riiinbow visible after sunset, 298

Rameses II., was he the Pharaoh of the oppression ?
Tel-el- Maskhuta e. the Raamses of the Bible, 21 ;
conclusion, 36

Bonyard, A. C, on the fornution of comets' tuU

(illustrated), 100, 21)2
Rational dross, 329
Iteccnt solar eclipse, the, 38*
Bed spot on Jupiter, 293
Religion and men of s*-ience, 187
Respiration in mines, 210
R'-viewing, remarks on, 313
Rimington, E.C., secondary batteries or accamulators,

2-tS: energy, 192
Rings of Saturn, 113

Romanes, Dr., and Professor Asa Gray, 109
Royal Aquarium electric exhibition, the. 146; the

Royal Aquarium Company and electrical exhibi-
tors, 173
Russia, electric lighting in, 150
Salmox, Dr. D. J£,, on the microbe of hen cholera,

110
Salt, the history of (review), 226
Samoyedes, the, 155
Sand-^lunes, 179
Saturn, rings of. 118
Savage, the Kev. Minot J., Herbert Spencer in

America, 97
Schalensteine, topographical charts in Switzerland, 120
Scheibler, Professor, and his patenta for sugar making,!
Science, the true position of, regarding supernatural

religion, 109; as an aid to faith (review), 3tK)
Scientifac men and religious tests, 96
8ea, coTimercial products cf the (review), 361
Sea salt, our chemistry coldmn, 353
rtea-9 rpent, reference to tbe, 110
Secondary batreries or aci^nmulators, 213
Shilling, purcha-ing power of the, 188
Ship canal betweeu D.iMin and Galway, 73
Stiipwrecks, statistics uf. 05
Siamese monkey, behaviour of a, 109

Silv.

. 2:J0

Simon, Dr. Collins, a strange theory of, 213

Simoom and dust storms, 215

Skirt, the new, 162, 220

SsY, face of the, Jan. 5 to Jan. 19, 11; Jan. 1ft to
Feb. 2, 42; Feb. 2 to Feb. 16. 75; Feb. 16 to
March 2, 105 ; March 2 to March 16, 13i ; March
ItJ to March 3 >, 166 ; March 30 to April 13, 197 ;
April 13 to April 23, 226 ; April 27 to May 1 1 . 252 ;
M iy 11 to May 25, 232 ; Mav 25 to Juiie 8. 312 ;
June 8 to June 22, 346 ; June' 23 to July 6. 379

Slack, Henry J., F.G.3., pleasant hours with the
microscope, disease germs, 7, 34, 82, 114, 163, 19t>,
219, ?45, 238, (illustrated) 322, 358. 383

Slingo, W., the central telegraph office, 220; news-
paper scienc-*, 2U ; Professor llughea on mag<
netiam, 3J9

Slipping of locomotive wheels, prevention of, 171

Snake poisons (review), 232

Social dynamite, 244

Society of Arts and collisions at sea, 230 r

Solar corona, photographing the, 4

Solar eclipse, observation at San Francisco, 377 ; the

Sparling, Mr. Henry, sonnet on Kxowlkdgb by, 2

Spencer, Mr. Herbert, impression'* of America, 4l

Spheroidal condition of liquid-'. 257

Spirit of turpentine from sawdust, SO

Spiritual, the natural in the (review), 313

Squirrel problem, tbe, 141

Standard wire gauge and the Wolverhampton Cbamber

of Commerce, S\)
Star -clouds in our galaxy, 351
Statistics, the trne use of, 18
Stays and statues, 23; in relation to strength 50, S^ ;

in reference to Mr. Richard A. Proctor, 313
Steel ships, tonnage of those built in 1332, 155
St. Gothard Railway and the Italian tiade, 80; St.

Gothard Tunneland France. 174
Stinging tree, a. 126
Stokes, Dr., of Cambridge, 63
Storm, prediction of a, 141

still J

203

Stroh, Mr., and microphonic action. 233

Study and stimulant (review), 252

Sugar, new patents for making, 1

Sulphate of copper as a disinfectant, 47

Suez Canal, the, 93

Sunday Society, the, 163

Sun-god, the. and the ancient Egvptian reli,non. 1 11

Sun-views of the earth (illustrated), 24, 55, 117, HO,
237, 310, 375. 390

Sun-worship, 204

Suppression of blasphemous literature, the proposed,
156

Swan United ElectricLight Company and the Russian
Government, 112

Switzerland, topographical stones in, 123

Sydney and Sunday lecturing, 57

Svmon, Dr. Collins, orthography of the name of, 293

Tab, how to remove it from the hands. 64

Telegraph wire struck by lightning, 230

Tcl-el-Maskhuta discoveries at, 14-5

Telephone for railway purposes. 32 ; in connect ion with
metropolitan fires, 47 ; accident with a. at Svdnev,
New aouth "Wales, 96; anew kindof (iilustfated),
113

Telescopes, the limits of, 376

Terrible storm, prediction of, 43

Thames Embankment, the, ISl

Theatres, easy egress to, 13

Thomson, Sir N., experiments of, with sunlight, moon-
light, and candlelight, 47

• KNOWLEDGE ♦

Geoer&l — continued,
Thoucht-readii]!;. J, H

Timet, the, and the Kstional Drosa Eihibition, 310
Told Jtory, », 128
TomlinsoD, Chmrlos, F.R.S., on the spheroidal condition

of liqtiids, 267
Tornado, force of one illuatrated, 2
Toy tricjxie, on a, 2»0
Tree-planting bv railway companies, 4.9
TricTclea, novelties in, 71 ; tricvt-'les and bicTcles for

18^, (M, 1*), 176; with two-speed gearing', 205 ; of

lhe"S<H-i«We" trpe, 3«i
Triple-hulled steamer, a. 243

Tncchini, Professor, photofjraphic apparatus for, 21,1
Tylor and views on a future state, 17
Trndall on sound (review), 297
ViSiTT K»iB and Mr. Kichard .K. Proitor, Ml
Vapoun* from metals, IMi
Vast, the, and the minute (review), 88
Venu', alletred transit through the sun, 1
Vesuvius, photographing the spectra of eruptive flames

from, 2 13
Victoria Institute, founding of the, 01
W\L.siKOHAM, Lord, on pigeon shooting, H3
Warner observatory, Roohejter, N.Y. (illustrate^i) ,

23j
Waste of the world's forests, 119
Watches and clocks (review), 16i
Water, the lolour of, 110
Water-mains for supplving London, 1
Weather-knowledge, elements of (review), ICI
Weather prophecies and the rime*, 52; foreca t^and

the Sle'eorological (l.lice, 3-8
Webb, T, W., optical effects of belladonna, 68
WeUand canal, the, 155
West, E. P., age of the Missouri, 3.7
Whales, the origin of, 319
Where to Snd Ferns (review), 311
Whist column : throwing away winning card of

partner's suit, 15, 29 ; plaving to the score, l.'i ;

conduct of the hand, b"2 ; learning whist, 93 :

exposing a card, 93; how the skill of a whist

player is shown, 139; trump-plaving, 153, 170, 18.5.

227 ; the echo of a signal, 255 ; do you play whist ?

270; see also, 77, 107, 12)
■Whistler, Mr., etch-ngs of, i:3, (illustrated) 0)
Wiggins as a weather prophet, 215
Williams, W. Matlieu, the chemistry of cookery, 3.1 ;

the boiling of water, 65; cooking under water, 9",

12S, 158, 191, 218, 2t«, 27*. 30S, (illustrated) 311,

370; geology amonj the lolliers. 329; the weathe.

forecasts and the Meteorological Ollice, 386
■Wilson, C. Cams. F.G.8., sand dunes, 179
Wilson, Dr. Andrew. F.H S.E.. our bodies, muscles. S;

life and work, 39; skull and spine (illustrated),

67; the trunk and limbs, 115; the processes or

functions of the body, 1 H ; how the body's duties

are performed, 179: absorption and blood repair,

20J; the blood, 2:16 ; circulalionof the blood, 260;

the income and expenditure of the body, 306
Worlds, the death of, 2«
Ybab of a naturalist, winter heliotrope, 20; gorse

blossoms, -lO; the peewit cries. 81: willow catkins.

112; snow-drop and snow-flake, 113; char-iump.

175; theptsrmigan,203; the marsh marigold, 23 ;

a geological excursion, 259; two little greeni-b

Hewers. 276; the blackcap lings. 303; among the

grasses, 336 ; concerning bats, 367
Tonng men, a physician's sermon to (review) , 225
Young, Professor, on a cometic collision with the sim,

79 ; the great comet of 1682 (illustrated), 127, 147,

180, 195
Youth, guidance for (i

w),311

CORSESFONSEirCE.

Acoustic experiment (illustrated), 90

Ahaz, the dial of, 13, 42

Alteration in coast line. 76, 163, 299

American ttar bicycle. 212

Ancient inscribed stones (illustrated), 212

Ancients, optical knowledge of the, ]t>7

Animal instmcts. '269

Aphides, how to destroy their, 311

Atacama. desert of, 13s

Atmospheres, a theorv of, 122

Aurora Br.realis, the,')3

HEirry, an eye for, 137

Belladonna, effects of. on the eye*, 1S7

Botany, vein theorv in, 211

Bo-tree and the god of knowledge, 136

Brain troubles, 10«

Bright star near the sun, 13

Chaivcbs. problem in, 332

Children, dress of. 227

Chirping spider, 69, 76. 136

Classics and religion, 167

Clear Thames, a. 169

Coast line, alteration in, 76, 1S3. 299

Comet, the, 59, 122; the fonnation of cometa' tails

152. 166, 169, 182, 267. 395; comets' tails and the

surface of the sun. 395
Consanguineous marriages, 3S0
Corset wearing. 13 ; corsets, aW
Curious Christmas, a, U
Curious rainbow (illustrated), 90
Dark suns, 106

Dead point in tricycle cranlts. 169
Dentistry, electricity in, 13, 59

Desert of Atacama, 138

Dial of Ah»3. 13,43

Discount dodge, a, 269, 311, 391

Disinfectant, a, 101!

Divided skirt, the, 260, 315

Dress of children, 227

1 of s

isbin

, l(i8

KiBTHijuAEES iu Weatniorclsnd. 27

Kiuy multiplving, 2)3, 314, 318

Kdeiweiss, the, 9>, 106

Edison Electric Light Company, 31-1

Electricity in dentistry, 13. 59

Enemies, waxen images o , 1:16

Etymology of mibletoe, '36

Evolution of hfe, 199

Kstracting the square root, 31-4

Eye-piece, measuring the power of an, 12; elTe.-tt

belladonna on the eye, 137 ; how to use the eye?

299, 349
Fkllowsuip of learned societies, 12
Figure conjuring. 394
Flight of vertical missile, 314, 393
Floury against warv- potato*
Formation of cometa tails.
Fossil gum, 91
GmK, 263
Gold, valu

Is, 152, 166, 109, 18.', 2(i7, 3 15

of, 167, 253

and broom. 106

Pyramid, the, 90. (illustrated) 207

.loxiAX svstem. the. 210
Ueat, a few observations on, 317, 380, 301
Keating power of steam. 316
How to use the eves, 299, 318
Illusion, optical, 137
Interplanetary ether. 263
losHUA and the sun, 3:n
Knowlbdgb, the god of, and the liotree, 130

, 390

Large sun-spot, a (illustrated), 254

Learning languages. 253

Life, evolution of. 199

Logical puzzle, 43, 60. 91, 123, 299

Longevity of the dove, 27

Luminous paint. 13

-MAGic-LANrKBX tlidcs for popular lecture

Magnetic storm, 122

Measuring the power of an eye-piece, 12

Misprint, an odd, 3S0

Mistletoe. 90; etymology of, 136

Moon, vertex of, 189

Multiplication, 168. 25.1

Musical question, the, 268, 315, 391

My paradoxes, 284

.N'.iTlsE. rest of, 91

Xewnarcissns, a, 211

-New paradoxer, a, 210

New skirt, the, 227

New Zealand gum, 26. 59, 211

Oldest tree in the world, 300

Optical illusion. 137

Optical knowledge of the ancients, 167

Origin of the week, 39i

Our forefathers, 89

Pabadoieb, a new, 211

Phenomenon, a. 261

Planchette-writing, 1:16, 199

Planets, rotation of, 210

Poison in the cup, 300

PoUtoes, 211

Problem in chance, 299, 333

Public right, a. 137

Purifying gas, 152

Puzzfe, a, 91, 106, 123

Rainbakd spectroscope, 13. 26

. 298, 380, 317, 333

Rainfall of 1882, 16

Rational dress, 182

Religion and classii

Rest of nature, 91

Retrocession of the sea, 211

Rigel, 91

Rings of Saturn, 298

Rotation of planets, 210

SATrsx, rings of, 210, 254. 298

Schoolgirls' problem. 193

Science and religion, 199

Sea, retrocession of the, 211

-Sham thought-reading, 299

Ships in a calm, 26

Side-lights for steamers (illustrated), 183;

Single eye-glasses, 227, 2.)1

Single vision, 380

Singular phenomenon, 23 : a solar phenomenon, 316

i-i»alik hills, the, 314

Skirt, the divided, 269, 315

Sleet and snow, 9 1

Species, is there a change of? 398

Spelling reform, 291

Springs and streams, 4-1, 121

Square root, the extrait on of the, 314

Squirrel puzzle, the, 268

Stays. 136, 169 ; and statues, 58, 70 ; and fat, 210 • and

health. 246
Steam, the heating power of, 316
Steamers, sidelights of (illustrated), 183
Stinging trees, 76
Stored energy, 122, 253
Stretched string, vibrations of, 167
Submerged forests, lal, 299

Sim and moon in Gibeon, 254 : the snn and Joshua 331
Sundial of Ahaz, 12, 89

Sunshine, duration of, 168
Sim.views of the earth, 69
Tblbscopbs and microscopes, 121
Thamea, a clear, 168
Theory of atmospheres, a, 122
Tide and weather, 267
Transit of Venus (illustrated), 90
Tree, the oldest in the world, 30O
Tricycles, 182

Twenty-one schoolgirl puzzle, 203
Vacciwatiox, 395
Value of gold, 167, 253
Vein theory in botany. 211
Venus, the transit of, 13
Vertex of the moon. 168
Vertical missile, flights of, 311, 391
Vibrations of stretched siring, 167
Wabt-chabmino, 299, 319
Waxen images ot enemie-s, 136
Wearing stays, 89

Weathcrpredictions,forecasl8 and pr.^i-hecies 8(1, 1'22.
153, 168. 183 r 1 , , -,

Week, the origin of the. 396
Westmoreland, earthquakes in, 27
Williams, Mr. Matticu, on stays and fat, 227
Winter rarities. 76
Wrangler, puzzle of a, 269

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

AuBOR.is not due to comets, 61

. >'e

, aUu

, U

Civilipation ami the increjL-sp of ornament, 60

Comets, how they move, 4-1

Dallinger, Mr., and n;jiiosfirism, 27

Drivingforceof tlie wind, 11

Evolution of HkHI and heut and the sua, 27

Gospel of relamtion, 41.

Ice-boats and their velocity, 60

Knowledgb of our bodies, a proper subject for S'_'ience,

Laplacb and the planets. 4-t

pEBrHELioir theory of the end of the world, 14

Relaxation, views on, H.

Reliffious teaching asserted to be always more or less

behind the a-p, 14
SciBNCB and the lieginning of existent thinps, 14
Second-hand telescopes, 60

Siemens, Mr., theory of, in relation to the sun 27
Swift, Dean, moons of, 27

REVIEWS-

Chaptbrs on evolution, by Dr. Andrew Wilson,

Chatto & Windusi, III)
Clocks, watfhes, and bells, a rudimentary treatice on,

bv Sir Edmund Beckett, iJart. Crosby, Lot-kwood*

&Co., London, 1&4
Commercial products of the sea ; or, marine contriba-

tions to food, industry, and art, by P.L. Simmonda.

London : Griinth & Farran. 361
Electbic illumination, l)y Conrad Cooke, Jame«

Dredfje, Mr. F. O'Heilly, S. P. Thcmpson, and H.

Vivarey. Vol. I. London : oflicea of Engineering, 74
Electric light, the ; its production and use, by j] W.

TJrquhart, electririan, edited by F. C. Webb,

M.I.C.E. Second edition. Loudon : Crosby

Lockwood, & Co., 378
Elementary meteorolotrr, by Rr-bert H. Scott, with

numerous illustrations. Kfgan Paul & Co..

London, 165
Engineering geology, by "W. H. Penning. F.G.8.,

geologist, Government survey of England and

Wales. London: Bailliere, Tindall. & Coi, 311
Evolution, chapters on, by Dr. Andrew Wilson.

Chatto & Windus, 119
Fbbns, where to find them, with a special chapter on

the ferns round London, by Francis Heath, editor

of Forenfry, Sampson Low, ilarstou, & Co.,

London, 311
Field geology, a teit-book of, by W. H. Penning,

F.G.8., with a section on pala-ontology, by A J

Jukes-Browne, F.G.S. London; Bailliere, TindalL

& Cox, 311
Heavenly bodies, the; their nature and habitability.

by William Miller, F.S.C. London ; Hodder '&

Stoughfon, 361
IxDLLN fnnke poisons, their nature and effects, by A.

J. "Wall, M.D. W\ H. Allen & Co.. London, 28 J
Laktern readings, the voyage of the" Challenger," by

W. Lant Carpenter, B.A. Alabaster, Passmore,

& Co.. London, 373
Leopold Shakespeare, the, 209
Library of English literature, 209
Mineral waters of Europe, the, including a short

description of artificial mineral water-i, by C. R. C.

Tichborae. LL.D., and Professor James, M.D.

London : Bailliere, Tindall, & C"x, 315
Xat the naturalist; or, a bov'a adventures in the

Eastern seas. By George Alanviile Fenn.

Blackie & Son, 10
Xatural law in the spiritual world, by Henry Drom-

mond, F.K.8.E. London : Hodder & Stoughton,

312
Xatural philosophy, the new principles of , by William

Leigbton Jordan, F.R.G.S. London : David

Boguo, 312

• KNOWLEDGE •

n«tiew»— fon(iiiu»<*. . „ . „.

N»tur«l philoHophv, • trenliso on, by Profomora Sir
W. lliomsoii liuil r. O. Tnit. Vol. I., part 2.
CumbrilKo University Pri-M, 3 Ik

Oboanio chemistrr, an introduction to, by AdoloU
I'inucr, Ph.D.', Protcsaor of Chemistry in the
ITniyersity of Berlin. Translaloci and revised from
the llflh Gorman edition by Peler T. Austin,
Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry. London : Triibnor
& Co, , a 15

PnvsiCAL Optioa, by R. T. Glnzebrook, M.A. Long-
mans Green. & Co., 10

Poems and balhids for penny readings, by Agra.
Wyman & Bona, London, 31.5

Popular astronomv, bv Simon Newcomb, LL.D., of
the Naval OlnervatorT, Washington. Messrs.
Macniillon .t Co., London, rii

Pro' ticalgeomelry, the art -student's, second grade, by
.lohnLowres, revised and partly wnttenbvOcorgo
llrown, of the Blackhcath School of Art . London ;
Moffat & Paige, 206 ., „ „ „

SiLT. the history of, by Evan jr. Boddy, M.K.C.S.
Bailliero, Tindall, & Coi, London, 22B

Science, does it aid faith in regard to creation? by the
Kight Rev. Henry Cotterill, D.D., F.R.S.E.,
Bishop of Edinburgh. London : Hodder &
Stoughlon, 3m

.'inakes : curiosities and wonders of serpent life, by
Catherine C. Uop'.ey. GrilHth & Farran, London,
133

Sound, by John Tyndall, D.C.L., &c. Fourth edilion,
revised and augmented. London : Longmans &
Co., 297

Study and stimulant; or, the use of narcotics and
intoxicants in relation to intellectual life, edited by
A. Arthur Reado. Abel Hcywood & Son, Man.

fsivBESB, the, or the infinilelv great and the iulinitelv

little, by F. A. Pouchet, M.D. London ; Blackie

4 Son, Si
YoCNO men, a physician's sermon to, bv Dr. 'Williain

Pratt. JBailliJre, Tindall, & Cos, London, 23.i
Yi'Uth. business guide for the. a practical manual for

those entering life, by Experienlia. London;

Wymau & Sons, 311

MISCELLANEOUS.

Allots of metals, 379

Amsterdam, the exhibition at, 209 _

Arcade railway under Broadway, New York, 37S

Asbestos rope, 161

Auatralian meat and British butchers, 151

BALLOONS, new electrical motor for, 266

Boston, the telephone in, 266

Brass cannon found at Coorum, 25S

Brighton School of Science and Art, 386

Bumham Beeches, 363

Cancelling stamp, a new electric, 363

Capybara (a rodent), the, and its relations to cats, 331

Caterpillars, train stopped by, 374

Chesterfield, electric lighting at, 307

China, the great wall of, 171

Chubb & Sons, enormous safe manufactured by, 138

Coal brought to London. 69

Coalfield, development of the Deer Creek, in Arizona,
313

Coleridge, Lord, summing-up of, in the Freefhiiiktr
trial, 279

Colonies, the increasing importance of, 209

Colossal bronze statue, 373

Colour-blindness and railwa

Courtney, Mr., on science. ■;

Creosoted trestle work, remarkable specimen of, 387

Cunning of a toad. 73

Cyclone at Beauregard and Wesson. Mississippi, 293

D'bvotion to literature of the English people, 198

Elbctbic light in the City of London, i\ ; in Switzer-
land, 191

Electric lighting, 81; application for orders relative
to, 151 ; lighting in Kimberlcy, South. Africa, 3>i2 ;
at Chesterfield, 3i>7

Engineering and metal trades' exhibition, 10

Explosives, statistics of manufactories of, 371

Extraordinary run of an engine, 235

Fatalixi£3 to railway servants, 293

Ferric oxalate, the pholo-theraiea! action of, 201

Kiddleslrings, the manufacture of, iM

Fi>h carried alive by railway. 273

Foretelling flredam'p eHCapen, 21t7

Franco, teleglaphio wire in, 300

Free smoke abatement museum, 153

Front -steering tricvcle, a, 151

Gas r. electricity, 123

Gas-ivell at Lyons, 371

Giants' Causeway and Port Rush electrical tramway,

09
Glasgow, the electric clocks in. 260
Glass, electrical resistance of, 72
O.ild in Australia, 251 ; ahnndance of, 310
Gramme Electric Company of New Y'ork, patents

controlled by, 23
Great wall of China. 171
Hahtz mountains, mining work in the. 387
Hydrants for fire purpose, niilcAge of streets with, 378
Ice at the Pole. 212
Ice gorge on St. Lawrence River broken by gunpowder

mine, 378
Insects, agency of, in fertilising flowers, 185
Iron, production of the different kinds in the United

Kingdom, 263
•Tapan tramways, 358
Killbd by stays, 283

Kimberley, South Africa, electric lighting in, 262
Kirkcaldy Naturalists' Society, 288
LvKE Winnipeg, 3 i9
Liquorice farming in New Zealand. 166
Literature, devotion to, of the English people, 188
Logic, stndy of, 71
London Library, utility of the, 135
Long-bved lamp, a, 39i
JliBCH, extraordinary cold of. 212
Matter diffused in the air, 379
Maiim- Weston Electric Light Company, 298
Jlesaina, steel bridge for the Strait of, 309
Mexican tin, 371
Mid-occan telegraphv, 331
Mining work in the Hartz mountains, 387
Naheow gauge trains blown otf rails, 363
New spectrometer, a, 297
New Zealand mutton and beef, 151
Nitrogen, the liquefaction of, 309
Non-inflammable insulatini; matt-rial, 263
Nottingham, electric lighting at. 283
Oil tanks flred by lightning, 307
Papeb wheels for railway trains, 371

electr

, 133

Philadelphia, its telegraphic, telephonic, and electric

light revenue, 153
Piutsch Patent Lighting Company and the Suez Canal,

233
Poteline, a new substance, 103
Prize competition for railway inventions, 258
Prize electrical essay. 83

Proctor, Mr., and his lectures at St. Leonards, 331
Radiation of silver in solidifying, 313
Railway coupling stick, advantage of, 371
Railway mileage of the world, 392
Railway aervants, fataUties to. -.93
Red marl, discovery of a bed of, at Ruabon, 392
R jman coins, discovery of, at Cobhara Hall, near

Rochester. 283
Royal National Lifeboat Institution, 211
Sanitaby Inspection Association, the, 133
Shanghai, the foreign settlement at, 85
Sheppev, landshp in the Isle of, 374
Siller, radiation of, in solidifying, 312
Snow-plough in India, 260
Spanish iron minerals. 2 16
Spectrometer, a new, 297
Sporting shot manufactured from iron, 336
South American timber, 392
Steel bridge for the Strait of Messina, 3fj9
Storing electrical enery, new patent for, by Mr. C. F.

Brush, 133
Street fire alarms, 83
Suez Canal, lighting the, by gas, 283
Teleobams between Australia and England, average

time of transmission, 263
Telegraph in British Guiana. 23
Telegraphic wire in France, 360
Telegraphy in China, 328
Telephone, statistics of, 202 ; in Boston, 200

Thunderstorm, 83

Time signalling, 359

Ti'sanilier. Mr. M. G., and bis new electrical motor
for balloons, 266

Toad, conning of a, 73

Turrons bridge (South Australia), sinking of th«,
338

Trafalgar collieries. Forest of Dean, electrical experi-
ments in, 25

Tramways in Japan, 3'j8

Truna-Caucafian railway, working of, 71

Trtvellers" meteorological equipment, 123

Tunnel-work, a diHicult piece of, 331

Tu- kish railroads and their peculiar freights, 57

UNsnrn.ED area of the Uniti-d Slates, 309

VbntilatioX of the Metropolitan District Railway,
153

Wivn pressure on the Forth bridge, 40

W(.o 1 as fuel, statistics of, 30J

Y'ACUr, a large steam, 231

Zl.vc coating for iron, 305

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Acoustic experiment, 00

Age of the moon, 291

Amateur electrician, the, electrical measaremeats, 233

Amrpha, diagrammatic drawings of, 355

Ancient inscrilted stones, 213

Arche- fish, the, 280

Armature of the Brnsh dvnamo-electri'- machine, 295,
29(3

Atlss and Hercules (walled plains in the moon), 2EH

Bowbb-Geiscom: lamp, 261

Brachionua urceolaris (ve^jetable organism), 359

Cathebcte, CjriUua, and Theophilus (lunar craters),
291

Comets, heads o?, IH

Crystal Palace electric and gas exh'bition, 198

Curious rainbow, a, 90

Electrical measurement, 102, 103, 2^)6, 207

Etchings of Mr. Whistler, 2t8

Eurypharvni pelecanoides, the, 250

Eve, dia^'rams of the. 111

FoBMiTiox of comets' tails, 102

Formations in the moon, views of, ;J28

Fracastorius (bay in the moon) . iot

Gastboscope, view showin*r application of, 231

Geological sketch-map of the Isle of Man, 277

Great Britain, sun-views of, 390

Great comet of 1882. the, 102, 128. 195

Great Pyramid, sections of veuiilation of, 287

Hbabs of comets, 1-iS

How to use our eyes, 191

Laege sun-spot, a, 251

Laws of brightness, diagrams illustrative of the, 304

Leech, John, a reminiscence of, 209

Lunar craters, various views of, 291

Moon, map of the, 223

Nights with a three-inch telescope, 39

(EciSTES crystallinus (vegetable organism), 359

Organisms revealed bv the microscope, 322

Our bodies, the huma'u skeleton, 116

Pahadise fish, the, 291

Petavius, a typical lunar feature, 265

Protamcebae, figure of, from infusion of meat, 355

RfiADiSG, right and wrong wavs in regard to the eye-
sight, 149, 150

Resistance boxes (the amatenr electrician) , 70

Eoaater, by Count Eumford (chemistry of cookery),
312

Eotifer vulgaris (vegetable organism), 35S

Skiddaw slates, section, Isle of Man, showing the
conglomerate resting thereon, 278

Skull, diagram of a, 6^

Steamers, side-Ughts of, 1S3

Strata, geological, ot the Isle of Man, 278

Sun-views of the earth. 24, 55, 117, 18 ), 237, 310, 375,
of Great Britain, 390

Telephone, diagrams of, 113, lU

Telescope in the Warner Observatory, 233

Transit of Venus, 90

Valley of the Alps (views in the moon), 391

Vi'luntary muscles, 9

' Wabneb Observatory, the, 232

Jax. 5, 1883.J

KNOWLEDGE ♦

tRATED

MAGAZINE ofMENCE

PULNLT)) ORDED -£XACTL^DESGRIBED

LOXDON: FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 1883

Contests of No. 62.

PAGE

ScirDi-e and Art Gossip 1

■XW Boll Csse. Bt Rii-h. A. Proctor 3

rliotographinff the Solar Corona 4

liumanilr and Natural Uistorj . Bt

Kiihard JefferiM '.. 5

A Lou'ical Puiile, Br Kichard A.

Procter '. 7

PI<>a^nt Hours with the Microscope :

Disease (iernn. Br HenrT J. Slack,

F.fiS.,F.KM.S 7

Our Bodies -III. Mu'cles. Bj Dr.

Andrew WiUen, F.R.S.E 8

PAen

Has the Moou an Atmosphere ? 10

Retikws : Light — Nat, the If atu-

raUst W

The Face of the Skj 11

Our Paradox Comer 12

, CoRRESPOirDEXCE : Fellowship of
Learned Societies — Bright Star near
the Sun-Dial of Ahaz. .Vc, ic. ... 12

Answ.'rs to Correspondents l-l

Our Jfathr-matical Column 15

Our Whist Column 15

Our Chess Column 16

^rtence anli Srt (So^sitp.

A CORRESPOSDEXT, writing from Scarborough, makes
.iome fun out of our Gossip note about a star-like body
seen on December 21, in close proximity to the sun, enter-
taining, apparently, the belief that the object was the planet
Venus. The idea is one which is naturally suggested by
the description we quoted from a letter addressed to the
Dundee Adverliaer, "the milky-white appearance," and the
" crescent shape," when seen with telescope, — but a little
consideration would have shown our humorous corre-
spondent that as Venus was in transit on December G, she
could not have been in close pro.ximity to the sun at noon
on December 21. As a matter of fact she was then
1 h. 33 m. in R. A west of the sun (corresponding to an arc
distance of 23" 15' in R. A.), in declination .5" 2' north,
making an actual arc distance of about 21 degrees. I
would submit that such a distance as this, about fortj--four
sun breadths, would scarcely be described as " close prox-
imity." See an interesting letter from !Mr. J. E. Gore, in
our Correspondence Column.

Ix the Bristol Times for Dec. 20, the following stupen-
dous letter appeared over the name John Large. We
commend it to the special attention of the sun-spot
craftsmen : —

Please kindly allow me to observe, through the medium of your
widely-circulated paper, that the late severe weather was attribut-
able to the transit of Venus through the sun, which I am prepared
to prove without any delusive theory, but with practical illustra-
tions if required. Many dark spots have been observed on the sun
more |or less for the last five or si.v yours, and they have been the
cause of the many wet summers which wn have unfortunately
<'xperienced, although, doubtless, for some wise purpose. But now
that Venus has passed triumphantly through the sun, and having
taken with her all the dark spots and specks which have existed
more or less for many years. I venture to predict that we shall be
blessed with a series of beautifully fine and productive summers.

The intense cold of yesterday (Dec. 1.5), remarks a corre-
spondentof the Da ihj Express, followed by so rapid a thaw, has
produced an effect seldom before witnessed in this country.
The public buildings, especially those composed of Portland
or other absorbent materials, are today thickly covered with

hoar frost At Trinity College the old buildings in Botany
Hay present a curious appearance, each stone being marked
out as if whitewashed , while the joints remain black, the
rude arches over the windows showing to great advantage ;
and the banks and other large edifices look as if they had
been lately finished. I would suppose that the frost had
penetrated the stone, and the warm mist now falling on it
is converted into ice." [The effect is really due to difl'er-
ence of absorptive action. — Ed. |

Dr. Russell, of the Chemical Laboratory at St. Bartho-
lomew's Hospital, a member of the committee which has
been for some time carrying on extensive experiments on
the composition of London fogs, at the request of the
Meteorological Council of the Royal Society, states that he
has already obtained results showing that the increase in
the amount of carbonic acid in the air of the City during
fogs in some cases amounted to upwards of two and a half
times the quantity ordinarily present.

Mh. W. H. Preece, in his paper on " Electrical Ex-
hibitions," read before the Society of Arts, thus summarises
his criticisms : — " At South Kensington we had a magni-
ficent collection of the scientific condition of electrical
apparatus at that date — 1876. At Paris we had an
equally magnificent show of their practical condition in
1881. At the Crystal I'alace the commercial element
stepped in, converting a picture of progress into a means
of advertisement ; while at Munich science again comes in
to fulfil its chief duty — to measure and compare. At
Paris and the Crystal Palace medals and honours were
distributed, but at Munich the far more sensible plan has
been adopted of giving simple certificates of efficiency,
showing plainly what each apparatus can do in its own
particular sphere. We are about to have not only a second
e.xhibition at the Crystal Palace, but also one at the
Westminster Aquarium. These are purel}' commercial
speculations. Vienna is also to have an exhibition in the
autumn, and doubtless they will be repeated in all chief
cities.'

A CLUious dispute has arisen in Germany as to an
invention connected with the sugar industry. According
to an account published in the Hamhurger Xacliriditeit,
the German ^National Bank some time ago purchased from
Professor Scheibler, of Berlin, for 1,000,000 marks- -
£.50,000 — a process for obtaining sugar from molasses by
means of strontianite, at the same time securing the
right of the first offer of such further discoveries as the
professor might make. He has now, it is said, taken out
a patent for a new process which renders the previous
one almost worthless. The bank has commenced legal
proceedings for the invalidation of the new patent, instead
of acquiring it by a further expenditure of capital. It has
been rumoured that Professor Scheibler will work the
patent himself, instead of selling it, thus trying to avoid
any serious difficulty.

There are now 828J miles of water-mains for the supply
of London which are constantly charged. Of these the
New River Company has 214 miles; Lambeth, 136|;
Southwark and Vauxhall, 117; West Middlesex, 86 J ;
Kent, 8-5; East London, 85; Chelsea, 67; and Grand
Junction, 37 i miles.

DcRisr. a recent tornado in Brewer, Me., a plank was
blown with such force against a cistern with wooden walls

2

KNOWLEDGE

[Jan. 5. 1883

an inch and a half thick, that the board, tho Scv'utific
American says, penetrated some distance through the wall
into the water. It was found that the board was wedged
in so closely that the water did not leak, and the owner
simply sawed the plank off, leaving the wall of tho cistern
all right.

For making luminous paint the following has been
given : — Take oyster-sliells and clean them with warm
water ; put them into the fire for lialfan hour ; at the end
of that time take them out and let tliem cool. When quite
cool pounti them tine, and take away any grey parts, as
they are of no use. Put the powder in a crucible in
alternate layers with flour or sulphur. Put on the lid and
cement with sand maile into a stiff paste with beer. When
drj% put over the tire and bake for an hour. Wait until
quite cold Ijefore opening the lid. The product ought to be
white. You must separate all grey parts, as they are not
luminous. Make a sifter in the following manner : — Take
a pot, put a piece of very fine muslin very loosely across
it, tie around with a string, put the powder into the top,
and rake about until only the coarse powder remains ; open
the pot and you will find a very small powder. Mix into
it a thin paint with sum water, as two thin applications
are better than one thick one. This will give a paint that
will remain luminous far into the night, provided it is ex-
posed to the light during the day.

The members of the Bombay Hunt, says the Bomhay
Gazette, have much to answer for. They have been un-
consciously the cause of serious allegations being brought
against their gallant countrymen in Egypt. At a critical
moment of the struggle, when men's minds were highly
strung and their imaginations excited to a feverish pitch,
they insisted on having a pack of hounds sent through
the Canal en route to Bombay. This pack bids fair
to become historic. Shortly after it passed Port Said,
a son of M. de Lesseps informed his indignant friends in
Paris that a pack of bloodhounds had been sent with the
British troops to hunt down the Egj'ptian fugitives. It
was only a Frenchman who could have mistaken a fox-
hound for a bloodhound. In their version of the affair, the
Egyptians were more circumspect. In one of the numbers
oi Al Wakaija al 2[asriyeh, the Egyptian Gazette, published
by Arabi's Government, Abdelal reported from Damietta
to the Sub-Minister of War that " a ship has been passing
through the Canal to Ismailia, filli d with a cargo of
hunting dog-i, to act as scouts for the English soldiers when
they go out to fight. We conclude," continued this veracious
commander, " from their now having recourse to dogs, that
the climax of their ill-success and of their defeat has come."
Surely history, which keeps a page for the geese of the
Capitol and the hound of Kobert Bruce, will not grudge a
paragraph for the Bombay Hunt and their "cargo of hunting
dogs ! "

Describing a visit just paid to the sandstone quarry at
Turner's Falls, on the Connecticut River, Massachusetts,
Mr. Elias Nason states that workmen are still busily
engaged in excavating the bird tracks that have made the
quarry geologically famous. The ledge rises 30 ft. or 40 ft.
above the river, and consists of thin lamina^ of a dark-
coloured and somewhat brittle sandstone. On the faces of
the slabs are found the tracks, depressed and in relief. They
are in general clear cut and very distinct. Some very fine
specimens have recently been brought to light. One of
them has tracks of an enormous animal, .O ft. apart, and the
tracks themselves (three-toed) are 15 in. long. According
to Professor Huxley, who has visited this quarry, an

animal making such tracks must have been 25 ft. or
30 ft. in height. Mr. Kason was permitted to take a.way
with him several beautiful specimens, one of which exhibits
the delicate tracery of the feet of an insect escaping over
the soft mud ; another exhibits the ripples of the wave,
another the drops of rain, and others have well-defined
imprints of the tracks of liirds. He also saw the impres-
sions of several kinds of ferns and grasses. Mr. Stoughton,
who is working this geological mine, considers some of the
largest slabs to be worth from §500 to §1,000; but the
cost of excavating them is heavy. The whole region is
supposed to have been originally covered by the sea. As
the waves receded, birds and quadrupeds whose species are
extinct left the impressions of their feet upon the mud,
which, hardening into stone, has held them through the
ages for the e.xamination of the scientists of the present
day. Compared with these tracks as to age, the pyramids
of Egypt are but as of yesterday.

A California Tree. — There was recently felled in
Lonoma County, California, a tree which cut up as follows.
The I'eta/uma Aryus says that the details can be relied
upon. The standing height of the tree was 347 ft, and its
diameter near the ground was 14 ft. In falling, the top
was broken off nearly 200 ft. distant from the stump, and
up to the point of breaking the tree was perfectly sound.
From the tree saw-logs were cut of the following lengths
and diameters: — 1. 14 ft. long, 9 ft. dia. ; i. 12 ft long,
8 ft dia.; 3. 12 ft. long, 7 ft 7 in. dia.; 4. 14 ft long,
7 ft 6 in. dia.; 5. 16 ft long, 7ft dia.; 6. 16 ft. long,
6 ft 10 in. dia.; 7. 16 ft long, 6ft 6 in. dia. ; 8. 16 ft-
long, 6 ft. 4 in. dia. : 9. 16 ft. long, 6 ft. Sin. dia.; 10.
18 ft long, 6 ft dia. ; 11. 12 ft long, 5ft 10 in. dia. ; 12.
18 ft long, 5 ft 6 in. dia. It will thus be seen that 180 ft.
of this remarkable tree were converted into saw-logs.

A CORRESPONDENT (" Psychomantis ") quotes the fol-
lowing from the Times of June 10, 1870, as admirably
expressing the value of the novelist to his fellow men : —
" The loss of Charles Dickens will be felt by millions as a
personal bereavement. Statesmen, men of science, philan-
thropists, the acknowledged benefactors of their race, might
pass away, and yet not leave the void which will be caused
by the death of Dickens. They may have earned the
esteem of mankind ; their days may have been passed in
power, honour, and prosperity; they may have been sur-
rounded by troops of friends ; but however pre-eminent in
station, ability, and public services, they will not have
been, like our great and genial novelist, the intimate of
every household."

A CORRESPONDENT, Mr. Henry H. Sparling, sends the
following sonnet. Regarding it as addressed, not to the
Editor, but to all who share the work of advancing
Knowledge, we quote it ; but still rather as expressing
what we wish to do than what we have done : —
'• L't KnowIrJge crow ! " but not content
With just what b.v those words is meant,
You Hj-.<7c it forward on its course
With all your wealth of mental force.
Learning, and wide experience blent.
Along the toilsome steep ascent,
Up which TOur readers' steps are bent,
Stand Darwin, Spencer, Mill, and Jlorse:
'* Let Knowledge grow ! "
Free from the glamoJir wliieh is lent
By mystic wandering words anent

The things you teach, you but endorse
That you have fathomed to its source.
And Daikness' veil have widely rent —
" Let Knowledge grow ! "

Jan. 5, 1883.]

KNO^A/LEDGE •

THE BELT CASE.
By Richard A. Proctor.

OF the personal relations involved in tliis trial I have
nothing to say ; they are outside Knowledge, as
they are outside my personal knowledge. But certain
highly important general principles are in^olved which
fall within our lield ; and of these I propose briefly to
speak.

In the first place, it is to be noted that the office dis-
charged by Vanitij Fair, in publicly announcing what was
widely whispered in artistic circles, and wluit it believed
to be true, fell undeniably within the dutiesof such a journal
-not among the pleasautest duties, and therefore requiring
prompt and ready discharge. In expressing its own belief
in the rumours referred to, our contemporary most carefully
spoke of them as rumours only, and based all that was
said in the way of censure, on the condition that the
rumours being true could be substantiated if challenged.
I take it that the existence of these rumours was a far
more serious matter for Mr. Belt than such public reference
to them as gave him opportunity to deny them point-blank
and challenge any man to substantiate them. Had this been
done, and the challenge either suffered to pass unmet, or,
being met, successfully sustained, Mr. Belt would, I
conceive, have owed a debt of gratitude to Vanity Fair, for
giving to " things unsubstantial " such form as would
permit of their being grappled with and overcome.

!My main point, however, relates to the views advanced hy
Baron Huddleston respecting the validity of artistic criti-
cism. The opinion of Aristotle respecting the relative worth
of public and artistic opinion as to the general value of a
work of art, is doubtless sound. Apart from the
reasons given by Aristotle, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Froudc,
and others, works of art are made for the public, and must
be judged by the public. Neither, on the one hand, can
self-esteem or the friendly feeling of a brother-artist force
on the public as good what the general taste (not neces-
sarily sound) rejects as unsatisfying ; nor, on the other,
will the criticism of censorious, perliaps rival, artists cause
the public to reject as unpleasing what it has accepted with
approval. But it is also true that the public, unbiassed by
personal feelings, is apt to form a sounder general judg-
ment, despite the absence of artistic training, than rival or
brother artists.

Besides, the opinion of what may call the artistic
public, is generally based on wider considerations than
those that guide the artist himself. A man of cultured
mind brings to his judgment of a painting or a statue
(half unconsciously perhaps) not only a wide study of many
paintings and many statues in many different schools (the
painter or sculptor being usually a specialist in a single
school), but the influence of artistic and literary studies
outside mere painting or sculpture. Poetry, history, travel,
even music and science, have their influence on his judg-
ment. Yet even here, where Aristotle's opinion is sound
enough, it must be admitted that the general public needs
artistic training to improve and purify its taste in matters
artistic. It is among the niisfortunes of art in our day
that it too often follows instead of leading the public mind.

But Baron Huddleston went altogether beyond what
Aristotle, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others have said on
the subject of professional vrsus public judgment. A rnan
of culture may form a sounder opinion of the general
qualities of a work of art than the artist himself, just as
I can form a better opinion of the table at which I am
writing than upholsterers or cabinet-makers. He may
even give the artist useful hints in matters belonging to

his art, just as I might (for instance) tell a table-maker
tliat his custom of putting sharp angles to table-legs
at the level of the knees is an outrage on common sense,
and more provocative of theological remarks (absurd as
applied to tables) than any known upholstery practice on
the face of the earth. But the man of sense accepts
artistic criticism unhesitatingly in such ujatters as tech-
nique, style, quality of work in details, and so forth. 1
am shown a painting which pleasingly presents a noble
landscape ; I see that effects of light and shade, distance
and nearness, are truly given, the forms correct, the air, the
sky, the rocks, and trees, and streams, justly and efl'ectivcly
rendered. It does not trouble me if Mr. Envy (though
perhaps an R.A., or A.R.A) says : "It would be a charming
picture if the fellow knew how to paint." But if Mr.
Experience tells mo of defects of execution which must
cause the picture before long to deteriorate, finds the
painting thin, the method of attaining efl'ects im-
perfect, shows nic that the picture will not bear to
be looked at in certain aspects, and so forth, I
must accept his judgment, just as I must accept
the judgment of a furniture maker who shows that a
piece of furniture is untit for certain purposes which it
ought to subserve. And if this is so of such points, much
more is it the case in such matters as were submitted to
artistic opinion during the Belt trial. To set the opinion
of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, cleric, legal, medical, or
perhaps mercantile, on questions of touch and style in
painting or sculpture, against the judgment of men who
have given the best part of their time for years to w-ork
involving constant practice in deciding such questions, is
surely as absurd as it would be to ask a painter to
settle a scientific cruj: (Mr. Brett, for instance, to tell
us about the atmosphere of Venus), or to take the
opinion of literary guests as to the make of
the china on your table, against the verdict of half-
a dozen dealers in china who pronounced it the work
of such and such a Arm or factory. Any one who knows
wliat modelling in the clay is, will see that the way in
which the unanimous verdict of eminent sculptors during
the recent trial was finally dealt with, involved an even
greater absurdity. A clay bust shall be worked at for
hours before your eyes by a tyro, and then the master,
passing his fingers lightly over it, will, with a touch here
and there, a trifling manipulation of this feature or that
surface, give light and life to what before was dull and
dead, and every trace of his masterly hand shall be as plain
to the practised eye as though he had traced his name
upon the clay. Yet Baron Huddleston dealt with this par-
ticular point as if the liours during which unpractised eyes
saw the work of modelling in progress, removed of them-
selves " all doubt " about retouching (which often means
creatiiH)) even against the united opinion of all the prac-
tised eyes invited to decide the question.

I write without any feeling one way or the other as to
the personal matters involved. Mr. Belt or Mr. Lawes
may have been grievously wronged or wholly in the right,
for aught I personally care, who know neither — (I had
almost said for aught I know, but that would not be strictly
true). But all who love art, all who appreciate the
excellence which great artists give to their work, are in-
terested in rejecting a general rule which is not only
opposed to all sound principles of criticism, but to common
sense. If Baron Huddleston had told us that Je siris
ijagiie is good French for " I have gained," and because
he had "no doubt" that Verheyden ought to know
French, had rejected the opinion of twenty French
writers who asserted the contrary, he would not, to my
thinking, have gone more directly counter to sound rules

• KNOWLEDGE

[Jan.

18b3

of judgment than ho did on the particular point I have
Ix'pn considering.

How far this error of judgment affected the result is a
matter about which I offer no opinion — though of course
I have one.

PHOTOGRAPHING THE SOLAR
CORONA.*

ASTllONOMERS ha\ c long hoped, almost against hope,
for a time to come when the solar corona might be
seen, even as since 18G8 the sun's coloured prominences
have been soon, without the aid of a total solar eclipse.
Almost against hope, because what is known about the
corona shows that its light is far too faint to be discei-ned
directly, so greatly is it overmastered by the light of the
.sky near the sun, while the method which avails to show
the coloured prominences cannot be successfully applied
to the coi'ona. We know that, during a solar eclipse,
even the brighter part of the corona is only seen a few
seconds before totality begins, and can only be discerned
for a few seconds after the total phase is past. In the
full glory of sunlight it is as hopeless to look for the
corona, either with or without a telescope, as it
would be to look for a star of the fourth or fifth
magnitude without telescopic aid in the daytime.
And what a telescope does to make a star visible in the
daytime cannot be done for the corona ; the star is but a
point even when the most powerful telescope is turned on
it, and therefore a star looks so much the brighter, not so
much the larger, as the illuminating power of the telescope
is increased. But an object like the corona, or a comet, or
a nebula is magnified in at least as great a degree as the
illuminating power is increased, and in yet greater degree
■when high magnifying powers are used, so that it looks no
brighter, only larger; in fact, as some light is always lost
in passing through the lenses, the apparent brightness of
such objects is alwajs rather reduced when a telescope is
used, however greatly the total quantity of light received
from them may be increased.

The same is true of the sun's coloured flames, so that it
was long regarded as hopeless to look for them at any other
time but during the few minutes' duration of total solar
eclipse. But spectroscopic analysis, so soon as it was shown
that they shine onl}' with special tints, gave tlie means of
seeing them in broad daylight. If we consider how this
was done, we shall better understand the difliculty in
regard to the corona. We cannot do this better, though
that is not the actual manner in which the observation is
made, than by considering Newton's familiar experiment
on the decomposition of light. In that, light admitted
through a circular opening, being dispersed by a prism,
cast a long rainbow-tinted image on a screen, this image
being really made up of multitudinous images of all the
colours, not of the rainbow, which is usually but a diluted
spectrum, but of the true solar spectrum. In that long
streak there were thousands of images of various tints of
red, thousands of orange images, thousands of yellow,
green, blue, indigo, and violet images, so many, in fact,
that no eye could see where any single image began or
ended : all were completely bli^nded together. The light,
which, undispersed, would have formed a single circular
white image, being spread over a long ril)bon-like]band of
space, was, of course, correspondingly weakened ; no part
of the spectrum was nearly as bright as the round white
spot seen before the prism was interposed. Now, sup-

*From the Times'.

pose that instead of shining with all the colours of the
rainbow, the sun shone only with a certain small number of
tints — say, on(^ kind of red oidy, one kind of orange, and
one kind of blue. Then, instead of the rainbow-coloured
streak formed by tens of thousands of blended images,
there would have been but three images — three circular
discs — a red circle, an orange circle, and a blue circle.
The light, which before dispersion had formed a single
image, would liave been weakened in forming three, but
not nearly so much as in tlie actual case, where the long
streak formed by multitudinous images was many times
longer than the diameter of a single circular image.
And any further dispersion, which in the actual case
would have correspondingly lengthened the spectrum
and weakened its lustre, would only have thrown the
three images further apart, leaving their brightness un-
changed. This diOerence actually exists between the
white light of the sunlit sky and the light of the sun's
coloured prominences. These are masses of glowing gas
shining chiefly with one red tint, one orange-yellow tint,
and one green-blue tint. If we receive on a screen (or
when we receive on the retina as on a screen) the light
from the sky over a prominence and the light from that
great mass of glowing gas, we are unable to distinguish the
shape of the prominence, because its light is quite over-
mastered by the light of the sky ; but when, by means of
suitably-arranged prisms, we disperse the light thus re-
ceived, we weaken the sky-light just in proportion as we
increase the dispersion ; while we only throw the images of
the prominence further apart with each increase of spec-
troscopic dispersion ; so that if only our spectroscope has
sufficient dispersive power, the prominence, no longer forced
to contend against the whole light of the sky, but only
against a small portion of it, becomes discernible on the
weakened light of the rainbow-tinted background.

If the corona were of the same nature as the pro-
minences, its form might be rendered discernible in the
same way. But, as a matter of fact, only the very brightest
part of the corona shines with light of special tints ; the
greater part of this stupendous solar appendage shines with
light of all the colours of the rainbow, though, fortunately,
with an excess of light from certain parts of the spectrum,
otherwise the success we have now to record would never
have been achieved.

We must here make a few remarks respecting ordinary
methods of observation, and theii failure to show any trace
of the corona. It occurred long since to 8ir George Airy
to receive the image of the sun and surrounding parts of
the sky on a smooth white surface, and by removing that
part of the surface on which the image of the sun
itself fell, and putting thei-e a black surface (as it were
"quenching the sun in a black bag") to give the pro-
minences and corona a better chance of being seen.
The method failed utterly. It was later suggested
that so far as the prominences were concerned, the
use of a ruby-tinted medium cutting off all the
light except rays of nearly the red tint of the pro-
minences, and the substitution of a smooth red
surface for a white one, would greatly help to make them
visible. It was further suggested that if, when both devices
had been employed, the light received on the coloured card
were examined through a spectroscope of suitable power,
the whole ring of coloured prominences around the sun
might be seen at a single view. And it is worthy of notice
that the first coloured prominence ever seen — as a whole —
by man, without the aid of an eclipse, was seen by Mr.
William Huggins, by the aid of the absorptive power of
ruby-tinted glass. But, so far as the corona was concerned,
such methods as these had persistently failed.

Jan. 5. 18^3 ]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

Recently, however, it occurred to the eminent spec-
troscopist just named to utilise certain information
obtained during the total solar eclipse of May 1 7 last. It
was shown on that occasion that though a large part of the
light of the corona gives a continuous spectrum (or, in other
words, shines with all the colours of the rainliow), there is
an excess of coronal light from near the violet end of the
spectrum. This does not help, so far as the spectroscopic
method is concerned, because a multitude of images of
the corona, of \arious tints of violet, would not, under
spectroscopic dispersion, give a single well-detined image
which could be seen and e.xamincd. The use of absorp-
tive media, cutting ofl' all, or nearly all, but the violet
light, was naturally suggested ; but this method failed,
chiefly perhaps for the reason noted by Mr. Huggins, that
the sensitiveness of the eye for very small dirt'erences of
illumination by \ iolet light is much less than for similar
differences in red, yellow, orange, or green light. But, as
photography deals most efTectivcly with violet rays, it
occurred to Mr. Huggins to try whether he could not
photograph the corona by means of its violet light. Ho
received the image of the sun, and of the region around the
sun, on the photographic plate, after the light had been
sifted out by a screen of violet (pot) glass, and in
later experiments, by a solution of potassic perman-
ganate The sifting thus etlected was more perfect
for photographic purposes than for ordinary vision,
because such red, orange, yellow, and green light from the
sunlit sky as found its way through, though hiding the
visual image of the corona, produced no efl'ect on the
photographic plates. This arrangement being made, and
the image of the sun with a due portion of the sky around
it being received on the plate, it was found that the
coronal image — or what looked very like the coronal
image — made its appearance on no less than twenty of
the plates. This appearance does not consist simply of
increased photographic action immediately around the
sun, but of distinct coronal forms and rays, admitting in
the best plates of measurement and drawing. As Mr. Hug-
gins well remarks, "This agreement in plates taken on
difi'erent days with ditl'erent absorptive media interposed,
and with the sun in different parts of the field " (that is, of
the photographic plate), " together with other necessary
precautions observed, makes it evident that we have not to
do with any instrumental eflect." Nevertheless we should
be glad to hear that the simple device had been employed
of cutting away the portion of the plate on which the sun's
image would fall, and thus allowing the rays from the sun
himself to pass through, and be received where they could
not in any way aflfect the photographic result. Still, the
tests applied are probably sufficient to show that Mr.
Huggins has really accomplished the great result he an-
nounces. Little reliance can be placed on the agreement
between the corona photographed in September last and
that seen on May 17, the sun and his surroundings Vjeing
viewed in such very different directions. But the simi-
larity of structural detail and general character is too
marked to lie explained by mere coincidence.

If the new method is really the success it seems to be,
a most interesting series of discoveries may be expected to
follow from its employment. Now for the first time, the
corona can be studied from day to day and from year to
year. A multitude or interesting questions which hitherto
have been asked in vain may now be answered. In clearer
skies than ours, and at observatories high above the sea-
level, a much greater success than Mr. Huggins has yet
obtained may be expected Even more is to be hoped
from the steady progress which photography is making,
and the use of improved and more sensitive plates.

HUMANITY AND NATURAL HISTORY.

By Richard Jefferies.

(Autlior '■/ "The Gamekeeper at Home.")

NATURAL history is natural history no longer. Even
the very phrase is passing out of use, having ceased
to convey the meaning, which has grown too great for the
words. By it was understood a catalogue of plants, a list
of animals, a description of fossils. The animal kingdom
and the vegetable kingdom were terms in constant use ;
they seem as antiquated now as the language of Chaucer.

I will go no farther back than my grandfather's book-
case. There were the little thick volumes of Buffon, some
Ijroad fragments of Cuvier in folio, the same of Linnteus in
smaller blocks, Bakewell's " Geology," Kirby and Spence,
a hundredweight and a hundred years of the " Philosophical
Transactions," and certain books of botany strictly in
Latin, whose authors are still honoured, but I shall not
name them, for I detested those particular books beyond
measure. This was a very respectable body of such
learning for those days, and could not greatly have been
improved upon. There is a solid mass of facts — a Silurian
system — buried in those books to this hour. Buffon, as
sure on all subjects as a gamecock, quick, witty, and
pointed, writing in lace rufiles, and bringing crooked
refractory nature into trim order and easy sentences, was
the father of popularisers. Cuvier's bones were gigantic,
and there are superstructures at the present day that rest
on them. Linnwus worshipped our golden gorse, and was
thenceforth as dear to our hearts as a fairy tale.

Bakewell made a tesselated pavement with a geometrical
design of what was then sprawling geology ; right or
wrong, at least you could see the pieces. Kirljy and Spence
are at this hour capital story-books for children, so inte-
resting are their insects. I never smoked out a wasp's
nest with straw or gunpowder after I read that book. The
" Philosophical Transactions " are a queer jumble, but the
variety and eccentricity of the topics excite the mind to
look about for original ideas. The strictly Latin botanies
are sawdust. From these authors, however, who, let it be
observed, were for the most part prim;eval and original in
some manner, the book-making naturalists of the last forty
years have copied their works.

My grandfather's books were genuine, and went to the
full length of the knowledge then existent. They formed
a kind of dictionary in which you could find particulars of
any creature or thing. Turning to the antelope, its food,
locality, and mode of life were accurately described, with
its genus and Latin label. Turning to the sparrow, its
habits, number and time of eggs were clearly recorded.
Insects, fishes, plants, mosses — there was nothing known to
be existent that was not described or classified. Few now
understand the immense labour Linnwus's system of
botany represents. Though another system is now in
use, the materials of it are practically Linna^an. What
Linnreus effected in botany was carried out by various
workers in other departments. Here, then, was a vast
storehouse of facts — the accumulations of the ancients
down from the days of Alexander the Great's preceptor.
Looking at them broadly, the whole might be summed up
as definition : The definition of an antelope, of an insect,
or a plant It was an encyclopiedia of living creatures — a
dictionary. This was natural history as originally in-
tended by the phrase.

There was no idea in it If you read and read steadily
through the entomology, and the conchology, and the
ichthyology, all the tomes from end to end, most likely you
would recollect something of the camel or the rhinoceros —

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Jan.

188:5,

a scries of i)icturcs might be fomied in the mind ; but yo\i
would not be the richer by one single idea. A ploughman
may walk through a menagerie, and see the lions, and
tigers, and the olepliant, and will henceforward the bettor
understand the infinity of life on the earth ; but he will
not possess a single new idea. So with these endless
records in my grandfather's tomes : they conveyed
nothing. I think the word " idea" carries my meaning
better than theory or liypothesis. For my part, I
consider that ideas are mor(! valuaVile than facts, being,
indeed, the greatest of all facts. Without an idea, facts
are as dead as stones, on which no one can feed. Any one
may stumble on a fact as a rabbit may turn up a
coin. Only the wisest — or shall we rather say the secularly
inspired ?— can come, by long penance of thought, on the
interpretation called an idea. When ideas came into
natural history, it ceased to be natural history, and became
philosophy.

Instead of endeavouring to trace the course of events
from year to year and from thinker to thinker, till it grew
to its present estate, it will serve better in way of contrast
to sum in outline what that estate now is. At the central
education establishments there are now three principal
subjects placed before students. There are no precise
terms by which these subjects can be accurately described,
because they include so many branches. In effect, they
are cl..ssics, the utilitarian cycle, and natural philosophy.
Of old, classics took the first place, and Latin and
Greek distinguished the gentleman and scholar. With
recent years and the growing desire to profit by
education, what I have called the utilitarian cycle
has come so much to the front as to threaten the
extinction of the classics. Students go to learn things
that will actually be useful to them in life, by which they
may secure an income. But yet something more is needed.
A student may acquire a knowledge of three or more
modern languages, be proficient in the higher arithmetic,
and so forth — able, in short, to occupy any position in the
official or mercantile world — and yet, if he stopped there,
would be quite outside the living thought of the a"e.
Without a knowledge of physical science, and that in a
very extended form, he would be, however liighly educated in
other respects, still a mere clerk. In order, therefore, that
the scholar may be able to mingle freely in the learned
tone of the time, he is instructed in the elements at least
of almost all the sciences. From physiology to botany,
from electricity to astronomy, he is supposed to be
grounded in everything. Unless he were so, half the allu-
sions in the books and leading publications of the day
would have no meaning to him. Again, very many of the
best paid and most progressive employments are only open
to physicists of some ability — as, for instance, the numerous
developments of electricity. To indicate the various
causes which have led up to the present aspect is not
necessary here. The point is that natural philosojihy,
physical science, physics, whatever name may be given to
the higher form of natural history, is now considered so
important as to overshadow the rest. The whole aim of
modern education is to make a man think natural science
—that is, in other words, to fit him to comprehend the
spirit of the time.

For the age thinks natural history in its higher or ideal
form, just as fonner ages have thought me'taphysics, or
have been sceptical, or full of a revived classicism. It
enters into every phase and movement. Physiology, for
instance, which is the natural history of the human" body,
is taught — and rightly taught— to women, and even to
children. If any one should object that physiology is
uot natural history, then /iw natural history is

exactly that understood by the phrase in the books on
my grandfather's shelves. Sanitation is one of the
most powerful movements in ovir time, and seems
likely to gather strength. Sanitation would be impossible
without an insight into natural history. Its main object is
to dispose of certain deleterious organisms, and if these
organisms were not studied, it would be the merest rule of
thumb. The germ theory, all tlie researches of Pasteur,
and his experiments in microscopic vaccination, these are
the purest natural history. So in surgery, the antiseptic
treatment ; though, indeed, all surgery which depends on
growth is natural history. As I for the physician of the
nineteenth century, he is purely a naturalist. Theories
have disappeared : the one leading idea is to get at what
nature needs. Kature, nature ! the word is on every lip.
]\Ien's lives are saved by natural history. Athletics are
based on the results of minute researches into the absorption
of food, the repair of tissues, all the processes of life, train-
ing being adapted to facilitate it. Except those who
return conquerors from war there are none so highl)-
honoured as explorers of unknown regions, such as the
interior of Africa, or the Palajocrystic sea at the other
extreme, whose work is certainly natural history. Astro-
nomy reaches, indeed, above our earth, but uses the forces
with which the earth acquaints us as keys to open the
stellar spheres. Then, returning to the earth, astronomy
ventures theories as to its origin. Despite the attacks
made upon it, the Lyell theory, that existing causes are
sufficient to explain existing things and the means by
which they become as they are, this great idea still influences
the mind of every investigator. Such causes may be
seen at work in any pond, or even on the window-pane ;
the whole idea must have been gathered from an intel-
lectual study of natural history, since natural historj- pre-
sents these causes at every step. An exhaustive account
of the multitudinous ways in which natural science in-
fluences the mind of the age would be of unwieldy length.
Everywhere throughout the Anglo-Saxon world, eager
minds are seeking new discoveries in such science literally
night and day. Therefore, it is strictly accurate to say
that the age thinks natural philosophy, looking to it for
guidance, help, and future increase.

To gather the views of all these workers into a focus and
express it in a formula may not be without its usa The
one central idea which inspires their efforts is this : that
every single atom of matter should be employed for the
good of the human race. While this motive animates the
inquirer, the search is consecrated and the seeker dignified.
The reward is certain — it is in the inward consciousness of
a great aim, which lifts the spirit, and, like a talisman,
transmutes coarse things to preciousness. In our age
nothing is holy but humanity. The human being is the
one shrine towards which all pilgrims of our latter-day
faith toil ; the human being of itself, irrespective of race,
sex, age, or distinction of good or bad. These are the ethics
of natural history. The thing is plain enough to any one
who stays a moment to consider ; but in the hurry of life
and the necessities of business, it is not so obvious perhaps
to the .many. I want to see it recognised as a truth so
great as to be the first lesson of j'outh, the law of man-
hood, the chief dogma of the world.

It was said the other day, in the Times leader on the
fire at Hampton Court Palace, that this collection of
pictures is the only one open to the public on Sundays.
This is 3. mistake. JMiss North's Gallery at Kew is open on
Sundays, and is, moreover, the only picture gallery in the
metropolitan district which is so.

Jan. 5, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

A LOGICAL PUZZLE.

By Rioiard A. Proctor.

SEVERAL correspondents find the syllogism quoted in
a footnote to our review of Prof. De Morgan's Life
as " hard " as De Morgan considered it ; and not a
few can make, it would seem, " neither head nor tail " of
it 1 will give it again, with the explanation of it, — which,
in mj' judgment, takes longer in the reading than the syl-
logism ought to take in interpretation and acceptance.
It runs thus : —

(1) For every Z there is an X which is not )".

(2) Some }''s are Z'%.

. •. Some A''s are not Zs.

Surely the conclusion is an obvious one. We are told
l>y (1) that there are at least as many not-J' X"s as there
are Z's. So that for all X'a to be Z's, the Z's must bo nil
not-T's; but some Z's are Y's; therefore all A''s are
not Z's.

The thing may be put in many ways. Here is another —
There are so many Z's which are not Y's, and so many
which are Y's; and as many not- l'A''s as there are Z's
■of both kinds. Now as many of these not-1' A"'s as there
are not- )' Z's mai/ be Z's ; but the rest cannot be ; for
all the Z's left are Ys. Thus a certain number of A^s are
not Z's.

Concrete examples are always better than abstract ones ;
so let us take a simple concrete example of this syllogism.
(Of course such an example is allbrded by the passage
we quoted from De Morgan's letters ; but he is there at
some pains to wrap up the absurdity involved by a rejec-
tion of the syllogism — the only chance, so far as 1 can see,
of misleading any one who, not being a student of formal
logic, is not necessarily a darkened reasoner) : —

For every football player there is a non-rowing cricketer.
Some rowing men play football ; therefore some cricketers
<lo not play football.

If, wliich I cannot imagine, this last case should perplex
anyone, make it still more definite by using numbers,
noting that you can use almost anj- numbers you please : —

There are in all 1,3.")0 football players, and there are
1,350 cricketers who do not row ; now, L'31 rowing men
play football; hence only 1,119 football players do not
row ; and as there are 1,3.")0 cricketers who do not row,
231 cricketers, a( feasl, cannot be football players. In
such a case as this no logic is wanted. We see at once
that our 1,350 football players are divisible into two lots —
the rowers 231 in number, and the non-rowers 1,119 in
number: but among cricketers there are 1,350 non-rowers,
or 231 more non-rowers than there are among football
players ; so that there must be at least that number of
cricketers in excess of the number of football players.

The reasoning may be generalised thus: —

If there are A Z's of which ii are also }''s, so that
{A — w), and no more, are not-J"s : then if there are
A' A's which are not- )''s, only (A — n) of these A's can
possibly be Z's ; the remaining n A's must of necessity be
not Z's.

To prove that there is any use whatever in the syllogism,
over the credit of inventing which Sir W. Hamilton and
Professor De Morgan disputed, it ought to be shown that
in any case whatever (in some ojc case at least), depending
on the law supposed to he worth demonstrating, any person
of average intelligence would fail to arrive at a Just con-
clusion. But this seems utterly incredible. For instance,
if any one were told that among football players a fourth
are rowing men, and that there are as many non-rowing
cricketers as there are non-rowing and rowing football

players together, could he fail to see at once that there
are more cricketers than football players, so that some
cricketers cannot possibly be football players 1

THE

PLEASANT HOURS WITH
MICROSCOPE.

Bv Henry J. Slack, F.G.S., F.R.M.S.

DISEASE GERMS.

''piIE subject of these papers will be varied from one
J_ fortnight to another to suit the tastes and amount
of c.Kperience of various readers. To-day, Disease Germs
will occupy us. For a long time it has been thought
that a large group of diseases, including many of the most
fatal, were produced by speciiic germs inhaled by the
sufierer with the air, drank with some fluid, or deposited
on some sore place. Through the researches of Pasteur
and others the general facts leading to this theory are
now placed beyond doubt, and in several cases a well-
trained observer can distinguish one disease germ from
another, and an experimenter like Pasteur can prove his
conclusion right by inoculating some animal with the
germs, and producing in it the expected disease. Experi-
ments of tliis kind, merely to gratify curiosity, could not
be defended, but they have a ditlerent character, when, as
in Pasteur's case, they are guided by a benevolent
purpose, and have enabled him — besides assisting the
physician to lessen human suflering — to show farmers
how to secure sheep, fowls, and pigs from disorders that
occasioned a sad devastation. The non-professional and
elementary student cannot expect to do more than form a
notion of the sort of things disease germs are and how
they act. When one particular organism is said to be the
specific germ of splenic disease in sheep, and another of an
enteric fever in man, it must not be assumed that either
the germs or the diseases are specific in the old and very
narrow meaning of the term. This we shall see as we go
on. The most common forms of disease germs are those
of extremely minute rods — bacteria, or minute round
bodies called micrococci (little berries) by no means a good
term, as the objects are not really like any berry.

Half-a-dozen Preston salts bottles are convenient things
for experiments that will throw some light upon tliese sub-
jects, although they may not exhibit any actual disease
germs, but only some of their more innocent relations, or
perhaps objects specifically the same as disease germs, but
not in a mischievous condition. Put a little water into
four of the bottles, and add to one a pinch of chopped
hay ; to another a bit of raw meat as big as a small pea ;
to a third a little dust swept from the walls or floors ; put
a little milk in the fourth ; a little flour paste in the fifth ;
and a little boiled rice in the last. Place all in a warm
room, and watch from day to day. As soon as a thin skin
(pellicle) forms in any one, put a drop on a slide, cover
with thin glass, and view with a power of about one quarter
of an inch, which with a ten-inch tube microscope
will magnify about 200 linear with an A or No. 1
eye-piece. The observer is sure to see a large number
of very small, ."straight objects, some quiet, and
others moving with a wriggling motion. Some of
these may shov/ with that magnification that they are
beaded, or contain minute beads, others would show it
with a much higher power, and some again are so small
and delicate as to defy all attempts to discover structure.
After a few days, it is most likely that many rather larger
thread-like objects will appear, twisted like corkscrews,

KNOWLEDGE ♦

fjAX. 5, 18^3

and swimming vigorously with a spiral motion. Thoy are,
in fact, screw-jiropclifrs, and as the; lower forms of life are
very ancient, their ancestors, no doul)t, practised that mode
of propulsion millions of years Ueforc it was imitated Viy
man. After a little while, longer threads will Ijo found,
and probably some branching like the mycelium of the
moulds. Most of the disease-germs identified by various
observers are, more or less, like the smallest of the
little rods discernible with a ([uarter-inch objective.

The use of experimentingwitli a varietyof infusions is two-
fold : first, there is a chance of getting a variety of germs ;
and, second ly,diirerent substances favour the development of
dill'erent kinds of infusorial creatures. Whenever a sunbeam
lights up a swarm of motes, there is sure to be amongst
them minute eggs and germs of small plants, animals, and
objects that lie on the border-land. Professor Tyndall
throws artificial sunbeams of electric light through air in
glass vessels, and while motes are visible, life will appear,
if the germs amongst them are allowed to settle in fluids
that will feed them. When there are no motes, a fluid
capable of putrescence, but in which all germs have been
destroyed by heat, will remain sweet in the purified air for
any length of time. Country air on breezy heaths and
downs is comparatively free from motes and germs, and on
lonely mountains, in calm weather, none are found. As
it is most important in thickly-peopled countries to secure
breathing-places that are not contaminated, the greatest
care should be taken to stop the robbery of open land by
adjacent proprietors. Sandy beaches and chalk downs, for
example, are invaluable as sanitoriums and playgrounds,
and for enabling winds to send pure air to cities. Pasteur
has distinguished small, round bodies producing silkworm
disease ; little rods producing splenic sheep disease ; others
generating chicken cholera, which is common on French
farms ; and lately he has identified an organism which can
produce rabies in dogs, and which appears to be the source
of the poison conveyed in the bite of mad animals.

In the Department of Eure-et-Loire !^-"),000 animals
■were inoculated upon Pasteur's plan in 188:!. In the last
few weeks 13,000 sheep, 3, .500 oxen, and 20 horses were
similarly treated without a single accident.

M. Paul Bert has recently injected the blood of a mad
dog into a healthy one without communicating the disease.
He finds the poisonous microbe to reside not in the secre-
tion of the salivary glands, but in the mucus of the
mouth and air passages.

It may be said of these organisms generally that they
are capable of growing under different conditions, and
sometimes they can be developed under various forms
which might be taken to belong to different species. The
malignant disease germs can, in certain known cases, and
probably in others, either be cultivated so as to preserve
their evil power for successive generations, or by supplying
them with free oxygen, so that their descendants are less
and less poisonous and finally harmless. Inoculation with
the milder forms protects against the action of the more
virulent. The moulds that will grow in some of the
bottles are related to the useful ferments and also to those
■which produce disease.

In the Xciccaslle Wcrk/,/ Chronicle for Saturday, the
6th inst, will appear the first of a series of weekly columns
on popular science, by Mr. Proctor.

Thk lulitor of KNowLEDfJE will lecture on the Star-
Depths, at St. tJeorge's Hall, Langhara-place, on Sunday
afternoon, at four o'clock. The lecture will be illustrated
■with the o.vyhydrogen light.

OUR BODIES:

SHORT PAPERS ON PHYSIOLOGY.

Bv Dk. Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E.

No. III.— MUSCLES.

ON one occasion I asked a class of students who were
studying physiology in a popular fashion, what they
supposed " muscles " were. The answers I received to my
incjuiry were more distinguished for their variety than for
their correctness. One student said " muscle " was " sinew" ;
another told me it was " some kind of fibre " ; a third said
it was "gristle " ; and a fourth that it was " some kind of
pulp found in the bod}'." Now the students in question
were drawn from the ranks of ordinary middle-class
society. They were studying physiology with me, not
as a matter of business, but as a labour of love, and
were attempting, under my guidance, to obtain a broad
and general view of the functions and structure of the
human frame. (We should bear in mind that physiology
is the science of " functions," and that, as such, it is based
on a knowledge of "structure.' ) I may therefore take my
former students as a type of intelligent society around us,
and I am not far wrong, I fancy, when I add that if I were
to ask the readers of Kxowledce, head overhead, to return
me a plain answer to the question " What is muscle '! " I
should find only a very small percentage of correct replies.
Yet in the appreciation of what muscle is, to begin with>
lies the key to the understanding of the whole topic.
Muscle, in one word is j/es/i. Our muscles are our "flesh,"
as the muscles of any other animal are its "flesh." What
we eat of fish is the muscle of the animal, or rather the
collective muscles. Our mutton-chop is the " muscle " of
the sheep, as veal is ox muscle in a young condition.

We should never despise homely sources of information.
The homelier such means of knowledge are, the better.
Here, then, is a readily-accessible source of information
concerning the nature of muscle. A slice of cold roast
beef lies before me. With the point of my fork I can
make out that it consists of things that look to the un-
assisted sight like coarse ji/jrts, but which are really
bundles of fibres. This is observation number one. Muscle
is made up of fibres, or bundles of fibres, joined together.
Next, I can see that in my slice of beef (which represents
a cross cut of muscle) there is to be perceived a line of
division, through which I can separate so much of the beef
from the other half, without tearing any of the fibres.
Now this second observation shows me that the flesh of the
body is not all in one mass. On the other hand, if I were
to examine a whole leg of beef I should find that the flesh
thereof was grouped into separate portions, each of which
is a muscle. With the handle of a dissecting scalpel, we
can separate out each muscle as a rule from its fellows,
and we see that freedom of movement for each muscle is
thus secured.

At this stage of our inquiries, we might ask ourselves
■what, generally, are the uses of muscles. I can enume-
rate at least five functions which are performed by
muscles. Firstly, there are the coituiwn movements of the
body : walking, grasping, itc. These are performed by
muscles. Secondly, we obviously sjiea/c by muscular aid.
Thirdly, ■we express our emotions — from sneezing and
snarling with our raised lip and uncovered tooth, to
shrugging our shoulders — by means of muscles. Fourthly,
we circulate our blood by muscular action, for the heart is
simply a hollow muscle. And fifthly, muscle Itelps in tin'
dhjestion of food, for the middle coat of the stomach and
intestine, not to speak of the gullet, is muscidar, and serves

Jan. 5, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

by its movement to mix the food with the digestive fluids.
1 need hardly add that muscles give to the varied regions
of the body their contour and outline. It is the business
of tlie sculptor to delineate with precision the form which
the various muscles give to limbs and body under the
varying attitudes of action and repose.

There are two distinct classes or kinds of muscle in our
bodies. The fii-st of these is the group of voluntary muscles,
whilst the second group is that of involuntary muscles.
The former derive their name from the fact that we can
move them when we like, and the muscles of face, head
and neck, arms, trunk, and legs — that is, the muscles of the
body generally — exemplify this tirst set. The "involuntary"
muscles are those which are outside the command of the
will, and which discharge various important duties, re-
i|uiring, so to speak, automatic and regular performance.
The muscles of the stomach, which, by their action, mix
the food with the gastric juice : the muscles which form
part of the walls of blood\essels, and which by their con-
traction or expansion produce pallor or blushing of the
skin for example ; and the muscles of the bronchial tubes of
the lungs, and of the pupil of the eye, all illustrate the
" involuntary " class. They act only when stimulated by
some special feature of life. Light will produce contraction
of the special eye muscles whose function it is to close the
pupil ; and food entering the stomach sets its muscles
agoing. The heart is likewise an involuntary muscle, dis-
charging, when left to itself and not interfered with by
the brain, its important duty with regularity and precision.

There is a wide difference in structure between the
" voluntary " and " involuntary " muscles. The former
are often called striped muscles, and the latter unslriped;
but it must be borne in mind that the lieart is an exception
to this classLtication. The fibres of the heart are striped
like those of the " voluntary " muscles, whilst, of course,
the heart is entirely in\oluntary in its action. In some
respects the heart-tibres, however, are different from those
of the striped muscles at large.

If we take a " voluntary " muscle, separate it from its
surrounding neighbours, and examine it carefully, we find
it to be composed of Inindlis of fibres or fasciculi as they
are technically named. Each bundle consists of a variable
number of fibres (Fig. 1. a.) which at their longest do not
exceed one and a half inches in length. The average
breadth of a fibre varies from the four-hundredth of an
inch to the twenty-four-hundredth. In cold-blooded
animals, the fibres are larger than in warm - blooded
forms. When we put a fibre of voluntary muscle
under the microscope, we observe that, as the light
shines through it, it presents a striped appearance
(Fig. 1. c), the stripes running across the fibre. This
" striped '' appearance, from which the voluntary muscles
derive their name, is due to the fact that a fibre is
composed of two kinds of elements, thick and thin.

These alternate with each other, and the thick parts, of
course, under transmitted light, appear as the dark stripes,
whilst the thinner parts form the intervening light bands
of the fibre. The light bands refract the light singly, whereas
the dark discs or parts refract the light in a double fashion.
More recently, another stripe has been described cutting
as it were, each dark stripe into two halves. It is evident,
however, that wlien the ultimate structure of a fibre of
muscle is considered, we might readily enough conclude
that the fibre was really built up of cross-pieces or discs,
placed end to end, like a rnulcau of shillings. And, as a
matter of fact, we can see this structure in a muscular
fibre which has been allowed to soak for some time in a
weak acid. As shown in Fig. 2, the filire then breaks into
cross-pieces, named its discs (a, h). Again, on the surface of
the fibre we can detect markings or stripes running the long
way of the structure. This shows us that in another sense
the fibre can be divided into smaller fibres or fibrils ; and
when the extremity of a fibre is microscopically examined,
we may see the ends of these fibres (Fig. 2, c), reminding
us of a section of the separate wires which compose a thick
wire rope. Last of all, we must note that each fibre is.
enclosed in a delicate sheath, called its sarcolemma.

The unstriped or involuntary muscles possess, as their
name implies, a different structure from their striped neigh-
bours. They are also composed of fibres, but each fibre is
made up of long spindle-shaped cells, varying in length
from the three-hundredth to the six-hundredth of an inch.

The question, finally, " how does muscle act 1 " faces us
at the close of our brief studies. If we take the well known
biceps muscle, which forms the great fleshy mass of the
upper arm, as a type of muscles at large, we may discover a
ready reply to this (juestion. The biceps springs from the
shoulder by its two tendons (or sinews) and passes, to be
attached or " inserted " also by a tendon, into the radius
(one of the fore-arm bones) below. Now, when this muscle
acts, we see that it pulls up the fore-arm and flexes or
bends it on the upper arm, as in the act of bringing food to
the mouth. If we place our hand over the biceps (at the
middle of the upper arm) as we raise our fore-arm, we shall
feel the muscle to grow thicker as the fore-arm approaches the
upper arm. Again, we observe that only one end of the
muscle moves (the lower end, or insertion), whilst its upper
end (or oriyin) at the shoulder, remains fixed. From these
facts, then, we learn, firstly, that muscles act by pvdling
together the parts between which they are attached ;
secondly, that the muscle grows thicker when it acts ; and
thirdly, that muscles perform their functions of moving
the bones and body, because they possess an inherent
property called contractility — that is, the poin-r of shorteniny
themselres. In this latter phrase is found the whole ex-
planation of muscular action. And when we add that
groups of muscles (such as those which bend the fingers),
antagonise or oppose others (such as those which open the
fingers) ; and that the muscles are ordered and governed by
the nervous system, we shall have fairly started our readers
on the way of becoming better acquainted from the pages of
any physiology text-book with the interesting problem con-
cerning our movements and the power of doing as we w^iU.

10

KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Jan.

1883.

HAS THE MOON AN ATMOSPHERE ?

To the Editor of Knowledoe.

REFERRING to Captain Noble's recent interesting
description of " thorns " on the cusps of the partially-
eclipsed sun, it may, perhaps, be useful to record what
photography has said on the subject. I have in niy
possession some nineteen heliographs (prints) of the
eclipses of Dec. 22, 1870, and May 26, 1873. These
are four and a-half inches in diameter, and when weather
has been favourable, the definition is excellent, as shown by
the details of sunspots and the indentations of the moon's
edge.

They were taken by Mr. Fitterton, at Ely, and it is to
be regretted the work is now discontinued.

I have also seven gelatine plates, taken by myself, of the
eclipse of Dec. 31, 1880, which are fairly sharp, though not
equal to Mr. Fitterton's. A careful examination of these
prints and plates does not reveal any of the " thorns," but,
1 think, does, in one or two cases, show a tendency to
blunting of the cusps.

These instances are, however, among the 1873 and 1880
photographs, when clouds and air disturbance have evi-
dently somewhat blurred the outline. Those of December,
1870, were taken when the sun was high, and, as to six at
least, under favourable circumstances. The cusps in these
are wonderfully sharp and well-defined, and show neither
" blunting" nor " thorns."

From the photographic evidence it would appear the
" thorn " observations are rare ; and, indeed, I have seen
no instance myself. I can however confirm the marvellous
sharpness of Saturn as it cut the moon's edge on the
occasion Captain Noble refers to. So far in favour of the
absence of moon's atmosphere ; but one word now on the
other side. Previously to the lunar eclipse of Feb. 27,
1877, Mr. R. A. Proctor referred in one of the public
prints to its being formerly considered that the moon
" perhaps was illuminated by auroral light." I did not see
this passage till after the eclipse, but I did remark during
that event on the " aurora-like " patches of light seen on
the moon's disc ; and in the eclipse of Aug. 23-24 of the
same year I obtained what I considered strong confirmatory
evidence of these patches. When these observations, sup-
ported as they were by the views of Professor Alexander,
Professor Dorna, and others, were published, they met
with less than encouragement ; but now I am rather glad
to find that the possibility of local cloud or mist on the
moon (which could hardly exist without some form of
atmosphere), is not only supported by observations, but
accredited by some of our first selenographers. The in-
ference from this appears to be that if our satellite has not
an atmosphere quite like our own, she may have one,
though rare enough to support auroral discharges, under
some circumstances sufficiently dense to partly obscure and
alter in character portions of her surface as viewed tele-
scopically by us. J. Raxd Capron.

Guildown, Guildford, Drr. 7, 1882.

[I read over with Mr. Russell, Government Astronomer
at Sydney, New South Wales, Mr. Capron's arguments (in
his larger work), and listened to Mr. Russell's own ; but I
must confess I see nothing in anything yet observed during
lunar eclipses which is suggestive of auroras on the moon,
or cannot be explained as naturally to be expected during
lunar eclipses. — R. P.]

Now ready. Part XIV. of Knowiedoe (Dec, 1882), price Is. ;
post-free, Is. 3d.

iRebictos.

LIGHT.*

THE science of optics is divided into two parts —
geometrical and physical optics. They cannot be
treated quite independently of each other, any more than
the geometrical properties and laws of motion can he com-
pletely dissociated from the physical qualities and laws
included under the general term Dynamics. But while in
books on geometrical optics the propagation, reflection, and
refraction of light, according to determinate laws, are
chiefly considered, in a treatise on physical optics those
effects are considered only as illustrating or establishing
the laws according to which light is transmitted, deflected,
absorbed, dispersed, and so forth. The book before us
deals chiefly with physical optics, yet gives a sufficient
explanation of those matters (usually dealt with in books
on geometrical optics) which are essential to a right under-
standing of the nature and laws of light.

The work is one of the best of the excellent series of
text^books of science published by Messrs. Longmans &
Co. There is a careful reference throughout to the re-
quirements of students not acquainted with the more
advanced departments of mathematics. In fact, only a
very small part of the work requires any knowledge of
mathematics beyond the elements of plane trigonometry.
Of course, the evidence demonstrating the existence of a
something which we call the fether of space, but in reality
only know of by its effects, could not be given in such a
work as the present ; for none but the mathematician can
grasp the evidence, any more than non-mathematicians can
grasp the reasoning of Newton in establishing the law of
gravitation. Here, therefore, only the general evidence is
given, just as in our works of astronomy all but the out-
line of the simpler parts of Newton's demonstration is
omitted. But the undulatory theory of light, as dis-
tinguished from the theory of an lether, is fully estaVilished
by the evidence considered here — which indeed runs
through the whole work.

Chapters v., VI., VIL, and IX., XIL-XIV., on "In-
terference," " Colours of Thin Plates," " Diffraction,"
" Spectrum Analysis," and " Polarised Light," are especially
interesting. We would commend in particular the careful
study of the chapter on " Diffraction " to those who wish
to follow understandingly the work which is being done,
and will hereafter be done in j-et greater degree, with the
diff'raction spectroscope. W'e note wit'n some surprise the
omission of any explanation of Haloes, for the phenomena
spoken of at p. 203 under that name are not Haloes at all.

There is a very interesting discussion in the last chapter
of the various determinations of the velocity of light.
We could wish that, besides the metric statements, measure-
ments in miles per second had been given. To tell readers
that the velocity of light in racuo is 300,.574,000 metres
per second is very well ; but some readers, at any rate —
say one in a htmdred — would not infer at onee that light
travels, according to this estimate, at the rate of 186,771 '4
miles per second.

NAT, THE NATURALIST.!

We are disposed to envy the boys of the present day —
they have such capital books written for them. In our
time " Sandford and Merton " was the type of book for boys,

* "Physical Optics." By R. T. Glazebrook, M.A., Fellow and
Lecturer of Trinity College. (Longmans, Green, & Co., London.)

t " Nat, the Naturalist : or a Boy's Adventures in the Kastem
Seas." By Geo. ManvillcFenn. (Blackie iS: Son : Loudon, Glasgow,
Edinburgh, and Dublin.)

Jan. 5, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

11

and with all respect to the memory of worthy Mr. Thomas
Day, " Sandford and Jlerton " is occasionally rather weari-
some, and the science in it is not always either plainly
worded or exactly described. The fight between Harry
Sandford and Master Nash seemed to us the best thing in
the book — not because it was a fight (we trust), but
because the bad fellow got well beaten. But Mr. Barlow,
with his preposterous stories, was an emphatic nuisance
most of the time, and so was Harry himself, too often.
Tommy Merton was a good deal pleasanter, except for the
short time when fine company and a silly mother spoiled
him. Our modern writers of stories for boys seldom intro-
duce a bore of the Barlow sort. They get their boys out
into the open, and give them multitudes of exciting scenes
— in fact, their worst fault (and it is not one of which boys
arc likely to complain), is that they represent travel in the
woods, at sea, in arctic regions, and in the tropics, as a
scene of constant adventure. There are no flashes of
dulness, as in real travel.

The book before us is a capital book for boys. A lad
with a taste for natural history, li\-ing with a kindly but
rather weak uncle, and an aunt who sets a stern face
against litter of all sorts, gets into trouble at home, culmi-
nating when he stuff's a grey parrot into the semblance of
a " beast," — a " regular guy." Then an uncle of kindred
tastes appears on the scene, and the boy, after some pre-
liminary lessons in shooting, boating, and so forth, goes
with him to New Guinea, there to have his fill of collect-
ing, adventure, and danger, — yet not absurdly lucky, as
some boys we could name, in always meeting just such
adventures as a traveller, after ten or twelve
years in a place, would consider the most remark-
able in his experience. Nor is our " Nat, the
Naturalist " too murderously inclined. He peppers
bloodthirsty Papuans with small shot, reserving his rifle-
bullet for closer danger when danger seems almost at its
closest. As in Mr. Manville Fenn's " Ship Ahoy !" dangers
thicken at times till there seems no hope ; but a way of
escape is always found (we are not taking away the interest
of the story in saying so much, for no boy hero that we
know of was ever killed, at least in such stories as this —
the boy on the burning deck don't count). The tone of the
book is thoroughly good. The science is not rammed down
the boy-reader's throat, but brought in naturally and
pleasantly. The hero is not an impossible combination of
courage, strength, agility, and keenness, but a boy who
masters his fears after failures, and becomes active, strong,
and clever by resolute work and watchfulness.

THE FACE OF THE SKY,
FROM JAXUAEY 5 TO JANUARY 19, 1883.

UXDFR this hp.iding we propose to point out, at intervals of
fourteen days, such celestial objects and phenomena as arc
susceptible of observation by the amateur possessor of a portable
achromatic telescope. Pending the completion of the stellar
portion of '" Nighis with a Three-Inch Telescope," our references to
objects of interest in the various constellations will* be confined to
those which have been previously described in these pages. It is
further proposed to furnish a popular description of the lunar
surface in a series of papers especially devoted to that subji-ct.
Hence, references to the moon will, for the present, be confined to
notices of her age and position in the sky.

The snn should be examined every clear day with a power of 60
or 70, and an eye-shade of the tint known by the opticians as
■'London smoke" (or by one of the darkest blue or green pro-
curable), as we are now passing through a period of sun-spot
maxima, and the solar stu-face is diversified by spots and faculic,
some of the former occasionally assuming enormous dimensions.

To-night (Jan. 5), if it be (as is most unlikely) absolutely clear
in the south-west horizon, Mercury may be caught twinkling close

to it, immediately after sunset. The chief constellations visible
after dark are Pisces, Cctus (Knowledoe, Vol. I., p. 220), Pegasus,
Cygnus (Vol. 11., p. 310), Copheus, Perseus (Vol. 1., p. 221),
-Vndromeda (id.), Cassiopeia (Vol. 1., p. 445), Draco (Vol. II.,
p. 330), Ursa Major (Vol. 1., p. 445), Ursa Minor (id.),
Auriga (Vol. I., 313), Taurus (Vol. 1., p. 221), Gemini (Vol.
I., p. 376), Orion (Vol. I., p. 290 and 291), &c. The
references we have given aro to the places in which the chief
objects of interest in the shape of double star and nebula? ia these
constellations aro described. For a general view of the night sky,
however, the student may refer to the map on p. 20G of our first
volume ; from which, moreover, ho will find the positions of the
planets with considerable facility. Saturn is now a most interest-
ing object, as his ring continues very slowly to open. The observer
may scrutinise him with the highest power at his disposal. It is
Olid, and not very cxjilicable, that this planet bears magnification
notably bettor than its much more brilliant neighbour Jupiter. To-
night, and for the next fortnight, Saturn will be found a little to
the south-east of c Arietis. Jupiter, to the north-east of ? Tanri,
is by far the most striking object in the sky ; and will actually cast
a shadow of any body interposed between him and a white
surface. The now rapidly-fading great red spot and the white
spot on his equatorial belt will claim the observer's atten-
tion. His first satellite will cross his disc this evening,
itself entering on to it at 5h. .TOm. ; while at 5 h. 31m. its
shadow will follow it on to Jupiter's face. At 7 h. 18 m. the
satellite will pass off, followed by the sh.idow at 7 h. 47 m. The
same satellite will again exhibit a similar setpience of phenomena
on the 12th and early morning of the 13th, when they will happen
at 12 h. 22 m. p.m., 12 h. 57 m. p.m., 2 h. 37 m. a.m., and 3 h. 13 ra.
a.m. respectively. The student m\\ note that Jupiter, haviug
passed opposition, the satellites precede their shadows in crossing
his disc. Before opposition the shadows were the first to enter on
to his face. Prior to the transit of Satellite I. on the 10th, Satel-
lite II. will have passed across J npiter. Its ingress will occur at
5 h. 12 m. p.m., and that of its shadow at 6h. 21m. p.m. The
egress of the satellite happens at 7 h. 5G m. p.m. ; the egress of the
shadow at 9 h. 7 m. p.m. The observer should carefully watch this
phenomenon, since the shadow of this satellite has been seen of a
chocolate or brown colour on Jupiter's disc, while that of Satellite I.
has simultaneously appeared like a dot of ink. On the 11th
Satellite I. will bo occulted (i.e., will pass behind Jupiter's disc) at
9 h. 30 m. p.m., as will Satellite III. at 10 h. 41 m. p.m.; at
19 m. 59 s. after midnight the first satellite will reappear, not
from behind Jupiter's disc, but from eclipse in his shadow, a little
to the right of and below the centre of his follo\ving limb (as seen
in an inverting telescope). It will reappear at the same place from
eclipse, at the much more convenient hour of Gh. 48 m. 44s. p.m.
on the 13th.

As the moon pursues her monthly path through the sky, she, of
course, passes in front of numerous stars, and as it is technically
said. *'occults" them. The disappearance andreappearanceof a star
at the moon's limb is a most interesting and curious occurrence, and
we propose, in conclusion, to give the times at which some of those
jihenomena will be observable during the next fortnight. As the
moon travels from right to left, of course, it is always her eastern
limb at which a star disappears, and her western one at which it
comes into sight again. Between new moon and full moon, how-
ever, this eastern limb is unilluminated, so that the star is ex-
tinguished with a suddenness that is quite startling. There is a
conventional way of representing the points on the moon's limb at
wliich disappearances and reappearances take place. It is this. A
great circle is supposed to pass through the zenith and through the
moon's centre, and the place where this circle cuts the apparent
upper part of her limb (as seen in an inverting telescope), but what
in reality, is her lowest point — this so-called "Vertex," we say
— is taken as the initial point, and angles arc measured towards
the right hand round her circumference as seen in an inverting
telescope. We may illustrate this by the aid of a florin, which we
must turn as if it were upside down for the purpose ; or, in other
words, invert the legend. Then, supposing this to represent the
moon as seen in an inverting telescope, a star occulted at any angle
of 133° from the vertex will disappear at a point in the circum-
ference between the "O" and the *'n" in the word "One," and
should it reappear at an angle of 327° will emerge opposite the " a "
in the sentence " of a pound." With this preliminary explanation
we may say that on the 11th r' Capricorni, a 4^ mag. star will dis-
appear at the moon's dark limb at C h. 6 m. p.m., at an angle of 90°
from her vertex, and reappear at her bright limb, at an angle of
25°, at 6 h. 39 m. p.m. On the 12th, the 5th mag. star k Aqnarii
will disappear at the dark limb at 4 h. 52 m. p.m., at an angle from
the vertex of 13.3°, and reappear at the bright one at Oh.Om. p.m.,
at an angle of 327°. Occultations of 15 Piscium, 29 Arietis, and
B. A. C, 1651, will occur on the evening of the 13th, early morning

12

• KNOWLEDGE

[Jan. 5, 1883.

of tlip 17Ui, niid tlip night of the 19th reHpeetivcly ; but ns theeo
nrc nil stiirs of less than tlio Gth iimpnitiuk', we give uo details of
them in so niiTely popiihir a list of occurrenees as this.

The moon is lio'Sdaj's old nt noon on the 5th, is new at 5 h. 50"3ni.
a.m., on the !)th, and enters her Kirst Quarter 4-7'Gm. after niid-
night on the 15th. At noon, on the !Hli, she will be 03 day old —
13 day old at the same hour on the 10th — and so on. At 9 p.m.
on the 5th, she will be in the eonstellation Scorpio; at the same
hour on the Gth, in Ophiuehus ; on the 7th, in Sa^ttarius ; on the
8th, in the same constellation, as she will be on the 9th too ; on the
10th, in Aquarius ; on the 11th, in Aquarius also; as she will be on
the 12tli ; on the 13th, in Pisces, which she will not quit on the
Mth or 15tli.

Venus attains her greatest brilliancy during the early morning of
the 11th. She is a most conspicuous object in the south-east before
sunrise ; and but for her great .South declination, and consequent
proximity to the horizon, would be visible to the naked eye in
sunshine.

0m: ^aniaiiov Contfr,

A THEORY OF MERCURY.*
By Thomas Foster.

IFEAE that many — perhaps including the editor — will con-
sider me entirely out of order in venturing, though not an
astronomer, to advance an astronomical theory. I have dis-
cussed (see " Leisure Readings," Knowledge Library, Vol. V.),
illusions in these pages, and elsewhere the probable British origin
of a large part of our English blood, the true plot which Dickens
had in view in the "Mystery of Edwin Drood," and other such
subjects. I have advanced a theory as to "Nature Myths in Nursery
Rhymes," which some critics unkindly regarded as a jest, while
others have, in solemn sort, denounced the theory as profane in the
tirst place, and incorrect — which is a trifle, however (as you would
say) in the second. It would be very distres.siug to me if
any one should for a moment imagine that the astronomical
theory I am about to describe is advanced in jest, or is
the invention of some light and trifling hour and mood. It
has, I beg most earnestly to assure my readers, been carefully
compared with many of the theories, scientific and otherwise, which
have been advanced during the last few years. It has not been
adopted until I had satisfied myself that in its chief characteristics
it will bear favourable comparison with some, at least, among those
theories. After adopting it I have, indeed, (as is only natural), most
sedulously nursed and fondled it, until I have become warmly
attached to it. It would, in point of fact, be incorrect to speak of
it as an adopted theory, if by that were to be implied that it is the
offspring of any other brain than my own. It may be — astronomers
I know will say it is — " a poor thing," " but," as Touchstone says,
■mth a touching pathos (often misapprehended), " it is my own."

I must confess, let me say at the outset, I am not prepared to
accept as just the objections with which astronomers and other
men of science seem disposed to regard all attempts on the part of
persons outside their ranks to form an opinion about the results of
scientific observation. If we are not to theorise about the wonders
of which they tell us, it can only be because they have not well
explained their meaning. This, indeed, is likely enough ; for most
of them are, unhappily, inarticulate. Like the Cyclops of old,
they are single-eyed (for as yet binocular telescopes are not in use),
but some of them speak so indistinctly when they condescend to
speak at all, that they would seem to have a double tongue.
However, it must sometimes happen that what they have
to say is so plain and simple in itself, that it can
hardly be e.vpressed indistinctly. There are limits even to the
use of technical expressions ; and even where technical expressions
are available, it will sometimes happen that by an accident a man
of science, through a momentary lapse of attention, will use words
that the unscientific can understand. Learned medical men have
been known to speak (when hurried, of course) in plain terms, —
to talk of a black eye, for example, instead of indulging in the
customary references to extravasation, ecchymosis, and so forth,
-ind again, though it is, I believe, considered de ri<jv.eur hy your
true scientist to speak of colours as " belonging to the more or
less refrangible end of the spectrum," when one means that they
are blue, indigo, and violet, in one case, or red, orange, and yellow
in the other, yet we do sometimes hear a man of science by mistake

• Mr. Foster mast excuse our relegating his ingenious theory to
Paradox Comer.

speak of blue, red, or green, as the case may be, like other people.
The ca.se which I am going now to discuss is an instance in point.

Before proceeding, however, directly to my theory, which relates,
let rao here mention, to the planet Mercury, I may say,
generally, that there appears to me something narrow, and, one
might almost say peevish, in the attempt made by too many
astronomers to restrict our ideas about other planets or suns by
what we know about our own earth and about oar own sun. Better,
as it seems to me, to indulge even in the freedom of imagination,
the unscientific licence, some would say, which gave birth to the
green-cheese theory of the moon and to other views not, perhaps,
absolutely defensible, than to be restricted within the narrow
limits of the known. Even men of profoundest scientific know-
ledge have admitted that "the known is little, the unknown is
immen.se." Where the field is so wide for guessing, why strive to keeji
the thoughtful student of scientific wonders confined painfully within
the narrow field of the known ? If we cannot enlarge our know-
ledge as we could wish, let us at least boldly widen our conceptions.
If we cannot prove the verdant caseity (or the caseous verdure) of
our satellite, let us not, therefore, be deterred from imagining that
in that remote world a state of things may exist of which we
terrene creatures, "limited little brutes" as we are (1 thank thee,
Miss Bella Wilfer, for teaching mo that word), can have but very
imperfect conception or no conception at all.

(To he coiUinued.)

s^fsqs^ij

" Let Knowledc'e jn-ow from more to more."' — Alfred TE^•^•YSOX.

leturs to tue (EUitor,

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possihly he in-
serted. Correspondents must not he offended^ therefore, should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial communications shoitld he addressed to the Editoe ok
Knowledge ; all Business comtnunications to the Pcblisheks, at the
Office, 7-i, Great Qiieen-street, TT.C. If this is not attended to,

DEL.4Y"S AKISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Chequct, and Post Office Orders should he made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMMUNICATIONS ARE ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOUGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

THE FELLOWSHIP OF LEARNED SOCIETIES.— MEA-
SURING THE POWER OF AN EYE-PIECE.

[674] — There are two of your "Answers to Correspondents"
with reference to which I should like to make a few remarks. The
first is that to " D. Q. J." (p. 500), concerning the Fellowship of
the Royal Astronomical Society, into which, as you but too truly
intimate, anybody can get who can obtain two or three people to
nominate him, and can afford to pay the fees. What is the conse-
quence ? Simply that the proprietors of middle-class schools of a
particular type, who want to write "F.R.A.S." after their names in
their advertisements, are perpetually being elected ; albeit their
knowledge of astronomy may be represented in many cases, alge-
braically speaking, as a — quantity. Speaking for myself, I think
that our bye-lavs should be altered so as ti> include some intellectual
test among the qualifications for Fellowship. A knowledge of the
chief numerical details of our own solar system ; of the first six books
of Euclid ; of the rudiments of algebra, trigonometry, and the power
to use a table of logarithms, would not be a desperately severe
criterion of fitness, and might spai'e us the scandal of any of our
confreres advertising themselves, iotidem verbin, as " eminent astro-
nomers," and compiling books on astronomy; when they could not
solve a common quadratic equation (to say nothing of summing a
convergent scries) to save their sotils alive.

In the second place, I merely wish to say that the instrument
concerning which " H. S." (p. 500) has put a question is obviously
the very simple dynamometer invented by the Rev. E. L. Berthon,
of Romsey, Hants.

A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society"

Jan. 5. 18S3 ]

KNOWI.EDGE •

13

BRIGHT STAU XEAR THE SUX.

[C75]— With reference to the phenomenon mentioned on p. -189
of Knowledge, as havinpr been seen on Dee. 21, if the object was
not a comet near perihelion, it was probably a temporary star. I
find tliero is no bright star near the place, the nearest being t and it
Sagittarii (of the 2ud mag.), each about 12° distant; bnt these
would be south of the sun, and not " a little above the sun's path,"
lis the description states, besides being quite too faint to bo visible
ill the daytime (to the naked eye) under any circumstances. The
object could not have been the planet Venus, which was situated
about 23° west of the sun on the day in question. It seems worthy
of remark that the place of Kepler's celebrated " Nova," of 1G04,
was — at the time of observation — only about 8\° to the west (and
!i little north) of the sun's place. So that, if the object was really
a star, it seems possible that it may have been another outburst of
Kepler's star. The morning sky should be examined, as, if tlic
object be still visible, of the same brilliancy, it should now be a
conspicuous object before sunrise. J. E. GouE.

Hallisodare, Co. Sligo, Dfc. 30, 1882.

THE AURORA BOEEALIS.— THE RAIX-BAXD SPECTltO-
SCOPE. "

[676] — I think there can be no doubt in regard to the connec-
tion between the " torpedo-shaped," " cometary," or " herring-
without-prico body " that was seen on Friday, Nov. 17, at 6.5 p.m.,
.•ind the aurora, as the spectroscopic examination gave the same
bright line for both ; and this was situated between D and E in the
.spectrum, bnt nearer the former. Upon a previous occasion, when
observing the aurora of Oct. 2, I noticed a bright line in a similar
position, and for a few minutes only three distinct bright lines in
the red end of the spectrum. By-the-by, since sending those hints
about the use of the rain-band spectroscope, that appeared in No. 53
of your valuable periodical, I have made the discovery that with
small looking-glasses, placed at suitable angles outside the window,
the light can be reflected, apparently with very little loss, into the
room, and then examined with the spectroscope for percentage of
rain-band. For zenith observations this plan will be found ex-
tremely useful, and moreover enables an observer to examine the
U'reater part of the sky in any weather, without straining to look
round comers, or having to go outside the house. I do not know
whether you will consider this worth mentioning in Knowledge,
but I have certainly found it in practice of great assistance in the
•spectroscopic examination of the air. I". W. Cory, F.M.S.

Buckhurst Hill, Essex, Xov. 30.

TRANSIT OF VENUS.

[077] — The day of the transit was most unpromising. Heavy
showers fell early in the morning, and during the day the sky was
♦lotted with Heecy clouds which were continually crossing the sun
and impairing definition. I took up my position at the telescope
several minutes before external contact ; but, on account of the
clouds, I did not see the planet on the sun's disc until more
than a minute after external contact had taken place. As
Venus advanced on the limb of the sun, I had to be continually
sliifting the tinted wedge in order to keep the field of a
constant brightness. When the planet had advanced about
th>-ee-qnarters on to the sun, iho brightness increased rather
suddenly, and I saw the outer limb of Venus surrounded with a
beautiful halo of white light. At the same time the cusps appeared
to bo slightly blunted and bent outwards. As interior contact
;i!i|>roached, the sun cleared, and, in a moment of good definition,
I .saw geometrical contact at 15h. 24m. 393s., Barbados sidereal
time. Immediately after this clouds passed, and it was impossible
to say at what instant the connection was severed. Mr. Talmage,
who is the other observer here, was more fortunate, and observed
the actual moment of separation free from clouds. He gives the
tlineat 15h. 21m. 43'8s. Barbados sidereal time.

At Egress the sky was clearer, and I was able to observe the
time when the first shadow formed between the limbs, which
was 20h. 50m. 39'6s. Barbados sidereal time, and tlic time when the
ligament became as dark as the disc of the planet, which was also
the time of geometrical contact, namely, 20h. 50m. 53C3. B.S.T.
Mr. Talmage's observation for the latter phase was 20h. 50m. SO'ls.
li.S.T. The same phenomena were obscr\cd at egress as at ingress,
only the halo did not extend completely round tlie planet. It ex-
tended very much further on the north side of the limb than on the
south. The blunting of the cusps was not quite so marked. Ex-
terior contact was very good. My time was 21h. 11m. 30-Gs. B.S.T.
Mr. Talmage gives 21h. 11m. 261s. B.S.T., but does not consider
his observation very good. The discrepancies between our obser-
vations may seem large to those who have not seen the transit, but

it must be remembered tliat the motion of Venus is very slow, and
that the phases are by no moans instantaneous. I believe that the
times are largely affected by the brightness of field employed, and
it is imi)ossible to obtain exactly the same brightness for different
observers. I saw no satellite, though I searched for one at intervals
throughout the whole transit. 1 employed a six-inch equatorial by
Simms, and Mr. Talmage employed cue of a similar aperture by
Dollond. The glass of the latter is about the best of its size which
I have seen. J. U. Thomson, Lt. R.A.

Barbados, Dec. 6, 1882.

THE DIAL OF AUAZ.

[678] — In two church lessons, the second (or fourth) Book of
Kings, c. XX. and Isaiah, e. xxxviii., a perfectly unique "sign" is
described as given to llczekiah in his sickness, when he had inquired
" What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that 1
shall go up into the house of the Lord the third day.'" It is also
very briefiy mentioned in 2 Chronicles, c. xxxii. v. 24, as a well-
known event, with the further information that Merodach-Baladan's
embassy, which both accounts record soon after, came to inquire
(among other things) about " the wonder that was done in the
land."

In the fullest account and first as they now stand, wliich I find to
be also the most accurate, and, doubtless, earlie.st, we find the sick
monarch offered this choice : — " Shall the shadow go forward ten
degrees, or go back ten degrees? " The advance or recession, which-
ever he chose, were plainly to be of one identical angular measure,
pre-announced, and which was some aliquot part of either a quad-
rant or the semi-diurnal arc, whichever the diallers of that time
used to divide. " And Hezekiah answered. It is a light thing for
the shadow to go down ten degrees ; nay, but let the shadow return
backward ten degrees." He evidently thought, before seeing either,
that the return would be the more marvellous ; but, in fact, cither
the sudden shifting back or sudden advance are equally strange and
out of human power ; indeed, so uncommon are both phenomena
that I should be rather more surprised if the records of any Obser-
vatory or Royal Society kept for 1,000 or oven 5,000 years, related
a single instance than at their relating none.

Happening to know, however, of an afternoon some years ago
in which both did certainly occur, I have thought that possibly
some reader of Knowledge may have witnessed, and can describe
the facts. There are plenty of sun-dials in southern England
whereon I know (bnt did not till years after the occurrence) that
the "wonder" was repeated exactly as Isaiah described — I mean
in the earlier and fuller account, vol in our present " Book of
Isaiah." If none happened to see the shadow shift, 1 shall willingly
explain how I know that both the signs offered were certainly that
day visible. E. L. G.\rbett.

[I should feel greatly obliged if Mr. Garbett would describe the
phenomena he observed, and give his interpretation of it. — E. P.]

ELECTRICITY IN DENTISTRY.

[679] — It is a fact that electricity has been tried as a means of
deadening the pain during tooth extraction. Mr. Snape, of Liver-
pool, was, I believe, the dentist who brought the system most
prominently forward, and adopted it in his oivn practice with some
success. It was found, however, in many cases that the pain
occasioned by the shock was greater than that of the simple
operation. The system therefore met with but little favour, and
though one, at least, of the manufacturers of dental appliances
included the battery and insulated forceps in his catalogue, there
are probably very few indeed in the profession who have tried it.
My own idea is that it might be applicable in the extraction of
(h'ad teeth, i.e., teeth in which the nerves are dead ; bnt where the
pulp or nerve is living, the shock would doubtless be excruciating.

We find for the same reason that the local application of cether
is not practicable except in the extraction of dead teeth and stumps.
John Teude Fhipp, L.D.S.I.

LUMINOUS PAINT.
[6*0] — It strikes me there is an error in the article on "Lumi-
nous P.aint," where it states that " the light given off will not
affect the most sensitive photographic plates." The fact that it
is very largely used by photographers as a standard light to test
photographic gelatine plates cannot be known to the writer.

Alexander Cowan.

CORSET WEARING.
[6S1] — Where " E. H." remarks that there is about three times
as much breathing-space in the lungs as is needed for ordinary

14

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Jan. 5, 1883.

rospiration, I snpposo lie nionna that only about ono-tliird of the
contontH of tho lungs are rhangid for fresh air in each ordinary
act of respiration. True, but it docs not follow from that that tho
lungs ara doing nothing with tho two-thirds balance. On the con-
tniry, nil that balance of air is obeying meanwhile the law of
diffusion oj gases (in this case: tho interchange of oxygen and car-
bonic acid, &c.), and the larger the amount of air, and tho greater
tho space in the lungs, the more rapidly and perfectly is that all-
important interchange effected; so that largo lungs are a desirable
possession. E. D. Girdlestoxe.

A CURIOUS CHRISTMAS.

[(582J--A rare phenomenon was observabh? ('''-•, outside wiudow
condensation) on Christmas day. The outer air was so warm com-
pared with that of tho interior of our houses that in all rooms where
there was no fire burning the window panes were cold enough to
condense the aqueous vapour of the saturated outside air, and were
theroforo densely bedewed outsside.

This only happens with a sudden rise of temperature such as
rarely occurs on Christmas day. W. Mattieo Williams.

anEfluns to Corifsponticnts*

A Country Clekgyman. It is very diiEcuIt to advise. A telescopist
gets an instrument that suits him, and sticks to that ; so that he
can say little about other instruments. It is well, however,
to be on tho look-oat for advertisements of second-hand tele-
scopes by known makers. — II. Bevfus. Think there must be
some mistake; will ask Mephisto. — W. Lance. Spectroscopic
analysis shows coma to possess inherent light, and that even
parts of tail do also.— C. J. T. (1) Do not think Raskin's
description agrees with the observed phenomenon. (2) Taking
what is said on p. 107, table on p. 106 agrees with Young's. It
gives the ecJiptical diameter, not the equatorial. For screen-work
only true at solar noon, unless screen carried by telescope driven
equatorially. — W. G. By observation of Mars — not a new method
— described in my little book on Sun, and in many other places. —
XXX. Velocity less at return ; would be the same if there were
no air, but effects of atmospheric resistance throughout flight all
tend to diminish velocity. — A Builiiek's Sox. Putting the boards
apart will make very little difference. It is found, for instance,
that the driving force of the wind on the present divided topsail,
though rather less tlian on a single topsail of the same area, is not
so much less as to indicate greater loss than corresponds to tho
diminished area presented when the two sails belly. A parachute,
again, has greater sustaining power when a hole is pierced in the
centre, though that is due to steadied descent and diminished
jerking. — George Clements. Remember how those triple kites used
to pull. — PsvcHOMANTis. Thanks ; we quote the passage in Gossip.
As to Comet, it was very bright in Australia then ; but its course
indicates anything but constant proximity to the sun. — H. Peacock.
Ajax not so generally known. Diffractive effects curious. —
Cosmas. Thanks : would insert, but matter to same effect already
in type. You seem to overlook the real analogy between the strength
of wrist or knee muscles, and the strength of waist muscles, which
was all we suggested. The question of the interior organs is, of
course, much more important. ^Ye cannot understand your doubt-
ing whether the subject should find place in a scientific journal. Is
a knowledge of our own bodies, and what is good for them, not
science ? — H. W. B. B., A Chcrchman. It depends much on indi-
vidual tastes; but certain customs — the use of ancient verbiage,
tho wearing by clergymen of out-of-date costumes, and so forth —
seem to imply that religious teaching, to have influence on the
many, must always be more or less behind the age — more in some
churches, which actually use a dead language, less in others, which
only use old-fashioned speech. I personally have this peculiarity
(I suppose it is) of mind, that I muat see such things as they are,
free from associations with antiquity, or with recollections of my
own past (especially my own childhood), free, in fine, from all false
light.'!, before I can satisfy myself as to their value. The very points
on which Cardinal Newman dwells are among my strongest reasons
for objecting. Not one in a hundred is at the pains to ask
how much tho effect of certain words is due to their intrinsic
value, how much to the influence of association. Surely feel-
ings so excited have no more specially religious significance than
those which move the mind when the music of old home days is
heard again, <jr when the quiet loveliness of a spring morning or an
autumn evening stirs the heart with thoughts of days that arc past.
I do not say that we should analyse such feelings and emotions ; I
prefer, for my own part, to yiehl to their influence. But it does
seem to mo essentia! that we should not mistake these in reality son-

BuouR effects for religious feirour. The soothing influence of the word
Mesopotamia on tho old woman of a familiar story was, we know,
akin in her mind to a devotional feeling. No one would wish to
dejjrivc her of the soothing effect ; but she might as well know how
little of religion there is in it. — C. Caels-Wimon, Wm. Simmo.v.-*,
E. C. Thanks; but no space. — Ed. Robinson. It is so far true that
no conceivable advance of science could take us back to tho actual
beginning of existent things.— Blacki'riah.s. Rest you merry, sir;
and, Rest you, merry sir : your effort to be merry deserves it. The
passage runs, " Where got'st thou that goose look ? " Perhaps you
can say.— W. R. Evs, notes that tlie publisher.^ of I'Abbc lloigno's
works are Ganthier-Villars, 55, Quai des .\ugustins, Paris. — C. R.
Haines. (1) In a scientific sense, Edgar Poe's " Eureka " is almost
without value. (2) The earth's nrbil has not shifted owing to pre-
cession ; the position of her etpiator has; but the dates in question
would not have been sufficiently altered since the cold spells were
noted, to modify a relation which is, any w.av, rather rough. —
E. Gvkvey. Have asked for address.— J. H. Green. Every tail
would be straight if that theory were true ; but straight tails are the
exception. — G. HABKi.'iON. Experiments by Pasteur on Hydrophobia
will shortly be quoted. — A. A. Hartley. How does a cinder reflect
light ? Why should not the moon ? — H. J. W. Thanks. Do not know
where Griffin's excellent treatise on Rigid Dynamics obtainable. —
X. Y. Z. You are right ; that old mistake should have been cor-
rected.— W. P. Nevixs. Thanks.^ — A. S. Woonw.^Ro. Fear could
not find space at present. — M. J. Harding. Have heard nothing
about " Half-Hours with Telescope," since it was published in '08.
— C. R. Passage would doubtless interest many. — H. J. Mliruead.
Subject dealt with in article in Co-nihill recently. — W. E. Collarii.
Subjects too wide for brief answers here. — Samson. Can hear of no
wooden dumb-bells. A tui-ner would make thera. — W. Morgan.
Thanks ; most conclusive. — D. C. Snape. Thanks ; forwarded to
electrician. — A Yoitng Man. Thanks. — V. E. A. The series
cannot be summed either to n terais or to infinity. — R. Jkkmax.
Thanks; but British Israelism is not an inviting subject. — E. S. B.
Is not the 10th nearer the middle than the beginning ? I should
understand by " early in May," a time within the first week. Thanks,
however, for your note. Perhaps I wanted an excuse for saying
how much 1 enjoyed the " Golden Butterfly." — W. G. Dr„U"ER.
Thanks. The case is curious ; but explicable as a coincidence.
There are so many dreams, and so many deaths, that sometimes
the right death must be dreamed about. — " Tikhoot." The tele-
scope will bear a power of 3,000. In point of size the moon can be
seen as if nearer than Mount Everest from yom- observatory. But
all atmospheric effects being magnified in like degree, there is
nothing like the same distinctness. — L. W. HuTCHiNGs. Many
thanks; but several object to much space being given to
such narratives. — J. O. Lindsay. JIany thanks. — Pleiades.
Astronomy would be rather too severe for mental exercise. Easy
geometrical problems would, I think, be useful, especially for
out-door thinking.- — D. DoDD. Hopelessly untenable. — E. R. C.
No reason whatever for associating the comet of 1883 with
Abraham's comet. By the way, which u-a.9 Abraham's comet ? —
PnvsiciAX. Short articles of that kind would probably be very
acceptable. — J. G. Ashworth. Thanks. Evidence of the kind
already in type. "An Observer" is 7wt interested in the sale of
corsets. I am only free to say that he is one whose opinion on any
subject whatever must be well weighed and well worth weighing,
albeit I think he is mistaken in this matter. — A Student. As to
Star in the East, see No. 61 ; as to perihelion theory of world's end,
it is all rubbish —

"One half of it ignorance, t'other half rum."
— F. W. Reynolds. Photographic perspective often monstrously
wrong. I have seen photograph of interior of a Pullman car look-
ing at least 300 feet long — the result of relative increase of pai'ts
remote from centre. — Wm. Nullar. Without wishing to be dog-
matic, or even positive, I think I may confidently say that tho spot
you saw on the sun was a sun-spot, not a jjlanet in transit.

ELECTRICAL.

Semper Eadem. Bunsen or Grove. — Ignorance. 1. It depends
upon the resistance of the battery, and the work to be performed.

2. Presuming that the circuit will not be a long one. No. 20 copper.

3. No. 11 or 10. 4. It is immaterial for electrical purposes whether
tho conductor be in the ribbon or wire form, providing equal
lengths contain equal weights of similar metal. 5. You get no
shock, because the resistance of the body is very considerably higher
than the electro-motive force of the battery. G. Only by measure-
ment, but approximate values may be found with good galvano-
meters, wound with coils of thick and thin wire. 7. " When you
pass a spark through vacuum there is combustion. What is burnt
or consumed ? " You cannot pass a spark through a vacuum, and
where there* is no matter there can obviouslv bo no combustion.

Jan. 5, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

15

^iv iHatt)fmatiraI Column.

NOTES ON EUCLID.
Bv Richard A. Proctok.

I HAVE often wondered that among the v.orious attempts to
correct the obvioas defects — for edncational purposes— of tho
use of Euclid as a text-book of mathematics, nothing should have
yet been done to remodel the book itself. Various writers hiivo
published bo<iks of geometry, eacli fondly hoping that his book will
not only displace Euclid, but dispose of all rivals. The result has
proved rather confusing. A boy who has been at a public school
where one of these books has been used, goes, perhaps, afterwards
to a private tutor who prefers another text-book of geometry;
tlience, perhaps, to a London college, where yet another book is
employed ; and finally to one of the Universities, where he finds
Euclid still holding the place of honour.

Now, it Euclid simplified could be put into boys' hands at school,
and all other text-books diligently eschewed, there would be a
common system at all schools, and no trouble when the old-
fashioned Euclid was taken up, at whatever stage of mathematical
progress.

There can be no doubt Euclid perplexes many boys, and disgusts
not a few. For my own part, though I was introduced to Euclid
in tho absurdest of ways, I loved him from tho beginning. I had
been counted rather a dullard at Geometrical Exercises, which I dis-
liked, because there were Rules without Reasoning. Just as the
foolish arithmetics of those days told us in hard words what
to do, but never showed us why, so tho Geometrical books
told us to rule this line and describe that circle, in order to
bisect lines, set up perpendiculars, and so forth, with no proof
that the methods were sound. Besides, while mapping (a mo.st
instructive exercise) I had intuitively invented such methods
for myself ; so that rules had not even the charm of novelty. At
this stage of my progress— or want of it — a preposterous under-
master pitchforked me into a higher class where Euclid was rcail,
and where, as it chanced, tho IGth Proposition of the First Hook
was in hand. It was a new thing to me to find reasoning about
matters geometrical. Theoretically, the folly of putting nie at the
IGth Proposition jir.^i ought to have made Euclid hateful to me ;
but, as a matter of fact, the case proved otherwise : I loved him
from tho first. T read, alone, the Definitions, .\xioms, and pre-
ceding Props. ; then went along with Props, ahead ; till, before
very long, 1 was in the Spider's Web of the last Prop, but one of
Book XII. Yet I was by no means a sound, only an eager, student
of Geometry ; for I remember devising a new construction for that
most delightful of all Props., the 10th of Book I V., which, though
much shorter and easier than the original, laboured under the slight
defect of being incorrect.

Still, I think my case was exceptional. Most boys do not take
kindly to Euclid, and certainly there is much in his outer appear-
ance which is not inviting. In particular, the method of first
giving the abstract proposition, and then describing a particular
case, tests somewhat painfully the young student's power of atten-
tion. It is so much harder to make out what the enunciation
means than it would be if each part were explained, as in tho
opening words of the proposition, that we cannot wonder if bnys
are bewildered and wearied. To the more advanced this is perliapa
the real charm of Euclid — to note how each enunciation has the
qualities of a good definition in precisely indicating the abstract
itlea without any reference to a special ease. But Euclid was not
writing for boys.

Again, there is a charm in the skill mth which Euclid, having
adopted a certain method, gets over the difficulties involved in
applying that method to i>articular cases. The famous I'ons
Asinorum is a case in point. Euclid's plan will not allow him to
use the bisector of the angle BAG, because ho has not yet shown
how that bisector can be drawn. Nor can he allow himself to sup-
pose his initial figure, repeated line- for line, and then applied, .after
being turned over, to tho original figure, after the manner
already employed in Proposition IV., because he has not yet shown
how the " copy " is to be made. Either method would have given
him a very simple proof, and as it is certain that there mu.^t be
a line bisecting the angle BAG, and again that another figure
precisely like that already drawn is conceivable (in the same sense
that a straight line or a circle is conceivable from its definition), he
was, logically, free to employ either plan. But he h.ad assigned
himself certain limits, and he makes out his proof within those
limits very ingeniously and prettily — t)hough confusingly to many
boys.

{To he continued.)

<i^ur WAffiit Column*

By " FivK OP Clubs."

r.

B.

Hearts — A, 5.
Spades— A, Q, Kn, G, 1
Diamonds — 9, 8, 7.
Clubs— 10, 5, 3.

A.
Jliart.i—q, 9, 7.
Spades— K, 10.
Diamonds— A, 10, 4, 3
Clubs— 8, 6, 4, 2.

.llT.Koiitor) ^(likl.) BOub-EJ.) illSulC.)

//,u)-f.,— Kn, 6, 2.
Spades— 9, 8.
Diamonds — Q, Kn, 2.
Clubs— K, Q, Kn, 9, 7.

H,'(iit.-<—K, 10,8, 4, 3.
Spades— 7, 5, 3, 2.
Diamonds — K, 6, 5.
Clubs— A.

0 O

«?

9 <?
<7 <?

<? <7

<? <?

<p <?

5*

<?

<? 9

«? V

■? <?

<? 9

y K^k

o ^o o o o
0 0 0 \ o

lo^ol I o I lo o

*

1* +
*

i

+

» 4-1 ys^ \* *

* * ♦ * t'^t ♦

THROWING AWAY WINNING
CARD OF PARTNER'S SUIT.

The Play.

„ ) A, B,=0

Score:— j y,Z.=0

Notes by Fivk of Clubs.

NoTB. — The card underlined wina thi>
trick, and card below leads next round.

1. A le.ids from his best suit.

2. Having live trumps, Z leads
tlie peimltimatc.

4. Tho third round is fortunate
for Y Z. Y discarding a Club, and
A having led Diamonds, Z knows
that his partner's suit must be
Spades.

G. A knows this also, and there-
fore leads Clubs. It would have
been better, ns it turned out, if he-
had kept to his own suit.

7. Z, having four cards of his
partner's suit, leads the lowest. Y
finesses the Knave, of course.

8. Z, noting the fall of the cards,
perceives that his Seven will be
in his partner's way. For neither
A nor B have any more (£ cer-
tainly not holding the Queen, or
ho would not have let l"s Knave
make at trick 7). Thus, if Y
leads Queen at trick 9, and Z
throws his Five, he will have ti>
take the fourth trick in Spades,
and a trick in Diamonds will go to
the enemy.

9. Z, therefore, throws his Seven
to Y's lead of the Queen. But
K should not have led the Queen.
Ho can count the Spades as well
as Z, and knowing tho second best
and .a small t'ne was with 2, he
should have led the Four, to make
his partner's play as simple as
possible. Nei-er leave to partner a
jt'iint of strategy ivhich you can
attend to yourself.

10. 11, 12, 13. The rest of the
game plays itself.

VORTICOSK. — A leads King; B,
his partner, holding Queen and
small ones, knows A has led from
Ace, King ; if B shows this know-
ledge by extending his hand to
take up the trick before Z, fourth
hand, has played, is there any
penalty ? None ; but if iS is in
the habit of doing such things, you
should avoid playing -mth him. —
Five of Clubs.

16

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Jan.

1883.

(tBur €f)ti9 Column.

Bt Mephisto.

PROBLEM No. G7.

By Francis J. Drakk.

Black.

White.

White to play and mate in four moves, also in five moves (con-
ditionally).

We hope to facilitate the task of solving this problem, bv in-
forming our readers that to effect a mate in four moves the Knight
must be moved, but a mate in five moves is possible without the
Knight being moved from Q8.

No. G8.
Bv AV. Jay N. Bko
Black.

No. 60.

3v W. Jay N. Brow>

Black.

li

1

©

i

^'^

\2

1^

■

© 'r^^:, ■'

: ., -'^

©

i. . . : .

'W ; ]

White to play and mate in two moves.

END POSITION OF A GAME RECENTLY PLAYED AT

PURSSELL'S ROOMS, CORNHILL.

Amateur.

Black.

While played 1. V to KU4, threatening to got a mating position
by Kt to Kt5. Black, therefore, could not rcj)lv with B takes Kt,
but played 1. P to B3, thinking thereby to prevent Kt to Kt5, for
which i)urpose, however, the move was ineffective. B to B 1 would
have i)roved a better defence. White pl.iycd 2. Kt to KKt5,
threatening mate, and also Kt takc.'i B, which would likewise win
easily, so that Black could not play otherwise than 2. 1' takes Kt.
3. P takes P again, threatening mate. 3. Q to Q2. \. V to KtG.
The Knight cannot be saved, as White threatens Q to R8, on the
Black Knight moving: there seems nothing better for Black to do
than 1. Kt to QB3, upon which Wliito replied 5. Kt to K7 (ch),
5. Q t.akes Kt. C. B takes B (ch), 0. K to R sq., and White
mated in two moves.

SOLUTIONS.
Reprint No. 1, p. 473.

1. R to Kt4

2. Kt to B3

3. Kt takes Kt mate.

1. Kt takes R

2. Kt to B3 (ch)

Reprint No. 2.
There are two solutions to this problem, viz. : —

1. R to QR5 K to Kt3

2. B to B2 (ch) K takes R or 2. B to Q6 P to KtG (best)

3. K to Kt7
•I. B to KtG 1

P to KtG

3. R to R8

KtoB3

ate

4. R to RG mate.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
*«* PJeose address Chess Editor.

B. — You are right. In the game on p. 501, Black's 21st move is
K to B5.

M. Bcyfus. — We shall make inquiries about the pairing of
players in the tournaments abroad. If, however, your object is to
gain practical information on the subject, we advise you not to
adopt the all-round play system, which is too long, the same as the
knock out system is too short. Divide your team in as manj-
sections as you have prizes, one or two games to be played by each
man, the winners of the sections to compete for the prizes. This
system of playing tournaments avoids (the fatality of) fixed
ajipointmeuts, as each man can Jjlay with any other man of his
section whenever he meets him.

John Blain. — The Steinitz Gambit is given in " Gossip's Theory,"
p. 255. If Black replies with B to B4, then P to B4 is good, and if
Black plays 3. P to Q3, you have the " Gambit declined " position.

Leonard P. Rees, J. Vincent Elsden, G. W. Mitchell. — Problems
received with thanks.

R. J. P. — You have evidently missed one of the prettiest varia-
tions, where the Kt on Q2 comes in. What is your reply to Black
playing 1. Kt to B5 ?

G. H. T. — Game will be annotated; other contents noted.

Correct solutions received of Problem No. 61, G. W. Francis,
J. Drake. Reprints. — Berrow, H. V. T., H. Jacobs. No. 66,
H. V. T., John Blain, Berrow, W. F. W. Rees, T. T. Dorrington.

SPECIAL XOTICES.

Now ready. Part XIY. (Dec, 1882) . price Is., post-free, Is. 3d.

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be ready in a few weeks, price 83. 6d.

Volume III. will commence January 5, 1883, and hereafter volumes will be
published yearly.

The Title Page and Indei to Volume II. will be ready shortly, price 2d., poet-
free 24d.

Binding Cases for Volume II., price 23. each. Subscribers' numbers bonod
(including Title, Index, and Case) for 33. each.

The Back Numbers of Knowlbdgb, with the exception of NoB. 1 to 8, 10,
11, 12, 31, and 32, are in print, and can be obtained trom all booksellers and
newsagents, or direct from the PubUshers. Should any ditliculty arise in obtaining
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Ja.v. 11', 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

17

V^' AN lUyjL&XRATED

MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE

PLA[NUf;Vf ORDED -£XACTI>^ "^'^'-' RIBED,

LONDON: FRIDAY, JANlAui I., 1883

Contents of No. 63.

FIGB

Science* And Art Gossip 17

The Birth and Growth of Myth. By

Kdwurd Clodd 19

A Xaluralisl^ Year — IV. Winter

Heliotrope. Bv Grant Allen 20

Wui Ramesea II.' the Pharaoh of the

Oppri-ssion?— XV. By Miss Amelia

B. Edwards 21

Slavs and Statues 23

Sun Views of the Earth: or the

Seajions Dlustrated. Bt Richard A.

Proctor. (lUuitratcd) 24

FAGS

I.ecturine Notes 25

Li.fical Puzzh- 20

COBBBSPOXnESCK : Singular Pheno-
menon—Ships in a Calm — The
lUinband— A New Zealand Gum —
Earthquake in Westmoreland —

Longevity of the Dove 26

Answers to Correspondents 27

Our Pamdoi Column 2.S

Our Mathematical Coltunn 28

Our Whist Column 29

Our Chess Column 29

^tirnce anli art (Sossfip.

Readers have roniinded us tliat the opinion of a
Darwin on the questions of a future existence ought to be
balanced here " by that of men who have devoted a whole
lifetime to theological iiupiry." We do not know how
much of a lifetime would sutlice to deal with the doctrine
of a future existence, or to determine the conditions under
which it would be passed ; but we accept the suggestion ;
and although the study of Bishop Wiiberforce's "Life"
rather conveys the idea that a considerable part of his
time was given to matters a little outside theology, we
assume that he was the sort of man to set science (and Know-
ledge) right W'e quote, then, from him the statement
that " the scholar, the man of refined and elegant mind,
who nauseates everything coarse, mean, and vulgar, must "
(if he die in disbelief of the Bishop's doctrines) "for
ever dwell with beings on whose horrible passions no check
or restraint can ever be placed ; " while women of gentle
breeding, of refined and modest tastes, but similarly incre-
dulous, must "dwell for ever among the worst of men,
witli every spark of human feeling extinguished, with-
out any law to moderate the fury of their desperate
rage." (See " Eternal Punishment," by Presbyter Angli-
canus, in ilr. Thomas Scott's series, published in 1864.)
It would seem that only " the worst of uieu " will be able
to indulge their tastes hereafter.

How severely, then, ought Darwin, and men like him, to
be reprehended for saying aught that might tend to deprive
mankind of these blissful expectations. And how wrong
of them to speak of doubt in a matter on which such clear
and precise information was obtained by one of the most
eminent of those who "have given the best part of a life-
time to such studies."

VTe have now balanced the dogmatic doubtings of a
student of science with the humble utterances of one
having authority. This done we close the subject, as one
on which only the strong-worded references of certain
papers to the views of the Newton' of Biology had led us —
almost forced us — to touch.

Tiie question of a future existence only belongs to
science in such sort as Tylor and others have dealt with it,
showing how widespread the belief is among all races of
men, even (perhaps especially) the most uncivilised, and
in how interesting a manner it is associated with the sig-
nificance attached to dream-visions. In this aspect Mr.
Clodd is likely enough, we imagine, to touch on the sub-
ject here, as he has already done in some of his most
interesting chapters. But the theological question will
not l>e again referred to in these columns, unless another
Darwin should express his views — or his want of views —
upon it. " In such a Ihi-ii we write a never."

In the Aradr)ii)/ for Dec. 23, the eminent Egyptologist,
Miss Amelia B. Edwards, reviews the Editor's work on
the Great Pyramid (a large portion of which appeared in
these pages), accepting so much of what he has en-
deavoured to establish, that he would be hard to satisfy
indeed if the review were not most pleasing to him. In
certain points about which an Egyptologist can form a
much more satisfactory opinion than the student of astro-
nomy, she notes objections to matters of detail, which, how-
ever, do not in any sense aftect the general theory.

But there is one point about which tho se uninitiated in
Egyptian lore would like some information. Nearly all
Egyptologists — perhaps all — consider that the Pyramids
were tombs primarily, whatever other purpose they may
have subserved. This is practically the same as saying that
the care taken by the Egyptians about the dead body was
independent of any circumstances belonging to life in this
world. Now, the natural idea, -when one hears of a people
■who paid great attention to burial, is that the body was
carefully attended to in reference to a future life, in which
case, burial arrangements, however elaborate, would relate
to the body only as the living man had earned certain
rights hereafter. If an Egyptian did not intend during
his whole life to do certain things and to avoid others, to
attend carefully to certain religious ceremonies (including
certain astronomical observances), and so forth, he would
be well assured that carefull}' hiding away his mummy
under a mass of stonework would be altogether useless.
On this view (and despite the authoritative statements of
Lepsius, Bunsen, !Mariette, and others, one can scarcely
conceive any other), the tomlj would only be of value in
relation to this life, and the theory that a pyramid is only
a tomb, instead of ha\ing the meaning Egj'ptologists
assign to it, would imply that the building of the structure,
and the observances connected therewith, were most inti-
mately associated with the life-work of the future tenant.

We give this week the first half of the summing-up of
the singularly clear and complete evidence adduced by
Miss Edwards with regard to the Oppressor of the
Hebrews ; the remainder will appear in our next number.
There is a deeper and wider interest in her subject than
those imagine who regard it as simply the discussion of a
Bible question. To the historian and to the archaeologist,
to the sociologist and to the theologian, the subject of
Egyptian relations with the people from whom a large
portion of the prevalent religion has been derived, is alike
interesting and important. Speaking of religious ideas, it
may be said, with little exaggeration, that while a large
part of the Christian religion is of Hebrew origin, a much
larger portion is derived from Egypt. The teachings of
the founder of the religion are much more nearly akin to
those of Egyptian than to those of -lewish preceptors.

18

• KNOWLEDGE -

[Jan. 12, 1883.

Speaking of the reinarkable and most instructive Diary
of tho late Bisliop Wilbeiforce, we referred to tiie name of
Soapy Sam, by wliicli lie was wid(!ly known. This nick-
name has been seriously discussed in tho T'uiws and Tele-
graph, and while on the one' hand it has been proved that
the name was ^iveu by the young Wilberforces to their
brother Samuel because he was always washing his hands,
it has also been demonstrated that the initials of the
words S. Oxon, Alfred Pott, carved on the wall of Cuddes-
don College (which the Bishop helped to found), suppliid
the S.O.A.P. to Samuel. The last derivation is singularly
ingenious, because the nickname was in use before a stone
of Cuddesdon Collei^e had been laid.

Other matters connected with the Diary are being
discussed with considerable interest — almost with warmth.
The effects of the soap in this lively book are somewhat
suggestive of those resulting when soft soap is well rubbed
into the eyes. The Greville Memoirs (though they are in-
structive too) are, by comparison, like the gentle utterances
of an aesthetic curate.

In Farrar's "Life of Christ," Vol. I., p. 31, we read as
follows : — " On Dec. 17, 1603, there occurred a conjunction
of the two largest superior planets, Saturn and Jupiter, in
the zodiacal sign of the Fishes, in the watery trigon
(Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces). In the following spring they
were joined in the fiery trigon (Aries, Leo, Sagitarius) by
Mars; and in September, lGO-1, there appeared in the foot
of Oph iuchus, and between Mars and Saturn, a new star
of the first magnitude, which," itc, kc. ..." Now there
is a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the same trigon
about every twenty years, but in every 200 years they
pass into another trigon, and are not conjoined in the
same trigon again till a lapse of 794 years, i months, and
1:^ days. By calculating backward;:, Kepler discovered
that the same conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Pisces
had happened no less than three times in the year A.U.C.
147, and that the jjlanet Mars had joined them in the
spring of 148, and the general fact that there was such a
combination at this period has been verified by a number
of independent investigators, and does not seem to admit
of denial, and however we may apply the fact, it is certainly
an interesting one. For such a conjunction would at once
have been interpreted by the Chaldean observers as indi-
cating tho approach of some memorable event ; and since
it occurred in the constellation Pisces, which was supposed
by astrologers to be immediately connected with the for-
tunes of Juda'a, it would naturally turn their thoughts in
that direction." Does Canon Farrar, we wonder, consider
astrology true or false 1

The French Minister of Public Instruction oilers a prize
of £2,000 for tho best industrial application of electricity,
open to all the world. Claims are to be sent in by June 30
next

A VALUED correspondent (W. E. M.) asks us to invite
Mr. Grant Allen to defend his spelling " misletoe." The
Anglo-Saxon was " misteltan," we think ; but we are away
from all books of reference. W. E. M. quotes a number
of authorities in favour of " mistletoe " and " misteltoe."
Can any one tell us about the German and Danish
" mistel " ?

A Butterfly in Winter. — Mr. II. W. Smith writes
from The Hollies, St. Anne's-hill, Chertsey, Jan. 2 : — " A
perfect specimen of the sulphur butterfly was observed this
day on St. Anne's-hill." !JIr. William Callow writes from

Tho Firs, Great Missenden, Bucks : — " On Saturday, Dec.
30, I heard the song-thrush, and snowdrops have for some
time been visible in my garden."

The British Journal of rhotography, and several corre-
spondents, point out a mistake in the article on Luminous
Paint. The lecturer on that substance at the Crystal
Palace seems unaware of the fact that, so far from pro-
ducing no impression on the most sensitive photographic
plate, it is used as a photographic test.

It is singular how little the true use of statistics is
understood even by those who claim to be statisticians. In
fact, strangely enough, as we often find among professed
grammarians the worst samples of language, among pro-
fessed logicians (as Macaulay long since pointed out), the
shallowest reasoning, so do we find often among professed
statisticians the worst samples of the wrong use of statistics.
Sir Francis D. Bell quotes, as evidence of the vitality of
people in New Zealand, the birth-rates and death-rates
there as compared with European countries. But, as a
writer in the Times points out, in dealing with the birth
rates and death-rates of a country receiving immigrants and
having a population largely formed of recent immigrants,
it does not suffice to exclude from the increase the actual
immigrants. We have to omit from ths amount the births
and deaths among immigrants, and also the artificial
nature of the population of a new country, where therr
is never the normal admixture of old and middle-aged.

We note with pleasure that Mr. D'Oyley Carte, after
being long troubled by the difficulty with which, at this
season of the year, ingress is obtained into those parts of
theatres where seats are unreserved, has found a perfect
remedy in inducing those waiting to form a double line, as
they do on the Continent and in America. We owe him
thanks, as the Romans did to Fabius, that he did not
despair of our civilisation, giving the British public credit
for being willing to do what other nations will do for their
own convenience. If now the managers of other theatres
will have confidence that what can be done at the Savoy
can be done elsewhere, the public will be saved much
trouble and some danger.

We are glad to be able to announce that Mr. York, of
Lancaster-road, Notting-hill, is about to issue a series of
biological slides adapted for the illustration, by means of
the lantern, of both popular and scientific lectures. Tliere
has long been a felt want of such a series of slides. Whilst
there has been no lack of slides of an astronomical and
physical kind, no accurate series of slides dealing with
zoology or botany have been prepared. Hence it is hoped
that the new series will supply a decided want, and that,
as such, they will be largely patronised by science-
lecturers. We understand that the editing of the slides
has been undertaken by Mr. W. L. Carpenter, Dr. Andrew
Wilson, and others, and the names of these gentlemen
should alone be a guarantee for the effective selection of
the subjects, and for the judicious compilation of the
accompanying handbooks.

A magnificent and most kindly audience greeted Mr.
Proctor at Leicester, where the Gilchrist Course of Six
Lectures on Science was opened on Monday last. More
than 1,500 were present in the Temperance Hall, and
hundreds were turned away. The editor of Knowledge
wishes to tell the people of Leicester that he was much
moved by the warmth of their greeting after the three
years that have passed since he last visited them.

J AX. 12, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

19

THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH.

By Edward Clodd.

IMIE application of the scientific method to the study of
man has given a wider meaning to the word " myth "
tlian that commonly found in the dictionaries. These ex-
plain it as fable, as designedly fictitious, whether for amuse-
ment only, or to point a moral. The larger meaning wliich
it holds to-day includes much more than this — to wit, the
wliolc area of intellectual products which lie beyond the
liistoric liorizon and overlap it, elFacing on nearer view
the lines of separation. For the myth, as fable only, has
no place for the crude fancies and grotesijue imaginings of
barbarous races of the present day, and of races at
low levels of culture in the remote past. And so
long as it was looked upon as the vagrant of fancy,
with no serious meaning at the heart of it, and as
corresponding to no yearning of man after the truth
of things, sober treatment of it was impossible. J?ut
now that it, with its prolific oflspring, legend and tradition,
is seen to be a necessary travailing througli which the
mind of man passed in its slow progress towards certitude,
the study and comparison of its manifold, yet, at the
centre, allied forms, and of the conditions out of which
they arose, takes rank among the serious inquiries of our
time.

Kot that the inquiry is a new one. Five hundred years
before Christ, i.e., in the days of Euripides, the Greeks had
identified the gods of their Olympus with the sun and sky,
although Anaxagoras was sentenced to death and after-
wards banished for calling the moon a lump of lifeless
matter, and in succeeding times myths were either emptied
of their meaning or exalted to historic rank. In the
hands of Christian apologists, from the ages of the Fathers
to the present day " heathen " mythologies have been
cited as witnesses to the corruptions of the faith, and,
under the solvent of blundering etj'mologies, have been
made to yield traces of a primitive revelation and of the
doctrine of a Trinity ! But if the inquiry is not a new
one, the method of its prosecution is — a method justified by
its works. Because, for the assigning of its due place in
the order of man's mental and spiritual development to
myth, there is needed that knowledge concerning his
origin, concerning the conditions out of which he has
emerged, and concerning the mythologies of lower races
and their survival in unsuspected forms in the higher races,
which was not only beyond the reach, but the conception
also, of men until this century.

Except, therefore, as curiosities of literature, we may
dismiss the Lempriere of our school-days, and with him
" Casaubon "-Bryant and his key to all the mythologies —
a key that fits no lock ; with him, too, in all respect be
it added, Jlr. Gladstone, with his visions of the Messiah
in Apollo, and of the Logos in Athene.

After this short preface, we may start with the brief and
plain statement, to be justified by what follows, that the
birthplace of myth is in the endeavour of primitive man to
interpret the meaning of his surroundings. By primitive
man, I do not, of course, mean the nameless savage of the
old Stone Age, who, if he had brains and leisure enough to
make guesses about things, has left us no witness of the
fact. His relics, and those of his successors to a period
which is but as yesterday in the history of our kind, are
material only, and not until we possess the symbols of man's
thought, whether in language or rude picture, do we get an
inkling of the meaning which the universe had for him, in the
detail of his pitiless daily life, in the Shapes and motions of
surrounding objects, and in the majesty of the heavens above

him. Even then the thought is more or less crystallised,
and if we would watch it in the fluent form, we must have
keen eye for the like process going on among savages yet
untouched by the Time - Spirit, although higher in the
scale than the Papuans and hill tribes of the Vindhya.
For we cannot so far lull our faculty of thought as to
realise the mental vacuity of the savage, but we may, from
survivals nowadays, lead up to reasonable guesses of savage
ways of looking at things in bygone ages, and the more so
when we can detect relics of these among the ignorant and
superstitious of modern times.

What meaning, then, had primitive man's surroundings
to him when eye and ear could be diverted from prior
claims of the body, and he could repose from watching for
his prey and from listening to the approach of wild beast or
enemy 1 He had the advantage, from greater demand for
their exercise, in keener senses of sight, hearing, smell,
and touch than we enjoy ; nor did he fail to take in facts
in plenty. Only there was this vital defect and difference,
that in his brain every fact was pigeon-holed, charged with
its own narrow meaning only, as in small minds among
ourselves we find place given to inane, peddling detail, and
no advance made to general and wide conception of things.
In sharpest contrast to the poet's utterance —

" Nothing is this world is single.
All things by a law divine
In each other's being mingle,"

ever}' fact is unrelated to every other fact, and, therefore,
interpreted wrongly.

Man, in his first outlook upon Nature, was altogether
ignorant of the character of the forces by which he was
environed ; ignorant of that unvarying relation between
effect and cause which it needed the experience of ages
and the generalisations therefrom to apprehend, and to
express as " laws of nature." He had not even the
intellectual resource of later times in inventing miracle
to explain where the necessary relation between events
s>emed broken or absent.

His first attitude was that of wonder, mingled with
fear — fear as instinctive as the dread of the brute for him.
The sole measure of things was himself; consequently,
everything that moved or that had power of movement,
did so because it was alive. A personal life and will
was attributed to sun, moon, clouds, river, waterfall,
ocean and tree, and the varying phenomena of the
sky at dawn or noonday, at grey eve or black-
clouded night, were the manifestation of the controlling
life that dwelt in all In a thousand different forms this
conception was expressed. The thunder was the roar of a
mighty beast ; the lightning a serpent darting at its prey,
an angry eye flashing, the storm demon's outshot forked
tongue ; the rainbow a thirsty monster ; the waterspout a
long-tailed dragon. This was not a pretty or powerful
conceit, not imagery, but an explanation. The men who
thus spoke of these phenomena meant precisely what they
said. What does the savage know about heat, light,
sound, electricitj', and the other modes of motion through
which the Proteus-force beyond our ken is manifest ? How
many persons who have enjoyed a " liberal " education can
give correct answers, if asked ofT-hand, explaining how
glaciers are bom of the sunshine, and why two sound.s,
travelling in opposite directions at equal velocities, " inter-
fere " and cause silence 1 I have been surprised at the
number of young men, hailing from schools of renown,
who have given me the most ludicrous replies when asked
the cause of day and night and the distance of the earth
from the sun.

That the comparison between things inanimate and

20

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Jan. 12, 1883

animato arising from suporficinl analogies is inborn in the
savage, is illustrat<'d all tlicworkl over. The Nortli American
Indians prefer a hook that has caught a big fish to the
handful of hooks that have never heen tried, and they
never lay two nets together, lest they should he jealous of
each other. The Bushmen thought tliat the traveller
Chapman's big waggon was the mother of liis smaller ones ;
and the natives of Tahiti sowed in the ground some iron
nails given them by Captain Cook, expecting to obtain
young ones. When that ill-fated discoverer's ship was
sighted by the New Zealanders, they thought it was
a whale with wings. The king of the Coussa Kaffirs,
having broken oft" a piece of the anchor of a stranded ship,
Boon afterwards died, upon which all the Kaffirs made a
point of saluting the anchor very respectfully whenever
they went near it, regarding it as a vindictive being. But,
perhaps, one of the most striking and amusing illustrations
is that quoted by Sir John Lubbock from the " Smithsonian
Reports," concerning an Indian who had been sent by a
missionary to a colleague with four loaves of bread, accom-
panied by a letter stating their number. The Indian ate
some of the bread, and his theft was, of course, found out.
He was sent on a second errand with a similar liatch of
bread and a letter, and repeated the theft, but took the
precaution to hide the letter under a stone while he was
eating the loaves, so that it might not see him !

As the individual is a type of the race, so in the child's
nature we find analogy of the mental attitude of the
savage ready to hand. To the child everything is alive.
With -what timidity and wonder he first touches a watch,
with its moving hands and clicking works ; w-itli what
genuine anger he beats the door against which he has
knocked his head, whips the rocking-horse that has flung
him, then kisses and strokes it the next moment in token of
forgiveness and affection. Even among civilised adults, as
Mr. Grote remarks, " the force of momentary passion
will often suffice to supersede the acquired habit, and an
intelligent man may be impelled in a moment of
agonising pain to kick or beat the lifeless object from
■which he has suffered." The mental condition which
causes the wild native of Brazil to bite the stone he
stumbled over, may, as Dr. Tylor has pointed out in his
invaluable work on " Primitive Culture," be traced along
the course of history, not merely in impulsive habit, but
in formally enacted law. If among barbarous peoples we
find, for example, the relatives of a man killed by a fall
from a tree taking their revenge by cutting the tree down
and scattering it in chips, we find a continuity of idea in
the action of the court of justice held at the Prytaneum
in Athens to try any inanimate object, 'such as an axe, or
a piece of wood, or stone, which had caused the death of
any one without proved human agency, and which, if
condemned, was cast in solemn form beyond the border.
"The spirit of this remarkable procedure reappears in the
old English law, repealed only in the present reign,
whereby not only a beast that kills a' man, but a cart-
wheel that runs over him, or a tree that falls on him and
kills him, is deodand, or given to God, if., forfeited and
sold for the poor." Among ancient legal proceedings in
France we read of animals condemned to the gaUows for
the crime of murder, and of swarms of caterpillars which
infected certain districts being admonished to take them-
selves oft" within a given number of days on pain of being
declared accursed and excommunicated. When the New
Zealander swallows his dead enemy's eye that he may see
further, or gives his child pebbles to make it stony and
pitiless of heart ; when the Abipone eats tiger's flesh to
increase his courage, such confusion in the existence of
transferable qualities as these acts imply, has its survivals

in the old wives' notion that the eye-bright flower, which
resembles the eye, is good for diseases of that organ, in
the medical remedy for curing a sword-wound by nursing
the weapon that caused it, and in the old adage, "take a
hair of the dog that bit you " — as the Scandinavian Edda
says, " Dogs' hairs heal dogs' bites."

A NATURALIST'S YEAR.

By Grant Allen.
IV.— WINTER HELIOTEOPE.

THERE are few flowers out in the garden now, except
two or three of the very hardiest species ; but still our
English year is never quite destitute of blossoms, and we
ha%*e with us, even at this, its darkest moment, the Christ-
mas roses, the last lingering chrjsanthemums, and the
beautiful purple winter heliotrope. Here is a sprig of that
sweet-scented December plant, belonging to a bit which has
run wild from the garden into the shadow of the wood en the
southerly hillside. Winter heliotrope is not an English, or
even a fully naturalised, flower, but it grows readily in
sheltered situations in the south, and it often establishes
itself for a time, by means of its long underground runners,
near places where it has once been planted. Though an
alien on our shores, however, it very closely resembles our
own British butterbur er purple coltsfoot, from which it
chiefly dift"ers in its delicious perfume, in its more solitary
flowers, and in its singular habit of blossoming during the
very coldest months of winter.

By family, -^ur heliotrope is a composite, one of the same
great tribe as the daisies, the sunflowers, the thistles, and
the dandelions. Perhaps, too, I ought to add that it is in
no way related to the real heliotropes, which it resembles
only in name and in the peculiar nature of its scent ; for
the real heliotropes are borage-worts by family, closely
lelated to our own familiar blue forget-me-nots. But to
tell you that a flower is a composite is not telling you very
much ; for there are many thousand species of composites
in the world, all agreeing in their main structural features,
but all diff'ering "infinitely in shape, colour, habit, and
general aspect. That is to say, in other words, the com-
posite family is a very successful one, which has not only
held its own against allcomers, but has also split up into
numberless minor branches, all competing against one
another, and all adding certain special advantages of their
own to the common ad\antages possessed by the entire
race. These common advantages most people know well
in the little English daisy, which, as we have all oliserved,
has its flowers crowded into a single compact head, and
surrounded by a group of bracts or involucre, which protect
its united bells in the same way as the calyx of most other
species protects the single blossoms.

Amongst the infinity of separate fomis, however, into
which the family of composites has split up, there are
some eight or ten great groups in which relationship can
be pretty easily traced ; and these again fall into three
rough and larger groups, whose characteristics can be
readily noted, even by an unbotanical eye. The first is
that of the thistles, in which all the florets of each head
alike are similar and bell-shaped : the second is that of the
daisies, in most of which the inner florets of each head are
bell-shaped, while the outer ones arc flattened out into large
and conspicuous rays ; the third is that of the dandelions,
in which all the florets alike, central or external, have been
flattened out into rays like the outer florets of the daisy.
Clearly, in general genealogical arrangement, the three

Jan. 12, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

21

groups succeed one another in the order here adopted ; for
the most primitive group is that in which all the florets
still remain as bells, like those of their non-composite
allies ; the next in course is that in which the outer florets
alone have become flattened ; and the last, or most deve-
loped, is that in which the flattening has extended to all
the florets alike.

Now to which of these does whiter heliotrope belong 1
If you pick one of these heads in the wood here, you would
say at once to the tirst, obviously. And I need hardly add
that you would be wronj;, as one always is with first im-
pressions. This particular winter, heliotrope is a male
plant (I will explain what I mean by that by-and-by) ; and
it really has all its flowers tubular, just like those of the
thistles. There are no female flowers anywhere about,
however, for the whole colony is male alike ; if there were,
you would soon discover your mistake. The fact is, winter
heliotrope is a composite, which has passed through the
daisy stage, instead of never having reached it, and has
now got out again on the other side, looking very much
like a thistle that has never been through the course at
all. A glance at the minor family relationships of the
heliotrope will show you how it is that we know this.

The sub-tribe of composites to which the winter helio-
trope and its allies belong is that of the Senecionida\ or
groundsels. Of these, our common yellow English rag-
wort, found everywhere by roadsides during the autumn
months, may be taken as a good typical specimen. It has
numerous tubular or bell-shaped central florets, surrounded
by several long, narrow spreading rays, like those of the
daisy, only bright golden instead of pinky white. Occasionallj',
however, even in the ragwort itself, these outer rays are
deflcient ; while in its close ally, the wood senecio, they
are always very small and rolled back inconspicuously, and
are very often wanting ; and in that still more degene-
rate type, the little groundsel, which we give to
canary birds, they have disappeared altogether. Xow,
the winter heliotrope has diverged from the central
T&gwoTt group in a somewhat diflerent direction.
The germs of Senecionidaj to which it belongs is
that of the coltsfoots, called in technical language Tun-
silaijo- All these coltsfoots, though they vary so much
in their flowers as to have been split up by systematic
botanists into two or more distinct genera, are yet almost
identical in their foliage, which sufiiciently proves the
reality of their close relationship. In all, the leaves are
large, broad, and deeply heartrshaped ; and they spring for
the most part direct from the perennial rootstock, instead
of growing on the same stem as the blossoms. The flower-
ing stems issue from separate buds on the creeping stock,
and rise as tall scapes, with no leaves except a few small
clasping scales. In these particulars the dillVrcnt species
so nearly resemble one another that it is easy to confuse
them together when they are not in flower ; but in blossom
they difler so greatly that it is only by their intermediate
gradation that you can trace their relationship to the central
ragwort type at all.

The ordinary wild yellow coltsfoot {Ttissilago Farfara)
which grows so abundantly on railway embankments in
early spring, has tall, flufiy, flower-heads, remarkably
pretty, and consisting each of two kinds of florets. The
outer florets are very numerous, long, and e.xtrcmely
narrow ; and they are all strictly female, that is to say they
have a pistil, style, and ovary, but no stamens or pollen-
sacs. The inner florets are tubular, and they possess five
anthers each. Here we have the tirst beginning of such
a difierentiation of sexes as we find fully carried out in
the purple coltsfoots. These, however, including our
English butterbur and the winter heliotrope, have gone a

great deal further in their development than their yellow
ally ; for here the two kinds of florets are almost entirely
separated on distinct plants. The male plants have a loose
bunch of small purple heads, and all their florets are tubular,
male and barren, with stamens alone and no pistil. To be sure,
they have in their centre what seems to be an ovary, but if
you cut open this false pistil with a sharp knife, and examine
it with a pocket lens, you will see that it contains no ovule,
and can, consequently, never ripen any seed. It remains
there merely as a speaking witness of what the plant used
once to be. In the female plants, on the other hand, the
heads are closer and thicker, and every head consists of
nothing but ^■ery narrow thread-like florets, each containing
a perfect pistil, with ovary, style, and seed, but without
any stamens. Thus, for purposes of safer cross-fertilisa
tion, the sexes have become almost entirely distinct, and
have taken almost universally to growing upon separate
plants.

I say " almost," because the change has not yet been
quite fully carried out. See, here is one of the male
flower-heads on my winter heliotrope, which appears at
first just like the others ; but when you look closer, you
can see that there are five or six stray female florets at the
outside, as last representatives of the original ray. So on
the female plants, you will often find a single head with
three or four stray tubular male florets, lost in the midst
of a great flufi" of thread-like females. In short, while the
one set have Iieen reduced almost, but not quite altogether,
to nothing but disk-florets, the other set have been reduced
almost, but not quite altogether, to nothing but ray-florets.
It is usually so in nature. Though the clues are often all
but lost, a few generally remain just in suflicient number
to help us in reconstructing the lost pedigree ; and so the
yellow coltsfoot Vjridges over for us the distance between
the ragwort and the butterbur, while the abnormal or
bi-sexual flower-heads of the winter heliotrope bridge over
the distance to the perfectly unisexual individuals on the
thoroughly male or female plants.

WAS

RAMESES II. THE PHARAOH
OF THE OPPRESSION?

By Amelia B. Edwards.

XV.— TEL-EL- JIASKHUTA VERSUS THE "RAAMSES" OF
THE BIBLE (EXAJIIXATIOX OF THE EVIDENCE).

I MUST now entreat those who have had patience to
accompany me thus far in a minute, and, perhaps, a
somewhat tedious, inquiry, to join with me in a final
examination of the evidence which connects Tel-el-
Maskhuta with the " Raamses " of the Bible, and both
with Barneses II.

To begin with, Tel-el-Maskhuta is distinctly in the Land
of Goshen. However uncertain the boundaries of that
district may be, Wady Tumilat was as much a part of the
province as the city of Goshen itself. That is a point
upon which there is no room for doubt, and which has
never been doubted. Whether the town, fortress, Bekhrn,
or " treasure-city," the remains of which lie buried under
the mound, was, or was not, an entirely new place founded
by Eameses II., and containing a temple dedicated to
himself in the character of its local divinity, is the question
which now remains to be answered. We must first see
whether this Bekhen corresponds with the descriptions of
Pa-Rameses as derived from the monuments.

1. J'a-Iiiuneses iros a fronlvr Jortrrss. The inscription
of Ptah-Tatunen at Aboo-Simbel describes it aa " a great

22

• KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Jan. 12, 1883.

fortress to fortify the border of the land."* The Anostasi
papyri II. and IV.t describe it as a llrkhm stationed "be-
tween Zahi (Palestine) and Kgypt ; " another papyrus in
the same collection, written by the scribe Anien-eni apt,
speaks of it as " the beautiful outpost " on " the frontier
of the land of the foreigner, th(^ boundary of Egypt J

The Ikklten of Tel-el-Maskhuta was all that is here de-
scribed— a strong place upon the Palestine frontier, guard-
ing a valley, which was one of the most important gates of
the eastward boundary of Egypt.

2. I'a-liamcseii vms IhiUt by Rnmf.ses II. — " Thou hast
built a great residence to fortify the border of the land, the
city of Kameses," says the inscription of Ptah-Tatunen.
" His Majesty has built himself a Bekhen,^' says the
Anastasi papyri. The Bible tells the same tale, though
set to a different key : — " And they built for I'haraoh
treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses " ; iievj cities, these,
and not mere additions to cities of more ancient date. ||

Before it can be positively proved that these ruins con-
tain no remains of a date earlier than the reign of Rameses
II., it will be necessary to cut a trench through the mound
of Maskhuta. But, thus far, the e\-ideiice, both direct and
indirect, points to Rameses II. The huge bricks found
here by Dr. Lepsius are stamped with this king's royal
oval ; and no bricks stamped with the oval of any of his
predecessors have yet been discovered on the spot. They
are made from the clay of the neighbouring clay-beds,
mixed with chopped straw, and pressed in a wooden mould.
The presence of the chopped straw Ls interesting ; because
chopped straw did not invariably enter into the composition
of ancient Egyptian bricks, and because the Bible especially
points out that chopped straw did enter into the composition
of those particular bricks of which the treasure-cities Pithom
and Raamses were built. The Egyptians, indeed, made ex-
cellent bricks of mere sun-dried clay ; bricks as solid and
as durable as those which they mixed with straw, bean-
haulm, and stubble. At Thebes, many of the crude brick
remains are built with bricks of unmixed clay ; and only
the other day, at Haybee, near Feshoon, Mr. Lawrence
Oliphant, on examining the massive fortifications which
surround the ancient city of Isi-em-Kheb, found them to be
constructed of bricks in which there is no binding sub-
stance whatever. The old Egyptian name for a sunburnt
brick is in use to this day. The " tcb " of the hieroglyph
is the " tobi" of the Coptic, and the " toob" or "iob"oi
the modern Arabic.

The evidence of the sculptured monolith and sphinxes,
already described, § can, of course, be taken for only what
it is worth. It proves that Rameses II. embellished the
place ; but it cannot te made to prove that he founded it.

3. Thov-gh biiiU by liaiDcses II., the city of Pa-Ramescs
was strengthened by his siiccessor, Menej)hthah , who, in the
letter of Amen-em-apt, is thus invoked : — "Oh, sweet is thy
voice in speech ! It is thou who hast enclosed Pa-Rameses
with a wall ! "

As we have already seen, Professor Ebers found the
remains of a wall of circuit at Tel el-Maskhoota built with
bricks stamped with the cartouche of this Pharaoh. IT

4. I'a-Rameses wa^ a port. Now, a port, in the Egyp-
tian acceptation of that word, whether we take it in its
ancient or its modern sense, does not necessarily mean a
seaport, but merely a place accessible to shipping. Thus
the little village of El Hamra is called the "port" of
Asyoot, because the Nile-boats moor there ; the town being
at some little distance from the river. Pa-Rameses was a

* See Knowledgb, Sept. 29, p. 292. + Ibid., Sept. 29, p. 292.
t rhid., Sept. 29, p. 293. || Ibid., Sept. 8, p. 244.

§ Ibid., Deo. 8, p. 450. i Ibid., Dec. 8, p. 450.

port because it could be approached by water. In the
letter of Panbesa* we accordingly read that

" Its galleys come and go in the port."

And again : —

" Beer of Kati is brought to the port."

Among the papyri of the Leyden Museum is a large
collection of scribes' letters containing many allusions to
the water-traffic of Pa-Rameses. One Kauiser, writing to
his master, tells how he found a boat waiting for him at
the port of this city. Another scrilie in another letter
complains that, when he arrived, he found " no boats at
Pa-Rameses."

We have already seen how the canal of Seti I. — that
same canal called " The Cutting," which is represented in
the bas-relief sculptures at Kamakt — was carried through
Wady Tumilat from " a little above Bubastis " to Lake
Timsah, along the very route now followed by the Fresh-
water Canal and the Ismaileeyah railway. Hence, the
ancient fortress, the walls of which were washed by that
canal, was unquestionably a "port."

5. ra-Rameses iras a port in comnucnication rcith the Red
Sea. — This is shown by the Letter of Panbesa, who enu-
merates among the delicacies sold at its dailj- market : —

"Fish from the river Puharta,"
— the river Puharta being identified by Dr. Birch and
Professor Maspero with the Euphrates.

The significance of this allusion is very great indeed ;
for not one of the other sites which have from time to time
been proposed for Pa-Rameses could by any possibility be
shown to have a direct shipping trade with the Persian
Gulf. But if we admit, with Maspero, ilariette, the
Abb6 Vigoureux, and other high authorities, that in the
time of Rameses II., the ancient canal was already carried
as far as the Red Sea, the connection is at once
established.

And in truth it is almost impossible that so great a work
should not have been completed by either Seti I., who
began it (as shown by the Karnak sculptures), or by his
son and successor. That the canal was subsequently
allowed to become silted up, and then, in later years, was
repeatedly cleared out, silted up, and cleared out again, is
a matter of history ; and that those rulers of Egypt who
so cleared it should each ari'ogate to himself the honour of
having " cut " it, is in accordance with the style and
custom of the times. Tradition, as handed dowTi in the
pages of Strabo, Aristotle, and Pliny, attribute the com-
mencement of the canal to Rameses II. : Herodotus attri-
butes it to Nekau, and says that it was finished by Darius :
Strabo and Diodorus say that it was finished by the Ptole-
mies. Not one of these great wi iters could speak Egyptian
or read a hieroglyphed inscription ; and consequently,
although they lived so much nearer than ourselves to the
time of the Pharaohs, they did not know, as we do, that
the De Lesseps of the Middle Empire was Seti I. If their
traditions and mutual contradictions have any historical
value, it is only in so far as we are enabled to translate
them into probable or recently ascertained facts. The
reigns of Seti I. and Rameses II. were both unusually
long, and the public works executed by these Pharaohs
are, with the exception of the Pyramids, the most colossal
monuments of ancient Egypt. If, therefore, Seti, the
father, did not himself carry the canal of " The Cutting "
beyond Lake Timsah, we may, I think, be certain that
Rameses, the son, connected the waters of Lake Timsah
with the waters of the Red Sea, and so became traditionally
credited with the glory of originating a work which, in
point of fact, he only completed.

Sec KxowLEDiiE, Oct. 13, p. 324. f nid-., Oct. 27, p. 357

Jan. 12, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

23

Nor must one last scrap of contemporary evidence in the
oft^quoted letter of Anien-am-apt be left unnoticed. After
describing Pa-Rameses as "the beautiful outpost," he goes
oil to say that it is "the exercise-ground of tlie cavalry ;
the parade-ground of the archers ; the landing-place of the
foreign au.xiliaries." It is, of course, conceivable that the
auxiliaries might have been brought hither in transport
vessels by way of the Xile ; but the obvious and straight-
for«ard meaning of the phrase would seem to point to a
direct water communication with foreign seas.

How far the Pharaonic engineers had to cut their way
before they reached the Red Sea is a question upon which
the highest modem authorities differ as widely as the Greek
•ind Latin writers differ about the original maker of the
lanal it.«;elf. According to some, the northern limit of the
Oulf of Suez, at the time of the Oppression and the Exodus,
was very nearly where it is now. According to others, it
reached as far as the head of the Bitter Lakes, which
then formed part of the gulf. Sir. R. Stuart Poole — an
essentially cautious and exact writer — goes so far as to say
that it may even have included Lake Balliih* ; in which
case, the ancient canal would have been completed as soon
as it reached the shores of what is now Lake Timsah. To
weigh and compare these diverse views would carry us far
beyond the limits of the present inquiry ; and the con-
clusion to be arrived at — if a conclusion could be arrived
at upon a point respecting which geologists, engineers, his-
torians, and archwologists disagree — would not in any case
affect the issue of our argument. Be the distance longer
or shorter from what is now Lake Timsah to what was
then the head of the Gulf of Suez, we may take it for
granted that the builder of the Hall of Columns at Karnak,
or the excavator of the Great Rock-cut Temple at Aboo-
Simbel, would have ploughed a water-way through it for
his galleys, if he were so minded.

(To (;«■ ccmcUided in our next.)

STAYS AND STATUES.

IWAS expecting the promised completion of your
statue gallery, or I should have sent you before some
observations on Dr. Lewis's interesting letter on American
oorsetology, in which the facts are much more valuable than
the opinions. He, and Englishmen who write like him, are
evidently quite ignorant of the real distinction between
judicious and injudicious corset-wearing and construction ;
and so, indeed, are many stay-makers and wearers, as one
can see in the shop-windows .ind the streets. It is true
that weak stays or narrow belts which press the stomach
downwards are injurious, and they may possibly cause
rupture as well as indigestion and other ailments. But
doctors who do know the distinction have long ago recom-
mended properly-made stays, for the \ery reason that they
often prevent or cure all those ailments. I have read fre-
<iuently during the last fifteen years that they ought to be
made long enough and worn tight enough to press upwards
and not downwards, and that even short stays or belts will
do so if a perfectly stiff busk is worn under them, as sundry
proficients in tight lacing, both male and female, have
testified. That may be seen now to be aimed at in most of
the corsets that are advertised in the pictorial papers and
with medical recommendations. The opinion of a doctor
who does not know this is worth as little as of any writer
who thinks he knows better than the wearers whether they
are weaker or stronger for their stays.

* See Chap, xviii., p. 120, of K. S. Poole's " Cities of Egrypt,"
.1 work as delightfnl in style as it is instractive and interesting in
matter.— [A. B. E.]

Now for his facts. I can only say they seem to me
more likely to induce our tight-lacers to order smaller
stays, than to subscribe halfa-erown to the anti-corset
society which has raised this discussion. For he tells them
that, among American young ladies, a waist of 19 in. is
considered " immense " — which is probably only feminine
for " rather large " ; but here it is considered rather small,
and 16 in. very small. And further, that reduction of
10 in. is quite common in America, against 7 in. or 8 in.
here : which, as American ladies are certainly not larger
than ours naturally, must mean that waists of only 14 in.
and less are not uncommon there, while they are very rare
indeed here. This doctor's letter only makes me more in-
credulous than ever of any bad effects from such tight-
lacing as is practised here now, except when it is in-
judiciously perforjned. And as for "a third of women's
diseases coming from it," how do the doctors who write in
that loose way account for women living on the average
some years longer than men 1 I have not a word to say
against his statements of the good eliects of certain exer-
cises ; but it is useless to ignore the fact that they never
are or will be practised beyond an early age, if at all ; and
that such exercise as is taken is often not sufficient alone
to preserve a good figure and carriage. Some persons who
take plenty are nevertheless clumsy in their gait, which is
often cured by judicious corset-wearing and neck-straps,
which are said to be easier and better than shoulder-
straps.

Of your statues, come and coming, I have only to say
that few persons require statues to convince them that
corsetted waists are smaller and rounder than natural ones,
which is all that they can prove on this question. And as
the opinion of all civilised nations, since there were any,
has always been, and probalily always will be, that slerder
waists look the best and are essential to a good figure, uiey
are quite certain to be cultivated artificially. If some
American artist chooses to invest them with imaginary
drapery, we outgrew that folly 100 years ago, which came
in with one or two fashionable painters in the time of
Charles II. 1 have a picture of an ancestress in a cor "^ume
of that kind, which no woman upon earth ever wore or
could wear and move about in. That is merely falsifying
history.

I really do not know what to say consistently with
courtesy of your obviously hasty and dashing notes of
Dec. 22 upon my letter then. I had better only notice two
specimens of what you apparently meant to pass for logic
and "science, plainly worded and exactly described."
" Waists in such a condition that contraction /o (of ?) 7 in.
or 8 in. is found essential to comfort, may be very fairly
compared to the disabled feet of the Chinese ladies."
First of all, nobody had said that such contraction was
" essential to comfort," but many persons had said they
found it comfortable ; and among them, let me remind you,
was the Army surgeon who had reached that conclusion
very soon, and found himself the better for generally
wearing stays of 23 in., though " unusually wide across the
shoulders.' If you had reflected for two minutes, you
must liave seen that comparing that to the notoriously
painful and destructive maiming of Chinese feet is
ridiculous.

Again, "The consensus of a multitude of people that
they find themselves better in stays shows that [stays] do
weaken the stomach." I have only shortened your sentence
a little, leaving it substantially unaltered. And when it
is seen thus naked, who does not perceive its absurdity at
once?

I am willing to make due allowance for the well-known
necessities of editorial infallibility and smartness in dealing

24

♦ KNO\VLEDGE ♦

[J AX. 12. 18f3.

with correspondents wlio dispute tlie former. But I am
inclined to tliinic it has its dan{;(!rs, and that a little silence
is sometimes more prudent. And now I hope to leave this
discu.ssion, which has only conlirmed my former conclusion,
that all the a priori arguments on this suliject are one way
and all the evidence of facts the other. Medical opinions
are not facts. A.v OusERvrii.

./an. 6.

[I put off my paper to give place to "An Observer's ; "
and may, perhaps, omit much which I had written on the
artistic aspect of the matter. If lie finds no force in the
evidence from statues (of all ages) to show that artists
see less beauty in corseted waists than in " natural ones "
(how jmich he admits here !), argument would be idle ;
and certainly argument is unnecessary for most men.
Even the tight-lacers laugh at each others' ridiculous shapes
and ungraceful movements.

My " obviously hasty and dashing note " was written at
leisure. I see nothing to alter, except the misprint " to "
for " of," and perhaps I might have written " essential to
perfect comfort" (more than mei-e comfort was claimed).
I aimed only at brevity, not at smartness ; and knowing
what a master of fence "An Observer " is, I only touched
where I might have thrust. It would seem that I over-
rated his quickness of perception (which I should have
t' ought .<^'arce possible). Even had I written, "A man's
Iceling better in sta)'s, proves stays to be bad for him," I
should have expected that he would have seen where my
point lay, though a less skilful " opposite " might miss it.

If " An Observer " is fair in cliaiging me with the silly
pretence of editorial infallibility, thtn I must unwittingly
have been guilty of what I heartily despise. But I think
he is not quite fair, — though I am sure he wishes to be so.
A correspondent has said to nie : " When you wrote for
the English Mechanic you seemed to be always in the
right ; liere you seem to take pleasure in showing where
you have been wrong." Yet there is no real difference.
In answering the paradox-mongers and other foolish folk
who found, and still find, admission there, I had an easy
task, though I sickened of it at last, and (after an appeal
to have it lightened) gave up the hopeless business. But
we want in these columns to get at the truth. I am very
much in earnest, I must admit, about this corset question.
I believe " An Observer's " views to be mistaken, and
most mischievously so, — wondering, moreover, greatly how
so keen a reasoner as he is has come to be misled by the
arguments of " tailless foxes " against Nature's customary
arrangements. — Richard A. Proctor,]

SUN VIEWS OF THE EAETH ;

OR, "THE SEASONS ILLUSTRATED."
By Richard A. Proctor.

I GIVE in the accompanying figures four views of the
earth at the winter solstice, showing her aspect, as
supposed to be seen from the sun on Dec. 21. Strictly
speaking, a large tract of the northern hemisphere should
ha\e been whitened, to correspond with the extension of the
Arctic snows in winter. But as this would have entirely
obliterated (Jreat Britain from view in the second figure,
showing the earth as she would appear from the sun at
noon (London), it seemed better to leave this part of the
sun views unchanged. In another figure is given a view
of the British Isles as seen foreshortened from the sun in
winter time. This may be regarded as a pictorial explana-
tion of the cold of winter in the northern hemisphere in
December.

Jan. 12, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

25

LECTURE NOTES.
By Richard A. Proctor.

I HAD every reason to be gratified by the kindly con-
course which gathered to hear my lecture on the
" Star-Depths," at St ( ieorge's Hall, Langhaui-place, on
Sunday, Jan. 7. It was the Jirst lecture I had given there
since ruy return from my long American and Australian
tours. I could not but think, as I saw the audience
gathering, and remembered tlie long and successful career
of the Sunday Lecture Society — a success chiefly due to
the zeal and energy of Mr. W. H. DomvUle — liow con-
fidently Sir Henry Parkes had, in his ignorance, asserted
that the law of England, which he claimed to enforce,
allowed of no Sunday gatherings to hear lectures on
scientific subjects. Here is a society, including on its
list of officers the names of the most eminent men of
science of the day, which has for years continued the good
work of using science on Sundays to instruct and elevate
the people, — as Arago long since urged (addressing the
French Senate*) — that science should be used.

There are not to be found better audiences anywhere
than those which gather at the invitation of the Sunday
Lecture Society. They have all the good qualities which
audiences can possess. During my lecture last Sunday
they showed that they possess qualities which a lecturer
does not usually care to tax — to wit, patience and good
temper. I have always been more than satisfied with the
way in which the lantern lias been worked at these lec-
tures ; and I had no anxiety, therefore, on that score.
But unfortunately it had been deemed well to change the
usual arrangement by wliich the lantern had been worked
from behind the screen, showing the views as transparen-
cies. Some unsatisfactory photographs, I suppose, had
failed in recent lectures to show well that way. So it was
decided to work from the front. The experiment (would
that it had been tried with any lecture but mine !) was not
a success. The views obstinately failed to focus, and
after sundry shiftings of the lantern, the attempt
was given up as hopeless. I thought at first there
was something wrong with the Society's lantern, or else
with the operator, but later I recognised the cause of the
trouble in the circumstance that the screen was vertical,
while the optical axis of the lantern was inclined some L'O
degrees to the horizon. Thus the more delicate views
failed to show what they were intended to show, and my
lecture had to be modified correspondingly. However,
the audience bore this most good-humouredly, and also the
pain (as I fear it must have been to many) of a glare of
limelight from the back of the instrument. Whatever
reasons the Society's lanternist may have had for departing
from his customary arrangement, I may assure him, on my
own behalf, that on all former occasions I have been well
pleased with the working of the instrument. Whenever a
change of the kind is proposed it should be rehearsed. If
there is one tliiiig more trying to a lecturer than another,
it is to find his promised illustrations failing him. But,
after all, worse mishaps have befallen me. I shall ever
remember the face of woe with which the Rev. Professor
Leonard, of Iowa City, announced to me (just as I had
told the audience that such and such pictures would be
sho'wn) that some one had " let out all the gas ! "

Talking of lecture experiences, I may note that si/ire
Sunday, the strangest I have ever known has occurred to
me. I have given, I suppose, some 1,.500 lectures, if not

* I may mention, as an odd coincidence, that this celebrated
address was delivered on March 23 (Slaunday Thursday), 1837, my
first day in this world.

2,000, in the last thirteen years— 386 of them in America,
12-i in Australasia, but those in Great Britain not counted.
I have addressed audiences of almost every possible sort,
religious, mercantile, educational, college classes (male and
female), schools, members of special religious denominations
(from Roman Catholics, as at the Hanover square Rooms,
by special request of Fr. Christy, S. J., at one extremity of
the scale, to universalists at the other), besides such bodies
as the Royal Institution, the London Institution, the
Lowell Institute (2i lectures), the Stephens Institution,
and so forth. There have presided at my lectures such
men as Wm. Ciillen Bryant, the poet. Sir Henry Holland,
and Sir Wm. Armstrong, eminent in science. Dr. Goldwin
Smith, the Duke of Westminster, the Bishop of Exeter,
and many others belonging to the different classes of which
these are representative men. And though kindly feeling
may often dictate expressions of approval on such occasions,
I think it has been said as the simple truth by all of them,
that my lectures have tended, as I have wished they should
tend, to raise men's thoughts " from Nature up to Nature's
God." Be this as it may, it has certainly never yet happened
to me to find any person who had nat heard me lecture, so
unmannerly as to suggest the possibility that any lecture of
mine might have the reverse influence, might even produce-
effects antagonistic to moral and social welfare. Even the
rough but kindly working-men who have sometimes acted
as secretaries for lecture committees, have always had the
sense to see that to question a lecturer on this point
would be equivalent to asking him if he had common-
sense or decent manners, if he would refrain from foul
language on the platform, or would come sober to the
lecture-room. But I have just received from a neighbour-
hood, not supposed to be the abode of ill-bred persons
only, a request involving precisely such an offence against
propriety and common sense.

I had consented to deliver a lecture at Streatham (it
happens that it was the very lecture of whose tone Dr.
Temple, Bishop of Exeter, spoke three years since in warm
and kindly approval). My consent to lecture obtained,
a ludicrous thing happens. A churchwarden, beadle, or
the like, asks that I be requested to assure the committee
that nothing shall, in the course of my lecture, " be advo-
cated, said, or sung (sic), antagonistic to the promotion of
Evangelical religion, temperance, and the moral and social
welfare of the neighbourhood " of Streatham, or " re-
pugnant to the salutary objects of the building " (the
Streatham Assembly Room) ! Truly the ways of Bumble-
dom are strange, and the manners of Little Pedlington
peculiar.

The Telegraph in British Gui.ax.a Since the intro-
duction of the sixpenny rate, says the Colonies and India,
the number of telegraphic messages sent within this colony
has increased nearly fourfold.

The total number of patents controlled by the Gramme
Electric Company of New York (says the Electrician), was,
on the 1st of November last, •ji'^'J, and included everything
relating to electric lighting and the distribution of elec-
tricity, as well as some miscellaneous patents.

Some novel electrical experiments have been carried out
lately at the Trafalgar Collieries, Forest of Dean. This
has taken the form of using an electric motor to drive a
pump in the underground workings. The total vertical
lift of the electric pump is 11.5 ft. The electricity is gene-
rated by a dynamo machine at the surface of the colliery,
and the wires connecting this with the pump extend down
the shaft a distance of 500 yards.

26

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Jan. 12, 1883.

LOGICAL PUZZLE.

I FEAR you have made some slips in your e.xplanations
of the logical puzzle, at p. 7, No. 62.

In the first explanation you say, " for all ^s to be -2r's,"
«ta " This can o)tli/ be true, sri iiposhtg the A''s lo he rijiial
in uiiiaber to the Z's : but, as we know nothing as to the
number of the X's, except that they are at least equal to
all the Z'a, and may be any greater number, mc can make
no (taitcriion wlmlecer vntli regard to (he X's. Conse-
quently, in the case in which the X's are in excess of the
Ji's, to speak of ALL Xs being Z'x is utterly absurd, atul has
no iifanint/ whatever.

Your second slip is of more importance, and depends on
the application of the word some. Some, in ordinary lan-
guage and in logic, implies one or more, and may signify
ALL. Your second explanation only applies to one of the
alternatives — the case in which some does not imply all.
Yet you pass this off as a full explanation of the prolilem,
while in fact it is only half the explanation. It can only
be taken as the full solution by supposing the word some,
in certain cases, to imply no7ie at all, which is absurd.

You say there are "so many Zs which are not Y's, and
so many which are l''s." By what process of conversion
or transmutation do you extract the first of these proposi-
tions from the simple premise, " Some Y's are Z's 1" " Some
Z's are not Ys " can never be deduced from the premise. It
may possibly be true in certain cases, but does not neces-
sarily follow. It is quite possible that all the Z's may be
Y's, and then none of the Z's would he not Y's. In that
case, unless the word some signifies none — which it cer-
tainly does not signify in ordinary language and in logic,
whatever it may signify in mathematics — yoiir explanation
is altogether insufficient, and ought to be supplemented by
the case in ivhich all Z's are Y's. To take the concrete
example, the roicing men may be exceedingly numerous, and
include all the 1,350 football players, and many others.

I consider logic — as the science which teaches how to
find truth — to be one of the most important studies.

Thomas Common.

[Our correspondent has afforded us, not intending it, a
curiously apt illustration of the way in which formal logic
interferes with ready reasoning by taking one off the track
to follow side issues. The thing to be shown being that some
X's are not Z's, we pointed out how the assumption that
all X's are Z's leads at once to a contradiction — this being,
in point of fact, precisely the way in which a soundly-
reasoning mind deals with the matter : our correspondent
objects to this, that we can make no assertion whatever
with regard to all the Xs — confounding assertion with
assumption. In using the argii mentum. ad absurdum' one
always does assume what is eventvially shown to be absurd,
or " utterly absurd," if Mr. Common likes strong adverbs.

As " a more important objection," and as making our
explanation " only half an explanation," he notes that we
omit all reference to the case in which all Z's are Y's, —
of which, if we had thought it worth while to speak at all,
we should have noted simply that it requires no explana-
tion. C>ur correspondent seems not to have noticed that
if all Z's are Y's, the syllogism reduces simply to this —
All Z's arc V's ;
Some X's are not Y's ;
.•. Some A''s are not Z's.
\N'oukl it have been worth while to point out the truth
of this (a common syllogism in liaroko) to readers of
Knowledge 1

Our correspondent gives further illustration of inexact
reasoning by quietly " begging the question " at the close

of his letter. If logic is the science which teaches how
to find truth it is unquestionably one of the most im-
portant studies. But men find truth by observation, ex-
perience, and reasoning, — not by logic. Logic is only the
science which teaches men what they do when they reason ;
(even Whately does not claim that the study of logic
t(facljes men how to find truth) ; and many, after they have
learnt logic, pay more attention to the question whether
they are reasoning in Barbara or Cdarent, than to the
truth of their premisses or the validity of their con-
ilusions. RiciiD. A. Proctor.]

' Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Texxtsok.

iettersi to tfte ©iiitor*

Only a small proportion of Letters received cmi po.«sibZi/ he in-
serted. Correspondents 'inust tiot he of ended, therefore, should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial communications should be addressed to the Editoe of
Knowledge; all Business commujiications to the Publishers, at the
Office, 74, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS arise FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMMUNICATIONS ARE ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOCGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

SINGULAR PHENOMENON.

[683] — In 1881 I tried, late in the year, marking a tennis coort
with tape. This remained on the ground only one day. My surprise
was great in November to see the court marked out one frosty
morning, as though the hoar-frost had been brnshed from off the
lines where the tape had been. In spite of it never having been
used again, I still, with the return of winter, see my court marked
every morning as before. If you or any of your readers would give
me a satisfactory explanation of this, I should be much obliged.

E. Skinner.

SHIPS IN A CALM.

[684] — In answer to the question relating to the onward motion
of a ship in a calm, I beg to give the following explanation : —

If a wooden sphere or hemisphere be dropped from any height
into water, it will sink and rise alternately until it comes to rest
on the surface at the exact spot in which it first struck the water.
This i.s because the resistance its surface offers to the water is equal
in all directions. If, however, the form be altered to that of a
ship, it will not be found to remain in the same spot after repeated
oscillations, because the bottom offers more resistance at one end
than the other ; and, of course, the ship moves in the direction of the
less resistance. Now a, ship on the sea is constantly being raised
and allowed to fall again into the sea from a "swell " which exists
oven in calm seas. Thus a ship is always oscillating up and down,
at one time a little more out of water than it would be if the mass
of w.ater were perfectly still, and at another time a little deeper in
than it would be under the above-mentioned circumstances. This
up and down motion of the sea is always acting ; but when the
surface is rough, this action on the motion of the ship is in-
finitesimal, compared wnth that due to the action of the wind, and
so is no*-, noticed ; but when there is a calm, there is no other force
at work, and, therefore, that is the only one noticed.

James Shcter.

THE RAINBAND.— A NEW ZEALAND GUM.

[GS5] — I thank you and Mr. Bramley-Moorc for tlic "Rainband"

information (page 4S5). May 1 ask you to insert in future numbers

corrcBpondcnco on the subject of the Rainband ? Perhaps some one

w ould give a table for — say a month — of daily weather, with spec-

Jan. 12, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

27

troscopic values for each day ; this would be likely to help and
encoura<re other observers.

Another question 1 wish to ask is, can you or any of your readers
give nie information respecting a fossil gum found in New Zealand,
and called there " Kawrie." A cousin of mine just returned from
New Zealand tells mo it is dug up from 6 in. to 20 ft. below the
surface (in the North Island). It varies in colour to from nearly a
pure crystal to beeswax. I have had some dissolved in chloroform
and ether, to use in mounting microscopical objects ; it is (piito as
clear as Canada balsam. Some of the wood (the tree still grows, I
believe, only in the North Island) I have examined in thin sections
under the microscope. It shows the peculiar glandular discs of the
conifers, but in an arrangement I do not remember seeing before
in such woods. Joseph Claek.

EARTHQUAKES IN WESTMORELAND.

[080] — A smart shock of earthquake was felt in Westmoreland
in 1835, which has not been referred to in your notices of Earth-
quakes in the British Isles, and as I still retain a very vivid im-
pression of it, I, venture to offer the following particulars. It
occurred about the middle of August. I was on a visit at a friend's
house. The night had been so excessively sultry it was almost
impossible to sleep, and soon after sun-rise I was startled by a loud,
rattling, and rumbling noise, which at the moment I thought was
occasioned by a team of horses running away with a heavy waggon
over a rough road. Immediately afterwards the glass and earthen-
ware in the room were violently sh.iken, and I distinctly recollect
the lateral motion was so strong that, lying on the edge of the bed
on account of the heat, I was very nearly thrown on the floor. On
looking out of the window, the cattle in the park were seen rushing
wildly about with signs of great terror. I do not remember whether
any buildings were injured, but the arch of a small bridge was dis-
placed and partly inverted. I think there was only one shock, and
it seemed to come from the sonth-west.

Dec. 18, 1882. Matthew IJKi.r,.

LONGEVITY OF THE DOVE.

[6871— A Turtle Dove* died at East Keal, 24th October, 1882,
aged 15 years. The bird was given to the son of one of his tenants
at Crowland by a gentleman still living at Bedford, in the year
1852, having been in his possession 15 years. Since then it has lived
without a mate 8 years at Crowland, 20 jears at Aswardby, and 2
j-ears at Keal. 1 have kl]0^^•n it myself during the last 20 years of
its life, and believe the above f.icts can be authenticated.

Horncastle, Oct. 28, 1882. C. J. CAswKir..

anstorrs; to Coritsponlients*

S. N. N. (1) notes that, like our correspondent in No. 55, ho
often, when tired, writes " b " for " p," " d " for " t," " v " for " f,"
confusing no other letters. 2. Italian. — H. B. Heath. You are
right and wrong. The sign Y' is for the Siyn of the Ram ; but
owing to precession the sign and the constellation no longer agree.
The sign Aries is now in Pisces. — Taranaki. (1) Please de-
scribe your mechanical method for trisecting an angle. (2) It
would be impossible to explain ihe instrument without seeing it. —
W. C. P. (M.A. Oxon.) Many thanks for suggestions, which I care-
fully note.— R. C. N. Many tlianks. But readers object to more si)ace
being given to Mr. Siemens' thcon- ; and as yon evidently recognise its
insufficiency, no adequate purpose would be fulfilled by printing
your paper maintaining that some of the objections are not valid.
But tirst, in reply to your question, Why should the substances
compounded with evolution of light and heat as they approach the
sun, fall on his surface, as 31. Him suggests ? I would apk.
Where is the light evolved ? Is it not at the surface ? Secondly,
if the interstellar air is thinned to the degree you mention, it is
hopelessly inadequate to do what either Mr. Siemens or Mr.
Williams wants. (Compared with air's, its density you give as
a fraction having a single digit in its nnmcrator, and .350
digits in its denominator.) Thirdly, to calculate the effect of solar
globe rotating in a space universally pervaded by an atmosphere,
is not quite so simple as some seem to imagine. The outer parts of
the rotating body merging into that atmosphere, we should want to
know the am< unt of frictionnl resistance, and to remember that
while the frictional action of air on air gives the centrifugal tend-
ency, the motion (thus produced) of air in air would presumably

* A small terra-cotta-coloured bird with a black ring round the
back of the neck.

be frictionally resisted too. If the sun were not himself moving in
space, a steady current might, perhai>s, after a while, be produced ;
but how far it would extend is another matter. The sun, however,
is not at rest, and this brings us to another very serious difficulty :
if !such effects as Jlr. Siemens' thcoi-y requires are produced by the
motion of the exterior ]iarts of the sun's equator at the rate of. say,
100,000 miles a day, what would bo the effect of the sun's motion
of translation at the rate of more than 400,000 miles a day — sup-
posing Otto Strnve's estimate not to fall short (as I believe it does
in enormous degree) of the true velocity. — G. T. R\tes. (1) Sir J.
Uerschel's "Lectures and Essays," published by Strahan, and, I
think, also by Routledge. (2) Pardon me ; you were not told that
the comet would return in six or seven months, but that if a certain
observation telegraphed from the Vienna Observatory were trust-
worthy, that would hapjien. The observation was incorrect. It
misled others besides me. Theoretically, three observations of a
comet lix its orbit ; but unfortunately the nucleus is neither a
circular disc nor a point ; hence tho real position of whatever point
is tho true centre of tho comet's mass is not readily determined,
A verv slight error on this point would nuiko a wide difference
in our estimate of the comet's orbit, from throe, or even from
a dozen, observations. Sad, indeed, [if "public confidence in the
calculations of astronomers should be shaken for a long time
to come," If astronomers made comets to order, their failure to
make them with nice-shaped nuclei would be blameworthy. But
thev don't. I rather fancy my own error was due to a careless
telegraphist than to the observers at Vienna. (3.) Many talked
about Swift's moons of Mars at the time when tho real moons were
discovered. The idea was jirobably Arbuthnot's, as Swift would
not have worked in Kepler's Laws, But the suggestion that Mars
should have two moons is much older. It was first thrown out
by Kepler in a letter to Galileo on the discovery of the four
moons of Jupiter. Kepler, also, was the first to throw out
the idea that planets invisible to the naked eye travel between
Mars and Jupiter. — C. J. Buow.v. Mr. Dallinger's article
puts it well, you think : well, as it claims infinity of ex-
cellence, it could hardly go much farther. He sees no " ragged-
ness and inferiority" in those Eastern books. When, glancing over
his columns, I supposed he was speaking of all such books, I
thought he put the matter pretty fairly. Only I thought he omitted
to make adequate reference to certain iniquities. The system on
which Caliph Haroun al Raschid distributed justice may bo very
attractive to Eastern minds j but neither his plan of apportioning
punishment to the innocent (as the members of an offender's
familv), nor his way of condoning offences, accords with Western
ideas'of justice, or even of morality. Some may, perhaps, find in
this injustice, multiplied by infinity, something infinitely adorable:
I cannot, I can imagine men crouching in terror before such a
power, but not revering it. Mr, Dallinger seems quite to mis-
understand the agnosticism of modern science. It does agree
with the snying of old, " As touching the Almighty, we cannot find
Him out ; " but while it may, nay must, be in darkness as to what
the Almighty i/^, it entertains no manner of doubt as to what He is
not. You may rest well assured that with whatever zeal and
warmth believers in any special dogma denounce scientific teachings
which they may regard as inconsistent with it, the student of the
Laws of Nature rejects with at least equal earnestness the doctrine
that the God of Nature is the Brobdingnagian Bashaw imagined
by Eastern, and idolised by many Western, minds. Hero Sense
and Science alike aro on sure ground. The existence of evil, the
sufferings of the innocent (men and brntes alike), and other such
troubles, may perplex and puzzle science, as of old they perplexed Job
and his friends : but they will never lead Science to accept Infinite
Iniquitj- as Deity, any more than they led Job to " Curse God and
die,"

ELECTRICAL,
G. F, 1. If a continuous wire be wound so as to have a right-
handed helix on one end of tho bar, and a left-handed on
the other, the passage of a current will develop similar poles at the
two extremities, and tho inner ends of the two coils will conspire
to make a strong i)olo in the centre, because a current leavimj u
riijht-handed helix has the same inductive effect as it would have
on enteriit'j a left-hatided helix. (2) No. If two unequal positive
currents attempt to enter a wire at its opposite extremities, the
only current that will show itself will be tho difference between
them. If they .are equal, neutrality results. If they arc opposite,
they conjointly produce a greater effect than would either current
by itself. In the latter instance, however, the two opposite currents
in 0|)posite directions should be regarded as tho sarao current
flowing in one direction, (3) Tho original armature already
described in " Amatem- Electrician." Tho pre.^ent modified form
adopted for large dynamos consists of a long cylindrical drum, on
which are wound several independent coils of wire attached to the
commutator simUarly to the Gramme.

28

• KNOWLEDGE

[Jan. 12, 1883.

dPur paratrov Corner.

A TIIKORY OF MERCURY.

By Thomas Foster.

{CoHfhiited from ptige 32.)

IT was with a sense of ])leasure in the promise of future
less restricted play of fancy among men of science, that
I heard how a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, Mr. John
Brett — also kno>vTi as an eminent landscape-painter — had boldly
advanced the theory that the planet Venus, ne.\t neighbour to the
planet I am now (lealing with myself, is quite unlike the earth.
According to this theory, the planet which at this time is, I think,
adorning our morning skies (Mr. Proctor will confirm this, I believe),
has a polished metallic surface, enclosed within a crystalline or
vitreous envelope. This pretty jdanet, indeed, seems to be like
those mirror-globes which one sometimes sees in shop windows,
wherein you may see distorted images of yourself, of the people
walking past the window, of the epposite side of the street, and so
forth. I am not sure whether this theory may not in reality have
been entertained in very remote times. The ancients certainly knew
a number of matters the discovery of which we are too apt to attri-
bute to modern times. I have seen it stated — nay, proved, if the writer
who made the statement can be trusted — that the ancient Assyrian
astronomers knew all about the rings of Saturn, the four moons of
Jupiter, and other astronomical wonders which only the telescope
could have revealed to them. Now it certainly is a strange cir-
cumstance, in the light of Mr. Brett's attractive theory, that the
ancients should have associated the mirror mth the planet Venus.
In the very same plate, in fact, in which (in his " Saturn and its
System") Mr. R. A. Proctor shows an Assyrian picture of Saturn
inside a ring, there is shown, also, a figure of the Assyrian Venus,
Mylitta, holding in her hand what is manifestly intended to repre-
sent a mirror. And the mirror is a round one — no doubt, to repre-
sent a globe mirror. The race of astronomers who either found out,
or (if Professor Piazzi Smyth is right) had revealed to them, astro-
nomical facts regarded as the special glory of our own time, the
astronomers, or priests, who knew of the rings of Saturn and the
moons of Jupiter, might well have anticipated Mr. Brett in dis-
covering that Venus is a mirror-globe.

I am aware that some astronomers have attempted to ridicule
this ingenious theory. They seem in the first place to assume that
because Mr. Brett is a most skilful painter, therefore he cannot
possibly be an able astronomer — " he paints like an angel," they
say (though I am not aware that either the painting or the writing
of angels has yet been made the subject of scientific observation),
but he " speaks " (about astronomy) " like poor poll,"* an assump-
tion manifestly unjust in the extreme.

However, to my theory. It relates to the planet Mercury. Jlr.
Brett has told us all we could e.xpect to know (and more) about
one inferior planet ; let me endeavour to do the like for another —
leaving some one else to tell us all about Vulcan.

Wlieu Mercury was last in transit. Professor Langley (of the
Alleghany Observatory, I beheve) made a carious observation. He
had found, in looking at the seemingly blackest part of sun-spots,

* I would submit to the notice of the curious in such matters
(and especially to the consideration of some ingenious persons who,
a year or two ago, sought to show that the words " batten on this
^loor," indicate the Ethiopic Moorish complexion of Hamlet's
objectionable uncle), the extreme probability — I would almost say
the certainty— that this saying of Johnson's has been entirely
altered from its original form. Badly as Goldsmith figured in con-
versation, it could hardly be said that he spoke like a parrot. But
if we remember that Johnson was a University man, and that Gold-
smith himself ought to have taken a University degree, the actual
expression employed by Johnson can easily he recognised. I suggest,
then, that he did not say of Goldsmith,"" He writes like an angel,
a,nd speaks like poor poll," but, " he writes like an angel and speaks
Uke a ' poll ' man," that is, like one who has taken a poll degree.
His courtesy led Johnson to overlook for the moment the fact that
Goldsmith had taken no degree at all ; or else he took it for granted
that if Goldsmith had taken a degree, it would have been onlv
among the poll men. For these, Johnson probably felt a wholly
unwarranted contempt, and Goldsmith's unsatisfactory verbal
utterances would seem to Johnson to correspond with what might
be expected from poll men. Besides, the contrast between an angel
and a man (of any sort) is natural and proper, whereas that be-
tween an angel and a parrot is forced, and even to some degree
irreverent. Johnson's careful avoidance of all that savoured of
irreverence is well known. This, by the way, if my theory is true,
is the earliest instance on record of the lise of the term " poll

that a brilliant purple light is emitted, which, as seen through the
small pinhole he had left in the field of view, shone with all the
lustre of a purple star. This same method he applied to the
apjjarently black disc of Mercury in transit. Precisely the same
effect was produced. Obviously, then, the night side of Jlercury,
instead of being black, glows with a purple lustre. How is this H
Do we know of anything akin to this strange phenomenon — of an
uuilluminated surface, not intensely heated, shining with a purple
light? We do. The substance called " luminous paint" produces
just such an effect. Sulphide of calcium has been known ever
since 1768 (when Canton prepared it by heating a mixture of one
part of sulphur with three parts of calcined oyster-shells) to
be self-luminous for hours after it has been exposed to light.
The bones of cuttlefish and other substances will do. Electrical
discharges also will increase the brightness of this self-light.

My theory, then, simply is that Mercury was once covered by
oceans, which have since — much Uke the moon's oceans — been with-
drawn into the interior, leaving a stratum of sea-shells, cuttle-fish
bones, &c., &c. Sulphurous emanations from the interior, and
electrical action exerted by the sun, supply all the rest that the
theory requires. Mercury is permanently coated with luminous
paint, naturally formed. The intense light of the sun by day
causes this luminous paint to glow with strong purple lustre all
through the night. Hence the brilliant purple star seen by Pro-
fessor Langley, when he examined the night side of Mercury
through a minute pinhole.

Strange thoughts are suggested as to the past of a planet thus
seen to be strewn with the dihris of former marine life, in exceed-
ing wealth and in multitudinous forms. Strange

[Very strange, no doubt ; but we must omit the rest of Mr.
Foster's rhapsodies until he has shown that Professor Langley's
blue-purple star was not the light of our ow7i sky. That light
was certainly shining through the pinhole. Might it not have
looked blue-purple, like the light of the sky when seen from lofty
mountain-tops ? But possibly Mr. Foster is jesting. — Ed.]

(&UV iHatftfmatiral Column.

NOTES ON EUCLID.— II.
(Continued from p. 15.)

THE .Second Book of Euclid affords a good illustration of what
might be done in the way of simplifying Euclid, while re-
taining his arrangement of propositions, and scarcely departing
from his method. Thus this book might be presented as follows : —
Prop. I. — Enunciation and proof as in EucKd, — only, in a
simplified Euclid, the statement which now heads the demonstration
can be given as the enunciation, as in the props, which follow.

Vrof.U.— Let a straight line AB be divided ^ ? ?

A'

B'

into any two parts in the point C : then the

rectangle AB, BC, together with the rectangle AB, AC, shcUlbe equal
to the square on AB.

Let A'B' be equal to AB. Then by Prop. I.,

Eect. AC, A'B'-l-rect. BC, A'B'=rect. AB, A'B';

that is, rect. AC, AB-t-rect. BC, AB = sq. onAB.

Prop. III. — Let a straight line AB be divided into any tv>o parts
in the point C: then the rect. AB,BC, shall be f' ? ?

equal to the rect. AC, CB, together icith the sq. | ,

on BC.

Let C'B' be equal to BC. Then by Prop. I.,

Rect. AB, B'C'=rect. AC, C'B' 4- rect. BC,B'C',-

that is, rect. AB, BC = rect. AC, CB + sq. on BC.

Prop. IV. — Let the straight line, AB, be divided into any two
parts in C : then the sq. on AJ8 shall be equal to the squares on AC,
CB, fngeiher loith twice the reef. AC, CB.

A C B

By Prop. II., Beet. AC, CB-l-sq. on AC = rect. AB, AC,
Rect. AC, CB-Hsq. on BC = rect. AB, BC,
.-. 2 Rect. AC, CB -t- sqs. on AC, BC =rect. AB, AC + rect. AB, BC,

= sq. onAB (by Prop. II.).

Cor. — If AB is bisected in C, the sq. on AB is equal to four times
the sq. on AC.

Prop. V.—Let the straight line, AB, be divided into two eqital
parts in C, and into two unequal parts in D : then the rectangle,
.\D, DB, together xvith the sq. on CD, shall be equal to the sq.
on CB.

i

Jak. 12, 1S83.]

KNO^VLEDGE

29

D B

Hy IV. ' ! '- L

Sq. onCB = sq. ob CD + sq. on DB + rect. CD, DB + rectCD, DB
= sq. on CD + rect. CB, DB + rect. CD, DB (bv III)
= 8q. on CD + rect. AC, DB + rect. CD, DB{VCB = AC)
= 8q. on CD + rect. AD, DB (by I)
Pbop. TI. — Let the straight line AB he hisected in C and produced
to D : then the rectangle AD, DB, together leith the sq. on CB, shall
i'O equal to the sq. on CD.

A C B D

By IV. ! I—- ! !

Sq. onCD = sq. on CB + sq. on BD + rect. CB, BD +rcct. CB, BD
= 8q. on CB + rect. CD, BD + rect. CB, BD
= sq. on CB + rect. AD, DB (by I, VCB = AC).
Pbop. VII. — Let the straight line, AB, be divided into any tu'o
(III if .s ill C: then the sqs. on AB, BC are equal to tu-ice the rectangle
AB, BC, together with the sq. on AC.

A C B

By IV. Sq. on AB = sq. on AC + 8q on BC + 2 rect. AC, CB
.•.' sqs. on AB, BC =sq. on AC + 2 sq. on BC + 2 rect. AC,CB
= sq. on AC + 2 rect. AB, BC (by III.).
Pbop. Vin. — Let the straight line, AB, he divided into any (no
parts in C, and produced to D, so that BD = BC, then shall the sq.
on AD le equal to four times the rect. AB, BC, together ivith the sq.
m AC.

A C B D

Bv IV., sq. on AD = sq. on AC + sq. on DC + 2 rect. AC, CD
= 8q. on AC+4sq. on CB+4rect. AC, CB

(by Cor. to IV., and I.)
= 8q. on AC + 4 rect. AB, BC (by III.).
Pkop. IX. — Let the straight line, AB, be divided into («•■< eq>'al
parts in C, and into two unequal parts in D ; then the sqs. on AD,
I'B, are together double the sqs. on AC, CD.

A C D B

By IV., sq. on AD =8q. on AC + sq. on CD + 2 rect. AC, CD ; .*.
sqs.onAD,BD = sq. on AC + sq. on CD + 2 rect. CB, CD -rsq.on DB
= 8<i.on AC + eq. onCD + 8q.onCB + sq. on CD (by VII.)
= 2sq. on AC-r2 8q. on CD (•.•CB = AC)
Pbop. X. — Let the straight line, AB, be bisected in C, and produced
to D: then the squares on AD, DB shall be double of the squares on
AC, CD.

A C B D

By IV. sq. on AD = sq. on AC + sq. on CD + 2 rec. AC, CD ; .".

sqs.onAD, BD = sq. on AC + sq. on CD + 2 rect. CB, CD + sq. on BD
= sq. on AC + sq. on CD + sq. on CB + sq. on CD (by VII.)
= 2 8q. on AC + 2sq. onCD (•.•CB = AC).
(To be e<mttnue<i.)

0UV aaa&i'st column.

By " Five of Clcbs."

1J17HEX we consider the conduct of the hand, as a whole, we
»f recognise the object of the various leads and returns and
continuations of the opened suit ; and we see how much those
partners usually gain who play a combined game, and how much is
lost in the long run by those who seek only to play their own hand.

Thus, between my partner's hand and mine there is probably one
suit, at least, which may be established and brought in, with proper
care in the play of our hands. That one of us who has the hrst
lead has usually no choice bat to show his long suit, whether it is
weak or not. The other, when his time to lead arrives, must decide
whether he will show his own suit or adopt his partner's. By
showing his own he usually does what the first leader had not
done — he indicates a certain degree of strength. By returning his
partner's, he says, " I have no suit strong enough to justify me in
showing it ; probably tlie adversaries have more strength in it than
you and I have j let us combine to establish and bring in your suit
if we can." The player who returns his partner's suit in this way,
before showing his own, should bear this in mind ; for his partner's
play will undoubtedly be guided by this supposed evidence of
weakness in other suits.

It is for this reason, also, that the first discard is so carefully to
be attended to. It helps to show your partner where your strength
lies, by indicating where you are weakest, — in the case we are
dealing with at present (that strength in trumps has not been

declared on either side), and also if strength has been declared in
your favour. If your partner has shown his strong suit, and one
of the enemies his, your declaration of your weakest suit may not
necessarily show your partner in what suit you are strong ; for your
weakest suit may lie his, or that of the adversary who has already
declared his strength ; your longest suit (your strength if yon have
a strong suit) may Ho either in tho third plain suit, or in trumps.
But he learns, at any rate, that you are weak in one suit, and is
saved from tho bad effects which would have arisen had he looked
for strength from yon in that suit.

Every indication on the part of the enemy must be carefully
watched, to show where stiength lies and where weakness.

In the early progress of tho play, indications may be afforded
cither on the one hand of sufficient strength in trumps, with a strong
suit between you and your partner, to enable you at once to take
a commanding position, or, on the other hand, of such broken forces
that the best chance you have is to pick up whatever tricks may
come in your way, without any thought of establishing a suit, and
scarcely a hope of preventing the adversaries from doing so. Of
the former case we do not speak now, because it will be considered
fully in our chapter on Leading Trumjis. In the latter case play
carefully to the score, finessing where it seems the only way to save
the game, but refraining from even the most promising finesse where
a single trick saves the game. Euff at every opportunity if so weak
in trumps that you cannot hope to disarm the enemy; but, if you
have three or four small trumps and your partner early shows
extreme weakness, you sometimes do well to keep your trumps to
draw two for one, when yon get the chance.

But, in ordinarj- cases, play a steadfast game, neither too boldly
aiming at a great game with moderate force, nor too anxiously
playing to save tho game when, with care, you may maintain an
equal fight.

It is to gain full command of your own suit that you play the lowest
of a long head-sequence, so that, if partner has the winning card,
he may play it. The same principle holds as the suit is continued,
and applies to shorter sequences. Thus, suppose that after at least
one round of a suit you hold second and third best and one or
more small ones, your partner having only two, one of which may
be the best ; if you play the second best, you draw the best from
the enemy ; but if your partner holds the best, he would not put it
on yotu- second best. Even if he knows you to hold the third best,
he would infer from your playing the highest that you wished
him to leave the trick to you. In fact, if ho knew you
to hold both second and third best, he would be apt to
regard the lead of second best under the circumstances as
involving a request to pass the trick. But the third round
falling to him, you cannot have your suit returned to you.
Therefore, in such a case you should play the third best, which
your partner will take, and returning the small one, leave you
free to continue the suit. When trumps are out, and your suit
otherwise established (that is your partner's King-card only against
you), neglect of this precaution is ruinous. In like manner you
must constantly be on the watch to get rid of a winning card in
your partner's suit which would be apt to obstruct it. The game
in our last number affords a good illustration of this point. If
attention had not been paid to this rule, the game would not have
been won.

(To be continued.)

^UV

CI)ed9 Column.

By Mephisto.

CHESS is never more attractive than when it is played with
ingenuity. It is tho originality of chess which charms and
attracts devotees to our nobk game. Soundness in play ought, of
course, to be allied to ingenuity, but we hold that the latter quality
ought to predominate. The mission of chess is to amuse, therefore
it logically follows that ingenuity (which amuses) ought to be
primarily cultivated. Chess does not differ in this respect from
music and other arts, in which the great desideratum is to combine
truth (soundness) with beauty (ingenuity). A successful combina-
tion of these two principles must necessarily result in the highest
standard of excellence being attained. Unfortunately, however,
we have many adherents to each principle by itself, but only very
few who combine both qualities in a very high degree. We have
Wagner and Verdi, Steinitz and Blackbumc. But we have also
had (though very seldom) a Handel, who combines in his works the
perfected principles of both Wagner and Verdi. We likewise can
refer to Morphy, whose play is a glorious combination of the
different styles of Steinitz and Blackburne.

Steinitz, "during his tour in the United States, played a match
with Martinez, a Philadelphian player, and the former won every

30

• KNOWLEDGE

[Jak. 12, 1883.

Kiime. This rcsnlt wc ascribe not only to the sound play of Stcinit/.,
but also iu a groat measure to tbo want of ingenuity of hia opimncnt.
Wo can best illastrato our meaning by giving our roadors an
instance (of severiil tliat occurred) where the result might have
been different had moro ingenuity been employed.

Tho following position occurred in the fifth game, after 'White'B
twenty-second move, and it admits of highly interesting play, by
which Black might have won instead of White, as occurred iu actual
play :—

Martinez.
Black.

In this position Martinez (Black) might have won by

22. Kt takes P (ch)

23. K to K2 (best) 23. P to B4 !

Black now leaves liis Knight en prisr, but White cannot take it
without losing the game. If White does not take the Knight,
Black's superiority of position is manifest. In case he takes the
piece, the following would result : —

24. K takes Kt 21. Kt takes QP

and wins, for he threatens a terrible triple discovered check by
Kt to B5, with the Knight and Queen on the King, and with the
Knight and Bishop on the Queen and Rook, which must be fatal,
as the following analysis will show : —

Kt to K-i (h) Q to E2 (c) B takes Kt (best)

B takes B

(«) 25.

26.

Kt to B5 (ch)
K toK3
Q to QG (ch)
and wins the
Queen

Kt to B5
Kto K3

(ch)

Q to R2

Q to QG (ch)
K to B2

B takes R (ch)
K to K2

Q tks B (ch) &c. QtttoQsq.andwnns.

As a strong contrast to the above example, we give an instance
of ingenuity in despair. In the following position of a game which
occurred at Pm'sell's, it can be seen at a glance that Black has a
lost game ; nevertheless, with the courage of despair, he conceived
an ingenious idea, and succeeded in drawing the game. In our
first position White's sounder play won through want of sulficient
ingenuity on the part of his opponent. In the present instance
the reverse took place ; ingenuity succeeded against insufficient
soundness : —

Maczuski.
Black.

, #^^ S

The game continued with

"'•' gK toB7

P takes P (ch) (u) ; ; K to Kt8

(a) White's move is unsonnd,'K to KEG was the right m ,ve to
win.

Black now threatens mate by E to R7. To avoid this. White was
compelled to play R to B sq. (ch) and on K takes II to make room
for his King by P to Kt6, after which Black might proceed with

R to Kt sq.

K toE7

R takes P

K toR4

K toB7

P to Kt7

R to B sq.

I' to Kt5

R to QKt sq.

P to Kt6

KtoB4

K to E5

K takes P

P Queens

S takes Q

K toRO

K to Bo

K takes R

K takes P

P to BG

R to KB sq.

drawn game.

Another interesting specimen of ingenuity has been put at our
disposal by Mr. P. E. Lamb, of tho North London Club. The
following analysis proves thai odds givers need bo careful what
they arc about. It establishes the fact that on receipt of the Pawn
and eight moves, a mate can be forced, on the twelfth move at the
latest, in a highly interesting manner, and without infringing the
rule of not advancing over the middle line of the board.

Remove Black's King's Bishop's Pawn.

The fiirst eight moves which bring about a forced mate in four
more moves are : —

1. PtoQKtS 2. BtoE3 3. Kt to QB3 4. Kt to R4
5. P to K3 G. Q to Kt4 7. B to Q3 8. KKt to B3.

Position after White's eighth mov. —

White now threatens mate by B to Kt6 (ch). To avoid this
Black can only attempt three moves, all of which end fatally, i.<'. :

8. P to Q3, or
^ B to Kt6 (ch)

P takes B

Q takes P (ch)
■ K to Q2

Ktto K5 (ch)

11.

12.

P takes Kt
Kt to B5

KKt to R3, or
Q to Kt6 (ch)
P takes Q
B takes P (ch)
Kt to B2
Kt to K5
Anything
B takes Kt,
Mate

K toB2

Kt to K5 (ch)

K to K sq. (best)

Q to Kt6 (ch)

P takes Q

B takes P

Mate

Wbitk.
Amateur.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
»#* Please address Chess Editor.

Brice Bennett. — White is a piece minus, and, considering the
position iu general, we do not see how he can avoid defeat.

Francis C. Collins. — Problem will be welcome; on other subject
I cannot express any opinion.

A Cyril Pearson. — Best thanks for problem and report : you have
not sent solution. You are right, in Problem 67 the White Pawn
on KR4 is impossible.

John Simpson. — Many thanks for problem ; solutions correct.

,T. .\. Miles. — Thanks; will be examined.

W. Collins. — Openings have been objected to, as being text-book
information ; in case of a more general desire being expressed, we
might resume the compilations of openings.

Correct solutions received : — Problem No. G6, "John Lonsdale,
R. J. P. No. G7, C. H. Brockelbank, H. V. T., W. No. 08 and
G9. W., H. V. T., C. H. Brockelbank, Borrow, Kit, S. Bassan Lello,
John Watson, R. J. P., John Lonsdale.

Jan. 19, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE ♦

31

'H<f V^ AN ILLJi^tlR^TGD ^J^

[ ^^MAGi^ZlNEoTSgENCE^

^ PLAINLy\fORDED -£XACTI^I)ESCR1BED

LONDON: FRIDAY, JANUARY 19. 1883.

Contents op No. 64

Scieace And Art Gossip 31

ThpChemi^trT of Cookery. Bt W.

M.tlieu William.i 33

PleaMut Hours xritbthe Miscroscope.
Br Henrf J. Slack, F.G.S ,

FiR.M.S..' W

The El»clric- LiKht Companiea 35

Wu RamMCS II. the Pharaoh of the
Oppresiion f—(Conetiuio») By Misi

.Amelia B. Edwards 36

Nishls wieh n Three-iacli Telescope.
{TllinlniUJ) 38

FAOB
Our Bodies.— IT. Life and Work.

By Dr. A. Wilson, F.R.S.E :ii

Lecturing Notes. By K. A. I'roctor I'l
Mr. Spencer's Impressions of Ame-
rica 11

The Face of the Sky 13

CoRKBspoirDBVCB ; The San-dial of

Ahaz— A Logical Puzzle, &c -12

Answers to Correspondents 1;*

Our Mathematical Column 16

Our Whist Column Li

Our Chess Column 1(1

^rirnrf anii 9lvt 0o^&ip.

I SCARCF. ever lecture for a week without some
new experience, though I have lectured so long and
so often. La.st week I had two entirely new e.xpc-
riences. I unwillingly came near upsetting a Mayor
(never mind where), and not less unwillingly came near
being upset liy a lantern. The first was on this wise : —
There being but one seat on tlie platform, and the chair-
man having begun to address the audience, I remarked to
him that till he had got through I would borrow " the
chair ; " but in the full How of his elotjuence he heard me
not ; so when he had done, deeming the chair still behind
him, he prepared to sit where no seat wa-s. Luckily he
heard my warning voice just in time. The fall of the
lantern occurred the following night. I caught the lantern
twice, first on my shoulder (where I did not want it), then
in my arms, as it was on its way, after glancing from my
shoulder, to the floor below the platform, where it must
inevitably ha\e been destroyed. It worked pretty well
after this, but I think in future I shall look more cheer-
fully at a lantern on a floor or in an opposite gallery than
■when set where it may fall on the lecturer. I am a fairly
good " catch " at cricket (my boys think), but I have not
had much practice catching o.\yhydrogen lanterns.

" The stars in their courses," we are told, " fought
against Sisera." We are by no means clear as to the
method adopted by the astral belligerents ; but perhaps it
was after the style in which the comet is said to be fighting
against two Cabinet Ministers in China. It is generally
believed in that country that the appearance of a comet is
an intimation from Heaven that his Imperial Majesty
"The Continuation of Glory " must at once, under pain of
heavy judgment, put down the misgovemment which pre-
vails somewhere in the Empire. Now, the coincidence of
the comet's apparition with the impeachment of two
Ministers for bribery commends itself to the Celestial
mind as a divine fiat against the accused. Wherefore the
unfortunate functionaries are likelj-, whatever the human
evidence of their guilt or innocence, to be sacrificed to the
comet.

A French cliemist claims to have discovered a method
of overcoming tlie danger threatening ^-ineyards from the
ravages of thi> phylloxera. His process is to inoculate the
vines with the phenol poison. The phylloxera do not
attack plants thus treated, and arc extirpated for want of
food. The ^■ines are in no way injured by tlie inoculation
process.

CoRiiECTiONs are sometimes needed for corrections. Thus
Mr. R. Tucker, in Xatinv, marks among the corrections to
be made in the Memoir of Professor de Morgan, for Haussen,
Hanssen, and for Hencke, Encke ; but the first should be
Hansen, and Hencke is right enough. Hencke, the dis-
coverer of Astnea and Hebe, is referred to, not Encke
the mathematician, whose name is associated with a comet
of short period.

The Engineer says : — " The electric light is coming
extensively into use at Jliddlesbrough. The Yorkshire
Electric Light and Power Company (Limited) has already
commenced operations. Their plan is to supply Brush
lights at a rental of .£25 per annum per light, the renter
paying also for carbons consumed, estimated to cost a
further £'3 per annum. Messrs. Jones Bros., B. Sauiuelson
it Co., Gjers, Mills, A- Co., and the North-Eastern Steel
Co., have already become renters. The electric light will
not, however, be without serious competition. The Gas
Committee have undertaken to put up the Sugg lamp at
Messrs. Fox, Head, A.- Co.'s work.?, free of cost to them,
except so far as that they are to pay for the gas actually con-
sumed. It is computed that the cost of supply of gas will
not exceed one-sixth the cost of the electric light, and that
the illuminating eflect of the Sugg light, if not equal to its
rival, will at all events be far ahead of anything which has
been in use at rolling-mills before."

Oldest Tree in the World. — The oldest tree in the
world, so far as any one knows, is the Bo tree of the
sacred city or Amarapoora, in Burmali. It was planted
288 B.C., and is, therefore, now 2,170 years old. Sir James
Emerson Tennent gives reasons for believing that the tree
is really of this wonderful age, and refers to historic
documents in which it is mentioned at diflcrent dates, as
182 A.D., 223 A.D., and so on to the present day. " To
it," says Sir James, " kings have even dedicated their
dominions, in testimony of a belief that it is a branch of
the identical fig tree under which Buddha reclined at
Urunielaya when he underwent his apotheosis." Its leaves
are carried away as streamers by pilgrims, but it is too
sacred to touch with a knife, and therefore they are only
gathered when they fall. The king oak in Windsor
Forest, England, is 1,000 years old.

CoMMENTixo on the communications of the Duke of
Argyll, Emeritus Professor Blackie, and others, which
have appeared in the Times in connection with the de-
population ill the Highlands, a statement appears in the
C'n/lic Mnt/rnine to the ellt'ct that since the census of 18.31
the population of Argyllshire iias actually declined from
100,973 to 76,103; and as to the latter number, no fewer
than 30,387 are classified as urban. The conclusion
arrived at is that the rural population has been reduced
in the course of the last fifty years from 8,5,973 to 10,081,
or nearly one-half.

Hehr K Bassel, a Berlin engineer, who last year pub-
lished an article in the CentralhhUt dcr Bauverxi^altuiuj on
the aqueduct of Betilienus at Altari, has recently made

32

• KNOWLEDGE

[Jan. 10, 1883.

further excavations, and has sucieedod in recovering some
of the lead pipes which eonveye.l the water. iMany frag-
ments of tcrra-cotta have also been found, probably indi-
cating a factory. ^^

During the excavation of the tramway tunnel through
Posilippo an antique water conduit of singular interest
was discovered, and examined by competent archaologists.
The walls, of thick cement, contain inscriptions indicating
the vill.as supplied with water. The dimensions of the
conduit are such that people can walk erect inside. One
of the inscriptions was made apparently after a partial
restoration. It bears the name of Consul Nerva.

The Globe remarks, with reference to Mr. Julian Haw-
thorne's illness, and the consequent interruption of the
story which he is contributing to a monthly magazine,
that it would be well if no editor would allow a story to
be commenced in the pages of a magazine until the MS.
of the whole story was in his hands. Our contemporary
refers to the fact that Dickens, Thackeray, and Mrs. Gas-
kell all left unfinished stories. The public would pro-
bably prefer that even part of a story should appear than
none of it, on the principle that " half a loaf is better
than no bread." If such an arrangement as is
suggested by the Globe would have resulted in the
completion of the novels referred to, it would have
been well ; but it would ^not have had that eflect.
It would only have delayed the appearance of the
fragments. Fortunately, both Thackeray and Dickens left
clear indications of the endings to which the unfinished
stories were to have tended ; .so that one can take all the
pleasure the fragments can give without the annoyance
which would have arisen had the end been left in doubt.
Thackeray actually tells lis the denouement of his novel ;
and though Dickens did not — indeed, rather tried to shroud
the fortunes of the leading characters in mystery — the end
is clearly foreshadowed for aU who understand Dickens's
style, and see how, in all his novels, the fate of each person
is indicated by the tone of all relating to each from be-
ginning to end. We believe that no one who reads the
" Mystery of Edwin Drood " attentively can doubt that the
end was to have been as suggested by Mr. Foster in the
closing essay of "Leisure Readings" (Knowledge Library,
Vol. v.).

The Hammond Electric Light Company informs the
Electrical Bcvieir that " a Ferranti machine to run 5,000
lights, and weighing about two tons, is on the point of
being finished ; and if this works with the efficiency
claimed for it, it will revolutionise the whole question of
incandescent lighting from a central station. Applications
under the Electric Lighting Act were made for every
borough in England ; but having got into friendly rela-
tions with a large number of corporations, the company
have contented themselves with withdrawing their applica-
tions in order to become the contractors for the work of
corporations."

Protective Ixocul.\tion of Animals. — There has now
been time to form some idea as to the practical efficacy of
M. Pasteur's|^method of vaccinating animals as a protec-
tion against the disease known in France as cliarhon ; and
some instructive statistics on the subject from the depart-
ment Eureet-Loire, where the disease has been very
prevalent, have just appeared. About 80,000 sheep were
there vaccinated a year ago, and since vaccination only
518 have died of cliarbon, or 0'65 per cent., whereas the

mean annual loss from the disease during the last ten years
has been 9 '01 per cent. About 4,500 animals of bovine
species have been vaccinated, and the mortality has fallen
from 7 -03 to 0 2 1 per cent. Vaccination has not been
largely practised on horses, as it is apt to be followed in
them by serious congestion, and their moiiality from
cliarbon is low. Last year, being a wet one, was less
favourable to the development of charhon, and this might
be thought to aflect the statistics considerably. In order,
therefore, better to judge of the effects of vaccination,
some intelligent proprietors took occasion to vaccinate only
a portion of their live stock. Thus 2,308 sheep were vac-
cinated and 1,G59 not vaccinated, all being under the same
conditions of life, and mixing freely with one another. Of
the vaccinated animals only eight died ; of the unvacei-
nated GO ; and the latter number would be raised to 83 if
there had been 2,308 unvaccinated. Thus we have 83 un-
vaccinated dead against eight vaccinated ; the mortality in
the former is more than ten times that in the latter.

In the United States, 9,171 miles of railway were made
in 1882, as compared with 6,649 mUes in 1881 and 534
mUes in 1880.

During the recent fearful continental floods, a kilometre
of the Simplon line, near Sierre, was destroyed by an
earth-slip, and traffic has not yet been resumed. A steamer
has been wrecked, with the loss of one life, on Lake Con-
stance. The Thur has overflowed its banks, and all the
country between Kappel and Lichtensteig is under water.
The Val de Travers has been converted into a vast lake.

"Taranaki" writes that" Earle ('English Plant Names')
gives Saxon 'inistil, sprawler,' and 'tan, twig or rod.'
' vSprawling-twig ' seems to fit the plant capitally." The
words, "mist," "mizzle," indicate the same meaning for
root " mist," scattered, dispersed — thus a mizzling rain is
finely divided or dispersed rain. " Mizzle," to run away,
is, then, really old Saxon slang, like the American
" scatter."

Lectures on Electricity. — A course of ten lectures on
electricity will be given, at the instance of the London
Society for the Extension of L^niversity Teaching, by T. W.
Waghorn, Esq., E.N., in St. Jude's Schoolroom, Com-
mercial-street, AVliitechapel, E., on Tuesday, Jan. 16, and
the nine following Tuesdays, at 8.15 p.m. The lectures
will be illustrated by experiments, and will be intelligible
to beginners. Each lecture will be followed by a class, in
whicli the lecturer will be prepared to answer questions in
elucidation of his lecture. The first lecture, on Tuesday,
IGth inst., is free. Further information may be obtained
from the Hon. Sees., F. Rogers, 62, Nicholas-street, Mile-
end, E., and A. Milner, 54, Claverton-street, S.W.

The Telephone for Railway Purposes. — The London
and North-Western Railway Company are fitting several
of the new signal cabins at Eccles Junction and Patricroft
with telephones. This will be a much readier mode of
communication than that of the single-needle instrument,
which, with its many advantages, is still inconvenient '
when the signalman has to attend to his electric and
semaphore signals. For nearly twelve months telephones
have been on trial Ijetween various points on this company's
.system, and notwithstanding the severe tests they have
been put to, have universally demonstrated their superiority
over the instruments previously used.

Jak. 19, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

33

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.
By W. Mattiku Willi.^ms.

TlIE philosopher who first perceived and announced the
fact that all the physical doings of man consist
simply in changing the places of things, made a very pro-
found generalisation, and one that is worthy of more
serious consideration than it has received.

All our handicraft, however great may be the skill em-
ployed, amounts to no more than tliis. The miner moves
the ore and the fuel from their subterranean resting-places,
then they are moved into the furnace, and by another
mo\'ing of combustibles the working of the furnace is
started ; tlien the metals are moved to the foundries and
forges, then under hammers, or squeezers, or into melt-
ing-pots, and thence to moulds. The workman shapes the
bars, or plates, or castings by removing a part of their
substance, and by more and more movings of material
produces the engine, which does its work when fuel and
water are moved into its fireplace and boiler.

The statue is within the rough block of marble ; the
sculptor merely removes the outer portions, and thereby
renders his artistic conception visible to his fellow-men.

The agricidturist merely moves the soil in order that
it may receive the seed, which he then moves into it,
and when the growth is completed, he moves the result,
and thereby makes his hardest.

The same may be said of every other operation. ]\Ian
alters the position of physical things in such wise that the
forces of Nature shall operate upon them, and produce the
changes or other results that he requires.

My reasons for this introductory digression will be easily
understood, as this view of the doings of man and the
doings of Nature displays fundamentally the business of
human education, so far as the physical proceedings and
physical welfare of mankind are concerned.

It clearly points out two well-marked natural divisions
of such education, education or training in the movements
to be made, and education in a knowledge of the conse-
quences of such movements, i.e., in a knowledge of the
forces of nature which actuallj' do the work when man
has suitably arranged the materials.

The education ordinarily given to apprentices in the
workshop, or the field, or the studio — or as relating to
my present subject, the kitchen — is the first of these, the
second and equally necessary being simply and purely the
teaching of physical science as applied to the arts.

I cannot proceed any further without a protest against
a very general (so far as this country is concerned) misuse
of a now very popular term, a misuse that is rather
surprising, seeing that it is accepted by scholars who have
devoted the best of their intellectual efforts to the study
of words. I refer to the word tecluiical as applied in the
designation "technical education."

So long as our workshops are separated from our science
schools and colleges, it is most desirable, in order to avoid
continual circumlocution, to have terms that shall properly
distinguish between the work of the two, and admit of
definite and consistent use. The two words are ready at
hand, and although of Greek origin, have become, by
analogous usage, plain simple English. I mean the words
tec/i7iical and technological.

The Greek noun tcchne signifies an art, trade, or pro-
fession, and our established usage of this root is in
accordance with this signification. Therefore " technical
education " is a suitable and proper designation of the
training which is given to apprentice's, ic, in the strictly
technical details of their trades, arts, or professions. When

we require a name for the science or the philosophy of
anything, we obtain it by using the Greek root loyoa, and
appending it in English form to the Greek name of the
general subject, as geology, the science of the earth ;
anthropology, the science of man ; biology, the science of
life, kc.

Why not, then, follow this general usage, and adopt
" technology " as the science of trades, arts, or professions,
and thereby obtain consistent and convenient terms to
designate the two divisions of education — technical educa-
tion, that given in the workshop, Ac, and technological
education, that which should be given as supplementary
to all such technical education?

In accordance with this, the papers I am here com-
mencing will be a contribution to the technology of
cookery, or to the technological education of cooks, whose
technical education is quite beyond my reach.

The kitchen is a cliemical laboratory in which are con-
ducted a number of chemical processes by which our food
is converted from its crude state to a condition more suit-
able for digestion and nutrition, and made more agreeable
to the palate.

It is the rationale or ology of these processes that I shall
endea\our to explain ; but at the outset it is only fair to say
that in many instances I shall not succeed in doing this
satisfactorily, as there still remain some kitchen mysteries
that have not yet come within the firm grasp of science.
The ir/iole storj- of the chemical differences between a roast,
a boiled, and a raw leg of mutton has not yet been told.
You and I, gentle reader, aided by no other apparatus than
a knife and fork, can easily detect the ditlerence between a
cut out of the saddle of a three-year-old Southdown and one
from a tcn-months-old meadow-fed Leicester, but the
chemist in his laboratory, with all his re-agents, test-tubes,
beakers, combustion-tubes, potash-bulbs, ic, ic, and his
balance turning to one thousandth of a grain, could not
physically demonstrate the sources of these differences of
flavour.

Still I hope to show that modern chemistry can throw
into the kitchen a great deal of light that shall not merely
help the cook in doing his or her work more efficiently,
but shall elevate both the work and the worker, and render
the kitchen far more interesting to all intelligent people
who have an appetite for knowledge, as well as for food,
than it can be while the cook is groping in rule-of-thumb
darkness — is merely a technical operator unenlightened by
technological intelligence.

In the course of these papers I shall draw largely on
the practical and philosophical work of that remarkable
man, Benjamin Thompson, the Massachusetts' prentice boy
and schoolmaster ; afterwards the British soldier and
diplomatist, Colonel Sir Benjamin Thompson ; then Colonel
of Horse and General Aide-de-Camp of the Elector Charles
Theodore of Bavaria; then Major-General of Cavalry,
Privy Councillor of State and head of yVnr Department
of Bavaria ; then Count Rumford of the Holy Roman
Empire, and Order of the White Eagle ; then Military
Dictator of Bavaria, with full governing powers during
the absence of the Elector ; then a private resident in
Brompton-road, and founder of the Royal Institution in
Albemarle-street ; then a Parisian cilotjcn, the husl)and of
the " Goddess of Reason," the widow of Lavoisier ; but
above all a practical and scientific cook, whose exploits in
economic cookery are still but very imperfectly appreciated,
though he himself evidently regarded them as the most
important of all his varied achievements.

His faith in cookery is well expressed in the following,
where he is speaking of his experiments in feeding the
Bavarian ai-my and the poor of Munich. He says : — " I

84

♦ KNOWLEDGE •

[Jan. 19, 18t?.

constantly found that the richness or quality of a soup
depenilod more upon the proper choice of the ingredients,
and a proper management of the fire in the combination
of these ingredients, than upon the quantity of solid
nutritious matter employed ; much more upon the art and
skill of the cook than upon the sums laid out in the
market."

A great many fallacies are continually perpetrated, not
only by ignorant people, but even by eminent chemists and
physiologists, by inattention to what is indicated in this
passage. In many chemical and physiological works may
be found elaborately minute tables of the chemical composi-
tion of certain articles of food, and with these the assump-
tion (either directly stated, or implied, as a matter of
course) that such tables represent the practical nutritive
value of the food. The illusory character of such assump-
tion is easily understood. In the first place the analysis is
usually that of the article of food in its raw state, and thus
all the chemical changes involved in the process of cookery
are ignored.

Secondly, the difficulty or facility of assimilation is too
often unheeded. This depends both upon the original con-
dition of the food and the changes which the cookery has
produced — changes which may double its nutritive value
without effecting more than a small percentage of altera-
tion in its chemical composition, as revealed by laboratory
analysis.

In the recent discussion on whole-meal bread, for
example, chemical analyses of the bran, ic, are quoted, and
it is commonly assumed that if these can be shown to con-
tain more of the theoretical bone-making or brain-making
elements, that they are, therefore, in reference to these
requirements, more nutritious than the fine fiour. But
before we are justified in asserting this, it must be made
clear that these ordinarily rejected portions of the grain
are as easily digested and assimilated as the finer inner
fiour.

I think I shall be able to show that the practical failure
of this whole-meal bread movement (which is not a novelty,
but only a rexdval) is mainly due to the disregard of the
cookery question ; that whole-meal prepared as bread by
simple baking is less nutritious than tine flour similarly
prepared ; but that whole-meal otherwise prepared may be,
and has been, made more nutritious than fine white bread.

Count Rumford supplies us with important data towards
the solution of this difficulty.

Another preliminary example. A pound of bread or
biscuit contains more solid nutritive matter than a pound
of beefsteak, but does not, when eaten by ordinary mortals,
do so much nutritive work. ^^Tiy is this ?

It is a matter of preparation — not exactly what is called
cooking, but equivalent to what cooking should be. It is
the preparation which has converted the grass food of the
ox into another kind of food which we can assimilate very
easily.

The fact that we use the digestive and nutrient apparatus
of sheep, oxen, ic, for the preparation of our food, is
merely a transitory barbarism, to be ultimately superseded
when my present subject is sufficiently understood and
applied to enable us to prepare the constituents of the
vegetable kingdom in such a manner that they shall be as
easily assimilated as the prepared grass which we call beef
and mutton, and which we now use only on account of our
ignorance of " The Chemistry of Cooking."

An international Exhibition of industrial and principally
electrical objects is being organised by the Bohemian Ar-
chitekten und Ingenieur-Verein, at Prague, to open on
March 17.

PLEASANT HOURS WITH
MICROSCOPE.

THE

By He.vry J. Slack, F.G.S., F.R.1SLS.

EVERY possessor of a microscope should exercise its
powers upon common things. Many such will exhibit
unexpected beauty, and throw light upon very interesting
questions. A potato, for example, may be recommended
as an excellent subject of investigation ; but as polarized
light will be required for some of the obser\-ations, it may
be well to say a little about it, lea^-ing it, however, as a
subject for some other contributor at a convenient time.
" In a beam of ordinary light," says Professor Tyndall,
" the vibrations occur in all directions round the line of
propagation." Some crj-stalline substances can efTect an
important change. Tourmaline, for example, cut in a par-
ticular way, will " quench all vibrations save those parallel
to its own optical axis. Hence the beam emergent from
the plate of tourmaline has all its vibrations reduced
to a single plane. In this condition it is a beam
of i>lana polarized light." Iceland spar, in the shape
of the prisms supplied Vjy opticians, has a like effect,
and when light has been polarised by one of them, it will
not pass in all directions through a similar prism. When
used with the microscope, one prism is placed under the
stage to receive light from the mirror, and another just
over the objective, or over the eye-piece. If the two
prisms cross each other in a certain direction, no polarized
light passes ; but if what is called an analysing substance
is placed between them, it restores to the light its power
of passing through the second prism, and frequently, in so
doing, the light waves interfere with each other, and give
rise to coloured effects. Polarized light is acted upon by
many substances, whose molecules are so arranged that
they can vibrate more easily in some directions than
others ; and the potato contains one of these in the form
of starch.

First, with a sharp penknife make a very thin slice of
the potato, about half-an-inch square, and \-iew it with a
half-inch objective and the polarizing apparatus. When
the two prisms let the light pass freely, the potato will
appear to be composed of small cells of pretty uniform
aspect. Turn one of the prisms so as to produce a dark
field. If the potato is fiowery, a vast number of little cells
will then be brilliantly lit up, while their neighbours are
dark. The light ones will be marked by a black cross, and
some may show prismatic colours. These cells are starch
grains, and constitute the chief value and give the pleasant
flavour of a mealy tuber. They are of all sizes, from about
a two-hundredth-of-an-inch long, down to tiny ones scarcely
visible with the power mentioned. Each starch grain is a
little delicate bag, longer than wide, and approximately
egg-shaped. The cross is like what might be made by
drawing two dark lines at right angles to each other on an
egg, beginning at the top of the thickest end. The peculiar
action of starch upon the polarized light affords a very
ready means of recognition, but it is not the chemical sub-
stance, starch, which produces the eflect, but the thin skin
or vesicle, and if that is ruptured or destroyed, the cross
appears. Another mode of recognising starch is to bring
it in contact with a weak solution of iodine, which turns its
purplish tending to lilack.

After trying the potato, other common substances in
family use should be examined. Brown it Poison's Corn
Flour produces a beautiful eflect with the polarizing prisms.
It is nearly all starch — ostensibly of maize. The vesicles
are much smaller than the largest of the potato, but give
brilliant images. Tous-hs-mois, obtained from a South

Jan. 19, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

35

American Canna, shows the starch grains well, and they
constitute the chief matter in all the articles sold as arrow-
root. Genuine cocoa does not exhibit any conspicuous
quantity of starch ; but some of the articles eonimonly
sold for cocoa contain it in large quantities. Anything
called cocoa or chocolate, or by any grand name, which
gets thick when mixed with hot water may be suspected
to be mainly starch, and as that from the potato and from
any of the things called " arrowroot " are low in price,
it is very profitable to sell such mixtures at the rates
usually charged. The microscope at once detects the
adulteration. For a fair standard, the cocoa of Van
Houtten or Cadbury's Essence may be taken, and the
dirterence between either of them and the inferior mix-
tures will be strikuigly apparent.

Starch is a very curious product of the vegetable king-
dom. Like some others of ditlerent chemical constitution,
it is stored up in grains when the nutrition of a plant is so
vigorous that it can afford to lay up something for the
future as an investment. Cultivation enables us with
some plants, as the potato, to cause a much larger
quantity to be stored up than the vegetalile can possibly
■want for its own purposes, but which is useful to us, or to
our domestic animals, as food. If large starch grains are
examined with a high power and careful illumination, but
witliout the polariscope, a curious wrinkled structure will
be seen. All starch grains begin as minute round vesicles,
and, if the plant can afford to feed them, they
grow pretty quickly in a state of dependence upon, but not
directly serving the general organism, except by relieving it
of matter which is superfluous, and would be harmful if not
kept out of its assimilative system until it may be specially
required. The starch in each vesicle is not a single
substance There are two kinds, one easily soluble and
the other nearer to cellulose. The grains do not grow like
common cells. If magnified about 800 diameters, their
■\*Tinkles or folds will plainly distinguish them from the
other kinds of cell formations. An advanced student can
refer to such a work as Sach's " Text- Book of Botany " for
details of the process of starch-grain development. The
main fact is, that after a layer of the vesicle is fully formed,
it splits, and allows new matter to penetrate and inter-
calate fresh layers, and so on until a fully-developed grain
exhibits a dozen or two of wrinkles.

It is said in Miller's " Chemistry " that the cross pro-
duced by polarised light is not perceptible in the starch
of wheat flour, but this is only true if too low a power
is used. It is easily seen with a one-eighth. If readily
visible with lower objectives, and the grains are large, the
starch of the potato is probably present. Chemically, starch
belongs to the hydrocarbons. Its composition is given as
C^HioOj, together with a small quantity of mineral matter.
By heat it can be converted into British gum, largely used
by calico-printers to mix with their colours, and for various
other purposes as a cheap substitute for gum-arabic.

A NEW company has been registered, the following par-
ticulars of which may be interesting. It is called the
Electrical Rotary Brush Company (Limited), capital
£100,000, in £1 shares. Objects: To purchase letters
patent, No. 2,-562, for " Improvements in the method or
means of and appliances for communicating a rotary
motion to brushes employed for various purposes, but spe-
cially for brushing hair." The purchase consideration is
£15,000 in fully paid shares and £.3.5,000 in cash. Directing
qualification, shares or stock to the nominal value of £2.5.
Remuneration, 100 guineas per annum in respect of each
director, with an additional 200 guineas for the chairman.

THE ELECTRIC LIGHT COMPANIES.

"f T7E, in common with some of our contemporaries, have
> V for some time past esteemed it a part of our duty
to animadvert upon the unscrupulous way in which efforts
have been made to foist upon an apparently gullible public
electric lighting speculations, with scarcely a chance of pro-
longed existence, to say nothing of the return for which
shareholders usually, and naturally, look as a reward for
their temerity, ^\'hat has long been a desideratum is a
tabulated list of the various companies embarked, with
particulars as to their financial position and prospects.
The work involved in the production of such a list is
obviously considerable — one might almost say prodigious. It
has, however, been attempted, and, we think, with a great
measure of success, by the Mcrcnntile Stiippini/ lleyinler
and Commercial Revieu; who publish the result of their
labours in the form of a special annual supplement. It
comprises details of the constitution, progress, and resources
of all the registered companies, together with a number of
explanatory tables, kc, the perusal of which is calculated
to instil in one's mind an intense feeling of amazement at
the rapacity of promoters, and the comparative generosity
of the earlier inventors.

The various companies on the register are divided into
four groups, in the first of which are classed the parent
Brush Companies and its eighteen satellites. Tw^o of these
are apparently not yet in working condition. The other
seventeen have a combined nominal capital of £5,125,000.
The actual capital issued is £2, 697,. '318, including £555,180
allotted to vendors. The amount " paid up " by the
public is £1,180,685, leaving £961,453 as the extent of
their remaining liability. Out of the £1,180,685, the
sum of £614,170 has been paid to vendors, in addi-
tion to the shares above mentioned. The parent company
paid for its rights over the Brush patents £200,000
in cash and shares. These rights had been purchased
from another company, who, in its turn, had paid to
J. T. Montgomery £22,000 (£10,000 in cash), and to C. F.
Brush £5,000 in shares. It has not transpired how much
Montgomerj- paid for his interest, but sufficient is known
to demonstrate how very small, in comparison, was the
sum that fell into the hands of Brush himself. Besides
the Brush patents, the Brush Company also possesses an
incandescent lamp, which it '" purchased from Mr. Lane-
Fox, subject to the rights of the British Electric Light
Company, for 1,250 shares, £4 paid, £718 in cash to cover
certain expenses, and 25 per cent, on the net profits of the
incandescent lights ; Mr. Lane-Fox to give his services for
two years, at £1,000 a year." Our readers will remember
that this costly concession was recently described by the
counsel for a subsidiary company as worthless ! The
British Company are apparently of a somewhat similar
opinion, as they make little, if any, use of their right to the
Lane-Fox lamp. It is not stated how much the last^
mentioned company paid for the right to use the lamp in
certain extensive parts of the kingdom. The Brush Com-
pany has received from ten companies £402,750, the
amount received from the other offshoots not being stated.
The second group embraces twenty-three " working com-
panies other than the Brush," whose combined nominal
capital amounts to £10,675,500, of wliich £5,191,128 has
been issued, including £2,581,955 allotted to vendors. Of
the £2,609,173 taken up by the public, £1,0.38,409 has
been paid, leaving a liability of £1,570,764. A sum of
£462,775 has been paid to the vendors, in addition to the
shares allotted them. 'J'hc cash payment is, however,
much smaller than that originally agreed upon. The most
remarkable company in this series is the " J. B. Rogers "

3G

• KNOWLEDGE

[Jan. 19, 1883.

Electric Light and Power Company (Limited), which was
formed to work the patents of .John Banting Rogers, a
gentleman who has obtained an unenviable notoriety in
scientific circles. ,£40,000 in cash and j£70,000 in shares
was to have been the cost of his patents, but, fortunately
tor the public, only .£1.'J,71-'J has been subscribed, of which
but .£6,'2SG has been paid. The smallness of these figures
is gratifying, considering the almost universal and un-
equivocal plaudits bestowed by the general and quasi-
scientilic press upon the " multiple binding-screw " craze.
Messrs. Ferranti, Thompson, &, Ince (Limited), out of a
nominal capital of £240,000, pay £180,000 in shares to the
vendors.

In the third group are enumerated fourteen " companies
which do not appear to have been proceeded with practi-
cally," including the " Self-generating Electric Light and
Power Company " (unregistered), which, if formed, was to
pay a Mr. R. H. Simons £80,000 in cash and £40,000
in shares for an incandescent lamp which he hoped to
invent (!) and a bichromate battery. The combined
nominal capital in this series is stated at £4,450,000, of
which the vendors were to receive £40-5, 98G in cash and
£1,035,036 in shares.

The fourth group embraces thirteen " companies, mostly
recent, information about which is wanting, or not yet
obtainable."

" We find from our figures," says our contemporary,
" that the amount of actual capital issued, £7,888,440,
was 48 per cent, of the nominal total of the capital of the
companies comprised in Groups I. and II., and but 38 per
cent, of that of those comprised in Groups I., IT., and III.
Of this issued amount, again, 40 per cent, has been allotted
as fully paid up to vendors, &c., leaving GO per cent. — i.e.,
under 23 per cent, of the whole nominal amount — to be
paid up liy the public. Roughly, eleven twenty-thirds of
this has been already paid. That is to say, in the case of
these companies (which do not include syndicate, agency,
or share trust associations), a sum equal to 1 1 per cent, of
the total registered capital represents the actual amount of
public money received, while 12 per cent, of the same
amount forms the extent of liability on future possible
calls. Thus, out of a total nominal capital of something
under twenty-five millions sterling, less than two millions
and three-quarters has been bomt-fide invested, while the
amount of shareholders' indebtedness stands at a trifle over
three millions.

"Out of the total paid-up capital, £2,219,094,
£1,076,945 has found itswayinto promoters' pockets, leaving
£1,142,049 as working capital to earn a dividend upon
£5,356,229 share capital. In other words, to pay a 5 per
cent, dividend all round, over 23 per cent, must be earned,
net, by the moneys actually employed in working the
business. Even if all calls were made and paid, and thus
absorbed as working capital, over 10 per cent, would have
to be earned."

The shareholders have themselves to blame for this
state of aflairs, for had they, instead of relying upon the
science of the daily press, consulted trustworthy sources,
they would have learned sufficient to guard them against
the threatened danger. It is to be feared that, although
the money sunk in electric light undertakings is com-
paratively very small, the effect will be very prejudicial
to the true interests of the new illuminant, and we trust
that the stock-jobbing excitement observable last Jlay,
when no less than thirty-five companies were registered,
will never be repeated. There is a wide field open for
real business companies having to earn profits for a
working capital only, and we shall look forward some-
•what anxiously to the coming spring, when will probably

be decided tlie fate of very many undertakings, and,
possibly, the prospects of the light for years to come ;
but wo should seriously deprecate anything like a recur-
rence of the events of the past eighteen months.

WAS RAMESES II. THE PHARAOH
OF THE OPPRESSION?

By Amelia B. Edwards.

XVI.— TEL-EL-MASKHUTA VEItSUS THE "EAAMSES" OF
THE BIBLE (EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE).

(Conchtsion.)

G. Pa-Rameses iras supplied with salt and nitre from
tiro ncirjlihouring pieces of tvaier. We learn these facts
from the Letter of Panbesa* : —

" The Pool of Horua gives salt ;
Lake Pahura gives nitre."

Lake Pahura, as suggested by Dr. Birch, is doubtless
one of the " Bitter," or Natron, Lakes in the Isthmus of
Suez (" Records of the Past," vol. vi., p. 14). The name
of this lake, Pahura, has not, I believe, been found in the
geographical lists, or anywhere save in the letter of
Panbesa.

The " Pool of Horus " is, however, identical in name
with the " Shet-Hor " (Pool of Horus) of the inscription of
Menephthah at Kamak before quoted : —

" He established outposts before Pa-Baris (Bubastis) in
the vicinity of the canal Shakana, to the north of /ihet
Ilor" (Pool of Horus). t

This is the only occasion upon which the name SJiaka7ia
has as yet been found ; but if the " Pool of Horus " here
referred to be the same " Pool of Horus " celebrated by
Panbesa, then we have to look for the canal in the near
neighbourhood of Bubastis and Pa-Rameses, and for the
pool somewhere to the southward of the canal. Now, were
Bubastis and Pa-Rameses both situate in the open country,
and surrounded by a network of water-waj's, we might
seek in vain for a probable identification of S/iakana ; but
the question is narrowed to a single issue by the peculiar
position of the B'l-ltcn of Rameses II. Stationed midway of
a contracted valley traversed by one artificially-constructed
canal, the waters of which were "derived from the Nile a
little above the city of Bubastis,'':}: it becomes evident that
the only canal which could be regarded as in the neighbour-
hood of both Bubastis and Pa-Rameses is that ancient and
famous waterway of Seti the First, called " Ta Tena," or
" The Cutting." In this case, Shalatia is but another,
and perhaps a more modern, name for " I'a Tena." But,
it may be urged, we have no proof that these two Pools of
Horus were one and the same ; and, again, Egyptologists
may perhaps remind me that ]M. Chabas, noting the not
unfroquent recurrence of the name " Sliet-llor " in Egyp-
tian texts, obser\'es " qu'il y a lieu de remarquer que ce
nom est du nombre de ceus qui ont pu etre multiplies par
la piete des Egyptiens." To this objection, however, the
improbability that two pieces of water so nearly adjacent
should be called by the same name, is a sufficient reply.

Assuming that the canals S/iakana and Ta Tena are
identical, we have now to seek for the site of the Pool of
Horus,

Turning to the sketch-map of Wady Tiimilat, at p. 3,">7,
in the second volume of Kxowledge, it will be seen that

* See Knowledge, Oct. 13, 18S2, p, 324,

+ Thus translated by Chabas (" L'Antiquito Historique," p, 203)
and by Dr. Birch (" Records of the Past," vol. iv., p. -11).
X Herodotus, book ii., chap. 158.

Jax. 19, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

37

in two places a dotted line (numbered 6) marks where the
French engineers, under 31. de Lesseps, discovered the
excavated bed, and even some o£ the masonry, of the canal
of Seti I. At these points, the ancient channel was
merely deepened and widened ; so that the new Fresh-
water Canal partly flows in the very path of the old one.
To show this in our map was, of coui*se, impossible ; the
dots indicating the ancient waterway are, therefore, placed
under the line (No. 7) which represents its modern
successor.

Bearing in mind that the canal ."^hnkan/t is expressly
described as " North " of Shet-llor, it is not a little
startling to see, on first glancing at our map, a piece of
water occupying the precise position which we should
expect to see occupied by the Pool of llorus. This piece
of water (No. 1 1 on the map) is Lake Mahsamah,* a large
pool formerly tilled by the high Niles. and now utilised
as a reservoir by the Canal Company. Writing to the
AcaiUmtj upon this suVijoct in 1880,t 1 expressed my belief
that the SIctllor of the Kamak insL-ription, the Shtt-IIor
of Panbesa's l.-tter, and Lake Mahsamali, were all one and
the same. Taking into consideration, however, a difficulty
to which I did not then attach sufficient importance, I find
myself obliged to reject this tempting identification.

" Tlio Pool of Ilortis >;ivos s.nlt,"

says Panbesa; whereas Lake Mahsamah is, and always
must have been, a fresh water deposit Salt pools, how-
ever, are no rarity in this neighbourhood, where every
marshy lagoon near the head of the Red Sea is a natural
salt factory. The bed of the Great Bitter Lake contains a
bank of solid salt, seven miles long by five miles broad, and
the northern extremity of this lake i.f only ten miles south
of the latitude of the ancient Canal. Assuming that in the
time of Menephthah the head of the Pied Sea was where it
now is, I see no reason why the Great Bitter Lake itself
may not have been the Shet-Hor of the letter and
the inscription. It was certainly tlie most likely source
from which the inhabitants of Pa-Rameses would have
procured their supply of salt; and the canal S/m/oma, or
Ta Teiui, lay to the north of it in those days, just as the
new Freshwater Canal lies to the north of it in ours.
And it is important to note in this connection that the
only opening towards the frontier in the neighbourhood of
Bubastis, and therefore the only point at which the extra
outposts of the Karnak inscription would be required, is
Wady Tumilat That inscription, J moreover, goes on to
say that the district which needed defence on this side,
was " all pasture land," and that " in the time of the
ancestors " (meaning under the earlier dynasties) it had
been " infested by barbarians." Now the land of Goshen
was essentially a pasture district, and was for that reason
assigned to the Israelites, who were herdsmen and
shepherds ; also Wady Tumilat was a direct short
cut, leading from the desert haunts of the Shasu
Bedaween into the heart of these fair pasturages — the
pasturages and pools (" Barhakuta ") of the neighbourhood
of Pa-Tum.§ The invading Hykshos, we may be sure,
poured in through this valley, as well as over the more
northern boundaries of the same frontier ; and the fore-
going sdlusion to the " barbarians " of ancestral times may
quite possibly be a reminiscence of those terrible guests.

* Lake Mahsamah, on the border of which stands Mahsamah
villaffe, where onr cavalry during the late campaign made a dashing
attack and captured several trains.

+ The Academy, April 21, 1880.

jSee Knowledge, Xo. 50, p. 325, Vol. 11.

§ IMd. Report of a captain of the frontier guard, respecting
the passage of certain Shasu and their herds.

Thus we see that under the reign of Menephthah the con-
dition of the eastward frontier was more unsettled than
during the reign of Rameses II., and that the fortresses of
Pithom and Rameses were no longer deemed a sufficient
defence on that sida Tliis conclusion is fully borne out
V)y all that we know of the history of the time. During
the last years of Rameses II., the vast empire over which
he ruled was with difficulty held together by the mere
prestige of his great name ; but his death was followed by
in\asions of the lawless frontier tribes, revolts of oppressed
tributaries, and the exodus of the industrious and long-
suffering Hebrew colonists.

7. Pa Jiamcses contained a temple dedicated to lia-
me.^es II., dnfied. This last point hinges so entirely
upon all which has gone before, that it may be said to
stand or fall with the case I haN'e attempted to prove. If
I have identified the place, then I have also identified its
local cult and all connected therewith. If " Ramsis " be
a corrupt survival of "Rameses," and Ijoth are the
" Raamses " of the Bible — if Tel-elMaskhuta does in
truth cntoni') the ruins of that lUkltcn, or " treasure
city," celebrated in the inscription of Pthah-Tatunen at
AbooSimbel, in the Anastasi papyri, Nos. II., III., and
IV., and in the Great Hieratic papyrus of Bologna —
then we know, as surely as the fact can be known
before the mound is excavated, that therein will be
found the remains of a "Royal Abode"* (in other words, a
temple) of Rameses Mer-Amen; that " Rameses jNIcr-Amen
was its god :t and that "festivals were there celebrated"
for him, even as festivals were celebrated at ^Memphis
for Phtah, the great primordial deity. J The paved
way, or dromos, leading to that temple, and two of the
sphinxes by which the dromos was bordered, have been
found, as already stated. § at some little distance from the
mound ; and that the ruins of the temple are bur.'el in
the heart of that mound is an inference which cannot fail
to be drawn by all who are acquainted with the general
plan of an Egyptian temple of this period. || Neithtr can
it be doubted that the sculptured slab described in
Chap. XIV.^ belonged also to this temjle, or to a sub-
ordinate chapel connected therewith. This slab (of
which an illustration is given in Sir Gardner Wilkinson's
" Materia Hieroglyphica" (App. No. 4) is described by
the Abbe Vigoureux as " an immense block of granite, re-
presenting on its face a bas-relief group of a Pharaoh
seated between the God Ra and the God Turn. This
Pharaoh is no other than Rameses II., whose name
occurs six times in the inscription engraved upon the
back of the block."** These two deities, Ra and Tum,
personify the rising and the setting sun, and, as M.
Grcbaut has shown, they were held reciprocally to engender
each other ; Ra, towards the decline of day, becoming
the parent of Tum, and Tum, as morning approached,
becoming the parent of Ra. Pa-Tum and Pa-Rameses
were, therefore, if not actually " twin-cities," as I formerly
suggested, at all events cities closely connected in regard
of the mythical relationship of their local deities ; the cult
of the one god being, in fact, the complement of the cult
of the other. They are cities which we might expect to
find at no great distance apart : as, in truth, we do find the
mounds of Tel Aboo-Sooleyman and Tel-el-3Iaskhuta.

And here — while deprecating the too complimentary

* Kxowr.EPGE, Sept. 29, 1882, p. 292. + Hid.

X nid., p. 292. § Ihid., Dec. 8, 1882, p. 430.

,| See tlie diagrams of Egyptian temples in Murray's " Handbook
for Egypt," Vol. I., pp. 74 and 75.

•" Knowledge, Dec. 8, 1882, p. 450.

•• See " La Bible et Ics Deconvertes Modcmes." F. Vigonreur.
A'ol. ii., p. 209.

38

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Jan. 19, 1885.

terms in which reference to myself is made — I must take
note of tlie objection to this part of ray argument wliich
has been advanced by Prof. G. Ebers in tlie second edition
of his " Durch Gosen zum Sinai" (p. .')1.')). Speaking of
my letter to the Acadrmi/ of April 24, 1880, he first states
my opinion as to the correlative nomenclature of Pa-Tum
and Pa-Ranieses ; then goes on to say that " the places
referred to arc not twin-cities, and therefore situate close
together, in Miss Edwards's sense, since Ranieses is not
named after the God I{a, but after the King Rameses, the
oli'spring of the sun."

But to this I reply that the King Rameses was by him-
self virtually identified with Ra, his divine father, and
that he considered himself not merely the " son of the
Sun," but the actual incarnation of Ra upon earth. He
certainly held himself to be sufliciently a god to be a cor-
relative to Tum in the naming of his two treasure- cities,
and in the dedication of their respective temples.*

Having made this objection. Professor Ebers goes on to
express his approbation of various other points suggested
in the letter in question, dwelling especially on my
contention that " Ramsis," as the name of the
native village at the foot of Tel-el-Maskhuta,t must be a
survival of the ancient name of the place. " Also," he
■writes, " the remark that the Pharaoh of the Oppression
(Rameses II.) made the Jews build new towns,^ should
not remain unnoticed." I am very glad to take this op-
pertunit}' of expressing the gratification with which I find
my views upon this important matter confirmed by the
approval of so eminent an authority.

And now, having gone over every point of the topo-
graphical, documentary, and historical evidence connected
with the cities of Pa-Tum and Pa- Rameses, and having
verified these items of evidence, one by one, with the
mounds of Tel Aboo-Sooleyman and Tel-el-Maskhuta, I
at last find myself at the end of a lengthy and a somewhat
laborious inquiry. It is now so long since I began that
incjuiry, that the primary object with which it was under-
taken has almost dropped out of sight. That object was
to ascertain if possible — or as nearly as possible — whether
Rameses II., whose mummy was discovered in the famous
hiding-place at Dayr-el-Bakaree, in July, 1881, was,
or was not, that Bible " Pharaoh " who oppressed the
Hebrews. To this Biblical problem there exists but one
really definite clue, that clue being the name of one of the
" treasure-cities " which the Hebrews were compelled to
build under circumstances of such exceptional rigour that
the making of " bricks without straw " has passed into a
common proverb. For " Raamses," or Rameses, is evi-
dently so called after the name of its founder, just as
Alexandria was called after Alexander, Constantinople
after Constantine, St. Petersburg after Peter the Great,
and Pennsylvania after William Penn. From among
thirteen kings of the name of Rameses, it is not diflicult
to select the only one whose epoch, surroundings, and
length of reign coincide even approximately with those of
the Pharaoh of the Bible. This king is Rameses II.
If it can, therefore, be shown that Rameses II. was
indeed the founder of either, or both, of two liekheunu,
or fortified frontier cities, called Pa-Tum and Pa-Rameses,
situate in the land of Goshen ; and if the very mounds

• At Aboo-Simbcl, for instance, in the Great (rock-cut) Temple
made by Eamcses II., we find Rameses tlio God entlironed among
tlio deities of the inner sanctuary ; and, more moustrouslj' signifi-
cant than all the rest, a bas-relief on the walls of the same temple
represents Kameses the Pharaoh burning inceuso before Eamoses
the God.

t Knowledge, Dec. 8, 1882, p. 450.

j Ibid., Sept. 8, p. 2-11; also, Jan. 12, p. 22.

which cover the ruins of those cities can be identified with
a reasonable degree of certainty, then, not only is an
interesting problem in a fair way to be solved, but we ha\e
almost gained an historical standpoint of supremo import-
ance for purposes of future inquiry. From this stand-
point, when it is finally reached, we may hope to obtain a
clear outlook over the vast field of ancient history ; while,
as a basis for calculation, it will unquestionably enable us
to determine a long chain of chronological and astronomical
data.

Having brought together and compared all the scattered
items of evidence which bear upon this question, I must
leave others to decide whether I have, or have not, suc-
ceeded in proving my case as far as it can be proved with-
out the decisive help of pick and spade. That pick and
spade may ere long be called in to settle this problem, and
others of still greater moment, is, however, my earnest
desire. And if what I have written has awakened in any
of my readers not only a curiosity to solve the secret of
Tel-el-Maskhuta, but a willingness to promote that project
for the excavation of the historic mounds of the Delta,*
which is the great object of my labours and my hopes, I
shall be more than content.

NIGHTS WITH A THREE-INCH
TELBSCOPE.t

By a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

AN examination of the one Circumpolar constellation yet
undescribed — we mean Cepheus — will complete our
survey of the Heavens ; round the whole 24 hours of
which we have now travelled. To begin with, the reader
may find a very severe test for the light-grasping power of
his instrument, and the excellence of his own eye, in 191
of Piazzi's Hour II., which lies at a distance of some 10° on
a line leading from the Pole Star to /3 Persel The
components are close, and the observer will need a very
dark night and excellent definition to see the com-
panion at all. K Cephei (shown, but not lettered, in the
map in an odd little corner of the constellation running
into Draco) is a fine pair, which will be seen as in fig. 69.
/5 is a wider and also an unequal pair. In each of these
cases the small star is blue. To the east-north-east of
« Cephei is a vertical line of small stars. The upper one
of these is I, a tolerably close and somewhat unequal pair,
which will repay examination. It is represented in fig. "O.
c Cephei is a beautiful object, being, as AVeljb says, " some-
thing like ft Cygni." Finally we arrive at o Cephei, a
very close and unequal pair, delineated in fig. 71. Both
in this and c the small stars are blue, as are, curiously, so
many of the comites in this constellation.

We may say in conclusion that in this series of papers
we have simply endeavoured to describe a few of the chief
and most easily-recognizable objects on the face of the
celestial vault, that are well within the optical power of a
three-inch telescope. Had we been justified in assuming
that all our readers were in possession of the admirable

* See "Egyptian Antiquities," the Times, March 30, 1882; also
" Proposed Excavation in the Egyptian Delta," the Academy,
April 1, 1882.

t Wo have omitted for the present matter relating to the constel-
lations Capricornus, Equuleus, Pegasus, and Pisces, which was ori-
ginally to have appeared earlier. This will be given in due season,
such as "The Stars in their Seasons " will indicate. F.R.A.S. has
obligingly promised to write the papers mentioned in the last para-
graph of the present paper, and they also will appear in duo season,
alternating with the valuable papers on Jlicroscopic Work con-
tributed by Mr. Slack.

Jan. 10, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

39

"Star Atlas," by the Editor of Knowledge, we might have
extended our list almost indefinitely. Even as it is, we
may be permitted to e.xpress a hope that we have not
wholly failed in our attempt to indicate what a mine of in-
struction and delight lies before the possessor of even so
small an instrument as that to which our descriptions ha^■e
had reference. We have said nothing of what may be
observed in the Moon, or the Sun, or of the planets Mercury
and Venus.

Fii.'. O'.i.

Fi!r. 70.

•••

Cephei.

Cq.!..

Cc.,.l,.

In the case of lunar observation alone, a very large
amount of work of the most interesting possible character
may be accomplished by the aid of a three-inch telescope,
and should uny considerable number of our brother readers
feel sufficient interest in selenography to desire it, we shall
be willing to give such directions and details in papers
supplementary to this, as may enable them to commence
and follow the study of the Moon's surface to the greatest
advantage. A single paper might, if rciiuired, suffice to
deal with the Sun and (what we may call) the two daylight
planets. Finally, in connection with the stellar portion of
our subject, we may say here, that should any possessor of
a three-inch telescope desire to verify what he may have
heard or read with reference to spectrum analysis, as
applied to these distant suns we have been examining,
McClean's Star Spectroscope is the only one at all applicable
to such an instrument as that whose employment we have
presupposed. With that exceedingly ingenious little
instrument the spectra of such stars as Sirius, Vega,
Aldebaran, and Orionis, and other bright ones, may be
very well seen indeed, even in a three-inch telescope.

OUR BODIES:

SHORT PAPERS ON PHYSIOLOGY.

By Dr. Andrew Wilson, F.RS.E.

Xo. IT.— LIFE AND WORK.

IF there is any word in the English language which may
be considered well-nigh synonymous with, or equivalent
to, " life," it is the word " change." At least, I can find
no otlier term which, within the compass of a single word,
expresses so succinctly the great characteristic of living
beings. Life itself, whether viewed from a general, or from
a microscopic and more intimate standpoint, is a scries of
changes, prevailing throughout the body that lives, and
working out in the daily and hourly existence of the frame.
Physiolog}- is the "Science of Finiclions," and the business
of the physiologist, briefly stated, is merely that of
chronicling and explaining the changes through which the
living body passes in the course of its history. TiCt us
briefly regard these changes in the tirst instance, by way of
gaining a clear notion of the general course of the events
which constitute the " life " so-called, equally of man and
the monad.

It may appear to be a paradoxical statement, and yet it

is one involving the gravest truth, that a human body at
any given moment is not precisely the same in respect of
its weight, substance, and composition, as at the preceding
moment, or at the subsequent one. At no moment of
existence do the changes — chemical and physical — of which
our bodies are the continual theatre, cease. This fact is
susceptible of convincing proof. If we weigh a man before
he performs an hour or two of hard work, and then weigh
him again after the performance of his task, we shall find
him to be appreciably lighter. He has lost suV)stance
through the actions involved in doing the work ; and phy-
siology is able to trace where that substance has gone. With
every breath the man gave out, so much of his substance
disappeared in the form of (1) carbonic acid (/as; (2)
iralcr ; (3) /teal; (4) other waste matters (ammonia,
mva, etc.) ; whilst we may add that he has been evolving
and exerting a greater or less amount of inechanical force,
or in plain language vork. In truth, the waste matters
which a living body is constantly emitting, and the loss of
substance the body undergoes, is the result of the irork it
performs. There is the closest parallel to be drawn between
a living body in this respect and a steam-engine. The
latter works, and as the result of its work exhibits wear
and tear. If the work is great, the waste will be propor-
tionately great. And so with the body. Work, there,
means waste, as in the machine, and like the machine, the
living being wastes in proportion to the work it performs.

It is quite evident, however, that the changes we have
described are, in themselves, far more complicated than
might at first sight be supposed. The living body is the
seat of changes and actions of intricate chemical nature.
For instance, we know that without /leat the bodily pro-
cesses— or, what is much the same thing, life itself — would
cease. How is heat produced in a living body 1 The
answer is, much in the same way that heat is evolved
in a fire. The o.ri/r/cti gas contained in the air
we breathe, unites with certain materials — carbon
and htjdrorjen — contained in the blood. The result
of this combination is the production of heat ;
whilst water and carbonic acid gas are also given
ofT, and form the literal " ashes " of the bodily fire. Thus
constant chemical change produces the heat necessary for
life's continuance, and it can be proved that the quantity
of carbon and hydrogen uniting with oxygen within the
body in a known period, will account for the heat which is
evolved during that period of time. As also illustrating
the chemical changes which the living body undergoes, we
may cite the intricate actions connected with the digestion
of food in the mouth, stomach, and intestine. Our very
existence in its plainest phases, is, in truth, maintained
through the constant operation of a chemistry, which,
though it may be called " vital," is in reality one with the
chemical operations which we see taking place in nature
around us.

The constant nature of the changes which occur in a
living body has already been insisted upon. There is no
cessation from their action ; or, to put it in another way,
we experience no cessation of work. Our bodily substance
is constantly being used up in the acts of living. Suppose
we ofTer to support a man only so long as he does some
work or other, we might deem our part of the bargain null
and void if he slept or rested. But the idle man, as daily
experience proves, must eat and drink, as does the busy
individual. The idle hieing might justifiably enough hold
us to our part of the contract, by proving to us
what physiology declares to be sober truth, namely,
that even during idleness or sleep, the body works.
The heart never ceases its work ; the lungs and the
breathing muscles apparently know no cessation from

40

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Jan. 19, 1883.

their lalwurs ; tlie brain is ever active in some or otlier of
its parts. If we learn that in twenty-four hours a man's
heart performs work equal to 1:24 foot-tons— that is, the
total force it expends in its work of twenty-four hours,
would raise l'2i tons 1 foot high — we may form some ade-
quate idea of the basis on which rests the truth that the
idleness of everj--day life is not exempt from physiological
work of a grave and heavy kind.

An adult human body, in perfect health, is thus seen to
lose substance each moment, in the ordinary acts of life.
It is clear that there must exist a limit to this loss.
Pursued to extreme limits, the body would waste away
entirely. We grow thinner after work, and the difference
between physiological and well-nigh inappreciable thinness,
and that material decrease which becomes visible to the
eye, is only one of degree after all. Hence we begin to
perceive that the repair of this wear and tear must be as
incessantly taking place as is the loss of substance itself.
We also see that /ood-fakinff is the plain means whereby this
loss is made food. " Food," is only matter containing the
elements of the body in a more or less easily assimilated
form, and through which we replace the substances which
have disappeared from our bodies in the work which the
act of living entails. Hunger and thirst are nature's
warnings that the loss must be repaired. They resemble
the automatic danger whistle of the engine or the ring of the
fire-alarm, which acts as a warning that instant attention
is needed to a source of possible danger — this danger in
the case of our bodies, existing in the weakness which
would ensue from the non-repair of our bodily sub-
stance. A healthy man, then, whose outgoings in the
way of waste (the result of " work " of one kind or
another) equal his incomings in the shape of " food,"
shoiild neither gain weight nor lose it. As a matter
of fact, this issue is borne out by the observation of the
body in health. Life, viewed in this aspect, is in reality a
kind of bookkeeping by single entry. One column contains
the income, consisting of food in the shape of air, water,
and solids — whereof flesh-forming matter, starch, sugar,
fats, and minerals are the chief constituents. The other
column contains the expenditure, which consists of water,
carbonic-acid gas, ammonia, urea, and other matters.
A calculation of the physiological "business" would
show us that about ^^ lb. of matter are absorbed,
whilst about S^ lb. are given off as waste matter per
day, in the healthy adult economy. The profit con-
nected with this important transaction, is represented
by the energy or the poiver of doing work we obtain from
our food. It may be interesting to point out that a calcu-
lation gives the amount of energy exhibited by an adult
man in twenty-four hours as equal to about 3,-1:00 foot tons
— a force equal to that required to lift that number of tons
one foot high. Of this amount of force, about one-tenth
is expended in our varied movements. The residue seems
to be occupied in the production of heat. And the
amount so expended in " keeping ourselves warm," is re-
presented by power sutlicient to raise a man's body (weigh-
ing about 150 lb.) to a height of 8i miles. So we discover
that a human body is the seat and origin of an amount of
energy which, but for the exact experimentation on which
these data ha^e been founded, would almost defy belief.

DuEiXG the recent storms, the %\-ind-pressure plates
erected on the Forth, under the orders of the engineers of
the Forth Bridge, have indicated a maximum pressure of
20 lb. per square foot of the smaller plate of 2 square feet,
while the large heavy plate of 300 square feet has indicated
but 12-5 lb. per square foot

LECTURING NOTES.

By Richard A. Proctor.

FIVE courses of lectures for the Oilchrist Trust were
commenced by me last week, at Leicester on Monday,
at Lincoln on Tuesday, at Chesterfield on Wednesday, at
Doncaster on Thursday, and at York on Friday ; the re-
maining lectures will be given in due course, by Dr. W. B.
Carpenter, F.R S., IMr. W. Lant Carpenter, the Rev. Mr.
Dallinger, and Professor Martin Duncan. At all the
places named there were crowded, attentive, and kindly
audiences. At Leicester hundreds were turned away from
the Temperance Hall, at Lincoln the large Corn Exchange
was filled (about 2,000 were present), at Chesterfield and
Doncaster there were similar crowds, and lastly, at York,
the bUls in the streets announced that no more tickets re-
mained (for course tickets an advance of 400 per cent, on
the original price was offered). It is well to see that the
bequest of Mr. Gilchrist is thus appreciated.

Although it has been no new experience to me to address
most kindly and attentive audiences in this part of
England, I must confess it seems to me significant of good,
that, with so absurdly low a charge as one penny for ad-
mission, no disturbing element should ever be present at
these Gilchrist gatherings. That among from a thousand
to two thousand auditors there should be apparently not
one who has not come to listen for more than an hour
attentively to talk about astronomy, or geology, or elec-
tricity, is interesting, even in such large cities as Leicester,
Lincoln, and York. But that having come, not one
should tire of what must be new and strange to many,
seems to me still more noteworthy. I must confess that
had I seen a score or more filing out towards the end of
the lecture, I should have been little surprised ; for the
only way in which scientific food is at all prepared for
readier digestion in these lectures is by the omission of
technicalities. The rule assigned to Knowledge is the rule
I have ever followed in lecturing, — simply to give "science
plainly worded but exactly described." It has ever seemed
to me that oratory is out of place on the lecture platform.
The truths of science are of themselves so impressive that
they need no tricks of eloquence or fine speaking — which,
indeed, serve but to obtrude the petty personality of the
lecturer between his hearers and the grand teachings of
nature. And speaking of the lecturer's personal feel-
ings, I may remark that, in my opinion, the greatest
compliment an audience can pay a lecturer on science
is to restrain (during the discourse) the applause their
goodwill would offer him, that they may the better
attend to what he is telling them. Applause at the
end comes all the more effectively and pleasantly, though
unfortunately, so far as my own subject is concerned, it
comes at a time when the lecturer recognises to the full his
utter nothingness in relation to what he has been saying.
He feels that one might as well applaud the wind for the
music of the yEolian harp, as the lecturer for the grandeur
of the truths of science.

EsGixEERiXG AND Metal Trades Exhibitios. — Under
this title, a large and very important exhibition is to be
held in the Agricultural Hall, London, from July 5 to the
21st of this year. It will comprise specimens of engineering
and mechanical work of almost every kind. Like the
highly successful Naval and Submarine Exhibition of last
year, the present undertaking is entirely the work of Mr.
Samson Barnett, jun. The short time during which the
Exhibition will be open is scarcely a drawback — at least
from a business point of view, as many of last year's
exhibitors can doubtless testify.

Jan-. 19, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

41

MR. SPENCER'S IMPRESSIONS OF
AMERICA.

DISCUSSING the conditions and causes of the immense
developments of material civilisation, which he has
observed in America, developments of which his pre-
vious studies had siven him no adequate idea, Mr. Herbert
Spencer properly gives a prominent place to the inventive-
ness wliich has been " so wisely fostered." " Among us in
England," he said, "there are many foolish people who,
while thinking that a man who toils with his hands has an
equitable claim to the product, and, if he has special skill,
may rightly have the advantage of it, also hold that if a
man toils with his brain, perhaps for years, and uniting
genius with perseverance, evolves some valuable invention,
the public may rightly claim the benefit Tlie Americans
have been more far-seeing. The enormous museum of
patents which I saw at Washington is significant of the
attention paid to inventors' claims ; and the nation profits
immensely from having, in this direction (though not in all
others), recognised property in mental products. Beyond
question, in respect of mechanical appliances, the Americans
are ahead of all nations."

Touching the probable issue of the gigantic social, politi-
cal, and racial problems in process of evolution in the
United States, Mr. Spencer said : —

" No one can form anything more tlian vague and
general conclusions respecting your future. The factors
are too numerous, too vast, too far beyond measure in their
quantities and intensities. The world has never before seen
social phenomena at all comparable with those presented
in the United States. A society spreading over enormous
tracts, while still preser\'ing its political continuity, is a
new thing. This progressive incorporation of ■vast Vjodies
of immigrants of various bloods has never occurred on
such a scale before. Large empires composed of different
peoples have, in previous cases, been formed by conquest
and annexation. Then your immense plexus of railwaj-s
and telegraplis tends to consolidate this vast aggregate of
States in a way that no such aggregate has ever before been
consolidated. And there are many minor co-operating causes
unlike those hitherto known. No one can say how it is all
going to work out. That there will come hereafter troubles
of various kinds, and very grave ones, seems highly probable ;
but all nations have had, and will have, their troubles. Already
you have triumphed over one great troulile, and may rea-
sonably hope to triumph over others. It may, I think, be
reasonably held that both because of its size and the
heterogeneity of its components, the American nation will
be a long time in evolving its ultimate form ; but that its
ultimate form will be high. One great result is, I think,
tolerably clear. From biological truths it is to lie inferred
that the eventual mixture of the allied varieties of the
Aryan race forming the population will produce a more
powerful type of man than has hitherto existed, and a type
of man more plastic, more adaptable, more capaV)le of
undergoing the modifications needful for complete social
life. I think that whatever difficulties they may have to
surmount, and whatever tribulations they may have to
pass through, the Americans may reasonably look forward
to a time when they will have produced a civilisation
grander than any the world has known."

University Lectures. — The London Society for the
Extension of University Teaching has just issued its pro-
gramme of lectures for the ensuing session (January-April).
Courses of lectures, accompanied Viy class teaching, will be
given at eighteen different centres in all parts of the
London district, from Whitechapel in the east to Bedford

Park in the west, and from Stoke Newington in the north
to Peckham in the south. The lectures comprise a con-
siderable variety of subjects, such as English history and
literature, mediaval art (in the congenial soil of Bedford
Park), hygiene, and physical geography. The lecturers are
all appointed by a Joint Board of the Universities of
Oxford, Cambridge, and London, of which Professor Stuart,
of Cambridge, is chairman ; and mucli of the work is done
by well-known authorities on their subjects, such as Pro-
fessor S. R. Gardiner and Professor J. W. Hales. All
particulars may be obtained from the Secretary, at 22,
Albemarle-street, W.

The Ei.rrTRic Lir.nT ix tub City of Lo.vDox.^The
Select Committee of Commissioners of Sewers on Electric
Lighting reported on Tuesday that a licence would in all
probability be granted, making it compulsory to supply
electric lighting in a small area, and permissive to supply
outside that compulsory area, such permissive powers to be
rea-sonably and fairly exercised at the discretion of the
Commission. The committee suggested that the Court
should apply for a licence for pcnnissive power to
supply or contract for the supply to the whole
City, and specify certain areas in which the supply
should be compulsory, and they recommended that
they be empowered to prepare a draft licence framed
on the principle of becoming undertakers and of con-
tracting with reliable electric lighting companies for
the supply of electric lighting, and they asked authority
to negotiate with the companies in respect of the areas
in which the supply was proposed to be made compulsory,
leaving the other portions of the City to be dealt with
more at leisure, as circumstances and the experience
gained in respect of the compulsory areas might dictate.

Mr. Courtney, M.P., ox Science. — Mr. Courtney, in
presiding at the annual meeting of the Royal Cornwall
Geological Society at Penzance, referred to the introduction
of the electric telegraph and the invention of the steam-
engine, by which electricity and steam had been made our
slaves in almost all the operations of life. No doubt these
were most remarkable applications, and we in the present
day were gi'eatly indebted to them ; but at the same time
he was bound to say that, in his opinion, we might overrate
the debt. The conveyance of news l)y the telegraph was
insignificant, if the news itself were not of importance. As
to the diminution of toil which steam effected in supplying
our wants, it depended very much on the use we made of
it, and how far that did or did not confer a benefit on
mankind. Was it a fact that, owing to the introduction of
steam, the labour which was necessary for the subsistence
of the multitude had been in any sense diminished, and
the ragged edge of pauperism which surrounded the borders
of society had in any sense disappeared ) We might derive
either of two advantages from the introduction of steam —
we might either make life less toilsome while maintaining
the mass of it as it w-as, or keep up the toil of life while
increasing the mass, and he was afraid the result of the
discovery of steam power had been an increase in the
number of human beings rather than an improvement in
the quality of life. He was, indeed, more disposed to
reverence science for its educational than for what he might
call its economic advantages, for the way in which it
elevated the mind of man rather than for its ability to
enable more men to live on the same low level on which
men lived before ; and it was because he believed in geology,
and its kindred science, astronomy, as most powerful helps
to the elevation of the mind of man, that he was willing to
pay his humble respects to those who prosecuted those
particular sciences and conveyed to others their blessings.
— Times.

42

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Jan, 19, 18fc3.

THE FACE OF THE SKY.

(From January liUh (o February 2nd, 1883.)

TIIK Ptudent will maintuin Iiis watch on the Solar surface, ns
recommended on p. 11.

Jlercury may bo detected with the naked eye on every clear
evening, after sunset, glittering above the S.W. by W. jjoiiit of the
horizon. The beginner who nioy employ a compass to determine
this point, must carefully note that the magnetic needle in this
country does not point to the true North, but 18° or 19° to the west
of it. Venus is still a most conspicuous object in the morning sky.
The major part of the constellations spoken of on p. 11 continue to
spangle our night sky ; but Pisces and Cygnus are disappearing in
the west ; and Cancer (Vol. I., p. 37G) Leo (id) Monoceros, Uydra
and Canis Major and Canis Minor (Jlap Vol. I., p. 383), are now
coming well into view in the Eastern half of the sky. Saturn
continues stationary (to the naked eye) to the south-east of
c Arietis. Jupiter describes a slightly retrograde path during the
fortnight, carrying him from east to west at 1° or 2'' above
Z Tauri. To-night (January I'Jth) his second Satellite will
reappear from eclipse at 6h. 41m. Os. to the right of the planet, and
somewhat below- his equator (as seen in an inverting telescope).
At 8h. 34m. p.m., Satellite I. will enter on to Jupiter's disc, fol-
lowed by its shadow at 9h. 20m. The Satellite will pass off at
lOh. 49m., and its shadow at llh. 36m. p.m. To-morrow night, the
20th, the same Satellite will be occulted at 5h. 43m. ; but instead
of emerging from behind the opposite limb of the planet, will
plunge into his shadow while still behind Jupiter, and will not re-
appear from eclipse until 8h. 44m. 5s. p.m. On the 21st, Satellite I.
will pass off Jupiter's face at 5h. 10m., as will its shadow at
Oh. 5m. p.m. On the night of the 22nd, the observer should direct
his attention to the egress of Satellite III. at 6h. 35m., or rather, to
the appearance of the Satellite itself, as soon as the evening becomes
dark enough, inasmuch as it has been seen on a good many occa-
sions itself as a dark spot, like its own shadow. Its real shadow
will not enter on to Jupiter's following limb until 7h. 15m. p.m.,
and will leave the opposite one at lOh. Im. p.m. On the 24th, too,
the student should narrowly watch the transit of Satellite II.,
which (or rather its shadow) has been seen to present some rather
abnormal phenomena. The Satellite will enter on to Jupiter's disc
at 9h. 52m. p.m., to be followed by its shadow at llh. 36m. The
egress of the satellite will occur 37 minutes after midnight ; that of
the shadow at 3h. 54ni. a.m. on the 25th. On the 26th, Satellite II.
will reappear from eclipse at 9h. 16m. 37s. p.m., and also the same
night, the ingress of Satellite I. will occur at lOh. 21m. p.m., and
that of its shadow at llh. 15m. The Satellite will leave the planet
at 12h. 36m. p.m. ; and the shadow at Ih. 31m. the next morning.
On the 27th, Satellite I. will be occulted at 7h. 30m., and reappear
from eclipse at lOh. 39m. 33s., p.m. The same Satellite will cross
Jupiter's face during the evening of the 28th, the sequence of phe-
nomena being, ingress of Satellite 4h. 48m., p.m. ; of shadow,
5h. 44m. I p.m. Egress of Satellite, 7h. 3m., p.m. ; of shadow, 8h. Om.,
p.m. On the succeeding evening the same Satellite will reappear
from ecUpse at 5h. 8m. 30s. The chief feature of interest, how-
ever, on the 29th, will be the transit of Satellite III. ; which, for
the reason stated above, should be carefully watched. The Satellite
enters on to the planet's face at 7h. 25m. ; and passes off at
lOh. om., p.m. Its shadow will actually not enter on to Jupiter's
disc until llh. I5m., or Ih. lOra. after the Satellite casting it has
left that disc. It will pass off the preceding limb of the planet at
2h. 2m., a.m., on the 30th. A transit of Satellite II. will begin at
the not very convenient hour of 12h. 16m., p.m., on the 30th ; its
shadow following it at 2h. 14m., a.m., on Feb. 1, and its egress
occurring at 3h. Im.

The Jloon is in Taurus on the 19th, passes through a portion of
Orion, and into Gemini on the 20th ; remains in Gemini during the
2l8t ; passes into Cancer on the 22nd, and travels to the eastern
limit of that constellation on the 23rd ; is in Leo on the 24th ;
travels across a portion of Sextans, and into Leo again on the
25th, not quitting it during the 26th. She enters Virgo on the
27tli J is there through the whole of the 28th and 29th ; moves into
Libra on the 30th, and is still there on the 31st and on the Ist of
the succeeding month. Her age at noon is 10'3 days on the 19th,
11'3 days on the 2Uth, and so on, being obviouslj- 23.3 days on
February 1. The occultations which occur at convenient hours
during one specified period are, unfortunately, all of small stars.
To-night (the 19th) UAC, 1651, a 6J mag. one will disappear at her
dark limb at 11 o'clock, at an agle from her vertex of 70°;* and
reappear at her bright limb, at an angle of 354°, at llh. 54m. p.m.
On the 20th. 71 Orionis, a 5k niag. star, will disappear at the dark
limb at 9h. 23m. p.m. 2" from the vertex, and reappear at the bright

* See page 11.

limb at an angle of 330" at 9h. 49ra. On the 23rd A' Cancri will
reappear at the dark limb (now the western one) at an angle of
214, at Gh. 3ui. ]>.ni. 60 Cancri, another 6 mag. star, will di.^-appi-ai
at the moon's bright limb on the same evening, at 9h. 49m., at an
angle of 37° from her vertex, and reappear at her dark limb at
llh. fim. p.m., at an angle of 233°. The remaining two oecnltationg
this month occur at hours too inconvenient for the amatenr astro-
nomer to involve the necessity of any details being given here.

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Texxvson'.

lttttv& to t\)t ©tutor.

Only a small proportion of Letters receii-ed can possibly be in-
serted. Correspondents must not be offended, therefore, should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial communications should be addressed to the Editor of
Knowledge; all Bitsiness communications to the Pcblishebs, at the
Office, 74, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DEL.WS AELSE FOR WHICH THE EdLTOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Mes.srs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No CO.MMCNICATIONS AKE ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOCGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

THE SUNDIAL OF AHAZ.

[688] — The shif tings of shadows on the dial that Isaiali predicted
to sick Hezekiah, are liable to occur at any place, when these two
circumstances concur; 1st, that the upper atmosphere is in that
condition which causes two bright parhelia or mock suns to appear
on opposite sides of the sun ; and 2nd, that the lower air contains
drifting clouds, massive enough to hide often two of the three.
When the real sun and eastern mock sun are hidden, there is only
the western to cast shadows, which then coincide with what the
sun will cast an hour and a half later ; but if the clouds shift so
as to hide the west parhelion, and disclose the eastern, the shadows
instantly become such as the sun cast an hour and a half earlier.
The parhelia being always caused by i-ays refracted through two
faces of equilateral triangidar prisms or fibres of ice, their angular
distance from the sun is always the minimum deviation that such
a prism of ice produces on the brightest or yellow rays, which is
very near a fourth of a right angle ; so that if Hezekiah's diallers
divided the quadrant into forty, than which no number is more
likely, considering how constantly it recurs in the Hebrew Laws
and History (oftener, indeed, than any other above ten), the advance
or recession of the shadow would have to be ten of these parts.

On March 29, 184S, these effects occm-red, had anyone been
looking, on every dial in the Isle of Portsea, and very probaldy of
much of Hampshire besides. The parhelia were present and bright
enough at about 11 p.m., and still better between 1 p.m. and
1.30 p.m. (not between 11 p.m. and 1 p.m., because, though the
atmospheric conditions were right, the sun had risen above the re-
quired limits of altitude), and the drifting clouds below were
present.

By means of Maty's index to the first seventy volumes of the
" Philosophical Transactions," I find, between 1668 and 1750,
thirteen accounts of similar parhelia that would give these effects
if the clouds were present. Six of them were in England, and two
described by Hallcy (rare Inck, I should say, for one person to
witness two), and of the foi-mer, he says (Vol. XXIII., p. 1,128),
" it was plain that the vaponr which caused this appearance was
higher than the clouds, for they were seen to drift under the
circles." In Vol. XL., p. 59), Martin Folkes, V.P.R.S., describes
and figures another, of which he says that, at one time, " the
southern parhelion was so bright that, by taking the advantage of
a place where a chimney shaded the true sun, it cast a very
visible shadow." Obviously, then, the clouds jiresent in my case
and Halley's might have served as well as this chimney.

AVhat llalley calls "the vapour which caused" these appear-
ances, Descartes had proved could be nothing but an atmosphere
fibrous, as it were, with ice prisms, such as, when turned at
random in all directions, produce the ordinary halo of 45° diameter,

Jan. 19, 1883.]

• KNO^VLEDGE *

43

that we often see round the snn or moon. These must, on rare
occasions, be polarised, or brought by electrical or some other force
into rigorous parallelism, like the atoms of a crystal or mnfrnct,
though occupying scores of cubic miles of the upper air. They
must all be vertical, to give the astonishing display of circles and
spectra that, seen at Rome, March 29, 1G20, led Descartes to work
out their optical explanation ; but which display seems hardly to
have been as com]>kte as I had the fortune to see on the corre-
sponding day (a mere coincidence) of 1848. A horizontal white
circle, no wider than the snn's disc, passes through him,
and through live other stins, all at the same altitude ;
the two nearest at 22^° from him, say about 25° of azimuth,
the others at the azimuths 120° and ISO". These three fm-tliest,
properly called anihelia, though much the most compact and
sunlike, are far too faint to cast any shadow. The two dazzling
parhelia are merely 8|>ectra, with all the colours, but the middle
yellow in sncli e.\cess as to enable either one to give, if the sun be
hidden, the shadows that Hezekiah was shown. Xe.\t brightest to
these (in my display) were the upper and lower parts of a broken
and elliptical halo, of the common sort, but having no lateral parts.
Its top and base were rendered so bright by two tangential frag-
ments of similarly-coloured arcs, touching and doubling them.
Twice as far as the parhelia, and near the horizon, were two other
short pieces, as of common rainbows, convex towards the sun.
Then two long arcs, of at Ic.tst 120°, went over from the snn himself
to intersect the white circle at the opposite anthelion ; and these
were white near the sun, growing more and more edged with colours
the farther they went. The white circle was, as II alley says, the
most astoonding object. Though the sky was (and must be) a
paler blue than usnal, it backed up the northern parts of this sil-
very hoop, between the three anthelia. with such relief that I
thought birds conld perch upon it. An old carpenter was at his
door in I'ortsea, with Ferguson's " Astronomy," or some snch book,
open at the " armillary sphere," trying to make out what armilhr
were showing themselves.

In all the thirteen displays recorded in the " Philosophical Transac-
tions," as well as this, the two bright parhelia were right and loft
of the sun, at the same altitude; but there certainly arc cases, well
attested, of their being over and under him, vertically or not. These
mast be much rarer, the polar arrangement of ice fibres being far
less likely to be in any other direction than vertical ; and I fear the
fnllowiDg, which 1 meant to adduce, will not do. In Lady Strang-
fonl's " Egyptian .Sepulchres and S\-rian Shrines," Ed. 187-1, p. 181,
on leaving Lebanon, she says, *' Our last afternoon at the cedars
afforded us the extraordinary sight of what is callei, I believe, a
false sun : the mist had jammed itself up into dense masses, like a
rough sea of ice-pack, filling up and smoothing over the whole
ralley, and extending over the sea beyond ; behind this the sun in
due time sank — but, ten minutes after, another sun of flaming
blood-colour arose, and after shining with an awfnl kind of
dark brilliancy for about a quarter-of-an-hour, it also faded
away and died behind the mist clonds — very marvellous it was
altogether." The puzzle here is in the word " also," which led mo
to associate the two suns as disappearing the same way, and the
"flaming blood colour " would apply to a prismatic parhelion, red
at the base and flaming above. But the words "arose" and
"fade away," instead of set, now make me suspect it was an
anthelion in the East. Somebody may say it throws a light on
Joshua's famous sun miracle ; but I was fully convinced long ago
by Jacob Bryant that this had njthing to do with the natural sky,
and the two verses from Jasher have no more business in the
Book of Joshua than have the son of Sirach's wise remark, that
" one day was as long as two." The Old Testament revisers,
we may hope, will banish them and translate Joshua's speech accu-
rately, '■ Sun of Gibeon be thou silent, and thou Moon of Arajalon."
This snn and this moon were, like Apollo of Delphi, false gods, l>ut
real beings, who received worship and gave oracles in two temjiles,
which two alone, of all the temples in Palestine, the Hebrews
could not destroy, as they had been commanded because of the
perpetual treaty into which the Gibeonitcs had inveigled them.
Hence the only possible way of ending the Gibeonite religion was
by silencing their gods, which Joshna was that day commissioned
to do by those words, as mirncnlous' as when, ages later, .\pollo of
Dclphiand the rest were as suddenly silenced at the advent of the great
real Joshua. He is not recorded as saying a word about standing
still ; and if the day had been any longer than nsual, would any
chronicler dream of writing this after the statement that the enemy
fled, but were destroyed in the night by a hailstorm ? Again,
would New Testament writers, especially he who wrote to the
Hebrews, chap. li., utterly ignore such a stupendous fruit of faith ?

Physical science can have no more l>earing on Joshua's miracle,
which was a purely metaphysical one, than on Christ's saying to
people, "Thouha-st had five husbands," 'or "There shall meet you
a man bearing a pitcher of water." But, returning to Hezekiah,

considering how much steeper is the sun's daily path in the latitude
of Jerusalem than in England, it seems more likely that the pair
of parhelia wore of the rarer kind, over and under the sun, which I
certainly have seen described (or possibly even oblique), than the
commoner ones that I saw, and Descartes, Uallcy, Folkes, and the
other Royal Society observers. From the account in Isaiah,
speaking of bringing back the sun, but the fuller one in Kings of
only bringing back the shadow, I gather the Book of Kings to be
the" earlier document, and more likely, in this place, to preserve
that prophet's own words.

The same book has, in Chapter III., an account of another optical
phenomenon that I once thought very incredible. Captain Burton
derided it, when conii)aring this chapter with the Moabito Stone,
which he thought more genuine. The story is in verses 22 and 23.
Now it happened that one morning, near the winter solstice, I
started by an early train from London for the south-west, and was
looking from its S.E. side when it entered on the water meadows
of either the Mole or Wey. Suddenly I was startled, as well as the
oi>posite passenger, by looking down on what seemed a round pool
of blood, two yanis in diameter. The next minute we came to so
many pools or channels, tinged not quite so deeply, that we re-
marked some new chemical factory or dye-works must be making
all this sanguinary appearance. We had hardly said this, when a
mile or more of the main stream came into view, with the sun rising
red beyond it. In another hour there was violent wind and rain,
and the day about the stormiest I ever saw ; but I could never again
deny thaij had made exactly the same mistake as the Moabites.
^^ E. L. G.VRBETT.

[$89]— While reading Mr. Garbett's tantalising letter on " Tlie
Dial of Ahaz," a possible solution of the problem suggested itself
to me. Let us suppose a great display of solar haloes with well-
developed parhelia, &c., to be visible ; then if a dark cloud were to
float across the "mock suns" and the true solar disc, in due
succession, it seems to mo that the required conditions would be
fulfilled.

I remember, when a child, during a solitary ramble, looking up
and suddenly seeing the phenomenon I have alluded to (minus the
cloud) in all" its awful grandeur, and I shall never forget the shock
of terror I experienced. F.G.S.

[Well hit.— R. P.]

A LOGICAL PUZZLE.

[690] — Your logical puzzle reminds me of another I heard at a
friend's hotxse some years ago, that several friends assembled there
on that evening could not see :— (1.) There are more cows in the
world than there are hairs in any one cow's tail ; therefore (2) There
are at least two cows in the world with exactly the same number of
hairs in their tails. An Oeigin-al Subscribeb.

[A capital puzzle ; certainly more in it than in the logical
puzzle— at least in De Morgan's ingenious illustrative case. The
fallacy in this should not mislead for an instant, but it takes a clear
head "to see within ten or twenty seconds that there must bo at least
two cows with the same number of hairs in their taUs, if there are
more cows than there .ire hairs in any one cow's tail, vnless (which
onr correspondent omits to notice) one "/ the cows has no hairs at all
on her tail. For instance, there might, in accordance with the con-
ditions, be three cows in the world, one with no hairs, one with a
single hair, and one with two hairs, on tail. — R. P.]

SPRINGS AND STREAMS.

[691] — (1) -Why do springs and streams rise during the preva-
lence of an east wind ? (This is said by the millers in Dorsetshire
to be an invariable rule.)

(2) Why may we expect rain when the springs go back
suddenly ?

(3) Why after the heavy rains we have had lately are the springs
still goingback ? Is this dependent on local causes ? Zeta.

FELLOWSHIP OF LEARNED SOCIETIES.

[6921—1 am very glad to see the note (No. 674), by an F.R.A.S.,
upon Fellowships of Learned Societies. It is very desirable that
as many people as possible should join and support these societies
either for pleasure or as students ; but why .should they not be
styled " members " ? Let " fellowship " be only conferred, as yoi:r
correspondent suggests, upon those who are more or less past

44

♦ KNOWLEDGE •

;[Ja.\. 19, 1S8S

masteid in tlioir rcspoctivo sciences. Tlie imposing letters will (lien
be unJerstooil as a real oniament to a man's name. U. 13. L.

[The ilifliculty is that men have usually to bocomo candidates of
their own will. This prevents many from even acceding to the re-
quest that thoy should consent to be nominated. They object to
beinR confounded with those who, after long hankering, have got
iu.— K. P.]

ansilufrsf to Corrfsponlifntfif.

W. JouxsTox. It would not do for me to advise. I know nothing
of the system. Hut I may remark that the advertiser has offered
mc full opportunities of testing it. — W. G. E. (1) There have been
many references to tho magnificent comet of 1858 (Donati's), but
not in Knowledge, because a full account of that comet (with
pictiQ'cs) was given in early numbers before the recent comet
appc.ired. (2) Hallcy's Comet returned in 1835, and will not be
seen again before 1910; but there were some who expected a
return of the comet of 1256 at about that time. — Bee.xard Bategex.
That " God rest you merry " matter is not one about which there
is any diversity of opinion. It is not a Shakespearean expression,
but is found in hundreds of places, in various forms, " God rest
you fair, " God rest you happy," &c., Ac, Ac— Philip S. Paekes.
Fear can give no information about Railway Signal Engineering.
^P. The theory is quite inconsistent with the observed appear-
ance of comet's tails.— L. L. II. The misprint Q, for K, had seemed
too obvious to be noted among errata. It is very good of yon to
speak of the mistake as startling, because that implies few mistakes
and far between. As to the pimdit's objections to whist, I
fully share your feeling. People view things so differently. One man
thinks it well to relax over whist or chess at certain hours (when
perhaps he could do little good work), another counts the hour or
so passed that way as lost; yet — J. Claxtox and L. il. N. — this
last will consider it a solemn duty to lose as well from relaxation as
from work each seventh day, while the other regards the customary
observance of the (or a) seventh day as a theft from God's great
gift of time. So oddly do men view things ! If, however, you
(I am nojonger answering L. L. M.) would but keep clear of de-
nunciation, and recognise that what one deems wrong another may
regard as a duty, all would be well. Only it is so much easier to
look into your neighbour's potato-patch than to work in youi- own.
Is'ow, for my own part, I have a very tender conscience in the matter
of work, yet I often, and as a duty, hearken to what Mr. Spencer
calls the Gospel of Relaxation ; but, on the other hand, were I to
waste a seventh part of my time, my soul would cry foul shame on
me. Yet, I remember hearing it said, at a great gathering of the
over-paling-at-neighboms-peering community, that to do what I
have done for twenty years, as a rfi((;/, is as bad as it would be " to
stab a friend under the fifth rib " (I do not know why rib, nor why
fifth). So do men differ, as I said. Yet, as men who think like
me do not rebuke you, who hide iu a napkin one seventh part of
the great talent, Time, it seems rather odd to be denounced so
roundly about yonr foolish fetish. It was natural enough,
perhaps, that those Eastern writers who pictm-ed a Deity
after the fashion of one of their own despotic rulers, should
be unable to rise to the conception of Infinite Power, needing no
rest and refreshment, but " working hitherto " as one wiser than
they said, and working hereafter, for ever. When nature stops
■working every seventh day,'conie and tell us that the God of Nature
wishes us to do likewise. We may then believe you. Ton will say
I break my own rule in ivriting about religion. You break the
rule, but I do not. For to me there is nothing religious in the
question, any more than in wearing a good suit on Sunday or eating
mince-pies at Christmas. One doctrine, however, I would par-
ticularly indicate to you— to wit, the saving faith involved in the
words, " Mind your own affairs." So far as I can judge from your
letters, you will want for them all you know. (Without wishing
to be dogmatic, may I suggest that you should rather write
"separate" than " seperate," and "individual" than " in-
dividial.")— r.R.G.S. How can a vertical cylindrical pipe
be 60 feet in diameter at top and 18 feet at bottom ? In any case,
the outflow would have to bo determined, probably, by experiment;
for the outflowing stream narrows a little below 'the place of exit,
and the amount of narrowing has to be determined by observation.
— TiBA. Will be duly answered in our fortnightly ""Face of the
Sky."— F. Adeline Uakker. I scarcely cling to that or any tradi-
tion. The whole story seems mythical ; but doubtless the difliculty
you note must bo regarded as raii'on de plus. — A. Fbaxcis. To give
advice, under the circumstances, would be dangerous and wrong. —
W. W'KiGnr. Cannot always give tho questions ; do when I can. —
J. M. Nixsox. Many thanks about Star in tho East. On the other

point quite agree with you — M. Y. What can one do with such
accounts ? One must quote as given, leaving absurdities to speak
f jr themselvcB. — A. J. Maas. Will note your suggestion, but the
bilingual testaments are not like the llamiitonian translations. —
F. M. Cotton. Know of no diagrams of comets suitable for lectures
except lantern slides. (York's, for instance). Book information
about comets is rather widely scattered. In Sir J. Uerschd'^
" Familiar Lectures " there is a very interesting essay about them.
— F. J. Laing. It was Jupiter you so saw. — Kekey Kix. So man;,
subjects wanting room. — II. L. Thanks; tail constantly beiuj
formed, never restored to head. — H. B. (1) On any theory wh.it-
ever, the smallest fixed star must be a very large orb in reality.
(2) I was speaking of angular motion only, which is the same fi i
the minute hand of tho Big Ben clock as for that of a lady's locket
watch. — E. IIewson. Thanks. — J. Smiles. Your friend is emphati-
cally wrong. Many imagine, however, as he seems to do, that
dynamo machines are merely large frictional machines. — 0.
Mernarii. Thanks; but cannot find space.— T. F. D. Moon
could not be so seen in Palestine. — A. KiTsox. ExaminL-
vertebra^ of the next fish you carve — then of a rabbit. Pro-
bably those who speak of dovetailed vcrtebnc do not know
what dovetailing means. — A. R. Paxxett. If Cassell's " Con-
cise Cyclopa-'dia " says that the smallest number of eclipses
which can occur in a year is four, then is that Cyclopocdia more
concise than correct. Smallest number is two, in which ease both
are solar. — Bartex Fletcher. A quaint idea. Would like to see
"An Observer's" face as he reads of it, — as you justly say
"No one could even tidnl: of an angel in a corset;" albeit in
Pugin's small CathoUc Church in Clapham there are angels with
"braces" (real good ones, — apparently three-and-sixpenny braces)
outside their flowing draperies. — Jas. L. Crowley. The star you
saw was, no doubt, Venus. It was in about her jjlace. — W. H. K.
SoAMEs notes that he saw Venus at 9 h. 19 m. a.m. on the 6th, also
on December 22 at 8.30 a.m. — Uxcle Sammy. So sony you have been
bewildered over the logical puzzle, the pride of De llorgan's heart.
This is where you have gone wrong in your three instances : — In
all three, you start with a jjremiss which cannot but lead you to a
truism, and j-ou get your truism. Thus in one you begin : For
exerj man there is a woman who is not married. You might as
well begin : For every Z there is an X, wliich is net Z, as well as
not Y, and be surprised to get out notliing more instructive than
the repetition, or rather the quantification, of part of your first
premiss. So with the others, where you begin : " For every
di-unkard there is a moderate drinker," &c., and "For every white
man there is a coloured man," Ac. If your first premiss, of its
very nature, signifies that none of the X's are Z's, you must
not be astonished it the conclusion that some X's ai-e not Z's
should seem scarcely worth reasoning about. In all reasoning
the rule should be Respice Jinen: ; don't try to prove about
o»ie or some what you already know about all. You can
make equal nothingness out of the simpler syllogisms as out of
one of these quantification syllogisms. Thus, no coloured man is
a white man ; Kalekaua is a coloured man ; therefore Kalekaua is
not a white man. — Psychomaxtis. Comets move in ellipses of veiy
different eccentricities and dimensions. Last gi-eat comet moved
in a plane inclined about 36° to plane of earth's orbit. Why
should not a comet be seen both from England and AnstraUa.^
The constellation Orion can be seen from both countries ;
so can the planets. — F. S. L. Surely an Ai'chbishop should
be innocuous. Is there disparagement in the word ? Or
in neutral ? Would you substitute " offensively onesided." You
put " quotes " to " Tait," perhaps deeming my use of the name with-
out the title offensive. But I had no such idea. The "innocuously
neutral late Eight Reverend Doctor Tait. Lord Aichbishop
of Canterbury" would have read rather heavily : voila tout. — W. L.
Rogers. Horrocks had a genius for astronomical research ; out-
side of science, judging from his high-flown tone, he was, one
would say, rather younger than his age. — JoHX Greenfield.
Pardon me, Laplace proved nothing of the sort. He showed that
with all the planets going the same way round, the system was
safe from destructive change ; not that it would undergo such
change if one or other of the planets had gone the wrong way
round. The question is quantitative, not qualitative. If Laplace
had proved that no matter what the scale of such a system, or
what the masses of the several bodies circling round the sun, any
one body going round the \vrong way would eventually cause
the system's destruction, things would have looked bad for
tho system ; for we know, what he did not, that there
are multitudes of bodies going the wrong way round. Yon
seem angry with me for having several times had to cor-
rect mistaken ideas of yours. But I did not cause you to fall
into those errors. Why, then, should you be angry with mc ? Look
nearer home. — C. E. RowE. No; I lived near Deyonport in
1864-GO ; but kept no school there, or a!iy\vherc else.

Jax. 19, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

45

<Piir iHatDtmatical Column.

NOTES OX ELXLID.— No. III.

By ItlCHARI) A. rKOCTOK.

(Continued from page 29.)
Pbopositio.n XI. — Pbodleu. L(t AB he any straight line; it is
required ludivi'te A B into tteo parts, so that the rect. by the iphole
and one part shall be equal to the square o/ the other.

Bisect A B in C, and from A draw AD D
perp. to AB, and =AC. Join B D. With
D as centre describe circalar arc A K
cutting D B in E, and with B as centre
describe circular arc E F cutting B A in F.
Then shall the rectangle A B, A F, bo
equal to the sq. on B F.
For 8q. on D A + sq. on A B = sq. on D B = sq. on D E + sq, on E B

+ 2 rect. DE, EB.
.'. sq. on AB = sq. onFB + 2rect. AC, PB

(•.•DE=AD = AC, andBE = BF).
That is, root. A B, AF + rect. AB, FB = sq. on FB + rect. AB, F B.
.•. rect. A B, A P = sq. on P B.

Peoposition XII. Let ABC be an obtuse-angled triangle, AC B
being the obtuse angle, and from A let A D be draien perp. to B C
produeed ; then the sq. on AB is equal to the sqs. on BC, C A,
together tcith eirfcc the rect. B C, C D.

Sq. on A B = sq. on A D + sq. on B D
= Sq. onADi-sq. on C D
+ sq. on B C + 2 rect. B C, C D.
— sq. onAC+sq. on B C
+ 2 rect. BC, CD

Proposition XIII. Let ABC be a triangle having angle B acute,
attd draw AD perp. to B C, one of the sides containing the acute anr, le :
then the sqs. on A B, B C are together equal to (ha sq. on A C, with
tu-ice the rect. BD,BC.

B

I i.'. 1. Fig. 2.

first, let D full between B and C (Fig. 1.).
Then sq. on A B = sq. on A D + sq. on B D

sq. on BC=sq. on DC + sq. on BD + 2rect. B D, D C
.*. sq. on A B + scj. on B C = sq- on A D + sq. on D C + 2 sq. on B D
+ 2 rect. BC, DC
= sq. on A C + 2 rect. C D, B C.
Hett, let D fall on B C pro<luce('. (Fig. 2.). Then
Sq. on A B = sq. on A D + sei- on B D

= Bq. on A D + sq. on D C + sq. on B C + 2 rect. B C, CD.

/. sq. on AB + sq. on B C = sq. on A C + 2 sq. on B C + 2 rect. B C , C D.

= Bq. on AC + 2iect. BC, B D.

Last, the case in which D coincides with C needs no demonstration,

and has no interest, being to all intents identical with Prop. 47,

Book I.

Pbopositiox XIV. To describe a square that shall be equal to a
gieen rcclilinctir I'tgure.

Tliis ))roi)osition cannot bo more briefly dealt with, at tliis place,
than as Euclid treats it. Bnt it is not really wanted till after
properties have been established in Book III. by which the demon-
stration may be shortened.

©ur aaa&isft column.

By "Five of Clubs."

"Revoke" points out, correctly, that tricks 12 and 13 of the
game at p. 13, the Nine of Diamonds anti the Ten of Clubs have
been inadvertently interchanged.

r.

Heart.— 3.

Spades— A, K, 10, 9, 7,

6,4.
Diamonds — 3, 2.
Clubs— 7, 4, 3.

A.
Hearts— Q, Kn, 9, 7.
Sj)ades — Q, Kn, 5.
Diamonds — Kn, 5.
Clubs— Q, Kn, 10, 9

Hearts— K, 10, 0, 4.
Spades — 2.

Diamonds— K, Q, 10, 4.
Clubs— A, 8, 6, 5.

Z.

Hearts— A, 8, 5, 2.
Spades— 8, 3.
Diamonds — A, 9, 8, 7, C.
Clubs— K, 2.

.1

r

B

z

s?
<? s?

s?

Im©*!

9

9

^M)

<7 t?

<?

^M

9

9 9
9 <?
9^9
(? <9

+ +

9 9
9 9
9 9

9 9

4. J.

+ +

+

4-
4-

oo] o| ^M4

PLAYING TO THE SCOUE.
The Play.

Score : — j Y Z =2

Not
trick, I

1. A plays as if at the score
" love all." If his partner has an
honour (and the odds are in favour
of IS's having one honour at least),
A IS only want five tricks to win.
A defensive, rather than a forward
game, is therefore indicated.

2. B cannot tell whether A has
led from strength or length in
Hearts. But Z'a play of the Five
shows A had not led from five
Hearts. The presumption, as Y
renounces, is that A had four
Hearts, two honours. 1', regard-
ing strength in trumps as declared
against his side, discards the
penultimate of his long suit.

3. A is wise, bnt not in time.

4. Z draws two for one, keeping
np the Ace, as he has only one
other card of re-entry, and A is
presumably strong in plain suits.
The Queen, Ten, and Nine of
trumps being all unplaycd, Z
knows he can gain nothing by
leading Ace. 1' seeing Z is not
without trump strength, and
noting, too, that their case is almost
hopeless unless he can bring in
his Spades, discards now from A's
suit — not from Diamonds, as ho
cannot tell whether he may not
have to lead them to A more than
once.

5. A B make their fourth trick ;
r Z must now make all the rest to
save game.

6. B throws away the game,
through sheer inattention (to the
score and play both). He knows
-4 has tlio winning Clubs, and that
Z has but one trump left, for A
could not have led trump Seven
from Queen, Knave, Seven only.

7. Z of course draws the remain-
ing trumps, and leads his best
card in liis partner's suit. Y
makes a deep finesse ; not so deep
as it looks though, for A, having
shown no strength in Diamonds,
is almost certain, since he led
trumps, to hold Queen, Knave in
Spades. Apart from this, it wonld
be a question of probability, viz.,
whether it is more likely that B

holds Knave or Queen, in which

case A B win, or whether, if Y plays King, the Ace will draw both
Queen and Knave, and unless this happen A B win equally. The
finesse comes off, and

10, 11, 12, 13. Y Z make the remaining tricks and win.

♦ 44^ ♦ ^ *

10

1

®

0 0
0 0

O 0
0 0
0 0

46

♦ KNOWLEDGE

[Jan. 19, 1883.

^ur €l)ti9 Column.

By Mephisto.

PROBLEM No. 70.

By J. A. Miles.
Black.

White.
"White to play and mate in three moves.

P E 0 B L E II No. 71.
By C. Plan-ck.

White.
White to play and mate in two mores.

SOLUTIONS.
Pboblem No. 66, by L. P. Eees, p. 488.
R to KB3

P takes R K takes R Kt to KB5

2 B to R3 (ch) Q to B6 (ch) R takes QP

K moves K takes Q Anything

g Q to KB5 mate B to Kt5 mate Q mates

Problem No. 67, by FRA^•CIS J. Drake, p. 16.

(o) 1. Kt to B6 K to B4

2. KttksKP (ch) K to K-i K takes P

3. P to B4 (cli) K takes P P to Q8 (Kt) (ch) K to K-4

4. P to Q8 (Kt) mate P to B4 mate

If 2. K to Kt5. 3. B to B2, anything. 4. B to Q sq. mate. If
Black plays 1. P mores, or 1. K to B6, then 2. Kt takes QP, and
3. P to B3 mate.
(h) 1. B to E2 K to B4 K to B6

2. B to Q5 K to K4 (best) B to Q5 (cli) K to Kt5

3. B to K4 P to Q4 B to K4 Anything

4. P to B4 (ch) K to Q3 P to B3 mate

5. R to B6 mate.

No. 68, BY W. Jay N. Beowk, p. 16.

1. Q to KE sq.
If 1. K to B5, Q5, or K5. 2. E to Kt4 mate.

If 1. K to B3, Q3, or K3. 2. R to B6 mate.

If 1. K to K3.
1. K to B3.

1. R to Kt7.
2. Kt 10 B7 mate. 1. K to K5. 2. Kt to B3 mate.
2. Kt to R7 mate. 1. K to B5. 2. Kt to E3 mate.

Chess Puzzle, by F. C. Collixs, p. 488.

Black's last move vras from K5 to Q4. This came about in the
following manner : — When the King was on K5 White's Pawn was
on White's Kings 5th, and a Black Pawn on KB2. Black being in
check with tlie Bishop, plays P to B4 to cover it, whereupon White
jjlays, P takes P in passing, discovering double check ; the King then
moved to Q4.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

*»* Please address Chess Editor.

South Acton. — Black's twenty-first move in the game on p. 501
is K to B5. He ob^aously cannot go to B4, on account of the Queen
on R3; then follows 22. Q to Kt3 (ch), K to B5. 23. R to K5
mate.

Correct solutions received. — Problem No. 67, E. J. P., John
Lonsdale. Nos. 68 and 69, Tyro, W. E. Edwards, F. S. L. No. 6P,
T. T. Dorrington.

It will be remembered that the Zoological Society sold Jumbo
to Mr. Barnum under the impression that the animal was likely
to develop a violent temper. This apprehension has been realised.
Jumbo, who is at present at Bridgeport, Connecticut (the muter
quarters of Mr. Barnum's menagerie), recently forced his way
out of the side of the compartment in which he was located,
crashing his way through the planked and spiked structtire as though
it were paper. It appears that the elephant has more than once
been in what is called " his tantrums." On one occasion Scutt, the
English trainer, who still looks after Jumbo, narrowly escaped
iajury. The animal made an attack upon a compartment in wliich
his keeper sleeps at night, " crunching up the division like a
lucifer matchbox," and making a lunge with his tusks perilously
near the spot where Scott was lying. For these breaches of
discipline Jumbo was punished. Having his hind feet hobbled, he
was, with the assistance of two other elephants in the collection,
compelled to kneel down, when he was severely thrashed. Jumbo
has since, it is said, "been on his good behaviour." Perhaps it is
well that the great proboscidian was not kept at the Zoological
Gardens, for serious results might ha^'c attended an outbreak of
bad temper in the popular resort where he was so long a leading
attraction.

^^^OTIC£S.

The Star Mapa for November and December, 1882, price 2d. each, postage \A.
extra, are now ready.

Volume II., comprising the numliers published from June to December 1&S3, just
ready, price 83. 6d.

The Title Page and Index to Volume II. now ready, price 2d., post-free 2\d.

Binding Cases for Volume II., price 23. each. Subscribers' numbers booed
{including Title, Indeij and Case) for 3s. each.

The Back Numbera of Kmowlkdgb, with the exception of Nos. 1 to 8, 10,
11, 12, 31, and 32, are in print, and can be obtained trom all booksellers and
newsagents, or direct from the PubUehers. Should any difficulty arise in obtaining
the paper, an appUcation to the Publishers is respectfully requested.

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Jax. 2G, 1883.]

• KNOW JL EDGE -

47

MAG.^ZINEofS^ENCE

.PLAlNCrfORDEJ -£XACTIjPESCRIB£gg

LONDON: FRIDAY, JANUARY 2G. 1863.

OONTKNTS OF No. 65

FIOI

8«ienc« And Art 6o«aip 17

A N«tunili-n' Year. V.— Gorse

Blowomi. Hv Grant AUph W

Slavs and StrciJt;th. By Eichard A.

Proctor 30

Th« Birth and Growth of Mrth. Bj

Edward Cludd 51

The W<<«th»rProph»ci«e 52

<5r*at Sun Spots 53

Sun.Views of the Earth; or. The

.Seaaons lUastnted. By Bichard

A. Proctor 55

raei

Some Books on Astronomy. By

Richard A. Proctor S«

STdnev and SundaT Lecturing 57

Our Paradox Corner : Is it Possible

to Grow Giants? 58

CoRBESPOXDEircB ; StaTs and Slatues
—The Comet— Sun-Vie»s of the
Earth— ElectrieitT and Dentristry 58

Answers to CorresjHjndents 60

Our Ma' hematieal Column «0

Our Chess Column 61

Our >\"hist Column 62

^rirnrf anij 9rt (gossfip.

Sir W. Thomson has lieen niakinj; pxperinients on sun-
light, moonlight, and candlelight. The results are not in
agreement witli those hitherto obtained. He compares the
amount of light from the sun, the moon, and skylight, with
artificial light, Hy admitting the former through a small
pinhole of measured diameter. The method seems open to
exception, as light does not travel straight through a very
small aperture, but undergoes diffraction. Be this as it
may, some of the results are strangely inconsistent with
those obtained by other methods. Thus Sir W. Thomson
finds the intrinsic brightness of the Glasgow sun in winter
three times as great as Arago found the average brightness
of the sun in France to be. He finds the light of the full
moon to be one-" 1,000th of the light of the mid-day sun,
■whereas Bouguer's early and imperfect experiments made
the moon's light one-300,000th of the sun's. WoUaston set
the proportion at less than one-800,000th, and Zollner Ijy
two methods, f ach preferable to Sir W. Thomson's, obtained
one-618,000th and one-Gl 9,000th, results which are not
likely to be far wrong.

Sib W. Thomson found the sun's light to be such as to
correspond to an intrinsic lustre of the solar disc after
absorption of the light by our own air, 53,000 times
greater than that of a candle-flame. This, too, at mid-
winter in Glasgow.

There is a charming paper by Prof. ^Vendell Holmes, in
the Atlantic Monthly, which we are glad to see taking its
place beside Harper's and the Centur;/ on our English
booksellers' counters. The veteran writes much of his own
■experience as an author — the victim of those who regard
the author as their common property, whether they be
among those who admire him, or among those who (as
some will in every case) detest heartily everything that ho
does, has done, or may do. One can hardly imagine any
one disliking this most genial of humorists. Yet we have
seen, and doubtless he has seen, too (for the participled
good-catured friend we have always with us), criticisms by
jaundiced folk, who have been wounded by some of his

well-directed arrows of general sarcasm, not meant specially
for them. They have not failed to tell him, only the world
has not fully agreed with them, that he should promulgate
opinions only on his own subjects (meaning those to which
his professional office related), not on matters outside of it.

The extensive oBices of the Orient Steam Shipping
Company were some time ago fitted, by the Electric Power
Storage Company, with a gas-engine, a Siemens' d3rnamo
machine, a number of Edison lamps, and a set of accumu-
lators, and a contract was prepared, according to which the
Orient Company was to pay a rent for the whole at the
rate of .£3 per lamp. The engine ran all day charging the
batteries, but the lighting was unsatisfactory, and is now
discontinued.

The Scientific American (New York, December 30)
quotas the following figures from the report of the Ohio
State Inspector of Mines. The annual output of coal has
increased from 5,315,294 tons in 1872, to 9,450,000 tons
in 1882. The latter year showed more than 1,000,000 tons
increase over 1881. Seventy million tons have, so far,
been raised, and the inspector is of opinion that at least
the same riuantity has been wasted from the want of correct
plans and engineering skill. The unworked coal of the
State is estimated at 85,000,000 tons.

How Hocs Prevent the Renewal of Pine Forests.
— A correspondent writing from Johnsonville, S.C, inci-
dentally mentions a curious instance of the influence of
animals in controlling or preventing forest growths. It
appears that the fondness of hogs for the juicy roots of
young pines leads them to seek them assiduously, so that
where hogs are allowed to roam in that region, one can
hardly find a young long-leafed pine in a thousand acres of
pine forest. There being no young trees to take the place
of the old ones used up by the lumbermen and turpentine
gatherers, that species of pine timber is rapidly being
exterminated.

The Telephone. — The superintendent of the Notting-
ham fire station mentions that during the last year eight
fires were reported by telephone through the Central
Exchange and various police stations connected by the
above company's system, and many thousands of pounds'
worth of property was saved owing to the rapid means of
communication afforded.

According to statistics given by L' Electricile, the two
nations that have adopted the telephone to the largest
extent in proportion to their population are Belgium and
Switzerland, the former counting a suljscriber in every
399, and the other in every 227 inhabitants. There are
4,94G subscribers in England, 3,640 in France, and 2,142
in Germany. Paris alone has 2,422 subscribers, and there
are more in New York than in the whole of England,
while there are 37,187 in the United States.

A Disinfectant. — Mr. Matticu Williams notes that
sulphate of copper may be usefully employed as a disin-
fectant. It may be bought at sixpence or less per pound
(they call it blue vitriol) in the shops, and is readily soluble
in water. "I have lately used it," he says, "in the case
of a trouVjle to which English householders are too com-
monly liable, and one that has in many cases done serious
mischief. The stoppage of a soil-pipe caused the overflow
of a closet, and a consequent saturation of floor-boards,
that in time would probably have developed danger by

48

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Jax. 26, 1883.

nourishing' and developing the germs of bacteria, bacilli,
&c., which abound in the air, and are ready to increasi^ and
multiply wherever their unsavoury food abounds. By simply
mopping the floor with a solution of these green crystals,
and allowing it to soak well into the pores of the wood, tlioy
(the pores) cease to become a habitat for such microscopic
abominations. The copper salt poisons the poisoners. It oc-
curs to me that this would be a useful and interesting subject
of inquiry for young microscopists. Mr. Slack is now
showing in the pages of Knowledge how the microscope
may be directed to inquiries respecting the germs of life.
Chemistry might usefully be combined with such micro-
scopical inquiry, and after the experiments he suggests have
been made, so far as the bacteria, bacilli, Ac, are concerned,
the solutions containing these objectionable beings may be
dosed more or less liberally with solutions of blue vitriol,
and of other reputed disinfectants, until their capacity for
" poisoning the poisoners '' has been thoroughly tested.
The solution of sulphate sliould not be put into iron or
zinc vessels, as it rapidly corrodes them, and deposits a
non-adherent film of copper. " It will even," says Mr.
Williams, "disintegrate common earthenware, by pene-
trating the glaze, and crystallising within the pores of the
ware." Stone- ware resists them, and they may be safely
kept in wooden buckets.

The directors of the Brush Midland Electric Light
Company have agreed to ask the Court for liberty to
strike out from the share register the names of those
shareholders who desire the return of their capital, and to
refund them the amount paid on their shares.

The American Eailroad Gazette says : — "The two most
gorgeous sections of railroad in the world will be on the
ilarretta and North Georgia and the Western North
Carolina at Red Marble Gap, N.C. Both roads will run
for a mile on road beds composed of variegated marble of
the finest quality."

A TOTAL of about 800 millions — an amount exceeding
the whole of the National Debt — is invested in railways in
the United Kingdom. Of this sum about 190 millions
represents debenture stocks of dividend-paying railways,
■ aftbrding an industrial security as good as National Consols.
Nearly 300 millions of the capital consists of Guaranteed
and Preference Stocks, and 330 millions — including 40
millions expended upon uncompleted lines, or others which
pay no dividend — pays less than 3 per cent. The railways
paying no dividend decrease every year, the improvement
in the poor lines being much more marked than in those
paying good dividends.

At the recent American Forestry Congress, held at
Montreal, Professor Hough read a paper on "Tree
Planting by Piailway Companies." In introducing his
paper he said that there being in the United States about
100,000 miles of railway, the advisability of tree planting
by railway companies for construction and maintenance
was an important question, 2,000 to 3,000, and even 3,500,
ties (sleepers) being used per mile. The average duration
of ties is from five to eight years, consequently from
30,000,000 to .50,000,000 a year will be required for
100,000 miles of railway. Putting 500 tics as the product
of an acre of woodland, from 60,000 to 100,000 acres will
have to bo cut every year, and as it takes thirty years for
a tree to grow to the right size, the railway, will require from
2,000,000 to 3,000,000 acres— or 3,126 to 4,687 square miles
of forest to keep up the supply. At this rate, the RaUnHiy

Rivktr says, there should be twenty-five acres for each mile
of road, involving an investment of £100 in land per mile —
a wise investment, giving the railways an independent
supply of ties. He stated that wood fuel is Vjeing super
seded by coal, and wooden bridges by stone or iron. In
Eui ope, wood in railway structures is very rare, and for
ties, mineral substances will be much dearer than wood for
some time. The professor concluded his paper with some
references to the necessity of planting trees to hold em-
bankments together by their roots, and alder and willow
to prevent erosion of streams, and the various kinds
proper to plant for different purposes and in difterent
localities ; also the prevention of snow-blocks by having
trees along the railway tracks.

An earthslip which occurred near Fort de I'Ecluse nearly
caused (says the Engineer) one of the most calamitous
inundations on record. On Tuesday night, the 2nd inst.,
an old railway watchman, who lives in a cabin between the-
station of Collonges and the long Credo tunnel which
runs under the pass to Bellegarde, felt his house shake and
heard a noise like thunder. Feeling sure that something
was wrong, and knowing that the train which leaves
Geneva at midnight was due, he ran along the line,
placing detonators on the rails as he went. By this
device he succeeded in stopping the train, and not
a minute too soon, for the noise he had heard
came from an earthslip, which carried 200 metres
of the permanent way bodily into the Rhone, whither,
the Geneva correspondent of the Times says, but for
the old man's presence of mind, the train must inevi-
tably have followed it. The line from Geneva before
entering the great Credo tunnel passes through a short one
immediately below the fort. On Wednesda)- a great mass
of earth fell from the mountain directly above the smaller
tunnel, and completely blocked the course of the Rhone.
At noon the tunnel itself fell with a report that was heard
for miles. The water accumulated behind the barrier with
frightful rapidity, and if it had gone on gathering, even
for a day or two, the consequences would have been fright-
ful— the valley of the Rhone as far as Lyons would have
been swept as by an avalanche. As it was, the dam burst
a few hours after the second earthslip.

A TERRIBLE storm, the like of which has never yet been
seen, is predicted for March 11 next. Dr. E. Stone
Wiggins, of Ottowa, Canada, the prophet in the case,
■vi-rites to the President of the United States : — " No
vessel, whatever her dimensions, will be safe out ol
harbour, and none of small tonnage can hope to survive
the tidal wave and fury of this tempest." The prediction
has been so seriously received by the City Surveyor of
New York, that he has written to Dr. Wiggins asking
whether that alarmist gentleman would recommend the
stoppage of some extensive marine works on which he is
engaged until . after the dreadful hurricane has passed.
Other people besides the City Surveyor of New York have
been stricken with panic. Such, indeed, are the appre-
hensions prevailing, tliat General W. H. Hazen, the chief of
the Weather Bureau at Washington, has taken the trouble
to expose the fallacies on which Dr. Wiggins bases his pre
diction. On the other hand, an American journal gets some
fun out of the affair. "President Arthur," it remarks,
" having received timely warning, has instructed the
Secretary of the Navy to employ a few horses and have
our war vessels hauled up into a field, and have a shed
built over them. This precaution may entail an expense
of eight or nine hundred dollars, but the American Navy
must and shall be preserved."

Jan. 26, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

49

A NATURALIST'S YEAR.

By Grant Allek.

v.— GORSE BLOSSOMS.

OUT on the common here the flowers of the season are
now few and far between indeed. To be sure, there
are some small blossoms that almost never desert us, even
when the frost is on the ground. Yonder small white shep-
herd's purse under shelter of the furze-bushes is one such
example ; and here are a pair of others, little blue ground-
veronica, and purple laniium, with its arched red hoods.
Most of tliese hardier native winter-flowering plants, how-
ever, are mere insignificant creeping weeds, scarcely noticed
at all bv the average observer. But there is at least one
English winter blossom whose prettiness and sweetness
nobody can deny, and that is the larger gorse, which grows
so plentifully on all our heaths and commons. Everybody
knows tliat gorse flowers all the year round, though it is
not everybody who knows the real reason why it does so.
The fact is, we have two distinct species of furze in
England ; the greater gorse, which flowers from autumn to
spring ; and the dwarf gorse, which flowers alternately with
it, from spring to autumn. The two plants difler, not
only in stature and time of blossoming, but also in hairiness
and in the size of the tiny bracts that enclose the calyx. As
soon as one has begun to set its small woolly pods, the
other begins to flower in its stead ; and so between them
they keep up an endless succession of blossoms for the bees,
and eflectually ensure the well-known principle that kissing
is never out of fashion.

Gorse belongs by family to the pea-flower tribe, but it is
one of the least pea-like and most bushy of our English
papilionaceous plants. When it grows first from the seed-
bean, it sends up young shoots with trefoil leaves, after the
fashion of so many other pea-flowers, such as clover and
nonsuch ; but as it grows older, its leaves become longer
and narrower, until at last they assume the familiar form
of long stiff' green prickles. This peculiar type of leaf, as
well as the bushy character, is due to the nature of the
places in which the furzes grow. They arc by habit
denizens of wild and open spots, much overrun (in the
original state at least) by herbivorous animals. Under
such circumstances, only those plants would survive which
were least attractive to, or best defended against, the
aggressive ruminants. Now, we all know that the pea
tribe as a whole are great favourites with animals, both on
account of their tender foliage, and of their richly-stored
seeds ; so much so that many of them are specially grown
for fodder, as in the case of purple clover, Dutch clover,
crimson trifolium, lucerne, nonsuch, vetches, horse-beans,
and many others. Hence the only peaflower plants which
succeed well in open situations (except, of course, when
artificially protected by man) are those with very stringy
stems and hairy pods, like lady's-fingers, or those which
have assumed the bushy character, like broom or gorse.
Even broom, however, has been less successful in this
respect than gorse, for the one has comparatively large
and broad trefoil leaves, perfectly edible, though not very
nutritious ; while the other has stout prickles in their
place, which no animal can venture to attack. The thistle-
loving donkey himself shrinks from the well-armed branches
of the furze ; and so the veriest suburban common or
village green is commonly coNered in great patches with its
dark green foliage and its pretty golden bloom. iS'o other
British plant whatsoever has managed to acquire an equally
deterrent and protective habit. To the last, however, furze
bushes retain some memory of their original broom-Uke
foliage ; for if you look closely on the lower branches, or

near the base of the stem, you will often find a few leaves
of a long narrow type, not unlike the topmost leaves of the
true broom.

The flowers of the gorse form its great attraction in the
eyes of the world at large ; and, indeed, they are so
beautiful when fvdly out that one can hardly wonder at
Linn;eus, who, when he first beheld the bush in all the
golden glory of its blossoming season, fell down on his
knees and thanked God fervently for the creation of so
exquisite a plant. Just at present, the ilowers are only
struggling out by twos and threes in little patches, and the
branches are covered for the most part with small brown
hairy knobs, the unopened buds, which are only waiting
for a spell of more genial weather to burst their dusky
sheaths and herald spring before its time. This hairiness
of the calyx is one of the best signs by which you can tell
the greater gorse from its dw arf congener ; while at the
same time the two little bracts which protect the base are
here much larger than in the summer-flowering species.
Both these peculiarities show that the winter-blooming
gorse finds some special necessity for protecting its young
flower-buds, which is not ctjually felt by its summer
neighbour : though what exactly the danger it has to guard
against may be I cannot say. Even today, in spite of
lowering cloud and chilly weather, a solitary bumVjle-bee
has found his way to the sweet-scented blossoms, and is
taking his fill from the luscious honey at the base of the
petals. The way the gorse manages its fertilisation is ex-
tremely curious, and I can see it at work here under my
very eyes as the bee bustles about in his burly fashion from
flower to flower. He lights on the keel or lowennost petal,
which has two little pits or depressions, one on each side,
fitted exactly to receive liL? feet ; and his weight then
presses down the keel, so that the stamens within fly up
elastically, and dust his breast all over with their golden
pollen. As the stigma (or sensitive surface of the ovary)
is enclosed in the stamen-tube, it also comes into contact
with his breast at the same time, and rubs oflT it some of
the pollen brought from the last flower which he happened
to ^•isit in the course of his rounds. You can push down
the keel of a gorse blossom for yourself with your finger,
and you will see the pollen fly out in a little cloud, like
spray from a child's squirt ; only you must take care to
experiment upon a fresh flower, not yet visited by the bees,,
or else you will find the keel already depressed, and the'
pollen shed before your arrival. The bees themselves know
at once which flowers are fresh, and which have been pre-
viously rifled, by observing the position of the keel ; and
they never waste their precious time by searching for non-
existent honey in an exploded blossom. This mode of
fertilisation, though found in gorse, broom, genista, and
several similar peaflowers, is by no means the only method
adopted by the tribe ; there are many other devices in other
plants of the same family, some of which I may, per-
haps, have occasion to explain when the bird's-foot trefoil
and the purple clover come into blossom in the long
summer days. Even within the limits of a single closely-
related group, the variety and ingenuity of nature is prac-
tically infinite.

After the bee has impregnated the flower, the pollen left
on the stigma begins to penetrate the young pod, and
quickens into life the tiny embryo beans that lie within it.
Then the pod swells slowly, and assumes its characteristic
stumpy shape. The beans are few in number, and much
compressed against one another ; and the pod is extremely
short, scarcely exceeding the calyx Ln length. There is a
good reason for all this, and also for the stifl' woolly hairs
that clothe the outer surface. All the peaflowers produce
rich seeds, abounding in starch ; and many of them are

50

KNOWLEDGE

[.Ta\. 2C, 1883.

accordingly used for food as pulsp, like our own peas,
haricot lioans, scarlet runners, vetches, lentils, and so forth.
Hence it is particularly necessary for them to guard against
the depredations of animals, and this many of them have
done by acquiring prickly pods or by curling themselves
round into inconspicuous little balls. Gorse, jiowever, is so
far protect<'d already by its stout sharp leaves that it does
not require any special device of such a sort : it is sufficient
that the little pods sliould not protrude beyond the average
length of the surrounding bristles. If they were very long
and pendulous, animals and birds might pick them ofi' with-
out getting pricked ; as it is, the whole bush is so self-
contained, and forms such a compact bristling mass, that
nobody ever attempts to molest it in any way. If they do
succeed even in getting ofl' one pod, tlie harsh hairs on the
surface are quite enough to prevent them from ever re-
peating the experiment Indeed, all of us who have once
tried to pick a beautiful blossoming spray of gorse in early
spring, with all our civilised appliances of gloves, hand-
kerchief, and pocket-knife, know by hard experience that
its proud motto is " Nemo me impune laoessit." To the
lower animals, it proves indeed an unapproachable enemy,
always on the defensive alone, but always ready to repel
the slightest attack upon its individual rights and liberties.
For good or for evil, it seems the very model of a truly
British plant.

STAYS AND STRENGTH.

By Richard A. Proctor.

MUCH space has already been given to this subject
(but it is one of great importance), therefore I
must be brief in what remains to be said. To say truth,
if I can judge from the letters which reach me, very few
hold the views which have been so stoutly maintained by
" An Observer," and it seems the less necessary to advocate
at any length the contrary and (I cannot but think the
common sense) doctrine.

I set on one side all I had intended to say on the artistic
aspect of the matter — adding only a few words in response
to " An Observer's '' remarks on this point in our last. He
appears to think that only some American artist regards a
tightly-laced waist as a deformity. I have talked with
many artists both here and in America on this question,
and I have never yet met with one who held a different
opinion. Not a few admit that in portrait painting the
deformity must be left, — ^just as a natural deformity
(Cromwell's wart, for instance) would be left. In paint-
ings like Frith's, again, the deformed waists must be shown
— to remove them would be falsifying the history of our
time. "We see them in Hogarth's paintings (he even cari-
catures the absurdity, and in his illustrations of the " line
of beauty," ridicules it sharply) ; they are seen in pictures
belonging to almost every age of civilization, from Egyptian
times to the present day. This proves, if " An Observer "
will, that slender waists are admired ; so they are, and very
justly ; so are small feet and small hands admired ; and many
whose hands or feet are not small, though their brains
are, wear gloves and shoes too small for them, spoiling
the shape in trying to reduce the size. That is just what
the tight-lacers do with the waist. A girl will say she
wears "fives" in glove.?, "twos," or less, in shoes, as if
that of itself meant pretty hands and feet. In the same
way, a girl who wishes to match her brains with her waist,
will talk of nineteen inches waist measurement (speakin"
even of that as " immense," to try to make folk believe
that if she pleased she could pinch it to sixteen or seven-

teen inches*), as if small circuit meant beauty, and .shape-
liness counted for nothing. The beauty of a really shapely
waist is seen far more in its narrowing from front to back,
than in its compression from side to side ; but it is seen
even more in the undulating outline of its horizontal
section ; and more still in grace of movement. On these
points all sculptors and painters are agreed, and as I should
imagine all who have any ej'c at all for beauty. They are
not likely to change their views because there " come you
in " cei'tain women with pigeon-toed feet, glove-bursting
hands, and waist comprtssed to hideous roundness and
rigidity.

On the health question I leave doctors to speak. I
know that ninety-nine out of a hundred oppose tight-
lacing with whatever form of stays, and of the hundredth,
whether in private practice or as army surgeon (with
" unusually wide shoulders and 23 inch waist "), I shall
only say that no profession can be absolutely free from
the unwise, and that I trust no one in whom I take
interest may ever come under that hundredth person's
medical ministrations.

Longevity proves only that Nature can adapt herself
amazingly. Creaking gates hang proverbially long on
their hinges.

But I happen to have facts for " An Observer " — not a
multitude of facts, for the great multitude of men have
simply nothing to say, having never tried lacing at all,
while those who have tried it and have got no good from
it are apt to hold their peace for very obvious reasons
(wliich is perhaps the reason why all the arguments are
one way, and all the evidence — i.e., stated evidence — of
facts, the other).

I offer first my own evidence, not very willingly, for I
am not particularly proud to have it to offer. When this
matter was under discussion in the pages of the English
MecJianic, I, like " An Observer," was struck with the
apparent weight of evidence in favour of tight-lacing. I
was in particular struck by the e^-idence of some as to its
use in reducing corpulence. I was corpulent (I am not
lean now, but I was some 20 lb. heavier then). I also
was disposed, as I am still, to take interest in scientific
experiment. I thought I would give this matter a fair
trial. I read all the instructions (by the way, what a
nuisance that word " read " is, one can never tell whether
it is past or present, — I mean it here to sound as " red ") ;
carefully followed them ; varied the time of applying
pressure with that " perfectly stifl" busk," about which the
correspondents of the English MecJianic were so enthusiastic.
I was foolish enough to try the thing for a matter of four
weeks. Then I laughed at myself as a hopeless idiot, and
determined to give up the attempt to reduce by artificial
means that superabundance of fat on which only starvation
and much exercise, or the air of America, has ever had any
real reducing influence. But I was reckoning without my
host As the Chinese lady sutt'ers, I am told, when her feet-
bindings are taken off, and as the flat-head baViy howls (so
Dr. Leigh informs me) when his head-boards are removed,
so for a while was it with me. I found myself manifestl}'
better in stays. And now, perhaps, " An Observer " will
see what I meant when I said that if a man finds himself
better in stays it shows that stays are weakening. I
laughed at myself no longer. I was too angry with myself
to laugh. I would as soon have condemned myself to using
crutches all the time, as to wearing always that beast of a

* " An Observer " seems cot to hare cauglit Dr. Lewis's
sarcasm on this point. The tight-lacers, hand-pinchers, and foot-
sqneezers always speak of their manufactured waists, hands, and
feet as "immense" — first to suggest natural smallness, but chieBy
as fishing for compliments,

Ja.v. 26, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE

51

busk. But for my one month of folly I had to endure
three months of discomfort. At the end of about that
time I was my own man again.

I hoped that reasoning, without evidence from my own
experience, would have sufficed ; but rather than any
reader of Knowledce should be deluded into experiments
which I know he would repent, I have told the story of my
own stupidity. " 1 will rail " in this matter "against no
breather than myself, against whom I know most faults."

But I have another little tale, somewhat pleasanter, to
tell, and as likely to be instructive. It is told, " with
permission " : —

An American lady in my own family circle has through-
out girlhood and to the present time worn corsets, but not
tightly-laced ones. Her waist measurement as a girl —
perhaps to the age of eighteen or so — was 19 inches, which
she did not (nor does any American lady) consider ' im-
mense.' But it should be noted that not only are American
girls (of families long resident there) of slighter build on
the average than English ones, but there is a tendency
in America, not exactly to leanness, but certainly
to an absence of any redundancy of adipose tissue.
(I have never visited America without losing full
30 lb. in weight in the first four or five months ; and
in 1875-76 my weight was diminished from 14st. 31b.
to 11 st 101b. without any use of anti-corpulence diet or
regimen.) This lady, who has resided now some eighteen
months in England, has added some 20 lb. to her weight ;
but would still be regarded as slight and small-waisted, —
except, perhaps, by that army-surgeon, with 23-inch stays
and unusually wide shoulders (how^ pretty he must look !) ;
for with wide, but not unusually wide, shoulders, her waist-
measurement is about the same as the stays-measurement
(a very difterent thing) of that medico-military-monstrosity.
To make the evidence complete, it should perhaps be
added that the lady married eight years since, is still
several years on the Vietter side of thirty, and that her
fourth child is now a bouncing boy of eleven months.

It so befell that at Christmas time this lady was very
busily engaged in certain house decorations. She found
tlie bones of her corset (steels, I suppose they should be
called) very much in the way, even after — in stooping,
bending, reaching for nails, and so forth — she had succeeded
in breaking every one of them. It occurred to her that
after all it was very doubtful whether the corset could be
of much use, any way, since it had always been perfectly
loose. She therefore discarded it. (No, gentle reader,
not at my suggestion in any way whatever ; except that
as a reader of Kxowledc;e this lady had, no doubt, followed
the discussion in these pages.) The result certainly did
not suggest that the wearing of loose stays has any
beneficial effect, whatever good may (according to
" An Observer ") result from a compression of
7 or 8 in. For the result was simply a marked
increase of comfort (due care having been taken to supply
the necessary protection against cold). No one would
have known that any change whatever had been made,
except for a somewhat greater pliancy of figure. Had she
been a tight-lacer before, this last change might have been
more marked ; but in that case' I know the corset must
soon have been worn again, unless she had been willing to
endure great discomfort for a while. I must, in fairness,
admit that she recognised one disadvantage — I might,
perhaps, say two. Dresses carefully fitted to her corset no
longer fitted or hung quite so well (though I doubt if any
male eye could have detected the change). This, however,
is precisely what the Rational Dress Society has pointed
out as sure to follow if heavy skirts are worn without some
supporting cincture.

THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF
MYTH.

By Edward Clodd.

IN selecting illustrations from the literature of savage
mythology, the material overburdens us by its rich-
ness. JIuch of it is old, and, like refuse-heaps in our
mining districts, once cast aside as rubbish, but now made
to yield products of value, it has, after long neglect, been
found to contain elements of worth, which patience and
insight have extracted from its travellers' tales and quaint
speculations. That for which it was most prized in the
days of our fathers is now of small account ; that within
it which they passed by we secure as of lasting worth.
Much of that literature is, however, new, for the impetus
which has in our time been given to the rescue and pre-
servation of archaic forms has reached this, and a host of
accomplished collectors have secured rich specimens of
relics, whicli in the lands of their discovery have still the
authority of the past, unimpaired by the critical exposure
of tlie present

The subject itself is, moreover, so wide-reaching, bringing
the ancient and the modern into hitherto unsuspected rela-
tion, showing how in customs and beliefs, to us unmeaning
and irrational, there lurk the degraded representations of
old philosophies, and in what seems to us burlesque, the
survivals of man's most serious thought.

One feels this difficulty of choice and this temptation to
digress in treating of that confusion inherent in the savage
mind between things living and not living, which was the
main subject of my former paper. By numberless illus-
trations at hand, this confusion might be shown to extend
to the names or images of persons, and to the persons
themselves, as well as to other relations which are purely
symbolical.

For example, the practice of liurning or hanging in
effigy, by which a crowd expresses its feelings towards
any unpopular person, is a relic of the old belief in a
real and sympathetic connection between a man and his
image ; a belief extant among the unlettered in by-places
of ci\dlised countries. When we hear of North American
tribes making images of their foes, whose li\es they
expect to shorten by piercing these images with their arrows,
we remember that these barbarous folk have their repre-
sentatives among us in the Devonshire peasant, who hangs
in his chimney a pig's heart stuck all over with thorn-
prickles, so that the heart of his enemy may likewise be
pierced. The practice among the Dyaks of Borneo, of
making a wax figure of the foe, so that his body may
waste away as the wax is melted, will remind the admirers
of Dante Rossetti how he finds in a kindred mediteval su-
perstition the subject of his poem " Sister Helen," while
they who prefer the authority of sober prose may turn to
that storehouse of the curious, Brand's "Popular Anti-
quities." Brand quotes from King James, who, in his
" D;emonology," book ii. chaji. f:i, tells us that " the devil
teacheth how to make pictures of wax or clay, that
by roasting thereof th(^ persons that they bear the
name of may be continually melted or dried away by
continual sickness ; " and also cites Andrews, the author
of a " Continuation of Henry's Great Britain," who,
speaking of the death of Ferdinand, Earl of Derby, by
poison, in the reign of Elizabeth, says : " The credulity of
the age attributed his death to witchcraft. The disease
was odd, and operated as a perpetual emetic ; and a waxen
image, with hair like that of the unfortunate earl, found
in his chamber, reduced every suspicion to certainty." The
passage from practices born of such beliefs to the use of

52

• KNOWLEDGE ^

[Jan. 2G, U

charms as protectivea against the ovil-disposcd and thoso
in league with the devil, and as cures for divers diseases, is
obvious. But upon this it is not needful to dwell ; what
has lieen said will suffice to show that the superstitious man
is on the same plane as tlu^ savage, hut, save in rare
instances, without such excuse for remaining, as Jlishop
Hall puts it, with "old wives and starres as his counsellors,
charms as his physicians, and a little hallowed wax as his
antidote for all evils."

But we have travelled in brief space a long way from
our picture of primitive man, weaving out of streams and
breezes and the sunshine his crude philosophy of personal
life and will controlling all, to the peasant of to-day, his
intellectual lineal descendant, with his belief in signs and
wonders, his forecast of fate and future by omens, by
dreams, and by such pregnant occurrences as the spilling
of salt, the howling of dogs, and changes of the moon — in
short, by the great mass of superstitions which yet more or
less influence the intelligent, terrorize the ignorant, and
delight the student of human development.

As, however, a good deal hinges upon the evidences in
savage myth-making of the personification of the powers of
nature, we must return to this for awhile. Obviously,
the richest and most suggestive material would be
supplied by the striking phenomena of the heavens,
chiefly in sunrise and sunset, in moon, star, star-group,
and meteor, cloud and storm, and, next in importance, by
the strange and terrible among phenomena on earth,
whether in the restless waters, the unquiet trees, the
grotesquely-shaped rooks, and the fear inspired in man by
creatures more powerful than himself. Though the whole
range of the lower culture, sun, moon, and constellations
are spoken of as living creatures, often as ancestors, heroes,
and benefactors who have departed to the country above, to
heaven, the heaved, up-lifted land. The Tongans of the
South Pacific say that two ancestors quarrelled respecting the
parentage of the first-born of the woman Papa, each claim-
ing the child as his own. No King Solomon appears to
have been concerned in the dispute, although at last the
infant was cut in two. Vatea, the husband of Papa, took
the upper part as his share, and forthwith squeezed it into
a ball and tossed it into the heavens, where it became
the sun. Tonga-iti sullenly allowed the lower half
to remain a day or two on the ground. But seeing
the brightness of Vatea's half, he compressed his share
into a ball and tossed it into the dark sky, during the
absence of the sun in the nether world. Thus ori-
ginated the moon, whose paleness is owing to the
blood having all drained out of Tonga-iti's half as it lay
upon the ground. Mr. Gill, from whose valuable col-
lection of southern myth this is quoted, says that it seems
to have its origin in the allegory of an alternating embrace
of the fair Earth by Day and Night. But despite the
explanations, more or less strained, which some schools of
comparative mythologists find for every myth, the savage
is not a conscious weaver of allegories, or an embryo
Cabalist, and we shall find ourselves more in accord with
the laws of his intellectual growth if, instead of delving
for recondite and subtle meanings in his simple-sounding
explanations of things, we take the meaning to be that
which lies on the surface. More on this, however, anon.
Among the Red Races, one tribe thought that sun, moon,
and stars were men and women who went into the sea
every night and swam out by the east. The Bushmen say
that the sun was once a man who shed light from his body,
but only for a short distance, UTitil some children threw
him into the sky while he slept, and thus he shines upon
the wide earth. The Australians say that all was dark-
ness around them till one of their many ancestors, who

still shine from the stars, shedding good and evil, threw, in
pity for them, an emu's egg into space, when it became
the sun. Among the Manacicas of Brazil, the sun was
their culture-hero, virgin-bom, and their jugglers, who
claimed power to lly through the air, said that his luminous
figure, as that of a man, could be seen by them, although
too dazzling for common mortals.

The sun has been stayed in his course in other places than
Gibeon, although by mechanical means of which Joshua
appears to liave been independent Among the many
exploits of Maui, abounding in Polynesian myth, are those
of his capture of the sun. He had, like Prometheus,
snatched fire from heaven for mortals, and his next task
was to cure Ra, the sun-god, of his trick of setting before
the day's work was done. So ]\Iaui plaited thick ropes of
cocoa-nut fibre, and taking them to the opening through
which Ra climbed up from the nether world, he laid a slip-
noose for him, placing the other ropes at intervals along his
path. Lying in wait as Ra neared, he pulled the first rope,
but the noose only caught Ra's feet. Nor could Maui stop him
until he reached the sixth rope, when he was caught round
the neck and pulled so tightly by Maui that he had to come
to terms, and agree to slacken his pace for the future.
Maui, however, took the precaution to keep the ropes on
him, and they may still be seen hanging from the sun at
dawn and eve. In Tahitian myth, Jlaui is a priest, who,
in building a house which must be finished by daylight,
seizes the sun by its rays and binds it to a tree till the
house is built. In North American myth, a boy had
snared the sun, and there was no light on the earth.
So the beasts held council who should undertake the
perilous task of cutting the cord, when the dormouse,
then the biggest among them, volunteered. And it
succeeded, but so scorched was it by the heat that it was
shrivelled to the smallest of creatures. Such a group of
myths is not easy of explanation ; but when we find the
sun regarded as an ancestor, and as one bound, mill-horse-
like, to a certain course, the notion of [his control and
check would arise, and the sun-catchers take their place
in tradition among those who have deserved well of their
race. It is one among numberless aspects under which
the doings of the sun and of other objects in nature are
depicted as the doings of mortals, and the crude concep-
tions of the Ojibwas and the Samoans find their parallel in
the mythologies of our Aryan ancestors. Only in the
former we see the mighty one shorn of his dignity, with
noose round his neck or chains on either side ; whilst in
the latter we see him as Herakles, with majesty unim-
paired, carrying [out the twelve tasks imposed by Eurys-
theus, and thus winning for himself a place among the
immortals.

THE WEATHER PROPHECIES.

THE following very amusing and eflective letter ap-
peared in the Times of Wednesday, Jan. 17 : —
" One hears such opposite opinions confidently expressed
about the value of the official \\eather prophecies that I
wonder nobody has taken the trouble to test them by actual
history for a few weeks, and publish the result. It lately
occurred to me to do so, and here is the result for a lunar
month, which is amply sufficient for the purpose. I need
hardly say that if they are not oftener right than wrong
for each district they are useless ; and if they are oftener
wrong than right they are worse than useless, and we had
better toss vip daily for the weather on each point, of hot
or cold, wet or dry, foggy or clear, windy or still. In the
following list the quotation marks give the prophecies, and

Jan. 26, 1883.]

KNO\A^LEDGE

53

H. the history of the wcatlier from sunrise to 9 or 10
p.m. within the horizon of chimney-pots visible to me
during that time. When IL omits tlie wind, it agreed with
the prediction. I cannot tell what II. may have been for
other parts of ' England, S. (London and Channel) ; ' but
a writer from Southsea in the Tiiiicn of to-day does not
seem to have found much more of fulfilled prophecy there
of late than we have liere : —

"Dec. 18. 'Wind strong to a gale, cold rain and snow.'
H. — The finest and warmest day for a fortnight; quite
still ; a little fog.

" Dee. 19. ' South-east breezes, light to calm, colder, clear
in some places, foggy in others ; ' which means in each place
' either clear or foggy ' — a very safe prophecy. H. — No
colder ; fine, but rather foggy, no breezes.

" Dec. 20. ' Variable airs or calms ' (safe again) ;
' ^°88y generally and cooler.' H. — Rather warmer ; some
fog.

"Dec. 21. 'South-west winds, freshening; cloudy, some
rain.' H. — Very fine nearly all day ; a few drops of rain;
no wind.

" Dec. 22. ' West to south-west, moderate to fresh or
strong ; fine and cold at first, afterwards cloudy and un-
settled, with some rain.' H. — No wind, no clouds, no rain,
no change all day.

" Dec. 23. ' West to north-west, light to moderate or
fresh, cloudy, unsettled ; some cold showers.' H. — No
showers, a little wind ; fine ; a few clouds.

" Dec. 25. ' South-west to west, light and moderate ;
cloudy generally, with some slight rain ; milder.' H. —
Milder and warm ; rain from 10.30 to 3 : no wind.

" Dec. 2G. ' South-west and north-west, strong, very
changeable and unsettled, with rain.' H. — Still, dull,
very warm, rain early and late.

"Dec. 27. 'South-west and west, fresh, rain at times.'
H. — Very warm and rainy.

" Dec. 2S. ' South-west, strong, squally, perhaps a gale,
rainy, mild.' H. — No rain, a little wind, warm and fine
day.

" Dec. 29. ' Strong south-west gales, subsequently lulling,
very squally, much rain.' H. — No rain enough to wet
flags, no squalls, a little wind.

'■ Dec. .30. ' West to north-west or north, decidedly
colder, and perhaps some cold showers.' H. — No north
•wind, no colder, rain nearly all day.

"Jan. 1. 'South-west and west, freshening, dull, close
and wet' H. — Damp, warm, slight rain occasionally, no
freshening.

" Jan. 2. ' South-west and west, strong, cloudy, un-
settled, rain at times.' H. — Fine till evening and colder,
then rain ; windy night.

" Jan. 3. ' West to north-west gales, moderating later,
fair on the whole, but some showers ; colder.' H.— North-
west ; still, cloudy, dark, no rain, no colder sensibly.

" Jan. 4. ' Variable airs, finally east or south-east, cold
and foggy.' H. — South-east early, south-west late ; not
foggy, but dull, rather colder.

" Jan. .5. ' South-east and south, light or moderate,
•doudy generally, somo rain.' H. — South-west ; fair morn-
ing, rain afternoon.

■" Jan. 6. ' Light variable breezes, cloudy generally,
with some fog; colder.' IL — Fine and sunny till afternoon;
colder.

" Jan. 8. ' Freshening ; east winds and dry weather ;
clear at times.' H. — Fine till evening, and then rain and
warmer ; little wind.

" Jan. 9. ' East and north-east, strong to a gale ; cold
showers at timea' H. — No showers till late ; windy.

" Jan. 10. ' South and south-west, milder, changeable,
clear to showery.' H. — Wind east, cold and dull, a few
drops of rain.

"Jan. 11. 'Wind veering to south and .south-west,
milder, rain at times, with bright intervals.' H. — Wind
east, dull all day, cold, no rain.

"Jan. 12. ' Wind veering to south or south-east, with
still milder weather and clearer sky.' IL — Wind east,
dull, not quite so cold.

"Jan. 13. ' South-east breezes, moderate or light; dull,
foggy in many places.' H. — Wind east, a little rain, dull
I)ut no fog ; rather warmer.

" I wrote this yesterday, intending to close the catalogue
with the month, but 1 cannot help noticing the announce-
ment of the secretary of the prophetic office this morning,
that 'no definite forecasts are possiVile' to-day. I had
written befori> that I was only sorry for the Government
Zadkiel bein;,' expected to perform impossibilities, beyond
proving that science knows less about the weather than
many an old gardener or seaman. But I must not say
that to philosophers who declare by this announcement
that ' definite forecasting ' is generally possible. Well,
then, if it is, what have they to say to this catalogue of
their successes 1 I see ' Old !Mooro ' has given up the
weather and sticks to politics and general mundane affairs
as the more certain things to prophesy. I have not seen
this year's real Zadkiel. I hope he is not dead, like the
partridge who was killed by Swift. -^ Yours obediently,

"33, Queen Anne-street, ./a«. lo. "Edm. Beckett."

GREAT SUN SPOTS.

TTTHATEVER success science may have, or fail to have,
V T in predicting terrestrial weather, there can be no
doubt astronomers have learnt to predict w ith considerable
correctness the occurrence of the mighty solar storms which
produce what are called sun spots. They cannot yet say
that on such and such a day, or even in such and such a
week or month, a great spot will appear ; but they can tell
what years will be characterised by many sun storms, and
what years by few, for ten or twelve years in advance.
The great sun spots which have been seen during
the last few months were predicted at least twelve
years ago ; and astronomy is far better assured
that in the years 1893 and 1891 there will be
many large sun spots than meteorologists are that
ne.vt March will probably be stormy and next June
relatively calm. Yet scarce half a century has passed
since the periodicity of sun spots began to be recognised,
and not a quarter of a century has passed since the theory
was thoroughly established. We do not even yet know
why these waves of sun spots pass in their long ten-yearly
surge over the vast surface of the sun. The Kepler of
the sun has done his work ; the Newton has yet to come.
The work of a solar Newton will be well worth doing, even
though he may not (as he probably will) bear somewhat
the same relation to Schwabe that the profound Newton
bears to the ingenious and laborious Kepler.

What a problem it is that lies before astronomers when
we consider what sun spots really mean I The great
atmosphere of the sun, whose breath is llamc, is yet so
cool compared with his intensely glowing surface that it
absorbs a large proportion of his light as well as of his
heat. It absorbs so much that it actually changes his
colour. There can be no manner of doubt, from what Pro-
fessor Langley has shown about the aljsorptivc qualities

54

KNOWLEDGE

[Jax. 2(J, 1883

of that atmosphere, that wore it suddenly stripped ofT, the
sun would shine not only with greatly increased bright-
ness, but with a bluish violet colour. In a very short
tiiue indeed that colour would seem white again to our
eyes, grown accustomed to the change ; after which,
the sudden restoration of the absorbing atmosphere
would change the sun to an orange-red orb, which
only after awhile would seem to our eyes a white globe
as before. But while the general absorptive action of
the sun is wonderful, the story is still more wonderful
which the spectroscope has to tell about the specific al'sorp-
tive effects due to its constitution. Wo find that, whereas
in our air the vapour of water is present (to condense into
water drops and form clouds at certain levels, and to
change to ice-crystals and form cirrus at higher levels), in
the sun the atmosphere is laden with the ■\-apours of iron,
copper, zinc, sodium, magnesium, and like elements, to form
clouds of metallic drops, great gatherings of metallic crystals,
while the rains that pour down towards the concealed true
globe of the sun are mighty showers of molten metal. When
a hurricane occurs in the sun, the clouds which form the sun's
surface are swept along, or whirled around, not at the rate
at which we measure our storms, but with a velocity
compared with which their swiftest motion is as rest. The
solar tornadoes rage, not over a few hundred square miles,
but over regions as large as the whole surface of the earth,
over hundreds, even thousands of millions of square miles;
and they travel over these enormous regions at a rate not
of so many miles per hour or per minute, but of many
miles, sometimes more than a hundred miles, in every
second of time. Such storms are in progress now, where
we see the spots upon the sun. Such storms tell us of the
activity of that great central engine whose throbs are the
life-beats of the solar system.

W^e measure the sun's work, perforce, by our own
forms of work. We speak of his emission of light and
heat as corresponding to what would result from the
burning of eleven thousand millions of millions of tons
of the finest coal in every second of time. But what mind
can conceive the real vitality of that mighty orb which
seems so silent and so still in our skies ? The throbbing of
the great engine which beats out light and life to the
whole family of planets can only be seen by the mind's
eye, and as yet that eye is no more capable of seeing the
sun's work as it really is than is the bodily eye of seeing
the distant millions of suns which the great gauging tele-
scopes of the Herschels bring within our ken. Nor can
the mental ear hearken to the uproar and tumult with
which the work of the great central engine is accomplished,
or imagine what would be heard if one could visit that
spot which looks like a tiny speck on the sun's surface, and,
passing below the limits of the solar air so that sound
waves could reach him, could find (as assuredly he would,
if he could live at a temperature which turns the hardest
metal into vapour) all forms of noise known to us — the
roar of the typhoon, the crash of thunder, even the
hideous groaning of the eartli-throe — surpassed a million-
fold by what takes place within every square mile of that
disturbed region.

One cannot wonder if many students of science are
eager to find out the real meaning of the sun spots, to
learn how they are generated, and to solve tho secret of
that strange law which brings them in undulations ten or
twelve years long over the surface of the sun. Still less
can one wonder if many should be attracted by theories
associating terrestrial phenomena, not in general (as they
must assuredly be associated) but in detail, with the pe-
riodicity of solar disturbance. It has been shown that the
earth as a whole responds to the solar action displayed in

sun spots. There can scarcely be any doubt that the connec-
tion long since indicated by Sabine between the phenomena
of terrestrial magnetism and the condition of the sun's
surface with respect to spots is a real one. Not magnetic
relatious simply, but others which have only been asso-
ciated within recent times with magnetism, as the occur-
rence of auroral displays, itc, have been clearly associated
with the general condition of the sun's surface on the one
hand, and with the outbreak of specific sun spots on the
other. True, the great solar storms recognised, when
mighty masses of glowing gas have been flung fortli in
the form of prominences, have occurred without any
simultaneous auroral or magnetic disturbances on the
earth. But these are side issues, literally. The
solar energy is there directed not towards the
earth, but at a right angle or thereabouts with her
direction ; and we can hardly wonder if she does
not respond to these solar asides. Whenever the face of
the sun turned towards her has shown evidence of perturba-
tion she has responded quickly enough. The disturbance
of September, 1859, was answered by movements of the
magnetic needle at Kew, which, if not actually simulta-
neous, were so nearly so that the light of the sun itself
reached us no quicker than the influence exciting that mag-
netic disturbance. Nor did the tremulous response of the
perturbed earth last but for a moment. Throughout the
night that followed Arctic and Antarctic auroral banners
waved over the northern and southern hemispheres, being
visible in latitudes seldom reached by such displays. For
more than twenty-four hours, also, telegraphic communica-
tion was interrupted.

Again, it seems clear that the temperature of the earth,
as a whole, is affected by the absence or presence of many
spots on the sun's surface. This has been shown, ap-
parently in an unmistakable way, by the underground ther-
mometers at Edinburgh and at Greenwich. But the rain
and wind cycles, the famine and financial crisis periods,
the recurrence of disasters and shipwrecks, bad vine
years, and so forth, in harmony with the sun spot waves
— these have not yet been established. It sounds con-
vincing when one cyclist notes that over a certain region
the north-east winds are wetter and the south-west
winds drier in sun-spotted times than when the sun is
free from spots. Others find it still more convincing
when some one else tinds that in another region the
reverse holds. And when it is further found that in
some regions no such effects at all can be discerned,
many find nothing disheartening in that. Still, it
must be remembered that antecedently this sort of
evidence was certain to be obtained whatever period had
been dealt with ; looking over a short range of time, one
would be sure to find some places where the weather
seemed to agree in one way with the period (any period
whatever), other places where the weather seemed to agree
in just the opposite way, and yet others where there seemeJ
to be no agreement at all. And when we learn that as our
survey ranges over time as well as over space, there appear
similar diversities, the places which had seemed to agree
one way or another no longer agreeing, it seems a little too
much to ask men to believe that there is a real connection,
but that while one place is affected one way, another is
affected in the opposite way, and that as time passes, the
effects vary. With such scope for difference and variation,
a pack of cards, shuffled at random, might be shown to
agree with weather cycles (red cards for fine weather, black
ones for bad, or vice versd ad libitum). Weather predic-
tions guided by sun spots would be no better, in that case,
than predictions based on coin-tossing as suggested by Sir
Edmund Beckett. — Times.

KvowLXDGE, Jan. 2G, iSS-i.

^L'X VIEWS OF THE EARTH;

OR, "THE SEASONS ILLUSTRATED."

By Richard A. Proctor.

I GIVE this week four views, showing the aspect of the earth as seen from the sun at G a.m.,
mid-day, 6 p.m., and midnight, Greenwich solar time. On the left of the column showing these
sun views are given the Sun Views of the Earth for December 21, because, by an unfortunate mistake
(for which I was partly, but not wholly, responsible), the pictures for that date were not correctly given
in No. 63.

56

- KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Jan. 26, 1883.

SOME BOOKS ON ASTRONOMY.*

By Richard A. Proctor.

I'llTE ideal book on general astronomy remains still to be
written. Neither in the English nor in any other
language is there a work on astronomy which presents a
comprehensive view of that great science in such a way
that every intelligent reader can appreciate the full beauty
of the subject, while the truths of astronomy are correctly
and sutliciently indicated. In saying this I reflect on no
one — or, if on any, on very few — for, to the best of our
knowledge, no one has ever attempted to do what, I
here say, has not been done. Guillemin's " Le Ciel " comes
nearest to such an attempt, and perhaps was intended as
such — if so, the attempt unquestionably failed. But there
are a number of excellent astronomical works directed
to special ends, which must perhaps be accepted
collectively, as all we shall ever have to teach the general
public astronomy ; for, such a work as we have suggested
above would present so Tuany difliculties, that I very much
doubt if any writer will ever undertake the task ; and
certainly, however well the task might be done, other books
on astronomy would be very much wanted by learners in
different departments of the science. I know this as well
as most men ; for what I have written has usually been
intended to meet such wants as I have experienced myself
or as others have indicated to me — yet from a rough
computation I find that what I have written in essays
and papers, from the purely mathematical to the
lightest and easiest, and published in books, on astro-
nomy, amounts to more than three times the entire
contents of the Old and New Testament. And so far was
I from being impelled to this copious effusion of explana-
tions and descriptions by cacoi'lhes scribendi and ropin
rerborum, that my first essay was written at the r.ate of
not more than ten lines a day (so difficult was composition to
me), and my first book (" Saturn and its Sj-stem," written
in 1864-.'5) was more than a year in hand. In those days

would go about with a whole chapter in my head, in
my unwillingness to put pen to paper.

I have now before me several books on astronomy, not
all recent, about which I wish to say a few words. They
have been written to meet different wants, often expressed
to me by correspondents ; and, as I think they meet those
wants exceedingly well, I mention them here, briefly and
seriatim.

First comes that great collection of useful knowledge,
^Ir. Chambers' " Handbook of Descriptive Astronomy."
(It suggests a rather large hand, but that is by the way.)
This is a thoroughly honest book — like the others I have
to touch on here. To say, as I have said elsewhere (and
been rebuked for saying), that much of it is compiled, is to
say that the author has acted fairly by his readers. Pre-
serve us from an original treatise on astronomy — in a case
such as this, where what we chiefly want is to learn the
great headings of astronomy, not what A. B. or Y. Z. has to
say about those headings ! But a large portion of the work
is original, too ; and the amovmt of labour given to the
book must have been simply enormous. It is no mere
fai;o7i de parler, but the simple truth, to say that no
astronomical library is complete without Chambers'

• " A Handbook of Descriptive Astronomy." By G. F. Ctiam-
bcra. (Third Edition: Clarendon Press, Oxford.) "Astronomy
without Mathematics." By Sir Edmund Beckett. (Seventh
Edition : Society for Promoting Cliristian Knowledge, London.)
"The Sun; its Planets, and their Satcfhtes. By Edmiuid Ledger,
M.A. (Edward Stanford, London.) "Rudimentary .\stronoray."
By Robert Main, lato Radcliffe Observer. (Third Edition : Crosby,
Lockwood, & Co., London.)

"Descriptive Astronomy." Guillemin's "The Heavens"
is an excellent work of the same kind, but less compre-
hensive. It would be, however, unfair of me to remark on
the work as I have it, for I believe in later editions it has
been considerably improved.

Next comes a work of a very different kind, one of the
most remarkable and valuable books ever written on
astronomy, and also one of the most original — Sir Ed.
Beckett's " Astronomy Without Mathematics," which has
just reached a seventh edition. I note first that the new
edition has not only been most carefully revised, but parts
have been re-written, while discoveries made since the sixth
edition have been introduced here. Of the newly-written
matter I must especially note that relating to the tides, on
pp. 187-189. The whole sulyect of the tides is admirably
dealt with.* If the reader remembers that this work is
what its name implies, " Astronomy without Mathematics,"
not an " easy book of ' popular astronomy,' " he will recog-
nise the admirable way in which it fulfils its plan and
purpose. Sir Ed. Beckett set himself a ^-ery difficult task ;
he accomplished it like a master. The book is thoroughly
good, from the first page to the last, though I may say of
the author as he says of me (footnote, p. 69), " with some
of his conclusions and opinions outside of ['Astronomy
without'] Mathematics, I do not at all agree."

The next work is a recent and noteworthy contribution
to the literature of Astronomy — Mr. Ledger's, " The Sun ;
its Planets and their Satellites." This work is the out-
come of a course of lectures on the solar system read in
Gresh.T,m College. The persons responsible for selecting
the Gresham lecturer may be congratulated on having
secured the services of such a zealous and faithful worker
as Mr. Ledger. The book before us tells of much honest
and careful labour. There is no silent appropriation of
other men's labours, such as we sometimes see in such
books ; but while necessarily Mr. Ledger (like Mr.
Chambers and other honest workers), has had occasion to
refer freely to results obtained by others, there is an even
superabundant record of indebtedness. Mr. Ledger deals
with the Sun and Planets only, leaving to another volume
the Stars, Comets, Meteors, and so forth. He investigates
thoroughly nearly every question which comes before him,
and not only so, but a number of matters of great interest
to thoughtful readers, yet not relating to observed phe-
nomena, such as the appearance and movements observable
from other worlds. I wish I could from my own ex-
perience encourage him to persevere in dealing with
matters thus outside of ordinary inquiry ; but, as a matter
of fact, it is astonishing how few can be persuaded to take
the least interest in them. Thousands take interest in the
perUielion-conjunction nonsense about the great planets ;
yet Mr. Ledger might with advantage have left out all
that he says on this point. If he had given as many pages
about the tides, for instance, it would have been as well, or
a trifle better. There is no explanation of the tides at all.
We note few errors in the book. But we are rather sur-
prised to find Mr. Ledger, who shows considerable mathe-
matical acumen, failing to correct that old blunder about
Neptune and Uranus, which has misled so many wi-iters
on astronomy. He uses the old figure, first drawn,
I think, by Lardner (who knew very little of mathe-
matics), in which it was thought sufficient to con-
nect Neptune and L^ranus by an arrow-marked line
pointing towards Neptune, and to say that that is
the way in which the attraction of Neptune acted

* On lines 13, 26, the reader should substitute " west " for
" east." The correction is made by Sir E. Beckett himself, not
by me. Tory likely it would have escaped my notice.

Jxs. 26, 1883.]

- KNOWLEDGE •

57

on Uranus. Mr. Ledger does throw in a parenthetical
remark to the effect that the real action is considerably
more complicated ; but this is not sufficient, especially as
in a footnote he claims that the figure indicates " the
direct or tangential effect of Neptune upon the velocity of
Uranus." So far is this from being the case, that whereas
the figure indicates accelerative action in 1781, the real
action of Neptune at that time was retardative. Nor can
I see that there is anything so very complicated in the
determination of the real direction and magnitude of the
perturbing force (for any simultaneous positions of the two
planets), that a correct explanation should not be given,
instead of one which is very simple indeed, but entirely
wrong. However, this is a not very important matter.
Speaking of Mr. Ledger's lxK>k generally, we may say that
it is a thoroughly sound and useful treatise, well conceived
and admirably illustrated. Printers, binders, and pulv
lishers, also, have done justice to the author. The book
deserves success, and I have no douVit will have its deserts.
Main's " Rudimentary Astronomy," forming one of
Weale's series, has long been known as a capital work for
beginners ; not that it is popular, but that it deals clearly
and succinctly with the elementary principles of astronomy.
The edition before us (the third) has been carefully re^•ised
and brought up to date by Mr. Lynn, formerly of the
< Jovemment Observatorj- at Greenwich. There are a few
errors still remaining. Thus the solar parallax is not, as
represented at p. S3, the tangent, but the sine of the angle
which the earth's semi-diameter would present at the sun's
distance ; and it is rather odd at this day to hear the size
and mass of the earth adduced as evidence of special
design for the adaptation of the globe we live on to its
inhabitants. But the book may fairly be described as a
sound and simple treatise on elementary astronomy, very
carefully edited.

SYDNEY AND SUNDAY LECTURING.

I NOTICED in my iMt, among recent lecture experi-
ence:?, an unwilling and luckily unsuccessful attempt
to ufs -t a Mayor. Some Australian papers, commenting
on Sir Henry Parkes' recent rejection by his constituents,
ascribe to me his nearly successful attempt to upset himself
over one of my lectures. Misled by the " unco guid," Sir
H. Parkes promulgated his decree against a Sunday lecture.
Of the two who urged him to this course, one had known
the interior of a gaol for watch stealing, which led to my
remarking to the audience of some 2,000 persons who
assembled at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, a few days later,
how good it was of Parkes' adviser to keep a watch for me
as well as for himself. The other was a zealot, who
probably attributed to wicked science the sparseness of
his own congregations. Be this as it may, it was gene-
rally agreed that Sir Henry hoped to increase the
majority at his next election, which had been but fairly
good at his last. It was supposed by manv that my lecture
was actually stopped by him. But so far as anything he
could have done or said was concerned, that lecture — on
the evil subject, "The Vastness of God's L'niverse " — would
unquestionably have been delivered. The platform was
ready; the theatre was open; the manager (Mr. Gamer,
the well-known actor) had agreed ; my energetic agent, Mr.
R. S. Smythe, had, like a Napoleon, marshalled ail his
forces ; and at six, the lecturer (who needed rest after
travel) was sleeping the sleep of the just tired out, in pre-
paration for the lecture. That Sir Henry Parkes's police,
if he had dared to send any to the theatre door, would have
done more than advise us not to oppose his unlawful inter-

ference, no one who remembers the crowd that was assembled
will for one moment believe. (I certainly addressed not fewer
than five (many said ten) thousand from my hotel window
soon after, and if I had chosen to excite further, instead of
doing my best to allay their just wrath, they would have
l)een ready to do something more than merely resist a few,
or even a few hundred, policemen. Why, then, was the
lecture not given 1 Simply because it was shown to my
satisfaction that not I, but another, would have suffered,
had 1 delivered it. The lessee, Mr. Lazar, was warned
that whether the law was with us or against us, his
theatre could be closed (if the lecture were given) till the
question was settled, — that is for months. I should not
have lost a penny by this, nor would the London Comedy
Company have lost much, as they could have gone
elsewhere, and perhaps had their remedy for loss of
time. But Mr. Lazar would have lost a great deal, and
the people of Sydney would have lost much good
acting. While the lessee appealed to Mr. Sm\"the, and
Mr. Smythe (waking me from sweet sleep for the purpose)
appealed to me, I had no choice (unless 1 had had as little
conscience as Sir H. Parkes in the matter) but to accept,
as I then thought, loss myself, rather than bring a much
greater loss on another. So late was Mr. Lazar's appeal
made, and my decision taken, that there was no time to
give the necessary notice, and we narrowly escaped an
awful row in consequence. It will be judged how much
our decision was brought about by Parkes, who had been
all the pre^^ous week threatening Mr. Smythe and myself.
His people had alarmed Garner, but Garner had come
round most manfully. On us — who knew how illegal his
whole course was, and that he knew it too, for the Attorney-
General had told him — he had produced simply no effect
at all.

He barely scraped through at the next election, and I see
several colonial papers ascribe the loss of votes to his
interference with me. It is likely enough. All the papers
took my side, and at the enormous gathering on the
Thursday following at the Theatre Royal, a very strong
feeling of contempt for him and his advisers was mani-
fested in an unmistakable fashion. Then, too, the
first fruits of his action were noticed as they affected
myself. What I had supposed a loss turned out a
very great gain. Elsewhere, as well as at Sydney, the
papers took my part most warmly and generously. While
I cannot say I hear with regret that Sir Henry Parkes has
been rejected — for one who breaks, or at least fails to
recognise, the law, is not fit to be among those who ad-
minister it — I must admit his being Secretary of State
when I visited Sydney was a most lucky thing for myself,
as matters turned out for me. As in the case of my
criticisms on Sir George Airy's inexact first papers on the
transit of Venus, so here, — what I did as a duty, by which
I should probably lose, turned out very much to my ad-
vantage in the end. I owe all my pleasant experiences in
America and Australasia, indirectly, to the one — the very
pleasantest and brightest of those experiences directly to
the other. — Richard A. Proctor.

The Turkish railroads have some peculiar freights. The
Roumelian line from Constantinople north-westward, in its
la.st fiscal year, carried .5,741 tons of essence of roses, valued
at about .'iio.OOO dollars. It also carried 1,.")00,000 melons
to Constantinople, but probably, says the Railroad Gazette,
some of our Southern roads can match that. On the line in
Asia Minor, leading articles of freight are Angora goat-
hair and meerschaum.

58

• KNOWLEDGE

[Jan. 26, 1883.

(Pur ^Jnintrov Cornrr.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO GKOW GIANTS?

[Oil the staff of the New Ynrk Times tlioro is a humorous writer
who from time to time throws off a loader dealing with some quaint
quasi-scientific notion, blandly quoting Mill, Darwin, Iluxlcy,
Spencer, Tyndall, and others (including the Editor of Knowledge),
in pretended support of his odd fancies. The following amusing
squib is from the pen of this clever writer, though sent to us as a
scientific communication over the name of the Medical Press and
Circulur.—li. A. P.]

THIS question has received almost a solution. According to the
iVt'ie York Time.i, " the incubator of M. Tarnier has succeeded
in raising infants who, at the end of six months, weigh 81- lb., and
whose weight at birth six months previously was only 10 or 12 lb.
The incubator of M. Tarnier is framed on the model of the one for
hatching eggs scientifically. The immense success which attended
the artificial incubation of chickens in France attracted the atten-
tion of the learned, ingenious, and obstetric physician. He was
attached to a hospital for foundlings, and although the position
gave him an admirable opportmiity for experimenting with new
medicines, he was a humane man, and he was annoyed at the large
number of foundlings who died within the first six months of their
hfe. The majority of those admitted to the hospital were weak
and sickly, but in that respect they did not differ from all sorts
of French infants. Dr. Tarnier felt that it was a reproach to
medical science that Freuch infants could not be cultivated with as
much success as French chickens, and he resolved to try what
artificial incubation, if it so may be called, would accomplish if
applied to infants.

" The doctor constructed a child-incubator on precisely the model of
the ordinary chicken-incubator. It was a box, covered with a glass
side, furnished with a soft woollen bed, and kept at a temperature of
85 degrees Fah. bj the aid of hot water. He selected as the sub-
ject of his first experiment a miserably-made infant — one, in fact,
that had rashly insisted upon beginning the world at an injudi-
ciously early jicriod. This infant was placed in the incubator,
provided with a nursing bottle, and kept in a dark room. To
the surprise of the doctor, he ceased to cry on the second day
after he was placed in the incubator, and although it had
previously been a preternaturally sleepless child, it sank into
a quiet, deep sleep. The child remained in the incubator for
about eight weeks, during which time it never once cried, and
never remained awake except when taking nourishment. It grew
rapidly, and when, at the expiration of sixty days, it was removed
from the incubator, it presented the appeai-ance "of a healthy child
of a year old. Delighted with the success of this experiment. Dr.
Tarnier next selected an ordinary six months old infant, addicted
to the] usual pains and colic, and exhibiting the usual fretfulness
of French infants. The child conducted itself while in the incubator
precisely as its predecessor had done. It never cried ; it spent its
whole time in sleep ; and it grew as if it had made up its mind to
embrace the career of a professional giant. After six weeks' stay
in the incubator, it was removed and weighed. During this brief
period it had doubled its weight. It had become so strong and
healthy that it resembled a child three years old, and it could
actually walk when holding on to a convenient piece of furniture.

" These two experiments satisfied Dr. Tarnier of the vast advan-
tages of artificial child-incubation. He immediately proceeded,
with the permission of the authorities of the hospital, to construct
an incubator of the capacity of 400 children, and in this he placed
every one of the 3G0 infants who were in the hospital on the 10th
day of February last. With the exception of one who died from
congimital hydrocephalus, and another who was claimed by its
repentant parents, the infants were kept continuously in the
incubator for six months, when they were removed in consequence
of having outgrown their narrow beds. The result will seem
almost incredible to persons who are unfamiliar with the reputa-
tion of Dr. Tarnier, and have not seen the report made to the
French Government by a select committee of twelve.

" The average age of the infants last February was eight months
and three days, the youngest being less than twelve hours old, and
the eldest not more than eleven months. Their average weight was
10 lb., only one of the entire 360 having attained a wciglit of 32 lb.
At the end of six months of artificial incubation the average weight
of each infant was 811b., and there was not one who would not
have been supposed by a casual observer to be at least eight years
old. In other wards, six months of artificial incubation did as
much in the way of devclojiing Dr. Tnrnier's foundlings as eight
years of ordinary life would have done. The infants were strong
and healthy, as well as big ; they walked within a week of leaving
the incubator, and most of them have since learnt to talk. These

results surpassed Dr. Tarnior'g most enthusiastic expectations, and
there can be no doubt that his system of artificial child-incubation
will be adopted, not only in every cliild's hospital in France, but in
every private family throughout the civilised world."

VVe must make allowanet'S [rather !] [proceeds the Medical Prat,
and truly " it will go near to be thought so, shortly"] for some of
the statements, which are taken from an American paper. Allow-
ing for exaggerations, the incubator of Tarnier may be of use in
rearing delicate and premature infants. It is an ingenious
application of a principle recognised by agriculturists.

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more."- — Alfred Tzxxysos.

iettersi to tt)t eiiitor.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possihly he in-
serted. Correspondents must not ie offended, there/ore, should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial communications should he addressed to the Editob OF
Knowledge; all Business communications to the PtTBLisHERS, at the
Office, 7-1, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS ARISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RE.SPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should he made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

T/ie Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No communications are answered by POST, EVEN THOCGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

STAYS AND STATUES.

[693] — Supposing that "An Observer" is a male, I really must
thank him, on behalf of my sex, for his very high opinion of onr
common sense. He says that because Dr. Lewis has stated as a
fact that in America "a waist of 19 in. is considered immense,
while here it is considered rather small," therefore English women
will be induced to order smaller stays than ever. He may ease his
mind. I really don't think it is at all probable ; if American women
are sn foolish, I see no reason why English women should be.
Again, after quoting Dr. Lewis's letter to the effect that " in
America a reduction of 10 in. is common, against 7 in. or 8 in.
here," ** An Observer" remarks that therefore waists of only 14 in.
must be common there. This is mere quibbling. Every physiologist
knows that a waist of 19 in. can only belong natnralhj either to a
person reduced to a skeleton or to one very much under-sized.
And of course Dr. Lewis means that a person whose waist would
normally be 29 in. has reduced it to 19 in. This is an extreme case,
though quite possible. Few people can grasp the idea of the
marvellous compressibility of the waist. I know a young woman
who as a girl had a waist of 26 in. ; it is now 20 in., and this
wonderful change took place in a little over a year. I need scarcely
remark that she is far from being a healthy person.

After stating that he has inferred (with great acuteness) from
Dr. Lewis, that waists of 14 in. are common iu America, " A-n
Observer" sa\-s that (as a corollary from this), he is " more in-
credulous than ever of any bad effects from such tight-lacing as is
practised here now." Really, "An Observer" must have a unique
mind. He acknowledges the compressibility of the waist, the length
to which women are prepared to go, and therefore thinks that
tight-lacing can do no harm ! Wiiy does he suppose our waists
are made the size they are ? What does he suppose happens during
the cultivation of a waist? "An Observer" has evidently no
notion either of anatomy or physiolog}-, and I think it would be
advisable if such people left the subject of tight-lacing alone.

Again " An Observer " says : "And as for 'a third of women's
diseases coming from it' (tight-lacing), how do the doctors, who
writo in this loose way account for women living on the average
some years longer than men ? " I need hardly remark that statistics
are, of all things, the most misleading. I question whether women
do live longer than men ; but whether they do or do not, they cer-
tainly ought to, looking at the circumstances of their daily life.
Are women soldiers, sailors, sappers, miners, navvies, or railway
servants ? How many deaths are annually reported owing to acci-
dents to such persons ? Are women exposed to much danger in
any of their daily occupations ? Deaths arising from brain work

Jan. 20, 1SS3.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE

59

are aleo far more common amonf; men than women, as \ro mif;ht
natnraUy su|)|ioao, but I fancy that more women die a so-called
" natural " death (though 1 should like to dispute the term as
applied to many deaths) than men. Were women, in the dress they
now wear, to pursue the same avocations as men, I imagine that
the mortality among llicm would bo for greater than among men.
Again, women on the whole are more temperate than men, and
therefore ought to live longer.

" An Observer " says "that it is useless to ignore the fact that
they (exercises) never nro or will bo practised beyond a certain
age, if ut all."

I admit, with t-rief, tluit this was so in our mothers' and grand-
mothers' time, but as to the future — is " An Observer " a prophet,
that ho should si>eak so positively about it ? Judging from what I
have heard the elder generation say, and from books generally, I
should think that the tendency was in exactly the reverse direction.
Girls and women take far more exercise now than formerly, and the
more they are released from the trammels of dross, the more still
will they take. As far as my experience goes, girls are only too
ulad to get exercise, hut none of their schools in this country
provide it.

I should bo sorry to take quite such a pessimistic view of society
as " An Observer." Ho appears to think that because a thing is,
never mind how bad or foolish, therefore it must be, — as in the
matter of exercise, and later, in a part of the letter on which I do
not pro|)ose to touch, inasmuch as it concerns the Editor, and ho
will probably refer to it in his forthcoming article, viz., the passage
to the effect that since all civilised nations consider slender waists
handsome, therefore " they are quite certain to be cultivated artifi-
cially." Again I i|uestion this prophetic utterance j again tho
tendency seems to me to be in exactly the reverse direction — see the
High Aj-t Movement, the Dress Reform Association, and Ladies'
Sanitary Association. Whereas four years ago I hardly knew a
person who did not wear stays, now I know over a hundred, and
many of these have only left them off of late years.

In conclusion, I think that if "An Observer" would peruse a
certain little book entitled " Dress and Health," he would see that
comparing tight-lacing to "the notoriously painful and destructive
maiming of Chinese feet " is >io( ridiculous ; and also that a " little
silence " on bis part concerning this subject would have been moro
prudent. G. C. S.

THE COMET.

[694] — Can you find a comer for some of tho most elementary
notes and questions about the grand comet we are all admiring ?
Here in India we have from our clearer skies almost unequalled
opportunities for observation, had we only tho means and the
leisure. As it is, tho only well-fitted observatory is in Madras, and
there at this season the sky is. often as cloudy and unfavonrablo as
in dear old England itself. In fact, the notes from the astronomer
there stated that the comet had been observed there on 12th Sept.,
a fact which appears not to have been brought to your notice, but
that in consequence of unfavourable weather he had not been able
to make another observation until the 20th or 2l8t. It is inte-
resting to note that the Government Astronomer states that the
first news of where the comet should be sought was given him by
the captain of a vessel which put in at Madras. Probably, there-
fore, valuable information as to its first appearance and tho
earliest observations of it may be get from the logs of homeward-
bound ships.

Here, in lat. 30° long. 69', I first noticed tho comet at about
o-t6 a.m. on Saturday, 22nd September. It was then just paling
in the morning light. This was the first time the comet had been
seen by the people themselves, for I made inquiries of the police,
whose duties keep (or ought to keep) them awake all night. Tlie
countrj- people undoubtedly regard its appearance as portentous,
and refer back to the disaatrous days of 1858 for its parallel. It
may amuse you to know that their nnpoetic nickname for it is " the
Broom (jharii) " I

On the following morning I had a view of his wonderful beauty,
first seeing him when his tail was half only above the horizon, and
I shall never forget the impression made on me. It showed like a
1 ast sheet of flame, due magnetic east, and was so bright that I
lould scarcely lx.-lieve it was not tho flame of some great fire in tho
distance. At that time, and every day since (don't you in foggy
England envy us our opportunities ?) I have risen to have a good
look at it, the only better or worse of the conditions being tho
;.'reater or less brightness and nearness of the moon and the later
rising of the sun, with the increasing apparent distance of the
comet from the sun. I am writing now at 545 a.m. Madras time
(which is about 30 minutes in advance of local mean time), and the
moon is in the zenith of a perfectly cloudtess sky. The comet
bears about S.E., the nucleus being about 30° above the horizon.

When first observed by me, and for several days after, the tail
appeared almost bifurcate, having a distinct ovoid space between
tho two tails, but latterly the two have seemed to combine, and
that to the appai-cnt zenith to be considerably longer and more
ta|>cr than tho other. It swept through about 12" of sky, but
appears to be gradually but slowly decreasing in size. The Madras
observations pointed to the conclusion that tho comet had passed
his perihelion, and was going away from tho sun with rapidity.
Now, may I ask a few very ignorant questions ':*

1. How comes it that such a nmgnificent visitor to the sky should
cscajio notice from the ob.«ervatories scattered all over tho world —
if, as I sujijiose, ho was gradually incieasing in brightness up to
[wrihelion, and not very much further from the sun to the observer
on tho earth ? [Tho comet might have been visible long before it
was, if it had been as bright during approach as during recession,
but the circumstances were less favouriible, tho comet being in the
same part of the celestial sphere as the sun. — R. P.]

2. llow is it that he should not have been seen about midnight in
tho longitude of Greenwich when he was seen here 70° E. long., at
5 a.m. local mean time ? [Because h>^ "i^ Hirn lielow the horizon
of Greenwich. — R. P.] I am, .\x Ad.mirer.

Mooltan, India, jVoi'. 1.

SUN-VIEWS OP THE EARTH.— SPICLUKG OF MISLETOE.—
A NEW ZEALAND GUM.

[G95] — Allow me to thank you for your beautiful "sun-views of
the earth " in this week's Knowi,ed(;k. They will make splendid
diagrams for teaching-purposes when enlarged. It is a pity that,
through some oversight, tho lettering and arrangement of the four
views are wrong. No. 3 should stand first, and be marked " At
G .\..M.," while the top one should take its place and bo marked
" At G P.M." You have, no doubt, discovered the error before now ;
but it will be rather puzzling to young students who trj- to trace the
earth through its daily course. The fifth view is very effective
(see pictures in tho present number).

There is no doubt that the spelling "misteltoo" is the most
correct according to etymology ; butthesoundof the "t" having been
dropped in pronunciation, there is a tendency (a healthy one, I
think) to omit it in the spelling. The history of the word is most
peculiar and interesting, and illustrates a point in Mr. Clodd's
article on Myths. The word in Anglo-Saxon is mhllelan, tan
meaning twig. Mistel is from A.-S. mi»t — mist, fine rain, which in
Old Dutch had tho sense of glue or birdlime, and in German that
of dung. The sense is, therefore, " birdlime-twig " (Skeat). But
we may trace the word mist a little farther, and see its connection
with the Latin minrierc, Dutch mijijen, A.-S. miyan, all meaning to
void urine (hence tho connection with the German mistd, dnng),
and may imagine our remote and childlike forefathers referring
mist and rain to the watery excretions of the gods.

The fossil gnm referred to by Mr. Clark (G85, p. 27) is a resinous
exudation from tho bark of tho Kauri pine of New Zealand (Dam-
mara Auati-atis), growing specimens of which are in tho Temperate
House at Kew. Dr. Hooker says, " the bark is thick, yielding
tears of resin in great profusion ; enormous masses of a similar
resin, many pounds in weight, are found in the soil in many places,
far from where these trees now grow, and are presumed to have
the same origin." This resin has been prepared and advertised for
microscopical purposes, under tho name of "gum dammar."

Best wishes for tho success of Kkowleiige, which supplies a great
want, in a bold yet considerate manner. Wm. Field.

ELECTRICITY AND DENTISTRY.

[GOG] — About twenty-five years ago there was such a craze for
extracting teeth by electricity, that, for a time, the makers of
batteries were hardly able to meet tho demand for them. I was
then engaged in tho dental practice of one of our large hospitals,
and I determined to test the merits of the invention there. In the
first experiment a patient was selected for whom it was necessary
to extract two corresponding, and therefore similar, teeth. The
first tooth was extracted in the ordinary way ; but for the second,
the electric ajiparatus was adjusted, and much interest was naturally
taken by those present to watch tho result of the new process.
When the tooth was removed, the patient immediately exclaimed
that the pain was nothing to be compared with the other tooth.
This seemed decidedly in favour of the electricity, until, upon
examining the battery, I found that tho connecting wires had been
coupled in such a way that it could not, by any possibility, have
acted at all.

This case proved nothing as far as the electricity was concerned,
but it illustrated what is often an important factor in such cases,
viz., the power of a strong faith in tho efficacy of the means em-
ployed. Other experiments all tended to prove that there was no

60

KNOAVLEDGE ♦

[Jan. 26, 1883.

roul brncfit to bo obtained from it, nnd no effect at all, excejit what
WU8 easily to be accounted for by the temperament of the patient.
I tliink the explanation of cases in which it is stated that painless
dental operations have been jierfonned without aniesthetics is, that
in anticipation the pain is always exaggerated, and when some
mysterious agency is employed, it, of course, gets the credit of
causing the nnoxpectodly small amount actually endured.

N. Stevenson.

A LOGICAL PUZZLE.

[697] — Porliaps the high numbers you chose for the illustration
of this snbjcci; may account in some measure for the difficulty
which some of your readers still experience in regard to it.

The problem is : —

(1) lor every Z there is an X which is not Y.

(2) Some Y's are Z's.

.'. Some X's are not Z's.
Suppose there are 10 Z's. Then, by the first premiss, there will
be ten or more not -Y X's. Now, a thing cannot be Y' and not -Y' X
at the same time ; therefore, if, by the second premiss, even one 'L
is a Y, there are only nine loft, which by any possibility can be
not -Y X's; but there are ten or more of the latter; therefore, at
least one not -Y X cannot be a Z. R. E.

9iis(U)frs! to Corrcsponlients.

H. J. BoHTER. No ; Jupiter. Venus not only visible, bnt splendid,
in the eastern skies before sunrise. — Tycho. My advice would be to
look out for advertisements of a second-hand telescope. But wliat-
over you might get from either of the makers yon mention, would
be good value for your money, and would always command a good
price if you wanted to sell again. — E. C. C. (1) Molecular move-
ments exciting ethereal undulations, I suppose. (2) For a time
must, in response to other readers, have a little of the more
elementary mathematics. — F. Rogers. Sony that your notice
arrived so late. On Jan. 10, when it came. Knowledge was
already in the press. — A Y'oung Man. Y'our dream was note-
worthy. " Only a new-comer ! " That is what science tells each of
us. — Peccavi. The idea has been suggested before, but we have
little spare space. Thanks for pleasant note. — T. R. Allinsox. Do
not wish to discuss that as part of the corset question. The
fooleries of fashion are outside " An Observer's " ai'gument, and
not worthy of attack, per .sc, from our side. — Algol. When I wrote
that it had been but recently noticed that y Cassiopeia; is variable.
(2) The colour of Arcturus is vaxiously estimated. I have seen it
named among the red stars ; also among the orange ; to me it
seems orange yellow ; others think it simply yellow ; you find it
sulphur yellow. (3) In some of those ridiculous books on Astro-
logy, by Zadkiel (Lt. Morrison), Raphael (Thomas Blodkins), Uriel
(Jacob Plugwinkle), and others — to be picked up on bookstalls —
you will find the stars of evil influence. — Aurora. We do not
usually give advice ; but where the symptoms are so very clear
we " break through a rule to oblige an old friend " (as you seem to
be from your reference to far back numbers) . For your complaint,
the pills known as Cockles' Antibilious ones are invaluable. — W.
Grandy. Have no lectm-c engagements at Southampton. Oddly
enough, youi- kindly letter came immediately after the most atra-
bilious one we have read for a long time. Nine-tenths of our
letters, now, however, are of the pleasantest tone. — A. C. MoRASso.
Probably the volumes will be half-yearly. As you say, they will
be much more convenient. — Canadensis. 1 think difference
of temperature, and, consequently, of moisture, in those parts
of the ceiling, account for that peculiarity. — R. H. Simpson.
Cannot well look out gossip notes in Knowledge for
readers. — Lieutenant. The question was entered into rather
fully in early numbers. Ice-boats undoubtedly do travel in many
cases much faster than the wind which drives them. Y'ou reason
out the matter quite correctly. But I think the relative velocity is
never (luite so great as you suggest (five or six times the wind's). —
R. L. Nichols. Our article touched on the principle laid down by
Baron Ilnddleston, not on the evidence.— J. M. Crombie. We
hope to use the article shortly —E. P. Sells. Many thanks.
Auroras not probably duo to comet, even indirectly; though pos-
sibly it may have brushed up the solar sm'roundings in such sort
that the earth's magnetic condition was affected. — J. A. S. On re-
e.vamining the question I see th.at other solar eclipses mav possibly
bo visible in England before 20!)0,— but none satisfactorily. —Upsala.
(1) Eccentricity and ellii>ticity are different matters; it was the
latter I wanted, and you give me the former. (2) Cannot a line bo
drawn from a station to Venus and produced to the sun's surface
■without your proclaiming that the produced line is an illusion ? If

one, why not two or more ? What occasion for Venus to bo n
lens !•" — J. Pescuile. "Miss Edwards an American!" What (.i'
have suggested such an idea to you ? Not to know one so widil;.
known as a novelist and an Egyptologist argues yourself unknown.
— Z. Perhaps I go as far as you do ; but one mast not go too far
ahead of the main body. We are in the "forlorn hope" as it
is. — E. P. Sells. Thanks. We could hardly have onr " Face <.l
the Sky" shown five or six weeks ahead. Subscribers here wuiiM
find it inconvenient; and they necessarily form the great body r.i
our constituents. — A. Lorr, M.A. Thanks for the information
that watches do not "consume" thcii- glasses. " It will go nea i
to be thought so, shortly." It is also true, whatever tnidi
announcements may affirm, that lead is never " lively," brandy
" dull," nor ])otatoe8 " flat," and so forth. Yet, thongli I
have noticed these things, it has not occurred to mo tn
write to the editors of business papers explaining as much.
If I were capable of such an absurdity, I might perhap'
be also capable of perpetrating it in the particularly offensivr
manner you adopt for yours. " In Heaven's name," you say.
"buy a sixpenny dictionary and keep it beside you!" I woul'
commend to your attention the cheapness of certain little books
on manners. — F. H. I cannot think your way of treating the
Corset question as scientific in substance as in form. You
assume, contrary to all evidence, that the tendency, as civilisa-
tion advances, is towards increase of ornament, and of thosr
artificial ways of treating the body of which corset-wearing i.s
but one. Compare the fashions of the middle ages with those
of two centuries ago. and these in turn with the fashions of our
own time, and you will find there has been a steady progress
towards simpler and more sensible attire ; though, unfortunately,
there is still amj^le room for improvement, especially in feminine
costumes. In some of Froissart's pictures you see all the ladies
as absurdly pinched about the waist as nowadays only the silliest
are. I fancy there is more absurdly tight lacing now- amoug
servant-girls out for a holiday than among ladies.

@ur iflattjtmatical Column.

TO DETERMINE THE ATTRACTION OF A SPHERICAL
SHELL ON AN EXTERNAL PARTICLE.

Let a P b Q ie a spherical shell of radius r, of thin uniform section
r, and of uniform density p ; 0 its centre, E an external particle ,-
OE = d. It is required to determine the attraction of the she!,
P Q a 0)1 the sphere E.

Draw aO!)E; tangents E P, EQ; PGQ cutting A 0 E in G.
Draw any chord, A G B, through G ; and join O P, B E, O B, O A,
and A E. Then, since 0 P E is a right angle,

0G.GE = PG' = 6G.GA
Therefore, a circle will pass through the points A 0 B E. Hence,
since chord O A of this circle = chord OB, ^0EB=/0EA; and

BE : ea::bg : ga.

Now, if we suppose a conical surface of minute vertical angle
2 ^ to have its vertex at G ; it is obvious that the elliptical sections
of the sphere at B and A being inclined at equal angles (equal to
the angle 0 B A) to the axis, have areas proportioned to the squares
of G B, GA. Hence, since their attractions on pai'ticle at E aro
directly proportional to the mass, that is, to the squares of GB,
G A, and inversely proportional to squares of B E, E A, that is, of
G H, G A, these attractions are equal, and their resultant acts in
direction of E 0, the bisector of the angle B E A.

Now, noting that triangle G B E is obviously similar to triangle

Jas. 26, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

61

AOE (for z G15E= / AOE, and Z BEG= / OEA), we see
that the resolved part alont; E O of the attraction of small elliptical
section at B on particle at E = ;jxita mass x cos B EO-i-(BE)'
=/iprir (GB) 2?>» see OBG cos BEO + (BE)', where /i repre-
sents the attraction of a nuit of mass at a unit of distance ; and
since 0 B G = B E O, while

GB:BE = OA:OE = r:ii

attraction ol element at B on particle at E = — ' in direc-

tion E O.

In other words, it is the same as though there were a spherical
shell, of radius r and thickness r, around G as centre, and the
element of this shell intercepted by conical surfact- having vortex
at (; and small vertical angle 2^, were transferred to O.

The same may be proved of the resolved part of attraction of
element at A on imrtiele at E, in direction E O. The resolved parts
of the attractions of elements at B aud A, at right angles to E O,
are equal and opposite, and need not, therefore, be considered.

This being true of all such sections as wo have supposed at B
and A, is true for the whole spherical shell, — which, therefore,
attracts the particle E, as if the whole mass of the shell were at ().

Cob. — As a homogeneous sphere, or a sphere whose density varies
according to any law with the distance from the centre, may he
supposed made up of an indefinitely great number of concentric
shells of small thickness and uniform density, it foUotcs that the
retultant attraction of a sphere of either kind on an exterior particle
is the same as though the whole mass of the sphere were collected at
the centre.

^r Cl}f99 Column.

By Mephisto.

THE following game, which was recently played, will be found
to contain interesting positions for study : —
YIEXXA OPEXIXG.

■WTiile.
Mephiato.

1. P to K4

2. Kt togB.3((i)

3. P to B ►

4. Kt to B3

5. B to Kt5

6. P to Q3

7. B takes Kt

8. P takes P

9. KttakesP(J)

10. Kt to Kt 4

11. Q takes Kt

12. K to B sq (</)

13. Q to Kt3 (i)

14. B to B4 (J)

Bl.ck.
U. E. Bird.
P to K 4
B to B4 (i.)
P to Q-l
Kt to QB3
B to Q? (r)
Kt to B3
B takes B
P takes P
Q to Q5 (p)
Kt tiikcs Kt
CastIesKK( f)
P to B4 (h)
P takes P

White. Black.

Mephisto. U. £. Bird.

E to KR sq. (r) P to KKt4
R to K6 (s) R to B4
K to B sq (0 K to Kt2

R to R3
R toK3
P to Kt3
P to R4

K to B2
R to Kti (i')
K to R4
P to Ktt

1

6

i.': S

i

J

m Hi

15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.

Bl

R takes R
Q toB2
Castles (0
R takes Q (n
R to K4 (p)
R to B sq
R to K2
Kt to K t
R takes B
K toQ2
K to K2

K takes B (I)
B toQ3
Q to Kt5
P to KG („>)
) P takes Q (r,)
R to KB S(|
B takes P (q)
B to Kt6
B takes Kt
P toKR4
K to R2
P toRa

R takes B (i)
R takes P
P takes P
R to Kt4
R to QB4
K takes P
P to Kt3 (ch)
R to B4
PtoB4
R to B7
PtoQ4
P toQ5
P to B5
P toQG
P takes P
I' to <J7
K to B sq
P queens

P takes R
P takes J'
K to Kt3
K to R4
P to Kt5
K to R5
K to R6 (if)
R to QBi
R to KR4
R to Rsq (.)
K to R7
R toRG
R to R3 (v)
P takes P
K to R8 (:)
R to R7 (ch)
R to R sq
Resigns

NOTES.

(a) Safer than the King's Knight's Gambit.

(b) Admissible ; cautious players, however, prefer Kt to QB3.

(c) Best. In this jjosition it is not uncommon for players to drop
into a, bad variation by playing instead —

5. Kt to B3 I 7. B takes Kt P takes B.

6. P to Q 3 Castles | 8. Kt to QR4

Threatening Kt takes B, which will either triple the Pawns on the
Bishop's file or win the King's Pawn.

(d) A dangerous capture, therefore not advisable.
(c) Initiating a strong attack.

(/) A very good move, and better than 11. Q to B 7 (ch), for
after 12. K to Q sq. Castles ; 13. Q to B3, Black's chance of attack
is diminished.

(g) In consequence of Black's good play the position is full of
difficulties. Black threatens the dangerous move of P to B4, and
thereby to open up the KB file for his King's Rook, or even the
K's file for his Queen's Rook, which would bo fatal. The only
other possible move seems to be Kt to K2, wliich, however, would
also result badly, i.e., 12. Kt to K2, Q to B7 (cli). 13. K to Q sq,
P to B4 (if Q retires P takes P with advantage). 14. P takes P,
Q takes KtP, aud Black must win the exchange by 15. Q takes Q,
B takes Q. 16. R to K sq, B to B7.

(/i) Brave, and destroys White's hopes for peace and quietness.
Watch the following ingenious combination : — If in reply to P to B4.
13. R takes P, B to Q2 ! 14. R takes R, R takes K, now White's
Queen is attacked and Black also tlireatens check «-ith the
Queen followed by the Rook, which must result fatally. For
instance, it 15. Q to Kt 5 (apparentlv his best), then follows Q to-
B7 (ch). 16. K to Q sq, Q to B s" (ch). 17. K to Q 2, R to B7
(ch), and mate in two moves.

(i) White of course expected an attack when he ventured oa
9. Kt takes P, but when there is an attack there is also a defence.
This move must be taken in connection with the following one as
being the soundest reply.

(.)■) If now P takes P, then Castles, White will recover his Pawn,
and tnrn a dangerous j)osition into one of comparative safety.

(i) Black was not justified in trj-ing to overcome White's tena-
city by such impatient means ; he might still have retained a good
game "by the following play : -14. P takes P. 15. Castles, B to-
Q3 (best). 10. B takes B (forced), P to Q7 (ch). 17. K to Kt sq.
P takes B, and Black has the better game.

(/) The best way of meeting Black's attack ; had White attempted
to preserve his Rook, then Q takes KtP would had involved him in
difficulties.

(m) A fine specimen of Black's noted brilliancy. If B takes R,
18. Q takes B, and White stands somewhat better.

(n) The only move to avoid loss.

(o) We can now better point out Black's plans, and why he did
not take the Rook. He now threatens the Rook as well as B takes
KtP. If to prevent this White plavs 19. R to KKt4, then follows
R to KB sq. 20. R to B sq, P to KR4. 21. R to KtG, K to R2.
22. R takes B (best), B takes KtP (best). 23. R takes P (best),
R takes R. 21. R to Q7, B to B3. 25. R takes BP, R takes RP,
and Black has two passed Pawns.

(p) The right move ; it avoids all danger, and if Black takes the
Rook, White remains with a fair ending of Knight against Bishop.

(q) Although B lakes R was sound play, we cannot condemn
this bold move, because with the Pawn on B7, Black could fairly
reckon upon drawing the game, but it also left him a (very)
remote chance of winning. Had he played B takes R he would
have had notliing left but to play for a draw.

(r) The ensuing ending is most interesting. Wliite must now
endeavour to utilize his advantage — by no means an easy task.
R to R sq is the beginning of a series of moves to an-ive at a
favourable position to sacrifice a Rook for the Bishop with
advantage.

(s) A most important move, as it cuts off the King from the
Bishop and wins time ultimately. If White takes the Bishop
(the only way of winning) he would lose unless ho could also
get some Pawns. There would be no hope of doing this if the-
King were near the Bishop.

(t) To render the Rook on R sq available.

(i() As will be seen, this and the following moves force White's
hands, as Black obviously threatens to break through White's
Pawns. It would, of course, not have been good to play R takes
B now, for Black threatens to play havoc amongst White's Pawns.

(••) An opportune moment, and promising the utmost possible-
advantage.

(h) Black has shown all along that he disdains to play for a
draw, but the move in the text positively loses.

\x) " Hope springs eternal in the human breast." If 43. R
takes P, then I! to B sq (ch), followed by K takes P.

62

♦ KNOWLEDGS

[Jan. 26, 1883.

(y) If R takes P. 46. R to R7 (cli), R to RG. 47. R takes R,
K takes R. 48. K to Kt sq, and wins.

(s) Black obvionslv cannot take the Pawn, on account of R to
R7 (ch). ■

DOUBLE FIRST PRIZE PROBLEM IN CHESS MONTULY

TOURNAMEXT.

By a. Cyeil Peaeson.

Black.

,..,„.': ■^^''f-'' „„.„,, '^***^*^„;}K«' ^^^'^^^ //, ^^

White to play and mate in fonr moves.
Key move QKt to Kt5.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

*«* Please address Chess Editor.

John Lonsdale. — A problem may begin with a check. The solutions
)f such problems are. of conrse, thereby rendered more obvions.
There is no objection to moving the King as first move ; some very
fine problems have been composed on that line.

Francis J. Drake. — Solutions correct.

Herbert Jacobs. — Problem received with thanks.

Clarence. — Our own fault, not printer's. Cows' tails and mathe-
matics out of our line.

X. X. X. — We draw the line at three moves ; cannot see it.

Correct solutions received. — Problem No. 67, East Harden. Nos.
1)8 and 69, East Harden, W. Rees. No. 71, Clarence, John Lous-
rlale, John, John Simpson, H. V. T., R.J. P., W., Borrow, John
Watson.

Correction. — We regret to say Problem No. 70 admits of two
solutions, by Kt to Kt3 (ch) or Kt to Q3 (ch.)

<Bur WBf)i&t Column*

By " Five op Clubs."

CONDUCT OF THE HAND.
{Continued from page 29.)

SIMILAR considerations lead to what is called underplay, which
is usually adopted in order to gain command of a suit. For
instance, if after one round of a suit has been played, you know that
the second best card of the suit is held by your adversary on the left,
while you hold best and fourth best, then, when trumps are out,
or if the suit be trumps, you do well to lead a small card of the
suit. Secondhand will hold up the second best, believing the king-
card to be on his left, and your partner, if he has it, will win with
the third best. Yon then have the command, probably the full com-
mand, of the snit.

Another form of underplay, and one which is of such frequent
occurrence as to require special notice, is the holding up of the
winning card at the second round of a suit. In plain suits this is
not usually advisable, unless either trumps are out or there is a good
prospect of quickly getting them out. But in trumps or in plain
suits after trumps are out, it is often well to let the second trick
pass, that with the third trick you may get in. Not only is it
much more important, as a rule, to win the third than the second
ronnd of a suit, but by holding up the winning card you may give

your partner a chance of making the third Ijest. Thus, say that
in the first round of your strong snit. Hearts, there have
fallen, Seven (your lead). Queen, Ace, Five, and you remain with
King, Nine, Si.x, Four. The suit is changed, and pre-
sently trumps are exhausted. Later your right-hand ad-
versary leads Three of Hearts, though your strength. Jt
you now play the King, the tlnrd ronnd will moat jiro-
bably go to the enemy; for your partner certainly has not
the Knave. But if you play the four there is a chance that you
may find third hand weak, and that your partner may take with
the Ten. If this docs not happen, and third hand wins, whether
with Ten or Queen, the probability is that in the third ronnd, won
by your King, the other card above your Nine will fall, in which
case you make two more tricks in the suit.

So it is often well when you hold the best, third best, and small
cards of j-our suit after one ronnd has been played, on return of the
suit by your partner, to play the third best, even with the certain
knowledge that second best lies to your left. When next the suit
is led, your King card is likely to draw the remaining cards, when
your small ones win ; whereas, if you take the trick with your best,
the third ronnd falls to your left-hand adversary, and you have no
use for your small cards.

Cavendish gives another case. Ten tricks have been played,
and each player remains with three cards of the same suit, as yet
not opened (one card discarded somewhere). Suppose now second
player jiuts on the Queen, and you, as third player, hold the Ace.
It is practically certain that second player holds King also. If,
then, you win with the Ace, you have to lead up to King guarded,
and probably both tricks will be against you. Btit if you play a
small card the second player wins, and has to lead from King
guarded. He leads the small one ; you pass it, and your partner
may make, your Ace winning the last trick. In one case the
chances are that you lose two tricks, and win but one ; in the other
they favour your winning two and losing one only. In any case the
Ace makes.

Again, suppose you hold the long trump, and either a long suit
or a stiit which is nearly established, but not quite, the king-card
of which is in your hands. If the adversaries lead this suit, yon do
well to let them take a trick or two in it till it is established ; then,
if they lead it again, you come in, and your small cards in the suit
win. If they turn to another suit, your long trump brings you in,
the winning card of the long suit is led, and the remaining cards
falling, your small cards in the suit win.

We have now to consider the important points — leading trumps,
and the play of trumps generally. It is here that science is chiefly
shown in Whist, as we see from the saying of Cavendish, that his
invention of the signal took away half the advantage he had derived
from his scientific knowledge of the game. Yet we may doubt
whether, after all, good players have not gained as much from the
rash use which half-taught players make of the signal as they have
lost from the invention of a system by which the attentive player
learns at once when his partner urgently wants trumps led.

XOTICUS.

The Star Maps for November and December, 1882, price 2d. each, postage ^d.
extra, are now ready.

Volume II., comprising the numbers published from June to December 18S3, just
ready, price Ss. fid.

The Title Page and Indei to Volume II. now ready, price 2d., poet-free 2\d.

Binding Cases for Volume II., price 2s. each. Subscribers' numbers bound
{including Title, Index, and Case) for 3s. each.

The Back Numbers of Knowledge, with the eieeption of Nos. 1 to 8, 10,
II, 12, 31, and 32, are in print, and can be obtained from all booksellers and
newsagents, or direct from the Publishers. Should any difficftlty arise in obtwning
the paper, an application to the Publishers is respectfully requested.

Now ready, Part XV. (Jan. lsS3). Price liM.; postage 3d. extra.

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OFFICE: 74-7G, GREAT QrEEN STREET LONDON, W.C,

Fbb.

1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE

i)i

OFFENCE

ir FlAf NirWORDED -£XACTl|1)ESCRIBED

:.!DAY, FEBRUAL : ., - .
Contents of No. 66.

riei

Science and Art Ooamp 63

The Chcmistrjr o( Cookery. — II.

The Boiline of Water. Bt W.

Mitticu Willi«ln» '. 65

LceminK Laofrua|;M. Br Richerd A.

Proclor 86

OarBodicK— V. SkuUudSpine. Bv

Dr. A. Wilson, F.R.S.E. (/'/"t."| «7
Optinl EtTc't.! of BcUidonni. Bv

T. W. Webb .' «8

Health of Corseted Women. Bt Dr.

D. LckU 69

[ riea

The Ameteur Electriciin 70

NoTelties in Tricycles. By John

Browning 71

Cmets- Tails 72

The Weather PropheeicB 72

Reviews : Electric Illumination 71

The Face of the Sky 75

C08BSSP05DB!rcS 76

Our Ma'heiaalical Cclomn 76

Our Wliist Column 77

Our Chesa Column 78

^rinur aixH Srt 6osfs(ip.

It has been said of Dr. Stokes, of CambridKe, that he
has never made a mistake. We venture to add that "it is a
pity." He would be regarded now as the inventor of the
most important method of physical research ever invented
— spectroscopic analysis — if he had not been so careful to
avoid all possibility of mistake that he omitted to publish
what he had discovered. He is as careful, it must be ad-
mitted, in dealing with othtr men's discoveries or theories.
What seems absolutely certain from the evidence, he is apt
to descrilw as " so far supported by the facts adduced that
I am disposed to think it is not altogether unlikely to be
true." In fact, Professor Stokes is a veritable "unbelieving
Thomas " in matters scientific. It is currently reported
that when he sees the sun shining in the heavens, he "admits
as probable the theory that some time before the sun may
have crossed the horizon."

TnB Victoria Institute, originally founded by Mr.
Reddie (one of the paradoxists whom De ^Morgan trod out)
for the support of religion against the evil ways of science,
recently invited Dr. Stokes to read a paper before its
members, on Slodern Scientific Thought. In this he, "as
a scientific man " (one would have thought he would only
have " suggested as probable " the lielief that he is a
student of science), repudiated the idea that the progress
of science would disprove the truth of revelation — a vague
saying till it is explained what is meant by revelation. And
he went on to say, that " God's Word and God's Work had
never clashed." Surely he must have formed a strange idea
of the capacity of his audience, to tell them this. If he had
said Truth is Truth, or Truth never clashes with Truth,
what would they have thought 1 Yet what he said sig-
nified " only this and nothing more."

He went on to say that " Darwin's theory of 'ancestral
derivation and the survival of the fittest,' must rest mainly
on the estimate which might be formed of its own proVja-
bility," which really seems tolerably obvious. Only, it so
happens that there is no " Darwin's theory of ' ancestral
derivation or the survival of the fittest'" Ancestral
derivation is as old as the oldest literature known to man,

and prol)ably much older, and the survival of the fittest
(Mr. Herl>ert Spencer's expression), is as obvious as the
hills. Darwin's theory is that species may be, and have
been, changed by natural selection, arising in the struggle
for existence. Dr. Stokes seems little actjuainted with
what Darwin really taught, since he mistakes the founda-
tion of Darwinism for the superstructure. It must be grati-
fying to those naturalists who are able to form a valid
opinion on the question, to learn that the deservedly
eminent physicist who would not publish his own
really demonstrated theories, lest two and two should
tuni out unequal to four, considers " Darwinism, though
highly ingenious as an hypothesis, very far indeed from
being admissible to the rank of a well-established theory."
Yet Dr. Stokes would, perhaps, "admit, as not altogether
improbable," the theory that men who have given their
whole lives to the study of natural history, and are not
much readier than others to give more honour to a fellow-
worker than he deserves, are, on the whole, more likely to
form a just opinion of Darwinism than a highly-distin
guished physicist, who appears to have taken but a super-
ficial view of the subject. The greatest living English
naturalists are now scarcely ready to waste time in defend-
ing either the general doctrine of biological evolution, or
that special part of it which is associated with the name of
Charles Darwin. The most eminent naturalists of the
Continent and of America have long since " assumed the
doctrine of evolution and gone on." It seems not alto-
gether unlikely that they know what they are about in
their own field of labour.

The severe storm which commenced yesterday week
proved very disastrous to the inland telegraph system.
Snow fell heavily in the north, and as a result telegraphic
communication with towns north of Birmingham was
almost stopped. Things grew worse as the day wore on,
but in the evening, more moderate weather prevailing,
there appeared a slightly better prospect. On Saturda)'
night, however, the storm was again violent, and on
Sunday night the gale attained an almost unprecedented
force, and, telegraphically speaking, was felt much nearer
home. The result, as may be supposed, was again cala-
mitous, and notices of anticipated delay had to be issued
by the postal authorities. On Monday night there appears
to have been a resumption of the normal state of atiairs.

Owisc. to its greater strength, phosphorus bronze is used
sometimes instead of copper for conducting electricity,
since much smaller wire possesses the necessary strength.
The resistance ofiered by phosphorus bronze is considerably
greater than that of copper, so that while it answers well
for telephone wire it is not adapted to long telegraphic
lines. L. Weiller, of Angouleiiie, has recently alloyed
copper with silicon instead of phosphorus, and made a
silicon bronze, the conductivity of which is twice that of
phosphorus bronze, while its strength is not less, and hence
seems well adapted to electric conductors. The relative
strengths of copper, silico bronze, and phosphorus bronze
are as 28, 70, and 90 ; conductivity as 100, Gl, and 30.

The Reno, Nevada, (lazotlc describes a remarkable hill
of moving sand in the eastern part of Churchill County,
Nevada, about sixty miles from Land Springs Station.
It is about four miles long and about a mile wide. In the
whole dune, which is from 100 to 400 feet in height, and
contains millions of tons of sand, it is impossible to find a
particle larger than a pin head. It is so fine that if an
ordinary barley sack be filled and placed in a moving

64

♦ knowledge: ♦

[Feb. 2, 1883.

waggon, the jolting of tho vehicle would empty the sack,
and yet it has no form of dust in it, and is as clean
as any sea-beach sand. The mountain is so solid
as to give it a musical sound when trod upon,
and oftentimes a bird lighting on it, or a large
lizard running across tlu- bottom, will start a large
quantity of the sand to sliding, which makes a noise re-
sembling tho vibration of telegraph wires with a hard wind
blowing, but so much louder that it is often heard at a
distance of six or seven miles, and it is deafening to a
person standing within a short distance of the sliding .sand.
A peculiar feature of the dune is that it is not stationary,
but rolls slowly eastward, the winfl gathering it up on the
west end, and carrying it along the ridge until it is again
deposited at the eastern end. Mr. Monroe, the well-known
surveyor, having heard of the rambling habits of this
mammoth sand-heap, quite a number of years ago took a
careful bearing of it while sectioning Government lands in
that vicinity. Several years later he visited the place, and
found that the dune had moved something over a mile.

In a letter to a friend in Boston, an officer of the United
States steamer A lanka gives an account of a meteor which
was seen from the ship on the evening of Dec. 12, 1SS2, a
few minutes after §unset, in latitude 38' 21', longitude 134 7'.
!A:11 at once a loud, rushing noise was heard, like that of a
large rocket descending from the heavens with immense
•force and velocity. It proved to be a meteor, and when
within ten degrees of the horizon, it exploded with much
noise and flame, the fragments streaming down into the
ocean like great sparks and sprays of tire. The most won-
derful part of the phenomenon then followed, for at the point
in the heavens where the meteor burst there appeared a
figure shaped like an immense distafl", all aglow with a
bluish light of intense brilliancy. It kept that form for per-
haps two minutes, when it began to lengthen upward, and
growing wavy and zigzag in outline, diminished in breadth
until it became a iine, faint spiral line, and its upper end
dissolving into gathering clouds. It remained for about ten
minutes, when it began to fade, and finally disappeared.

The captain of the barque Gemsbok reported that on
October 9, durirtg a south-west gale and a thick snow
squall, a ball of fire passed across the ship, injuring three
seamen and breaking both gunwales, and ripping the planks
from the stern of the starboard boat, and exploded atiout
twenty yards from the ship with a loud report, sparks
flying from it like rockets. There was no lightning or
thunder at the time.

R.^iLW-iY extension has been attended with remarkaVile
town growth in America, but few towns have been founded
in a night. A curious history, however, involving such
rapidity, attaches to the town of JlcGregor, in Texas,
which is situate ].")0 miles west of Tyler, and twenty miles
west of Waco. The site was selected as the crossing of the
Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe, and the Texas and St.
Louis Railroads, one day in September, 1881. The report
spread, and by the next morning the place was staked out
in town lots, with all the details of streets, squares, &c.,
which are generally the work of time on the part of
surveyors. At the opening sale the lots were disposed
of at the rate of one and a half per minute. In the
aggregate 4-12 lots, covering 300 acres, were sold, and the
next two towns were started, one within two miles, and
the other three miles distant. Shanties appeared on the
prairies,, moving . with all speed on rollers towards
McGregor, and by the second day twelve houses were

under construction, while the owners camped rc'.:nd in
tents. At the close of two months the town numbered
ITO^houses, with a population of 500 souls. A weekly
paper called the 1 /aindeakr appeared in the course of
another month, and thirteen more new houses were built
The prospects of McGregor are said to be most encourag-
ing. Last summer tho railways carried away 15,000 liales
from this thriving young town, and the railway authorities
have begun to build a local freight and passenger depot
with transfer facilities.

How has it been that the monotremes have come to
exist in a rennte part of the world, not only quite with-
out any existing ally (for we count the Kew Guinea species
as an echidna), but without a trace having been found of
any fossil relative 1 Are they to be regarded as the last
survivors of a once very numerous and generally diflFused
kind of animal life, or as specimens of a small and com-
paratively modern local offshoot — a sport 1 Their pecu-
liarities diflfer from the structure of all ordinary beasts in
such a way as to approximate towards that found among
difierent birds and reptiles ; but to which of these
do they approach the nearer ? In a very interesting
paper, read on Tuesday, the 16th, at the Zoo-
logical Society, Professor Lankester pointed out, as the
result of a number of careful dissections, that the structure
of the heart, and especially that of the valve of the right
side of the duck-billed platypus, is (as Professor Owen
sajjaciously divined) bird-like, rather than (as Professors
Huxley and Gegenbaur suspected) formed like that of
crocodiles. The anatomical details on which this judgment
rests are too technical for reproduction here : but, while the
structure of the heart of the platypus is very bird-like, that
of the echidna is less so, so that if in the latter a few per-
forations in a piece of membrane were to appear so as to
reduce the fibrous membrane into fibrous cords, it would
thereby clearly approximate to the form of the heart found
in all other beasts. Thus, the platypus, by its innermost
structure, only makes more and more plain that bird like
nature which its duck's bill caused its first observers to
suspect.

This, from the Chemist and Druyfjist, may be useful iii
the shops and elsewhere : — " It is said that tar may be
instantaneously removed from the hands by rubbing them
with the outside of fresh orange or lemon peel, and wiping
dry immediately. It is astonishing what a small piece will
clean. The volatile oils in the skins dissolve the tar, so
that it can lie wiped oti'."

The ballet at the Princess's Theatre, Manchester, in
which there are twenty-six ladies, has now been for the
past month lit up with the small Swan lamp. Each lady
carries a lamp in a small flower placed on her head, and at
her side a small battery, the average weight of which is
lilb.

The Chester correspondent of the Leeds ilercur;/ says :
— " An important discovery has been made at Elm Colliery,
Buckle}', Flintshire. As some men were engaged at one of
the levels worked by Messrs. AVatkinson they struck upon
spring mineral oil. They endeavoured to utilise the liquid,
and they discovered that it gave a brilliant light, and at
the same time produced less smoke than average oils.
Another spring was discovered on the same level on a sub-
sequent day. The supply from the wells is not, so far,
copious, but it is suflicient to inspire the hope that a ne
industry will spring up in North Wales,

Feb. 2, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

66

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.

By W. Mattieu Williams.

n. — THK BOILING OF WATKU.

AS this is one of the most rudimentary of the operations
of cookery, and the most frequently performed, it
naturally takes a first place in treating the subject.

Water is boiled in the kitchen for two distinct purposes,
1st, for the cooking of itself ; '2nd, for the cooking of other
things. A dissertation on the difference between raw-
water and cooked water may appear pedantic, but, as I
shall presently show, it is considerable, very practical, and
important.

The best way to study any physical subject is tii examine
it experimentally, but this is not always possible with
every-day means. In this case, however, there is no
difficulty.

Take a thin* glass vessel, such as a flask, or better, one
of the "beakers," or thin tumbler-shaped vessels, so largely
used in chemical laboratories ; partially till it with ordinary
household water, and then place it over the flame of a spirit-
lamp, or Bunsen's, or other smokeless gas-burner. Care-
fully watch the result, and the following will be ob-
served:— First of all little buljbles will be formed, adhering
to the side* of the glass, but ultimately rising to the
surface, and there becoming dissipated by difi'usion in the
air.

This is not boiling, as may be proved by trying the
temperature with the finger. What, then, is it 1

It is the yielding back of the atmospheric gases which
the water has dissolved or condensed within itself. These
Dubbles have been collected and by analysis proved to
consist of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbonic acid, obtained
from the air ; but in the water they exist by no means in
the same proportions as originally in the air, nor in
constant proportions in ditlerent samples of water. I need
not here go into the quantitative details of these propor-
tions, nor the reasons of their variation, though they are
very interesting subjects.

Proceeding with our investigation, we shall find that the
bubbles continue to form and rise until the water becomes
too hot for the finger to bear immersion. At about this
stage something else begins to occur. Much larger bubbles,
or rather blisters, are now formed on the bottom of the
vessel, immediately over the flame, and they continually
collapse into apparent nothingness. Even at this stage a
thermometer iuuiiersed in the water will show that the
boiling-point is not reached. As the temperature rises,
these blisters rise higher and higher, become more and more
nearly spherical, finally quite so, then detach themselves
and rise towards the surface ; but the first that make this
venture perish in the attempt — they gradually collapse as
they rise, and vanish before reaching the surface. The
thermometer now shows that the boiling-point is nearly
reached, but not quite. Presently the buljbles rise com-
pletely to the surface and break there. Now the water is
boiling, and the thermometer stands at 212" Fahr. or
100° Cent

With the aid of suitable apparatus it can be shown that
the atmospheric gases above named continue to be given
off along with the steam for a considerable time after the
boiling has commenced ; the complete removal of their last

* In applying heat to glass vessels, thiclmess is a sonrce of
weakness or liability to fracture, un account of the unequal expan-
SJou of the two sides, due to inequality of temperature, which, of
course, increases with the thickness of the glass. Besides this, the
thickness increases the leverage of the breaking strain.

traces being a very difficult, if not an impossible, physical
problem.

After a moderate period of boiling, however, we may
practically regard the water as free from these gases. In
this condition I venture to call it cooked water. Our
experiment so far indicates one of the ditierences between
cooked and raw water. The cooked water has been
deprived of the atmospheric gases that the raw water
contained. By cooling some of the cooked water and
tasting it the dili'erence of flavour is very perceptible ; by
no means improved, though it is quite possible to acquire
a preference for this flat, tasteless liquid.

If a fish be placed in such cooked water it swims for
awhile witli its mouth at the surface of tlie water, for just
there is a film that is reacquiring its cliarge of o.\ygen, iic,
by absorbing it from the air ; but this film is so thin and so
poorly charged, that after a short struggle the fish dies for
lack of oxygen in its blood, drowned as truly and conv-
pletely as a living, breathing animal when immersed in
any kind of water.

Spring water and river water that have passed through or
over considerable distances in calcareous districts suflTer
another change in boiling. The origin and nature of this
change may be shown by another experiment as follows :—
Buy a pennyworth of lime-water from a druggist, and
procure a small glass tube of about quill size, or the stem
of a fresh tobacco pipe may be used. Half fill a small
wine-glass with the lime-water, and blow through it
by means of the tube or tobacco-pipe. Presently it
will become turbid. Continue the blowing, and the
turbidity will increase up to a certain degree of milkiness.
go on blowing with " commendable perseverance," and an
inversion of eflect will follow ; the turbidity diminishes,
and at last the water becomes clear again.

The chemistry of this is simple enough. Prom the
lungs a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbonic acid is
exhaled. The carbonic acid combines with the soluble
lime and forms a carbonate of lime which is insoluble in
mere water. But this carbonate of lime is to a certain
extent soluble in water saturated with carbonic acid, and
such saturation is effected by the continuation of blowing.

Now take some of the lime-water that has been thus
treated, place it in a clean glass flask, and boil it. After
a short time the flask will be found incrusted with a thin
film of something. This is the carbonate of lime, which
has been thrown down again by the action of boiling
in drawing off its solvent, the carbonic acid. This crust will
eft'ervesce if a little acid is added to it.

In this manner our tea-kettles, engine boilers, <te.,
become incrusted when fed with calcareous waters, and
most waters are calcareous ; those supplied to London,
which is surrounded by chalk, are largely so. Thus the
boiling or cooking of such water effects a removal of its
mineral impurities more or less completely. Other waters
contain such mineral matter as salts of sodium and
potassium. These are not removable by mere boiling.

Usually we have no very strong motive for removing
either these or the dissolved carbonate of lime, or the
atmospheric gases from water, but there is another class of
impurities of serious importance. These are the organic
matters dissolved in all water that has run over land
covered with vegetable growth, or, more especially, which
has received contributions from sewers or any other form
of house drainage. Such water supplies nutriment to
those microscopic abominations, the micrococci, bacili,
bacteria, &.C., which are now shown to be connected with
blood poisoning — possibly do the whole of the poisoning
business. These little pests are harmless, and probably
nutritious, when cooked, but in their raw and wriggling

66

• KNOWLEDGE

[FEn. 2, 1863.

(itato aro horribly proliBc in tho lilood of people who are in
certain states of what is called " receptivity." They (the
bacteria, itc.) appear to be poisoned or somehow killed olT
by the dijjestive secretions of the blood of some people,
and nourished luxuriantly in the blood of others. As
nobody can be quite sure to which class he belongs, or
may presently belonj;, or whether the water supplied to
his household is free from blood poisoning organisms,
cooked water is a safer beverage than raw water.

The requirement for this simple operation of cooking
increases with the density of our population, which on
reaching a certain degree renders the pollution of all
water obtained from the ordinary sources almost inevitable.
Reflecting on this subject, I have been struck with a
curious fact that has hitherto escaped notice, viz., that in
the country which over all others combines a very large
population with a very small allowance of cleanliness,
the ordinary drink of the people is boiled water llavoured
by an infusion of leaves. These people, the Chinese, seem,
in fact, to have been the inventors of boiled water
beverages. Judging from travellers' accounts of the state
of the rivers, rivulets, and general drainage and irrigation
arrangements of China, its population could scarcely have
reached its present density if Chinamen were drinkers of
raw instead of cooked water.

LEARNING LANGUAGES.

By Richard A. Proctor.

(Continued from page 498, Vol. 11.)

MY remarks on this subject have been interrupted for
awhile, though by what is likely to increase the
weight of what I have to say. I had supposed the books
in the Hamiltonian system were no longer published.
Readers of Knowledge will have learned from the adver-
tising columns that, not only are they published, but that
they are now cheaper than they were. I have been
engaged during the last few weeks in examining a number
of the works published by Messrs. Hodgson it Son and by
Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall, A- Co., on this system. I have
also placed several of these works in the hands of various
members of my own family, and have carefully noted their
experience, and tested what they have learned. I shall
have more to say on these special points later ; here I
only note that the results have been altogether favourable
to the system.

In my last I had considered my own experience in
learning Latin and Greek, for what I wanted of those
languages, — viz., to read Latin and Greek books, — by the
use of " translations." I am disposed to think that the
efficiency of this way of learning a language dejiends a
good deal on the learner. Not on his zeal and industry,
which I take for granted. I am writing for those only
who vant to learn, and think it worth while to take
some troul)le to learn. The question is not whether
they will lie at the pains to learn, but how best
they can direct their efforts. If a boy takes a "crib"
merely to save himself trouble, he will not learn faster than
his fellows — very likely will not learn as quickly. Thirty
lines of ^'irgil got up with a crib in ten minutes will not
advance a boy's knowledge of Latin so much as the same
thirty lines carefully worked at with grammar and dic-
tionary during an hour or more ; and the time saved by
the first process will be wasted, we may assume, or worse.
But a boy or man who wants to learn Latin, and reads
three or four pages of Virgil or Cicero with a translation, sav

in an hour, and then during, say the next half-hour, after
going over it carefully, looks up in grammar and dictionary
such matters asstill remain notcleartohim; then again reads
through the whole passage to get its eflfect as a piece of
poetry or oratory ; has beyond all question learned much
more about Latin construction, and advanced much more
in mastery over the Latin language, than one who has
given an hour and a half to the attempt to find out with
dictionary and grammar only the meaning of some thirty or
forty lines. He has had as good mental discipline as the
latter, and has also learned much more about Virgil and
Cicero.

But undoubtedly in such work as this the clever boy has
a greater pull over the dull boy than by the grammar and
dictionary method. In both cases the brighter learner
goes ahead, but much more in the work which appeals
throughout to the intelligence than in that which is in
great part the same for the brightest as for the stupidest.
A clever boy may look out fifty words in a dictionary
while a dull one looks out only forty or forty-five, but the
former will catch the force and meaning of fifty phrases,
sayings, and idioms, while the other has barely understood
the significance of half-a-dozen. The work is decidedly
more intellectual than the grammar and dictionary work.
Hence, perhaps, the reason why many masters object to it.
A teacher cannot keep his class together over such work as
he could when the drag of dictionary work was upon them
all.

Yet the dullest gain by the change (granting the will to
work) ; and that the brightest gain much more is no real
reason for objecting to it so far as the learner is concerned,
though it may introduce a difficulty which is troublesome
enough, perhaps, to the teacher.

After all, though, we are considering here rather the
learner who works by himself and for himself than one
who is under class-room discipline. Schoolmasters have
pointed out to me difficulties which I have no doubt are
serious enough. They know well, and I know very little,
the troubles of class-work. It has happened to me nearly
all my life that all my best work has been done by myself.
I scarcely learned anything about languages from teachers,
and nothing whatever about mathematics from them, though
I attended classes held by the ablest, and had one of the most
eminent mathematicians at Cambridge as private tutor.
This may render what I have said of little weight as re-
gards school teaching — though I think there remains a
good deal of truth in the oVijections I have advanced
against the simply preposterous way in which Latin and
Greek are presented to boys' minds in many of our school
books. But for the student who simply wants to learn a
language and is free from all class trammeLs, I am certain
from my own experience that the avoidance of the drudgery
of dictionary work, by using translations, is most desirable,
and if time is an object, essential. The ordinary transla-
tions are useful for this purpose. But they are much more
useful to the quick than the slow-minded. The Hamil-
tonian sy-stem, which I must next consider, is more useful
to all, especially to those who work and reason rather
slowly.

(To be continued.)

It is stated that in the North Atlantic, says the Scieiitijic
American, waves have been oliserved of 24 ft. and 30 ft.
high, highest being 4.') ft., mean IS ft, in westerly gales.
In the Pacific, .■i2 ft. is recorded ; South Atlantic, 22 ft ;
Cape Horn, 32ft. ; Mediterranean, 14.\ft. ; German Ocean,
13Aft. ; and French sailors mention 36 ft in the Bay of
Biscay.

Feb

1883.]

KNOWTLEDGE

67

"OUR BODIES:"

SHORT PAPERS ON PHYSIOLOGY.

By Dr. Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E., ic.

Xo. v.— SKULL AND SPINE.

ONE very perceptible difference between the lower and
" back-boneless," or Invertchraled animals, and the
" back-boned," or Vi:Ttilrat€d series, consists in the posses-
sion by the latter of hard internal parts, named the skeleton.
Perhaps it would be more correct to say the endo- skeleton,
or inner skeleton, for the plain reason that the backboned
animals may, and often do, possess a very well-defined
outer skeleton as well. We, ourselves, possess an outer
skeleton in the form of our hairs, nails, and teeth. All of
these parts are formed from and by the skin-layers, and
possess no relationship with the bones forming the inner-
skeleton. From the fishes to mammals (or quadrupeds),
including man, an internal skeleton is present in some
form or other. It may appear simply as a soft cellular
rod, the notochord, lying along the back of the animal,
and showing no apparent affinity to the skeleton as we
know that structure in higher life. Such is the skeleton
in the lowest fish, known as the Laneelet. Then, as in sharks,
rays, ic, the skeleton may remain permanently in a gristly
(or cartilaginous) condition ; whilst finally, hx most fishes
(cod, salmon, kc), it is composed of hone. We seem to
see that the older fishes, or those which are first known in a
fossil state, such as the sharks and ganoids, represent, in
so far as their skeletons are concerned, an early condi-
tion of the modern and bony fishes. Bone, as we learned
in our first paper, grows from cartilage or gristle ; and it
would thus seem as though in the growth of a single
bone we see a mo\ing picture of the development of
skeletons in past time.

The " backboned " animals, or Vertebrates, as most
readers know, number five classes. These are, firstly,
fishes; secondly, amphibians (frogs, toads, newts, ic),
often confused with, thirdly, the reptiles ; fourthly, birds ;
and fifthly, mammals. Man, I need hardly say, takes his
zoological position at the head of the last-named class.
Leaving out the lowest fishes, and some of the older types
as well, we find that all vertebrates possess an internal
bony framework, the skeleton, which, besides aflbrding
support for the soft parts, and for the attachment of
muscles, also forms cavities {e.g., the skull and chest) for
the protection of important organs. It is true that, even
in man's own class — not to speak of the fishes, reptiles,
and birds — there are animals which may possess a well-
developed outside skeleton. The armadillos of South
America, the pangolins of Asia and Africa, the hedgehogs
and porcupines, all present us with an outside skeleton of
more or less complete character. But, in addition, all the
backboned animals, from fish to man, evince a common
type in the structure and build of their bony parts. We
can discern in all, the spine, vertebral column, or backbone,
which forms the main axis of the body, and which expands
in front or above to form the skull. Then, secondly, we
see the limbs and their skeleton attached to this main axis.
So that it would be perfectly correct in the first instance
to say that all vertebrated animals possess a skeleton which
is divisible, firstly, into the trunk or axis, and, secondly,
the appendages or limbs ; and anatomists have accordingly
come to speak of the a.cial skeleton and the appendicular
skeleton, as representing a natural division of the bony
belongings of the body.

The spine or backbone forms a very convenient starting-
point for a study of the skeleton. It consists in man of

thirty-three bones, each called a vertebra. Each vertebra
is built on a plan similar to that seen in its neighbour-
bones. One common plan thus runs throughout the ele-
ments of the spine. Each of the vertebne consists of a solid
part, called its ciitruin or bodg ; and it is the series of
" bodies," which, when arranged in due order, give solidity
to tlie spine. From the body arise certain projections
called processes. Above, there is an arch which ends
in a process called the spinous process. It is the series
of these latter processes we feel when we stroke a cat's
back, or when we feel our own spine, as in the back of
the neck, for example. Other (transrcrse) processes — for
the attachment of muscles like the spinous processes —
are given off at the sides of the vertebr.-B ; and lastly there
are projections (arlirulur j/rocesses), by means of which each
vertebra interlocks with its neighbours. But a very im-
portant observation is that which shows us that in reality
the spine is a hollow tube. Each vertebra has an arch, as
we have seen ; that is, part of it forms a bridge. If we
join a number of bridges together, we form a tunnel. In
our bodies, then, the vertebr.T, united end to end, form a
tunnel, or continuous tube, within which the sjnnal cord or
spinal inarroin — the great main nerve-trunk of the body —
lies. The hollow of the .spine, moreover, is continued upwards
into the inside of the skull ; the brain and spinal marrow
thus becoming continuous. If we look at the section of a
sheep or ox, whose body the butcher has cleft in two
lengthwise down the middle of the spine, we may see how a
tube is formed by the spine, and how, within this tube, the
spinal cord is lodged. In truth, the body of all vertebrate
animals, from the fish to the man, consists of two parallel
tubes. One tube is formed by the spine and skull, as we
have seen, and contains the nervous system. The other
tube is formed by the general walls of the body, ribs, etc.,
and contains the other organs (heart, lungs, digestive
organs, etc.), of our frames.

In the spine of man there are in all thirty-three bones.
If we tabulate them as follows, we may gain a clear idea of
the composition of the spine : —

(1) Neck Vertebrae 7 in number.

(2) Back „ 12

(3) Lumbar or Loins Vertebrae 5 ,,

(4) Sacrum 5 ,,

(5) Coccyx (or tail) 4 ,,

Total 33

The first three regions, neck, back, and loins, are readily
recognised. The sacrum is a part of the spine, consisting
of a single bone, formed of five united vertebrii', and which
is wedged in between the haunch-bones ; whilst the coccyx
is the rudimentary tail, composed of four small and de-
graded vertebra'. Man's spine is very short as compared
with that of many other animals. A serpent, for example,
has an extremely long backbone, consisting in some cases
of over 400 vertebr;e ; and a spider-monkey may have
more bones in his tail than man possesses in his entire
spine. Man's spine exhibits a series of very beautiful
curves. Its average length in the adult is about 28 inches,
and its curves adapt it for the efTective support of the
weight of head and body. Certain curves are found in
humanity alone. For example, it is only in the human
spine that we find the vertebra? of the loins curved or
convex forward. At birth, the spine is well-nigh straight,
save for a slight concavity or hollowing forward in the
back. But when the erect position begins to be assumed,
as when the child is held upwards in the sitting posture,
the neck-region begins to grow convex forwards, and the
curving forwards in the loins also appears.

The skull was formerly regarded as merely a mass of

63

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Feb. 2, 1883.

verlehra- peculiarly niodifiod for their special position and
functions. But we now know that the skull is developed
in ft diticrent fashio^ from the spine ; and that in its nature,
it bears no such relationship to the backbone as that indi-
cated above. We can divide any skull into (1) the cranial
jiarl, or " brain case ; " and (2) the face pari. In the
humaii skull, which is a simple affair as compared with,
say, tho skull of a cod or crocodile, there are twenty-two
bonea Plight of these form the brain-pan, and fourteen are
found in th'o face. Firmly united together by dovetailing

or sulurci, as the lines of union of the bones are called —

the whole skull forms a beautifully firm case. The eight
bones of the rranium are named as follows : — (1) the occi-
^i7«/ (hinder bone of the head) ; (2 and 3) pari>-Jah, or side
bones ; (4 and •')) temporals ; (G) sphenoid (in the middle
of the aoor) ; (7) the frontal (or forehead bone) ; (S) the
,'lhmoid bone (front of the floor of the skull).

EAR OPENING

The face, with its fourteen bones, is constructed as
follows: — (I and 2) the lachrymals (forming part of the
eye-cavities) ; (3 and 4) the upper jaw bones (united to
form a single bone) ; (5 and 6) the vialars, or cheek bones ;
(7 and 8) the nasals, or nose bones ; (9 and 10) the palate
bones; (11 and 12) the inferior turhinal bones (placed in
the outer walls of the nose-cavities) ; (13) the vomer, or
"ploughshare " bone (in the middle of the nose) ; (14) the
lower jaw.

It is a decidedly human character to find, as we do in man,
that the brainoverhangs the face. In lower animals, and even
in the most manlike apes, the brain retreats, and the face
projects. In lower races of man there is a forward projec-
tion of the face, which is wanting in higher races. The
lower types are therefore said to have prognathous (for-
ward jawed) skulls, whilst the higher races have ortho-
gnathoiis (or straight-jawed) skulls. The skull-openings
are numerous. At the back of the base or floor, we
see a very large hole in the occipital bone, called
the foramen magniim. Through this aperture the >)rain
and spinal cord become continuous. Then we find the
ear-openings in the t-emporal bones, and the ear itself
enclosed within tho substance of these bones. The nostrils
and eyes are also in pairs, and many openings exist for the
passage of nerves from the brain outwards to the face and
head at large.

In our next paper we shall conclude our review of the
trunk, and also consider the skeleton of the limbs.

K few copies of Knowledge, Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and
12, are for sale, iirico, poet free, 6d. each. Apply or address, the
Pnblishors, 75, Gt. Qneon-etrcet, London, W.C.

OPTICAL EFFECTS OF BELLADONNA.

By T. W. Webd.

THE following details of an experiment made by myself
in 1 870 may possibly be considered of sufficient in-
terest to appear in the pages of Knowledge. They are
copied from rough memoranda taken at the time : —

It should be premised that I am near sight^-d : the most
perfect vision with my right eye (the better of the two) l>eing
attained (at that date) at eight or nine inches distance, but
so far astigmatic as to be a trifle sharpened by the slightest
possible pressure on the upper part of the ball. Into the
other eye, which had less perfect definition, but a focus
about one inch longer, on Oct. 0, towards night, I intro-
duced a drop of the preparation of Belladonna known as
" atropine." No effect was perceptiVjle for ten minutes ;
after that time the pupil began to expand elliptically, and
a candle was bordered by coloured fringes, brownish red, I
believe, and blue. Before going to sleep I noticed with
surprise that a faintly-lighted portion of the wall of my
room seemed darker with that than with the other eye.
Next morning the effect was fully attained. There was no
pain or discomfort beyond a sensation as though my two
eyes belonged to different people. Examination in the
middle of the day showed that the pupil was elliptically
enlarged to about four times the size of the other in one
direction, three times in the opposite, the longer axis lying
at about 20^, with a somewhat pear-shaped outline,
narrowest towards the bottom ; and perfectly clear. The
focus was but little, if at all, changed ; but vision was not
sharp, and incapable of improvement by either of two con-
cave lenses suited to differentdistances. Objects very near the
eye are elongated; a circular ink-spot is lengthened towards
40°, and if very near acquires a bright orange interior ; ink
lines in any position are doubled, with an orange space
between them ; at ten or eleven inches the two images
coalesce, and vision in a half-light is nearly normal, but
still there is a kind of glare ; and black writing appears
rather blue. Further off the indistinctness increases ;
luminous objects are encompassed with puzzling rays ; and
a lady's chain in the light on a dark background is attended
by three or four faint and indistinct images on either side.
The general effect is that of a misty glare. Achromatism
is also deranged in various ways. Near the eye white
objects on a dark ground have an orange border, which at
and beyond distinct vision changes to a nebulous blue tint;
at greater distances becoming less marked or evanescent.
White bodies do not seem to be reddened, but, especially in
a strong light, every ruddy tint is deepened ; the hands in
particular acquire a pinker hue, the brown and yellow
leaves of autumn become much redder, and scarlet geranium
blossoms appear crimson. Blue, as of china, is paler, but
not altered in tone. The general aspect of the landscape is
not much affected excepting by haziness ; in a moderate
light objects seem to gain little, if at all, in brightness ; it
is otherwise with a glaring view, as of white clouds, or the
landscape beneath the sun ; but the increase of brightness
is by no means in proportion to that of aperture. All
dark objects seem viewed through a light nebulous mist.
The other eye continued unaffected. In the evening there
was some improvement ; a candle near the eye is fuzzy ;
further away it is surrounded with an elliptic halo, blue
within, brownish red without, enlarging with increasing
distance, and not very symmetrical. Oct. 7. The pupil has
rather diminished, but there is not much difference in the
glare or false colouring, which, however, is now imper-
ceptible in twilight or candlelight. All shadows are still
grey rather than black. Oct 8. Pupil .still very elliptic
and about three times too broad ; the general mist and the

Feb.

1883.]

KNO\A^LEDGE •

69

greyness of the shadows is improving, and there is no
unusual colour ; but lines nearer than distinct vision are
still doubled. By Oct 1 8 only a trace of enlargement re-
mained ; a very triHing ellipticity may, I believe, be the
normal condition of the pupil.

Again, April 8, 1873, the other eye having accidentally
received a slight touch of atropine, and a similar distur-
bance having ensued, the spectroscope was found to show
some increase of intensity in the red, yellow, and yellow-
green. But the most remarkable and unexpected, though,
as it will be observed, not wholly unprecedented, result
was the greater obscurity of everything in a faint light,
such as that of a dark passage, the reverse of the etlect in
a strong one. Polarization produced no appreciable dif-
ference.

I may add that my eye is very tolerant of bright light
I have repeatedly in youth gazed directly at the sun ; and
once did so for a few moments with (I believe) a 3 J inch
achrnniatic at the Radclifle Oliservatory (O.xford) ; but I
should now think such experiments wrong, though they did
not appear to produce any bad result. On the other hand,
perhaps as a natural consequence, I am seldom successful
in picking up very minute points of light

AccoRDlxo to !Mr. Traill, the engineer of the Giant's
Causeway and Portrush electric tramway, the total priuie
cost will be about £il 1,000 for six and a half miles of
tramway, the cost of buildings, rolling stock, electric plant,
engines, law, parliamentary, and engineering expenses.
He says also that the electric car is able to ascend a long
continuous hill of about one and a half miles in length,
and with a gradient of 1 in 3.3, drawing a second car
behind it, and work as readily and as well at a distance
of two miles from the generator as adjacent to it

The new ship canal proposed to be cut between the
Baltic and the Isorth Sea will save nearly 600 miles of the
water journey now made around the Danish peninsula.
The cut will be from CJluckstadt to Kiel, and the length
will be about half that of the Suez Canal, or some tifty
miles.

The Overland Summary (Calcutta, Dec. 2G) s.ays that
the line of railway up to the Akoch side of the Indus has
now been completed, and is ready for use. On the other
side, the tunnel under the hill of Rajah Hoir has been
bored through, and will soon be finished, while the bridge
across the Indus is being rapidly proceeded with ; so that
it is hoped that trains will run to Peshawur without a
break by May 1, 1883.

The total quantity of coal brought into London by
railway and canal in December was 614,087 tons, against
618,889 tons last year. Of these 614,087 tons, the North-
Western carried 140,123 tons; the Great Northern
88,676; Great Western, 11.3,032; Midland, 194,926;
Great Eastern, 69,928; South-Western, 5,063; South-
Eastem, 1,767 ; and the Grand Junction Canal, 570 tons.

A Curious Effect of Lishtxixg. — At the Puy-de-
D6me Observatory, in France, some singular effects of
lightning discharge have been noticed on the copper cups
of a Robinson's anemometer mounted on the roof. The
surface of the metal is curiously pitted, and from the centre
of each pit rises a small cone or nipple of copper, smoothly
polished, as if it had been turned in a lathe. These cones
of fusion produced by the electric discharge remind one
forcibly of the carbon points in an electric lamp, and indi-
cate, as we have before remarked, a gyratory movement of
the electric current. — Enginf-ring.

HEALTH OF CORSETED WOMEX.*

By Dr. D. Lewis.

MANY physicians engaged in general practice have
been asked what proportion of their practice comes
of displacement of the pelvic viscera. Their average testi-
mony is that more than half of their professional business
conies of this one malady.

A letter just recei% ed from the most able specialist in
the treatment of diseases of women known to the writer
(a professor in a prominent medical college) contains the
following language : " I am sure, without being able to
demonstrate it, that 90 per cent, of the so-called female
weaknesses have their origin in corsets and heavy skirts.
They not only depress the pelvic organs by their pressure
and weight, but weaken all of their normal etlbrts."
A number of experi' need practitioners in this depart-
ment of niidicine, hearing of the preparation of this
paper, ha\e written letters expressing the same decided
opinion.

But may not a corset be worn so loose as to do no
harm ? If by a corset, a machine with steel, whalebones,
or other stiffenings be meant, the answer is " No ! " The
corset is hard and stiff, while that portion of the body
which it surrounds is particularly soft and Uexible. If the
wean-r could always stand erect, with the corset so loose as
not to touch her, no harm would be done. But she
must sometimes sit, when the parts under the corset
are greatly enlarged. Bending forward, as in sewing
or reading, she leans against the upper ends of the
whalebones, and then the pressure against the upper ends
is returned against the abdomen at the lower end. If the
wearer will put her hand under the lower end of her corset
while she leans forward against the upper end, she
will lie surprised at the pressure. This pressure upon the
abdonifn, during all the long hours of sitting, does serious
mischief. In one word, it may be added that, with every
bending of the body, even the very loose corset is brought
in contact with yielding parts. The floating ribs — that
masterpiece of the human mechanism — and those soft parts
of the person covered by the corset, cannot perform the
undulating and vital movements incident to respiration and
digestion, even under a very loose corset. Then what must
we say of a corset which is not loose ?

The corset does more than squeeze the waist After
forcing a considerable part of what belongs within the
waist downward into a lower part of the abdomen, to
prevent an unseemly protuberance, the corset is so con-
trived as to spread over all that lower part, force it
down, and, with a firm layer of steel or whalebone,
hold it there. This presses the abdominal viscera down
upon the organs in the pelvis. Then, to end this tragedy
with a farce, people put on serious faces, and wonder why
women suffer from prolapsus uteri.

A numerous and busy class of medical specialists are
devoted to the treatment of malpositions of the organs in
the lower part of woman's abdomen. These malpositions
are, directly and indirectly, the source of a large part of
her ill-health and sufferings. Is it unreasonable to say
that a pressure about the middle of the body, which
reduces the waist from 3 to 15 in., must push what is
within the waist downward, and must inevitably produce
those malpositions of the organs at the bottom 1 Can a
sane woman imagine any other result?

A GIRL WHO HAS INDULGED IN TIGHT LACING SHOULD NOT

MARRY. She may be a very devoted wife, but her husband
will secretly regret his marriage. Physicians of experience

^ Isorth American lleview.

70

KNOWLEDGE

[Feb. 2, 1883

know what is meant, wliile thousands of husbuiuls will not
only know, but di'eply feci tht' meaning of tliis liiiit.

[Dr. Lewis's closing words are specially addressed to his
own nation, but tliey may be read with advantage here.]

One is led to say that the microscopic girls that swarm
about our schools and chatter in our streets are the
curiosities of what we call "high civilisation." They are
found only among the lacing peoples. Wherever women
give free play to their lungs and stomachs, they grow as
large, or nearly as large, as men. Tliis " high civilisation "
is curious. Its avowed aim is a nobler manhood and
womanhood. But while we are so proud of our telegraphs
and railroads, and grand invention.s, and magnificent im-
provements, and large corn-crops, that we run our printing-
presses all night to proclaim our glory to the rising sun,
our doctors, standing in the midst of a nation of men suck-
ing tobacco, caution a nation of corseted women to go slow
and lie fiat on their backs three months every year.

THE AMATEUR ELECTRICIAN.

ELECTRICAL MEASUREMENT.— A'll.

IN order to make the most of the tangent Galvanometer,
a few resistance " blocks " or coils will be necessary.
The wire most serviceable for this purpose will depend upon
the current intended to be sent through it. When only a
small resistance is required, it is in all cases best to use
copper wire, but, for high resistances, German silver should
be used, as the amount of copper required in such cases
would be cumbersome. German silver compared to copper
of the same length and sectional area, and at the same
temperature, ofl'ering a relative resistance of about 13 to 1,
considerable resistance can be introduced into a circuit by
the use of thin wire of that metal. A " resistance-box "
consists of a series of coils of wire offering various resist-
ances, which can be inserted in or withdrawn from a circuit
at pleasure, and with little or no trouble.

Resistance - boxes, or, as they are sometimes called,
" Rheostats," are made in various forms, all more
or less simple in appearance. Considerable mechanical
skill is, however, necessary in the construction of most
of them, because of the necessity that contact, where
it is to be made, should be as perfect as the materials

■will permit. In the plan we are about to suggest, there-
fore, our object is to combine mechanical simplicity
with electrical efficiency. A number of small bobbins
(B, Fig. 1) of ebonite, ebony, or boxwood, are wound
with wire sufficient to give their required resistances.
Some little difficulty may possibly be encountered in
measuring the resistance of the wire ; but that is a
branch of the subject the discussion of which we must
reserve till our next article.*

In winding the coils, the wire, after being measured for
resistance, should V)e doubled in the centre, from which the
winding should be commenced.

If wound singly or continuously, the current, in passing
through any given portion of the coil, induces in other
portions opposing currents of electricity, which frequently
prove very troulilesome. This induction the method of
double winding overcomes, as the current practically tra-
verses two coils in opposite directions, in which the induc-
tive effect is equal and opposite, neutrality being thereby
produced. The bobbins are then fastened in rows by screws,
or otherwise, on the under side of a .sheet of ebonite or
ebony, E E, about a quarter of an inch thick, the distance
between the screws, S S, being about 1 .', in. (The distance,
is, however, quite immaterial, and is only governed hj the
dimensions of the bobbins, &c.) Between the bobbins,
brass " Idnding-screws," C D, pass through the plate, E E
to which they are screwed on the under or upper surface —
the latter by preference. To the under portion of each
binding-screw one of the extremities of each of the two
adjacent coils is then screwed by means of the movable
nut, N. Pieces of stout copper wire — or, better still, brass

Cvi

K)

straps shaped as shown in Fig. 2 — connect the upper por-
tion of each binding-screw to the similar portion of those
adjacent.

0--

DO — I-

EO— 10-

HO-

-5 — OC

-50 — OF

* Meanwhile, those of our readers who are unable to secure the
use of a "standard" resistance coil are invited to send to "The

Fig. 3. (the figures in the last column should have
been -i, 4, 40, 400.)

Fig. 3 illustrates a device for sixteen coils, ranging in
resistance from •! to -100 Ohms. The coils are arranged
in four rows under the ebonite plate, which measures 9 in.
by 7.1 in. In the diagram, the circles represent the ter-
minals or binding-screws, and the figures represent the
resistance of the coil of wire connected to the adjacent
terminals. Little paper or ivory labels may be fastened
over the screw-heads (S Fig. 1), indicating the resistance
offered by the subjacent coil. The ebonite plate Viecomes
the top of a shallow box — say an inch in depth. In addi-
tion to the straps normally connecting the adjacent binding-
Electrician," KNowt.F.nGE Office, 74-76, Great Queen-street, W.C.,
short lengths (about two yards each) of about No. 35 B.W.G. copper
wire and Nos. 24 and 35 German silver wire (all silk-covered). A
stamped directed envelope being enclosed, the specimens will bo
measiu-ed and returned for use as standards of comparison.

Feb.

1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

71

screws on each row, a strap should also connect B to C, D
to E, and F to G. A and H will then become the terminals
to which the wires from other apparatus are connected. It
is clear that with all the straps joined across, the current
entering; at A will pass through those straps to H, instead
of passing through the coils, which the straps " cut-out "
or "short-circuit" Suppose it is required to insert a resist-
ance of 275 Ohms, then the straps over the 200, 40, 30,
3, and 2 Ohms resistance coils should be disconnected by
loosening the screws at one extremity of each such strap
and moving it out of contact. The current is then forced
to pass through the coils enumerated. By disconnecting
the side straps such as BC, we obviously break the circuit
or introduce a resistance of "infinity," and by disconnecting
all the three side straps, we can now use each row of
coils in a separate circuit. This resistance-bo.x, we shall
find, is very useful for Wheatstone Bridge, and similar
experimenta

NOVELTIES IN TRICYCLES.

By John Browxixg,

(Treasurer of llie London Tricycle Club.)

THERE are sufficient novelties in the Stanley Show of
Bicycles and Tricycles, which is held all this
■week at the Albert Hall, to ensure the success of half-a-
dozen such exhibitions. Yet, the novelty is almost exclu-
sively in tricycles, showing conclusively which way the tide
is running. Only one novelty — a new kind of gearing —
has been applied to a bicycle, and that is an after- thought.
It was invented for the purpose of gearing tricycles up or
down at pleasure, and it is called the Crypto-dynamic
gearing ; it gives to bicyclists a power they have never had
before.

In this brief notice I cannot do much more than name
the novelties, reserving my descriptions and criticisms for
further articles which the editor of Ksowledce has kindly
asked me to writ* for him.

I would not in all cases wish it to be understood that I
recommend everything I name on the score of novelty.

There is some amount of misplaced ingenuity, but for
ingenuity well applied I would specially name the Sterling
tricycle, by Adam Burdess. For moderately high speed,
comfort, and safety, I think this open-fronted rear-steerer
the best in the show. Next to it I would mention Rucker's
improved rear-steering tricycles, though I only place them
next because I consider Burdess's method of back pedalling
to drive forwards gives a power of hill-mounting which
cannot be obtained equally w-ell in any other way.

First for speed I would name the new models of the
Humber tricycle. For graceful appearance and exquisite
workmanship they are almost unequalled. But, lest my
numerous readers in Knowledge should suppose that 1
recommend this tricycle before all others for their adoption,
let me remind them that comfort and safety ought to be
studied when they select a tricycle, as much as speed and
appearance. The so-named Ladies' Humber fairly com-
bines all these conditions. -It is as well adapted for
gentlemen as ladies.

There is little room left for me to do more than mention
the names of the leading novelties. I would direct atten-
tion, while there is yet time to inspect them, to the
" Weston " tricycle, a new double-driver and front-steerer
of excellent workmanship and admirably planned. The
"Diana" tricycle, a doul)le-driving front-steering machine,
driven with balls on wire instead of a chain. This
machine is geared so that it can be driven either as a 48"
or as a 35", and it is a double-driver, with either gearing.

The " Orbicycle " is an excellent machine ; a double-
driver without a chain ; but it is unnecessarily heavy.

The special J)evon tricycle has a swing frame, which
enables the rider to place himself at will at any angle of
the machine, so that he can ride vertically with full
power up-hill. W. Keen it Co. exhibit Kinnaird's patent
action for bicycles and tricycles ; a contrivance by which
about G" throw in the crank can be used with less than
9'' rise and fall of the foot.

Singer &, Co. exhibit the lightest and most compact
Sociables for two riders, and also a most novel tricycle, in
which the whole three wheels steer.

The whole of the exhibits were not in position while I
was taking these notes. 1 may, therefore, have to name
two or three novelties next week.

TuE Zeilung des Verehu Deni^cker Eisenbahn-^'er-
ivaltungen (Berlin, Jan. 12) has received from its Russian
correspondent the following details of the working of the
Trans-Caucasian railway during the first half of 1882.
This line, which is under the control of the Minister of
War, carried the following Government traffic, of course
without payment : 6,78G men, 1,1. 3o tons of munitions of
war, 12, .53.5 tons of military and other stores, 586 horses,
109 transport, itc, waggons, and 1.3 head of cattle. The
ordinary paid traffic for the same period amounted to 7,748
passengers, with about 19 tons of baggage, 4 vehicles, 38
horses, 2,659 head of cattle, and 1,818 tons of ordinary
goods. The total receipts (including X732 received for
conveyance of mails) amounted to .£3,900. The writer
remarks that there can be no question as to the working
expenses exceeding the receipts by at least five times their
amount.

The Study of Locic. — A question has been raised of
late as to the value of the study of logic to improve the
reasoning powers. If by the word logic is meant what is
usually called formal logic, I venture to say — from an
experience of my own — that the effect of such study is not
good, that while it is in progress the reasoning powers are
apt to deteriorate, and that in all probability they will be
permanently diminished if the study of logic continues too
long. I observed — and I find others have noted the same —
that when much time had been given to the investigation
and classification of the various forms of syllogism, the mind
became apt to interrupt the reasoning process for one of
classification, noting to what class any syllogism that pre-
sented itself belonged, rather than considering (what
requires no logic to determine) whether the syllogism were
sound or not. The efl'ect might be compared to that of the
careful explanation of the movements involved in rowing,
skating, and swimming, in the case of one already able
to row, skate, or swim fairly well. Such a one, in his
anxiety to follow serial iin the movements explained to him,
is very apt to perform them far less satisfactorily than he-
did when he went through them without thinking about
them at all. As Macaulay remarks in his " Essay on
Bacon," a sensible man reasons in Barbara and Celarent all
day long without thinking about the matter. Set him to
note carefully what he is doing, and you give his mind
work to do which in no sense advances his reasoning. Few
men have enough extra brain energy in them to go through
this unnecessary mental work without disadvantage. But
the study of the various lines of false reasoning into which
most men are apt occasionally to fall, as arguing in a circle,
forgetting the point at issue, or begging the question — this
is at once useful and interesting. — Richard A. Proctor,
in Newcastle Weekly Chronicle.

72

KNOnA^LEDGE

[Feb. 2, 1883.

COMETS' TAILS.

HAVING rend your admiralilo article in the Cmifnm-
/loriiri/ Ri'i-ifir on Coinots, 1 venture to oli'cr to your
readers a new theory on comets' tails [not altogether
new. Bredichin's theory is similar ; and in its general
features the tlieory was suggested long since hy Prof.
Norton, of Yale (first), and l>y myself independently, later.
— R. A. P.], which, I think, if worth nothing more, is
at least as good as anything yet devised, and therefore
equally worth demolition at your hands.

I venture to think that the repulsive force which acts is
nothing more than that which, on a smaller scale, acts in a
Crookes' radiometer. That space is more or less tilled with
greatly attenuated matter, many considerations will lead to.
Only last issue of Nature contained an account of re-
seaiches by Professor Aubrey, in which he claims to have
discovered an absorption of radiation in the space between
us and the sun, and to have traced this to the presence of
hydro-carbons. Struve's researches on the distribution of
the stars, showing that the stars of the lower magnitudes
are less numerous than they should be, if stars were
equally distributed in space and there were no absorption
nf li'jht, points in the same direction. Again, what is to
prevent the outer edges of all atmospheres flying off in the
same form, as the unlimited expansibility of a gas would
lead us to suppose 1 Here, then, we have one of the con-
ditions in space that also exists in the glass bulb of the
radiometer.

Next, I wish to show that any rery small particles of solid
matter would be strongly acted on by this repulsive ten-
dency, and the more strongly the smaller they were.
The conditions of repulsion are simply that the repelled
side should be slightly warmer than the other ; the radia-
tion of the sun, so rapidly received, so rapidly parted
with in the cold interstellar space, would ensure this.

Now let the repelled particles be assumed to be spheres
— the worst possible shape for the hypothesis — and let the
repulsive tendency per unit of surface directly exposed to
the sun =(/) ; then the repulsion on each particle will
be (;)7rr- (resolving the lines normal to the sun), and
the attraction of gra\itation will be |(/u!r5''. Hence,
the total action on the particle towards the sun will
be 7rr-(|grpr— -(/j). Now, the smaller the particle the
smaller r will be, and, if small enough, this ex-
pression must have a minus value, and the total
resultant action on the particle will be changed from attrac-
tion to a violent repulsion, within certain limits depending
on the velocities of the molecules of the attenuated gas
acting on the particle, as violent as we please by making r
as small as we please. What, then, do I suppose 1 That
the comet approaching the sun — stopping radiation — be-
comes, at its surface, lost ; hence, the violent jets seen
there, directly they get a certain distance from the heated
surface, are condensed as fog, in small particles, and beaten
back liy this interstellar molecular " laonibarding " action,
into the shape of these envelopes — a line of envelope mark-
ing a line of equal temperature ; but this envelope itself
shuts in the heat within, and radiation out ; and another
envelope is formed within that — the edges of these envelopes
sweeping back under the repulsive action to form the
tail.

I conceive the successive striations in the tail to be " the
winnowing out " of the different elements, according to
size, ifec, as you mention in the Contemporary.

Next, although I conceive the tail to be made up of
small ])artic/es, probaVily solid, yet the specti'oscopic obser-
vations would surely not deny this. The luminous clouds
seen a few weeks back in conjunction with the aurora

were probably made up of minute liquid or solid particles,
and yet would most probably have given a spectrum of a
few bright lines. [They did not, however. — Ed.]

Fred. F. Geensted.

THE WEATHER PROPHECIES.

I HAVE just read in Knowledoe Sir Edmund
Beckett's strictures on " Weather Prophecies," and
agree with him as to the desirability of testing and record-
ing the tests, though my observations do not accord with
his. It is true that I have only made them when at the
seaside, and exclusively in reference to the wind and the
warnings. I have generally found the warnings correct,
though often unpunctual, i.e., the gale has come later than
was expected.

On one occasion especially, sailing from London to
Dublin, and calling at several places on the South Coast,
we starti d from Cornwall in spite of the cone, the weather
being exceptionally fine. We soon repented, and the
captain, a man of much experience, stated that he had
found the warnings generally reliable.

It would be interesting if, say, three independent
observers in each of the districts named would make a
similar record to that of Sir Edmund Beckett, and send
these to Knowledge. The observer should write his notes
of the day's weather hefoie rea<H»r/ the offieial prophecy,
and make no alteration afterwards, " litera scripta mnnet."
If on any day the three observers disagreed materially, the
observation for that day should be erased as worthless. If
two agreed closely and one was discrepant, the order of that
day's record should be rated accordingly.

If some unprejudiced person would act as umpire,
making the comparisons, and expressing numerically
the weights pro and con, a general summary of the
results might be so made as to express numerically the
percentage of success and failure of the British clerks of
the weather. My prophecy concerning the prophecies is
that they will be found very successful as regards the wind,
but doubtful otherwise. I have theoretical reasons for
this anticipation, over and above the before-named experi-
ences. These reasons I will explain if my prophecy prove
correct. If wrong, like a true prophet, I will say no more
about it. W. Mattieu Williams.

The Electric IIesist.\nce of Glass. — Mr. G.
Faussereau has been experimenting in this field, and says
(in Comptes Rendus) : — For common glass, of specific
gravity 2-539, expressing the resistances per cubic centi-
metre in millions of megohms, we obtain the following
results : —

Temperatures. Resistances.

-(- 61-2°C 0-705

-I- 20 91-0

— 17 79700

To form an idea of the magnitude of this latter resistance
we may remark that it represents about twice the resistance
of a copper wire of one square millimetre in section, ex-
tending from the earth to Sirius. The resistance varies
about by one-ninth of its value per degree of temperature.
Hard glass of Bohemia, of specific gravity 2 131, is from
ten to fifteen times more conductive than ordinary glass at
the same temperatures. The crystal glass used has the
specific gravity 2-033. It is 1,000 to 1,500 times less con-
ductive than ordinary glass at the same temperatures. Its
conductivity is only manifested above 40° C. At 46-2° 0.
its resistance = 6182 ; at 105° = 11-6.

Feb

1883]

• KNOWLEDGE •

73

CORPULENCE.*

NOTHING is more common than to hear stout people
_ wish they were thinner, while not a few spare people
wish for more adipose tissue. Much of this arises from
man's nature not to lie satisfied witli things as they are ;
but some of this complaint rests on better grounds. There
are certain disadvantages connected with carrying around
an excessive quantity of useless fat. It is evident that the
labour expended in carrying three hundred pounds of
human flesh from place to place, or lifting it up a flight of
.stairs, is twice that required to handle one hundred and
fifty pounds. The exertion Vieing greater, the muscles
should be stronger but. unfortunately they are usually
weaker. All this weight must be borne by the same pair
of feet, which frequently sutler from the strain, or are
crushed by the superincumbent weight. An accumulation
of fat about the trunk impedes respiration, and makes
exercise almost impossible. For these and similar reasons
that will readily occur to the reader, corpulent people are
generally anxious to get rid of the excess. This is par-
ticularly the case with ladies of fashion, for " too much fat
spoils the figure."

In the case of our domestic animals, we have it largely
within our own control to say whether they shall be fat or
thin. Every farmer knows how to fatten his cattle, and a
fat horse is considered an index to the liberality of his
feeder. Lea\-ing out of account a few unhealthy itidi"i-
duals, most animals fatten when allowed to eat their fill
and take their ease, liut soon lose flesh when the feed is
limited or bad.

In the human species, the rule fails as often as it holds
good. Most lean men are notoriously large eaters, and
.some are, in addition, excessively lazy. Apparently all the
conditions favourable to fattening are present, yet the indi-
vidual remains spare and thin. Others attain great size on
a limited diet of the poorest food. Nothing is more com-
mon than to see two individuals, a husband and wife, two
brothers, or two sisters, living and working side by side,
eating the same food, and drinking the same beverages,
apparently taking an equal amount of exercise, yet one
will weigh nearly twice as much as the other. The only
explanation that has lieen offered for such cases, if both
are in health, is that one is predisposed to einhonpoinl, the
other not No doubt the natural disposition, too, has a
great influence ; worry, rather than work, consumes the
flesh, so that men who take the world easy frequently stay
fat on the most limited dieti

The predisposing causes of corpulency, according to
Immermann, are as follows : — 1. IJercditi/, although it
may not show itself until middle life. 2. Period of life.
Nursing babies and people over forty are most inclined to
be fat. Sex ; the female is more inclined to be stout than
the mal& i. I'hysiolof/ical consli/ittioyi : full-blooded
people throw up more fat than most thin-blooded ones, but
there is a sort of amemic condition that also favours cor-
pulence. 5. Temperament. 6. Genital anomalies ; we
know that wethers, oxen, and capons, as well as eunuchs,
are usually fat. Although the above-mentioned causes,
which are beyond the control of the individual, favour cor-
pulence, they do not produce it.

That a large number of corpulent persons are anxious to
exchange their estate is shown by the large sale that " anti-
fat" nostrums have, although their dangerous character is
evident from the fact that at least one death has been
traced to their usa It is not stated whether the victim,
who had taken eighteen bottles of the medicine, had

* From the Bcientific American.

acijuired the desired degree of tenuity before her death, but
we infer that she had not, as she is spoken of as being
" very stout." We conclude that " anti-fat " is not what it
pretends to be, notwithstanding its dangerous character,
and some authorities say that its chief ingredient is yWw.i
r-r.viculom.% or tangle, a kind of seaweed, also used in some
places to fatten hogs. If it really possesses any virtue,
which is exceedingly doubtful, it is due to the iodine which
it contains.

(To ha continued.)

AX OPTICAL EXPERIMENT.

I HAVE recently bec^n struck by the very beautiful
experiment which can be made with an ordinary hand
lens and a bucket of turbid water. If the lens lie held
near to the surface of the water (rain-water, after the
grosser particles of soot have l>een deposited, answers very
well), and exposed to a noon-day sun, the cone of light will
track itself through the turljid water in the same manner
as a beam of light through the dusty air of a darkened
room. And now, supposing the lens not achromatic, and
of short focus, there will be seen the eftects of both the
spherical and the chromatic aberration painted on the
motes suspended in the water. The former shows itself as
a central bright line, shooting somewhat beyond the apex of
the cone formed by the rays from the marginal parts of
the lens, as well as by the form of the caustic curve near
the focus, when the rays cross to form the reversed cone.
But it is the chromatic aberration which is most beautiful
in this experiment Before the crossing of the rays at the
focus the cone of light is tinged with red, and after having
crossed the colour is blue, the latter rays having passed
from the inside to the outside of the cone. On intercepting
the light at any point of its path through the water by a
piece of white cardboard, both red and blue rays can be
observed in their proper relative positions. After making
the experiment, it is satisfactory to try the efiect of
an achromatic lens of about equal focal distance for
comparison.

This suggests to me that a few papers from your pen on
this very interesting subject of optics would be acceptable,
perhaps, to a wider circle of readers than purely astro-
nomical matter, which seems to be of limited interest The
number of optical instruments of various kinds in the hands
of the public is now very large, and therefore illustrations
and experiments drawn from the whole range of optical
instruments should be of proportionate interest — A. N. S.

A Toad's Citn'ntnt,. — Charles White, of New Castle,
has a brood of chickens which have the run of a portion of
the yard, the old hen being kept shut up. The chickens
are fed with moistened meal, in saucers, and when the
dough gets a little sour it attracts large numbers of flies.
An observant toad has evidently noticed this, and every
day, towards evening, he makes his appearance in the
yard, hops to a saucer, climbs in, and rolls over and over
until he is covered with meal, having done which he awaits
developments. The flies, enticed by the smell, soon swarm
around the scheming batrachian, and whenever one passes
within two inches or so of his nose, his tongue darts out
and the fly disappears ; and this plan works so well that
the toad has taken it up as a regular business. The
chickens do not manifest the least alarm at their clumsy
and big-mouthed playmate, but seem to consider it <]uite a
lark to gather around him and peck off his stolen meal,
even when they have plenty more of the same sort in the
saucers. — Nev; Hampshire Gazette.

74

• KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Fed.

1883.

lAfblflUS!.

ELECTRIC ILLUMINATION.*

MR. DREDGE, one of the editors of our e.xcellent
contemporary Eiii/iiirrrinr/, liasaccomplislied a great
task in amassinr; such an amount of valuable information
as is to lie found in the volume now before us. The greater
part of it lias already appeared in the pag<!S of that journal ;
but tlic work involved in such a compilation brought up
ahncist to the day of publication, cannot have been much
diminished on that account.

In a well-pointed preface, the editor is careful to warn
his readers against the twofold danger which must inevit-
ably result from such an amount of speculation as has
for some time been evinced by certain sections, viz., the risk
ignorant and gullible men run of losing their money, and
the reaction that must ensue, making all sections more or
less timid, and so hampering further discoveries and inven-
tions. "Possibly it will be found," says Mr. Dredge,
" that no mode of electric lighting can be thoroughly
adapted for domestic purposes until an efficient system of
storage batteries has been devised." Here is to be found,
we opine, the keystone to many a disaster that will, almost
beyond doubt, be witnessed before many months have
passed.

We are next reminded of the fact that forty years ago
the attention of physicists was turned to electric lighting,
and that many inventors have recorded ideas in the patent
office, which " clash dangerously with some modern inven-
tions." The history of the eflbrts to make electric lighting
commercially successful is then briefly sketched, honourable
names are mentioned which we rarely hear nowadays, and
a useful preface is closed with an epitome of the work
attempted in the succeeding 900 good-sized pages. The
book is divided into four sections and an appendi.x. The
lirst section, extending over eighty-seven pages, embraces
five good chapters on " Electrical Units," " The Measure-
ment of Electrical Intensity," "The Voltaic Arc," "The
Mechanical Production of Electric Currents," and "The
Theory of Dynamo-Electric Generators " respectively.
The order of these chapters might, perhaps, have been
modified with advantage, at least as regards that
on " The Voltaic Arc," which occupies a somewhat
isolated position. The chapter on Units is admirably
written, the object being to convey to non-technical
but intelligent minds a clear conception of the prin-
ciples governing tlieir value and significance. We
notice, however, with regret, that the term '• intensity " is
introduced in a highly un-English, and we may add un-
scientific, manner. Those of our readers who have studied
the subject for any lengthened period will doubtless
remember that this term used to be applied in England in
the same sense that we now use the term " electro-motive
force." In France it has long been customary to speak of
" intensity " where we used to speak of " quantity," or as
we now say " current-strength." It is in fact the value

" C" in the equation C=-^. There is no excuse for such

R
an intrusion, the only works in which the term is similarly
applied being those translated from the French. The very

* Electric Illuminatioyi. By Conrad Cooke, James Dredge,
M. F. O'Reilly, S. P. Thomi'son, and H. Vivarez. Edited by
James Dredge, with abstracts of specifications having reference to
electric lighting, prepared by W. Lloyd Wise, Member of Council
of Institute of Patent Agents. Vol. I. (London : Offices of
Enijineeriiuj.)

word implies a property whicli many large currents do not
possess. As an illustration we may cite the Edison dynamo,
which, while it is capable of supplying sufficient electricity
to illuminate a thousand incandescent lamps, has no effect
whatever upon — the current cannot, in fact, pass through
— a human being, while tlie smaller current from a
Brush or any of the large dynamos for arc lighting, would
and has produced instantaneous death. It would, there-
fore, have been preferable to let the word sink into oblivion
rather than help to perpetuate so evident a misnomer.
Apart from this, the chapter may be commended as the
simplest and best we possess. The chapter on the voltaic
arc is interesting in the highest degree, and serves, too, to
show us how much we have yet to learn on the subject.
Some trouble has been taken to gather all available
information on the temperatm-e of the arc, which, it
has been said, approaches that of the sun. How varied
are the figures ! The highest computation for the
carbon is G,000° Cent., while Professor Rosetti gives
much lower figures. The temperature of the sun is
variously estimated, by Ericsson at between four and five
million degs. Fahr., by Secchi at 250,000° Fahr., by Violle
at not more than 2,500° Cent, and by Rosetti at 10,000°
Cent., or 20,000° if allowance is made for the absorption
of the solar atmosphere. The fourth and fifth chapters, in
which we recognise a now familiar style, very ably deal
with topics of the greatest importance to electricians,
engineers, and the public at large. " Of the thousands
who have heard that a steam-engine can provide us with
electric currents, how many are there," asks the writer,
" who comprehend the action of the generator or dynamo-
electric machine ? How many, of engineers even, can ex-
plain where the electricity comes from, or how the
mechanical power is converted into electrical energy, or
what the magnetism of the iron magnets has to do with
it all 1 " How many, indeed ! How many, may we add,
who imagine that friction is the source of all the mighty
power procured ! The way in which the difficulties are
gradually, progressively, and cleverly cleared away, is
ingenious in the extreme.

The phraseology, however, is at times somewhat awkward
— as, for example, on page 51 we read, " at first it lies
horizontal with its plane very nearly along the lines of
force, so that almost none of them pass through it." These,
however, amid so many excellences are but slight and
pardonable blemishes, and we should strongly ad\"ise every
one who is interested in the sulrject, however expert or
however ignorant he may be, to carefully peruse these two
chapters, which close with an ingenious and well-explained
theory concerning the " displacement of the brushes " of
dynamo-machines and electric motors — a theory which may
be calculated to charm away many troubles in the mind of
the inquiring electrician.

Section 2 is devoted to " Magneto and Dynamo-electric
Generators," and extends over 230 pages. Most of the
matter has previously appeared in the columns of Enr/ineer-
iiii/, but the collection of descriptions here given is of
extreme utility, more especially to the engineer. The
machines are treated historically, and every efibrt is made to
present a complete account of all that has been done towards
perfecting the dynamo. A perusal of this portion of the
book cannot fail to convince one of the invalidity of the
claims urged by numerous " inventors " of the present day.
The matter is carefully written, the descriptions being both
clear and complete.

Section 3 deals with conductors and carbons ; the
chapter on conductors containing a considerable amoimt
of reliable information useful to the electrician and highly
interesting to the general reader. The relative value of

Feb. 2, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

75

the different metals when used as conductors, and the
etKciency of the different materials used for insulating pur-
poses, are exhaustively dealt with ; several other important
ijuestions being also considered. The adaptation of
asbestos is referred to, but little is said about it, owing,
doubtless, to the short experience so far olitained. It
is, however, suggested, and we think rightly, that
there appears to be a promising field for it The
authors, speaking of the manufacture of carbons, assert
tliat " to give precise details of the mode of pro-
ducing carbons, followed now by some of the principal
makers, is out of the question, as the secret, if there bo
one, is jealously kept" A history is then given of the
known processes, taken from M. Fontaine's " L'Eclairage
Electrique," demonstrating how far in this branch of the
subject the pioneers of electric lighting had advanced. So
much, in fact, do they appear to have accomplished, that
one marvels at the comparatively small progress since
made. M. Carre, who may be regarded as one of the, if
not the, principal manufacturer of electric carbons, has
conducted a large number of experiments, and has been
enabled by these means to deduce several important facts,
of which he takes advantage in the process of manufacture.
Referring to the Jablochkoff candle, we are informed that
a foreman, storekeeper, and twenty-nine men are capable
of producing an output of 5,000 candles per day, or
1,800,000 per annum.

Section 4 contains descriptions of the various forms
of arc, semi- incandescent, and incandescent lamps. As in
the other sections, an historical sketch precedes the de-
scription of the various modem forms, implying thereby a
considerable expenditure of time and trouble. It is with
great satisfaction that we find honour awarded to those to
whom, in our opinion, it is justly due. " To whom in future
years," says the writer, " will the honour of this revolution
(in the application of electricity to lighting) lie accorded ]
To no one person, certainly, but amongst the crowd of
-scientific workers, it is evident that a first place must be
accorded to il. Gramme and M. Jablochkoff." The descrip-
tion of Edison's work is naturally a most important feature
in the chapter on incandescent lamps, and a highly interest-
ing account is given of the different phases in the history
of his multitudinous patents. Edison's meters for measur-
ing the amount of current supplied are fully described,
and then follows a very elaViorate statement of the claims
of Edison and Swan to priority, an effort being made to
demonstrate that Swan was first in the field, and more im-
portant still, that one of the chief claims of each of these
two heroes (if we may be permitted so to style them) are
absolutely diametrical, and neither of them essential. This
closing section is certainly not the least interesting, and
the book is completed by an extensive appendix, comprising
abstracts of patents, kc.

The work is splendidly finished, printed in good clear
type, on firstclass paper, and contains upwards of eight
hundred magnificent illustrations, such as we rarely see in
English manuals. It teems with most valuable infor-
mation to all who are interested in the subject, and it
would be difficult to imagine a treatise of a more
exhaustive and entertaining character. It appears at a
most opportune moment, and will certainly do a gi-eat deal
towards dispelling the doubts and ditficulties of many
engineers and others who will soon, if they do not already,
perceive the necessity of possessing a knowledge of the
principles and applications of the youngest of the sciences.
A second volume is promised, and we look forward to it
with considerable interest, anticipating that the two
v^olumes will together constitute a standard manual of the
highest order.

THE FACE OF THE SKY
From Febeuary Sxn to Febrdaby 16th.

THE Bun should be examined on every clear day for spots and
facnlir.

Mercury is invisible. Venus, though very low down, ia still a
conspicuous object before sunrise.

The con.stellations now visible (see " Tlie Stars in their Seasons,"
Map II.) are Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Orion, Monoceros,
Pegasus, and Cetns, setting in the S.W. and W. ; and Ljtsi and
Cygnas doing the same in the X. and N.W. ; Andromeda in the
West too ; Coma Bei'eniees, Canes Venatici, and Bootes in the E.
and X.E. ; and Ursa Major to the E. of the zenith.

Saturn should be looked for as soon after dusk as possible, as he is
rapidly approaching the west. He is still to be found to the S. and
a little to the E. of 0 Arietis. Jupiter is still the most conspicuous
object in the night sky. He scarcely moves from his position to
the W. and a little to the X. of J Tauri. His angular diameter is
slowly diminishing, but this can hardly be detected without micro-
metrical measurement. The phenomena exhibited by his satellites,
and visible at fairly convenient hours, are somewhat numerous
during the next fourteen days. To-night (2nd) Satellite 11. will
be occulted at 7 h. Sm., not to reappear from eclipse until
11 h. 52m. 4s. p.m.; nine minutes after midnight Satellite I. will
enter on to Jupiter's face ; the usual sequence of phenomena of it
and its shadow happening during the earlier hours to-morrow
morning. On the 3rd, Satellite I. will be occulted at 0 h. 19 m.
p.m., and reappear from eclipse at 12 h. 35 m. 7s. p.m. The egress
of the shadow of Satellite II. will happen at C h 19m. p.m. on the
4th. This will be followed by the ingress of Satellite I. at U h. 36 m.
At 7 h. 39m. the shadow of Satellite I. will follow it on to
Jupiter's face. Satellite I. itself will pass off at 8h. 51m., and its
shadow at 9 h. 55 m. On the 5th, Satellite I. will reappear from
eclipse at 7h. 4 m. 5 s. The transit of Satellite III. will begin
at 10 h. 58 m. p.m., and its egress happens at 1 h. 39m. a.m. on the
Uth. This should be carefully watched, for the rea.son given on
page -12. On the 9th, Satellite III. will reappear from eclipse at
7 h. 52 m. 23 s. p.m., and Satellite II. will be occulted at 9h. 32m.
An occultation of Satellite I. will happen at 11 h. 9 m. p.m. on the
10th. On the 11th the shadow of Satellite II. will enter on Jupiter's
disc at 6 h. 11m. p.m. ; at 6 h. 41 m. the Satellite itself will pass
off the opposite limb. The ingress of Satellite I. will occur at
,S h. 2() m., and the shadow of Satellite II. will leave Jupiter's face
at 8 h. 57 m. The shadow of Satellite I. will begin to cross his disc
at 9 h. 34 m. ; the Satellite will pass off at 10 h. 41 m., followed by
its shadow at 11 h. 50 m. On the 12th, 1. will reappear from
eclipse at 8 h. 59 m. 45 s. The egress of the shadow of this same
Satellite will happen at 6h. 19 m. p.m. on the 13th. If the student
will sit up until the constellation Leo is well above the horizon, he
may now obtain a telescopic view of the planet Uranus. As a
guide to its position, he may draw a line from r Leonis through
a 6th magnitude star (89) to the left of it (" The Stars in their
Seasons" Map II.), nearly on which line, and to the left of 89
again will be found the planet. It will be recognised at once by its
pale bine disc, which will become more and more perceptibly
marked with each increase of magnifying power.

The Moon does not rise until nearly .3 a.m. on the 2nd ; and
scarcely comes into view for the observer's purpose until the 9th,
at noon, on which day she is 17 days old. On the 9th she travels
from Aquarius into Pisces. She remains in Pisces during the whole
of the 10th and 11th, passing on the 12th into Aries, out of which
she does not pass until the 1-tth, when she moves into Taurus. She
enters her first quarter at 9h. 55m. a.m. on this day. She does not
quit Taurus during the 15th. The solitary occultation visible dur-
ing the date comprised in our heading is that of the 5J mag. star
liAC, which disappears at the moon's dark limb, at an angle of
143° from her vertex,* at lOh. 5m. p.m., and reappears at her bright
limb at llh. 10m. p.m., at an angle of 288° from her vertex.

HEALTn oY Bkightox. — According to the Registrar- General's
report for the week ending Saturday last, Brighton occupies a con-
spicuously favourable position in the list of the twenty-eight large
towns whose rates of mortality are periodically published. It
comes first on the roll, with the very low mortality of 127 per
1,100 i)er annum, having a note appended that no death during
the week was referable to any of the principal zymotic diseases.
Leicester and Bristol follow Brighton, with rates of IC'l and 16'4
respectively, while Hull, Sunderland, and Liverpool, at the other
end of the list, present the formidable figures of 305, 306, and
31-1. The average mortality of the twenty-eight towns during the
week was 224. — Daily Telegraph.

* See page 11.

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Feb. 2. 1883.

^y^^i^^z^i^v^rr^

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfrkd Tennyson.

iLftuiS tc ifte (ZtliitDr*

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly he in-
terted. Correspondents must not be offended, therefore, should their
letters vot appear.

All Hditorial eommunicati<yns should be addressed to the Editor of
Knowledge; all Business communications to the Pl'blishkrs, at the
Office, 74, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS ARISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders shtmld be made
payable to Messr.s. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No communications ARF, answered by post, even THOUGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

STINGING TREES.

[698] — It may be interesting to some of your readers to know
that stinging trees are not confined to Australia alone. 1 have fre-
quently seen them .and felt them also in Kansas, U.S.

I can hardly describe them, though, as trees, never having seen
them more than five or six feet high, yet they were quite distinct
from weeds. They seemed to flourish principally in the vicinity of
water, and we often came into contact with these unpleasant bushes
after bathing in the streams. The sting was in the leaves, bnt by a
remarkable arrangement of nature, these bushes appeared to be often
infested with caterpillars, which ate the leaves ofl'. At first, on
running against the bushes, we thought that the caterpillars stung
ns in some way, bnt on experiment we found that it was the leaves
themselves. The effects of the sting were very similar to bad
mosquito bites.

I am sorry I cannot give you the Latin name, as I am not well
versed in botany. Percy Elbutt.

Croydon, S.E.

STAYS AND STATUES.— WINTER RARITIES.

[699]— I note in your issue of January 12, a note to " Stays
and Statues " in which you say you may perhaps omit much which
you have written on the artistic aspect of the matter.

Please dori't. Even if argument and evidence from statues, &c.,
has no force with "Observer," it most probably has with numbers
of your readers who may profit by it, and you are not writing for
" Observer " only.

I can supplement Mr. R. W. Smith's communication by stating
that I yesterday saw an apparently perfect specimen of the peacock
butterfly.

In our open garden here we have some snowdrops in full blossom.

W. Grandv.

CHIRPING SPIDER.

[700] — Can you, or any of your readers, tell me if there is a
British chirping spider ? I have long been perplexed, in the still-
ness of midnight, by a scratching, ticking, or chirping sonnd,
repeated with great regularity from a dozen to perhaps fifty times
in succession, ai)parently in the top of a low cupboard in the corner
of my sitting-room. I had begun to suppose it either some very
pertinacious wood-worm, or else the cooling and shrinking of the
wall into which the cupboard is built after a fire in the next housr
had gone out; but this evening the door stood a little open, and
the noise was louder. Quietly inserting a candle and my head, I
found the chirping silenced, even without the candle. Any
alteration of the light by the movement of my body in the
doorway silenced the chirping. However, after a long, patient
kneeling with my head in the dark cupboard, I heard the scratch,
scratch, sci-atch, close to my ear. I withdrew, and it ceased.
Returning with a match, I found my jiatienco again rewarded.
After very definitely locating the sound, I struck my match, and
lo and behold ! a small dense cobweb, consisting of a short tube
above and two spreading arms below. As I brought the fiamo

within two inches of the wob, the chirping, which had been silenced
by the match, broke out with three violent rapid notes, and I with-
drew, fearing to disturb my guest. Ho has siuco been at it as
heartily as ever. He has been therr, I should say, at least a year.
The lupboard is seldom opened— perhaps once a fortnight, but occa-
sionally not at all for a month — so the supply of flies must be small.
There were the remains of some insect in a corner of the web.

D. M.

ALTERATION IX COAST-LINE.

[7ul] — There are certainly some important and curio'.is queslioijs
that 11 >'ht be raised as to past changes in the co^ist-liuo betweeu
the Wel-ih coast at the mouth of the Dee and the Ribble; but your
correspondent, H'sett, in a letter in your number of Dec. 29
(No. 673), does not appear to me to offer any contribution towards
sonnd conclusions on the subject, as he is incorreit in the facts
from which he infers that " the sea has receded along the coast of
Lancashire, from the Mersey almost to Preston." Tiic ground on
which he bases this conclusion is that "the whole country ior
miles is as flat as the ])roverbial pancake, and it can be at once seen
that all this hand, which is entirely made up of sand, must have
been gradually formed by the retrocession of the sea." It is
quite true that the country between the Mersey and the Ribble
is flat, but it is not true that it is composed entirely, or even
principally, of sand. It is mainly composed of peat — the sand is a
mere fringe bounding the sea-coast, varying slightly in ^vidth, but
nowhere much exceeding a mile, and in some places the sand has
covered land formerly cultivated. There are, no doubt, changes
taking place, as is usual in all flat coast-lines, and on part of the
coast-line to the west of Sonthport the sand is certainl3- encroach-
ing on the sea, and a new line of sand-hills is in process of forma-
tion outside the present line ; but to tliL' east of Southport there is
no evidence of any such process going on, even if the reverse is not
the case. There is, it is true, a sand-bank oft the Southport coast,
separated from the end of the pier by a deep channel ; but it is
quite incorrect to speak as if the outside of that bank were the
coast-line. The sands off the coast from the mouth ot the Dec to
the mouth of the Ribble have changed much within living memoi'V,
but the changes are no duubt due to varying ocean currents, and
not to the encroachment of the laud on the sea ; and Southport is
certainly not at present more likely to become an inland town than
it was fifty years ago.

A much more difficult and interesting question than the present.
changes in the sands is how to account for the remains of sub-
marine forests in the estuary of the Mersey — a fact of which yom
correspondent is apparently not aware. A Southport Resident.

(Pur iWattjtmatical Column,

A PRETTY PROBLEM.

A CORRESPONDENT ("Taranaki") some time since asked for
a solution of the following problem, and we gave two solu-
tions, both analytical. Another correspondent, " J. C. S.," gives
the following very pretty geometrical solution : —

Theorem. — Jf tangents P P, F Q, he drawn to a circle from F, the
point of intersection of two opposite sides, AB, DC, of any quadri-
lateral, A B C D, inscribed in it, the points of contact, P, Q, lie on
the line E G, joining G, the intersection of the diagonals, and E, the
inter.'iection of the other two sides of the quadrilateral.

Let EG intersect AB, CD in H, K. Through H draw a line
jiarallel to C D, meeting the diagonals A C, B D in p, q, and the.
sides A D, B C in r, s. We have then the following equalities of
ratios :—

CK H_s B_p DF Hr Hg

DK°"H)"°H9 "^""^ CF"Hjj°"Hs
CK.DF Hs Up

By multiplication, —

DK.CP Hp H

Hence, CK.DF = DK.CF, and 5_?
DK

If M be the middle point of C D, then
M C - M K

CP
DF
C K^
DK"

MF-MC

may be >vritteii

MC + MK
MC MP
llcnce, TTVi = rrH and M K . M F

M F -H M C
=WC'

Feb. 2, 1863.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

77

But, by Euclid 11. 3, M K.MF = M K.K F + M K', and by 11.5,
MC' = DK.KC + M K'
.•.MK.KF = DK.KC

Now, if A B C D be inscribed in a circle Tvhose centre is (), and
which cnts EG in I', Q, wo have (Euclid III. 35) UK.KC =
PK.KQ.-.MK.KF = FK.KQ, and a circle drawn through
P, P, y, will pass through M. In the same manner it may be
shown to pass through N, the middle point of A B. But the circle
described upon F 0 as diameter passes through M, N, since O M F
and O N F are right angles. And as only one circle can pass
through the three points F, SI, N, it follows that P, Q lie on the
circle who diameter is F O. Therefore, OFF, O Q F are right
angles, and P, Q are tlie points of contact of the tangent from F.
Q.E.D.

[Note. —The theorem is easily shown to be true for any conic
section, for the circle O may be projected so as to become any given
conic on another plane, and the lines P B A, F C D (which are quite
arbitrary) may bo so taken as to be projected from the same centre
apon any given pair of lines catting the conic. Tlicn all the lines
and points of contact and intersection in the two figures will
necessarily correspond each to each.] — J. C. S.

Eebatum. — At p. CO, col. 2, I. 14 from bottom, for i G.G A rea<l
B G.G A.

<!^ur 21236 ist Column.

By " Five of Clubs."

WE give this week one of the finest hands at Whist ever played.
Z was Cavendish, and the game is number XXXVIII. in his
book. We shall have some ntore notes and general remarks tu
make on this well-played partie next week.

r.

Hearts — 5, 4.
Spades — A, Kn, 6.
Diamonds — Q, Kn, 9,

8,5.
Clubs — i, 3, 2.

A.
Bearts—9, 7.

Diamonds — 10, 7, G, 4, 2
Clubs— Q, U.

The Hands.

B.

Hearts— A. Q, 10, 0.
Spades— Q, 10, 8.
Diamonds — A, 3.
Clubs— A, K, Kn, S.

Hearts— K, Kn, 8, 3,
Spades— K, 3, 2.
Diamonds — K.
Clubs- 10, 9, 7, 5.

Score. — Four all.

A Y

0

o o ♦ o

<? 1

<? Vl

<?

9 <?

^ <?J >? <?

<? <p|

^

<? <7

<? <7

<9

<?

<?

<5>

<? <7

<? <P

<?

^fij 1 * 1 1 1 1+7+
^m * ♦ * +

^^ I + 1 1 I [+_+

♦ +1 1+ +1 1*^ [+~+

♦ ♦) [+ + l^sS I i! +

o*ol PHi I o I ^

+ ' +

+
+^+

NOTES AND REMARKS.

NOTK.— The card undirlinpd wins the
trick, and card below leads next round.

1. A leadf penultimate of his
long suit. Queen lies with V;
Three with B, unless 1 is signall-
ing (.4 alone knows this). H has
probably no more.

2. B knows that probably Z has
no more Diamonds, while the Two
has not appeared. But there is a
strong probability that ,4 has led
from a live-card suit (since ten
Diamonds lie between A and Y).
It is, therefore, not likely that Y
has begun a signal. Of course, Z
may be signalling from King,
Queen, but it is unlikely.

3. We donbt whether A should
have returned his partner's lead of
trumps. Strength in trumps is
manifestly divided between B and
Z, and very great strength, for
nine trumps lie in these two hands.
,4 knows, therefore, that though
B may have been strong enough
to lead trumps, Z may bo stronger.
A puts B in a bad position by re-
turning trumps. A would have
done bettor to load Club Queen,
in the hope that B may be strong
in Clubs. This would have won :
though that proves nothing. Two
tricks were already made. Three
more would have been made in
Clubs. A would have made the
sixth trick by ruiling Clubs ; and
the Ace of trumps would have won
the odd trick and the game. After
trick three, as plnj'ed, B knows
that Y has no more trumps, nor A
(note the trnmp card). Z knows,
also, that neither A nor Y have any
more trumps.

4. B wisely gives up trumps.

5. After this B knows the fourth
round in Clubs must go to the
enemy.

6. ,4 and B now want only one
trick to win, and it looks as if they
must get it.

7. B leads A's suit.

8. Very good play by Z. The
position is plain enougli, though
how many Whist playeis fail to
recognise such things. 1 he second
best trump lies with B, so that if
Z has to lead trumps, Y Z must
lose. The King of Spades is
absolutely useless to Z, for if he
takes a trick with it, the enemy
must make a trick in trumps and
the game. If .-1 J? have the Ace,
the game is gone any way. If Fhas
the Ace and wins the King with

it, 1' Z may still win ; but how apt Y would be not to win his
partner's King ! Therefore, to simplify his partner's jilay as much
as possible, to " leave no jioint of strategy to partner to which he
can attend himself," Z throws away his useless King.

9. But now another danger lurks in store for Z and his partner.
Z has got rid of one winning card too many, but he still has another,
his third trump. If Y make the ninth trick, Z must win the
tenth or eleventh trick (it matters not which) and lose the game.
Therefore, Z plays the grand coup : ho trumps his partner's
winning Diamond.

10 leads losing Spade, and thus enables his partner, after
winning trick eleven, —

12 to lead up to Z's tenaoe, giving Y Z the odd trick and the
game.

0 0
0 ♦
O 0

0 0
0 0

<? •v'i

10

Erratum.- — ^Whist game, p. 15, last two tricks, interchange C 10
andD 9.

78

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Fbb. 2, 1883.

d^nv CbfSs Column.

By Mephisto.

END OAMK STl'DY.

I B^^J"' # 4

Whitb.

Mephisto.

This position occurred in actual play, and will serve as a good
illustration of the danger of Queening a Pawn on the Hook's file
if the adversary's King is too near.

R to BG (ch)
K to K2 P to R8 (Queen's)

Q takes R (ch) K to R7

By carefully selecting checks, so that the Black Queen shoiild
not have a chance of coming into play. White is now enabled to
force a mate as follows : —

Q to B-1 (ch) K to R6 (best)

Q to E6 (ch) K to Ktr

Q to Kt5 (eh) K to R6

Q to E5 (ch) K to Kt7

Q to Kt4 (ch) K to R7

K to B2 and wins (mate in three).
Black, however, need not interpose the Rook on BG, in which case
the game would result in a draw.

SOLUTION.
Problem No. 71, by C. Planck, p. 46.
1. Kt to Kt5 1. P or R takes Kt or K to Q6

2. Q to B2 mate.
2. KKt to Q6 mate.

if 1. K takes Kt or B to Q6

PROBLEM No. 7 2.

By John Simpson.

Black.

K'^^'"
%

Whiib.
■White to play and mate in three moves ; also White to play and
compel Black to mate him (eui-mate) in three moves.

PEOBLEM No. 73.
By SinnKY Spokbs.

WfllTB.

White to play and mate in three moves.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
*»* Please address Chess Edit^}T.

Zulu. — Write to the anthor at the Birmingham Chess Club.

Alfred B. Palmer. — Yon would be better able to see the point if
you play over Black's game, you having the White men opposite to
you, then you will see that his sixth move is Kt to K5 ; whether
there is a Pawn on K5 or not cannot make any difference. It i?.
however, by no means an obvious interpretation of the move. Tlie
mistake will occur to many more players. It would not have
admitted of anv doubt had Black announced his move as
6. KKt takes P."

W. F. W. R.— In No. 67 (second solution) if 2. K to Kt3,
3. B to Kt mate.

J. Adamson. — The author's solution of Problem No. 70 was
1. Kt to Kt3 (ch), R or P takes Kt. 2. B to B4 and mate next
move.

W. Mead. — Best thanks for game.

Correct solutions received. — Problem No. 71 : W. R. Edwards,
J. Birkett, H. A. N., W. P. W. R., M. T. H. Prize Problem: W.,
E. J. P.

A^'OTICES.

The Star Maps for November and December, 1882, price 2d. each, postage ^d.
extra, are now ready.

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published, price 8a. 6d.

The Title Page and Index to Volume II. now ready, price 2d., post-free 2id.

Binding Cases for Volume II., price 2b. each. Subscribers' uumbere bound
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The Back Nambera of Knowlbugb, with the exception of No9. 1 to 13,
31, 32, and 53, are in print, and can be obtained from all booksellers and
newsagents, or direct from the Publishers. Should any difliculty arise in obtaining
the paper, an apphcation to the Publishers is respectfully requested.

Now ready. Part XV. (Jan. 1883). Price lOd. ; postage 3d. extra. ,

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OFFICE: 74-76, GREAT QUEEN STREET LONDON W.C.

Fer 9. 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE •

79

AN lUiiiSlRATED

MAGA€iSxo?SaENCE

PLAINLYlfoRDED -EXACTOTESCRIBED

J.OyDOX: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9. 1883.

OONTKNTS OF No. 67

rxai.

flt-ience and Art GoMip 79

A N»tarali»t'» Ymt. VI. The Peewit

Cries. By Or»Dt Allen 81

Pleaunt Hours with the Microscope.

By Henry J. SlBck, F.O.S.,

F.B.M.S 82

The Bin h and Growth of Myth. III.

By Edward Clodd 83

The Crystal Palace Electric and Gas

Exhibition 81

-Clerk" or " CUu'k." By E. A.

n, LL.D., D.C.L 85

riGX.
Stays and Strength. By "An Ob-

terrer " and K. A. Proctor 88

Corpulence S7

Renews : The Vast and the Minute M
Correspondence ; Sun.dial of Ahaz —
Weather Predictions — Wearing
Stays— Our Forefathers— Acoustic

Experiment, &c 89

Our Paradox Column 93

Our Mathematical Column 93

Our Whist Column 93

Our Chess Column 9l

^rirnre auD 9rt Gossip.

It will have been observed that our " Answers to
Correspondents " have ceased. It was the only way out of
a growing and intolerable difficulty. Readers would not
recognise that the answers v-ere answers, not remarks ad-
dressed to all our readers. Each reply brought an average
of a dozen comments, a dozen rejoinders, a dozen remon-
strances. Besides, those numerous readers who wrote use-
fully suggestive letters, or asked reasonable questions, found
themselves (of necessity) associated with a much greater
number of others who asked ridiculous questions and sug-
gested monstrous theories — the railing Rab-shakehs and
paradoxists who infest every association for seeking
knowledge, and render nugatory the efforts of those who
want only to get at the truth. The attempt to get rid of
that class of querists, that more room may be found for the
sensible ones, who, though numerous, are overwhelmingly
outnumbered, only results in presenting an editor in a false
aspect Tliose who have not seen the rude or foolish letters
we have received cannot conceive the fitness of the blunt
or jesting replies which those letters have educed.

Ik future, then, we propose to answer only such letters
— if any at all — as are fit for insertion, either in full or in
abstract As our space cannot be enlarged, a much larger
proportion of letters received must, unless of considerable
value or very succinct, be passed over.

The Academy, commenting pleasantly enough otherwise on
the new volumes for the Knowledge Library series, notes
that no date is given on the title-page, and that Mr. Proctor's
name alone appears on the cover. The comment is just,
but " Jlr. Proctor " has nothing to do with the matter.
The use of his name alone on the cover results from a little
carelessness on the part of the binder, insignificant enough
in itself, and only unpleasant in its consequences if it should
lead any mistakenly to imagine that Mr. Proctor had
sanctioned the arrangement, instead of learning first about
it only when the book had already been issued to the
reviewers. The only suggestion made by him on the
subject of the cover was that it should bear five or six gilt
leaves, each showing the name of a contributor, his own at

the foot. This was regarded as unpractical, but he had no
idea his name alone would appear on the cover. The title-
page shows what Mr. Proctor's wishes were in that respect
— where his name follows that of his esteemed fellow-
writers. Why the date was omitted on the title-page he is
unable to say ; the year and month in which the last proofs
were received is duly appended to the preface Ln both
volumes.

Ix an interesting article on the Great Comet — now
scarce visible, by the way — Prof. Young expresses his
belief that even were a comet, whose mass equalled the
earth's, to run straight into the sun, the effect would only
be to add to the sun's store of heat, not to increase the
emission of heat Mr. Mattieu Williams expressed the
same opinion three or four months ago in the (! enlleman' s
Jlai/azin*'. It is probably correct The heat generated by
the downfall of such a comet on the sun's surface would
be employed in producing changes of physical condition,
and given out afterwards as the matter so changed resumed
its original state.

Prof. Yocxg also throws out, as more probable than a
theory thrown out by oursehes, the suggestion that the
dark region behind the nucleus of a comet is a region
occupied by matter opaque to the light coming from the
surrounding envelope of the tail, and, therefore, cutting
off half the light which would otherwise reach us.
This is a simpler and more probable theory than our
own ; and if the light from the darker part of the tail is
really equal to half the light from the neighbouring
brighter parts, will have, we think, to be accepted as in all
probability correct.

It has been arranged that a series of six lectures on
astronomy shall be given in St. James's Hall, beginning
on Wednesday, March 21 next The other dates will be
March 28, AprU 4, 7, 11, and U.

The Dublin Freeman's Journal advocates the construc-
tion of a ship canal between Dublin and Galway. " A full
day would thus be saved between America and Liverpool,
which would represent an enormous money gain, ^vithout
estimating the saving of life and property from wreck ; a
million acres of bog at least would be reclaimed, and the
surplus labour of Ireland would be profitably employed for
years. The work would probably cost fifty millions ; the
reclaimed land would be worth nearly the money. Its
effect on Ireland would be incalculably to its advantage."

The Times Geneva correspondent says an engineer who
has just visited the scene of the disaster near Fort de
I'Ecluse describes the condition of things as very serious.
The entire side of Mont Credo, on which the forts are
built, appears to be gi^"ing way, and further and more
dangerous earthslips are feared. The lower fort is con-
sidered past saving, and the gamson has been withdrawn.
The rocks on which the forts stand, and which look solid
enough to support them for ages, are said to be under-
rained. If they should fall into the Rhone, which, com-
pressed between two lofty cliffs, is exceedingly narrow
thereabouts, the course of the river will be completely
blocked, and the entire valley, for a length of more than
twenty miles, joined to the lake. This is another evidence,
on the large scale, of the great levelling action which is
going on continually all over the world, the ever-active
tendency on the part of mountain masses to get to a lower
level, having plenty to work upon in Switzerland.

80

KNOWLEDGE

[Feb. 9, 1883.

A "Moving lioc.'' — A correspondent of the Dxidin
Express writes as follows : - The incessant downpours of
rain have, as already stated, produced immense floods in
tliis neighbourhood. A bog, too, was reported to have
moved a considerable distance, causing serious losses to the
adjoining farms. Having heard many reports about thi.s
" moving bog," I resolved to visit the scene of devastation.
Kevcr huve I witnes.sed as strange a phenomenon. About
mid-way between Castlerea and Bellinagare — a distance of
six miles — there is a gently sloping vale abounding in
rich meadow and pasture lands. The road at this
point is somewhat higher than the adjacent fields.
Along this valley the bog has forced its way. On reaching
the road it was held in check for a considerable time, but
eventually it burst across, and rushed with amazing
rapidity, covering in its course upwards of 1-0 acres of
line " pasture " lands. One farm-hou.se stands quite sur-
rounded with the mud, the occupants having to Hee for
their lives, leaving a cart on which they were busily heaping
some of their furniture behind. All communication
between Castlerea and Bellinagare (by this route) is cut
off, huge masses of bog coatee, with heather, remaining
on the road for nearly a quarter of a mile fully ten feet
deep. Being anxious to view the source from which it
issued, I started up the field towards the bog ; I found
it commenced about half a mile from the road, having
formed a large subsidence of amazing extent, from which
a stream of mud was still irresistibly forcing its way.
The gigantic masses of bog borne along in apparently
sportive mimicry baffle description. I entered a cabin
on the outskirts of a bog, which I was surprised to find
clean and comfortable, despite its gloomy surroundings.
The old man told me that this bog has been showing signs
of moving for many years back. He attributes the cause
to defective drainage, the water having scarcely any outlet.
He stated that it started very suddenly, reaching the road,
nearly half a mile distant, in less than ten minutes. He
sorrowfully pointed out to me his fine little fields, on which
he appears to have bestowed much care, the most of them
now covered with fully 26 ft of bog. It has now forced
its way into the river Suck, which flows through this town,
and immense quantities are passing towards Ballinasloe.
Some care and supervision will be required at the various
bridges along the Suck to prevent their being filled up.
Eain still continues to fall very heavily, and more serious
results are apprehended.

The Wolverhampton Chamber of Commerce has written
to the Board of Trade, saying that, though the standard
■wire gauge proposed by the department was not in every
respect such as they would have liked, yet they felt it
would fulfil the purposes of a national standard wire gauge.
They were so anxious to see a workable gauge introduced,
that they preferred not to make any suggestions, lest they
should hinder, or possibly frustrate, its adoption.

The St. Gothard Railway is diverting the bulk of the
Italian trade into the hands of Germany, Belgium, and
Holland with surprising rapidity. Early fruit and vege-
tables are conveyed without transhipment from all parts
of Italy to Ostend, Antwerp, and Rotterdam, whence they
are taken by fast steamers to London and other English
ports. The Great Eastern l^ailway Company alone is
stated to have carried over 6,000 tons of these goods, via
Antwerp and Harwich, in a few months. Malta is now
brought nearer, and Algerian produce, such as green peas
and early potatoes, is made more available. On the other
hand, Italy is receiving an unprecedented, not to say

overwlielming, amount of attention from Germany. In
two months after the opening of the St Gothard route the
Germans despatched 40,000 tons of coal, 107 tons of un-
manufactured iron and liardware, 14,000 tons of machinery,
tiyii tons of copj)er, 17,409 tuns of spirits 1,4)6 tons of
paper, and 76 railway waggons, the export, the Times
says, of all these articles liaving previously been either nil
or quite nominal.

The Town Council of Southampton have accepted a
tender for continuing the boring in the chalk which was
abandoned in 1851, after it had reached a depth of 439
yards bored in the chalk or chalk marl, but its continuation
will now probably carry it into the lower green-sand in a
short time. The boring commences at the bottom of a well
5G3 ft in depth. Chalk mud now fills about 36 yards of
the bottom of the boring. The temperature, at a depth of
1,210 ft, has been recently found to be nearly 72'^, that of
the outer air being at the time 49"; the increase in tem-
perature being thus 1° deg. Fall, for every 52'6ft in depth.

Pneumatic Tubes at Philadelphia. — The United
States Post Ofiice Department is considering the feasibility
of laying down very large pneumatic tubes for the Phila-
delphia Post Office, connecting it with the mail depots in
the city. The object is to avoid the present slow trans-
ference of mails from trains by coaches to the central
office. The idea is with the English Post-office an old and
unpractical one.

Gold in Victoria. — A comparative statement of the
yield of gold in Victoria for the two first quarters of this
year has been compiled by the Mining Department from
the mining surveyor's reports. It shows that in the first
quarter the yield was 189,826 oz. 8 dwt. 4 gr., and for the
second quarter 213,394 oz. 17 dwt. 5 gr., showing an in-
crease of 23,568 oz. 9 dwt. 1 gr. Recent reports of sur-
veyors at Sandhurst and Ballarat are favourable, the former
stating that in his district there was an improvement of
quite 40 per cent, in the yields of the claims for the second
quarter of 1 882.

The Engineer says a meeting of street railway officials
was held in Boston, U.S., Dec. 12, for the purpose of
forming a National Street Railway Association. The
temporary chairman, Mr. Moody Merrill, in outlining the
scope of the proposed organisation, said that there are
now organised and doing business in that country and
Canada 415 street railway companies. These companies
employ about 35,000 men, and run 18,000 cars. More
than 100,000 horses are in daily use, to feed which it
requires annually 150,000 tons of hay and 11,000,000
bushels of grain. These companies own and operate over
3,000 miles of track. The whole number of passengers
carried annually is over 1,212,400,000. The amount of
capital invested in these railways exceeds 150,000,000 dols.
Messrs. C. B. Clegg, of Ohio, and C. C. Woodruti; of New-
York, were chosen secretaries.

Spihit of turpentine is now made, says a contemporary,
from sawdust and refuse of the sawmill. It is extracted
by a sweating process, and yields 14 gallons of spirits,
three to four gallons of resin, and a quantity of tar per
cord.

Herren Ganz vt Co. are about to illuminate the
National Theatre, Buda-Pesth, by means of a thousand
Swan lamps, 200 of which they are also fitting up in a
steam corn-mill.

FEa 9, 1883.]

• KNOW^LEDGE •

81

A NATURALIST'S YEAR.

By Grant Allen.
TI.— THE PEEWIT CRIES.

OUT on the broad downs, where the grass is now growing
taller and lusher, and the sleepy beetles are beginning
to crawl lazily across the narrow footpath, a sudden cry in
the air makes one look up skyward for a second, to see a
pair of peewits tumbling and twirling together gracefully
overhead, in their accustomed aerial antics. It is early,
indeed, for our dappled friends to be out already at their
annual love-making. To be sure, we all know that " in
the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest ;"
but it is hardly spring, in any fair sense of the word, as
yet, and the wanton lapwing is surely taking time by th(?
forelock to-day, with too trustful a confidence in the good
intentions of our treacherous English climate ; for the
tumbling and the crest-growing are all of them mere minor
preliminaries to the serious work of mating, and the
season is still too raw and doubtful for even the bold and
saucy lapwing to confide to it the care of his callow young.
All these queer antics of birds in the springtime — the play-
ing of capercailzie, the dancing of blackcock, the strutting
of turkeys, the tumbling of peewits — are but various modes
of attracting the attention of prospective mates ; and they
are almost always, if not invariably, accompanied by the
presence of ornamental adjuncts, the result of special selec-
tive preferences, e.xerted throughout countless generations,
on the part of the hen birds. One sees the contrast well
exhibited in the cases of the blackcock and the red grouse.
The former birds hold their annual " courts of love " with
great solemnity, where they display themselves in all their
beauty before the eyes of their intended mates ; and only
those birds which have the finest plumes succeed in attract-
ing to themselves a numljer of hens. Hence the cocks have
gradiially actjiured a handsome and glossy plumage, quite
different from tliat of their sober and unobtrusive grey
little partners. The red grouse, on the other hand, hold no
" courts of love," and in their case both sexes are similarly
attired in a protective suit of russet brown, which closely
harmonises with the tints of the dry heather under whose
shelter they skulk and hide.

Peewits belong by family to the plover group, and are the
most ornamental British species of their race. It is the
rule with the wading Viirds, among which (though one would
hardly think it) the plovers are ranked, to show little or no
bright colouring ; and the terrestrial species of waders,
like the peewits — in northern climates at least — are almost
always very plain, and often dingy birds. Whenever they
possess any ornamental appendages at all, as happens with
some of the larger and more dominant kinds, such asthe cranes
and herons, they take the form of mere crests or top-knots,
rather than of brilliant tails, like the peacocks, iridescent
necklets, like the humming birds, or brightly-coloured bills,
like the fruit-eating toucans. The fact is, the waders are
naturally graceful birds ; their slender legs, and tall, arching
necks, acquired, of course, by survival of the fittest, without
regard to beauty as such, have accidentally coincided
with the reqiurements of the highest taste ; and the
waders seem actually to recognise this graceful cha-
racter of their generic type, and to do their best
through sexual selection to bring it out into stronger
relief by carefully - arranged additions. Hence the
beautiful peculiarities which the females have fostered
and improved, run invariably in the direction of decorative
tufts or lappets, so disposed as to mark and intensify the
natural gracefulness of form so conspicuous throughout the
entire race. For example, in the heron we get a brush of

feathers near the nape of the neck and a pendant tassel on
the front of the breast ; in the rufi' we havt; a perfect collar
of erectile plumes around the throat ; in the crested crane we
find a diiidem of hackles set proudly on the crown of its
head ; and in our own lapwing we see the same tendency in
the long crest which points so gracefully backward and up-
ward in continuation of the natural curve of the forehead.
Its contour forrus, in fact, a perfect line of beauty which
Hogarth would certainly have included among the illus
trations of his law if he had ever seen a peewit stiinding
erect beside a stream and paying its court in lordly fashion
to its admiring lady love. The crest can be raised or de-
pressed alternately at the will of the bird, and it is always
displayed to the fullest advantage during the probationary
period of the mating season.

The very name of lapwing, by which the peewit is
known to most bookish naturalists, itself refers to a point
dependent on, or connected with, the curious aerial love-
dances that so remarkably distinguish this pretty species
of plover. The wings are extremely long and rounded at
the tip, so that they lap over and almost conceal the short
stumpy taiL These large and spreading pinions have
almost undoubtedly been acquiretl in the course of per-
forming the annual love-dances ; for Mr. Darwin has
shown that the wing feathers have often been modified for
similar purposes in various birds, and sometimes even have
assumed a peculiar shape m order to produce a humming
noise, which proves as attractive as musical song to the
ladies of their kind. There are some distinguished biolo-
gists, it is true, who still doubt the efficiency of such selec-
tive preferences on the part of female birds in modifying
the specific type : but how anybody who has once watched
the courtship of the peewits in early spring can have any
hesitation on the subject surpasses my limited compre-
hension. First, you may see the cock and hen strutting
about together on the ground, he elevating and depressing
his crest as he struts, and she demurely observing him
from a little distance with the critical eye of a con-
noisseur in ploverine deportment. Then, after a few turns
on the earth, the cock bird lifts his broad wings stoutly,
and begins to rise with his peculiar flitting motion into
the blue sky above. There he flaps and tumbles in a most
demonstrative fashion, sometimes sailing off to windward
or leeward, as if to exhibit his address, and sometimes
seeming to fall precipitously towards the ground, but
always keeping true to the fixed centre where his charmed
mate is coyly watching his evolutions with pretended non-
chalance. By-and-by he will glide down suddenly to
her side with a mute appt^al for applause, and then
the two will rise together once more, and wheel and
circle in concert till even their powerful wings begin
to tire. As they cleave the air merrily, their joy
finds voice from time to time in the ringing cry of peewit,
peewit; and looking up from below, you see just the
gleam of two sailing black and white bodies in the sun-
shine, and rejoice with them in your heart that .<:pring has
come again. After the courtship, however, begin the
more serious cares of matrimony and motherhood, ringed
round with many dangers and difficulties for the poor
feckless lapwing. Ages ago, when farmers were not, it
learnt to make its nest, or rather to lay its eggs,
upon the bare ground, without even a few bits of straw or
feather to keep them warm ; and it still persists in this
ancestral habit among the furrows and ploughed fields of
agricultural England. Still, the very absence of a nest
makes the eggs all the harder to find, for they look like little
round stones lying loose on the soil, and the mother-bird has
acquired the cunning trick of running to a little distance
away before she rises, with her body tucked close to the

82

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Feb. 9, 1883.

ground, so as to conceal the place where the precious
objects arc laid. In spite of all her precautions, however,
groat (juantities are found and eaten ; for the so-called
plovers' eggs of London game-dealers belong by just right
to the lapwing alone. After the young are hatched, the
peewits become more nocturnal in their liabits, and also
congregate in large flocks, instead of being seen in pairs, as
during the earlier part of the year. This is a common trick
with the plover trttjc, and it doubtless serves a good pur-
pose in the economy of the species. While nesting goes on,
in the flu.sh season, concealment and solitary habits are most
important ; in autumn and winter, the dearth of food
compels all alike to flock together towards the best and
richest low-lying feeding places.

PLEASANT HOURS WITH THE
MICROSCOPE.

By Henry J. Slack, F.G.S., F.RM.S.

FEW English microscopists seem acquainted with Max
Schulze's artificial diatoms, and still fewer have niade
them. The process is very easy, and not only supplies
beautiful and curious objects, but also illustrates some pro-
perties of silica which are of importance in the organic
world. Take a wide-mouthed bottle that holds six or eight
ounces. MLx together a teaspoonful of powdered fluor spar,
and rather less of powdered glass or sharp, clean sand. Put
the mixture into a bottle, and pour upon it enough sul-
phuric acid to give it a thorough wetting. Have ready a
tuft of cotton wool, as loose as the fibres can be kept, after
dipping them in water. Place this moist tuft in the mouth
of the bottle, spreading it out so that it cannot tumble in ;
then put a paper cap over it to check evaporation, and
leave it for some hours, or till the next day. The acid decom-
poses the fluor spar and causes it to evolve fluoric acid, which
seizes some of the silica of the glass and carries it oflT up
to the wet cotton. Here, again, a chemical action takes
place, and part of the silica is deposited like hoar-frost
upon the cotton. This deposit should be scraped ofi" as
gently as possible with a little piece of stick — say a lucifer-
match, split with a penknife to give it a blunt edge. Let
it fall into a watch-glass, or any small vessel of glass or
china, and pour water very softly upon it, letting it
run ofl" quickly. This washes a corrosi\e acid out,
and leaves pure hydrate of silica behind in a variety
of curious shapes. Some will be nearly globular, others
like Amaltha'a's horn, others crooked tubes, etc. The largest
should be examined as opaque objects, and will be found
like strange glass vessels beautifully beaded. The finer
ones should be gently crushed and mounted as transparent
objects dry, and also in Canada balsam. They will most
likely exhibit a considerable number, perhaps a dozen or
more, of diatom patterns. Some will be finely and
uniformly beaded, like I'leurosigma angulatum. Others,
coarsely beaded, more like Triceraliuw. Some are likely
to be so fine and delicate that their br-ading requires a
magnification of 1,000 diameters or more to show it well.
Besides plain-beaded patterns, the writer has usually ol>-
tained compound patterns, such as large beads surrounded
by little ones.

If a judicious selection is made, the fragments of the
little vesicles would be assuredly taken for portions of
well-known diatoms.

It occurred to the writer that it would be interesting to
obtain the silica deposit in another way. Instead of
allowing the silicic-fluoride gas to come into contact with

wet cotton, some of it was passed through a mixture of
four parts of glycerine and one of water. This is readily
managed by using a very small flask or a tube bottle to
contain the fluor spar, glass, and acid, and fitting to its
mouth a few inches of bent glass tube. A gentle heat
from a spirit-lamp causes the gas to be given off freely,
and by dipping the tube just under the glycerine and
water, which may be held in an egg-cup, silica films are
instantly formed. The experimenter must be on the watch
lest the tube gets stopped up with tlie silica deposit.
As soon as it shows any signs of this, clear it out
with a fine wire. Only a very small quantity is
required of the various chemicals — a quarter or less of the
quantities in the first experiment. The films should be
washed, as the vesicles were, and then gently crushed
and mounted, to be viewed with a quarter and an
eighth objectives and dark ground illumination. This
is easily managed if the objectives are either old ones
of small angular aperture or supplied with a movable stop
to reduce their larger apertures when required. The dark
ground illumination can be obtained with a large circular
stop of an achromatic condenser, or with Mr. Wenham's
ingenious illuminator, which gives beautiful results in the
hands of expert manipulators.

Some of these film slides in the writer's collection look
like portions of the Milky Way as seen through a telescope,
or like resolvable nebulae To get these effects, the minute
beads in which the silica is deposited must not be piled one
above another, but distributed in single layers. A little
moving about with a needle-point is sure to get some in
this condition.

Many plants and animals require silica in some part of
their structure, and water readily dissolves a minute
quantity as it acts upon soils containing it. Some sponges
require it to make the spicules of various shapes, by which
they are strengthened, or made inconvenient for their
assailants to bite. Other creatures deposit it in their tissues
like miniature cart-wheels (c/nrodota), and others like
anchors {s;/napta). The diatoms want it to support and
decorate their fine, soft tissues ; the canes and grain plants
to strengthen their cuticle ; and the Pottery-tree of Para
to make its stony bark, which the natives use in their
fictile manufactures. All can be accommodated, because
silica is not only to a certain extent soluble in water,
but can exist in the colloid as well as in the crystalline
state. All colloid or glue-like bodies differ from crj'stal-
loids in an important physical property. The crystalloids
in solution will pass freely through parchment paper, or
certain membranes, while the colloids remain behind. A
solution of water-glass — a silicate of potash, or soda — may
be decomposed, and a pure silica solution obtained, by care-
fully adding hydrochloric acid to it in a parchment paper
dialysing drum, and floating the drum in plain water. The
hydrochlorate of potash, or soda, gets through the paper,
and the silica stays behind.* A strong solution of water-
glass, limpid, like water, may be instantly turned into thick
jelly by adding a strong acid.

Silica in the crystalline state forms the beautiful quartz
minerals, and if, when deposited from water, it had the
strong disposition to crystallise which many other sub-
stances have, it would not accommodate itself to the various
forms the animals and plants require. It might be worth
while to try various other substances besides glycerine
to mingle with water in film-making experiments. Some
interesting results would probably be obtained. It may
be well to add that the dealers in chemical apparatus

* If raoro than two or threo per cent, of silica rcmaius in the
drum, it is likely to gelatinise.

Feb. 9, 1883.]

• KNOWL-EDGE •

83

and materials sell lluor spar in powder, and broken glass is
an article most families are acquainted with. In the
absence of a pestle and mortar, it may be wrapped in a
few folds of brown paper and struck with a hammer to
reduce it to powder. , ,,

THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH.

111.
By Edwakd Clodd.

THE names given to the sun in mythologj- are as
manifold as his aspects and influences, and as
the moods of the untutored minds that endowed him
with the complex and contrary qualities which make up
the nature of man. Him, we say, not it, thus preserving
in our common speech a relic, not only of the universal
personification of things, but of their division into sex.

The origin of gender is most obscure, but its invest-
ment of both animate and inanimate things with sexual
qualities shows it to be a product of the mythopa'ic
stage of man's progress, and demands some reference in
these papers. The languages of savages are in a constant
state of flux, even the most abiding terms, as numerals
and personal pronouns, being replaced by others in a
few years. And the changes undergone by civilised
speech have so rubbed away and obscured its primi-
tive forms that, look where he may, the poverty of the
old materials embarrasses the inquirer. If the similar
endings to such undoubtedly early words as father, mother,
brother, sister, in our own and other related languages,
notably Sanskrit, afibrd any clue, it goes rather to show
that gender was a later feature than one might think. But
there is no uniformity in the matter. It seems pretty clear
that in the early forms of our Indo-European speech there
were two genders only, masculine and feminine. The
assignment of certain things conceived of as sexless to
neither gender, Keutfins rjewris, is of later origin. Some of
the languages derived from Latin, and, to name one of a
difi'erent family, the Hebrew, have no neuter gender, whilst
others, as the ancient Turkish and Finnish, have no gram-
matical gender. In our own, under the organic changes
incident to its absorption of Norman and other foreign
elements, gender has practically disappeared (although
ships and nations are still spoken of as feminine), the pro-
nouns he, site, it, being its representative. Such a gain is
apparent when we take up the study of the ancestral
Anglo-Saxon, with its masculine, feminine, and neuter
nouns, or of our allied German with its perplexities of sex,
as, e.<j , its masculine spoon, its feminine fork, and its
neuter knife. Turning for a moment to such slight aid as
barbaric speech gives, we find in the languages of the hill
tribes of South India a curious distinction made : rational
beings, as gods and men, being grouped in a " high-caste or
major gender," and living animals and lifeless things in a
"castcless or minor gender." The languages of some
North American and South African tribes make a distinc-
tion into animate and inanimate gender ; but, as non-living
things, the sun, the thunder, the lightning, are regarded as
persons, they are classed in the animate gender.

Further research into the radicals of so relatively fixed
a language as Chinese, and into more mobile languages
related to it, may, perhaps, enlighten the present igno-
rance; but one thing is certain, that language was " once the
scene of an immense personification," and has thereby added
vitality to myth. Analogies and conceptions apparent to
barbaric man, and in no way occurring to us, caused him

to attribute sexual qualities not only to dead as to living
things, but to their several parts, as well as, in the course
of time, to intellectual and abstract terms. Speaking
broadly, things in which were manifest size and qualities,
as strength, independence, governing or controlling power,
usually attaching to the male, were classed as masculine ;
whilst those in which the gentler and more subordinate
features were apparent were classed as feminine. Of
course, marked exceptions to this will at once occur
to us, as, e.g., in certain savage and civilised languages,
where the sun is feminine and the moon is mas-
culine, but in the main the division holds good.
The big is male, and the small is female. The Dyaks
of Borneo call a heavy downpour of rain a he rain ;
and, if so strength-imparting a thing as bread is to be
classed as either masculine or feminine, we must agree
with the negro who, in answer to his master's question,
" Sambo, where 's the bread 3 " replied, " De bread, massa f
him lib in de pantry." The mediieval Persians are said to
have distinguished between male and female even in such
things as food and cloth, air and water, and prescribed
their proper use accordingly ; while, as Dr. Tylor, from
whom the above is quoted, adds, " even we, with our
blunted mythologic sense, cannot give an individual name
to a lifeless object, such as a boat or a weapon, without in
the very act imagining for it something of a personal
nature."

But we must not stay longer in these attractive byways
of philology, however warranted the digression may be,
and must return to the many-titled sun.

Whilst in the more elaborate mythologies of classic
peoples we find him addressed in exalted terms which are
still the metaphors of poetry, we are nearer the rough
material out of which all myth is shaped when among
races who speak of sun, moon, and stars as father, mother,
and cliildren, and who mean exactly what they say. We
may find simUar relationships in the solar and lunar
deities of Egyptian and classic myth, but profound moral
elements have entered into these and dissolved the mate-
rial. We are face to face with the awful and abiding
questions personified in Osiris and Isis, in Qidipus and
Jocaste, where for us the sunlight pales and the storm
clouds are dispersed before the dazzling mysteries of human
life and destiny.

No such matters confront us when in Indian myth we
read that the moon is the sun's sister, an aged, pale-faced
woman, who in kindness led to her brother two of the
tribe who had sprung through a chasm in the sky to tin'
pleasant moonlit land. Neither do they in Australian
myth, which shows that the dwellers on Olympus had no
monopoly of conjugal faithlessness. For in it the moon's
motions are explained as the chase of a jealous husband,
one of the bright stars, who found the inconstant in the
act of eloping with the moon. Among the bushmen, the
moon has incurred the sun's anger and is hacked smaller
and smaller by him, till, begging for mercy, a respite is
given. But as soon as he grows larger the sun hacks him
again. In Slavonic myth the sun cleaves him through, for
loving the morning star. The Indians of the far west say
that, when the moon is full, evil spirits begin nibbling at it,
and eat a portion every night till it is all gone ; then a
g^eat spirit makes a new moon, and, weary with his toil,
falls asleep, when the bad spirits renew their attack.
Another not uncommon group of myths is that which
speaks of sun and moon as borne across the heavens on the
backs of ancestors, as in Greek myth Atlas supports the
world.

But a still larger and more widespread body of myth
has its source in the patches on the moon's face. In the

84

KNOWLEDGE

[Feu. 9, 1883.

Sanionn l8land.s tliero aro snid to l)e a woman, a child, and
a mallet A woman was onoo hammcrinp; out papor cloth,
and .scoing the moon ri.so, looking liko a groat bread-fruit
trpo, she nskod it to come down and hit her child oat a
piece of it. I'ut the moon was very angry at the idea of
lieing eaten, and gohliled up woman, child, and mallet, and
there they are to this day. The Helish Indians of North-
western America say that the little wolf was in love with
the toad, and jiursued her one moonlight night, till, as a
last chance, slii' niafle a desperate spring on to the face of
the moon, and there she is still. In Greenland myth, the
moon was in love with his sister and stole in the dark to
caress her. She, wishing to find out who her lover was,
lilackened her hands so that the marks might be left on
him, which accounts for the spots. The Khasias of the
Himalaya say that the moon falls in love every month with
his mother-in-law, wlio, like a well-conducted matron,
throws ashes in his face.

Comparing these with our familiar myths, we have our
own Man in the Moon, who is said to be the culprit found
by ]\Ioses gathering sticks on the Sabbath, although his
place of banishment is a popular addition to the Scripture
narrative. According to the German legend he was a
acofler who did the same heinous offence on a Sunday, and
was given the alternative of being scorched in the sun
or frozen in the moon. The Frisians say that he stole
cabbages, the load of which he bears on his back. In Ice-
landic myth the two children familiar to us as Jack and
Jill were kidnapped by the moon, and there they stand to
this day with bucket on pole across their shoulders, falling
away one after the other as the moon wanes, — a phase
described in the couplet :

Ja"k fell down and brDke his crown,
And Jill caoio tumbling after.

IMr. Baring Gould, whose essay on this subject in his
" Curious Myths of the Middle Ages " gives a convenient
summary of current legends, contends that Jack and Jill
.are the Hjuki and Bil of the Edda, and signify the waxing
and waning of the moon, their bucket indicating the
dependence of rainfall on her phases, — a superstition extant
among us yet.

Poetry has made the man in the moon its theme. Dante
calls him Cain ; Chaucer describes him

Bearing a bnsh of thorns on his back,

Wliieho for hia theft might clime so ner the heaven ;

and Shakspere refers to him in " Midsummer Night's
Dream " and the " Tempest"

The group of customs observed amongst both barbaric
and civilised peoples at the changes of the moon, customs
which are meaningless except as relics of lunar worship,
will be more fitly referred to when we deal with the
passage of mythology into religion, of personifying into
deifying.

EtBCTBlo LiOHTiNO. — From America comes the report that about
three weeks ago the wires of the Baxter Electric Light Company
•were crossed by the wires of the New Jersey Telephone and Tele-
graph Company in Jersey City, and part of the city thrown into
ilaikneas for several hours. The diverting of the powerful current
from the Baxter wires to the teleidionc system destroyed several
in.strumonts. The llaxter Light Company say that the crossing
was the rcsnlt of m.'ilicimns mischief, the wires being found tied
together with an old woollen scarf. Kxperts say that the fault
was caused by the s.-igging of the Haxtor wires, as the insulator is
burned off in several places. There liave been two fires in Cliost-
nntstreot, Philadelphia, since tho electric light wires wore creeled
there. In both cases the firemen were greatly impeded in their
efforts to gel ladders up to the burning places by the electric
conductors ovorhead. — Klcctrical lievieio.

TTTE CRYSTAL PALACE ELECTRIC
AND GAS EXHIBITION.

BOTH .sections of this Exhibition have developed very
considerably during the past four or five weeks, and
provide pk'nty of food for reflection for those interested in
the question of illumination, either domestic or public.
The north nave is well lighted by arc lamps of the
Mackenzie, J5rokic, and (Julcher type. It is noteworthy
that the Brokie lamp, with the principle of which several
authorities have seen fit to find fault, burns with remark-
able steadiness, and indicates, we apprehend, careful and
intelligent engineering. The Gulcher light also bums
steadily and well, a compliment we cannot by any means
bestow upon the recently-introduced and much-belauded
Lever lamp. Whether the fault lay with the lamp itself
or resulted from carelessness in the engine-room, we are
not prepared to say ; but a cur.sory inspection of the latter
did not reveal a fault there. The lamps, one could not
help noticing, burnt with many shades of colour and
degrees of brilliance. Among the prettiest application of
the arc light it has ever been our pleasure to witness is the
artificial glen at the side of the Alhanibra Court, illu-
minated by the Lea arc lamp (exhibited by the Werde-
mann Company). An invisible lamp throws a beam of
purest light through an opening of the glen with an exceed-
ingly pleasing efTect. It is a very near approach to a solar
beam, being if anything slightly whiter in tone. The
Duplex Company exhibit their arc lamp, which is well
worthy of its reputation of steadiness. It is a remark-
able fact that the general appearance of the arc lights this
year is a decided improvement upon what was to be
observed last winter. To a great extent this is due to
improved workmanship in the apparatus, but perhaps to an
even greater extent to the increased familiarity of the
engineers with the work they have in hand. An ocean
traveller would be somewhat dubious about placing himself
in the care of a lad fresh from a school near which a ship
had never been seen, and in which navigation had never
been heard of. But this is a fair example of what has
frequently taken place in the history of electric light
installations. In incandescent electric lighting there is
at present nothing to call for remark, unless it
be that we see here, for the first time, the duplex
incandescent lamp, in which there are two short
incandescing filaments so arranged as to be capable of
being used singly or together, either in " series " or in
"parallel circuit." It is, however, questionable whether
there is any real advantage in such an arrangement over
the single long filament of the Edison or Swan type.

The floor of the north nave is allotted to electrical ex-
hibits of a miscellaneous character, amongst them being
a good display, by Messrs. Sanderson ct Co., ©f lightning
protectors, with one or two novelties in the way of
burglar-alarms. !Mr. Meyer exhibits e.xamples of his
underground system. He has a number of longitudinal
grooves iii a slab of glass, etc., and, laying a wire in each
groove, pours an insulating material over the whole, so as
to form one solid mass. The slabs with the wires
may then be laid one over the other in an iron or
earthenware subway or box-channel. Some difficulty,
it is fancied, would be experienced in connecting con-
tinuous lengths, unless the parts are put together in the
street, which is scarcely practicable. However valuable
some of the claims of ilr. Meyer may be, there is at least
one of them which reads somewhat amusing. He says : —
" It [the system] permits the use of ribbons of copper as
well as wires, l/ie greater surface of tfie^e being of advantage

Feb. 9, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

85

in reducing the resistance. Ribbons under other systems
are impracticable, owing to technical difficulties attending
the proper insulation of that peculiar section." Shades of
Ohm I Tiij' laws no longer reign, but, doomed to ignominy,
find rest only in the minds of scientists and fanatics.
" liesistance varies inversely as tlie cross-section," was one
of Ohm's simple deductions, and one which we imagined
no one in these days would dare to deny ; but Jlr. ileyer
holds tliat if a wire is flattened out (the cross-section
remaining unaltered) its resistance is reduced.

Turning our steps southward, we observe a considerable
increase in the amount of gas illumination both in the nave
and in the various adjoining courts, while down the centre
and along the western side are to be seen many highly-
interesting displays of gas apparatus for lighting, heating,
\entilating, and cooking.

In the Pompeian House there is a very good light, sup-
plied by the Albo-Carbon Light Company. Each burner is
accompanied with a means for purifying and improving the
gas prior to its arriving at the burner. The result is a much
larger proportion of consumed gas, compared to that which
passes away unconsumed, and a relatively higher degree of
luminosity. Sir. George Bower illuminates the Birmingham
Oourt with the Lewis incandescent gas-burner and the
Orimston regenerative burner. These two recently-in-
troduced principles of gas-lighting are, however, of such
paramount interest and importance, that we could scarcely
do justice to them at the tail end of a general review. We
must, therefore, defer for a week or two our descriptive
remarks on these lights, as well as on the Diamond incan-
descent burner, which is exhiliited Ity Edouard Servier, of
Paris, in the Chinese Court. The light given by the Lewis
burner is certainly all that could be desired, each burner
consuming 8 ft. per hour of ordinary sixteen-candle gas,
and emitting a light said to be equal to forty candles.
Upstairs the suite of apartments so elegantly fitted out last
year Viy various West-end upholsterers, and illuminated by
Edison lamps, is now occupied by the Gas Committee. It
will be remembered that last winter the rooms called
forth the admiration of every visitor, the furniture
being adorned by a light which readily lends
itself to the artist's hands, yields a soft and steady
light, and, while it in no way vitiates the air, exerts no
injurious influence upon the decorations. Messrs. Atkinson
& Co., of Westminster Bridge-road, are the present fur-
nishers, and have apparently embellished the rooms to the
fullest extent of their power, the light Ijeing supplied by
gas consumed in the Grimsten and Sugg burners. The
effect is pretty and everything tastily arranged, but with
the greatest desire for impartiality it is impossible to deny
the palm to last year's adornment, thanks to Mr. Edison.

Beyond the Gas Committee's Exhibit there is nothing to
be seen in the gallery, which, remembering the disappoint-
ment experienced and expressed by many exhibitors located
there last year, is scarcely to be regretted.

The electric street firo alarnms placed thronghont Glasgow were
used liJ2 times to intimate the outbreak of fires during last year,
and in 45 instances were the means of cilling oat the brigade
unnecessarily — 15 of which alarms were given with good intent,
nine through contact with other wires, and 21 thoughtlessly or
miscliievonsly.

Tm; foreign settlement at Shanghai has for some time been
lighted on the Bmsh system, but the Chinese governor of the dis-
trict has addressed a letter to the senior Foreign Consul, ror|ue.<ting
» removal of all the electric lamps. He has read, he says, in trans-
lations from European papers, that terrible accidents have arisen
from electricity. He h.as, therefore, strictly forbidden bis own
countrymen to use it, and has percnii)torily ordered those who have
already adopted it to discontinue it forthwith.

"CLERK" OR "CLARK."

Bv E. A. Fm:E.M.\K, LL.D., D.C.K

rpHERE is one word on which I wish to speak a little
X more at large, as a clear instance in which the school-
master or the printed text or some other artificial influence
has brought about a distinct change in pronunciation. The
word " clerk " is in England usually sounded " dark,"
while in America it is usually sounded " clurk." I say
" usually," because I did once hear " clurk " in England —
from a London shopman^and because I was told at
Philadelphia that some old people there still said " dark,"
and —a. most iiiii>ortant fact — that those who said " dark "
also said "nirtrcliant." Kow it is quite certain that "dark"
is the older pronunciation, the pronunciation which the
first settlers must have taken with them. This is proved
by the fact that the word as a surname — and it is one of
the commonest of surnames — is always souaded, and most
commonly written, " Clark " or " Clarke." 1 suspect that
" Clerk " as a surname, so spelled, is di.stinetivdy '• Scotch,"
in the modern sense of that word. Also in writers of the
sixteenth and early seventeenth century, the word itself is
very oftsn written " dark " or " clarke." But of course
"clerk" was at all times the more clerkly spelling, as
showing the French and Latin origin of the word. It is
plain therefore that the pronunciation "clurk" is not
traditional, but has been brought in artificially, out of a
notion of making the sound conform to the spelling. But
" clurk " is no more the true sound than " dark "; the true
sound is " clairk," like French " clerc," and a Scotsman
would surely sound it so. " Clark " and " clurk " are both
mere approximations to the French sound, and " dark " is
the older, and surely the more natural approximation.
The truth is that we cannot sound " clerk " as it is spelled j
that is, we cannot give the e before r the same sound which
w^e give it when it is followed by any other consonant.
Wo cannot sound e in " clerk " exactly as we sound e in
"tent." This applies to a crowd of words, some of Latin
origin, in which the spelling is e, Init in which the sound
has, just as in " clerk," fluctuated between a and m. The
old people at Philadelphia who said " d"rk " also said
" marchant." And quite rightly, for they had on their
side both older English usage and, in this case, the French
spelling itself. The sound "m?frchant " has come in, both
in England and in America, by exactly the same process as
that by which the sound " clwrk " has come in in America,
but not in England. In these cases the words arc of Latin
origin : so is " German," which people used to sound
"Jarman" — as in the memorable story of the Oxford
University preacher who wished the "Jarman theology "at
the bottom of the "Jarman Ocean." But the same thing
happens to a crowd of Teutonic proper names, as Derby,
Berkeley, Berkshire, Bernard, Bertram, and others. In
these names the original Old-English vowel is "'-o"; the
modem spelling and the different modern pronunciations
are mere approximations, just as when the vowel is the
French or Latin e. One has heard "Darby" and " Dwrby,"
" B«7rkeley " and " Bwrkeley " ; and though the a sound is
now deemed the more polite, yet 1 believe that fashion has
fluctuated in this matter, as in most others. And fashion,
whether fluctuating or not, is at least inconsistent ; if it is
polite to talk of " Br/rkshire " and " Darby," it is no
longer polite to talk about " Jarman " and "Jersey." But
in all these cases there can be no doubt that the a sound
is the older. The names of which I have spoken are
often spelled with an a in old writers ; and the a sound
has for it the witness of the most familiar spelling of
several of the names when used as surnames. " Darby,'

86

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Feb. 9, 1883.

" Barclay," " Barnard," " JJartram," all familiar suriianios,
show what souiul was usual when their prcsont spelling
\vas fixed. Tourists, I bolicve, talk of the " DMrwent" (as
they call the Dove the " Duv ") ; but the Derwent at
Stamford-bridge is undoubtedly Drtrwent, while the more
northern stream of the name is locally Darwin, a form
which has become illustrious as a surname. Now in words
of this kind, while British use is somewhat fluctuating, I
believe that America has universally decided for the ii
sound. But there can be no doubt that, whether in
England or in America, the sound of " D«rby " or
" H»rtram " is simply an attempt to adapt the .sound to the
spelling, while " Darby " and " Bartram " are the genuine
traditional sounds. — Longman's Magazine.

[In nearly all these cases, the genuine original sound is
not "a" as in "far," but "a" as in "fare." The point
is discussed in an article which I wrote for the Gentle-
iiian's Magazine, now in the press for " Leisure Readings,"
Knowledge Library. — R. A. P.]

STAYS AND STRENGTH.

By " An Observer " and Rich, A. Proctor.

THE result of your own experiment in tight-lacing is
solid ground compared with the theories and analogies
in which this subject had been previously swimming.
And undoubtedly it proves what the sight of every fat
but tight-laced woman proved before, viz., that it is not an
infallible remedy for corpulence. But I have looked at,
I believe, all the letters formerly published on it to see
if any recommended it as such, and I do not find one
that goes beyond saying that the writer had foiind his or
her own size and weight permanently reduced by it, and,
therefore, it was worth trying by others who wanted such
reduction. Most of them, indeed, said they had originally
tried it for some other reason, and had incidentally derived
that benefit also which you did from going to America.

(2). I do not doubt that in the least, though I cannot
remember the same thing happening to any of my own
acquaintance, and one came back fatter who was thin
before.

(3). But has it ever occurred to you to reflect how
Knowledcje would have been writing on this suliject for
the last few months, if you had happened to be one of
those whose experience was different from your own, as of
course the Editor of Knowledge might have been I I will
not pursue that inquiry, but leave it to the meditation of
our readers.

(4). I know nothing in the world of the army-surgeon
whom I quoted, except that he wrote like a practical man,
simply giving the result of an experiment which he began
just as you did, only ho found himself so much better for
it that he continued it, as sundry other writers did. And,
in spite of your contempt for him, I must give the sui-geon,
at any rate, credit for understanding his own constitution
better than you do for him — and indeed, the non-medical ex-
perimenters, too, especially as several of them said that their
health always relapsed whenever they gave up their stays,
though one or two added that they find them only neces-
sary for health for a few hours in the morning. Nor can
I see anything so very funny in his liking to contract his
waist to 23 in., as he finds himself better for it, and does
like it, like all the other advocates of it, from their own
experience. Such a waist will measure at least 27 in. over
any male dress that is worn now ; and any tailor will tell
you that there are many tall men with natural waists from

that size down to 24 in. He gave his height a-s ."i ft 7 in.,
which is not tall ; and his circumference was trumped
by another man of the same height, who said he had been
for ten years smaller by an inch in his stays.

(5). I am quite unable, even with the help of your
reference to your own case, to understand your reiterated
medical conclusion, that " if a man finds himself better in
stays, it shows that they are weakening " — i.e., if a man
finds himself better for any treatment, that proves that he
is worse for it, even though he relapses into greater
irorseness whenever he gives it up. I give that up, as a
piece of logic utterly beyond me.

(6). I must leave you and the American doctor to agree
on what you both really mean as to the tight-lacing of
American ladies (which I had heard and read of before)
compared with ours. You contradict him on one point,
and so explain him away on another that I give it up in
despair.

(7). The letter of G. C. S. is in no respect worth
answering. An Observer.

(1). Nay, — "fat and tight-laced women" notwithstanding,
— I believe tight-lacing in the manner recommended by
" An Observer " is a remedy for corpulence. Even my
own experiment would, very probably, if continued long
enough, have proved that. I simply could not afford to
pay the price, — torpid liver, impaired respiration, per-
manently weakened abdominal and lumbar muscles, with
some scarce more pleasant etceteras. There are other
pretty sure ways of diminishing corpulence, which are not
much worse.

(2). I believe my American experience much more
common than that of " An Observer's " acquaintance. I
suppose two or three hundred cases have come under my
notice in the multitudinous converse I have had with
travellers. In the great majority of cases there is loss of
weight ; in a few no change; and in a very few the con-
trary experience has been described to me. An English-
man who goes to America only for a holiday may take
things so easily as to come back fleshier. But America is
a large place any way, — some of its States severally larger
than European countries, — so that locality may have some-
thing to do with the matter.

(3). After meditating on what would probably have
happened if my experience had been the reverse of what
it has been, I feel constrained to admit that, as a general
rule, " If your aunt had been a man, she would have been
your uncle." "An Observer" does not, of course, mean
that I have not let both sides have their say ; for I have.
For every letter on his side for which room could not be
found, there have been about a dozen on the other in similar
plight. Oddly enough, though so many years have passed
since the corset cure for corpulence, indigestion, ttc, &c.,
was prescribed, and hundreds must have trietl it, besides
them who then ad\ocated it, I have not received one single
letter giving a favourable account of its efficacy.

(4). I felt well assured " An Observer " knew nothing of
the army surgeon. I fancy if he had ever met that
surgeon he would have written differently about hinT.
I have a strong belief, amounting almost to conviction,
that most of those who gave their own experience, as they
said, were of the " tailless fox " order. They had fallen
into the trap, and being no longer able to exist comfortably
without their corsets, tried to persuade others that they
liked to wear them, and would not, even if they could,
recover their former freedom. I set against their pretended
experience the results of very wide-ranging inquiries of my
own. I have come in my travels (lecturing and otherwise)
across hundreds of men with whom I have conversed about

Feb

1883.J

KNOWLEDGE ♦

S7

such suVijects as we are upon. I have scarcely ever had
an hour's talk with a medical fellow-traveller without
ascertaining what his experience had taught. And I assert
with the utmost confidence (knowing that mere chance
cannot have brought me in contact only with (me set, if
opinions were fairly divided) that the overwhelming weight
of experience, and consequently of opinion, is against tight
lacing.

(.")). Has "An Observer" nerer heard of remedies which
are worse than the disease ? Does not a drunkard feel
the better after a drink ; and is he not in the long run the
worsefor it? The drunkard's "morning nip" and the tight-
lacer's " morning nip " are pretty much on a par, I take it.
It sounds even worse logic than what "An Observer" thinks
so bad, to say — for example — " a man sleeps the better for a
narcotic, and therefore he sleeps the worse for it " ; but it
happens to be a fact, and therefore the logic must really
be sound, whatever it maj' seem to be. Such cases are
common and well known. One may even infer that, as a
general rule, if a man feels the better for any artificial
support, stimulant, soothing treatment, or the like, he
will probably be the worse in the long-run for its syste-
matic use.

(6). I agree with everything Dr. Dio Lewis has said
about the tight-lacing of American ladies. On what point
"An Observer" supposes I contradict Dr. Lewis, I fail to
see. Dr. Lewis remarks that some American ladies na^/
nineteen inches waist measurement is immense, and I note
that American ladies do not think so ; it is tolerably clear
that Dr. Lewis knows that very well. He suggests it very
neatly. I will undertake to say not one of his American
readers (and he was writing for Americans) misunderstood
him, as " An Observer " seems to have done. [I may
correct here an erratum in the letter of "G. C. S." At
line 13, for " 19 " read " 14." (The fault was not wholly
with the printers, as the " 4 " looked very like a 9.) Of
course, a natural feminine waist may be 19 inches, while a
14-inch waist would be monstrous (in the true sense of the
word.)]

(7). " An Observer " should not be surprised if " G. 0. S.,"
like hundreds of ladies who have written to us on the
subject, is not over well-pleased to see a causa so stoutly
advocated, which, were it successfully pleaded, would con-
demn her sex to the continuance and even increase of
miseries from which a way of escape seems opening.

(Note.) — Referring to my remarks, p. 51, 1 note that on
reference to my diary I find my weight in the autumn of
1875 was 14 St. 7 lb., not 14 st. 31k— the 31b. belonged
to the American way of recording weight, making mine
203 lb. at that time — or, minus clothing (summer), about
194 lb.: reduced 39 lb., or by one-fifth part, in the spring of
1876. In reply to many queries, the height of American
lady mentioned on p. 51, is about 5 ft. 4 in. When I spoke
of dresses not fitting well after corst-t removed, I meant
that they were then too loose, and did not set perfectly
round waist. It may interest manj- ladies to learn that
the lastnamed effect is entirely cured by the arrangement
advocated by the Rational Dress Society, a still more
marked increase of comfort following after that change
than after the mere disuse of corSet. I learn on excellent
authority that the new mode is much more comfortable,
much lighter, much warmer, than the old ; yet it is to all
appearances the same, (unless a lady should choose other-
wise), a point on which I think the Rational Dress Society
should dwell more than they do ; for many suppose th(!
new dress to be something outre and remarkable. It may
comfort " An Observer " to know that a lady may derive
all the benefits of lightness and warmth which the new
dress gives, and yet, should she so please, may squeeze

herself, to her heart's content and her liver's discomfort,
in the tightest possible corsets.

Richard A. Proctor

P.S. — Feb. 5. " Dr. Lewis's closing words," in capitals, aretmly
awful — to those who prefer observations to observation. Those
who prefer the latter mast have known, as I have, numbers of
women with numbers of healthy children, and yet njunifestly
guilty of tight lacing, and no worse for it in any way. I men-
tioned the Kmpress of Austria befurc — a tall woman with still a
very small waist, formerly IP in., and grandchildren, and a great
rider still. A near relation of mine used to say her >vaist was
18 in. when she married, and she had eleven children, most of whom
have already lived to more than sixty, in unusually good health ; so
had she till she died at nearly eighty. One of the most apparently
tightlaced girls I ever knew has a pood many children, I believe.
and I never heard of either her or them being in bad health. I
could easily mention others — indeed, such is the perversity of men,
that I am afraid small-waisted girls get, not loss, but more married
than others. Dr. Lewis has evidently one national quality in per-
fection, of " going the whole hog." — As Ohsebvkk.

[Feb. 6. — To all which, the reply is that small waists and tight-
lacing are very different things. 1 can cite four instances within
my own circle where " An Observer " would have suggested " mani-
festly tight-lacing," but where there was no lacing at all — simply
small natural waists, which always have been and always will be
admired. One lady, wliose waist was lOJin. before marriage,
mother of twelve children (including twins) ; another, whose waist
was 19 in., mother of four children ; two others, natural waists
IS in. and IG in., one married, and the other most certainly not one
who should be advised (either in capitals or small type) not to
marry. — E. P.J

CORPULENCE.*

( Continued from p. 73. )

MANY of the persons who complain of their tlesh could
relieve themselves of part of it by two simple ex-
pedients, viz., eating less and taking more exercise. This,
however, requires too great a sacrifice on their part ; they
are like the people who want to get rich or learned without
e.xercising the amount of self-denial necessary to accomplish
the desired end.

In early Greece, gymnastic exercises had for their express
object the prevention of corpulence. A huge padding of
fat not only shocked the highly-developed .-esthetic sensi-
bility of this richly gifted people, but was most justly re-
garded by them as a hindrance to corporeal robustness.

It is well known that work-horses are seldom fat, and
persons of active habits avoid e.xcess of flesh. But not
only does a quiet life favour corpulence, but corpulence
favours quiet, for the fat man finds it impossible to take
much exercise.

Before considering the diet most favourable to the cure
of corpulence, we must ask whence comes human fat. The
views of physiological chemists have undergone much
change since the days of Liebig, who considered the carbo-
hydrates (sugar and starch) to be the fat producers. The
more recent physiological \ iew regards the greater portion
of the fat store as probably a product of the decomposition
of the albumen in the food, but some of the fat eaten is
deposited in the tissues directly. The magnitude of this
store is primarily determined by the amount of food taken,
because the store of fat at any time laid up in the animal
body is derived from the nutriment assimilated by the
organism. It does not follow from our first statement that
if a man lived entirely on albumen lie would get fat, be-
cause a large portion of the albumen would be consumed
in supporting life, and only the residue unconsumed could
be laid up as reserve. But if farinaceous food and sugar

• From the Scientific American.

88

♦ KNOWLEDGIi: ♦

[Feb. 9, 1883.

(carbo-hydrates) be takfn with the albumen, the former
protect the latter from burning up, and thus favour the
formation of fat, altiiougii we liiiv(^ no proof that they can
themselves be converted into fat. To make a familiar
comparison, a person wlio receives a very small salary and
board will be able to put more money in the savings-bank
than one who receives a larger conipen.sation for his services,
but has to pay liis own board. The food which the former
receives from liis employer cannot be deposited in the bank,
but it enables him to preserve intact whatever cash he may
get This protecting influence of the carbo-hydrates led
early chenii-sts to mistake them for fat producers.

Both the ()uality and (juantity of food taken are of im-
portance in the treatment of corpulence. Starvation will
reduce the (lesh, but it should nrvpr be resorted to, as it
produces weakness in every organ, and leads to the "worst
results. On the other hand, the quantity of food eaten
should be as small as is consistent with health and with satis-
faction of the natural appetite. As regards the kind of
food, the following should only be taken in small quantities:
— Bread, milk, eggs, potatoes, carrots, rice, buckwheat,
sweet soups, sugar, mutton in any form, beef-steak, salads
with oil, dessert dishes, and wine jelly. The following
should be almost entirely avoided : — Butter, cream, fats,
sauces, pork, sweet pastry, confitures, creams, ices, chest-
nuts and other nuts. For beverages tea and coffee may be
taken with little or no milk and sugar, but chocolate and
cocoa are to be avoided. Beer and strong alcoholic liquors
must be given up, but sour wines diluted with water are
permissible.

The first person who ever followed out for a year the
strict dietary laid down by his physician was William
Banting, who reduced his weight 46 pounds (from 202
pounds to 156 pounds) and his circumference by 12^ inches
in that time. This treatment, which was invented by
Harvey, has since been known as " Bantingism." The
details of his winu may be found in most medical books.
Although frequently attempted, it has rarely been found
so successful in other cases. There is no doubt, however,
that any intelligent person who is willing to impose some
restraint on his appetite, and avoid the forbidden foods and
drinks mentioned above, and take regular exercise, may
materially reduce his own weight and bulk.

(To he continued.)

3Rebi>lus!.

THE VAST AND THE MINUTE.*

AMONG the most attractive of the treatises on science
which we owe to the French school of popular
science teaching — the works of Guillemin, Flammarion,
Figuier, Pouohet, and others — there is not one more sug-
gestive and impressive than Pouchet's " Universe of the
Infinitely Gieat and the Infinitely Little." There is a
charm in such a work as this peculiar to itself. A well-
written popular^treatise on Astronomy, Geology, or Biology,
on Electricity, Ciiemistry, or Physics generally, teaches
striking les.sons about the wonders of nature in specific
fields. But such a work as Pouchet's " Universe " brings so
forcibly before the thoughtful reader the infinite variety of
the universe, that he must be dull indeed who is not awed
by the impressive lesson. The poet who tells us that " the
undevout astronomer is mad" (without precisely noting

• " The Universe ; or, the Infinitely Oreat and the Infinitely
Little," by F. A. Ponchet, M.D. (Seventli Edition. London :
Blackie & Srin.)

what sort of devotion he means) adds the singular state-
ment that, —

In tlio small, men seek out God,

In great, Ho seizes man.

But the saying might be more truthfully reversed. In the
great, man seems lost : he trembles as he stands before

The preat world's altar-stairs
That slope thro' darkness np to God.

In the small, he seems to trace God's hand. A poet, who
died more than a quarter of a century ago, said of a tiny
flower —

For mo such spell, fair gem, thoa hast,

Thy masric power conveys,
My soal through countless ages past,
Back to Creation's days.

Modem science cannot look back so far ; but the story
which Mr. Grant Allen tells us in these pages is not less
impressive that it speaks of no beginning which science can
recognise. The story with which M. Pouchet deals is even
grander ; because he appeals at once both to the great and to
the small — nay, to what is practically to us the infinitely
great and the infinitely small. His lesson is the " old old
lesson," which the illimitable heavens and the tiny flowret
have alike taught to all who have ears to hear, and eyes to
see, and hearts to understand, — ■

Spirit of Kature, here —
In this interminable wilderness
Of worlds, at whose immensity

E*en soaring fancy staggers —

Here is thy fitting temple.

Tet not the lightest leaf
That quivers to the passing breeze
Is less instinct with thee.

How M. Pouchet tells the wondrous story we must refer
our readers to his book to learn. With happy aptitude he
selects all that is most striking in the great and small, all
that appeals most to the imagination. From the mountain
to the sand-grain, from the mammoth to the microscopic
animalcule, from the sun to the atom, throughout the
world of vegetables, the insect world, the present and
past time, he ransacks the whole storehouse of knowledge
to supply his " modern instances " of the infinitely great
and the infinitely small, and to enforce the lesson which all
nature has to tell. It were easy to note errors in matters
of detail, easy to indicate omissions and deficiencies ; but
such a work could hardly be free from error, and could
not possibly be free from omissions. Regarded as a
wliole, it is admirably done. The volume is illustrated by
270 excellent engravings, is handsomely bound, and well
got up altogether. In this, the seventh edition, the matter
relating to comets and meteors is considerably out of date,
and the researches of Pasteur should have found a place
here. But most of the matter is " not for an age, but for
all time, " and independent of editions. — R. A. Proctor.

Mk. Justice Fry made an order on Friday last for the winding-up
of the Phoenix Electric Light and Power Company, under the
supervision of the Court.

Tiiu.VDERSTORM. — During a thunderstorm in the neighbonrhood of
Pontypridd on Tuesday week, a house, occupied by a farmer, was
struck throe times by the lightning. One flash passed down tbe
cliitnney-stack and knocked down a mantelpio-.'c, another knocked
away a portion of the bnilding, and, passing into an out-house,
killed five cows, and a third smashed the bedroom '.rindow.

PRr/,E Electric.il Essay. — A prize of £100 for the best essay on
the utilisation of electricity for motive-power is offered by the
Society of Arts. Preference is to be given to that essay which,
besides setting forth the theory of the subject, contains records
with detailed resiflts of actual working or experiment. The society
reserves the right of publishing the essay.

Feb. 9, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE •

89

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Tennyson.

Xrttrre to tl)r editor.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly he in-
serted. Correspondents must not be offended, therefore, should their
letter!, not appear.

All Kditoriid communications shotild he addressed to the Editor of
Knowledge ; all Business communications to the PcBLisnERx, at the
Office, 74, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS AKISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT EESPOXSIBLE.

All R''miltances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should he made
payable to Mes.srs. Wtman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMMrNICATIONS ARE ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOCGH STAMPED
AND DIRF-Cn:D ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

SUN-DIAL OF AHAZ.

[702] — There is not the lenst necessity for snpposing Hezekiali's

parhelion to have differed in position from the commonest sort,

such as my Portsea ones, if wo snppose it rvt the same time of day,

Ih. 30m., and in December or January. Botli accounts, indeed,

almost necessitate that verj- time of day ; for they say that the

shadow (or tlic sun, Isa) was " brought back ten degrees, by which

it had gone down;" implying, if strictly taken, that this was the

whole amount it had declined, or that the shadow came back just

to the meridian. If the "degrees" then were fortieths of a

quadrant (and forty occurs so constantly in the Old Testament

as to be the likeliest number by far), the hour must have

f been half-past one, the same at which our Portsea display

> became overclouded, and the left-hand mock sun was due

J, south. Having seen proof that the effects all ceased while the sun

|kwas higher than about 37°. 1 vaguely inferred that in a low latitude

Vthey would only be possible early or late in the day. Hut the mid-

^winter sun at Jerusalem only reaches 35° on the meridian, about 5°

I less than at Portsea on March 2!', so that foratleasta month before

( and after midwinter the sign was possible at noon.

These degrees, equal to nine of our minutes, must he the earliest
artificial time-measnres on record, as hours are said to be named by
no writer before Daniel, and were at first but three to the quadrant
thongh six are made, as now, in the eight dials on the Tower of the
Winds at Athens, and the old Greek dials in the British Sluseum.

E. L. G.
[Several correspondents mistakingly suppose that " E. L. G.," in
explaining by what simple nafui-al means the shadow might go back,
proposed to dispute the occurrence of anything miraculous. It
should be obvious from his lirst letter that this is not the case. Of
conrse, if the event happened as described it was miraculous, what-
ever the explanat ion. Equally of course, many will prefer to believe
that -while sneh a phenomenon was witnessed in Hezekiah's time,
it was only long after that the story assumed its present form,
according to which the going back of the shadow was promised
lieforehand. — K. P.]

WEARING STAYS.

[703]— As the father of young daughters who, like knowledge,
are " growing from more to more," I have followed with great
interest the letters in Knowledge about corset wearing, and the
thought has occurred to me that perhaps you could suggest a
rational way of dressing girls. Their mother says that without
"stays" they will simply be " lumps." W. Watekholsk.

[The discussion of this subject began with the advocacy of
tight-lacing. The question is one of extreme importance — of vital
importance. A writer says " Men are not interested in it"; but men
(of sense, hien entendu) are very much interested in it. I have
myself no suggestions to offer, simply because I regard the matter
as one for women to deal with. The wife of the just-mentioned
writer says she "will wear stays" (presumably tightly-laced
ones), and he says "she is quite right." But, putting mere
chaff of that sort on one side, I can onlynote that quite a large
number of ladies, whose experience of the " Rational Dross" system

has reached me, speak of it as much warmer, much lighter, much
better-looking, for women who by nature have wai.-^ts — but I fear
it is open to the objection that a " bunchy " woman would look
worse in the "rational dress." Such is the verdict of the feminine
authorities whose opinion has reached me. — R. P.]

WEATHER PREDICTIONS.

[704] — An evening paper writes as follows: — "The authorities
of the Sleteorological Office have at length given uj) the weather in
despair. For many months they have been singularly unfortunate.
There was a time when it was otherwise. Personal observa-
tion of the daily forecasts led mo at one time to regard
them with wondering confidence, but for at least si.\ months
things have gone wrong, and it came to pass that the nearest
approach to a safe forecast of the weather was to count upon the
reverse of the prediction from the meteorological department. On
Sunday night the oflice gJive it up with something like a cry of
pathetic despair. They declared that a definite forecast was im-
l)Ossible, but very unsettled wet weather was likely to prevail
generally. This looked like treading on sure ground. A man who
at this season would predict wet weather as likely generally to
prevail could not be called rash ; but here again the hapless
iletoorologieal Office is ludicrously in the wrong; yesterday was,
for London, a phenomenally clear and sunlit day, and similar
wealher is rejiorted all through the southern districts." — London
Paper.

Is it not time now that this farce is ended, and the money that
has been wasted annually upon this useless office be in future saved
to the revenue of this overtaxed country ? (i. 1. L.

OUR FOREFATHERS.
[705] — Would yon kindly assist me out of a perplexity ? A short
time ago, I read in the Daily Telegraph that, according to calcula-
tions made by an Italian statist, every person now alive is entitled
to claim nearly one hundred and forty thousand billions of ancestors
by going no further hack than the year one of the Christian era.
taking three generations in a century, or about fifty-seven in all ;
basing the calculation on the fact that every person has, or has had,
a father and a mother, and again that father and mother had the
same progenitors, which were of necessity doubled with every gene-
ration as we go further back. Now, there is nothing to be said
airainst the correctness of this calculation, but then we come to the
astounding fact that such ,an enormous number of ancestors is
clained by a single person, whilst even now, after 1882 years have
elapsed, during which period the population has rather increased
than decreased, there are only about one thousand millions of
people alive. But this is not all. Our ancestors living in the year
one had also fathers and mothers, and I can't see what can stop us
going further and further back for four thousand years more, when
we come to the time of the beginning of the world, when there were
actually only two people inexistence.[!] And mind, Mr. Editor, this
is the result of starting with only one person, whilst there are one
thousand millions besides who can make the same claim. Do you
wonder that I am perplexed H Please to help me to clear it up, and
oblige, A CON.STANT Uf.ader.

[If a " Constant Reader" will consider the case of, say, twelve
married couples, starting a colony, in a place to which no others
ever come to stay, and carefully note the effect of natural increase
resulting from intermarriages among the descendants, ho will see
that if in a generatitjn the population dovibled— say three genera-
tions in a centurj- — then, in a thousand years, the population would
consist of some 26,000,000,000, all descended from twenty-four
persons. Yet each person would be theoretically descended from
2,150,000,000 ancestors, the number being made up by the varying
u-a'is in which each of the original twenty-four is related to each
of bis descendants in the thirtieth degree. When first-cousins
marr)', to take a simple e.tamplc, their children have only six
instead of eight great-grandparents ; but one great-grandfather is
(or may be) father's father's father, and mother's mother's father.
If two brothers marry two sisters, and a son by one marriage
marries a daughter by the other, the children ol this last marriage
have only four great-grandparents; but each of these is doubly a
great-grandparent. When a longer range of generations is taken,
these relationships not only may become, but do become, much
more complicated. Thus tlio chances are that any person casually
met in society is not only a cousin far removed, but a cousin in
various degrees of removal, a<^cording to the way in which cousin-
ship is estimated, and a cousin also in hundreds of different ways.
It is almost infinitely unlikely that, if all the relationships could be
traced back a hundred generations, no consinship would be found,
in the case even of a man in very different rank — much higher or
much lower. — R. P.]

90

KNO^A^LEDGE•

[Fer 9. 1883.

A CDBIOUS RAIXBOW.

[70C] — Yesterday niornint; (Jan. 21, 1883) I observed a reiin-
bow — one fiiniilar to which I do not uvor remerabor seeing before,
nt least as rp(;ards ap|ini-ciit conditions and delinition.

The morninp was line and frosty, and fairly clear, the country
round aboat being visible for a tiistance of about ten miles, and
there was certainly neither any appearance of rain not yet of snow
\isiblo between either horizon. At about half-past nine o'clock I
observed a bow in tbo north-western part of tlie sky. The different
colours were barely distinguishable, and I at first thought that it
was a freak of nature in the shaping of the clouds.

Now, the sun was shining through a thin layer of clouds (cirrus,
I tlunk), which covered the whole sky more or less, and I 8upix)se
that the snn shining through those clouds in the east would cause
the rainbow to be reflected on the clouds in the west. If this is
the case, however, how is it that similar rainbows are not oftcner
seen ? If this is an uncommon occurrence, and I have not given
the right definition of its cause, I have no doubt you or some of
your readers will be able to explain.

The enclosed rmigh drawing, made of course irrespective of
size or distance, will show more clearly what I mean.

The rainbow lasted for more than an hour and a half. — Yours
sincerely, W. H. M.

MISTLETOE.

[707] — Mr. Grant Allen, in his moat interesting paper on the
" Mistletoe," seems to me to have left out one of the chief ways
in which the plant is propagated. Any one who has watched a
canary or any small cage bird feeding must have seen the bird,
when anything stuck to the outside of its beak, \vipe its beak on
the perch. Now, when a bird is eating mistletoe berries, what ij-
more likely than that the seeds should get stuck to its beak by the
very viscid pulp ? In this case the bird will be almost sure to wipe
the seeds off its beak on to a branch of a tree, where the seeds
will be left ready to germinate. W. H. Bansall, B.A.

SLEET AND SNOW.

[708] — On Wednesday evening, Jan. 2i, between eight and
nine o'clock, I happened to be out in the rain, or rather sleet, which
was falling, when suddenly the character of the downfall changed,
and for about five or six minutes snowflakes of remarkable size fell
instead of the sleet ; the flakes, or perhaps accumulation of flakes,
were from 1 to 2i inches in length, and f to IJ in breadth ; was
it not a rather singular phenomenon ? I could not see if the deli-
cate star-forms were plainly visible or not, being unable to examine
them in the light. _^ J. Lokd.

ACOUSTIC EXPERIMENT.

[709] — The following simple experiment suggested itself to me
as an illustration of the way the spectroscope is used to show
whether a star is approaching the earth or moving from it. 1
soldered a short piece of i-in. brass tube to a brass rod (in
order to give it weight), filed up the open end square, and tied
the rod to a piece of string about four feet long.

O

-O BFAss frao

Now, when the end of the string was held in the hand and the
jiipe swung rapuUy round, like a sling, it emitted a note, which, by
a person standmg at a little distance (in the plane in which the '
arrangement was turning), was heard to alternately rise and fall in
lutch, bemg higher when the pipe was approaching, and lower
when It was receding from the observer. It will be easily seen
how this lUuBtrates the use of the spectroscope referred to.

Andrew Boyd.

GREAT PYRAMID.

[710] — Adverting to Mr. Wni. M. FlinderB-Petrie's excavatians at
the "Great Pyramid," as detailed in the appendix (B) to Mr.
Proctor's recent work, in which Mr. Petrie is represented as saying
that the Pyramid " proves to bo several feet smaller than hitherto
supposed;" I write to ask whether you can inform j'our readers
when the result of " the paper work of the survey," is likely to be
submitted to the judgment of those interested in the question,
whether viewed from the standpoint taken up by Professor Piazzi
Smyth and his following, or that taken by Mr. Proctor.

If Mr. Petrie's labours substantiate the fact that there is an
error of several feet in the hitherto-recorded measures, not only
will, as Mr. Proctor remarks, the relations snpposed to connect
astronomy with the structure go overboard, but it will be difficult
to readjust the pyramid measures of the cubit and inch, so as to
make them fit into the " inch for the year " theory of measurement
of the passages, and thus inflict a heavy blow and great dis-
couragement upon the prophetic teachings and testimony claimed
for this wonderful building— claims which have received the sup-
port of many, and which have invested it with a halo of sanctity
almost amounting to worship. Ax LvqiiBEK after Truth.

[The greater astronomical relations remain, however, and the
Pyramidalists will simply shorten their cubit. — R. P.]

TRANSIT OF VENUS.

[The letter from which the following is taken was marked
" private," but we feel sure our correspondent will not ebject to
our quoting these particulars. — Eo.

[711] — My telescope is only a small one — 3i in. — by Coi, of
Devonport, but with a medium power of 150 both sun and planet
were seen very clear indeed, until they set in a bank of clouds
very near the horizon. A few light clouds only passed over them
occasionally during nearly two hours, through which the disks of
both snn and planet were seen well defined without a coloured
glass. Before and after the first contact the disks were beauti-
fully clear ; and when the planet separated from the sun's disk
inside there was no sign of a black drop, or anything to break

the clearness of both disks, which separated as clearly as I have
shown above in No. 1. Very soon after a distinct but very faint
pink colour filled up the space between, which got a little brighter
when in about the position of No. 2, the brightest colour being
planet. It then gradually died away, but there were traces of
it, though very faint, when the space was fully equal to the planet's
semi-diameter. Thinking at first that my eye might have deceived
me, I asked two or three gentlemen to" look carefully at it, and
they also saw it clearly.

There may be nothing unusual in this, but as I have not seen it
noticed in any report of the transit, I think you may like to have
the account of it.— Yours, &c., B. J. SuirvAN, Admiral.

[712] — Your article on the "Photographic Eyes of Science" was
evidently written last year. Would it not be well to have a state-
ment to that effect printed in the next number of the magazine ?
Otherwise you may find yourself made responsible for a statement
that the transit of Venus is to be repeated iieit December (see
top of page 446). The announcement might run thus :— " In com-
pliance with a general request, the highly successful performance
will be repeated (positively for the last time this centurv) in Decem-
ber next. Early application for reserved scats should be made,"
&c., Ac. This would be as great a windfall to the " science" (?)
columns of society papers as the "menacing comet" with which
you were credited. It could hardly surprise you next to find your-
self possessed of powers like the man in " Uncle Remus," who was
" gwine ter fix up der weddcr." yf.

THE EDELWEISS.

[713] — A Corkonian will be thankful to any peruser of
Knowledge who may happen to be versed in botanical lore to
acquaint him with the scientific nomenclature, &c., Ac, of the above-
named Alpine plant.

Fer 9, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE

91

LOGICAL I'lZZLEDOM.

[714' — In niv last letter I partly confounded assertion with
assnmption, but that hardly tenches the question at issue. As I
understand the rednctin atl abintnium argument (which is little
mentioned in logical text-books, though so much used by Euclid),
tee maktf a ^uppositioti eonitiiitent icith one of the prewiixe*-, and
proceetl tn test it by the remaining premise or premises, and when
it is " eventually " contradicted by the latter we get the reductio
nd altsurdiim. We make no questionable wider assumption than is
necessary for our purpose, nor any assumption which, before it is
contradicted by other premises, involves an absurdity in itself.

In the solution of the logical puzzle (p. 7, No. 62) the assnmption
■' for all X's to bo Z's, Ac," is a wider assumption than is necessary
for the solution, the assumption " for all the X's in queKtitm to be
Z's, ic," being sufficient ; and the assumption uncorrected also
involves an absurdity in itself, before it is contradicted by other
premises ; being inconsistent with the first premise with which it
must necessarily l>e consistent ; all the X's may be more in number
than the Z's, and to assume that all the X's are Z'a is to assume
that a greater number may be equal to a smaller, which is absurd.

It is very difficult to avoid logical pit-falls. Probably every one
who attempts reasoning stumbles among them more or less. I
shall not beg the question as to logic being the science which
teaches how to find truth. I take your statement as correct that
*' men find truth by observation, experience, and reasoning," and I
refer to all the important works on Inductive and Deductive Logic,
especially the works of Mill, Jevons, Bain, Fowler, Ac., who all
teach how observations and experiments are made, correctly and
incorrectly ; how experience is gained, and how people reason, cor-
rectly and incorrectly. [So far right ; but in what follows the
(|Uestion is begged again. — R. P.] What more can be done to teach
people how to find truth than to show them the right and the wrong
way ? [This is just what formal logic does not do, any more than
the criticism which points out errors or beauties in a drawing
teaches how to draw.. — R.P.] When the evidence as to the correct
method of finding truth is convincing, the mind involuntarily
assents to it, as to all other convincing evidence, and to a certain
t'xtent, at least, depending on the person's intellectual habits, acts
according to the correct method.

Inductive logic is certainly the more important, though the use
of deduction for the purpose of verification must not be under-

* rated. Hamilton's extension of the logical forms is somewhat puerile,

• »"equiring as it does for its completion what De Morgan terms the
^jutrious proposition — " some X's are not some Z's " — a proposition
■which is necessarily true, unless there is only one X, which is also
the one Z.

Deduction, or formal logic, has been greatly extended and gene-
ralised since the time of Whately, especially by De Morgan, Boole,
and the lamented Professor Jevons, whose logical " abecedarium "
and logical machine, enable one at once to solve complex logical
problems which cannot be solved by unaided mental processes.

Thomas Common.

[Mr. Common's account of the reductio ad absurdum is not
strictly correct. We alwaj-s in applying this method have the con-
clusion in view, — we make such a supposition as must be sound
if the conclusion we wish to establish is unsound, — and that is the
only condition we have to consider ; consistently with this we
may assume anything. (It is not sufficient to assume something
which is merely inconsistent with the conclusion.) This kind of
argument belongs as much to logic as to mathematics, — in fact,
underlies a large proportion of formal logic. In the present case
we have to show that " some X's are not Z's," and the only admis-
sible assumption for the reductio ad absurdum is that " all X's are
Z's." Mr. Common's remarks on this point are simply incorrect.

Logic shows how people reason correctly and incorrectly ; but it
may be doubted if it ever taught more. The great observers, ex-
perimenters, discoverers, and inventors, reasoned correct!}- indepen-
dently of formal logic, and afforded the logician some of his best
examples. But the best logicians have not always reasoned cor-
rectly, witness Jevons' arguments about the exhaustion of coal,
and about sun-spots, and commercial crises. Logic may be com-
pared to criticism. Learning wliat constitutes correct drawing or
painting is not learning to draw or paint correctly. — E. P.]

RIGEL.

[715] — Will yon kindly inform me whether Rigel is a coloured
etar. An old friend of mine tells me that fifty years ago Rigel was
considered by astronomers to be red. Is that so ?

Although I live at Streatham. I hope you won't visit on me the
sina of the district, for I am not one of those who made that absurd
request mentioned by you in your " Lecture Notes." SoL.\KirM.

[Like ilr. Webb, I always see a bine tinge in this star. Others
consider it yellow. — Ed.]

[710] — I am an engineer and millwright by trade, and am about
to leave Old England either for America or Australia, to seo if the
climate will benefit me for a bronchial complaint, and seeing from
Knowledge that you have travelled in both places, can you kindly
give me any advice as to what parts of either country will be moat
suitable ? I have thought about Minnesota, in America, and New
South Wales, in Australia. R. H. M.

[I cannot advise " R. U. M." bettor than by suggesting that he
should obtain the excellent little book on emigration published by
Messrs. Wyman & Sons. — R. P.]

NATURE'S REST.

[717] — In yonr number of January 10 you say, " When nature
stops working every seventh day, come and tell us that the God of
Nature wishes us to do likewise." There is to be remembered that
nature docs rest for many weeks in the winter time. la this
rest beneficial ? or is it useless ? A Clergvm.^.n's Wife.

[It seems to be imagined that my Answers to Correspondents —
discontinued for this among other reasons— were addressed to
readers generally, and not to special querists. There might be
remembered also that animals, men included, sleep at times, and
this rest is decidedly beneficial. So with the winter's rest — in our
latitudes at least — for there is no such rest in the tropics. Quorsum
htrc tain pufida tendunt ^ I believe even, as society haa come to be
constituted, that the seventh-day rest is good for our working
claases, or, at least, it might be, if they were not so cruelly robbed
of its benefits. One of tho best and purest teachers the world has
known, perhaps the very best, taught that this seventh-day's rest
was devised for the benefit of man— which is true, whatever theory
of the origin of the observance is accepted. But it is used as if it
had been made for man's punishment and to benefit only a certain
small class of persons.]

FOSSIL GUM.

[718] — Referring to Mr. Clark's inquiry about fossil gum, I think
it may possibly interest some of your readers to know that it is dug
up in tracts of country (in the northern island of New Zealand)
where large forests of Kauri are supposed to have existed ages ago.
The gum is exported largely to England for reshipment to America,
for the purpose of making varnish. Good quality realises as much
as £20 per ton.

Some beautifully clear specimens of this gum are used for orna-
mental purposes. I possess a piece in the rough which, in colour
and transparency, resembles very clear barley-sugar. There are
three kinds of Kauri — tho white, the red, and the mottled. The
latter is comparatively scarce. It is a conifer, I believe. The
Kauri tree (white) grows to a great height (tho stem attaining to
90 ft. before throwing out a branch). It has been known to grow
to 200 ft. from the ground to the head, the stem having a diameter
of 12 ft. This wood is very tough, and takes a good polish ; conse-
quently it is very useful for building purposes, both for houses as
well as for ships. It is, I think, the only wood that shrinks end-

ways.

A. C. K.

A PUZZLE.
[719] — "A squirrel is sitting upon a post and a man is standing
facing the squirrel, the squirrel presently turns round and the man
moves round with it, always keeping face to face. When the man
has been round the post has he been round the squirrel ? "

BlBBENHALt.

LETTERS RECEIVED.— CONTENTS NOTED.

R. H.— R. R.— C. C. R.—Senex— Language— H. A. A.— F. W
Cleworth— C. J. Brown— J. M. Hunt- H. S. S.— G. E. Clarke—
W. H. S. M.— Jocelyn— T. R. Street— T. K. D.— Inquirer— Luke—
G. T. Shan— T. Quilliam— G. Sidus— W. Waterhouae— More Light
— C. Craven — G. I. I.— Constant Reader — Israelite— C. Eyre — J.
Venn— J. G.— G. Alston— G. S. M.— G. M. G.— F. H. M.— J.
Graham — M. B. A.— J. Esham — T. B.— L. Thomson— Pleiades —
J. B.— B. G— C. H. Johns— M. Ridley— F. R. G. S.— A Clergyman's
Wife— Upsala— E. C. S.— W. Graudy— C. Carua Wilson— Z.—F. C.
Rearden— E. Keelan— J. U. W.— W. G.— F. J. C. Trenton— R. E. C.
— J. 'Watson— S. M. B.— W. J. W. Rees- Fide tutus aclatns—
E. T. C. W.— T. S. Bayley—Faciebat— Julie Magny— H. A. Kay—
W. J. O.— R. J. Whitley— E. C. R.— R. R. Baldrey— R. R.— T. V. R.
— A Country Clergyman — T. Claydon — T. Conimon — P. J. T. —
H. J. M.— Tycho.— Rev. E. L.— W. More.— W. Clift— Familiar
Experience — M. E. Hoskiss- Rev. P. T. L.— C. Murray, sen.—
L. L. K.— Doctor of Divinity — Evolution — K. Kuster— R. M.
Rollins— K. Saptander— Cornish Miner— A Pleased Subscriber-
Dr. D. T. M.— &c.

92

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Feb. 9, 1883.

(Pur ^anraliov Cornrr.

TlIK SOLAR SYSTEM ALL KQUALLY ILLUMINATED
BY THE SUN.
[The Otfurd Chronicle and Beika and Buclts flazrltc liaa dis-
oovorud that wo are possessed by a very angry feeliiiR towards Mr.
Collyns Simon, tlic discoverer of the theory indicated by the above
title. This is manifest to our clear-sighted contemporary, and
must liave been observed by oiu- readers; for in December, 1S81,
not more than fourteen months ago, wo animadverted in terms of
bitterest animosity upon the tlieory — oven going so far in our
mah'gnity as to express the opinion that it is "quite untenable."
Thi.s was in answer to a letter which came from the neighbourhood
for which our contemporary provides instruction ; and though the
writer in the Oxford Chronicle expresses his belief that we wrote
that letter ourselves to ourselves, we believe he has reason to know
considerably better. To show further our intense au.xiety to demolish
Mr. Simon's theory, we have even gone to the terrible length— re-
ceiving, as it chanced, no more questions about it — of saying nothing
more on the subject for fourteen months ! But the Oxford Chron icte
and JJerku and Bucks Gazette has had our evil courses in view, and
has only been waiting till time was ripe to crush ns utterly. We
are " full of astronomical parodoxes," we treat everything as a
paradox which is contrary to our own notions, and worst of all, we
have " attacked, in turn, every scientific man in the land." Now,
since Messrs. Herbert Spencer, Tyndall, Huxley, Darwin, Huggins,
Owen, and a host of others of like or scai-ce inferior eminence have
never been attacked here, this last can only mean that there are no
scientific men in the land but Hampden, Parallax, Newton Cros-
land, and Collyns Simon. For though we have shown reasons for
dissenting from views held by Dr. Siemens (on a subject outside his
own field), by Sir W. Thomson (on a purely speculative subject),
by Prof. Tait, and om- friend, Mr. \V. M. Williams, these belong to
the same class as Messrs. Huggins, Huxley, and the rest, and can-
not, therefore, be included among scientific men by the Oxfurd
Chronicle and Berks and Bucks Gazette. — The Editok.]

" When we drew attention to this new and remarkable fact in
cor issue for Nov. 12, 1881, we were able to say that no scientific
writer nor (sic) journal had attomjited to dispute its truth. But this
is now no longer the case. We cannot say this now. One writer has
presented himself, endeavouring to make this great fact appear
improbable ; and we now again revert to the subject in order to
show how this writer, instead of throwing any doubt on the fact,
as he, with a good deal of a)iimii.s, labours to do, helps very con-
siderably, but most unconsciously, to make it clear to unscientific
people, as it has long been to the scientific, that there is no room
whatever for doubt respecting it.

" The discovery in question is that, outside the atmosphere of the
planets, the sun's light falls equally upon each point of space
exposed to it, and that consequently it falls with equal intensity
upon the atmosphere of each planet. Wo now repeat here the two
very obvious principles, as stated in our former notice, which
render this proposition easily intelligible : — •

" 1. Outside the atmospheres of the planets the sun's light passes
through no medium which could diminish this light to any per-
ceptible extent whatever. Upon this point all writers have been
long agreed.

"2. The medium thus existing outside the atmosphere of the
planets being nil in its effects, each point of space, remote as well
as near, which is exposed to the disc of the sun receives upon it a
line of light (of luminous waves, if that expression is jireferred)
from each point of the disc; whereby a cone of light is formed,
with its base upon the disc and its apex upon the illuminated
l)oint._ Thus the highest degree of light which the source naturally
gives is concentrated upon each of the points exposed to the source,
just, as if there were but that one point exposed to it in the whole
unn-erae, and this cone is formed at every distance from the source,
and lu all directions. The converging linos wliich constitute it arc
not rendered fewer upon any point by the mere circumstance of
there bemg two or more points instead of one, nor are these lines of
light icwer upon the more distant point than upon the point that
IS nearer to the source.

" These arc the two simple principles from which the fact results
but simple and obvious as these principles are, they have found an
energetic opponent in a writer who scorns to think that it is the
apparent expanse not the real cxjianso of the disc that gives out
the light, and that therefore, the greater the apparent diminution
IS, the less light is there to give out.

"Mr. Kichard A. Proctor, lecturer and journalist, a writer full
of astronomical paradoxes himself, but regarding everything as a
paradox which is contrary to his own notions, and wlio has, in his

journal called Knowledcjk, attacked in turn every scientific man in
the land, falls foul, in the number for Dec. 16, 1881, page 144, of
the great fact that the wholo system is equally illumimited by the
Bun — mainly, it would appear, because this great fact was not dis-
covered by himself — the questioner there and the answerer being
evidently the same jierson.

" After seeking to throw a little confusion over the wholo subject
by affecting to think that the degrees of light seen on the disc
itself— seen, moreover, through our dense medium — is the degree of
it here spoken of as surrounding the atmospheres of the planets
after seeking to make this confession (sic), he proceeds to argue
that when the source is apparently diminished — when, without being
really diminished it is made to appear so to the eye (as, for instance,
by perspective) — then the real and undiminished source of light
itself really gives out, in all probability, less light to those spots of
space than it does to others where this apparent diminution does
not present itself; that, in short, an unreal (merely apparent)
difference in the size of the source most probably makes a real
difference in the light it gives. Upon what grounds he advances
this strange probability he declines to tell us, beyond saying that it
is in every case the diminished disc, and not the original un-
diminished disc, which must be regarded as emitting the light thai
falls upon the atmosphere of each planet, the feebler light pro-
ceeding in each case from the smaller disc, and that for this reason
the sun's light outside Neptune's atmosphere is truly said to bo 90O
times a feebler light than ours. ' If we receded from the sun,' says
Mr. Proctor, ' till our distance were twice as great as it is, his disc
would look only one-fourth as large as it does. The correct infer-
ence is that we should get but one-fourth of the light we actually
receive. Bat, somehow, Mr. Simon makes out that we should get
quite as much as we do at present.'

"The fallacy of this reasoning (which is fully discussed in Dr.
Collyns Simon's work upon the subject) will become quite clear,
even to Mr. Proctor, if he will only look at the sun with his
telescope reversed. He will find the disc can be diminished u<l
infijiitum to the eye without its making the least difference in the
degree of light around us. He will find that, not.vithstanding all
apparent variations in the size of the sun, there is no real variation
whatever in the light he gives, and that even when the perspective
disc is as small as when seen from Neptune, there will, nevertheless,
proceed light from each point of the original un|ierspective disc t<>
each point of interplanetary space exposed to it, precisely as if ^
there were no perspective disc, and precisely as if there were but .
that single point to be lighted in the Universe.

" Now the proposition in question is (we repeat), that when there
is no medium to obstruct the sun's light it all goes from every part
of the original disc to each spot of space exposed to it indepen-
dently of our eyes and of all laws of perspective ; aud when a
writer can find no other argument against this fact than the bald
assertion that perhaps it is not so, and that perhaps the original
and real disc gives less and less light to the solar system in propor-
tion as it can be made to appear diminished by perspective or other-
wise, it is evident that such a writer must be hard set to find any
argument whatever for his purpose ; and this is the lii'st inference
we draw from Mr. Proctor's remarks. The rottenness of the argu-
ment he brings forward shows how utterly he is without any solid
objection to the discovery.

"But again, when a fact, acknowledged to be of great import-
ance, has had public discussion (a prize of fifty guineas having
been offered for the detection of any error connected with it), and
has been, moreover, laid before all the leading scientific men of
Europe for three or four years, if, in such a case, no one comes
forward with a dissentient voice but Mr. Proctor, this circumstance
also will be apt to strike most people as very strong evidence that
Mr. Proctor's .irgument is not a solid one, even before they become
acquainted with what this strange argument is, in which he con-
fuses in so grotesque a manner the physical fact with the physio-
logical ; a blunder, however, quite in keeping with his assertion on
the following page of his journal (query 90) that the pressure of
bodies on each other is something different from the attraction of
the earth ! — and this is the second inference which we draw from
Mr. Eichard A. Proctor's attack upon this great discovery. His
being the only opponent of it is, even for those unacquainted witli
the subject, pretty clear proof that the discovery is established
beyond all dispute."

[And what a discovery it is ! A globe 1,000 miles in diameter,
can entirely hide from any point on the sun a globe 10,000 miles in
diameter, ten times as far away — receiving on its surface all the
light which otherwise would have fallen on a surface 100 times as
large. Yet the same amount of light will illuminate the larger
surface as brightly as the smaller ! Then, again, how fooliish
people are to draw near a light when they want to see better. It
gives quite as much light farther off ! — R. A. P.]

I'^EB. 9, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

93

<^r inatt)ematttal Column.

DOUBLE RULE OF TUREE, OR COMPOUND PROPOUTION.
By Richard A. Pboctbb.

T)l E rules commonly piven iii our books of arithmetic for Double
Rule of Throe are not bo clear that the student applies them
readily and understandingly. I have fonnd in practice- as, for
instance, in explaining Coraponnd Proportion to my children — the
following reasoning effective : —

In every case of simple proportion, \vc have to determine what a
certain quantity becomes when increased or diminished in a certain
degree or ratio represented by two other numbers. Even when
composite concrete quantities are given, wc can always represent
the ratio of these quantities by numbers, when we have reduced
them to the same denomination. (In the very nature of the case
they are of the same kind.)

For instance, suppose we have such a question as this, —

If 7 net. 2qrs. 3 !b. of somethiny or other cost £2. 10s., )ww iniich
will 5 cut. 1 qr. 5 lb. east ?

We see at once that the dimitmtion of the quantity will diminish
the cost in the same ratio or degree ; so that our answer is
f 10s X "*' ""<''.^' ll>' IS there are in 5 ewt. 1 qr. 5 lb.
as many lb. as there are in 7 cwt. 2qrs. 31b.

Again, suppose wc have ench a question as this, —

If a company of men uorkimj 6 h. 15 m. a day do a certain piece of
work in 3J days, in what time will the same company, working
7 h. 17 in. a day, do the job ?

Here we see, as readily, that the increase in the time of working
per day will diminish the duration of the job in the same ratio or
degree ; so that our answer is

OS J as manv min. as there are in Gh. 15 m.

ojtdaysx :

as many min. as there arc in 7 h. 17 m.

In one case decrea.se brings proportionate decrease, and increase
brings proportionate increase ; in the other, increase brings i)r()-
portionate decrease, and decrease brings proportionate increase.
One is a case of direct proportion, the other a case of inverse pro-
portion. But the use of these terms does not make the reasoning
simpler or more obvious ; while applying technically-expressed rules
is likely to make the student go wrong where, if he were left to his
own reasoning, he hardly cnuld do so.

The case is similar with Double Rule of Three, and with Com-
pound Proportion generally : only we get more than one multiplier
like the multiplier in each of the above examples.

Thus, suppose the question asked, —

If 10 men wfjrkiiig (Uirf. build 17 ft. of a wall, how much of the
same kiml of wall will 17 men build, working 5 hrs ^

Here it is obvious that the increase in the number of men will
tend to increase the length of wall in the same degree ; while the
diminution in the hours of working will tend to dimini.s/i the length
of wall in the same degree ; so that our answer is

,,.. 17 5

1 1 leet X — X - :
10 6
all we have to do is to see that these multipliers are increasing
ones or diminishing ones, according to the obvioua effect of the
change of wlu'cli the question tells us.
Suppose, instead, the question, —

If 10 nien working 6hrs. a day build a certain icall in 17 days, in
what time will 17 men workiiig 5 hrs. a day build the wall f

Here it is obvious that the increase in the number of men tends
to decrease the time in the same degree, and that the decrease in
the hoars of working tends to increase the time in the same degree,

SO that our answer is 17 days x — • x -.
■^ 17 &

Again, take this question, —

If a wall 17 ft. long is built by 10 men in Hhrs., in what lime will
a wall 23 ft. long be built by 13 men ?

Here it is obvious that the increase in the length of the wall
mast tend to increase the time in the same ratio, while the ivcrea.-^e
in the number of men mnst tend to decrease the time in the
same ratio. Thus the answer is

6hrsx?5xl^

17 13

In the first of these three cases both ratios are direct; in the

second both are inverse ; in the third one is direct and the other

inverse. But in none of the three can any doubt or difficulty arise.

(To be continued.)

it^m W!Al)iit Column*

By " FiVK OF Olubs."

To see the absurdities of the prejudices against it, we need only
remark that science is simply a higher d*!Vclopment of common
knowledge ; and that if science is repudiated, all knowledge must
be repudiated along with it. — Hebbert Spencer.

Pbopek Leao. — Having no trumps, should the rule [of leaiiing-
Ace hold in a very long suit ?

Hand. A homo game, played for love. My partner dealt.
Trump U. 5. Score.— Three all.

My hand was: — Hearts (tramps) — none; two Spades — Ace,
Queen; seven Clubs — Ace, Nine, and small ones ; four Diamonds —
Queen, Kuave, Kiue, Seven.

Trick 1. — Spades led; I took with Qooen.

Trick 2. — I led Ace of Clubs ; partner played King ; adversaries,
small cards.

Trick 3 — I led a small Club ; partner trumped, and was ovei-
trunipod.

Trick 4. — Spades led again ; my Ace was tramped, and we lost
by two tricks.

We then re-played the hand carefully, leading a small Club at
Trick 2, and won by two tricks. My partner held sis tramps,
headed by King and Queen. Ace was with leader.

Should I, having no trumps, have led the Club Ace, or given
partner the chance of taking trick and then leading trumps if hc
could ?

P.S. — Not playing by rule had just before led to disaster, thus : —
We were (my son and myself) a treble and four on against a single.
My partner led a small Diamond. I had Ace, King, and Tliree.
I took with the King, and rashly returned him Ace before leading
from six trumps. My Ace was trumped, and we lost the odd trick,
and next hand lost the game and rubber. Q. T. V.

[I can see no reason for departing from rule when you led first.
There were two chances to one against your partner holding the
King. It was unfortunate, of course, that he held the King un-
guarded, but that is all that can be said. You could not know that
a small Club would turn out well ; it might have turned out very
badly. Why, however, did you go on with Clubs Y You were liot
only forcing your partner, who alone could have any trump
strength to save your game, but forcing him under unfavourable
conditions. You should have led a small Diamond. Your game
was lost unless your partner had great strength in trumps and
good strength in Diamonds. Your right-hand opponent had
indicated length in Spades — ])robably great length, the cards being
unevenly divided. The wiiming Clubs were with the enemy.
Your best chance, after the second I rick, was to lead a Diamond. —
Five of Clubs.]

Learning WniST. — Is it, in your opinion, possible for four unfor-
tunate beings, whose whist education has been neglected, by playing
together, to learn the scientific game, referring occasionally to
Cavendish as to the play F The process of learning by playing
with experienced " whistists" is rather too painful to all concerned
to recommend itself, save as a last resoiu'ce. Please give us the
benefit of yoiu- advice in this matter. Four ok Hearts.

[Nothing easier. Let the learners agree to study the simple
rules of play, and call each other's attention to mistakes as noticed.
The art of conducting a game well comes later. Cavendish, how-
ever, is rather too technical for beginners. — Five of Clubs.]

Exposed Card. — A player having an exposed card, not being able
to follow suit, contends ho has a right to play any card which may
best suit his purpose in lien of the exposed one, nnless the exposed
card is within reasonable time called by his ailversaries; is this so or
not y If so, it then follows the offending player may take advan-
tage, and can dispute what is " reasonable time." Queki.st.

[In pra<tiee no ditliculty need occur. If the exposed card is not
at once called when it is the owner's turn to play, he should wait to
ascertain whether the opponents wish to call it. But he has no
more right to hnrry their decision than a player has to hurry any
one in playing to a trick. There is no law forbidding anyone tu
wait an unreasonable time before playing. Neither is there any
law forbidding players to wait an unreasonable time before deciding
whether to call or not. In practice, no such law is necessary. But
the player who, having an exposed card, plays without waiting
to know whether it is called, is no more "in his right" than one
who, getting impatient, plays out of turn. — Five of Clubs.]

M. G. B. — Your opponents, who, when the score was two all and
yoji made two by tricks and two by honours, denied you the game
on the plea that tricks count before honours, so that yuur score was
made four by your two tricks, and you could not count honoiu's,
know — let us hope — very little of the game. If they do know the
game, and were not joking, my advice to you is not to play with
them any more. — Five of Clubs.

94

KNOWLEDGE

[Feb. 9, 1883.

(But €l)ti9 Column.

By Mepiiisto.

PROBLEM No. 71.

Bv C. I'LA.Ni K.
Black.

White.
White to play and mate in three moves.

GAME PLAYED IN THE SUSSEX CHAMPIONSHIP

TOURNAMENT, JANUARY, 1883.

ENGLISH GAME.

White.

Bla.-k.

White.

Black.

W. Mead.

F. Marquarflt.

W. Mead.

F. Marquardt.

1.

P to QB4

P to K3

18.

Kt takes Kt

Q takes Kt

•J,

P to K3

P to Q4

19.

P takes P

QR to Bsq

3.

PtoQl

Kt to KB3

20.

B to Q2 (g)

B takes P {h)

4.

P to QR3

B to K2

21.

R to Kt sq

B takes P

o.

Kt to QB3

Castles

23.

B toB3

B takes P

13.

Kt to B3

P to QB4 (a)

23.

R takes P

R to KB2 (0

7.

BP takes P

KP tks P (h)

21.

Q to R sq

P toB5

8.

P to KR3 (c)

Kt to K5 (rf)

25.

Kt to B sq

Q to R5

;).

B to Q3

P to KB4

26.

Q takes RP

P takes P 0)

10.

Q to K2 (e)

B to K3

27.

Q takes B

QtoB7(ch)(i)

11.

Castles

QKt to B3

28.

K to R sq

Q takes B

12.

R to K sq

P to QR3

29.

R takes Kt

B takes R

13.

Q to Q sq

B to B3 (/)

30.

Q takes R(ch)

B to B sq

1-1.

Kt to K2

P to KKt4

31.

Kt takes P

QtoQ6

15.

B to B2

Kt to K2

32.

Kt to Kt4

P to Q5

IG.

Kt to R2

Q to B2

33.

Kt to R6 (ch)

Resigns

17.

PtoB3

Kt to Kt6

NOTES.

(a) Later on this more enables White to isolate Black's Queen's
Pawn. We think P to QKt3 better on account of the support it
gives to P to B4, and also providing a convenient square on Kt2 for
the Queen's Pishop, at present shut in.

(b) Kt takes P deserves a slight preference.

(c) White is losing time ; he ought to plav 8. P takes P, B
takes P. 0. B to Q3, or 9. P to QKt4, followed by B to Kt2.

(il) This move weakens the defence if played at an early stage
of a game, before the forces have been fully developed, as it forms
a convenient object of attack.

(e) Q to B2 was better play, preceded by P takes P.

(/) Black might have taken advantage of White's indifference.
He would have obtained a strong position by |)Iaving Kt takes Kt.
14. P takes Kt, P to QB5, followed by 15. P to QKt4.

(g) White liaving missed the opportunity of bringing this Bishop
into play on his ninth move, now attempts to do so at great dis-
advantage to himself. He ought to have played R to Kt sq first.

(;i) Before doing this. Black might have ventured on P to Kto.

(i) Unnecessary precaution, and weakens his position very much.

(j) Had Black not played R to li2, to which move the loss of his
game is to be attributed, he might have played R to QB3 with
advantage. Ncverthele.s.'i, Black might have done better by post-
poning P takes P and playing B takes RP instead, if then 27. P
takes B, P takes P. 2S. R to K2, Q takes P with a strong attack.

(k) He ought to have submitted to the loss of the piece and
jilayed QR to 13 eq.

Solution of Pbize Pnonr.EM, DV Pkabscs (page 62).

1. QKt to Kt5 (threatening

mate by 1' to Q 1)

2. Kt to Q6

3. R to B5 (ch)

4. Kt to B7 (mate)

(«)

P takes Kt

2. B to B4 P tks B, or (i)

3. P to Q4 (ch) P tks P en pas.
■). R to B5 (ch)

mate

1. Q to Q6, or (n)

2. Q to Kt3

3. Q takes R

(h)

R takes B

3. R takes P (ch)
and mates
next move

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
•»• Please address Chess Editor,

R. Pilkington. — Y'our opponent certainly had no right to object to
your move because he considered it a bad one. He must abide by
5. Kt takes KP, but having avowedly made his sixth move under a
misapprehension, you might allow him to re-consider it.

A Learner.— Problem No. 70. K 1. B takes P, P to Kt6, and
there is no mate.

J. Simmonds. — Received with thanks.

John Lonsdale, Alex. S. Orr. — If 1. Kt takes Q, R takes P, and
there is no mate.

W. Collins. — In game, p. 61, on move 16, if Black plays Q to K4,
then White would maintain his advantage by 17. R to B5.

J. Hughes.— Problem 71. If 1. Q to K3, B to Q6, and there is
no mate.

Correct solutions received. — Problem No. 71, J. A. Miles. Prize
Problem, Clarence. No. 72, double solution received only from
W. ; first solution, Clarence, John, Berrow. No. 73, W., Berrow,
J. Adamson, R. J. P., Clarence, A. K. McAdam.

Contents of No. 66.

PAOB

Science and Art Go83ip 63

The Chemistrj- of Cookery. — II.

The Boiling of Water. By W.

Mattieu Wilbams 65

Learaiug Languages. By Richard A.

Proctor 66

Our Bodies.— V. Skull and Spine. By

Dr. A. Wilson, F.E.S.E. {Illui.) 67
Optical Effects of Belladonna. By

T. W. Webb 68

Health of Corseted Women. By Dr.

PASI

The Amateur Electrician 70

NoTelties in Tricycles. By John

Comets' Tails 72

The Weather Propheciee 72

Corpulence 73

Rkvibws : Electric lUomination 74

The Face of the Sky 75

COBBBSPOKDBNCB 76

Our Mathematical Colonm 76

Our Whist Colunm 77

Our Chess Column 78

IfOTICBS.

The Star Maps for November and December, 1882, price 2d. each, postage \d.
extra, are now ready.

Volume II., comprising the numbera published from June to December 1882, jost
published, price 89. 6d.

The Title Page and Index to Volume II. now ready, price 2d., post-free 2^d.

Binding Cases for Volume II., price 2a. each. Subscribers' numbers bound
(including Title, Index, and Caae) for 3s. each.

The Back Numbers of Knowlrdgb, with the exception of Nob. 1 to 13.
31, 32, and 53, are in print, and can be obtained from all booksellera ana
newsagents, or direct from the Publishers. Should any difficulty arise in obtaining
the paper, an apphcation to the Publishers is respectfully requested.

Now ready. Part XV. (Jan. 1S83). Price lOd.; postage 3d. extra.

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Feb. 16, 1883.]

• KNOWI.EDGE

95

MAGAZINE OF SQIENCi

i PLAINIYyfOKDED-EXACTOilESCRIBED

LOXDOX: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16 1883.

GONTBNTS OF No. 68.

fl«tenee and Art Oo8!iip 9^ '

Herbert Spencer in Americn 9/

The Chemistry of Cookerv. — III. i

By W. Mattieu Williams " 97

"■ ■ Hi Trieycles for 1883. By

John Br.

03

Learning Languages. By Richard A.

Proctor 00

On the Formation of Comets' Tail...

ilUnitraled.) By A. C. RanT»rd.lOO
The Amateur Electriciui (/»u.) ...102

Proctor : 103

The Abuse of ETolution. By R. A.

Procor lOJ

The Face of the Sky 105

COBBBSPONDKNCB ; — fdolWfisa —

G'rse nnJ Broom— Dark Suns— A

Disinfectant. Sic 106

Our Mathematical Column 107

Our Whist Column 107

Our Chess Colunm 103

;S>cifna aiili art (gos!£»ip.

It is arranged that tlie lectures to ho, gi\en liy ]\Ir.
Proctor at St. James's Hall shall be the following : —

Wednesday, March 21, "The Birth and Death of
Worlds."

Wednesday, March 1'8, " The Sun — Ruler, Light, and
Lifa"

Wednesday, April 4, " The Moon — Planet and Satel-
lite."

Saturday, April 7, "The Planets and their Families."
Wednesday, April 11, "Comets and Meteors."
Saturday, April 14, " Glories of the Star Depths."
The lectures will be illustrated by the oxyhydrogen
light, showing more than 200 photographic views.

We shall give next week the first of a series of illu-strated
papers on the " Way to Use our Eyes," by Mr. Jolm
Browning, F.R.AS., which all who value their eyesight
should carefully study.

Prrssi'Re of other matter has hitherto prevented our
«ommenciug the publication of Mr. Foster's papers on
certain social questions, but these will soon be begun ; and
the papers on " How to Get Strong " will very soon bo
resumed.

Ox the twelve large maps of "The Stars in their
Seasons," are named the days and hours, from eight in
the evening till midnight, at which the stars are situated
as shown in the map ; and in a, little table on page C of
the letterpress, the information necessary for using the
maps at any time of the night is given. This is, of course,
more than sufHcient for all uses to which the maps are to
be applied. Unfortunately, in the three lines footnote,
added in an excess of zeal, to right and left of each map,
giving tlie times two hours earlier and two hours later,
the words " earlier " and '• later " somehow got inter-
changed. The mistake is not likely to have done any
harm, as it is so obviously contradicted in the maps them-
selves ; and it will be corrected in later editions. But

those who possess "The Stars in their Seasons" will do
well to interchange the words "earlier" and "later "in
these paired footnotes in all twelve maps.

Ix response to tlie wishes of a number of correspondents,
an otler has been made to I^lr. Hampden (in the columns
of this week's Xnrcdstle Week/i/ Chronicif) to present, suc-
cinctly and without denunciation, the real and unadul-
terated theory of the earth's (latness, as maintained by the
astronomers of the Zetetic school. Our Paradox Column now
awaits his contribution, should he see fit to send one.

It is stated that the Edison incandescent lamp is to be
introduced into the corridors and passages of the House
of Commons. The gas inside the House is said to satisfy
e\ery requirement.

Railway wheels with paper bodies are being used on
the Saarbrnck Railway, and are expected to be adopted on
a large scale in Germany, as better than other wheels for
running on the iron permanent way, of which there is now
considerably over a thousand miles in use in (iernmny.

Mkssus. a. L. NiMMOtfcC. Minns state that the Tilbury
and Gravesend Tunnel, for which they are engineers, and
which will connect tlie London, Chatham, and Dover and
the South-Eastern Railways with the Tilbury and South-
end Railway, near the new Tilbury Docks, will pass under
the river wholly in the chalk.

Mr. Jay Gofld is trying to improve New York morality.
He gives as a reason for stopping the late trains on the
elevated road the statement that "The night trains are
conducive to late hours and dissipation. If they do not
run, people who would do otherwise will go home, and the
tone of society will be improved." The citizens fail to
appreciate this moral reform agency, and are petitioning
the Legislature to compel the company to accommodate
those whose business requires late trains. — Enjiuftrr.

Last year, according to the Industrie Zcilung, 1,790
shipwrecks occurred, in all seas, as against 2,039 in 1881,
1,G80 in 1880, 1,688 in 1879, and 1,-594 in 1878. These
wrecks, .")76 of which were on the British coasts, involved
the lo.ss of 4,129 men's lives. During the last five years
no fewer than 21,763 men have peri.shed by sea.

The Suez Canal. — The revenue of the Suez Canal ex-
perienced a further very reniarkal)le increase last year.
The annexed figures show the transit revenue of the canal
year by year during the ten years ending with 1882 in-
clusive :— 187.3, ,£91.'3,839 ; 1874, .£994,375 ; 1875,
,£1,1.5.'),4.j2 ; 1876, £1,199,000 ; 1877, £1,311,093 ; 1878,
£1,243.929; 1879, £1,187,442 ; KS.SO, £1,. 592,419 ; 1881,
£2,0.50,974 ; and 1882, £2,421,835. The temporary check
experienced in the revenue in 1878 and 1879 was due to a
reduction of duties, which appear.s, liowev(;r, to have
greatly stimulated business between liritish India and the
mother country. Tliis, at any rate, is the conclusion which
Enrjirirrriiii/ draws from the largely augmented earnings
of the canal in 1881 and 1882.

The Lighting of Holborn-viadict. — The Edison
Company have received permission from the Commissitnera
of Sewers to continue the lighting of llolborn-viaduct by
their system for one year from the 24th ult.

96

KNOWLEDGE

[Feb. 16, 1883.

Australian Aktesia.n Wells. — A new artesian well at
Sale, with its outtlow of over 400,000 gallons of water a
day, risiiif,' 1 2 ft. above the surface, is a great sflccess. The
town is jubilant over the supply of pure water thus easily
and eheaply obtained. The recent sinking of an artesian
■well by Mr. ])e Reuzil Wilson on Tatara Run, near Curri-
•willinghi, on the New South Wales side of the Queensland
boundary, where at the depth of 200ft a spring was tapped
■which fo'rced itself to the height of 15 ft above the surface,
and at the estimated rate of 500 gallons per minute, is even
a more gratifying success. — Enijincerinij.

A conte-MPORAUV says : " A telegram has been received
from Prof. Lomstrom, chief of the Finnish Meteorological
Observatory at Sodankyla, in which he states that he
placed a galvanic battery with conductors covering an area
of 900 square mfetres on a hill, and found the cone to be
surrounded by a halo which faintly but perfectly yielded
the spectrum of the aurora. He regards this, and some
subsequent resiilts, as direct proof of the electrical nature
of the aurora.

The question of the hovering of birds is now under dis-
cussion in the columns of a weekly scientific contemporary.
Mr. Hubert Airy seeks to show that a bird can only hover,
in an absolutely changeless position, over slantingly ascend-
ing air currents, head from the wind ; the Duke of Argyll
maintains that horizontal air currents suffice, head to the
wind ; Mr. David OunDingham believes that cyclonic
^vinds, with vertically ascending air currents, explain the
mystery best ; Mr. William Galloway adopts a theory
involving slight and therefore imperceptible descent in
horizontal air currents ; Mr. J. Rae believes that no air
currents at all are necessary (which seems to involve the
theory that the hovering of birds is miraculous) ; and Mr.
Larden, pointing out that the lifting power of the air would
not exist were there no friction (any more than a "friction-
less ship in a constant stream " would be moved " were it
sufficiently tapering "), shows that hovering in liorizontal
air-currents could last but a very short time. This is a
very pretty problem as it stands ; and the whole question
of Hight — at least, as birds fly, and as men, by aid of
machinery, will fly, if they ever fly at all — is involved in it.

Advices from Sydney say that on the night of the
12th December last an accident happened, by which the
offices of the Telephone Exchange Company, at Sydney
E.'vchange, were ■wrecked. The wii-es leading to the
switch-board were partially fused, and the switch-board
itself charred, the centre of the roof of the office
blackened, and the floor bespattered with melted gutta-
percha. Outside, the telephone wire which leads to
Messrs. iMontefiore, Josephs, & Company's establishment
was found hanging down, fused, while the electric-light
■wires were all secure. ilessrs. Montetiore, Josephs, ct
Company's wire hangs above and across the electric-light
■wires, and it is presumed that it elongated and made
contact with them.

A coRREsroNDEN'T of Xalirre calls attention to the
circumstance that the authorities of Cooper's Hill En-
gineering College make it a condition that the Professor
of Physics should " be a Protestant, and should attend
morning chapel and Sunday services with reasonable
regularity, showing in this respect a good example to the
students." "As the memorandum stands at present,"
this correspondent wrathfully remarks, " it appears little

short of insulting to men of science." The institution
being one supported by the State, and the State being at
present unwilling to insist that paid teachers of science
shall hold any specific religious belief, still less that they
shall prof(;ss such belief without (perhaps) holding it, the
objection of the correspondent of Nature seems sound
enough. Uut were the Engineering College not supported
from without, the authorities there might insist on any
Professor holding or professing any belief they chose. The
only drawback would be in the probable quality of the
Professor ; for one would say that e\ en if a Professor of
adequate skill chanced to be of the right religious persua-
sion, he would take the ofl'er of the Professorship on such
a condition, if not as insulting, yet at least as one he
could not possibly accept, if he had any self-respect.

Mk. Xicols, in his recently-published work on the ways
of wild and domestic animals, gives the following account
of the love dances of a king lor}-, which may be com-
pared usefully with what Mr. Grant Allen told us last
week about the peewit : — " In a few minutes he flew on to
a tree, well within range of the binocular, and shortly
afterwards a female joined him in answer to his call. The
swain was ardent, the damsel coy ; they flitted from branch
to branch, and whenever she perched he circled round her,
threw himself underneath the branch, and swung to and
fro with outspread wings, displaying the full glory of his
scarlet breast. In every movement, whether on the wing
or swaying at the end of a bough, he studied to present in
the most efl'ective manner the brilliant adornments of his

plumage I do not think it possible for any one who

had seen this little episode in bird life to have resisted the
conclusion that the male was conscious of his beautiful
breast, and that he adopted the best method of showing it
by swinging himself beneath the branch, whence the female
could look down and admire the display."

We give this week a short paper from the XeuraM-
Weekly Chronicle, describing a way of lighting the sides of
steamships, which would, we believe, diminish greatly the
number of collisions at night and in thick weather. The
Times of Thursday, the Sth inst, has an article, " from a
Correspondent " (who might be the same writer, for aught
we can say to the contrary), touching on the same subject.
A correspondent of Knowledge has sent us two letters
advocating the microscopical analysis of the sea water as a
means of determining a vessel's approach to the shore at
night or during fog, and the chemical analysis of the water
to indicate proximity to another ship. We have not been
able to find space for either letter, and must confess there
seems to us something a little whimsical in both ideas.
Imagine the officers of a ship engaged with a microscope
over tubes and phials, or applying chemical analyses (espe-
especially in broken weather). We have " been there," as
Americans say — in a steamship, waiting about, a whole day
and more, in dreaded pro.ximity to a dangerous reef off the
coast of California ; and assuredly we did not wish to see
the captain and officers turning from their seamanly duties
to attend to microscopical or chemical analysis.

According to the experiments of M. Demarcay, the
metals which are generally regarded as fixed, even iron,
give out real vapours at relatively low temperatures.
Cadmium, for example, volatilises at 257°, and zinc at 302^'.
Magnesium had already been found to be volatile below a
red lieat, when acted upon by water and chloride of silicon.

FEa 16, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

97.

HERBERT SPENCER IN AMERICA.

Bv Rev. Misot J. Savage."

ACJUIET, modest, unassuming gentleman, with no
assumption of greatness, with no air of pretence,
with not the slightest approach to an appearance of pa-
tronage toward those who may be considered as less noted
or great than himself, has been for the last two or three
montlis seeking rest and refreshment here in America,
Heard in public but once, seen in private only by a few,
the country has still felt that a great man was here, a man
like those to whom Emerson refers when he says, " A great
man is himself an occasion." We have all felt this presence,
;uid noted some indication of it now and then. For, when
he has chosen to utter himself concerning the impressions
that have been made upon him in this country, the whole
nation has listened as though something were being said
that was worthy of attention. The newspapers have caught
it up ; and all the leading organs for the expression of
public opinionhave commented on it, recognising the fact that
here, at least, was something not to be passed by in silence.
This man, to whom we have been so ready to listen, has
during the last quarter of a century wrought a work that,
I think I may say, without exaggeration, has no parallel in
the history of human thought He has so wrought himself
into the very fibre, the warp and woof of this modern world,
that I can say of him, what can be said of no other man
living, and what has never been said of any man who has
ever lived : he has made himself so vital a part of science,
of philosophy, of education, of the science of government,
of sociology, of ethics, of religion — he has so mastered and
entered into the possession of all these great realms of
human thought and human life, which in their totality
almost make up what is meant by life itself, that to-day no
serious and intelligent thinker can discuss any important
question pertaining to any one of these departments with-
out being compelled to reckon with Herbert Spencer. You
cannot discuss science, you cannot discuss philosophy, you
cannot discuss education, politics, society, and the laws
that underlie them, you cannot discuss ethics, you cannot
touch the subject of religion, without either agreeing with
or difl'ering from this quiet scholar. And to have wrought
himself so intimately and so essentially into the very life of
flie world — this, I say, is an achievement unparalleled in
the history of human thought. I care not in which depart-
ment you pick up a book to-day, you will find that the
writer, if he comprehends his theme, is either working along
the lines which Herbert Spencer has laid out, or else he is
telling the world why he does not do so. He does not
ignore him — he cannot ignore him. About a week ago it
was my privilege and pleasure to join one or two hundred
gentlemen in giving Mr. Spencer a public dinner in New
York, on the eve of his departure. It was something
striking and wonderful to see there the leading men of the
nation in all departments of thought and culture, sitting at
his feet and acknowledging his supremacy.

THE CHEMISTRY Of COOKERY.

By W. Mattieu Williams.
111. — COOK IN' G UNDER WATER.
1^ EXT to the boiling of water for its own sake, as treated
i. 1 in my last, comes the boiling of water as a medium
for the cooking of other things. Here, at the outset, I
have to correct an error of language ■^hich, as too often

* From a sermon delivered a week after the public dinner given
to Mr. Spencer the day before his sailing from New York.

happens, leads by continual suggestion to false ideas.
When we speak of " boiled beef," " boiled mutton," " boiled
eggs," '• boiled potatoes," we talk nonsense ; we are not
merely using an elliptical expression, as when we say " the
kettle boils," which we all understand to mean the contents
of the kettle, but we are expounding a false theory of
what has happened to the beef, Ac. — as false as though we
should describe the material of the kettle that has held
boiling water as boiled copper or boiled iron. No boiling
of the food takes place in any such cases as the above-
named — it is merely heated by inmiersion in boiling water ;
the changes that actually take place in the food are essen-
tially dilierent from those of ebullition. Even the water
contained in the meat is not boiled in ordinary cases, as its
boiling point is higher than that of the surrounding water,
owing to the salts it holds in solution.

Thus, as a matter of chemical fact, a " boiled leg of
mutton " is one that has been cooked, but not boiled ;
while a roasted leg of mutton is one that has been partially
boiled. Much of the constituent water of flesh is boiled out,
fairly driven away as vapour during roasting or baking,
and the fat on its surface is also boiled, and, more or less,
dissociated into its chemical elements, carbon and water,
as shown by the browning, due to the separated carbon.

As I shall presently show, this verbal explanation is no
mere verbal quibble, but it involves important practical
applications. An enormous waste of precious fuel is perpe-
trated every day, throughout the whole length and breadth
of Britain and other countries where English cookery
prevails, on account of the almost universal ignorance of
the philosophy of the so-called boiling of food.

^^'hen it is once fairly understood that the meat is not
to be boiled, but is merely to be warmed by immersion in
water raised to a maximum temperature of L'lli", and when
it is further understood that water cannot (under ordinary
atmospheric pressure) be raised to a higher temperature
than '212' by any amount of violent boiling, the popular
distinction between " simmering " and boiling, which is
so obstinately maintained as a kitchen superstition, is
demolished.

The experiment described in my last showed that imme-
diately the bubbles of steam reach the surface of the water
and break there — that is, when simmering commences —
the thermometer reaches the boiling point, and that how-
ever violently the boiling may afterwards occur, the ther-
mometer rises no higher. Therefore, as a medium for
heating the substances to be cooked, simmering water is
just as eflective as " walloping " water. There are excep-
tional operations of cookery, to be described hereafter,
wherein useful mechanical work is done by violent boiling ;
but in all ordinary cookery, simmering is just as effective.
The heat that is applied to do more than the smallest
degree of simmering is simply wasted in converting water
into useless steam. The amount of such waste may be
easily estimated. To raise a given quantity of water from
the freezing to the boiling point demands an amount of
heat represented by 180° in Fahrenheit's thermometer, or
100° Centigrade. To convert this into steam, 990° Fah. or
.5-50° Cent, is necessary — just five and a-half times as much.
On a properly-constructed hot-plate or sand-bath, a
dozen saucepans may be kept at the true cooking tempe-
rature, with an expenditure of fuel commonly employed
in England to " boil " one saucepan. 1 n the great majority
of so-called boiling operations, even simmering is unneces-
sary. Not only is a "boiled leg of mutton" not itself
boiled, but even the water in which it is cooked should not
be kept boilijig, as we shall presently see.

In order to illustrate some of the changes which take
place in the cooking of animal food, I w ill first take the

98

• KNOV^LEDGE

[Feb. 16, 1863.

simple case of cooking an egg by means of hot water.
Tlipse changes are in this case easily visible and very
simple, althougli the egg itself contains all the materials of
a complete animal. IJoncs, muscles, viscera, brain, nerves,
and feathers of the chicken — all are produced within the
shell, nothing being added, and little or nothing taken away.

When we open a raw egg, we find, enveloped in a
stoutish membrane, a quantity of glairy, slimy, viscous,
colourless fluid, which, as everbody now knows, is called
albww'n, a Latin translation of its common name, " tin'
V'hile." Within the white of the egg is the yolk, largely
composed of that same albumen, but with other constituents
added — notably a peculiar oil. At present I will only con-
sider the changes which cookery effects on the main con-
stituent of the egg, merely adding that this same albumen
is one of the most important, if not the one most im-
portant, material of animal food, and is represented by a
corresponding nutritious constituent in vegetables.

We all know that when an egg has been immersed
daring a few minutes in boiling water, the colourless, slimy
liquid is converted into the white solid to which it owes
its name. This coagulation of albumen is one of the most
decided and best understood changes effected by cookery,
and therefore demands especial study.

Place some fresh, raw white of egg in a test-tube or
other suitable glass vessel, and in the midst of it immerse
the bulb of a thermometer. (Cylindrical thermometers,
with the degrees marked on the glass stem, are made for
such laboratory purposes.) Place the tube containing the
albumen in a vessel of water, and gradually heat this.
When the albumen attains a temperature of about 134°
Fahr., white fibres will begin to appear within it ; these
will increase until about 160° is attained, when the whole
mass will become white and nearly opaque. It is now
coagulated, and may be called solid. Now examine some
of the result, and you will find that the albumen thus only
just coagulated is a tender, delicate, jelly-like substance,
having every appearance to sight, touch, and taste of being
easily digestible. This is the case.

Ha\iug settled these points, proceed with the experi-
ment by heating the remainder of the albumen (or a new
sample) up to 212°, and keeping it for awhile at this
temperature. It will dry, shrink, and become horny. If
the heat is carried a little further, it becomes converted
into a substance which is so hard and tough that a valuable
cement is obtained by simply smearing the edges of the
article to be cemented with white of egg, and then heating
it to a little above 212°.*

This simple experiment teaches a great deal of what is
but little known concerning the philosophy of cookery. It
shows in the first place that, so far as the coagulation of
the albumen i^ concerned, the cooking temperature is not
212°, or that of boiling water, but 1C0°, i.e. •'32° below it.
Everybody knows the difference between a tender, juicy
steak, rounded or plumped-out in the middle, and a tough,
leathery abomination, that has been so cooked as to shrivel
and curl up. The contraction, drying up, and hornifying
of the albumen in the test-tube represents the albumen of
the latter, while the tender, delicate, trembling, semi-solid
that was coagulated at 160°, represents the albumen in the
first.

But this is a digression, or rather anticipation, seeing
that the grilling of a beefsteak is a jjroblem of profound
complexity that we cannot solve until we have mastered

• " EKg-comenti" 'made by thickeniiif,' white of ogg with finely-
powdered quicklimq, has long been used for mending alabaster,
marble, &c. For joining fragments of fossils and mineralogical
specimens, it will be found very useful. White of ogg alone mav
be- used, if carefnllv heated afterwards.

the rudiments. We have not yet determined how to prac-
tically apply the laws of albumen coagulation as discovered
by our test-tube experiment to the cooking of a breakfast
egg-

BICYCLES AND TRICYCLES FOR 1883.

Bv John Bkowxixo,
(C/iairinan and Treasure/f of the Loiidmi Tricycle Club.)

^pHE novelties in bicycles offered for the coming season
i are as yet but few. There has again been a decrease
in weight in racing machines. Two full-sized bicycles were
exhibited at the Albert Hall, one weighing 1 9 lb. and
the other 21 lb. One, a 54-inch, made by the Coventry
Machinists Company, I examined carefully. The work-
man.ship was excellent, and, notwith.standing its wonderful
lightness, I have little doubt it is capable of standing the
strain it will be required to bear.

A contrivance for preventing a rider from taking a
header over the handles deserves mention on account of
its noveltj'. Many of my readers have probably seen
public performances by trick riders on bicycles. In some
cases in such exhibitions, the riders take the handles
off the machines and ride without them, steering
and balancing entirely by their feet. The handles of
the machines fit on a square on ths top of the head.
The new arrangement I am describing is similar in
construction, but, on being pressed firmly down, the
centre or socket of the handle locks itself on a square
spindle projecting from the head by means of a
strong spring. Underneath the handle-bar there are two
long, light levers. Upon pressing either of these upwards,
the spring is released, and the handle-bar can be removed.
The reason a rider goes over the front of a bicycle when
anything checks his machine, is because he instinctively
grasps the handles tightly. But in falling forward on a
machine fitted as I have described, a rider's thighs would
be brought into contact with the levers below the handles,
these are lifted, and withdraw the spring-catch, and con-
tinuing the pressure, force off the handle-bar. The rider
then falls on his feet, with the handle-bar in his hands.
I would much rather see the inventor exhibit the action
of this contrivance than experiment with it myself.

Kinnaird's new crank action, made by Keen it Co., of
Norwood, is an elliptical motion of the pedals attached
by two levers to the cranks. A pedal, with eight inches
leverage, rises and falls only about four and a half inches.
The mere saving of the unnecessary motion will represent
a great saving of power in riding. This very ingenious
contrivance admits of many applications. By its aid a tall
man may ride a small bicycle, or a short man may ride a
large bicycle. But probably its most important applica-
tion will be to tricycles, as it will enable them to be
driven without either chains or levers.

Having referred to such novelties as I believe will prove
useful in bicycles, I will return to improvements in tri-
cycles. And first I will refer in more detail to those
machines I so briefly alluded to in my last article.

Of the llumber tricycle, I need only say that there seems
but little room left to improve this machine, either for
grace, speed, or lightness. I do not regard the machine as
the best for general adoption. The machine known as the
Lady's Humber, however, I can thoroughly recommend as
one of the lightest, best, and safest front-steering machines
made, equally adapted for ladies or gentlemen ; and I
would strongly urge its makers to bring it more promi-
nently before the public.

FEa 16, 1883.]

o- KNOWLEDGE ♦

99

Many riders have a predilection for a rear-steering
tricycle : those who require this type of machine will
find Burgess's " Sterling " tricycle, as constructed for
this season, an admirable machine. I believe the machine
to be as safe for running down hill as a front-steercr,
while it is much easier to mount or disnwunt ; it will
receive luggage more conveniently, and it will carry the
driver without splashing him over dirty roads, while a
front-steercr will smother him with mud. The front
wheels have ratchets, and the pedals may at pleasure be
stopped and used as foot-rests. This is a great advantage
when running down hill. I have found some dilHculty in
making many persons undcr.stand the advantage of Mr.
Burgess's plan of pedalling backwards to go forwards ; but
I am sure my thoughtful readers of Knowledge will soon
see the point When pedalling forward with a crank action,
each foot controls a pedal over little more than one-
third of a revolution. When pedalling backwards, each
foot has control over a pedal for a little more than
half-a-circle. There are, therefore, no dead centres to
get over — an inestimable advantage when riding uphill.
Again, when pedalling backwards, each down-stroke of
the foot presses the hind steering-wheel more firmly on to
the ground, makes the steering more sure, and steadies the
machine. Pedalling forwards would lift the hind wheel off
the ground, render the steering uncertain, and the machine
unsteady. The position of the seat when the rider has to
•pedal backwards, places him between the three wheels;
this reduces the motion of the rider when passing over
obstacles, and gives him the most perfect vertical action
yet obtained.

In his admirable paper in Good Words, Dr. Richardson
recommends tricyclists to use all their influence with
manufacturers to induce them to adopt means for mini-
mising vibration in tricycles. This has been done in the
"Sterling"' in the following simple manner. The seat is
attached to two levers by means of straps, and these levers
are attached to helical springs. The vibration is so much
reduced that a rider may travel over a macadamised road
in bad condition without inconvenience. The machine
has a long backbone, which also tends to reduce vibration.
The length of the backbone and the form of the fi-ame
cause this machine to be especially suited to carrying
.photographic apparatus. A case 18 in. square will hang
easily underneath the machine without being in the way
of the rider.

LEARNING LANGUAGES.
By Rich.vrd a. Proctor.

(Continued from page 6G.)

THE HAMILTONIAN SYSTEM.

THIS system differs from the ordinary literal transla-
tion, in giving a truly literal translation, placed word
for word under the words of the original, which are only
so far changed in order as seems essential to the sense.
Thus, take the following passage, with which Cicero's
famous third oration against Catiline opens : —

Re)iijJi(blicaiii, Quiriti's, litamque omnhim veslriim,b(yna,
JortiDias, corijiii/rs, liljerosf/He res/iii.<, atqne hoc domiciliuin
clarissiini imperii, fortunatissimam pxdcherrimamqne
urbein, hodiemo die, Dearum immortalium summo erga vox
amore, laboribiis, coiisiliix, perictdisque meis, ex Jlammd
ttlque /erro, ac piene ex faucibris fati preptam, et vobis con-
iervatara ac restilxitam, videlis. Et, si 7wn minus nobis
JKcundi atque iUiistres sunt ii dies, quibus conservamur.

snatched out-of flame
faucibus fati, et
the jaws of fate and
vobis, hodiemo die,
to you, on-this-day,
immortalium Dforum

quam illi quibus ■nascimiir ; (quod saliUis cerla Icetitia est,
luisifiidi incerl<i conditin ; el quod sine setisu nascimur
cum colujitali; sirramiir) : profectv, quoniam illum^ qui
hanc urbein comlidil, Jiomulum, ad Deos iimtwrtales bene-
voleiitid JamAquc gusluVanus : esse apud vos jwsierosque
vestros ill. hotwro debebit is, qui eandeia hanc urbeni eon-
ditam aiuplifcatamque servavit.

The Hamiltonian translation of this passage is presented
as follows : —

Quirites, videtis rempubllcam, que vitam vestriim

Jiomans, you S'-e, the republic, and th^i life of you,

omnium, bona, fortunos, conjuges, que vestros libCros,

all, goods, fortunes, wives, and your child re a,

atque hoc domicilium clarissimi imperii, fortunatissi-

inul this abode of a most famous empire, amostfortu-
mam que pulcherriman urbem, ereptam e.x ilammd
nate find must beautiful city,
atque ferro, ac psene ex

and sword, and almost out-of
conservatam ac restitutam

preserved and restored

summo an

by the highest (very great) lore of the immortal Gods

erga vos, meis laboribus, consiliis que periculis. Et
towards you, by my labours, counsels, aiul datiyers. And
si li dies quibus conservamur sunt non minus
if those days in which we nre-preserced are not less
jucundi atque illustres quam illi quibus nascimur ;
pleasant and illustrious titan those in which we are-born ;

(qu&d Isetitia salutis est certa, conditio

because the joy of safety is certain, tlie condition

nascendi incerta ; et quod nascimur sine

of being-born (is) uncertain ; andbecause we are-born without
sensu, servamur cum voluptate) ; profectu quoniam

feeling, ice are preserved with pleasure: truly because

sustulimus ilium Romulum, (jui condidit hanc urbem,
ice have-raised that Bomulus, wlio founded this city,
ad immortales Deos benevolentiu ac fama :
to the immortal Gods vnth benevolence and with fame :
is debebit esse in honore apud vos que vestros

he loill-onyht to be in honour with (among) you and yottr

posteros, qui servavit hanc eandem urbem

ilescendants, who has-preserred this same city

conditam que amplificatani.
beiiig-fonnded and enlarged.

The method of this translation will at once be recog-
nised. The aim is to be strictly literal ; and the student
is at once saved all troubk; about the meaning of each
word. In the above passage we may take exception to the
translation of " quoniam " by because instead of since, and
will-ought for "debebit" may perplex by Ijeing un-English ;
" will owe (ought) " would, perhaps, have done better. We
see also, that in this, as in all other systems of trans-
lation, there is room for comment on the words used to
represent the original. Thus the words " certa " and
" incerta " are not fully represented by the English certain
and ii)wertain—a.nd though the attentive learner can hardly
fail to notice this for himself, since the statement that
" the condition of being-born is uncertain," is absurd, it
would be well in all such cases to add a foot-note indicating
the delicate shade by which the original differs from the
nearest English for it. In the present case, for in-
stance, the word " certa " indicates that the joy
of safety is consciously recognised or ascertained ;

100

• KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Feb. 16, 1883.

tlie word " incerta " means, not that the condition
of being horn is uncertain, but that it is not a condi-
tion whicli is consciously recognised. Manifestly, our
■words " certain " and " uncertain " do not represent this
shade of meaning ; and the teacher (or a foot-note) should
point out that even wlien these English words fairly re-
present the meaning of the Latin, the Latin word cerlns
contains, over and above the idea of certainty, the idea of
conscious ascertainment or discernment ; and the con-
nection between the words " certus " and " cerno " should
be indicated. The exercise of the student's mind in
noticing peculiarities of meaning in the corresponding
words of dirt'erent language might well detain him as long
over each line of translation as the work of turning over a
dictionary ; but I venture to say very confidently that it is
a much more improving exercise, and would much more
rapidly advance not only his knowledge of the language
he is studying, but also his progress in attaining that keen-
ness of perception by which the true force of words and
sentences is discerned.

The use of such a translation as the above is obvious.
But the way in which I have myself used the Hamiltonian
method may, perhaps, be worth explaining to the readers
of Knowledoe. It does not carry one quite so rapidly
over the ground as one may go, should it be wished ; but
it is (to me) exceedingly interesting, and I believe it to be
very instructive.

Take, then, first, such a passage as the above (German
was the language I was studying, however) and go care-
fully over it, word for word as it stands. Thus, the above
would be read as follows : — Quirites, Romans, videtis, you
see, kc. i^ext, read it over several words at a time. After
this, read the English through alone, and then turn to the
original, and read that through. You will find that by
this time you can read the original understandingly. Take
the passage next (not more at a time than is given above)
and turn it into English by a free translation — not too
free, but just free enough to be good English. Now
follows what in practice I found the most improving part
of the whole work. Make a word-for-word translation in
the exact order of the words in the original, and note what
this tells you of the character of the idiom and also of the
mental peculiarities of the nation who owned or own the
language you are dealing with.

To do this for Latin, note that some words must be
differently translated than they are above. Thus the best
way of representing the enclitic que is by " also," and we
are entitled to represent as the proper translation of " con-
servamur " ire-are-prese.rved, though Mr. Underword sepa-
rates the ire, writing we are-preserved ; for, the personal
pronoun is in reality present in the termination, though in
an archaic form nearer akin to the .^olic a/i/ifc than to
the Latin nos.

The translation, then, would run somewhat as follows : —
[7'A«] Republic, Romans, [the'\ life also of-all you, goods,
fortunes, wives, children also, yours, and also this abode of
[a] most famous emjnre, most fortunate most beautifid also
city, this-day's day, of the Gods' Immortal by highest towards
you lore, by labours by counsels by dangers also mine, out-
nf flame but also sword, and also out-of jau-s of fale snatched,
and to-you, preseii^ed and restored, you behold. And, if
not less io-us jojiful and illnstrious are those days, on-which
weare-prcserved, than those on-udiich we are born — {because
of-safli/ perceived \lhe\ joy is, nf being-born unperceired
[fke\ cinnlilion : and because unthout feeling ire are born,
v'ilh delight me are prejierved), — assuredly, (since he, who
this city built — Ronmh/s — to [the] Gods immortal in.
benevolence and in-fame u-e-have-raised,) to be among you

descendants also yours, in honour ought he, who [the] same
this city — founded, enlarged also — has-pre served.

This translation should be read over two or three times
in alternation with the free translation, and it should be
noted in what respects the free translation fails, as all such
translations must fail, to represent the original, and to give
its full force.

In making such a translation, the student not only tests
and renews his acquaintance with all the new words the
passage contains, but Icams much of the construction of
the language he is engaged with. He notes in this par-
ticular case also, how the Romans in speaking, and, there-
fore, in thinking, preferred first to present the object with
all that seemed necessary to be .=aid aljout it, then the
person or persons whose actions or relations towards that
object are to be indicated, then the nature of those actions
or relations. This is seen in parts of a sentence as in the
whole sentence. The same turn of mind is shown also by
the customary positions of noun and adjective in Latin :
for though there is no such hard and fast rule in this
respect as in French (for example), still the Roman would
rather give his subject first and its attribute after, than
reverse this arrangement as we English generally do.
Where we would say, " The lively horse strives to throw
his skilful rider," the Roman would prefer to say, " The
rider skilful* of-him, the horse, lively, to throw strives.

Thus, in learning the language of a race, we may, if
reflectively disposed, learn something also of their turn of
mind.

{To he continued.)

ON THE FOEMATION OF COMETS'
TAILS.

By a. C. R.a,nyard.

AT a meeting of the Astronomical Society in 1874, I
suggested (see " Astronomical Register " XII. p. 80) a
possible explanation of the repulsive force acting on the
matter of comets' tails, which differs somewhat from that
suggested by 3Ir. Grensted in Knowledge of Feb. 2. He
assumes that space is filled with a universal atmosphere as
attenuated as that within the bulb of a Crookes' radiometer,
and that the force which drives back the matter of a
comet's tail is due to inequalities in the pressure of such an
atmosphere. Without making any assumption as to a
universal atmosphere, I would suggest that the accumulated
effect of the minute recoils accompanying evaporation, as
molecules are thrown off from the surface of a small body
towards the sun, is sufficient to account for the force which
overcomes the action of gi'avity and gives rise to the
enormous velocities with which matter is occasionally
driven away from the sun in a comet's tail.

If one half of the mass of a particle is rapidly thrown off
by evaporation towards the sun, with an average velocity
(V), the remaining h.alf not yet driven into vapour will
have received a series of impulses all acting in directions
nearly opposite to the source of heat, which will give a
velocity comparable with V, away from the sun, to the

* I am aware that I have departed here from the usual order ; I
have done so because I am trying to convey rather the general
idea than to indicate tlie actual practice in detail. The nse of
varying terminations in Latin renders the order of the words less
important than in English. Thus, "The rider of him skilful, the
horse," &c., would, in English, be understood to mean that the
horse was skilful, instead of the rider ; but there could be no such
mistake in Latin.

Feb, 16, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE •

101

remaining unevaporated half of the particle, and as the
evaporation continues, the velocity of the unevaporated
residue will increase, until it may become much j^reater
than the velocity with which the gaseous molecules are
driven off from the heated body.

It is evident that evaporation will take place most
rapidly where the sun's rays strike vertically ; and if we
suppose evaporation to take place so that the particles all
fly off in directions which are inclined less than 45° to the
line passing through the sun's centre, the resultant effect
of all the recoils would give the unevaporated half of tlic

particle a velocity greater than in a direction away

from the sun.

The velocity with which an evaporating molecule leaves
the evaporating body must at least be equal to the velocity
of the free molecule in the gaseous state immediately after
evaporation. We know that the average velocity of

v/Z

•273

miles

bydrogen molecules at a temperature r is 1 OG'

per second ; where r is the number of degrees centigrade
measured from the absolute zero of temperature, and we
consequently do not need to assume a temperature higher
than the temperature of an English summer day to give a
velocity of I'l miles per second for the molecvdes of
hydrogen gas, which would correspond to a velocity of
nearly a hundred thousand miles per day.

Hitherto we have only considered the motion due to
evaporation of a part of the mass of the moving particle,
bat in the case of a gaseous mixture, where one element
is precipitated by cold, while the rest remain in the gaseous
form, we may have condensation going on on the shaded
side of the precipitated particles and evaporation on the
illuminated side, while the condensed matter continually
flows round to the illuminated side, or the precipitated
particles may be turned by the forces acting on their illu-
minated surfaces.

Prof. Arthur Wright, of Yale, has showTi that when
stony meteorites are heated to a temperature of only
100° C. a mixture of several gasses, carbonic dioxide,
carbonic oxide, hydrogen, &c., is given off. In such a
mixture at ordinary atmospheric pressure the carbonic acid
would be condensed into the liquid form, at a temperature
of about - 80°C., and in vacuo, the condensation would take
place at a still lower temperature. We can, therefore,
conceive of the action described going on at a very low
temperature, and can understand the formation of comets'
tails at distances from the sun considerably greater than
the earth's distance.

An evaporating particle near to the comet's nucleus would
he acted upon by four forces, viz., gravitation towards the
nucleus and heat repulsion from the nucleus, gravitation
towards the sun and heat repulsion from the sun. If the
repulsive action is in each case greater than the attractive
action, the particle will be driven towards a hyperbolic
surface, which has the comet's nucleus in one focus and the
sun's centre in the other focus.

This is evident, for on such a hyperbolic surface, the
tangent TP bisects the angle SPX. . If the forces in the
direction SP and NP are equal, the resultant will bisect
the angle between them, and the particle will be driven

along in the hyperbolic surface ; while if the force in the
direction NPis greater than the force in the direction SP,
thi- particle will be driven outwards, till it reaches a con-
focal hyperbolic slieet, where the forces acting from the
sun and nucleus are equal.

Particles of different sizes would be acted upon by
gravitating forces corresponding to their masses — that is,
'jy attractive forces varying with the cube of the diameter
of the particle ; while the repulsive forces would vary
with the surfaces exposed to radiation, or as the square of
the diameter of the particles. Consequently particles of
difierent sizes, as well as substances evaporating at dif-
ferent temperatures, would be driven towards difierent
confocal hyperbolic sheets, and as seen in projection, these
would appear as hyperViolic envelopes one within the other.
Such ditl'erenccs in the repulsive forces would evidently
also account for differences of curvature in the plane of
the orbit of diHVrent parts of the tail. Fan-shaped, inter-
secting arcs in front of the nucleus have frequently been
observed, which may possibly be accounted for by sup-
posing that hyperbolic envelopes about different nucleii
are occasionally seen in projection one through the other.
Probably all the phenomena of cometary structure cannot
be accounted for on the above supposition, but I wish to
point out that it is not necessary to call in a hypothetical
electrical repulsive force in order to account for the thief
features of cometary structure. Possibly, as Bredichin,
Norton, and Zollner have suggested, electricity may be
generated as physical changes take place during the heat-
ing of the nucleus : and though I cannot accept their
electrical theories with regard to the formation of comets'
tails, I would suggest that it is possible that the bright
line spectrum in the neighbourhood of the nucleus may be
due to a rapid succession of electrical discharges, while the
general temperature of the gas remains far below the tem-
perature of incandescence.

If the earth had no atmosphere, a particle driven up-
wards from the earth's surface with a velocity of a mile a
second would, under the action of terrestrial gravity, only
rise to a height of 82 miles, and then fall again towards
the earth ; but a particle driven away from a nucleus
weighing only a few pounds, or even a few million tons,
with a velocity of a mile a second, would be driven off into
space. It is evident that with temperatures such as we
have been supposing, there would not be an atmosphere
about a flight of meteoric stones similar to the earth's
atmosphere, but the molecules would stream away with
approximately parallel motions, and precipitated particles
in the neighbourhood of the heated side of the nucleus
would be bombarded with molecules of evaporating gases
moving in very long free paths. This condition Mr. Crookes
has termed " the fourth state of matter,' and he has in
a series of beautiful experiments shown that such a bom-
bardment may be caused in a vacuum tube about a negative
pole when a discharge from an induction coil is passing
through the exhausted tube, and that bodies struck by
particles of such radiant matter shine with a phos-
phorescent light which I conceive may be the cause of the
intense brightness of the suspended matter in the neigh-
bourhood of the nucleus, while the gaseous molecules
during their long free paths would give out their own
distinguishing wave lengths. Thus, without electrical dis-
charges tlie whole phenomenon of the continuous and
bright line spectrum in the neighbourhood of the nucleus
may be accounted for.

The few oliservations I have made with regard to the
polarization of the light derived from the tails of comets
show that there is usually but little polarization in the
neighbourhood of the nucleus, but in the further parts of

102

• KNOWLEDGE ->

[Feb. 16, 1883.

tho tail the polarization is more or less intense, according
to the position of tlie comet with respect to the earth and
sun. If the line joining the earth and comet makes a
small angle with the direction in wliich tlie sun's light
falls upon the comet, the polarization is small, Vnit the
intensity of the polarization increases as the angle between
the line joining the earth and comet and the direction of
illumination increases towards a right angle. This seems
to indicate that the polarization is duo to the dispersion
of the sun's light by particles whose diameters are small
compared with the wave-length of light.

traversing one coil deflected the needle through 30 deg. to
the right, the same current passing through the other coil
would cause a deflection of .30 deg. to the left. If the cur-
rent is divided between the coils so as to pass through simul-
taneously or in " quantity," then there will be no move-
ment of the needle, as the forces exerted arc equal and
opposite. This may be more readily comprehended by a
reference to Fig. 1, in which Z C is the battery, the copper
pole being "put to earth," and the zinc joined by wire to
D, where the current divides betwen the coils A and B of
the galvanometer G. After leaving these coils, the current

Great Comet of 1882, from a drawing by Dr. Temple, of Arcetri, IS Oct. 16 h.

The phenomena exhibited by the recent brilliant comet
also affords evidence of matter streaming away from the
brighter parts of the tail towards the sun. Mr. Gill's pho-
tographs, as well as the drawings by Schmidt, Temple, and
others who observed in a clear atmosphere, show a broad
band of faint light which is traceable backwards from the
brighter parts of the tail far beyond the nucleus in the
direction of the sun. The band evidently does not spring
from the nucleus, as it is not symmetrically placed with
respect to it, but it corresponds with the broader and
brighter parts of the tail.

According to my theory, the sun must be constantly
bombarded by matter driven ofi' from every meteoric mass
which comes into its neighbourhood, while a portion of the
less volatile elements are driven backwards into space.

THE AMATEUR ELECTRICIAN.

ELECTRICAL MEASUREMENT.— VIII.

AS we intimated in the preceding article, it is some-
what difficult to measure the resistance of coils to
be subsequently used as measures of resistance in other
wires. Our position is in some degree akin to that of a
shopkeeper who has to make his own scales and weights,
all he has to guide him being a single one-ounce weight.
Given the ounce weight, he could make another similar
weight by restoring to the scale, by means of a sufficiently
large piece of metal, etc., the balance which had been
upset by the original weight being placed in one of the
pans. Further, he might possibly be able to produce his
second weight by causing the first to do a certain amount
of work, such as e.xtending a spiral spring, and then modi-
fying the dimensions of a piece of metal until it is able to
repeat that work, and so indicate an equality in weight.
The analogy in electrical measurement is very close. Instead
of a pair of scales, we use a " differential " galvanometer,
in which there are two coils of wire, each capable of exert-
ing an equal but opposite force upon a magnetic needle
suspended between them — that is to say, if a certain current

* The plane of the comet's orbit was incUned at an angle of
about .38° to the ecliptic. The earth passed through tho plane of
the comet's orbit about the middle of September, so that at the
date of the drawing a straight tail with a Bcriea of carved tails
behind it in the pla-.io of tho orbit would bo seen in projection as
but slightly sepai-ated from one another. — A. C. K.

passes direct to earth or back to the zinc pole of the
battery. If now we insert a known resistance (y) between
the coil A and the earth, it will be evident that the
" balance " will be upset, and that as the circuit A has a
higher resistance or lower conductivity than the circuit B,
there will be an unequal division of the current, the smaller
portion going through A, and exerting a comparatively
feebler effect upon the needle, which is then deflected by
the greater current circulating in B. In this case the de-

flection is produced by the difference between A and B,
not by the whole current B, as the A current has still to
be neutralised. Suppose, now, we insert an unknown
resistance (.>■) in the B circuit between the galvanometer
and earth, and increase that resistance until the needle
again points to zero, it is clear that the two circuits again
offer equal resistances, and that the unknown x is equal to
the known >/. The differential galvanometer is a very
useful piece of apparatus, and will amply repay any trouble
expended in making it. The coils should be so nearly
equal as to be able to transmit a current from 40 or 50
Daniell cells without deflecting the needle.

The other method available for the shopkeeper, we said,
was to make the new weight repeat work done by the
original. To apply this to electrical measurement, we wUl
refer to the tangent galvanometer described in " Electrical
Measurement — VI." (Knowledge, No. 58). If a current
from the standard cell (Knowledge, No. 44) be passed
through the quantity or thick-wire coil, a good deflection
will be obtained. The e.xternal resistance of such a circuit
is practically Jiil. If, therefore, we insert between the
battery and galvanometer a small resistance, it will ma-
terially reduce the strength of the current, and consequently
the deflection of the needle. By noting the deflection
resulting from tlie insertion of this known resistance, and

Feb. 16, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

103

then substituting and modifying an unknown resistance
until tlie reduced deflection is repeated, we can obtain a
second resistance equal to tlie first, ^^'ith these two known
resistances, a third can be made eiiual to their combined
resistance, trnd, with a little thought, all the required coils
may be measured ofV.

A third method is by that known as the Wheatstone
"bridge." This is of all methods the most universally
applicable and satisfactory. By its means we are able to
measure accurately and easily any resistance varying from
a minute fraction of an Ohm to several million Ohms.
There is very little new concerning the arrangement, but
its interest and importance are of so vital a nature in all
systems of measurement, that we fear no excuse we could
urge would be sufficient to warrant our passing it by.

In Fig. 2, which illustrates the principle involved, the

pole C of the battery is put to earth, or joined to the
other earth-wire from K. A wire passes from Z to a
terminal at H, where the current is divided, one part
going through A, M, D, and the other through B, N, E to
K, and thence flowing to earth or back to the battery.
G is a galvanometer joined to the two wires from
the battery at M and N. Ignoring for a moment
the galvanometer circuit (M G N), it will be remembered
that when a current is divided between two conductors,
the proportion passing through them is inversely as
their resistances. Furthermore, the electrical principle
determining the current's How is its potential or the
intensity of its electrical charge. A current from C to
earth or through K to Z is, therefore, an effort to establish
electrical eiiuilibrium thronghout the circuit, and is the
result of differences of potential in the various parts of the
circuit When a current thus flows, it is clearly passing
from a high to a low, or may be to Zero potential (the
nominal condition of the earth). In Fig. 3, Z C is a

battery with Z to earth and C joined to the uniform wire
C B, the end B being to earth. The vertical line C A

may be made to represent the potential or electric
charge at C, B (to earth) being Zero. Then the
inclined line A B depicts the gradual fall of potential
which takes place as the current passes along the
wire. It is apparent that as D L is half the length of
C A, the fall between C and D is equal to the fall between
D and B. Ne.xt suppose we have a wire E F similar to
C B, but twice the length. If we connect E to the C pole
of the buttery, the current will divide between the two
wires, but the current in each wire will have the same
electro-motive force (which, it must not be forgotten, is
the dill'erence of potential between the two poles of the
battery). The vertical line E G must therefore be equal
to C A, and E F being uniform there will be a gradual
fall of potential from E through F to eartlu If we draw
from the centre H of the line E F a vertical line II K, that
line will indicate that the fall of potential from E to H
is the same as that from 11 to F. 11 K is, in fact, half the
length of E G, and as it is also equal to D L, it implies that
the fall between C D is equal to that between E H, and the
fall between D B equal to the fall between H F. Let us now
join D to H. It is clear that these two points are at the
same potential — consequently, a current being the result of
a difference of potential, there will be no current flowing
through D H. If, on the other hand, the wire from D
be joined to any part of E F other than H, there will be
a current flowing. If joined to L, the current will flow
from L to D, because L is at a higher potential than D.
If joined to M there will be a current from D to M,
because the potential of D is higher than that of M. This
brings us back to Fig. 2, where M N is the wire joined to
the two lines through which the battery current is flowing.
G is a galvanometer with many turns of fine wire. If the
resistance blocks A B D E are all equal — say ten Ohms each
— the galvanometer needle remains steady, because the
potentials of the points M and N are equal.

As we have already reached the limit of our space, we
must defer a further consideration of this most interesting
topic till our ne.xt article.

COLLISIONS AT SEA DURING FOG.

By Richard A. Pkoctor.

THE care with which money is saved over the signal-
lamps of ships, ic. — especially steamships at night —
is most praiseworthy. Several pounds a year must be
saved by using only two side lights — the red port light and
the green light on the starboard side ; and what if, when
a collision occurs, half-a-million of money's worth may go
in a few minutes to the bottom ? A ship lost is a ship lost,
but economy must Vje attended to as all-important.

But, seriously, when we consider the power which science
has attained over the forces of nature, when we remember
how, by virtue of such power, we can make our ships in-
dependent of wind and tide, and how we urge them — each
with its freight of living souls — along the great trade routes
in hundreds, it does seem to imply stupidity and want of
care, to say nothing worse, that such means as science
affords for defending them against the risk of collision
should not be employed. I will not here consider the
general question of collisions at sea, though it is one about
which much might be said. But such disastrous collisions
as have occurred recently might easily be avoided, or at
least rendered extremely infrequent, if proper means were
used for indicating, by strong lights suitably placed, the
position of steamships, whether in motion or at rest.
Everyone who has traversed a thick fog, even a London

104

KNOWLEDGE

[Fbr 16, 1883.

fog, since the electric light has been much used in towns,
knows how much fartlicr a strong electric light shows in a
fog than the best gas-light, and (still more) than any oil-
light. It is well-known, too, how much the use of any
coloured glass diminishes the range of distance through
which a light can be seen. Now, it may very well be that
the general use of the ('lectric light on board steamships
may not be possible at present. I should have thought the
owners of our best ocean steamships would long since have
decided to use only the electric light for their signal-lamps,
if not for illuminating purposes throughout those ships.
But supposing this not yet possible or convenient, it is yet
obvious that in every steamship, either slowed or brought
to rest during fog, there is available a store of energy
which might be well employed at those critical times to
drive a dynamo machine and maintain any desired number
of very strong electric lights in suitable positions. Such
lights would penetrate to a considerable distance through
any ordinary sea fog. If they had been burning on the
City of Brussels and the Kirbjj Ilall, or on the Cimhria&nA
Siiltaii, it is, to all intents and purposes, certain that the
late disastrous collisions would not have occurred. The
mere indication of the presence or approach of these several
ships would have sufficed to have averted the danger.

But more than this might very readily be done. The
lights at present used are of very little service in indicating
the position in which a ship lies. A red light shoM's that
her port side would be in view were it day, but not hoin
that side is presented. It may be the broadside which is
towards another vessel, or she may be lying with her bows
only so far turned to starboard from being directly end
on that the slightest possible change in her course or bearing
will bring the green starboard light into view. (Precisely
such a change happened just before the Cimhria was run
down.) Now there is absolutely no reason whatever (save
the expense required for some eight or nine instead of
two or three lamps) why this uncertainty should exist.
Supposing only side lights can be used, instead of such
central lights as might, perhaps, be hidden by sails or
rigging, then what is to prevent such an arrangement as
the following from being used along the port and starboard
sides of every ship — especially of every steamship.

W

POET SIDE LIGHTS.

STARBOARD SIDE LIGHTS.

(W a powerful whito light at the bow, R .i powerful coloured
light at tlie stern, W only visible when the bow is nearer than the
stern to observer, U only visible when the stern is nearer to observer
than the bow ; ab c the midship port lights arranged in the form of
an equilateral triangle.

A little consideration will show that, if such lights were
used, not only would the port side be distinguished as now
and from the starboard one much more quickly, because
white lights are seen much farther than coloured ones, but
the exact bearing of the ship's midships would be at once
shown by the foregoing shape of the triangle abc. —
Nnocasth Weekly Chronicle.

THE ABUSE OF EVOLUTION.

By Richard A. Proctor.

SINGULARLY enough, when the kindly and sensible
words of the American clergyman whose note on
Mr. Herbert Spencer we give elsewhere, were passing
through our hands for press, we were favoured, through
the courtesy of the Editor of the Christian Cmnmomrealth,
with a specimen of a different kind of comment on the
great philosopher of our century, and on his fellow-
workers, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, J. Stuart Mill,
and the rest. We do not propose in these pages to
discuss the sayings of Mr. De Witt Talmage, of
the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Knowledge would not be
advanced thereby. He represents a type more common
in America than in this country, though neither is
the type, unfortunately, wanting here, nor is he himself
personally unknown to us. His engagement to preach in
various English cities on rather costly terms, and the
energy with which he insisted on his bargain after it had
appeared that his eloquence was not appreciated here,
rankle still in the remembrance of many who engaged his
services.

Mr. Herbert Spencer has recently paid a -^-isit to America
— a silent visit, till the earnestness of his friends there,
including all the profoundest and ablest thinkers in the
land, forced him at length to meet them and talk with
them as a friend unto friends. Whether it was the
contrast between this \-isit and Mr. De Witt Tal-
mage's \-isit to England which moved the latter to
speak, or only a happy accident, is a matter of small
moment. It suffices that the preacher of the Brooklyn
Tabernacle has delivered himself in terms which, while
they display his own nature, were adapted, we must
assume, to his hearers' tastes. It is difficult to say whether
they are more strikingly contrasted with the teaching and
methods of the writers he attacks, or with those of the intel-
ligent, well-trained, and well-educated clergymen who have,
indeed, dissented from some of the inferences which appear
to them to follow from modern scientific theories, but who
know well that they would but degrade their cause and
themselves (to say nothing of their calling) were they to
substitute reviling for rhetoric and railing for reasoning.
Fortunately, the chief teachers of science and the ablest
exponents of religion are alike, in our day, well-educated
and well-mannered gentlemen.

After informing us that the doctrines of " Herbert
Spencer and Darwin are out-and-out infidelity," without
saying what he means by the word (the Christian is an
infidel in the eyes of the Turk, and belief in the Trinity
means infidelity towards Zeus and Aphrodite, towards
M umbo- Jumbo and Oa-Oa-Waramakoa), Mr. De Witt
Talmage favours us with the following evidence : —

(1.) Of his knoirledg,', — "As to our race, we began with
men 10 ft. high, and now the average is 5 ft. 3in. ; the
ancients lived 300, 400, 600, 000 years, and the average
now of life is less than thirty."

(2.) Of his fa miliariti/ vnlli modern ilieories of biological
I'rolution, — " First, there was vegetable stuff, perhaps a
mushroom. That mushroom developed into something like
a jelly-fish ; and the jelly-fish developed into a tadpole.
The tadpole developed into a snail. The snail developed
into a turtle. The turtle into a wolf ; the wolf into a
dog ; the dog into a baboon, and the baboon developed
into a man."

(3.) Of his taste, — "Sing Sing" (a contact establishment in
New York state), " and The Tombs," (a New York prison),
" and Shoreditch, London, and Cowgate, Edinburgh, are only

Feb. 16, 1683.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

105

vast carbuncles on the faie and back of natural evolution.
Give natural evolution full swing, and it would evolve

two hemispheres of , two hemispheres of crime, two

hemispheres of penitentiaries, two hemispheres of lazarettos,

two liemispheres of ." (The blanks represent coarse

words, which we cannot quote, though the editor of the
Clirigtian Commomoeahh seems to see no objection to
them. )

(4.) Of his light and graceful humour, — "A dinner is
given at Delmonico's last November, in honour of the
great original discoverer of evolution. And the guests sat
around the table eating beef and turkey and roast pig,
according to the doctrine of evolution eating their own
relatives, slicing their own cousins, picking the bones of
their own uncles, and thnisting the carving-fork into the
bosom of their own blood relatives, dashing Worcestershire
sauce and bedaubing mustard " (Mr. Talmage's ideas of
gentlemen at dinner are peculiar), " all over members of
&eir own family."

(5.) Of his regard for truth, — "and while Herbert
Spencer reads a patronising lecture on the American
people, the -Vmerican sai-ants declare it is the voice of a
God, and not of a man."

Mr. Talmage also gives evidence of the fervid eloquence
with which he can preach (at one hundred pounds a night,
with threats of lawsuit if the sum be reduced to forty
pounds). But we liare not quote what he says in this
way : all classes of our readers w^ould be offended with
his coarse and blatant nonsense.

Nearly three centuries ago there was at least earnestness
in the arguments urged by priests, and monks, and friars
against the fearful doctrine that the earth goes round the
sun. Unwise though their conduct, and unjudging their
intolerance, they believed what they taught, and in their
day their belief was natural enough. It is encouraging to
find that in our day the advance of science is only
opposed by the untaught and the foolish, only abused by
the ranter and the Jack-Pudding. When we consider how
necessary now are certain doctrines for the world's wel-
fare— even though Iiereafter they may have to give place
to higher and broader and deeper truths — it is well to
see that those who do their best to discredit those
doctrines (as the priesthood did unwittingly when they
opposed Copernicus) are not now men whose words have
any weight, are not even fanatics or bigots, but simply —
clowns and charlatans.

THE FACE OF THE SKY

From Fekrvarv ICtn to March 2n-d.

By I\R.A.S.

TIIE sun will bo «.itclicd, as heretofore, for spots and facnlsr.
After sunset now, on clear evenings, the student should look
ont for that curious phenomenon, the Zodiacal light, in the W.S.-W.
At first sight, it may well be mistaken for a rapid brightening of
the twili<;ht in the region in which the sun has just gone down ;
but a little attention will show that it is really a blunt luminous
cone, whose axis corresponds very roughly with the direction of the
ecliptic in the sky. An abstract of all that is known, or may
reasonably be conjecttvred, as to the physical nattire of this strange
phenomenon, will be found on p. 163 et seq. of the " E9.=ay8 on
Astronomy," by the Editor of KsowLKncE. It may be worth
while to mention that the conical or lenticular form of the Zodiacal
light is best seen when the phenomenon itself is not looked at
directly, but rather, in popular parlance, "out of the corner of
one's eye." Viewed thus by indirect Vision, it becomes very
apparent. In the night sky, Bootes, Coma Berenices, and Virgo
are rising in the east. Leo is just to the east of the Meridian,

and Ursa ilajor very high np above it. Below Leo lies Hydra.
Dii the Meridian are' Lynx, Gemini, Canis Minor, and Monoceros.
To the west of it lie Auriga, Taurus, I'erseus, Cassiopeia, and
Andromeda. Cygnus is setting jnst to the west of N., while to
the east of it is Draco's head. The constellations wo have
enumerated may all be identified on Map II. of the "Stars in their
Seasons."

Saturn, to the southeast of i' Arictis, is getting now very near the
west, and will soon disappear for tho season. Jupiter, brilliant
and conspicuous above Z "I'anri. is visible during the whole of tho
working hours of the night. The phenomena of his Satellites aro
l)retty numerous during the next fourteen days. To-night (16th)
Satellite III. will reappear from occultation at 7h. 3 m., only to
jilunge into .Jupiter's shadow sind be eclipsed at 9h. 13 m. 20 s. It
will reappear from eclijiso at 11 h. 51m. 13 b.; less than four
minutes after which Satellite II. will bo occulted. The night of the
18th, if fine, will bo a prolific one for the student of Jovian pheno-
mena. Satellite II. will begin its transit at C h. 26 m., followed by
its shadow at 8 h. 50 m. At 9 h. 11 m. tho S.itellite will pass off
the planet's limb, while at 10 h. 16 m. the transit of Satellite I.
will begin, its shadow following it at 11 h. 29 m. The shadow of
Satellite II. will pass off at 11 h. 36 m. ; Satellite I. will do the same
at 12 h. 32m., and fiuallytliesliaiUnv of Satellite I. will leave Jupiter's
disc at 1 h. 45 m. a.m. on tlio 1 9th. Theyoung observer should carefully
note the colours both of Satellite 11. .ind of its shadow. On the 19th,
Satellite I. will be occulted at 7 h. 28 m., .and roapiiear from eclipse at
lOh. 55m.29s. Satellite II. will do tho same at Oh. 20 m. 36s. on the
20th, the first Satellite Iciving Jupiter'sface afterwards at 7 h.,and its
shadow at Sh. Itm. On the 23rd Sat. III. will bo occulted at 8.8
p ra., and reappear on the other side of the planet at 10 h. 52 m. It will
afterwards suffer eclipse at 1 h. 14 m. 14 s. the next morning. On
Feb. 25 Satellite II. will begin its transit at 8.58 p.m., its shadow
not following it until 11 h. 28 m., sixteen minutes after which
tho Satellite will leave Jupiter's opposite limb. The transit of I.
will begin eight minutes after midnight. Satellite I. will be
occulted at 9.21 p.m. on the 26th, reappearing from eclipse at
12 h. 51 m. 15 s. On the 27th the ingress of this same Satellite will
begin at 6.36 p.m.; that of its shadow at 7.53 p.m. The Satellite
will pass oft at 8.52, and its shadow at 10.9. Meanwhile, at

8 h. 56 m. Satellite II. will reappear from eclipse. The reappear-
ance from eclipse of Satellite I. will occur on tho night of the
28th at 7h. 20 m. 9 s. Venus is a morning star, low down and
loss bright than she has been. We gave directions for finding
Uranus on p. 75.

The moon is 87 days old on the 16th, and quite obviously
22-7 days old on March 2. She is full in Feb. 21, and enters her
last quarter at 5 h. 26.1 m. in the early morning of March 2. She
passes from Taums across part of Orion into Gemini on the 16th,
remaining in the last-named constellation during the whole of the
17th. She passes into Cancer on the 18th, and continues there on
the 19th. Uer path carries her into Loo by the 20th, but she travels
out of it into Sextans on the 21st, returning into Loo again the
next day. She passes from Leo into Virgo on the 23rd, remains in
Virgo all the 24th and 25th, and the greater part of the 26th,
travelling into Libra on the latter day. She is in this constellation
during the whole of the 27th and during a good deal of the 28th,
travelling into Scorpio as the month concludes. She is in the
southern part of Ophincluis on March I. On Feb. 19 the sixth
magnitude star BAC 2,872 will disappear at her dark limb at
5 h. 39 m. p.m., at an angle of 05° from her vertex, and reappear
from her bright limb at an angle of W'l at G h. 29 m. p.m. On the
20th u Lconis will similarly disappear at her dark limb at

9 h. 6 m. p.m., at an angle from her vertex of 29°, reapiMsaring from
her bright limb at 10 h. 23 m., at .in .angle of 24' 6. The two or
tlu-ee remaining occultations occiu- at hours so inconvenient for the
general amateur, for whom these notes are more particularly
intended, that we purposely omit any details in connection with
them.

51. PoTEi. has recently submitted to the French Society of En-
couragement a new substance, which he has named after himself,
"Poteline," and which appears to bo susceptible of numerous
applications. It is a mixture of gelatine, glycerine, and tannin,
and is, according to the inventor, absolutely impermeable to the
air. When warmed it becomes liquid, or nearly so, and takes all
the contours of an object. M. Potel has made corks of it, which
form an economical substitute for metallic capsules, and secure a
hermetic closing. He has used it as a coating to preserve meat.
At a temperature of 112' it envelops tho meat, kills tho germs of
putrefaction, and prevents any new germ passing in. According to
M. Potel, meat thus treated will retain all its freshness for two
months.

106

♦ KNOWLEDGE

[Feb. 16, 1883.

^yp.

^>^x-::c.e^^

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alxued Tennyson.

ilfttriE! to tl)r eiJitor.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly be in-
serted. Correspondents must not be offended, therefore, should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial communications should be addressed to the Editor of
Knowledge ; all Business commmiications to the Publishers, at the
Office, 74, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS arise FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

'So COMMUNICATIONS ARE ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOUGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

EDELWEISS.
[720]— In answer to " Corkonian's " letter (713), I think he will
find that the scientific name for Edelweiss is : — " Gnaphalium
leontopodium," and that Linna;us put it into Class 19, or. 2, Nat. or.
Compositse. Hermit.

[721] — The Americans have prophesied a disastrous storm and
tidal wave for March 11 (two days after the new moon), when
every ship at sea will be submerged and great damage be done on
land.

Have our scientific people in England calculated that there will
be any veiy abnormal tide about that time P If so, what will be
the difference in time between its occui-rence here and its occur-
rence in America ? M. M.

[The prophecy is bosh. — R. P.]

GORSE AND BROOM.

[722] — I have been much struck with the beauty and instruc-
tiveuess of Mr. Grant Allen's papers, "A Naturalist's Year."

Might I, through your kindness, ask his attention to two facts in
reference to his fifth article, " Gorse Blossoms" P 1. The broom is
hardly less successful in protecting its blossom than the gorse, at
least not so in these Highlands. Both plants are, to tho animals
that browse upon them, for winter use. While the grass is green
and the heather juicy, neither sheep nor deer will touch either
broom or gorse ; but when the heather gets hard and the grass
withered, these animals look for subsistence to the juicy broom
and the flowering furze. These plants defend their lives in
different ways. The juice of the broom has something of a narcotic
quality in it. At least, shepherds say that it makes their sheep sick
or drunk. This is a well-known fact among shepherds; and it is
certain that deer very soon get tired of it. This is the broom's
self-defence, not for the seeds of that, but of tho following season.

The gorse, on the other hand, is armed with its formidable
prickles ; but these do not so effectually protect it as tho nature
of its juice does the broom. Flocks of sheep and herds of deer rush
to wastes covered with furze while the broom is scarcely touched.
Hence it is that in deer forests evei-y means is taken to propagate
the gorse while the broom is left to take care of itself, and does it
very effectually.

Second, there is an old saying, I don't know whether English or
Scotch— perhaps both— to the effect : "Pluck broom hae broom; cut
furze hae furze." It is dithcult to pluck broom by the roots, hence
its safety. It ia easy to cut furze — all animals browsing upon it are
doing so, hence its safety. J. G. M.

DARK SUNS.

[723]— Clifford says (Furlnicihlly Revieii; June, 1875):— "A
great amount of light must be stopped by the dark bodies of
burnt-out suns." Is this accurately put ? — or rather, is there
justifiableness ? Faciebat.

[A great amount absolutely, but a very small amount relatively
— most probably. — R. P.]

A DISINFECTANT.
[721] — A much cheaper disinfectant than that mentioned by Mr.
JIattieu Williams at page 47, Vol. III., of Knowledge, is the chloride
of lead. This is very simply made by dissolving half a dram of lead
nitrate in a pint of boiling water. This is to be put, with two drama
of common salt, into a pail, wliich must be filled with rain water, in
the meantime stirring until all the salt is dissolved. The cost of
load nitrate is Sd. per lb., common salt Id. per lb. This will make
250 pails of disinfecting fluid at a cost of lOd., or at the rate of
very nearly thirteen for one halfpenny.

F. W. Cory, M.R.C.S. Eng., Ac.

A PUZZLE.
[725] — A correspondent sends a solution of the following: —
Twenty-one girls to go out three and three on ten days, no two being
together more than once. A demonstration of the method by
which the solution is obtained is promised. If not too long, I hope
to be able to give both the solution and the demonstration. — K. P.

BRAIN TROUBLES.
[726] — I was away from my books at the time when som.
interesting letters appeared in your valuable paper on the above.
I knew that Dr. Forbes Winslow had written a book on this
subject, entitled, " On Obscure Diseases of the Brain," and his notes
may be of value to the writers of the above letters. Such cases
as they describe, the doctor calls " incipient symptoms of cerebral
disease," and he advises the patients to put themselves under
proper treatment. He quotes cases similar to those mentioned.
For instance, one patient used to transform "flute" into " tufle,"
"gum" into "mug," &c.; another forgot names; another the first
syllables of words. One curious case is worth mentioning : Mr.

Von B , envoy to Madrid, a man of a serious turn of mind, yet

by no means hypochondraical, went out one morning to pay visits.
At one house he had to give in his name, " but this he luid at that
time entirely forgotten." Turning to a friend, he exclaimed, " For
God's sake, tell me who I am." The doctor says that no change
may be noticed in mental powers, either by the patient or his
friends, but " the change may have progressed insidiously and
steadily, having slowly and almost imperceptibly induced important
molecular modifications in the delicate vesicular neurine of the
brain, ultimately resulting iu some aberration of ideas or other

I hope you will be able to find space for this note, as it may be of
value to some of your correspondents. I would advise them to read
the book ; it is extremely interesting. PsYCHOMANTIS.

[The correspondence about Braiu Troubles arose out of my
articles on that subject, republished in " Nature Studies." There
is much reference there to Dr. Forbes Winslow's book, but I am
rather careful to advise those who have slight brain troiibles to
avoid unnecessary anxiety. I have known cases where mischief has
arisen from the nervous fear lest some mental trick should mean
approaching cerebral disease. Inmost cases, change of employment,
relaxation, light exercise, and so forth, will set all right. — R. P.]

LETTERS RECEIVED.

Begulcs. — Fred. Lobintz. — J. H. Bridger. — Curate (" The
Stars in their Seasons"). — G. Cl.\verixg Mesnard (same book
enlarged, and with more illustrations). — G. Hooper. — W. P. You
misunderstand us both. — F. M. Sutcliffe. Rccueil Chnisi excellent.
— A Cockney. — Euith Dalton. — E. C. Hooton. — Peccavi.- — E. D. G.
Suggestion, " redde " for " read " past, good. Opinions about logic
less useful than facts or reasoning. How much better a letter
than anonymous note on post-card. — Trisectus. Bisectus, if your
trisection valid. — Undergraduate. Clifford in error, G. Darwin
right. — H. M. Parkhurst. First sj-Uogism impossible: hence in-
credible result. — Excelsior. Thanks, — H. L. — R. Morham. — W. W.
— Jas. Graham. Powerless. — T. W. " The Naturalist's Year " will
probably be republished. Mr. Allen retains all such rights. — E. J.
Castle. Problem has often been reduced to that degree. — J. E.
Earing. — German. — W. Buchanan. — W. H. W. M. Canaden.sis. —
Peccavi. — Young A.stronomer. — W. H. Brown. — J. Boots. — R. B.
Blackmore. — Rev. M. Allan.son. — J. J. Robertson. — Mat. Duffy.
— Prawns. — Lieut. Binnie. — The Elms. — An Admiring Student.
— Samson Harlowe. — Tourniquet (what a dreadful story!). —
N. L. L.- — A Publican.

Erratum. — In Admiral Sullivan's letter on " Transit of Venus,"
in last week's Knowledge, p. 90, at fifth line below the engraving,
read " brightest colour being near the planet." The words italicised
were accidentally omitted.

Fkb. 16, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

107

w

thas :—

llult.

Div

17

10

5

0

Mult.

Div

Our second thus :

10

17

6

D

Mnlt.

Div

Our third thus :

23

17

10

13

^ir iflatt)tmatical Column.

COMPOLXD PROPORTIOX.
(Concluded from p. 93.)
E mav, however, change the way of arranging otr numbers
for multiplying and dividing — though I do not think we im-
prove them — so as to be more in accordance M'ith what is taught
in the books and expected (I suppose) in examinations. The nume-
rators in our fractions are of course what we multiply by, in effect,
and the denominators are what we divide by. Thus, instead of
pntting down fractions as we did, with numerator at the top and
denominator at the bottom, we may set all our multipliers, or what
wonld be the numerators in the other arrangeni*'nt, in one column,
and all our divisors in another ; while we may set to the right of both
columns the ([uantity which has thus to be multiplied and divided.
Thus our tirat sum in compound proportion might be arranged

17 ft.

6 hrs.

Tliis is the usual way of arranging the figures ; and though I
prefer the other, as more in accordance with common sense and
■with practice in other cases, it is easy to apply common sense to
this arrangement too. Thus, we first write Mult, over the multi-
plying nniubei-s, and Div. over the dividing numbers, — say in first
question. Then we reason thus : — changing 10 men to 17 will
increase the work dorie in tliix deijiee, so that we must inulliphi by
the larijer and divide by the i^maller number ; so we set 17 under
Mnlt. and 10 under Div. Again, changing G hrs. to 5 hrs. of working
will tend to diminish the work done in the same degree, therefore
we must multiply by the sviaUer and divide by the larger number ;
so wc put 5 under. Mult, and G under Div. Smce, however, our
answer is thus seen to be

,17x5
10x6

it seems better to write it down so at once, pntting 17 and 5 above
the line, 10 and 6 below, instead of under tbe respective headings
of the other arrangement.

The same method applies to every case of double, triple, or
multiple rule of three, or compound proportion. Xo technically-
worded rule whatever is wanted, but the simple consideration of
the effect which the various changes indicated in the question must
produce.

I take a somewhat less simple problem, to show the working of
this common-sense process of reasoning. I do not use columns,
though those who are going in for examination may use that plan
as more commonly known to examiners. I simply set all the
multipliers ahnve a line, and all the dividers vnderthc line as in the
tisnal way of treating the multiplication of fractions or ratios.

Suppose the following problem, —

Problem. If 7 men working 5 hrg. 15 m. a day for 16 days dig 13i
acres, in what time will 5 «ien, working 6hrs. 18m. o day, dig 12^
Mres.

Noting that 5h. 15m. = 315m., 6h. 18m. = 378m.
13i = 13t% = '^ ; and 12^ = 12^^ = V';^
our answer is

,„, 7x315x148

16 days x '

' 5 X 378 159
We write down first the 16 days, becanse it is about days that our
problem deals ; we see that reducing the number of men from 7 to 5
will increase the time in the same degree, so we put 7 adore the line
and 5 below; we sec that increasing the number of minutes from
315 to 378 will diminish the time in the same degree, so we put 315
<j6ofe the line and 378 below ; and lastly, we see that diminishing
the nnmbcr of 12ths of an acre from 159 to H8 will in the same
degree diminish the time, so we put 148a6oie the line and 169 belnv.

Reducing, we find our answer to be

16x63x148 8x7x118 ,-,-„,,.„

= — l/iiSdav'S.

54x159 3x159 ■•■'■'

And with the same ease and certainty of going right can all
problems in compound proportion be solved, if common sense be
applied to determine whether each several change lends to increase
or to dtn.iHi,-/! the result sought, the largerot the two numbers being
put above the line in the case of increase and below the line in the
case of decrease.

: 17 ft.

&UV ©Kbist Column.

By " Five of Clubs."

B.

Hca rts — Xone.
Clubs— A, 10, 9, 7, 4, 3, 2
Diamonds — Q,Kn, 9, 7. _.
Spades— A, Q. • Y

A.

Hearts— A.

Clubs— 8.

Diamonds — A, 10, 8, G, 3.

Spades— K, 10, 9, 6, 3, 2.

.1

T

B

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♦ ♦

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♦

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♦

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♦

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4.

■7 <?

7

0 0
0 0

M

8

0 0
0 <>
0 0

4. 4.

4. 4.

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4. 4.
+ +

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4. 4.

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4. 4.

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Hearls—Kn. 9,8,6,3,2.
Clubs— Q, Kn, G, 5.
Diamonds — 1, 3.
B\. Spades — 5.

Z.

//,«i(s—K,y, 10, 7,5,4.
Clubs— K.
Diamonds— K, 2.
Spades— Kn, 8, 7, 4.

NOTES ON THE PLAY.

1. .4 leads the anti-penultimate.
Z begins a signal.

2. r properly leads the Ace of
his long suit. S begins a signal.

3. 1' changes his suit. To force
his partner by continuing Clubs
would be contrary to an important
Whist principle, and manifestly
dangerous. B bfgins to signal in
Diamonds.

4. Z completes his signal, but

5. B properly leads trumps, de-
spite the signal, having held six
originally- The chances are against
Z holding more than five, and B is
leading through his strength. Z
signals in trumps after opponent's
lead, and plays the ante-penulti-
mate. He, as it were, shouts his
strength in trumps.

G. .4's not returning trumps may
not, after Z's play at trick 5, mean
that he has none left. But to all
the others it should be clear that
the chances are he has none. Y
rightly discards a Club, as B holds
both the best. Z knows I's suit.

7. If .4 leads a spade here, forc-
ing his partner, and B then un-
wisely resumes the trump lead,

Y Z will make two by tricks (for
Z can safely finesse trump 10).
]3ut if B, being e.o forced, force
in return with Club Queen, Y Z
will only make the odd trick. A
rightly leads a Diamond, not only
to avoid (if possible) forcing his
partner, but because he leads
through Y'b strength.

8. B properly refrains from lead-
ing trumps again.

The rest of the game plays itself;

Y Z cannot prevent A B from
making one more trick.

• The game described in part by
" Q. T. ^'.," at p. 93, suggests an
interesting and instructive illustra-
tive game, showing how Y Z, who
lost two by tricks when 1' forced
his partner at trick 3, would have
won the odd trick had 1' then led
a Diamond : and two by tricks un-
less A B played correctly. We
have fairly distributed the other
cards, giving to B six trumps as
the best way of balancing Z's
strength in trumps, and giving A
the Ace of Diamonds, Z the King.
It is noteworthy how much signal-
ling there is of all kinds.

108

♦ KNOWLEDGE

[Feb. 16, 1883

&UV Cftfss Column,

By Mei'ihsto.

PROBLEM No. 75.

Uv C. I'LA.NCK.

White.
White to play and mate in three moves.

PROBLEM No. 7G.

By G. W. Mitchell.

Black.

0 ^^ m m

iJ iftB M

«t IS '^^ -mm Ik

White.
White to play and mate in two moves.

A remarkable ending occurred to us in a game played last week.
We give it as an example of resource in difficulties. A good player
will be dangerous to the last, or to use a hibemiau phrase, he will
not die a.s long as he is alive. When encountering a strong
opponent, players will do well not to relax theii- attention, even
when possessing a great or winning advantage, as otherwise they
might be very much disappointed as to the result of their game.
It is vexatious to have a game even drawn when victory seemed
<=^^'^'"- Amateue.

White plajedj ^Q to R7 (ch) Q to R5

^^ R to Kt3 (ch) R takes R

ZZr^"'%^ Q takes R (ch) Q to Kt5

Q to R7 (ch) Q to R5

and the game was drawn by i)erpctual clieck. It is obvions that in
reply to Q to B5 (ch) Black cannot interpose the Rook, as he vrould
be mated by Q to B e<i. (ch).

SOLUTIONS.
Peoblesi No. 72, by John Simp.so.\, p. 78
(n) Mate in three moves.

1. Kt to B7 (ch) B takes Kt,

2. R takes R (ch) Kt to K5
'i. Q takes Q mate.
(/.) Self mate.

1. Q to B7 (ch) 1. Q or R to Q3

2. R to Q5 (ch) 2. Kt takes R.

3. Q to B3 (ch) ;j. Kt takes Q mate.

1. K to K5 (best)

2. Q to Kt4 (ch) K takes R.

3. li to B3 mate.

Pkoblem No. 73, uv Svd.ney Sphkes, p. 78.

1. R takes B 1. P takes R

2. B to KB 2. K or P moves

3. Kt to B7 mate.

On Saturday next Mepliisto will conduct twenty games simul-
taneously against twenty members of the North London Chess Club.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
*#* PJcose aidress Chess Editor.

J. G. — No, you must not move into check.

Learner. — There is nothing to be said against the opening, except
that it requii-es care on your part, lest a strong opponent may take
advantage of it to get you into a bad position.

A Subscriber. — We do not consider the two Knight's Pawns fair
odds, as it does not affect the stronger man's game disadvan-
tageously in the opening. Either the King's Bishop's Pawn and one
or two moves or the Knight ought to be given.

Problems received with thanks from J. A. Miles, J. W. Combe,
and Clarence.

Correct solutions received. — Problem No. 72, W. F. W. R., John
Lonsdale, John Watson and R. J. P., sen., (a) M. T. H. No. 73,
John Watson, John Lonsdale, W. F. W. R., J. Hughes, H. A. D.
No. 74, Geo. G., M. T. H., J. A. MUes, Clarence, R. J. P., W., C. W.
Combe.

Contents

PAGE.

Science and Art Cossip 79

A Naturalist's Year. VI. The Peewit

Cries. By Grant Allen 81

Pleasant Hours with the Microscope.

By Henry J. Slack, F.G.S.,

F.K.M.S 82

The Birth and Growth of Myth. III.

By Edward Clodd 83

The Crystal Palace Electric and Gas

Exhibition 8i

" Clerk " or " Clark." By E. A.

Freeman, LL.D., D.C.L 85

OF No. 67.

i Stays and Strength. By "An Ob-

serrer*' and R. A. Proctor

Corpulence

Reviews : The Vast and the Minute

I Correspondence : Sun-dial of Ahaz —

Weather Predictions — Wearing

Stays — Our Forefathers — Acoustic

Experiment, &c

Our Paradox Column

Our Mathematical Column

i Our Whist Column

Our Chess Column

M

The Star Maps for November and December, 1SS2, price 2d. each, postage Jd.
extra, are now ready.

Volume 11.^ comprising the numbers published from Jane to December 1882, just
published, price 8s. 6d.

The Title Page and Index to Volume 11. now ready, price 2d., post-free 2^d.

Binding Cases for Volume II., price 29. each. Subscribers' numbers boojid
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The Back Numbers of Knowledge with the exception of Nos. 1 to 13.
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the paper, an apphcation to the Publishers is respectfully requested.

Now ready, Part XV. (Jau. 1SS3J. Price lOd.; postage 3d. extra.

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FEa -23, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

109

MAGj^ZINEofMENCE

KPlAm.!Ly)(fORJED -EXACrrfDESCRlBED

^

LONDON: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23. 1883.

Contents op No. 69.

PIOB.

Science and Art Gossip 109

How to Use our Eros. (/Hm.) By

.John Brownitif.F.R.A.S Ill

A Naturalist's Yenr. VII. Willow

Citkins. Bv Grant Allen 113

A New Telephone. (/;/«..) 113

Pleasant llours with the Microscope.
Bt Henrr J. Slack, .F.G.S.,

F:R.M.S.'. 114

"Our Bodies." TI. The Trunk and
Limbs. (/«M.) Bj Dr. Andrew
Wilson, F.R.S.E 115

(/««

Sun Views of the Earth.

Bj B. A. Proctor

Saturn's Rini^ ll><

Corpulence 118

Waste of the World's Forests 119

Evolution of Life 119

Correspondence ; Springs and
Streams — Telescopes and Micro-
scopes— A Theoryof Atmospheres

— Weather Forecaata, Ac 121

Our Whist Column U3

Our Chess Column Vli

^titmt anil art #02!5fp.

Dr. R. S. Ball is givinj; a course of lectures on the
"Supreme Discoveries in Astronomy," on Tuesday after-
noons, at the Royal Institution. There are few better or
brighter lecturers than the Astronomer-Royal for Ireland,
and these lectures should be well attended.

When men of science misunderstand the position of
science, we cannot wonder that those who view science from
without should fall into mistakes. Dr. Romanes pointed
out recently in the Contempornnj Review, quite correctly,
that there is no point of contact between the sphere of
natural science and the spliere of supernatural religion ;
and in particular that science supplies no evidence, still
less proof of design. On this, Professor Asa Gray asks
if Dr. Romanes is quite sure that the observed fitness of
organs for their purpose could have come, even by
gradual processes, otherwise than by the direct interven-
tion of intelligence'? To this, of course, the answer is
that science can be sure of nothing of the sort, — simply
science now knows of no evidence of such direct interven-
tion. What was once thought to afford such evidence is
BOW seen to afford none whatever. But there may not
have been a single link in the chain of biological progres-
sion which — for aught science has proved to the contrary
— ^might not have required special intervention to cause it
to be precisely such as it was.

The Austrian Government Sanitary Council has prepared
a set of regulations for life-saving on railways, and a guide
to first help to those injured by accidents until the arrival
of a physician. These have been sent to the several railway
companies for examination and suggestions. Every con-
ductor is to be provided with a leather case of bandages ; a
litter to be placed at every station and half-way between
such stations as are more than nine miles apart ; at
every station a small case of surgical instruments, of
specified kinds, is to be kept ; that a larger supply
of instruments and bandages are to be kept at
stations fifty and sixty miles apart, where there are re-
serve locomotives, which locomotives are to pick up the

cars and litters on the way to an accident. Still more
complete provision is to be made at important stations
where there are many servants. For every 2.")0 or 300
miles of road, at an engine-house, there must be an
hospital car, of a specified pattern, used for carrying sick
and wounded in time of war. The guide to first aid to the
injured prescribes how the servants or others shall carry the
victims of accidents, how place them, treat their wounds,
apply bandages, transport them in the cars, and what to do
in case of sudden illness.

The following account (from Mr. Oswalds " Zoological
Sketches") of the behaviour of a Siamese bonnet-macaque
monkey (Macacus rmliatits) will interest those of our readers
who read (redde) the papers on " Intelligence in Animals,"
republished in Leisure Readin/js : — " His conduct under
circumstances to which no possible ancestral experiences
could have furnished any precedent, has often convinced
me that his intelligence differs from the instinct of the
most sagacious dog as essentially as from the routine knack
of a cell-building insect. His predilection for a frugal diet
equals that of his Buddhistic countrymen, and I have seen
him overhaul a large medicine-chest in search of a little
vial with tamarind jelly. He remembered the shape of the
bottle, for he rejected all the larger and square ones, and
after piling the round ones on the floor, he began to hold
them up aL;ainst the light, and sub-divide them according
to the fiuid or pulverous condition of their contents.
Having thus reduced the number of the doubtful receptacles
to something like a dozen and a half, he proceeded to scru-
tinise these more closely, and finally selected four, which he
managed to uncork by means of his teeth. Number three
proved to be the bonanza bottle, and, waiving all precau-
tions in the joy of his discovery, Prince Gautama left the
medical miscellanies to their fate, and bolted into the next
room to enjoy the fruits of his enterprise."

Electric light apparatus has been fitted throughout
H.M.S. I/imalaj/a, and gives great satisfaction. It is
interesting to notice that the light is being very extensively
adopted in large steamers. One has only to make a brief
voyage to become acquainted with the disagreeable nature
of oil lighting, and if the cost for the newer illuminant
is a little higher, the gain is almost incalculable.

By an inadvertency (no fault of the compositors) the
port and starboard side-lights on p. 104 were interchanged,
or rather the names were. The upper set are, of course,
starboard lights, the lower are port lights. The article
was corrected, but not returned to the printers, having
fallen among some newspapers on the editor's floor. In
the last line of the article the word " foregoing " should
have been " foreshortened."

Sir Trevor Lawrence, says the Olohe, and the gentle-
men who have been associated with him in the praiseworthy
eftbrt to make the Royal Gardens at Kew more useful to
the general public of London, must be heartily congra-
tulated on the concession which Mr. Shaw-Lefevre was
recently enabled to announce. Sir Joseph Hooker
has come to the conclusion that the Gardens may
be opened an hour earlier than heretofore, " without
interfering with the important work carried on there."
From the 1st of April, therefore, the public will be
admitted at twelve o'clock, in.stcad of at one. This, it
may be remembered, is not the only benefit for which we
have to thank the association with which the honourable

110

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Feb. 23, 1883.

member for Mid-Surrey has so usefully co-operated. A
few months ago the Director of the Gardens was per-
suaded, as the result of their eifoi-ts, to reconsider his
proposal to shut up the llichmond entrance -gate,
which would have increased the distance to be walked
or driven over liy the very numerous \i8itors who
reach Kew Gardens by the various railway lines converging
at Richmond by some three-quarters of a mile. We
trust, however, that Sir Joseph Hooker will not take it
amiss if the arrangement which is to come into operation
this spring is considered not to be quite satisfactory.
Twelve o'clock is a better hour for opening the Gardens than
one, but it lias always been contended — and in our view
the contention has never been upset — that there is no
adequate reason for keeping the gates closed after ten.
The visitors would not be numerous enough at
that early hour to interfere in any way with the work
going on, and the extra cost which might be incurred
for police or other attendance would be inappreciable.
We believe, however, that all reasonable requirements
would be met if the Gardens were opened, except on bank
holidays, at eleven o'clock. The gardeners begin their
work, when the daylight permits, as early as six in the
morning, and they would thus have five hours without
any disturbance from visitors. We have no doubt that
the twelve o'clock opening will be found to occasion no
inconvenience to the Director or his assistants, and we
trust, therefore, to the concession of another hour next
year. With that, -we believe, everybody will be satisfied.

The Effect of the Electric Light upon Plants. —
M. P. P. Deherain has made a series of interesting expe-
riments at the Palais d'Industrie, Paris, and communicated
the result to the Annahs Ayronomiques. The author sums
up his conclusions thus : — 1. The electric arc light emits
radiations which are injurious to vegetation. 2. Most of
these radiations are arrested by colourless glass. 3. The
electric light emits radiations powerful enough to maintain
mature plants in vegetation for two months and a-lialf.
4. The beneficial radiations are not sufficiently powerful to
cause the growth of germinating seeds, or to allow of the
maturation of fruit in older plants.

Dr. D. E. Salmon, of America, has pursued parallel inves-
tigations with those of M. Pasteur, of the microbe of hen
cholera, and has conclusively satisfied himself of the accuracy
of the results announced by the latter. He regards his
researches as demonstrating that the virulent liquids of
the fowl's body contain micrococci, that these can be
cultivated, and that liquids in which bacteria are culti-
vated produce the disease by inoculation. His experiments
indicate that the activity of the virus is destroyed at a
temperature of 182° Fahr.

The sea serpent is againj^talked of ; but this time it
seems as though the supposed sea monster had been a
flight of sea birds. And because an objict a mile or more
away, taken for a sea monster, has turned out over and
over again to be sea-drift, or a lot of porpoises, or a flight
of bii'ds, or distant undulating hills seen indistinctly
through disturbed and liazy air, it of course follows
that the long-necked creature which the captain and officers
of the Ddildiis saw within 200 yards, at a distance at
which a friend's face could be recognised, urging its
way swiftly against a ten-knot breeze, with the water
visibly surging against its neck, was seaweed round a
mast, or something of the sort.

M. Bergeron has produced imitations of the forms of
lunar craters, by turning a current of gas into a melted
metallic mass at the moment when solidification is about
to begin. He obtained exact representations of the different
varieties of hollows shown upon the moon, by using different
metallic mixtures.

According to Mr. G. Macloskie, the American elm-leaf
beetle hibernates in cellars and attics in countless numbers.
Three broods are brought forth in a season. This destruc-
tive insect is found only in the Eastern States and parts
of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Poison is the most
complete remedy for it — one ponnd of London purple to
one hundred gallons of water, squirted up into the tree.

A Queer Flsii. — The TravaiUevr dredged up from a
depth of 2,300 metres (2,.51.'>-35G yards), on the coast of
Morocco, a fish, which has been named Eurijpharynx
pvhcanoides. To form an idea of it, let two tablespoons,
with pointed ends and deep bowls, be held so as to repre-
sent a great open mouth. The body and tail thin off
rapidly, and may be likened to a slender spoon handle.
They are ornamented with pin-like rows of soft spines.
The creature is ISiin. long, and the thickest part of its
body about 8-10 in. wide. The head, without reckoning
the jaws, is short, 3 centimetres (I'lSlin.); the jaws
extending nearly 4 in. The mouth opening is enormous.
There are five internal gills, with a small external orifice
for the escape of the water. The skull is peculiar, the
upper jaw being reduced to a thin rod, united to the head
and the interior portions of the body by an extensible
cutaneous fold. The mouth is capable of pelican-like
expansion. It is supposed to form a magazine for food,
and that digestion is partially carried on there. The fins
are extremely small. Professor Vailliant has described the
fish to the Institute.

The Colour of Water. — M. W. Spring, in a lecture
at the University of Li^ge, described his experiments to
ascertain the colour of pure water. He referred to the
researches of Stas, who found that common spring water,
distilled twice over and immediately evaporated in a
platina basin, volatilized without leaving any residue ; but
if this water were kept for a few days, and then evaporated,
it left a perceptible yellowish brown deposit, which at
a red heat, in air, could be completely burnt. To obtain
water quite free from this matter, Stas' jalan was followed.
The water was first boiled for four hours over potash manga-
nate and permanganate, and then distilled twice in platina
vessels, and the product received in a silver vessel protected
from contact with the air. This water, when evaporated
from a well-polished capsule of platina, left no stain.
In order to obtain the requisite depth of water for tlie
light to pass through, and make any colour it would give
visible, M. Spring used glass tubes IG ft. long, and rather
more than \\ in. wide. The tubes were closed at both
ends by glass flats, and furnished with a pipe through
which the water could be introduced. When pure water
was placed in these tubes and white light sent through it,
the colour " was of a blue of which it is difficult to repre-
sent the purity ; the finest blue on a tine day in a
mountain region, above the grosser emanations of the soil,
can alone be compared with it." No change occurred
when the water was kept in the tubes for several weeks.
The addition of a little lime-water, which appeared quite
limpid, entirely stopped the passage of the light, "as if ink
had been put in." The lecture is i-eported fully in
llevue Scieulijlque Feb. 10, 1883.

Feb. 23, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE

111

HOW TO USE OUR EYES.

By Joun Buowxisii, F.R.A.S.

IT might at first thought appear that it cannot be
necessary for any pi.Tson to learn to see. A moment's
consideration will show that this is a mistake. Before an
artist can draw any object well he must be able to see
the most delicate light.s and shades upon its surface. I
have often been surprised at the remark that " a photo-
graph is much more beautiful than the landscape it was
taken from." Now I know the speaker coiihl not see the
landscape.

Tt is stated that a lady observed to the great artist,
Turner, pointing to one of his pictures, " Dear me ! Mr.
Turner, I never saw anything like that ! " " No, madam,"
answered Turner ; " don't you wish you could ! "

Those who are in the habit of using microscopes or
telescopes can see minute details or an object which would
not be visible to a person who looked through one of those
instruments for the first time. The remark is frequently
heard that a particular person is an excellent judge of
some article. It will generally be found that the person
can see diflerences in various samples of the article which
are not visible to most people.

A good photograph of a statue appears almost solid.
This is due entirely to the delicate shades being faithfully
represented in the photograph. There are but few persons
whose sight would be keen enough to enable them to detect
the whole of these shades on the original statue. This is
the principal reason that a drawing, however beautiful or
truthful, never looks as solid as a photograph.

SCLEROTIC
CHOROID

fteTiN&'

V TENDON OF RECTUS

CILIARV WUSCLS
&LICAMEr(T
ANTERIOR
CHAMBER

HYALOID-

MEMBRANl

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 is a diagram of the eye, wliich shows the Cornea,
the Iris, the Ciliary Muscle, the Crystalline Lens, the
Aqueous Humour, the Retina, and the Choroid Coat.

The outer wliite coating of the eye is called the sclerotic.
The central portion of the eye is known as the cornea ;
behind this is the iris, the coloured portion of the eye.
There is an opening in the centre of the iris known as the
pupil ; this is simply an aperture through which light can
pass. Thi.s aperture opens when the eye is in a faint light,
and closes when it is exposed to a strong light. The space
between the cornea and the iris is tilled with a watery
fluid. Just behind the iris is the crystalline lens. This
is popularly supposed to be the pupil of the eye, and you
have doubtless heard the expression, having the pupil taken
out of the eye. Kow, you could no more take the pupil
out of an eye than you could take a keyhole out of a door,
as it is simply an opening which admits light into the
crystalline lens.

Outside the iris is the ciliary muscle, a ring of muscular
fibre. This muscle makes the crystalline lens more convex
whenever we look at an object witliin a few feet of us.

The whole space of the eyeball is filled with the vitreous
humour, a jelly-like substance.

The back part of the inside of the eyeball is covered
with a most exquisitely sensitive nerve tissue, known as
the retina. On this retina a picture of any object in front
of the eye is formed. The optic nerve extends from the
brain to the back of the eye, and small branches of it
extend all over the retina. These convey to the brain the
information as to the kind of picture which is formed on
the retina. Outside the sensitive surface or retina there
is a coating of black pigment, known as the choroid
coat, which serves as a background to stop rays of light
which might otherwise pass through the retina.

There are several large muscles round the outside of the
eyeball. By means of these the eye may be moved to
either side or upwards or downwards, so as to get a clear
view of any object.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 is not an anatomical, but a rough mechanical
and optical model of the eye. It is made of an opal lamp
globe, with large openings at the top and bottom. On one
side is a common bidl's-eye ; this represents the crystalline
lens. The other opening is covered with a piece of partially
transparent tracing-paper. This receives the image formed
by the buU's-eye or crystalline lens. It will be seen that
the letter A appears reversed ; in simple language, it is
upside down. 8o are the images of the objects we see on
our retina ; they are all upside down.

One of my scientific friends, the brother of one of our
most distinguished musical composers, has taught himself
to read print when held upside down. Occasionally he
will read a book in this maimer when he is travelling in an
omnibus or a railway-carriage. It is not long bcfor(! some
passenger draws his attention to the fact that he is holding
the book the wrong way. Their astonishment is great
when he quietly informs them that he prefers reading
with the book held in that direction. I am afraid tliat
occasionally they have^ doubts of my friend's sanity.
If I have explained the action of the eye with sufficient
clearness, you will at once understand that the letters of
the book held upside down really appear upon my friend's
retina in an erect position.

Sometimes the question is put to me, " Will you believe
your own eyes 1 " To this I reply, " As an optician,
certainly not."

Numerous ways in which the eyes can be deceived are
no doubt familar to you. The best-known of all is,
perhaps, that known as Pepper's Ghost. In this optical
illusion a number of persons appear to be upon a stage or
platform in front of the audience ; in reality they are
before the stage, but out of view of the audience.

How easily our eyes may be deceived may be proved
by a very simple experiment which you may make. Take
a large card — the size is of no consequence. Make a large
black circular spot on the card, on the right-hand side, one
inch in diameter, then at a distance of three inches from it,
on the left-hand side, make a black dot the size of a pin's
head. If you hold this card at exactly one foot from your
right eye and look intently at the small dot, the large black

112

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[FKa 23, 1883.

circle will not be \-isible. This arises from the fact tliat a
portion of the retina is not sensitive to light. The invisible
portion is so large that it will suflice to prevent a man's
face from being seen at six or seven feet distance.

When looking for very minute stars, or other faint
objects dillicult to see, practical astronomers look for them
sideways, out of the corners of their eyes. The centre of
the retina is not so sensitive as the outer portions, which
are much less used.

(To he continued.)

A NATURALIST'S YEAR.

By Grant Allen.

VII.— WILLOW CATKIX.S.

rilHE tall lithe sallows in the hedge beside the river are
X now all bursting out bravely into silvery catkins,
some of them still covered by the silky down of early youth,
and others yellow with the golden pollen of the maturer
flowering season. Among them the bees are busy already;
for you hardly ever see a willow catkin in full bloom
without a bevy of its attendant fertilising insects. Unlike
most other catkin-bearing trees, indeed, the willows depend
entirely for the due setting of their seeds upon winged
allies, and that is why their catkins stand so closely and
stiffly set upon the branches, instead of hanging out loose
and pendulous to the passing breeze, like those of the hazel,
the birch, and the alder. There are no more curious flowers
on earth than the little crowded blossoms of the catkin-
bearers generally, and none among these themselves more
singular and more highly developed than the willow kind.
Let us begin by looking at the actual existing catkins of
the sallow-bushes here, and then consider by what line of
development they have reached their present strange con-
dition.

The first thing one notices about the willow catkins is
the fact that they consist of two kinds, growing apart from
one another on separate bushes. The one kind, containing
only female flowers, consists of silky-looking chisters ; and
when one pulls such a cluster to pieces, it turns out to be
made up of single scales, each enclosing one small spindle-
shaped ovary, from which are finally produced the familiar
tufted cottony seeds, that fly about so abundantly through
the air a little later in the season. Between this long
ovary and the central common stalk of the catkin stands a
little glistening, sticky gland — the nectary, in fact, whose
honeyed secretion attracts the buzzing bees that flit
so constantly about the flowering osier beds. The
other, or male kind, consists of long cylindrical branches ;
and these branches, when similarly taken to pieces, disclose
a number of other small scales, having two stamens con-
cealed within each. Between these stamens and the stalk
stands another sticky gland, just like that of the female
flowers, to complete the attraction for the fertilising bees.
In this very degenerate type of blossom, therefore, each
flower is reduced either to a single pistil or to a pair of
solitary stamens, covered only by a small concave bract or
scale.

In order to understand how the willow flowers have
ever reached such a stage of degradation as this we must
trace the various downward steps by which their catkin-
bearing allies have gradually lost all semblance of a per-
fect pctaliferous blossom. The best point from which to
start on our investigation is given us by the family of the
elms and nettles, which are probably very close relations
of the catkin-bearing trees. These plants have small
fliowers with four sepals or calyx-pieces in each, no petals.

and four stamens. But we can easily see that they are
descended from petal-bearing ancestors, because the
stamens are placed opposite the sepals, instead of alter-
nately with them ; and we know tliat in perfect flowers
each whorl or row of organs always alternates with the
whorls within and without it. In fact, wherever we find
abortive or monstrous petalless flowers, belonging to kinds
wliich usually produce petals, they have their stamens thus
opposite the calyx-pieces, instead of alternating with them.
Hence we are justified in concluding that the elms and
nettles, with their opposite stamens, are descended from
ancestors which had bright-coloured corollas ; but that the
corollas have been lost through disuse, and have now left
no token of their original presence, except this structural
peculiarity in the modem flowers. The elms, indeed, have
once more reverted to insectfertilisation, and so their
calyx has become bright pink in colour, and they also
still retain a pistil and a set of stamens in every
blossom — in other words, they are, as it is tech-
nically called, hermaphrodite. But the nettle?, which
are purely wind fertilised, have gone a step further
on the downward course, and have become uni-
sexual ; that is to say, each flower has either a pistil
alone, or stamens alone, as is also the case in our willows
here. Moreover, the grouping of the flowers of our com-
mon nettle in great loose bunches distinctly suggests the
first beginnings of the catkin form. Such a loose arrange-
ment of the male and female flowers in very mobile masses
is, of course, peculiarly appropriate for wind-fertilised
plants, as it enables the pollen to be shaken out easily by
every breath of wind, and conveyed with safety to the spot
where many sensitive surfaces are spread out at once for
its due reception.

From the nettles to such early and regular catkin flowers
as those of the alder is not a long or serious step. Here
you see an alder branch in full liloom, with its long pendu-
lous male catkins hanging pensile to the wind in graceful
clusters. At first sight they look not unlike the male
willow in their arrangement ; but when you come to scan
them closely, you see that under each hollow bract or scale
there are not merely two stamens, as in our willow, but a
little cluster of three tiny florets, exactly like those of the
nettle, only on a smaller scale. Each floret contains four
calyx-pieces, with four stamens opposite them ; so that
here again we get indirect evidence of the suppression
of a former petal whorl. In the birch we find a
further stage of degradation. The scale, or bract, now
subserves all the purposes for which the calyx was origi-
nally intended ; and as each bract covers and protects three
distinct florets, there is now no special need for keeping the
calyx-pieces separate, or for maintaining the individuality
of the florets themselves. Accordingly, nature seems, to
some extent, to have lost count, so to speak ; there are still,
as a rule, twelve stamens (making up the original three
florets) under each bract ; and there are also still, as a rule,
twelve tiny sepals (making up the original three calyxes) ;
but sometimes the number falls to ten, nine, or eight, and the
sepals do not form a regular caixy, but lie about indiscrimi-
nately among the stamens. Even here, however, a sharp eye
can yet detect the surviving traces of three distinct florets.
Jn the hornbeam and hazel all trace of the calyx is lost ;
in other words, the tiny scales or sepals are now no longer
produced, and wo get only a lot of loose stamens included
\\ithin a covering l)ract. Yet the hornbeam keeps up a
very vague memory of the three primitive distinct florets,
for it has usually about twelve stamens under each bract ;
while in the hazel, even this last trace of the three-fold
arrangement has faded away, and the stamens are generally
reduced to about eight To the very end, however, the

Feb. 23, 1883.]

KNO"^//LEDGE

11.3

stamens among most catkin-bearers tend to run in fours,
eights, or twelves, as thougli you had always either one, two,
or three florets under each Iiract.

All these trees are wind-fertilised, and in all, therefore,
the catkins are more or less long and pendulous, while the
traces of their original derivation from distinct and brigh1>
coloured ancestors are well preserved in the series of
changes throughout But the willows are catkin-bearers
which have found means to develop honey-glands, and to
allure the spring bees as insect fertilisers to their sweet-
scented llowers. Hence, not only are their bright golden
or silky w hite clusters far more conspicuous and beautiful
than those of any other group in the whole family, but
tliey are also remarkable for their stiff, upright position,
which, of course, is better adapted than the pendulous
habit for their peculiar mode of fertilisation. Moreover,
in the willows we iinally lose sight altogether of the
original arrangement by which tliree florets were congre-
gated side by side under a single liract In the male
catkin of our sallows here, only two stamens are found
within each scale, while in the purple willow the number
is further reduced to one. This is quite what one might
expect from their recurrence to the more economical
method of insect-fertilisation, for plants which get
their pollen conveyed in this safe and sure manner from
head to head seldom need so large a number of stamens as
those which depend entirely for the due setting of their
seeds upon the wasteful and unconscious wind. However,
even in this last and furthest development of the catkin-
bearing type we are not left wholly without traces of the
intermediate steps. For in the pretty almond willow,
there are three stamens, and in the bay willow of northern
England there arc five; which leads us back directly to the
oaks, with from si.x to twelve, and the beech, with from
eight to a dozen. Thus, strange as it seems, each single
scale of the common sallow, enclosing a pair of long
stamens, is really the final degenerate descendant of three
distinct and perfect petal-bearing llowers, subtended by a
large enclosing bract I know nowhere in nature a more
admirable example of the way in which analogous or inter-
mediate forms enable us to trace out the pedigree of a
very abnormal or greatly altered type from wholly unlike
and apparently unconnected ancestors.

A NEW TELEPHONE.

THE monopoly of telephone business acquired by the
United Telephone Company (albeit at a very
heavy cost for patents) has had that effect upon the com-
mercial and scientific progress of telephony which usually
attends such monopolies. A company with a huge capital
finds, as a rule, little dilliculty in overcoming its weak
competitors, and as often as not it has the option of
either buying or fighting them out of the market. Then,
having the business in its own hands, it can charge its
own price, and, generally speaking, conduct matters as it
pleases. There is also to be observed a reluctance to
adopt new forms of apparatus or machinery, preferring to
progress, the saving which results from using up older and
less perfect forms. One other consequence is that in-
ventors, or would-be inventors, are oftener than otherwise
discouraged, and so improvements which might possibly
have proved to be great boons to the general body are lost,
buried — may be for ages — in dense oblivion. This has,
we fear, been our experience in matters telephonic We
have now, however, to chronicle the introduction of an
instrument which, while it possesses the advantages of a
Bell telephone, differs from it very materially, both in con-

struction and principle, and threatens, therefore, if properly
managed, to become a successful competitor of the older
instrument Even were it to do no more than bring down
the price charged for the existing types, it will have accom-
plished a most valuable task.

The general construction of this new telephone receiver
may be gathered from the accompanying diagrams, of
which Fig. 1 represents the more essential parts of the
instrument, with its connections. The instrument consists
of a thin wire. A, of iron, steel, or other magnetic metal
attached to two discs, DD, which may be of thin wood,
metal, or other more or less sonorous material ; on the
wire, A, is wound in the first place an insulated conducting
wire, W, completing the circuit of a local battery, B, in
which circuit may be introduced any known telephonic
transmitting instrument, T ; also on the wire. A, is wound
in the second place an insulated wire, X, forming part of
the line circuit, LL', communicating with a distant station.
When electrical impulses are set up in the line, LL', at
the distant station by a telephonic transmitter, sounds
corresponding with those that caused the impulses are
emitted by th<! instrument illustrated.

The principle involved here is easily understood. It is
well known that when an iron wire or rod is magnetised, it
suffers a slight increase in length, accompanied by a compen-
sating decrease in its lateral dimensions or cross section.
On the cessation of the current (or the removal of the in-
ducing magnet) the iron returns to its latent magnetic
condition, and a decrease in length results. This molecular
cll'ect is distinctly audible under favourable circumstances.
Messrs. Alabaster, Gatehouse, i Kempe take advantage of
this fact in the construction of their receiver. The current
from the local battery, B, is continuous, and its eflect upon
the iron wire is, therefore, to make it practically a per-
manent magnet. When the current arrives from the
distant station along the wire, LL', it, in passing through
the fine-wire coil, X, induces a current in the thick-wire
coil, W, connected with the battery. The direction of the
current induced in W varies, of course, with the current in
the coil, X, and, accordingly, an increase or decrease in the
strength of the battery current flowing through the coil,
W, is produced, and the iron wire, A, is subjected to pro-
portionately varying degrees of magnetisation. The minute
contractions and elongations so produced in A necessarily
cause corresponding vibrations in the attached wooden
diaphragms, DD, which perform in this way the function
of sounding-boards to A.

]M.

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Fbr 23, 1883.

Tlie instrument may also be connected, as shown by
Fig. 2, wlierc the two discs, DD, form the ends of sound
boxes, SS, having flexible tubes leading from them to
funnel mouths, EE, that can be held to both ears. The

wire, W, may also include in its circuit the primary coil of
an induction coil, I, the other wire, X, including in its cir-
cuit the secondary coil of I. The gain effected by using
the induction coil is to increase the effect upon the local
battery current.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 3 shows a convenient form in which the instrument
may be made. The iron wire. A, is, in this instance,
enclosed in a wooden casing, C, to which one end of the
wire may, or may not, be attached, the other end being
attached to the single disc, D, which is clamped to the
casing by an ear-piece, M. This form is very light, its
total weight being no more than four ounces.

As regards the efficiency of the instrument, we may say
that it reproduces the sounds with remarkable clearness,
even in this, its crudest form ; and when the transmitter
(which we are not yet at liberty to describe), as well as a
further improved form of receiver, are placed before the
public, we imagine that th<' result will fully endorse our
sanguine anticipations.

It is as well, perhaps, to mention that the inventors of
the receiver we ha\e descrilied make no general claim to
the use of an iron or steel wire coiled with a conducting
wire for producing sounds under tlie influence of electric
currents, but claim : —

" The construction of a telephonic receiving instrument

consisting of a magnetic wire attached to a sonorous disc
or plate, and wound with a primary coil connected to a
local liattery, and with a secondary coil connect*''! to the
telephonic line wire, as described."

PLEASANT HOURS WITH THE
MICROSCOPE.

By Henry J. Slack, F.G.S., F.R.M.S.

A SACCHARINE fluid, intended for alcoholic fermenta-
tion, is liaVile, as brewers know to their cost, to turn
sour, if, in addition to yeast ferments, there are also ^•inegar
ferments present. IMinute organisms, or germs of such,
capalile of acting upon alcohol and producing vinegar, are
so widely diffused that it is only necessary to expose a
suitable fluid to the air of ordinary places to be sure of
their appearance in the course of time. A mere mixture
of alcohol and water does not suffice for the growth of these
organisms; but the addition of a little gluten, or some such
substance, allows them to develop. xV mixture of one part
of sugar, six of water, one of brandy, or other strong
alcoholic liquor, with a little yeast, put into a cask with
the bung-hole open, and kept at a temperature of 70° or 80°,
turns to vinegar in a month or six weeks, and a micro-
scopic examination will show that besides yeast cells, others
of a different character are present. The vinegar ferment
grows much faster when a warm malt liquor is allowed to
trickle over birch twigs, or shavings freely exposed to air.
This is a well-known mode of vinegar making, and the
twigs are soon covered with a coating of the ferment plants.
When these ferments form a loose gelatinous deposit, it is
called the " mother of vinegar ; " but they may be obtained
in another condition, called the vinegar plant, which is a
very useful article in domestic economy.

As an instance of its formation, a case may be mentioned
of a cask of apple- wine (apple-juice and sugar), which showed
signs of sourness, and was therefore destined for vinegar.
Several gallons were put into a large brown pan with some
yeast, and loosely covered with a cloth, to keep out dust.
It was left in a dark and rather cool cellar, below the tem-
perature at which the acetification would proceed rapidly.
In a few months there appeared floating on the liquid a
dense, tough mass, like wet, buff leather, or a big slice of
tripe, and the whole quantity of the fluid proved to be
good vinegar, rather above the usual strength.

A vinegar plant is not a very easy thing to examine
microscopically, which may account for its being
erroneously described in some books. A modest power
(100 to 1.50 x) applied to a thin strip, shows groups of
cells more or less resembling common yeast cells, and
usually some sausage-shaped cells, with small cells inside
them. The main mass is, not as has been said, a
" structureless jelly," but densely crowded with small
beaded cells, which gi^e it a sort of wrinkled aspect under
the magnification mentioned. To see more, a very small
piece should be stretched and squeezed out, first with an
old penknife — which the acid soon blunts — then by
pressing on a slide with a thin covering glass. When
partially dried and reduced to a film, a ^th objective, or
higher power if at hand, and careful illumination, shows
that a minute portion must contain millions of extremely
small beaded cells of the bacterium character. They appear
most plainly when the objective is reduced by a stop to a
moderate angle and the film is illuminated with Mr.
Wenham's peculiar dark ground arrangement for high
powers. This apparatus throws a beam of light at such
an angle that it is totally reflected by tlie glass slide,

Feb. i3, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

115

except at any spot where a new surface is made by the
close adhesion to the glass of any refracting body. Alany
beaded structures seen in this way look smaller — nearer
their true size — than they appear with an achromatic con-
denser and larger aperture.

A vinegar plant, then, is a compound organism, in
which alcoholic ferments and acetous ferments live toge-
ther in harmonious co-operation. The first convert the
sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid, and the second oxidise
the alcohol into vinegar, obtaining the oxygen from the
air. The process may be a little more complicated, but
this is the result

When a vinegar plant has once been obtained, it is easily
kept in a dark place in a jar with a little sugar and water.
When fresh vinegar is to be made, it is placed in tlie fluid
intended to be acetified in a warm cupboard. Between G0°
and 70° is a sufficient temperature, and about six weeks
the time required for two or three pints. At the end of
the process the plant will be found greatly thickened, and
it readily splits into two. The solution employed may
vary according to taste. If pale vinegar, like that made
from white wine, is required, good moist sugar and a little
golden syrup treacle will do, with enough water to make a
decidedly sweet, but not syrupy, solution. The vinegar
obtained in this way smells like dilute acetic acid. The
smell and Havour of common brown vinegar is produced if
coarse brown sugar and darker treacle is used. When the
process is finished, it is well to bring the vinegar rapidly
near the boiling-point, to kill any ferments that may re-
main in it. Prolonged heating would dissipate the acetic
acid, and must be avoided.

The vinegar plant seems to be a vegetable instance of
what Van Benedon calls commensalism, the two sets of
micro-ferments are fellow-boarders. Neither can be said
to be a parasite upon the other, and it is probable that the
minute acetic-ferments form the gelatinous mass in which
the friends dwell like brothers in unity. A very small
piece of an old plant is sufficient to start a new one ; and
it is an interesting experiment to put a bit the size of a
pea into a two-ounce wide-mouthed bottle of clear glass,
filled with a solution of lump sugar. The growth of the
plant can then be easily watclied with the help of a hand-
magnifier, and the plant occasionally transferred to a
shallow cell, and placed under the microscope. It will be
found much more transparent than those developed in
a brown sugar solution. The tendency of the growth is
at first chiefly horizontal ; but when it has reached the
edges of the containing vessel, it thickens rapidly, if well
scpplied with food. While the fermentations arc active,
the plant floats ; but when the sugar is exhausted, no fresh
supply of carbonic acid buoys it up, and it falls to the
bottom. AVhen it is desired merely to preserve a plant for
future action, it should be kept in a cool place, and
moderately supplied with sugar solution, which should not
be allowed to dry up, or the plant will be spoilt, and blue
mould will f'row.

"OUR BODIES:"

SHORT PAPERS ON PHYSIOLOGY.

By Dr. Andrew Wilsox, F.R.S.E., &c.

No. VI.— THE TRCXK AND LIMB.S.

THE tntnh of the body (minus the head or skull, already
described), consists of the spine, chest, and the
"girdles " of the limbs. These " girdles " are the series of
bones which attach the limbs to the trunk. Their compo-
sition we shall note presently.

The chest or thorax is formed by the spine and ribs
behind, by the ribs at the sides, and by the ribs and
their carlilai/cg (or grixtlij cmln), and breast-bone in front
The ribs number twelve pairs in man, and are attached
behind to the twelve dorsal or back-vertebr;v, each by a
movable joint, which is utilised in the breathing move-
ments. Occasionally thirteen pairs of ribs are developed
in the human subject The thirteenth pair in such a case
is usually borne by the first lumbar vertebra'. Sometimes,
however, we find a thirteenth rib attached to the seventh or
last neck- vertebra'. These odd or extra ribs in man are, per-
haps, best explained as survivals of the conditions of lower
life, and as ancestral marks. The gorilla has normally
thirteen pairs of ribs, and crocodiles have a wliolc series of
neck-ribs. What is unusual in human anatomy, may thus
be perfectly normal in lower existences. The first seven
ribs are attached in front to the stent iim or brea-st bone each
by a rih cartUatje. Each cartilwje is simply a bar of
gristle, of highly clastic nature. We can see that with the
front of the chest thus rendered elastic, the movements of
breathing Piioidd be readily accomplished. In a crowd, our
ribs are never so readily broken, if we meet the pressure
from before backwards, so that the cartilages of the ribs
act as buffers. If, on the contrary, the same pressure
were applied at the sides of the chest, the ribs would most
likely be fractured. The eighth, ninth, and tenth pairs of
ribs are attached in front to the cartilage of the seventh rib.
Tlie eleventh and twelfth ribs are often called Jloatimj ribs
— a bad name, because they do not " float " in anything.
We should call them " free " ribs, and thus express the
fact that they are short, and that whilst springing from
the spine behind, they are not attached to anything in
front. The sternum, or breast bone, is a flat bone, shaped
somewhat like a sword. It is broad above, and narrow
below, where it ends in a piece of gristle. In old age, the
cartilages of the ribs and breast-bone tend to become of
bony nature. The ribs in old persons are thus more
brittle and more readily broken than those of the young.
Lime appears to bo deposited in the rib cartilages in old
age, and this fact, which is named a " degenerative
process," is also represented in the bloodvessels as well as
in the rib-cartilages.

The limbs in Vertebrate or " backboned " animals never
exceed four in number. They are always developed in pairs,
and alwaysposscss an internal bony axis or skeleton, to which
the mnsc/es of the limbs are attached. Vertebrate animals
may have no limbs at all. Some fishes, 7nost serpents
(some snakes have small and rudimentary hind limbs), and
a few lizards are limbless. Some fishes, such quadrupeds
as the whales and sea-cows, and a few lizards have only
one pair of limbs.

Each limb, as already noted, is joined to the body or
trunk by a series of bones forming the limb ijirdh. If we
take this yirdle into account, we shall find a limb to be
composed of six parts. The vpper (or fore) limb is attached
to the trunk by the shoulder-" girdle." In man, two bones
form this " girdle." In a bird or reptile, we should find at
least three distinct bones. One of these three bones, man
possesses in a modified condition.

The .scapula, or shoulder-blade, is the first of the two
shoulder-bones. It is a triangular, flattened bone, lying on
the back and upper part of the chest Outside it has a
strong ridge (the spine of the shoulder-blade) for the
attachment of muscles. To the outer side, there are seen
two prominent projections. The spine of the bone ends in
one of these, the acromion process, and to this process the
collar-bone of that side is attached. The other process is
the coracoid process. This, in the bird or reptile, is a
I distinct bone, and forms, in fact, the chief support of the

IIG

• K NOV/ LEDGE

[Feb. 23, 1883.

fore-limbs in these animals. The coracoid process over-
liani,'s a sliallow, saucer-like space, called the glenoid cavity.
Into tills ciivity the upper arm-bone (or hicmentu) fits, and
thus forms the xhviih/d-juinl.

Tlie clavicle or cullar-bom: is the second of the shoulder-
girdle bones. It is a narrow bone, shaped somewhat like
tiie letter S. It rests by its inner end on the top of the
breast-bone, and by its outer end is attached to the " acro-
mion process " of the scapula. No collar-bones exist in
hoofed animals (horse, cow, etc.), or in seals and whales.
They are small in carnivorous animals, whilst bats, apes,
and other animals possess them in perfect array.

The fore-limb of man consists (1) of a single bone, that
of the upper arm, called the humerus ; (2) of two bones
forming the forearm, and called rat/jus and ulna; (3) of
eight small bones, forming the carpus or wrist ; (4) of five

bones (one for each finger) forming the palm or metacarpus ;
and (.5) of the five digits or fingers. The fingers, with the
exception of the thumb, :ire composed of three small bones
called phalavges. The thumb has only two phalanges (as
one may see by looking at it), and there are, therefore,
fourteen phalanges in each hand.

Holding the arm with the palm of the hand forwards or
upwards (when the limb is said to be in supination), the
radius is that bone in the fore-arm which lies to the thumb-
side, the ulna, its neighbour bone, lying to the little-finger
side of the limb. This is the natural position of these bones
in man, and the bones lie parallel, as just described, and as
seen in the right arm of the skeleton we havedepicted. Now,
turn the palm downwards or backwards. This action, of
extreme utility to man, is popularly supposed to be effected

by a " turn of tlie wrist." This is not the case. In turn-
ing the palm backwards or downwards, the radius rung
round and crosses the ulna, so that in this changed posture
(known as prvnntiou), the relations of the bones are
altered. The bones should, therefore, always be described
naturally, with the palm forwards and with the radius and
ulna lying parallel. It is interesting to note that in many
animals (cat, dog, and carnivora generally ; elephant, ic),
the }iroHK position, with the radius crossing the ulna (as in
the left arm of the skeleton depicted above), is the fixed
and natural state of the fore arm.

Five is the greatest number of fingers developed in
mammals. They may diminish in number to four (in
the dog), three (rhinoceros), two (in sheep, camel, ic), or
one (in the horse). The thumb may be wanting, as in
spider - monkeys ; and birds want the fourth and fifth
fingers. In whales, the number of the phalanges (or small
bones of the fingers) may be much increased from their
numbers in man's digits. In the third finger of a species
of whale, as many as fourteen phalanges are found.

The loirer (or hind) limb is attached to a girdle
familiarly named the haunch. This haunch, or pelvis,
consists (l) of part of the spine (sacrum), already described,
behind, and (2) of two haunch-bones or innominate bones,
which are united in front. The sacrum is, in fact, firmly
wedged in between the two haunch-bones behind.

Each innominate, or haunch-bone, consists in reality of
three bones. There is (1) the ilium, forming the expanded
part of the haunch ; (2) the ischium, upon which the body
rests in sitting; and (3) the pubis, or front portion, which
joins its neighbour of the opposite side. There is no trace
in the adult of the threefold composition of the haunch-
bones ; but it is only about the twenty-fifth year of life
that final union and firm ossification of the three bones take
place. On the outer side of each haunch-bone is a deep
cup. This is the acetabulum, in which the head of the
thighbone rests to form the hip-joint.

The lower limb consists of (1) the./('»i(;r, or thigh-bone,
the longest bone in the body ; which, below, joins (2) the
leg, consisting of the tibia (or shin), wliicli receives the
lower end of the thigh-bone and the ^fibula, a long, slender
bone lying to the outside of the leg ; (3) the tarsus, or
ankle, consisting of seven bones (one less than in the
wrist ; (4) the metatarsus, or "instep " and (5) the digits,
or toes. The composition of the toes (of fourteen phalanges)
is exactly that seen in the fingers.

There is a close correspondence to be noted between the.
skeleton of the fore and hind limbs. For we see that
whilst humerus and thigh correspond, fore-arm and leg^
wrist and ankle, and toes and fingers also show a marked re-
semblance. How these resemblances have arisen, is a.
difficult question to determine. Perhaps the shortest and
safest fashion of solving it is to allege, what development
seems to teach — namely, that the fore and hind limbs have
been developed from a common type, and owe their diver-
gences to the dift'erent uses which, in the economy of
animal forms, they have come to subserve.

We must lastly note that the knee-cap, or patella, is
not, properly speaking, a bone of the skeleton. It is not
developed, as the other bones are, but is formed in the
tendon or sinew of the great muscle of the front of the
thigh. Such bones are called sesamoid bones. We find
these bones developed in other situations, where the
tendons or sinews exert great pressure on the parts over
which they move.

The mileage of the passenger trains of the North-
Eastern Railway Company during the last half of 18S2
was 4,871,8-18; gODds and mineral trains, 7,322,729.

Fkb. 2:?, '8-3]

• KNOWLEDGE

11:

SUX VIEWS OF THE EARTH;

OR, "TilE SEASONS ILLUSTRATED."
By RicHAiiD A. Pboctjr.

I GIVE this week three sits of Sun Views, so tl at tlie gradual chiiige of tlie earth's pose towards the sun as the year
progresses may be as elei rly seen as the change which takes pi ice during a day's rotation. I propose to give each
month, hereafter, to the end of the year, t'lrje such sets of views, dropping out a set each month, and bringing in a new
set each month.

118

• KNOWLEDGE

[Feb. 23, 1883.

SATURN'S RINGS.

THOSE of your readers who have followed the discus-
sion in Knowledgk on the chronology of discovery
on the details of Saturn's Ring, will be interested in the
valuable papers contributed by Professor Adams to the
January number of the R. A. S. Mdulhli/ Notic's. Like
everything done liy that most eminent mathematician,
the essay before me contains internal evidence that the
Lowndes Professor has spared neither pains nor trouble
in his efforts to unearth the facts in connection with the
subject under discussion in this case, that of Ball's claim —
or rather the claim made for him — to bo the discoverer of
the duplicity of Saturn's Rings ; and certainly he has con-
tributed some very interesting data towards the elucidation
of the question, mooted originally in the columns of the
Atheiiiriim by Mr. Lynn, and subsequently in these, in
connection with this. I venture, however, to think that
the matter is not even yet cleared up, and I propose, with
your permission, to show why. Professor Adams in
commencing his investigations rightly went to the
fountain-head, and examined the MSS. preserved in the
archives of the Royal Society. Among them he found a
letter in William Ball's own handwriting, dated April 14,
1666, containing, inter alia, a reference to his observations
of Saturn. In a postscript to this letter is a little sketch
of the planet as it appeared at that date ; and, says
Professor Adams, " In this figure, the external boundary
of the ring has the form of a regular oval, without any
notches or other irregularities." Moreover, Professor
Adams goes on to point out that the paper in the
" Philosophical Transactions " was not written by Ball
himself (this, however, is obvious, inasmuch as the entire
paragraph is in the third person), and contains a quotation
from a letter to a friend, who now seems to be almost
certainly identified as Sir Robert Moray, and not Wallis,
as erroneously stated by Breen. This quotation I repeat
here in full : — " The author (Wm. Ball) saith in his letter
to a friend, as follows : ' This appear'd to me the present
figure of Saturn, somewhat otherwise than I expected,
thinking it would have been decreasing, but I found
it as full as ever, and a little holloio above and below.'"
(The italics are mine.) Now, the original of this
letter is not preserved in the Royal Society's collection,
nor do they possess any drawing of the planet ; but there
is a paper cutting representing Saturn and its ring, as seen
October 13, 166.'), which Professor Adams believes to have
been the original of the engraving which you i-eproduced on
page 307 of your second volume. His theory of the notches
is that the paper was folded twice in directions at right
angles to each other, so that only a quadrant of the ellipse
had to be cut ; and that, while the cut started rightly in a
direction perpendicular to the major axis, through want of
care, when the cut reached the minor axis, its direction
formed a slightly obtuse angle with that axis instead of
being perpendicular to it. 'Thus, when the paper was un-
folded, shallow notches or depressions appeared at the
extremities of the minor axis. I am perfectly willing to con-
cede that this affords a plausible and consistent explanation
of the figure in the original plate in the " Philosophical
Transactions" ; but I confes.s that I do not place quite as much
confidence in Professor Adams's suggested interpretation of
the words I have italicised above, concerning which he says
that he " cannot help thinking that this clause has been
added or altered in some way to correspond with the given
figure." Certainly, if we are to regard the preceding sen-
tence as a verbatim quotation from a letter, there is nothing
whatever in this one to indicate that it has been modified
or altered in any way ■whatever, ily chief end, however,

will have been answered if I induce every one who has so
fur followed this description to consult Professor Adams's
most interesting paper in the original. I may add, in con-
clusion, that he entirely repudiates any right or claim on
Ball's part to have been the discoverer of the chief division
in the Saturn's Ring. William Noble.

CORPULENCE.*

(Continued from p. 87.)

11HE waters of certain mineral springs, especially those
of a cathartic nature, are sometimes employed with
good results. They are generally more successful if taken at
the spring, where the customs of the place favour exercise
and plain diet. Waters that contain iodides are also re-
commended, but are of doubtful efficiency.

Another remedy, which seems less rational than any of
the above, is recommended in the London journals, namely,
the application of external pressure, whereby the dimensions
of the body are gradually reduced to normal proportions.
Several correspondents of these papers report that they
have tried it with success, while no failures have yet been
reported. One man, who had tried Bantingism without
success, reports that " tight lacing " accomplished the de-
sired result. Another gentleman reports that by the use
of an ordinary lady's corset he reduced his circumference
8 inches (from 42 to 34 inches), with great improvement in
bodily health. It is probable that tight lacing has a good
effect on immoderate eaters, and thus favours leanness and
(as some claim) cures dyspepsia, but we are unaVile to see
how it can have any other good effect. Another remarkable
fact is that men were the first to make the discovery that
tight lacing will cure corpulence, while the other sex, who
are supposed to have had more experience in the use of
corsets, never found it out. While we do not wish to dis-
credit the statements of so many witnesses, we cannot
believe that tight lacing is a universal cure for corpulence,
since it is well known that most corpulent women lace,
some few of them excessively, and yet they are not cured
of their chief infirmity thereby. Perhaps the effect is
different on men, for, being unused to tight clothing, the
corset proves a constant reminder of the necessity of
exercising moderation in eating and drinking, while even
the temporary reduction in size makes them more capable
of taking active exercise. Since oxygen in the blood is es-
sential to the consumption of the excess of carbon, whatever
prevents free breathing should tend to increase corpulence ;
hence the corsets must not lie worn too tight at first. With
this restriction, the remed}' is safe and worthy of a tr\al,
when other means have failed, or wherever circumstances
prevent the observance of Banting's rules. It is certainly
safer than anti-fat nostrums.

Whatever course of treatment the man of Falstaffian
proportions would adopt, failure is sure to result unless
patience and perseverance are abundantly supplied.

In the case of anaemic corpulence, where the number of
red blood corpuscles is insutiicient to oxidize the elements
of the food, the person will have a white, pasty, or doughy
look. The cause being different, none of the above modes
of treatment are applicable. The general health must be
attended to, ferruginous tonics can be tried, and every
means should be resorted to for oxygenating the blood. It
is probable, even, that exposure to increased atmospheric
pressure, as the workmen are in the Hudson River Tunnel,
might be beneficial in such cases. Exercise, properly taken,
is likewise beneficial. In general, however, such cases had
better be referred to a competent physician.

* From the Scientific American.

Fer 23, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

119

WASTE OF THE WORLD'S FORESTS.*

"IT "'HEX the forests of such a country as Cyprus were
* y destroyed, said ilr. Thistleton Dyer, in a discussion
in the Britisli Society of Arts, it was like a burned cinder.
Many of the West Indian Islands are in much the same
condition, and the rate with which the destruction takes
place when once commenced is almost incredible. In the
island of Mauritius, in 1835, about three-fourths of the soil
was in the condition of primeval forest, viz., 300,000 acres:
in 1879, the acreage of woods was reduced to 70,000 ; and
in the next year, when an exact survey was made by an
Indian forest officer, he stated that the only forest worth
speaking about was S.^jOOO acres. Sir William Gregory
says that in Ceylon, the eye, looking from tlie top of a
mountain in the centre of the island, ranged in every
direction over an unbroken extent of forest. Six years
later the whole forest had disappeared. The denudation of
the forests is accompanied by a deterioration in the soil ;
and the Rev. R. Ablmy, who went to Ceylon on the eclipse
expedition, calculated, from the percentage of solid matter
in a stream, that one third of an inch per annum was being
washed away from the cultivated surface of the island. In
some colonies the timber was being destroyed at such a rate
as would soon lead to economic difficulties. In Jamaica,
nearly all the timber required for building purposes has
already to be imported. In New Brunswick, the hemlock-
spruce is rapidly disappearing, one manufacturer in Boies-
town using the bark of one hundred thousand trees every
year for tanning. In Demerara, one of the most important
and valuable trees, the greenheart, is in a fair way of being
exterminated. They actually cut down small saplings to
make rollers on which to roll the large trunks. In New
Zealand, Captain Walker says he fears that the present
generation will see the extermination of the Kauri pine,
one of the most important trees. All these facts show that
this is a most urgent question, which at no distant date
will have to be vigorously dealt with.

EYOLUTIOIs" OF LIFE.f

THERE is a difficulty in commenting liere on the work
of one who appears so often in these pages, because
any commendation of such work reads as indirect praise of
BjfoWLEDGE. Yet we feel that we ought not on that
account, to pass o\er such treatises as those which Mr.
Grant Allen and Dr. Wilson have recently produced. In
particular, such a work as Dr. Wilson's " Chapters on Evo-
lution," presenting in every page evidence of careful labour,
crowded with interesting matter, and relating to a subject
about which every man of sense and intelligence wishes to
be well informed, is one which ought to receive the notice
which it well deserves.

There can be no doubt that the modem theory of
biological evolution is greatly misunderstood by that rather
mysterious abstraction — the general reader. Perhaps this
has been because so much nonsense has been written about
it, as well by those who wish to believe in it, but know very-
little about it, as by those who reject it, and know nothing.
Quite early, the tendency of the theory was seen to Ijo
towards the widest possible generality. It was recognised
that man could not possibly be excluded from the law of
evolution. Those who had believed in his nobler origin
from the dust of the earth were pained. They objected to

• From the P"pular Science Monthly.

t " Chapters on Evolution." By Dr. AxiIrew Wilsox, Author of
" Leisure Time .Studies," &c. With 237 TUustrations. (Chatto &
Windus, London.)

a doctrine, according to which man, instead of having been
made originally a little lower than the angels, had risen from
only a little higher than the beasts of the field, — instead of
being made in tlie likeness of Goil, must be regarded rather as
having imagined God after his own likeness. It is truethenew
doctrine presented man as having risen — and likely, there-
fore, to rise still higher — while the old presented him as
having fallen grievously, having, from being next door to an
angel, and quite in the likeness of God (though, for a slight
temptation, or none, held out by an objectionable reptile,
he so offi'nded as to merit death — not, before, a part of the
plan), he had become a wretched creatui-e, " deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked." So that, on the
whole, the new teaching was a more cheerful one, apart
from religious hopes and fears, — which do not belong
to our inquiry here. In a scientific sense, too, the
new doctrine about the origin of man seemed to
accord somewhat better with the evidence than the
old. It had always seemed a little difficult to under-
stand, or even to conceive, the formation of man out of dust;
his formation out of nothing would have been a compara-
tively simple matter ; but that something should be neces-
sary, and that something dust, had been perplexing. So
had the origin of woman — speaking always in the scientific
sense. And again, the possible existence of animal life,
either in human beings or in the beasts of the field, for
ever, had troubled the students of physiology, who found
it not readily conceivable. The new doctrine, indeed, was
not without its difficulties. It gave no account of the
beginning of life on the earth or anywhere else. It
carried back our thoughts over infinite time — or time, to us,
practically infinite ; for no mind can conceive such a
period as a million years, and the new doctrine I'ecognised
tens of millions of years. It was as iaipressive in regard
to time as the teachings of astronomy with regard to space.
It presented the domain of uniform law as infinite
in time, so far as our conceptions are concerned. And
somehow many who had looked with complacency at
the existence of development in limited regions of space
and over short periods of time — had even, in these, found
evidence of the goodness of the laws of nature — were
pained, almost horrified, at the evidence of the perfection
of those laws affijrded by their fitness to reign throughout
practically infinite space, and during a practical eternity of
time. As men had erred in their estimate of space,
mistaking a point for the universe ; as they had erred in
mistaking a mere instant for all time ; so, it seemed,
they had utterly underestimatwl the range, in space and
time, of the uniform operations of nature. Slany objected
to this introduction of infinity from the scientific side. It
was so much easier to understand a little tract of earth
and water, with the heavens arched overhead, the sun,
moon, and stars set in them for signs, and everything set
going in a short time, and set right at short intervals.
Only, iinfortunately, the earth's crust and the host of
heaven alike tell a story inconsistent with this convenient
narrowing of God's domain in space and time.
' We doubtless owe to the natural pain and grief with
which the new doctrine was received, the wild ideas which
were associated with it, and are still rife. The absurdities
quoted at page 104, from Mr. I)e Witt Talmage's foolish
sermon, though, of course, an exaggeration of the nonsensi-
cal ideas commonly entertained about evolution, afibrd a
fair sample of their nature. There is a picture — a great
favourite with anti-development lecturers — which fairly
illustrates the .supposed nature of the rival theories. It is
calli'd "Our First Parents"; on one side a statuesque
Adam and Eve (without the serpent, and looking as
though forbidden fruit would be quite safe with them), on

120

KNOWLEDGE

[Flu. -JS, 1883.

the otiier two monkeys which tlio artist has tried, though
vainly, to picture with an expression as evil as tliat familiar
to those who have ever had occasion to pass through St.
Giles's or the Bowery, or certain ([uarters of Paris, Vienna,
San Francisco, Melbourne, Sydney, and other large cities.
If our first parents had heen repre.sented by two handsful
of dust on the one hand, and by Infinite Space and Infinite
Time on the other, the comparison would have been nearer
the truth.

But when we turn from the follies which have Leen
uttered about that particular part of the doctrine of evo-
lution which we owe to Darwin, to consider the grave and
well-weighed utterances of the student of biology, the vanity
of the dust and uproar raised by the opponents of the
general doctrine over this particular point is clearly recog-
nised. The specific objections of an Owen, or an Agassiz,
or a Mivart, which leave the general doctrine untouched,
do not concern us in this respect. They relate to the way
in which evolution took place, not to the fact of evolution ;
they concern the extent to which the struggle for life has
affected development, not its existence as a factor in biolo-
<.ioal evolution.

Consider the following propositions, on which Darwin's
theory rests, which we abridge from Dr. Wilson's treatise,
and note how little open to doubt is each one of them : —

1. No two individuals of any species of plauts or of
animals is alike, none conform exact!// to a normal form of
the species.

2. These variations, by natural laws of inheritance,
may be, and are, transmitted to the ofispring.

3. More animals and plants are produced than can pos-
sibly survive. Each, if its natural increase were unchecked,
would alone suffice to fill the whole earth in a few thousand
years at the outside.

4. The conditions under which animals live are con-
tinually undergoing physical change.

5. Since all cannot live, there must be an endless
struggle for life, in which, on the average, the fittest will
prosper best; and, as the physical conditions are ever
changing,

6. The variations named in 1 come into play, those
which tend to increase the fitness of a species being encou-
raged, so that

7. New varieties are produced, which in time form new
races, and these in time new species.

8. Past time (in the earth's history) has been, to all
intents and purposes, infinite — so that prohahly all the
existent species have had their origin in evolution from a
few simple forms.

Yet hundreds of thousands of years ago the variety of
life on this earth may not have been very much less than
now. We may even look back to an exceedingly remote
time when the earth's condition was changing much more
rapidly than it does now, for the time when the chief work
of the difi'erentiation of species was brought about ; nor is
it wholly improbable that at a remote epoch in the earth's
past history those sudden variations which now occur but
seldom (as in the case of the Ancon sheep, itc. ), may have
been frequent, ai\d so new varieties, races, and species
may have been formed in shorter periods of time than now.

Sexual selection would also have its influence in modi-
fying races, and forms an important part of the modern
theory of biological evolution.

Dr. Wilson goes carefully and in a most instructive
manner through the general evidence on which the modern
theory of biological evolution is based. We can imagine
few who can either fail to understand his clear account, or
fail to be satisfied by the overwhelming weight of evidence.

One feels that an eflbrt such as is made liy certain well-
meaning persons to reject the evidence of nature in this
respect is not merely ollering to God the unclean sacrifice
of untruth, but involves the belief that His works are
themselves untruthful, since these works teach the lesson of
evolution so distinctly.

In the earlier chapters Dr. Wilson explains the methods
in which biological studios are pursued, the constitution of
the animal and plant worlds, and the relations of proto-
plasm to life. He then discusses the evidence derived from
rudimentary organs, from the gradual modifications of
animal structure, from likenesses, and from "found links"
(which involves the explanation of " missing links "). The
ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters deal with the evidence
from development, giving much space (though he might
have given more, could he have afTorded it) to the deduc-
tions from the embryology of vertebrates. He shows but
briefly — yet the evidence is conclusive enough — that, v.-hat-
ever the meanimj (if the fact mail he, man's development is
but an epitome of that of lower forms of life. The twelfth
chapter, dealing with that strangely fascinating suV>ject, the
metamorphosis of insects, is full of interest. The other
chapters discuss the evidence from the constitution of
compound animals, the fertilisation of flowers, the evidence
from degeneration (an essential part of the theory of de-
velopment) : and lastly, the relations of geology to biological
evolution.

The work is sound and thorough, as well as interesting.
Though not a small book, it may be regarded as an abridg-
ment of the multitudinous evidence on which the modern
theory of the evolution of various races and species
depends.

The electric light has been adopted by !M. Lazare Weiller,
manufacturer of phosphor and silicious bronze telephone and
telegraph wires, at his extensive works at Angouleme. It
is stated that the price of gas there is about 8s. 4d. per
l,0(iO ft., and to produce a total luminosity of .515 carcels
(nearly -5,000 candles) would cost 26677 francs (2.5-63
pence) hourly. Instead of gas, five Gramme arc lamps
and fifteen Swan incandescent lamps are used, at an
estimated total cost of 1'21 francs (11 61 pence) per
hour. A saving of 1-46 francs per hour is thus effected.
The total cost of the installation was 6,215 francs (£248 6),
not reckoning about 1,000 francs for fixing, belting, itc.
This would be more than made good in three years'
working at 2,400 hours per annum. M. Weiller, there-
fore, consulted his best interests in thus adopting a light
which, while it performs its functions much better than
gas, is considerably cheaper.

The Westminster Aquarium Electric Light Exhibition
promises to be the most complete yet held. It has been
very slow in starting, the opening having been several
times postponed. We wish it every success.

Some remarkal>le archa'ological discoveries have recently
been made at Mitla, a village in Mexico, situate
between twenty and thirty miles from Oajaca, in the
table-land of Mixtecapan. Extensive remains of ancient
palaces and tombs have been revealed, and it is stated
that they are exceptionally remarkable from the columns
supporting the roof, a style of architecture peculiar
to the district of Mexico in which they have been found.
These ruins have been explored and photographed by Herr
Hcmil Herbruger, who states that the great hall contains
six columns, and is 37 metres long by 7 broad. Each
column is 37i metres in height, and is of solid stone. —
Engineer.

Feb. 23, 1883.J

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

121

tail)

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Tennyson.

irttfis to tl)c etiitoi\

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly be in-
ttrled. Correspondents must not be offended, there/ore, should their
letters not appear.

All Hditorial commxtnications should be addressed to the Editoe of
Kkowxedge; all Business communications to the Pcblisher-s, at the
Ogiee, 74, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DCLATS ABISE FOB WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messrs. Wvman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMMUNICATIONS ABE ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOUGH STAMPED
AND DIEECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

aim

cell

nU
■A

SPKIXGS AND STREAMS.
[727] — Having made a large number of observations on the phe-
■omenon of springs, I hope to be able to throw a little h'ght on
"Zeta's" inqniries.

1. I have not found that springs are affected by the direction of
the wind, but I have found that their rise and fall is coincident with
that of the mercury in the barometer, only in opposite directions,
that is, with a falling barometer a strengthening spring, and vice-
Tersi.

2. " Quick rise after low, foretells stronger blow," and also
treqnently rain. In the case of a spring the order is reversed.

S. If springs continue to fall after heavy rain, it shows that the
rain has not percolated to the water-line, but that that part of the
lainfall which has not gone off by evaporation has been retained in
the strata lying above the lino of saturation, by capillary or other
attraction.

In order that the foregoing remarks might be better understood,
let tu take a walk in a southerly direction from the Thames, select-
iag a valley — say that of the Wandle. We pass over London clay of
eoomderable thickness, and abo.it three miles from the Thames find
• number of artesian wells, the water from which is obtained by
boring through the lower eocene formations, into the chalk, when
the water rises to the surface and continuously overflows; indeed,
in one case the water may be seen flowing from the mouth of the
iron pipe— with which the well is lined — at a height of ten feet
above the ground-level, its fall being utilized in turning a small
wheel used for grinding purposes.

Careful observations in a well of this description show that the
flow is immediately affected by the atmospheric pressure, a fall of
one inch in the mercury being accompanied by an increase of about
S per cent, in the flow of the spring.

Continuing our walk southwards, we soon arrive at the foot of
the Surrey hills, where numerous beautiful springs are thrown out
•t the contact of the Thanet sands with the chalk, where the point
of contact lies low. The water does not, however, rise in a vertical
direction, but moves forward in a nearly horizontal plane from the
■lain body of the chalk. Let us continue our walk up the hill,
■neaetiring the depth to the water in all wells met with ; and also
with an aneroid, note the level of the month of the well. On our
ntnm we plot a section of the ground passed over, and mark in
the wells with the water-line. The chalk above this line is
partially, and that below thnroughiy, saturated. Above the line,
'he water particles move downwards perpendicularly; below, the
»'ater moves forward slowly to the point where it re-appears as a
ispring, after years of disappearance since it fell as rain ; part,
however, passes under the London clay and re-appears lower down
■lie valley in the shape of an artesian well (overflowing well would
be more exact).

It is the water lying above the point of saturation that is affected
by the atmospheric pressure, and from which the water below the
line of saturation receives an accession, even at times when there
■3 no rain ; with a rise in the water-line, there is also an increase in
the flow of the springs, and vice-versa.

There is ordinarily a great pulsation of the water-line annually ;
the rise due to the autumn rains commencing about Christmas, and |

attaining its maximum about Midsummer, the full being from that
time to Christmas. The )>criods of rise and fall will, of course,
depend mainly on the time and nature of the rainfall, but that
given is as a broad rule correct. (" When the days begin to
lengthen, the springs begin to strengthen.") This is the reason
why deep-seated springs are often stronger in summer than in
winter.

A number of subsidiary pulsations in the water-line, however,
occur, due, as before stated, to tho variations in the atmospheric
pressure. Why this should be so, however, is more difficult to dis-
cover. Take the case of a well on a chalk hill, where we measure
down 200 ft. to the water-line. If wo take a column of chalk from
its side one foot square, and extending from the top to 10 ft. below
the water-line, we have 200 cubic feet partially, and 10 ft. totally
saturated. In tho latter case, the volume of water contained in one
foot of chalk will be about two gallons, while in tho latter it varies,
but I have found damp chalk, that is, partially saturated chalk
only, to contain IJ gallons per cubic foot. In our column, then,
we have 200 x 1} =300 gallons, or an ample supply from which that
below can bo replenished if suitable means be adojited. Nature's
means arc the rise and fall of the atmospheric pressure, although,
as I unfortunately do not jiossess an air-pump, I am unable to state
the exact way in which this is accomplished.

Incidentally the rain-fall is about 30 in. per annnm in our case,
two-thirds of which do not become absorbed by the chalk, but are
lost by evaporation, and by being taken up by plants, &c. It
would take fifty-eight years, therefore, merely to partially saturate
our column. How long, therefore, does it take the rain falling to-
day to reach the water-line, although its effect might be seen a few-
weeks hence only? Chalk.

[728] — In the Tenth Annual Report of the Commissioners of
Inland Fisheries, U.S.A., page 6i, is tho following (1809) : — In the
autumn of 1808, the Commissioners established a small batching
house at Maple Spring, in Wareham. Daily observations of the
temperature of water and air were recorded, and there appeared
thence a fact which seems never to have been explained, namely,
that tho temperature of spring water falls before a storm without
regard to the rise or fall of the surrounding air. Thus on Nov. 20,
1868, the air rose 1° and the water fell 5'. This fall was imme-
diately followed by the greatest gulo of the year. Similar phe-
nomena were noted both in 18CS and 1807. C. W. Haedixg.

TELESCOPES AND MICROSCOPES.

[729]— In Knowledge (Jan. 13, 1883, p. 28), in an article by
Mr. T. Foster, on Mercury, I read this passage ; — " I have seen it
stated — nay, proved, if the writer who made the statement can be
trusted — that the ancient Assyrian astronomers knew all about the
rings of Saturn, the four moons of Jupiter, and other astronomical
wonders which only the telcscoiie could have revealed to them."
What evidence, may I ask, is there that any ancient people possessed
artificial means of assisting natural vision ? I have always thought
there must have been some scientific aids, but I never heard of any
glass lens — imperishable as glass is — or other object having been
discovered in the dihris of the past, that could have answered any
such purpose. It seems incredible that the Assyrians, the Indians,
the Arabians, the Egyptians— to say nothing of the Greeks, their
pupils — should have made the observations of the heavens they
did without artificial, that is, scientific, aid. Ennins, according to
Cicero, puts into the mouth of Iphigenia the following speech to
reproach Achilles with his superstition and cruelty : —

" Astrologorum signa in ca-lo qua-rit obscnrat Jovis,
Cum capra aut nopa aut exoritur nomcn aliquid belluarnm.
Quod est ante pedes, nemo spectat, cceli scrutantur plagas,"
and Socrates, according to Plato, used to tell a story of Thaks
tumbling into a well wliilst studying the stars.

Now, although I by no means say that poets are the best
historians or astronomers, it is plain tho starry heavens were
eagerly scanm^d, and strange animals discovered or fancied. How ?
The modern telescope, if I mistake not, is attributed to Janscn, who
lived in the sixteenth century, and it waa brought into notice by
Galileo, who got into trouble by seeing further with it than the
priests of his church conld.

Now as to the microscope, "qnod est ante pedes, nemo spectat"
is not quite correct, for it is plain Epicurus and tho Greek philo-
sophers examined primordial atoms with a searching, critical
eye : —

" Sunt igitur solida primordia simplicitate,
QncB minimis stipata cohaerent partibus arete," &c., Ac.
(Lncr. de Rerum Nat. I., 603) ; and if it be again objected that
poetry is no proof, Pliny senior, a little later, must have examined
nature pretty closely and (excuse me) prosily. But how ? With-
out artificial assistance ? The invention of the microscope, like the

122

• KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Feb. 23, 1883.

telescope, is, I believe, iniiiute<l to .Jauseii, and miH not known
till the end of tlio sixteenth century. Lord Bacon, in the
" Advancement of Learning," jiulilislicd in 1C05, speaks of it ns a
novel invention, and likely to assist in the investigation of the
minute and infinitesimal olijects of nntnrc, as, in fact, it is now
doing. But my puKzlo is, how did the ancient people of the earth
do without these aids ? or what evidence is there they possessed
them? Can KNowLKncK inform us ? G. G. HAKDiNGnAM.

[I believe Mr. Foster refers to the Essay on Chaldean Astronomy
forming the First Appendix of my treatise on Saturn. Mention is
there made of a plano-convex lens discovered at Nimroud by Layard,
and giving a tolerably distinct focus at 4^ inches. — R. 1'.]

A THEORY OF ATMOSPHERES.
[730] — 1. It is convenient to consider any atmosphere round a
body like the earth or sun as divided into two halves of equal
weight, the lower half resting on the surface of the body, under the
pressure of the upper half. It will be assumed that the gaseous
laws of volume pressure and temperature hold good, and that the
molecular theory is true.

2. If the total quantity of a given atmosphere is increased or
lessened, other things being the same, the density of the lower half
will be greater or less, but its volume, and therefore its height, will
not be altered. For twice the quantity in the lower half will be
under twice the ])ressure from the upper half.

3. If another gas with a different relative weight be substituted,
the height of the lower half will be inversely as the relative weight
— for the volume is so, other things being the same.

4. If the force of gravity be different, the height of the lower
half will be inversely as that force — for the pressure is as the
force of gravity.

5. If the temperature varies, the height of the lower half will be
directly as the absolute temperature.

6. "When the gas is air, with relative weight 14'45, the
acceleration of gravity 32'2 feet in a second, and the temperature
0° Cent., the height of the lower half atmosphere is 3'44 miles, by
Maxwell's formula, wluch agrees with observation. It follows that
for any gaseous atmosphere round a spherical body, — •

1445 32-2 T 586 T

W ** G ''273'' ^''^= WG "°^
W being the relative weight of the gas (hy drogen = 1) .
G, gravity in feet per second.
T, absolute temperatui'e in degrees Centigrade.
H, height of lower half of atmosphere in miles.

7. The height of the upper half is indefinite, but its density at
any height is in known relation to the density at the bottom, the
gaseous laws holding good. At twenty times the height of the
lower half, the density is reduced to about one-millionth ; at forty
times to one-billionth. These are maximum densities at those
heights, unless the temperature above is greater than below. And
any substance of any probable density becomes inappreciable
when the density is reduced to one-bilUonth. It foUows that
5-86 T

-~g-x40=the extreme height to which any appreciable attno

sphere can be supposed to extend in miles.

8. On this theory, if the sun has an atmosphere of hyib'ogcn
above the photosphere, its greatest height would be —

at T = 0' Cent., 72 miles,
at T = 27,300° Cent., 7,200 miles,
at T = 273,000° Cent., 72,000 miles.
If a layer of hydrogen, resting on the photosphere, vanished at
a height of 5,000 miles, it would indicate a temperature of about
20,000° Cent.

If the sun has an atmosphere appreciable at a height of one
million miles, the temperattu-e not exceeding 20,000' Cent., the gas
composing it, on the theory, must be at least 200 times lighter than
hydrogen.

9. The height of the lower half of any atmosphere, on the above
theory, is nearly equal to half the height to which the mean
molecular velocity of the gas, at the mean temperature, would carry
a projectile upwards against gravity from the surface of the attract-
ing sphere. For it is so in the case of the earth's atmosphere, and
the relation must be constant, because the projectile height is as
the square of the velocity ; and the square of the mean molecular
velocity is, like the height of the half atmosphere, inversely as the
relative weight of the g:is and directly as the absolute temperature.

The square of the molecular velocity of ail-, as determined dynami-
cally, at 0° Cent, is 2,526,000 feet per second.

2,526,000

2Ct = 64-4 ^ projectile height = 39,200 feet,
the half of which = 3'71 miles. The difference between this and
the estimated height, 3'4i miles, is not more than may bo due to

errors in the fundamental data. But tii» reason for this particular
relation is not ai)parent.

10. The decrease in gravity and temperature, and the increase
in superficial area in ascending, are not considered above. The
height of the lower half atmosphere is little affected by them, but
that of the upper half is incrcusod by the first and decreased by the
second and third ; and the effects of great disturbance by explosive
or other forces, as, for example, in the sun's atmosphere, have to be
considered separately.

The assumption that no atmosphere is appreciable when reduced
to one-billionth of its density at the bottom is arbitrary, but the
limits of probable error from this source are not very wide. For
the reduction is carried to the million-billionth at a height of
sixty, and to the trillionth at that of eighty half atmospheres.

The final results are necessarily approximations only.

Albekt J. MOTT.

WEATHER FORECASTS.

[731]— Sir E. Beckett's communication on weather forecasts,
which you have reprinted from the Times, deserves some notice.
I reside in a district (the north of Ireland) in which, for reasons
well known to all meteorologists, the forecasts are much less
likely to prove accurate than those for the S.E. of England. Some
months ago it appeared to me that the Irish forecasts miL'ht be
made much more accurate, if the proper parties could be induced
to meet the needful expense, and, as a preliminary step, I set my-
self to carefully note the forecasts and their fulfilment under the
existing arrangements. I am now, therefore, able to subjoin an
analysis of the forecasts for the last four months of 1S.S2 for this
district. Space will not permit me to follow Sir E. Beckett's
method of giving each day in full, therefore the course I adopt is
this. I have records for fc8 days ; the forecasts which have turned
out quite correct I numbered 1. There were 34 of these, or equal
to 38i per cent. Those which were only partially correct I
numbered 2, which occurred on 33 days, or 374 per cent. Those
which were in great degree a failure I numbered 3 on 11 days, or
12^ per cent. No. 4, or total failures, were on 10 days, or Hi per
cent.

Applying the same mode of analysis to the 24 days given by Sir
E. Beckett, I find a less favourable result. JTo. 1, according to my
valuation, occurred five times, or only 21 per cent. Xo. 2, nine
times, or 37 per cent. No. 3, four times, or 17 per cent. ; and
No. 4, six times, or 25 per cent. Of course, in making an analysis
like the above, where one has to deal with somewhat indefinite
terms, such as hot, cold, showery, fine, Ac, &c., a great allowance
has to bo made for the "personal equation" of the observer, but
allowing for that, it still appears to me that during the month chosen
by Sir E. Beckett, the forecasts were less snccessful than usual,
and are therefore hai-dh- fair to the Department. The value of
the forecasts is very different to different people, and I believe
many who, like myself, have a little knowledge, though quite
elementary, of meteorology, they have been of great service. For
my own part I should be very sorry to see them discontinued, and
would prefer that our efforts should be directed towards making
them more reliable, and therefore more useful, than in pooh-poohing
them altogether. F. W. Lockwood, Hon. Sec, B.N.F.C.

THE GREAT COMET— MAGNETIC STORM.

[732]— The Great Comet is still visible here to the naked eye in
Cauis Major. The tail, traceable for ten or twelve degrees, is of
about half the luminosity of the " Clouds of Magellan."

On the night of January 8, from observations taken at the
Imperial Observatory, it was noticed that the nucleus presented an
elongated appearance, which was not the case on the previous
evening. With powers of 500 and 000. it was not only much
elongated, but subdivided into four small nebulosities, three of
which presented the appearance at the centres of stai-s of the
twelfth magnitude. In comparison with the others, the fourth
appeared less condensed, but a little more elongated.

The observations were continued throughout the night, till
one o'clock a.m. (Rio de Janeiro time), when they were brought to
an abrupt termination by light cirrus, during which time no altera-
tion was discernible, but the four nuclei maintained their same
relative positions and aspects. The magnetic storm of November
was severely felt throughout the South American Continent,
though unaccompanied by the miracles which somehow have such
an affinity for our cousins of the stars and stripes.

Rio de Janeiro, Jan. 10. T. H. D.

STORED ENERGY.

[733] — The following question may perhaps interest some of
your chemical readers, although I am not sure that it is original.

Feb. 23, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE

123

If two exactly similar watch-springs, one coiled and the other not,
be di8eolTc<l in an acid — the action taking place uniformly, bo that
the first spring does not uncoil— will more heat be evolved in the
first than in the second case ? If not, what becomes of the energy
stored up in coiling ? Stpdk.nt.

[The times in which the coiled and uncoiled springs are dissolved
will not be equal. — R. P.]

LOGICAL PUZZLE.

[734] — To those who are familar with Professor Jevons' " Logical
Alphabet," it seems perfectly simple to deal with the " Logical
Fnzzle " now under discussion in K.nowledgk.

Thus, when wo combine three terms, X, Y, and Z (not X, not 1',
not Z, being denoted by .r, y, and ; respectively), wo have the eight
possible combinations : —

1. .V Y Z 3. X ,1 Z 5. xY Z 7. xyZ

2. X Y z 4. A' y : e. x Y z 8. w y z ■
unless it can be shown that there is in existence some law which
contradicts one or more of these.

Now, the premises in this case do not contradict any of them,
and the burden of proof lies with those who would contradict the
conclusion.

For the Alphabet, see Professor Jevons' "Principles of Science,"
a treatise on logic of scientific method, second edition, p. 94.

Freiik. Bi.nyo.v.

[Hence recognise the value of logic ! Consider that in every
possible case of the syllogism the conclusion is obvious : so that,
while the trained logician is carefully determining under what form
the case would be classified, a clear-minded thinker has formed bis
oonclnsion, and gone a long way on with something else. — E. P.]

SOME ELECTRICAL ANSWERS.

[Space cannot hereafter be spared for answers to individual
querists. — Ed.]

[735] — J. C. L. II. Both springs should touch. The more iron
yon have in your magnets, the higher will be their cjxpacity for
magnetisation. Your one object should be to get a strong magnetic
field. So long as you attend to this, the shape is immaterial. Why
not bend two strips one over the other to form a thick magnet ? —
L. B. The sand battery is useless for intensity coils. As you
object to the Bnnsen cell, try the double liquid bichromate. —
Geo. Allbeury wants to know how lightning protectors are fixed to
dhoTch steeples, Ac, without the use of scaffolding. I have seen a
modem " Steeple Jack " at similar work. He flew a kite over the
Steeple, the thread lodging on the top. This thread was then used
to pull a larger one, and so on until a stout rope was passed
np the face of the steeple over the top and down the opposite
&ce. It was then secured, and the man, hoisting himself up,
execnted his work. — J. H. Wakd. 1. Yes, certainly. It would
then be a Bunsen cell. Blocks are used in preference to plates,
Iwcanse they are cheaper. They are cheaper because they are more
easily obtained. It is no disadvantage to have the platinum in
the Grove cell thin, as it is not chemically affected. 2. Instead
of the secondary layers gradually' i'«creasing in length, they should
lather rfecrease. This extra wire is so much resistance inserted
without any comijensatiug gain. Maybe your insulation between
the primary and secondary is imperfect. Join one end of your
secondary to one pole of the battery, and one end of the primary
through as sensitive a galvanometer (wound with fine wire) as you
can secure. If you get the slightest movement of the needle, your
insolation is at fault. You ought with four good Bunsen cells to
get a spark of 2 in. or 3 in.

Teavellebs' Meteoeologicai, Eqcipmext. — The Council of the
Meteorological Society announce that they have determined npon
holding at the Institution of Ci\-il Engineers, 25, Great George-
street, S.W., on the evening of March 21 next, an exhibition of
meteorological instruments which have been designed for, or used
by, travellers and explorers. The committee will, they state, also
be glad to show any new meteorological apparatus invented or first
constructed since last March, as well as photographs and drawings
possessing meteorological interest.

Gas v. Electkicitv. — At the half-yearly meeting of the share-
holders of the Gas Light and Coke Company (Limited), held last
week, the chairman admitted that he was no prophet, and there-
fore abstained from making any remark on the future of the
electric light. \Vhile assuring his hearers that there was no ground
for apprehension, he acknowledged that he does not look to illumi-
nating so much as to the cooking purposes of gas to compensate the
company for any loss they may sustain from the electric light.
[This is somewhat different language from that hitherto adopted at
gas companies' meetings. It is nevertheless the most truthful.]

<!^ur WlAl)iit Column.

By " Five op Oldbs."

THE GAME ON PAGE 77, No. GO.

REFERRING to the remarkable game at page 77, XXXVIII. of
Cavendish's selected games, the following passage from that
writer's late book will bo found interesting: —

" Of course, I seldom played at the same table with my father at
the Portland," writes Cavendish. " But it occasionally happened
that there was only one table, and that we must either play together
or lose our amusement. On one of those afternoons 1 was Z in
Hand No. XXXVIII., and my father was B. By reference to the
game " (Knowledoe, p. 77) "it will bo seen that I played the grand
Coup against him. My partner was a very good jilayer. When tho
game was over tho following conversation took place : —

" K. (my partner, to me). — ' You trumped my best diamond.'

" Ego. — ' I know I did. Wo won the trick by it.'

" K. — ' I don't SCO how you could win a trick by tramping a
winning card.'

" I should mention that my father had seen the position as well
as I had, that he knew I had three trumps (as was clear after my
discard at Trick 8), and that he was waiting to be led to in trumps.
I noticed, too, from his manner, that he hardly knew whether to
feel pleased at my good play, or annoyed at being outmanoeuvred.'

" Ego (to i'.). — ' Ask " the governor" if we didn't.'

" Paler (grutUy). — 'Of course you did, of course you did.'

" I afterwards told Clay of this coup, and he was good enough
to say that he admired the discard of the King of Spades at
Trick 8. He also chaffed the ' governor ' a bit about my unfilial
conduct."

Note. — Our remark on trick 9, that " it matters not which " trick
of the 10th and 11th Z wins, ho wouldllose, is incorrect. If he had
let r make the 9th trick, discarding the Club ten, Z could safely
have won the tenth trick (trumping his partner's Diamond 8), and
placed the lead again in Y's hand by leading a small spade. — Five
OF Clubs.

As you call Cavendish's hand No. 38, set out in your number for
February 2 " one of the finest hands ever played," you will perhaps
admit some remarks on it adverse to your opinion : —

Trick 1. — Tlie Score being 4 all, A ought clearly to have led
Queen of Clubs.

Trick 3. — -4, as pointed out by you, ought not to have returned
the trump lead.

Trick 7. — B ought to have led Eight of Clubs, and thus made
sure that he or his partner would be fourth player in tho next trick.
^4 playing tho ten of Diamonds cannot have the nine.

Trick 8. — As B discards Eight of Clubs, he must have three
Spades, and Y must hold the Nine of Diamonds. As Z can now
make certain of the game if his partner holds the Ace of Spades,
and if he has it not must lose it, ho ought, at this trick, to have
trumped the Diamond, and tlien have led tho King of Spades, and
afterwards a small one. Not trumping, he ouglit to have discarded
the Ton of Clubs, and not the King of Spades, for this reason— that
(as he does not trump) he cannot win the game unless i' holds tho
Ace of Spades, and at trick 0 leads a Diamond. Should Y do this,
then if Z retains the King of Spades, ho is certain of winning, but
by discarding it he cannot win unless his partner also holds tho
Eight of Diamonds or Queen of Spades; this will be at once seen
if at trick 11, Y had to lead a losing Diamond or a losing Spade.
So that Z played doubly wrongly— I will not say badly.

Trick 9. llc're again Z played wrongly, as by discarding tho ten of
Clubs he could, if his partner had another Diamond (even the
losing one) as well as tho Ace of Spades, make certain of winning ;
whereas, by trumping, he cannot wn unless his partner holds the
best Diamond or the Queen of Spades; so that, in fact, whilst the
grand covp was palpably forced on Z, he ought to have played it at
trick 8 instead of at trick 9. Not liaving played it at trick 8, he
ought to have waited till trick 10. Y also, knowing that the game
cannot be won unless Z has three trumps, and also if King and
Knave are two of them, unless ho can get rid of the third by
trumping, ought to have led the eight of Diamonds as an induce-
ment to Z to trump, instead of tho 9th.

So that it seems to mo that there were altogether seven mistakes
in the play ; A making two, B one, Y one, and Z two, and that the
play consequently does not deserve the unqualified praise yoa
bestow on it. ' Mogul.

Our esteemed correspondent rather misinterprets our expression
of opinion as to the game in question. We referred to the bril-
liancy of the finish, not to the play right through. With most of
'' Mogul's" criticisms we agree. The discard of Spade King at trick 8,

124

♦ KNOWLEDGE •

[Fer 23, 1883.

which looks so KOO'i. will not boar criticism, unless Z thought that
A, at trick 7, might hnvo perhaps played a false card. This may
huvo been the case, as the game was a real one, and A may have
been not over-strong, and therefore disposed to erratic courses.
We do not, however, agree with "Mogul" that, after trick 8, as
]ilayed, Z should have deferred the r/rand coup to trick 10. There
was the risk that, after the Diamond nine, the Ace of Spades might
have been led. Tlie risk was, perhaps, less than the chance that Y
1>eld either Diamond eight or Spade Queen, " especially as Caven-
dish describes 1' as a very good player ; " but it may have seemed
Co Z worth considering. " Mogul " points out an error in our note
on trick 9, in the words "it matters not which ; " but as we had
already in typo a correction of tliig obvious error, we omit the foot-
note relating to this point. "Mogul" will read with interest the
extract from Cavendish's "Card Table Talk."

<Bm Cfcess Column.

By Mephisto.

G.VME PLAYED RECENTLY IN A METROPOLITAN CLUB,
M.iTCH BETWEEN MESSRS. HOON AND TARRANT.
FRENCH DEFENCE.
Wliiee. BUck. White. Black.

Hood. Tarrant. Uoon. Tarrant.

P to K3 12. R to Q4 Q to K3

P to Q4 13. B to Kt5 P to K 4

B to Kt5 (a) 14. R to Q6 (h) Q to K sq
P to QB4 15. B takes Kt Q takes Kt

B takes P (c) 16. B takes RP K to R sq (j)
Q to Kt3 (e) (ch) (t)

P takes P 17. Kt takes P P takes B

Kt to KB3 18. Q to R5 K to Kt2

BtksP(ch)(/) 19. KttakesP(i) Q to KKt5
Q to Kt5 White mates in three moves (')

Castles

1. P to K4

2. P to Q4

3. Kt to QB3

4. B to Q3 (())

5. P takes B P

6. Kt to B3 (.;)

7. Ca.stles

8. B takes P
0. Kt to QR4

10. R takes B

11. RtoQ3(;,)

NOTES.

(a) This is not advisable. The Bishop is wanted for the defence
&f the King's side, and nothing is gained by taking the Queen's
Knight ; either B to K2 or Kt to KB3 must be played.

(b) This move has been resorted to by strong players, notably
by Mackenzie at Vienna. We think P takes P first to be safer.

(c) A weak move. He subjects himself to the loss of a Pawn by
G. P takes P, P takes P. 7. B to Kt5 (ch). Instead of B takes P,
Black ought to have played 5. P takes P, which would have given
him a good game, i.e.,

5. P takes P

6. B takes P 6. Q takes Q (ch)

7. K takes Q 7. B takes P

with a good game, which may be perhaps indirectly traced to
White's fourth move.

(d) White preferred to develop his game to winning the Pawn.

(e) A further loss of time, moreover, to no purpose.

(/) Black thought he could recover the piece and be a Pawn to
the good ; in this, liowever, ho was mistaken.

(;;) An excellent resource. White threatens to win by R to Q8
(ch), he thereby wins a piece.

(h) White pursues his advantage with great energy.

(i) A well-conceived attack, which speedily secures victory.

0) This is the worst of two evils. If IG. K takes B, supposing
17. Kt to Kt5 (ch), K to Kt sq. 18. Q to R5, B to Bo, Bliick might
have defended himself a little longer.

(k) The finishing touch. If R takes Kt, then mate in three by
Q to KtO, Kt8, and Q8 (ch).

(0 By 20. Q to R6 (ch), K takes Kt. 21. Q takes P (ch), K to
K sq. 22. R to Q8 (mate).

SOLUTION.

Problem No. 74, by C. Planck, p. 94.

1. Q to R sq 1. K to B3 (best)

?.. Q to KRS 2. K to Kt2

3. Q to QK8 mate.

If 2. K to Q2. 3. Q to Q8 mate, or 2. K to B4. 3. Q to B3 mate.

Problem No. 76 is rather a good specimen of a Problem on the
block system ; it is, however, incorrect as it appeared in print, but
it can easily be rectified by simply placing the Rook from Q sq
to Q2.

PROBLEM No. 77.

By T. W. Combe.

Blace.

White to play and mate in two moves.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

*»* Please address Chess Editor.

J. Senior. — See solution above of No. 74.

John Watson. — Solutions of Nog. 74 and 76 incorrect.

East Marden.— If in No. 74, 1. Q to KB8, K to B5. 2. Q to B3,
K to Q5, and there is no mate.

J. W. R. and E. C. C. — See solution above of No. 74.

Berrow. — In Problem No. 74, the three Pawns are essential to
the idea. Without them White could at once play 1. Q to QR8,
and in reply to K to B3 he could move his King and mate next
move.

W. J. W. R. — In the Prize Problem, Black cannot pl.ay 1. K takes
B, as the Knight defends; remember it is the QKt that plavs
to Kt5.

A. X Maas, A. J. Mott. — Problems received with thanks.

Correct solutions received. — Problem No. 73, M. T. H., J. S.
Maskery. No. 74, Joseph Trenner, W. J. W. R., J. Hughes,
Berrow, Roland Mott, P. L. Pavitt, H. E. Dand, A. B. P. No. 75,
John Watson, Clarence, John Simpson, T. T. Dorrington, R. J. P.,
G. Woodcock, W. No. 76, John, W., John Simpson, Clarence,
T. T. Dorrington, Schmucke, G. Woodcock, R. J. P.

Contents of No. 68,

FA OB

Science and Art Gossip 95

Herbert Spencer in America 97

Tlie CliemistrT of Cookery. — III.

By W. Mattieu Williams 97

Bicycles and Tricycles for 1883. By

John Browning". 98

Learning Languages. By Richard A.

Proctor 99

On the Formation of Comets' Tails.

illlualruled.) By A. C. Eanyard .!00
The Amateur Electrician (/««».) ...102

By E.

K. A. Proctor
The Abuse of ETolution.

Proctor

The Face of the Sky 106

CoRBESPOVDEHCB : — Edelweiss —

Gorse and Broom — Dark Suns — A

Disinfectant, &c 10«

Our Mathematical Column 10?

Our Whist Column 107

Our Chess Column 108

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.AfARcn 2, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

125

I^^^V^ AN (U,ii;&I«ATED >>i^

j >^ MAGi^ZtNE oTSqENCE^

PLAINLTVfORDED -EXACTLY "DESCRIBED

LONDON: FRIDAY, MARCH 2. 1883.

Contents op No. 70

Science »nd Art Gossip 125

The Ureal Comet of 1883.— I. By

Professor C. A. Young. (/7/m-

irattd) 127

Tfca Chemist rv of Cookerj. By

W. M«ttieu \Villiams 123

TkeBirlh and Growth of Myth.—

IV. By Ed>rard Clodd 129

■icrrles and Tric.vcin in 1883. By

The Libraries of BabyU

Assyria.— II

Logical Puzzle. By Richard A.

131

Proctor 132

Kbvibw: Snakes 133

The Face of the Skv 131

Bread and Honey. " By Dr. Prevost 115

CoBSBSPONDBNCB : Stays, &c 130

Our Mathematical Column 138

Our Whist Column 131)

Our Chess Column 139

;S'rifnrf anli art (gossfip.

Professor Hu.vley has indicated at Liverpool his views
a.s to education. I fear that they are hardly more prac-
tical than those which have been derived from the monastic
times, when the student was, as a rule, a recluse. Huxley's
ideas of what a boy sliould be taught express well enough
what many of us who obtained instead what Rousseau spoke
of as "the trash called education," would much rather
have learned. Or rather we wish we had then learned
what would now be so much more useful than the nonsense
actually taught in tliose times — and perhaps still.

For our own part, we believe tliat no one man — not even
a Spencer — can formulate a. system of education which
would be good even for the average boy, still less could a
system good for all be indicated. That much of the
rubbish forming part of our modern system of education
(the fault of which is that it is of mediaeval origin) might
incontinently be swept away with immense advantage,
erery one may admit. But a really good and effective
ffpliem of education must be the development of many
jears and of many minds.

Of course, fogeydom is always ready with the argument
that our system of education must be good enough, since
we owe to it our statesmen, authors, men of science, and
30 forth. It would be truer to say that they have come
despite the system ; and indeed, it can scarcely be imagined
how any system could be bad enough to prevent men of
[lower and genius from making their way to the front. If
'lur boys were set in rivalry at chess and draughts instead
'if mathematics, and at bouts rimes instead of classics, the
I 'est would come to the front, and, manhood reached, would
forget their gambits and their verse tricks, and enter on
the work of life no better and no worse prepared than they
;)re now.

Maxy who have visited Mr. Whistler's collection of
■■tchings (containing enough evidence 6f his real power to
convict him of wilful whimsicality) have been driven away

by the wonderful colours of the furniture — a veritable
study in hyper-a-sthetic monomania.

TuE Oxford ChronicU and Jiiicks and Berks dazelte con"
siders the few words we added to the paradox columns
(p. 92), showing that the illumination of tlie solar system is
equal at all distances from tlie sun, very shifty, very feeble,
and very spiteful (showing afresh our attinms against that
interesting tlieory). Our real fault was in remarking at
all on a such theory. It should have been clear that any-
thing like argument would be thrown away on any one
who could accept it. For our contemporary's benefit we
merely note that what the Oxford Chrouic'r dcscrilies as
the foolish perspective theory is the only true theory of
brightness — the illumination at any point of any surface
by the sun is precisely measured by the apparent
size and brightness of the sun as it would be seen
by an eye placed at that point We merely tell
our contemporary this, without in the slightest degree
expecting that he (Is a contemporary he, she, it, or
they !) will accept it. We may also state that the loss of
light by atmospheric absorption in a room of ordinary size
is inappreciable. It may be better worth to explain that
there is no physicist named Sir W. Thompson, that the
men of science named in the comments in our paradox
columns are not "politicians," and that, besides the three
or four astronomers and physicists whose views on
special points have been controverted or ijuestioned in
these columns, there are hundreds of astronomers
and physicists whose views have not ben controverted
here. To persons who know Sir W. Thomson as Sir
W. Thompson and Sir J. Hcrschel as Sir .1. llerschell,
the names of the astronomers and physicists of our time
are probably unfamiliar, so we will not waste our space in
naming any of them here. It may be worth adding that
even in those cases where we have pointed out what appear
to us as errors, we cannot be fairly described as attacking
persons. For example, we had occasion to assert, and
were able to prove, that there had been errors in Sir
George Airy's treatment, in 1837 and 18G8, of the late
transits of ^'enus ; yet we regard Sir George Airy as one
of the best official astronomers this century lias known.
He was so zealous in his work as Astronomer-Royal, that
few would have cared to hold the office after him. So of
others ; though, by the way, can our intelligent contempo-
rary indicate what particular views of Professor Stokes in
matters physical we have controverted or attempted to
controvert here t

" In view of the long-continued wet weather, whereby
agricultural operations have been retarded," the President
of the '\^'esleyan Conference recommends united prayer,
" that God may be plea.sed to grant us a season of fine
weather, so that the seed may be committed to the soil."
The observer of nature who recognises no instances in
which the order of nature is departed from in response to
prayer, is commonly rebuked as irreligious ; but it may be
questioned whether there is anything nearly so irreligious
in patiently waiting till, in the cour.se of nature, a desired
change of weather is brought aVjout, as there is in venturing
to tell a Being worshipped as All-Knowing and All-Power-
ful, that ?(')!" the time is approaching when the seed ought
to be committed to the soil, and that the wet weather has
continued quite long enough.

One might suggest as a useful subject for consideration
by well-minded persons the profanity of certain prayers —

126

• KNOWLEDGE -

[Mabcb 2, 1883.

as prayers for protit, for tho punisliment of persons not
pleasant to us, and so fortli, til we reach some not so
obviously profane.

Yet so long as the laws of nature are imperfectly known,
these special impertinences towards the God of nature will
continue. No one, nowadays, would think of praying that
the action of gravity should be suspended (any more than a
reasonable being would ask Ood to

Aimiliiluto both time and space

To make two lovers hnppy),
for the action of gravity has been investigated and mea-
sured ; nor would any one pray tliat a chemical or physical
experiment should turn out in a particular way in order
that a favourite theory might be supported. But, outside the
recognised operations of natural law, in the domain of the
unknown, men still feel free to pray without offence —
though if they worded their prayers logically they might
run somewhat as follows : — " Grant that these processes
which I cannot comprehend " (whether meteorological
phenomena, or tlie progress of disease, or commercial
and industrial inlluences) " may be so working as to lead
to the end which I (not that / know what is best for me)
particularly desire."

I^f many parts of Switzerland, the Geneva correspondent
of the Times says, are often found smooth flat stones, evi-
dently hand published, and covered with dots, lines, circles,
and half-circles. The origin and use of these stones, known
among country people as Sclialensteine, have long been a
moot point among the learned. Herr Rodiger, of Bellech, in
Solothurn, says Sclialensteine are neither more nor less than
topographical charts, as a comparison of them with any mo-
dern map of the districts in which they are found will show.
The engraved dots correspond with existing towns and
villages, the lines with roads. Even the fords and moun-
tain passes are indicated. Herr Riidiger has examined many
of these stones from various parts of the country, and he
possesses a collection, picked up in Solothurn, which form
together a map of the entire canton. Another significant
circumstance is that the Sclialensteine are mostly found at
intervals of about two hours — say, six miles — from each
other, and at spots where several roads meet. The former
Herr Rodiger calls " headstones " — I/avjjitsteine — the latter
he denominates " by-stones " — Kebensteine. If he be right
in his hypothesis, the places where these stones are met
with possessed considerable populations long before the
dawn of history ; even the villages show'n on the Sclialen-
steine must be far older than the Christian era.

of Knowledge. I was moved to reply, and at some
length. I am satisfied my reply would have found no
place if it had been addressed to some exceedingly high-
toned papers in which an unfair attack had been made.
But it was inserted at once in the Sporting Times. The
following extracts from it will show what statements were
questioned, and how they were maintained.

There are papers aiming at and claiming, but not
always reaching, a high and dignified position, which do
not always treat people fairly. I remember being blamed
in the pages of such a paper for claiming in my book on
the Sun " every scrap of theory to which I might be
entitled ; " and when I wrote five lines in reply, saying
there was not such a claim, good, bad, or indifferent,
throughout the volume, getting no better satisfaction than
the reply from the editor that it was not the justice of my
claims but the advisability of making them that was in
question — an odd reply, where I had denied making any
claim at alL Kow recently, I have had experience of
very different treatment in the columns of a paper not
claiming, I believe, the high and dignified tone of such
papers as — let us saj' — the Alhena;uin. A writer in the
Sporfinff Timrs, adopting the worthy title Philalethes,
or Truth-Lover, liad rejected with scorn and contumely
some items of information contained in a recent number

" ^Vs for the moving dune in Nevada," Knowledce, No.
G6, p. G.3, " it is a true bill I had heard of it when in that
neighbourhood myself from several scientific authorities ;
Mr. Jlonroe, who reports the movement, is an eminent sur-
veyor ; the account is confirmed by the editor of the ^cien-
tijic A merican ; I have stood on a similar, though smaller,
sand mountain in New Zealand ; and histly, no one who
has ever seen the sand dunes of the Landes, and heard
what has happened there, will deem the story very mar-
vellous. There, not only have millions of tons of sand
advanced inland at an average rate of seventy-two feet, but
each year three million cubic feet of sand ad%ances (as it
were, from beneath the sea) upon the coast ; or, putting
thirty cubic feet of sand to the ton (about a five-inch cube
of sand to the pound avoirdupois), a million tons of new
sand are added each year to the mvading mass. In violent
storms, whole villages have been destroyed in a few hours ;
the town of Mimizan, after thirty years' contest with the
advancing sands, is now^ nearlv Ijuried beneath them."

" As for the cunning toad story " (same number of
Knowledge), its defect is that it is so easily explained,
without imputing wonderful intelligence to the toad.
Toads seek their food where they know it is likely to be
found. In this case a toad, finding the insects gathered
round saucers of moistened meal, simply hid itself
under the meal, and caught them from that coign of
vantage. The humour of the chickens in taking their
meal off the toad's back, instead of visiting the
other saucers, was to me far the best part of the
story. And, talking of intelligence and humour
in animals, none of the stories we read give half
the evidence of character and fun in animals that every
one who is at all observant can find in the general ways
of animal friends. I have had dog friends who have told
me more in a day's walk about canine intelligence, by a
number of little ways and dodges severally too slight to
be worth telling, than one could gather from a dozen
volumes of animal intelligence stories ; while, as for fun,
the thought of some of the odd tricks of two particular
friends of mine, both black retrievers, is as good to me in
its way as a volume of Mark Twain or Ai'temus Ward."

" The stinging-tree is only too certain a fact, as many
know to their cost. ' Philalethes,' however, considering
the name he takes, should not have said that our corre-
spondent described the tree as ' rushing out and stinging
persons.' ' We often came into contact with them,' can
hardly bear that meaning. Several years ago, President
Barnard, of Columbia College, New York, gave a very
interesting account (at the table of the late Professor H.
Draper), of his own unfortunate experience with one of the
stinging trees of America."

" Lastly, the question of the chirping, or, rather,
tapping, spider is under discussion in the pages of Know-
leijoe. The death watch has been suggested in e.xpla-
nation of what was observed, but the death watch is a
coleopterous insect, not a spider or arachnoid. '

Mabch 2, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

127

THE GREAT COMET OF 1882.— I.*
By Professor C. A. Youxc.

THE comet which is fading in the morning sky is one
of the most interesting that has ever appeared.
Few, if any, have ever been more brilliant, and though
others have been larger, and have continued visilile for a
longer time, none of them have presented more remark-
able phenomena.

Of late we have been much favoured in the matter of
bright comets. According to the list given by Humboldt in
his "Cosmos," it appears tliat the average interval between
such apparitions for the last five centuries has been some-
thing like eight years. During the last fifty years the
frequency has been about the same, conspicuous comets
having appeared in 1835, 1843, 1858, 1861, 1862, and 1874.
But since the beginning of 1880 we have already had five
which were visible to the naked eye, and three of them
comets of the highest rank. The comet of 1880 was
indeed visible only in the southern hemisphere : but we all
remember the fine comet which appeared in June, 1881,
and was not much, if at all, inferior to the present one.
Schaberle's comet, which followed in August, would have
been regarded as very satisfactory had its predecessor been
less brilliant : and Wells's comet of last summer, though
not well seen in the United States, was a very respectable
comet in South Africa.

It is not yet certain when or where the present comet
was first seen, but, so far as now appears, the priority
belongs to Dr. Gould, or one of his assistants, at the
observatory of Cordoba, in South America. In a private
letter to Mr. Chandler, of Cambridge, mainly occupied
with other matters, Dr. Could, under date of Septem-
ber 15th, mentions that a brilliant comet had been visible
there near the celestial equator for "more than a
week." He had already made two observations, and was
waiting for clear weather again in hopes of being able to
catch it on the meridian. This would put its discovery on
or before Sept 7. It was seen on the 8th by 3Ir. Finlay,
an assistant in the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good
Hope ; and on the 12 th it was observed at Rio Janeiro by
Cruls, who telegraphed the news to Europe, announcing it
(erroneously) as the expected comet of 1812 on its return.
We have not yet sufficiently full accounts from the
southern observatories to know whether it was lost sight
of at all after its discovery, but we have the account of a
most interesting and unprecedented observation made at
the Cape Town Observatory on the 17th. !Mr. Gill, the
director of the Observatory, writes : — " The comet was
followed by two observers with separate instruments
right up to the sun's limb, where it suddenly disappeared
at 4 h. 50 m. 58 s. local mean time." This was about an
hour and a half before its perihelion passage.

A few hours previously it had been independently dis-
covered by Mr. Common, in England, in the full blaze of
sunlight, and clouds alone prevented liim from making the
same observation as Mr. Gill.

It is evident that the comet must have been most in-
tensely brilliant to be visible 'under such circumstances.
When it passed on to the sun's disc (it was between us and
the sun at the time), it disappeared, being either trans-
parent, or else practically as bright as a portion of the sun's
own surface. If this comet had been in the place of the
little " Tewfik " which was seen close to the sun at the
time of the Egyptian eclipse last May, it would have been
something to remember.

* From the Popular Science Monthly.

On Sept 18 the comet had reached a greater distance
from the sun (about S'", and had become so conspicuous
tliat it was simultaneously rediscovered by a multitude of
observers in all parts of the world, and accurate determina-
tions of its position were made at several observatoriee.
On the ne.xt day every one had heard of it, and people
interested in astronomy thought and talked of nothing
else.

On the 19th and 20th the comet was gtill easily seen by
the naked eye. On the 21st it was visible only in places
when the air was very clear and the sky darkly blue. On
the 22nd a curious observation of it was made at Paris
by M. Mallet who, at the request of M. de Fonviellc,
ascended for the purpose in a balloon provided by the
latter, thus getting above the clouds with which the city
was thickly covered. Of course, it was not possible in this
manner to make any precise deti rniination of position,
but the aeronaut obtained a fine view of the celestial
Wsitor.

For a few days after this the comet does not appear to
have been observed until it had receded far enough from
the sun to become visible before sunrise. Then, for
awhile, during the early days of Octoljcr. it was a most
magnificent object, with a head at first rivalling Jupiter in
brightness, and a tail which, though not of unusual dimen
sions, never much exceeding 60,000,000 miles, was remark
ably well defined, dense, and luminous. It moved slowly
toward the south and west, and when, once in a while, a
clear morning permitted the view, it was seen to b«^
growing fainter and more diffuse, though not smaller.

To the naked eye or opera-glass it has, perhaps, pre-
sented fewer phenomena of interest than some other
comets — that of 1858, for instance. It has not exhibited
any of the peculiar secondary tails or straight streamers
which were so characteristic of that comet, nor has the
striation of the tail been marked, though evident enough
on close inspection.

From Sept 27 to Oct 1, however, the tail was " rifted."
There was one obscure streak extending from the nucleus
through its whole length, described both by Ricco, of
Palermo, and Dr. Hastings, of Baltimore, and the latter
mentions another fainter one parallel to the first, and
shorter.

On Oct 2nd the tail, as seen at Princeton, was about
14° long, exceedingly bright and sharp in its outlines,
slightly curved and convex to the horizon. It was
especially well defined near the head, and almost equally
so on both sides. On the 4th the upper edge was veiled
and rendered indefinite by a faint nebulosity which appeared
to have emanated from the head. Ricco's drawing of it,
as seen at this date in the clear Italian sky, shows some-
thing resembling a bright comet enveloped in a fainter
one ; but the smaller one is eccentric, and soutli of tike
middle of the hazy envelope.

On the 1 0th, this external nebulosity had considerably
increased. Professor Smith, of Kansas University, noticed
on the 9th a pale stream of light with parallel edges, and
nearly as wide as the tail of the comet, extending toward
the sun. On the 15th, the phenomenon had become much
more conspicuous. The streamer was now over half a degro;
in width, well defined at both edges, of nearly uniform
brightness throughout, though nowhere as bright as even
the faintest portions of the tail, and extended from its
origin, a degree or two above the nucleus, to a distance of
two or three degrees below the head, where it faded
out The dotted lines in Fig. 1 (see next page) indicate
its form and dimensions.

This streamer, which remained visible only a few days,
may have originated in the enveloping comet of Ricoo'B

128

«■ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Marco 2, 1883.

li^ure just spoken of, l>ut no otlier comet is known to have
shown anything of the kind. It is not to he confounded
\vith the sunward jets sometimes ejected l)y cometary
nuclei, nor did it at all resemble the anomalous tail,
directed toward the sun, shown by Pechiile's comet (in
December, 1880), in addition to its ordinary tail.

On Oct. 9, Schmidt, of Athens, announced the discovery
of a small companion comet, i° south-west of the large one,
and mo^-ing parallel with it. So far as we know, no one
else has observed this companion, though it was carefully
looked for at Washington, Princeton, and elsewhere. On
Oct 21, however, Mr. Brooks, of Phelps, New York, ob-
served either the same or another one, some 8° south and east
from the large comet. Like Schmidt's companion, it was
very faint (though large), and we have seen no observa-
tions of it from other sources. We have no means of
ascertaining whether these attendants accompanied the
comet on its way to the sun as separate objects, or whether
they are fragments detached from the main body.

Mr. Brooks seems to think that the nebulous mass
ol)served by him was in some way connected with the faint
envelope and streamer just spoken of, which is not un-
likely.

(To he C07ilinued.)

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.

By W. Mattieu Williams.

LET us now make practical application of the laws of
albumen coagulation that were demonstrated in the
test-tube experiment. The non-professional student may
do this at the breakfast fireside. The apparatus required
is a saucepan large enough for boiling a pint of water — the
materials, two eggs.

Cook the first in the orthodox manner by keeping it in
boiling water three and a half minutes. Then place the
second in this same boiling water ; but, instead of keeping
the saucepan over the fire, place it on the hearth and leave
it there, with the egg in it, about ten minutes or more. A
still better way of making the comparative experiment is
to use, for the second egg, a water-bath, or bain-marie of
the French scientific cook ; a vessel immersed in boiling,
or nearly boiling water, like a glue pot, and therefore not
quite so hot as its source of heat. In this case a thermo-
meter should be used, and the water surrounding the egg
be kept at or near 180° Fahr. Time of immersion about
ten minutes or more.

A comparison of results will show that the egg that has
been cooked at a t^inperature of more than 30" below the
boiling point of , water is tender and delicate, evenly so

throughout, no part being hard while another part is semi-
raw and sliniy.

I said " ten minutes or more," because, when thus
cooked, a prolonged exposure to the hot water does no
mischief; if the temperature of 160^ is not exceeded, it
may remain for half an-hour ; in fact, the perfection of
cooking, according to my experience (I always cook my
own eggs when I have the opportunity and can spare the
time), is attained when kept at 160° about twenty minutes.
The 180° is above-named because the rising of the tem-
perature of the egg itself is due to the difference between
its own temperature and that of the water, and when that
difference is very small, this takes place very slowly, be-
sides which the temperature of the water is, of course,
lowered in raising that of the cold egg.

In order to test this principle severely, I have just made
the following experiment. At 10.30 p.m. I placed a new-
laid egg in a covered stoneware jar, of about one pint
capacity, and filled this with boiling water ; then wrapped
the jar in many folds of flannel — so many that, with the
egg, they filled a hat-case in which I placed the bundle —
and left it there until breakfast-time next morning, ten hours
later. On unrolling, I found the water cooled down to 95°,
that the yolk of the egg was hard, but the white only just
solidified and much softer than the yolk. On repeating
the experiment, and leaving the egg in its flannel coating
for four hours, the temperature of the water was 123°, and
the egg in similar condition — the white cooked in perfec-
tion, delicately tender, but the yolk too hard. A third
experiment of twelve hours, water at 200° on starting, gave
similar result as regards the state of the egg.

This brings out a fact hitherto unknown to either cooks
or chemists, viz., that the yolk coagulates firmly at a lower
temperature than the white. Whether this is due to a
different condition of the albumen itself or the action of
the other constituents on the albumen, requires further
research to determine.

When eggs are cooked in the ordinary way, the
31 minutes' immersion is Lnsufiicient to allow the heat to
pass fully to the middle of the egg, and therefore the
white is subjected to a higher temperature than the yolk.
In my experiment there was time for a practically uniform
diffusion of the heat throughout.

I shall describe hereafter what is called the " Nor-
wegian" cooking apparatus, wherein fowls, &c., are cooked
as the eggs were in my hat^case.

Albumen exists in flesh as one of its juices, rather than
in a definitely-organised condition. It is distributed
between the fibres of the lean (i.e., the muscles), and it
lubricates the tissues generally, besides being an important
constituent of the blood itself — of that portion of the
blood which remains liquid when the blood is dead, i.e., the
serum. As blood is not an ordinary article of food, ex-
cepting in the form of " black puddings," its albumen need
not be here considered, nor the debated question of
whether its albumen is identical with the albumen of the
flesh.

Existing thus in a liquid state in our ordinary flesh
meats, it is liable to be wasted in the course of cookery,
especially if the cook has only received the customary
technical education and remains in technological ignorance.

To illustrate this, let us suppose that a leg of mutton, a
slice of cod, or a piece of salmon is to be cooked in water,
" boiled," as the cook says. Keeping in mind the results
of the previously-described experiments on the egg-albumen,
and also the fact that in its liquid state albumen is dif-
fusible in water, the reader may now stand as scientific
umpire in answering the question whether the fish or the
flesh should be put in hot water at once, or in cold water,

March

1883.]

KNOWI^EDGE

129

and be gradually heated. The " big-endians " and the
" little endians " of Lilliput were not more definitely
divided than are certain cookery authorities on this (jvies-
tiou in reference to tish. I refer to the two which are
practically consulted in my own household, that by Mrs.
Beeton, and some sheet tablets hanging in the kitchen.
Mrs. Beeton says pour cold water on the tish, the tablets
say immerse in hot water.

Confining our attention at present to the albumen, what
must happen if the tish or tlesh is put in cold water, which
is gradually heated ) Obviously a loss of albumen by
exudation and diti'usion through the water, especially in
the case of sliced tish or uf moat exposing much surface of
fibres cut across. It is also evident that such loss of
albumen will be shown by its coagulation when the water
is sufficiently heated.

Practical readers will at once recognise in the " scum "
which rises to the surface of the boiling water, and in the
milkiness that is more or less diffused throughout it, the
evidence of such loss of albumen. This loss indicates the
desirability of plunging the tish or tiesh at once into
water hot enough to immediately coagulate the superticial
albumen, and thereby plug the pores through which the
inner albuminous juice otherwise exudes.

But this is not all. There are other juices Viesides the
albumen, and these are the most important of tho jlavour-
ing constituents, and, vitli the otlier coiistilueuts of animal
food, have great nutritive value ; so much so, that animal
food is quite tasteless and almost worthless without them.
I have laid especial emphasis on the above, qualification,
lest tlie reader should be led into an error originated by the
bone-soup committee of the French Academy, and propa-
gated widely by Liebig — that of regarding these juices as
a concentrated nutriment when taken alone.

They constitute collectively the exlractum carnis, which,
with the addition of more or less of gelatine (the less the
better), is commonly sold as Liebig's " Extract of Meat.'
It is prepared by simply mincing lean meat, exposing it to
the action of cold water, and then evaporating down the
solution of extract thus obtained.

I shall return to this on reaching the subjects of clear
sonps and beef-tea, at present merely adding, as evidence
of the importance of retaining these juices in cooked
meat, that the extracts of beef, mutton, and pork may be
distinguished by their specific Uavours. Some Extract of
Kangaroo, sent to me many years ago from Australia by
the Rauiomie C!ompany, made a soup that was curiously
different in flavour from the other extract similarly pre-
pared by the same company. Epicures pronounced it very
choice and " gamey." When these juices are removed
from the meat, mutton, beef, pork, ic, the remaining solids
are all alike, so far as the palate alone can distinguish.

Let us now apply these principles practically to the case
of a leg of mutton. First, in order to seal the pores, the
meat should be put into boiling water ; the water should
be kept boiling for five or ten minutes. A coating of
firmly-coagulated albumen will thus envelope the joint.
Now, instead of Ijoiling or "simmering" the water, set the
saucepan aside, where the water will retain a temperature
of about 180°, or 32° below the lioiling-point. Continue
this about half as long again, or double the usual time
given in the cookery-books for boiling a leg of mutton, and
try the effect. It will be analogous to that of the egg
cooked on the same principles, and appreciated accordingly.

The usual addition of salt to the water is very desirable.
It has a three-fold action : first, it directly acts on the
superficial albumen with coagulating effect ; second, it
slightly raises the boiling point of the water ; and third,
by increasing the density of the water, the " exosmosis " or

oozing out of the juices is less active. These actions are
slight, but all cooperate in keeping in the juices.

i should add that a leg of mutton for boiling should 1 1-
fresh, and not "hung" as for roasting. The reasons for
this hereafter. Fish " to follow " in my next

THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH.

IV.
Bv Edward Clodd.

MANIFOLD are the phases of Mature ; manifold is
the life of man ; and we must not lend a too will-
ing ear to theories which refer the crude explanations of
an unscientific age, when the whole universe is Wonder-
land, to one source. Care ah /tomiw titiiim liiii, says the
adage, and we may apply it, not only to the man of one
book, but also to the man of one idea, in whom the sense
of proportion is lacking, and who si'cs only that for
which he looks. Here such caution is introduced as need-
ful of exerci.se towards the coiiiparativc mythologists who,
not content with showing — as abundant evidence war-
rants— that myth has its germs in the in\cstment of the
powers of nature with personal life and consciousness,
contend that the great epics of our own and kindred races
are, from their broadest features to minute detail, but
nature-myths obscured and transformed.

Certain scholars, notably Sir G. W. Cox and Professor
de Gubernatis, as interpreters of the myths of the Indo-
European peoples, and Dr. Goldziher, as an interpreter of
Hebrew myth and cognate forms, maintain that the names
given in the mythopu'ic age to the sun, the moon, and the
changing scenery of the heaven as the myriad shades and
Heeling forms passed over its face, lost their original signi-
fication wholly or partially, and came to be regarded as the
names of veritable deities and men, whose actions and
adventures are the disguised descriptions of the sweep of
the thunder-charged clouds and of the victory of the hero-
god over their light-engulfing forces. But it is better to
state the theory in the words of its exponents, and for that
purpose a couple of extracts from Sir George Cox's
" Mythology of the Aryan Nations " will suffice.

" lu the spontaneous utterances of thoughts awakened by out-
ward phenomena, we liavo the source of myths which must be re-
garded as primary. But it is obvious that such myths would bo
produced only so long as the words employed were used in their
original meaning. If once the meaning of the word were either in
part or wholly forgotten, the creation of a new personality under
this name wonhl become inevitable, and the change would be ren-
dered both more certain and more rapid by the very wealth of
words which were lavished on the sights and objects which most
impressed their imagination. \ thousand phraaeswould be used to
describe the action of a beneficent or consuming sou, of tho gentle
or awful night, of tho playful or furious wind ; and every word or
phrase become the germ of a new story as soon as the mind lost its
hold on the original force of tho name. Thus, in the polyonymy "
(by which term Sir Geo. Cox means the giving of several names to
one object) " wliich was the result of the earliest form of human
thought we have the germ of the great epics of latter times, and of
the countless legends which make up tho rich stores of mythical

tradition and the legends so framed constitute the class of

secondary myths" (p. 42).

" Henceforth the words which had denoted the snn and moon
would denote not merely living things but living persons. . . . Every
word would become an attribute, and all ideas, once grouped round
a single object, would bninch off into distinct personifications. The
sun had been the lord of light, the driver of the chariot of the day ;
he had toiled and laboured for the sons of men, and sunk down to
rest, after a hard battle, in the evening. But now the lord of light
would be Phoibos Apolldn, while Uelios would remain enthroned in
his fiery chariot, and his toils and hibours and death-stnifrgles wonhl
be transferred to Herakles. The violet clouds which greet his rising
and his setting would now be represented by herds of cows which

130

• KNOWLEDGE

[Makch 2, 1883.

food in oarttily pasturos. Tlicrc woiilil bo other cxprcsnions which
wtmlil atill irninin a« floating phrases, not attached to any ilofinite
doitiea. Thi-so would gradually ho converted into incidents in the
lifoof horoe^^, and bo woven at length into systematic variations.
Finally, these gods and heroes, and the incidents of their mythical
career, would receive each ' a local habitation and a name.' These
would remain as gonnino history when the oripn and meaning of
the Avords had been either wholly or in part forgoticn " (p. 51).

Such is the " solar myth " theory, the general principles
of which are sound enough, but the unqualified application
of which has caused recoil in many minds inclined to its
acceptanoi'. " We can hardly," as Mr. Matthew Arnold
says, "now look up at the sun without having the sensations
of a myth," and if occasion lias not been given to the
adversary to blaspheme, he has been supplied with
•■imple material for banter and ridicule. Some of the
happiest illustrations of this are made by Mr. Foster in
his amusing and really informing essay on " Nature Myths
in Nursery Rhymes," reprinted in " Leisure Studies," an
essay which it seems the immaculate critics took aii
f,vriei(x ! With a little exercise of one's invention, given
also ability to parody, it will be found that many noted
events, as well as the lives of the chief actors in them,
yield results comforting to the solar mythologists. Not
only the Volsungs and the Iliad, but the story of
the Crusades and of the conquest of Mexico ; not
only Arthur and Baldr, but Cfesar and Bonaparte,
may be readily resolved, as Professor Tyndall says we all
shall be, " like streaks of morning cloud, into the infinite
azure of the past." Dnpuis, in his researches into the con-
nection between astronomy and mythology, had suggested
that Jesus was the sun, and the twelve apostles the
zodiacal signs ; and Goldziher, analysing the records of a
remote period, maintains the same concerning Jacob and
his twelve sons. M. Senart has satisfied himself that
Gautama the Buddha, is a sun-myth. Archbishop
Whately, to confound the sceptics, ingeniously disproved
the existence of Bonaparte ; and a French ecclesiastic
has by witty etymological analogies shown that Napoleon
is cognate with Apollo, the sun, and his mother Letitia
identical with Leto, the mother of Apollo ; that his p«r-
ixtrm^l of twelve Marshals were the signs of the zodiac,
his retreat from Moscow a fiery setting, and his emergence
from Elba, to rule for twelve years, and then be banished
to St Helena, the sun rising out of the eastern waters, to
set in the western ocean after twelve hours' reign in the
sky. But upon this solar theory, let us cite what Dr.
Tylor, whose soberness of judgment renders him a valuable
guide along the zigzag ]>ath of human progress, says : —
" The close and deep analogies between the life of nature
and the life of man have been for ages dwelt upon by
poets and philosophers, who, in simile or in argument, have
told of light and darkness, of calm and tempest, of birth,
growth, change, decay, dissolution, renewal. But no one-
sided interpretation can be permitted to absorb into a
single theory such endless many-sided correspondences as
these. Rash inferences which, on the strength of mere
resemblance, derive episodes of myth from episodes of
nature, must be regarded with utter mistrust, for the
student who has no more stringent criterion than this for
his myths of sun and sky and davm, will find them
wherever it pleases him to seek them."

The investigations of comparative mythologists, more par-
ticularly in this country and Germany, have thrown such
valuable light oa the history of civilisation that it will be
instructive to learn what excited the inquiry, on what
facts the solar theory rests, and what other facts its
supporters overlook.

The researches of Niebuhr and his school into the
credibility of early history made manifest that the only

authority on which the chroniclers relied was tradition.
To them — children of an uncritical age — that tradition
was venerable with the lapse of time, and binding as a
rev('lation from the gods. To us the charm and inte-
rest of it lie in detecting within it the ancient deposit of a
mythoprric period, and in deciphering from it what manner
of men they must have been among whom such explanation
of the beginnings had credence. And in such an inquiry
nothing can be "common or unclean," nothing too trivial
or puerile for analysis ; for wliere the most grotesque and
impossible are found, there we are nearer to the conditions
of which we would know more.

The serious endeavour to get at the fact underlying the
fabulous was extended to the great body of mythology
which had not been incorporated into history, and the
interpretations of which satisfied only those who suggested
them. As hinted already, the Greeks had sought out the
meaning of their myths, with here and there a glimpse
of the truth gained ; but this was confined to the
philosophers and poets. Euhemeros degraded them into
dull chronicle, making Herakles a thief who carried off
a crop of oranges ; Jove a king crushing rebellion ; Atlas
an astronomer ; Python a freebooter ; yEolus a weather-
wise seaman, and so on. Plutarch tried to "restore"
them, but only defaced them, and after centuries of
neglect they were discovered by Lord Bacon to be
allegories with a moral. Then Banier and Lempriere
emptied out of them what little life Euhemeros had left,
and the believers in Hebrew as the original speech of
mankind saw in them the fragments of a universal
primitive revelation ! Even the distinguished scholar,
Professor Max Miiller, is so upset by the many loathsome
and revolting stories in a mythology current in the land of
Lykurgos and Solon, that he can account for them only liy
assuming "a period of temporary insanity through which
the human mind had to pass," and a degradation from
lovely metaphor to coarse fact which only a " disease of
language " explains. There is, however, no need for
assumptions of this or of any other kind, for language itself
reveals the origin of myth, and shows it to be in keeping
with all that is elsewhere established concerning primitive
modes of thinking.

BICYCLES AND TRICYCLES IN 1883.

By John Browsing,

Chairman and Treasurer of the Loniinn Tricncle Chih.

"f ItTHEN referring to bicycles in my previous articles, I
* * intended to mention the " Facile," and I now gladly
repair the omission.

The machine may be considered fairly safe ; it is a good
hill-climber, and the wonderful records made in the late
Bath-road ride, when Mr. W^alter Snook rode 21.5 miles in
twenty-four hours, prove the " Facile" to be one of the best
long-distance roadsters made.

A scientific friend, who has for a long time ridden a
tricycle, consulted me some months ago respecting a bicycle.
I recommended the " Facile," and a few days since he told
me that he was so pleased with the machine that he con-
templated giving up his tricycle altogether, in favour of
the "Facile." The " Special Facile " has ball-bearings to all
motions ; both this and the ordinary machine might easily
be made to weigh a few pounds less with advantage.

Ha%nng, in my previous article, said so much about a
rear-steering tricycle, the " Sterling," I must devote the
rest of my space in this paper to front-steering machines.

March 2, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE

131

Starley's best invention, the "Salvo," was the model on
which all the most improved machines we have of this
type were based. Last season the model itself had fallen
behind the times ; but this year I am pleased to say that
both the details of construction and the workmanship have
been greatly impro\ed, and the " Salvo " is one of the
best and soundest tricycles for all-round work made.

The frontsteering machines of the same class are the
*' Premier," by Hillman, Herbert, A: Cooper ; the " Imperial
dub," by the Coventry Machinists' Co. ; the '• Apollo," by
Singer A- Co. ; and the " Fleet," by Little ; of these, 1
should give the preference to the " Imperial Club," but
there is, in truth, but little difference between them ; all
are graceful in form, and as light as they can well be made,
consistent with strength, and of excellent workmanship.
The new " Weston " front-steerer is worth attention for its
novel light frame, and double driving arrangement, and its
good work. Though made in London it is low in price.

One of the most novel and yet simplest machines intro-
duced this season is the " Clreyhound." This is a front
steerer, with bicycle steering action. It is light, and very
well made, and, considering the good quality of the work,
it is the cheapest machine I have seen. The only fault I
can find with it is that it is difficult to mount and dis-
mount ; but some addition in the way of a step will
obviate this fault.

The " Diana " is a new front-steering machine introduced
this season by the St George's Foundry Co. It has a
totally new double-driving arrangement and two speeds.
Both of these are obtained by an application of steel balls
about the size of very large peas, clutched on to steel wire
cord. These enable both cog-wheels and chains to be
entirely dispensed with. The same makers have brought
out a double or sociable front-stcerer, named the " Europa."
Both these machines should have smaller wheels and rather
lighter frames, and they would probably then come into
the front rank, if the ball-gear stands the test of wear.

Many machines have been introduced this season
capable of being driven at two spcfth. Of the various
contrivances for etfecting this great desideratum I unhesi-
tatingly give the preference to Britten's, which is free
from complication, efficient, very light, adding at the
utmost only two or three pounds to the weight of the
machine, and can be made at a lower price than any other
I have seen. The inventors of several of these con-
trivances talk of charging from £6 to £10 for them, while
Britten's arrangement will probably be applied to a machine
for fifty, or at the utmost sixty, shillings.

A good two-speed gear would be invaluable as an addi-
tion to sociable, or, in other words, double tricycles, and
will possibly be adopted on all machines except the very
lightest front - steerers. From numerous experiments I
have made during the last two years in gearing I have
come to the conclusion that the best proportion is about
15 inches difference between the low and high speeds.
Thus, a machine which has a high speed of 48 in. inches,
should have a low speed of 33 in., or a high speed of
4-5 in. should have a low speed of 30 in. This last will
be found the best arrangement for the majority of riders.
The machine should always be so contrived that when
the two-speed arrangement is thrown completely out of
gear the pedals are free to be used as foot-rests when
running down hilL

ISTERW ATIOSAI, SCrEyrrPIC SEKtES.— notice.— The New Volame in
the ahove Seriei., entill d ELEMESTARY JLETEOROLOGT, by ROBERT H.
SCOIT, Secretary to the Meteorolopciil Councilj is Nok Readj, with Numerous
niQitratioaa, crown Svo, cloth, price 59.

London; KEGAN PAUL, TRESCH, & CO.

BIRDS IN COLD WEATHER.

MF. LESCUYER has published some interesting
• observations concerning the power that was shown
by the birds of his district of the valley of the Mame,
France, for resisting the severe cold of the winter of
1879-80. The sparrows, finding shelter and food around
the houses, passed the season fairly well, but some of them
perished in the roads and gardens ; they became more
scarce toward the end of the winter, and lost all their live-
liness. The partridges gave way under sixty-one days of
cold and hunger, and those that survived fell an easy prey
to the hawks. A private watchman caught more than
thirty with his hands, warmed them up, and let them loose
again. The owls in the lofts and steeples could not resist
the cold, and fell dead to the ground, or took refuge
in the houses, where they were captured. The stomachs
of all these birds were empty or nearly empty. The
crows, which range over a larger extent of land than
the former birds, which may be called sedentary
birds, came nearer to the houses when the cold was at
its worst, and considerable numbers of them were seen
during the whole winter in the barn-yards and fields.
Some of them came into the court-yards to eat with the
pigeons, but many were frozen to death on the limbs where
they roosted. The few birds of passage that stayed in the
country to winter showed very uneiiual powers of re-
sistance. The bullfinches and grossbeaks did not seem to
suffer, but the larks, yellow hammers, greenfinches, robin-
redbreasts, magpies, blackbirds, and jays were decimated.
Never were so few birds seen in the woods at that season
as in the following spring. Birds of passage, coming from
the north to seek a milder climate ia France, were dis-
appointed. Domestic birds would have suffered greatly
but for the shelter and feeding they enjoyed ; fowls were
worse aflfectcd than web-footed l>irds. TJic winter to which
these observations relate was one of the severest ever ex-
perienced in France, and was very much like a North
American northern winter.

THE LIBRARIES OF BABYLONIA AND

ASSYRIA.

II.

ERECH, the modem "Warka, is a city at which we
know there must have been one or more libraries,
for it was from thence Assurbannipal copied the famous
Isdubar series of legends in twelve tablet.s, one of which
contained the account of the Deluge. Hence also came
the wonderful work on magic in more than one hun-
dred tal)lets; for, as we have it, it is nothing more than a
facsimile by Assurbannipal's scribes of a treatise which
had formed part cf the collection of the school of the priests
at Erech. It was divided into three parts, the first of
which was entitled "The Evil Spirits," for that is the
catch, or index phrase, on each of its tablets. So long a
time had elapsed since the work was first written out in
the two ancient dialects at Erech, that the Babylonian (or
Accadiau) portions of some of the hymns was lost, and the
Assyrian translation only is given, but the style of this is so
different, the syntax so contrary to ordinary Assyrian
documents, also the number of pure Accadian words inter-
spersed so numerous, that it is easy to recognise the
influence of the original dialect, in which they were em-
bodied, upon it. With the apparent exception of these
few hymns, the whole work is bilingual — that is to

132

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[March 2, 1883.

say, written in Accadian, with Assyrian translations
either below or by its side, proving that the knowledge of
the forniiT had, even at the oaily time at wliich they were
compiled, died out except among the learned. For we
know that the si-cond or Assyrian version was in the
original texts and not niurely introduced in Assurbanni-
pal's time, not only from the incidental evidence just cited,
but by notes of the scrilies on the tablets themselves ; for
instance, some have a postscript, as follows : — " Conform-
ably with the ancient tablets and documents of instruction
of Ass ur and Accad in parallel columns," or, "According
to the tablet in parallel columns of Babylon." "This great
work on iiiaciic, ' says Lenormant, " consisted of formula;
of conjuration .ind imprecation, designed to repulse demons
and other wicked spirits and avert their action and to shelter
the invoker from their attacks ; also incantations to which
were attribut<d the power of curing various maladies.
Lastly, the third book contained hymns to certain gods.
A supernatural and mysterious power was attributed to
the chanting of these, which were, however, very diiferent
to the regular liturgical prayers of the official religion."

The translation of a beautiful hymn to Ishtar is given by
Mr. Sayce,* from a text which is a copy of one in an
Erech library, and, as with all such tablets in Assurbannipal's
collection, has a statement at the end commencing thus : —
" Like its original written and translated palace of Assur-
bannipal. King of Assyria." Most of its Accadian and
Assyrian originals appear to have come from Erech, a
Babylonian city which, when all else revolted, had re-
mained faithful to Assurbannipal, and to which he gave back
an image of a goddess which had been taken away by the
Elamites sixteen centuries before. The British Museum
possesses over fifty contract tablets from Erech of the
Assyrian and Persian period, and one text relating to
repairs to a temple of the time of Demetrius.

Larsa, now named Senkereh, was the seat of a tablet col-
lection that seems to have been largely a mathematical
one ; for in the remains we possess of it are tablets con-
taining tables of squares and cube roots and others, giving
the characters for fractions. There are from here also,
however, fragments with lists of the gods, a portion of a
geographical dictionary, lists of temples, ic. Mr. Loftus
brought from .Senkereli a number of triangular contract
tablets with lioles at the angles, through which cords were
probably passed to secure parchment or some other mate-
rial to them. Another tablet exhumed from this site by
the same explorer has been found to be a copy of one
given in the Cuneiform Inscriptions published by the
British Museum from an Assyrian text. The Larsa copy
is considered to be at least 1,000 years older than the
Assyrian duplicate. Such an instance as this will give
some idea of the great antiquity of the originals of
tablets in Assyrian collections; for doubtless the first
version of the text was very ancient when copied for the
Larsa library. This city is also famous for having presented
us with variant copies of a cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar.
In the "Early History of Babylonia," Mr. Smith trans-
lates two inscriptions of Sin Iddina from Larsa, and
it is from this city that some of the earliest contract
tablets are derived. To a liljrary at Cutha we owe the
remnants of a tablet work containing an account of the
creation and the wars of the gods, and, among others, a
very ancient terra-cotta tablet bearing a copy of an inscrip-
tion engraved in the temple of the god Dup Lan at Cutha,
by Dungi, King of L^r.

The number of tablets and cylinders found by M. de
Sarzec at Zirgulla show that there too the habit of com-

* " Records of the Past," t. 135.

raitting so much to writing was as rife as in other cities
of whoso literary character we know more, Vjccause Assyrian
copyists state of them distinctly, that from thence the
originals of many of their documents are derived. Zirgulla,
however, is peculiar in respect to its scribes having appa-
rently preferred to engrave their texts upon cones, which
are very numerous at this site, and the British Museum
now has a line collection of them.

A Member op the Societv of Biblical
Archeology.

LOGICAL PUZZLE.

By Richard A. Proctor

rriHE logical puzzle has brought in some curious evidence
i of puzzledom, especially in the amazingly incorrect
applications of the syllogism (if so it can be called). It
may be remembered that my original remark respecting it
was that it should be obvious ; and that every example of
the application of the syllogism should be at once dealt
with correctly by ordinary common sense. But 1 find so
many suggested examples, which are not applications of
the syllogism, that I begin to think with De Morgan, that
it must be really difficult to many.

Let me endeavour to do what is not always easy — let
me try to show how, at the first hearing, the syllogism
appears obvious to a clearly reasoning mind. It runs
thus: — (1) For every Z there is an X which is not Y :
(2) Some F's are Z'& ; . •. (.3) Some X's are not Z'z.

When statements (1 and 2) have been heard, the mind
immediately pictures a set of JTs equal in number to the
Z's, and also pictures the Z\ divided into two sets, those
which are Z's and those which are not !Ps ; thus

XXXX

zzzz

XX I XXXX XXXX

zzxzzzz zzzz

(the Z\ which are to the right of the line are }"'s, and the
line may fall anywhere to the left of the last Z^ for aught
statement 2 tells us.) Is not this enough? There are all
those A"s, and possibly more ; there are those Z'%, and no
more. Only the Z's to the left of the line are not Y's, and
all the A''s shown are not Vs. So there are clearly more
X's than there are Z's of the kind which can be X's of
the set shown ; some of these X's, then, cannot be Z's.

I say the mind pictures this, meaning that in an instant
this sort of separation is as it were discerned ; and I cannot,
for my own part, conceive any mind which has once taken
in the meaning of the first two statements, hesitating for a
moment either in admitting, or in seeing for itself without
being told, that some of the A''s cannot be Z's.

Apart from any picturing, the reasoning runs somewhat
like this : —

The not-1' A's being as numerous as all the Z's are more
numerous than the not-i' Z's (for some Z's are l''s) ; since,
then the not-Y Z's can only a match a certain number of
the not-)' As, and not all, the balance of not-]' A''s, not
to be matched by any Z's, are not Z's. More A''s may not
be Z's ; but so many are certainly not Z's.

As for any use this sj-llogism has — like the syllogisms
proper, it is barren. Among the tens of thousands of
readers of Knowledge, can one quote a case where either a
truth has been discerned, or an error avoided, by the appli-
cation of this syllogism ?

Oddly enough, the greater number of those who have
tried to give examples of this syllogism, make either the
major or minor premiss inconsistent either with the
possible correctness of the conclusion, or with the conclu-

March 2, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

133

sion being anything but correct. To start with any pre-
miss in which the X'a are not of tlie same general order
as the /?'s must inevitably make the conclusion (following
the terms of the sj llogisni) a necessity ; while starting w ith
any premisses in which the A''& are of necessity Zs, must as
manifestly lead to absurdity.
Thus it we begin —

1. For every man (/^) there is a house (-V) which is

not an animal { ]'),
We must not be greatly surprised if, continuing,

2. Some animals are men.

We arrive at the presumably correct result that
. •. Some houses are not men.
For those who like such puzzles, here is another, which
also should not need a moment's consideration after the
premisses are properly grasped : —

1. For every Z there is an A', which is )'.

2. Some Z's are not X's.
. ■. Some Ps are not Z's.

Here, as in the other, the reasoning is simple, almost
instinctive. 1. Tells us there are as many X's which are
)''s as tliore arc Z's, and tlierefore, (from 2), more X's which
are J^s, than there are Z's which are ^s. For some of
these XY^s, then, there are no Z's : i.e., some Y's are
not Z's.

Here is a simpler one : —

There are a thousand Z's ; 800 A'^s are Z's ; 300 )''s are
Z's ; therefore, at least 100 X's are l''s.

Professor Perry stated at a meeting of the Society of
Telegraph Engineers, yesterday week, that the Edison
Company of New York regard the electricity supplied by
them for illuminating purposes as almost a waste product,
inasmuch as their generators are far more profitably em-
ployed in the production of electricity for manufacturing
purposes. In other words, it pays them better to supply
power than light

TuE (lovernmental Xorth German Gazette refers re-
proachfully to the fact that the North German Lloyd
Company has ordered from a well-known Clyde firm a
couple of steamers, each of 2,. 500 tons burden and
6,000-horse power. Such conduct, it suggests, is both
unpatriotic and anti-protectionist — two very heinous faults
in the eyes of the German Chancellor and his accredited
organs.

The total number of houses inspected by the officers of
the Sanitary Protection Association during the year 1882
was 362. Of these 21, or 6 per cent, were foimd to have
their drains entirely choked up, and no communication
whatever with the sewer ; all the foul matter sent down the
sinks and soil-pipes simply soaking into the ground under
the basement of the houses. In 117 houses, or 32 per
cent, the soil-pipes were found to be leaky, allowing sewer-
gas, and in many cases liquid sewage, to escape into the
house. In 137, or 37 per cent, the overflow pipes from
the cistern were led direct into the drains or soil pipes,
allowing sewer gas to pass up them, and contaminate the
water in the cisterns, and in most cases to pass freely
into the house. In 263, or nearly three-fourths of the
houses inspected, the waste-pipes from baths and sinks
were found to be led direct into the drain or soil-pipes, thus
allowing the possibility of sewer gas passing up them
instead of being led outside the house, and made to dis-
charge over trapped gullies in the open air, as they should
be.

KebirtDd.

S N A K E S. *

MISS UUPLEY, in her introduction to the work
before us, quotes a noteworthy statement by Mr. E.
Newman, first editor of the Zoolo(/isl, to the effect that
" the attempt to combine scientific truths with readable
English was considered by his friends" exactly half a century
ago " one of surpassing rashness ; ' he had many " solicita-
tions to desist from so hopeless a task," many " supplica-
tions to introduce a few Latin descriptions to give it a
scientific character." Miss Hopley has attempted — and
what is more, has achieved — a task regarded now as mucli
more unusual. Even the " Hatfeet " of science no longer
consider it necessary to nse long technical words lest the
dignity of science should sufl'er ; or if they do, they ([uickly
learn that the general public is too intelligent to put up
with such nonsense. 15ut there is still a widely-spread
feeling that to make scientific work attractive by nar-
rative and gossip is an unsafe experiment, and that tlie
chatty and tale-telling books about science are mostly full of
errors. Now the science of Miss Hopley's book is not only
sound in the main, but corrects many common and widely-
spread errors which have been again and again repeated
in professedly scientific text-books of zoology. Yet the
book is as amusing as a novel — we should rather say as a
good novel, for our railway bookstalls teach us that thi'
really readable novels form but a small percentage of the
total number. Of course, the accuracy of Miss Hopley's
book is chiefly due to her study of the best authorities ;
she has not herself been able to test or observe a tithe of
the facts she here presents. But that was unavoidable.
For the brightness of the book, and the store of well-
placed narratives, we have to thank Miss Hopley only.
And it is worthy of notice that she deserves thanks in the
name of science, seeing that whatever attracts readers to
the study of a scientific subject (while legitimately apper-
taining to its discussion) does good service. A dry list of
facts, qualities, dimensions, and so forth, occupies less
space, and is for reference more convenient ; but it is
certainly not likely to attract new recruits to the study of
a science.

Snakes may appear a strange subject of study for a lady,
though there are few creatures more graceful, more beau-
tiful, and more innocent than the greater number of these
much-hated creatures. Among birds, which are considered
specially suited for feminine study, there is not greater grace
of motion, there arenot more beautiful conibinationsof colour,
and if some snakes are repulsive and hideous, they are not
more so than the vulture or the carrion crow. Yet snakes
have had a bad character from time immemorial. If they
have been worshipped, it has been through fear and hate,
rather than for any good qualities they have been supposed
to possess. As the dove has been associated with the Spirit
of Good, so the serpent has been regarded as a fit, if not
the natural, abode of the Spirit of Evil : (not that the
narrative in Genesis gives anywhere authority for Milton's
theory on this subject.) Because the serpent was more
subtle than any beast of the field, he suggested (u.c. 4004)
to our first feminine parent (" to suit his private
ends,") that she should eat of the fruit of the Tree
of Knowledge. The result proved unfortunate for all
parties concerned ; but in a scientific sense we are chiefly
interested in the statement that from that time forth, or

• " Snakes : CnriositicB, and Wonders of Serpent Life." By
Catherine C. Hopley. (Oriftith & Farrcn, London.)

134

• KNOWLEDGE •

[March 2, 1883.

now for nearly 6,000 years, the serpent lias had to go upon
his belly and to eat dust all the days of his life. Professor
Owen, indeed, affirms that, so far from the reptiles being
degraded from a higher type, their whole oi-ganisation
demonstrates how exquisitely their parts are adapted to
their necessities. "They can outclimb the monkey, out-
swim the fish, outleap the jerboa, and, suddenly loo.sing the
coils of their crouching spiral, they can spring into the air,
and seize the bird upon its wing ; " but perhaps the original
serpent expected as much, and acted accordingly, being
"more subtle than any beast of the field."

Certainly no one who carefully studies the work before
us can question the wonderful adaptation of the structure
of every kind of serpent to its mode of life, and especially
to its powers of attack, defence, and escape from its foes.
The li\nng creatures on which the serpents of various orders
prey might reasonably object to the provision apparently
made for the serpent's success ; as might creatures ■which
like to feed on serpents object to the difficulty of catching
them. Yet a fair balance enough is struck. The same
bountiful Mother Nature which furnished the sei-pent with
his wonderful powers, either makes the animals which form
his natural prey active enough to have a fair chance of
escape, or provides them so superabundantly that enough
sur^dve to keep up and even to improve the stock. And
serpents get caught too, clever though they are. Nay,
serpents prey on each other. The Kacer, for instance,
makes short work of the Rattlesnake, catching that objec-
tionable creature deftly, holding one part of it in one coil,
another in another coil, and then, by an instantaneous ex-
tension, snapping the poor dear Crotalus in half, as a
seamstress snaps a thread after twisting it round a finger
of each hand.

Miss Hopley combats the common errors about snakes.
But surely she a little exaggerates their prevalence. Do
most people suppose that snakes sting 1. Shakespeare may,
as Miss Hopley suggests, have had the Bible devoutly in
his mind when he talked of the adder's " sting," or, without
particular devotion, may have been (most probably was)
altogether ignorant of the fact that adders no more sting
than serpents "make sharp their tongues," or than "the
viper's tongue " is slaughterous, as the writer of the Book
of Job (xx., 16) supposed. But surely in these days
nearly everyone knows enough about snakes to reject
the tongue-stinging mistake, though they may not be
aware how utterly incorrect is the common text-book
description of the poison fang (even Miss Buckland, in
her "Winners in Life's Race," leaves this error un-
corrected). Nor had we known that many suppose all
snakes to lick their victims over and smear them with
saliva before eating them. Miss Hopley notes, by-the-way,
that ten years ago the editors of magazines refused to put
snakes in their pages ; but nearly half-a-century ago the
Penny ^fnr/az^ne had some really awful snakes in, without
frightening its readers. To say nothing of the impossible
snakes attacking Laocoon tt Sons, there was a monstrous
boa constrictor certainly not less than a hundred feet long,
another constrictor opening its mouth very widely for a
rabbit, a snake fascinating a bird, and so forth. A member
of a publishing house told Miss Hopley that his mother
feared he would be prevented from sleeping, when a child,
if he looked at snake pictures. But so far as we remember
none of these pictures prevented our sleeping.

The whole book is thoroughly enjoyable and trustworthy',
— outside the travellers' tales, some of which only a boa
constrictor could absorb. The illustrations are good, and
many of them are new. Occasionally, the construction of
sentences is open to exception. It is not quite correct to
speak of " secondly, a number of harmless snakes, of which

those at the Gardens are among the latter " ; but perhaps
the compositor was in fault here (there is a "them " for
"those" in KNOwr,Ei)f;E, Vol. III. p. 86, 1. 1.5 from bottom
of col. 2, which must have made Mr. Proctor's hair stand
on end). Again, to speak of two ladies as " editres-ses of
that _/(^(ci7(' ^)r^■nc<'/).>I among juvenile periodicals," ic, is not
strictly correct. Miss Hopley is probably joking when
she speaks of a keeper enjoying " the high honour of taking
snakes out of their cages to place them in royal hands " ;
it is an unusual privilege, no doubt, but not more so than
the kick imparted by Napoleon I. to an unwieldy admirer :
unless meant as a joke, the passage is rather out of place
anywhere except in the Court Circular, where it would
come in nicely. But these are very trifling blemishes.

A very interesting section of the l>ook is given to the
sea-serpent, which should be carefully studied by those who
imagine that all sea-serpent stories are either monstrous
yarns or relate to preposterous illusions.

THE FACE OF THE SKY.

From March 2 to March 16.
Bv F.R.A.S.

THE student will, as heretofore, examine the sun on everj- clear
day for spots, faeula}, and other indications of disturbance.
He should also look carefully for the Zodiacal light (as recom-
mended on p. 105) on every cloudless evening. The major part of
the constellations (as enumerated on the page just referred to) con-
tinue visible in the night sky; but Aries is now setting in W.N.W.,
and Hercules and Corona rising in the N.E.and E.X.E. respectively,
rt Cygni will be found close to the horizon, just to the W. of N.,
and Vega nearer still ; just to the E. of it. Crater is appearing, too,
above the S.E. by E. horizon. Reference may be made to Map III.
of "The Stars in their Seasons" for a picture of the celestial vault
at the present season. Mercury and Venus are both indifferently
placed for the observer. Mars is invisible, and Jupiter is now
approaching the West pretty rapidly. He is still, though, the
most brilliant and conspicuous object in the night sky. He
describes a short arc from W. to E., above ? Tauri, during the
next fourteen days. The visible phenomena of his satellites
are now becoming less frequent and numerous. Satellite III.
will be occulted at midnight to-night ; and Satellite II. begins
its transit over Jupiter's disc at 11.33 p.m. on the -1th.
The 6th, should the sky be clear, will provide the young observer
with an interesting series of phenomena. At 7h. 15 m.. the shadow
of Satellite III. will enter on to Jupiter's face. The transit of
Satellite I. will begin at 8h. 30 m., followed by that of its shadow
at 9h. 18 m. At 10 h. 8 m. p.m., the shadow of Satellite III. will
pass off; as will Satelhte I. at 10 h. 46 m. Satellite II. will re-
appear from eclipse at 11 h. 31 m. 24 s. ; and finally, the shadow of
the fii'st Satellite will leave Jupiter's disc four minutes after mid-
night. The shadow of Satellite IV. passing on to the face of the
planet in the twilight, at 6 h. 33 m. p.m., on the 10th, may be seen
to leave it later at 7 h. 35 m. The evening and night of the IStli
will again supply the observer with the telescope with plenty of
work. Satellite III. enters on to Jupiter's face in bright twilight,
and may be seen to leave it at 8 h. 47 m. This should be carefully
watched, inasmuch as this Satellite has been seen to cross
Jupiter's face as a dark, instead of a bright, spot — resembling
its own shadow. Then II. ^vill be occulted at 8 h. 4Sro.; and
I. begins its transit at lOh. 24m. The shadow of Satellite III.
wiW come on to the planet at 11 h. 15 m. (2 hours and 28 minutes
after the Satellite casting it has quitted Jupiter's opposite limb !).
The shadow of Satellite I. will enter at 11 h. 43 m., the egress of
the Satellite itself happening 40 minutes after midnight. On the
14th, Satellite I. will be occulted at 7 h. 39 m., and reappear from
eclipse at 11 h. 11 m. 46 s. p.m. Lastly, on the 15th, the ingress of
this same Satellite will begin at 7h. 9 m., and that of its shadow at
8h. 28 m., the shadow of the second Satellite passingoff at 8h.50m.
Saturn must be looked at now, as soon as ever it is dark enough,
as he is leaving us for the season. He is still situated to the
S.E. of S Arietis. Uranus may be found over 89 Leonis. The
Moon does not rise until 2 h. 3Sm. to-mon-ow morning, so that, for
our present purpose, she may be said to be invisible until about the
11th, at which date she sets about 9 h. 30 m. p.m. Her age at noon on
that day is 23 days; whence it is obvious that it will be 33 days
at the same hour on the 12tli, and so on until it is 7'3 days at

March

1883.]

IS.X'JOW LEDGE

135

mid-iiay on tlio ICth. Slie travels from Pisces into Aries on the
I Ith, crosses this constellation into Taurus on the 12th, remains in
that constellation during the whole of the 13th and 14th, continues
licr course across Taurus on the loth, travelling across the north-
eastern part of Orion, and so into Gemini, where wc leave her at
the civil noon of March 17, or, as an astronomer might call it,
.it h. of March IG. At 4 p.m. on the 15th she is in conjunction
«ith Jupiter, at a distance of 3° 12' south of that planet. The one
occnltation of a star visible during the period of which we are
treating is that of the 6th magnitude one, o Arictis, which will dis-
appear at the moon's dark limb on March 12 at C h. 51 m. in the
evening, at an angle of 115^ from her vertex, and reappear at lier
bright limb at an niv.'Ie of 344" from her vertex at 7 h. 40 m. p.m.

15READ AND HONEY.
I5v Dr. Puevo.st.

BREAD and honr v ; two foods well knowni to all : the one dry
and nearly tasteless, the other soft, sweet, and moist — and
apparently very different to one another. Many will be certain to
remark, Wliy couple them together ? Surely we shall now see how
different they are in their composition, for we know that they are
not at all like one another when they are eaten. Such ideas con-
cerning the composition of these two foods are veiy erroneous, for,
instead of being widely different, they are very closely connected.
Tme, there is a difference, to explain which it will be necessarj'
to say a few words about the composition of each. Analyses
of perfectly dry bre:id show that it is made up of about fifteen
parts of nitrogenous matter, of three parts of ash or miner.il
matter, and the remaining eighty-two parts may be con-
sidered to be starch. Honey, on the other hand, consists wholly
of the sugar called glucose, together with a very small quan-
tity of cane-sugar, which disappears as the honey gets older,
and also a very small amount of ash. Xow, as our jrarpose is to
show the connection between sugar and starch, wo vnU neglect the
nitrogenous matter and the ash in the bread ; bnt it must not be
thou;;ht that this nitrogenous matter is of no conset|uence, for,
although not present in large (juantities. still it is very important,
as to it the firmness of head is due : so we will think of a loaf of
bread merely as a Inmp of baked starch. Having thus reduced
our loaf to one kind of substance, which is apparently so dissimilar
to honey, it will not be tmintcresting to trace the history of the
origin of each. Meal flour, which, as all must be aware, is
obtained by grinding down the seed of a cultivated grass,
and has been elaborated by means of the leaves and roots
of the wheat plant before deposition in the ear; the roots have
supplied the nitrogenous matter and ash, while the leaves have
produced the starch, as explained in a former article. Much
..in the same way as starch is carried up into the car of wheat,
'so is the honey carried upwards and deposited in the nectarj- of a
flower, from which it is removed by bees, and stored in the honej--
comb. It is not for u.s to discuss why honey should be formed in
flowers, but the reasons are well known, and the purpose is most
important. Now, where does the honey come from ? When the
..plant begins to form its flower, which is a preliminary process
to the production of fruit and seed, a part of the starch
present in the stem becomes soluble, and by reason of certain
vital influences, it absorbs a proportion of water, and is
converted into glucose ; after that it is deposited in the
nectary, together with a very miimte quantity of an odorous
fluid, which gives to honey its peculiar flavour. What, now, is
the difference between starch and honey ? Why, just a proportion
of water, which, by entering into combination >vith starch, effects
in it the great change in its properties with which all are familiar.
The tasteless starch of the bread, better known as the "crumb,"
becomes a sweet and often cn.stalline substance bearing no resem-
blance whatever to the original material ; and what is more
remarkable still, is the fact that both are derived from the carbonic
acid of the air, that substance which is obnoxious to man, and
which ho is glad to get rid of, from which the carbon, ha\nng been
abstracted, is caused to combine with water. These are not
theoretical nor suppositional .statements — far from it. A large
industrj- for the iiruductioii of sugar (glucose) from potato,
starch, and maize exists, and the material obtained is employed
for the manufacture of spirit. There are many examples of
this kind of change of starch into sugar, the best known being
the production of sugar by the sugar-cane and the beet ; this latter
kind, which is so largely manufactured in France and Germany, and
from thence imported into England, has to a great extent taken the
place of the old West Indian cane-sugar. The sugar-beet, which
much resembles the ordinary red beet-root, however, contains no
starch in the bulb where the sugar is found, so search must be

made for the source whence the sugar comes. The bulb, on examina-
tion, is found to consist of cells inclosing a fluid consisting princi-
pally of sugar and water, and the walls of these cells are composed
of a substance ternieil celbdiise, whose composition is identical with
that of starch, but the properties are very different. Celh.losoin the
laboratory of the chemist can be converted into sugar, hut it is
not probable that such a change occurs in the beet ; for, though
possible, this change has not been detected. The more correct
supposition is, and it is one confirmed by observation, that the large
leaves of the jjlant. as is the case with other plants, elaborate
starch, which, assuming the soluble condition, descends into the
bulb, where it is deposited in the cells prepared for its reception;
but during its descent it again changes its form, takes up water,
aiifl is coiiverteil into sugar, and in then it is that cane-sugar which
is ))roduce(l. That this is what occurs naturally is rendered all the
more probable by an observation that has been made, which shows
that when the plant is in an unhealthy condition, starch is found in
the bulb. From this we may, perhaps, infer that the converting
powers of the plant have been unable, by reason of ill-health,
to change the whole of the soluble starch into sugar; for it
must not be forgotten that a certain amount of energy, so to speak,
must be exerted to force a proportion of water to combine with
starch. A distinction has alwaj-s been drawn Iwtween cane-sugar
and glucose, for not only are the proporties somewhat different,
but the composition also ; to produce glucose from starch requires
the combination of one proportion of water with one of starch, but
for the formation of cane-sugar, only a half proportion of water is
retpiisite. At the commencement of this article it was stated that
loaf of bread consisted of starch and nitrogenous matter ; bnt
this is only true so long as the loaf is one of dough, and before
it is baked, for when it is put into the oven and heated, the starch
begins to change, which is indicated by the formation of the
crust. Examination by proper means would show that it
no longer consists only of the two substances above mentioned,
bnt that a third is now present, namely, dextrine, and dextrine has
exactly the same composition as starch. This change may easily be
observed by careful heating in, say, an iron spoon over a lamj), a
little starch, carefully stiiTing it the while. Soon a change of
colour will be noticed, and when this colour, which should be light
brown, is even throngh the whole mass, the starch will have been
changed into dextrine, which will dissolve with ease in water. This
alteration is perhaps the most curious of any that have been, as
yet, inentione<l, for in the dextrine we have the same number of
particles of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen as are in the starch.
What has happened that the characteristics of starch should be
lost, and now ones assumed, we can hardly till, bnt we believe that
they have luerely been arranged in a dilferent manner, just as
a carpenter can from a piece of wood make either a shelf or a box,
whichever he chooses ; the material is the same, and the quantity
the same, but^the arrangement is different : so it is with the dextrine
and starch ; we might also add, so mth cellulose, which has, it will
be remembered, the same composition as starch, but as we cannot
produce cellulose from starch by such simple means as are required
to form dextrine from starch, the change is hardly so striking.
We have now accomplished th'! task before us as far as it was
possible in a few words to show the connection between bread and
honev; and we hope that when any of our readers next consume
these two articles of diet, they will not forget that, putting aside
the presence of nitrogenous matter, although their palates discover
a considerable difference between the two, the chemist only
acknowledges the addition of water to the one to produce the
other.

Tire LoxDo.v LiBR.vRY. — ''If this library," says M. Guizot, "had
not existed, I should have felt great inconvenience. It is a very
useful library : there are a great many excellent books about
English History which I have found there. It is a great inconve-
nience to mo to be obliged to go to the British Museum, and not to
be able to work in my own room, with my own books ; that is a
great part of the pleasure of working." Mr. Leigh Hunt, in his
" Stories from Italian Poets," says: — " I cannot, in gratitude for the
facilities afforded to myself, as well as for a more obvious and pubHc
reason dismiss this preface without congratulating men of letters
on the establishment and increasing ])rosperit3- of the London
Library, an institution founded for the jnu-pose of accommodating
subscribers with such books at their oivn houses as could only be
consulted hitherto at the British Museum." Mr. M'Cabe, in tho
Preface to his " Catholic Histori;- of England," states that " he has
been possessed of one great advantage. As a Member of the
London Library he has had access to, and the use in his own home
of, a splendid collection of works. On the shelves of that Library
he has found most of his authorities, — the ancient monastic writers,
and those authors who afford passages illustrating the facts stated
by tho chroniclers."

136

KNOWLEDGE •

[Mauch 2, 1883.

'J^3*si7:^GS?52*:^SS^

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Texnyson.

2Lrttn£( to tl)t etiitor.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly he in-
serted. Correfpondents tnust not be offended, therefore, should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial communications should be addressed to the Editob of
Knowledge; all Business communications to the Pdelishers, at the
Office, 74, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS AKISE FOR WUICU THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheque.^,, and Post Office Orders should he made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMMUNICATIONS ARE ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOUGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED EN^TLOPE BE ENCLOSED.

WAXEN IMAGES OF ENEMIES.
[736] — Mr. E. Clodd might, perhaps, like to know that the
making of waxen images to cause death (by piercing or melting)
to the person in whose likeness the image was made, was a form of
sorcery known to, and practised by, the ancient Egyptians. In Mr.
Le Page Renouf's introduction to his translation entitled " An
Abstract of a Case of Conspiracy," in Vol. viii. of " Records of the
Past," he will find particulars of a case of the kind,* temps.
Rameses III. I need not, of course, remind him of the Second Idyll
of Theocritus. Amelia B. Euw.^rhs.

CHIBPING SPIDER.
[737] — Your correspondent asks if there is a "Chirping Spider"
in Britain. I have bi>cn an interested observer of the spider family
for some years, but never knew one with that accom))lishment ;
there is one, however, which makes a ticking sound like a gentle
tap — it is the " death-watch " of the superstitious. It is not very
commonly heard, but on one occasion I saw one in the very act.
It was done with the right fore-leg, and the wonder is how the
effect could be produced by such means. In this way the male
spider calls to the female, and it is evident that sometimes he has
to call long and loudly. Perhaps " D. M.'s" disturber was only a
cricket on the stump. S. H. W.

STAYS.
[738] — No one has, in the course of the coutroversy upon the
above subject, noticed the very important point, how tight-lacing
affects a woman's vital capacity, and I am the more surprised at
this, as it is a matter which c;in easily be settled by means of the
spirometer. In my vocation as a voice trainer I pay special
attention to breathing, and I find that after the removal of close-
fitting stays women register an increase of from 25 to 50 per cent.
in their breathing. This speaks for itself, and requires no further
comment. Emil Beh.xke.

ETYMOLOGY OF MISLETOE.

[739] — The discussion on the right etymology of the word
" Misletoe" has greatly interested me, but I do not think that (so
far as the original meaning of the word is concerned) any of your
correspondents have arrived at the trnth. In your issue of Jan. 19,
you remark that one " Taranaki," in writing on this eubject, has
derived it from the Saxon word, mistil, sprawler; and you yourself
(from yonr remarks on the meaning of " mizzling rain ") seem to
favour this derivation.

But I venture to assort (on the authority of the Rev. I. Bosworth,
D.D., F.R.S., F.S.A.B., Ph. of Leyden, &c.), that it is derived, not
from the word mi'.-d?, a sprawler, bnt rather from niistel, which
means a cloud or darkness. That such a gentle, inoffensive kind of
plant as our little misletoo should bo called the "twig of darkness"

* Those particulars are in the fragmentary Lee and RoUin
papyri, which are not translated.

seems at first sight incongruous ; bat on secondary consideration, it
becomes more easy of explanation. It will readily bo remembered
that it was by a twig of misletoe that Baldnr, the Scandinavian
Sun-god, was slain ; for (as Frigga said to Soki, when he asked hur if
everything had sworn to do him no hurt) "it (tlio misletoe) was
considered too young to take an oath." Bnt Buldur fell, "and
the shadow of darkness covered the whole earth."

G. Clavkring Mesnard.

PLANCHETTE-WRITING.

[740] — I hope I shall not be taking up too much of your valnable
time if I ask you to give me your opinion on the real working agency
in the " Planchette." Doubtless you have seen it, so that I need
not describe its action. Some time ago I began trying experiments
with it, having at the time the full conviction that, where no
trickery was involved, the writing was done by unconscious action
of the hands of the person who rested tliem on the machine ; but
this plausible solution, if correct, would entail new ideas of brain
action which would be very curious. I had the fortune to have a
lady friend for whom the Planchette wrote wonderfully well at all
times, so that I was able to try some curious experiments. On
placing her hand on the instrument (which I made myself by
drilUng a hole in the rim of a small plate and inserting a pencil) and
asking a question, the answer was written ■with wonderful celerity,
even faster than ordinary writing, and generally very legibly, though
in various handwritings, none in the least resembling in formation
of letters (which I consider a curious point) that of the operator
herself. The lady herself did not know what had been written till
she had read it. On more than one occasion the information con-
veyed was known only to myself or to some other person in the
room, and therefore, on the hypothesis of involuntary action, could
only be explained by a sort of Thought Reading.

But the experiment I would particularly call your attention to is
this. I had several times mesmerised the lady in question, and as
usual in such cases, when asleep she could answer any questions
proposed, but had no knowledge on awakening of what had hap-
pened in the trance. (By the waj-, I found that, if she had lost or
mislaid things in her waking state she could generally say where
they were when asleep.) 1 thought of the experiment, therefore, of
causing her to place her hands on the plate when asleep. On
asking a question, an answer was written as usual, and, before
reading it myself, I then asked her what had been written, with
the full expectation that she would be able to say. She could not,
however ! Now this would seem to prove that the words written
were not evolved either from the brain in its normal state, or from
its peculiar condition in the mesmeric sleep. We must therefore
cither allow a third state not yet investigated, or come at length to
the idea of external supernatural agency, which I am most un-
willing to admit. As I have a great respect for your opinion as a
candid, unprejudiced scientific man, I take the liberty of asking you
what you think of the above experiments, which are, so far as I
know, quite original.

A strange point I have observed about the writing of Planchette
is, tliat its character is generally totally opposed to that of the
operator. Thus I have seen the most terrible oaths written under
the hands of people who would abno.-it die sooner than use such
language themselves.

Every new fact should be scientifically investigated in my opinion,
and the founding of a false theory on real facts should not prevent,
the facts themselves being allowed and studied. I believe some
yet unknown truth lies under the nonsense of spiritualism — if it
really be nonsense, and on that point 1 have not yet seen sufficient
evidence to decide, and would require very strong to convince me.
Still, here is my fact. I have seen a plate write, in a strange hand-
writing (and to write rapidly in a strauge handwriting is, I think
you will allow, almost an impossible feat) words unknown to the
person whose hands rested on it. (It is, I believe, impossible for a
person to tell a deliberate falsehood when mesmerically asleep, if
such proof of my friend's veracity were needed.) As to the matter
written I shall say nothing, as perhaps it is not to the point, though
interesting to me in the extreme. Now, if you are content to
accept the fact on my evidence, how do you explain it ?

T.P.B., Lieut. R.A., F.R.A.S.

[Where can one get a Planchette ? I know nothing of the weight,
structure, friotional resistances, <ic., of the thing. — R. P.]

TlIK BO TREE AND THE GOD OF KNOWLEDGE.

[711J — In January, 1880, I took a triji to Central India, and
while there amused myself by visiting Buddhist tombs and temples,
and in nearly all I found the Bo or liodhi Tree represented in
sculpture as an object of adoration and reverence. On the Sanchi

March 2, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

lupcs, Bbopal State, the lio Tree appears as one of the jirincipal
bjecis of worship.

The large Tope is the tomb of Ariaparsban, one of the chief
-;iints anionp the followers of Buddha, who lived nearly 2,000 years
liro. and on the lower architrave of one gateway the Kinp, probably
\soka. is represented in the act of dismounting from his elephant
<> worship the Bo Tree. On another architrave a great number of
iiimnls are depicted as marching towards the "Tree" for the
.iiriioso of adoring it. On anotherthore is a grand royal procession
lialtiiig before the " Tree " and worshipping it.

That the Bo Tree still holds its position as one of the most
ncred objects in Buddhi.^t worship and is dedicated to the guds 1
letmt on going into a temple which stands on a rock in the middle
of the river Bctwa, a tributary of the Ganges in Prince Scindia
State. There in the lap of the god Ghanpatti I saw several freshly-
gathered leaves, and on asking the Buddhist Priest what leaves they
mre, he answered " Bodhi Leaves." At my rel|ues^ he gave me
three, which I now have. Ghanpatti, the god of Knowledge,
[Come ! I say, yon know ! — R. P.] is represented as having the body
•fa man with the head of an elephant, and is believed to be om-
■iscient, and to possess t!ie power of imparting knowledge to all who
mmestly desire it. A. Sf. L. J.

OPTICAL ILLUSION.

[74:i] — I had rathiT a cnrions experience two or three mornings
■go which interested me much, and which I thought might account
for at least a few of the many apparitions of which we now hear so
■mch. I therefore send an account of it to yon in case yon may
tbink it interesting to yonr readers.

I was training for the '" torpids," or heavy eight-oared inter-
collegiate races, and had, in accordance with the accepted training
nles, to get up at 7a.m. and go for a run before breakfast. On the
first morning of the training I woke up "when all the mom was
■tilly dark," and as I had got into a bad habit of doing the greater
part of my work between 9p.m. and 2 a.m. I had not much notion
of the amount of light to expect at seven in the morning, so I
groped about, thinking trainingrules in general a great abomination,
and found that my clock had stopped ; therefore, opening my door I
mnt into the passage, intending to look at the clock in my sitting-
lOom. I there saw, as I thought, my friend, who was coming to run
with me, standing, his figure well defined against the window of a
Ettle room adjoining, the door of which generally stood open. So
Hmring him that I should be dressed in less than no time, and
apologising for being late, I was upon the point of going back into
ny room, but to my surjirise the figtirc did not answer, but gave a
kalf step backwards, as if hoping to escape notice, I then saw that
it was not of quite the same build as my friend, and it struck me
Biat, being earlier than I thought. I had disturbed a burglar in his
Mcnpation, so I " went " for Iiim, but instead of getting hold of my
nan, I came with great violence against the door of the room I had
thoaght open and my burglar vanished into thin air. I saw at once
my mistake. Behind me in the passage was a narrow window, and
flirongh this a street lamp threw a light upon the door, exactly of
the same size, and in a line >vith the window in the little room, and
•I I stood between the door and the passage window my shadow
WBB, thrown upon the door. So complete was the illusion that when
I returned to my originu! j.osition I could hardly believe that somc-
flne was not standing in front of me, for the distance of the lamp,
the early dawn, and the colour of the door, which was of stained
and varnished deal, gave the shadow a soft outline which looked
torribly real. I grant that I was very sleepy, but was sufficiently
•wake to remember very viHdIy the estimate I made of my burglar
iathe moment between iJiscovering him and going for him, which
Has that he would be exactly as much as I could " tackle," which
■O doubt he would, being my precise double, for the lamp was so
inr off as to render him hardly perceptibly larger. When at last I
got to the clock in my sitting-room I found that it was not yet six,
aadsoretamed joyfully to bed, the next thing I heard being my friend
Tiolently banging at my door in none of the best hnmonrs at having
COtnp and dressed himse'f only to find me sleeping pc.nccfuUy the
deep of the just. Ax Qxfoed Uxdergb.^dimte.

EFFECTS OF BELLADOXyA OX THE EYES.

[7431 — In a recent number you inserted the experience of a
gentleman on putting atropine into one eye ; perhaps you may care
for the experience of one who has had it in lioth eyes at once-

I may mention that, like your correspondent, I am assigmatic, and
had to put this belladonna into my eye to facilitate the examination
of the interior by the then most able ocolist alive. The belladonna
was put in, one drop in each eye, just before-going to bed. There
was no pain, and that night the only effect to be noticed was the
nnnsnal brilliancy of the eyeballs. When, however. I awoke it was

with great difficulty that I could pci-suade myself of the fact.
Evervthing seemed to be enveloped in a mist, and I cotild see
nothing clearlv, except at a distance of about six or eight inches.
When 1 looked at a thing fixedly first of all, all the apparent mist
seemed to bo whiriing swiftly round it, and then gradunlly stopped,
bit the thing then appeared' double to me. It was at least a week
Iwfore the effects of the one dose had thoroughly worked off, and
during the latter part of that time the movement of the eyeballs
gave a most peculiar sensation, as if when I moved them the
muscles were trying to keep them back. This sensation was also
experienced when I looked from a thing at a distance to something
near.

Before I took to spectacles (of peculiar nature to suit my eyes,
which are of diff. foci) I again had to nee the belladonna, taking to
the glasses the morning after the dose, and up to the present time
(two vears) I experience the above sensations when I take off my
glasses. No doubt if I left off my glasses for a week the effects
would wear off again. I may add that I never take my glasses off
from morning to night. ■!• ''- Honn.

AX EYE FOR BEAUTY.

[744] — In re corsets, is, or could, physiology be taught at our
great public schools— intelligently taught I mean, so that boys
aliuuid " iKifrstand the ugliness of pinched wnists? As has been
well said, what taste can be expected from a lad brought np to
admire Eton jackets and tall hats ? No wonder he grows up to
regard a woman as a doll— pretty only if fashionable. And she
will be stupidly fashionable while he admires her for it.

' ■' M. McC.

[As a cure, every lad should pass an hour or two twice a week
studying the works of great sculptors, and learning the dignity,
bean'ty, grace, and purity, of the unadorned human body. If I were
to count the hours I passed thus myself, many would ask with
wonder how I found the time. My answer might perhaps be that
I saved it by eschewing dictionaries. But seriously : I value few
portions of my education more than this, the least laborious and
most pleasant. — K. P.]

A PUBLIC RIGHT.

[745] — You spoke in the public interest with regard to Kew ; will
you help us to greater enjoyment of another national possession ?
I state the case briefly, and hope to enlist your sympathy.

By procuring an order, it was possible, two or three years ago, for
a few people to see the magnificent collection of Turner's water-
colours and drawings, arranged in portable cases by Mr. Ruskin.
and stored in a room below the National Gallery.

As an improvement on this plan, a certain number of the draw-
ings are now placed in cases, and the room is open to the
public. These drawings are changed every three months, and it is
supposed that residents in London may in time see the whole
collection (some 700 or more), but the mass of drawings in the
cases are now inaccessible.

Therefore, people who don't reside in I.ondon, but who wish to
study the great English master when they do go there, must be
content with just the examples that happen to be out.

Secondly. — Those— I believe an increasing number— who wish to
possess some of Mr. Ward's or Miss Jay's admirable copies, have no
power to search the cases for a subject.

Thirdly.— The same limitation must interfere, I imagine, with
students' who do not know by name the drawings concealed from
view, and therefore cannot say which they want.

Lastly.— The collection specially selected for educational pur-
poses by Mr. Raskin is now screwed to the wall in a room so dark
that no one can see it, much less copy from it, and the resources of
the Gallei-j- are not equal to the labour of moving one of these
drawings at the request of a student. The study of them is
practically forbidden.

Sir. Ruskin protested in his catalogue against the dark chamber.
I am told that for some time the catalogue was not sold in the
room because of this protest. Happily it is there now.

Tho authorities may consider Turner's works more unique than
admirable, bnt they are national property, and those who love them
should claim access to them. Of course, every reasonable precau-
tion mnst be taken to ensure the safety of tho drawings, bnt as the
attendant is in the room as of old, a limited number of orders
might be issued daily, admitting the holders to see the cases.

A small table placed in each window of the light room to accom-
modate them would not trespass too ranch on the very limited
space. II- ^t^C.

[I insert " M. McC.'s" letter, but without much hope of any
useful result. Officials scarcely ever understand that — while they
accept State salaries — they are the paid servants of the public. —
R. P.]

138

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Mahch 2, 1883.

DKSERT OV ATACAMA.

[7'Uj] — I have lately been convcreinK witli a Keiitleman vvlio was
at Olio time vico-consul on tho West coast of South America, and
wlio had inado au extensive and careful survey of tho Desert of
Atacama, in Chili. I am anxious to loam what were tho causes
which produced that desert ; and, not tiuding any .account of them
in any hooks to which I have access, I woulil like if you, or any of
your Kcolofcicul friends, would favour me with an explanation.

What this >rentlomau has told mo is, that for more than a
hundred miles south of Pisco, and again for seventy miles north of
Canote, there is absolutely no vegetation whatever, but that num-
berless water-courses, now quite dry, can bu clearly traced running
up into tho mountains, some of them, in their lower ranges, 1,500
to 2,000 feet in depth, and one of them two miles in width ; and
that at their mouths, towards the sea, there are great accumulations
of boulders, gravel, and sand, sometimes running far out below the
sea, and showing a depth of cliSf, where they have been cut into
by the sea, of .'!U0 feet or so.

Along the banks of these water-courses there are found millions
of human bodies interred in the sand, with their implements for
hunting and fishing, where now there is not a blade of grass or drop
of water within immense distances.

On ascending the mountains to the east of this desert— the Sierra
of San Andreas — near Islay, he conld trace these water-com-.ies to
great heights— gradually diminishing, of course, in depth, and
bifurcating into small tributary depressions as he ascended. In
one place he came upon what appeared to be the bed of an ancient
lake, now (luite dry, at a height, as his Indian guide assured him, of
14,000 feet {?} above the level of the sea.

Along the sides of the deepest ra\nne3 he found terraces — terrace
above terrace — rising sometimes as high as 1,000 feet above the
bottom of the ravine, and which he believed were the remains of
aqueducts for bringing the water from the higher to the lower
levels for the purpose of irrigation.

From all these facts he concludes that this desert, in at least the
mouths of its great ravines, must at one time have been highly
cultivated and populous ; and what he and I would like to know is,
■what brought about so great a change ? Can it have been that this
lower flank of the Cordilleras is much older than the higher ranees
to the east, and that therefore the rain-clouds which now discharge
themselves upon the higher range, had at one time discharged upon
the lower ? Senex.

[It is not quite clear what connection exists between the desert
of Atacama, in Chili, and the desert region around Canete, Pisco,
and Islay, in Pern. — R. P.]

LETTEKS RECEIVED.— CONTENTS NOTED.

F. R.— J. N. D.— Faciebat— T. L.— E. H. M.— J. B. Canu— F. C.
— Tekel — J. E. S. — J. Pocock— Jane Johnson — W. — F. W. Ashley
— W.— An Admirer of a Small Waist— A. J. Maas — A Native of
Wales— E. Eggenschinler— R. B.— T. C. S.— H. C. Wilmot— L. P.
Whitmore— Acoustics- C. M.— W. B. K.— R..G.— G. S. Coombe—
W. G. Rolfe— C. W. Bourne— Undergraduate— H. C. Dent— Star-
gazer— Constant Subscriber— G. F.— S. E. Clarke— E. J. L.— More
Light— J. O. K.— R. N.— J. W.— A. C— Arthur— W. M.— P R —
Indian— C. W. B.— J. S.— S. S.— A. W. C— H. J. S.— G. S. G.—
A. S.— W. Moor — W. Suuter — J. G.— C. Reeves— H. W. J[.—
Zamiel— W^ H. A.— Another Observer— W. A. F.

Mr. C. F. Brush, the inventor of the dynamo and arc lamp
named after him, has taken out a patent for a system of storing
electrical energy. It occupies 46 pages of print, and wo hope t'o
be able to refer to it more fully at au early date.

Mr. W. H. Pkkece, F.R.S., addressing the Institute of Civil
Engineers on the 15th ult., said that there are at present in use in
the postal telegraph system, 87,231 Daniell cells, 56,-l20 LiSclancho
colls, and 21,810 bichromate (Fuller) cells, lie is also credited with
the somewhat remarkable statement that, " Thanks to such expe-
ditions as that of II.M.S. ChuUengor, tho floor of the ocean is
becoming more familiar than the surface of many continents."

It is very interesting to note that Messr.s. Chubb & Sons turn out
yearly about 1,000 safes, strong rooms, and iron doors, and 40 000
locks. Over 1,000,000 of the patent detector looks have been
made. There are 200 men employed, all on piecework, and the
average service of each man is said to be seventeen years. This
indicates a satisfactory state of things all round. One of the latest
productions is a safe weighing nearly twenty tons, made for the
Government of the Argentine Republic. It is estimated to be lar'-e
enough for the storage in bags of Jt 18,000,000 in gold. °

^ur iHatOftnatical Column*

A MATHEMATICAL LETTER (A,).

TURNING over some of tho earlier pages of Knowledge, 1 came
upon your article on tho interesting curve called " the Witch
of Agnesi " ; and this brought to my mind a reminiscence of old
Cambridge days, followed by other reminiscences which, if you wiB
allow me a jiage in your periodical, may be amnsing to your readers.
You remember our Sadleirian Lecturer in '59 ? De vivits nil nin
boimm. I hope he will forgive the confession, but I know the'
culprit who sent him the valentine. It was very harmless : simply
this, "r = « (1 — cos S), from your loving ac i/" = 4a' (2 a — a) ." li-
being St. Valentine's d.ay, I had the satisfaction of seeing him trace
the former of these (the Cardioide) upon receiving the letter in HalL
Tho latter, however (the Witch of Agnesi) , was not recognised nntQ
the pastry made its ajjpearance, when a loud guffaw proclaimed thait
enlightenment had come. How he used to trouble us with his pet
subject, the Golden Number! There was nothing ho was not capable
of turning into mathematics. " Magistrates conniving at certain
periodical religious riots " (so ran one of his Little-go questions in
allusion to the disturbances taking place at St.Geurge's-in-the-East),
" fined the offenders inversely in proportion to the damage done," Ac
But there never lived a sounder mathematician. It was he whe
first really brought home to the Little-go candidates the fact that
division embraces the dividing of concrete numbers by concrete
numbers — a fact which, appearing in one of Mr. Gladstone's speeches,
was challenged by a leading Member of the House of Commons, and
was settled by an appeal to Mr. Fawcett, as a Wrangler — and the
form of question by which the Little-go mind was enlightened waa
as follows : — Find the value of

9a 4r 3d 16h

And then what devils he used to turn out in May ! I ask your
readers' forbearance until I have explained, as the following in-
cident reminds me that my language may be misunderstood. A couple
of Johnians in a railway carriage on their way " down " were dis-
cussing their recent experiences. " Did you get out the second
devil ? " asked one. " No," replied his companion ; " I worked atit
for au hour-and-a-half, and could do nothing with it ; but I got outj
the last two." The horror-struck look of an old lady in the same
comjjartment, who changed her carriage at the fii'St opportunity,
was quite lost upon the students. Be it explained, then, that in
former days a paper of seven stiff equations was set at the May ex-
amination at St. John's, which were universally referred to as " the
seven de\-ils " — so universally, that I believe the phrase passed^
current among the examiners themselves. Would your readers likflj
to see a sample ? Here is one, —

1 (x + 1) (a^-3)_^^l (x + 3) (x-5)_2 (»-!-5) (j;-7)^92* t
5 ■ (a; -1-2) (a; -4) 9 {x + 4) {x-&) is' {x + 6) (x-S) 585 ♦!

The last three equations, if I remember aright, were problems, anft
were called black, as opposed to blue devils. [They were so. — Ed.]
Speaking about problems, I remember that one of our lecturer^
gave us some instruction on the subject of betting, which has also bs
discussed in your pages. The problem given was in this form : " Th
odds against a horse (A) winning are a to 1 ; against B winnu
& to 1 ; against C winning, c to 1, and so on. Prove that in order \
win for certainty P pounds, a man must back A to the amount of |

P-5-(a-t-l) i 1-J_-_L__1_, &c.|
^ ' I a + 1 h + 1 c-i-1 3

and B, c, &o., for like amounts, putting 6, e, &c., for a in the nu"!
symmetrical part of the above expression."

The gentleman from whom I received the above was so completely I
saturated with mathematics that he described three young ladies in I
a family, who strongly resembled one another, as Miss Richardson,!
Miss Richardson dash. Miss Richardson double dash : and npoml
being questioned one day as to the cause of liis apparent ill-health, I
said, that " he had passed a dreadful night : ho had dreamed tha'
he was under the sign of the square root and couldn't be extraotedi- 1
I conclude with two ancient questions for your readers.

1. If a man be placed on a perfectly smooth horizontal table, hovl
can he get off ?

2. Explain how the juice collects in the cup placed inside >|
fruit tart — (a) when tho tart is air-tight. ((3) when it is not.

N.B. — The case of the tart being more than 32 feet high may be|
neglected. A Wrangler.

* The devil may be expelled from this particular abode by re-
garding (' — 2.C as the unknown, and noticing that

5 9 11! 585 K- P-

.Makcu 2, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

139

^ur WB^iiit Column.

Er " Five of Cldbs."

^111 E crilical moment iu almost every hand of Whist is that when
J. one nr other side enters on the trump lead. This may occur
early : perhaps at the very beginning, when one side or the
other has a decided superiority in trumps ; or in the middle
of the game, when one side or the other, having esta-
blished a suit, and being well protected in their adversaries'
suits, sees that their trump strength, reinforced by their strength
in plain suits, gives promise of wresting the command of the
hand from the other side ; .or the strength in trnmp and plain
■aits may be so disposed that neither side cares to lead trnmps till
towards the end of the hand ; or both sides may tind advantage
in reserving trumps for ruffing; or two partners may try to establish
a cross ruff, throwing the command of trumps, if they succeed,
into their opponents' hands, but safely enough, because more tricks
are usually gained by the cross ruff than the opponents can after-
wards make out of their suits, cut up by the raffing game ; so
that, lastly, a trump lead may be purely defensive, made simply to
prevent a cross-ruff from being established.

The skill of a \Vhist-j>layer is shown more, perhaps, by his apti-
tude in selecting the i)roi)er moment wiien triunps should be led,
or the enemies' strength in trumps reduced by forcing, or tlieir
lead of trumps delayed by properly placing the lead, than by any
other {larts of Whist strategy. And I would at the outset carefully
caution the learner against falling into the habit of regarding the
use of trumps to be so pre-eminently that indicated by the book-
authorities, that all other uses should be considered relatively un-
important. It may be true that the chief use of trumps is to
extract the enemies' trumps so as to bring in a long suit ; but this
use, thongh more important than any other considered separately,
is not more important than all the others put together, as many
book-players seem to imagine.

It should be remembered, indeed, that in the majority of hands
no long suit is brought in, the ending depending simply on the
correct play or skilful finesse of the cards remaining in hand, which
may be the fragments of suits never veiy long or strong, and broken
up through discards enforced by the necessity of protecting other
suits. To adopt as rules of play a system depending on what
hap|>en3 often enough indeed, but still only in a minority of all the
games played, is unsafe ; yet many follow the rules for trying to
bring in a long suit, as if this were the common end of every hand.

Let it be remembered that though leading originally from the
longest suit, discarding from the sliortest (if trumps not declared
against you) and other such rales, are good enough in the
early stages of the play of a hand, because they bring the
partners into alliance, so to speak, they mast not be held to
sanction the general principle of playing to bring in a long
suit. This is in reality phiying a forward game, and a great
number of hands require backward, or defensive play, while
the majority of hands do not justify forward play. You show
your long suit and your partner shows his, or you learn his
from the play of the enemy or from the discards, and you presently
get an inkling as to the strength of the several suits in the different
hands. Bat you must not run away with the idea that so soon as
you know this, the time has come to scheme for the bringing iu of a
long suit which you or your partner may possess. On the contrary, it
is as likely that by this time, you will have found that the measures
good for bringing in your suit, are as good for bringing in a suit of
the enemies', and that the enemies' suit and not yours is the one
which would probably be brought in. And it is more likely than
not, that cither your chance is thus luifavourable, or, though not
bad in itseif, it is yet not good enongh to justify auy attempt at a
forward game.

At such a stage ni the game, if you find reason to think that you
and your partner between you can hold your own fairly against the
enemy in trumps, and there is no chance of establishing a cross
ruff, it may be well to follow the rale not to force partner if weak
in trumps. But if it has become clear that your partner as well as
Tooiself is weak in trumps, you may fairly reason that, since it is
the enemies* game to prevent your trumps and your partner's from
Iieing used in ruffing, it can hardly be bad policy to force yom-
partner. For though the chief object of leading trumps is
nndoubtedly to draw out trnmps and bring in a long suit,
there is another very important object, viz., to draw out
tnunps lest they be used in ruffing. After all, you can
do very little harm, even if your partner's strength is snch
that he prefers to pass the trick. He , can discard a useless
card, if he prefers that course ; but if, like yourself, he is weak,
he can make a trick with a trump which would otherwise have

simply fallen to the enemy. He may, perhaps, bo found also
with the King card and another of one of the adversaries' suits, in
which you may be short, and may play that suit (King card first, of
course), giving you the chance of forcing him again. If yon can
make two or three tricks thus with your weak trumjjs, you may be
content to give up any attem|>t to face the enemy in trumps — espe-
cially as, when they do get in, they will hardly be able to avoid
letting some of their trumps fall in pairs to none from you and yotu-
portner.

(To be contintied.)

©ur Cbfss Column.

By IIepuisto.

END OF AN ACTUAL GAME.

Amateur.
Black.

1 w iMM

•^■

l'

w

J.l ±

^v i

11^

i

^

'^'Wffxt' f

^

m

m ^

^== L-/

;_.M|

VTiuis.
Mepoisto.

In this position White announced mate in sis moves, playing as
follows : —

1. R tks P (eh) K takes R

2. RtoRsq.(eh) Kt to E4

3. RtksKt(ch) KtoKt2(best)

[ 4. R to R7 (ch) K takes R
5. Q to R3 (ch) K to Kt2
G. Q to R6 mate.

On February 17 ilephisto played against twenty members of the
North London Chess Club twenty simultaneous games. Play
bean at 7.15 p.m., the first game was finished at 7.45, the twentieth
at 10.15. Thus in three hours the twenty games were concluded.
Of that number the single player won sixteen and lost four.

Taking the average number of moves per game at thirty,
5Iei)histo must have moved 600 times, or at the rate of 200 moves
per hour.

The question has often beeu asked, what is it that constitutes a
strong player ? We venture to assert that it is not " strong
reasoning alone," but also the facility for accumulating experience
bv a good memory, both combined produce in coarse of time a
quick perception of position, commonly called " instinct," and very
commonly misinterpreted. The greater the experience, and also the
more the' reasoning powers are exorcised, the quicker will a person
be able to judge which is the right thing. If, therefore, a strong
practitioner perceives a fallacy, he will seize upon it at once, and
with a rapidity surprising to others less gifted than himself.
JlcpUisto was guided in his pla.y by " what comes nearer to instinct
than to reason," the result proving that it is " instinct " as defined
above which is the cliief guide, and it is left to the reasoning
powers to follow up and examine what the instinct has pointed ont
as a likely course, which in some instances requires modifying, and
in but very few instances re<iuires to be rejected. Undoubtedly,
reasoning increases the strength of play, but our argument is that
the greater part of a player's judgment of a position is supplied to
him instinctively, as is amply proved by the play in which reason-
ing powers, owing to the rapidity of moving, could not have been
exercised to any appreciable extent. Nevertheless, the result proved
satisfactory.

140

o KNO\AALEDGE ♦

[March 2, 1883.

We give a spocimon game, plnycd against one of the strongest
players of the team.

Whito.
Mephislo,

1. Kt toQB3

2. P to Q t
■J. P to K3

4. B to Q3

5. P takes P
<■>. Kt to KB3

7. P to QR3

8. P to QKtl.
0. B to QKt2

10. Kt to K2

11. P to KRl

12. KB takes Kt

13. Q to Q3
11. B to K5
l.'i. Kt takes B

We tliink tlie views of Dr. Siemens about instinct will require
modifying. A rule of thumb practitioner in mathematics (an
accountant) has supplied us with information that we vainly sought
for in various well informed quarters. A correspondent recently
inquired by what method the players in a tournament could be
paired against each other beforehand for all the rounds. A friend
of ours who saw all about "the cow's tails" in ten seconds, and who
id a good mathematician could not tell, chess players could not tell,
till at last Mr. Lord kindly showed us the following simple method.
Provided yon have an even number of players you proceed as in the
following example : —

We have six players, who have to play one game with each other,
and we wish to find ont the precise date beforehand when each
man has to play the other.

We draw a diagram for six rounds, and we will call the players
a. b, c, d, e, f : —

BiMk.

While.

Bln.k.

Amateur.

Jlephi.to.

Amateur.

P toK3

1(1.

P toKBS

R to B4

p to y l

17.

Q to Q4

Kt to Q3

Kt to KB3

IS.

KttoKB4

11 to KB3

P to QB t

19.

P to KKt4

P takes P

]5 takes 1'

20.

P takes P

P to QR4

Castles

21.

P takes P

R takes P

Kt to QB3

22.

P to Kt5

R to KB4

B to Q3

23.

Kt (B4) taken

Kt to K2

KtP

Kt to B5

Kt to KKt:i

24.

Kt takes Kt

P takes Kt

P to KRl

25.

Kt to KB4

QR to K4

P takes B

2G.

Castles QK

Q to QR5

Q to K sq.

27.

Q to QB3

B toQ2

B takes J5

28.

Kt to KtG

B to B3

Kt to K5

29.

R to Q8 (ch)

Resigns.

a
b

0

d
e

f

a

1
2
3
4

b

1

3
4
5
2

c
2
3

5

1
4

d
3

4
5

2

1

4
5

1
2

:i

f

5

4
1
3

We fill in the six players' names horizuntally, ami also duwn the
.side of the diagram. We next fill up the blanks, that is, the squares
' n which a player stands opposite his own name, such as a opposite
a, and b opposite b, &c. Then, as there are six players, therefore
five rounds, we proceed with a against b, marking him down for the
first round, a c for the second, a d for the third, a e for the fourth,
and a f for the fifth. The same figures that stand on the horizontal
line may be put in the downward squares, we therefore again put
1 on b a, the first square of the second line, 2 on c a, the first
square of the third line, 3 on d a, 4 on e a, and 5 on f a. The
reason for this is obvious. We have fixed that a should play e on
the fourth round, then of course e also has to have 4 underneath a
-:is well as a has a 4 underneath e.

Now we proceed with the second line, beginning with the first
figure. 'Wo must follow the rule of counting continually up to 5,
but the next square being a blank we must count it 2, but place
the number in the last square of the line, this being the rule. We
therefore place 2 on b f, the last square of the second line, and
proceed with 3 underneath b c, 4 underneath b d, and 5 underneath
b e. Now as in the case of a, so also with b ; we place the figures
3, 4, 5, 2 downwar<l3 on the second line, that is, all underneath b.
Now wo proceed with c. The last number being 3 for the blank,
we must put a 4 on the sixth square underneath c f, and return to
the fourth square with 5, and underneath c c we must again put 1.
We again place 5, 1, 4 downward, uiulerneath the third squares
d c, e c, f c. On d, the blank stands for 1 at the end, and in the
lifth squares comes 2. Putting 2, 1 downwards, we have only one
M'luare to 611 up on e with the number 3, placing the same number
in the only vacant square, f e.

By drawing a diagram for thoniselvcs, our readers will find that
it takes less time to do it than it does to explain. Thus in a few

minutes by this eimplo process a large number of players can be
paired together beforehand with accuracy for all the roands.
There merely remains then the date for each round to be given
underneath, then a jilaycr can see at a glance whom he has to play
on every plnving day.

This is indeed a very useful method, which, aithongh worked ont
by rule of thumb, must, ne\-erthele3s, be capable of complex mathe-
matical explanation, which, we confess, we do not see. but which
" is a matter of detail," as Mr. Proctor would remark.

SOLUTION.'^.

PK0EI,f;M No. 75, BY C. Pl.ANCK, p. 108.

1. Kt to K5 K tks KKt, or 1 K takes QKt

2. Kt to Q7 (eh) K to Q5, or (a) 2. Q to E3 (ch) K to Q5, or (/ -

3. Q to Q2 mate I 3. Kt to B3 mate
(a) If 2. K to Q3. 3. Q to R6 mate.

(6) If 2. K to Kt3. 3. Q to K3 mate.

Problem No. 76 can be solved by 1. I! to KB sq, or 1. B takes P

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS,
*,* Please address Chess Editor,

A. J. Marritt.— Problem No. 77, if 1. B to Kt4, K takes Kt.
2. Q to Kt5, K takes Q ?

J. B. G.- — There is no recognised opening beginning mth 1. P to
R4. We do not think much of it.

J. Hughes.— Problem No 75, if 1. Kt to K7, K takes Kt. 2. Q to
K3 (ch), K to Q3, there is no mate. No. 76, if 1. Q takes P, KKt
takes Kt, and mate is impossible.

Problems received with thanks from Herbert Jacobs, J. Hughes,
and G. W. Mitchell.

Leonard B. Page. — Solution incorrect.

Correct solutions received. — Problem No. 74, John Lonsdale.
No. 76, J. S. Maskery, Berrow, M. T. H. No. 77, R. J. P., J. Hughes,
Darby and John, T. Adamson, T. T. Dorrington, John, H. M.
Prideaux, D. Duggan, Roland Mott, G. W. Mitchell, John Watson.
Clarence, W. Stettin, Berrow, M. T. Hooton.

In the press, " Chess Life Pictures," containing biographical
sketches of great masters. By G. A. MacDonnell, B.A., with illus-
trations by Wallis Mackay. Kelly & Co., Great Queen Street.

Contents op No. 68.

PAGB.

Science and Art Gossip 109

How to Use oui- Eves. (/««».) By

John Browning.'F.H.A.S Ill

A Naturalist's Year. VII. Willow

Catkins. Bv Grant Allen 113

A New Telephone. (/;/«».) 113

Pleasant Hours with the Microscope.
Bv Henrv J. Slack, F.G.S.,

F:H.M.S. ■. 114

" Our Bodies." VI. The Trunk and
Limbs. {Illiis.) By Dr. Andrew
WUson, F.E.8.E 115

PAGE-

Sun Views of the Earth. llUut.)

Bv E. A. Proctor 117

Satiim's Kings 118

Corpulence 118

Waste of the World's Forests 119

Evolution of Life 119

Corresp .ndence : Springs and
Streams— Telescop-^8 and Micro-
scopes— A Theorvof Atmospheres

—Weather Forecasts, 4c 121

Our Whist Column 123

Our Chess Column 124

The Star Maps for November and December, 1892, price 2d. each, postage ^d.
eitra, are now read}-.

Volume II., comprising the numbers published from June to December 1882,
price 88. 6d

The Title Page and Index to Volume II. now ready, price 2d., post-free S^d.

Binding Cases for Volume II., price 23. each. Subscribers' numbers bound
(including Title, Index, and Case) for Ss. each.

The Back Numbers of Knowledge, with the eieeption of Nos. 1 to 13,
31, 32, and 53, are in print, and can be obtained from all booksellers ana
newsagents, or direct from the PubUshers. Should any difficulty arise in obtainiBg
the paper, an application to the Publishers is respectfully requested.

Just Published, Part XVI. (Feb. 1883). Price lOd.; postage 3d. extra.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.

The terms of Annual Subscriptien to the weekly numbers of Ekowlxdsi ire M
follows :— B. d.

To anr address in the United Kingdom 16 10

To the Continent, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa &. Canada 13 0

To the United States of America... 53.26. or 13 0

To the Eaat Indies, China, &c. (ti<f Brindiai) 15 2

All subscriptions are payable in adrance.
P. O. Orders and cheques should be made pavable to the Poblishera, MsssBt.
Wr«AK & Sons, London, at the High Holborn District Post-office.

Agent for America — C. 8. Carter, American Literary Bureau, Tribune BoUdiagt,
Now York, to whom subaeriptions can be forwarded.

OFFICE; 74-76, GREAT QUEEN STKEBT liONDON W.C.

March 9, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

141

ry

' MAG^^'ZiNE OF SCIENCE "^

PlALMLr^ORDED -EX/.CTLy DESCRIBED

LONDON: FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1883.

OONTKNTB OF No. 71.

Science and Art Gosaip Iril

A Naturalist's Y«ar. Snowdrop

and Snoirflskc. Br Grant Allen 143
■" Oar Bodies ■ VII. The Processes

or Fuoctions of the Bodr. By

Dr. Andrew WUson. F.U..S.E. ... Ul
Discoreries at Tel.el-Ms9khQta.

Bt Amelia B.Edwards 115

Learning Lan^oges. By Richard

A. Proctor 116

The Roval Aquarium Electric

Exhibition 146

PIGB.

The Creat Comet of 188'2. II.
(i7/ii.,) By Prof. C. A. Youns.. 11?
i How to Use our Eves. (/««».) Bt

' .John Brownine/F.R.A.S ".119

Butterflies in Winter 130

Our Poradoi Comer : FUt Earth v.

Globe 151

Correspondence : On the Formation
of Comets' Tails— Purifving Gas
—The Weather Forecasts, Ac. ... 1.52

j Our Whist Column i.i.t

1 Our Chess Column 15k

^r If lire anli 9rt (gossip.

It seems likely that the lectures to be given by Mr.
Proctor, at the St James's Hall, will pave the way to the
introduction of an annual series of Knowledge Lectuke.s,
to be given by contributors to these pages, and others who
are interested in the extension of knowledge.

Several country correspondents write to ask whether
full reports of the lectures oii astronomy in St. James's
Hall will be given in these pages. We cannot do this. A
popular lecture on astronomy (unless it forms part of a
course of systematic instruction) is itself an epitome, and
cannot, therefore, be effectively or usefully epitomised. I
have seen reports of my lectures in almost every journal in
America and Australasia (not counting, of course, purely
local papers at places which I have not visited). I have
never jet seen one report, claiming to be more than the
merest abstract, which 1 should have cared to endorse as
calculated to be a correct idea of the lecture.

It is likely, however, that the lectures, or some of them,
will hereafter be delivered, with such changes as the pro-
gress of discovery may render necessary, in many of the
towns and cities from which communications have reached

I MAY make a slight correction of the very pleasantly-
written biographical sketch accompanying my cartoon in
last week's Vanity Fair. I wrote my first book — in fact
my first three — be/ore, not after, the loss of my property in
the Overend and Gurney smash. This occurred in May,
1866, and my first book was published in 1865. It was
not my book on the " Geometry of Cycloids" (which was
written in time abstracted, somewhat uncomfortably, from
more profitable labour, when I was in full swing of work),
but " Saturn and its System," written between March,
1864, and May, 1S6.5. But the moral was the same.
Published in 1865, Saturn only reached a second edition
last year. Books which have cost me a hundredth part of
the work have reached their second thousand in a week.

Miss A. B. Edwards calls attention elsewhere to a most
interesting discovery which has rewarded the very first
efforts of the Egyptian E.xploration Committee. Even the
numerous correspondents who have been careful to assert
their utter indiHerencc to the doings of the Israelites in
Egypt (as a religious matter), should recognise the interest
which every thinking mind should take in one of the most
ancient fragments of historical literature. The intercourse
between the ancient Israelites and the Egyptians throws
light on some of the most curious questions relating to the
origin of both the Jewish and Christian religions. In a
few da_\s, for instance, the Jewish world and the Christian
world (in the West at least) will be observing what is the
festival of Easter to the latter, to the former the Passover
of the Lord.

If the ancient Egyptian religion had surWved to this
day, another portion of the human race would at the same
time have been engaged in observing the Sun God's Pass-
over, the festival associated with the ascending passage of
the sun across the celestial equator. This is now only an
astronomical observance, as is the descending passage which
the Jewish world celebrates (though its origin is not
mentioned in their religious books) in the Feast of Taber-
nacles. The region where the Israelites were held in
bondage by the Egyptians is, probably, of all places, that
which will best reward the labour of e.xploration. The
first fruits of such exploration — the identification of Pithom-
Succoth — is one of the most important discoveries (of
its kind) of our time.

We would, however, especially note how Miss Edwards
has hastened to communicate this result to the world,
though the discovery does not agree with the theory she
has so ably advocated in those columns. This is the true
scientific spirit. The service she has rendered to science in
thus setting us all a worthy example, is even greater than
that which any scientific research can render in itself. Be
it noted, however, that the facts Miss Edwards has brought
together in these columns are not a whit less valuable
that one of the theories she based on them has failed.

Many correspondents write to rebuke me for cha-
racterising as " bosh " the prediction of a tremendous
storm on March 11. Some really believe that the pre-
diction is based on real evidence. Others say, that as I
cannot be sure there may not be a very severe storm on
that day, I am exposing science to the risk of seeming to
have made a great mistake. On this last point I am
perfectly indifferent. If there should chance to be a
most tremendous storm, as widespread and destructive
as the prediction threatened, on Sunday, March 11,
and thousands and millions should think science had
merely blundered in rejecting the prediction as valueless,
so much the worse for the thousands or millions. Science
cannot predict storms on a particular day several weeks
ahead, but science knows that those who make such
predictions are either great knaves or vi^ry ignorant,
either fools or charlatans. (There is nothing, however,
to prevent their being both knaves and fools, if that third
course will please them.) If I cared to ijuh.ss, I should
say that most probably there will be very roii^li weather —
as usual — somewhere in our northern seis on March 1 1th,
and that in whatever degree the storms nny fall short of
the threatened far extending hurricanes, the prophets will
be satisfied, and proudly proclaim. We told you so!

The Squirrel Problem (p. 91) troubles
answer is, of course, that the man lina

The true
round the

1 (.2

♦ KNOWLEDGE

[Marcu 9, 1883.

sciuirnO, no matter wliat antics tlie creature may have
played, without leaving the post round which the man has
moved. The man would none the less have gone round
the squirrel if he (tlie man) h.^d kopt his face always in one
direction — say due east— during his circuit. The puzzle is
only a verbal one. There is a colloquial sense in which
the man may be said not to have gone all round the
squirrel, so as to see the squirrel from all sides ; he has
gone all round it, but the conduct of the squirrel has
deprived liim of tlie satisfaction of having more than a front
view of it.

Lord Walsinoham is moved because the proposed bill
against pigeon shooting threatens to put an end to many
of our old English sports — since vertebrate animals kept
in captivity, whether they be wild or domestic, are included.
vSo that the fine old sport of stag-hunting, the coursing of
trapped hares, and even the cheerful amusement of rat-
killing, may expose those who take part in them to punish-
ment. Bull-baiting, alas ! has long since passed away from
us, so that the pretty breed of dogs employed in that sport
have now only a fancy value ; cock-fighting is illegal, though
it is still practised ; and that noble old sport, prize-fighting,
has, to all intents and purposes, come to an end. But shall
sentimental legislation destroy the grand old sports which
still remain to us • shall our braves cease to slaughter the
fear-inspiring pigeon ; shall they no longer learn pluck and
dogged endurance by watching gallant coursing matches
in pursuit of the ferocious hare ? shall the buck (so fierce
that he has to be carted for safety) be no longer pursued 1
and finally, shall the terrier no longer face the terrible rat 1
Perish the thought that these brave amusements of our
great nation should be brought to an end by sentimental
legislation !

At a recent meeting of the Academie des Sciences, the
secretary reported that M. Mauser had succeeded in trans-
mitting a message through a hundred telephone wires to
as many destinations at once.

Feom statistics recently published on the production of
Bessemer steel, it appears that Great Britain has, at
present, twenty-three works, with a productive capacity of
1,460,000 tons per annum ; Belgium has four works, with
a productive capacity of 380,000 tons ; Austria, fourteen
works, 632,000 tons; Germany, twenty -three works,
1,300,000 tons ; Russia, five works, 100,000 tons ; Sweden,
80,000 tons; the United States, 1,500,000 tons.

TuE report of the Crystal Palace District Gas Company
shows that the coal carbonised during the past half-year
was 29,476 tons. The gas made was 294,757,000 cubic
feet; quantity not accounted for 21,074,700 cubic feet, or
no less than one-fourteenth of the whole made.

We read that the Swan United Electric Light Company
has sold to the Russian Government, for £100,000 in cash,
the exclusive right to use the company's inventions
throughout the Empire, and also to sell lamps. This com-
pany is apparently doing a very good business in a quiet
way. Stockbrokers also apjiear to be of this opinion, as
the shares of the company remain steady in price, while
those of other companies (except the Hammond) show a
very decided decline.

Heu Majesty's troopship Malabar is to be lighted
throughout by Edison lamps. There are to be 104 of
16-candle power, and 269 of 8-candle power.

A coNTE.Mi'ORAJtT says that up to the 20th December
last 29,192 Edison lamps were in use in America, and
that up to the commencement of February 19,536 lamps
were in use in Europe.

The Western Union Telegraph Company (of America)
is about to establish an extensiv>, derground system.
The work is to commence in New York, where it is
intended to lay a tube large enough to hold two hundred
wires. In England the tubes or pipes can rarely contain
more than thirty wires.

TuE chairman of the United Telephone Company states
that on the 28th ult. there were 2,541 subscribers to the
London Exchange.

There is every prospect that the Engineering and
Metal Trades Exhibition, which, as we have previously
announced, is to be opened at the Agricultural Hall on
July 5, will be a great success. It is intended mainly
as a business undertaking ; but the scope is so wide,
and the confidence reposed in the manager, Mr. Samson
Barnett, Jun., is so great, that there cannot fail to be a
great deal that will be interesting to alL We believe
the available space is being rapidly occupied.

It has been lately calculated that this frostless, wet
winter will cost the country at large full ten millions
sterling. The agricultural returns tell a deplorable tale for
the farmer of reduced wheat areas and diminished flocks
and herds. Looking back the other day to twenty years'
record of the increasing dependence of this country on
foreign sources for its food-supply, we were much struck
by the subjoined facts. In 1860, when the population
was 28,778,411, the imports of cattle were valued at
£2,117,860; and those of corn, grain, and flour at
£31,676,353. In 1879, when the population had advanced
to 34,155,126, the value of the imported live stock had
risen to £7,075,386 per annum, and that of corn, grain,
and flour to £61,261,437. The value per head of popula-
tion grew during this period from £1. 9s. Id. to £2. l9s. 3d.
—P. R.

Etna. — A correspondent of the Times writes from
Naples, Feb. 23 : " Etna is again in a state of eruption,
though apparently not of a violent character. Professor
Silvestri, who is the guardian of that volcano, as Pro-
fessor Palmieri is of Vesuvius, writes from Catania after
the following manner : ' The explosions which from the
bottom of the crater succeed one another incessantly at
intervals of four or five minutes, besides projecting hurri-
canes of steam, laden with the finest ashes and minute
sand, send out also scorire and large fragments of incan-
descent lava, which constitute a decided eruption in the
central crater. For this reason the summit of the mountain
is seen at a very great distance all illuminated by a blazing
light. The whole of the matter ejected, which is diffused
on the outside, is seen to be formed of fragmentary lava,
moUo elaborali, and " profoundly " attacked by the action
of acid vapours ; the very fine ashes are intermixed with
abundant and glittering microlitic crystals of calcareous
sulphate. On Feb. 7 the seismograph of the Observatory
Pennisi, in Acireale, registered a slight perpendicular
movement, and on Feb. 1 1 the instruments at Catania
revealed from 9 p.m. to 5.30 a.m. an extraordinary micro-
seismic storm, which attained its maximum later at 3 p.m.
The eruption of mud at Paterno has ceased, not presenting
more than a weak residuum of action, as happens in its
normal state.' "

Maulu 9, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

143

A NATURALIST'S YEAR.

By Grakt Allen.
VIII.— SNOWDROP AND SNOWFLAKE.

1"^HE little seaward combe where I am wandering tliis
morning on a botajiiziug expedition is the only spot
in England where the spring snowfluke grows truly wild of
its own accord in the open meadows. There are other
places, no doubt, where it has spread a little as a straggler
from modern borders, or as a survivor from old cottage
gardens, and where it lingers on for a few years in a pre-
carious fashion ; but, in this sheltered nook of the Dorset
downs where I have come to search for it to-day, it has
sprung up afresh, season after season, for many years
together ; and as it grows in company with several other
rare southern species of half-naturalised English flowers,
there can be little doubt that, however it originally got here,
it finds the climate quite mild enough to suit its tender
constitution. It may have escaped from cultivation ages
since, perhaps from the grounds of the old monastery in the
glen beneath ; or it may have been cut off in this its
furthest outlying habitat far earlier stUl, -when the waters
of the sea first slowly wore their way through the bed of
the English Channel, leaving this little colony isolated all
alone from the rest of its kind elsewhere ; but at any
rate here it is, and as one more acquisition to the scanty
British flora, we may welcome it heartily without inquir-
ing too critically into its doubtful antecedents. You will
not And it described as British in any of the text-books,
however ; for it is not held to have acquired letters of
naturalisation as yet ; the only snowflake acknowledged as
a true denizen of England by the flora-writers is the
summer species, which flowers later in the season, with a
cluster of four or live white blossoms at the top of each
slender green stem, instead of a single bell only, as in this
earlier species. That summer snowflake grows more abun-
dantly in many parts of south-eastern England, and so has
been fairly adopted into all our handbooks ; but it is not so
convenient a flower for comparison with the snowdrop as
its spring sister, both because it does not so nearly ap-
proach it in character, and because the two do not flower
together at the same time. Though the wild spring snow-
flake is so rare, it is easy to get at garden specimens, both
of it and the snowdrop ; while I know few more instruc-
tive lessons in what is called biological specialisation than
that which can be gained by comparing together these two
closely similar white blossoms.

Both the snowdrop and the snowflake belong to the
family of amaryllids ; that is to say, they are lilies some-
what artificially separated from the remainder of the lily
group, because their corolla-tube has so grown up around
the central portions of the flower as to completely enclose
the fruit, thus producing what is called an inferior ovary.
If such lilies still possess the normal number of six stamens
each, arranged in two whorls of three apiece, they are
known as amaryllids; while, if one whorl has been sup-
pressed, so that there are only three stamens altogether,
they are rather needlessly separated under the name of
irises. Now, the spring snowflake may be accepted as a
very good typical specimen of the simplest amaryllids. It
has three sepals or calyx-pieces, and three petals or corolla-
pieces ; only, as in so many other plants of the great lily
alliance, these two whorls exactly resemble one another in
colour and texture, and cannot be distinguished save by
the fact that three of the pieces overlap the other three at
the base, thus just suggesting the underlying diffierence
between the outer and the inner row. Each such perianth-
piece is a dull white in hue, tinged with faint green near

the tip. The snowflake is a pretty, graceful flower; but it
is a decidedly simple and undeveloped type of primitive
amaryllid.

The snowdrop, on the other hand, exhibits the self-same
type a good deal more advanced and specialised in the
flower, evidently through the agency of higher insect
selection. In all other particulars the two plants resemble
one another very closely. Both have bulbs containing the
store of underground nutriment which enables them to
blossom so early in the season ; both have long narrow-
leaves, those of the snowdrop umch like the foliage of the
crocus, those of tlie snowflake a little more like a small
narcissus ; and both have a tall scape, surmounted by a
little green sheath or spathe, papery in one part and fleshy
in another, enclosing a single drooping flower, and thus
testifying very clearly to their common descent at no very
remote period from a similar ancestor. But the actsal
blossom of the snowdrop shows many marks of higher
development which admirably illustrate Mr. Herbert
Spencer's law that evolution runs from the homogeneous
to the heterogeneous, and from the indefinite to the definite ;
or, in simpler words, from the like to the unlike, and from
the vaguer to the more distinctly marked.

First of all, look at the outer perianth pieces. In the
snowflake all six are almost exactly alike in shape, size,
and colour, being whiteygreen in hue, and pointed in form.
But in the snowdrop, the three outer pieces have been
dillerentiated (to use Mr. Spencer's word) from the threi'
inner ones in all these particulars. They have grown longer,
rounder, and more purely and delicately white. All the
green tinge that they liad in the snowflake has here dis-
appeared, and the sepals of the snowdrop are as pure and
spotless in hue as the snow itself from which they take
their name. Observe, too, the way in which they bend out
and in again, so as to mark themselves off very definitely
from the pieces within. And yet note that, without some
initial difl'erence of position, this greater final difference of
appearance and function could never have been brought
about. The snowflake has three outer pieces just dis-
tinguishable from its three inner ; and on that prime
contrast of position selective action has gradually wrought
all the rest.

Next, look at the three inne. segments in the snowdrop.
Here one sees at once that the originally similar and
pointed pieces have grown smaller and rounder, and have
been notched at the ends instead of being sharpened,
so that they now form a ijuite distinct and unlike inner
whorl. Once more the indefinite greenness at the end
of the petals and sepals in the snowflake has here disap-
peared entirely from the sepals, but it has been intcnsilied
and rendered far more definite in the petals. On their
outer surface, the green pigment assumes a crescent shape,
beautifully diversifying the two whorls, and clearly marking
for the bees the position of the honey-bearing part of the
flower. On the inner surface of the petals, again, the dif-
ference is even more marked ; for here we get a series of
distinct and parallel little green lines, with white inter-
spaces ; and these green lines act as direct honey-guides,
leading the bees straight to the nectar gland at the base of
the petals. There can be no doubt that the cause operating
to produce this change towards greater unlikeness and
definiteness of parts is the selective action of insects. They
have constantly chosen for unconscious fertilisation in
their honey-seeking excursions those flowers in which thoy
could most easily discover the whereabouts of the nectar,
and have thus produced all those features of the snowdrop
in which it differs conspicuously from its snowflake-likc
ancestor.

At the same time, we must not imagine that the existing

144

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Mahch 9, 1883

spring snowflako is the exact primitive form from which
the modern snowdrop is derived. Such survival of parent
and derivative types side })y side, the parent remaining
unchanged whih) the other lias widely varied, seldom or
never occurs in actual nature. There is one particular in
which the snowflako on its part has become more highly
developed than the otherwise more advanced snowdrop,
and that is in the nature of the stamens. The snowdrop
stamens are pointed at the end, and arranged in a little
cone in the centre of the Hower ; and tliey open hy a long
slit down the inner side, after the common fashion of most
amaryllids. The snowflake stamens, on the other hand,
are peculiarly blunt at the top, where they open by two
odd little t<^rminal pores, which give them a very quaint
and truncated appearance. This shows that the snowflake
is not itself the original ancestral type, but has varied on
its side, too, from the primitive ancestor ; and there can be
no doubt that the change depends upon some special
method of insect fertilisation, though a simpler one than
that of the very complex snowdrop. Oddly enough, by a
blunder copied over and over again in many books, it is
usually said that the snowdrop stamen opens by pores
while the snowflake stamen opens by a slit on the inner
surface ; but a single glance at the flowers themselves will
show at once that the opposite is really the case.

"OUR BODIES:"

SHORT PAPERS ON PHYSIOLOGY.
By Dr. Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E., &c.

No. VII.— THE PROCESSES OR FUNCTIONS OF THE BODY.

THERE is an animalcule, averaging in diameter the
one-five-hundredth of an inch, or thereabouts, found
in stagnant pools, and called the Amreha. The name of
the animalcule is derived from the Greek for " change."
In appearance it is a mere speck of living jelly, which is
ever changing its form — ever flowing, so to speak, from
one shape to another. The living matter whereof the
amoeba consists is called protoplasm. This substance
closely resembles white of egg (or albumen) in its chemical
composition. It is the one substance which seems to be
inseparable from life ; or to put it more exactly, life is
nowhere known or heard of except as exhibited by some
form or other of " protoplasm." Whatever may be the
relations of protoplasm to life — a topic I need not discuss
here — this much is assured, that life, as we know it, seems
to require protoplasm or albuminous matter for its exhi-
bition and mere existence. Protoplasm, in this way,
becomes truly the " clay of the potter," woven by the
powers that be into the wondrously varied warp and woof
of living beings.

The Amccba, then, is a protoplasm-speck. It takes in
food particles by any part of its frame, and it appears
capable of digesting them in any part of its body. 'I'here
is no mouth, stomach, heart, breathing organs, or nervous
system. Yet the animalcule lives, and lives as perfectly
in its own simple way as the man. There seems, indeed,
a wide gulf betwixt humanity and the Amceba, but it is a
gulf that is by no means impassable, when we consider
that a community of likeness (in the essential nature of
their living parts) and a sameness of function (in respect
of the actions of life) characterise this lower form of life
and the sphere of human hopes and fears. We shall have
to refer hereafter to the Anicelia as a type of a considerable
number of actions which the physiologist studies in man,
and it will servo a good purpose if we, therefore, bear the

humble denizen of the pool, with its soft protoplasm body,
clearly in mind.

Every living lieing — animal or plant, monad or man —
performs three grent functions in the course of its existence.
The physiology of any animal or plant can be summed up
in the expression, that the whole lousiness of life, so to
speak, consists of three great processes, which include
many minor processes within their limits. There is, firstly,
the function of Nutrition, whereby the animal or plant
nourishes itself, digests food, and repairs its ever-recurring
waste. Then, secondly, succeeds the process of Innervntviu
or Relation. Through the exercise of this latter function,
the living being brings itself into "relation" with the outer
world by means of its nervous system. To the discussion
of the functions of the nervous system, this second depart-
ment of physiology is, therefore, devoted. But hosts of
animals and plants die daily. Continually the units of a
race perish and drop into the grave. Hence a tliircl
function — that of Eeprodurfion — renews the race, just as
" nutrition " renews the indiridiial. New animals and
plants are thus brought into the world to take the place of
their fellows that have succumbed in the battle of life.

It is clear that whilst these three functions represent the
collective type of the animal or plant, there must be many
subdivisions of each action or duty. For example, the
function of nutrition includes every action through which
the individual body maintains its place in the world. Under
this single head what subjects fall to be considered ? The
reply is — firstly, foods ; then digestion — itself a compre-
hensive topic ; then the hlood, into which food is convert* d ;
next circulation, which distributes the blood to all the
tissues of the body ; and then comes excretion, or the getting
rid of waste matters. This latter duty is performed liy
lungs, skin, and kidneys, so that the single word excreti- n
stands for and implies the functions of breathing, of
the skin, and of the kidneys respectively. Of the other
two main functions of the body, the same remarks hold
good. Each function is susceptible of division into a
large number of lesser actions and details. The so-called
" life," then, of a human being may, without any straininrr,
either of physiological language, ideas, or facts, be descri' 'od
rather as a series of " lives," than as one life. And this
latter contention becomes plainer when we reflect that in
our blood, as well as in other fluids of our frames, there
are " cells " or minute living particles, which certainly
possess a power of motion independent of the body of
which they form part, and which also exhibit a vitality
that is not dependent upon the frame, through whose
blood-vessels they perpetually travel.

For our present purpose, however, it must suffice that
we regard the varied processes and actions of the body as
existing in a close unity which lies on the surface of things.
Health and a truly enjoyable life are only possible to us
when this unity is maintained. Derangement of one
function is apt to cause aberration of many functions ; and
we can only live a perfect and healthy life, physically,
when every organ, part, and tissue co-operates with its
neighbours in the maintenance of the whole bodily existence.

Our first consideration must be devoted to the considera-
tion of the function of nutrition. It is only natural that
we should first seek to know how our bodies are nourished.
Why they are nourished we have already seen. Waste and
wear are inseparable from existence. Every act of life
means the wear and tear of the organ which works.
Hence, it is to repair and renew the perennial waste which
the living body undergoes, that nutrition devotes all its
energies.

The means whereby we repair waste are largely summed
up in the words food and digestion. Food is the material

Mabch 9, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE

145

from which we derive the new matter for living upon, and
digestion is one word for many processes whereV)y this
food is converted into a fluid capable of being kdded to
and poured into the blood. Digestion, then, is merely the
link which connects the food and the blood. Through
digestion we convert food or matter that is more or less
unlike ourselves into ourselvea

The apparatus by which this action is efTectcd is called
the difjenlive system. Each collection of organs in a
li%'ing body (the organs being devoted to the performance
of a function) is called a "system." Heart and
blood-vessels form a " system " — that of the cimdation.
Lungs, skin, and kidneys — forming a kind of natural
trio — constitute the system of excretory organs, which
are devoted to getting rid of waste matters. And in
the digestive system, we find a whole scries of organs which
perform, each, an important part in the work of food-
elaboration. Thus, there are the mouth and tedh ; then
come the salivary glands of the mouth. The stomach and
intestine come next, the food passing through these parts.
The liver, " sweetbread " (or pancreas), gantric glands of
the stomach, and the glands of the intestine are all so
many organs which discharge duties connected with the
conversion of food into a fluid capable of being added to
the blood.

But last of all, it is possible to form a generalised idea
of this complex system of digestive organs. We ought to
think of any digestive system as merely a longer or shorter
tube through which food passes, and in which food is sub-
jected to the action of fluids thrown in upon it by certain
glands (liver, sweetbread, itc). Such a simple idea — that
of a tube with " glands " attached to its sides — perfectly
describes the digestive system of any animal

DISCOVERIES AT TEL-EL-MASKHUTA.

By Amelia B. Edwards,

Hun. Secretait/ Ey(^ptian Exploration Fund.

"IT^HEN, in my concluding words on the subject of
y\ Pa-Rameses and Tel-el-Maskhuta,* I expressed a
hope that " pick and spade might ere long be called in to
settle this problem," 1 little thought that the means would
so soon be forthcoming, and the effort so promptly be made.
Five weeks ago, the Egypt Excavation Eund, having no
president and no money, existed only as a committee.
Now, thanks to Sir Erasmus Wilson, who has accepted
the vacant chair and fed the empty exchequer, our
society has been enabled to make its first start in life ;
and, as all know who read the daily papers, opera-
tions have already been begun upon Egyptian soil.
For the rapidity and success with which these opera-
tions have been conducted, the society is indebted to
M. Naville, one of the most eminent of living Egypto-
logists, who has accepted the direction of the excavations.
M. Naville, having left for Egypt upon a very brief notice,
arrived in Cairo on January 19, just in time to see Pro-
fessor Maspero, who was on the point of starting for
Upper Egypt, and who, in point of fact, left the port of
Boolak that same evening. The result of their conference
was that Professor Maspero recommended, and M. Naville
decided upon, the examination of Tel-el-Maskhuta. Whether
M. Naville was, or was not, influenced to this decision by
any kindly interest which he may have taken in my con-
tributions to Knowledge (though they could teach him

• .Sou KXOWI.EDGE, No. G4, January 19th, 1883.

nothing new), I do not pretend to say ; but, to the best of
my belief. Professor Maspero, who especially advocated the
choice of this site, has never s-een a line of those contribu-
tions, and was solely influenced by the desire to settle a
long-disputed question. For my own part, 1 can only say
that the decision took me by surprise, and that I had
supposed the work would Ik; begun elsewhere.

Having secured the services of an experienced engineer
and a gang of eighty labourers, M. Naville attacked the
mound during the first week of the present month, and, on
the 12th inst. , wrote to my co-secretary, Mr. R. Stuart
Pooli', to announce the important discovery by which his
first week's work had been rewarded. This report came to
hand on the liOth inst., and its contents were communi-
cated to the leading papers by Mr. R. S. Poole, in the
following letter : —

" M. Navillo writes from Tell-el-Masckuta to announce that the
excavations undertaken by him on tliat site for the Egypt Explora-
tion Fund have already yielded a result of the first historical and
geographical importance. This site (Tell-el-Mascknta), roughly
midway between Ismailia and Tell-el-Kebir, is proved by an inscrip-
tion dug up by M. Naville to be at once the Pithom and the Succoth
of the Bible. Pithom was the sacred naTiie descriptive of the Temple,
and Succoth (Tuku) the civil appellation. We read of Pithom as
one of the cities built by the Israelites during the oppression
(Ex. i., 2), and Succoth was the first station in the march of the
Exodus (Ex., xii., .37 ; xiii, 20). The discovery not only plates
Pithom-Succoth on the map, but in doing so gives us at last a fixed
point in the route of the Israelites out of Egypt. A full discussion
of the results of this discovery would bo premature, but it may be
remarked that it greatly modifies Dr. Brugsch's attempt to recon-
struct the primitive geography of the Delta, which, like a broken
geographies! puzzle, will now be put together. It must not, however,
be forgotten tliat with the help of his collection of literary docu-
ments tlip luliour is comparatively easy. It is to be hoped that the
work to which M. Navillo has devoted his great knowledge will not
langni.sh for want of funds. Hitherto it has been supported single-
handrd by .Sir Erasmus Wilson. — Your obedient servant,
" Hkui.vali) Stiabt Poole,
" Hon. Secretary Egj'pt Exploration Fund.

" British Museum, Feh. 20."

To this 1 will only add that, since " Pithom " is found,
I am well content to have been mistaken as regards the
site of "Raamses." My inquiry was but a search after
historical truth; and if that inquiry has, however remotely,
opened the way to the work which is now being done, I
hold myself not to have suffered defeat, but to have
achieved success. Far rather, indeed, would I be proved
wrong than right in this matter of " Pithom " versus
"Raamses"; for important as would have been the
identification of "Raamses," the identification of "Pithom-
Succoth " is from every point of view infinitely more
momentous.

HvDROGEN is completely absorbed by palladium sponge
at 100°, and Mr. W. Ilempel has used this as a means
of separating hydrogen from a mixture of gases. In order
to test the applicability of this property to the esti-
mation of hydrogen evolved in sealed tubes, Herr
Tschirikow treated zinc with hydrochloric acid in
a sealed glass tube containing a palladium spiral
The proportions of acid and zinc were such as to produce
a pressure of twenty-five atmospheres if no hydrogen were
absorbed by the palladium. The absorption was found
to be complete. A small portion of the hydrogen had
united with the oxygen of tlie air remaining in the tube.
Nearly the calculated amount of hydrogen was obtained
from the palladium spiral by heating to 350°. The evolu-
tion of the gas was so regular that Tschirikow suggests
the heating of palladium-hydrogen as a means of obtain-
ing chemically pure hydrogen. — The Engineer.

i4G

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Mahch 9, 1883.

LEARNING LANGUAGES.
By Richard A. Proctor.

(Cnnlinued/rnm i>. 100.)

rpHE method applied in my last paper to Latin is, in the

I foUowinc; passage, taken from one of the excellent
works on the Hamiltonian method (now published at a very
moderate rate— see our advertisement columns) applied
to German.

I do not give the Hamiltonian translation this time,
leaving the student to look for it in the little book itself,
" Robinson der Jiingere." What follows is the German
passage, unaltered in arrangement, with my own absolutely
literal translation, placed word for word under the German.
After that, a free translation is given — in which the sense
is carefully rendered, so that of necessity the Englisli is
not quite as an Englishman would write it.

Der Tiegel zersprang nicht, aber er wollte doch
Tfi^ pipkin otUsprang not, hut it would though
auch nicLt iiberglaset werden. — Und warum denn
also not over glazed become. — And where/ore then
nicht? dachte Robinson wieder. Das Feuer, meine
not? thatyht Robinson further. Tlvi Fire, think
ich, ware doch wol stark genug gewesen ; was

/, V30%dd though- well strong enoitgh have been ; what
mag denn nun doch fehlen ? Nachdem er lange
may then now yet fail 1 After-that he long

dariiber nachgedacht hatte, glaubte er endlich den
ther^eover (owards-thoitghf had, believed he lastly the
rechten Fleck zu treffen. Er hatte, niimlich, den

right FJavj to hit. He had, namely, the

Versuch in einem Feuer gemacht, welches in keinem

Trial in a Fire made, which in no

Ofen eingeschlossen war, sondern in freier Luft brannte.
Oven inclosed was, but in free Air burned.

Aus diesem ver-flog die Hitze viel zu schnell,
Oiit-of this off-fletv the Heat much too quickly,
und -breitete sich zu sehr nach alien Seiten
and -spread self too much to all Sides

aus- als dass der Thon dadurch hUtte

out- as that the Clay that-through [could] have
kiinnen bis zum Verglasen gliihend werden. Seinem
he.en-able up to-the Glazing glowing to-become. To his
Grundsatze, " nichts unvoUendet zu lassen," getreu,

principle, " naught uncompleted to leave," true,
beschloss er also, eiuen ordentlichen Schmelzofen

resolved he so, one [a] regular Melting Oven

anzulegen. Aber zu dieser Arbeit musste er eine

to-lay-out. But to this labour must he one

bequemere Witterung abwarten. Es regnete, niimlich,

more-convenient Weather avmit. It rained, namely,

noch immer fort, und erst nach zwei Monaten -fing der

yet ever forth, and frst after two Months -took the
Himmel endlich wieder an- sich auszuklaren. Nun,

Heaven lastly again oiv- self to-clear-up. Now,

dachte Robinson, werde der Winter angehen-; und siehe !
thought Jiohinson, loill the Winter on-go ; and see I
der Winter war schon voriiber. Kaum trauete er
the Winter was already over.' Scarcely trusted he
seinen eigenen Augen, da er sah dass die allbelebende
his oum Eyes, when he saw that the all-enlivening

Friihlingskraft schon wieder neues Gras, neue Blumen,
Spring' s-poirer already again -iiew Grass, new Flowers,

und neue Kriiuter hervortrieb ; und doch war es wirklich
and nevj Herbs, forth-drove ; and yet was it really
so. Die Sache war ihm unbegreiflich, und gleichwol
so. The Thing %cas to-him ungraspable, and equally^eell
sah er sie vor Augen. " Das soil mir, dachte
savj he it before [the] Eyes. " That shall to-me, ilioiight
er bei sich-selbst, eine Lehre sein, dass ich kiinftig nicht
he by himself a lesson be, that I in-future not

gleich Etwas liiugne, was ich nicht begriefen kann !"
straight something deny, vMch I not hegrip can /"

Free Translation.

The pipkin did not burst, but it did not become glazed.
And why not 1 thought Robinson next. The fire, I think,
must have been hot enough — what can be still wanting?
After he had long reflected about this, he Ijelieved he had
found what was amiss. It was that he had made the trial
in a fire which was not enclosed in any oven, but burned
in the open air. The heat escaped from this much too
quickly, and was dispersed all round too freely to be able
to heat the clay to the glazing point. True to his principle
that nothing should be left untried, he resolved to build a
regular oven. But for this work he was obliged to await
better weather, for it rained continually, and only after
two months did the sky begin to clear. Now, thought
Robinson, we shall have winter ; but, lo ! winter was
already over ! He could scarcely trust his own eyes, when
he saw that the all-vivifying power of spring already
brought forth new grass, new flowers, and new herbs ; yet
so it was. He found the thing inconceivable ; yet there it
was before his eyes. " This shall be a lesson to me," he
thought to himself, " not forthwith to deny what I cannot
understand."

THE ROYAL AQUARIUM ELECTRIC
EXHIBITION.

THAT the management of the Westminster Aquarium
should undertake the formation of an electric exhibi-
tion so soon after the in-one-sense successful essay on the
part of the Crystal Palace Company, was, on its first
announcement, regarded as a very risky experiment. The
repetition of a success rarely satisfies anybody, and perhaps
least of all those most directly concerned. The truth of
this has been fully exemplified at Sydenham. Nevertheless,
considering the eminently central position occupied by the
Aquarium, and the fact that the building is not compelled to
close at so early an hour as the Crystal Palace, it gradually
began to be hoped, almost expected, that the venture at
Westminster would contradict the verdict on its com-
petitor. So much was this the case that nearly two hundred
intending exhibitors sent in their names. The date for
opening was originally fixed for the first of last November,
but it soon became clear that a postponement would be
necessary. The opening was accordingly put off from time
to time, and it was only on Saturday last that the Exhibi-
tion was declared to be ready for public inspection. With
very great regret, however, we have to record that the old
lesson is again forced upon us, and that great as was the
prospect of a first-rate display, the realisation falls short of
the least sanguine anticipations. What is at present to be
seen is, generally speaking, good ; it only lacks diversity
and quantity. There is little doubt but that many more
exhibitors will put in an appearance now that the opening
has become a fait accompli, although it is probable that
several intended exhibits have already gone the way of all
things, few having survived tlie trying period which has

Maech 9, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

147

elapw-d since the Stock Excliange excitement of last
snuiiiier.

The electric light is naturally the chief attraction of the
exhibition, but this section can scarcely be regarded as
fully representative. Messrs. Siemens have twenty-six of
their arc lamps, the dynamo being dri\i'n l)y a Robey engine.
The work is performed but indill'ereutly, and as the installa-
tion constitutes part of the ordinary lighting arrangements
of the building, it can scarcely be looked upon as forming
part of the Exhibition. The only other arc lamps of which
there is any immediate prospect of being lighted are the
well known Pilsen and the Mathiesen, the dynamos for
which are to be driven by Hodson's Rotary engines. These
engines may be very well in their way, but they are not,
in our opinion, calculated to bring much credit to the e.x-
hibits. Their speed is far too high, and they are too liable
to vary to command our approbation. The Joel lamp
tB the only .semi-incandescent light at present vL-^ible,
although, in the absence of a catalogue, it is impossible
to predict all that will yet be forthcoming. It is
to incandescent lamps that the energies of the majority of
the exhibitors appears to be directed, although we can see
or hear nothing of the Maxim lamp, which .'ihone to such
advantage in the north nave of the Crystal Palace last
winter. Nor is there any prospect of a display of the
Lane-Fox, British, or Fitzgerald lamps. The field is appa-
rently in the entire command of the Edison and Swan
lamps, and their exhibitors evidently intend doing their
best to secure an undivided verdict How far they
will succeed, if such be their object, it is difficult to say,
4tlkd it is equally difficiilt to conceive anything more pretty
«r more chaste than many of the conceptions already, or
non to be carried out.

In a shfcd, at what may be called the north-east corner
of the building, is a 2o-horse-power engine, by Davey
Paxman, it Co. This is to drive two Edison's dynamos
and a Ferranti dynamo. The former are to supply the
current necessary for 240 Edison lamps ; and the latter,
we are told, for 500 Swan lamps. Owing to a difficulty in
the matter of belting, one Edison and the Ferranti are at
present running alternately. The Edison requires a speed
of 1,200 or 1,300 revolutions per minute, while the Fer-
ranti requires 2,000 revolutions to supply the necessary
current That this latter speed is highly prejudicial to the
mechanical portion of the machine is rendered apparent by
tile fact that the present machine is the third tried, the two
others having been so much injured as to necessitate their
removal. Of course, we must not lose sight of the fact that
the machine is a very small one (as will be seen so soon as
we can find space to describe it), and, therefore, a high
speed does not mean nearly so much as it would in a
niaL-hine of any other type used to supply the same
number of lamps. The Swan lamps supplied by the
Ferranti are used for illuminating the Bath room, fzc,
but little is at present to be said of the performance. The
Edison lamps, of which there are at present about a
hundred in use, are illuminating a suite of apart-
ments in the Western Gallery. Doubtless, the
most attractive portion of this display is the " Grotto,"
which is exceedingly pretty, and shows to what a
state of perfection the incandescent lamp can attain
m response to the artistic requirements of the age.
Close to this exhibit is a display by Messrs. Edmundson it
Co., agents for the Swan Company. They have already
163 Uuips arranged in a multiplicity of most cunning de-
vices. Part of the exhibit takes the form of an elegantly-
appointed drawing-room, to the decorvation of which the
Swan lamp lends itself very considerably. Pendant from
the centre of the ceiling is a bright brass chandelier sup-

porting fifteen lamps, each of which is encased in a rose-
tinted ghiss liood. The cllect of the light shining through
these on to the brass work is very striking. Outside the
room is another brass chandelier, very beautiful in design,
which is intended to carry forty lamps. When every-
thing is complete, this exhibit will be interesting to the
last degree. There are to be in all 250 lamps. A Siemens'
dynamo is in use, and is driven by a 2,")-h.p. engine of Messrs.
Davey Paxman, it Co.'s, fitted up in a temporary shed
attached to the north-west corner of the building. The
difficulties surmounted by the representative of these tirst-
class engineers may be almost described as Ilerculean,
and great credit is due to him for having so satisfactorily
and so fully achieved his task. In the same shed he has
fitted another engine — one of the firm's thirty-horse-power
single cylinder engines, havinc; two separate boilers to
supply the requisite steam. The two engines drive on
the same shaft, which, when the electricians are ready,
will supply the motive-power for working the dynamos
required for Messrs. Edmundson it Co.'s Swan Lamp
exhibit and a number of Jablochkofl' lamps. Messrs.
Patterson it Cooper will also exhibit the recently-intro-
duced Elphinstone and Vincent Dynamo, and another
patented by Messrs. Levey it Lumley.

There are good displays of pneumatic and electric bells,
the liest being that of the Signal Engineering Company.
The only other feature we can now refer to is the
" Secondary Generator," patented by Messrs. Gaulard it
Gibbs. In this apparatus it is intended to convert a
current of a given pressure, or electro-motive force, into
other currents of any desired electro-motive force. This is
accomplished on the principle of the Ruhmkorff coil. The
original currents traverse a primary coil, and, in so doing,
induce currents in a numVier of enveloping coils. If these
latter coils are joined in " series," a high-tension current is
derived, while joining them in parallel circuit causes a low-
tension current to be developed. It is claimed that this
apparatus will revolutionise and render practical in every
sense of the word the application of electricity to domestic
and commercial purposes. Time will prove how far the
anticipations of the inventors will be realised, but wo will
refer more fully to the exhibit in our next notice.

It is to be earnestly hoped that intending exhibitors will
now hamper the directors as little as possible, and do their
best to make the exhibition a success.

THE GREAT COMET OF 1882.— II.*

By Professor C. A. Young.

TTTIIEX the writer first saw the comet, on September
VV 19, it was impossible, with the great twenty three-
inch equatorial, to make out much except the nucleus
itself. The comet was so near the sun that the object-
glass could not be screened from the direct sunshine, which
filled the whole field with glaring light The finder of the
instrument is itself, however, a powerful telescope of five
inches aperture, and this was perfectly screened by the
great tube, so that it furnished an admirable view of the
beautiful object. To the naked eye the comet looked like
some white-winp'ed bird in swift flight towards the sun.
The telescope showed the wings to be long, curved
streams flowing backward from each side of the head —
backward, that is, with reference to the sun ; but they were,
of course, really in advance of the comet, which at this time
was receding from the sun. The head of the comet had for
its centre a small round and brilliant nucleus, not well

• From the Popular Science Monthly.

148

• KNOVs^LEDGE ♦

[March 9, 1883.

defined, but rather a nebulous star, some 4" in diameter ;
in front of this at a distance of perhaps HO" was an
" envelope," and there was a second ow at a distance of 2' or
.'V. They were connected by a pair of eccentric circular arcs,
and these arcs, coalcscinf,' with the outer envelope and pro-
longed, formed the skeleton of the "wings." Back of the
nucleus, traces of the usual dark stripe could be detected.
Fig. 2 presents the main features in outline, and every one

Fig. 2.— Head of Comet bcptfuiLiur iu-

Lu telescope.

will notice its close resemblance to Brodie's picture of
Coggia's comet as seen on July 13, 1874. (The picture
alluded to forms the frontispiece of Chambers's " Descrip-
tive Astronomy," third edition.)

On the next day the comet was seen at Princeton for a
few moments through clouds, just long enough to get im-
perfect observations for position, but nothing more. It was
noticed, however, that the eccentric arcs had disappeared.
On October 2 the comet was observed for more than an
hour before daybreak with the great telescope. The most
notable features were a single bright cap or envelope at a
distance of about half a minute from the nucleus, and the
nucleus itself, which, instead of being round, was consi-
derably elongated. There were, however, no jets, or star-
fish-like projections, such as the comet of 1881 presented
so often. There was not much of structural detail to be
made out in the head of the comet, but the dark stripe
behind the nucleus was very conspicuous. This dark stripe,
by-the-way, is a very remarkable phenomenon, not yet
explained, so far as we know, though observed in most
large comets. The common impression is, that it is merely
a space behind the nucleus, screened as it were by the
nucleus itself, from the rush of luminous matter which is
being driven backward by the sun's repulsion. But if
this be so, then, as Mr. Proctor has pointed out in a
recent article, there is no reason why it should appear so
well defined and so dark. The cross-section of the tail, a
little way behind the nucleus, was, in the present case at
least, 100,000 miles in diameter : now, merely taking
away the luminous matter from a tunnel 6,000 or 8,000
miles in diameter along the axis of the tail, could make but
little difference with the amount of light received by the
eye at a distance. If there were no tunnel, we should get
from the central line of the tail the brightness corre-
sponding to a thickness of 100,000 miles of luminous
matter. Boring the tunnel would only reduce it to
some 90,000 miles, and the ditterence would be hardly
perceptible.

It seems more likely, if the writer may venture the sug-
gestion, that the stripe is a stream or beam of non-luminous,
cooler-vapour or gas, which is nearly opaque to the radia-
tion emitted by the same kind of gas when luminous,
and therefore cuts ofl" all the light from whatever portions
of the comet's luminous drapery is behind it ; in the
same way that cool sodium-vapour, for instance, is rela-

tively opaque to the light of a sodium-flame. If this is

correct, the dark stripe ought not to Vie black, liut just
about half as bright as the neighbouring nebulosity ;
which corresponds to the actual fact. If one could catch
a star passing behind the stripe, it would perhaps be easy
to settle the question. At any rate, if the star shone more
brightly when in the stripe, we might be sure that the
hypothesis is wrong. The star should be dimmed a little,
if anything, though, of course, star-light would not be so
much affected as the light from cometary matter. Mr.
Proctor has suggested a different hypothesis,* which seems
to the writer rather less probable, but there is no time to
discuss it here.

On October 4th the nucleus had become much more
elongated, so as to be shaped something like an Indian
club. The envelope, which was conspicuous on the 2nd,
had disappeared, or degenerated into an indefinite nebu-
losity, and the dark stripe had become much fainter.

Continued bad weather prevented observation until the
10th, and on this date the nine-and-a-half-inch telescope of
the School of Science Observatory was used. A great
change had taken place. The nucleus had become an irre-
gular, spindle-shaped streak some 40" long, made up of
six or eight star-like knots of luminosity connected and
veiled by shining haze. One of these knots, about a third
of the way from the sunward extremity, was considerably
larger and brighter than any of the others, and should,
perhaps, be considered as the true nucleus. The next one
beyond it (reckoning from the direction of the sun) was
second in size, and separated by an interval of 2'' or 3' ,
the space being filled, however, with nebulosity. The dark
stripe was still visible, but directed, not along the prolon-
gation of the nuclear streak, but inclined at an angle of 8°
or 10°, while a bright jet from the nucleus, two or three
minutes in length, touched one side of the dark stripe, and
kept nearly in the axis of the tail.

3.— Head of Comet, Oct. 10, 18S2.

Fig. 3 is an attempt to illustrate the appearance and

* 1 believe Prof. Young's theory to be nearer the truth than the
one I suggested. But some observations of my own lead me to
doubt whether the mere shadow of the nucleus would not suffice to
exjilaiii the dark streak (despite my own objections, mentioned
above by Prof. Young, to this theory). I over-estimated the dark-
ness of the streak, and under-estimated the effect of contrast ou
ordinary eyesight. As to this last ]ioint. I made a little observation
a few evenings since which may be worth recording. Walking with
Jlrs. Proctor on the Brighton Parade late in the evening, when there
was a good deal of mist in the air, my attention was called by her
(almost at the instant that I had noted the phenomenon myself) to
what looked like a long, nearly black streak extending vertically
upwards above the nearest street-lamp. Of course, this dark streak
was the shadow of the knob en the top of the lamp-case ; but there
was plenty of illuminated air both beyond the shadowed region
and between that region and ourselves. The loss of light from the
long conical region of air in the shadow of the lamp-knob was, in
fact, much more obvious than we should have expected it to be.
The darkness could only be recognised, we found, when one of the
side bars of the lamp-frame hid the flame of the lamp from view.

March 9, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE •

149

relation of things by a mere outline sketch, which, of
course, cannot be considered in any sense a repregenlation,
since it fails entirely to give an idea of the shading and
gradation of light The head of the comet presented no
detinite outline whatever, and the nucleus very little. The
knots were mere condensations of brightness in the midst
of diffuse light. When the dawn came on, the fainter
parts successively disappeared, so that at a certain stage
tlie nucleus seemed to be divided into two portions. A
small telescope would probably show things in the same
way even before dawn, and this is undoubtedly the origin
of the reports that the comet had split in two.

This great and unprecedented elongation of the nucleus
is a most remarkable phenomenon. If it had occurred at
or near the time of perihelion passage, it might have been
naturally attributed to the divellent action of the sun's
attraction ; but it is a little ditlicult to see why the thing
should have pulled out and come to pieces in such a way
after getting safely by the crisis. It is worth noting that
this peculiarity of the comet adds greatly to the difficulty
of making accurate observations of its position : one does
not know just upon what point to direct his instrument

Continuous cloudy weather prevented any observation of
the comet until the 1 Oth. On that date the appearance of
things as seen in the great equatorial was very much what
it had been on the 10th with the smaller telescope. There
were no envelopes, and the only "jet" was the bright
streak following the nucleus. The dark stripe had wholly
disappeared, as if obliterated and replaced by the bright
one. The " knots " in the nucleus were seen to be irregular
in form, and were arranged not in a straight lino but in a
somewhat broken curve, conforming to the curvature of the
tail, which at this time extended 18°, and was fully
60,000,000 miles in length. The bright stream originated
not at the extremity of the nucleus, but came out tangen-
tially from the convex side, and perhaps had its source in
the largest of the knots, which was now the third from the
sunward extremity. The whole length of the nucleus
measured 48^", corresponding to a length of more than
40,000 miles, the diameter of the largest single mass being
about 5,000 or 6,000 miles. The only other observation
•we have been able to make at Princeton was nine days
later, on October 24th. No material changes were noticed,
though the comet was very much fainter. The same
lengthened granular nucleus continued, and seems likely to
persist until the comet disappears.

(To he continued.)

HOW TO USE OUR EYES.— 11.
Bv John Browning, F.R.A.S.

{Coniinueil ''om page 112.)

THERE is good reason for be.K\ing that the eye takes
a photograph of every object looked at intently.

Rabbits have been held before a window for a few
seconds and then killed. A picture of the window has
been found on their retina.

The impression on the retina is generally said to last
about the sixteenth part of a second, but this depends upon
the brilliancy of the object and the length of time we look
at it.

Xow for some important hints for preserving your eye-
sight Never look at an intensely bright light for any
length of time, or a permanent image may be formed on
the retina. Avoid, most carefully, exposing the eyes to a
very bright light after they have been' in darkness, as such
changes are injurious, and have been known to produce
blindness.

When using a microscope, always incline it as much as
possible towards the horizontal direction. Most persons
use the microscope almost upright. Looking down into
the microscope in this position gorges the eye with blood
by stopping the circulation in the nock.

A Newtonian reHecting telescope is very superior to an
achromatic telescope for those who have any fear of
straining their eyes, as the stars and other heavenly
bodies can be seen best with this kind of telescope when
they are directly overhead.

If a person wishes to look at them when they are thus
situated, he must lie downi on his back if he uses an
achromatic telescope. With a reflecting telescope the
celestial objects may be viewed when they are overhead by
the observer looking horizontally into the telescope.

When adjusting a very bright lamp flame, if you wish to
do it slowly, look at the flame through a slit formed by
almost closing two of the fingers. This will protect the
eyes greatly. Always turn your back to the source of light
when you are reading, so that the light may fall on to the
book, instead of coming into your eyes.

'/

■^i^

t .R. 4.

Always lean well back when reading, and hold the'boofr
up, as shown in the engraving (Fig. 3). Do not lean
forward and face the light, as in thi'? view (Fig. 4).

150

KNOVV^LEDGE ♦

[March 9, 1883.

Never read by firelight in the position shown in Fig. 5.
Myopia, or short sight, is often produced, particularly in
young people, by reading in an imperfect light.

On Light.

Now I must say a few words about light.

Light is the cause of all colour. Colour is only a sensa-
tion in the brain, caused by a particular kind of light
being reflected from an object into the eyes. We say
trees are green, but they would not be green unless they
were lighted by a light which contained green rays. This
can be proved by a simple, yet perfectly convincing, experi-
ment.

Place several pieces of paper of various bright colours
on a large piece of white paper, taking care to avoid the
use of yellow. Now illuminate these with a spiriWamp
which has had salt sprinkled on the wick ; the whole of
the coloured papers will appear grey.

Colocr-Blindness.

About one person in every twenty-five is to some extent
colour-blind, that is, cannot distinguish accurately between
colours. In extreme cases such persons cannot distinguish
between red and green. This defect often exists without
being suspected. The worst case I have ever known was
that of a workman who had been for years in my employ.
One day, I gave him a number of photograpiied stereo-
scopic slides to sort into two lots — one coloured, and the
other plain. Soon after he had sorted them I examined
them. They were divided into two lots, composed almost
equally of coloured and plain slides mixed together. This
induced me to test his eyes for colour-blindness, and I
found, to my surprise, that he could not tell the difference
between a piece of black cloth and a piect- of scarlet.

This defect may be of the greatest importance.

Both on railways and on board of ships, lamps with
coloured glasses are used for signalling at night and Hags
in the daytime. xVny sailor, guard, or engine-driver
sulFering from colour-blindness might be the cause of a
fatal accident by mistaking the colour of the signal shown.

All such persons should liave their sight tested.

I have contrived a spectroscope in which there is a com-
plete riband or rainbow of colour. Now, I can shut out
all but a small portion of this coloured rainbow, and allow
only a small strip of any particular colour to appear. The

person whose sight is being tested is then asked to name
the colour that is visible.

An easy way of testing the sense of colour is to give a
person two or three skeins of Berlin wool of different
colours. Then give them a bundle of wool of mixed colours,
and ask them to match the colours of them.

This test is not to be compared to that with the spectro-
scope for accuracy.

But under certain circumstances, even persons whose
colour-sense is most acute and accurate may be deceived as
to colour.

{To he continued.)

BUTTERFLIES I:N WINTER.

REFERRING to the recent notice in Knowledge of a
butterfly in winter, it may interest many readers to
learn that such an occurrence is by no means rare, and
results, in most cases, not from unusually warm weather
forcing the insects to leave the chrys-alis, Vmt from the fact
that several of our butterflies hibernate in the winged
state, and may frequently be found torpidly hanging
from roofs, in hollow trees, and other sheltered spots, the
warm sunshine occasionally tempting them from their
hiding-places.

Of our native species, ten, including the Peacock
( Vanessa lo), the Small and Great Tortoiseshells ( V.
UrticcK anA PoJychloros), the Red Admiral (V. Atalanta),
and the Brimstone {G. Rhamni), thus pass the winter. Of
the others, some hibernate in the egg state, some as cater-
pillars, and the rest in the chrysalis. Those passing the
longest period in the latter stage are the noble Swallow-
tail (P. Jfachao?i), and the lovely little Orange-tip (A.
Cardamines), which become chrysalids in July or August,
and remain so until the following May, no amount of frost
or snow having any injurious effect upon them, but rather
tending to protect them from the attacks of slugs and other
enemies that in a damp mild winter do terrible damage ;
and experience proves that severe weather is sure to be
followed by a more than usual abundance of insects.

Our general want of know^ledge on the subject is evident
in the last words of the familiar nursery doggerel : — ^

I 'd be a butterfly, born in a bower,
Christened in a teapot, and died in an hour.

For a study of the life-history of these insects shows that
our shortest-lived species has a much longer natural exist-
ence, in the winged state, than the foregoing verse implies.
I recollect, one Christmas day, seeing five peacock butter-
flies chasing each other, and floating gracefully in the sun-
shine ; they were at least three months old, having emerged
from the chrysalis in August or September, and would —
no accident befalling them — live on until May or June,
when the females, with a never-erring instinct, would lay
their eggs on the leaves of the common stinging-nettles, the
natural food-plant of the future caterpillars, and having
thus fulfilled the last duty of their harmless lives, would
quickly go the way of all living things, leaving the next
generation to gladden our eyes with a reproduction of the
marvellous beauty of their parents.

Martin J. Harding.

Electric Lighting in Russia. — The Edi.<;on system is
in use in the saw-mill of M. Johnson at Yvaskylii, in
Russia. Forty lamps and a dynamo constitute the plant
at present. This is, thinks the Electrician, the most
northerly point to which electric lighting has penetrated
as yet ; it is between the 62nd and 63rd degrees of latitude.

Makch 9, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

151

(J^ur ^3nralior Corner.

FLAT EARTH v. GLORK.

AVAILING myself of the permission vouchsafed me at the end
of twelve years' patient appeal for a hearing, I now most
teadily aud tliankfullv present myself as tho champion of a cause
which, for the first 5,500 years, was never doubted or disputed bv
the grandest intellects that the world has ever given birth to. It
is not, perhaps, so much out of justice to me as to themselves that
has influenced my opponents to acconl me the privilege of stating
my case and allowing both sides to be heard. Sir William Thomp-
son said, " 1 maintain that science is bound by the everlasting law
of honour to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly
presented to it." And Mr. Charles' Koade, in a letter to the Daily
Telegraph some months ago, declared : " Facts should always be
faced. The champion of truth neither shirks nor succumbs. Kither
he lets hostile facts convert him, or he meets them with more facts
and weightier. The same with arguments ; to mistake, or even
understate, an opponent's case, is the practice of the many respect-
able rogues controversy breeds ; but it is more cunning than wise,
for these are the known arts of falsehood, and truth gains nothing
by them."

Now, I presume I may take for granted the permission to conduct
my case according to rr.y own judgment as to what is best under
the conditions specified, and I claim the right to be calmly heard
and fully understood before I am interrupted by attempts to draw
me from my own line of argnment, or am to be told that no more
can be heard upon the subject, as soon as it is seen that tho issue of
the case is likely to be unfavourable to the professors.

I also wish it to bo distinctly understood that I most respectfully
decline to be treated as if on my defence, or to allow those to be my
judges who have for .300 years proved themselves incapable of
forming a correct opinion on the subject. In this discussion I
occupy the position of plaintiff, and I place my opponents at the
bar. I specifically charge them with having set aside a system
of the most perfect cosmogony, ■which was designed by the
Creator Himself, and never doubted or disputed by tho
profoundest philosophers of the first 5,000 vears, and having
placed in its stead a whimsical hypothe.'^is and a baseless fiction,
which the most learned professors of modem times have never pre-
tended to explain, or ventured for one instant to defend. There is
not a single fact to which any honest appeal can be made which
has not given the lie to the globular theorists. In one of the papers
of the J/irror, dated May 16, 1780, we read : — " In every art and
science, practitioners complain how often they are deceived by
specious theories and delusive speculation. Learned men, in the
solitude of their studies, are apt to imagine that nothing they can
reconcile to their own ideas upon paper can fail to be evinced by
actual experiment, or to be reduced into easy and constant
practice. But those who attempt to apply the doctrine to
the fact too often find that what was infallible in the brain
«f the demonstrator is sadly fallacious in the hands of
him who endeavours to illustrate it by an appeal to
fact." Dr. Scott, writing on the Newtonian philosophy, soundly
remarks, " I think it necessary to observe that the fallacy
by which our celebrated philosopher imposed first on himself and
afterwards on the world, proceeded from his having inconsiderately
beheved th.it there were powers in nature which do not exist, and,
consequently, his conclusions, though formally and mathematically
tme, were materially and physically false ; for nothing can bo in-
ferred from nonentity but nothing ; and this was his case." This
language exactly describes my charge against the doctrines
of Sir Isaac Newton. If the earth is really the sphere his
disciples contend for, it must have a demonstrable curvature
on some part of its surface, either on land or water. Of
this. Sir Isaac should have been positively certain before he
wrote a single line of his " Principia." Ho simply delineated
his figures according to tho fictitious data of his predecessor,
Kepler. But a structure can never have any permanent stability
when erected on an insecure or disproportioned frjuiulation. Sooner
or later its weakness is sure to betray itself. And to persist in
calling that a " globe " which practical measurements prove to bo
a plane may sound very scientific and learned, but it is shamefully
at variance with the truth.

Newton's followers have blindly adhered to his teaching, but
never have dared to justify it by an appeal to facts, or even to state
the premises from which he set out. This is the dilemma in which
I leave my opponents. I remain master of the situation till they
can give me something more than mere assertion, or the frothy
opinions of some of his learned dupes". In my next week's
article I will describe the geometry of the circular plane
and the extraordinary precision and harmony of the solar circuits,

so that I trust every impartial and unprejudiced reader will be con-
vinced that no human ingenuity, or skill, or conception could pos-
sibly have formulated or devised such a system, which the modem
theorists have ruthlessly abandoned for the sake of tho most irra-
tional and fictitious conceit to which the mind of man over was a
slave.

It would greatly assist my explanation if the MS. diagram
might appear with my next article. I have made it as simple as I
possibly could, for fear of trespassing on the space afforded me.

John Hami'Dkn.

Mr. Hampden shall have weekly, for a reasonable time, from a
column to a column and a-half (on the average), toexplain his theory,
with such illustrations as he maj" need. I accede to his request
that ho should be calmly heard without any comment or inter-
ruption whatever, provided he will, on his jiart, calmly
explain his views without comment on those more generally
accepted. If he proves his own, these last will of course be
proved unworthy of credit. It may bo well for Mr. Hampden to
say how much spaco he will require to fully state and explain
his views. If after that he shonld push himself off the board
by wasting space in denunciation, ho would not, I trust, blame
Knowledge. He has not, as yet, got on very fur with the state-
ment of his views. With regard to Mr. Hampden's chart of the
earth, to which he ascribes high pecuniary value, I can only say
that I wish to publish nothing of his which ho does not voluntarily
offer. R. P.

ArcoRMNG to a report by the Board of Trade on the Bills of the
Session, there are 106 applications for i)rovisional orders relating
to electric lighting, the capital proposed being ,1:2,752,778. Ac-
cording to the list of provisional orders originally apjilied for,
there were 152 applicants. Comparing this with the Board's report,
it will be seen that of this number 40 have allowed the matter to
drop.

At the Stanley Show of 1882, the National Arms Company of
Birmingham exhibited a front-steering tricycle. This machine was
distinguished by having a new double-driving arrangement, which
consisted of two screws working on hook joints, the whole arrange-
ment being contained in an oval gun-metal receptacle in the centre
of the axle. The machine was admirably made, and commanded
a great deal of attention and a good sale. Very recently it was
announced that tho National Arms Company wero in liquidation.
We are pleased to hear that a Limited Company has boon formed
for the purpose of carrying on the make of tricycles for which the
late company had become celebrated.

Not long ago there arrived in London in sound condition a large
consignment of New Zealand mutton and beef. P'ull 2t,000 legs and
shoulders of the former were cast on the market one morning, yet
the most searching inquiry among probable consumers of tho Anti-
podean meat fails to elicit a trace of its ultimate destination as
food. I have interrogated various butchers, but none of
them have seen this meat, and all agree that their customers
would never buy it. Some say that East-end butchers
"clear" the market for a "low-price" trade; others opine
that it goes to the suburbs, but all affect utter ignorance as
to the precise way in which this mysterious meat has gone into
consumption. It is a suspicious fact, certainly, that certain
butchers who formerly had offal in abundance, are now innocent of
such profitless accessories to tho trade, and those who keep animals
suffer great inconvenience. If it is gently hinted to one of these
purveyors that Colonial carcases come without offal, and that this
perhaps accounts for the present scarcity in some quarters of the
special dainties of cat and dog, he turns virtuously indignant, and
angrily repels any base and insulting in.iinuation on your part that
possibly the key to the curious enigma may be found in Australian
meat. There is an obvious wrong somewhere. Jesting aside, the
enormous demand for butcher's meat in this country renders con-
siirnments like that of the Sorato a mere drop in the ocean. The
unfortunate part of the matter is that so much Colonial moat is
consumed by persons ignorant of its origin, that the poj)ularization
of Antipodean beef and mutton is, pro lunto, checked, and the
public at large receives no benefit whatever from the im-
portation of meat at 6d. or 7d. a pound. Now, it is well
understood by those acquainted with tho Colonial Pastoralists
that directly they can distinctly see the way to a general popular
demand in Great Britain for Colonial meat, tho necessary organi-
sation for sending a really adequate and regiilar supply will be
forthcoming, and then, of course, the retailers will be compelled to
sell at a reasonable profit and price. At present the butchers' hole-
and-corner policy — equally selfish and shortsighted — is postponing
the time when the seventy or eighty millions of Australian sheep
will be really as much ours as though they fed in English pastures.
— P. R.

152

• KNOWLEDGE •

[March 9, 1883.

■T:(T-

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — ALKi;r.u Tennyson.

Setters! to tin €tiitoi\

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly be in-
serted. Correspondents must not be offended, therefore, should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial communications should be addressed to the Editor of
KNowtEDGE ; all Busiyiess communications to the Publishers, at the
Office, 74; Qreat Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS ARISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheque^., and Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMMnNICATIONS ARE ANSWERED BY PO.ST, EVEN THOnGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

ON THE FOEMATION OF COMETS' TAILS.

[747]— In the December number of the Philosophical Magazine
for 1878, I propounded a theory to account for the repulsive force
on the matter forming a comet's tail, which agrees in all essential
respects with that published by Mr. Eanyard in Knowledge for
Feb. 16, 1883.

The calculation of the repulsive force due to evaporation was there
given for the first time. When I wrote my paper, I was not aware
that the force arising from evaporation had been previously sug-
gested as a possible explanation of the phenomenou, but in a letter
received from Mr. Ranyard, shortly after my paper was published
he informed ^me that at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical
Society in 1874, he had said something on the subject of my paper,
of which an account was given in the March number of the
Astronnmical Register for 1874, but he stated that he had not
eutered into a discussion of the magnitude of the force, as I had
done, nor did he know of any evaluation of the accelerations which
might be caused by evaporation, such as I had attempted. I was
surprised therefore to find that in his paper, in which he is pre-
sumably putting forward original views, ho enters into a discussion
as to the adequacy of the force of evaporation to produce the
repulsion observed, which, in so far as it is correct, is the same as
that previously published by me.

The following is a quotation from my paper in 'which the same
reasoning is employed as that given by Mr. Ranyard, though in a
more complete and correct form : —

"In the first place the mass of a comet is so small, that the force
of gravitation towards the centre on any of the bodies at some dis-
tance from the nucleus must be so small that it may be left out of
consideration. We know that a molecule of matter in the gaseous
condition has at ordinary and high temperatures a very quick mo-
tion of translation. A molecule, as it evaporates from the surface
of one of the bodies composing the comet, must acquire a velocity
relative to the body of several hundred yards j)er second. The
body must, in consequence, suffer a recoil'in an opposite direction
to that in which the molecule escapes. Now, since the evaporation
is caused by the sun's heat, it must take place chiefly on that side
of the body which is exposed to the sun's rays. The resultant
effect of all the small recoils due to the evaporation of the differ-
ent molecules will therefore be to drive the body in a direction
away from the sun. If the body has a motion of rotation, the
whole surface might in turn become exposed to the sun's rays, and
evaporation would probably take place even on the side turned
away from the sun. But unless the body be of a regular shape,
the effect of evaporation will be to gradually stop any rotation
which it might at first have ; for the force of recoil from the
evaporation would act upon it in the same way as the wind does on
a vane, and it would at length take up a position with its longest
axis in the direction of the sun.

"Now let V be the average velocity relative to the bodv with
which the molecules escape from it. Let M be the mass of the body
just before the escape of a molecule of mass /x from it. Then the

velocity due to the recoil as this molecule escapes will be —v.

Now the molecules as they evaporate will start off in various

dircctiong, but almost always more or less towards the sun. Let
us suppose, as being not far from the truth, that the inclination
which their directions have to a straight line passing throagh the
sun is on the average 45° ; then the average velocity due to recoil
acquiied by the body on the evaporation of mass dm will be

— . , and the velocity acquired while the mass of the body is

m ../'I
being reduced by evaporation from m, to m.,. will be

V /''"id»>i ,, , /.„ . m,

-_ / ' V X l-Oa X logic— '.

>J I J -i m Wj

Now the average velocity of hydrogen molecules at 0° C. is 1'06, of
oxygen •206, and of water vapour So mile per second. For the

sake of illustration, let us suppose that 'V^ = '35, and — .'=1000000,

these being the values we should have to assign if the body were
block of ice containing one gramme of sand or any other non-
volatile substance, the block itself being equal in mass to a cubic
metre of water. The velocity due to recoil by evaporation would
then bo 342 miles per second, or about 295,000 miles per day. A
tail would thus be formed which would increase in length nearly a
million miles in every three days. The visible portion of this tail
would consist of solid or liquid matter which had resisted evapora-
tion ; but there would also be present in the tail a large portion of
the gas formed during evaporation ; for since the evaporating gas
has a velocity relative to the body from which it is evaporating
of '35 mile per second, those portions of the gas which have
evaporated since the body acquired by recoil a velocity greater
than "35 mile per second will be also carried backwards into
the tail. The estimate of the rapidity of tail-formation I have
just made has been made on the supposition that the temperature
of the escaping gas is 0° C. If the absolute temperature in Centi-
grade units of the gas be t, we must multiply the ai)ove estimate by

Now, in no case has the rapidity of tail-formation

greatly exceeded one million miles in three days, except in the case
of those comets which have approached very near to the sun, and
where, consequently, the temperature at which the evaporation has
taken place must have been very great."

The expression given by Mr. Ranyard for the velocity of the
evaporating body, or particle, after half its substance has evaporated,

. V . \

IS — , I.e.

1-42 ^/2

It will be see from my formula given above, that putting — != 2,

V 2^-

the correct expression is — >

Nap. log 2, or -^ X SSS.
v/2

Mr. Ranyard has apparently assumed that the effect of the
successive evaporations of the different particles would be the
same as if all the particles had parted from tlic evapo-
rating body at the same moment ; but this would not be
so, for in the latter case all the evaporating particles would
acquii-e a velocity, "V, relative to the evaporating body, and, there-
fore, also relative to the general mass of the comet, whilst in the
former case the particles evaporating after the body had acquired
a backward motion, though they would still have a velocity, Y,
relative to the body, would have a different velocity relative to the
general mass of the comet. The momentum produced in the un-
evaporated portion being in both eases equal and opposite to the
resultant of the momenta of all the evaporated particles, must be
less in one case than in tlie other.

There are some other considerations relating to this evaporatioB
theory which I hope to be allowed to lay before your readers in
some future number of Knowledge ; but I must not now trespass
further on your space. Arthur S. Davis.

Cheltenham College.

PURIFYING GAS. (?)

[748] — A correspondent referring to the statement in Knowledge,
No. 67, of February 9, 1883, page 85, 1st col., 2ud par, regarding
the Albo-Carbon Light Co., that each " Burner is accompanied with
a means for piiri/i/i)!;?," &c., writes as follows: —

" As a gasman who has been in communication with their agent,
allow me to say that the essence of the patent is the addition of
something, say naphthaline, to the gas in transit from the service-
pijjo to the hurner, whereby the illuminating power is slightly in-
creased. The something in question does not contain any chemical
absorbent capable of catching any impurity, say ammonia, or
sulphur, or carbonic acid; and it is not necessary, as the gas is
tested daily, and often by a chemist duly appointed, and whose
certificate, no doubt, is to bo had in pursuance of Act of Parlia-

i

March 9, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE ♦

153

ment. It is common to hear the Fellers of burners and regulators,
and sometimes glasses, say that their goods act by purifying ami
improving the gas.

THE WEATHER TOItECASTS.

[749] — The observations quoted in this week's Knowledge fully
bear out those that I have been mentally taking at various times
during different times of the year, and all alike tend to show the
ab6olnte absurdity and uselessness of the Weather Forecasts that
^ipear day after day in the newspapers. It is briefly nothing more
or less than a " farce." As a rule, the forecast given is vague in
the extreme, and might cover any weather that might naturally be
expected to follow the weather at the time the forecast was made,
and I have noticed that on no i^in'jle occaaion has any sudden and
ttartlinti chanye in Ihc iieather heett ann'^iinced in clear and unmis-
lakable terms.

The great changes, consisting of the incidence of various of the
gieat and disastrons storms of last year, were covered by the usual
inane and vague announcement, but never once did the forecast tell
OB in plain language that a direct change was coming. On the daij
JcMoieing any marked change of weather, then we see the forecast,
following the existing weather.

Everybody who knows the state of the conditions regulating our
insular climate must well know the impossibility of ever being able
to foretell the weather for even an hour, and, therefore, it seems an
(lutrage to common sense (and the natinnal purse) to see the large
sums of money spent in such an absurd and impracticable under-
taking as to attempt to foretell the weather.

A* the seaside it is as often as not that the people concerned
lungh at the ostentations hoisting of the cones and drums, unless
they can see wnth their own eyes and realise from their own
sensations that there is bad weather brewing.

The Meteorological Office is nothing more nor less than a waste
of public moBey. A.nother Observer.

LETTERS RECEIVED.

G. R. Wynne— T. Qnilliam— E. W. P.— John Fae— J. Gray— L-
Hargrave— A. W. W.— F. H.— F. C. Green— A. W.— B. T.— C. E-
Johns— T. C— E. Wilk-ins— W. Pilgrims— J. A. Gee- J. Millard—
F. Dakin Rudkin— H. H.— M. G.— T. D. Nicholson— J. H.— H.A. B.
—M.— Junius— J. S. Pope— T. D. Lewis— A. H. Smith— W. Had-
ingham — W. H. S. Monck — S. Skinner — Williams — Carlton — T.
Ward — Russell Spokor— Veritas (utterly decline to do anything
of the sort ; by his foul abuse of Spencer and Darwin the man has
ileprivcd himself of all right to consideration; what you refer to is
:i fact, though your friends may not have heard of it).

It is reported that an electric exhibition is to be held in
Spain this year, and will open on Dec. 21 next. The locality is not
■lentioncd. An electric exhibition is to bo held in Konigsberg,
in Prussia, and will open on April 15.

At a recent meeting of the City Commission of Sewers, the
award of the arbitrator appointed by the Board of Trade with
reference to the ventilation of the Metropolitan District Railway
WU presented. Captain Galton had decided that there should be
one opening in Queen Victoria-street, near Bennett's-hill, 50 ft.
long by 6 ft. 4 in. wide, and another opposite the steps into Lower
Ihames-street, 23 ft. by 3 ft. 10 in., each with balustrades 8 ft. high.

Philadelphia derives an annual revenne of £2, -100 from tele-
graph, telephone, and electric light companies, for the use of its
overhead and underground wires. Each company makes a rctura
annually of the number of poles, &c., and a payment of £1 per
■innum for each mile of wire used for telegraph or telephone
imrposes, and £3 per mile per animm for electric lighting pur-
l>o8es is required. There are at present about 10,000 miles of wire
in the city.

A Free Smoke Abatement MfsECM. — The National Smoke
.Vbatement Institution is making arrangonieiits for opening a
permanent exhibition in a central part of London, in an extensive
range of buildings, for the display of apparatus, fuels, and systems
' f heating, combining economy with the prevention of smoke,
iihI the best methods of ventilating and lighting. The
• vhibition will be free to the public, and -will include examples
"f all the most recent inventions and improved apparatus. -A
lecture hall, for the reading of papers and instruction classes, mil
he provided ; also testing rooms, under the supervision of experts,
for the purpose of continuing the series of tests and trials com-
menced in connection ^vith the South Kensin^on and Manchester
■Smoke Abatement Exhibitions of 1882. Particulars may be obtained
It the offices of the National Smoke Abatement Institution, 41-,
Bemers-street, Orford-street, London, W.

©m saabi'dt Column.

By " FivB OF Olubs."

TRCMP-PLAYlKG-CfondnKcJ/ioM p. 139).

BUT suppose that numerically you and your partner have slightly
the advantage over your opponents in trumps — that one of
you has four, the other three ; the opponents each having three.

Trumps lying thus, with, perhaps, the best honours with the
enemy, every round in trumps which you or your partner may take
out, if there has been no rutiing, increases your relative strength in
trumps, and the third leaves one of you with the long trump. But
even if you knew from the beginning exactly how the strength in
tramps lay, it by no means follows that your relative strength in
the hand would be increased by a process thus leaving you with the
command in trumps. On the contrary, if neither you nor your
partner have a suit which you can establish, while the enemy, well
protected in your suits, have— cither of thcni — a long suit, of which
between them they can get the entire command, your long trump,
though it must make, will profit you httle. It will be forced out,
and a winning card in one of your suits (if yon have two long suits)
will bring the enemy in again, when their long suit will come in
effectively.

In such a case, it is idle to attempt a forward game merely
because yon perhaps find after a few rounds that yon have nume-
rical su|ieriority in trumps. You may play, if you see a fit opening,
the same sort of game as if you were both weak in trum|)S — espe-
cially if each of the adversaries shows a long suit. Your long
tninip cannot do more than make one trick in this case ; it cannot
bring in a long suit. You may then, without fear of loss, either
ruff with one of four trumps when you get the chance, or force your
partner, though holding three, and knowing or suspecting that he
holds four. Should you succeed in establishing a cross ruff, you
gain by this policy, and even if you fail, you lose nothing. Holding
on to the hard and fast rule. Pass a doubtful card if numerically
strong in trumjis, is unwise in such a case as this — which is of fre-
quent occnrrence, be it noticed. Often enough the only chance of
saving the game lies in rulling freely while you can. The enemy —
if they know what is good for them wHll stop that game fast
enougii when they got the chance, showly clearly that it is your
best policy, despite the book rule so often quoted. Your chance
comes while they are waiting till one- or other has established his
suit. This they will only do so long as yonr all-round weakness has
not been disclosed ; yon must seize the opportunity, and make your
tricks while you can.

Suppose, for instance, A holds Knave and three small Spades
(the trump card being the Ace of Spades, Z the dealer). King and
three small Hearts, three small Clubs, and two small Diamonds;
while il holds Queen and two small spailes. Knave and two small
Hearts, two small Clubs, and four small Diamonds. A leads a small
Heart, which Z takes with the Queen, leading Ace of Clubs and
following with a small Club. His partner, winning this trick with
the King, leads, let us say. Diamond seven, which his partner takes
with the Queen, returning the Aeo, to which X drops, a three,
showing that he had led the penultimate. Suppose now that Z
continues with a small Diamond. Shall A, holding four small
tiunips, refrain from trumping ? It is clear that A' Z are protected
in Hearts, and each had originally a five-card suit. H has not
signalled, and neither of the enemy has led trumps. Tlie chances
are, then, that trumps are pretty equally divided, but with the Ace
in Z'a hand the odds are in favour of X Z holding the commanding
cards. Under these circumstances, the best policy seems to
he, not to try to fight against two strong suits with one long
trump, and that not certain, but to trump the doubtful Diamond
led by Z. This is probably giving up all chance of getting the com-
mand in trumps ; but it is taking the best chance of what seems
the best hope— a cross-ruff. After taking the trick thus by ruffing,
A should lead a small Club, giving np his own suit, of which ho
knows that the enemy holds the King card (so that getting in they
would probably lead trumps). This B ruffs, and leads a Diamond,
which A would ruff, unless Z at once stopped the cross-ruff by
putting on his trump Ace, which he would not be apt to do over
his partner's snit. The remaining tricks would probably go to XZ,
but three having been made by Ali, the game — the score being
supposed at "love all" — would be saved; whereas if -4 had re-
frained from ruffing, and then forcing U, it must have been lost.
(To he continued.)

IVTERJfATION'AI, SCIENTIFIC SKRIES— NOTICE.— The New Volume in
the nliove Serie., enl..'i -d KI.KMENTAKY METEOROLOGY, by ROBERT H.
SCOTT, Secrelarr to tlie Met<-orolopi'«l Council, is Now Ready, with Numerom
Illustrationa, crown 8vo, cloth, price 59.

London : KEOAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO.

154

• KNOWLEDGE -

[Maech 'J, 1883.

©ur Cfjcjfs Column.

By Mephisto.

PROBLEM No. 78.

By John Simpsox.

Black.

Whits.
White to play and mate in three moves.

Fakenham, 20th Feb., 1883.
Dear Sir, — I enclose a problem for insertion as a reprint in
Knowledge. It has a curious history. It was published in the
Illustrated London, News in 1854, and the solution printed
therein was not the author's ; and, curiously enough, he did not
look at the solution at the time, and has only lately learnt from
me that the problem has ftvo solutions, both of which are very
pretty. You will see that Mr. Grimshaw's embodies the idea (so
much talked of) of Healey's Bristol Three-mover, which was not
published till six years later than Mr. Grimshaw's. I have been in
correspondence with Mr. G. about it, and have his leave to send it
to yon with enunciation as given. J. A. Miles.

PROBLEM No. 7 9.

By Walter GmiisnAw.

Black.

I ■ ■ ■

'W$ "0B. WM -m

i m mAM
WM- W. P S

Whits.
White to play and mate in four moves two entirely different ways.
We are much obliged to Mr. Miles for sending us this Problem,
which, apart from the curious history of its double solution, is
remarkable for the difficulty of the author's solution. We feel
some compunction, and will not impose upon our readers the hard
task of finding tlio two solutions ; we will assist them by giving t\w.
first move of each solution, whicli are : — For the author's solution,
1. R to QB2, threatening mate by Q to 116 ; for the second solutiou,
1. Kt (B6; to Q5 (ch).

The following position is the result of a variation in the Allgaicr
Gambit, where the black Queen's Knight, after taking the white
Queen's Bishop on K5, is allowed also to take the King's Bishop
on QB4. This termination has occurred to us several times ; also
in a game played last week. We hope its publication as an ending

will make our readers careful of the danger to be guarded Bgaiiut
White proceeded as follows : —

Amatbub.
Black.

Whits.

Mephisto.
Q to Q3 (ch) K takes Kt

R to B5 (ch) B takes R (best)

(If K to Kt3, then R to Kt5 (disc, ch), K to B2. Q to Kt6 (ch)
K to K2. R to K sq (ch), B to K4 (best). R (Kt 5) takes B (ch)
Kt takes R. Q to Kt7 (ch), K to K3 (best). R takes Kt (ch;, K
to Q3. Q to Kt*3 (ch), and mates in three moves.)
Q takes B (ch) K takes P

(Black ought to play Q to Kt4 ! which would make the game
rather difficult for White.)

P to Kta (ch) ! K to R6

Q to B sq (ch) K takes P

Q to B2 (ch) K to R6

Q to E2 mate.

SOLUTION.
Peoblem No. 77, p. 124, by T. W. Combe.

1. K to Kt6 1. K takes Kt, or K to K5

2. Q to B6, mate.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
*»* Please address Chess Editor,

G. E. Thompson. — Thanks for communication.

H. Nuttall. — No. 77, 1. Q to Q7 (ch), K to K5, and there is no
mate.

Clarenxe. — Thanks for problems. What is the deceased author's
name ? If one piece, say a Queen, could give mate by checking on
different squares, this would be considered a dual in a problem.

C. ;B. — Sorry we do not know. Perhaps Jacques, in Hatton-
garden, may have some pattern-books.

ScHMfCKE. — H. A. D. Solutions correct.

Correct solutions of Problem No. 77 received from W., G. Sweden-
bank, C. C, G. E. Thompson, I. G. PoweU, J. S. Maskery, T. Evelyn.
E. Ridgeway, R. S. Standen.

S^OTICES.

Yolome II., comprising the numbers publiehed from June to December 18S-
priceSs. fid

The Title Page and Index to Volume II. now ready, price 2d., poat-free 2id.

Binding Cases for Volume II., price 28. each. Subscribers' numbers bound
(including Title, ludei, and Case) for 3s. eAch.

The Back Numbers ot Knowledgb, with the exception of Noa. 1 to 13.
31, 32, and 53, are in print, and can be obtained from all booksellers Mwi
newsagents, or direct from the Publishers. Should any difliculty arise in obtaining
the paper, an applinatior ro tbe Publishers ia respectfully requetiled.

Just Published, Part XVI. (Feb. 18S3). Price lOA.; postage 3d. extra.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.

The terms of Annual tiubscriptien to the weekly numbers of KiOWUiDOi »» M
followB:— •. *.

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Agent for America — C. 8. Carter, American Literary Bureau, Tribune BoildingSf
New York, to whom subscriptions can be forwarded.

OFFICE: 74-76, GREAT QUEEN STREET LONDON W.O.

March 16, 1883.]

o KNOWLEDGE ♦

155

^TED

MAG^UiiNJ:. Of S^JENCE

jfePUINUryfORDED-EXACTI^ESCRIBED

LONDON: FRIDAY, MARCU 16, 1883.

OONTEKTS OP No. 72.

Br Tbnmas Foster
Tlu' Chi'mistrv of Oookory. By

Vt . Msttieu \Vtni(ira8 '.. 158

; • liirih «nil Gromh of Mylh.—

V. Br Ed««rd Clodd 159

1 h ■ Great Comet of 1883.— III. By

I'rofps-nrC A. YounE . 160

How to Use our Eves.— III. By

John lircwninj;, F.R.A S 161

The New Skirt. By a Lady 163

Pleasant Hours with the Micro-
scope. By H. J. SUck, F.G.S.,

F.n.M.S 163

Kevibws ; Clocks sad Watches —
Elemeots of Weather Knowledge 161

The Face of the Sky 166

CoBBBspoyDEKCB ; Go the Forma-

tion of Comet's Tails, 4c 166

Our Mathematical Column II'B

Our Whist Column 170

Our Chess Column 171

^titmt aiili 9ixt (So^^fp.

The course of lectures by Jlr. R. A. Proctor, at St
James's Hall, of which the first is to be given on Wednes-
day, March 2 1 , is the same, but brought up to date, which
Mr. Proctor has delivered in all the chief cities of the
United States, Canada, Victoria, New South ^Yalcs, South
Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. The opening
lecture, on the Birth and Death of Worlds, has been
delivered now some four hundred times, yet never twice in
the same exact form, having never yet been committed to
paper. It closes with the celebrated dream by Richter, as
admirably translated — or rather transformed — by our own
prose poet, De Quincy.

:Mr. Proctor lectured on the Great Pyramid, at the
London Institution, on Monday, March 12, to a crowded
house, many of the audience being unable to obtain seats.
He showed how the study of such a building throws light
on the nature of a people, their system of government,
religion, superstitions, and general character. He also
showed that the \arious theories according to which the
Great Pyramid has been described as Tomb, as Temple,
and as Observatory, all have their element of truth.

AccoRDlSG to the Nc'iraslle Daily Clironich, a very in-
teresting competition is going on at Warkworth Harbour,
where, in consequence of the great pressure of business, the
electric light is required to facilitate the loading of coal
vessels at all hours of the day or night. " The Hammond
Brush Lighting Company have put up six lamps and the
Jablochkoff Company ten lamps, each connected with a
Gramme dynamo machine. Both lights were put to a test
the other night, each being used a quarter of an hour, and
then their combined illuminating power was tested. The
result in each case appeared to be \ery satisfactory, but the
result of the competition will not be arrived at until a
month's trial." Another contemporary hears that the
Jablochkoff candles have given great satisfaction, and that
they are likely to be adopted permanently.

Ix Canada, the Welland Canal, connecting lakes Erie
and Ontario, has been open to traffic for some time, and
steamers of very considerable tonnage now pass from
one lake to the other. This canal is but one section of a
gigantic waterway which is intended to place tlie (!rcat
North- West in direct communication with Europe, (ireat
cflbrts are now bfing made to dcepcu and reconstruct the
various canals that now lead between Ivjngston and
Montreal, and when a sufficient depth has been attained —
uniform with that in the Welland channel— it will become
possible for grain vessels to load in Manitoba and unship
in Liverpool or London. Although this project attracts
little attention here, it cannot fail, says a contemporary, to
prove of immense consequence to the well-being of our
colony and ourselves.

The gross tonnage of steel ships built last year is over
14 per cent, of the total iron and steel gross tonnage for
the year. In 1881 it was 11 per cent.

AccoEDiXG to news from St Petersburg, the search for
the North Pole Expedition Dymphna has now been pro-
nounced hopeless. The Samoyedes, lately visiting Liapina,
are unanimous in asserting that no trace of ship or crew
can be found. The Samoyede country, we may remind the
reader, is an enormous frozen desert, forming the Northern
boundary of Asia, and occasionally traversed by the most
miserable of all known Nomadic races. It is remarkable
that the Samoyedes, originally forced back from the
warmer Asiatic zones by the Mongolians, have remained
almost untouched by Russian civilisation. They remain
invincible Pagans of the old type, and, like the Finns, whose
verbs totally want a future tense, these wretched savages
drag out a cheerless existence, the great aim of which,
rarely gratified, is to be warm enough and to eat to
repletion. — P. R.

The Royal Aquarium Electric E.xhibition is rapidly
becoming more extensive. There is, apparently, something
very wrong with the Ferranti exhibit ; the third dynamo
has been heated and rendered useless. Is the speed too
high, the mechanical efficiency too low, or is the engineering
unequal to the task ?

The Edison exhibit remains at most second best The
company make a great mistake in exhibiting only eight-
candle lamps, which are unable to afibrd sufficient relief to
the very sombre-looking decorations accompanying them.

At an exhibition of the Edison electric light, opened in
(ilasgow recently, a 300-candle incandescent lamp claimed
special notice. It was 2 ft. C in. high, and 15 in. in
diameter.

Messrs. Siemens Bros, have undertaken to instal on
board the Cunard steamer A urania two Siemens dynamos
and 500 20-candle-power Swan lamps.

In the Strand, the " Gaiety " bar will bo illuminated by
means of thirty Jablochkoff candles and forty Swan lamps.
This is, in our opinion, a very happy combination.

The Executive of the International Fisheries Exhibition
have, it is said, decided to light their galleries by electri-
city, and arrangements have already been made for the
illumination of fully two-thirds of the area. The com-
mittee will thus be enabled to keep the exhibition open

156

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[March 16, 1883.

later than was originally intended. Messrs. Davey Pax-
wan &, Co. have undertaken to provide GOO indicated
horsepower for the purpose. One of the engines will
develop 350 liorse-power. That the Commissioners should
have entrusted the wliolo of the work to one firm is some-
what unusual, and the decision implies a high and well-
deserved compliment to the manufacturers.

TiiR Loisettian School of Memory has been prominently
brought to my notice by one of my assistants, who is now
going through the course of study as taught by Professor
Ijoisette, and he confidently states that this system is
thoroughly genuine, and fully bears out in every way the
many testimonials he has seen regarding it. I should think
Professor Loisette's art of " Never Forgetting " of great
importance to students of all classes.

Parasites in the Human Body. — Recent investigations
have added greatly to our knowledge of the more highly
organised parasites of the helminthoid type. For example,
it has been ascertained beyond doubt that the blood-
vessels of a human being capable of performing his daily
avocations may contain from 20,000 to 30,000 minute
embryo nematoid worms. A physician at Calcutta demon-
strated this with regard to persons in that climate. Num-
bers of individuals so affected suffer from chyluria or
elephantiasis in one or other of its forms ; but this is by
no means universally the case. Researches have also re-
vealed the curious fact that these teeming multitudes of
nematoids lurk in some unknown recesses of the vascular
system during the daytime, and that only as night
approaches do they wander at large through the vessels
generally. Experts assure us that a single drop of blood
taken from a prick of the finger at midnight in a person
so affected may contain as many as 200 embryo nematoids,
while many drops similarly obtained at midday will not
reveal a single worm. — Times.

The result of the Freethinker trial is singularly illogical.
A small meshed net has been used to catch prey for which
a net of another sort is needed, but does not exist. As
Justice North explained the law of Blasphemous Libel —
and even more clearly as Justice Stephen interprets it — •
it is manifest that in these days the law is an anachronism.
It covered the offence of the accused, but it covers also
many acts which are not offences at all, save as this law
makes them such. That, as Justice North said, things
written by many of the most esteemed thinkers of the age
are utterly unlike the coarse and vulgar effusions brought
before him, is not only true, but obvious ; yet they are like
in being within the actual range of the preposterous law
he had to administer. Moreover, the punishment which
the law empowered him to inflict is certainly inappropriate
for that part of the offenders' actions in which these were
not akin to the writings in question. That part was their
vulgarity and offensiveness of tone ; but our laws do not
give any one a term of imprisonment with hard labour for
even the grossest vulgarity short of absolute indecency.

No one doubts that the penalties under the Blasphemy
Law were originally made heavy as against the publishing
of views inconsistent with the State religion ; nor does any
one doubt that the attempt to intliot such penalties on
those whose published opinions are obviously inconsistent
with that religion, would at once le.ad — as the Tiiin's
pointed out — to the repeal of a law which is practically
obsolete and dead. The persons brought under the opera-
tion of the law in this case had offended grossly against
propriety. They had exhibited — as the Times puts it —

hopeless and irredeemable vulgarity. But the law under
which sentence was pronounced against them is not a law
against vulgarity.

The coarse vulgarity of the attack made in the Free-
lliinker upon opinions held in reverence by thousands of
worthy persons, though not much worse than the scurrility
of ilr. Talmage's attack on some of the greatest men of
science of the day — was deserving of severe censure, even
of punishment. Such writings exhibit the very vice
which, I suppose, the Freethinker was chiefly intended to
oppose — intolerance ; and in a most objectionable, because
mean and cowardly, form. Setting aside the vulgarity of
all such attacks, whether made by Christians on Jews or by
Jews on Christians, by Protestants on Catholics or by
Catholics on Protestants, or by those in fine who hold any
special doctrine on those who believe ditTerently, there is
the wish to annoy and irritate — failing the power to inflict
as of yore material injuries on those of different views. This
should be regarded in every well-ordered State as a
punishable offence. It might be called even " blasphemous
libel," if the words were interpreted to signify all scoflSng
at ideas held in reverence by others.

The present law of Blasphemous Libel — so called —
belongs to times when intolerance was mistaken for religious
fervour. But it should be remembered that in all ages there
are men of the Stiggins and Chadband breed, who are only
too glad to find in such a law the means of making easy
pretence to religious zeal. It matters little to them that
men of sense — always rather in the minority — recognise in
their pretended fervour the clearest evidence of knavery.
Hundreds of feeble-minded folk imagine otherwise, and
consider the guzzling selfishness of a Chadband, the bibulous
bleatings of a Stiggins, and the noisy brutality of a Honey-
thunder, to be the inventions of the enemy. So long as this
is so, so long as some money and an easy reputation for
zeal are to be made by denouncing others, while mere per-
sistence in well-doing is slow to tell, there is always some
degree of danger in leaving obsolete laws about religion
unrepealed.

" The Rev. Dr. S. ^Yainwright, President, and Mr.
Alexander Scott, Hon. Secretary of the Society for the
Suppression of Blasphemous Literature, write : — ' We
propose to get up cases, as our funds will allow, against
Professor Huxley, Dr. Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, Swin-
burne, the author of ' Supernatural Religion,' the pub-
lishers of Mill's works, the publishers of Strauss's works,
Leslie Stephen, John Morley, the editor of the Jewish
World, Dr. Martineau, and others, who by their writings
have sown widespread unbelief, and in some cases rank
atheism, in cultivated families.' " — Manchester Examiner
and Times.

At a meeting held in Chambers-street Hall, Edinburgh,
on March 11, the following resolutions were adopted: —
" This open meeting of Edinburgh citizens, without ex-
pressing any opinion as to the contents of the Freethinker,
condemns the prosecution of that journal as a dangerous
revival of laws framed in a spirit of persecution, and now
out of harmony with enlightened opinion, and resolves to
take all lawful means to obtain a repeal of the statutes
relating to blasphemy ; that considering the severity of the
sentences on Messrs. Foote, Ramsey, and Kemp, the cir-
cumstances attending their trial, and the invidious character
of prosecutions for blasphemy, this meeting approves of a
memorial being presented to the Home Secretary praying
for a remission of the sentence."

Makcu 16, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE

157

HOME MUSIC.

By Thomas Foster.

MANY regard with unmixed satisfaction the develop-
ment of musical taste during the last quarter
of a century or so in this country. Our music-loving
public now attend concerts and hearken to music which,
twenty or thirty years ago, would have had few attrac-
tions for them, and would ha\e attracted few hearers.
Young ladies thirty years ago were content to play little
beyond operatic music or the simpler kinds of classical music
Now they aim at compositions of the highest class, and
speak with contempt of such simpler music as their mothers
played. Men (wlio, by the way, are much more musical, in
general, than women, though the fact is absurdly over-
looked in our system of education) are smitten with the
same ambition. It is a condescension for your average
amateur to turn from Bach to Mozart, or even to
Beethoven. He will work with lissome fingers — thougli
not always quite so accurately as he imagines — through
some composition of the great Sebastian's which only a
few of the very finest musicians could interpret ; and
when his hearers, weary of what is really very fine music
very inefficiently plajed, ask for something more within his
powers of execution, he will in his heart revile them as
having low musical tastes, and with his tongue express his
contempt by asking whether they would rather have a
galop, a waltz, or a polka.

I believe that the musical development to which I have
referred has not been altogether beneficial. It might have
been. Its purpose was excellent. If music were not, un-
happily, learned and practised too often only for display,
and not for love, the lessons which our amat«ur musicians
have been able to learn, the higher music which has been
rendered for them by the ablest living exponents in our
public concerts, would have done a great deal of good. But
unfortunately our present system causes thousands to
" learn music " who have no music in their souls, and there-
fore are unable even to know how remote from music is
their rendering of the masterpieces of our great musicians.
They will sit down and play on a perfect instrument, with
perfect mechanical accuracy (though this is not common),
the " Moonlight Sonata," or the " Sonata Pathetique," or
CTen a fugue of Bach's, and give less pleasure, even to those
who, being really musicians, know and understand the
beauty of the great masterpieces of classical music, than
would be given by a girl of ten or twelve playing feelingly
and truly some simply arranged air of Bellini's or
Donizetti's.

The fault I have to find with the home music of our day
is that though not one person in five has real musical power,
and scarce one woman in ten, almost every girl is taught
to play, and — wliether from love of display on her own part,
or on the part of her parents — every girl who is so taught
continues to learn until she has attacked and (so far as
fingering is concerned) has mastered the finest works (for the
piano) of the great composers. The fewthat are really musical
must go with the rest, and unless their musical talent is
very marked indeed, their love of music is literally ground
out of them in the constant effort to play what is beyond
their powers. When they should be learning to play with ex-
pression and feeling some simple, touching melodies, they are
carried on to weary practice at brilliant fantasias. When
they have acquired sufficient facility of execution to deal
with such pieces successfully — that is, so to master all diffi-
culties of mere execution as to be able to play with
feeling, and to bring out the composer's real meaning —
they are taken on to music still more difficult, and with
deeper though also higher significance. And so from lesson

to lesson, always a little beyond their strength, until, when
they reach the greatest development which their teachers
can impart, they iia\ e passed through ten or twelve years
of musical training during which they have scarcely once
had an opportunity to master more than the mere physical
execution — tlie depth and passion, the joy and pathos of
the music they have worked at remaining utterly unknown
to them.

If this system ruins the musical aptitude even of those
who have music in their souls, what must be its natural in-
fluence on tliose who have little or none 1 Girls become
players of the piano, who, if their teachers had had any
sense, would early have left the piano alone — as certainly
nine out of ten of our most skilful executants ought long
since to have done. When "a little music " is asked for,
these unmusical key-ticklers are the first to be called on
to perform — an admirable word for what they do. In
former times, when home music was desired, those only
played who loved music and possessed musical aptitude —
which means more than mere love of music, just as the
power fitly to read or recite poetry means more than the
mere power of appreciating it. In those days we heard
much more music of the simpler sort than we do now.
There were few brilliant executants. But I think our
home music was sweeter and better, even in the musician's
sense, than what wc hear now. There are many who play
with wonderful dexterity and precision very difticult
music, music which is indeed very beautiful, only it re-
quires a musician to bring out its beauty, and they are only
well-practised fingerists. That many of these brilliant
players have no real musical power might be readily shown
if they were ready to stand the test Set before them
some simple but beautiful passage, presenting no difficul-
ties whatever, so far as mere execution is concerned,
but so full of sweetness that properly rendered it
would move the heart of every hearer, bring tears to
the eyes by its pathos, rouse the soul by its fire, or stir
yet deeper emotion by its solemn grandeur. If they can
be brought " to plaj' such an easy piece," so unworthy of
their skill, you shall be surprised to find how utterly com-
monplace and unmeaning the noblest composition is when
played without musical feeling. You may then try another
experiment. Take a very simple air indeed, not very deep,
not impressive at all, but light and gi-aceful. Ask one of
these unmusical, but most skilful, pianists to play it, and
you will find it utterly worthless ; then (or on another day,
lest you hurt anyone's feelings) ask a real musician, whose
power to render the most difficult music does not interfere
with his power of appreciating the beauties of simpler
compositions, to play the selfsame pieces. As you enjoy
the graceful movements of the lighter music, and as your
soul thrills responsive to the joy or pathos, the fervour
or solemnity of some simple but beautiful composition, you
will learn what real music is, and how far these fall short
of being musicians who have mere ttchtiique without
feeling, mere manual and digital dexterity without true
musical capacity.

My subject has its serious side. The pleasures of life
are not so numerous that wc can well aflbrd to lose any of
them, still less those which are among the best and purest.
Home music, even of the simplest sort, may be made a
source of great pleasure, if music is aimed at, and not
mere display of manual skill* To the tired worker,

* It is a misfortune tfiat eo much of tlio music written for young
players — operatic fantasias, variations on simple airs, and bo forth
— is written for display rather than for trne musical effect — dis-
play of the composer's cleverness, as well as to give the learner
opportunity to acquire and display executional dexterity. Some of
the arrangements referred to exhibit the most remarkable insensi-

158

• KNOW^LEDGE ♦

[March 16, 1883.

■wcariod by tho worries of the day's toil, there is
nothing more soothinj; than sweet and beautiful music,
played feelingly and well. ]5ut in too many homes nothing
of the sort can now be had. To ask for music, means
to ask for a more or less advanced specimen of exercise-
playing. The only comfort whicli a man can find whose
day has been passed in tli(! work of his business or pro-
fession lies in the thought that he escapes the w(\ary hours
of home practising which culminate in these achievements.
But not so very long ago even the .sound of " the girls
practising " was not always unpleasant ; for they used to
play simple and beautiful pieces, nor mere musical fire-
works on tho one hand, or pieces beautiful indeed but
utterly beyond their strength on the other. It seems to
me that if the mothers, or even the grandmothers, of some
of our brilliant fingerists would occasionally sit down
and — even with somewhat stiflened fingers, mayhap —
play some of the sweet and touching melodies (by the
greatest composers, too, be it noted) which used to charm
the boyhood and girlhood of folks now in middle life or
"in the sere and yellow leaf," some of the more sensible
of our young folks would learn to be a little ashamed of
their brilliant and " icily faultless " execution of pieces
whose real meaning is utterly beyond their power of inter-
pretation.

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.

By W. Mattieu Williams.

-' T) LEASE, mum, the fish would break to pieces," would
X be the probable reply of the unscientific cook, to
whom her mistress had suggested the desirability of cook-
ing fish in accordance with the principles expounded in my
last. Many kinds of fish would thus break if the popular
notions of " boiling" were carried out, and the fish suddenly
immersed in water that was agitated by the act of ebulli-
tion. But this difficulty vanishes when the true theory
of cookery is understood and practically applied by cooking
the fish from beginning to end without ever boiling the
•water at all.

In the case of the leg of mutton, chosen as a previous
example, the plunging in boiling water and maintenance of
boiling-point for a few minutes was unobjectionable, as the
most effectual means of obtaining the firm coagulation of a
superficial layer of albumen ; but, in the case of fragile fish,
this advantage can only be obtained in a minor degree by
using water just below the boiling-point, for the breaking
of the fish by the agitation of the boiling water does more
than merely disfigure it when served ; it opens outlets to
the juices, and thereby depreciates the flavour, besides
sacrificing some of the nutritious albumen.

To demonstrate this experimentally, take two equal slices
from the same salmon, cook one according to Mrs. Beeton
and other orthodox authorities by putting it into cold
water, or pouring cold water over it, then heating up to
the boiling-point. Cook the other slice by putting it into
water nearly boiling (about 200° F.), and keeping it at
about 180° to 200°, but never boiling at all. Then dish
up, examine, and taste. The second will be found to have
retained more of its proper salmon colour and flavour, the
first will be paler and more like cod, or other white fish,
owing to the exosmosis or oozing out of its characteristic
iuices.

bility to the real mnsical moaning of the passages dealt with.
Callcott'a later compositions were cspcci.illy intliffi-ront in this last-
tnontionod roapoct, though free from tho wilder tricks of .some
other popular composers.

I was surprised, and at first considerably puzzled, at
what I saw of salmon cooking in Norway. As this fish is
so abundant there (Id. per lb. would be regarded as a high
price in the Tellemark), I naturally supposed that large
experience, operating by natural selection, would have
evolved the best method of cooking it, but found that, not
only in the farmhouses of the interior, but at such hotels
as the Victoria, in Christiania, the usual cookery was
efFected by cutting the fish into small pieces and soddening
it in water in such wise that it came to table almost
colourless, and with merely a faint suggestion of what we
prize as the rich flavour of salmon. A few months'
experience and a little reflection solved the problem.
Salmon is so rich, and has so special a flavour, that when
daily eaten it soon palls on the palate. Everybody has
heard the old story of the clause in the indentures of the
Aberdeen apprentices, binding the masters not to feed the
boys on salmon more frequently than twice a week. If
the story is not true it ought to be, for salmon every day
would have the same effect as the daily breakfasts of boiled
fat pork and dumplings on the voracious hero of another
story.

By boiling out the rich oil of the salmon, the Norwegian
reduces it nearly to the condition of cod-fish, concerning
which I learned a curious fact from two old Doggerbank
fishermen, with whom I had a long sailing cruise from
the Golden Horn to the Thames. They agreed in stating
that codfish is like bread, that they and all their
mates lived upon it (and sea biscuits) day after day for
months together, and never tired, while richer fish ulti-
mately became repulsive if eaten daily. This statement
was elicited by an immediate experience. AVe were in the
Mediterranean, where the bonetta was very abundant, and
every morning and evening I amused myself by spearing
them from the martingale of the schooner, and so success-
fully that all hands (or rather mouths) were abundantly
supplied with this delicious dark fleshed, full-blooded, and
high-flavoured fish. I began by making three meals a day
on it, and at the end of about a week was glad to return to
the ordinary ship's fare of salt junk and chickens.

This is not exactly a digression, seeing that the
philosophy of the appetite is fundamental to that of
cookery. A healthy, unvitiated appetite is an index to the
requirements of nutrition. Other illustrations of this will
be presented as we proceed.

Another important constituent of animal food is gdntni,
or gelatine. It constitutes a large proportion of the whole
bulk of the animal ; it is, in fact, the main constituent of
the animal tissues, the walls of the cells of which animals
are built up being composed of gelatin. I will not
here discuss the question of whether Haller's remark : —
" Dimidium corporis humani gluten est," " half of the
human body is gelatin," should, or should not now, as
Lehmann says, " be modified to the assertion that half of
the solid parts of the animal body are rimvertihle, hi/ boihng
irith water, into gelatin." Lehmann and others give the
name of " glutin " to the component of the animal tissue
as it exists there, and gelatin to it when acted upon by
boiling water. Others indicate this difference by naming
the first "gelatin," and the second "gelatine."

The difference upon which these distinctions are based
are directly connected with my present sulject, as it is
just the diflference between the raw and the cooked mate-
rial, which, as we shall presently see, consists mainly in
solubility.

Even the original or raw gelatine varies materially in
this respect. There is a decidedly practical difference
between the solubility of the cell-walls of a young chicken
and those of an old hen. The pleasant fiction which

March 16, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

169

describes all the pretty gelatine preparations of the table
as " calf's-foot jelly," is founded on the greater solubility of
the juvenile hoof, as compared to that of the adult ox or
horse, or to the parings of hides about to bo used by the
tanner. All these produce gelatine by boiling, the calves'
feet with comparatively little boiling.

Besides these diflerences there are decided varieties, or,
I might say, species of gelatine, having slight dilTerences of
chemical composition and chemical relations. There is
Chomlrin, or cartilage gelatine, which is obtained by boiling
the cartilages of the ribs, larynx, or joints for eighteen or
twenty hours in water. Then there is Fibroin, obtained
by boiling spiders' webs and the silk of silkworms or other
caterpillars. These exist as a liquid inside the animal,
which solidifies on exposure. The libres of sponge contain
this modification of gelatine.

Another kind is Chitiu, which constituted the animal
food of St John the Baptist, when he fed upon locusts and
wild honey. It is the basis of the bodily structure of
insects ; of the spiral tubes which permeate them throughout,
and are so wonderfully displayed when we examine insect
anatomy by aid of the microscope, also of their intestinal
canal, their external skeleton, scales, hairs, kc. It similarly
forms the true skeleton and bodily framework of crabs,
lobsters, shrimps, and other Crustacea, bearing the same
relation to their shells, muscles, ic, that ordinary gela-
tine does to the bones and softer tissues of the vertebrata ;
it is '■ the bone of their bones, and the flesh of their flesh."
It is ol)tainable by boiling these creatures down, but is
more difficult of solution than the ordinary gelatine of beef,
mutton, fish, and poultry. To this difficulty of solution in
the stomach, I suspect the nightmare that follows lobster
suppers.

I once had an experience of the edibility of the shells of
a crustacean. When travelling, I always continue the
pursuit of knowledge in restaurants by ordering anything
that appears on the bill of fare that I have never heard of
before, or cannot translate or pronounce. At a Nea-
politan restaurant, I found " Cambers di Mare " on the
I'arta, which I translated " Leggy things of the sea," or sea-
creepers, and ordered them accordingly. They proved to
lie shrimps fried in their shells, and were very delicious —
like whitebait, but richer. The cbitin of the shells was
thus cooked to crispness, and no evil consequences follow-ed.
If reduced to locusts, I should, if possible, cook them in the
lune manner, and, as they have similar chemical composi-
tion, th-^y would doubtless be equally good.

Should any epicurean reader desire to try this dish (the
duimps, I mean), he should fry them as they come from
file sea, not as they are sold by the fishmonger, these being
■Iready boiled in salt water (usually in sea water) by the
dliimpers who catch them, the chitin being indurated
thereby.

The introduction of fried and tinned locusts as an
epicurean delicacy would be a boon to suflering humanity,
by supplying industrial compensation to the inhabitants of
districts subject to periodical plagues of locust invasion.
The idea of eating them appears repiilsive atjirsi, so would
that of eating such creepy-crawly things as shrimps, if no
adventurous hero had made the first exemplary experiment.
Ohitin is chitin, whether elaborated on the land or secreted
ill the sea. The vegetarian locust and the cicala are free
from the pungent essential oils of the really unpleasant
cockchafer.

nrTBKNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.— NOTICE.— The New Volnme in
ttw ^te Senes, cntiUod ELEMENTARY METEOROLOGY, by ROBERT H.

the Meteoroloeical Council, is Now Ready, irith Numerous
irn 8vo, cloth, price 03.
London : KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, i CO.

THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH.

V.
By Edward Clodd.
"1 TTE said that language lays bare the mental condition
\ \ under which myths are formed ; in other words,
that speech reveals the limitations of thought And it
would be a useful corrective of theories concerning the
origin of language to which many are yet wedded to show
that not only terms for things material and concrete, but
also for things immaterial and abstract, are of purely
physical origin — that is to say, have been chosen from their
analogy to something real. As an example, the several
verbs whose relics survive in the substantive verb to be
had each a distinct physical meaning. "Am," "are," "is,"
are derived from as (in Sanskrit asii, " life,"), meaning "to
breathe " or " sit " ; " was " and " were " from vas,
"abide"; and in "be" and " been " (from bnd, a San-
skrit cognate with Latin /u, Greek phi/, " to grow ")■
are contained the idea of (/rowing. But to follow this
would take us from the main business of these pap rs ;
enough that, out of manifold combinations of a few inar-
ticulate or unjointed sounds, the larger proportion of which
were imitative, have arisen the languages of the world,
from the meagre stock of words of the unlearned and the
savage, to the noble and expanding vocabularies of educated
men.

Passing to the facts upon whicli the solar theory of
myths rests, the following stands foremost The researches
of scholars, notably of the German Bopp and Jacob Grimm,
have shown that the languages spoken in Europe by the
Keltic, Teutonic, Slavonic, Greek, and Latin races, and in
Asia by the Hindus, Persian, and some lesser people, are
the common descendant?, under modifications through
various causes, of one mother- tongue known as the Aryan
(from a Sanskrit word cognate with the root ar to plough),
a term applied in the Vedas to the dominant occupiers of
the soil, the "tillers " in India, who spoke it The alx>ve
group of languages is also called the Indo Germanic, and,
with more appropriateness, as roughly defining the races
included therein, the Indo-European. Of course, wherever
the several branches of the old Aryan family finally
settled, they mixed more or less with the aboriginal races,
whom they conquered. But, making such allowances as
this demands, it holds good that people to-day, so unlike in
complexion, physique, colour of hair, and speech, as the
Hindoo and the Icelander, the Piussian and the English-
man, the Persian and the German, are the oflspring of
common ancestors, of whom, although no material relics sur-
vive, language remains to attest what considerable advance
from primitive savagery they had made. Wave after wave
of immigrants, among the earliest being the Kelt, followed
one another westward, to wrestle for the fairest lands ; so
that when, centuries later, the veteran legions of Ca'sar
er-ssed swords with tlie Belg;e in this island, they fought
against men remotely kin to themselves both in language
and in blood.

Furthermore, the evidence which has yielded this most
interesting fact also shows that the old Aryans, before
they separated into tribes, each of varying dialect, had a
common mythology. This, which had its source, as myth
everywhere had, in man's endeavour to interpret the
meaning of his surroundings, had developed into a deifica-
tion of the powers of nature, and likewise become the
groundwork of traditional history, as well as the source of
legend, folk-lore, and folk tale. So venerable are these
last-named in their antiquity, that the nursery stories told
in Iceland and in the 'Tyrol, in the Highlands and in the
Deccan, are identical After allowing for local colouring.

160

• KNOW^LEDGE •

[March 16, 1883.

and for changes incident to the lapse of time, they are the
variants of stories related to children in the Aryan father-
land at a period historically remote, and moreover are
told in words which are phonetically akin. Their corre-
spondences, of ten extendingtominor detail, are not explained
liy any theory of borrowing, for no trace of intercourse
between Aryans of the East and West occurs until long
after the domiciling of the stories where we IJnd them. Nor
did they, with such close resemblances as appear between
the German Faithful John, and the Hindu Rama, and
Luxman, and between our own Cinderella, the German
Aschenputtal, and the Hindu Sodrwa Bai, spring native
from their respective soils. And there is just that un-
likeness in certain detail which might be expected from
the different positions and products of the several Aryan
lands. They explain, for example, the absence from Scan-
dinavian folk-love of creatures like the elephant, the giant
ape and turtle, which figure in Brahmanic beast epic.
Now, what is true of the folk-tales applies with added force
to the mythologies. In the great epics of the Greeks, the
niad and Odyssey ; of the Norsemen, the Volsungs ; of the
Germans, the Nibeluugs ; of the English, King Arthur and
his Round Table Knights ; of the Hindus, the Ramayana
and Mahabharata ; of the Persians, the Shah Nameh ; we
find similarities of incident and episode which are inex-
plicable, except upon the theory of a common origin. So
far as the names and characteristics of the heroes and
heroines are concerned, their phonetic identity reveals that
common origin, whilst their analysis explains their common
meaning.

The key to this is the Sanskrit language. In the history
of the Indo-European family of speech, it served as the
starting-point, because, although not the ancestor, it is the
eldest member, and has more than the others preserved its
roots and suffixes in a more perfect form. And in the
history of Indo-European mythology, it is in the ancient
Vedic texts, chiefly the Rig-Veda, that we find the materials
for comparative study, since in these venerable hymns of a
Bible older than our own are preserved the earliest extant
forms of Aryan myth.

The method adopted was to compare a number of the
Greek names of gods and heroes of somewhat obscure
meaning with names of Vedic deities whose meaning is
clear. The phonetic relationship between the two sets of
names, hidden as it is by the interchange of sounds, is
proved by the law which governs such interchange or
'' permutation of consonants," known, after its discoverer,
as " Grimm's law." The causes of this are not easy to
ascertain, but they are referable to physical influences, as
climate and conditions of life, which in the course of time
bring about changes in the organs of speech — such, for
example, as make th so difficult of pronunciation to a
German, in whose language d takes its place, as drci for
iJiree, dtirstig for fliirstij, deia for t/iine, &c. We may
note tendencies to variation in children of the same house-
hold, their prattle often affording striking illustration of
Grimm's law, and it is easy to see that among semi-civilised
and isolated tribes, where no check upon the variations is
imposed, they would tend to become fixed and give rise
to new dialects. The method has been justified by its
works. The familiar myth of the birth of Athene gives
a good illustration of this. She is said to have been the
daughter of Zeus, and to have sprung from his forehead.
Now the Greek /f.u, the Latin Dais (whence the French
Dicic and our deilt/), the Lithuanian dieivas, and the Sans-
krit Di/arts, all come from an old Aryan root dir, or di/ii,
meaning " to shine." The Sanskrit di/ii, as a noun, means
" sky " or " day," and in the Veda, Di/aus is the bright sky
or heaven. Athene is the Sanskrit Atana, one of the many

Vedic names for the dawn. Thus the primitive meaning
of the myth comes out ; the dawn springs from the fore-
head of the sky ; the daybreak appears rising from the
East. But the Greek, in whose Pantheon Zeus had been
exalted as god of gods, did not dream that to his remote
ancestor that god was but the sky personified and deified ;
even his philosophers had traced it to the root ze»., "to
live," and for ever lost the track.

Ouranos, or Uranus, is the Vedic Varuna, the all-sur-
rounding heaven, from a root rar, to veil or cover ; Helen,
stolen Vjy Paris (in Suns, rani, " the deceiver ") from
Sparta, is the Vedic Sarama, the dawn, from the root, ■■^ar,
to creep ; the Charites, or Graces, are the Harits, or bright
coursers of the sun, from yhar, to shine, whence the idea
of splendour in its transfer to the fair women who attended
Aphrodite ; the Erinyes, or Furies, are the Saranyu, or
dawn, which brings evil deeds to light Hence, they who
did this became regarded as avengers, whose fury pursued
the wrong-doer.

These comparisons might be followed throughout the
whole range of classic as well as of Teutonic and other
epic with the like result. They apply equally to
the mythical phrases in which the adventures and
general career of the gods and heroes are narrated,
for the details of which my readers are referred
to such works as Sir G. W. Cox's " Mythology of
the Aryan Nations " and " Tales of Ancient Greece."
That these majestic epics have one and all their germs
in the phenomena of the natural world and the course
of the day and year, seems to me demonstrated. But
when the solar mythologists contend that " there is
absolutely nothing left for further analysis in the stories,"
that every incident has its birth in the journey of the sun,
the death of the dawn, the theft of the twilight by the
powers of darkness, we rebel against so sweeping an appli-
cation of the theory. They are nature-myths, but they are
much more than that ; the impetus that has shaped them as
we now know them came from other forces than clouds and
storms, and it is with these that our next paper must be
concerned.

Erratum in last paper, p. 130, 1. II. For " sensations of
a myth," read " sensations of a moth." — [ ! R. P.]

THE GREAT COMET OF 1882.— III.

By Professor C. A. Youxc.

(Continunl from page 149.)

THE spectroscopic observations have been very interest-
ing. On Sept. 18 the French physicist, Thollon, was
an independent discoverer of the comet, coming upon it
accidentally in sweeping around the sun. His spectro-
scopic apparatus consists of a so-called siderostat, the mirror
of which throws the rays from the object to be examined
upon the lens of a horizontal telescope 9^ in. in diameter,
and about 20 ft. long. At the focus of this telescope in a
darkened room is placed a spectroscope, and of course
this may be of any form and power Ijest suited to the
occasion. In the present case he used an instrument with
a single prism of high dispersive power. The most marked
feature of the spectrum was the presence of the lines of
sodium in the spectrum of the nucleus. They were very
bright, and were displaced toward the red by an amount
equal to about one-fourth of the interval between them,
thus indicating that the comet was rapidly receding from
the earth. A very narrow, bright, continuous spectrum

March 16, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

161

was aJso shown by the nucleus. In this t}ie dark lines
of Fraunhofer were not conspicuous, if visible at all,
showing that the principal brilliancy of the comet was not
redacted sunlight The usual carbon bands of the conietary
spectrum were not visible through the sky illumination,
and no other bright lines except those of sodium were seen
by Thollon. On the 22nd the comet's spectrum was
observed in the early morning just before sunrise, by
Ricco, of Palermo. He reports iiis observation thus :—
■"The spectrum was formed of the narrow continuous
spectrum of the nucleus, traversed by a large and strong
line of sodium (D) ; by enlarging the slit I saw a globular^
monochromatic image of the nucleus and coma. Besides
the line of sodium, many others were present, but, my
spectroscope not having a micrometer, I did not determine
them. I observed a band in the red, a line in the yellow
near and after D, two others in the green, and an enlarge-
ment of the continuous spectrum in the green and blue."
It is exceedingly unfortunate that the position of these
lines could not have been determined, at least approxi-
mately. No one can predict when such an opportunity
•will occur again.

The weather in this part of the country was abominable
up to November. I attempted to get spectroscopic
•observations on Sept. 20, but was foiled by clouds,
and have since succeeded only on October 2, 4, 10, 15, and
-•*• On the first of these dates the sodium-lines were still
■easily visible, though not conspicuous. The carbon bands
were magnificent, especially the brightest one (in the green),
in which could be clearly seen the three fine lines observed
in the spectrum of Coggia's comet The band in the violet
■*'as verj' faint The nucleus gave a strong continuous
spectrum, on which the carbon bands wore superposed ;
and in the tail the proportion of white light (continuous
spectrum) to carbon light appeared to be about the same
as in the nucleus. The bands could be followed far out
into the tail by widening the slit, but were lost before the
continuous spectrum quite vanished. No dark lines were
made out On the 4th the results were the same, e.xcept
that the sodium-lines were very hard to see, and they dis-
appeared entirely before the next date. The later obser-
vations added nothing more. It is much to be hoped that,
when the different results of all observers come to be col-
lected and published, something will be found to supply
what is so unfortunately wanting in Ricco's most interests
tng but incomplete observation — hialxs valde dejfendus.

The highest interest of tho present comet lies in its
•orbit, however, its relation to preceding comets, and its
possible speedy destruction by the sun. Almost as soon as
it appeared, Professor Boss, in America, and Hind, in
England, proposed the hypothesis that it is identical with
the great comet of 1880, the period of the latter comet
having been shortened by some resistance. If so, this
comet will lie back again in a few months, and before long
must fall upon the sun. They have weighty arguments on
their side, but on the whole a different conclusion is more
probable.

(To he continued.)

AsBEsriDs rope is described amongst other articles in a new
•catalogiie pnblisbed by the United Asbestos Company. The
strength seems to be about one-fonrth that of ordinary hemp rope
■of the same diameter. Rope 1'5 in. diameter haa a breaking
strength of one ton, and 20 ft. of it weighs 131 lb. The breaking
strength of the rope 0'6875in. diameter — \'„ — is 02 tons, or 4cwt.,
a 20 ft. length weighing 3 J lb. The rope is made especially for fire-
escapes purposes, for theatres, fire brigades, and for ready means
•of escape from liouses and public buildings, the advantage being
that the rope will not break and drop its burden if a flame bears
upon it. It is made like ordinary rope, but spun from Italian
■Asbestos thread.

HOW TO USE OUR EYES.— III.
Bv John Bbowning, F.R.A.S.

(Continued from p. 150.)
COMI'LEMEKTARV COLOURS.

^T^HEN a coloured object is looked at for some time,
* * if the eye be directed to another object which is
grey or colourless, this object will appear to be strongly
coloured, just the opposite colour to that of the first object
the eye had been regarding.

By the expression the opposite colour, I mean the com-
plementary colour — that is, the colour which added to the
first colour would produce white.

Blue causes the grey portion of the object to appear
yellow, while yellow causes the grey portion to look blue.
Red causes the grey to appear green, while green makes
the grey look red.

It must not be supposed that if green paint be mixed
with red, or orange paint with blue, that white will be
the result

Owing to the impurity in an optical sense of all our
colours, we obtain only dark greys by such mixtures.
But if you reflect the complementary colours from the
spectrum, in which the colour is optically pure, one on the
other, 3'ou can make colours that will be very different to those
you will obtain from the mixture of pigments, and by using
carefully-selected pieces of coloured glass in two lanterns,
colours will be produced very different to those obtained
by the mixture of pigments.

The colours of stained glass are much purer and brighter
than any of our pigments.

There are three ways by which colours can be mixed.
1st, by grinding up the colours together. 2nd, by laying
coats of colour over each other. 3rd, by making narrow
lines or dots of the colours close to each other. The two
last methods are but little known or used, yet they are
the methods which give the most beautiful as well as the
most scientific results.

On a revolvin;/ wheel place a disc covered with black
and yellow paint mixed together. The disc appears green.
On another disc let a portion of the surface be coloured
yellow and a portion black. On rotating tliis disc the
colour will be not dark green, but dark yellow. Jli.x blue
and red, and then blue and yellow, first by mixing the
paints, and then by colouring a portion of each disc, and
note the different result obtained by the two methods.

The diagrams invented by Mr. Gorhani, the inventor
of the coloured top, will show the appearances I have
just described. You will see the grey portion in the
blue disc appear yellow, the grey portion of the red disc
appear green, and the grey portion of the green disc
appear a reddish chocolate.

It is from want of knowledge of this fact that many
artists over-colour their pictures. They make their
shadows too blue in what they would call a warm picture
• — that is, a picture of a red or orange or yellow tone of
colour, and the shadows in a cold or bluish picture they
make too red. This in another direction proves the
necessity of learning to see. Such artists require to be
shown that perfectly colourless shadows in a Muish picture
will look red, and equally colourless shadows in a reddish
picture will appear blue.

Although we cannot with our unassisted eyes tell how-
pure or impure colours or paints are, we can detect their
impurities by means of a spectroscope.

There are many coloured liquids and glasses which look
to us almost exactly alike. Now let us see how they look
when we analyse or cross-question them by sending the

162

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[March 16, 1883.

colour through a spectroscope. Take, for instance, blood,
cochineal, perniangunato of potash, and chlorophyll. By
using a niiiiiaturo spectroscope, blood may be distinguished
from other li<|uids similar in colour, and an idea may be
formed whether the blood is fresh. This has been of use in
examining the clothes of a suspected murderer, and has
led to detection. A cpiantity of dried blood that would
lie on a pin's head could be analysed by this process.

One instance in which this method was applied seemed
to me of great interest.

Some years since, a dreadful murder was committed in
Cannon-street, in the City. The housekeeper in charge of
some offices was killed in the passage of the house about
eight o'clock in the evening. Shortly after, a man, a. dis-
tant relative of the murdered woman, was arrested on
suspicion. On inspecting his clothes, a number of small,
dark red stains were found upon them. These were scraped
off the cloth by an eminent chemist. This chemist
brought half the amount of the dried suVjstance to me.
Half of this minute quantity I sent to a distinguished
scientific friend, and half I experimented on with the
spectroscope.

The amount being so small, we could not make a suffi-
cient number of experiments with it to enable us to say
positively what substance it was, but both my friend and
myself came to the conclusion that it was certainly not
hlood.

When the trial came on, the man proved an alibi, and
explained that the dark spots on his clothes were red
shellac varnish, which he had got on him at a hat-maker's,
who used it for stiffening the shapes of his hats.*

{To he contiinicd.)

THE NEW SKIRT.

By a Lady.

I HOPE you do not consider the question of Stays and
Tight Lacing exhausted. Having read with interest
everything on this subject that has appeared in Know-
ledge, it seemed to me that it would be an easy experi-
ment, and might be a useful one, to try the effect of
leaving off stays, and using the divided skirt. The results
of my experience may, perhaps, be of interest to your
readers.

I must confess that I left off stays with some misgiving,
having the idea that the support they give is absolutely
essential, and that, as I had become thoroughly accustomed
to them (as is the case with most), I should not be able
to hold myself upright or walk well without their aid. I
may mention that my wai.^t measurement with stays was
24 in., my age is 27, height 5 ft. 4 in., chest measure-
ment 39 in. I was married when I was 18. I have had
four children, the last of whom was born ten months before
I left otf stays. It will be admitted that the experiment
was made under very fair conditions for testing it.

My first experience was simply delight at my new free-
dom. I could bend at will, take a long breath without
discomfort, sing songs I had been unable to sing for years,
and walk much further with much less fatigue. 1 was
surprised to find how little I missed the support my stays had
given me. But I must admit I thought I should very soon
have to wear them again ; for my skirts tired my waist and

• For further information on the spectroscope, see " The Spectro-
scope and its Work," by R. A. Proctor ; a truly marvellous little
book in the amount of iuformation it coataius, being equally popular
and accurate.

hips when I was standing or walking. I became Ifss tired
than before, speaking generally, l>ut more uncomfortable
round the waist ; also the skirts dragged the dress out of
shape.

So soon, however, as I tried the divided skirt, all these
difficulties were removed. I had felt great reluctance in
assuming this new kind of dress, as I had thought it was
something quite noticeable and conspicuous. The pictures
in Punch, in particular, must have been drawn by people
who had never seen the skirt. They give an entirely wrong
idea of it. In fact, it is not strictly speaking a dress ; that
is, it forms no part of the \-isible dress. It is neither more
nor less than a pair of such trousers as little girls used to
wear forty or fifty years ago; only, instead of the frilled edges
showing below the dress, they are completely hidden — unless
the wearer should prefer to have the dress unusually short
They are trimmed with deep plaiting, and in walking, if
visible at all, which is quite optional, appear like a petti-
coat. They are not suspended from the waist, but from a
calico band — to use this word for want of a better, but in
reality this support is fitted to the figure round the hips,
and the divided skirt is buttoned to it.

I should think that no one who had tried the new-
dress would ever resume her heavy petticoats and stays.
The gain when I had left off the stays was great ;
V)ut when the petticoats were left off, the gain was very
much greater. The sense of lightness and freedom -was
truly enjoyable. The warmth of the divided skirt is equal
to that of at least three petticoats. There is, indeed, no-
comparison between them as regards protection from cold.
I have tried them for walking, running, dancing, and tri-
cycling, and have as much comfort again in all these
exercises as I had before ; or rather, discomfort is replaced
by perfect comfort.

It may, perhaps, be supposed that the change has caused
my waist to grow larger. But this is not the case. On
the contrary, my waist now measures two inches less.
Dresses which were made before the change are now quite
loose, and have had to be refitted. My dressmaker,
however, finds it easier to fit me without the stays, and
dresses made since the change fit much better and look
much nicer.

I do not suppose that ladies who are so unfortunate as
to have no waist would care to leave ofi' stays, for the
general prejudice has been, and is, in favour of some slight-
diminution of circumference at the waist. But that need
not prevent them from trying the divided skirt ; indeed, I
should imagine that it would be possible, though I do not-
say it would be wise, to lace tighter when wearing the
divided skirt than when, in addition to the bad eliVcts of
undue compression, the weight of several heavy petticoats
is dragging the body down. The dress can be made as
fashionably as the lady pleases — in point of fact, I am
sure no one would know that a lady, whether seen in the
drawing-room or in the ball-room, or taking exercise, was a
follower of the new fashion except by the improvement of
her figure, and the greater grace and lightness of her move-
ments.

[I have received also a contribution on the other side,
for which I do not find space, for the simple reason that
it proves nothing. A lady states that, being interested in
the question whether the figure can be trained without
injury, she bought corsets, by means of which she
gradually compressed her waist, till the circumference was
reduced from 29 in. to 20 in., and though at first uncom-
fortable, she got at last even to like the feeling of support
gi\-en by the tightly-laced corsets ; yet, not caring to be a
tight-lacer, she soon after gave up wearing these tight
stays. This proves how much that admirable specimen of

iLiRCn IC, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

1C3

Nature's work — the human trunk — can bear without
giving way ; but nothing more. It suggests also that,
whatever the lady may think she remembers, she was more
comfortable when less tightly laced. — R. P.]

PLEASANT HOURS WITH THE
MICROSCOPE.

By Hexrt J. Slack, F.G.S., F.RM.S.

AN interesting train of thought may be suggested to the
microscopist who will pay some attention to the tool
and implement-making processes which occur in many of
the lower organisms, and which result in objects wonder-
fully like the productions of human invention and skill.
The objects alluded to are called tools and implements for
want of more appropriate terms. They are exactly like
what men so designate, although their uses in the economy
of the creatures forming them are different A good slide
or two of sponge spicules, obtainable from any vendor of
microscopic preparations, afford excellent illustrations.
Sponges consist of a very soft animal matter, supported,
•except in one family, by a horny, flinty, or chalky frame-
work, as the case may be. The two last especially are
atrengthened by spicules of various shapes, and also pro-
vided with spicules of defence, which make them incon-
Tenient objects for their enemies to bite. That a soft
animal should be able to take from the water in which it
dwells calcareous or silicious matter, and deposit it in con-
▼enient forms, is not in itself an unusual or very striking
circumstance ; but we are astonished when we find little
models of hooks, spears, tridents, grappling irons, caltrops,
and many other tool and implement sorts of things.

Amongst the most curious are the fish-hook spicules of
Hyviedesmia Johnsonii. Each shank carries two hooks —
one at each end — and they project at right angles to each
other, or near it. The hook part has an extremely sharp
internal knife edge, a very acute point, and at the base of
the blade a little notch which acts as a barb. The variety
to be found in different genera of sponges is consideraVile,
and it is marvellous that organic processes of growths
should in many instances prefigure human inventions. In
the sponge family they cannot properly be called either
tools or implements ; they are strange simalacra, and
though each form must have special reference to the life-
processes of the creature, they have not the same special
adaptation to its habits that we find in the apparatus with
which insects are furnished. We can scarcely imagine that
a sponge whose defensive spicules are like caltrops can be
better or worse provided for the battle of life than one
with fish-hooks ; but when we come to the tools and im-
plements of insects, we see a close adaptation to peculiar
wants.

The mouths of insects exhibit a wonderful variety of
modifications, and in many cases, if the early races of men
had been aVjle to see them, they might have found i)attems
of the most useful tools. The subject of these mouths is
too large and too important to be spoilt by a casual notice ;
but it may be said with Haeckel, "the heads of (lies
universally possess, beside the eyes, a pair of articulated
feelers, or antenna;, and also three jaws on each side of the
mouth. These three pairs of jaws, although they have
arisen in all flies from the same original basis, become
changed by different kinds of adaptation to very varied and
remarkable forms in the various orders." Chewing, suck-
ing, biting, and licking, are the functions which the mouths
of different insects are modified to perform. The mouth

organs, as prepared in the slides generally sold, are all
flattened and squeezed together in Canada balsam, and in
that condition are far less instructive and intelligible than
if mounted in fluid, or examined in the living creature, or
in some cases — large flies, bees, >fec. — simply dried after the
several parts have been opened out by a needle. As speci-
mens of tool-provided insects, the student may take a
common flea {ptifi'.r irritans), any female gnat, and one of
the breeze flies — bluebottle-like flies — common in summer,
with splendid green and bronze ej-es, and torments to horses,
cattle, and men. JIany other insects might be named, but
these will make a good beginning. The head of the
creature to be examined should be carefully removed with
a needle mounted in a wooden handle. That of the flea is
well shown in thin Canada balsam. The others should be
mounted entire in couples, one showing the top side, and
the other the under side. The flea's head can be best seen as
a transparent object in balsam, the others as opaf(ue ones.
The flea has to cut through the skin of the animals it feeds
upon, and then suck their blood. Very similar is the
performance of the breeze fly, but his tools are larger and
stronger. The human flea, which differs more or less from
some twenty-five other Jleas, has two exquiaitelj'-made saws,
with double rows of teeth, a construction used by men
wlien they wish to cut green wood, or other clogging
substances. They would be reckoned very scientific tools
if made by man. The breeze fly, besides his sucking
apparatus, has knives like some used in surgical opera-
tions ; the female gnat operates with beautifully-shaped
lancets, the stings of bees and wasps work in a pro-
tecting channel analogous to the tube of the surgeon's
trocar. In many insects the tool formation is exhibited at
the end of the abdomen as saws and ovipositors, often
closely like human inventions.

In the sponges, the tool-like things are organised mem-
branes, infiltrated with the mineral matter. In insects,
the strengthening material of the tools is chitin, the sub-
stance which forms their external skeleton, and which
exists in various degrees of hardness. Its composition is
highly complicated, the formula, according to Schmidt,
being C,„ IL, N., O,, ; that is, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen,
and oxygen, in those proportions of their several equivalents.

From the tool-like formations of the sponges, we learn
that their life processes are able to arrange matter in
shapes that might be called organic inventions, though un-
conscious and automatic. If the protoplasm of sponges
can do these things, we cannot be surfirised to find the
protoplasm of insects directed, at certain points, to similar
labours, and, lastly, to find the human brain conceiving
forms like those which the organic forces, operating in
lower creatures, have produced, and we may wonder whether
there is any subtle relation between the two.

Buyers of microscopes very often — prob.ablj-, most often
— get tired of the instrument because though it shows
pretty and curious things, they have no train of associations
with them. As soon as objects are contemplated in the
light of an artistic or scientific conception, their interest
is permanent and always on the increase. No attempt
has or will be made in these papers merely to describe
what popular and accessible books contain, but it is hoped
they may excite thinking, and then observation will meet
with its reward.

The ScxnAY Society. — Tho Grosvenor Gallery was open to the
members of the Sunday Society on .Sunflay last, each member
havinfr the privilepe of introdacinf; a friend. The Gallery was
open from six o'clock till half-past eiffht, and during that time
720 persons passed tlirongh the turnstiles. Mr. Evans Williams,
M.P., Professor Corfield, Mr. Rutherford, and Mr. Mark Judge were
present during the evening.

164

• KNOWLEDGE •»

[March 16, 188a

CLOCKS AND WATCHES.*
Bv Richard A. Proctor,

EVERYONE ought to know something about clocks and
■watches, but especially about clocks. There is ex-
cellent exercise as well for tlie moral as the mental
qualities in taking to pieces, cleaning, and putting together
again, a good old English clock. You make mistakes the
tirst two or three times, of course, and you IJnd all sorts of
unexpected difficulties, especially with the escapement.
Y''our first mistakes are, of course, rather bad ones.
Perhaps at the beginning you omit to check the train
before freeing the pallets from the escapement wheel, and
the spring drives the wheels round with a whirr at
mischievous speed ; or, after cleaning the works and
putting them together successfully, you perhaps lubricate
them with linseed oil (an experience of our boyhood), and
get a very cloggy clock indeed. Or something goes wrong
with the hand-carrying wheels ; or the escapement wheel
obstinately refuses to work nicely on the pallets. If it
is a striking clock, you are still more apt to make
mistakes, whether it is on the rack-and-snail or striking-
plate system. But font vient enjiii d qui si^ait ailendre.
The whole working system of the clock is, before long,
mastered, and a very pretty mechanism it is found to be.
I am almost disposed to think that the average boy, even
if he belong to the unlucky class of those who have no
particular business to do in later life, gains more by mas-
tering a clever piece of mechanism than by learning the
correct rendering of a Latin ode : though I wish no more to
run down Latin lore (among the pleasantest studies we
have) than to advance the study of machinery as the only
fit pursuit for boys and men. Only I would have every-
one who possesses a clock or watch to know something of
its ingenious mechanism.

Sir Edmund Beckett's "Rudimentary Treatise on Clocks
and Watches," though really intended for those who take
a more special interest in horology than most of us have
time to cultivate, will be found full of interesting reading
by thousands who would probably make a rare mess of
even a Dutch Wag o' the Wall, if they tried to clean or
mend one. It teaches the principles of horology which
everyone should understand, and gives so much practical
information about clockmaking as is wanted by clockmakers
and amateurs wishing to make or superintend clocks of
superior character. The book should be widely read by
clock-sellers. Many who sell the commoner sort of clocks,
often know much less than they ought to know even about
such clocks as they deal in. But the ignorance which for-
merly prevailed among those who claimed to be clock-
makers, can only be rightly estimated by a study of such a
work as this, from which we learn what can be done in the
way of exact time-measurement, and how little some of the
clockmakers of less than half a century ago knew about
the recjuirements for such success as has since been
achieved.

The treatise is so widely known (this is practically the
ninth edition, though nominally the seventh, and each edition
contained 3,000 copies), that it need only be noted of the
present edition that it contains more new matter and
alterations than any since the fourth.

Like everything Sir Edmund Beckett has ever written,
this work is full of interest and full of life and character.

* " A Itudimentary Treatise on Clocks and Watches and Bells."
By Sir Edmnnd Beckett, Bart., author of " Astronomy Without
Mathematics." Seventh edition. Crosby, Lockwood, &, Co., Loudon.

One can hardly read a single page without recognising thf-
personality of the writer.

The attack on the metric system (pp. \0, 41) is a finf
example of Sir Edmund's style : " Doctrinaires may cran>
penny-school girls with French metre.?, and centimetres,
and kilograms ; but our yard grew and will remain as the
natural standard of length until the stature of the human
race alters. . . . Y'et there are people who want to force
on all the world the absurd, inconvenient, and useless
metre, invented by a nation whose language is declining
all over the world ; while the English language, with that
standard of measures which every man carries in his arms,
his legs, and in his head, is spreading over all the world,
so that it will soon be the only universal language to be
found everywhere, if it is not so already." Every sentence
tells like a well-weighted sledge-hammer swayed by a strong
arm.

Illustrations of stupidity, such as Herbert Spencer has
tellingly used, are here to be found in abundance. Sir
Edmund mentions a specification for a public clock in-
cluding this remarkable stipulation, — the pendulum
"must vibrate two seconds, but be as long as the room
admits of." The same specification .stipulated for a
dead escapement — as completely out of date for superior
clocks as De Tick's balance-wheel escapement. A depu-
tation from a considerable town, negotiating in London
for a firstrrate town-hall clock, engaged to pay a swindling
firm more than would have paid for the best possible clock,
for one warranted to keep time within five minutes a week,
where five seconds would only have been a fair variation.

Sir Edmund Beckett calls attention to the absurd way
in which the figures on clock-dials are made, pointing out
that, in reality, the Roman numerals are not wanted at
all, but simply clear marks dividing the dial into twelve
parts. I have seen clock faces so cleverly arranged with a
series of radiating streaks, of the same colour and shape as
the body of the hands, that, though I can read a watch
face at the farther end of a long room, I had to get close
to the clock (which was on the mantelpiece), and to peer
hard at, it before I could distinguish the hands and learn,
the time.

The whole story of the Westminster Clock and
Bell should be studied by those who wish to know
of what blunders and of what negligence officialism
is capable, blunders and negligence very costly in this
case to the nation, — for which the officials after
their nature (which is simply average human nature
put in a position of trust for which it is unfit), cared
nothing, as the nation and not they would have to-
pay. Luckily, the blundering selfishness of officialisnv
ended by giving Sir Edmund Beckett legal control where
he had only been brought into the business to save an
official from trouble ; and as he was really interested in
getting a good clock made, whereas the officials did not
care two straws whether the clock was good or bad, he
naturally was a thorn in their side. Mr. W. Cowper
Temple, who had been made First Commissioner of Works-
by his stepfather. Lord Palmerston, was exuberantly
joyful when the man to whom the nation really owes
the clock had ceased to have control over it It was-
handed over to Sir George Airy, who amused himself by
devising a new arrangement to replace the great check-
spring of the striking part : a smash naturally resulted
(since Airy's knowledge of large clocks was purely theo-
retical) ; " and then the old spring was quietly replaced,
and is there now, and there have been no more such ex-
periments." The story of the bells is equally instructive;
As to expense, the bells cost less than .£6,000, and the
clock, with the hands originally provided, cost £4,.080, or-

Maech 1G, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE

165

XIO.OSO in all, including .£750 for recasting Big Ben. Sir
C. Barry's iron frame cost XG,COO, and his hands and dials
alone cost £"),."5.'U, or ,£11,034 for the architect's appendages
to the clock and bells. The clock tower is not quite .so
hideous as the Victoria Tower, but that is all that can be
said of it

THE ELEMENTS OF WEATHER KNOWLEDGE.*

The Director of the Jleteorological Office may not be
able to forecast the weatlier of the British Isles
altogether successfully (for which, however, very sufficient
reasons can be given), but he has written a capital work on
Elementary Meteorology. The book before us is one of the
best proportioned and most satisfactory handbooks of
meteorology we have yet seen. There is scarcely any
matter of interest connected with the subject which is not
adeijuatcly treated here, while, as might be expected from
Mr. Scott's position, the dilFerent departments are brought
close up to date, a most important matter in such a subject
as meteorology, undergoing constant change in details,
though its general principles remain little changed from
century to century. Nay, as Mr. Scott points out, the
Book of Job, probably one of the most ancient of the
■works included in that little library of books called the
Bible, " contains some sound meteorological knowledge,"
rather elementary, but " as true now as it was some three
thousand years ago.' And if our knowledge is in part so
old, so also is our ignorance. Mr. Scott is obliged to admit
in the case of the British Isles what was said of old in
Palestine, " the wind bloweth where it listeth, and we
cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth " — or, as
he puts it, " Situated as the British Isles are with an ocean
to the westward, we in London can never get many hours'
notice of a change." On the other hand, at the Central
OflBce in the United States, reports can be collected from
an extensive area, and the changes, as they come on, can
be watched at head-quarters to an extent which is quite
impossible at this side of the Atlantic.

In the present work, therefore, the study of weather is
only dealt with in a passing way, while the study of
climate claims much closer attention and receives much
fuller treatment. Cosmical meteorology is not considered
at all, except in an appendix on the imagined influence of
sun-spots on the weather. It is painful to note, by the
■way, that in dealing with this matter our author is by no
means so enthusiastic as the advocates of sun-spottery
would desire — nay, if it were not incredible that anyone
could poke fun at that dignified body, it would almost
seem as if that were what Mr. Scott meant in the following
passage : —

" Inasmnch as various investipitions arrive at contradictory
ooDClnsions as to the nature of the connection between ' weather
phenomena, as well as events depending on thoni,' and those of
snn-spot frequency ; one class holding that sun-spot frequency ac-
oompanios a high, while the other asserts that it is associated with
alow temperature, it can scarcely be said that the close connection
between solar and terrestrial phenomena is capable of accurate
demonstration."

Could anything much less encouraging be said even of
the follies of astro meteorology 1 to which sun-spottery
(whose most enthusiastic ad\ocates are not so foolish as
they seem) in reality gave birth.

We would especially recommend to our readers' attention
the chapters on Temperature (IIL), on Radiation (IV.),

• "Elementary Meteorology." By Robert II. Scott, author of
" Weather Charts and Storm Warnings." With numerous illustra-
tions. (Kegan Paul & Co., London.)

Dew, Fog, Mist, and Cloud (VII.), Rain, Snow, and Hail
(VIII.), and Electrical Phenomena (X.), in Part I. ; and
the whole of Part II., which deals with the Distribution of
Temperature and Pressure, the Prevailing \\'ind.s. Ocean
Currents and Sea Temperature, the Distribution of Rain,
Climate, Weather, and Storms.

The maps at the end of the book are excellent, and,
though necessarily on rather a small scale, the scale suits
the character and purpose of the treatise. These maps
include the isothermal lines for January, July, and the
whole year ; tlie dillerence between the January and July
temperatures and the mean temperatures for the whole
world, Maps IV. and V. ; the mean atmospheric pressure
and prevailing winds for January and July, Maps \ I. and
VII. ; the current-chart of the globe for the year (reduced
from Maury), Map. VIII. ; isothermal lines for aea-surface
temperature (mean) in February and August, Maps IX.
and X. ; and, lastly, lines showing regions of equal annual'
range of temperature.

The following points have suggested themselves to us in
the reading of this excellent little book (it is considerably-
larger, by the way, than nio.st of the volumes of the Inter-
national Series, though no higher in price). At page 41,^
the word " homonymous " seems an undesirable addition to
our already over-long list of sesquipedal words ; but these
words should at least be correct, and we approve of our
author's suggestion that the incorrect " atmometry " should
be replaced by the correct form '• atmidometry " (the
blunder of the astronomical "chromosphere" for "chromato-
sphere," already a standing jest, needs to be matched,
however, by a meteorological blunder). The explanation
of verrjlas is rather misleading, as the moisture of
damp air deposited in solid form produces snow crystals,
not true glass-ice, which often so closely resembles
glass in transparency as to be invisible from the
usual height of the eye above the ground, as some
(including the present writer) have found to their cost,
whereas a deposit of ice crystals is very obvious to the
sight. No reference is made to the determination of higher
cloud levels. Our author gives a very commonplace, but
probably correct, explanation of the hailstones as large as
elephants, reported from India, as probably due to the
collection of liailstones in large holes, and many becoming
there welded into a single mass. In the figure at p. 1G2,
the letters A, B, referred to in the text, are not shown.
At p. 174, Mr. Scott points out correctly the absurdity of
supposing that the eye can determine which way a lightning-
flash travels. There is a very interesting account at p. 182
of the " inductive action of thunderstorms " (to use rather
inexact verbiage).

It occurs to us to notice, lastly, what we cannot sufll-
ciently admire, — the combined courage and energy which
enabled a single writer (we infer from the style) to-
review in a couple of columns in the Times all the
International Series thus far published — more than forty
volumes. A man should be a giant in intellect — or
else possess a perfectly microscopic modicum of modesty
(to say nothing of conscientiousness) — to pa.ss in review,
and pronounce judgment on, forty-five works, including
treatises by such men as Tyndall, Herbert Spencer,
Maudsley, J. W. Draper, Bain, Quatrefages, Huxley,
Young, Sheldon Amos, Romanes, and Lubbock — dismissing
the series at the average rate of fifty words for eacL

The arc lamps now illuminating the Oxford Union
Society are, in consequence of their flickering light, to be
replaced by 100 incandescent lamps.

166

KNO'nA/'LEDGE

[March 16, 1883.

THE FACE OF THE SKY.

From March 10 to March 30.

By F.R.A.S.

THE Bnn may bo watched for spots and facula^, but they aro
neither so larpo nor so frequent as they were a few months
since. The Zodiacal light should bo looked for after sunset on every
clear evening. The aspect of tho night sky may bo determined,
and the constellations now visible identified from Map III. of " Tho
Stars in Their Seasons." Neither Mercury, Venus, Mars, nor
Neptune are availably placed for the observer. Jupiter is still the
most conspicuous object in tho night sky, but he sets soon after
2 a.m. now. He will be found above ? Tauri. On the night of tho
20th, the student should look out for tho transit of Satellite 111., as
it has on previous occasions been seen to change from a bright to a
dai'k spot on Jupiter's face. It will enter on his fullowina limb at

10 h. 3 m. p.m. Subsequently Satellite II. will be occulted at

11 h. 4 m., and the transit of I. begin at 12 h. 20 m. On the 21st,
Satellite II. will be occulted at 9 h. 35 m. The 22nd is a night pro-
lific in Jovian phenomena. The ingress of the shadow of Satellite I.
will occur at 8 h. G m., and that of the shadow of II. at 8 h. 41 m.
At 8 h. 54m., Satellite II. itself will pass off the planet's face, as
will Satellite I. at 9 h. 3 m. Its shadow will follow it at 10 h. 23 m.,
and lastly the shadow of Satellite H. will leave Jupiter's disc
at 11 h. 28 m. On tho 23rd Satellite I. will reappear from
eclipse at 7h. 36 m. 34 s. p.m. Satellite III. will reappear from
eclipse at 8h. 2 m. 35s. in the evening of the 24th. On the 28th
Sat. I. will be occulted by the planet at 11 h. 32 m. The night of
the 29th will be another rich one for the young observer of .lovian
phenomena. Sat. I. will begin its transit at 8 h. 45 m. ; as will
Satellite II. four minutes later. The shadow of Sat. I. will enter
on to the planet at 10 h. 2 m. ; the Satellite casting it passing off at
Uh. 2 m. At 11 h. 19 ra. the shadow of Satellite II. will leave
Jupiter's disc ; as will the Satellite itself at 11 h. 35 m. The egx'ess
of the shadow of Satellite I. will happen at 12 h. 19 ra., but Jupiter
will be very close to the horizon. Finally, on the night of the 30th
Satellite I. will reappear from eclipse at 9 h. 32 m. 20 3. Saturn is
very rapidly approaching the west now, but may still be observed
an hour or two after sunset. He is situated to the S.E. of S Arietis.
If the reader will refer to Map III. of " The Stars in Their Seasons "
(spoken of above), he will find a small star marked r in the con-
stellation Leo ; a little to the left of this in the sky is a 6th Mag-
nitude one, called 89 Leonis, and a very little above this last-named
.star lies Uranus, whose pale blue planetary disc in the telescope
will reveal him at once.

The Moon is 7'3 days old at noon to-day, 8'3 days old at the same
hour to-morrow, and so on until the 30th, when she is obriously 21'3
days old. During the next twenty-four hours she passes from Leo
into Tirgo, in which constellation she remains during the whole of
the 17th and 18th, travelling into Libra on the 19th. She is in
Libra on the 2Uth, and a good deal of the 21st, but moves into the
confines of Scorpio towards the end of that day. Then she crosses
the south-west part of Ophiuchus on the 22nd, moving out of Ophiu-
chus into Libra on the 23rd. She occupies the 21th in crossing
Sagittarius, where she remains on the 25th, leaving it, to enter
Capricornus, on the 26th. She passes into the confines of
Aquarius on the 27th, occupies the 28th in crossing that con-
stellation, enters Pisces on the 29th, and is there during the
whole of the 30th. Four occultations of stars by the Moon
occur at tolerably convenient hours during one specified
period. On March 20th the 6th Mag. Star, 14 Sextantis, will
disappear at the Moon's dark limb at 12.3 p.m., at an angle of
88° from her vertex, and reappear at her bright limb at 1 h. 17 m.
the next morning. On the 21st 36 Sextantis will disappear at the
Moon's dark limb at 6 h. 37 m. p.m., at .an angle of 31° from her
vertex, reappearing at her bright limb at 7 h. 48 m. p.m., at an angle
of 215°. 50 Virginis will be occulted by the bright limb 38 minutes
after midnight on the 24th, at an angle of 91° from the Moon's
vertex. Both these stars are of the 6th Magnitude, tf/ Ophiuchi,
a 5th Magnitude star, will di.sappear at the bright limb at mid-
night on the 2Sth, at an angle of 87° from the vertex of the Moon,
to reappear 54 minutes later from behind her dark limb at an angle
of 190°. We do not give the times of reappearance, &c., when the
phenomena occur after 1 a.m.

The latest development of Now Zealand cultivation is known as
liquorice-farming, and wc hear that many colonists are giving much
attention to tho subject. This plant, the ghjcyrrhiza (derived from
two Greek words, signifying sxceet root), was well known to tho
ancients as a medicine ; and ever since the days of Queen Elizabeth
it has been extensively grown in England, especially about I'on-
tefract.— P. E.

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Ten.vtsos.

31rttfrs to t\)t etiitor.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibUj he in-
serted. Correspondents must not be offended, there/ore, should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial communications should be addresned to the Editor of
Knowledge; all Business communications to the Publishers, at the
Office, 74; Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS ARISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMMtJNICATIONS ARE ANSWERED BY POSO^ EVEN THOUGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

ON THE FORMATION OF COMET'S TAILS.

[750] — I remember, on receiving Mr. A. S. Davis's paper,
feeling very pleased to find that any one was paying attention
to the subject of repulsion due to evaporation, and in writing
to thank Mr. Davis for his courtesy in sending me a separate
copy of his communication to the Philosophical Magazine, I
have no doubt that I complimented him on his numerical
results very much in the language he has described ; but I can-
not admit that from the date of the publication of his paper
Mr. Davis obtained anything like a prescriptive right to discuss
" the adequacy of the force of evaporation to produce the repulsion
observed" in comet's tails. The formula which I made use of in
my paper in Knowledge of Feb. 16th, for expressing the relation
between the velocity of the molecules of hydrogen and the tempera-
ture of the gas, is a direct consequence of the kinetic theory of
gases, and has been used by very many persons besides Mr. Davis
and myself, long before the date of Mr. Davis's paper, or of my
communication to the Astronomical Society. With the exception of
the use of this formula, our methods of treating the subject and
our theories differ very materially.

Mr. Davis supposes the force of repulsion to be due to the evapo-
ration of solid matter, while I, having a diSiculty in conceiving of
the precipitation and subsequent evaporation of the same substance
in the neighbourhood of a comet's nucleus, have been driven to
assume that a mist of solid or liquid particles is precipitated by the
cold of space, and the particles are then acted upon by freely
moving molecules of other substances which still remain in the
gaseous state. Though one can conceive of the heat of the sun
producing evaporation from the sunward side of a particle, it is
difficult to conceive that the heat radiated from the nucleus would
be sufficient (especially in the case of comets which exhibit tails
when far outside the orbit of the earth) to give rise to energetic
evaporation from the face of the particle turned towards the
nucleus, and without repulsion from the nucleus the small particles
would not be driven towards the hyperbolic envelopes which fre-
quently form round the nucleus. According to my theory the
repulsion from the nucleus is due to a bombardment of gaseous
particles, while the repulsion from the sun is due to the recoils
accompanying evaporation, not of the substance of the liquid or
solid particle itself, but of matter deposited on its shaded side.

Mr. Davis is right as to tho velocity produced by slow evapora-
tion of the halt of a particle, but he has omitted to notice that I
assumed that the half of the mass was " rapid?;/ thrown off." I
should have said suddenly thrown off, and then my numerical
cxanqile would have been perfectly accurate ; but the theory in no
way rests upon this numerical result. I am only concerned to
prove that recoils from evaporation will give rise to velocities which
are commensurable with the velocities of gaseous molecules at
similar temperatures.

Mr. Davis's example, in which he supposes tho repelled body to
be a gramme of sand contained in a block of ice equal to a cubic
mfctre of water can hardlj- correspond to tho probable condition of
matter about the nucleus of a comet which has made several returns
to perihelion, yet such comets occasionally throw out largo tails ;
and by making this extraordinary and somewhat artificial assump-

Maech 16, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

167

tion, Mr. Davis only obtains a velocity of 290,000 miles per day,
whiTcas velocities of at least live or six million miles u day have to
be accounted for. But tliero is no diSiculty in conceiving that a
minute precipitated particle while in the region of paseous bombard-
ment arounil the nucleus may receive and throw off again towards
the .sun a continuous stream of matter many times its own weight
per hour. I hope that Mr. Davis will not imagine that because I
have ventured to make this criticism, I do not consider his numerical
evaluation of the repulsive force due to evaporation to be an
important contribution to the subject ; and I am sorry that he
should feel hurt at my not having mentioned his discussion, but I
had already far ei^ceeded the limits usually allowed to papers in
Knowledge. A. CowrEB Ranvard.

COMETS' TAILS.

[751] — Mr. Eanyard's interesting suggestions as to the forma-
tion of comets' tails in Knowledgk, No. 68, p. 100, may, I think,
be supplemented by further considering the effect of different
Tclocities among gaseous molecules. Supposing a comet to be a
swarm of stones coaling occluded gases under the sun's heat, the
molecules of the gas at the moment of escape are closely packed
together, and are, therefore, moving in all directions with indivi-
dual velocities varying from the point of momentary rest to a
(peed many times greater than the mean, and in this condition
they pass at once into that "fourth state of matter" in which
each molecule becomes a separate projectile, discharged in some
direction and with its own proper velocity into space. As the
comet's mass is too small to bo effective, the path of each mole-
cnlo will depend on its own motion and the attraction of the sun.
Those moving directly towards the sun will fly straight on with
accelerated speed ; those moving at any angle to this line of direc-
tion will take carved paths, diverging from each other. But those
moving directly away from the sun will pursue the same straight
line with retarded speed ; each one flying to a distance determined
by its own initial velocity and then falling back along the same
line. The greatest distance to which any of them can fly will be
that due to the greatest velocity acting against the sun's gravity at
the starting point, and may evidently bo vcrj- far in excess of any-
thing we could infer from the mere velocity of the gas. On their
return, the falling molecules will meet the ascendiug ones, their
encounters being more frequent as the nucleus is approached.
There will obviously be a stream of them extending as far as the
greatest distance of projection in a line away from the sun, and a
gradual condensation of this stream from its extremity towards the
nucleus.

We seem here to have at least one eflicient cause for something
Tery like a comet's tail. Albekt J. Moir.

March 5, 18S3.

VALCE OP GOLD.

[752] — About a week ago, Mr. Goschen, in the Honse of Commons,
mmed the members that before the Land Bill conld be properly
Tiewed, it would bo necessary to bear in mind (and the fact was
directly accepted by Sir Stafford Northcote on his authority) that
gold had risen in value 18 percent, within the last dozen years.
Now, if this means anything, it means that the purchasing power
of gold is greater by 18 per cent.; and that thus the farmer is
paying 18 per cent, more rent than he was a dozen years ago. I
abonld esteem it a favour on behalf of many of your readers if you
would elucidate this matter for us, first, by telling us how any in-
crement or decrement in gold value is felt and arrived at by
financiers, and, secondly, by what links in a chain of cause and
sBect it is felt by the farmer. You solve puzzles for us, and some
of ns are more than vague hero. Kcsxicus.

[I leave this question for those better able to deal with it. Mr.
Goschen's statement is vague, but probably referred only to the
relation between gold and land in a particular place. — R. P.]

VIBRATIOXS OF STRETCHED STRING.

[753] — If a string, say 10 feet long, vibrate ten times per
second, and when 8toppe<I off by half its length vibrates twenty
times per second, and when stopped off by three-fourths of its
length vibrates forty times per second, by how much must it be
stopped off to vibrate fifteen times per second ? H. G. A. Brown.

[The law indicated is that the number o{ vibrations is inversely
as the length of the unstopped portion. Wherefore wo must
, ' 10 20 feet
nave length unstopped for fifteen vibration = p: length = — g

= 6J feet ; or 3^ feet must be stopped off. — R. P.]

OPTICAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANCIENTS.
[754] — The collection of gems, Assyrian, Egyptian, and Grecian,
in the British Museum — ask any expert whotlier the majority of
these could have been executed witliout tho aid of magnifying
power H What credit is to bo attached to tho statement that Archi-
medes invented a machine of glass which faithfully indicated the
motion of the heavenly bodies, or that ho set firo to the Roman
ships by means of burning glasses ? Tho tirst determination would
go far towards settling the statement concerning tho Syracusan
geometrician and engineer. W. Cave Thomas.

RELIGION AND CLASSICS.

[755] — First, Why do you continue insidiously to carp at religion,
when you profess to have nothing to do with it ?

Secondly, Why do you rail against classical education, when tho
ivisest sentiments of all ages (mixed, it is true, with much foolish-
ness and ignorance) are enclosed within the boards of classical works,
and no one can bo a good scholar without classical education ?
subscribe to your work, viz., Knowleuoe, with much misgiriny.

Rev. Urban Smith.

[Mr. Smith's first question reminds me of tho question shouted
to a candidate for election to Parliament, " Answer, Yes or No ;
have you left off beating your grandmother ? " I cannot answer
u'hij I continue insidiously carping at religion, for tho simple reason
that I have never begun carping at religion. Tho follies of re-
ligionists are not religion. I suppose Mr. Smith refers to the
remarks in "' Science Gossip " on certain priyers characterised as
akin, when rightly apprehended, to profanity ; but exception was
taken to profanity, not to prayer j'^r >")■ That no profanity was
intended is, of course, obvious enough. Not a reversal of the laws
of nature, but a change to bo brought about by those laws was
asked for. The difficulty to the student of nature is to determine
where any chansre can be wrought without an interruption of natural
laws. When William IV. was asked to sanction prayers for drier
weather, he said "They ought to pray for a change of wind,"
knowing, as a sailor ought to know, that drought and wet depend
on wind. Science sees a natural cause lying behind tho change of
wind : and suspects a natural cause — not necessarily a sun-spot
change — behind that again. The more we know, the farther back we
can trace the chain of natural causation. If we knew tho whole series
of relations, asking for a change of weather would be at once seen to
mean either, (1) asking for what was hound to happen in conse-
quence of the natural relations involved, or else (2) asking for
what could not happen without a miracle. The only diff-rence
between asking for such a miracle and asking that — say — a shipful
of souls should be saved (when water had filled the ship) by a
temporary cessation of the action of gravity, is that in one caso
we ask for what would not be obviously miraculous, though really
60 ; in the other we ask for what would bo very obviously a
miracle. There is no connection between this question and religion,
properly understanding the word. Every reasoning mind recog-
nises that it is tho mental attitude in prayer that is de-
sirable, rather than any belief in the direct influence of
prayer; and there is as much of a religious nature in patient
submission as in earnest appeal. I know several persons eminently
religious in the truest sense of the word, self-sacrificing and de-
voted, faithful and zealous in the discharge of every duty, persons
whose whiile life is a religious lesson, who yet — even in the time of
direst trouble and anxiety, w.itching by the bed on which a much-
loved child lies seemingly near death, longing for the safe return
of those dear to them from some most dangerous journey, or them-
selves suffering intense bodily torture, — would feel ashamed to use
any form of prayer except that found in the last part of tho appeal
of Gethsemane. I am not concerned with tho rightness or wrong-
ness of these views, only with the consideration that the question
(as touched on in the note referred to) has, in reality, nothing
to do with religion, still less with any form of dogmatic
theology. Tho most depraved and brutal savage prays when ho
corses the beneficent rays of tho sun because they are too
warm for his personal comfort, or when he asks the ]>articuiar god
of his tribe to scatter the enemies of his chief, confound their
politics, frustrate their knavi.sh tricks, and make them fall; while
one whose whole life and thought are pure and unselfish, may
refrain, through purely religions motives, from all prayer for what
he most desires. Religion, which is tho quality holding a man
back from wrong-doing and selfishness, and binding him to duty
and loyalty and devotodness, tells nothing either way, and was
in reality not thought of when that note was penned.

On Mr. Smith's second point, I note simply that it is hecauxe so
ranch of wisdom is enclosed in classical works that many object to
what is called — absurdly enough — a classical education. How much
of the wie'lom of tho ancient Greek and Latin writers, how much
of tho grand stories some of them have told, do nine hundred and

108

KNOWLEDGE

[March 10, 1883.

iiinoty-nino out of pvo-y tlioiisnnd men who have hail what
is called a classical education even read — to say nothing of remeni-
l>ering ? This is true oven amouf; men who take honours in classics
nt our Universities. Taking at 1,000 the number of youtlis wlio
take a degree each year at our Universities (a most unfair selec-
tion for my argument), how many does the llcv. U. Smith suppose
to be good scholars (even in his apparently rather restricted sense
of the words), and of these how many know much about the wise
payings of men of old times 'i The outside of the cocoa-nut is
laboriously scraped, and here and there a grain or two of the fruit
may be got out, though spoiled by the scrapings of the shell ; but
how maiiv learn the true Havour of the solid and liquid food within ?

-RP-]"

THE R.illSFALL OF 1882.— DURATION OF SUXSHIXE.

1^756] — Perhaps some of your readers would contribute a few
notes on the rainfall of the country 'i Fresh evidence of the com-
jrarative wetness of different parts of these islands would be
valuable. At Killarney, five miles to the N. of the summit of
Mangerton, and eleven N.E. of Carntual, the rainfall for 18S2 was
58'5 inches ; in the Gap of Dunloe, near the top of the Upper
Lake, it amounted, for the eight months ending Jan. 2, 1883, to
06'6 inches.

While on the subject of comparison of climates, may I add that
it is very desirable that some instrument cheaper in price for
recording the duration of sunshine than the so-called Campbell
Sunshine-recorder sliould be invented. There is no use, for
purposes of agriculture, ic., in obtaining statistics of the maximum
heat in the sun, unless we are also enabled to compare localities
4»nd years inter sc, as to duration of bright sunshine; and £10 to
£12 is a high price for an instrument of this kind.

G. B. Wyx.ne.

THE WEATHER PROPHECIES.

[757] — Having read with much interest the remarks on tins
subject which appeared in Knovvleoge some few weeks ago, I
have, during the past month of February, been t.aking daily obser-
vations, in the hope of possibly throwing a little further light upon
the disputed question of the value of these forecasts.

The plan adopted was similar to that of Sir Edmund Beckett. I
<livided a sheet of paper into two columns, placing on the left the
daily forecasts for " England, N.E.," and on the right, the weather
as observed at Newcastle. I will not trouble you with the tabular
statement, but will merely submit an epitome of the result. They
are deduced from twenty-three days in February ; four of the
others were Sundays, when no forecast was at hand, and on the re-
maining one, the 13th, 1 inadvertently omitted to enter any record.

I have had regard to these elements : — (1) The direction of the
■wind ; (2) Its intensity, and (3) The amount of rainfall.

1. The Direction of the Tl'ind. — This is, as a rule, not very
precisely foretold, but is given as lying between certain assigned
limits, e.g., " S. to S.W.," and there is, therefore, difficulty in esti-
mating how far each prediction has been fulfilled. My method was
as follows, and, though open to the objection of being arbitrary, it
serves, I think, to give a good general idea of the success of the
prognostics. I arranged the results in four series, A, B, C, and D.
When the average direction of the wind for the day lay between
the prophesied limits, I put that day under A. When the direction
deviated from the mean of those limits by less than 45° (one-eighth
of the compass), I put the day under B. When it deviated by more
than one-eighth but less than one (|uarter of the compass, I put it
under C, and when by more than a quarter, under D. Here, then,
aire the total number of days in each series : —

A B C D

11 5 3 1

I shall be inclined to call A right, B nearer right than wrong, C
nearer wrong than right, and D altogether wrong. In half the
cases, then, we may fairly say the prophets were correct, in eight
they were doubtful, and in four they were complete failures. A
striking instance of the latter occurred on February 17th, when a
etrong cold E wind blew over Newcastle the whole day, though the
office announced " S.W. or S. winds."

2. Intensittj of Wind. — The forecasts under this head were mostly
too vague to admit of close criticism. Thus : — Feb. 21. " Moderate
to fresh or strong." The most definite predictions were those for
gales, and these were remarkably accurate. Thus gales or strong
winds were foretold on ten days, and on eiglit of these we had them.
The total number of very windy days was ten, seven of which had
<)een predicted. Thus on only two days was a gale predicted which
did not come ; while out of ten gales actually experienced warning
had been given of seven.

3. Rain/all. — Here the Office seems to have gone lamentably
aetray. Out of eleven days whereon rain was predicted it only fell

on four, and several of the other seven were exceptionally fine. On
the other hand, fine weather was definitely foretold for four days,
and on three of these it was experienced. For the rest the predic-
tions were delightfully indefinite, but generally managed to steer
clear of accuracy. Thus : —

Ftyrecasi. Ohxerved.

Feb. 2. Fair to unsettled Heavy rain all day.

,, 15. Showery to fair Bright and sunny.

„ IG. Fair to cloudy and unsettled Very bright and fine.

„ 2i. Fair to unsettled and showery ... Very bright and fine.
Of course, one month is too short a time to afford ground for
general conclusions, but taking these observations in conjunction
with others made casually at various times within the past few
years, I incline strongly to Mr. Williams' opinion, that the wind
prophecies are, on the whole, reliable, but that the rest are utterly
valueless. After all, however, a foreknowledge of the wind, and
especially of heavy gales, is the most important thing for practical
purjioses, and this is just where the office renders greatest service.
Surely, if warning can be given of seven g.ales out of evei-y ten in
time to prevent captains from putting out of port, and to saving
valuable lives and property, the existence of the Meteorological
Department is amply justified.

Permit me, in conclusion, to wish you every success in your
endeavours to disseminate scientific knowledge, and believe me,

Newcastle-on-Tync, ifarch 3. R. H. Jcde.

THE WEATHER FORECASTS.
[758] — If "Another Observer" (letter 749, p. 153) will turn to
" Good Words" for August, 1881, p. 570, he will find the secretary
of the Meteorological Department, in a burst of candour, saying :
" As regards the possibility of really predicting the weather for
these islands, weeks or even days beforehand, it is the duty of all
honest meteorologists to warn the public against expecting what is
clearly impracticable." This is the bald and literal truth. That the
Meteorological Office is a waste of public money may well be con-
tended, yet it is fair to the officials to say that they try to do some-
thing for their money. No such excuse, however, can be advanced
for the so-called " Meteorological Council of the Royal Society," a
body which annually picks the public pocket of £1,000, and whose
sole raison d'Hre is the private pecuniary benefit of certain " guinea-
pig" F.R.S.'s who are not ashamed to receive national money under
false pretences. A Thikd 0bsek\-er.

MULTIPLICATION— MOON'S VERTEX.
[759] — Recently I was told of a dodge for multiplying together
numbers between 12 and 20. The idea may be new to some of
your readers — as it was to me. Take the sum of one quantity and
the last digit of the other, and underneath it in imagination, but
one place to the right, put the product of the two last digits of the
number. For instance : —

16x17 16 + 7 = 23
6x7= 42

272
14x10 14 + 0 = 23
4x9= 36

266
There is no difficulty whatever in doing this mentally. I often
find it convenient. The reason will be obvious when we consider
that—

(10 + a) (lO + b) = 10 (10 + a + })) + ab

Your direction, on page 11, for finding vertex by great circle
passing through observer's zenith has rather puzzled me. The
vertex so found would vary with observer's longitude, and the angles
of jjosition would correspondingly vary — so it seems to me. I
have wondered whether you did not intend to say the great circle
through the pole, but have seen no correction.

FREn. C. Green.

[Mr. Green should have addressed his secund remark to
" F. R. A. S.,"nottome. I am a Fellow of the R.iyal Astronomical
Society, though I have long since ceased to attend meetings; but
lam not (Jie "F.R.A.S." who has so long written in the English
Mechanic, and in Knowledge since it started. — R. P.]

A CLEAR THAME.S :

[760] — Can you give any reason for tlu- unu.^ual transparency of
the river Thames? It is a beautiful onun-ald green even so low
down as the Temple Embankment, and the snow-white foam which

March 16, 1883.]

KNOWI.EDGE •

169

falls from the manv paddlo-boxes of the steamers plying to and fro
is very remarkable. I was told by a captain that it is due to the
late heavy rains, which have thoroughly scoured the river. Is this
80 ? Fbeuebick J. Stevenson.

DEAD POINT IX TniCYCLE CRANKS.

[760] — I am surprised that your experienced tricycling corre-
spondent should fall into the common confusion of engine-cranks
with tricycle-cranks. He says [Vol. III., No. 68.] "Each foot
controls a pedal over little more th.in one third of a revolution."
But the action of the knees and ankles and the friction of the sole
on the pedal all make the analogy of a piston-rod crank quite mis-
leading.

Remove the chain or " intermediate gear " of a tricycle, so that
the crank runs freely without driving anything. Sit on the seat,
and you can turn the crank either way, fast or slowly, stopping or
starting at any point in the circle, and deriving no help from
" momentum." Except on an ascent, or on very soft or lumpy roads,
a tricycle can be started at any point in the turn with a very little
practice. There is still a weak point, but no dead point.

D. M.

ST.VYS.

[761] — I can quite conBrm the statement of Mr. Bchnke as to
the influence of the stays on the breathing capacity of the chest.
\8 one instance of many — I this week saw a young lady who, her
height being under 5 ft., should have a vital capacity of about 125
cubic inches, who could not breathe into the spirometer more than
78. On removal of her stays, which were by no means tightly laced,
she at once, and with the greatest ease, breathed 118 cubic inches.
I am happy to add that she was so struck by this fact, that she
refused to resume the corset, but carried the article away with her,
wrapped up in brown paper. Lennox Bkowne, F.R.C.S.

CHIRPING SPIDER.

[762] — I fear my langnase was inaccurate, and misled " S. H.
W." [737]. I am quite familiar witli the cricket's provoking
"tweet," and I have heard the " Death Watch's " tap unscathed ;
but my spider made a note like the scratching of a little finger-nail
on a linen tablecloth, or the cutting of hardish paper with a paper-
knife, in short notes repeated at the rate of from sixty to eighty a
minute, pretty regularly. I am convinced he was a spider, and I
think my letter (Vol. III., No. 60, 7t)0) shows I took care to make
sore. But I asked a friend to come and help me to catch,
examine, and describe the creature. The chirping ceased before he
oonld come, and on looking I found the web empty and trans-
parent, without even a cast skin left behind.

My landlady, once a housemaid, assures mo she has heard big
spiders emit a sort of soft hissing sound. D. SI.

LETTERS RECEIVED.

A letter (on an exegetical subject) has been sent to Editor to be
forwarded to Mr. E. L. Garbctt. We have not Mr. Garbett's
address, bnt will retain the letter till sent for by him.— Jas. Watson,
jnn.— H. .1. M. Untenable.— E. P.— .ilf. Peters.— M. R. Name
not Sir G. B. Airey. — R. M. Subject scarce suitable. Are not
(raspenders alwavs replaced bv belt for active exercise ? — A. J.
Dove, C. W. Bo'wnie, H. J. Bell, H. II. Higgins, G. G. Warren,
Scot, J. Abbot, B. A., J. J. Martin, Rev. Urban Smith, and
others. Only the profanity of certain prayers objocted to ;
not prayer in general. Some of you seem to think none
but Christians ever pray; but Jews, Mahomcdans, Buddhist!!,
all sorts and conditions of men, in fact, pray energetically. —
L. Gordon Rylands. — A. M. S. — J. Samnel. More rotations on
outer curve, except by crank-connected wheels, whose rotations
must be the same in amount, wherefore in their case there is slip.
— W. H. S. Monck. — E. A. You arc probably right ; but some
would object to subject. — T. F. R. Subject to be treated shortly. —
Mrs. JiiS. .lackson. — C. T. Grav. Yon mistook last vertebra for a
sting.- A. J. Mott.— T. PrestonBattersby.— M. A. R.— Bios. Theory
of planet formation quite misunderstood by yon ; planets probably
not thrown oft from sun. — W. B. — Upsal^. — A Country Clergyman.
I prefer a reflecting telescope, but others like refractors best ; of
the two you name, the larger instrument is relatively the cheaper,
the smaller is the better for its size, and the handier. The question
would not do for discussion, as it introduces trade considerations.

(Pur iHatljcmatiral column.

By HicnARO A. Phoctor.

EASY LESSONS IN THE DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS.

(Continued from Vol. 11.)

THAVE for some time deferred the rest of these lessons, having
been asked to givo some easier subject (though, in truth, the
Differential and Integral Calculu.s, as I am treating it here, is easily
within the range of anyone who has mastered the elements of
Algebra, Trigonometry, and Geometry). I now continue those
lessons, which will presently reach their conclusion.

In the preceding lessons, those integrals which are at once de-
rivable from known differential coellicients were indicated and
collected into a table (V"'- H-. P- ''"3), and then two simple pro-
cesses for integration — inti'gration by substitution and integration
by parts — were consideioil at p. 501. There is another process,
called integration by reduction, Avhichmay be considered later. But
I proiMso now to consider certain useful integrals which may bo
obtained by the processes already described. I shall treat them in
a rather novel manner, though there will bo nothing new in the
matter presented.

Abea ov a CiRciLAE Sector.

/ii

Fig. 1

Let A B (Fig. 1) be a circular arc ronnd the centre 0, and let it
bo required to determine the area of the sector A 0 B, where
AO = rand ZAOB = a.

Let P Q be a small element of the arc A B. Let .^AOP = 0;
ZQ0P = c9.

Then if Q P be joined, triangle QOP = OP.OQ sin QOP
= -sin le.

2
And when i 0 becomes d 0, or is mado indefinitely small,

sin oe = ce, and triangle QOF^t'dO.
Hence, since area A O B is manifestly equal in the limit to the
sum of all such triangles as Q 0 P in the sector, when their number
becomes infinite, we have

Sector A 0 B = ij^r' d9 = T,Jd 0.

Now wo know that —

fd9 = e + C,

where C is some constant (which need not trouble us). Therefore^

Sector AOB = -(a + C- oTC ) ~ g "

That is, the area of a sector is represented numerically by half the
product of the numbers representing r tho length of the radius,
and ra tho length of tho circular arc.

Observe that wo learn nothing new from this application of the
integral calculus. It does not tell us what the length of tho arc is;
nor is anything derived from tho calculus in the recognition of the
relation between the area on the one hand and the arc and radius
on the other. When we take a = 2?r so as to get the whole circle,
we finri that the area of tho circle is represented by the product of
the railius and tho circunirerence.* But our modern method has

• I write thus for shortness. As a matter of fact, an area can
no more be represented by tho product of two numbers representing
lengths, than a period of time can be represented by a number of
acres, or the content of a solid by a number of hours. Such an
expression as the above means only that certain units being taken,
tho relation indicated exists between the numbers mentioned. Thus,
if wo say that the area of a rectangle is represented by the product
of its bides, we mean really that if a square on the unit of length is
taken as the unit of area, then the area of a rectangle is represented
numerically by the product of the nombers representing the lengths
of two adjacent sides.

170

• KNOWLEDGE •

[March 16, 1883,

not squared tho circle for as; for it Ims not shown the length of tlio
eircumffrence, or of the arc AB iu tlii^ particnlar case dealt with.

It is only because we know the lcn(,'tlis of circular arcs that our
result is really a dutcrmiuation of tho area of the sector

Suppose, now, we wish to determine by means of the integra".
calculus the area O A B K (Fig. 2), where A B L is a quadrant.

We have already determined the area in what precedes ; for.
joining 0 B, we know the area of sector A O B, and adding thereto
the triangle 0 B K, we have the total area O A B K.

Thus if radius 0 A = a, O K = x„ then B K = v/a' — Xi^ ; and arc A B
= o sin ~'(—\ Hence area O A B K = triangle O B K + sect. A O B

——Lz. 1 + — sm 'I— t I

2 2 \o /

But snppose we wish to determine the area O A B K indepen-
iently, by the summation of such rectangular strips as Q M, made
in the limit indefinitely narrow.

We put OM = ir, MN = oa;. Thus we have —

Eect. Cl'i>l = •/(!:'— X- d X; and area OABK = sum of all such
rectangles made infinite in number, and so taken indefinitely thin,
oetween 0 A (where x=0) and B K where x = Xi.

Thus Area 0 A B K

x'dx.

Now, to integrate I ^d'—x' dx ^'^ may try the method of integra-

aon by parts, noticing that unity is the differential coefiicient of x
(rith respect to x. Thus —

y^"-'

But here we notice that — -

(1)

■^a'—x'
So that f—i^ = - f^liF^^ix + a- f—l — (2)

tho first part of which, when written in equation 1, will clearly give
OS what can be conveniently taken over to the other side with a
positive sign, while the other part is in our table of known integrals
at p. 473. Thus, substituting in- (1) from (2) and transposing, we
get:—

/* /- dx f—^ « . _iai

Or,

/^

Putting 0 for x in this we

- ar Jx =

/■

:et 0 ; so that

This, therefore, is the required area O A B K.

Remembering that this area O A B K can be divided into tho
triangle 0 B K and the sector A O B, we have a ready means of
rememhering as well as of intcrpreling the important relation

/ V or— US' dx = 5 + — sin ~' -

We have given the solution for this integral, as it might bo found
out by one seeking it without a knowledge of the bo<jk method.
Ilaving found it, wo can conveniently write the solution thna : —

/ ■v/a'— *• <fx=iv''a' — 1'+ / . -

y' , /■ o' — i' /■ a'dx r x'dx

:. adding, 2/X/^r:^dj=j,vV:i'^+ /"-4^^^

y/~i i , x^a? — 3? "' . , "
Va'-x'da:= T +- sm-" -
2 2a

But the student who really wants to understand what ho is doing
should work out such results in some such way as lie would in
actual practice, not follow simply the conveniently abridged
methods which are formed after a result has been obtained.

#ur WAii'it Columm

By " Five op Clubs."

PLATING TRUMPS- (confiftued /romp. 153).

I HAVE been careful to consider first the cases in which a back-
ward game should be played with regard to trumps, and the
book rule about passing doubtful cards neglected; because so many
games are lost through a rigid adherence to a rule which is often
misunderstood. As a matter of fact, the rule is not properly stated.
Strength iu trumps is not a sufiScient reason for refraining from
ruffing, if such weakness in plain suits has been shown as to suggest
a backward game. The rule should rather run. So long as there is
nothing to show that between trumps and plain suits you and your
partner can hold your own against the adversaries, refrain from
ruffing a doubtful card from a four-card trump suit ; and equally,
Under the same conditions, refrain from forcing your partner if,
being yourself weak in trumps, yon have reason to think he may
be strong.

But turning now to cases where there is no special reason to play
either a backward or a forward game, we see the reason in these —
which includes the mnjority of cases — for the book rule. In every
Whist hand in which the forces are fairly divided there may be said
to be on the average sixteen tricks in the four suits of which only
thirteen can possibly be taken ; and thus in every fairly matched
Whist hand there are two or three tricks which one or other side
will make or lose, according to the skill or good fortune with which
the hand is played. Of course, in the play of each suit there is
room for skill and good fortune to tell, in tbe finesse and so forth;
but we are considering, just now, the total number of tricks to bo
made, whether by finesse or otherwise, in the several suits, if each
could " tell" to tlie last card in it. Now, as a matter of fact, this, as
a rule, is only the case with trumps, though it may happen with any
estabhshed suit after trumps are esliausted. In trumps there may
be more than the natural number of tricks, because trumps may
take tricks singly.

But a time comes in every well-matched hand of Whist when the
question which side will make the most of its long plain suits (by
which is to be understood every suit of more than three) depends
on the manipulation of trumps and forcing cards. All may then
turn on the possession of a trump more or less, on one side or the
other. Forcing a hand which holds more than the average number
of trumps thus very often means the gain or sacrifice of one trick
(according as it is your partner or the adversary who is forced) for
two or three tricks. This is so commonly the case in well-matched
hands, or hands which have become well matched so far as what
remains of them is concerned, that we get almost as standing
rule in such cases, Refrain from forcing your partner if you are
weak in trumps and he probably strong ; Pass a doubtful card if
you hold more than the average number yourself; and Force the
adverse strong tramp hand.

But these rules do not apply to very weak hands, even though
there is numerical length in trumps ; nor, on the other hand, do
they apply to very strong hands, which can often aSord to ruff and
wait, or even to rnff and lead trumps.

The determination of the proper time for leading trumps in the
case of fairly-matched hands not justifying either a signal or an
early load of trumps, still remains among the most difficult points
of VVhist strategy. It may generally be taken for granted that a
lato lead of trumps, unless obviously forced, is to be respected by

March 16, 1882.]

♦ KNO^VLEDGE •

171

partner as much as an early lead, though not quite so scrupulonsly
ae the signal. Such a lead means that from the observed fall of
the cards in the different suits the trump leader sees a good
prospect of bringing in one or other of the long suits which he or
his partner possesses, and has by this time probably established.

Again, it is to be noticed that in leading trumps late, backward
play in that suit is usually advisable. For though forward play may
secure the drawing of more rounds, it risks throwing the command
in trumps into the adversaries' hand — who, in the case we arc con-
sidering, of hands originally well matched, may need only this ad-
vantage to gain all the good from your lead of trumps which you
had hoped to secure for yourself and your partner. Thus, we see
the reason of the difference already indicated between the various
leads in trumps and in i)lain suits. The leads in plain suits aim as
much at making the good cards held in the suit as at finally esta-
blishing it ; the leads in trumps aim chiefly at winning the closing
ronnds in trumps, or remaining at least with a long trump or a
winning card in the enemy's suit to bring in an established suit.
Por similar reasons, you may finesse more deeply in trumps than in
plain suits ; but not in the frst round to your partner's lead.

Great judgment, then, is retiuired, where hands are well matched,
in deciding whether, or when, to lead trnmps, and in managing
tramps after they are led.

It is hardly necessary to say that in the return of the trump lead
most careful attention should be given to the rule for returning
from long or short suits. It is bad enough to mislead a partner by
returning the lowest of a short suit, or the highest of a long suit,
(though tliis mistake is not often made) ; but in trnmps it is a
fatal error. Ue counts one more trump in your hand than yon
really have, and therefore one less in the enemies' hands ; he
miscounts the other suits also; and his whole strategj' is dis-
arranged.

As to the play third in hand to yonr partner's lead, that has been
already considered.

It remains that I should consider the lead of tramps from great
strength — first in trumps only, secondly all ronnd.

(To be continued.)

An American engineer, who, being engaged in the constmction
I, of a railway in China, has had unusually favourable opportunities
of examining the famous Great Wall, built to obstruct the incur-
sions of the Tartars, gives the following account of this wonderful
work :— " The wall is 1,72S miles long, 18 ft. wide, and 15 ft. thick
at the top. The foundation throughout is of solid granite, the
remainder of compact masonry. At intervals of between iOO and
300 yards towers rise up 25 ft. to 40 ft. high, and 21 ft. in diameter.
On the top of the wall, and on both sides of it, are masonry
parapets, to enable the defenders to pass unseen from one tower
to another. The wall itself is carried from point to point in a
perfectly straight line, across valleys and plains and over hills,
without the slightest reg.ard to the configuration of the ground,
sometimes plunging down into abj-sses l,OUOft. deep. Brooks and
rivers are bridged over by the wall, while on both banks of larger
Streams strong flanking towers are placed."

M. PoisoT lately communicated to the SociiU de I'Indvstrie
Xin^rale de Sain' Etiennv some useful information as to the means
for preventing the slipping of locomotive wheels in the Mazenay
mines, no more fuel being now employed for hauling out 100 tons
than the eighty formerly. He observes that the ventilation is effected
by diffusion, and there is constantly in the rolley way a tolerably
thick smoke, which with condensed steam from the engine and the
. dampness of the workings causes the rails to be slippery. The
consequence is that every time they tried to ascend the gradient of
1 in 66 with a foil train, they could only get up half of it, about
180 mitres— 50O ft. — without the wheels beginning to spin; and
daring the rest of the rise, notwithstanding the use of fine and dry
sand, this difficulty frequently began again, so that they lost
pressure to such an extent that they were obliged to stop to make
steam. This ditficnlty caused great consumption of fuel, excessive
wear of the working parts of the engine, and a rapid destruction of
the rails. About two months ago the joint of one of the cylinder
cocks leaked, and a jet of steam, escaping from it, was directed on
to the rail, when the train took the gradient without the engine once
slipping. For two days they worked without making the repair,
and the locomotive drew all the trains without the slightest
stoppage. In consequence of this experience they altered the
cylinder cocks so as to make them discharge directly on to the rails,
aod when they get to the gradient the cocks are slightly opened, so
that they ascend it without difficulty. Aia-angenients for washing
lails with a jut of water are very old, having been used on some of
the French lines fifteen or sixteen years ago. The use of steam for
the purpose is a simpler modification of an old idea.

(But Cbfcis Column,

By ilEPnisTO.

PROBLEM No. 80.
By a. J. M.VA.-!, Chum (Switzerland).

Whits.

VThite to play and mate in three moves.

" Lnck is often within reach, but you must know how to grasp
it." There is some small amount of chance in everything, there-
fore also in chess play. But can it really bo called chance when a
player suddenly secures an advantage, or even terminates the game
in an unexpected manner, and perhaps at a time when his opponent
expected to secure victory ? Wo are of opinion that in most cases
it is skill and ingenuity that discovers the chance, and it requires
fine and precise play to follow up the idea when conceived, in order
to lead to a successful issue. People often have different opinions,
but that is perhaps chiefly owing to vanity.

" I never played so badly in all my life ! " is an expression which
affords us great amusement whenever we hear it, which is usually
the case when a weak player plays a first-rate player for the first
time. Of course, the play of a first-rate quite bewilders him. It is
something quite different to what he has been used to. Therefore
his instinct suggests an excuse in keeping with his vanity. But
ought he not rather to say : I never played such a good player in
all my life ? But snch is weak mortal ! he seldom takes that view
of his defeat.

" You will not win this game, for a thousand pounds ! "
said an impulsive player to us the other day. We determined to
keep a special look out for any opportunity, and it came, as the
following position will show : —

Amatecr.

Wbiii.
MEPniSTO.

We played R to Kt7 (ch) K to B3

R takes B
Then suddenly our opponent's fist banged the table, for he saw that
he had a lost game, for if he replies with R takes R, the Pawn goes
on to Queen ; if Kt takes P, then R takes R wins ; or if R to Q8,
then P to Kt4 wins. Our discomfited adversary did not for a
moment give us any credit for having been at great pains to defend
our game, and so manipulate our pieces that, in spite of being a
piece minus, we managed to advance a Pa^vn on to Hook's 6th, and
that by onr perseverance and special attention we mot chance half

172

KNOWLEDGE

[March 1G, 18h:{

wny. Ho cmplinsizcd his opinion by exclaiming : " You Lave had
wonderful luck."

It can be easily imagined that in his next game our opponent
jiut fortli his best efforts to avenge his former defeat, lie really
obtained the superior game, as maybe seen from the position below,
ho having on his last move jilayed Q to Kt3, with a view of forcing
the exchange of Queens. But again the cup was dashed from his
grasp when near his lips. Tlio following continuation occurred : —
Amatkur.

BlACI.

I': le

^

1 1 1

i

i

^

^

■^

6

■u

•^

JlEPniSTO.

B to Kt5 R to Q2

R to K sq. Kt takes Kt

(with the intention of follovring this up by B to K5, and force
further important exchanges, and win by superiority of Pawns.)

Q to R3 B to Kt2

P to K6 B takes P (ch)

K to E2 R to Q,4

P takes P (ch) K to B sq.

Q to BS (ch) K takes P

R to K7 mate.
" How is it possible that I could have overlooked that simple
manoeuvre ! Tou need not at all pride yourself upon your clever-
ness. What would you have done had I played Q to R2 in reply to
your move of Q to R3 i* which would have made your brilliant
combination impossible. It is all owing to my bad play."

The climax was, however, reached in a subsequent game. Our
impetuous opponent lost his Queen for two Rooks and Pawns. He
repeatedly offered a draw, saying that the Queen could not win
against two Rooks. Thinking there was yet some chance left, we
continued the game, and by perseverance, we gradually won some
of his Pawns, and arrived at a more favourable position, as shown
in the diagram : —

Amateue.
Black.

^ A. i

a, 1 ,

White.
Mephisto.

We played Q to Q,5, attacking the Rook, which cannot move to
R2, on account of Q to Q8 mate, nor to K sq., on account of Q to
QG (ch), winning the Pawn and having two passed Pawns. Black
replied with R (B2) to QR2, whereupon White won the game by
the simple move P to R5, which curiously enough paralysed both
the black Rooks, which dare not move ; thus, if for instance R to
B sq. (if anywhere else Q to B5 (ch) winning the other Rook) then
White wins by Q to Q6 (ch), K to K sq., Q to K6 (ch), K to Q sq.,
P to B7.

In answer to P to 115, Black could do nothing but
P to R3
K to Kt2 P to Kt4

K to Kt3 P to R4

P to Kt I P to Kto

K to R-1 K to K sq.

K takes P R to K7 (ch)

K to Kt6 R to K7

P to B7 (ch) K to K3

Q to B5 (ch) and wins.
Of course, our opponent would not be convinced, as hig self-
esteem was at stake. But when a player achieves success, it is our
decided ojiinion that he must necessarily have largely contributed
towards bringing about this favourable result, and dne credit ought
to bo given to hira. We admit that there is a small amount of
chance, but not suthcient to exercise any continuous or appreciable
influence on the general result of a prolonged series of games.

The case of Winawer, who tied with Steinitz at Vienna, for first
place, forms a conspicuous example, showing how even strong
players will err. In spite of his eminent success, it was said of him
that he owed his position mostly to luck, and that he is not a strong
player. This opinion is, of course, incorrect, but it has a grain of
truth in it, nevertheless. The true definition of Winawer would be
that he does not possess great powers of concentration, necessary
for heavy match play. On the other hand, he possesses a ready
wit in his play, sees every possible chance on the board (because
he does not concentrate his mind too intensely on single points or
lines of play), and displays great skill and ingenuity when he sees
his opportunity to initiate a combination. These qualities are
bound to lead to success in tournament play, which is generally of
a somewhat lighter character than match play. Perfection is
attained when a player combines both styles of play, but that being
exceedingly rare, we, for our own part, cannot withhold our admira-
tion for a player like Winawer, who achieves success by skill and
ingenuity.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

*,* Please address Chess Editor.

Tyro. — Wormald's Chess Openings.

Correct solutions received. — Problem No. 77, Kit, .John Lonsdale ;
No. 78, S. Bassan Lello ; No. 78 and 79, Clarence, W.

No. 79 has proved a hard task for our solvers, in spite of the
facility afforded to them by disclosing the first moves. We hope to
receive more numerous solutions by next week.

Leonard P. Rees. — Received with thanks.

Berrow. — Solution of 78 correct. In No. 79 you do not give a
reply to Black moving 1. B to R-l.

R. J. P. — Solution correct.

Contests of No. 71.

PAGE.

Science and Art Gossip 141

A Naturalist's Year. Snowdrop

and SnowHake. Bv Grant AUeu 143
"Our Bodies." VII. The Processes

or Functions of the Body. By

Dr. Andrew WUson, F.R.S.E. ... 144
Discoveries at Tel-el-Maskhuta.

By Amelia B.Edwards 145

Learning Languages. By Kichard

A. Proctor 146

The Eoyal Aquarium Electric

The Great Comet of 1882. II.

{Illuf.) By Prof. C. A. Toune.. H7
How 10 Use o'ur Eves. (Illut.) By

John Browning.'F.R.A.S U9

Butterflies in Winter 150

Our Paradox Comer : Flat Earth r.

Globe 151

Correspondence : On the Formation

of Comets' Tails— Purifying Gas
-The Weather Forecasts, &c.

Exhibitic

146

N'OTICES.

Yoliime II., comprising the numbers published from June to December 1882,
price 89. 6d

The rule Page and Index to Tolume II. now ready, price 2d., poet-free 2^a.

Binding Cases for Volume II., price 28. each. Subecribera' numbera bound
(including Title, Index, and Case) for Ss. each.

The Tjack Numbera of Knowlhbgb, with the exception of Noe. 1 to 13^
31, 33, and 63, are in print, and can be obtained from all booksellera "
newsagents, or direct from the Publishers. ShouJd any difliculty aria.
the paper, an appHcation to the Publisbers is respectfully requested.

Just PubUshed, Part XVI. (Feb. lss3). Price lOd.; postage 3d. eitrs.

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OFFICE: 74-76, GREAT QUEEN STREET LONDON W.C.

March 23, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

173

MACHINE oTSciENCE"^

PiAINl^ORDED -fXACTiyPESCRlBED

-tt^V^ "^H 'Ij^jSWi^ATED

LONDON: FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1883.

Contents of Xo. "•/!.

PAGK. PAGB.

Science and Art Gossip 173 Sand-Duncs. By C. C«nis Wilson 179

A Naturalist's Year. IX. The Sun Views of the Earth. (/««..)

CharrJump. Br Grant Allen . 175 By R. A. Proctor lsi>

learaini; Languages. By Richard The Thames ?:uibankmeDt 181

A. Proctor 176 Cobbbspojidbm n :

Tricycles in 1883. By John Brown- On the Formation of Comets' Tails

ing, F.R.A.S 17li —TricyclM — Weather Forecasts

Prayer and Weather. By R. A. —Rational Dress, ic 1S2

Proctor 177 Our Paradox Comer: The Flat

"Our Bodies." VIII. How the Earth Theory ISI

Body'iiDuties are Performed. Bv Our Whist Column laj

Dr. Andrew Wilaon, F.B.S.E. ..'. 178 Our Chesa Column 18«

Primer aiii 9rt (gossip.

It is commonly said that extremes should be avoided—
medio tutUgimus ibis ; but I am disposed to infer that an
extreme path is safer than a track which avoids e.\tremes.
Quite a number of correspondents ask why I have \en-
tured to express disappro\al of the coarse scurrility which
characterised the articles in the Frfethinker which led to
the recent action. Quite a number of others ask why I
said anything deprecating the action of the law as em-
ployed against the three defendants. And those who attack
me from either side agree in asking what on earth the case
has to do with Knowledge. The best proof that I took
a tolerably fair view is afforded \>y these inconsistent
attacks. And as to the way in which this matter aflects
Knowledge, I take it that a most important sociological
question is involved — or, rather, several. As, first : Should
there be any laws like that brought into operation on this
occasion ? secondly. If there are such laws, should they be
restricted to those matt«rs to which they really relate, or
be applied to punish social oli'eiices ] and so forth. The
malversation of our laws is a matter in which we are all
deeply interested, and, as every student of sociology knows,
tlie subject is one which has its distinctly scientific aspect.

Dr. Wainwright says that the statement quoted at
p. 156, from the Manc/ienter Euytmijierand Tinie:<, is a hoax.
We are exceedingly glad to hear it.

The Cambridge crew, the stronger and better trained,
has been beaten by a crew rowing a more scientific stroke.
The laws of propulsion are better understood at Oxford
than at Cambridge.

OxE is disposed to rejoice that the betting-men were let
in — though money lost by some was money won hy others.
Money won over bets is so near akin to money lost, that the
success of non-favourites may be regarded always as a severe
lesson for the betting world. To parody a well-known
saying, there is nothing much worse for a man than losing
money bv bettine, excent winnin" mouev.

Mit. Proctor has just brought to a close at Brighton a
series of lectures which have aflbrded him singular pleasure.
They were delivered at Brighton College to one of the
pleasantest audiences it has ever been his lot to address —
an audience including, of course, a large portion of the
College boys. An almost unique experience did not
diminish the lecturer's appreciation of the kindness of his
audience. As usual, in such cases, a certain fee had been
agreed upon. It is not rcri/ unusual for a diminution of
the fee to be asked for, when bad weather or some other
cause has prevented lectures from being so successful as
had been hoped. But it !.< ivri/ unusual, when lectures
have been more successful than had been hoped, to increase
the fee. This, however, was done on this occasion " to the
tune " of one-half more than had been agreed upon. Such
generosity is worthy of public record.

The Royal Aquarium Company appears to have suffered
somewhat through the apathy of the electrical exhibitors
and the delay in opening the exhibition. At a meeting
of the shareholders on Friday last, the chairman said that
they had calculated on a rental of from £1,'>00 to £2,000,
the directors being assured that the exhibitors would take
all the available space in the building, and tliey were also
assured that the exhibition could be opened at the time
proposed, and that in the four months which it was in-
tended to run the same they would cover the expenses and
return over .£700 profit The receipts of the pre\-ioui
day amounted to £200, and at that rate they would soon
recoup themselves the outlay.

The exhibition is making very good progress, several
new displays having been completed. We doubt the wis-
dom of showing the semi-incandescent Joel lamps in the
same area as several arc lamps. An uninitiated public is
apt to draw unfavourable and unjust conclusions. The
remark applies also to the Jablochkofl' lamps, which do
not show to advantage in the neighbourhood of Pilsen and
other arc lamps.

Amoncst dynamos, the Elphinstono and Vincent, Lumley
and Ferranti are all at work, one of the first mentioned
being used to supply a 100,000 candle-power search light.

We cannot reasonably expect scientific accuracy in the
daily papers regarding chemical compounds, and as the
late outrage on Government buildings has given para-
graphists much scope for loose and sometimes absurd
statements as to dynamite, it may be well to remind our
readers that the base of this extremely powerful explosive
is nitro-glycerine, sometimes known as nitroleum, which
is an amber-like fluid, discovered by Sobrero in 1847.
Nitro-glycerine itself is made by adding glycerine, in a
manner not necessary here to particularise, to a com-
pound formed of one part of nitric acid and two parts of
sulphuric acid. This terrible agent is known as Glonoiu
Oil, and is a light yellow oily liquid, of specific gravity
ranging from 1 •52-") to 1 0. It has a pungent taste, and
but one drop placed on the tongue induces intense pain of
the spine. Sobrero, when he discovered this fluid, was a
student at the famous Pelouze laboratory, Paris. He did
nothing to develop his discovery ; but Alfred Nobel, a
Swede, being in want of a new blasting agent, experi-
mented with the new liquid, known to be highly explosive,
and, by adding other ingredients, obtained the now well-
known dynamite. This, as usually manufactured, is com-
posed of infusorial earth, porcelain earth, coal-dust, siliceous
ashes, Ac, and all this base has to be saturated in a certain

174

♦ KNOWLEDGE

[March 23, 1883.

proportion with the nitro-glyccrino. The process of manu-
facture is dangerous, and the cost about four times that of
gunpowder, while its power is, perhaps, ten times greater.
Besides dynamite, other explosive compounds have been
made from nitroglycerine, such as Ditalline, a combination
of wood gunpowder soaked with this terrible oil, while
liilwfractrnr consists of fifty-two parts of nitroglycerine,
thirty of silex, twelve of coal-dust, and two of sulphur.
Then there are varieties known respectively as colonia
powder, lignose, sebastine, hcracline, and fulminatinc. —
P. R.

The amount of light given out Ijy a gas-flame depends
upon the temperature to which the particles of solid carbon
in the flame are raised, and Dr. Tyndall has shown that of
the radiant energy set up in such a flame, only the l-25th
part is luminous ; the hot products of combustion carry
off at least four times as much energy as is radiated, so
that not more than one-hundredth part of the heat evolved
in combustion is converted into light.

At a recent meeting of the Academic des Sciences, M.
Boussingault showed the members an old bronze chisel
found in Peru, of the Incarial period, remarking that he
had never been able to produce the hardening to which
the old bronze was supposed to be subjected.

The extensions which are now being rapidly carried out
at the jSTew-street Railway Station, Birmingham, of the
London and North- Western and Midland Railway Com-
panies, will, it is claimed, when complete, render it the
largest station in the world. The station will cover more
tlian eleven acres, and the cost of the alterations is esti-
mated at £250,000. The new platform accommodation
will be nearly 3,000 ft. in length.

The Jiaihcai/ Age publishes a summary of railway con-
struction in the United States for the year 1882. The
account covers only the main track, and shows the con-
struction in States and territories. On 342 lines the aggre-
gate is 11,343 miles, or about 2,000 miles more than in
1881, which exceeded any previous year by 2,000 miles.
The construction is divided as follows : — Five New England
States, 531 miles; four Middle States, 1,315 J miles; five
Middle Western States, 2,0771 miles ; eleven Southern
States, 1,4901 miles; four in Missouri river belt, 2,0G31
miles; five in Kansas belt, 2,1 57 1- miles; five in Colorado
belt, 1,165 miles; six in Pacific belt, 1,020 miles.

The St. Gothard Tunnel has proved a great success, and
is causing quite a stir in France and other countries, as
may be seen from the fact that a bill providing for the
construction of a new direct railway line between Calais
and Marseilles has been laid before the French Chamber
of Deputies. The promoters recommend their bill to
the Chamber on the ground that the opening of
the Gothard line has seriously threatened the traffic
throughout France with Italy, and that it is urgently
necessary that France .should take prompt steps to
re-establish tlie claims of Marseilles over those of Genoa
as a shipping port. The uneasiness is evinced elsewhere,
as, according to the German press, a committee, established
at Kempten, ha.s, in conjunction with several Bavarian
corporations, urged upon the Austrian Government the
construction of the proposed railway from Innsbruck to
Imst, on the Bavarian frontier. The extension of the line
to Augsburg, vid Partenkirchen, and to Ulm, c/i^ Kempten,
is also spoken of. The section from Innsbruck to Imst is

■about 5G miles long, and is estiuiated to cost slightly over
i/ 1,000,000. It is remarked that this new line and its
connections would probably regain for the Austrian lines
a good portion of the through traffic for the East, which
the opening of the St. Gothard tunnel has lately diverted
from them.

A DEi'UTATiox from the Leeds Corporation called the
other day at the Daili/ Teli-.grapli offices, Fleet-street,
where they spent some hours and saw the practical
application of the Fyfe-Main arc lamps in lighting the
machine and folding-rooms during the printing of the
paper. They were impressed with the suitability and
steadiness of the light. Twelve of these lamps, said to-
be of three thousand actual candle-power, recently sent to-
Australia, have been selected to light the Houses of
Parliament, Sydney, New South Wales.

There is an automatic clock at the Stock Exchange^
which has now performed very well for six months, in-
vented by a M. Dardeme. The winding apparatus consists
of a small windmill, fixed in a chimney, or any other place;
where a tolerably constant current of air can be relied
upon. By means of a reversed train of multiplying wheels
this windmill is continually driving a Hughens's endless
chain remontoire — a device well-known to clock-makers.
A pawl acting on a wheel prevents the motor from turning
the wrong way, and, by a simple arrangement, whenever
the weight is wound up right to the top, the motion is
checked by a friction brake automatically applied to the
anemometer by the raised weight lifting a lever. When
the weight is thus raised to the top, the clock has a suffi-
cient store of energy to go for eight days or more, so that
it will be seen that it is by no means dependent on a
regular current of air. The Belgian Government has for
the past two years adopted this system of clocks on the
State railways, and we are informed that they are now
being tested by certain English railway companies with a
view to their adoption. — Engineer.

Does the increasing transfer of iron from the interior to
the surface of the earth exercise any sensible meteorological
influence ? Is it in any marked way influential on electric
currents, and thence does it affect magnetic storms 1 This
is a question which needs a little thought to answer safely.
The development of railways, and the almost imiversal
substitution of iron for wood wherever it is practicable to
use that metal, must surely exercise a decided influence of
its own. Every year more and more of the iron formerly
buried deep in the earth is spread upon its surface, and it
is surely reasonable to assume that, electrically at least,
some effect is produced ; how far we may venture, as some
seem now disposed to do, to translate this into a meteoro-
logical agency is a problem for science to determine. — P. R.

jNIr. Stroh, during a discussion at the last meeting of
the Society of Telegraph Engineers, described a highly
ingenious experiment with the microphone, from which he- J
deduced that " during the time when the carbons ara<|
really in what is called microphonic contact, they are not
in contact at all, or, at all events, that there is a repellent-l
action at the point of contact" In the experimental j
apparatus one small rod of carbon was attached at one end
to an almost frictionless oscillating rod, having on itai
opposite side an extremely light concave reflector. The^
other end of this cai'bon rod fell across another carbon rod,
which was fixed. The displacement of a spot of light 1
reflected by the mirror showed that tlie upper carbon was
repelled through 1 •2000th part of a millimetre.

March 23, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

A NATURALIST'S YEAR.

By Grant Allen.

I X . — C H A R R JUMP.

YONDER little spreaduig circle of concentric wavelets
on the still surface of the mere is caused by the
flapping struggles of a poor, fallen fly ; and the flash that
succeeds is clearly due to his sudden engulfment \>y a leap-
ing charr. Yes, there they are, basking among tho smooth
pebbles on the clear bottom, for charr love a clean basin to
lie upon ; and it takes a sharp eye to make out their
contour against the indistinguishable mottled grey of their
bed, as they lie motionless, without even a tin moving, in
the broad sunliglit River trout, which have to pass the
best part of their lives heading up against stream, acquire an
almost ceaseless trick of gently f;uining their tins in rhyth-
mical motion ; but charr, which ai'e rather lake lish than
river fish, lie perfectly motionless at the bottom, unless they
see anything on the surface that induces them to rise placidly
from their lazy attitude. They seem, in fact, like the
lizards among tish — creatures that love best to bask in the
sunshine, and never bestir themselves except for the sake
of replenishing the empty larder. Moving about so seldom,
they require very little food indeed ; for, the less work the
body does, the less fuel it requires to supply it with energy;
and indeed, when the charr do happen to get a good stock
of flies or worms, brought down by the mountain
streams that empty into their clear tarns, they do
not generally use up the material so aftbrded them
in their own persons, but store it away as fat
in their pylorics, thus forming a reserve against the heavy
demands made upon them in the breeding season. When
the young fry have to be provided for, this fat is expended
in producing eggs or milt, as the case may be, the hard or
soft roe of our domestic anatomical phraseology. If you
catch a charr some time before the breeding season, you
will tind the p3'lorics completely enveloped in bags of fat,
like the kidneys of a Southdown mutton, while the milt>
bags are long and thin ; but if (in defiance of law) you
catch one during the spawning time you will tind the
pylorics shrunken and naked, while the milt-bags have
swollen enormously, by the transference of fatty matter to
them from the provisional reserve.

Charr, as a group, cannot be distinguished from trout by
any very well-marked line of division ; they form a sub-
genus of tho salmon tribe, noticeable mainly as having a
slightly different arrangement of the palatal teeth from that
of the true trouts and salmons. The fact is, there is no
group of animals in which it is harder to draw lines lietween
the species than in this royal family of fishes. Though an
immense number of species have l^een described, many of
which are a good deal dilierent from one another in their ex-
treme forms, it is almost always possible to bridge over the
gap by an equally immense number of intermediate types.
Besides, most of the species breed readily with one another,
and natural hybrids are very common; so that the old-
fashioned systematic biologists had hard work to divide
them all out into neatly-labelled batches, each consigned
to its own particular cut-and-dried pigeon-hole. The
evolutionist, however, flnds the family much less difti-
colt to deal with. He sees at once that it is a very
wide-spread and variable one, descended at no very remote
period (as we count geological time) from a single ancestor,
and greatly moditied by the extraordinary variety of cir-
cumstances to which it has been exposed, but still clearly
traceable to a single source. Indeed, there is one little
peculiarity common to all the salmonoids — the graylings
and gwyniads, as well as the trout and charr — which im-

mediately shows the closeness of their subsisting relation-
ship ; and that is the fact that the young of almost all the
species are barred with bluish stripes, known to tishermin
as finger-marks. In this stage, they are all still practically
indistinguishable from one another, and are all called alike
by the onr name of parr.

On the other hand, as the young salmon-kind attain to
years of discretion they begin to display their various
acquired specific peculiarities. Some of them, like the
true salmon and the sea-trout, have taken to invading the
salt water ; and these have, therefore, developed cei-tain
special points of structure which fit them for their migra-
tory mode of life and altered habits of feeding. Others,
again, like the common trout, stick to the basins of their
native rivers, and vary among themselves in colour or size
according to the nature of the bottom or the quality of the
food they i.an obtain. Yet others, like the great lake
trout of Scotland, or the namaycush of North America,
confining themselves to large sheets of fresh inland
waters with little or no current, grow much bigger in
size, and acquire other distinctive peculiarities in adapta-
tion to their chosen habitat. Of course, these varieties or
species have only been produced by long selecticn of tl»e
liest adapted individuals, and they have, doubtless, been
largely aflected by many minor points in the environment,
less ob\'ious than food or climate. For example, the com-
petition of other types, and tho nature of the local enemies,
such as kingfishers, grebe, or divers, must have a great deal
to do in producing the diflereutiatiou of the various lake or
river salmonoids.

The species-making among the charr and trout, however,
has gone a great deal further than that Wherever a little
body of either group got isolated in asinglc disconnected tarn
or sheet of water, away from the main watercourses of the
country, it has generally been acted upon by special selec-
tive causes, which have at last succeeded in producing a
new and distinct type. Thus, among the true trouts, we
have in the British Isles alone several of these isolated
forms, such as the gillaroo, from the Irish lakes ; the Loch
Leven trout, confined to one Scotch sheet of water ; and
the Loch Stennis trout, found only in a single mountain
tarn of the Orkneys. Much tho same thing has also
happened among the charr, for besides the common
northern charr, which is found in Scotland, we have
three or four local s|)ecies, each confined to a solitary
locality. Even our Scotch northern charr itself, though
almost identical with that of Lapland, has three less joints
in its backbone, and never grows to the same size, thus
showing the first steps towards the production of a dif-
ferent species. But in Loch Killin there lives another peculiar
charr, much more distinct, and not migratory ; while in
the Llanberis lakes wo get yet another kind, the torgoch ;
and in Windermere we meet only with a restricted local
form, known as Willughby's charr. Again, Dr. Giinther,
of the British Museum, who is the great authority on the
salmon-kind, has shown that the Irish charr, long separated
from all the rest of their kindred elsewhere, form a
distinct little group by themselves, with teeth much more
feebly developed than in other charr ; and this, which is
probably a mark of an early form, may be accounted for by
the fact that Ireland was comparatively early separated
from Great Britain and the continent after the glacial
epoch, so that no recent improvements in charr economy
can ever have been imported thither. Furthermore, even
these local Irish charr themselves have split up into at
least two distinct forms, one of which, known as the fresh-
water herring, haunts the bottom of Lough Melvin only,
while the other is entirely confined to Lough Eske and
Lough Dan. Equally confusing types arc found on the

176

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Maech 23, 1883.

continent, especially in Alpine pools, and others are known
from the great network of lakes and ponds which threads its
way throughout the Northern States and Canada. T\\f
secret of these oddly local species is to be found in the fact
that an isolated lake stands to fresh-water creatures in
much the same relation as an oceanic island stands to
terrestrial animals or plants, and it is well known that,
under such circumstances, variation is rapid and universal.
Indeed, almost all oceanic islands are peopled by a fauna
and flora of their own, more or less like those of the
neighbouring continents, but altered in adaptation to the
special insular needs. It is just the same with isolated
pools or tarns ; on the one hand, the conditions of life are
there more fi.xed and restricted, and on the other hand
inter-breedins; with the parent species is practically im-
possible.

LEARNING LANGUAGES.

By Richard A. Proctor.

{Continued from p. 146.)

rpHE following passage is taken from the " Adventures
J_ of Telemachus " in the Hamiltonian series, the trans-
lation of which is absolutely literal, whereas, in the cases
formerly dealt with, the order of the original was slightly
altered, though I think my own absolutely literal rendering
showed that to be unnecessary. In passing, I note that the
instructions given for pronunciation in the first book of the
" Adventures " are not quite correct, the words Ulisse, die,
maUicurettse, iinmortelle, grotto, and so forth, are given as
though the final " e " were sounded, which is not the case
except in poetry, and then not systematically.

Pour mieux supporter I'ennui de la captivite

For better to support the weariness* of the captivity,
et de la .solitude, je cherchai des livres ; car

and of the solitude, I sought of the [so»ie'\ hooks ; for
j'6tais accable de tristesse, faute de quelque instruc-
/ vas orerwhelmed of sadness, fault of some informa-
tion qui pv'it nourrir mon esprit et le
tionf which mighthe-ahJe to nourish my inind and him
soutenir.t Heureux,§ disais-je, ceux qui se
to sustain. Happy, said I, those vho themselves
degoiitent des plaisirs violents, et qui savent
disg)>st\\ of the pleasures violent, and irho kiiov^ [/(Oic]
se contenter des douceurs d'une vie inno-
themselves to-content of the sweets- of a life inno-
cents ! Heureux ceux qui se divertissent en
cent ! Happy those who themselves divert in

s'instruisant et que se plaisent a

theinielves instructing, and who theniselves please to [in]

cultiver leur esprit par les sciences ! En quelque
to-cultivate their mind by the sciences .' In ivhatever
endroit que la fortune ennemie les jette ils

spot that tlie fortune lioslih them [way] cast tliey

* Ennui in the translation ; but thongh ennui has become angli-
cised, it is not Knp^lish.

+ hmlniclion in the translation ; but instruction in French is not
the equivalent of instruction in English, which in French would bo
enseignement.

J I have altered the translation here ; put is simply translated
might, which is insnflicient.

§ Hc'irevr is lies'. triiii.slated fic-ty, as a rule.

II Disgvst is rather too strong a rendering of the French degoAter
in the reflective form. Se dcgodtcr de qu(dque chose means ehnply
to " get rid of the taste for " something or other.

portent toujours avec eux de quoi a'entretenir ;

carry always vnth them of ri-hat thnn-selres toentertain ;

et I'ennui, qui dfivore les autres homraes au

and the tceariness, vihich devours the other vvni to-tlte
milieu meme des delices, est inconnu k ceux qui
midst even of-the delights, is unknown to those vi/to

savent s'occuper par quelque lecture.

hnoir-hoiv themselves to-occupy by some reading.
Heureux ceux qui aiment a lire, et qui ne sont

Happy those who love to read, and viho IT are
point, comme moi, priv^s de la lecture.

not, like me, deprived of the reading.

This passage should be carefully compared with a free
rendering such as the following : —

To Iiear better the weariness of captivity and solitude, I
sought for some books, for I was oppressed with sadness
for want of some study which might nourish and sustain
ray mind. Lucky, said I, are those who lose their taste
for " violent delights," and who know how to be content
with the sweets of an innocent life ! Lucky are those
who find amusement in teaching themselves, and who
take pleasure in cultivating their minds by science '
In whatever spot hostile fortune may cast them, they bear
always with them the means of entertainment ; and weari-
ness which oppresses other men, even amid delights, is
unknown to those who know how to occupy themselves in
some course of reading. Lucky are those who love reading,
and who are not, like me, without matter to read.

TRICYCLES IN 188 3.

Bt John Browning,

Chairman and Ti-eas

• of the London Tricycle Chtb.

ALTHOUGH the prevailing fashion in tricycles is for
front steerers, yet some novel machines of great
excellence, which have been brought forward this year, are
rear-steerers.

It should be carefully noted that in these new machines
the faults which have brought rear-steerers into disfavour
have been rectified, while their good qualities have been
retained.

We are indebted to Rucker for showing us how to make
the rear-stearer a safe machine. He first did this by
bringing the cranks nearer to the rider than the axles of
the driving-wheels, so that his weight was further back in
the machine and more on the steering-wheel. By this
means, as the rider was more over his work, he gave him
more vertical action, which is invaluable for hill climbing.
At the same time Rucker introduced double-steering by
adding a second rack-rod ; both rods were brought into
play by using either hand ; back-lash is avoided and the
steering is rendered a ery steady and certain.

I have heard Mr. Rucker say that ho can rush down a
steep hill with his arms folded on one of these machines.
Used with the smallest amount of discretion I regard these
machines as perfectly safe, and no machine is safe used
otherwise. Paradoxical as it may seem, I think there will
probably be less serious accidents in the long-run with
rear-steering tricycles than with front-steerers.

Riders of rear-steering machines know that it is best

T It is not possible to render litcrallj- ne-pas and ne-point.
The words pas and point were not originally as they now are, nega-
tive of themselves, so that ne pas and ne point were not originally
double negatives. It should be noticed that, in writing, ne-point is
a more emphatic negative than ne-pas.

March 23, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE •

177

not to run down steep hills at a greater speed than from
ten to twelve miles an hour, while those who ride frout-
steerers consider it safe to rush down hills at any pace.
I can assert, both from my own experience and that of my
friends, that it is not so.

One reason why rear-steering machines have fallen back
in public favour has been that they were none of them
double-drivers from one chain-gearing. Of course, a main
axle running right across the machine is inadmissible.
This year Rucker has introduced two rear-steerers with
double-driving balance gearings of good promise, which are
attached entirely to the cranks.

One of the most original tricycles brought forward this
year is the " Quadrant," by Lloyd Brothers. This machine
is a rear-steerer, with the steering-wheel nearly as large as
the driving-wheels. The three wheels are arranged with
their axles nearly in the form of an equilateral triangle,
and the rider sits about the centre of the triangle. His
weight in this position not being directly over either of the
wheels, he experiences the minimum of vibration when
travelling over a rough load. The large steering-wheel
will pass over a brick with less jar to the rider than he
would experience if the small wheel of a front>steering
machine came in contact with a stone one or two inches in
diameter. A small steering-wheel often skids, and so
makes the steering uncertain, and this skidding frequently
drags the tire ofl' the wheel

It is a great pleasure to note the numerous thoughtful
contrivances in this machine. The machine is a perfect
double-driver by means of a patent clutch. It has a
double-band brake' acting simultaneously on both driving-
wheels. This brake is so arranged that it can be kept on
at full power with the pressure of a single finger. Foot-
rests are provided, but the feet may remain stationary on
the pedals at pleasure. This leads to a great saving of
power, as riders often keep on driving down hill when the
machine would run alone quicker than they are driving it.
They simply cannot move their feet as fast as the pedals
will run.

Tlie saddle is adjustable in every direction. The handles
are also adjustable. No spanner is required to clamp these
parts when they are adjusted, and the weight of any rider
would not shift them once they are set. I expect to hear a
good deal more of this excellent machine, as it is a most
valuable addition to our list of trustworthy rear-steerers.

I would venture to suggest to the makers that they
would do well to make their small machine, which has
40-in. driving-v/heels, lighter, when ordered by light riders,
and gear the wheels up if speed is required. Such a
machine need not necessarily weigh more than SO lb.

Some of my tricycling friends have asked me why I
devote so much space to rear-steering machines 1 I reply,
because I believe that they are right in principle, and it is
only in details they have l>een wrong. A very thoughtful
rider, to whom I made a similar remark a few days since,
replied, " Certainly ; if not, we ought to take all our
horses out of our vehicles and harness them with their
heads in the shafts so that they should push the vehicles
along instead of pulling them."

The rider of a front-steering tricycle pushes the greater
portion of his machine along Ijefore him. The rider of a
rear-steerer pulls the greater portion of his machine along
behind liim. On a rough road, just where a rider wants
all his power, the front-steerer, then, is at a great disad-
vantage, as the small steering-wheel is pushed against
every obstacle, insteatl of being pulled, over it, at the same
time, a much greater amount of vibration is communicated
to the rider. Front-steering machines should have the
steering-wheel about a foot more in advance of the machine

than tliey are made at present ; they resemble a boat « ith
the rudder in the bow, and as now made in short turns on
a rough road they do not answer their helm properly.

Many subscribers to K.M>WLEDr;E have written me
privately, asking me to tell them which is the best tricycle.
I regret that it is impossible for me to give them this in-
formation. There is at present no such machine. I can
tell them which is the fastest machine, which is the safest
machine, which is a good hill-climber, which is the best for
a rough road ; but they will not find .I'i tliesegood qualities
combined in any one machine, nor will the same machine
suit a very heavy man and a very light one, even for the
same roada In my articles on tricycles I have tried to
indicate the strong points of each machine, and I am sure,
if my readers will look over them again, bearing in mind
what 1 have just said, they will be able to select the
machine best suited to their own special requirements.

PRAYER AND WEATHER.

By Richard A. Proctor.

A CORRESPONDENT submitted to me a paragraph
relating to prayers for better weather. He asked
the purely scientific question whether I supposed the
weather would be affected by such prayers. To this I
replied. Quite a number of correspondents have objected,
apparently labouring under the truly absurd delusion that
the question is a religious one. They ought to see that
meteorology is a scientific subject, though, as the Director
of our Meteorological Observatory points out in his
recently-issued work, it has scarcely yet developed into a
science. If science understood meteorology as well as it
understands the movements of the heavenly bodies, it
could have told the President of tlie Wesleyan Conference
whether the weather he wanted was due or the reverse,
and wfii/ ; so that, supposing, in accordance with natural
laws it would continue without the desired change, he
might either have seen the propriety of ceasing to pray, or,
if he went on, have known precisely where the order of
nature would require to be interrupted in order to produce
the desired change.

But for this ignorance prayer for a change of weather
would be seen to be much like prayer for or against an
eclipse. The savage who sees the sun apparently encroached
upon, or — as he thinks — devoured, prays lustily that the
destruction of the great luminary may be prevented. He
would doubtless regard an astronomer who should tell him
that the sun would disappear in a little while, let him pray
his hardest, as a very wicked person. One who was not
quite so well informed as the astronomer, but not
quite so ignorant as the savage, might not know
how near the eclipse would be to totality, yet would
see the absurdity of praying for what he knew to
be a natural phenomenon. He would reason that, if the
eclipse was not going to be total, prayer that it might not
be so was unnecessary ; and if it was going to be total,
such prayer must be useless, unless a miracle was to be
performed in response to it. The meteorologist of to day
is in somewhat the position of our supposed middle-man —
he knows the progress of a bad season is a natural phe-
nomenon, and that to pray for any change, however
desirable the change may be, is to pray for what is either
bound to happen (soon enough to be of use) or bound not
to happen, unless a miracle is prayed for.

But then, say some, the weather may be changed in
response to prayer, not by controlment of the laws of
nature, but by means of them. Let them try to think

178

* KNOV/LEDGE ♦

[March 23, 1883.

what they really mean by tliis, and thpy will see what it
amounts to. What sort of law do they understand by a
law of nature 1 Do they suj)jioso that somewhere or other
in the chain of causation on which weather and weather
changes depend there is a place where the laws of nature
do not operate in a definite way, but might act in one or
other of several different waysl This would correspond
to the lielief of the savage, that an eclipse of the sun is
not caused by the operation of definite natural laws.

In point of fact, speaking from the scientific point of
view, prayer that coming weather may be such and such
is akin to prayer that an unopened letter may contain good
news. So regarded, it is proper enough. But prayer pro-
ceeding on the assumption that in the natural order of
things bad weather would continue, and that in response
to prayer it will be changed, is improper and wrong for all
who consider and understand what it implies. But then
so few do.

What real difference is there between praying that
weather may change and praying that a planet or comet
(as men in old times did pray, being ignorant) may take a
specified course — except that we have not yet mastered
the laws according to which weather varies, while we have
mastered those which govern the movement of the heavenly
bodies.

But again I say the question is not in any sense a re-
ligious one. Prayer has no more intimate association with
religion than an MB waistcoat has. It is, and has long
been a customary part of the yarh of religion ; but it may
equally be the garb of irreligion ; and there may be true
religion without prayer, even prayer of the kind which is
proper and right. I do not wish to depart from my rule to
let no question of dogmatic religion be discussed here — no
question relating to the specific views of any sect, large or
small, influential or the reverse — otherwise I might be dis-
posed to quote the sayings of one of the wisest teachers the
human race has yet known. He left a model of prajer con-
taining throughout but one reference to material benefit,
and that one not so much appealing for help as expressing
contentment with the least possible provision for the passing
day. We might also note that the same pure teacher, on
the only occasion when he prayed for himself, used words
implying submission rather than appeal ; in fact, the words
can logically only mean .simple and entire submission, since
it could be preposterous to suppose a change of God's will
was prayed for.

The possible influence of prayer in modifying the pro-
gi-ess of events is a purely scientific question. On the
other hand, the propriety of the prayerful attitude, which
really expresses only desire, coupled with submission, is a
religious question,— on which (though it is quite outside
dogmatic theology, and well within our sphere, which,
of course, includes natural religion) I have not touched
at all.

As a scientific question, the matter iias been debated
over and over again — with no particular result, because the
student of science can only have one opinion on the sub-
ject, while the unscientific only thinlc they think about it.
Good old Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to be
denounced for giving the only possible opinion. But many
must have been still more foolish then than several now ;
for they positively asked him whether he did not think it
sinful to devise methods for changing the predestined
course of God's lightning !

An Exhibition of Hyffienic Dress! and Decoration will be opened
early in June, Bndcr the auspices of the Xntional Ifoalth Society,
at Hnmphroy's Uall Knijhtsbridge, W

"OUR BODIES:"

SHORT PAPERS ON PHYSIOLOGY.
By Dr. Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E., kc.

No. VIII. — UOW THE BODY'S DUTIES ARE PERFORMED.

IN our last paper we saw that the lx)dy was a complex
machine, within which continual actions were being
executed and performed. Life, in one sense, is merely the
sum total of these actions. Our existence is the result of
their exact and continuous performance. It remains, how-
ever, that we should look a little more closely at these
bodily processes. We must endeavour to ascertain how
they are performed, and in what fashion they relate them-
selves to our daily life.

The word " secretion " is one in constant use in the
mouths of physiologists. They speak of the liver
"secreting" bile, of the salivary glands "secreting"
saliva, or the " water " of the mouth, and of the stomach
" secreting " gastric juice. What is meant, then, hy this
word " secretion " ? and what is the use or purport of the
function which bears its name ' To answer these queries
we must reflect a little upon the demands which life makes
upon the body's belongings. In the digestion of food,
for example, a considerable number of fluids are poured
at intervals upon the food. The digestive system, it wUI
be remembered, is merely a tube, opening into which we
find certain organs, such as salivary glands, liver, sweet-
bread, itc. Now, digestion is largely a chemical process.
Certain food-elements are broken down, combined with
other elements, and made to assume new forms, in which
they can be readily combined with the blood. Hence
upon the food there are poured the fluids already men-
tioned, which alter and change the food-constituents as
nature directs. Take, as an example, the food-changes
which occur in the mouth. Saliva — the " water " of the
mouth — is poured upon the food at this stage of digestion.
This fluid is furnished by three pairs of organs caUed
salivary glands, each gland opening into the mouth by
a " duct " or tube of its own. When saliva comes in con-
tact with any starchy foods, the latter are transformed by
the chemical action of this fluid into dextrin and grape-
sugar. When saliva is analysed, it is found to consist of
water, certain minerals, and a substance (found nowhere
in the body save in this fluid) called jtti/alin. It is this
latter substance which appears to be instrumental in chang-
ing starch into dextrin and grape-sugar — in which latter
forms starch, itself indigestible, becomes more readily
absorbed into the blood. Hence this substance, pfi/alin, is
said to be one of the digestive " ferments " — a name applied
to certain bodies which are found chiefly in the digestive
fluids, and which produce chemical changes in the foods
submitted to their action.

In the stomach, another " ferment," pepsin,. exists in the
" gastric juice." This latter fluid is "secreted" by the little
glands tliat exist in the substance of the stomach itself.
This ferment has the power of changing nitrogenous foods
or " albuminoids " into substances called ])eplanes. In a
word, in the latter form these foods are diffusible, and
readily pass into the blood. The liver, as every one knows,
is a manufactory of liilfi, which is, perhaps, the most complex
fluid in the body. Bile is of a greenish-yellow colour, and
when analysed is found to consistof water and solids, amongst
the latter being bilin, fat, c/iolesfrriii, &c. There seems little
doubt that bile when added to the food (as it is added after
the food has left the stomach) acts specially on the fatty
parts of the food, whilst discharging other functions. The
pancreas or " sweetbread " throws pancreatic jttice on the

March 23, 1882.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

179

food, when bile from the liver is also poiired upon it In
the sweetbread's secretion we find water, minerals, and a
substance called pancreatin. Starch is certainly acted
upon by this substance, and such starchy foods as may
have escaped digestion in the mouth, are changed into
dextrin and grape sugar after leaving the stomach. The
sweetbread's "juice" also assists in the digtstion of fats,
and must in this way aid bile in its work ; whilst it is also
believed to possess some action upon the albuminous parts
of the food, an eQect accessory to that produced by the
gastric juice of the stomach.

When the food is passing along the tube which succeeds
the stomach, and which is called the intestine (or bowel),
it is thus nii.\ed with bile and pancreatic juice. These
fluids are poured upon the food in the first part of the
intestine. In total length, the intestine in man measures
-6 ft. ; the small intestine making up I'n ft. of this length,
and the large intestine about Gft. As the food travels
along the small intestine, it has also poured upon it the
fluids furnished by the glands of the bowel. The glands
are of various kinds, and some at least appear to exercise
a digestive action on the food.

To sum up our notes on digestion, then, we discover
that the food is attacked, so to speak, at various stages of
its progress along the digestive tube by the fluids or
" secretions " that are poured upon it ; that, secondly,
these secretions exert each a chemical action on the food ;
thirdly, that their effect is to convert the food into a milk-
like fluid (called chyle) which contains the concentrated
nourishment of the food, and which will bo added in due
course to the blood ; and, lastly, that the fluids which thus
accomplish digestion are provided each by an organ or
organs called, generally, glands. That which remains for
us is to inquire, how or by what means the glands produce
and manufacture the secretions of which we have just
spoken.

In a manufactory there are three chief elements which
demand consideration at the bands of the economist The
first is the raw material, the second is the workman or
workmen, and the third is the manufactured article. Each
" gland " in a human body is a manufactory which turns
out a manufactured article (bile, gastric juice, saliva, kc.)
from raw material. The raw material in the physiological
factories is blood. Here, however, we come face to face
with a very deep physiological problem. From one and
the same raw material — blood — which is supplied to the
*' glands," each factory produces a special product, diftering
widely from that of other "glands." Bile and pancreatic
juice, the " tears " of the eyes, the mucous secretion of the
nose, and the saliva, are widely different glands ; yet they
Are manufactured from the same raw material. But what
of the workmen which perform the work ? Here we come
lace to face with the microscopic elements of our bodies
known as cdls. In our last paper I spoke of jyrotophtsm,
the "physical basis of life," as seen in the Atnuba, or
"Proteus-animalcule." Xow the cells of our bodies, when
in an active, living state, consist of protoplasm. The liver
18, practically, an agglomeration of hepatic cells, each about
the Yo'o_th of an inch in diameter. It is " cells " of
other kinds that make up the essential parts of the salivary
glands; it is " cells " that compose the secreting part of
the sweetbread ; it is " cells" that make the gastric j\iice
in the glands of the stomach. If, as is certainly the case,
the cell is a mass of living " protoplasm," then it is
clear that we have at last tracked the problem of
secretion as far as we may. Supply a liver cell with
blood, and it makes bile ; supply a cell of the stomach's
glands with blood, and it makes or "secretes" gastric
juice. The " properties of protoplasm " is a phrase that

means much or little, according as we are wise or heedless
of life's acts and wonders. He who is heedless will l>e
apt to say there is no mystery after all ; he will urge
that living protoplasm, because it lives, discharges these
functions, and that there is an end of the matter.
But he who is wise will not rest here. He will
seek to know n-li;/ one bit of protoplasm makes
bile, and ir/iif another makes saliva. lie will regard
with wonder the fact that all forms of protoplasm appear
essentially similar to all scientific tests. He will look
below the surface, and see in the adaptations of this one
substance to many and varied ends, another ]iroof of the
great contention of modern science — that, after all, the
evolution of life's ways and works is as discernible in a
study of " secretion," and " cells," as in the growth of the
complex animal from the simple egg, or of the flower and
its variety from the primitive germ that precedes fruition.

SAXD-DUNES.

THE subject of sand-dunes having been referred to in a
recent number of Knowledce, the following facts
relating to them may prove of interest : —

Sand-dunes travel in the direction of the prevalent wind.
They continue to advance inland and overwhelm every-
thing on their march, even streams failing to arrest their
progress.

"The mouth of the river Adour, on the west coast of
France, has been shifted two and a half miles from its
original position by encroaching sand-dunes.

Along the French coast, where they extend for miles,
they average from 50 ft to GO ft in height, while on the
coast of Holland they have been met with as high as
260 ft

On the shores of the Bay of Biscay they travel inland
at a rate of about 16 ft in a year, while in some parts of
Denmark the rate of encroachment reaches 24 ft. in the
same time.

The advance of these dunes has been very much checked
within the last few years by their having been planted with
the cluster-pine, sand marram (Antudo arennrin), etc. These
plants bind the sand and form a covering and a net-work
of rootlets.

Before these precautions were taken, houses, fields, and
even whole parishes were buried beneath the sand.

Occasionally these planted dimes become covered, the
vegetation then decomposes and forms a layer of peaty
matter.

In Cornwall, the West Indies, and other places where
the Eund is calcareous, or formed of comminuted shells,
etc., it is compacted into a hard stone by the action of
rain-water percolating, dissolving the carbonate of lime,
and re-arranging it as a cement ; this rock is common in
the Bahamas and Bermudas, where it weathers into caves
and picturescjue crags.

In Cornwall the hardest granite may be seen polished
and woni into furrows where blown sand has come in
contact with it, and I believe the Egj-ptian monuments
exposed to the sand drifting from the Libyan desert pre-
sent a similar polished appearance. Advantage is taken
of the polishing or wearing property of blown sand, as in
the case of the artificial sand-blast used for engraving
glass, or cleaning files, A'c.

Has "Philalethes" heard of the "musical" sands'!
There are some on the coast of Skye : as one walks over
them they give out a musical note, probably due to the
sand-grains being of equal size.

C. C.\Ris Wilson, F.G.S.

180

KNOWI^EDGE ♦

[MARtii i.), 18t-3.

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SUN VIEWS OF THE EARTH;
OR, "THE SEASONS ILLUSTRATED."
By Richard A. Proctor.

WE give, for this month, the Sun Views, showing the earth's axial pose tow&fcla the sun, at eqnal intervals throughout t'i«^".^'
a month after the Winter Solstice, a month before the Vernal Equinox, n'lc/, as at this present time (as nearly as possible^,
at the Vernal Equinox. We add two pictures of the British Isles, France, ic, as seen from the sun at the Winter Solstice Fig. I,
and at the Vernal Equinox, Fig. 2 (see opposite page).

Mahcii

883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE

181

THE THAMES EMBANKMENT.

THE intense feeling whicli has resulted from thi-
vandalism of the directors of the Metropolitan Dis-
trict Railway is fully warranted, for never in recent times
has there been so wanton or so unnecessary a spoliation of
a people's pride. At the same time it is matter for remark-
that a body of upwards of si.\ hundred gentlemen could
allow the liill authorising the work to pass tlirough all the
formalities without their perceiving its purport Surely it
should be somebody's business to examine every Bill in its
passage through the House. If not, the sooner sucli a
defect is remedied the better will it be for the House as
well as the country ; for if a similar oversight were again
to occur, the anger of the people would— and justly so — be
turned against its representatives as muth as against those
who take advantage of its somnolence.

Any one who travels with any degree of frequency upon
the Underground Railway, cannot fail to have been im-

pressed with the noxious atmosphere, and regular travellers
would hail gladly almost any means by which an improve-
ment might be efl'ected. We doubt very much, however,
whether the majority of them would not dispense with the
railway altogether rather than sanction the construction
of a series of ventilating shafts in the gardens of what they
are pleased to call the finest promenade in Europe, more
especially so when they bear in mind that the company has
already sold a considerable amount of ventilating openings
for building purposes, and now presumes to make use of
the public grounds free of expense. It is not, however, on
the embankment alone that the hideous brick, iron, and
slate structures hemming in the cuttings are to be erected,
but others are determined on in front of Westminster
Abbey and in Queen Victoria-street

Curiously enough, the greater part of the shafts are to
be situated between Charing-cross and Mansion House
Stations, a portion of the line which is far from l^eing the
worst so far as injurious gases are concerned. The Engineer,
in a lengthy and intelligent article oil the suVyect, points
out that : " What the company wants to get rid of is
steam, with which the tunnel — especially between the

Temple and the Mansion House— becomes so charged that
it is impossible for the drivers to see the signals until
they are within a couple of yards of them. We state
this as the result of observations personally made,
not from the carriages, but from the foot-plate of an
engine. There ought to be no steam in the tunnel
of the ^Metropolitan Railway, and there would be none
if the Company provided proper means of condensing the
exhaust steam of the engines. For this purpose, nothing
more is requin-d than a sufficient supply of cold water in
the engine-tanks. The drivers fill their tanks with cold
water at the City terminus, and they have to run with this
supply to Earls-court and other places and back again.
The result is that while the engines going out of the City
give oti' no steam in the tunnel between the Temple and the
^Mansion House, the engines of the up trains, as we may
term them, carry boiling water in their tanks, which is, of
course, incapable of condensing steam, and the effect is
that, although the condensing exhaust valves are kept
open, the steam simply passes through the tanks, and
escapes through the pipes on top of them provided for the
purpose."

What is mainly requisite, then, is more satisfactory con-
densing apparatus, l»ut what is also to be condemned is
the unsuitable plant adopted by the company. Our con-
temporary, in speaking on this point, quotes a few figures,
from which we gather the consumption of coal in a District
en^ine, is nearly cent, per cent, higher than in one of Mr.
Stroud ley's " terriers " in use on the South London line.
" On the District line the trains consist of eight coaches,
weighing about 70 tons, and a 43-ton engine, total
113 tons. The Great Western Railway Company runs
trains over the District line, the engine weighing 33
tons, and the eight coaches 50 tons, total 83 tons.
Mr. Stroudley's engines run nine coaches weighing
GO tons, the total weight being 85 tons. The Metro-
politan trains full seat about 350 passengers, the Great
Western trains about 2!>0, and Mr. Stroudley's about
400." These statistics demonstrate very clearly that by
far the greater part of the present troubles are of the com-
[lany's own making, and might be avoided by the adoption
of more suitable plant.

I'\"en granting, however, that the generation of sulphurous
uciil (which, by the w^ay, almost invariably proves excep-
tionally unpleasant between Charing-cross and St. .James's-
park stations) and other gases is unavoidable, their removal
is not by any means an insurmountable difficulty. One
pound of quicklime suffices to deal with the products of
comViustion of one pound of coke, while to change the air
completely in the longest tunnel on the line (a distance of
221 yards), "at such a rate that it would be practically pure
enough for all purposes, a velocity of a little over one mile
an hour would suffice, and this would demand less than
one-horse power actual work done.''

Our estimable contemporary anticipates that what it has
said will be disputed by the compan)', Vjut " anything may
be expected from the persons who can seriously propose
to hide the ventilators on the Thames Embankment with
trellis-work, festooned with ivy ! If the atmosphere of
the tunnel is so pure that ivy would grow round the mouths
of the ventilating shafts, then the necessity for the shafts
would not exist" At the present moment the men are
working their hardest to get the work finished, and it
behoves everyone to lea\e no stone unturned until the
abomination is prevented or removed. Doubtless some
compensation will have to be given — possibly that is what
is Ijeing hoped for — but we must all pay for experience,
more or less dearly. We may depend upon it the lesson
will be learned never to be forgotten.

182

KNOW^LEDGE

[Mahcii 23, 1883

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Ai.frkd Tennyson.

Sfttn-g to t\)( mitov.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly he in-
serted. Correspondents must not ie offended, therefore, should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial communications should he addressed to the Editor of
Knowledge ; all Business communications to the Publishers, at the
Office, 74. Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS ARISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

AU Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should he made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not respoyisible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMHDNICATIONS are ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOUGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

COMETS' TAILS.

[763] — With respect to Mr. A. J. Mott's suggestion in the last
tinmber of Knowledge, I would remark that the mean velocity of
evaporated molecules must evidently be greater than the mean
velocity of the molecules of the occluded gas before evaporation,
for the swiftest-moving molecules of the occluded gas will be the
first to free themselves from the attractive forces of the molecules
near to the surface of the solid lx>dy in which the gas is occluded.
Thus a selective action will be set up which will cause the mean
velocity of the molecules of the gas left behind to be less than the
mean velocity of the molecules which escape. In other words,
evaporation tends to cool the body from which evaporation takes
place.

Thus the mean velocity of the molecular bombardment I referred
to will evidently be much greater than the mean velocity of the
molecules of the evaporating gas when reduced to the temperature
of the solid body from which the evaporation is taking place.
For comets near the sun the velocity of bombardment may be
quite sufficient to carry such molecules as are not projected into
the sun outside the action of the solar system ; but the fiercest
evaporation will evidently take place towards the sun, and even if
the individual stones of a meteoric swarm all revolve rapidly about
their own axes, we should not expect a large proportion of the
evaporation to take place- in the direction in which comets' tails
form — that is, away from the sun.

But there are other reasons for believing that the tails of comets
are not merely gaseous appendages. When we consider that the
orbit of a comet is not sensibly affected by the matter driven off
from the nucleus to form the tail during the perihelion passage,
we may safely assert that the weight of the tail cannot be great
compared with the weight of the nucleus, and that, consequently,
the immense space occupied by the tail (or, rather, by the many
successive tails driven off during the perihelion passage) cannot be
filled with gas sufficiently dense to disperse the amount of light
observed. A comparatively dense gas when freed in the laboratory
from the minute particles floating in it, appears almost absolutely
black when a beam of electric light is passed through it ; but the
moment that dust-laden air is admitted, light is dispersed in every
direction, and the dispersed light is polarised in a manner which
corresponds with the polarisation of the light derived from the tails
of comets. That is, the intensity of ]iolarisation increases as the
angle between the direction of illumination, and the line drawn
from the observer to the illuminated particle increases towards a
right angle. A. Cowper Eanyabd.

TRICYCLES.

[76-i] — In reply to your correspondent, D. M., I would beg to
point out that 1 have not in any way fallen into "the common
confusion of engine cranks with tricycle cranks."

Three years since, I drew the attention of several of my friends
to the fact that I could start any tricycle provided with cranks from
the position known as dead centres on a fairly level road in good
condition ; but I should call the moving a tricycle forward under
such conditions (with a backward pull of one foot and a forward

thriist of the other, and the action of the knee and ankle exerting a
slight influence overthc pedals), "not having complete control over
them." To explain my meaning more clearly, your correspondent
should use one crank and not two, and then see wliether he could
start the machine with the crank at the bottom of the throw. By
controlling a pedal, I meant that if a machine were going uphill
along a rough road with no momentum, each foot would have
sufficient control over one pedal or the other to keep the machine
going, and in this sense my statement would, I believe, be understood
by most readers.

A correspondent, Mr. Edwin Wells, has written and asked me to
state my opinion in Knowledge, " Whether the backward pedalling
of the ' Sterling Tricycle' is in conformity with the proper motion
of the muscles of the leg ? "

This seems to me an important question. If my correspondent
means, does the motion of the leg in pedalling the "Sterling"
resemble the action of the leg in walking as much as pedalling an
ordinary fonvard-pedalhng machine, I should answer at once, cer-
tainly not ; but the leg has more power over the crank in the back-
ward action than in the forward, and has strong control over the
crank through a greater portion of a revolution, and, although other
muscles than those used in walking or in driving ordinary machines
are brought into play, yet I can answer for it that the motion is
not more tiring : from my own experience I should say less so.

John Browning.

THE WEATHER FORECASTS.

[765] — I may be wrong in my ideas of fairness, but I am deci-
dedly of opinion that when an individual desires to show the use-
lessness of the weather forecasts he should certainh- not attempt
to do so by means of "mental observations taken at various times
diuing different times of the year" (letter 749, p. 153). Neither
do I think readers will be impressed with the fairness of a system
which compares the forecasts and the weather, and takes note of
every time the two disagree, but omits to mention when they agree
{vide Sir E. Beckett's letter, where he says " R^hen H omits the
wind it agreed with the prediction").

[Well, but surely this is indicating when they agree. — R. P.]

After reading the letter on p. 53, I determined during the forth-
coming month to institute a rigid comj^arison between the actual
state of the weather and the Meteorological Office's forecasts, and
the plan I adopted was the following: — I carefully noted the direc-
tion and force of the wind (1 to 12) at 9 a.m., 12, 3, and 6 p.m.,
and made rough notes at intervals of about two or three hours of
the state of the weather. In the evening I brought all my notes
before me, and from them compiled an accurate record of the wind
and weather of that day. This I entered in my day-book, and then
(and til ?io case before then) consulted the forecast and entered it
below the history. At the end of the month I summarised the
comparisons, and obtained the following results : — On fourteen
days the wind agreed both in force awd direction with the fore-
cast. On nine it agreed with one or the other, and on one day only
the forecast was entirely wrong. The weather forecast was quite
correct on thirteen days, partly correct on eight, and altogether
wrong on three. This is the result I have obtained, and it is one,
I think, of which the Meteorological Office have no occasion to be
ashamed.

With regard to the weather warnings my experience tallies with
that of Mr. Mattieu Williams, i.e., that the change comes later than
was expected. This was well exemplified on the 19th and 20th.
The forecast for the 19th ran ; " Light N.W. breezes, and fine, cold
weather ; wind subsequently backing, and weather becoming cloudy
and unsettled." During the whole of the day, however, the weather
was settled and the wind constant from the N.W., but on the 20th
it backed to S.S.W., and we had a storm of rain and wind.

If this letter serves no other useful end, I shall be content if it
draws from Mr. Mattieu Williams the explanation he promised
(page 72) if his prophecy jiroved correct, which it has.

J. W. Stanifobth.

RATIONAL DRESS.
[766] — During my absence from home, the committee of the
Rational Dress Society has, I am infonned by the Viscountess
Hurberton, appointed a paid secretary in my stead. Being anxious
to continue the work of dress reform with the power which com-
bination gives, I am now forming another society, to be called the
Rational Dress Association, composed of both men and women.
As I daily receive letters of inquiry as to whether the Exhibition of
Rational Dress Is to take place, I should be glad to be allowed t'^
state that it most certainly >rill take place ; and that it is only
owing to my recent serious illness, and to the many vexations
obstacles which have been thrown in my way, that the necessary
an-angements for it have not yet been completed.

March 23, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

183

Any one wishing for further information may w-ito to mo at my
town addrpFi.i. 34, Comwnll-road, or my precent one ; or to mj-
bnsineBS atrent for the Exhibition, Mr. John Flack, 74, Great Queen-
street, Lincoln's Inn-Fields. E. M. King.

STEAMERS' SIDE-LIGHTS.

[767] — Does not the accompanyinp; sketch offer a simple solution
to the difficulty of ascertaining another ship's course at night '<
The separate combination of lights, i.e., green and white, green
Trhite and green, or white and green, would respectively show the
angle of any other ves.iel to your own. A system of many lamps,
as has been snggested, bears grave objections ; .simplicity being, in
this matter, more than needful. C. H. Brockklbank.

_C£^?A j

[There seems to me no reason why three side-lights, in the form
of an equilateral triangle, should be regarded as at all less simple
than a single coloured light. They would show a great deal
further, indicate by the shape of the triangle the side they were
on, the ship's position, her distance, and so forth. Coloured glasses
cut off a large part even of a single light's rays. — B. P.]

ALTERATIOX IN COAST LIJTE AND SUBMERGED
FORESTS.

[768] — A ** Southport Resident" (701) imagines that I antici-
pated in my query {l>73) that Southport was to become an inland
town all at once, and he says there has been no retrocession of the
sea for fifty years, which proves that no alteration is taking place.
He admits changes are taking place all round Lancashire, and that
a fringe of sand varying in breath up to a mile has been formed by
this retrocession ; but it is on this fringe of sand that my observa-
tious were based, and the continual increase of which I anticipated
would eventually alter the coast line.

The low water-mark is a remarkable one from the estuary of the
Dee round to Morecarabe Bay — the water ebbing rapidly in places

leaves large areas, which probably will, in tho course of time,
become dry land.

On the east coast of England, in many places, tho water is
gaining at the rate of about 3 ft. a century ; but I should think the
exactly opposite action going on round Sonthpnrt must be more
rapid than this.

Some great changes are taking place in the Isle of Sheppoy, on
the north of which tho water gains so fast by tho continual giving
way of the cliffs that tho old church of Warden has been almost
destroyed, and at tho present rapid action going ou Minster Church,
which is such a conspicuous object for so many miles rouud, and
which is only a mile and a-half from the sea, must eventually
succumb to the same fate.

I was not aware that there was a submarine forest at the estuary
of the Mersey, but such forests are very freiiuontly met with else-
whore, and they tell us, in the same manner that a seam of coal
does, of the submergence which has taken place in tho case of the
latter, probably begun some hundred thousand or more years ago,
assuming that these changes are brought about by a gradual process.

An ancient forest was discovered some tim" ago at a great depth
in the dockyard at Sheemess, whilst a well was being snnk. On
parts of the Cornish coast, at low tide, stumps of trees may be seen,
which are proofs that a submergence is tivking place there. I may
add that the cliffs at Shcppey arc composed of London clay, and are
very prolific of fossil remains, some gigantic species of turtles, I
believe, having been brought to light by the continual exposure of
fresh land. H'sett.

THE SCHOOL-GIRLS' TUOBLEM.

[769] — Here is a symmetrical solution of puzzle 725, p. 106. I
shall be curious to know if my method is the same as that of yonr
correspondent : —

Day

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

"l

aaaj

a., aj as

aa aj as

84 86%

85 878,

ao 81 a<,

a? 80 aa

b

ba bj

bs bs be

bj b; bi

b; b; ba

bj b, bs

b4 b« b;

bo b, b;

Cl

C3C4

04 Cs c.

C; C; C3

C3 Cs C;

Cs c, Cj

C. C4 Cs

Cs C; C,

ao

bj Cj

a3b4C5

aj bs C|

as b, C4

a6b3C7

a; bi C3

a, b; Co

a.i

IJ5C5

as b- c,

a; bj 04

a, b4 Cy

aj boCj

ajbiCo

84 bj Co

"f

bfiCs

&• b, c..

a, bj Cj

a> bs Cl

agbyc.

34 bj Qq

85 b4 c?

a?

b;C;

a, b; C3

a- b4 C5

VIII.
a, b, c,
a2baC4

83 bj C7

84 b; C3

aj b» Co

«c b, C;

ar be Cj

83 be c.

Day

IX.

83 ba C3

a4 bs Cs

85 b; Cj

af, b; Cs
a; b, c,
a, bf, C4
a-j b) C;

8, b, Cs

X.

a, b4 C4
as bo C;
85 b, C3
a,- b3 Co
a, bs C;
a., b; Cs
83 bo C|

as ba c,

ao bs C4

The series re-enters to day I. by formula given below —
The twenty-one girls are divided into three groups of 7, and
called 81 a.. ... a- b, bj.-.b;, kc. Tho first three rows on days I. — VJI.
exhaust all combinations of form a a a, b b b, c c c, and the rest
are in form a b c.

Assuming order in day I., tho following formula gives order for
days II. — VII. If a, occupies a given place on any day the girl
in corresponding place on next day will be 8,4-1, subtracting 7
when tho suffix exceeds that number. Similarly, b,^o takes the
place of b, and c,+3 of c, — e.g., on day III. Cj comes in column 3,
row G; so, in same place on day IV. we have Cs(a_7 = Ci.

Days VIII., IX., X., are formed by reading tho first three rows
of days I. — VII. downwards, and of the rows thus formed taking
1, 4, 7, &c., for day VIII., 2, 5, Ac, for IX., and 3, 6, &c., for X.
For these three days the above formula applies to any girl and the
one above — e.j., day IX., column 3, row 5, 05 = 00+3.

East Maesdex.

LETTERS RECEIVED.
A. M. D.— A Fellow.— F. R. A. S.— Nemo.— W. Grandy.— Facic-
bat. — D. W. Staniforth.— Senex. — Solarium. — C. Jacobus. — R. K.
Stephens. — A. F. — A Subscrilwr to Knowledge. — Lenses. — Boston.
— S. E. Clark.— J. A. Robson.— H'sett.- E. B.— B. Blackburn.
Difficult to say if eddies would occur in currents so vast. — J. B. W.
Mr. Browning will do this. — J. L. Wolff. Rather unsuitable subject.
— C. H. — (;. Duncan, Sec. Cannot get those numbers myself. —
H. H. D. Thanks, but the general character of forecasts now
fairly indicated ; and space runs short. — Silva. — J. II. C. — Faciebat
(4c.). Thanks. How much more useful such discussions of
translations than the old-fashioned way, which left no time for
them.- F. R. A. S.'— P. A. Pierson.- A. N.— W. J. King.— J. C.

184

KNOWLEDGE *

[Maech 23, 1883.

^ur ^aralioir Cornrr.

FLAT EAKTU )'. (;iA)liE.
[Mr. Hampden ie angry witli nic because the second part of his
explanation of tlie Hat eiirtli tlieory did not appear last week. It
only reached mo at Brighton when the last number of Knowledge
was already made up; and by the time the first ensuing post had
taken it to Great yueen-etreet, half the edition would have been
printed.

The first portion of what was actually sent I have had to omit, for
the reason that it was simple (denunciation of the accepted views,
and I had promised my readers to admit no mere denunciation.

in his drawing, and run here from 15° E. to 15° W. ; 3°, the addi-
tion (for which the preceding change provided) of the details of
land and water between those longitudes, — the outlines being taken
from a map of the whole earth supplied me by Mr. Hampden ;
4°, the addition of the marks A, B, C, D, for pnrposes of reference,
as will bo seen below. — R. P.]

" My case is too strong to render me at all disposed to imitate
the example of my opponents. But it is with an ill grace that they
can avail themselves of a condition which they have so anscnipn-
lously ignored when denouncing my views. However, it is not my
nature to be ungenerous, or to e.tult over a fallen foe. I accept
the privilege now accorded me as an «mendt for the unfair treat-
ment I have hitherto been subject to ; and 1 send with this a roDgh
diagram (Fig. 1) of the geometry of the circular plane, and
publish it with the full assurance that, sooner or later, it will be
the alone standard of reference when describing the configuration
of the earth-plane on which we live. It has never before been pub-
lished since type and paper were invented, and I claim the merit
of having detected the marvellous hannonv of the solar courses.
I do not say it will carry conviction at a glance ; though that mind
must be very much distorted by prejudice, if it fails to detect in it
a degree of perfection that may be looked for in vain in the solar
ystem devised by the ingenuity of man. I am quite willing that
it should meet with the severest scrutiny that prejudice and
mathematical skill can array against it. If it is false, let it perish
and its fallacy be exposed. If it outlives the ordeal, it is to a far
higher authority than mine that is due the credit it will claim. I
will give some explanations in nest succeeding number.

I will endeavour, as far as possible, to confine my articles to
about a column and a half. JoHX Hampdex.

[Mr. Hampden will understand that I have no wish to dictate to
him the course which his description and explanation of the Zetetic
philosophy should pursue ; nor do I wish to enter into any discussion
of the various features of his flat-earth theory. But I know the
difficulties which are likely to suggest themselves to those who con-
sider it for the first time ; and I venture (in their interests only)
to submit a few questions to the teacher of this new (or very old)
system, which he will doubtless be very glad to answer in con-
sideration of the ignorance of beginners.

I note first that one great advantage of the new system is that
all measurements on the Zetetic chart are made on one scale,
unlike our ordinary geographical maps, which vainly essay to picture
accurately part of a globe on a flat surface. Now, I note that if
we allow the meridians and parallels in Fig. 1 to represent for a
moment the sector of the earth in which Victoria, Xew South
Wales, and New Zealand are contained — that is, to range from 135°
East to 180° — then A would be the position of Sydney, B of Hobart
Town, D of Invercargill (at the extreme south of New Zealand), and
0 of Auckland. I find the distance AC to be about 2,100 miles, and
the distance BD about 2,000 miles. In the steamship Botomahana,
of about 1,200 tons, whose average rate of steaming is certainly not
more than 300 mUes per day, I sailed from Auckland to Sydney in
about four days, and a cuirent will not account for the enormous
rate thus indicated (more than 500 miles daily), since the journey
is made in the same time both ways. The Pacific Mail Steamers
run constantly between Sydney and Auckland, both ways, in a
little over four days. They are noted rather for strength and safety
than for speed. Again, from Hobart Town to Invercargill a smaller
steamer (700 tons) of the same line carried me in 4i days, in very
unfavourable weather — some 440 miles per day in a steamer whose
liest rate was under 300 miles a day. The journey both wayB
between Cape Town and Melbourne involves similar difliculties,
which Mr. Hampden can, of course, very easily remove for us.

Next, — I think I am right in presenting AA', BB', CC, Fig. 2
(or na', lib', cc', or lines between these and parallel to them), as
side-views of the circular paths of the sun in mid-winter (northern),

A.^utAfSiuuWnUr/>uA.seen.aiffewuf B RuAt SuAi Sprij>gaJuiAjJim.lhti,san.tdgurue. CC'u th, Siwi Summt^ Path tan, eda»zse

>mrr'n'mr\\mim<inMiimmimiumiiii"''iiiim«mmm>m

Mubu^ttr

J^

Fig. 2.

The illustrative diagram is reduced from 5Ir. Hampden's drawing,
with no other changes bat — 1°, the addition of a name ; 2°, the
change of the longitudes represented, which ran from 0° to 45° W.

in spring or autumn, and in midsummer, respectively, where DLN
represents a side-view of part of the earth's surface. This, in fact,
follows obviously from what is shown in Fig. 1. Now the following

March 23, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

185

IKjints — very trifling, of course, but so mncli the easier for Mr.
HampJen to deal vrith — seem to rciiuiro explanation : —

LLC is much less than half LA, so that the midilay sun in
December should have an apparent diameter much less than half
that of the midday sun iii June, and a disc much less than a quarter
.IS large in appearance.

2. I cannot get the angles of elevation right. /ALB should be
equal to Z li L C ; but so Ion;; as A B is equal to B C, these angles
tliffer much from each other.

3. It looks as though the midiiijht sun in summer should have
about the same elevation as the middaij sun in winter ( / C'L N
= Z ALD).

■I. It really looks as though, even in winter, the sun ought never
to set — LA' is considerably inclined to LX.

5. In fact, in my dulness, 1 cannot see how the sun, always some
;KX) miles above the earth, the whole diameter of whose accessible
surface is only about G.OOO miles, can ever set anywhere.

C. Still less can I understand — twenty years ago De Morgan
showed similar dulness of apprehension — how the sun can go down,
as I have seen it go down, square to the horizon in equatorial
regions.

7. Then here is a ditficulty which puzzles me much. Regarding
N D, Fig. 2, for a moment, as the longitude line from the Pole to
New Zealand, D would represent about the position of Christchurch,
N.Z. A, the place of the midday sun Dec. 21, lies certainly north
for the whole of New Zealand, and so does the whole circular path
AA', and so forth. Now, while I over and over again saw the sun,
at early morning and late evening in November, December, and
January, considerably to the south of the east and west points re-
spectively, I particularly observed this in a long drive I had to
take from Oomaru to Timaru on the eastern coast of New Zealand
(southern island), one Sunday in December, 1880. I had to start
by sunrise, and after reaching Timaru, and having a late dinner, I
walked out to watcli one of the finest sunsets I have ever seen. I
fan vouch for it that the sun rose far to the sonth of east, not
reaching due east till long after six, and was due west long before
si\, setting far to the south of west. Now, it really looks (see
Fig. 2) as though, seen from D, the whole course of the sun in
December ought to lie on the northern half of the sky. I know it
was not; but then it is clear, not only from Fig. 2 but from Fig. 1,
!ind from the charts of the whole Hat earth which Jlr. Hampden
has been good enough to send me, that it ought to have been.

IS. Lastly, I noticed that the daily course of the sun was precisely
the same on the northern sky, as seen from places in Australasia, as
it was on the southern sky seen from places in America at the same
distances north of the equator, at the corresponding seasons (I was
in Australasia from May, 1880, to January, 1881, and in America
from October to May), i.e., from places far out.':ide the circular
daily paths assigned to the sun by Mr. Hampden the .thape of the
sun's course on the sky was precisely the same as from places far
irifide those paths. This is ditficult to understand ; though, doubtless,
Mr. Hampden will find it easy to explain.

If he would devote his next explanations to these points, he would
please and interest many. Moreover, there can be no doubt that a
satisfactory explanation of these difficulties would secure the Zetetic
school a great number of adherents. In fact, though I know of
many other difficulties, I will enroll myself as a disciple of the new
philosophy so soon as the above slight difficulties are removed — not
sooner, however. I may add my belief that the new philosophy
will be wn'dely accepted when the Newtonian system is rejected —
but I think not before. — li. P.'

©ur 21236 1'St Column.

By " Five of Clubs."

PLAYING TRUMPS.

WE come now to cases where you have great strength in
trumps. This may consist either in length only, as when
yon have five or six trumps, no honours ; or in combined length and
sirength, as when you have four trumps, two honours; or in both,
is when you have five trumps, or more, two honours.

When you have five trumps, says the book rule, it is always right
to lead them ; yet experience at once suggests an exception to this

I rule — for when you want only the odd trick to save or win the
game, you do not lead trumps from five. The rule should rather be

I that it is almost always well to lead trumps. With the original
lead, perhaps the only exception is the one just mentioned. But when
the jireceding play showsthatyourpartnerhasBogood suit, while your
own hand contains none outside trumps, leading trumps from five
would be bad play, and, as such cases are common, the exception is
rather an important one to notice. Suppose, for instance, your hand

I

is weak outside trumps, of which you hold five, and that your oppo-
nent on the right leads King of u plain suit, taking the trick ; and
then a small one, which his partner takes with the .\ce ; and that
then the Queen of another suit is led out, on which your partner
puts the Ace and third player a small one. You know now that
your opponent on the right has the King card and probably com-
mand of his own suit and the King card of his partner's, who holds
second and third best. If now your partner leads a small card of
the remaining plain suit and you take the trick with the Queen, it
would be nnwise to lead a trump from five aniall ones, for your
opponents on cither side have one suit certainly, and another
probably, established, while either the King or the Ace of your
partner's suit is on yonr right. The best use you can make of your
trumps is to keep them to rulT your opponents' suits or your
partner's (when player to your right puts in his best card in that
suit), according to the way your plain suits are distributed. And so
in a number of cases where you learn from the play that the proba-
bilities are not — as when you lead originally from five trumps and a
weak hand — in favour of your partner having at least one strong
suit.

But when you are original loader holding five trumps, not more
than one honour, and all your plain suits weak, you have good
reason for expecting that your partner has one good suit which by
means of your trumps you can help him to establish and bring in.
Further, the chances are two to one that opening any other suit
will be playing the adversaries' game, as yon htive no means of
guessing which is your partner's suit. So that alike for offensive
as for defensive considerations, your proper lead is your penulti-
mate trump. (Always excepting the case where you want the odd
trick either to save or win the game.)

With a good hand and five trumps you need never hesitate to lead
trumps, unless you want the odd trick only — in which case you
should always play the surer game of aiming to obtain the odd
trick surely ; for what good will throe or four tricks made from a
long suit do you, in such a case, to compensate the risk of failing to
get the odd trick ?

With a good plain suit, the short suits well protected, and four
trumps (two honours), the original lead being with you, you may
safely lead trumps, except when playing for the odd trick only. At
love, with such a lead, you take the best chance of making game, if
your partner has an honour. But this forward play should be
regarded as tentative only, and to be dropped at once if your
partner shows great weakness in trumps ; for then there is reason
to fear that one or other of the adversaries may have superior
strength to yon in trumps.

When you have such a hand, but not the original lead, the ques-
tion of leading trumps or not will depend on what you infer from
the tricks already played.

Strength in trumps sufficient to justify leading them is not suffi-
cient to justify signalling for trumjjs. When you lead trumps, you
nearly always suggest to yourpartner that it will be well for him to
follow your lead ; but when you signal, you practically direct him to
do so. A really commanding hand is required to justify such a
course. Clay indicated, as his own rule, never to signal with fewer
than four trumps two honours, or five trumps one honour ; but he
added that he by no means intended to imjjly that with such
trumps you should always signal. As a matter of fact, you should
have good cards in ])Iain suits to justify a signal from the minimum
trump hands indicated by Clay.

It is an almo.-it constant rule to return your partner's trumps
when he has led from strength ; but it should be a constant rule to
obey the signal, when made by a partner who understands whist.
Not to retnm trumps is only justified — in most cases — by sudden
illness, or by having no trumps — one an invalid reason, the other a
valid one. Not to respond to the signal is justified only by one of
three reasons — having no trumps, sudden illness, or want of confi-
dence in yonr partner. So if a player, having noticed the signal,
and not being ill, fails to lead trumps, he tells his partner, in whist
language, that he " disables his judgment."
(To be continved.)

It has been urged against the theoretical importance of the
agency of insects in fertilising flowers, that the insects relied npon
are rare upon mountain-heights, where the flowers that should bo
fertilised by them are still abundant. The observations of M. Ch.
Musset, of Grenoble, France, which range up to 10,000 feet in
height, tend greatly to break the force of this objection. He finds
that all the orders of insects are represented to the height of
7.400 feet, and that the nnmlwr of nectar-seeking insects is pro-
portionate to the number of flowers. The hours of wakefulness and
of sleep of the nyctitropic flowers — the number of which is greater
than is supposed — and those of the insects are synchronous. The
apparent number of nectar-seeking insects, also, is related to the
number of their favourite flowers.

18 6

• KNOWLEDGE

[March 23, 1883.

dBur €i)ti9 Column,

By Mephisto.

rROBLE:\[ No. 81.

By Geobge \V. Mitchell.

Black.

m
* mi

WZmTmm
m.kw » ■

mi ; -n 1 m

White to play and mate in two moves.

OXFORD V. CAMBRIDGE.

On Saturday, the 17th inst., the Universities played their annual
chess match at the St. George's Chess Club. Both teams fought
well, the result being a tie, with a score of five and a half each, viz.,
four games won and three drawn.

The following well-contested game was played by the head man
of each team :

(Board I.) — Scotch Gambit.

F. Morley (Kng's) , C. D. Lococlc (Univ.),

P.JI

>rloy (Kng's), C.

D.Locock(L'mv.),

Cantab.

0:ton.

Cantab.

Oxon.

1.

P toK4

P to K4

15

Q to Kt3

QR to Qsq

;j.

Kt to KB3

Kt to QB3

16.

P to KB4

Q takes Q

3.

P toQ4

P takes P

17.

P takes Q

P to KB4

4.

Kt takes P

B to B4

18.

QR to Qsq

P takes P

5.

B to K3

Q toB3

19.

Kt takes P

KR to Ksq

G.

P to QB3

KKt to K2

20.

Kt takes QP

R takes Kt

7.

B to QKtS

PtoQ3

21.

R takes R

R takes B

8.

Castles

Castles

22.

K toB2

Rto K2

9.

Kt takes Kt

P takes Kt

23.

R to Q5

K toB2

10.

B takes B

P takes KB

24.

R takes P

RtoQ3

11.

B to Q4

Q to Kt3

25.

R to Ksq

R to Q7 (ch)

la.

Qto B3

B to Kt2

2H.

R to K2

R takes R (ch)

13.

Kt to Q3

P to QB4

27.

K takes R

14.

B to K3

Kt to B3

Given up as a

draw.

Wo gladly accepted a proffered invitation, and visited the St.
George's Chess Club, the temple of British Chess, where the two
rival University teams met, and engaged in an earnest mental con-
test. Play was conducted with great caution on both sides, and
the pace of play was therefore rather slow in some instances. A
Bolemn quietness reigned in the rooms, which are not large. This
stillness of matter always causes within us — by a natural reflex
action — activiry of mind. We were brooding over different subjects,
when suddenly the following ominous words of the poet Poe
stood before our miud's eye : " The best chess-player in Christen-
dom (?) may be little more than the best player of chess." This
opinion, liorn, pei-haps, of a morbid imagination, and nothing else,
seemed to us in opposition to all observed facts. We, who know
most of the noted j)layera in England, can testify that our strongest
amateur chess-players are positively more than merely strong chess-
players— they are distinguished in their profession and men of great
learning. Broadly speaking, we may state tliat good chess-players
lire to be found mostly amongst the higher professions requiring
great mental abilities, such as men of great learning and letters,
accountants, and clergymen. It occm'red to us to put our opinion
on this subject to a further practical test, for whicli the present
was a most favourable opportunity. Accordingly, we interviewed
one of the Cambridge men, and tlu? following conversation ensued : —
" Do the young men that play chess well make good students at
your University?"

" They do almost without exception ; they are mostly liard workers.
Students who think more about billiards and horses than of their
studies have no aptitude for chess."

" Have any of the strongest chess-playera in your team dis-
tinguished themselves in their studies ? "

"They have indeed, nearly all of them; we have had many
Wranglers in our chess club ; of those present, that player at the
next table is expected to be third or fourth Wrangler, and his neigh-
bour will not bo far behind."

" Are there any athletes amongst your players ? "

"No, not many; they cannot spare the time; but the player 1
have mentioned to you before, sitting at the next table, rows stroke
in his college boat.

" That little man over there with the towering forehead, is he a
strong player ? "

" He is an M.A., and considered our strongest player! "

Wo were highly pleased with the result of our inquiry, and as
facts are far stronger than fiction, we were well satisfied that the
poet's derogatory opinion of chess and chess-players was fallacious.

Our good opinion of the players was further strengthened on
hearing of an achievement highly creditable to young Englishmen.
" At the banquet which followed the match that evening, they one
and all had a very hearty dinner."

SOLUTIONS.
Phoblem No. 78, by John Simpsox, p. 154.

1. R to Q5 K takes K, or

■1. KttoQB3(ch) Kto B3 (n)
3. B to Kt3 mate

(a) If 2. K takes P
3. B to R3 mate

Or if 2. K to Qo
3. B to B6 mate

K to BC (6)

2. R to B5 (ch) K to K5

3. Kt to Q6 mate

Or 2. K to Kt5
3. Kt to K3 mate

(b) If 1. B to R4

2. B to Kt2 (ch) B to BC

3. R to K5 mate

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
*»* Please address Chess Editor.

Clarence. — Problem received with thanks.

W. T. Pierce. — Thanks for game. Your contributions will always
be very welcome.

A. J. Maas. — Sorry your amended position came too late, as you
may see by last week's number ; we did not consider the duals a
suflicient reason for withholding from publication.

Leonard P. Rees. — 10. Castles is a perfect answer to
10. KKt to Kt5 in the Gnioco Piano. By investigating this attack,
we did not at all mean to imply that it was absolutely or incon-
testably correct. This you may infer from our introductory remark
to this variation. Vol. I., p. 442: — "A. Players of an attacking
style might play 10. KKt to Kt5."

Berrow, R. J. P., G. W. Thompson, Delta, T. T. Dorrington, and
others. — You have not given the most difficult variation in the
author's solution of Problem 79, arising from the defence of
1. B to R4 ; the others are pretty obvious and commonplace. We
shall withold solution to enable you to complete your answers.

Correct solutions received. — Problem 78. R. J. P., T. T.
Dorrington. No. 80. W. Clarence, T. T. Dorrington, G. E.
Thompson.

A. K. McAdam. — M. T. Hooton ; solutions incorrect.

NOTICES.

The Back Numbers of Kjtowlbdgb, with the exception of Xos. 1 to 13,
31, 32, and 53, are in print, and can be obtained from ail booksellers and
newsagents, or direct from the Publishers. Should any difficulty arise in obtaining
the paper, an application to the Publishers is reapei-r fully requested.

Just Published, Part XVI. (Feb. 18S3). Price lud.; postage 3d. extra.

TEEMS OF SUBSCEIPTION,

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OFFICE: 74-76, GREAT QUEEN STEEET LONDON W.O.

March 30, 1S83.]

♦ KNOV/LEDGE ♦

187

^ ^ " MAGAZINE OFSqEWCE^

i i.AlNi;rVfbRD£D-£XACTL|i)ESCKIB£D^i

LONDON: FRIDAY, MARC II 30, 1883.

Contents of Xo. 74.

F16II

Science &nd Art OoBsip 187

>'atiirsl Laws; A Feace-OfferiDg.

By E. A. Proctor 189

Pleasant Hours with the Micro-
scope. Bv H. J. Slack, F.G.8.,

F.R.M.S.' 190

The Chemistrv of Cookery. VI.

By W. Mattiou Williams 191

Energy. l!r E. C. Riminaton 192

How to Use" our ETes. IV. {Illut.)
By John Browning, F.R.A.S 193

rxcB
The Great Comet of 1882. (Illut.)

By Professor C. A. Young 195

The Crystal Palace Electric «nd Gas

Exhibition. (/«i...) 19B

The Face of the Sky 197

Important Etectrical Ezporimont... 197

Logical Puzzle 198

Our Paradox Column : Flat Earth

r. Globe 198

Correspondence 199

Our Chesa Column 200

^titmt anl) 9rt (@0£({(ip.

A SINGULAR idea seems to prevail in the minds of many
respecting the position of men of science in the matter of
religion. They seem to imagine that most men of science
are enemies of religion, or at the best are wanting in
religion. My experience — which has made me acquainted
with great numbers of men of science, science teachers, and
science students — points quite the opposite way. I should
say that in the best and only true sense of the word the
followers of science are, on the average, more religious
tlian those who do not study science. And this is only
natural The investigations of science set the unknown
which lies at the back of the known and of the knowable
behind the veil of an infinite mystery. The comparatively
commonplace ideas of those who have not learned to
recognise the vastness of the universe, and the infinite time
intervals belonging to its history, must give place in the
mind of the student of nature to worthier though less
tangible conceptions.

But again, it seems imagined by many that the man of
science, " to suit his private ends," wishes to dispossess
4nen's minds of religious ideas. Men seem continually on
the watch for sneers and scofls where neither sneer nor
scoff is intended — nay, where it has been the object of the
student of science to relieve religion from the oppression
of low or deg'-ading conceptions. Men who are not
students of nature can hardly conceive with what pain the
■man of science sometimes notes their singularly narrow
and stunted ideas of religion. Yet when he rejects ideas
which seem to him almost as insults to the sacred name of
religion, they exclaim — and doubtless they really believe —
that he is a scoffer and a sneerer.

The student of science has the same interest that all
men have, and ever must have, in religion, both as it afiects
himself, and as it affects his neighbour and the world at
large. His studies in one departmerit of science show him
— what some who speak more loudly on the subject have
not as thoroughly noted — the value and importance of reli-
gion to the world. He knows better than they can tell

him the folly of scoffing or sneering at religion. But he
sees also that it is a duty all men owe to religion to remove
it from all association with what is selfish, or profane, or
less pure and perfect than it might be.

Men, however, who chance not to be students of science,
call tliose who are (or, perhaps, are teachers of science),
unbelievers and misbelievers, just as the Paynims of old
called the Crusaders, whose religion was unfamiliar to them,
infidel dogs and sons of the evU one.

We are led to " anticipate that the diverse forms of
religious belief which have existed, and which still exist,
have all a basis in some ultimate fact. Judging by analogy,
the implication is, not that any one of them is altogether
right, but that in each there is something right, more or
less disguised by other things wrong. It may be that the
soul of truth contained in erroneous creeds is very unlike
most, if not all, of its several embodiments : and indeed, if,
as we have good reason to expect, it is much more abstract
than any of them, its unlikeness necessarily follows. But
however diflerent from its concrete expressions, some essen-
tial verity must be looked for. To suppose that these
multiform conceptions should lie one and all absolntfli/
groundless, discredits too profoundly that average human
intelligence from which all our individual intt^lligences are
derived." — Herbert Spencer, " First Principles," Vol. I.,
Part I., chap, i., sect. 4.

Two correspondents send us information respecting the
place at Edinburgh where the resolution quoted at page
1.t6, col. 2, was passed. We have nothing to do with this.
The resolution alone concerned us ; and that was quoted
from the Times and other leading papers. If the resolu-
tion had been passed in Bedlam it would none the less
have been sound and just in itself. We are glad to see
that a Church of England Society has taken precisely the
same view ; and that a well-known clergyman has delivered
himself in terms closely akin to those we had ourselves
employed. It appears to us that all who have the true
interests of religion at heart should take the same view ;
though we based our own view (as expressed here in a
scientific journal) on sociological grounds. There should
be no laws on our statute-list which cannot be and should
not be applicable to all, high and low, rich and poor,
learned or unlearned, cultured or uncultured, well-bred or
the reverse.

The Church of England Guild of St. Matthew have
memorialised the Home Secretary for the release of the
three prisoners convicted at the February Sessions of the
Central Criminal Court for blasphemous libel, and have
also drawn up a petition praying the House of Commons
to repeal all penal enactments against heresy and blas-
phemy. The liev. Canon Shuttleworth, writing on the
subject of the prosecution, says : — " If blasphemy be an
offence against Ucd, then, surely, it is not for man to
measure its guilt, or to apportion its punishment. His
knowledge is inadequate. (Jod only knows what is a sin
against Himself, and what degree of punishment may be
deserved in any particular case. Justice would seem to
require, then, that the punishment be left to Him. The
only essential difference between Mr. Matthew Arnold's
sarcasms and the caricatures of Mr. Foote is one of refine-
ment. The one is polished, keen, suggestive, the other
rough, outspoken, and coarse. One wields the rapier, the
other brandishes the bludgeon. We do not prosecute the
scholarly and courteous offender, but if we did, no Court

188

KNOWLEDGE

[Maech 30, 1883.

of law would punish him. Wo do prosecute the lialt-
lultur.d mail of the people, and he is sent to prison for a
year. Tiiat is, we practieally punish him, not for blas-
phemy, but for lack of relinemcnt. Such a reading of
the law, judged by the standard of common fairness, not
to mention Christian charity, is nothing short oi a grave
injustice." — Tiincs.

TilKKK is to be held in Paris this year, from July 1 to
the 2L'nd, an Insect Exhibition organised by the Central
Society of Agriculture and Insectology. It will include (1)
useful insects : (2) their products, raw, and in the first
transformations ; (3) apparatus and instruments used in
preparation of these products ; (4) injurious insects and the
various processes for destroying them ; (5) everything
relating to insectology.

Professor Abel, in a lecture delivered at Glasgow the
other day, said there was perhaps nothing more remarkable
in the history of industrial progress than the wonderfully
rapid strides which had been made in the manufacture of
dynamite. In 1867 it was not manufactured in this country
to any appreciable extent, and in all only 1 1 tons were made
elsewhere. In 1868 the production had risen to 78 tons;
in 1872 to 1,350 tons; while in 1874 the last-mentioned
quantity was trebled. Four years later the manufacture
had reached 6,140 tons, and last year the production
had amounted to 11,000 tons. Those figures did not
include the material produced on the Continent. The
manufacture of blasting gelatine was developing, and Pro-
fessor Abel had no doubt that ere long it would be found
to usurp the place of its elder brother dynamite, as it
seemed in every respect to be the most perfect explosive
with which chemists were acquainted. — [This may seem
very delightful to Prof. Abel ; but with the use to which
some persons seem inclined to put these explosives, it is not
an altogether cheerful prospect. — E. P.]

An immense number of letters have been sent us to be
forwarded to the lady who wrote the article in Know-
ledge for March 16 on the new skirt. We have not been
able to forward all these, nor is it possible for her — she
writes — to answer those she has received individually ; but
she will early (probably in our next) reply in these
columns to the points specially inquired about.

TuE Chicago Journal of Commerce (February 21) states
that the Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad proposes to
test paper pulp rails as a substitute for steel. It is said
that the cost per mile is one-third less than that of steel,
£ind that the material is almost indestructible. There is
no expansion or contraction from heat or cold, and there
are no loose or *pen joints. Being much lighter than iron or
steel, the rails can be made longer, and the connections firmer ;
and one of the railway officials states that much heavier
trains could be hauled over such rails, the adhesion of the
driving-wheels of the engine being greater than to steel.
An engine can consequently do more work without a corre-
sponding increase in the cost of fuel, while the smooth-
ness of the rail is expected to diminish the wear and tear
of rolling-stock. The material used is entirely jiressed
paper pulp, so solid that the sharpest axe will make no
impression on the rails, nor will the action of the atmo-
sphere produce any ertect on them.

chise which required the Company to put its wires under-
ground by March 1 had not been complied with. The
Hoard of Trade Telegraph Company's wires are said to have
been similarly treated.

The Electrician says that the wires of the Mutual Union
Telegraph Company in Chicago were cut by order of the
Mayor on the 2nd inst, because the provision of the fran-

Tiic Cost of TEi.E(;itAMS. — Dr. Cameron is evidently
not disheartened by the failure of his previous efforts to-
obtain a sixpenny tarifi', and has given notioe that on an
early day he will, on the House of Commons going into
Committee of Supply, call attention to the charges for
postal telegrams, and move a resolution. We cannot
wonder at the hesitation on the part of the authorities to
yield, until they are quite prepared, to the pressure thus
brought upon them. The existing accommodation fre-
quently proves inadequate, and the increase in the traffic
due to such a reduced tariff would doubtless be very con-
siderable.

It is generally allowed that the purchasing power of the
shilling was in King Alfred's time about three times as
great as now ; but then, too, we must remember that,
excepting actual rarities, the prices of most commodities
were full thirty times under their present rate ; hence the
shilling has been depreciated during the lapse of a thousand
years about 90 per cent. In spite of the terrible social
dislocation of the Norman Conquest, however, prices do
not appear to have materially risen for some generations, a&
in 1130 sheep are known to have been sold in this country
for 4d. In the last year of the thirteenth century, fowls
fetched but 2d., and even as late as the middle of the
sixteenth century the prices of beef and pork were settled
by Act of Parliament at one halfpenny the pound. Ob-
viously, then, the rise of the price of butcher's meat was
extraordinarily rapid. Reference to documents now extant
shows that those old worthies, Cranmer, Latimer, and
Ridley, when dining at Oxford, were provided with salmon
three days running for the very moderate charge of lOd.
Their wine — they were probably of the temperance type —
makes but the poor figure of 2d. — P. R.

Mk. Proctor's first lecture at St James's Hall was
delivered on Wednesday, March 21, to a magnificent
audience — the largest, we are told by those who keep the
records, of any which has ever assembled to hear a lecture
there. Of the lecture itself we cannot speak here, except
to note that Mr. Field, of Chancery-lane, did the work of
illustration imcommouly well ; but we must express here
our sense of the kindness and attention with which the
lecture was received by the vast audience. (As Knowledge
goes to press on Wednesday afternoon, it was, of course,
impossible to give any account of the success of the first
lecture of the series in our last number, or of the fortunes,
of the second lecture in the present number. )

As Mr. Hampden is indignant with us for omitting to
insert the denunciatory ]iassages of his articles (he calls
them "articles" 1), and writes in terms which probably hr
does not consider offensive to the publishers, denying that
they are denunciatory, and accusing us of not keeping
faith with him, we propose next week to print those
omitted passages, but in small type, space being limited,
that our readers may see what sort of man the earth-
flattener is. After that we promise them that not a line of
our space shall be wasted on him.

To make room for some matter, which in reality should
have appeared long since in these columns, we omit this
week both Whist and Mathematics.

Makcu 30, 1883.1

KNO>A^LEDGE

189

NATURAL LAWS.

A PEACE-OFFERING.
Bt Richard A. Proctor.

THE correspondenco arising froiu what I said, not at all
thinking to arouse controversy, about the uniform
action of natural laws, so far as science extends its survey,
reminds nie somewhat of a story told by a friend of miue
at a dinner of the New York Lotos Club, to which I was
invited, in the autumn of 1875. The story is old enough,
I dare say ; but it was new to me, and may be new to
some of my readers. As nearly as I recall it, it ran thus :
Davie and Sandy, two Hielandmen, are the dranuUis per-
eonte ; the time some week day. Sandy, perplexed by a
profound scientilic <iuestion, appeals to his friend — "Davie,
can ye tell me ? Is a pumple-pee a pird or a peast ? "
Quoth Davie, rather angrily, after reflection, " Hech,
Sandie, mon ; dinna ye ken that ye mauna speer
releegeous questions on ilka day ^ " A question which to
me had no semblance of religion in it, is regarded, I lind,
by many as altogether religious ; and in comments upon
what I said, the old and really rather foolish idea crops out
that students of science are opponents of religion, glad of
any opportunity to sneer and scoll' at it. To one who holds,
as I do, that to sneer or scotf at views held in esteem by
others is simply to be rude and ill-mannered ; that the man
is most unhappy who is devoid of religion; and that in its
sociological aspect religion is the cement which holds
together alike the foundation and the superstructure of
society, it would be painful, if it were not absurd, to be
thought capable of what some few (only, I trust and
believe) of my readers seem to impute to me.

I cannot very well either publish or discuss all the letters
which have reached me on this subject ; because they treat
of the religious aspect of the matter, which I had not
introduced. But I will take one very kindly letter, ac-
companied by a pamphlet for my perusal, by the Rev.
Canon R. H. Gray, and consider first the bearing of his
thoughtful and very fair discussion of a very difficult sub-
ject, and then very briefly note what I take to be the view
which men who reason at all on the question ought to take,
not of the subject itself, but of the diversity of views
relating to it.

Mr. Gray asks the question, " Should the increase of
our knowledge of the laws of nature stop our prayers
which have to do with nature 1" [There is a comma after
the word prayers in his pamphlet, but I think from the
reasoning, that the comma is a printer's addition altering
the sense, and that Mr. Gray refers to those prayers which
have to do with nature, not intending to assert that all
prayers relate to natural processes.] He arrives at the
following views as worthy of consideration : —

1. Where we have absolutely clear evidence of the way
in which natural laws — or God's ordinances — operate, we
ought perhaps to reverently tell Him no more of desires
to which those ordinances run counter ; yet,

2. One must not keep silence as to the possibility of a
miracle, as it is called, being worked in answer to prayer.
But,

3. We may believe that where science has not yet clearly
recognised the operation of laws, or their precise nature,
there may be possibility of variation, according to the will
of God, adapted to the passing needs of his people. " Things
may be as they seem to be, some ruled by an unchanging,
some by a changing Will ; so that while with fresh light we
may transfer events from the latter class into the former,
still the classes, being really two, will never blend."

All this is perfectly logical. Every one will admit the

reasonableness of (1) ; no one can expect that the diiticult
question touched in (2) will be decided by all men in the
same way ; and assuredly, science has not proved, and is
not likely to prove, that the idea suggested in (3) is
certainly erroneous.

Still, with regard to (3), the only question which really
concerns us, it is, perhaps, natural that science, seeing how
the law of uniformity, which has been extended farther
and farther throughout the domain over which science
extends its survey, is absolutely continuous within that
domain, imperfect though our survey of portions of ib may
be. Nor is the idea of changing Will one which commends
itself to all religiously disposed minds (a description apply-
ing, be it noted, to many — I believe most — scientific
minds). Many wiU recall a certain description of One
with whom is neither change nor shadow of turning, and
regard (3) as inadmissible on religious grounds as well as
on scientific ones.

Again, it must be admitted that we have very high
authority for believing that prayer, intended to express
wants felt by us, is not only not an essential part of
religion, but is not desirable. In that most beautiful
chapter of the New Testament in which true religion is
distinguished from the show of religion, a chapter which
everyone should know by heart (from my eighteenth year
I have known it by heart in the original), we are told that
those are mistaken who think they will be heard for their
much speaking, that our wants are known before we tell
them, and that therefore prayer should take a form very
unlike that recently recommended, and later (in relation
to another matter) very widely advertised in our newspapers.
He who spoke thus was held, we are told by many, as one
who seofled at those outward observances which the
Pharisees held dear. And very likely, what he thus taught
was held to be very dangerous. Yet I think it is now very
generally held to be sound doctrine.

But I do not care to inquii-e further whether prayer for
a change of weather is right or wrong, or even whether the
question is a religious one or not. That the question is a
religious one to many is enough to make me wish to keep
it in future out of Knowledge, for I wish to offend none
of good faith and good will. But in leaving it, and (out
of consideration for many good friends) all questions of the
kind, I would make a few remarks which bear on the way
in which persons who take difl'erent views about the
question should view eadt. other. Let us for a moment
compare the Almighty to an earthly ruler of great power,
great wisdom, and great love for his people, whom he
regards as chOdren, and who regard him as a kindly father.
Let us suppose his rules and ordinances to be very much
better, much farther-sighted, and more general in their
applicability than his people can possibly understand, inso-
much that it had never happened within the knowledge of
any of them that it had been necessary to interrupt or
modify for an instant the action of any of those
ordinances. Let it further be supposed that all the
wants of every one of this ruler's people were without
fail brought to his knowledge. Now, this being so,
we can very well imagine that a number of this ruler's
people would think it well to tell him of their troubles,
almost as though he had no knowledge of them, and even
to ask, where no better remedy seemed available, that his
ordinances might for a short time be slightly modified, i£
necessary, in order to bring them relief. One can even
suppose that in his kindliness he would take pleasure in
hearing their simple supplications, nay, though it seems
inconsistent with the idea of the perfect wicdom of his
ordinances, that he would occasionally see fit to do what
they asked him. But it is also conceivable that others, and

190

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[March 30, 1883.

not the least faithful, or lo\inj,', or respectful of his people
would refrain from asking for any such concessions, would
even take ploasiirc in telling him that in their full assurance
of the perfect wisdom of his ordinances, they could
not ask for anything l>ut that his will should be fulfilled.
Now, without asking which of these two classes of this
ruler's people would be the wiser, I think 1 may safely assert
that neither of them could reasonably look askance at the
other as unloving subjects and an unbelieving, untrusting
people. If, then, to apply the parable, anything I have here-
tofore said on this subject may seem to imply that I regard
those who honestly make " prayers which have to do with
nature " as showing want of faith in God's wisdom and in
His knowledge of their wants, 1 now definitely say that such
doubts would be unfair and unreasonable. But, on the
other hand, they should not regard those who find reason
(as I must confess 1 do) for refraining from appeals of that
particular kind, as therefore having no belief in God and
no faith in His power. We believe the laws of nature to
be unchanging, because they are so perfect as to need no
change, though, in individual cases, their operation may
seem to our limited knowledge to be mischievous or hurtful.
Contest between those who see either the silver or the
golden side of the shield alone, is beyond question a great
and mischievous mistake.

PLEASANT HOURS WITH THE
MICROSCOPE.

Bv Henry J. Slack, F.G.S., F.RM.S.

BESIDES colour-blindness, which is an organic defect,
there is an immense deal of insensibility to colour
arising from want of practice with the eye and the brain.
A majority of uncultivated people never see many of the
qxiieter colours with sufficient discrimination to be in any
way impressed liy them, or to be able to recognise any
differences in those which lie near each other in the colour
scale. In actual landscape or in works of art, few persons
who have not taken some pains in learnLiig to see, notice
half as much as strikes an educated eye, and as the public
contains a large proportion of imperfect seers, artists often
obtain great praise for scenes in which they have omitted
the most beautiful and characteristic chromatic eliects ; or,
if they happen to paint with a wider truth to nature, are
told by the critics that they are quite wrong. The micro-
scope when furnished with polai-ising apparatus offers the
readiest means of studying an endless variety of colour
contrasts or combinations, and might be of gi-eat use to
artists and decorative designers.

A few examples will indicate what to do. We will begin
with one of the most useful substances for these experi-
ments—salicine. A few grains of this substance should be
dissolved in water, and a number of glass slides should
have a drop of the solution, in various strengths, put upon
them. Some should have the drop evaporated quickly over
a lamp, others more slowly, and others left to spontaneous
evaporation. By practice, a great variety of crystallised
pictures will he obtained. Th(! normal form is that of a
circular group of crystals, radiating from a centre, and all
in approximately the same plane, though not quite
30, on account of variation in the thickness of the
needles. The chromatic effects obtainable with the
polarising apparatus result from interferences of the light
waves analagous to what occurs with sounds when two or
more of different pitch are superposed. The slightest
difference in the thickness of the cry-stals that act upon
the polarised light gives a diirerence of colour or tint Our

first experiment is made by placing our polarising and
analysing prisms across each other, so that a dark field is
obtained. Tho polari«er is placed under the stage of the
microscope, and the most convenient place for the
analyser is just above the object-glass, and with an
arrangement that allows of its rotation. Any optician
will show and explain this. Daylight is best for accurate
exhibition of all the obtainable colours, and the observer
should be a little in the shade, by the side of the window,
with the microscope so placed that its sub-stage mirror can
easily catch the light. At night, an ordinary paraftin|^lamp
answers well, but its light is a little yellower than day-
light, and consequently cannot show some colours. For
most purposes this does not matter.

When the field is darkened through the positions of the
prisms preventing the transmission of polarised light, a
change takes place as soon as the salicine slide is placed on
the stage. The circular crystal groups will most likely
vary in size and colours. One, for example, in a slide now
under view with a l.',-in. objective and its eye-piece, looks
the size of a shilling, and it exhibits radiating bands of
yellow, greenish-yellow, a rose violet, a dark brown, and a
little brilliant blue. Another group, twice as large,
shows contrasts of blues, yellows, greens and lirowns,
but no warm reds — or, indeed, any reds. A quarter
turn of the analyser changes the soene, and gives
blues, reds, and violets, contrasting with white spaces.
The effect cannot be called a colour discord, but it is not
agreeable. What is the matter 1 Substituting a 4 in.
for the liin. objective at once explains. The field is
now much larger, more of the cii-cular gi'oups can be seen
at once, and each one is so much smaller that its colour
stripes lie closer together, and the whole effect is less
violent. The impression is now quite satisfactory, and
something like it would do well in decorative art Using
different slides will show to what an extent relative propor-
tion and actual size both have in determining whether a
colour composition, not essentially wrong, shall be beautiful
or displeasing.

The most charming effects are obtained when a crystal-
line substance is induced by the sort of treatment already
mentioned to do as ice crystals do on our windows —
depart from angular and run into curved floral patterns.
The slide under examination gives, in one part, an exqui-
sitely quiet design of blues, yellows, and browns, with
numerous other tints, the whole suggestive of repose.
A slight movement of the analyser makes the same crystals
give a rather irritating pattern of blues, yellows, greens,
and some little reds. By moving in rotation, sometimes
the polariser, and sometimes the analyser, in various
degrees, a great variety of experiments may be quickly
made.

For another set of observations we will use, besides the
polariser and analyser, some thin sHces of selenite, called
Darker's films. If the observer has not got these, he can
make thin slices of mica answer many of their purposes.
The apparatus in use at this moment allows the films to be
rotated. They are now arranged to give a yellow field,
much like pale primrose, which does not fatigue the eye.
The whole slide, when introduced, is now beautiful, but in
most parts too powerful in effect for steady contemplation.
Some parts, however, are soft enough, and we find this modu-
lation is effected by diminishing the size of the brilliant-tinted
parts, and introducing more greens and blues. A mauve
ground is obtained by another change in the position of
the films. This makes the larger crystal groups too
violent, but is soft and Indian shawl-like with some of the
smaller floral groups. A very pale mauve ground,
obtained with another film, succeeds admirably, and

Mabch 30, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

191

suggests designs for carpets, walls, and pottery. Another
combination affords some tine instances of contrast of
bines and greens, relieved by delicate touches of appro-
priate tints from the red scale.

Very (|uiet steel grey and other hues may be obtained
by the polarizer, and analyser in certain positions acting
upon very thin tilniy crystal groups, such as can be obtained
from weak solutions. Many of these look good for nothing
until the right position of the prism has been discovered,
and they can often be lit up with rich colours by means of
the selenitc films. A bluish-grey pattern, slightly relieved
by pale browns, now before us, is thus instantly changed
to a rich violet, relieved with greens.

Endless illustrations of chromatic combinations and con-
trasts may be obtained in the course of a few hours, and
more learnt by them than would be possible by brush and
paint experiments in many months.

Practice in colour seeing makes the eye and brain sensi-
tive to delicate gradations of tertiary tints, but it by no
means tends to an exclusive pleasure in quiet combinations.
The colour sense is imperfect unless rich bright hues afford
delight, but they must be carefully harmonised ; and this
is a matter of proportion in ((uantities and intensities, as
well as of hues.

Woods in the spring and early summer, where anemones,
hyacinths, bears' garlic, and rose campion contrast
with many tones of green, the browns and greys of tree
trunks, and the red-beech leaves of a former year, display
a splendour of colour few artists attempt to rival, and on
our Devonshire coasts the sun brings out colours on cliffs
and sea profusely gorgeous in brilliancy and depth of tone.
Not one twentieth of these things are seen by the unpractised
eye ; but the ability to see such things may be acquired on
a winter's night Viy the fireside, and with the apparatus
named.

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.

VI.
By W. Mattieu Williams.

THOSE who are disposed to bow too implicitly to mere
authority in scientific matters will do well to study
the history and the treatment which gelatine has received
from some of the highest of these authorities. Our grand-
mothers believed it to be highly nutritious, prepared it in
the form of jellies for invalids, and estimated the nutritive
value of their soups by the consistency of the jelly which
they formed on cooling, which thickness is due to the gela-
tine they contain. Isinglass, which is simply the s^\•im-
bladder of the sturgeon and similar fishes cut into shreds,
was especially esteemed, and sold at high prices. This is
the purest natural form of gelatine.

Everybody believed that the callipash and callipee of
the alderman's turtle soup contributed largely to his pro-
verbial girth, and those who could not aflbrd to pay for the
gelatine of the reptile, made mock turtle from the gela-
tinous tissues of calves'-head and pigs'-feet. The delicacies
of the Orient, the edible birds' nests, the sea-slugs. Sec, so
highly esteemed for their nutritious properties, are varieties
of gelatine.

About fifty or sixty years ago the French Academy of
Sciences appointed a bone-soup commission, consisting of
some of the most eminent snvans of the period. They
worked for above ten years upon the problem submitted to
them, that of determining whether or not the soup made by
boiling bones until only their mineral matter remained
solid, is, or is not, a nutritious food for the inmates of

hospitals, &c. In the voluminous report whicli they ulti-
mately submitted to the Academy, ijiey decided in the
negative.

IJaron Liebig became the popular exponent of their con-
clusions, and \igorously denounced gelatine, as not merely
a worthless article of food, but as loading the system with
material that demands wasteful etTort for its removal.

The Academicians fed dogs on gelatine alone, and found
that they speedily lost flesh, and ultimately died of starvation.
A multitude of similar experiments showed that gelatine
alone would not support animal life, and hence the conclu-
sion that pure gelatine is worthless as an article of food, and
that ordinary soups containing gelatine owed their nutritive
value to their other constituents. According to the above-
named report and the statements of Liebig, the following,
which I find on a wrapper of " Liebig's Extract of jMeat,"
is justifiable : — " This extract of meat differs essentially
from the gelatinous product obtained from tendons and
muscular fibre, inasmuch as it contains f*0 per cent, of"
nutritive matter, while the other contains 4 or •") per cent."
Here the four or five per cent, allowed to exist in the
" gelatinous product " (ir. ordinary kitchen stock or glaze)
is attributed to the constituents it contains over and
above the pure gelatine.

Subsequent experiments, however, have refuted these
conclusions. I must not be tempted to describe them in
detail, but only to state the general results, which are,
that while animals fed on gelatine soup, formed into a
soft paste with bread, lost flesh and strength rapidly, they
recovered their original weight when to this same food only
a very small quantity of the sapid and odorous principles
of meat were added. Thus, in the experiments of Messrs.
Edwards and Balzac, a young dog that had ceased growing,
and had lost one-fifth of its original weight when fed on the
bread and gelatine for thirty days, was next supplied with
the same food, but to which was added, twice a day, only
two table-spoonfuls of soup, made from horse-flesh. There
was an increase of weight on the first day, and " in twenty-
three days the dog had gained considerably more than its
original weight, and was in the enjoyment of vigorous
health and strength."

All this difference was due to the savoury constituents
of the four table-spoonfulls of meat soup, which soup con-
tained the juices of the flesh, to which, as already stated,
its flavour is due.

The inferences drawn by IM. Edwards from the whole of
his experiments are the following : — " 1. That gelatine alone
is insufficient for alimentation. 2. That although insuffi-
cient, it is not unwholesome. 3. That gelatine contributes
to alimentation, and is sutticicnt to sustain it when it is
mixed with a due proportion of other products which would
themselves prove insufficient if given alone. 4. That
gelatine extracted from bones, being identical with that
extracted from other parts — and bones being richer in
gelatine than other tissues, and able to afford two-thirds of
their weight of it — there is an incontestable advantage in
making them serve for nutrition in the form of soup, jellies
paste, etc., always, however, taking care to provide a proper
admixture of the other principles in which thegelatine-soupis
defective, .i. That to render gelatine-soup equal in nutritive
and digestible qualities to that prepared from meat alone,
it is sufficient to mix one-/onrfh of' ineal-soup vitli three-
foiirflis of (jelnline-sonjj ; and that, in fact, no difterence is
perceptible between soup thus prepared and that made
solely from meat. 6. That in preparing soup in this way,
the great advantage remains, that, while the soup itself is
equally nourishing with mea1>soup, three-fourths of the
meat which would be requisite for the latter by the common
process of making soup are saved and made useful in

192

♦ KNOWLEDGE o

[March 30, 1883.

another way — as by roasting, A-c. 7. That jellies ought
always to >>e associated with some other principles to
render them both nutritive and digestible.*

The reader may make a very simple experiment on
himself by preparing first a pure gelatine soup from
isinglass, or the prepared gelatine commonly sold, and
trj'ing to make a meal of this with bread alone. Its
insipidity will be evident with the first spoonfull. If he
perseveres, it will become not merely insipid, but positively
repulsive ; and should he struggle through one meal and
tlien another, without any other food between, he will find
it, in the course of time (^•aryiIlg with constitution and
previous alimentation), positively nauseous.

Let him now add to it some of Liebig's Extract of Meat,
and he will at once perceive the difference. Here the
natural appetite foreshadows the result of continuing the
experiment, and points the way to correcting the errors of
the Academicians and Baron Liebig. The jellies that we
take at evening parties, or the jujubes used as sweetmeats,
are flavoured with something positive. I have tasted " Blue-
Ribbon " jellies that were wretchedly insipid. This was
not merely owing to the absence of alcohol, of which
very little can remain in such preparations, but rather
to the absence of the flavouring ingredients of the
sherry. The Rahat Lako^on, or " lumps of delight,"
sold in the streets of Constantinople, is gelatine flavoured
with the unfermented juices of fruit. A privileged
visit which I once made to the monster kitchen of the Old
Seraglio of his Majesty the Sultan (at Stamboul), lives
perpetually in my memory, so sweetly, so vividlj', and so
gratefully, that when I find myself defending the Turk
against the Russian and all his other enemies, my con-
science sometimes inquires whether those lumps of delight
prepared for the Sultana by his Highness the Grand Con-
fectioner, and presented to me by him as a sample of his
masterpiece, may, or may not, have ever after influenced
my politics. It was gelatine glorified, once tasted never to
be forgotten.

It would seem that gelatine alone, although containing
the elements required for nutrition, requires something
more to render it digestible. We shall probably be not
far from the truth if we picture it to the mind as some-
thing too smooth, too neutral, too inert, to set the digestive
organs at work, and that it therefore requires the addition
of a decidedly sapid something that shall make these
organs act. 1 believe that the proper function of the palate
is to determine our selection of such materials ; that its
activity is in direct sympathy with that of all the digestive
organs ; and that if we carefully avoid the vitiation of
our natural appetites, we have in our mouths, and the
nervous apparatus connected therewith, a laboratory that
is capable of supplying us with information concerning
some of the chemical relations of food which is beyond
the grasp of the analytical machinery of the ablest of our
scientiKc chemists.

There is another element of flesh so intimately connected
with gelatine and so much like it, that T must describe its
properties before going further into the subject of practical
cookery of animal food. I refer to fbrin, "which will form
the subject of my next paper.

It is bolieved that the Edison Company have entered
into an agr,>ement to light the Cieneral Po.st Office by
means of 1,500 Edison lamps, the current being supplied
from tho station on the Holbom Viaduct

• Londe, " Nouveaux fiU-mens d'Hygiftne," Second Edition,
Tol. ii., ]>. 73.

" ENERGY."

By E. C. Ri.mixgtos,

Srhool nf Electrical Kn'jinceriii'j, Priiices-Klrect, Ifdiiocer-Hquare.

IN looking over some back numbers of a leading electrical
journal, I came across the following advertisement : —

A Hint from Poor Man to Elect rici.ans and Ottiers. — A properly-
constructed ptrmanent ma^eto-dynaino shoald oSfer no resistance
to tbe driving power, except simple friction of bearings. This
can be acconiplislied.

Tlie mere fact of such an advertisement being written
must show that there are numbers of persons who do not
understand the simplest facts concerning the conservation
of energy. I propose in this article, therefore, to set for-
ward, in as simple and untechnical language as possible, a
few of the most elementary of these facts.

Perhaps the best definition of energy is " that which is
absorbed or transformed when work is done."

Work, consequently, is a transformation of energy. The
word work is here used in a sense having a far wider signi-
fication than what is popularly understood by the term.
If we bum a pound of coal, we absorb or transform the
energy contained in that coal (energy stored up in the
coal in bygone years, when the light of the sun split up
the carbonic acid gas in the air, liberating the oxygen, and
depositing the carbon to form wood, which in the course of
ages became transformed into coal), we do not destroy it ;
energy cannot be destroyed, neither can it be created. The
energy absorlied in burning the pound of coal is converted
into the heat produced ; it may be lost for all practical
purposes, or it may be employed to perform useful work,
as, for instance, to drive an engine. If we wind up the
spring of a clock, we store up energy in the spring : when we
start the clock and allow the spring to uncoil itself, the energy
stored up in the spring is absorbed in doing the work of
driving the clock. Again, suppose we put a charge of
powder and a bullet into a rifle, then explode the powder ;
the bullet is propelled out of the rifle by part of the energy
stored up in the powder. This may be regarded as the
practically useful work done ; the other part of the energy
stored up in the powder is absorbed in the work performed
in heating the rifle, and may be regarded as the practically
useless work produced by the absorption of energy. Xow,
let us suppose that the bullet, upon which work was done,
comes in contact with an immovable iron target, the energy
stored up in the bullet, by reason of the work done upon it,
becomes converted into heat.

If we raise a weight from tbe ground, thus performing
work on it, we store up energy in it, which is greater the
higher we raise it, and the larger the weight. On allowing
it to fall to the ground, the weight does as much work as
w-as done on it in raising it. The energy stored up in the
weight after it has been raised is termed potential energy,
and is similar to that which was stored in the wound-up
clock-spring. Potential energy is stored up when work is
done against forces, which, like gravity, are independent of
the motion of the moving body. If, now, we place our
weight on a horizontal plane, and move it from one place
on this plane to another, we likewise perform work on it.
But there is no energy now stored up in it which will
enable it to do work in return for the work done upon it.
In this case we do work against friction, a force which is
reversed as soon as the direction of motion is reversed, and
which, consequently, opposes this motion ; in overcoming
this friction an amount of heat is produced which is
equivalent to the work so done. In the heat produced is
stored up the energy produced by the work done in mo\-ing
the weight against the opposing force of friction.

March 30, 1883.

kno\a;"ledge

193

Potential energy is the energy possessed by a mechanical
system as regards the relati\e positions of its different
parts with respect to one another.

Kinetic energy is the energy possessed by a mechanical
system as regards the relative motions of its different
parts with respect to one another.

Maxwell gives the following definition of the principle
of conservation of energy : — " The total energy of a system
is a quantity which can neither be increased nor diminished
by an}' actions between the parts of the system, though it
may be transformed into any of the forms of which energy
is susceptible."

That is to say, the energy stored up in any 'system is a
constant, and is always the same in whatever form it may
appear, provided it always remains within the system ; if,
however, for instance, it appears stored up in the form of
heat, the heat might be radiated off from the system to
surrounding objects or into space, the energy stored up in
the system would then, of course, be diminished.

Although energy cannot be destroyed, and must always
e.'tist, all the energy at present a\ailaV)le for useful work
may become in the course of time only available for work
useless to man ; and this transmutation of useful energj'
into useless is one of the theories of the end of the world,
which would then become dead, as the moon is now sup-
posed to be.

Returning to the advertisement quoted in the commence-
ment of this paper, if the magneto machine were simply
required to rotate, the only work that need be expended
would be that necessary to overcome the friction of the
bearings and of the air (which latter, by the way, the
writer of the advertisement altogether ignores), and al-
though this may be reduced to a minimum, it can never be
altogether overcome, except by running the machines in
vacuo, which is, of course, utterly impracticable. But in
order to produce a cuirent of electricity at all, we must
expend work, and consequently absorb energy, which re-
appears in the heating or other effects produced by the
■current.

The work required to produce a current of electricity
varies as the square of the current multiplied by the resist-
ance opposing the passage of the current. The resistance
opposing the passage of the current may consist, either of
the resistance of the conductors conveying the current,
which is analogous to the resistance to a current of water
flowing in a pipe caused by the friction of the water
against the inside of the pipe ; or of an opposing electro-
motive force, tending to produce a current in the opposite
direction, which is analogous to back pressure in the case
of a current of water.

This current of electricity produced by the rotation of a
dynamo machine may be employed to do mechanical work,
such as to turn an electromotor, and thus drive some
machine, or to produce heat, as in the case of the electric
light. In the case of a current produced by means of a
battery, the work that has to be expended to produce the
current is the result of the absorption of the energj- that
was stored up in the zinc when it was separated from
oxygen, for which it has a natural affinity.

It is thus impossible to produce a current of electricity,
*ither by means of a battery or l>y means of a dynamo or
magneto machine, without the absorption or transformation
of energy.

I also noticed, some months ago, a paragraph which
appeared, I think, in one of the daily papers. The gist of
the paragraph was this. A number of accumulators or
secondary batteries, that had been iharged by passing a
current of electricity through them, were to be employed
on board a vessel to drive an electromotor, which was to

be attached to the screw, and thus propel the boat, the
forward motion of which was then to drive a dynamo, from
which the accumulators could be recharged.

The wiseacre who wrote this article evidently did not
perceive that if this were possible we should oV)tain per-
petual motion without further troulilc, which, by the theory
of conservation of energy, is impossible. The energy stored
up in the accumulators is .absorbed in producing the work
necessary to propel the vessel, and in order to turn the
dynamo for the purpose of recharging the accumulators, or,
what amounts to the same thing, make the forward motion
of the boat do so, we must expend the work necessary to
produce the required current and to overcome the friction
of the bearings of the dynamo, itc, which will absorb
energy. So we should have to take out of the accumu-
lators the energy absorbed in performing the work of
propelling the boat plus the energy absorbed in performing
the work of driving the dynamo, while the quantity of
energy wc should store in these or other accumulators that
were charged 1 'V the dynamo would be the energy absorbed
in producing; the work requisite to turn the dynamo minus
the energy al)Sorbed in the work of overcoming its friction
and of heating its coils. We should thus be actually con-
verting useful energy into useless energy. By useful
energy, I mean energy that can be employed to perform
useful work : such work cannot be obtained from energy
stored up in the heated bearings and coils of a dynamo.

HOW TO USE OUR EYES.
By John Browning, F.E..A.S.

-lY.

(Contintiedfrom p. 162.)

A GREAT many persons have one eye more sensitive
to colour than the other, and this leads me to say
that many more persons than would be supposed have two
odd eyes. In some, the eyes differ in colour ; in others, in
focus ; and again in others, in their sensitiveness to light
In some cases, when spectacles are required, the difference
between the eyes may be corrected by using lenses of
diflerent power.

And here I may, with advantage, give a few hints on
spectacles — a subject on which the public have less general
knowledge than any with which I am acquainted. As a
result of this, there is probably more quackery practised in
this direction than in any other.

It is, above all, when we have passed middle age, and
are compelled to apply to the optician for artificial aid to
vision, that we require to know " how to use our eyes."

We are all interested in spectacles, for those of us
who do not require them ourselves have relatives or
friends who do, and we may save them from ha\'ing their
pockets picked or their eyesight injured.

There is no particular age at which spectacles are
certain to lie required, lien can seldom see well without
tliem after they are forty-live, or women after forty. Very
often indeed women require them at thirty, and do them-
selves irremediable injury by not using them. In many
cases they fear looking old, but more often they think
that the longer they can put off using them the better.
This is a great mistake. Once they cannot see clearly by
lamplight or gaslight without holding the object further
from them than usual, they require spectacles, and by
working or reading without them they may bring on dis-
tressing headaches, or do their eyes an injury which no
optician can afterwards remedy.

A correspondent of mine has aptly named the stage at
which spectacles are first required as becoming " Brad-
shaw blind."

194

KNOW^LEDGE •

[March 30, 1883.

As soon as it is found tliat the figure 3 cannot be dis-
tinguishrd from 5 in tli« popular railway guide by artificial
light, spt'ctacles should at once bo obtained.

A worse mistake than postponing getting a pair of
spectacles 3uitc<l to their own sight, is to use their father's
or mothers spectacles, if they liave such by them. By
doing this, they may in a few months age their eyes as
mucli as with the use of proper spectacles they would have
aged in as many years.

These remarks apply quite as much to i;f ntlemen as to
ladies.

Another mistake, commonly made by short-sighted
persons, is wearing the same spectacles for reading and
walking. This can seldom be done without straining tli"
eyes.

Nearly all short-sighted persons require two pairs of
spectacles, and these often differ widely in focus. Occa-
sionally those suited for reading require to be only half the
focus of those suitable for walking.

At times the power of accommodation is so deficient
that three pairs of spectacles are required to see objects
at different distances, say, from reading-distance to the
horizon.

Different spectacles should, as a rule, always be worn for
playing music to those used for reading.

Although, of course, the power of adapting the vision or
seeing clearly is, as a rule, first lost for close objects, j-et
occasionally it is first lost for distant objects.

I have known persons who fancied that their eyesight
was seriously and permanently impaired from being
unaware of this fact.

A pair of short-sighted spectacles gave them clear vision
directly.

No attention is generally paid to a pair of spectacles
fitting the face, yet, to obtain the full benefit from them,
they ought to fit the wearer's fiace so well that the centres
of the glasses come exactly opposite to the pupils of the
eyes. It is curious that people who would never think of
wearing a dress or coat unless it fitted them, will wear any
pair of spectacles, though the result is more disfiguring
and often injurious to the eyes. It is necessary to keep at
least seven different patterns of spectacles to select from,
and even then spectacles must often be made to fit the
face, and this should really add very little to their cost. If
the spectacles are either too wide or too narrow, as shown
in the diagrams, they have a tendency to produce double-
vision, that is, to make every object appear to be doubled.
In Fig. G the spectacles are too wide ; in Fig. 7 they are
too narrow, and in Fig. t^ they are the correct width.

Two things I must earnestly warn you never to do. Never
use a single eye-glass (Fig. '.)), and never keep a pair of
spectacles on your face that are suited for reading when
you are walking about, or, in fact, one moment after you
have done looking ^^ some near object through them.

While I was reading this for the press I received a
letter from a lady who had fallen down stairs in her
spectacles and broken them. Most likely the spectacles
were the rruisf of the accident

Very recently I saw a gentleman in the Charing-cro.S3
Railway Station \\earing a pair of reading spectacles.
With these on he was trying to make out the time by the
station clock. This clock must be about thirty or forty
feet high, and he was straining his eyes to see it through
a pair of spectacles which would not show any object
clearly at a greater distance than eighteen inches.

By wearing them he was seriously injuring his eyes, and
risking an accident in getting in and out of the railway
carriages. Fig. 10 illustrates me effect of a person looking
at a church clock under similar conditions.

r^^^

Fig. 10.

I have traced many accidents to persons who were Ion;?
sighted keeping on their spectacles when going down stairs.

(To be C07itinued.)

TuK Electric Licht in Switzerland. — .\ DaUii Xetc&
correspondent says that a scheme is proposed for lighting
the whole of the Canton of Yaud by electricity. The
motive force w^ould be derived from turbines of .'),00O
horse-power at N'allorbes, and, the water supply being conr
stant and abundant, it is believed that gas, which is very
costly in Switzerland, may be entirely dispensed with
throughout the district

March 30, 1333.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

195

THE GREAT COMET OF 1882.— IV.
Uy Professor C. A. Young.

(Continued from page liU.)

ON Sept. 17 the comet passed its perihelion at a
distance of about 750,000 miles from the sun's
centre, and within 300,000 of its surface, rushing through
the coronal regions with a velocity exceeding 300 miles per
a'-coiid : it sw4'pt over lt*0° of its orbit in three hours and
a-half. Thus far we find in our lists of cometary orbits
only four with so small a perihelion distance, viz., the
comets of 1GG8, 1680, 1813, and 1880. (As to the comet
of 16G8 there is some doubt, because it was only ol^servcd
for about three weeks, and its motion during that time
was such that it answers almost equally well to either
of two quite different orbits.) There are half-a-dozen
others with perihelion distances Vietwccn one and a-half
and five million miles, viz., comets of 1767, ISIO, 182G,
1847,1865, and 1870; and Wells's comet, which dis-
appeared only a few weeks ago, is just outside that limit,
with a perihelion distance of .">,67.'i, 000 miles.
Now, as to the comets of the first class, we
find that, excepting that of 1680, their orbits
are extremely similar ; their plane and direc-
tion of motion are almost exactly the same ;
the perihelion distances are nearly the same
for all ; and the axes of the orbits all point
to the same part of space ; they have all come
toward the sun from the same region of the
heavens, in the immediate neighbourhood of
the great star Sirius. In the little table
below are given what are called the elements
■of their orbits : Q is the longitude of the
node, i the inclination of the orbit to the
ecliptic, - the longitude of the perihelion, and
q the perihelion distance, expressed .as a
decimal fraction of the earth's distance from
the sun ; e is the eccentricity of the orbit ;
and the — in the last line denotes that the
motion is retrograde. The orbits of the first
two are from the catalogue in Chambers's
" Descriptive Astronomy ' ; that of 1880 is
the orbit computed by Jleyer, of Genevr,
from the whole assemblage of observation',
and that of 1882 is the last orbit comput(d
by Mr. Chandler, of Cambridge, and may 1 ■■
found to need some correction when late
observations come to hand. Fig. 4 shoves
in a rough way how these orbits 'lie in relation to the
orbit of the earth, and how very long and narrow the
comet's orbit is as compared with the circle described by
the earth.

their identity. The ditlerences are no greater than probable
perturbations might account for. Then, again, the comets of
1843 and 1880 may easily be identical. Indeed, the orbit
given for the latter comet corresponds to a period of almost
thirty-seven years, and Meyer has shown that the observa-
tions cannot be reconciled with a period less than thirty
or greater than fifty years. Now, thirty-seven years would
take us back just to 1843, so that it is very likely that
these two comets are really one and the same. So far the
"identifiers" have matters their own way. But now, as
to the comet of 1882. Can it be identical with the comet
of 1880? We think not. The orbit of the latter was
computed exclusively from observations taken after its
perihelion passage, so that no action of the s^m depending
upon its close approach at perihelion can account for its
return in less than three years, and the inclination of its
orbit is such that ever since it went out of sight it has
been out of harm's way as to perturbations by the planets.
Then, again, the orbit of the comet of 1882 does not agree
with the idea of identity. Whatever other effects may
have been produced by the resistance of the solar atmo-

Sl

1668.
.... 357' 17'
35° 58'

«■ 277° 2"

J 00047

e 10

Direction ... —

1843.
301° 12"

35° 41'
278' 39'
00055
0-99989 .

1880.
35G° 17'

36° 53'
278° 23'
00059
0-99947

18B2.
315° 50'

38' 05'
270° 28'
0-0076
0-99997

Now, the similarity between these orbits may be
explained in two ditFerent ways. It might be accounted
for by supposing that -ne have to do -with different visits
to the sun of a single comet, or that we have here a
group or family of comets, very likely of common origin,
but separate, and following each other. Hoek, of
Utrecht, showed some years ago that such comet-families
exist. When we compare the orbits of the comets of
1843 and 1668 there is nothing that forbids the idea of

sphere at perihelion, this resistance must have tend
to shorten its period, if it changed it at all. No
the observations thus far tak(>n, though perhaps not
sufficient to settle the orbit definitely, seem to be abso-
lutely inconsistent with a period of anything like three
years (corresponding to an eccentricity of 0'9963). The
period can not be well less than ten or twelve years,
according to the last results, and may be several thousand.
It is to be noted, further, that, as regards ft and q, the two
orbits differ more than can well be consistent with the
theory of identity. It seems to be an almost necessary
consequence that these two comets cannot be identical
with each other, though they may, perhaps, both be frag-
ments of 1668 or 1843, or of some comet more ancient than
either.

It is an interesting fact that Mr. Chandler finds that his
orbit, computed entirely from post-perihelion observations,
satisfies almost exactly the observation of Mr. Finlay,
taken on September 8th, as well as the observation of the
comet's disappearance at the sun's edge. If the obserra-

19G

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Marcu 30, 1883.

tions of Dr. Ciould, when they come to hand, agree as well,
it will be proof positive that no sensible resistance or dis-
turbance of any kind was surt'i-rod by the comet in passing
witliin 300,000 miles of the sun's surface at the rate of
.'100 miles a second.

Of course, if the view we have taken is correct, there
is no possibility that our comet can return in six months
and fall into the sun. Not that there is any alisurdilrj in
the idea by itself considered. Tf the comet of 1880, when
receding from the sun, had uio\ ed in an orbit corresponding
to a three years' period, and if the present comet were
found to have a period of three years or less as it is now
recedin" from the sun, it would be almost impossible to
refuse to admit their identity, and probable speedy absorp-
tion in the sun.

We close with a single word as to the probable con-
sequences of a comet's fall upon the sun. Unquestionably,
the energy of the comet's motion would be transformed
into heat, and if the comet had any considerable mass, say
-, ,V„ the mass of the earth, the heat produced would be
enough to supply the sun's hea^expenditure for months.
Probably, however, no comet has a mass anything like so
great as that ; more likely the present comet even, huge as
it is, has a mass less than -Y^^l-un of the earth's, so that its
collision with the sun would produce as much heat only as
the sun would expend in eight hours.

Now, if the sun were a cool, solid, or even liquid mass,
the sudden accession of merely this quantity of heat would
undoubtedly produce an enormous rise of temperature and
a great increase of radiation. I'>ut, constituted as the sun
is — mainly a mass of gas and vapour — the effect would be
entirely different, the energy being principally expended in
producing expansion and evaporation, with comparatively
little increase of temperature or radiation. If one stirs
up the fire under an open kettle, the water gets no hotter
— it only boils faster. Probably the eftect of the fall of a
body, even as large as the earth, iipon the sun, would be
hardly anything more than to restore the sun to the condi-
tion it was in a century ago. The energy lost in the course
of a century would be replaced — that is about all. During
the few moments while the body was passing through the
sun's atmosphere, there might be, and probably would be,
phenomena of great interest and beauty to those who were
on the watch ; but it is very doubtful whether people
generally would know anything about the occurrence until
they read of it in the papers.

THE CRYSTAL PALACE ELECTRIC
AND GAS EXHIBITION.

rpHERE is not much in the way of progress to record
J_ in the electrical section. The north nave is tolerably
well filled with various exhibits, while preparations are
rapidly approaching completion for what promises to be
a gorgeous display by the Gulcher Company of Gulcher
arc and Crookes incandescent lamps. We hope to be able
to give a detailed account of this exhibit when it is
finished. The Duplex Company's exhibit has been with-
drawn, owing, it is said, to pressure of business elsewhere.
One of the most satisfactory features of the exhibition is
the illumination of the space in front of the theatre by
half-a-dozen Fyfe-JIain arc lamps. Their light is remark-
able for its steadiness and brilliance, and fully confirms the
impression created on the occasion of their first exhibition
at the otHce of the Daily J'<'l''i/ra]>/i.

Turning our attention to the more extensive Gas Exhi-
bition, the incandescent and regenerative gas lamps remain

the striking features of interest. According to the cata^
logue, there should have been four systems of incandescent
gas-lighting exhibited, but only three of them are to be
seen. First amongst them we may mention the Lewis
burner, which is illustrated in the accompanying sectional
diagram. Gas at the ordinary pressure is supplied to the
P

outer pipe or tube, A A. Air under a pre.ssure of 1 2 in.
of water, after passing through the inner tube, B, mingles
at D with the gas in A. The mi.xture then passes through
the series of tubes, E S F, to the combustion chamber, P,
which consists of a small cap of fine platinum wire gauze.
The volume of air passing through B is three times the
volume of the gas consumed, and the force of the current
passing upwards "induces' another volume of air through
the two tubes C C. The gas is first turned on gently, and
then lighted, and the quantity increased until the flame is
no longer seen, when the platinum commences to incandesce
or glow. The quantity is gradually increased until the cap
become brilliantly and uniformly luminous. This, then, is
the principle of the flameless incandescent gas-light, and
one great advantage pertaining to it is that the proportion
of consumed to unconsumed is very considerably increased ;
while again, it may be utilised for the consumption of gas
inferior to that usually supplied for lighting purposes.
S S is a short tube of steatite, which, being a non-conductor
of heat, prevents the heating of the lower parts of the
burner. It is claimed that the light is equal to five
candle-power per foot per hour, so that as the ordinary
sized Lewis burner, with a platinum cap half-an-inch in
diameter and an inch or so long, consumes eight feet of gas
per hour, its luminosity is equal to forty candles. An
ordinary gas jet consumes about five feet, giving a light of
sixteen candle-power. It is also worthy of consideration
that the "carbon in the gas is so perfectly consumed that a
polished silver reflector, placed immediately over the burner,
is not tarnished in the slightest degree."

The cost of the compressed air is naturally an important
consideration, more, perhaps, on account of the extra piping

March 30, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

197

and apparatus requisite for the purpose. It is stated,
however, that arrangements are nearly completed for
supplying this air locally, by means of a small apparatus,
about the size of an ordinary gas-meter, which ■will have a
capacity sufficient to supply a dozen burners. At present,
the cost for air is about fourpence for every thousand feet
of gas consumed. Considering that there is a clear saving
of 50 per cent, in the gas bill, this trivial cost for air is of
comparatively little moment.

While we may conscientiously say the light is all that
could be desired so far as gas-light goes, there is to be con-
sidered the olijection there would be to the application of
the system to domestic purposes, consequent on the slight
hissing noise that attends this mode of illumination.

In order to further reduce the cost of his system, Mr.
Lewis has, we liear, patented a burner in which the gas
is subjected to a pressure of 12 inches, and is then able to
induce the whole of the air necessary to complete the
combustion.

M. Victor Poff, of Paris, exhibits a somewhat similar ar-
rangement. Two separate pipes run together until close to
the burner, one supplying ordinary gas, and the other air at a
very considerable pressure. The burner consists of a plati-
imm gauze cap, inside which is a cap of perforated steatite,
which covers the delivery-pipe. The mixture of gas and air
is, therefore, forced through the small holes in the steatite,
on the surface of which it bums, and in so doing renders
the adjacent platinum cap incandescent The luminous
efficiency claimed is the same as in the case of the system
previously described. The burner gives a soft, steady
light, and in Paris, where the inventor has the use of the
subways, it will most probably prove very successful, but
the difficulties it has to contend ^^^th in London are, we
fancy, too great to render its adoption generally prac-
ticable. This will be apparent when we reflect that it will
necessitate opening the streets to lay a fresh system of
pipes, to say nothing of the heavy expense that would be
incurred in maintaining the requisite air-pressure.

M. Edouard Ser\-ier, another Parisian engineer, exhibits
in the Chinese Court the Clamond incandescent burner, in
■which gas mixed with air at a slight pressure, but raised
to a very high temperature, burns in a cap or basket of
magnesia threads. These threads require, however, to be
renewed every forty hours, a fact that will weigh very
largely against them in the estimation of most consumers.
The light is good, but somewhat irregular, its brilliance
declining with the age of the magnesia.

We regret our inability, through want of space, to refer
in detail to either of the regenerative burners. It is note-
worthy, however, that a new one has just been exhibited,
which is the production of Messrs. Bower ct Grimston.
The gas, accompanied by heated air, descends by vertical
tubes, ic, and, impinging on a refractory cone, is reflected
in a state of combustion in a horizontal plane. The flame
thus forms a horizontal ring, over it being a ring of fire-
clay, one of the functions of which is to reflect the light
emitted by the upper surface of the flame. The efficiency
of this Ijurner is seven candle-power per foot per hour, and
we believe that its excellence has e\oked the greatest in-
terest. We hope, therefore, to describe it more fully in
our next notice.

Attention has been called to the rapid and considerable
deterioration of the plants in the Palace, and the cause is
attributed to the deleterious products arising from the
enormous amount of gas consumed every evening. There
are about sixty-two large lamps suspended from the roof,
and they consume together as much' as 9,500 feet of gas
per hour. A small proportion of imperfect combustion
would, therefore, suffice to charge the atmosphere very

extensively with the highly injurious gas, carbonic oxide
(CO), perfect combustion yielding the much less hurtful
carbonic anhydride (COj). We believe, however, that gas
is in this case somewhat unfairly charged, and that age,
etc., has a great deal to tlo with the decay complained of.

THE FACE OF THE SKY.
From M.\Rcn 30 to April 13.

SPOTS, faculip, <tc., should be watched for as usn.il on clear days
The Zodiacal lig-ht is still visible after sunset. The aspect of
the Stellar Vault may be found from Map IV. of " The Stars in
their Seasons." Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Neptune are, for our
present purpose, invisible, while .Saturn must be looked at as soon
as ever it is dark enough for him to bo seen. Jnpiter, too, is now
rapidly approaching the west, and must be observed as early in the
night as possible. Ho travels away in a north-easterly direction
from 2; Tauri. To-night (the 30th)^at9h 32 m. 20 s., Satellite I.
will reappear from eclipse, as will II. on the 31st, at 8h. 35 m. 14 8.
p.m. ; Satellite III. will afterwards disappear in eclipse at

9 h. 16 m. 11 s. to reappear 4 m. 49 s. after midnight. On April 4,
Satellite IV. will bo eclipsed at 0 h. 33 m. 54 s., and reappear at

10 h. 59 m. 48 s. A transit of Satellite I. vnll begin at 10 h. 43 m.
on the night of the 5th, and Satellite II. will follow it on to Jupiter's
face at 11 h. 32 m. On the 6tb, Satellite I. will be occulted at
8 o'clock, and reappear from eclipse at 11 h. 28 m. 3 s. On the 7th,
an occultation of the IlIrd Satellite will h.ippen at 8 h. 20 m. ; the
egress of the shadow of Satellite I. occurs at 8 h. 42 m. ; Satellite II.
reappears from eclipse at 11 h. 10 m. 3S s. ; and III. reappears from
occultation at 11 h. 11m. On the 12th, the student should look out
for a portion of the transit of Satellite IV. over Jupiter's face, for
the reason wc have more than once given. Ingress will take place
in twilight at 7h. 32 m., but egress may be observed at 8h. 32 m.
Uranus continues above 89 Leonis, but is now travelling somewhat
to the right.

As the moon does not rise until after midnight to-night, and, of
course, gets later and later every night, we may regard her as
invisible up to April 10th, ■n-hcn she will be 2'9 days old at
Greenwich mean noon. At this instant she will be in Taums,
through which constellation she ■n'ill travel during the next twenty-
fom- hours, passing north of the Hyades. During the 11th she will
pass through the remaining jiart of Taurus, and be found at noon on
the 12th on the northern confines of Orion. Between 0 h. on the
12th and the same time on the 13th she will pass into Gemini. She
will occult the Si mag. star \ Geminorum at 8 h. 20 m. p.m. on
AprU 13th at an angle of 58" from her vertex, the star reappearing
at an angle from her vertex of 342° at 9 h. G m. p.m. This is cal-
culated, of course, for Greenwich ; for other latitudes a correction
must obviously be made for the parallactic displacement of the
motm in the skv.

IMPORTANT ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTS.

A SERIES of experiments were made with the Elphinstone
and Vincent Dynamo Machine, on the evening of Wednesday,
February 21st, at Messrs. Unwin Brotlicrs' in-intiiig-office, The
Gresham Press, Little Bridge-street, Ludgate-hill, in the presence
of a large and distinguished company, among whom were the
following : — Earl of Dunmore, Lord Saltoun, Count Gleichen, Vis-
countess de Vesci, Lady Elphinstone, Lady A. Mun-ay, Lady K.
Carnegie, Honourable C. Murray, Honourable E. Elphinstone,
Honourable A. Fraser, Sir E. Burnett, Bart., Sir Archibald Camp-
boll, Bart.; .\dmiral Herbert, Captains Tryon, R.N., Wilmot, E.N.,
Brine, R.X., and Lieutenant Rogers, R.N., from the Admiralty;
Captain Shaw, Metropolitan Fire Brigade, and his two sons ; Mr.
and ilrs. Hichens, Mr. Fraser Rae, Mr. Spottiswoode, D.C.L., Mr.
Warren De La Rue, D.C.L., Mr. George Stephen (President of
Canada Pacific Railway), Mr. Wm. Winter, Mr. W. Elphinstone
&c., &c.

The guests assembled in a large warehouse on the first floor, along
the ceiling of which, and grouped together, were suspended350Swan
incandescent lamps, each of 20-eandle power. These were brilliantly
illuminated, .and produced a most dazzling effect. Lord Elphin-
stone explained that the maehlno was capable of driving 416 Swan
lamps, but o^ving to delay only 350 could bo set up. Mr. Vincent,
in a brief address, explained the construction of the machine, re-
marking that it was the outcome of strictly following Faraday's
researches, excluding everything which tended to militate against
the conclusions drawn by that eminent philosopher. The dynamo,
which is claimed to be one of the most powerful continuous current
machines ever made, is of an entirely new design, patented by

198

• KNOWLEDGE -

[March 30, 1883.

Lord Elpliinstono and Mr. Clmg. W. Vincont.and it is bolibved that it
IB dcatincd to tnko a very impnrtiint place in tho liiatory of electri-
city. .Ml tho electrieiana iiiul oleetrical engineers wlio have seen it
have been miicli atriick with the way in which correct electrical
and enffinoerinK prinriples have Ijeen combined, and the neccsaity
for skilleil manual labour avoided in ita conatruetion. For instance,
the coiliuff of the arinaturo is effected in the course of a few hours,
and tho whole machine can bo taken to pieces like a clock, and put
toffothcr easily in three days.

Among other experiments ahown, a length of about 'tO ft. of gal-
vanised iron wire J-in. thick was rendered red hot. As tho heat
increased, the zinc burnt off in brilh'ant cornacations, forming an
electrical firework of great beauty ; the heat still increasing reached
Avhitcness, and finally the wire fused, parts of it, as it struck the
floor, breaking up into brilliant globules of melted wrought iron.
Lengths of ateel and also copper wire each became in turn incan-
descent, the steel being fused. 'Die current was then made to run
through a coil of iron wire immersed in a glass vessel holding three
quarta of water; instantly there was a hiss, as when a red-hot
poker is plunged into water. This was followed almost immediately
by steam ; in half a minute the water boiled, and before a minute
had ela])sed half the contents of the vessel were on the floor. An
ordinary steel tlat file 1-in. by i-in. was then placed instead of one
of the carbons in an arc light, and the current being passed through,
the end of the file was melted and consumed like a tallow candle in
a fire, throwing off a ahower of sparks with a Catherine-wheel-like
effect. The experiments concluded by the lighting up of a very
powerful " Search Light," as used by the Xavy, the carbons of
which are li-in. in diameter, capable of giving a light equal to
100,000 candles. This was a brilliant display, far too dazzling to
look upon, except with the aid of coloured glass.

The whole of the mechanical arrangements were carried out by
Mr. Arthur Rigg, engineer to Lord Elphinstone and Mr. Charles W.
Vincent, under the superintendence of Mr. S. G. Wilmott, his
managei-, who also assisted Mr. Vincent with the electrical display.
The motive-power used for driving the dynamo-machine was su])-
plied by one of Rigg's patent high-speed engines, capable of de-
veloping 00 indicated horse-power. The patentees are now in a
position to supply these machines, and can be communicated with
at their office, 70i, Gracechnrch-street.

Prior to the electrical experiments the party was conducted
through Messrs. Unwin Brothers' ostensivo works by their manager,
Mr. W. B. Marr, and as many of the processes of printing were seen
for the first time, much interest was excited, particularly among the
ladies, in all that they saw. In fact, the pleasure of the visit may
be said to have been fairly divided between printing and electricity.
(In the lighting up of the " Search Liglit " for the first time, a false
alarm of fire was raised, and as a memento of this visit to The
Gresham Press, a reprint of the newspaper record of this amusing
incident was presented to each visitor by Messrs. Unwin Brothers.

LOGICAL PUZZLE.

I STILL receive letters showing that, after all, this is a puzzle
to many. One correspondent, A. M. S., gives arguments leading
np to this as simplest illustration of the wrongness of the syllogism
which I had ascribed as evident.

" There are 10 football players (Z) ; and there are 10 non-
rowing (not Y) cricketers (X) ; i men who row (Y) play football.
The fact that •! men who row play football does not make them
cricketers. Therefore, unless some Y can only mean some X's which
are Y's, the conclusion — some cricketers are jiot football players
way bo true, but is not necessary." I should have thought it ab-
solutely necessary, whether the 4 Y's are cricketers or not. There
are 10 football players, of whom -i are rowing men, leaving only
6 non-rowing football players, whereas there are 10 non-rowing
cricketers ; must not 4 at least of these bo not football players ?

Another correspondent, \V. B., thinks that because for every Z
there is an X which is not Y, every Y which is, or, as he writes,
becomes a Z, becomes also .an .\, "for there is no Z without a
corresponding X." Taking the above example, which gives for
every Z a corresponding X, do the i-owing men who play football
necessarily become cricketers ?

Mr. W. II. S. .Mtuiek writes that tho syllogism cannot be called
a puzzle. It was De Morgan, great in logic, who presented it as
one. / have always said it is not one. Mr. Monck, as a writer on
logic, defends tho atudy of logic ; but I do not find that logic, as
he defines and defends it, ia more than tho analysis of the ways in
which men reason. He quotes Mill (J. .S.) as saying that in cases
of doubt we must throw our reasoning into the syllogistic form.
The best pi-oof that this is not so is found in the great number of
men noted for their skill in reasoning about doulitful and diflicult

matters, who either know nothing of syllogisms or never 'use
syllogistic reasoning.

Mr. S. E. Clark finds a dilBcnlty which has no real existence,
lie donbts whether, because the .\'s, which match the Z's numeri-
cally, are not Y's, wc can infer that the YZ's are not to be counted
as against these, and seems to think the syllogism not a nnmerical
question. But this is just what it is.

F.ll.A.S., (2), however, is right in saying De Morgan's syllogism
is very loosely worded.

©nv paraioir Cornrr.

FLAT EARTU ver^"^ GLOBE.

III.VVE published every line of description or explanation which
Mr. Hampden has sent me ; besides, in his first paper, what
was neither descriptive nor explanatory, but simple abuse of the
accepted views and those who believe in them. About as much of
the same kind, accompanying his last contribution, I excluded as a
mere matter of justice to readers of Knowledge.

His diagram, in tho last number, of course explains itself. It
suggested certain questions which, were his theory sound, he could
readily answer. But he declines to attempt this. He considers, or
rather says, that these questions have " nothing whatever to do
with his subject," — on which point I may safely leave readers to
judge for themselves. He will, therefore, write no more. But this
is no great loss, as he has already written enough. His theory, as
Professor De Morgan long since said of it, is worth examining. It
shows what absurdity men can believe ; for Mr. Hampden really
believes, as he says he does ; whereas the original founder of this
flat earth theory was by no means so simple.

I am a little pleased with my new invention for silencing para-
doxists. Reasoning has been tried in vain (one can furnish
reasons, but of what nse are they without understandings to
match ?) ; ridicule is ineffective, and a bad example; dennnciation
is idle. The plan with paradoxists is to ask them to explain their
^^ews and to remove the difficulties, which are, of course, in reality
fatal. They either give up the attempt in despair, like our enthu-
siastic earth-flattener, Mr. Hampden, or flounder so absurdly in
their efforts to explain their preposterous notions, that even the
unlearned (for whom alone, of course, the thing is done) see at
once how hopelessly at sea the paradoxists are.

R. A. PROCTOi;.

It is a popular belief, easily sustained by statistic, that we live
in an age remarkable for an excessive devotion to literature, and
that the number of writers is inordinately great. We are not pre-
pared to dogmatise on the proportion that the literary class should
bear to the rest of the community, but it may interest, and at the
same time inform some persons, to state that more than a century-
and-a-quarter since the above assertions were authoritatively made,
and that, too, when the population was reckoned to be in England
and Wales only 7,055,706 ! If we turn to a once famous work,
" Magna> Biritannite Notitia ; or the Present State of Great Britain,"
by John Chamberlayne, we find in Part I., page 1S8 of the thirty-
seventh edition, the following remarkable passage : — " The English
are so much given to literature, that all sorts are generally the most
knowing people in the world ; men and women, children and
servants cannot only read but write letters, to the greatest
increase of commerce and the prodigious advantage and aug-
mentation of the post-office, in jiroportion beyond any other
post-oHice in Europe." This is much, but it is far from all, for
the writer goes on to say ; — " The English have been so much
addicted to the writing of books, especially in their own language,
and with so much licence, that there were, during our late troubles
and confusions " [alluding to the Jacobite movements prior to and
during the reign of George II., to whom the work whence we quote is
dedicated], " more good and bad books published in the English
tongue than in all the vulgar languages of Europe." This is
another example of the fact, too little recognised, that the grumb-
lings of one generation greatly resemble those of another, and, as
a fiu-ther illustration, it may bo added that in the Spectator are two
jiapers complaining, respectively, of ladies adopting a too manlike
style of dress, wearing hats and coats siniil.ar to those of the sterner
sex, and lamenting over the excessive number of young men who
were rushing into the liberal jirofessions, already so overstocked,
that the vast majority were foredoomed to failure. Truly there is
nothing new under the sun ! — P. R.

Maech 30, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

199

"f> ^'

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfked Tennyson.

irttrrsf to tbt (£Mov,

Only o small proportion of Letters received can possibly be in-
terted. Corre-pondents must not be offended, therefore, shotdd their
Utters not appear.

All Editorial communications should he addressed to the Editor of
Ekowledge; all Business communications to the PuBLiSHEKs, at the
Qfice, 74, Great Queen-street, U'.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS AEISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheque.-, attd Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No communications are answered by post, eten though stamped
»kt) directed envelope be enclosed.

SCIENCE AXD KELIGION.

[770] — While certain bi{,'Oted professors and preachers of the
Christian religion of the type of Mr. Talmage, of America, arc
hurling the shafts of their vulgar eloquence at the heads of such
men as Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and others,
it is i>leasing to hear, by way of contrast, words such as these, fall
from the lips of a more liberal minister of the Gospel :. — " Christ
is always saying, ' Other sheep I have which are not of this fold ;
them also I must bring.' .\nd I see them coming in, I do — the
men that are now supposed not to belong to us; I see the mighty
and brilliant host of Huxleys. and Tyndalls, .ind Herbert Spencers
and others, that are supposed to be outside. They are not outside
really, but they have got a way of saying things which we do not
always understand. They are trjing to come in by a road we have
never travelled — a high, rocky road we could not climb by reason
of feebli ness ; and what if God should meet them and say [quoting
the text', 'I girded thee, though thou hast not known me ' " —
uttered in the course of a sermon preached by the Bev. Dr. Parker,
in the City Temple, last Good Friday morning, on behalf of the
Haverstock Hill Orphan Working School. Of course, too much
weight is not to be attached to this particular utterance, being an
almost j.arenthetic allusion cut out of the centre of a discourse
bearing upon another subject ; but these are the kind of remarks
that promote, at least, good feeling between scientists and theo-
logians, if they cannot create actual union upon controversial
points. A Lover of Knowledge.

MAGIC-LAXTEEN SLIDES FOR POPULAR LECTURES.

[771] — Can any of your readers ti"!! me where it would be pos-
sible to lure or borrow magic-lantern slides of Norwegian mountain
•cenery ? The Norwegian slides in the optician's catalogues I have
consulted are very unsatisfactory, consisting merely of public build-
ings in the capital, with no views characteristic of the liords. A
gentleman has offered to give one of the Friday evening Penny
lectures at the Victoria Hall on Norway, but the Victoria Hall
audience cares little for a lecture unless it is addressed to the eye as
well as the ear. And on the whole they are right. Those who
haye never seen a mountain need the help of pictures in order in
•ny degree to realise what a lectnrer means when he speaks of one.
Therefore any information as to where such views can be obtained
will greatly oblige. One of the Victobu Hall Co.mmittek.

PLANCHETTE WRITING.

[772]— The letter of '• T. P. B." will interest many who think, as
I do, that "some yet unknown truth lies under the nonsense of
Bpiritualism," and that " the founding of a false theorj' on real facts
shoDld not prevent the facts tlieniselvcs being allowed and studied."

Some years ago 1 experimented for months with a Planchctte,
•Bd in other ways endeavoured to convince myself of the truth of
eertein physiological facts that had given rise to the theory of
SpiritaaliBm. I was so circumstanced that tko want of all interest
in those I was associated with, amounting, in fact, to opposition,
caused me reluctantly to give up all further investigation, and to

cease all argument with those whose minds are so constituted that,
as Do Slorgan says, they " infer imposture from the assumed im-
possibility of the phenomena asserted, and then allege imposture
against the examination of the evidence."

The " Planchctte " proper is, as its name implies, a little board
of thin wood, heart-shaped, and mounted on three tiny brass
castors that move easily in every direction. At the pointed end
of the board, which is turned away from the operator, is a hole
through which a pencil is fixed. The hand s placed lightly on the
I'lanchette, that in a short time runs about making wild flourishes
all over the sheet of paper placed under it, and in some hands
([uickly settles down into steady writiug. Its own light weight can
hardly be considered, and the easy castors make the frietional
resistance almost nominal. I can assert with confidence that under
the hand of an honest experimcBtor, the pressure exerts no influence
in forcing the Planchctte in any particular direction ; on the con-
trary, when fairly imbued with whatever force may move it, the
thing rushes about in directions quite uncontrolled and unexpected
by the person whose hand is on it.

Six or seven years ago Planchettos were sold as toys by, I
believe, Messrs. Cromer, in Regent-street. Previous to that the}-
were made by a man whose name and address I have forgotten (it
was mentioned in an aiaiclc in Once a Wcel;, about twelve years
ago) , who claimed that there was some occult virtue or power in
the wood he used ! and charged 7s. Cd. for an article any neat-
handed joiner could make for about Is.

But " T. P. B." tells us that under the hand of his friend a plate
performed the same work. No castors mentioned. One would like
to know more about this, as the description is insuflScient. A plate
of any material without castors, would offer very great frietional
resistance, and would not lend itself as readih- as an ordinary
Planchctte would to imposture. Again to quote from De Morgan,
" So soon as any matter excites warm discussion and lively interest,
attempts at imposition commence ; " and in our investigations we
should guard against this, though feeling contempt for the narrow-
mindedness that refers to imposition and fraud all that cannot be
othenvise explained satisfactorily, refusing to take into considera-
tion the number of things in Heaven and earth that are still not
" dreamt of in our pliilosopliy." 51. A. B.

[A numljcr of Plancliettcs have been sent in response to my note.
I find it is tolerably easy for a single operator to make the thing
write legibly, and even neatl}'. Whether, with practice, one
operator could so write when another person had his or her hands
lightly on the instrument, I cannot say from my own knowledge.
From singular stories which have reached me through persons
whose word I accept unhesitatingly, I should say that, after a little
practice, this can be managed. I find no tendency whatever on
the I'lanchette's part — under my own hands only, or in company
with another pair of hands— to anything like movement caused
uuconscionslv. — E. P. 1

EVOLUTION OF LIFE.

[773]. — The readers of Knowledge are indebted to you for the
succinct form in which the principles of the doctrine of evolution
are presented to them ; and without criticism of the first six, save
to ask whether the fj<if< "normal form of the species " has been fixed
by Dr. Wilson, or the propoundcr of those principles (see No. 1),
perhaps No. 7 presents ideas upon which " Owen, Agassi/., or
Mivart" have grounds for their specific objections. Varieties are
known to revert to their originals, and jiossibly it will be allowed
that S)iecimens of new races and species must be criticised by the
laws of comparative anatomy. The probabilities of Xo. 8 go as far
back possibly till the original ascidian is found ; but are scientific
facts, when exactly described, built upon probabilities P 1 do not
pretend to criticise the intricacies of Dr. Wilson's experiments and
researches, but as one of the well-meaning persons referred to, will
yon permit me to say that it is not the evidence of nature which is
rejected, but the " if 's," "may he's " settling down into " must bo's,"
which the crcdulons biologist dogmatises upon.

The battle turns, in my humble opinion, upon the ' Origin of
Man"; and with all respect to the opinions set forth in the
article in question, is not Lubbock's theory to be taken into the
biological consideration of the question? Where the fact of
the special and distinct act of the creation of the Adamic race is
denied, the theon.- has proved correct that without the " light that
lightcncth the world" man, hft to himself, surely degenerates.
Babylonians, Egyptians, I'ersians, Grecians, Romans, notwith-
standing the advance of learning, art, and science among them,
have gone. May I ask if the learning and wisdom of the Grecians
]>revented them from sinking into conniption and decay, speaking,
of course, of their gifts as a power of self-elevation. It seems to
me that it is impossible to consider man as an animal only, and
here evolution, as generally presented to us, thoroughly fails. The

200

• KNOW^LEDGE ♦

[Mabcu 30, 1883.

hif;hc8t BpocimcDS of manhood iiru tliosu in whom tho uninial ia
ooiitrollc»l by tho mind and spirit, and until EroIatiuuistR have
accounted for tho birth of Ihusi' two phcnomcua — ospuciiilly tho
latter — wo slinll find that thtisc who ficok to prove their kinsliip
with the apo will be loft grovuHiug among tUo worms.

Walt. Pilguiji.
[Our correspondent fails to note that tho non-oxistencc of an
exact normol form is in reality what is postulated in No. 1,
and that it is not (ibsnlutetij essential for science to "fix"
an exact nornuil form before denying that such a form exists.
Next, ho falls into a common error ;iboiit reversion. He
should note that not varieties, but individual members of
varieties, revert to their originals. The equine foal will show
Zcbi-a marks, and oven the young of tho human species will, occa-
sionally, show sifrns of reversion to the ape type ; yet the horse is
distinct enough from tho zebra, and the man from the ape. Where
the special and distinct creation of man is denied (as inconsistent
with every known fact, anatomical, physiological, psychological,
embryological, and biological), the degeneration of races may yet be
admitted. To me it seems unquestionably the true doctrine for
every race whatsoever. The history of the race, like that of the
individual man, like that also of every race of animals and of each
individual animal, — indeed, like everything which exists, tells of a
period of preparation, improvement, advance, full fitness for its
purpose, then gradual failing-off, decay, decrepitude, and finally
death, which in every case, so far as science shows, ends all,
so far as that individual existence is concerned. To believe that
any existing nation will be saved from the common fate seems to
me as unreasonable as it would be to believe that any existing man
will escape death. — R. P.]

LETTERS RECEIVED.

J. Marshall. — Story-teller. — A member of the L. S. A. — R. N. —
R. Wilding.— W. H. Elliot.— H. Leney.— A Stone-breaker.~J. C.S.
— Tike.— F. S. L.— A. Francis.— R. JI. Neate.— C. H. Broekelbank.
—A. J. C. Browne.— E. B.— J. W. Bootlirayd.— A. B.— P. F. Tich-
nall.— S. G.— A. Bray.— A. M. L. J.— H. Atwell.— F. Chapman.—
A. J. Mott.— Polarius.— C. K. T.— R. T. P.— E. Morham.— A Man
in the Crowd.— Cogito.—Ahjron. — H. E. P. C— J. Murray.— G. T.
Kyves.— T. Avers.— A. J. Mott.— R. W. Waforn.— John Hampden.

©ur Cftess Column.

By Mephisto.

END GAME FROM ACTUAL PLAY.
From L. P. Rees.

BtACK.

Black's last move was Q from Ql to Q sq. I then plaved R takes
Kt,Q takes R, Kt to Ktt> (ch), P takes Kt. P takes P (ch), K to
Kt sq. R to K8 (ch) (a), K takes K. Q to R2 (ch), and mates in
two moves.

(a) If Q to H2. Black mates in two by Q to K8 (eh)- No doubt
Black was depending on this move.

Tho following short partio was played on tho 16th inst. in the
match of the Cambridge University Chess Club r. City of London
Chess Club (Third Class). It is remarkable for tho "early defeat

sustained by White, in spite of a close opening, through Black'i
telling stylo of play.

irkegclae openixc;.

White. Black.

— Hcsth, H.Owinnor (Trinity),
City L. C. C. Cambridge U. C. C.

1. P to KKt3 P toK3 (a)

2. P to K3 P to QR3 ((-)

3. P to Ql P to y4

4. B to y3 (. ) P to QB4 (<i)

5. P takes P B takes P
<;. Kt to K2 (e) Kt to QB3
7. Castles Kt to KB3
S. Kt to Q2 Castles

0. P to QB3 P to K4

White. Blmk.

— Heath, U.Gwiiinor (Trinity)
CityL. C. C. Carebridce U. C. C.

10. Kt to Kt3 B to Kt3

11. Kto Kt2 (/) P to K5!

12. B to B2 B to Kt5 !

13. yKt to Q4 Kt takes Kt

14. KP takes Kt B to BG (ch)

15. K to Kt sq Q to Q2 !

16. Q to K sq (g) B to B2 (h)

17. B to (J sq Q to KG
White resigns (i)

NOTES.

(a) In reply to most irregular moves, such as P to QKt3, P to
QE3, Kt to B3, P to (JB4, &c., it is safer to play P to K3 than
P to K4.

(b) Good on general principles. Black intends developing his
Queen's wing, and P to E3 prevents B to Kto ; likewise P to QB4
on a future occasion.

(c) Inconsequential play ! The proper place for the Bishop was
Kt2, or else why did White lose a move and weaken his King's side
by playing P to Kt3, which ultimately enables Black to force a
mate ?

(rf) Good play ! Advisable in many similar positions before
playing out the QKt.

(c) 6. Kt to KB3 would have been better, followed by Kt to QB3
and P to K4 at an early opportunity.

(/) Very weak ! White might have defended himself by 11. P ti>
B3, if P to K5. 12. P takes P, P takes P. 13. B to B2. Of course.
White's isolated Pawn on K3 weakens the game, but he can defend
it by eventually playing his Kt to Q4.

(if) A vain hope ; White cannot eave the game.

(h) To prevent Kt to B4.

(i) Mate in three, i.e., 18. Kt to B4, B takes Kt. 19. B takes QB
P takes B, and Queen mates.

SOLUTION.
Pkoblem No. 79, BT W. Grimshaw, p. 154.

(«) 1. R to B2. If B takes E. 2. Kt (B6) to Q5 (eh), K to K5.
3. Q takes B mate. If Kt to B7. 2. Q to Kt sq (ch), K to B5.
3. Q to Kt 4 (eh), K to K6. 4. KKt to Q5 mate. If B to R4 (best).
2. R to QKt2 ! ! P takes E. 3. KKt to Q5 (ch), K to K5. 4. Q to
QB2 mate.

(6) 1. KKt to Q5 (ch), K to K5. 2. Q to R3, KB to B5, or B to
R4, or R to B3. 3. R to K2 (ch), P takes R. 4. Q to Q3 mate. If
2 any other move. 3. Q takes P mate.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
*»* Please address Chess Editor.

.1. A. Miles. — (Thanks for communication.

W. F. W. R. — End position received with thanks.

Correct Solutions received. — Problem No. 78, Stettin, J. Hughes.
No. 79, R. J. P. No. SO, E. J. P., M. T. H., Berrow.

Henry Planck.— In Problem 79, if 1. E to QKt2, B to KtS (ch).
and there is no mate in four moves.

N'OTICES.

The Back Numbers of Knowlbdob, with the exception of Koa. 1 to 1-',
31, 33, and 53, are in print, and can be obtained from ail booksellers and
newsagents, or direct from the Publiahers. Should any difficulty arise in obtftininK
the paper, an application to the Publishers is respectfully requested.

Just Published, Part XTII. (March, 1883). Price Is.; postage 3d. extra.

TEEMS OF SUBSCRIPTIOX.

The terms of Annual Subscription to the weekly numbers of KirowxBDOl Are &:
follows : — •. d.

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April G, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE •

201

AN ILLJLSXRATED

MAGAZINEOF^ENCE

[ . PLAIN LTVfCRDED -lYACTVi DESCRIBED /i

LONDON: FBI J) AY, APRIL G, 1883.

Contents op No. 75.

FAGB. I TAOB.

■Science unil Art Gossip 201 I Mr. Whistler's Etchings. (lUui.) 20S

A Naturalist's Tear. X. The I Serials Kcceivcd 209

Pt»rmii;.n. Bt Grant Allen 203 I Cokbkspokdbncb :— Stays and Fat

Son Worship. By K. A. Proctor ... 2(H i —Saturn's Kings — Rotarion of

"Our Bodies." IX. Absorption Planets — The Mnon's Vertex-

and Blood Hepair. Bv Dr. A. The Hamiltonian System— Ketro-

Wilson, F.R.S.E.. 4c. ." 204 cession of the Sea, ic 210

Tricycles in H'*3. Bt John Brown- Our Mathematical Column 213

ing, F.K.A.S : 205, Our Chess Column 213

The Amateur Electrici«n. (Illut.) 206 Our Paradoi Comer: The Flat

Periods of the Aurora 207 ' Earth Theory 2U

^rinuf anil Sirt (go6£(ip.

Parado.\ers have strange ways. We give in our Para-
dox Column (but, out of consideration for our readers, in
small type) the latest illustration of the ways of earth
flatteners. In answer to many inquiries and some com-
.plaints about the introduction of this particular paradox,
we may note that we agree with what Prof. De Morgan
said aViout that very paradox — that it would do good, by
setting many who accept the usual theory because it is the
usual theory, examining the reason of their belief. It also
serves to show how little reasoning power some human
beings possess. For instance, here is a theory which sets
the sun 900 mUes above a circular Hat surface about
6,000 miles in diameter ; and here are the zetetic folk, who
number, I dare say, a round dozen, if not a score, who
cannot see that if there is a point vertically above a cir-
cular plane and one-seventh above its diameter from that
|)lane, it must be in sight from every point in the plane.

Then comes Dr. Collins Symons, with his little work of
200 pages, lauded by the Oxford Chronicle and Bucks and
Berks Gazelle, stating, and to his own satisfaction }>roving,
that Neptune is illuminated as brightly as the earth, or
Venus, or Mercury. I am abused in that paper because I
cannot make any believer in this preposterous theory
understand why no one who knows anything of science
accepts it, and scarce any one even thinks it worth while
to take the least notice of it. I am now pointedly asked
to name any ph}-sicist or astronomer except myself who
has written a word against the discovery : to wliich I
simply answer that I should be very much surprised to
hear of any. It was only the accident that, as Editor of
Knowledge, I received a question relating to it (probably
from l,)r. Symons himself), which led to my noticing it
myself.

Onk of the odd blunders made in the 0. C. and B. and
B. G. (the believer in such an absurdity was bound to fall
into many odd blunders) suggests a pretty little problem
in mathematics. I said " the loss of light by atmospheric
absorption, in a room of ordinary size, is inappreciable,"

which is of course true. To tiiis the sir.gular reply is made
that Dr. Thomas Young pointed out that only one LV^OOt^'
part of the sun's light reaches us when he is on the horizon
and his beams pass through 200 miles of air. Rooms are
not usually 20U miles long, but that is a detail (as folk say
I say, though 1 have not said so, very often, in Knowledge).
Now the problem I suggest is this. Supposing 1,999-
i!,000ths of the sun's light lost in passing through 50 miles
of air of uniform density equal to that at the sea-level (on
the average), how much is lost in passing through a yard,
or five j'ards, or ten yards ? It would content the average
parado.xer, I fancy, to say that since there are 88,000 yards
in 50 miles, the loss would be 1 88,000 of l,999-2,000ths
in one yard, or roughly about a 90,000th — say one 10,000th
part as the utmost loss by absorption in a room nine yards
long. This of course would be utterly inappreciable, even
with the most delicate photometer — and I was writing
about ordinary eyesight.

But it would be a shame to take advantage thus of the
ignorance of those who fancy Dr. Collins Symons has made
a great discovery — as indeed he has, only it is of the
mare's-nest order — so I give the correct solution of the
problem in the Mathematical Column. It will be seen
that the reduction in a yard of air is about nine times as
great as that above indicated — though still the absorption
even in ten or twenty yards would be inappreciable by
ordinary eyesight.

Me. Hampden, the flattener of the earth, has been really
handsomely treated in these columns. When Knowledge
had been but recently started, he asked for permission to
air his preposterous views here ; and not receiving any
particular encouragement, wrote such letters as he is
accustomed to write, in which the changes were pleasingly
rung on the terms " liar," " coward," " scoundrel," and
" dastard," with correspondingly elegant adjectives. He
also threatened (and doubtless he carried out the threat)
to denounce the Editor of Knowledge to all who might
advertise in these pages. Yet, later on, we gave him space
(having, as we believe, established our position in the world
of serials) to describe and explain his views — in our Para-
dox Column. But he could not be persuaded to limit himself
to what was thus allowed him. Instead of describing his
own views, he simply maundered on, through page after
page of MS. about the accepted theories of the earth's form,
by which the commerce of the world is regulated, and which
is justly esteemed by those who can follow the researches
of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton. Asked to
explain a few difficulties which obviously exist in his
absurd theory, Mr. Hampden flies to simple abuse, the
natural resource of an advocate who has no case, nor skill
(as Parallax had) even to defend a bad case. He resumes
his appeals to those who advertise in Knowledge, as if any
true theory were ever established by libel ; calls us by all
the foul names which his singularly copious vocabulary
contains ; abuses Messrs. Wallace, Tyndall, Huxley,
Spencer, Sir Edm. Beckett, and a host of other eminent
men — by no means of the same school — and all this in
perfect safety, since he knows perfectly well that he is not
worth legal powder and shot.

But Mr. Hampden represents those who smile at his
absurdities as opponents of religion. Verdant Green was
in the habit, Mr. Cuthbert Bede informs us, of modestly
attributing his verses, and especially his weaker verses, to
one William Shakespeare. Mr. .John Hampden goes con-
sideraVjly beyond that feeble O.xonian, for he assigns his
theory, assuredly the most absurd that has ever presented

202

. KNOWLEDGE ♦

[April 6, 1883.

iUelf to the mind of man, to thn direct teaching of the
Supremo B.'ing. Yet, probably, the idea that there is any
outrage either to common sense or decency in this docs not

present itself to we can scarcely say to his mind, but

to — what serves with him by way of a mind.

To those who ask why any attention whatever should be
fiven to foolish paradoxes, we give the answer which De
Slorgan gave many years ago. Hundreds do not know by
what light tenure they hold their beliefs in matters
scieiititic, till some paradox comes to disturb their faith.
We may add a reason of our own. It is most interesting
to observe how limited may be the reasoning capacity, or
ratlier how utter the incapacity of beings belonging, so far
as outward features arc concerned, to the human race.

Mr. HA.MPDEN (see our Paradox Column this week)
illustrates also the special truth that violence is near
neighbour to the extremity of weakness. When he wrote
to the wife of one of our most eminent living naturalists
that her husband should •' be brought home to her with
his brain mashed to a pulp," it was simply his way of
showing the condition of his own.

It is hardly necessary to say that Mr. Hampden has
had his last chance, and his name has appeared for the
last time in the columns of Knowledge.

The Globe notes that a recent examination of elementary
teachers (!) in Cape Colony brought out some singular
statistics as to the distribution of population. _" The
candidates varied in their estimates of the population of
London from 300,000,000 down to 3,000 ; Manchester has
200,000,000 against Leeds with 300 ; and Wolverhampton
— there is nothing like accuracy — with 569, while 10,000,
according to one candidate, is the number for Holland and
Belgium together. Equally scientific accuracy was evi-
dently the forte of the elementary teacher who considers
that ' electricity and lightning are of the same nature, the
only diflerence being that lightning is often several miles in
length, while electricity is only a few inches,' and of
another who defines electricity as ' the orbit described by
the sun round the earth, but in reality the earth round the
sun.' We learn also that ' a sailing vessel is propelled by
means of a magnetic needle,' that it is ' propelled through
the water by a steam-engine,' and ' by a certain kind of
string.' "

Ix the April number of the A'inelcenfh Cenluri/, 'Mr.
Matthew Arnold in the course of an interesting article on
" Isaiah of Jerusalem," calls attention to the point on
which wo touched, to the disgust of the Ile\-. Urban
Smith, in much such terms as we should use. " There
is danger," he says, " of forgetting how short man's time
is, how easily he is distracted, and diverted from his real
aim, liow easily tired. How many boys learning Greek
never get beyond that philological vestibule in which we
are kept so assiduously ; never arrive at Greek literature
at all. There is the danger of our losing ourselves in
preliminaries, and of our being brought, by the pursuit
of an impossible perfection, to miss our main design."
This from such a lover of purely literary culture as Mr.
Matthew Arnold, and said of those who can give a large
part of their time to such culture, means a great deal.

In the same article Mr. Arnold seems to advocate the
strange idea that it is more important to have an impres-
sive than a strictly accurate version of Isaiah and the Old
Testament generally — a question of some interest to those
who are anxiously awaiting (as we are ourselves) the
publication of the revised Old Testament. He takes the
following instance. In one of the " Lessons " for Christmas
Day there occur these word : " For every Itattle of the
warrior is vnth confused noise, and garments rolled in
blood ; but this shall be with burning and full of fire."
" Hardly any one," he says, very truly, " can understand
these words ; indeed, as they now are they cannot be
understood clearly — but they have a magnificent flow and
movement." Surely, this feeling of Mr. Arnold's is akin to
that with which the old lady heard " that sweet word,
INIesopotamia." Mr. Gilbert, in his splendidly-absurd song
of Prince Agib, says : —

" His gentle spirit rolls
In the melody of souls,
Which is pretty, but I don't know what it means."
And this seems to be Mr. Arnold's feeling about a passage
which, correctly translated, means simply, " For each shoe
of him who tramples noisily, and his cloak rolled in blood,
are for burning, [to be] fuel for fire." It seems better to
have the real meaning than a sentence without any meaning
at all. The grandeur of the poetry of Isaiah needs no
tawdry trappings such as charm the readers of Robert
Montgomery or Mr. M. F. Tupper.

The two waves which struck the Channel steamer
Aquila (the captain says a third would have swamped
her), in an otherwise still sea, are noteworthy phenomena.
Possibly they were, in some degree, associated with the
occurrence of subterranean disturbance in the volcanic dis-
trict of Southern Europe.

The attendance at the second of Mr. Proctor's Lectures
on Astronomy was even better than at the first. The
lecture struck us (the lecturer) as being a little too long.
Nearly sixty photographic views (instead of the promised
forty), were exhibited, and, as in the first lecture, Mr.
Field, the optician, was very successful with the work of
illumination. As we write, the lecture on the moon has
still to be given before this number of Knowledge appears.
On Saturday, the subject wUl be " The Planets and their
Families," with special consideration of the development of
the solar system.

We propose to begin next week a series of interesting
papers by F.R.A.S., on the Moon. They would have com-
menced earlier, but for ditiiculties in the preparation of
an adequate reference map.

After the course of lectures at St James's HaU is
completed, Mr. Proctor goes to Ireland, where he is to
deliver two lectures in the theatre of the Royal Society,
Dublin, two lectures in Belfast, and other lectures. Several
new series of lectures are announced for places in England
on Mr. Proctor's return from Ireland.

The Telephone. — Accordiug to recent statistics, the telephone
is now employed in 303 cities by 78,808 subscribers, of which
SO.OiJlJ are European and 47,185 American. Knirland is first, with
7,28" subscribers ; Italy next, with 5,507 subscribers ; France
follows with 4,437 subscribers ; and Germany last, with 3,G13 sub-
scribers. In France and Germany the telephones are worked by
(Jovernment. The number of London subscribers on Fob. 28, IfSl,
was only 845 ; at the same day this year it had advanced to 2,541.

April 6, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE

203

A NATURALIST'S YEAR.
By Gr^vxt Allen.

X. — PTAR M 1 GAN.

IT may be accepted as an almost unanimous axiom of
epicures generally, that no game bird in the world can
quite come up to the British red grouse ; but the ptarmigan
certainlj' runs that prince of the grouse-kind a good second.
Though it has not the distinctive heathery (lavour of tlu-
Scotch V>ird, derived from the nature of its food, which
consists mainly of the young shoots of ling, the ptarmigan
has vet very ganiey flesh, and a peculiar wild taste of its
own, which is similarly due to its special foodstutls. It
feeds chiefly on the fresh green twigs of the black crow-
berry, as well as on the whortleberry, the willow, and the
sedges ; and these, while less aromatic than the heather
on which the red grouse subsists, are yet quite sufficient
to impart a decidedly moorland flavour to the young birds.
In autumn, the ptarmigan also lives on berries of various
sorts ; but for the greater part of the year it is forced to
confine itself to leaves and the growing tops of branches ;
and as these are very innutritions food, it is compelled to
eat large quantities at a time, so that its crop is usually
very full, and it digests slowly while resting. The higher
Scotch mountains still harbour a few coveys, but for the
most part our supply at the present day comes from
Scandinavia, where the bird remains fairly abundant.
Ptarmigan, indeed, are by origin an Arctic and sub-
Arctic species, wandering among high rocks at high
latitudes, or among Alpine peaks a little further south ;
but they do not spread to America, like their neighbours
the willow grouse, which arc so far cosmopolitan that they
ring round the world about the Arctic circle. In the
eastern hemisphere, ptarmigan cling to all the more elevated
positions, while willow grouse roam over the lowlands,
and Scotch grouse are entirely confined to the moors and
hills of our own islands. This distribution of the three
kinds is interesting and significant, when taken in connec-
tion TS-ith their habits and probable origin.

Ptarmigan, which range highest north and furthest up
the mountains of all, are essentially cold-weather birds.
In winter, their plumage changes to pure snow-white, like
the coat of the ermine and the Alpine hare ; and this is the
condition in which they usually reach the London market.
Of course, to a comparatively defenceless bird, inhabiting a
snow-clad region, such a change of colour is imperatively
necessary ; for, if it were brown in winter, any one of its
enemies — such, for example, as the hawk or the Arctic fox
— would immediately discriminate it amid the snow, and
soon exterminate the whole race at once. As it is,
however, the coveys are extremely difficult to perceive,
and one may even walk through one without observing the
fact, unless one almost treads upon a bird : for the
ptarmigan have learnt to trust so thoroughly to their
perfect disguise that they usually cower close to the snow
whenever they perceive a man or a bird of prey, and
only rise when closely pressed. Even then, they alight
agEiin after a flight to some distance, and once more settle
into the soft snow so imperceptibly, that the only chance
for the sportsman is to take a shot from a distance at a
venture into the spot on which he saw the covey alight ;
he may then happen to kill a bird or two by mere accident,
as they squat in the open. A sentinel is usually posted on
a lump of ice to keep watch, and when he finds retreat
desirable, he gives a low croak, on hearing which all the
rest of the covey take to flight immediately in his wake.
In summer, on the other hand, the colour of the feathers
changes to a mottled grey, which stUl harmonises

admirably with the tones of the dry grass and bracken
among which they lurk. In this, their alternative
dress, they resemble the groimd quite as much as they
did the snow in their winter plumage ; and one may
still walk among them without suspecting the presence
of a covey, until the sentinel bird raises his low
note of warning. At the approach of winter, the birds
pack once more, and resume their white coats. Their
neighbours the willow grouse, though also white in winter,
resemble the Scotch grouse in their summer plumage ; and
this tint harmonises best with the general ruddy hue of the
open moorlands. Our own red grouse, again, which is
peculiar to the British Isles, does not need to change its
suit in winter, owing to the comparative mildness of our
seasons ; and as the highest mountain tops in Scotland are
already monopolised by the ptarmigan, it clings to the
lower moors, where it has but a few days of complete snow-
clad whiteness during the entire year.

Like most of the smaller grouse-kiiid in the eastern
hemisphere, the ptarmigan is so much engaged in escaping
attention that it has had no time to bestow upon the outer
adornment and beautification of the male birds. Its
enemies are too numerous, too powerful, and too lynx-eyed
to let any unusual or brilliant plumage have a chance of
success. In this respect it diflers greatly from many of its
American congeners, and even from the European caper-
cailzie, long extinct in Scotland, but now reintroduced and
acclimatised afresh. These larger and luckier grouse-
birds, enabled by their size to defend themselves against
their enemies, or inhabiting regions where foes are
fewer, have abundant leisure to bestow upon their
aesthetic sensibilities, and consequently have produced
all sorts of ornamental crests, top-knots, rufTs, and
other decorative appendages, in the first style of
art. due to the constant selective action of the hen
birds. The capercailzie, in the spring-time, resort to
their " playing-grounds " for the sake of attracting their
mates : and there they display themsehes and their plumage,
like peacocks, to the best advantage, so that the finest and
most attractive cocks succeed in gaining over to their harem
the largest number of hens. The young cocks are jealously
excluded and driven away by their older rivals. Similar an-
tics are played by the black grouse and by many American
species, some of which are very handsomely ornamented with
orange lappets and other beautiful appendages. All these
birds are polyganiists, and only the most decorated males
ever succeed in attracting a posse of mates. The ptarmigan
and red grouse, on the contrary, are strictly monogamous,
and their two sexes hardly differ from one another in
appearance. Their sober suits answer well to their modest
habits of concealment and protection. It never happens,
indeed, that very handsome birds take any pains to hide
themselves ; they are dominant races ; their brilliant hues
serve them as an attraction, and are always ostenta-
tiously displayed to the greatest advantage, often at the
cost of some trouble to the creatures themselves. Con-
versely, no birds which are protectively coloured ever
possess any marked distinction between the sexes ; they
are skulking races, and cannot afibrd the risk of bright-
hued crests or spotted tails. The application of this law
is well seen in the cases of the black grouse and the red
grouse. In the former instance the polygamous black-
cock diflers widely from his dingier mate, the grey
hen ; in the latter instance, both monogamous partners
are arrayed in almost indistinguishable plumage of pro-
tective reddish brown. Ptarmigan carry the similarity
Virtween the sexes as far as any of their race, and they are
also thf- kind in which the protective devices are most fuUy
dc\eloped, for, besides their summer and winter dresses,

204

KNOWLEDGE

[Apbil 6, 1883.

they havo actually an intcrinncliatc autumn suit of ashy
grey, which helps yet further to conceal them among the
sere and ashen foliage of the Sc^andinavian November. The
ptarmigan, in short, is a strictly practical l>ird, who cares
very little for personal adornment, hut manifests a strong
hereditary reluctance to he eaten up hy any prowling hawk
or falcon of the neighbourhood.

SUN WORSHIP.

Bv Richard A. Proctor.

Expahded from the openin<i words of Lecture on the Sa/i, at St-
James'3 Hall, Wednesday, March 28, 1883.

IN old times, man worshipped the sun as a god. They
knelt in adoration before his glorious orb, and raised
their voices in supplication to him, as to a being who could
hear their prayers and grant them what they wished.
How widely prevalent that religion of sun worship was,
we cannot now tell ; but there are traces in the purer
religions of later times, of that old system. Even in our
own time, (juite a number of ceremonial observances can
be referred back to the time when the rising and setting
sun, was regarded as a god, when the annual movement of
the sun, carrying him now below, now above the equator was
followed as the motion of a deity, now withdrawing, anon
renewing his favouring glances, while the critical epochs when
the sun-god was passing over the equator ascendingly or
descendingly were celebrated in religious festivals, of which
the Feast of the Passover (and our own Easter* in its
seasonal or astronomical aspect) and the Feast of Taber-
nacles are adumbrations, though associated now with
purified religious ideas. We are apt to smile at those old
faiths, if we do not utterly contemn them ; but in a sense
they were reasonable enough at the time when they pre-
vailed. If under any circumstances men might forget the
Creator and worship the creature, it was in the case of
sun-worship. To say truth, there is no apter emblem of
Deity than the sun. Too glorious to be regarded save
as through a veil, the sun is the source of every
form of force existing on this earth. His might
is exerted for our benefit, even when we see him
not. In the night hours, as well as throughout the
day (when he seems to " rejoice as a giant to run his
course "), the sun is at work holding not only the earth,
but his whole family of planets, at their due distance to
receive his rays. When he is hidden behind dense clouds,
when darkness encompasses the earth, he is still at work
for us. Nay, the very clouds which hide his rays are due
to his labour on our behalf ; even when their gloom seems
greatest they are preparing, under his beneficent beams, to
drop fatness on the earth. Science, however, which has
shown the sun as the true source of clouds and rain, hail
and snow, wind and storm, of all the material forces (once
themselves worshipped) at work in the air, on the sea, and
on land, the nourisher of vegetation and of every form of life,
shows also that he works according to natural laws. Sun-
worship is shown by science to be a gross materialistic
religion. It has been rejected as unworthy of reasoning
men, understanding what the sun really is. In this, science
has done what over and over again science has had to do,
and has been reproached for doing — until, with the
advance of knowledge, it has been seen that in pointing
out what is material and unworthy in the cruder forms
of worship, science has not been materialistic, but
the reverse. Science leaves what lies at the back

* The word Easter is, in its real origin, aa closely related to sun
nioToraents as the word East.

of 'each even of these imperfect religions, and tV>
mystery which must exist in all forms of worship,
if they are to be true for those who hold them. Nor need
we fear that, as science shows the real nature of what in
earlier times had been mysterious, the mysteries of
Nature will be rendered fewer or less impressive. On the
contrary, behind each law which science has interpreted,
each mystery explained (if in truth science can be said
really to explain anything) are even found greater
mysteries, inasmuch that it may be doubted whether the
human mind, as at present constituted, could bear the con-
templation of the overwhelming mysteries lying(we maybe
well assured) behind those which science now confronts
— the mysteries of universal attraction and universal re-
pulsion, of the infinitely great and of the infinitely Uttle,
of infinite space and infinite time, of infinite variety, and,
in fine, of infinite power.

"OUR BODIES:"

SHORT PAPERS ON PHYSIOLOGY.
By Dr. Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E., kc.

Xo. IX.— ABSORPTION AND BLOOD REPAIR.

DIGESTION we saw in our last paper to be that
function through the operation of which food was
chemically and physically altered and fitted for being added
to our bodily substance. This bodily substance, indeed,
the food, in its form, is destined to renew and repair. The
digestive, system, moreover, we saw to be simply a long
tube. As the food passes through the various portions of
this tube, there are poured upon it secretions or fluids,
manufactured by fjlands. The lifer pours hile on the
food, the pancreas supplies svieetbread-juice, the stomach-
(/lands gastric juice, and so on. The end of digestion finds
the food passing along the intestine and converted into
a milk-like fluid called chyle. If we examine chyle under
the microscope, we find that it contains certain globules or
corpuscles (called clujle-corpuscles), which are not to be
distinguished from the ivhite glohit,hs of the blood. Under
the microscope, then, this chyle certainly resembles blood
in one particular. If we analy.se chyle, we may find that
chemistry strengthens the evidence of the microscope. ^^ e
discover that chyle dift'ers from blood chiefly in its con-
taining a higher percentage of water than the latter fluid ;
in its want of coloured elements ; in its larger proportion
of fats, derived from the food ; and in its smaller percentage
of albumen.

Another fluid exists in our bodies called lymi)h : and it
is necessary that we should study for a moment the re-
semblance of lymph and chyle. When the smallest l)lood-
vessels of the body are watched, there is seen to lie an
incessant straining, through their thin walls, of the fluid
part of the blood. This "transudation" (or straining
through) has, of course, the result of bathing the most
minute cells and elements of our bodies in the fluid (or
b/tnph) which is destined for their nourishment. After the
fluid part of the blood has thus nourished the tissues and
parts, it becomes charged with certain waste matters.
Were it allowed to accumulate in the body (as it does in
certain cases of disease), we should have fluid remaining
in our tissues. In a word, we should become " dropsical."
In health, however, nature provides that the lymph which
has escaped from the vessels will be conveyed away from ■
the tissues. For this purpose a series of natural drainage-
tubes exist in the shape of absorbents or lymphatics. These i
are thin-walled vessels, branching out in every part of the

April 6, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

205

body, and whose mission it is to carry the lymph to a tube
lying along the left side of the spine, and called the thoracic
duct.

In the course of its passage from all parts of the boely to
the tlioracic duct, the lymph is made to pass through certain
organs, situated on the tracks of the lymphatic vessels.
These organs are called lymphatic glands. There is a :ol-
lection of these glands under the arm-pit ; another on each
side of the neck ; and another in tlie groin. The lymph,
after passing through these glands, appears to assume a
closer likeness to the blood itself, and of which, indeed,
lymph is really the fluid part. From all parts of our
bodies, then, these lymphatics are collecting the lluid part
of the blood wliich has e.xuded through the vessels in the
act of nourishing the tissues, and which is thus conveyed,
after elaboration in the " glands," to the thoracic duct.
Like the veins, the lymphatic vessels are provided with
valves, which prevent the flow of lymph other than in the
direction of the thoracic duct.

yVe must now return to the chyle, or digested food,
which we left passing along the intestine. The chyle has
to be conveyed to the blood-current, as we have seen. Now
this function — that of ahaorj'tion — comniences by the chyle
passing through the delicate walls of the numerous little
processes called cilli, which stud the walls of the intestine.
There are millions of these villi on the lining membrane of
the intestine, each villus varying in length from half a line
to one-fourth of a line. Inside each villus one or two little
absorbent vessels (here called lurtmh) are found. The
chyle is taken up by these vessels, and thus passes out of
the digestive tube. Following up the chyle in its course,
we discover the absorbents which have received it, to pass
away from the intestine across the meacntery (or fold of the
lining membrane of the abdomen), and finally to end in
the thoracic duct at its lower portion. In their course
these absorbents, like those of the body, pass through
glands, which efFect some change in the constitution of the
chyle, and probably assimilate it more nearly in character
to the blood.

It therefore follows that the thoracic duct must contain
a mixture of at least two fluids — chyh' from the digestive
system ; and lymjili, or the fluid part of the blood, gathered
from the body at large. We have ne.xt to inquire whither
these fluids are conveyed by this duct. The tlioracic duct
can be traced readily enough iu its course upwards and
along the spine. On the tight side of the body a smaller
duct exists ; but, for our present purpose, we may concern
ourselves simply with the principal duct, that of the left
side. Ascending in its course, we find that at the root of
the neck, on the left side, the thoracic duct opens into a
large vein (or at the junction of two veins) ; and we, there-
fore, arrive at the highly interesting fact that it is in this
region that fresh sujiplies of matter — chyle and lymph —
are poured into the blood. The latter fluid, renewed and
replenished, is thus adapted for its ceaseless work of
repairing the bodily waste ; and the chyle and lymph,
mingling with the blood, are swept onwards to the lungs,
and thence start, as part and parcel of the pure blood, on
the mission of liodily regeneration.

In connection with the function of " absorption," which
we have just discussed, mention must be made of the
spleen. This organ is one of the "ductless glands," or
those possessing no outlet The thyroid gland in the
neck, and the pineal gland of the brain, are ranked, with
other glands, in this category. The spleen itself lies to
the left side of the stomach, and weighs from 5 oz. to 7 oz.,
measuring in length about 5 in. or G in., and in breadth
3 in. to 4 in. Its colour is a bluish-purple, and is of soft,
pulpy texture. A large artery enters the spleen, and a

large vein leaves the organ. Through the spleen, therefore,
a continual circulation of blood takes place. The spleen —
long a mystery to physiologists — is now regarded as a
lymphatic gland, devoted to the work of elaborating the
elements of the blood. We know that the blood which
leaves the spleen contains more minute globules than the
blood which enters the organ. Hence, wo conclude that
in the spleen-pulp these globules are manufactured. It is
also probable that the red blood globules are also altered
and transmogrified in the spleen ; which, thus, from the
fabulous function of generating the " evil humours " of the
body — witness, in proof of this, the still common expres-
sion, " a fit of the spleen," — has taken rank as an im-
portant blood-gland. The spleen, when enlarged, may be
removed from the body of man and animals, without any
apparent or serious disturbance of the health. In such a
case, it is probable that the other lymphatic glands perform
its work.

TRICYCLES IN 1883.

By John Browning,

Chairman and Treasurer of the London Tricycle Club.
TWO-SPEED GEARINGS.

JUST at tiie present time the great majointy of tricyclists
are devoting a deal of their attention to two-speed
gearings. Most of my readers will know that by this
term is meant some contrivance by which the tricycle can
be driven at a low rate of speed, but with a proportionate
gain in power up hill, and at a high rate of speed, with
a proportionate loss of power, down hill, the change from
one rate of speed to the other being made without stop
ping the machine.

As most riders are anxious to obtain a machine fitted
with such a contrivance, or to have such an arrangement
adapted to a machine they possess, I think I cannot do
better than place before them the information I have
obtained on the subject ; much of which is the result of
actual experience. Although there are, as yet, actually
very few tricycles in existence with two-speed gearing, for
the last three years, I have, from time to time, had ma
chines of different kinds, both single and double (that is,
for one rider or two), geared up and down from as low as
'22 in., to as high as 50 in., and I have ridderj one single
machine belonging to my friend, Mr. Salmon, geared up
to 57 in. This experience has enabled me to form an
opinion as to the best proportion which should obtain
between the two gearings, and this is the most important
point in such a contrivance, and one which experience
only can determine.

To simplify my remarks as much as possible, I must say
that by a gearing of 22 in. I mean that one revolution of
the crank would, with this particular arrangement, di'ive
the tricycle as far as if it had been fitted with a driving-
wheel or wheels 22 in. in diameter. Yet in some of the
machines with which I experimented, the driving-wheels
were as small as 30 in., while in others they were as large
as 48 in.

I found then that 22 in. was too low for a double
tricycle for driving up a tolerably steep incline when only
one rider was working, and 50 in. was too high for me for
alight single machine; about 44 in. for such a machine
gave me a higher rate of speed with less exertion, though
of course to accomplish this I had to pedal much faster.

But there is a great difference in this respect between
diti'erent persons. Some riders prefer a light machine
geared up to about 60 in., though this compels them to

206

• KNOWLEDGE *

[April 6, I883.

walk up nearly all hills, and makes any tolerable
incline liarcl work. Very few riders care to have a
machine geared lower* than 48 in. ' The rapid motion
of their legs in pedalling, and the greater number of revo-
lutions the pedals have to make to cover a given distance,
tires them more than having to press harder on the pedals.
The proportion between the two speeds required by any
rider will, however, I think, be the same. This amount
will, I believe.'^be certainly not less than IG in., and not more
than 2."> in., and it will, I believe, in most instances be
about 20 in.

For a double machine, in which one rider will probably
prove a weak driver, for instance, the two speeds will be
28 in. and 48 in., 30 in. and .'iOin., or 32 in. and 52 in.
For a single machine of rather strong build, weighing
about 1^0 lb., for a heavy, powerful man the proportions
n-ay well bo S.'i in. and •').5 in. ; while for a very light
roadster, weighing less than GO lb., the speeds, always
preserving the same proportion, may be 40 in. and GO in.

By the kindness of Mr. Shaw I have had the advantage
of trying the Crypto-dynamic two-speed gearing. I tested
the machine at Surbiton, and I could not find any hill
steep enough to test the hill-climbing power of the machine
in the neighbourhood. The slow speed of this machine
was 22 in., and the high speed .'56 in.

We are indebted to Grout for the first two-speed
gearing ; and with a perseverance which does him the
greatest credit, he has made successive improvements in
his gearing, and has latterly manufactured and introduced
a new contrivance by another inventor, which will probably
eclipse his own. The Crypto-dynamic gearing, to which I
have alluded, cannot, unfortunately, as yet be obtained.
This contrivance has successfully withstood some rough
work, and has certain special advantages peculiar to itself.
The two-speed contrivance of the St. George's Foundry
Company is worked by means of two chains, either of
which can be thrown in or out of gear at pleasure. This
contrivance possesses the great advantage that if either of
the chains should break, or the gearing get out of order,
the rider would be able to drive home with the other chain.
Britain's two-speed gearing seems to me the simplest,
and likely to weigh the least, and be the most economical
in price. Against these advantages we have to reckon two
drawbacks : the machine must always drive through the
gearing, so that it is always under strain ; and the gearing
cannot be thrown out of action so as to allow the pedals
to run free and act as foot-rests when running down hills.

The various contrivances I have referred to could not
with advantage be described without drawings, and I have
said but little in this article as regards their details, or the
theories on which they are based. The reason I have
treated the subject in this manner is because I have
received numerous letters from readers of Knowledge,
asking me to make my articles on tricycles as practical as
I can.

In one or two tricycling journals it has been suggested
that twelve inches would be a sufficient difference between
the high and low speed gearing. I do not think the
writers can have ridden with machines which have been
geared up and down more than this, or they would have
known that such a difterence wUl not give the full benefit
to be deri\ed from such a contrivance. For my own
riding I prefer 18 inches dill'erence to 20 inches.

A suggestion also has been made that one of the two
speeds that is the fastest with the quick gearing, should be
exactly suited to the rider's general reijuirements, and the
slow gearing only brought into action for steep hills.

This I cannot agree to. The result of such an arrange-
ment would be to give faster pedalling than is convenient

to most riders, or a lower rate of speed than they might
easily obtain, both on the level and when riding up
ordinary inclines.^

A machine capable of being driven at two different
rates of speed, only with the same pedalling, should not
be geared down sufficiently to ride easily up a hill with a
rise of one foot in ten feet. The rider will gain greatly
by walking such a hill, and gearing his machine so as to
travel at a faster pace up a moderate rise. Steep hills
occur only seldom on most good roads, and occupy only a
very small portion of the ground to be covered, and nothing
is gained by toiling up at a slower pace than they can be
easily mounted by a good walker.

THE AMATEUR ELECTRICIAN.

ELECTRICAL MEASUREMENT.— IX.

IN continuing our remarks on the Wheatstone Bridge,
we shall endeavour to show that in a given circuit the
fall of a potential varies as the resistance of the conductor,
and that this fact lends itself very opportunely to an in-
vestigation of the electrical conditions of a wire.

Eirrh

In Fig. 1 there are two wires (A B and E F) similar in
quality and cross-section, but unequal in length, A B being,
in this instance, half the length of E F. The potentials
at A and E (represented by A D and E G) are ob\-iously
identical, and B and F being to earth (Zero), it follows
that the fall from A to B is the same as that from E to F.
The fall in the circuit containing A B is, therefore, twice
as rapid as the fall in the other circuit through E F,
and the proportionate parts in each circuit will, there-
fore, be charged to the same potential, and so give
evidence of equal falls. For instance, H and K both
being one-fourth of the distance from A to B and E to F,
respectively, will be at the same potential represented by
the equal vertical lines H O and K P. So likewise will M
and L, three-fourths the distance from A and E, be at the
same potential, the vertical lines 51 R and L S being equal.
A gahanonieter inserted between H and K, or M and L,
would therefore remain passive and indicate the absence of
any current. As indicated in our preceding article, were H
joined to L (through a galvanometer), the needle would be
deflected, say to the right, by a current passing /Voh! H to
L. On the other hand, by joining H to any point between
E and K, say T, the current would flow to H from T, and
the needle would be deflected in the opposite direction —
that is, to the left.

April 6, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

20;

It is not always, however, that we wish to measure the
conditions of a wire of uniform structure and thickness
throughout. Were it so, we might in many instances
answer our purpose, at least approximately, by simple
linear measurement But let us suppose, for example,
that, in Fig. 2, A B is a line four miles long, of which the
first mile, A D, has only one-third the specific conductivity
of the remaining three miles of thicker wire. In other

tarth

Earth

Fig. 2.

•words, letting the resistance of A B be 30 Ohms, then the
lengths D E, E F, and F B each offer but 10 Ohms, and will,
therefore, together offer 30 Ohms. The point J) is thus in
the centre of the resistance — that is, there are 30 Ohms
resistance on each side of it. The potential at D should
therefore be half of what it is at A. The fall throughout
the wire is that illustrated by the line or lines
G H B. This fall from A to D is there shown to be
same as the fall from D to B, — a wire three times the
length of A D, but offering only the same amount
of resistance to the current, and giving the current, in
fact, an equal amount of work to perform in tra-
versing it. J K is another line of four miles, three of
which, J to N, ofi'er, at ID Ohms per mile, a total resist-
ance of 30 Ohms ; while the fourth mile, N K, being of
proportionately smaller wire, offers 30 Ohms. N therefore
is in the centre of the resistance offered by J K, and the
potential at N will be half that at J, as is indicated by the
vertical line N O being half the length of J T. NO is
necessarily equal to D H, and consequently a galvanometer
inserted between D and N is not affected. Similarly P is
midway between D and B ; so also is Q between N and
K. P R is equal to Q S ; therefore the potentials at P and
Q are the same, and, as a consequence, no current would
flow through a galvanometer connecting P Q.

Analysing these different experiments, we conclude that
(granting tirst that where two points are of the same
potential no current will flow between them, and that if
there is no cun-ent there can be no effect exerted upon a
galvanometer placed between those points) : —

1. Potential may be represented by longer or shorter
lines drawn at right angles to the wire.

2. The fall of potential may be represented by inclined
lines connecting the free ends of the vertical lines above
referred to.

3. In a wire of uniform quality and size, the fall is
uniform throughout, and may be represented by one
straight inclined line.

4. In a wire of \aryLng quality or size, the fall will be
variable, and will vary directly as the resistance of the
different parts.

5. If in two similar wires of unequal length, or in any

two wires of unequal resistance, we connect a point a
certain distance (measured in Ohms) along one line, to a
point on the other line at the same proportionate resistance-
distance from its terminals, there will bo the same potential
at the extremities of the connecting wire, and no current
will flow through it

Summing up these deductions, it will be apparent that
(referring to "Electrical Measurement — VIII," Fig. 2,
Knowledoe, No. G8) : -

6. When we have succeeded in bringing the galvano-
meter permanently to rest (whether the battery circuit is
completed or not), we have effected a balance in which the
proportion A bears to the unknown resistance D is the
same as the proportion between B and E. We may,
therefore, express the proportion as a simple rule of three
sum : —

B :E :: A : D or B : A :: E : D
To take an example, let A offer 100 Ohms, and B 10 Ohms.
Then, supposing we get a balance when E offers ."lOO Ohms,
the problem \i ill work out thus : —

B : A :: E : D
that is, 10 : 100 :: 500 : 5,000
5,000 Ohms is, therefore, the resistance of the line or
coil D.

For our readers (with three small but known resistances)
to apply this to the manufacture of a resistance coil,
ranging up to 400 Ohms (or higher, if necessary), is not
diaicult

Where only a small resistance is required — such, for
instance, as •! of an Ohm — it is advisable to join side by
side a number of wires offering a higher resistance. A
.short length of No. 3.5 or 3G copper wire offers, say, 4 of
an Ohm. Two such pieces of wire coiled together will offer
only 2, and four pieces only "1 of an Ohm. Such an
arrangement will be found much more satisfactory. In
coils ranging up to about 10 Ohms, thin copper wire may
bo used. German silver wire should be resorted to for
coils of higher resistance, because of the high resistance of
that metal as compared with copper.

We must, however, defer our observations on the com-
pletion of a convenient set of " Bridge " apparatus until
our next article.

PERIODS OF THE AURORA.

MR. SOPHUS TROMHOLT contributes a paper in
Danish to the Meteorological Society of Denmark
on the above subject, and M. T. Terby, of Lou vain, gives
an account of it in Ciel et Tern', Feb. 15, 1883, from which
we extract the following particulars.

Discussing reports of auroras seen at Godthaab, in South
Greenland (64" 11' N. lat, 54° C long W. of Paris), Mr.
Tromliolt observes that they show a totally different state
of things from what occurs in lower Latitudes. Wolf, of
Zurich, says not only is there no parallelism, but, on the
contrary, an almost diametrical opposition between the
frequency of auroras and of sun-spots in the above reports.
Observations by Rudolph, at Jacobshavn, Greenland, show
that the maximum of auroras follows two years after
minimum of sun-spots, and that the following minimum
arrives almost in the same epoch as the highest point in
the sun-spot curve. Bloch's observations at Godthaab,
though too short to be conclusive, indicate that the number
of northern auroras reaches a high figure near the epoch of
minimum sun-spots, and that the number diminishes as
the spots increase. Observations at Iviktut, Greenland,
from 1875 to 1880, and at Stykkisholm, Iceland, show

208

♦ KNOWLEDGE •

[April 6, 1883

that the minimum of auroras coincides with the maximum
of spots, and rim-versd.

According to Weyprecht, the auroral zone, or terrestrial
zone of greatest freqiumcy, experiences an oscillation which
moves it towards the south at the period of the equinoxes.
At the winter solstice, this zone takes up a more northerly
position, which coincides with the fact that a maximum of
auroras is then ol>served in polar, and a minimum in tem-
perate regions. Troniholt confirms this, and says towards
the autumnal equinox the auroral zone tends towards the
south, then passes northwards, to reach its most northerly
position towards the solstice ; after which it proceeds south
and reaches its soutliern maximum towards the spring
equinox ; after which it turns again northwards. He also
tinds that while evening auroras which appear in the
zenith, or more north, are less frequent than auroras of
the soiith, these conditions are reversed as regards the
morning auroras. The auroral zone suffers a displacement
in twenty-four hours, so that during the night it is directed
towards the north. This explains the diurnal period esta-
blished for mean latitudes, and the fact that the northern
aurora attains its maximum some hours before midnight,
and diminishes afterwards. He also finds that during the
period of eleven years the auroral zone is displaced laterally,
so that during the minimum of solar spots it inclines more
to the north than during the spot maximum. Also, that
the maximum of auroras, which coincides in temperate
zones with the maximum of spots, is due to the fact that
the auroral zone is then in its most southern position —
when the polar regions have a minimum of auroras ; on the
contrary, the auroral zone has its most northern position
when solar spots are at a minimum, when fewest auroras
occur in temperate regions, and most in the polar region.
Thus the three periods of the northern aurora — the unde-
cennial, the annual, and the diurnal — are dependent upon
the same cause : the oscillation of the auroral zone between
north and south.

The most splendid aurora ever recorded in Belgium was
totally invisible at Godthaab, which coincides with the
above statement concerning the auroral zone.

MR. WHISTLER'S ETCHINGS.

TT7HILE Mr. Whistler's staring study in yellow and
V T white was open to the public we did not notice it ;
for notice would have been advertisement, and we did not
choose to advertise him. He has shown that he likes to
be talked about at such times ; and it was pretty obvious
that the scurvy little brown-paper-covered catalogue was
meant to invite such comment as would have served his
purpose in this respect. Comment now can do no harm —
and can do Mr. Whistler no good ; now, therefore, is the
proper time for comment to come.

Of the arrangement in yellow and white, we note that
it was simply an insult to the visitors, — almost intolerable
to any one possessing an eye for colour, — which Mr.
Whistler, fortunately for him, does not — and absolutely
sickening (in the strictest sense of the word) to those at
all sensitive in such matters. " I feel sick and giddy in
this hateful room," remarked a lady to us after she had been
there but a few minutes. Even the common cottage chairs,
painted a coarse yellow, did not solace the visitors ; and the
ornaments on the mantelpiece, something like old bottle-
necks, only excited a faint smile in the sickened company.
Mr. Whistler's catalogue, however, is our present game.
Ife takes for its motto, " Who breaks a butterfly upon a
wheel?" But Mr. Whistler mistakes his vocation. He is

no butterfly. He might Vje compared, perhaps, to a bird —
the bird that can sing but won't. If one judged, however,
from some of his etchings, one would say a spider was
nearer his mark. But a Ijutterfly ! the emblem of all that
is bright and beautiful in form and colour! Daniel Lambert
might as reasonably have taken the part of the Apothecary
in " Romeo and Juliet," or Julia Pastrana have essayed the
rOle of Imogen.

After this quiet claim to the character of a butterfly, —
as if an owl (Mr. Whistler loves nocturnes) should pose
as a Paphian dove, — he appended to the titles of his
etchings, instead of much-needed explanation, certain lines
from criticisms which men like Ruskin, Colvin, and
others have passed on him, — criticisms confirmed (though
confirmation was not needed), liy the Press of this country,
the Continent, and America, — which is indeed breaking a
rather unpleasant spider upon a very large wheel.

He honours Knowledge with the first place, though we
disclaimed all wish to criticise what is, indeed, altogether
beneath criticism. " Criticism," we said (very^ truly), " is
powerless here, because one who found Mr. Whistler's
recent pictures and drawings anything but insults to his
artistic sense could never be reached by reasoning." So we
passed on — with a mcliora ccnianms. However, Mr. Whistler
takes our " Criticism is powerless here" as a sort of text.
We can afTord him the laugh he would raise by taking these
words from the context. Even as they stand they suit very
well. Criticism is powerless with him in many difi'erent
ways. It is powerless to correct his taste for wilfully
drawing ill. If a school-girl of ten showed such a picture o£

fromXo. 1, pleasingly called by Mr. Whistler a Glass Furnace, but whicb
might be anything, from an inside room in 2so;th's Ark to a warm comer in
Hades.

a human being as this, for instance, we might criticise use-
fully enough. We might point out that no human being
(we suppose the thing is intended for a human being, but it
may be meant for a rag-bag) ever had such features or
such a shape. But of what use would it be to tell Mr.
Whistler as much 1 He knows it already, only he despises
the public so much that he thinks it will do well enough
for them.

from No. 33— Aldemey-street ; but the animal (we suppose) repr»-
senteo is not an Alderney cow, though certainly not a horse, notwithstanding the
shaft (?) and bUnkers.

Again, criticism is powerless to explain what was meant
by some such figure as this, in No. 33. We draw from

Aphil G, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE

209

memory, but we can answer for it the principal peculiarities
are rather softened than exaggerated.

The legs we can especially answer for, while the appen-
dages which come where a horse has his feet and pasterns,
are perfect transcripts — they are things we never could
forget We have not the faintest idea what they really
are. We would not insult Mr. Wliistler by supposing lie
tried to draw a horse with the customary equine legs, and
30 failed as to produce these marvels. Perhaps Dr. Wilson
knows of some animal limbed thus strangely.

It is because of such insults as these to common sense
and common understanding, and from no ill-will we bear
him, tliat we refuse seriously to criticise such work as Mr.
Whistler has recently brought before the public. Wliat-
ever in it is good adds to his otlence, for it shows the
offence to be wilful, if not premeditated.

Mr. Whistler, who sometimes nearly draws correctly, and
the host of those, from the late !Mr. Rossetti downwards, who
cannot draw at all, probably look with contempt on honest
John Leech. To him w;is otlered what Mr. Oscar Wilde re-
gards as the supreme insult (the only insult not yet offered to
Mr. Whistler) popxl/trih/. Leech was popular because he
was HONEST. He took the public fancy, at the beginning
of his career, rather by the promise of good things than
by what he actually did. There was a good deal of
incorrect drawing in liis earliest sketches ; but as
time went on he steadily advanced, till at last he acquired
the mastery which characterised unfailingly the last ten
years of his work. One of his drawings of a breezy land-
scape, with men and women and dogs and horses, was worth
— to our mind — Mr. Whistler's whole collection of etchings
(when due deduction is made from the good points on
account of those features which cause real pain to the
artistic mind). We venture — we trust J//-. J^uncJi will forgive
tis — to draw a slight sketcli from one of Punch's Almanacs,
to give our readers relief after the monstrosities we have
recalled above.

f ■■-\r-v.ii ■:-.-.

Part XVII. of Knowledge (containing Nor. 70 to 74 inclusive)
J3 now ready, price la.

SERIALS RECEIVED.

The Welcome, for April, 1S83 (S. W. Partridge & Co.,
London). A capital sixpence worth. It contains good
likenesses of Rosa Bonheur and jNIr. John Ruskin, and
many admirable engravings. (Tlie picture. Chestnut-street,
Colorado, gives a good idea of this mining city ; but the
description gives little idea of the wildness of life there.)
The W'elcoDtt:^ ought to be welcome. — The Sidereal Messenger,
December, 1882 (Northtield, Minnesota). This little maga-
zine contains chiefly borrowed articles and editorial notes.
A paper from Knowledge, on Comet 1882, should not
have been reprinted without some remark to the effect
that the observations on whicli IMr. Proctor based his
opinion respecting the speedy return of the comet
were inexact, — The Medical Press and Circular. Full,
as usual, of useful information and interesting medical
matter. — The Scientijic American. Always good. —
Cassell's Diclionanj of Cookery (Part I.). We shall have
more to say of this later ; at present we only note that it
promises to be the most complete and valuable work of the
kind yet published. Regarded merely as scientific reading,
it is full of interest ; but no one who wishes to see economy
and common sense in the kitchen, and wholesome and
pleasant food on the table, should leave unstudied such
science problems as are here considered, and as Mr.
W. M. Williams is discussing in his papers on the
" Chemistry of Cookery " in our columns. — The Leopold-
Shakespeare. Part X. (Cassell's). This completes
the issue of a really useful, convenient, and cheap
edition of Shakespeare. We shall have occasion to
review at length the complete work. Of this part
we simply note that, besides " Cymbeline," " Henry
VIII.," and "The Tempest," it contains two most in-
teresting plays (portions of which are certainly from
Shakespeare's pen), "The Two Noble Kinsmen," and
"Edward III." — The Librarij of Enylish Literature, by
Henry Morley (Cassell's), parts 2 and 3, — a perfect godsend
for young students of literature, who (as is the case with
most), cannot afford time to study more than a portion of
the works of British authors. Here suitably selected
matter from authors of the fifteenth and sixteenth century
is judiciously provided with just that amount of old and
quaint illustration which is necessary to make the lesson
from that era of British literature complete. — Ilistorij of
the Franco-German War, by Edm. Oilier (Cassell's), parts 2.
and 3. An interesting and well-illustrated account of the
most remarkable war of modern times, to be completed in
24 parts, price 6d. each.

(To he continued.)

The inereasiDg; importanco of colonies to all countries possessing
them has already invested the forthcoming exhibition at Amster-
dam with unusual interest. Tho exhibition is to open on May 1,
and will suqiass any previous show of colonial products ever at-
tempted in Europe. All the colonies of the world, with but a few
exceptions, are to be represented, and, strangely enough, some of
these exceptions, due to a singular parsimony, are furnished by
Great Britain herself, that fruitful mother of world-wide senti-
ments. It is believed that the influx to Amsterdam — that Venice
of the Xorth — will be very great, and probably this expectation
will be realised. Amsterdam — literally, the dj-ke or dam of Amstet
— is a remarkable city, in that it nearly all stands on oaken
piles driven deep into tho ground, and it is so intersected
with canals that 300 bridges hardly suffice for the land
traffic. Amsterdam is not a very ancient city. It was founded
1203 .\.D., fortified in 1-182, and .surrendered to Prussia 1787. It was
captured by the French in 1705. An epoch in the history of what
has always been a great seat of commerce rather than of politics
was the opening of the great Industrial Exhibition in 1864. We
make no doubt that the Colonial Exhibition of this year will mark
another epoch in the history of this singularly industrious city. —
P. R.

210

• KNOWLEDGE

[April G, 1883.

.t'S

'W^^'^m

" Let KnowleHire grow from more to more." — At.FREn Tennvson.

3lrttn-6 to tl)e editor.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possihly he in-
Kerted. Correspondents must not be offended, therefore, should their
letters not appear.

All Kditorial communications should be addressed to the Editor of
Knowledge ; all Business communications to the Publishers, at the
Office, 74, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS arise FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should he made
payahle to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No C0M.MUNICATI0NS ARK ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOCGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

ST.A.YS AND FAT.

[774] — For their own sakes, and for that of the forthcoming
generation, it is to be hoped that Knowledge has many readers
among the fair sex, and that all of them have carefully followed
the discussions on stays. The demolition of every argument in
favour of those barbaric bandages has been so complete that
reasoning readers must be urged to make the effort necessary to
overcome the vicious habit of wearing them. The letter by a lady,
page 1G2, shows how it is to be done so cleverly and practically, as
to leave no excuse for continuous leaning on the delusive support.

The letter of " Lennox Browne, F.R.C.S." supplies a further
argument beyond that wliich he has used. The tight-lacing variety
of the liuman species care little for health or comfort, and are not
much addicted to reasoning ; they are not to be warned by any de-
monstration of damaged lungs, weakened muscles and congested
brains, but there is one horror which none can bear to contemplate
— ^viz., fat.

What is tat ? It is an accumulation of unburnt body-fuel. How
can we get rid of it when accumulated in excess ? Simply by burn-
ing it away — this burning being done by means of the oxygen
inhaled by the lungs. If, as llr. Browne has shown, a lady with
normal lung capacity of 125 cubic inches, reduces this to 78 inches
by means of her stays, and attains 118 inches all at once on leaving
them off, it is certain that her prospects of becoming fat and flabby,
as she advances towards middle age, are greatly increased by tight-
laeing and the consequent suppression of natural respiration.

Formerly, when I lectured to ladies on Philosophy and the Laws
of Health, I displayed the well-known features of the Venus de
Medici, and the victim of tight-lacing, with her contracted waist
and crushed ribs. I fear that there were some among my pupils
who admired the latter, and (h-ew mental pictures of how a riding
habit might be fitted thereon.

It would bo well to supplement these by a third picture, showing
the effect of suppressed respiration and want of muscular exercise
on the figure, when the victim had attained the age of forty, or
thereabouts. W. Mattieu Williams.

SATURN'S RINGS.

[775] — Whilst agreeing with Professor Adams that the figure of
Saturn and his rings sent to you by me finiu Vol. I. of " Philo-
sophical Transactions" might have been caused in the way he
suggests, I do not think that it was so. The very object of the
communication was to call attention to the " notches or hoUow-
ness," and to endeavour to find out whether others had observed
them. Letters are stated to have been written to "the worthy
author of tlie systeme of this planet, that he would now atten-
tively consider the present figure of hisnn.ics or riiir; to sec ivhether
the nppearaiice be to him as in this figure." If there had been no
" notclies or hollowness " there would have been nothing to write
about. Again, tlio writer of the notice states that " it was thought
fit to insert hoi-e tho newly-related account," "that other curious
men in other places might bo engaged to join their observations
witli him, to see whether they can find tho like appearance to that
represented here, especially such notches or hollowness as at A and

B." All this follows naturally from Ball's expression, " A little
hollow above and below." In the number for July 2, ICGO, there is
another good sketch of Saturn, referring to an observation made by
Hook on June 29, 16G6. No reference is made to Ball's observa-
tion. The communication refers to " black lines crossing tho ring
and crossing tho body " as being plainly perceptible. Hook says,
" Wliether shadows or not I dispute not." Thos. Ward.

ROTATION OF PLANETS.

[77G] — We are told that the planets are retained in their orbits
by tho compound action of two mutually opposing forces : — first,
the centripetal force, or gravitation, by which a body is attracted to
t he centre of gravity, which, in the case of the planets, is the sun ;
and secondly, the centrifugal force [now generally called tendency,
rather than force, R.P.], by which a body in motion tends to pro-
ceed in a straight line. But what force causes our planet to revolve
on its own imaginary axis, .and that with such unvarying speed ? If
set going at first, like a top from the string, how is it that its speed
does not gradually relax, and at length come to an end ?

G. M. (Southport).

[The rotation could only be "slowed" by some resisting force.
Where is any exerted ?]

THE MOON'S VERTEX.

[777] — Perhaps the following considerations may tend to clear up
the diffieulty expressed by Mr. F. C. Green, at the conclusion of
letter 75!) (p. 168). Imprimis, the angles of stars from the
moon's vertex are given in the fortnightly " Face of the Sky " for
Greenwich. Of course, they would vary with change of latitude,
&e. In the next place, the great circle passing through the pole and
the Moon's centre would only give us the Moon's vertex when she
was on the meridian. It would intersect her upper limb at its
north point. The method of obtaining the vertex from this — in other
words, of finding the angle formed by the intersection of a vertical
circle and hour circle, for any latitude, declinatisn, and hour angle
of the Moon from the meridian — is a matter of spherical trigono-
metry, which will be best illustrated by a figure .and example.

Here P N is the latitude, which we will^call (p. P M the Moon's
N. Polar distance, the complement of which is her declination S.
Z P M her hour angle, which we call P. Z M, her zenith distance.
Then, from Z draw Z Q perpendicular to P M, and call P Q,.r. Now,
cos P= tan ,c . tan ip : or, tan r = cos P . cot ^.

Again, sin QM : sinPQ::tan P : tan M : or,tanM = ®lB^^i''"?

sin Q M

= sinji^tanP rpj^j^ j^^gjg g^ jj^ tj,e one we are seeking, is technically

cos (x + S)
called the parallactic angle. Let us try to make this intelligible by
putting our example into figures. In latitude 54" 11' N, the moon
is 4h. 20m. from the meridian, and her North Declination is 16° 30'.
What is her parallactic angle? Here we have P = 4h. 20m.=65°,
0 = 54° 11', and ^ = 16° 30'.

Then we say cos P 65° 9625948 sm r 16° 57' 40" 9-4(i4970

cot 0 54° 11' 9858336 tan P 65° 0-331328

j;= 16° 57' 40" tan 9-484284 sec (.i- + f) 33° 27' 40" 0-07S6!'9

Parallactic angle = 36° 51' 57" tan 9-874097

So that the moon's vertex would be 36° 51' 57" from her North
Point. It is, of course, needless to remind Mr. Green with refer-
ence to the last formula, that multiplying by the secant is the same
as dividing by the cosine.

A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

THE HAMILTONIAN SYSTEM.

[778] — Having read your articles on the Hamiltonian system,
and having been anxious to acquire German, I determined to make
use of this method. I chose " Robinson der Junger," and this is
how I worked. I read over carefully two jiages, noting words
which wore new to me. Then I read those two pages carefully in
the original German. The next day I read two more pages, and so

April 6, 1883.]

• KNOW^LEDGE •

211

on each day. Gradnally I read more than two pages, and read as
maoh aa I conid without losing interest ; but I made it a rule only
to read when in the mood. I found this made an immense
difference, for when I forced myself at times to read, I had all my
trouble over aeain the next day, my mind not having retained a
single word. I have been working now for three months at my
leisure, and this is the result, — I have mastered n great many new
words, most of the idioms, and have a fair knowledge of the eon-
Btmction of the language. I can also translate at ease, only at
times making use of a dictionary.

I think this is a groat deal gained, with very little trouble, and in
a short time. I had learnt German for nearly four years, after
the usual method, and at the end of that time, though 1 had worked
bard, I could not translate a a page of German without a great
deal of trouble. M. P.

BETROCESSION OF THE SEA.

[779] — I do not believe that " A Southport Kesident " is correct
in saying that there has been no retrocession of the sea for the last
fifty years. My own opinion is that the sand is gr.idually hut
surely gaining on the sea, and has been so doing for a long period.
At the present moment the Corporation of Southport are petitioning
against I'rcston being allowed to build a sea-wall at the entrance to
the estuary of the Kibble, and are stating that if this should be done
the shallow channel leading to Southport Pier would be silted up
Tery quickly, and Southport itself left high and dry as an inland
town. ' G. JI.

A NEW ZEALAND GUM.

[780] — The following extract from Martin's "British Colonies"
contains information regarding the above which may be of interest
to Mr. Joseph Clark : —

" The habitat of the majestic Dammara Australis, or Kauri, is
limited to the northern extremity of the North Island, and has a
lange of less than three degrees of latitude and ono degree of longi-
tude ; even in these narrow boundaries it is by no means a cornnton
tree, but is entirely confined to hilly situations. The smooth, grey,
oolumnar stems measure from thirty to forty feet in circumference,
and maintain very nearly the same girth through a length of from
sixty to even ninety feet. The crown of the tree, where it is ir-
regularly branched, is small and out of proportion to the trunk ;
and the foliage is likewise diminutive as compared with the
branches.

" The wood is very light in proportion to its great strength and
durability ; it is, therefore, admirably adapted for apars and masts.
The land on which it grows, even when cleared, is useless for occu-
pation, from the rugged nature of the ground, and from the quality
of the soil. It is one of the most remarkable jihenomena in botany
that such an immense tree should flourish wliere it could scarcely
be supposed able to take root. The rosin which it exudes is very
bard, and forms large solid masses at the base of the tree. It is
generally of a whitish colour, but through age and, as it would
■eem, exposure to the sea-water, it assumes the golden-yellow colour
of amber, becomes transparent, and very closely resembles that
•nbstance. The Kauri i.9 the only coniferous pine in Now Zealand."

W. MooB, Jan.

A NEW NARCISSUS.

[781] — If high art is not beyond your scope, you may find this
interesting. The Government School of Art at South Kensington
supplies to ladies (for a consideration) drawings of Howers, &c.,
traced in outline upon velvet or the like, upon which the ladies may
embroider with silks of appropriate colours. Such a drawing in
ontline on black velvet has just been shown to me by a lady. It
Wpresents a group of bulbous flowers — tulip, narcissus, &c. A
narcissus, plainly indicated by foliage, stalk, nectary, &c., is drawn
with five petals — a plain, unabashed, .full-faced jientagon ! Can
yon tell me whether this is high art ? It certainly is not nature.

G. O. E.

A VEIN THEORY IN BOTANY.

[782] — Although the most important function of your journal
may he the diffusion of knowledge, yet I hope you will hold it
ilW panJonable for me to ask yon to give publication to a point of a

ri"^ seientific lecture, of a kind which 1 should have hoped was well-

nigh obsolete in these days of well-weighed facts. The lecture was
gwen by Mr. A. Tylor at the London Institution on Monday, the
19th inst; the title, "jSIstheticism, as Displayed by Animals and

Plants." The one good point was found in the illustrations, which
were well executed, but the lecture was frivolous in the extreme.
For nearly lialf-an-honr had wo to listen to such nonsense as this :
Mr. Tylor stated that the somewhat zigzag course pursued by the
midrib of a leaf was caused by tho force of the current from the
alternate veins on either side, and illustrated it by reference to the
fact that the course of a river is so iiillucnced by tributary streams.
One would liavo thought that a minute's consideration would have
shown him that during tho composition of tho leaf the current runs
tho wrong way for his fact. Ho might, like Washington Irving's
philosopher, who, finding that the world would not accommodate
itself to his theory of revolution, wisely determine to accommodate
his theory to tho world.

The phantom theory above alluded to was reiterated with wearisome
pertinacity ; indeed, had not Mr. Tylor made this the chief point
in his lecture, it would not have been worth writing about ; but
such a statement, given with such assurance in the London Insti-
tution, might mislead many who listened to learn. The rest of the
time was mainly devoted to a narration of a few plain natural
facts, without any attempt being made to demonstrate irhij things
were so. C. M. A.

POTATOES.

[783]— In Vol. I., Nos. 20 and 29, "Farmer" states his belief
that the unpalatableness of frozen potatoes is due to the " frost
coming oat," for when the potatoes are roasted thoy will be good
food, but not if only boiled. It is somewhat dilKcult to understand
what is exactly meant by the expression " frost coming out," but
though it is in common use, yet the idea that it conveys to my
mind is but vague.

However, as '' Farmer" seems to be interested in the subject, I
will put before him the chief points in the latest researches made
in this direction by Dr. II. Miiller.

Tho interior parts of the potato are not frozen until the tempe-
rature has sunk to 200° P., and if this temperature has been
rapidly and suddenly attained, as by exposure to the open air,
sugar is not formed, but on tho other hand when the tuber is but
slowly cooled down to its freezing point, a formation of sugar is
observed ; it is not necessary for this production that the actual
freezing point be reached, but only that the temperature should
slowly and gradually sink ; also the conversion of the starch pro-
ceeds' at all temperatures between 32° and 26'C'' ; in ono case,
potatoes were kept for thirty days at 32°, at the end of which time,
12 per cent, of the starch had been converted, but the actual amount
of sugar formed varies with each individual tuber, and those which
have the highest percentage of moisture present in them are the
more readily sweetened. It has been stated that the alteration of
the starch occurs at 32°, but it must not be supposed that there is
no change going on at higher temperatures ; sugar is formed above
32°, but it will be shown later on why it does not make itself so
evident.

Now for the cause of the formation of sugar, and the reasons
why it is, so to speak, stored at low temperatures only. There is
present in the potato a ferment resembling diastase, or the ferment
of malt, which converts starch into sugar at all times, and tho
jjroduct thus formed is required for the growth of the protoplasm ;
but the cold checks the development of tho protoplasm, whilst it
has no very appreciable effect in tho action of tho ferment. Hence
sugar continues to be formed, but not consumed, and it is only at
comparatively high temperatures that production and consumption
are equal, in which case potatoes keep or remain apparently un-
changed. The process which thus goes on continuously involves a
distinct loss of part of the potato, but it must be remembered that,
although loss has occurred, yet the tuber is not valueless, for the
principal part of the nourishing portion (tho albumen) still
remains. It is curious that the sugar so readily disappears when
the tubers are kept for some time at a high temperature— say 68°.
Knowing this, wo may conclude that it is advi.sablo before cooking
a sweetened potato to keep it for several hours in a warm place
after which it may be cooked, and be indistinguishable from any
other ; but it is well known that it is useless to boil it while sweet,
as only a part of tho sugar is removed ; moreover, some of the
nutritious .albumen is at tho same time boiled out and lost. Per-
h.aps " Farmer," when making his experiments in boiling and
roasting, did not submit both samples to the same previous treat-
ment. With the material at pre.sent at hand I do not attempt to
account for the great differences which ho observed and recorded,
but is it not possible that he plunged one of his frozen potatoes
straight into the boiling water, whilst the other was kejit until such
time as the hot wood ashes were ready ? I venture to suggest an
answer to the query concerning the difference between a waxy and
a floury potato, but my suggestions arc only founded on a few-
analyses. In the waxy tuber the water is abnormally high, whilst

212

♦ KNOWLEDGE

[April 0, 1883.

tho starch is low, and tlio nitrogenous matter consists nearly
wholly of coaKiilablo albiinicn, there being but little of the other
or soluble forms of nitrogen present, na compared with a floury
sample. E. W. P.

ANCIENT INSCRIBED STONES.

[784] — Having seen the interesting note about Herr Eodiger's
discovery of ancient map-stones in Switzerland (KNnwt.EncE, No. 70,
March 2), it seems to mo that the stones inscribed with circles,
dots, lines, Ac., which occur in various parts of Ireland, especially
in the ancient cemeteries at Newgrangc, near Drogheda, and upon
tho Loughcrew hills (Sliove Na Calliagh of the Ordinance Survey),
Co. lleath, may have a similar meaning.

The chief argument against these stones being map-stones is,
that they are inside the tumuli, where they form the sides and roofs
of jiassagcs and cells, in which are found tho calcined remains of
human beings, supposed to have been sovereigns of Meath and
Ulster.

May it not be that a map, showing the territory ruled over by
each of these ancient monarchs, was inscribed upon the inner walls
which consist of large flags) of their tombs ?

mo>'

The drawings (Pigs. 1 and 2) are from stones on tho Loughcrew
Hills, and give a good idea of their general ajtjioarance.

That these incised markings are not mere oninments, as I believe
is generally supposed, is shown by comparing them with the un-
mistakable ornamentation upon some bone implements found in one
of these tombs.

Fig. 3 is from a drawing of E. Connell's, who was present when
the tumuli were opened. It is a fragment of bono, polished, and
inscribed with a compass, or some sucli instrument, and serves to
show tho difference I referred to. E. C. !{., co. Meath.

AMERICAN STAR BICYCtE.
[785]— I presume you will easily recall to mind the lecture you
gave when in theUnitcd States [lly third visit thereto. R. P.] before
a small but delighted audience in Matawan, N.J.,of yonr subsequent

games of chess [King's Knight's gambit — regular form — pretty
]iawn finish. R. I'.], and your early departure the following morning
(Sunday) for Now Brunswick, to reach a town in ilaine for Monday
evening's lecture. Tho memory of every item, of course, lingers
with mo rather than with you. [Nay, but I have the clearest recol-
lection of that pleasant evening. R. P.] I remember my receiving
"Our Place Amm.;; the Infinities," as'a sort of partial kindly return
for a Testament with parallel columns of English and German text,
to which I saw yi.a took a liking. Your paper interests me much,
from whist and chess, to logic, mathematics, and astronomy. The
articles on bicycles and tricyles have also interested me, espe-
cially since I have become an owner of one of the " American Star"
kind.

I had given up the idea, at my time of life, of ever riding a
bicycle. I feared the "headers." But when in Washington, D.C.,
I saw one of the " American Star " pattern, and immediately
ordered one (you will sec by the enclosed sketch its peculiarities).
I received mine in due time, and must say I am delighted with it.
It has the little wheel in front, and one cannot take a " header."
In going do^vn steep hills, I can apply the brake, as hard as I choose,
with perfect safety and no fear of a " header." It is easy to mount
and to dismount, the backward dismount (so called) being especially
easy. It can be propelled with one foot, or both at the same time,
like a treadle, or at different times. In coasting (i.e., running by
gravity down hill), the legs rest at full length on the pedals, and
this is especially pleasing. The wheel is stronger than ordinary
bicycles, as the spokes are put in bracing, not like radii. You
may feel like printing some items from the enclosed. From actual
practice over rough roads, I can fully endorse its different points.
I will say, however, that it is not as graceful in motion as the
ordinary bicycle ; but this I regard as a minor point. I have
known exj^ert riders of the " Columbia " to sell their machines and
purchase the " Star," especially after severe " headers."

I had intended giving a little item about spiders in my school-
room, but the length of this forbids. Chables Jacobus.

LETTERS RECEIVED.

J. Pakry. Letters received too late : have addressed 3,000 and
more, and been heard by all. — Sam. Evans. Lessons not so sound
as could have been wished. — Q. E. D. Has C been round B ? you
say " certainly not " : I should say " certainly " without the not. —
E." P.— C. Carns-Wilson.— A Canny Scot.-^Knowledge.— W. H.
Lloyd.— R. H.—N.— Constant Reader.— T. R.— P. Bancroft.— J.
Smith.— A. H. Atkins.— R. H. Grey.— X. H.— H. Muirhead.— X. H.
or X. R. Pardon me ; have never said the question of prayer (in
the abstract) was a scientific one. — G. M. (Sonthport). Please send
discount dodge. — H. Stock. — W. Miller. — B. F. — Lunabree. Please
apply to Publishers for required number. — J. Mason. Very sorry ;
the point you note involves serious loss to mvself. — G. Hornam. —
H. H. French.— A. B.— E. S.— J. G. Hntton.-^H. E. Curtis.— F.M.
Sutcliffe.— A. B. Briggs— W. H. Wilkinson.— J. A. R.— J. Murray.—
Y. G. G. — Original Subscriber. — H. Percival. — Hally.ards. — A. E. F.
— E. Anderson. — W. G. S. G. — Je veux savoir. — Veritas, — E. W.
Narding.— W. H. S. Monck.— F. F.— E. S. Railing.— S. Biddell.—
F. H. E.

The extraordinary cold of March has attracted general notice
throughout Europe. Even within the Mediterranean basin intense
cold has prevailed, such as is rarely experienced unless among the
highest Alps. In the Atlantic, icebergs have been extremely
numerous, so much so that one Dundee steamer passed through no
less than 250 miles of ocean closely islanded with these dreaded
"bergs"— a veritable archipelago of ice. On one occasion no
fewer than seventy-nine of these a\vful, glittering, ghastly moun-
tains were counted from the bridge of the steamer, that with rare
good fortune safely threaded her intricate passage through these
perilous, " shiny, shifting, fatal cliffs." It is worth noting, by tho
way, that in the vicinity of the Poles there exist enormous masses
of permanent ice. and these have been found in Northern Siberia
at a depth of 382 ft. below the surface of the earth. Such
enormous masses of never-melting ice may really be reckoned
among the solid constituents of the globe ; but a question arises
whether, were it possible for all this ice to melt, the conformation
of the earth at the poles might not be sensibly modified. This by
the way. It is remarkable that the strength and hardness of ice
augment with the intensity of the cold — so much so, indeed, that an
ice cannon made on the ordinary turning lathe was loaded with
J lb. of gunpowder, and made to discharge a ball. The calibre was
that of tho old-fashioned six-pounder, and the thickness of the
cannon did not exceed -1 in. — P. R.

April C, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

213

d^ur iHatt)fmatical Column.

ABSOKPTION OF LIGHT BY AIK.
By Richard A. Proctob.
Problem. — // in 50 miles of air at uni/orm density and tempera-
hire 1999-20(X)(/is of the sun's raijs are intercepted, v:hat is the
absorption in the first yard?

In 60 miles there are 88,000 yards. Let us suppose that p is the
index of absorption for one yard (in which small distance the
absorption ninst be ajipreciably constant) ; by wliicli is siguifiod
that for 100 rays which reach any point in the air column traversed
by the light, 100 p rays pass a yard further. Then, putting as
unity the light which enters the 50 miles colun\n of air, the light
at the end of the first yai"d is p, at the end of the second it is
{>', of the third p'. &<.'., and of the 88000th it is p'*"'". But only
one-2000th of the light remains at the end of the 50 miles. Hence
we have —

p'i>™i = 1/2000
or2000p""*° = l
whence, taking logarithms, we have

log 2000 + S8000 log p = 0,
-log 2000
orIogp= -ggooo^
-3.3010300
""_ 88000

4.6090600
°" 88000
- 88000 + 87996 . 6090600

88000
= 1.9999615 = log

, 99999114

wherefore the absorption is a yard in about 886-lOOOOOOOths of the
light, or roughly, about one ll,300th.

Thus, on the assumption made, we should have in a room eleven
yards long (which is a tolerably long room) an absorption of about
1-lOOOth of the light. Or, as far as absoqjtion is concerned, a light
at one end of snch a room would send its rays to the other end with
a loss of only one in a thousand. Yet (this is for the benefit of the
Oxford Chronicle and Berls and Buclis Gazette only) a person trj-ing
to read a book at night, at one end of a room eleven yards long, by
the light of an ordinary parafiin lamp situated at the other end,
■would find the page illuminated with rather less than P99-1000ths
of the light which would fall on the page if he sat only a yard from
the lamp.

Tliis is a little inconsistent with the great discovery of Dr.
Collins Symons, which astronomers and physicists have agreed in
kaving so severely alone. It agrees, however — strange to say —
with what we find in the solar system, where the planets are so
unkind as to neglect Dr. Symons' discovery, Saturn's disc being

Jositiveh- less lominous (not only as a whole, but intriusicallj-) than
npiter's, and Jupiter's than the Moon's, the Moon's than
Venus's, and Venus's than Mercury's. So contrary is nature in
TCgard to the theories of paradoirfsts.

©ur Cbrss Column.

By Mepdisto.

SOLUTIONS.
Problem No. 80, by A. J. Maas, p. Ul.
QtoKtsq B takes Q, or K to B4

B to B3 Q to B4 Q takes B ch K to Kt5 or (a)

Kt to B2 mate Q to B3 mate, or (n) if 2. K to K4

R to B6 dis ch and mate
if 1. K to Klor K to Q5

R to B4 dis ch K to Q3 or (a) R takes B ch K to B4 or (a)
B to B6 mate 3. Q to Kt4 mate

(a) if 2. K to B4 (a) if 2. K to K5

Q takes B mate 3. R to B3 dis ch and mate.

No. 81, BY G. W. Mitchell, p. 180.

1. B to B7

2. F takes R dis ch and mate.

2. R to Q5 mate

2. Q takes R mate

2. Q toJ35 mate

2. Kt to Q7 mate

2. Q to K7 mate, ic.

If KR takes Q
If QR takes Q
If R takes R
If R takes Kt
If QKt to B3
If KKt to B3

PROBLEM No. 82.

By a. J. Maas.

(Tho Twin of No. SO.)

Slice

Whitb.
White to play and mate in three moves.

PROBLEM No. 83.

By C. H. Bbocklebaxk.

Black.

White to play and mate in tliree moves.

REPRINT PROBLEM No. 84.
Black.

I H P

Wbiib.

White to play and mate in three moves.

(A test of skill in solving.)

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

•«• Please address Chess Editor.
M. T. Ilooton.— In Problem 79 if 1. R to B e..), B to Kt8 ch.
, K takes B followed bv P and R checking, and no mate in 4

214

KNOWLEDGE

[April 6, 1883.

ensues. In the iiuthor'H solution, if B to K4, 2. Q takes B, then
B to Q7, unci tlioro is likewiso no matn.

II. A. D.—ln Problem HO, if 1. Q to Kt4. cli, K to K6. 2. R to
1! 8(), Q to Ku, tliero is no muto on the move.

Alf. Darby, Ci. VV. Thompson. — Problem 81, if 1. B takes Kt,
B takes B with a check, spoiling the combination.

Correct solutions received. — Problem No. 79, IJolta, Henry Plank.
No. 81, J. A. Mayne, Clarence, W., 1!. J. P., East Marden, Schmucko,
U. A. D., John, BoiTOw, R. W. W., Th. Adamson.

Algernon Bray (Now Vork). — Thanks for letter. The method of
pairing players is, as you say, very simple ; but it is very useful,
and diHicnlt to (ind out if you do not know it.

A. J. JIaa.s (Switzerland). — Problems received with thanks.

Clarence. — Best tlianks for problem.

G. L. — Letter received with thanks.

A Gentleman desires to play by correspondence.

The recent annual general meeting of the Royal National Life-
boat Institution exhibits progress as usual, but progress that is far
from adequate to meet the increasing perils of our coasts. During
the past year nine new lifeboats were placed on various points of
our shores, and it is speaking within bounds to aflSrm that ninety
would not be too many even for present but pressing exigencies.
It may not be generally known, perhaps, that the year after nest
will be the first centenary of the lifeboat. The earliest patent
known for a lifeboat was granted in 1785 to Mr. Lukin, but nothing
came of this to much purpose until three years after, when Mr.
Henry Greathead, of South Shields, won a reward offered by a
committee of that town for a practical lifeboat. This fairly opened
the way, and by 1804. thirty-one lifeboats had been built and about
300 lives saved by then- agency. The next special stimulus given to
this form of benevolent invention was imparted by the Dnke of
Northumberland, who offered a hundred guineas for a still more
improved lifeboat, a prize won in 1851 by Mr. James Beeching, of
Yarmouth. The following year Mr. H. Richardson invented his
tubular lifeboat, and cruised in it from London to Liverpool. This
feat was, however, entirely eclipsed by three daring Americans,
Messrs. Mikes, Miller, and "MuUane, who in a life-raft, composed of
cylinders securely fastened together, started from New York on
June 4, 1867, and reached Southampton on July 25 following.

(Bur ^aralrov Cormr.

THE FLAT EARTH THEORY.

MK. HAMPDEN being dissatisfied with our omission of those portions of his
articles " which seemed to us wanting ia explanatoiy or descriptive value,
and to bo merely vague denunciation of the accepted views, wrote to us the foUowins
cheerful letter:— ^

" Dbab Sib,— I Rave you most distinctlv to understand that any exhibition of bad
faith in the treatment of mv articles would compel me to denounce and expose as

severely as I have the conduct of that degraded swindler, :•• [the

name la given of an eminent man of science who, somehow, continues to be held in
great respect and esteem, despite Mr. Hampden's denunciation and exposure! " I
did not ask for the insertion of my notes ; and yon have no on" to blame but vour-
self, when vou find that your contemptible cowardice has entailed upon you a'mer-
ciless retnbution. Tour daring to expunge four-flfths of mv articles, under the
lying pretence that they were denunciatory, ia quite on a par with what my friends
told me I should be sure to meet with at your hands. You have, I am sorrv to say
a moit unenviable rejlulation. Such I would not have for a thousand a ve'ar By
pving those lectures in the St. James's Hall, you know that every shilUng you take
is obtained by false pretences. Every statement you make you know to be a lie •
and, before you have finished them, I will compel you to confess it. No one but a
mean, contemptible coward would dare to tic his opponent's hands, and forbid him
to aay a single word in reference to his adversary's statements. How can you
wonder at the growing contempt your infidel science is universally provoking? It
13 you, and such liars and swindlers as" [the above-mentioned eminent man of
pciencel , •■ that have brought the very name of science into ridicule and derision
t.o and ask that degraded thief " [our carth-flattcnor ia outspoken] " what hi- vil-
lainy has done for him; and before vou are manv months older you shall b

ashamed to show your facer- ■■- = ^ ' ' ' •- ■ ■■

tell you what you" are, I am
so I shall speak of vou.— Yc

is. Remember my'words. If others are afraid to
_ I have proved you to be a liar and a coward, and
S^c., John Hajipdeh."

Here is the omitted passage from the second article. What appears at p. 185
followed immediately aVter this passage, and completed the article ■—

I w-ill now proceed with my objections to the gIol)nIar theory, and unless I am
allowed to do this, It will compel me to adopt a method in the conduct of the
debate winch nosound controversialist would venture to employ. And my point is
gained if I can prove the fallacy of the Newtonian system. The mathematical cos-
mogony ot the modern professor has stood its ground as a part of our educational
systems lor the last century and a half, .simply because its supporters have per-
sistently refused to be called to any account, or to give any explanation of the
grounds on winch their chimerical hypothesis was originaUy framed. Many are so
apt to think It a display of learning to 'know' what they 'do not understaiid and
to accept the most flimay plausibiUties for genuine facts, that to ask theraa reason
fortheirsclcnuncbclief in generally regarded as an offence, and as a slur upon
their unden.landing8. It is this ground upon which I must take my stand • and
until I can bnng my opponents to their sounder senses, and induce them to confess
that much of what they ■know ' is nothing but hearsay, and that the authorityof
othera i» their only creed, I should be but putting colours before a blind man' or

arguments before i

npty chmr. If i

I tell4

las ben to the lop of a

,, , , . ... rightto a.khimhowherc.icli«lit.

It I go to a jiatent agent and require some security for turning mud into marble. I
am eiiieilod to show or explain how the metamorjihosis is produced. So when I
am told that some one has discovered this earth to be a ' globe or oblate spheroid '
I am perfectly justified in aaking where that globe is to be seen, and *<,ir the
inventor came to make the discovery. Surely the man who aaserta positively it i» a
globe, ought to bo able to tell me koir he obtained the information, thai I may
know U too. '

" Now, I say that the moat learned professor in Europe cannot tell me hoa be
mows it. And I am called a simpleton because I do not choose to place implicit
rS%uicB upon what Jones or Smith choose to believe. I have searchad all the l«oV»
on astronomy that were ever written for some authority which would eiplnin the
ground of Newton's conjectures, but in vain. But I have met with scores of authont
who have denounced his whimsical theories in much stronger language than ever I
have ventured to employ. If this ingenious theory has existed in the schoolrooms
of England for 15n years, some of the teachers ought to be able to tell their pupiU
how its truth has been proved, Newton should have referred his disciples to facta,
and not alone to figures. A boy can show me plenty of figures on his copy book or
slate; but I want to see the ca.sh Ithose figures represent. Am I to be called a
dunce because I do not choose to accept his pencillings for pounds ? Then I am
told to look up to the moon to see the shape of the world at the moment of an
eclipse; but I may learn just as much by looking at the head of a red cabbage.

"I confess I feel ashamed to have to s'tand up and declare that all the learned men
of the day are. on this particular subject, all wrong; but their confusion ought not
to dismay me, nor am I responsible for the loss of prestige they have brought upon
themselves. Their name is legion, and I am a solitary ..ne. Surely, if numbcra
can give courage, they ought to be able to crush me hy the very rumour of their
approach! Gohath cursed David for his presumption" in standing on the same
battle-field. But the stripUng triumphed after all : and, not for the first time, did
might succumb to right.

" I am the very last to defend a wrong or to assail a righteous cause. But this
widespread and popular delusion has lasted as it has done for the lack of a little
moral courage to look it fairly in the face. It has existed on sufferance, and
served its turn as an ingenious 'display of mathematical skill, just as bank paper is
more convenient and portable than heavy coin. But if the coin was not forth-
coming when demanded, there would be a storm in the teacup, and many blank
faces seen upon 'Change.

"As I said in the beginning of this article, it is not incumbent upon me to
prove my ease, or to spare my opponents the mortification of being shown that
they have not a leg t. stand on, or a single fact to which they dare appeal. I
have no wish or occasion to resort to ' denunciation.' "

In the meantime we may remark that Mr. Hampden has subsided into silence as
regards his promised explanation of his own theory, and this ia something gained.
Witness the following, which may be regarded as his third and last article . —

" Having been duly warned that I should meet with nothing but bad faith and
imfair treatment in the columns of Knowledge, I much regret that I was induced
to disregard the cautions of those who doubtless had good reasons for tendering me
their advice. When an editor is dishonourable enough to suppress four-fifths of
the articles he has volunteered to insert, in order to make room for a tissue of
senseless trash, which has nothing whatever to do with my subject,* and which is
introduced in direct violation of my original determination, as expressed in my
first article— that I positively refuse'd to be dictated to by those who for 300 years
had proved themselves the credulous dupes of the most 'baseless superstition ever
imposed upon the credulity of mankind— I now do what numerous friends, and also
strangers, advised me to do at the outset— namely, to * pi:t no faith in any pro-
mises made by Mr. Proctor.' His promises on the subject of my articles have
been most dishonourably and unjustifiably departed from. The charge of * denun-
ciation ' I most indignantly deny, and no one but a contemptible coward would
venture to tie the hands of an opponent, or be mean enough to attempt to draw
him into a discussion which he knew well enough no one would pretend to under-
stand. If ihis statement is not inserted, word for word, I shall be compelled to (
inform my correspondents how fully justified they were in the cautions they gavea
IQP. •* John Hampdbn."

Contents op No. 74.

FAGB

Science and Art Gossip 187

Natural Laws: A I'eace-Offering.

By H. A. Proctor 139

Pleasant Hours with the Micro-
scope. By H. J. Slack, F.G.S.,

F.K.M.S ' 190

The Chemistry of Cookery. VI.

By W. Mattieu Williams 191

Energy. By E. C. Eimington 193

How til Use our Eyes. IV. {/«««.)
By John Browniiig. P.R.A.S 193

nam |

The Gr?at Comet of 1882. (niut.)

Bv Professor 0. A. Young 19S I

The Crystal Palace Electric and Gfas I

Exhibition. (Illua.) 19« |

The Face of the Sky 197 |

Important Electric'al Experiment..

Logical Puzzle 191

Our Paradox Column : Flat Earth

t>. Globe

Correspondence ,

Our Chess Column

A^OTJCES.

The Back Numbers of Ekowledgb, with the exeeption of Nob. 1 to IS^ I
31, 32, and 53, are in print, and can be obtained from all booksellers Ana |

direct from the Publishers. Should any diflBculty arise in obtainisiE I
the pappr, an apolir-ation to the PubJighers is respectfully requested.
Just Published, Part XVII. (March, 1883). Price Is.; postage 3d. extra.

TEEMS OF SUBSCEIPTIOK.

The terms of Annual Subscription to the weekly numbers of Kwowxbdgh are I
follows :— ft. d.

To any address in the United Kingdom 10 10

To the Continent, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa k Canada 13 0

To the United States of America J3.25, or IS 0

To the East Indies, China, &c. {vid Brindisi) 16 %

All subscriptions are payable in advance.
P. O. Orders end cheques should be made pavahle to the Publishera, IfBSSU*!
Wtman & SoN8. London, at the High Holborn District Post-office.

Agent for America— C. S. Carter, American Literary Bureau, Tribime Boildin
New York, to whom subscriptions can be forwarded.

OFFICE: 74-76. GREAT QUEEN STREET LONDON W.O.

• This is rather cool when we i-onsidi^r that the senseless trash consisted of a
questions directly suggested by Mr. Hampden's theory.

April 13, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE

215

_V^ an' ILtUiil'^ATED

MAGAZINE of'SCJENCE

PLAINLYlfOKDED -.EXACTLY -DESCRIBED,

LONDON: FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 1883.

Contents op No. 76.

pieB

Boirac« ftnd Art Gossip 215

L^cturM and tho London Papers.

Bv Richard A. Proctor 2;-

Th«'Chemistrv of Cookery. VII.

Bt W. Malticu Wiltiums 218

FUisant Hours with the Micro-
scope. Bt H. J. SUck, F.G.S.,

F.R.M.8.' 219

The New Skirt. By A Lady 220

The Central Telegraph OlEce. By
W. Slingo 220 I

71SB

The Moon in a Three-inch Tele-
scope. (/««».) By F.R.A.S. ... 222
Reviewfl : Popular Astronomy — To

YouuK Men— Salt 225

The Face of the Sky. By F.R.A.S. 226
Correspondence : Mr. Mattieu Wil-
liams on " Slavs and Fat "— New
Skin-Children's Dress— Single

Ereclas.ses 227

Our Whist Column 227

Our Chesa Column 2i8

^rifiur anil art (gossfip.

I LIKE America, and the tlieory of the American
Government is far and away hotter, to my mind, than that
o£ our own. But it must be admitted that in practice
there is nearly as much to sicken the soul in America as
nearer home. How an American not absolutely a stone
must burn with mingled wrath and shame when he thinks
of the way in which bought Congressmen and Senators
insult America under pretence of protecting American
manufacture ! What a noble bird the American Eagle
seems when crafty Customs collectors are feeling its
plumage for smuggled goods ! How long, by the way,
before thieves and rogues turn America into a nation of
smugglers 1

But just now even the long-sutTering American is a little
moved at one of the wrongs which he pays his Members
of Congress and Senators to inflict upon the nation.
American art is now insulted by proll'ered protection. An
idiotic Philadelphian, some boorish booby, by wliom bought
is not clear (for American artists fear no European com-
petition), managed to persuade the Tariff Commissioners
(who must be grossly ignorant) that native artists need
protection, and so caused a duty of 30 per cent, to be
imposed on pictures by foreign artists. I can conceive the
gnashing of teeth with which my artistic friends of the
Century Club received the news tliat they had been thus
insulted. ^Manufacturers seem not to have been greatly
troubled when protective duties taught them that their
country considers they are so utterly inferior to their
European fellows that, to help them along, the whole
nation must suffer los.s. But that the painters and
sculptors of America should be told they are 30 per cent.
worse than those of Europe, is an insult such as only the
American Congress could inflict on American art

Will it be believed that the mischievous humbug
Wiggins, whose only escape from being recognised as an
unmitigated knave lies in the widespread belief that he is
an utter dolt, actually claimed credit on March 12th, at his
home in Ottawa, for having truly foretold the weather of

Marcli 11th. He had threatened the most terrible disasters
from storms by sea and by land, had frightened many
foolish folk nearly to death (one at Buffalo actually died
from terror), had caused serious loss of property, and — his
prediction had turned out to be what weeks before we had
called it in those pages— mere rubbish. March 11th this
year was rather loss disturbed than usual. High tides
occurred as indicated four years before by astronomers,
but these did no more harm than such tides usually do.
Not a ship at sea was to survive the great storm, but the
wreckage for March lltli was below rather than above the
average.

Yet this mischievous idiot calmly welcomed people who
called on the 12th (presumably to chaff him), with the air
of an acknowledged prophet ProViably a little further
south the call would have been made with ideas not
wholly remote from the plumy covering of birds, and a
resinous substance of a dark-brown colour. And tliough
such ways of correcting charlatans are to be reprehended,
few would have felt very much pity for Wiggins, windy
humbug that he is.

After the manner of prophets, however, we point
proudly to our own prediction — though it required no
conjuror to make it — that whatever weather there might
be on March 11th, the prophet would say that was just
what he meant to be expected.

The Simoom and Dust Storms. — In a paper recently
read before the Meteorological Society, Dr. H. Cook,
F.R.G.S., described the dust storms which take place in
Beloochistan, North- West India, and stated that he con-
siders them to be due to an excess of atmospheric electri-
city. With regard to the simoom, which occurs usually
during the hot months of June and July, it is sudden in its
attack, and is sometimes preceded by a cold current of air.
It takes place at night as well as by day, its course being
straight and defined, and it burns up or destroys the
vitality of animals and vegetable existence. It is at-
tended by a well-marked sulphurous odour, and is described
as being like the blast of a furnace ; and the current of air
in which it passes is evidently greatly heated. Dr. Cook
believes it to be a very concentrated form of ozone, gene-
rated in the atmosphere by some intensely-marked electrical
condition.

M. DE Lessees arrived on the 27th ult at Tozeur, on
the proposed Sahara Sea scheme. Soundings 73 metres
deep have shown the exiistence of nothing but sand. The
African inland sea might easily be made, with the aid of
100 excavators, representing the work of 100,000 men.
M. de Lesseps has met with the best reception from the
Arab soldiery and population. On the 3rd inst he
arrived at Biskra, having completed a survey of the
countrj' between Oabes and the Marsh Lakes. He de-
clared that the soil will allow of the excavations necessary
to connect the lakes with the Mediterranean, that the
works will present no extraordinary difficulty, and that
the concessions asked for with regard to the forest and
adjoining lands will make the scheme remunerative and
wholly independent of State aid, subvention, or guarantee.
M. de Lesseps telegraphed a report favourable to the
projected inland sea to the French Government on the 3rd
inst.

The library and dining-room of the House of Commons
is now lighted by the Edison Electric Light Company,
with 265 incandescent lamps ; three more being used in

216

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Apbil 13, 1883.

the engine-rooin. A cable of 150 ft. in length runs from
the engine-room to the lilirary and dining-room, where
branch wires go to the clusters of lamps. Each chandelier
is kept under perfect control by n)eans of an automatic
regulator. The contract for the lighting extends to the
end of the present session of Parliament.

At the forthcoming electrical exhibition in Vienna
there is to be a pavilion specially constructed according to
the wishes of the Emperor of Austria, and designed to
show the effect of the electric light on cloths and broideries.
Diflerent systems will be exhibited. The Academy of
Painting and Sculpture at Berlin has been lighted by 200
Edison lamps, and the dynamo is driven by a Ruston-
Proctor engine of sixteen horse-power. At Buda-Pesth,
the capital of Hungary, the National Theatre is to be
lighted by 1,000 Swan lamps. The theatre of Brunn, in
Moravia, has been lighted for several months by Edison
lamps. The municipality of IMoscow has voted a sum of
80,000 roubles for the illuminations on the occasion of the
Czar's coronation, in May. The Citadel of the Kremlin
will be lighted by forty 400-candle power lamps.

The Edison System in 'PKUis.—L'Eleclricite says : —
" On the 20th March M. Louis llau, manager of the Society
Edison, gave a brilliant reception in his salons. Edison
lamps replaced candles and gas-burners throughout. On
the commencement of the cotillon, towards 2 a.m., each of
the lady dancers was presented with a bouquet, in the
middle of which shone an incandescent lamp. After a
mazy val.se, the bouquets were deposited on a dais, where
they formed a grand constellation of flowers and light.
The lamps were fed by means of batteries devised by M.
Trouve."

Purifying Air for BREATniNC. — An apparatus —
Stanley's patent — is now being brought out for the pur-
poses of cooling, purifying, and disinfecting the air of
saloons, cabins, hospitals, kc, by Mr. W. L. Thompson, of
York-buildings, Adelphi. The system consists in pumping
cold water through pipes which are fi.xed in the ceilings,
running the length and across the saloon or ward in an
hospital. In these pipes are fixed rods, outside which it
is intended that a thin film of water shall trickle down,
■which will be regulated by a cap fitted to the upper end of
the rod. The water, in thus running down the rod will, it
is claimed, absorb all the particles of dust, kc, that
may be floating in the air, also cool and purify the
vitiated atmosphere ; and any of the known purifying
chemical agents can be mixed with the water for the pur-
pose of disinfecting, such as Condy's fluid. The water,
after running down the rods, will bo carried away by an
arrangement of pipes under the flooring. To prevent any
contact w ith the water, a guard of brass wire gauze can be
fixed.

Respiratohs Foil Mines. — Mr. Dickinson, IT.M. Chief
Inspector of Mines, made an important communication to
the memljers of the Manchester Geological Society at their
meeting on Tuesday. His attention, he said, had been re-
quested to the suliject of a respirator and a lamp for pene-
trating noxious gases in mines ; and, after detailing the
various eflbrts which had been made in this direction, he
gave a description of the Fleuss exploring respirator, to
which, he said, the attention of the Secretary of State had
been drawn ; and the Government were anxious that the
inspectors of mines should make it well known, and that
the various colliery districts should participate in its

benefits. It was suggested that stations should be orga-
nised in mining districts, where the apparatus should be
stored in suflicient numbers, and maintained in readiness
for immediate use, and where the instruction of the men
from the surrounding coal-mines in its use should be sys-
tematically carried out, in order that a rescuing party could
thus be speedily on the spot after the occurrence of an
accident. Satisfactory results had been secured with the
apparatus, but with it organisation was required ; oxygen
gas had to be provided, and men instructed in the use of
the apparatus. The diving-dress in connection with the
apparatus was acknowledged, and practised now and then
in pumping pits ; and it was put on when upwards of 200
men were shut up in the Hartley Colliery, and had been
proposed for other occasions without, however, much useful
efiect. The question of safety-lamps was also before the
meeting, and it was urged by Mr. Purdy, of Nottingham,
that, as it was well known many explosions had been caused
by the faulty construction of lamps, every lamp-maker
ought to be made reponsible for each lamp he sent out

The Rational Dress Association will hold their Exhi-
bition of Rational Dress in the New Princes' Hall, Picca-
dilly, W. (shortly to be opened by T.R.H. the Prince and
Princess of Wales, on or about May 1.5. Prizes from £5
to £50, with Silver and Bronze Medals, will be given to
successful competitors who invent garments for either sex
which comply with the following conditions, viz. : — 1.
Freedom of movement ; 2. Absence of pressure over any
part of the body ; 3. Not more weight than is necessary
for warmth, and both weight and warmth evenly dis-
tributed ; 4. Grace and beauty combined with comfort and
convenience ; 5. Not departing too conspicuously from the
ordinary dress of the time.

The loss by worn silver, withdrawn from circulation
because of deficiency in weight caused by wear, last year
amounted to not less than £35,000.

There are 25-t miles of tramways built abroad with
English capital, for which £3,584,700 has been required.

The constructed and authorised tramway mileage of the
United Kingdom is nearly 400 miles, the authorised
capital being about £11,000,000.

M. SiLVESTRi has recorded — " Bull, de la Soc. Chim.,"
Dec. 20, 1882 — that some years ago he found in a basaltic
rock, cavities filled with a liquid which partly solidified on
cooling. This liquid consisted of a mixture of hydro-
carbons containing 42 8 per cent, of parafline. Its density
was 0-9475 at 20°. On carefully studying this rock he
came across other cavities, of about 1 centimetre in
diameter, filled with a solid crystallised parafline. This
substance is yellowish-white, resembling wax. It melts at
56^, and boils at 300°. It is insoluble in water, almost
insoluble in cold alcohol, very soluble in ether. It is
almost identical with the solid parafline contained in the
liquid mentioned above. Its composition is represented by
the following mean numbers : — Carbon, 84003 ; hydrogen,
15 84G; total, 09-840. The " Journal" of the Society of
Chemical Industry remarks : — " With reference to Pro-
fessor Silvestri's interesting observation of the occurrence
of a parafline in the lava from Etna, the fact may be re-
called that twenty years ago Professor Roscoe extracted
a waxy siibstance containing parafline from the Alais
meteorite."

April 13, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

217

LECTURES AKD THE LONDON

PAPERS.

By Ricuabd A. Proctor.

IT is singular bow differently the London papers and
those of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati,
Chicago, St. Louis, St Francisco, Melbourne, Sydney,
Adelaide, llobart Town, Dunedin, Christchurch, Auck-
land, Wellington, and indeed every considerable place in
America and Australia, treat lectures on scientific,
artistic, or literary subjects. In America a course of
lectures such as I have now nearly completed at St. James's
Hall is a familiar matter enough. There would be no
reason, on the score of mere novelty, why such a series of
lectures should receive special attention. Yet, whether
i^iven by an American or by an Englishman, a series of
lectures of the kind would be heralded by articles and
tiotiios in everj- paper, small and great ; the opening
lecture would be attended by representatives of the press
prepared to report it in extenso for one paper, at
nearly full length for another, here in full abstract,
there in condensed abstract, but always well. If the first
lecture were satisfactory, and were also (which is else)
successful, the attentions of the press would be increased ;
and full success would be greatly helped Viy their support
In a few days not an intelligent person in the city, in the
state, nay, in the length and breadth of the land, would
fail to know whether the lectures were good, bad, or in-
different, well worth attending, or very much the reverse.
In London it is different. Who ever saw lectures on
science, art, or literature fully reported in any London
paper 1 To a humourist like Artemus Ward or Mark
Twain, a third of a column may, as a great concession, be
accorded, once now and again. But this is very rarely done.
Certainly I am freed in my own case from any risk of
attributing the success of my lectures at St James's Plall
to press influence. I remember when I gave my first
course of lectures at Association Hall, New York, in 1873,
I was disposed to consider that with such support as the
press gave me, the lectures could not possibly have failed.
Kie Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association
filled a quarto scrap-book more than an inch thick with
press e.xtracts relating to that course of lectures alone. I
wondered whether, if I ever gave another similar course, I
should have anything like similar success ; and it was with
some misgiving that I consented to give six lectures at
Steinway Hall in 187.5. But they were even better
attended, and as fully reported and noticed. The
experience was repeated at the Chickering Hall in
1879. Wherefore, I hold and maintain that the Ame-
rican people do not, as many assert, go once to hear
and see a man out of curiosity, and then leave him for the
next novelty, but give staunch and steady support, — on one
sole condition, that a man shall give them his best. The
one thing American audiences will not stand, is the
attempt to palm off on them anything short of the very best
a man can do. A tirst-rate actor or lecturer giving them
second-rate work, will have "a worse time" than a fourth-
late one by reputation, who, by persevering exertion shall
succeed in giving third-rate work. They detect any falling
off through carelessness or laziness intuitively, and never
mistake for it deficiencies arising from real want of power
or capacity. 1 know this well. For, ten years ago there
were certainly many marked faults in my lecturing, which
I was then striving — but not as yet successfully — to correct.
These must have been manifest to many ; but because I
was striving to correct them, these faults were forgiven,
i and I was encouraged to persevere.

In London the press gives practically no support at all
to lectures on science, art, or literature. Such lectures
are so seldom given that one would suppose they would
have a certain claim from their novelty to notice from the
leading papers. But they never are noticed ; and, as a
consequence, they very seldom are successful. I was
assured, when I mentioned ray purpose in reference to the
series now drawing to a close, that such lectures never
could succeed in London, for the press would never notice
them. One half of this prophecy has certainly failed ;
but the other has been made good, as I knew it would be,
having seen how all who have over made a similar experi-
ment have been " welcomed " in the metropolis of the
world.

But is it altogether fitting that this should be so 1 Is it
likely that the particular form of culture which lectures
on science, art, and literature are intended to advance, can
be advanced nearly as rapidly in this country as in America
and in Australasia, so long as this Philistinism characterises
our city press 1 (In the provinces the press is altogether
more advanced.) With anything like proper support, the
course of lectures now drawing to a close might have led
the way to other experiments in the same direction. The
London public might have heard Professors Tync'all and
Huxley on their subjects. Doctors Carpenter and Richard-
son on theirs, besides a number of others well able to in-
struct and interest them outside the rooms of Philosophic
and Literary Institutions. But under such a system of
prets repression as exists who is likely to try the experi-
ment, unless (as I chanced to V)c) he is prepared to lose
£300 or £-100 over the venture 1 It is true he can
advertise freely ; and as it would be mere waste to
send course tickets to the press, he may gain some-
thing there which in America (where it is not
unusual for half-a-dozen tickets to be given to the
representatives of a single paper) he would lose. He
may also bill the town if he pleases ; and by choosing
such a hall as St. James's, he may make sure of
reaching with posters and so forth the best of the popu-
lation. But the risk of loss is great all the same ; and
successful as I have been — by good fortune— in my own
venture, I would not care to repeat it in London, nor
would I advise others to do so, while our city press Miuits
its reports and notices to theatrical and musical entt-rtain-
ments.

It may seem singular that in the midst of a great success
— a success which every one seems to consider marvellous
(which it may be for London, though in every great city in
America or Australasia where I have lectured, a greater
success has been much more easily and much more safely
achieved) — I should write in a tone not altogether sanguine.
But I know from experience how much in these cases depends
on press support, in the long run. I have succeeded by good'
fortune in this particular case without any press support
worth noticing. But I would not care to try the experi-
ment again in London, and still less to try what I had pro-
posed, and before long hoped to do — viz., to take the risk
of inviting other lecturers to address the London public in
the same hall and under similar conditions. With a decent
amount of press support, the experiment would be safe
enough ; as matters actually stand, no one should attempt
it who is not ready to risk a few hundreds for the spread
of scientific knowledge.

But press support is the only thing that London needs
in the matter. So far as the material for audiences is con-
cerned, it is plentiful, and of excellent quality. With
the exception of an occasional tendency to talk (always
noticed where lectures are a new experience) London
audiences are as good as any I have ever addressed.

lis

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[April 13, 1883.

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.

VII.
By W. Mattieu Williams.

A SHEEP or an ox, a fowl or a rabbit, is made up, like
ourselves, of organic structures and blood, the organs
continually wasting as they work, and being renewed by
tlie blood ; or, otherwi.se described, the component mole-
cules of those organs are continually dying of old age as
their work is done, and replaced by new-born successors
generated by the blood.

These molecules are, for the most part, cellular, each cell
living a little life of its own, generated with a definite
individuality, doing its own life-work, then shrivelling
in decay, dying in the midst of vital surround-
ings, suffering cremation, and thereby contributing
to the animal heat necessary for the life of its
successors, and even giving up a portion of its sub-
stance to supply them with absorption-food. The cell
walls are mainly composed of gelatine, or the substance
which produces gelatine, as already explained, while the
contents of the cell are albuminous matter or fat, or the
special constituents of the particular organ it composes. A
description of all these constituents would carry me too far
into details. I must, therefore, only refer to those which
constitute the bulk of animal food, and which are altered in
the process of cooking.

In the lean of meat, i.e., the muscles of the animal, we
have the albuminous juices already described, the gelatinous
membranes, sheaths, and walls of the muscular fibre, and
the fibre itself. This is composed of muscular Jibrin, or
sijntonin, as Lehmann has named it. Living blood consists
of a complex liquid, in which are suspended a multitude of
minute cells, some red, others colourless. When the blood is
removed and dies, it clots or partially solidifies, and is found to
contain a network of extremely fine fibre, to which the name
of fibrin is applied. A similar change takes place in the
substance of the muscle after death. It stiffens, and this
stiflening, or rigor nwrtis, is effected by the formation of a
clot analogous to the coagulation of the blood, and the sub-
stance of this clot (myosin) is so nearly like the fibrin of
the blood and the material of the muscular fibre (syntonin)
that for our purpose they may be all described as varieties
of fibrin.

The properties of fibrin, so far as cookery is concerned,
place it between albumen and gelatine ; it is coagulable
like albumen, and soluble like gelatine, but in a minor
degree. Like gelatine, it is tasteless and non-nutritious
alone. This has been proved by feeding animals on lean
meat, which has been cut up and subjected to the action of
cold water, which dissolves out the albumen and other
juices of the flesh, and leaves only the muscular fibre and
its envelopes. The same is the case with the spontaneously
coagulated fibrin of the blood ; it is, when washed, a
yellowish opaque fibrous mass, without smell or taste,
insoluble in cold water, alcohol, or ether, but imperfectly
soluble if digested for a considerable time in hot water.

The following is the chemical composition of these three
constituents of lean meat, according to Muller : —

Alt.um.™. Gelatine. Fibrin.

Carbon 53 5 5040 527

Hydrogen 70 664 69

Nitrogen 155 18-34 154

Oxygen 220 24 02 235

Sulphur 1-6 ... 1-2

Phosphorus ... 0-4 ... O'S

1000 10000 1000

There are two other constituents of lean meat which are

very different from either of these — viz., Kreatine and
Kreadnine, otherwise spelled creatine and creatinine.
These exist in the juice of the flesh, and are freely soluble
in cold or hot water, from which solution they may be crys-
tallised by evaporating the solvent, just as we may
crystallise common salt, alum, ikc. They thus have a
resemblance to mineral substances, and still more so to
some of the active constituents of j)lants, such as the alka-
loids, </(«i/i«, and crifffdne, upon which depend the stimulating
or "refreshing" properties of U'a and coffee.

Their chemical composition and general relations have
suggested the theory that they are the dead matter of
muscle, the first and second products of the combustion
which accompanies muscular work, urea being the final
product. According to this, their relation to the muscle is
exactly the opposite of that of the albuminous juice, this
being probably the material from which the muscle is built
up or renewed. The following is their composition, ac-
cording to Liebig's analyses : —

Kreatine. Kreatinine.

Carbon 3664 4248

Hydrogen 6-87 619

Nitrogen 3206 3717

Oxygen 24-4.1 1416

100-00 IWOO

The juices of lean flesh also contain a little lactic acid — ■
the acid of milk — but this does not appear to be an abso-
lutely essential constituent. Besides these there are mineral
salts of considerable nutritive importance, though small in
quantity. These, with the kreatine and kreatinine, are the
chief constituents of beef-tea properly so called, and will
be further treated -when I come to that preparation. At
present it is sufficient to keep in view the fact that these
juices are essential to complete the nutritive value of
animal food.

I may now venture -to state my own view of a somewhat
obscure subject — viz., the difference between the roasting
or grilling and the stewing of meat. It appears to me
that, with the exception of the superficial "browning," it con-
sists simply in the difference between the cooking media; that
a grilled steak or chop, or a roasted joint is meat that has
been stewed in its own juices instead of stewed in water ;
that in both cases the changes taking place in the solid
parts of the meat are the same in kind, provided always
that the roasting or grilling is properly performed. The
albumen is coagulated in all cases, and the gelatinous and
fibrous tissues are softened by being heated in a liquid
solvent. I shall presently apply this definition in dis-
tinguishing between good and bad cookery.

In the roasted or grilled meat the juices are retained in
the meat (with the exception of that which escapes as
gravy on the dish), while in stewing the juices go more or
less completely into the water, and the loosening of the
fibres and solution of the gelatine and fibrin may be carried
further, inasmuch as a larger quantity of solvent is used.

Roasting and grilling may be regarded as our national
methods of flesh cookery, and ste\\-ing in water that of our
continental neighbours. The difference between the flavour
of English roast beef and French bouilli or Italian mama
is due to the retention or the removal of the saline and
highly-flavoured soluble materials. (Concentrated kreatine
and kreatinine are pungently sapid.) The Frenchman takes
them out of his bouilli, or boiled meat, and transfers them
to his bouillon, or soup, which with him is an essential
element of a meal If he ate his meat without soup he
would be like the dogs fed on gelatine by the bone soup
commissioners. To the Englishman, with his roast or
grilled meat, soup is merely a luxury, not a necessary
element of complete dietary.

April 13, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

219

What we call boiled meat, as a boiled leg of mutton or
round of beef, is an intermediate preparation. Tlie heat
is here communicated by wattr, and the juices partially
retained.

Note.— A correspondoiit tells me that )ic has tried the metliixl of
cookiog egKS whicli 1 recoiiimciuk'J, and he states tliat liis eirfj"
" were not cooke<l at all." t'rom what I can Iciirn by his letter, ho
omitted to attend to the quantity of water I named, viz., about a
pint.

As this is of essential importance, I should perhaps have stateil
it with some emphasis. More than a pint should be used nithrr
than less, as upon the quantity of water depends the retention of
the heat. If the quantity of water is smaller, it should be kept
boiling about half-a-minute before setting aside.

PLEASANT HODRS WITH
MICROSCOPE.

THE

By Henry J. Slack, F.G.S., F.RM.S.

EVERYONE who has a greenhouse, and many who have
only a few flowers in a window, are sure at this time
of the year to be supplied with objects of great interest to
the naturalist, though a sad plague to the gardener. Plant-
lice, thrips, and so called red spiders are sure to swarm as
the warm weather comes, iinless active warfare has been,
and continues to be, waged against them. It is with the
plant-lice or aphides that we are now concerned. A vast
number of plants — from humble weeds to great forest
trees — are infested with different kinds of sucking insects
belonging to this group, and near them are the tribes of
mealy-bugs, scale -bugs, mussel -bugs, Ac, that injure
orchards and wall-trained fruit-trees.

A few days since, a large trumpet - lily (liicliardia
..Elhiopica) showed a few aphides in little groups on its
stalks and on some leaves. Day by day the groups in-
creased at a rapid rate, and large colonies were soon formed.
The process was allowed to go on for a little while for the
sake of watching it. The first things noticeable on ex-
amining a group were that they differed greatly in size, and
that the biggest were marked with black on their backs,
the rest of their bodies being green. The smaller ones
were of paler, yellowish green.

It is always best to begin with examining oVjjects whole,
and studying what is obvious before proceeding to details.
Such small soft insects as plant-lice should be lifted care-
fully with a needle stuck in a wooden handle, or with a
long, stout bristle from a broom. Those intended for im-
mediate examination may be collected on a plate of glass,
or on a card, and others, if the supply is not close at hand,
should be carefully placed in a little bottle,'such as Homoeo-
pathic chemists use, or in a goose-quill stopped with a little
plug of cotton wool.

A small group of big and little ones may Ije seen alto-
gether with a power of from 30 to 50. Then two of the
largest should be selected, and placed on a glass slide that
has been touched with a very little gum-water. One
should be laid on her back, and the other on the under
side. The specimens caught on the trumpet-lily correspond
in size and markings with Siphonophora circumjlexa
of Buckton's great work on British Aphides. They
are wingless, viviparous females, and, as we shall
see, quite ready to produce a numerous family. Mr.
Buckton gives the size of full-grown ones as 0070 x 0030
inches. Their shape in an oblong oval, gradually swelling
out in a graceful curve from the head to the lower third
of the abdomen, and then getting narrower and ending

bluntly. The back of the adult is ornamented with a long
horse-shoe row of irregular black spots, the rounded curve
being near the end of the abdomen, and the two open parts
beginning just below the head. The contrast of black and
green has a very pretty effect, which the smaller and
younger specimens do not show. It is a coming-of-age de-
coration. Six legs are noticeable, ending in small, hooked feet.
The most striking thing in the one lying on its back is the
proboscis or long snout, which folds down over the thorax,
and reaches to near the third pair of legs in the adult, and
lower still in the undevelopeil young. This kind of mouth
belongs to some other groups besides the Aphides, and
differs widely from the biting mouths of beetles, the more-
complex sucking ones of butterflies and moths, and from-
the licking ones of bees. It consists of a sort of tube in
three joints, the longest near the head, and two smaller ones
at the tip. A grooved line is seen with a low power, and.
most likely in one specimen or another three very slender,
flexible, and sharp-pointed lancets will either be projected
from the tip or elevated upwards out of the groove. The
stout rostum or proboscis is regarded as an extension of
the labruin, or under-lip, of ordinary insects, and the three
flne piercing tools as representing the mandibles and
maxillae of a typical insect. Mr. Buckton says the second
joint of the proboscis appears to be perforated, not
channelled, like the others, but this is difficult to make out
From the small size of the whole apparatus, and the
extreme fineness of the setie, or piercing bristles, it is not
at all easy to take them out with a needle, but they often
come out when the creature is immersed in a fluid. Before
making any dissections, the easily-visible organs should
be well studied in the living animal. The plan mentioned,
of keeping a couple quiet with a little gum, does for a
beginning, but a better one will be described in the
next paper. Besides the proboscis, the eyes of the creature
will appear striking. They are of a flne red tint. Each
large compound eye has round lenses and little knob of
eyes, also compound, stuck on to it at one corner. The
lenses of these supplementary eyes are rather larger than
the others, and no one knows what use they are. The head is
short, and the first segment of the thorax looks at first sight
scarcely separated from it. The antenna; are very long. They
spring fromastout projection, and are six jointed (seven is the
full number). The first two joints short, followed by longer
ones. The last one is long, looking, when highly magnified,
like four or five dozen miniature garden-pots, one inside
the other, the end ones being a little longer, and the whole
finishing with a fine bristle. Besides tapering, the last
joint makes a sudden diminution of diameter at about
one third from its commencement. The segments become
abruptly smaller, the last of the larger ones projecting on
one side, the first of the smaller ones being out of centre
and fixed to the other side. This gives a notched appear-
ance. Looking to the tail-end of the creature, two remark-
able organs stick out from the thickest part of the abdomen.
They are shaped like the funnels of a steamboat, cylindrical
tubes turning over at the top, and contain some oUy-look-
ing globules. They are the cornicles, sipuncles, or nec-
taries, and secrete a sweet fluid. The aphides which certain
ants keep as we do cows, give out this fluid when their
proprietors stroke them in a sort of milking process. The
tail of the species before us is seen, when protruded, to be
like a short stout club covered with tubercles.

The inside of the aphid is crowded with oily globules,
and most likely one, or perhaps several, unborn infants can
be discerned. Their red eye spots show their whereabouts,
and if a few of the adults are kept in a warm room in a
glass cell, the birth process is sure to be seen by fretjuent
watching. The little things make their entrance into life

220

• KNOWLEDGE »

[April 13, 1^>

tail foromost, with their limbs closely pressed to their
IxkHi's, and are, at first, cylindrical in shape.

By ciMiipnting with shellac glue a glass ring to an ordi-
n*ry slidi', a convenient cell is made to hold the creatures,
and a glass cover will adhere if the edge of the ring is
tonc'Iied with a little wax — or, what is Ijetter, a mixture
of tallow and wax.

Ci'lls are also conveniently made by cutting a small hole
in a tliiii disc of cork and gumming on to a slide. A phial
cork about five-eigliths of an inch in diameter cut across,
so as to make a disc one-sixteenth of an inch thick, and with
an oblong hole in the middle, makes an excellent cell ; and,
as gum is not dissolved by paraffin oil, it is just the thing for
au experiment wliich will be described in the next article.
. , Most of the description now given is applicable to all
species of plant-louse, but some of the details differ in each
one.

THE NEW SKIRT.

By a Lady.

I HATE received, through the Editor, many letters
asking about the new skirt : too many for me to
answer directly. I now answer them, so .far as I can.
I would have done so sooner, but I have not the pen of a
ready writer.

Most of the letters ask where to obtain the new skirt,
and others ask how it is to be made. I do not know
where it can be obtained. But, in reality, there is very
little difficulty about making it, or getting it made. The
shape is very similar to that of gentlemen's trousers, only
rather fuller. It should reach to the ankle. I put pleating on
mine, about eleven inches deep, fulness about two breadths
of satin. The skirt thus made not only does not interfere
with walking, but is much easier to walk in than any
single skirt imaginable. There is nothing to show that
the skirt is divided, unless, perhaps, in getting into a
carriage, when a, bystander may recognise that the new
skirt is worn, — from the simple circximstance that the
ankles are not seen, as when a single skirt is worn.

Many have asked me how the dress can possibly be kept
from wrinkling after stays have been left off. I have three
•whalfbones put in each dress, in front These do not sup-
port me in the least, or, in other words, have none of the mis-
chievous effect of stays; they simply keep the dress smooth.

Patterns can, I believe, be obtained from the Rational
Dress Society ; but ladies can easily make their own, or
get them made by their dressmaker. The Rational Dress
Exhibition, to be held about the 1.5th of May, in Princes'
Hall, Piccadilly, will doubtless afford a number of useful
suggestions.

I take this opportunity of correcting a figure in my
former remarks — instead of 'M inches round the chest,
35 inches should have been named. I suppose my " 5 "
was mistaken for a " 9."

[Tl\fre has been a complete revolution of ideas among my
" womankind " (as Mr. Monkbarns used to call the ladies
of his household) since the discussion on waist-compression
went on. Without a word of suggestion on my part (in
fact, I am not in the habit of giving advice on such matters
unasked) one after anotb.fr has first left off" stays, then
presently tried the divided skirt, which seems essential to
comfort, because without it the dress drags and wrinkles ;
and now, after three months, they one and all agree that
they " would not go back to stays and petticoats, /or r??!?/-
thi„(j" For tricycling the dress is jierfcct, for lawn-tennis
delightful, for singing splendid, and for dancing simply
exquisite. I venture to suggest that the substitution of a

softly-clad, lissome, and yielding waistfor that hard enclosure
of steel and whalebone which the arms of our youth have
heretofore encircled in the mazy dance, will make mazurka,
waltz, and polka a littli' too pleasant to be altogetlier
approved of by the strait lucpri ; bc't then even Jlrs. Clrundy
will cease to be strait-laced if rational dress becomes the
fashion.— R P.]

THE

CENTRAL TELEGRAPH

By W. Slin-go.

OFFICE.

LONDON, the centre of the commercial world, the
heart of one of Europe's great nations, has within it
many edifices, monumental or useful, which awaken
feelings of pride within the breasts of its citizens, and call
for the greatest respect from its visitors. Its position and
the millions of its residents call into existence several in-
dustries peculiar to itself, and foster the development of
other callings in a way that no one would have foreseen or
even deemed possible. It is often said, and doubtless very
truly, that the genuine Londoner knows less of his city's
features than a sojourner could learn in the space of a few
days. How many are there who, when walking along
St. Martin's-le-Grand, give a thought to what is .going on
almost over their heads, or indeed have the smallest con-
ception of the work that is being performed 1 As to the
visitor who has wandered so far from the general track as
to venture within the room which embraces the whole of
the uppermost story of the huge building commonly known
as the new General Post^Oflice, and which room is called
the Central Telegraph Office ; what is the effect upon him ?
Is it comparable to that produced by any other sight ^ The
Royal Arsenal, the Mint, and such-like places, are all
objects of great interest, but the result of the labour
is visible, it is tangible — there is nothing suppositi-
tious about it. Even the sorting-room of the Post-
Office, interesting and thrilling as it is at mail-time, has
still an air of mechanical reality about it. Huge piles of
letters and packets are sorted, bagged, and sealed, and then
taken to the mail-cart for conveyance to the railway ter-
minus, whence everyone knows they are carried bodily to
their \-arious destinations. There is little in all this com-
pared to what one sees in the instrument-room " over the
way." There one perceives hundreds of clerks seated at
their instruments, all busy — doing what 1 A piece of paper
— a telegraph message — is laid before one of them. You
see him rapidly shake his hand over a " key " for a few
seconds, then a few clicks are heard, and the piece of paper
is hung on a spike, to be eventually taken away, and, after
a time, converted into pulp. If you ask him what he has
done, he will tell you that he has despatched the message,
letter for letter, to Liverpool, Glasgow, Dulilin, or wherever
may be its destination, that he may not know the meaning
of a single word contained in it, and that it is in all proba-
bility, by the time you have done speaking, in the mes-
senger's pouch, and on the point of delivery. On turning
to the next instrjument, you hear a series of rapid clicks,
or you see a string of dots and short strokes im-
printed on ,a narrow strip of paper as it issues from
the instrument, and the clerk is translating these
"signals" or " marks " into common everyday language,
at the same time committing the word.s to paper to be
subsequently delivered as a telegraphic despatch. Here,
then, is something which appeals almost exclusively to
one's conception of the marvellous, the unseen, the imma-
terial. It may be, however, that we should be disposed to
think less of it were it not that the operations above
described are going on more or less simultaneously at each ,

April 13, 1883.]

♦ KNOWL.EDGE ♦

221

of tlie G36 sets of apparatus distributed over the room,
occupying desks extending, altogether, to 3,0G0 ft, and
that during the course of a year (18SI-2) as many as
14,293,383 telegrams passed through the office. Doubtless
the old lady who, anxious that her son in a distant part of
the country should be well shod, persisted in her applica-
tion to have a jiair of new boots sent to him by telegraph,
and who was quite satisfied on receiving the next day a pair
of old ones in return, wondered how such prodigies could
be performed on a wire less than a quarter of an inch thick.
Those who are acquainted with " Giles's Trip to London "
have probably smiled when reading of lus surprise on finding
that the white i)aper on which he had had a message written
had been dyed pink during the process of transmission. But
Giles was not far behind a particular gentleman who a few
•weeks since expressed at the end of his telegram a hope
that the addressee would " please excuse bad writing."

It is an open question which is the more deeply
impressed — an electrician, or a man who professes total
ignorance of the subject.

On entering the office the visitor is introduced to the
" News " division, where there are thirty-one sets of
Wheatstone automatic apparatus, some of them working
all day, and the others after 6 p.m., to, on the aggregate,
thirty-seven stations. It is here that a parliamentary
speech, as supplied by the various agencies to provincial
newspapers, may be despatched and delivered at the
various destinations within a few minutes of the orator's
resuming his seat. The result of such an event as the
University Boat-Race is made known all over the Kingdom
in less than three minutes after the judge has declared his
verdict. During the year 18'*l-"2, press messages amount-
ing in all to t<8,7i5-l,80.5 words, or sufficient to fill the whole
of the DaiJij Telfijraph for two and three-quarter years,
were despatched in this division. This work is growing
.very rapidly, and it is nothing unusual on a night when
there is an important Parliamentary debate to be re-
ported for .")00,000 words to be despatched, sufficient to
fill 250 newspaper columns. To many, however, even
greater interest centres in the "Test-Box," which is, in
reality, a large lioard, or series of boards, fixed verti-
cally, and studded with 7,800 double binding-screws or
terminal.s, from which wires are led, on the one hand to the
battery-room* and the street-work, and on the other hand
to the instruments. It is an interesting fact that the
wires under the floor, connecting the instruments with the
test-box, would, if stretched out in one line, reach from
Xx>ndon to AV)erdeen. This wire, at about £13 per mile,
represents in itself a small fortune.

Like the office itself, the test-box is claimed to be by far
the largest in the world, and by its means the officers in
charge are able to prove the condition of the 1,000
wires radiating from it in all directions, and to put various
stations in communication with each other in such a way
as would be absolutely impossible without it. It is, in fact,
the key of the British telegraph system.

Standing with his back to the test-box, the visitor is
face to face with the main portion of the room, a sea
of heads before liim, and a constant buzz pervading the
atmosphere and ringing in his ears, with such bewildering
intensity as to frequently render him oblivious to any
distinct sound or conversation. He may from this stand-
point behold at one time as many as 600 clerks seated at
the various instruments, the greatest number on duty at
one time being about 1,000, out of a total staff of 1,700.

_• The battery-room is in the basement b( the building, and con-
tuns somethin!^ like 20,003 cells, ranged in order on about three
miles of shelving.

Between 2 and 7 a.m., there are, generally speaking, only
70 on duty. Amongst so large a staff, it is not to be
wondered at that there are occasionally one or two prone
to err, although, taken as a body, the proportion of blun-
derers is really infinitesimal. A remarkable error, due in
part to indistinct writing, came under notice some little
time ago. A newspaper correspondent wished to convey to
his chief the intelligence that in a certain horse-race "the
favourite made all the running, and won by a neck." Con-
ceive the editor's amazement on reading that " the favourite
made all the moniiiir/, and won by a ireek." Sometimes
errors are caused by indifierent manipulation or negligent
transcription. As an instance of this it is recorded that
on a particular occasion a gentleman who was away from
home was informed that he had that day been made the
happy father of a "deal box." Of course, "dear boy"
was intended. It is however, somewhat surprising that
more errors arc not made than is really the case, and the
most uninitiated will admit this when he learns that to
telegraph thirty words in a minute (an ordinary fair-
working spetd) the clerk has to press down the key of his
instrument no less than 450 times, the duration of each
signal, and the interval of time separating the signals,
having always to be carefully and variously measured.
Morse, when he first invented the code system, did not
conceive it possible for the human hand to be capable of
sufficient mechanical accuracy, and was greatly astonished
to find his automatic apparatus easily and speedily outdone.
Terrestrial influences and faulty adjustment are occa-
sionally responsible for errors causing at one time consider-
able amusement, and at others an equal amount of difficulty
and annoyance. " G" and " p" are letters whose "codes "
are very similar, a dot placed in front of the former
( — — ■) converting it into the latter (■ — • — ■). A
nobleman in town once telegraphed to his servant to meet
him at the railway station with a "gig" Imagine his
surprise on finding the man waiting his arrival and holding
by a rope a fine young " pif/." Fine, however, as he was
in his way, it would hardly have been becoming for my lord
to approach his manorial demesne straddling the youthful
porker.

One of the most attractive features of the office is the
" pneumatic " system, by which messages are placed in
carriers, and forced through leaden tubes, pressure being ex-
erted on outgoing carriers, and a vacuum created in front
of incoming carriers. There are about fifty tubes in all,
including fourteen which connect various parts of the office
one with the other, obviating thereby the inconvenience
that would result from constant streams of messengers
running about the office in all directions. The speed at
which the carriers travel varies slightly with the length of
the tube, averaging about a mile in two minutes. The
system is being rapidly developed for local traffic, and
works very satisfactorily, but is not, however, economically
practical for a greater distance than about two miles.
The longest tube is to the House of Commons, a distance
of about three miles, which is accomplished in two stages.

It is officially stated that the Department will soon insti-
tute a sixpenny tariff" ; but it is only natural that those re-
sponsible for the working of the ser-s-ice should evince no
vei-y strong desire to leap in the dark. A public company,
responsible only to its shareholders, may reduce its tarifi
for an e.xpeinment, and subsetjuently restore it to its pre-
vious minimum (a proceeding frequently resorted to by the
Transatlantic Cable Companies to stifle a new competitor);
but a Government undertaking cannot he can-ied on in
such a manner — the invariable policy being that a tariff
once estaVilished is never to be increased. There is, never-
theless, very good cause for the agitation in favour of a

KNOWLEDGE •

[April 13, 1883

reduction; and it is remarkable tliat, altliough the Post-
iiiastcT-General, and other members who liave in previous
years held his appointment, voted against Dr. Cameron's
"motion, they all spoke in terms which must have been
hij;hly gratifying to tliose anxious for the reduction. It
is possible for tins wires to carry much more traflSc than is
at present demanded of them. Of the G.")3* circuits, only
190 are duplex, 54 Wheatstone automatic, and 12 quadru-
plex. The remainder comprise 148 single needle, 1
Hrll, 4 Wheatstone A. B. C, and 244 single-working Morse
printer and sounder circuits. The latter group are
all capable of being converted into duplex or Wheatstone
circuits, and not a few into quadruplex circuits. The
great difficulty, therefore, so far as the central office, and
offices in connection with it are concerned, is not the want
of wires, but of accommodation for apparatus, demanding
larger space than is at present available, and, having secured
that, tli<; creation of an army of trained telegraph clerks to
work the circuits. The latter requisite is no small item ;
and those who once boasted they could take a boy from
the plough-tail and transform him into a telegraphist
within three months, would have cause to be grateful if
they could accomplish such a transformation upon youths
of average intelligence in four times that period.

It is noteworthy that several experiments have been
made to test the adaptability of the electric light The
office is at present illuminated by gas consumed at 476
burners, the heat and the deleterious products resulting
from so large a consumption being, as may be imagined,
very troublesome. It is gratifying, therefore, to learn that
the old illuniinant is likely to be replaced by Edison in-
candescent electric lamps, 1,500 of which, as we noticed
recently, are (it is said) to be fixed in the various parts of
the building.

THE MOON IN A THREE-INCH
TELESCOPE.

By a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

■\T7E have now taken the student through the whole
VV twenty -four hours of right ascension of our
visible stellar vault, and have incidentally given sketches
and descriptions of such planets as happened to be situated
in those parts of the sky which we were engaged in
describing at the time. So far, however, we have said
nothing of the moon, and we therefore propose to treat of
her in somewhat more detail, as, probably, one of the first
objects to which the incipient possessor of a telescope will
be likely to direct his instrument and attention. But we
are not going to write here a complete treatise on seleno-
graphy. Those of our readers whom we may succeed in
interesting sufficiently in this subject will, doubtless, pro-
ceed to the section devoted to it in Webb's admirable work,
" Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes," and to that
even more elaborate one, "The Moon," by Mr. E. Neison,
which may be fairly regarded as a kind of lunar encyclo-
piedia. What we propose to do in these papers is to point out
to the possessor of a 3-in. telescope exactly what it may be
expected to show him in the shape of lunar scenery, and
of the general physical conformation of our satellite. To
this end we here present a map of the moon, founded on
the excellent one by Mr. Webb, and which also appears in
the volume on " The Moon," by the Editor of this journal.
We have purposely retained the lettering and numbering

• This total includes 17 circuits at tlio Stock Exchange Office,
which is regarded as part of the central station, and through which
l,720,l:;l telegrams passed in the year 1881-2.

adopted by Mr. Webb to facilitate reference, and propose
to describe and draw a selection of the oVyects thus indi-
cated, with the end of familiarising the student with the
principal features of the surface of our satellite. Some of
the chief of these we shall draw at the telescope, in order
that the young observer may know precisely what to
look for ; and we shall in all cases give the exact
age of the moon and the powi-r employed, in order that
our sketches may be directly comparable with the moon
herself. The map almost explains itself. It gives an in-
verted image of the moon as it would appear in a telescope
with an ordinary Huyghenian eye-piece of low power. The
curved lines represent the lines of lunar longitude, the
moon being supposed to be in what is called her condition
of " Mean Libration." The meaning of this phrase (which
is, however, not very material for our present purpose) will
be found thoroughly explained in the work on " The Moon,"
by the Editor of Knowledge, to which we have referred
above. One immediate use to which we may put these
lines is this. The curve separating the illuminated part of
the moon's disc from the dark part (technically called the
"terminator") creeps over her face at the rate of 12° 1'
26 7" per diem. Hence, when she is one day old, the
central part of this arc will be in lunar longitude 79° 49'
33-3" east of her centre ; at two days old, at longitude 67° 37'
6-6" east ; and so on until she is 7'38 days old, when she will
be "dichotomized,"orexactlyhalf light and half dark. So far
the bright crescent is concave towards the east. Afterwards
the moon has entered her " first quarter," the " termina-
tor " becomes convex towards the east, and continues to
increase in convexity until full moon, when it merges in
the moon's general circular outline. Suppose, now, that
the student wishes to know what formations are near to
the boundary of light and darkness when the moon is
5 days old. 5 x 12° 11' 26-7"=60° 67' 13-.5", the longitude
of the terminator from the west limb. Taking this from
90°, we find 29° 2' 46-5" as its longitude from the moon's
centre ; and now, looking at the map, we see that when
the craters and ring plains 374, 371, 372, 323, 57, 48, 37,
itc, will all be illuminated (albeit, very obliquely), the sun
will not yet have risen on 367, 321, 320, 319, 318, 47 and
50, and only partially on 54. In like manner, the position
of the terminator at any other age of the moon may be
determined.

In fact, our chief object in introducing these lines of
longitude at all is to supply the beginner with the means
of ascertaining, with suliicient accuracy, when any given
formation is most favourably placed for observation, and,
incidentally of identifying it. AVhen once he is familiar
with the leading features of the lunar surface, he will
easily be able to determine for himself the times at which
they can be most advantageously examined. If we reflect
for a little, it will be seen that this must evidently be
when the object under examination is most obliquely
illuminated — in other words, when it is tolerably near to
the boundary line between light and darkness. Suppose
that we had to determine the shape of a white basin
at a distance of a couple of miles, with a pocket tele-
scope, at night, and had our choice as to the method
of illuminating it. Obviously we should not cast the
light of a lantern directly into it — or we should
perceive nothing but a circular white patch in the telescope.
We should light it from the side ; the shadows which it
would in consequence cast revealing its contour distinctly.
Now, at full moon the sun is (for our present purpose)
shining vertically on to our satellite, which, consequently,
presents nothing but a mottled, spotted, and shaded sur-
face, the most conspicuous features being certain dark
patches, erroneously named "seas," and a radiating series

April 13, 1883.

KNOWLEDGE

223

of streaks issuing from a crater (hereafter to be described),
called Tycho, situated, in an inverting telescope, towards
the top of the moon. People with keen vision can detect
this system of streaks with the naked eye ; when so seen,
though, they, of course, seem to radiate from the southern
part, or bottom, of the moon. With these preliminary
remarks, we may proceed to furnish a key to the map
{jiven above. We merely gives the names of the various
formations here, reserving any description of them indi-
vidually until we come to treat of their aspect in the
telescope. Beginning, then, with the chief dark markings
or patches : —

A, Sea of Conflicts. B, Hnmboldl's .Sea. C, Sea of Cold.
D, Lake of Death. E, Lake of Dreams. F, the Marsh of a Dream.
G, the Sea of Tranqnility. H, the Sea of Serenity. I, the Marsh
of Clouds. K, the Marsh of Cormption. L, Sea of Vapour. M,

Middle Bay. N, Bay of Heat. O, Sea of Sliowers. P.fBay of

Rainbows. Q, Ocean of Storms. R, Bay of Dew. S,\ Sea o^

Clouds. T, Sea of Moisture. V, Sea of Nectar. X, Sea "^
Fertility. Y, Smyth's Sea. Z, the South Sea.

Ring Planks, Ceaters, Moontain Ranges, Ac.

1. Promontorium

Agarum

2. AUiazen

3. Kimmart

4. Picard

5. Condorcet
C. Auzout

7. Firniicus
S. Apollonius
9. Napipr

10. Schubert

11. Hansen

12. Cleomedes

13. Trallcs

14. Oriani

15. Plutarch

16. Seneca

17. Hahn

18. Berosus

19. Bnrckhardt

20. Geminus

21. Bernouilli

22. Gauss

23. Jlessala

24. Schumacher

25. Struve

26. Mercury

27. Endymion

28. Atlas

29. Hercules

30. Oersted

31. Cepheus

32. Franklin

33. Berzelius

34. Hooka

35. Strabo

36. Thales

37. Gartner
3?. Democritue

224

♦ KNOWLEDGIi: ♦

[Apbil 13, 1883.

30. Arnold ]

4l>. Chrislii. Mnycr

41. Jlotoii

42. Enrt onion
4.3. Krorcsby
4i. (iiujn

45. Harrow

4G. Archytos

47. Plana

4S. Ma.son

4!». Uaily

60. Bnrg

51. Mount Taurus

i)2. Komer

J53. Le Monnier

54. Posidonins

65. Littrow

50. Maraldi

57. A'itruviu.s

58. Mount Argitnis
50. Macrobius

<50. Proclus
.61. Pliny
62. Rosa
G3. Arago
C4. Kitter

65. Sabine

66. Jansen

67. Maskelyne

68. Meant Hsemns

69. Promontorium

Acherusia

70. Menelaus

71. Sulpirins GalUis

72. Taquet

73. Bessel

74. Linne

75. Mount Caucasus

76. Calippus

77. BndoxuB

78. Aristotle

79. Egede

80. Alps

81. Cassini

82. Thea?tetu3

83. Aristillns

84. Autolycug

85. Apennines
80. Aratus

87. Mount Hadley
.88. Conon
89. J[ount Bradley
■90. MountHuyghens
m. Marco Polo

92. Jlount Wolf

93. Hyginus

94. Triesnecker

95. Manilius

96. Julius Csesar

97. Sosigenes
D8. Boscovich
99. Dionysius

100. Ariadicus

101. Silberschlag

102. Agrippa

103. Godin

104. Uhieticus

105. Sommering
100. Schrotcr

107. Bope

108. Pallas

109. Ukert

1 10. Kratoathenes

111. Stadius

112. Copernicus

1 13. Gambart

114. Rcinhold

115. Carpathean Mts
110. Gay Lussac

117. Tobias Mayer

118. Milichius

119. Hortensius

120. Archimedes

121. Timooharis

122. Lambert

123. La lliro

124. PythcM^<

125. Ruler
120. Diophnntus

127. Delislc

128. Carlini

129. Helicon

130. Kirch

131. Pico

132. Plato

133. Hariialu.q

134. I,a I'l.nre

135. lleraclides
13(5. Maujiertuis

137. Condamine

138. Bianchini

139. Sharp
IRI. Mairan

141. Louvillo

142. Bouguer

143. Kncke
141. Kc]iler

145. Bepisarion

146. Reiner

147. Marius

148. Aristarchus

149. Herodotus

150. Wollaston

151. Lichtenberg

152. Harding

153. Lohrmann
1.54. HeTelius

155. Cavalerius

156. Galileo

157. Cardan

158. Krafft

159. Olhen

li'iO. Vasco de Gama

161. Hercynian Mts.

162. Seleucns

163. Briggs

164. Ulugh Beigh

165. Lavoisier

166. Gerard

167. Repsold

168. Anaxagoras

169. Epigeiies

170. Tima-HS

171. Fontenelle

172. Philolaus

173. Anaxinienes

174. Anaximander

175. Horrcbow

176. Pythagoras

177. Q^iiopides

178. Xenophanes

179. Cleostratus

180. Tycho

181. Pictol

182. Street

183. Sasseridcs

184. Hell

185. Gauricu.s
180. Pitatus

187. Hesiod

188. Wurzelbauer

189. Cichus

190. Heinsius

191. Wilhelm I.

192. Longomontanus

193. Clarius

194. Deluc

195. Maginus
190. Saus?ure

197. Orontius

198. Nasir-od-din

199. Lexell

200. Walter

201. Regiomontanus

202. Pnrbaeb

203. Thebit

204. Arzachol

205. Alpetragius

206. Promontorium

.^Cnariuni

207. Alphonsus

208. Ptolemy

209. Davy

210. Lalande

211. Mosting

212. Horschel

213. BuUialdus

214. Kios

215. Guoricke

216. Lubiniezky

217. Parry

218. Bonpland

219. Fra Mauro

220. Riphocan Mts.

221. Euclid

222. Landsberg

223. Flamsteed
221. Letronno
225. Hippalus
220. Campanus

227. Mercator

228. Ramsden

229. Vitello

230. Doppelmeyer

231. Mersenne

232. Gassendi

233. Agatliarchides

234. Schiller

235. Bayer

236. Rost

237. Hainzel

238. Capuauus

239. Schickard
210. Drebbel

241. Lehmann

242. Phocylides

243. Wargenlin

244. Inghirami
215. Bailly

246. Dorfel Mts.

247. Hausen

248. Segner

249. Weigel

250. Zuchius

251. Bettinus

252. Kircher

253. Wilson

254. Casatus

255. Klaproth

256. Newton

257. Cabeus

258. Malapert

259. Leibnitz Mts.

260. Blancanus

261. Scheiner

262. Moretus

263. Short

264. Cysatns

265. Gruembergor

266. Billy

267. Hansteen

268. Zupus
209. Fontana

270. Sirsalis

271. Damoisean

272. Grimaldi

273. Kiccioli
271. Cordilleras
275. IVAlembert Mts
270. Rook Mts.

277. Rocca

278. Criiger

279. Borgius

280. Eichstadt

281. Lagrange

282. Piazzi

283. Bouvard

284. Vieta

285. Fourier
280. Cavendish

287. Roaumur

288. llipparchus

289. AlbategniHS

290. Parrot

291. Airv

292. La Caille

293. I'layfair
291. ApianuH

295. Werner

296. Aliacensis

297. Thooii pen.

298. Theon jnn.

299. Taylor

300. Alfragimus

301. Dclambro

302. Kant

303. Dollond

304. Dps Cartes

305. Abulfeda
300. Almamon

307. Tacitus

308. Geber

309. Azophi

310. Abenezra

311. Pontanus

312. Sacrobosco

313. Pons

314. Fcrmat

315. -Altai Mts.
310. Polybius

317. Hypatia

318. Torricelli

319. Theophilus

320. Cyrillus

321. Catherine

322. Beaumont

323. Isidore
321. Capclla
325. Censorinus
320. Taruntius

327.

328.
1329.

330.
1331.
; 332.
! 333.

334.

335.

330.

337.

338.

339.

340.
!34I.
! 342.
I 343.

344.

345.

310.

347.

34S.

349.

350.

351.

352.

353.
354.
335.
356.
357.
3 -.8.
359.
360.
361.
362
363

Messier

Goclcniua

Biot

Guttombcrg

Pyrenees

Bohnenlxjrger

Colombo

Magelliaens

Cook

Santbech

Borda

Langrenus

Vendelinns

Petavius

Paltizsch

Hase

Snell

Stevinus

Furner

Maclauriu

Kastner

La Perouse

Ansgarins

Behaim

Hecata;ns

Wilhelm Hut

boldt
Legendre
Stofler
LicetuB
Cuvier
Clairant
Maurolycus
Barocius
Bacon
Buch
Biisching
Gemma i-'risius

36'!. Poisson

365. Nonius

366. Femelius

367. Riccius

368. Uabbi Leri
309. Zagat
370. Lindenan

i 371. Piccolomini
■ 372. Fmcastorios
I 373. Neander

374. Stiborius

375. Reichenbach

376. Rheita

377. Fninnhofer
; 378. Vega

I 379. Marinns

380. Oken

381. Pontecoulant

382. Ilanno

383. Fabricins

384. Jletius

385. Steiuheil

386. Pitiscus

387. Hommel
38'*. Vlacq

389. Bosenberger

390. Nearchus

391. Hagecius

392. Biela

393. Nicolai

394. Lilly

395. Jacobi

396. Zach

397. Schomberger

398. Bognslawski

399. Boussingaulc

400. Mutns

The beginner with the telescope who has read or heard of
" mountains " in the moon, and who takes his lirst look at
our satellite with a view of examining them, will certainly
he puzzled i)y the spectacle presented to his gaze. If we
suppose the moon to be five or six days old, and that he is
regarding her southern horn (or upper one, as seen in the
telescope), he will be struck by the fact that it seems to
lie completely honeycombed by circular or elliptical holes,
surrounded by ridges, their walls breaking into each other,
and the depressions themselves being confluent in all direc-
tions. A little thought and attention will reveal the fact
that these are volcanic craters on the plains, surrounded
by cliffs, with, in many cases, conical hills rising from their
centres, which we are viewing from above, as though, in
fact, we were looking down upon them from the car of a
balloon suspended at a tremendous height above them. In
the case of those close to the terminator, the sun is just
rising, and their depressed plains or cup-shaped interiors
are still plunged in the blackness of night ; while the more
elevated cliffs surrounding them have already caught the
sun's rays, and stand prominently out of the darkness.
The words "blackness of night," which we have just used
are peculiarly appropriate in the case of the moon, inas-
much as, from her absence of atmosphere, light is not
scattered, as it is upon the earth, and everything that is not
in brilliant sunshine is in total darkness. The observant
student may possibly demur to this statement when he
notices that, close tothet€rminator,the lightfades gradually;
but he must bear in mind that the sun is rising very slowly
at this part of the moon's surface, and that only a small
portion of his disc is above the horizon there.* One not-
able eflect of tlie absence of air, and the consequent brilliant
lights and jet black shadows on our satellite, is, that tele-
scopic power tells upon her surface to an extent incom-
parably greater than it does in the case of any other body

[* Besides, the sun's rays fall aslant on that part'of the moon's
surface. — R. P.]

April 13, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE

225

in the sky. Let us assume that we are employing a power
o£ 160. Well, this shows us the moon as she would
appear to the naked eye, were she only 1468 miles from
the surface of the earth — a pretty long distance truly ; but
•when we consider that Mont Bliinc is discernaUle, hy un-
assisted \ision, from Lyons, 100 miles off, throuc;h all the
thickness of the intervening terrestrial atmospheric vapour,
we shall gain some notion of what this represents in the
case of the airless moon, with her brilliant lights and iiiky
shadows. A power of l?•^0 will bring her seemingly within
939 miles of us : but no useful purpose will be attained by
the employment of such magnification (for Selenographical
purposes) with a 3-in telescope. In our subsequent
sketches I GO is the highest power that we shall use. The
nature and character of the objects it will reveal will be-
come apparent in the description of them which will follow.

J\rl)ifU)5.

POPULAR ASTRONOMY.*

Bv Eicu.\Kii A. Proctor.

1AM glad to see that this excellent treatise on astronomy
has reached a second edition in England. Of its success
in America it is unnecessary to speak. The present edition
has in several important respects been Virought up to date.
Among those may be specially mentioned : (1) Dr. H.
Draper's investigations on the existence of oxygen in the
sun (but why are they not mentioned in the index ?), of
which Professor Newcomb has formed an opinion very
different from that cold, half-dissenting view which rival
workers in this country have expressed ; (2) Janssen's
conclusions from his solar photographs (again the index
makes no mention of the added subject) ; (3) Professor
Langley's investigations on the solar spectrum (omitted
from index) ; (4) preliminary results from the late transit
of "Venus, and other recent methods of determining the
sun's distance ; and (•")) recent developments in cometary
astronomy.

I have already reviewed the first edition of this im-
portant work at considerable length in these pages, so
that it is not necessary for me now to say that I regard it
as a most valualile contribution to the literature of astro-
nomy. Albeit one cannot but recognise that Professor
Newcomb is more at home with mathematics than with
composition, better as a coraputor than a theovizer, and a
little disposed to overlook the difficulties which ordinary
readers find when technicalities are employed.

It is a little remarkaV)le that a professional astronomer,
well versed in optical and physical laws, should err on the
side of over-boldness in theorising. Yet Professor New-
comb seems to do so. Take, for instance, the following
passage in reference to the Saturnian ring system : — "The
question arises whether the comparative darkness of some
portions of the bright ring may not be due to the paucity
of the particles, which allow the dark background of the
sky to be seen through." (We can tell what Professor
Newcomb means, but it is not precisely what he says — viz.,
that, according to this view, we can see through the dark
background of the sky !) "Tliis question cannot be posi-
tively answered until further observations have been made ;
but the preponderance of evidence favours the view that
the entire bright ring is opaque, and that the dark

•"Popular Astronomy." By Simon. Newcomb, LL.D., of the
Tfaval Observatory, Washington. Second London edition. (Messrs.
Macmillan & Co., London.)

shading is due entirely to a darker colour of that part of
the ring. Indeed, for anything we certainly know,
the whole ring may be continuous and opaque,
the darker shade of some parts arising solely from the
particles being there black in colour." Now, in the first
place, it is a demonstrated fact that the rings are not
continuous. No one who has studied the researches of
Clerk Maxwell and Benjamin Pt-irce can for a moment
question this. And in the second, wliile the theory which
accounts for the darkness of certain zones of the ring by
sparsity of distribution of matter along these zones is
natural and probable, the theory that certain sets of dark
bodies have collected into these zones, while the light-
coloured bodies have collected into others, is extravagant
to a degree. When gravity begins to act as a colour-sifter,
by influencing dark bodies and light bodies in different
ways, we can accept such ideas ; but not before.

Here, again, is a statement singularly inexact from a
man with Professor Newcomb's knowledge of optics.
Speaking of the atmosphere of Venus in transit, he says,
" It would not be possible to see any indications of an at-
mosphere under such circumstances, for the reason that
the light passing through its denser portions would be
refracted entirely out of its course, so as not to reach an
observer on the earth at all. ' It would be just as reason-
able to say, " As regards the theory that we see the sun,
after he has set geometrically, because of the refractive
power of our air, it is, in fact, impossible to see him at all
under such circumstances, for the reason that the light
passing through the denser portions of our air is refracted
entirely out of its course, so as not to reach the observer
on earth at all." Precisely as we see the sun by means of
rays which did 7io( set out towards the observer, but were
refracted towards him, those which set out towards him
not reaching him at all, so, while rays from the sun towards
Venus, and beyond her towards an observer on earth, fail
to reach the observer, being deflected by the refractive
power of her atmosphere, rays from other parts of the sun,
which but for her air would not have reached the observer
on earth, come to him and in fact give him those indica-
tions of an atmosphere which Professor Newcomb says it
would be impossible to detect.

Other such mistakes remain uncorrected in the second
English edition, and to some degree diminish the value of
what otherwise would be (for the ground it covers) one of
the most trustworthy astronomical works in existence. I
note also the way in which the " stereo-plates " have been
joined, evidence of anxiety to avoid expense in " resetting."
But the treatise is one which every student of astronomy
should read, and passages relating to suVijects which Pro-
fessor Newcomb has made specially his own are adniirabile.

The English editor, if such there is, or the reader for
press, should have corrected in this edition the render-
ing of Georijiuin Sidus as " the Star of the Georges,"
which would correspond to Gcorgiornm Sldn.s — not that it
matters much, as the silly name has long since followed
other similar absurdities to the limbo of forgotten things.

TO YOUNG MEN.*

Tiinnron false delicacy, many lads and youths are left to
fall into trouble, and not a few have their prospects of
healthy and happy life absolutely ruined. The knowledge
kept from them by those whose duty it is to impart it
wisely, and with proper explanation of its vital importance,
they learn (too many of them) from foolish talk and to

* " A Physician's Sermon to Young Men." By Dr. William Pratt •
(Balliere, Tindall, &, Cox, London.)

22G

• KMOWLEDGE

[April 13, 18(53.

the accompaniment of silly and unseemly jests. The ex-
perience essential to their safety, they acquire tlirouj^h
the evil eonseijuences froux which it might have saved
them — as it certainly saves all who, having sense, are
worth saving.

The little book before us, of fewer than fifty pages, is
intended to be put into the hands of young men by fathers
who are unwillin;,' to discharge a father's duty in this
respect. And as not one father in ten is, we believe,
ready to do what is right by his boys, himself, it is well
that such a book as this should be available, especially as
it gives some information which a physician is able to give
with special authority. We commend it to the attention
of fathers and sons alike ; to the former, as showing what
they should tell their boys ; to the latter, as containing
lessons wliich they should take to heart

We are not sure but that the question of religion should
here have been left untouched. It rather weakens the
special plan of the pamphlet, by seeming to imply that,
independently of religion, much that is here condemned
might not be so objectionable and mischievous as it really
is. If our author had contented himself by showing that
every young man who values (1) his health, (2) his strength,
(3) his temper, (4) his happiness, (5) length of life, (6) his
fitness to take his place among his fellow-men, and finally,
(7) his self-respect, should consider the precepts here enun-
ciated, he would have given such sufficient reason, that
religious motives, presented from another side, and acting
with each according to the religious views of each, would
have had double force. It is well that young men should
know equally what is best for their own interests, and what
is right for them apart from their own interests. But
where each consideration is independently sufficient, the
two should not be associated as if each required support
from the other. Apart from which, those young men who
are so unfortunate as to be without religion, and those
whose religion is different from that here referred to, may
be apt not to get all the good from Dr. Pratt's advice which
they otherwise would.

However, a lad must be foolish indeed if he does not pay
attention to the physical lessons conveyed in this most
useful little work. If it is read by all who ought to read
such a book, its sale will be counted by hundreds of
thousands.

SALT.*

Taking as his text " Salt is good," Mr. Evan M. Boddy
gives us a treatise on salt which is decidedly saline in
Havour. His style is " crisp " to a fault. " Such imagi-
native plerophory " (imaginative plerophory is good) "is
invariably antagonistic," he remarks, in dealing with one
set of paradoxists, " to scientific conclusions and common-
place principles, besides being redundant of inane folly and
trivial hyperbole." He speaks of the " unhealthful and
insensate antipathy to salt which has infatuated, in a
greater or a lesser degree, the several strata of society."
Yet, so soon as he is fairly started on the history
of salt, and is thus on his way to the discussion of
salt "as a chemical, therapeutical, and toxicological
agent," ho moves along more smoothly — the gusts of
wrath no longer blow him hither and thither, and he
tells his readers many interesting facts. Albeit, it is not a
demonstrated fact, as he states in Chapter III., that chlo-
rine is nothing more nor less than the oxide of a metal,
the researches of Professor Meyer, of Berne, having been

by no means accepted as yet by his chemical brethren. In
a later chapter, Mr. Boddy discusses the effects of salt on
animal and vegetable life. Most land animals eat salt
when they get the chance, and apparently with advantage.
But many reptiles, and most of the lower types of animals,
are deprived of life by the action of salt. Mr. Boddy —
from carelessness, no doubt, not from ignorance — seems to
convey the idea that life may be spontaneously gene-
rated, since he speaks of " insects generated by animal
and vegetable decay," of " life produced by putrefaction,"
and so forth. The passages relating to the action
of sea-water on seeds are interesting. The question is of
importance as bearing on the transport of plants across
sea. Darwin says that, out of 87 kinds of seed, 64 germi-
nated after an immersion of 28 days, and a few survived
after an immersion of 137 days. The medicinal and
dietetic properties of salt are carefully considered ; but here
our author becomes wrathful again, as he does in consider-
ing the physiological properties of salt. The chapters on
the geographical distribution and geological formation of
salt are worth reading, and contain a quantity of curious
evidence, obviously gathered with much care.

• " The History of Salt." By Evnn M. Boddy, F.R.C.S., F.8.S.,
&c. (Bailliire, Tindall, & Cox, London.)

THE FACE OF THE SKY.

Fhoh April 33 to Aphil 27.
By F.R.A.S.

THE sun should now be carefully watched, as indications of
renewed violent action on his surface are apparent. As we
write, several large spots (one of them enormous) are visible on his
disc. The aspect of the night sky will be found portrayed in ilay IV.
of " The Stars in their Seasons." Jupiter is now approaching the west
so rapidly that he should be looked at as soon as may be after dark
to be seen properly at all. He ia situated to the N. and E. of
J Tauri.

The visible phenomena of his satellites are fairly nnmerous.
To-night (13th), I. will be occulted at 9h. 59m. On the 14th, the
shadow of Sat. I. enters on Jupiter's disc at 8h. 20m. p.m. ; Sat. II.
disappears in occultation at 8h. •t4m. p.m. ; Sat. I. passes oft Jupi-
ter's face at 9h. 27m., followed by its shadow at lOh. 37m. On the
15th, Sat. I. will reappear from eclipse at 7h. 52m. 33s. On the
10th, the egress of the shadow of Sat. II. happens at 8h. 43m. p.m.
The shadow of III. will pass off his face at lOh. 15m. p.m., on the
18th. On the 31st, the transit of Sat. I. begins at 9h. 10m. p.m.,
and that of its shadow at lOh. 15m. Jupiter will be too near the
horizon at the times of their respective egress for that phenomenon
to be fairly observable. On the 22nd, Sat. I. will be eclipsed at
9h. -ISra. 8e. p.m. On the 23rd the shadow of II. will enter on the
planet's face at 8h. 33m. p.m., the Satellite casting it passing off
at 9h. 12m. Lastly, on the 25th, the egress of Sat. III. will occur
at 9h. 30m. p.m. The directions previously given for finding
Uranus above the Gth Mag. Star, 89 Leonis (to the N.W.
of which he is now situated), are still applicable. Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Neptune are all, for our present purpose,
invisible.

Two occultations only of stars by the Moon oceur during the
ordinary working hours of the night within our specified period.
To-night (April 13) the 3i Mag. Star X Geminorum will disappear
at the Moon's dark limb at 8h. 20m. p.m., at an angle of 58° from
her verte.\, and reappear at her bright limb, at an angle of 342
from her vertex, at 9h. 6m. The second occultation is that of the
0th Magnitude Star 28 Libnv, which on the night of the 23rd will
disappear at the Moon's bright limb 55 minutes after midnight, at
an angle of 138" from her vertex. Its reappearance occurs at her
dark limb, at an angle of 196° from hor vertex, at Ih. 32m. o'clock
the next morning. The Moon is 5'9 days old at noon on the 13th,
C 9 days at the same hour to-morrow, and so on. To-day her path
lies through Gemini. She passes into Cancer on the 14th, remain-
ing all day in that constellation. Travelling through Cancer on the
15th she enters Leo before noon on the IGth. during the whole of
which day her path lies through it, and a portion of Sextans, as it
d(jcs on the 17tli and 18th also. She passes into Virgo before noon
on tlio 19tli, remains in that constellation during the 20th and 2l8t,
travels into Libra on the 22nd, and does not quit it duringthe 23ra.
I On the 24th lier path lies through the remaining part o£ Libra and

April 13, 1883.]

KNO\VLEDGE

227

the soiitliorn part of Ophiuohns. Her path on the 25th is performed
wbollv through the latter consteUation, which sho does not ipiit
until the 2Gth for Sagittarius, where sho remains during the 27th.

Err.vtum.— In lino 19 of Letter 777 (p. 210)
sin PQ tan P

sin QM
as mast, however, be obvious from the i

, should

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — AtFEED Tennyson.

ifttn-£f to t\)t (Ctiitor.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly he in-
$erted. Correspondents must not be offended, there/ore, should their
Ittters not appear.

All Editorial communications should be addressed to the Editoe of
KicoWLEDGK; all Business communications to the Pcblishers, at the
Ofice, 74; Great Queen-street, ^V.C. Ir this is not attended to,

DKLAYS ABISK FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messes. Wyma-n & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COmiUNICATIONS ABE ANSWEREB BY POST, EVEN THOUGH STAMPED
tND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLO.SED.

MR. MATTIEU WILLIAMS ON "STAYS AXD FAT."

[786] — May I be permitted to make a remark regarding Mr.
Williams's interesting letter to you on the above topic ? An intel-
ligent lady friend remarked to me today : — " Mr. Williams says, in
Knowledge, that fat ia ' unbumt body fuel.' Is this correct ? And
if 80, then is fat an abnormal feature of our bodies ?" On referring
to Mr. Williams's letter, I find he has apparently omitted one word,
the insertion of which would remove, I think, misapprehension
from the non-physiological mind. It is only eicessire fat which is
" unbumt body fuel." Everybody possesses a normal quantity of
fat, and Mr. Williams, I daresay, knows the uses of this normal fat,
as a " bedding," so to speak, for important organs (e.;;., the eye) ;
as a non-conducting layer in the skin for the conservation of
bodily heat ; as a store of combustible matter, or normal fuel,
capable of being reabsorbed into the blood, and, finally, as an
occasional source of development of other (connective) tissues.
Although in the succeeding sentence of his letter to that in which
he speaks of fat as " unbnrnt body-fuel," Mr. Williams is careful to
mention excessive accumulation of fat, yet his first statement in
answer to the plain question, "What is fat?" is, I think, liable to
mislead. I myself have been indebted on a former occasion to
Mr. Williams for kindly criticising some of my attempts to instruct
the public, through the medium of Knowledge, and I am glad to be
able, in the present instance, to bo of some little service to my
accomplished colleague in return. Andrew Wilson.

NEW SKIRT— CHILDREN'S DRESS.

[787] — The lady correspondent in your issue of Friday last, in
writing on the new skirt, has forestalled me in the account of her
experience. I began a letter to you on this subject two months ago.
I will now, however, only ask you to give my corroboration to all
the healthful advantages and comforts in the lady's statement.

I feel that the desired reform in women's dress meets with a
better reception through your Knowledge than it does from mere
personal persuasion of friend to friend, and is considered more
worthy of notice.

If grown women do not feel disposed to alter their own dear
customs, surely every natural mother will be only too glad to bring
up her daughters from infancy in our approved and hygienic
costume.

I have a little girl just thirteen. She was, according to fashion,
clothed in three petticoats and a frock, until two years since, when
she went into — not " short frocks," nor " long dresses," but a

" combination garment," which takes tho place of the three petti-
coats, and answers the description of a lady's skirt, except that
instead of tho calico band it is suspended from the shoulders,
covering the humerus. Tho temperature of the body is, I think by
this means more easily rendered equable. It amounts almost to a
punishment to ask this child now to wear a petticoat, even for extra
warmth.

With ignorance and prejudice at bay, may we not hope for better
things in the mothers of the future ?

A JIkmher of the L.S.A.

SINGLE EYE-GLASSES.

[788] — I observe that in Knowledge of March 30, the author of
" How to Use the Eyes " deprecates the use of single eye-glasses.
He docs not mention, however, what should be done in cases where
one eye is weaker than the other.

I heard once of an optician who mado spectacles in which the
lenses were of different power, which led to a good deal of discus-
sion among medical men as to whether such spectacles were bene-
ficial or not, in the case referred to above.

As this may be a point of interest to many of the readers of your
journal, I hope the author of these ai-ticlos on the use of the eyes
will refer to it in one of the next papers.

A. Kling.

LETTERS RECEIVED.
E. D. G. That I do not think your views absurd is best shown
by the fact that in the first edition of my "Other Worlds" I
advanced just such views. But so many get so angry and unreason-
able when the subject is discussed, that I must beg you not to be
angry with me if I do not find room for your letter.^E. M. —
F. C. S.— W. F. Bridges.— S. J.— E. G. Allen.— William Wilson,
LL.D.— Zetesis. The theory of a fiat earth is too absurd for
further discussion here. Your " rea.oons " are absolutely invalid. —
J. Murray.— Constant Reader of Knowledge.— A. N. Somerscale.
J. Grundy.— C. Nicholls.— J. McGrigor Allan.- H. D. C- Major.—
R. I. R.— A. O. Hume.— A. S. Johnson.— Herbert Rix.— F. G. S. —
R. G. Ouseley.— H. Skey Mnir, M.D.— H. Stock.— W. M. N.— Bad
Memory.- W. Baird.— C. J.Curtis.— Novice.— T. Knox Fortescue.
Mr. H. Phillips. — A. Poison. — J. Munro. — An Admirer of a Slender
Waist.- A. Blakes.— T. F.— C. Ashley.— J. McE. Unable to speak
from anv knowledge of my own. — A. Kling.— H. E. Bullock. —
P. Carm'icbael.- A. T. Brett. — W. Walton. — F. G. Heath —
T. Common.— J. Crowthcr.— W. E. Phillpotts.- W. G. Mortimer.

©ur Wil)i^t Column.

By " Five op Oldbs."

PLAYING TRVHTS— {continued from p. 185).

THE signal for trumps is now so constantly in use that we
must set aside all discussion as to whether Whist has been
improved or impaired by its invention. All that has to be con-
sidered is when and how to signal.

Signalling from five trumps, no honour, and an otherwise weak
hand, or from five trumps, one honour, or four trumps, two
honours, the rest of the hand being weak, must be regarded as
unsonnd play. From such hands you may properly lead trumps,
but not signal.

Many players hold that j'ou may signal when, having tho lead,
you would not lead trumps — as by winning third hand with King
when yon hold Queen, or with Ace when yon hold King. On the
same principle, one might lead Are before King from Ace, King,
and others, to indicate the wish for a trump lead from partner.
But it is a good rule to follow — more nearly a constant rule than
almost any that can be named — to regard no hand from which one
would not lead trumps, no matter what the trump card, as one with
which it is right to signal. A trick may occasionally be made by
waiting, in such cases, for a lead from partner, but in tho long run
more is lost.

In signalling second in hand, one must be especially careful to
play an unnecessarily high card, and not a card which may be mis-
taken for an attempt to take the trick ; at least this may be done
where it is possible. Playing ten or Knave second hand, and in
the second round a small one, is not a signal, unless the Knave or
Queen (respectively) should fall, so as to show you were not playing
the customary lowest from Queen, Knave, or Knave, ten, and a
small one. To signal effectively from Queen, Knave, and a small
one, the Queen must be played, and then the Knave, not the Knave

228

KNOV/LEDGE ♦

[April 13, 1883.

and then the Bmall ono. Similarly from Knavo, ton, and a small
one.

Ono may sitjual, of course, as readily by a discard as when fol-
lowing suit.

1m passing I may note that it may bo either unwise or unfair to
hesitate when the chance of signalling comes. Uepeatedly it
happens tliat second player shows — to liis loss, or it may be to his
gain, according to circumstances — that he is strong in trumps, but
not quite strong enough to signal, by hesitating before playing a
small card such as, but for doubts as to signalling, ho would have
been sure to play without licsitation. Thus I lead Ace ; the player
im my left after hesitating and perhaps drawing out another card,
plays Douce : I know, and every one else at the table knows, that
he had thought of signalling, but concluded to refrain. He is there-
fore certainly strong in trumps, but not (juite strong enough to
signal. It is unfair to show this to a partner who may be, perhaps,
himself so strong in trumps as to be sure it is safe to lead them
after what he has learned ; on the other hand, it is not wise to
show this strength to tho enemy, who may have good strength, too,
and take advantage of what they have learned to force you, or
otherwise .spoil your plans. The risk may compensiito the "advan-
tage ; but in any case it is not Whist to show anything about your
hand by a trick, either of design or of carelessness.

In my next I shall consider the Echo of the Signal.
(To be continued.)

©ur Cftesis Column.

By Mephisto.

We regret that this problem was misprinted in our last week's
number; we now giro a corrected diagram.

KEPEIXT PiiOBLEM Xo. Si.
Black.

1^ M "'""

m Bi

-•'-•"'"I |W^ ^ mm mm

White.

White to play and mate in three moves.

(A test of skill in solving.)

GAME PLAYED IN A CORRESPONDENCE TOURNEY.
Scotch Gambit.

White.
G. W. Stevens.

1. P to K |.

2. Kt to KI33

3. P to Q I

4. Kt takes P

5. B to K.'i

6. P to QH3

7. Q to g:J (n)

8. P to KHl

9. Q to KB2

10. Kt to Q2

11. Castles

12. P takes Kt

13. P to Bo (rf)

Black.
W. T. Piprce.
P to Kl.
Kt to QB3
P takes P
B to li-l
Q to B3
KKt to K2
P to QK3
P to Q3
Kt to Kt3
B to Q2
Kt tks Kt {h)
B to QKt5 (c)
Kt to K2

White.
ff.W. Stevens.

14. Kt to B3

15. Kt to K5

Black.
W. T. Pierce.
P to Q,4 (e)
B to Kt4. (/)

1(5. B takes B (3) P takes B

17. Q to K2 (/',) Q to QR3

18. Q toK5 (0 P to KKtS

19. P takes KtP BP takes P

20. Q to Kt4 Castles KR

21. P toKR4(0 Q takes P

22. P to R5 Q to Kt6

23. K to Kt sq Kt to B4 (A)
2I-. P takes Kt (OR to R8 (ch)
25. K takes It Q to B7
Resigns

NOTES,
(o) Blackbumo's attack.

!6) Tho exchange is in White's favour,
c) B to R2 is to be preferred.
(d) B to B4 would have boon etron^'or plav.
(c) Well calculated to break his centre.

(/) Black prefers to keep his King in safety, especially as Whit©
cannot do much.

(<j) Dangerous, as it opens the Rook's file.

f/i) He ought to have played K to Kt stp
i) White cannot defend the Rook's Pawn, for if 18. P to QR3,
Black would take the Pawn vnth the Bishop, and speedily obtain a
winning advantage.

(j) A forloni liope.

(k) The cr>mbination that follows depends on this move, as it
prevents the Queen checking on K6 ; but Black had a simpler way
of effecting the mate bv R to R7, followed by Q to R3.

(0 If 24. P takes KtP, then P to R3. 25. P to Kt7, R to B3,
threatening KR to R3, which is fatal.

Dear Jlephisto, — In your remarks contesting tlie truth of Poe's
proposition that, " Tho best chess-player in Christendom may be
little more than the best player of chess," yon don't put the word
may in italics — an important point, as many persons have misunder-
stood Poe to mean that good chess-players are good jilayers of
chess and 'prohuhhj nothing else, and not, as I take it he clearly
desires to convey, possibly nothing else.

You meet Poe's as.scrtion, that excellence in chess must not alone
be taken as a proof of general ability, by saying that, " Good
chess-]ilayers are to be fo^ud mostly among the higher professions
requiring great mental abilities, such as men of great learning and
letters, accountants, and clergymen." I cannot consider your
illustration good. It is news to hear that the profession of
accountant requires great mental abilities ; and what does Buckle
(eminent both as historian and chess-player) say of clergymen : —
" If, however, the inferiority of the boy is obvious, a suitable
remedy is at hand : he is made either a soldier or a clergyman —
he is sent into the army or hidden in the Church."

It appears to me that all you have tried to prove is that many
men of known ability have been and are good chess-players. I
believe Poe would have been the first to agree to this. G. L.

[Our correspondent has clearly misunderstood us. We did not
argue the question (we think mere argumentative philosophical
theories belong to a past era), but we proved it. It therefore
matters little whether Poe meant that good chess-players are
po^siblij or probably nothing else than good chess-players. We
positively assert that men Camateurs) who have attained excel-
fence in chess are men of culture, refinement, or otherwise distin-
guished in their professions. This we could easily prove by naming
the twelve best amateur chess-players in England. Such a cooise,
however, is not feasible in these columns.

As to saying that accountants do not require mental abilities, or
Buckle's witticism about the clergy, we hardly think they require
special contradiction. That a person whose business ic is to master
stupendous and complex accounts possesses mental ability, goes
without saying. The time is also past when a dull boy can either
get on in the army or the Chnrch. We have frequently met clergy-
men who were strong chess-players, we invariably found them to
be men of mental abilities, culture, and refinement, and, if we may
judge by outward appearances, fairly successful in Ufe. " If there
are clergymen of a diiferent character, they cannot be strong chess-
players."— Mephisto.]

[Does not Poe mean that a first-class chess-player may be little
but a first-class player of chess ? TTiis would be rather different
from saying that good chess-players may be worth little outside
chess. A first-rate mathematician may be worth nothing outside his
formula?; vet many mathematicians are men of excellent general
abilities.— R. P.]

On Saturday, the 14th inst., Mr. Zukcrtort will jilay eight games
blindfold against the strongest members of the North London Club,
at the Morlcy Hall, Hackney.

A third edition of " 100 Chess Problems," by the Rev. A. Cyril
Pearson, is in cotu-se of preparation by the Civil Service Publishing
Co., 8, Salisbury-court, Fleet-street, which will include a few
problems lately composed, and a "four-mover" which took the
double first prize in the Chess Monthly Pi'oblem Tournament.
2s. 9d. post-free.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
*,* Please address Chess Editor.
J. C. S. — Problems received with thanks.

M. T. Hooton.— In Problem SI, if B takes Kt, B takes B (ch.)
Correct solutions received. — Problem No. 81, J. Evelyn. No.
82. W., Clarence. No. 83, W.

C. H. Brockelbank v. O. C. Smith.

-V few cepjes of KxowxBDoB, Nos. 1. S, 4, 8, and H, fnr ("ale. at 6d. each. —
Apply ur oililreas tho Publishers, 71 to 70, Great Queen-street, London, W.C.

April 20, 1883.]

KNOV/LEDGE

229

AN ILtUilRATED

MAGAZINEOF^IENCE

PLAINLT^RDED -EXACTLY DESCRIBED

LONDON: FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1883.

Contents of No. 77.

PAGB.

Sdenc« and Art Oosaip 229

A X«iur»list'» Te«r. XI. Marsh

M:, J Id. Bt Grant Allen 231

. ,mer Olisfrvator)- (lUiu.)

]:.■. \V. EUiotI, MA 232

1! i .th and Growth of Myth.

VI. Hv Edward Clodd 234

'• Our Bodies." X. The Blood.

Bv Dr. Andrew Wilson,

F.R S.E., 4c 236

PIGB.
San-Vicws of the Earth. (Tllua.)

By R. A. Proctor 237

The Amateur Electrician ; Electrical

Mea.suremenl. X. (Illua.) 23S

On the Formation of Comets' Tails.

Bv A. S. Daris 239

COBBESPONDEXCB : — A Ncw Para*

doi-Corsits— Letters Received... 240

Our Malheraalical Column 241

Our Chess Column 242

^titim anil art (gosfsfip.

In Knowledge for December 2, 1881 (No. 5), there
appeared among our " Answers to Correspondents," the
following : —

J. Norman Loceyer. — We regret that yon cannot at present
■pare time. Professor Tonng has promised to write on the subject,
and your treatment of it, from another point of view, would doubt-
less have been interesting to our readers. I'crhaps at some future
time you can oblige us.

We learn now for the first time (a railway train
toavelllng 500 miles a day would have covered more
than the moon's distance from us in the interval)
that Mr. Lockyer was offended at our answering in
this way what he regarded as a private communica-
' tion— to wit his letter declining, rather curtly, our invi-
tation to him to contribute to these columns. We learn
this from a coarsely-worded post-card communication for-
warded to our publishers. A paragraph stating, truly, that
we had (with perhaps unwise generosity) invited one who
loves us not to write in these columns (at more than twice
the rate at which we had been paid before the fatal year
1869 of Mr. Lockyer's corona mistakes — u-hen eren accepted
articles, some already in type, were returned to us — for con-
tributions to Xaliire), Imt that he was not willing to accept
our invitation, would have V>een strictly en riffle. We cannot
see, then, that our less public reference to the matter
was open to e.xception. But if it was, exception should
have been taken then, not now. And even exception taken
at the right time might have been conveyed in better form
than on a postcard, unsigned, in a disguised hand, and full
of illbred vituperation. [We cannot be wrong in assigning
this communication to the one person living besides ourself
who could know and care anything about the matter to
which it makes indignant reference] Those who attended
our lecture on "The Sun," at St James's Hall, and heard
our pointedlj- complimentary reference to Mr. Lockyer's
work in 1868, will know how generously we have been
disposed to treat him. But — " the rest is silence."

The course of lectures on astronomy, at St James's
Hall, came most pleasantly to a conclusion last Saturday.

A kinder and more sympathetic audience I have never
addressed. I took occasion, when the lights were being:
turned down (though usually not very willing, even at that
time, to interrupt a lecture by the introduction of personal
matters), to thank my hearers for their kindly attention,
and pleasant ways generally. Then I made a few remarks
about the utter neglect with which the London press treats
all scientific lectures. Huxley, Tyndall, Owen, and others
lecture, either without a word of notice, or — if any notice
at all is accorded — some wretched paragraph, as wanting
in correctness as in appreciation. My own lectures had an
additional claim in being an experiment, made at the risk;
of considerable loss, and not the less deserving notice-
that they had been most remarkably successful. I am told
that a remark made by one of the audience, which .sounded
to me like " You're right, Mr. Proctor," ran really to the
effect, " No light, Mr. Proctor," and was intended to ex-
plain that the lectures, being partly given in the dark,
could not be properly reported. I was referring, however,
to the absence rather of notices than of reports, though a
report of the part of each lecture given before the light was
turned down would have made in effect a good abstract of
the whole lecture. As forty or fifty course tickets (sofa stalls) ■
were given to the Press, and scarce half-a-dozen short

notices appeared, I think I had some reason to ; but,

there, I suppose the courtesy and kindness of the American,
and Australasian Press have spoiled me.

I AM told that, after the lecture, prolonged efforts were
made to recall me. It was not from any want of recogni-
tion of the audience's kindness that 1 failed to return,
though I must admit to a strong repugnance to the obtru-
sion of a lecturer's small self before an audience just aftei--
he has been endeavouring to take them along with him.
away from this earth, through infinities of space and time
to contemplate infinite power, all-present and everlasting
law. But, as a matter of fact, I was in Piccadilly before
any of the audience who had heard the closing words of
the lecture ; and I suppose (from all I learn) that I was
half way to Yictoi-ia wlien the audience were beginning to
wonder at my failing to reappear on the platform.

My exit was not accomplished quite so quickly on this
occasion as once when I lectured at the Horticultural Hall,
in Boston, Mass., and "Dinorah" was performed at the Boston
Opera House. Immediately after my peroration, I ran
through a long hall under that which contained the audience,
seeing the first few as they came down the stairs leading
from the entrance to the lecture hall ; a moment later I
was in a carriage sent to meet me by a friend, and I believe
that all the audience were not well out of the hall when I
took my seat just as the second act of " Dinorah " was
beginning. Marimon in the "Shadow Song" was well worth
running to hear. It is a rather singular coincidence that the
only other time when I have been as quick to escape after
a lecture — to wit, when I had been lecturing in the summer
of 187'J for the National Temperance League (but on astro-
nomy)— I was just in time to hear Patti in the " Shadow
Song."

The spire of the General Assembly Hall, Edinburgh, has
just been fitted up with a new lightning-conductor. Some
doubt having been expressed, says the local press, as to the
efficiency of the old conductor, it was resolved to subject
it to a strict test, and for this purpose a copper wire was
carried liy a " Steeple Jack " up one side of the spire and
attached to the conductor on the other side. When the
connection was effected, the electrical resistance is said to

230

• KNOWLEDGE *

fAPKir, 20, 1883.

have reached the " very alarming amount of 800 Ohms."
The conductor was jointi^d together by screw couplings, and
this extraordinary resistance is explained to have been due
to the "defective character of many of those couplings."
The resistance of a good conductor should not exceed
1 Ohm.

Thk management of the Savoy Theatre having deter-
mined to abolish gas-fittings altogether in the entrance,
corridors, and offices, Messrs. Karaday it Son are supplying
some tasteful fixtures for the Swan lamps, with which
Messrs. Siemen Brothers are replacing them.

TiiR model theatre of Briinn is illuminated by electricity,
and also provided with an electrical safety apparatus, de-
vised by Robert Langstoutf Haviland, for use in the event
of fire breaking out. By means of an electro-magnet the
incombustible curtain between the stage and auditorium
is allowed to fall ; the valves of water pipes are opened,
so as to discharge copious volumes of water on various
parts of the building ; e.xtra doors are opened, and venti-
lators are closed.

Tub experiment of electrically lighting the dining-room
and libraries of the House of Commons has, it is stated,
cost more than £2,000, but the Commissioner of Works
contracted to pay a sum not exceeding £900.

Professor Palmieri has devised a process for silvering
glass by means of the reducing action on the salts of silver,
which is said to have the advantage of producing a very
brilliant metallic deposit. When into an ammoniacal solu-
tion of nitrate of silver is poured, first a little caustic
potash, and then a few drops of glycerine, the reduction
begins at once ; and this action is accelerated if ether or
alcohol be added to the mixture. A moderate heat and
darkness are said to increase the brilliancy of the precipi-
tate, and darkness also favours the adhesion to the mirror
of the deposit.

The Council of the Society of Arts have appointed a
committee to consider the question of preventing colli-
sions at sea. The work of the committee will be confined
to a consideration of the best means of preventing colli-
sions in fogs. The committee will be glad to receive any
information on this subject from persons who have given
their attention to it, or to consider any proposals having
for their object the pn^vcntion of such collisions. All
such communications sliould bt; .iddressed to the secretary
of the Society of Arts, John-street, Adelphi.

Mil. John F. Sc;ruLTZ, of New York, has conceived the
idea of preventir collisions at sea in a fog, by means of
balloons lie proposes that all vessels should be provided
with balloons of sufficient capacity to take a person high
enough above the fog to see balloons from other vessels that
may be in the vicinity. The relative positions of the dif-
ferent vessels are then communicated to the captain or
other oflicer of the ship, and, by signals between the look-
out men in the balloons, the direction of the vessels is so
controlled as to avoid collision. The inventor does not
state how the man in the balloon is to communicate with
the officers of his ship, but it i.^ presumed by an electric
wire attached to the cable-line by which the balloon is
fastened to the ship's deck. Mr. Schultz does not confine
himself to the idea of u.sing balloons on ships alone for pre-
venting collisions, but he thinks lighthouses, life-saving

stations, itc, should be provided with balloons, properly
manned, to warn vessels of their approach to land. The
inventor of the balloon collision-preventing idea suggests
that the present year, 1883, is a most appropriate time for
introducing his system, as it miirks an event in ballooning,
it being just one hundred years ago that Montgolfier intro-
duced his balloon to the world.

The total number of puddling furnaces in operation at
the end of 1882 in the United Kingdom was 4,369, being
814 less than in the preceding year.

During a discussion at the meeting of the Society of
Telegraph Engineers, yesterday week, Mr. Stroh said he
had been endeavouring to examine microphonic actions
with the aid of a microscope. He u.sed platinum electrodes
separated by an oily film, aud using only one cell, actually
saw the oil boil vigorously and partially volatilise. The
telephone and microphone are at present receiving con-
siderable attention at the hands of the society, which has
devoted the last two meetings to their discussion, and has
also allotted the next to the same subject. A new
condenser telephone will then, in all probability, be intro-
duced.

The American Bell Telephone Company has, it is said,
erected two million miles of overhead wires during the past
year.

Telegraph Wire Struck by Lightning. — The Elec-
trician is informed by an eye-witness that : — ''On March 1,
near the village of Lacofranco, a flash of lightning struck
the line wire about midway between two poles. The
current divided and rushed along the wire to either pole,
completely destroying the whole of the wire short up to
the insulators, where, with a loud report, it jumped to the
iron poles and made earth. The length of \^ire dfrstroyed
was eighty-five yards. The size of wire was No. 8 B. W.G.
galvanised iron. The two ends have a purplish hue, and
are like hardened steel. The cups of the insulators (white
porcelain) were broken, the upper parts being covered with
a purplish, metallic looking coating, radiating from where
the line was attacked. The coating is thoroughly burnt
into the glaze of the porcelain. The inside of the cups,
nearest to where the electric fluid sprang from the line to
the iron pole, is covered with a fine, dark, metallic-looking
deposit, which is also burnt into the porcelain."

Petroleum in the Argentine Republic. — Petroleum
deposits of great richness and extent are said to have been
recently discovered in the upper provinces of the Argen-
tine Republic, and it is believed that the eastern slopes of
the Sierras of the Andes are underlaid in many places
with the oil. One of the deposits, in the province of
Jujuy, consists of a lake of about eighty-eight acres in
e.xtent, and of unknown depth, and is covered with as-
phalte. The liquid itself is somewhat thick, of a black
colour, and has no disagreeable odour. It is pronounced
equal to the best American petroleum. Deposits of petro-
leum have also been recently discovered in the province of
Mendoza ; one of these is only a few miles south-west of
the old site of the city of Mendoza, destroyed by earth-
quake in 1861, and a concession has already been granted
by the Government for working these deposits. According
to an analysis made in England, excellent results are
obtained ; the yield is stated to be nearly 40 per cent, of
kerosine, and what adds to the importance of the deposit
is the fact that the oil flows to the surface, and thus aflbrds
a constant supply of crude petroleum. — Engineering.

April 20, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

231

A NATURALIST'S YEAR.

By Grant Allen.

XL— MABSH MAKIGOLD.

JF any promising young resthete wants to introduce a
pleasing variation on the monotony of sunflowers and
daflbdils, he cannot do better than set up an original
fashion of his own for admiring our common beautiful
bright English marsh-marigolds. Except, pei-haps, the
globe-flower and the greater spearwort, no British blossom
can vie with them in the brilliancy of their golden colour-
ing ; and when the)- grow naturally among their own
broad, heart-shaped, glossy-green foliage on a patch of
spongy ground beside some little brooklet, they are as
beautiful objects as even the most fastidious of decorative
artists could wish to feast his eyes upon. At first sight,
the marsh-marigold looks like a very big yellow buttercup,
only richer in hue and more luxuriant in its marshy
growth : and so it really is in all fundamental essentials ;
but it difl'ers more widely from the true buttercup type in
many important points of structure than most unbotanical
observers would easily imagine at a first rough glance. I
palled to pieces a common meadow-buttercup and examined
its structure here one day a twelvemonth since ; let us pull
to pieces a marsh- marigold in like fashion together this
morning, and see what are the noteworthy points of agree-
ment and difference between the two types.

The first thing that strikes one about the marsh-marigold
is the fact that, in spite of its brilliant golden colour, it has
really no petals. This is certainly rather a surprise to the
loTer of flowers who, for the fir^t time, examines closely
one of these lovely April blossoms: for the sepals or calyx-
pieces are so large, so broadly expanded, so brightly co-
loured, and so exactly like the buttercup petals in hue and
shape, that it is almost impossible at first to believe they
do not really belong to the corolla. You might almost, for
a moment, imagine that the true sepals were very short-
lived, as in the poppy and the yellow eschscholtzias of our
flower-gardens, and that they had fallen ofl from the open
blossoms at an extremely early stage, leaving the yellow
petals as the apparent outer whorl of the entire flower.
But when you come to examine an unopened bud upon the
same plant, you will see at once that this explanation is
not the true one, and that the large coloured petal- like
organs are, in fact, the sepals, and no other part what-
soever. You will find that in the youngest buds of all
ttey are green and quite external : and that, as they grow
older, they get gradually larger and yellower, until at last
they expand into the perfect similitude of five big, bright
golden petals. It is quite clear, then, that for some good
reason of its own, the plant lias so specialised the outermost
•r true calyx-wliorl of flower-leaves, as to perform the
function usually performed by the second or coroUine row
for other blossoms.

When we examine the intermediate stages, or the
analogovis cases elsewhere, the reason for this curious — I
had almost said this wanton — proceeding, becomes fairly
obvious. Even in the buttercup, the calyx-pieces are
faintly coloured, though they serve no attractive purpose
in the economy of the plant, being rather provided with a
hairy outer coat, so as to prevent thie\ing ants from
creeping up to steal the honey. Inside this protective
whorl comes the corolla of five golden petals, each with a
nectary at its base, to attract the fertilising bee. But most
buttercups are rather cup-shaped ; and in many cup shaped
flowers it happens that from certain , points of view the
calyx becomes really far more conspicuous than the corolla.
Wherever this is the case, it is usual to find the calyx-

pieces at least as brightly coloured as the petals ; for, under
such circumstances, any heightening of the faint colouration
almost always displayed by the calyx would prove beneficial
to the species by aiding in the attractiveness of its general
display, and would therefore be favoured by natural selec-
tion. For example, in this very same buttercup family
there are three or four developed tribes, such as the monks-
hoods, the larkspurs, and the Christmas roses, in all of
which the large cup-shaped, or bell shaped, or helmet-shaped
sepals are more exposed to view than the small honey-
bearing petals ; and in all, the sepals accordingly, rather
than the petals, form the attractive advertising organ. The
plants, in short, are good advertisers ; they insert their
colour advertisements in the best available medium.

Now, we have a rare wild plant in some parts of
England and Wales — the globe flower — which to some
extent stands half-way in this respect between the butter-
cup and the marth-marigold. It has from ten to fifteen
large concave golden sepals outside each blossom, and
these form, as in the marsh-marigold, the real alluring
surface. But inside them it still retains a set of small,
long, narrow yellow petals, dwarfed almost out of recogni-
tion, and quite flat, because, though they secrete honey,
they no longer take any part in the real function of attract-
ing insects from a distance. To a certain extent, there-
fore, I said, we may regard the globe-flower as representing
a middle stage between the buttercup and the marsh-
marigold. Still, we must not consider that our own species
is really an exactly intermediate form, because, while the
buttercup has five sepals and petals, and while the marsh-
marigold has also five sepal.«, the sepals and petals of the
English globe-flower usually number from ten to fifteen
each. There are, however, foreign globe-flowers with only
five of either kind, and one of these may perhaps be, in
fact, a genuine link between the two tribes — the ancestral
and the derivative.

From some such ancestor as this, then — a buttercup
with five large, bright golden sepals, and five tiny, dwarfed
petals — our English marsh-marigold is probably descended.
But it has acquired a peculiarity of its own which has
enabled it to dispense with its rudimentary petals, and so
to effect a complete saving of the material which would
otherwise have gone to make them up ; for it has taken to
secreting the honey in the very centre of the flower, on the
young seed-vessels themselves, a habit which, of course,
renders the little narrow petals quite unnecessary. Ac-
cordingl)-, through the working of what is called the law of
parsimony (by which all useless parts grow gradually
obsolete), it has now lost them altogether, retaining only
the very large and petal like yellow calyx-pieces.

At the same time our plant has undergone another
important structural change, which it also shares with the
globe-flowers and with all the higher buttercup kinds, such
as the monkshood and the columbine. In the centre of
the common meadow buttercup, you will recollect, there
are several rows of small, solitary, one-seeded carpels, all
mixed together into a very irregular unsymmetrical crowd.
This was apparently the earliest condition of the pistil (or
unripe fruit) in all primitive plants ; certainly it is the
condition of the pistil in all the simplest and most aboriginal
surviving examples. But as plants develop better means
of cross-fertilisation by means of insects, and rise higher
in the scale of organisation, it pays them better to
lessen the number of such carpels, and to put several
seeds in each of them instead of one only. In other
words, those which happen from time to time to
have the fewest carpels, and the most seeds in each
carpel, survive and thrive best, while those which
reverse this rule run the poorest chance in the struggle

0;^2

knowledge:

[Apbil 20, 1883.

for oxi.stencp. It is easier to fertilise five or ten carpc-ls,
with six or a dozen seeds apiece, than to fertilise
fifty with one in each. A glance at a bunch of marsh-
mari-'olds in various stages of maturity ^vill show at once
the mllonnl.-^ of this principle. In the youngest flowers,
the outermost stamens only are mature; as they grow
older, the inner rows of stamens ripen one after another ;
and at last the carpels themselves become fit to be impreg-
nated with pollen from a neighbouring blossom As the
bee (or other visitor) bends over the different flowers, he
collects pollen from the younger ones, and conveys it imme-
diately to the sensitive surfaces of their elder sisters, ihus
a sinMe act suflices to fertilise the whole set of carpels,
which have accordingly been reduced from the irregular
mob of the buttercup to a single row of five, or soinetiines

remains at bottom identical throughout, but it fills itself
out more or less, according to the supply it obtains
of food and sunshine. Hence the marsh-marigold, growing
as a rank perennial with a rich and almost bulbous root-
stock in fertile marshy places, can aflbrd to produce very
large and well-filled leaves ; while the lesser celandme, a
smaller plant of somewhat similar habits, but possessing
only little sausage-shaped tubers, and growing in less
favourable situations, can not attain the same breadth of
leaf, though it rounds each leaf to an equal degree ; and
the meadow buttercups, subjected to the fiercer competi-
tion of the summer grasses and clovers, have to divide up
their foliage into numerous much-cut segments, in order ta
intercept whatever little light and air is permitted to reach
them by their greedy neighbours.

a double one of ten, for the numbers fluctuate considerably
between these two extremes. Each carpel contains several
seeds, and grows out at last into a little dry brown follicle.
Such economy of parts is one of the best tests of relative
evolution in the vegetable hierarchy.

It is curious to note, however, that while all this deve-
lopment has taken place in the flowers, the foliage still
remains essentially true to a very primitive buttercup type.
The beautiful, big, glossy leaves of the marsh-marigold are
almost identical in shape, texture, and, in fact, everything
but size with the much smaller leaves of a true buttercup,
the lesser celandine, now flowering abundantly in all the
meadows and hedgerows around us. Such constancy is
interesting, but by no means unusual : for in like manner
the globe-flower almost exactly reproduces the other type
of Imttercup foliage so familiar to us all in the common
English meadow species. The reason is that the cir-
cumstances of the two similar plants are in both
cases all but precisely the same. The family leaf

THE WARNER OBSERVATORY.

(EOCHESTER, X.Y.)

By G. W. Elliott, M.A.

To the Edit(yr of Knowledge.

SIR, During my recent residence in London I read
Knowledge with interest every week, and this will
perhaps explain, and in a measure atone for, my freedom
in addressing vou. Constant perusal of a paper so tho-
roughly and refreshingly infused with an active personality
as is Knowledge makes tlie reader feel as if he were weU
acquainted with the Editor, even though he has never seen
him. .^

On my return to the States I find that the V j™^*"
Observatorv has been completed, and is now occupied by
Mr. Lewis" Swift, Ph.D., R.A.S., the well-known comet-
finder. Presuming that vou would be interested in learning
all about the latest addition to astronomical facilities m the

Apbil 20, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE

233

New World, I venture to send you a brief description of
the building, furnishings, observatory and telescope, and
in addition, by the kindness of Mr. Warner, I am able to
send also an electrotype of the exterior and interior views
of the Observatory.

The building was begun in ISSO, and was slowly con-
structed, so that the foundations might be well set before
the roof was put on and the telescope mounted. It is
located on the corner of East Avenue — the finest street in
the city — and Arnold Park, the finest private park in this
city of private parks. It is constructed of Lockport white
sandstone, rough ashler, and is the most noteworthy struc-
ture in the city, and probably the finest private observatory
in the world. The entire establishment cost about £16,000

made large and heavy to prevent fle.xure. The two circles
are respectively it and ."iO in. in diameter, graduated in
silver. It is driven by clockwork, and is provided with a
full battery of eye-pieces, haxing powers from 50 to
2,500 diameters. From the following list of prominent
private observatories, it will be seen that this telescope
surpasses all in size and power : —

Draper's, Ilasting-onlludson 11 inches.

Morrison's, Glas<;ow, Mo., U.S.A. ... 12]

Rutherfurd's, New York, U.S.A. ... 13

Crawford's, Dunecht, Scotland 15

Warner's, Rochester, N.Y , U.S.A.. IG

It is 21 inches larger than that in your Greenwich

(-S'80,000). The interior is finished in the finest native hard
woods, and is tastefully decorated and furnished. An
elevator (lift) conducts to the floor under the operating-
room, the latter thence being reached by a cut-off staircase,
which excludes all currents of warm air from below. The
observing room is four stories from the ground, has an
interior diameter of thirty feet, and a height of thirty feet
from fioor to peak of dome. It is abundantly supplied
with cold air, and in the summer season the dome can be
readily and quickly cooled.

To avoid the jar of the neighbouring railway, the pier is
laid on a bed of sandy earth considerably above bed
rock. The telescope is a refractor, having an aperture of
16 in. clear, and a focal length of 22 ft When in perpen-
dicular position its ob)ecf>-glass is 25 ft, and its eye-glass
thrown 3 ft. from the floor. The cylinder is of sheet steel,

Observatory, which is the most elaborately equipped of all
observatories. The telescope is provided with devices for
rough setting both in R.A. and Declination. The observa-
tory possesses a positive micrometer and Burnham's device
for illuminating the wires with dark field. The field can
also be made bright with dark wires. The telescope has
two comet eye-pieces, one negative, the other periscopic and
positive, for working on nebuhe, and for the detection of
expected comets. J.Ir. Swift will use his old four and one
half inch telescope for comet-seeking. He tells me he is
preparing a chart of all known nebulae, for the benefit of
comet-searchers.

Mr. Hiram Sibley, of this city, one of the heaviest
capitalists of the country, and a well-known benefactor to
several American universities, has presented the observa-
tory with the finest spectroscope that could be made, and

234

KNOWLEDGE

[April 20, 1883,

another wealthy Rochesterian has given a sidereal clock ;
so that, altogctlicr, the institution is splendidly equipped,
and Dr. Swift, tlie director, will certainly lack nothing in
the way of facilities for making astronomical discoveries.

In the drawing-room of the Observatory Dr. Swift has
a large album containing the photographs of all the pro-
fessional and non-professional astronomers of America, and
he tells me he hopes to obtain the photographs of all the
European astronomers for the Observatory.

Mr. 11. II. Warner, the donor of this magnificent in-
stitution, is l)ut forty years of age. His ancestors belong
to the Warner family of Kent and Essex, several of whose
members emigrated to this country in the seventeenth
century, and settled in the New England States. His
maternal ancestors came over in the Mayjhnrer. Twelve
years ago he came to Rochester with less than £20 in his
pocket. To-day he is one of the wealthiest men in the
city. In 1872 he took the general agency for the whole
United States of a well-known fire and burglar-proof safe,
and since then has sold over G0,000 safes, and made, and
lost, and made again, a handsome fortune. His career has
been almost phenomenal. He was not regarded when a
boy as extraordinarily capable, but he felt his own
power, and when labouring at the uninteresting work of a
farmer upon his father's estate, he vowed to himself that
he would write his name high on the scroll of commercial
success, and he has done it. There is not to-day a better-
known manufacturer in America than H. H. Warner.
Last June, in recognition of his generosity to science, the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, at
its Montreal session, elected him a member. In 1881, he
oflFered a Comet prize of $200 in gold for each American
or Canadian discovery of a telescopic rmexpeoted comet.
During the same year he gave a prize of .§200 in gold for
the best essay on comets, which was won by Mr. Lewis
Bos9, director Dudley Observatory, Albany, New York,
U.S.A., whose essay is said to be one of the finest mono-
graphs ever written on comets. The previous year he gave
Prof. Swift $.500 for his cometary finds. In 1882 he
renewed his §200 prize for cometary discoveries in the
United States, Canada, and Great Britain, and established
a prize of .$200 for each meteoric stone with organic
remains, and §.')0 for each meteoric stone without organic
remains, seen to fall in Canada or the United States during
the year. Fifteen hundred dollars have been awarded by
him under these prizes, during the past two years.

He not only built, fitted, and furnished the Warner
Observatory, but he maintains Dr. Lewis Swift in his posi-
tion as director, on a handsome salary.

As an indication of the large place this man fills in the
American commercial world, it may be noted that he is pre-
sident and heaviest stockholder in the Rochester Grape
Sugar Company, having a capital of 1,000,000 dels. ; is
director of the Horse Shoe Silver Mining Company,
having a capital of 1,000,000 dels. ; is the heaviest
dealer in safes in the United States, having done
last year 800,000 dols. worth of business ; and his Safe
Kidney and Liver Cure establishment did between two and
three million dollars worth of business in 1882. And this
is the record of twelve years of the hardest kind of hard
work under the most discouraging circum-stances. He has
emphatically commanded success by deserving it Besides
his benevolence to science, he is a man of large charity, of
generous, undemonstrative nature, and is highly esteemed
in this city of his home.

You will pardon my particularity in portraying his
successes; I fanced it would not be without interest to
your readers, as one illustration of the phenomenal growth
of fortune in this new and wide-awake country.

Dr. Swift's successes in astronomical discovery have had
a local inspiration, and during the past two years the
section of astronomy of the Academy of Sciences has been
in active operation. There are about a dozen private tele-
scopes now owned by the members, and there is not a clear
night in the year when the skj' is not diligently searched
for old and new astronomical facts, within the horizon of
Rochester. The Rochester Astronomical Society, an
organisation in connection with the Warner Observatory,
al.so sends out announcements by mail and telegraph to all
the papers of the country of all astronomical discoveries;
and Mr. Warner also generously bears the expense of these
bulletins.

THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH.

VI.

By Edward Clodd.

IN a former paper, the facts on which the solar theory
rests were summarised as witnessing to its inherent
soundness, and we must now glance at certain other facts
which are overlooked by its exponents. A needful task ;
because the claims preferred on its behalf to explain every
incident in the complex mythology of the Greek ai;d other
races has caused a recoil in minds otherwise well disposed
towards it. In fact, any one reading, without such caution
as this paper is designed to supply, the iLinute analyses of
myths in the writings of those who interpret them solely
by the philological method, would conclude that it
had laid bare the meteorological origin of every epic
and folk-tale among the Indo-European peoples. He
would learn that in a way rudely analogous to the super-
natural guidance of the Christian Church, the several
Aryan tribes had received from the fathers of the race an
unvarying canon of interpretation of the primitive myths,
a canon preserved with the jealous veneration with which
the Jew regarded the Thorah and the Brahman the Veda.
He would also learn that the details of Norse and classic
myth can be traced to the Veda, that these details, not of
incident alone, but of thought and expression, survived
unimpaired by time and untouched by circumstance, whilst,
strange to say, the more prominent names and the leading
characters became obscured in their meaning. Strange
indeed, but not true. For what is the fact ?

Long before the hymns of the Rig-Veda existed as we
know them (and they have remained an inviolate sacred
text since 600 b c, when every word, verse, and syllable
were counted), the Aryan tribes had swarmed from their
parent hive across boundless ste^ppes and over winding
mountain passes, some westward into Europe, others south-
ward into Hindustan. Among the slender intellectual
capital of which they stood possessed was the common
mythology of their ancestors, in which, as we have
seen, sun and moon, storm and thunder-cloud, and
all other natural phenomena, were credited with
personal life and will. But that mythology had cer-
tainly advanced beyond the crude primitive form and
entered the heroic stage, wherein the powers of nature
were half human, half divine. Their language had passed
into the inflective, or highest stage, and had undergone
such changes that the relationship between its several
groups and their origin from one mother-tongue were ob-
scured and remained so until laid bare in our day. In
short, the Ai'yan tribes had attained no mean state of
civilisation, some being more advanced than the others,
according as external circumstances helped or hindered,
and, one by one, they passed from the condition of semi-

April 20, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

236

civilised nomads to become fathers and founders of nations
that abide to this day.

These being the facts to which language itself bears
witness, how was it possible for their mythologies, i.r.,
their stock of notions about things, to remain unaflected
and secure of transmission w ithout organic change I The
myths, unfixed in literary form, yielded themselves with
ease as vehicles of new ideas ; their ancient meaning,
already faded, paled before the all-absorbing signilicance of
present facts. These were more potent realities than the
kisses of the dawn ; the human and the personal, in its
struggles, of mightier interest than the battle of rosy morn
or purple eve with the sons of thunder ; and Homer's
music would long since have died away were Achilles'
" baneful wrath " but a passively told tale of the sun's grief
for the loss of the morning.

In brief, the complex and varying influences which have
transformed the primitive myth, are the important factors
which the solar theorists have omitted in their attempted
solution of the problem. They have forgotten the part
which, to borrow a term from astronomy, " personal equa-
tion " has played. They have not examined myth in the
light of the liibtory of the race ; and the new elements
which it took into itself, while never wholly ridding itself
of the old, have escaped them. They have secured a
mechanical unity, whereas, by combination of the historical
with their own method, they might have secured a vital
unity.

To all which classic myth itself bears record. The Greeks
were of Aryan stock, but when they arrived in Europe is
unknown. The period between their settlement and the
Homeric age was, however, long enough to admit of their
advance to the state of a nation rejoicing in the fulness
of intellectual life. They remembered not from what rock
they w-ere hewn, from what pit they were digged. The
nature-gods of their remote ancestors had long since
changed their meteorolog'cal character, and appeared in
the likeness of men — or, at least, played very human
pranks on Olympus. In the Veda, the primitive nature
myth, although e.xalted and purified, is persistent; under
one name or another it is still the ceaseless battle between
the darkness and the light ; Dyaus was still the bright
«ky, the cattle of Siva were still the clouds. But the
Greek of Homer's time, and his congener in the far
north, had forgotten all that ; the war in heaven was
transferred to the strife of gods and men on the
shores of the Hellespont and by the bleak seaboard of the
Baltic. Their gods and goddesses, improved by age and ex-
perience, put off their pliysical and put on the ethical ; the
Heaven-father became king of gods and men, source of
order, law and justice ; the sun and the dawn, Apollo and
Athene, became wisdom, skill, and guardianship incarnate.
And the story of human vicissitudes found in solar
myth that " pattern of things in the heavens " which
conformed to its design. Thus Homer, in whose day
the old nature-myth had become confused with the
▼ague traditions of veritable deeds of kings and heroes
hut dimly remembered, touched it as with heavenly fire
nnquenchal)le. The siege of Troy, so say the solar
mythologists, "is a repetition of the daily siege of the east
by the solar powers that every evening are robbed of their
highest treasures in the west." It is surely with a truer
instinct that while we contend for that physical origin of
the great epics to which their remarkable agreement
witnesses, we also feel that the vitality which inheres
in them is due to whatever of human experience, joy,
and sorrow are the burden of their immortal song.
As to the repulsive features of Greek myth, one
can neither share the distress of the solar theorists

nor feel their difficulties. Both are self-created, and
are aggravated by the assumption of "periods of tem-
porary insanity through which tlie human mind had to pass,"
as the rude health of childhood is checked by whooping-
cough and measles. They are explained by the persistence
with which the lower out of which man has emerged asserts
itself, as primary rocks pierce through and overlap later
strata. The ancestors of the Aryans were savages in the
remote past, and the " old Adam " was never entirely cast
out; indeed, it is with us still. There are superstitions and
credulities in our midst, in drawing-rooms as well as gipsy
camps, quite as gross in nature, if less coarse in guise, as
those extant among the Greeks. The future historian of our
time, as he turns over the piles of our newspapers, will find
contrasts of ignorance and culture in our midst as startling
as any existiug in the land of Homer, of Archimedes, and
Aristotle. Spirit-rapping and belief in the " evil eye "
have their cult among us, although Professor Huxley's
" Hume " can be bought for two shillings, and knowledge
has free course. And it certainly accords best with all
that we have learnt as to the mode of human progress to
believe that the old lived into the new, than that the old
had been cast out, but had gained re-entry, making the
last state of the Greeks to be worse than the first.

In this matter the Vedic hymns do not help us much
They are the products of a relatively highly-civilised time;
the concepticin of sky and dawn as living persons has
passed out of its primitive simplicity ; these heavenly powers
have become complex deities ; there is much confounding
of persons — the same god called by one or many names.
The thought is that of an age when moral problems have
presented themselves for solution, and the references to
social matters indicate a settled state of things far re-
moved from the fisher and the hunter stage. Neverthe-
less, there lurk within these sacred writings survivals of
the lower culture, traces of coarse rites, bloody sacrifices,
of repulsive myths of the gods, and of cosmogonies familiar
to the student of barbaric nijth and legend.

Enough has been said to show that the extreme and
one-sided interpretations of the solar theorists are due
to a one-sided method. The philological has yielded
splendid results; this they have done; the historical
yields results equally rich and fertile ; this they have left
undone. Language has given us the key to the kinship
between the several members of the great body of Aryan
myths ; the study of the historical evolution of myths, the
comparison of these, without regard to affinity of speeeh,
will give us the key to the kinship between savage inter-
pretation of phenomena all the world over. The mytho-
logy of Greek and Bushman, of Kaffir and Scandinavian,
of the lied man and the Hindu, springs from the like
mental condition. It is the uniform and necessary product
of the human mind in the childhood of the race.

Ax extraordinary run was recently made by an engine
attached to one of the steam dynamos in the Edison
Central Station, Pearl- street. New York, which ran for
seventeen days and nights successively, with a load varying
from a minimum of 40-horse power to a ma.ximum of
150 horse power indicated. The engine which accom-
plished this feat is a " Lawrence " direct-acting high-speed
engine, running at 350 revolutions per minute. If we
suppose the engine to have had a 5-feet driving-wheel
attached, this performance would have been equivalent to
that of a locomotive making the circuit of the globe at
the equator. The bearings of the engine when stopped
were not found to be unduly heated.

23G

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[April 20, 1833.

"OUR BODIES:"

SHORT PArEllS ON PHYSIOLOGY.

By Dk. A.vi>i:k\v \\'ii.son, F.R.S.E., ic.

yo. X.— THE BLOOD.

'lltTJlF-N* tho voice of ancient authority declared the
V* blood of the body to be its "life," the statement
was one which the experience of everyday life seemed fully
to support. The phy.siologist of to-day will not quarrel
seriously with the ancient rendering. He knows the
impossibility of defining this mystic " life " of ours, which
appears now as diversity in unity, and then as unity
amidst variety of the mo.st complex kind. Ho also knows
'that many other parts or components of the body might
with e(iual justice be named the "life" — at least, in the
sense in which the blood has been so termed. The top of
the spina! cord (or mediilla oblongata, as this part of the
nervous axis has been named) might, perhaps, with greater
force than the blood, be named the "life," since we can
lose a pint or two of blood and recover perfectly from the
depletion, whilst a prick with a pin in the medulla would
cause instant death. Similarly, the lieart might quite
appropriately be named the " life," in the sense of the
absolute necessity of its action for the continuance of the
.-iirculation. The " breath," also, is the "life" in a very
iplain and unmistakable sense, since interference with the

■ "-isreatlnDg function means primarily death to the blood
■itself. But when we consider that the blood-flow is

■ incessant, that it travels to all parts of the body, and that
its failure means deprivation of food to the tissues, as well
as the want of heat-production, we can readily enough find
ample justification for the words of ancient wisdom with
■which we opened this paper.

What is blood ? An important question this, and one
•which may be answered in at least three ways — firstly,
physically ; secondh', chr micall ij ; and thirdly, micro-
■smpicaUij. Let us, firstly, endeavour to ascertain the
•physical characters of blood, or those which blood exhibits
when regarded merely as a particular kind of fluid. To
the naked eye, blood appears of a bright red colour as it
Mows in tlie arteries — that is, when it is pure ; whilst it is
of a purple colour when, in an impure state, it circulates
through the veins. iSIicroscopioally, as we shall presently
see, blood is not really red in hue, Vmt owes its colour to
the numerous red bodies (or corpuscles) which float in it.
Blood is feel)ly alkaline in its reaction, and this alkaline
character decreases from the time of the remo\ al of the
blood from the body, and until it clots or " coagulates."

When drawn from the body, blood "clots." From two
to five or six minutes suflioe for this action. At first, the
blood appears as a red jelly ; but, ultimately, the clot sinks
to the bottom of the vessel, leaving a straw-coloured liquid
above. Blood thus practically analy.ses itself before our
• eyes, into a solid part, the clot, and a liquid part, the
■£crum or plasma. The clot consists of the corpuscles or
globules of the blood (most of them red, hence the character
of the clot) entangled in a substance called Jil/riu. The
liquid, or plasma, is the normal liquid or fluid part of the
blood itself. Tliis fluid, the microscope shows us, is as
clear as water, and owes its apparently red colour, as
already remarked, to the red globules that float in it. It
is owing to a few of these red corpuscles remaining sus-
pended in the plasma, that the liiiuid part of the blood in
the " clot" seems to be straw-coloured. If we whip up or
switch the blood with a bundle of twigs, just after it has
tieen shed, no clotting t;xkes place. In such a case, we
ivhip out from the blood the fibrin which entangles the red

corpuscles, and which adheres in strings or shreds to the
twigs.

The chemical composition of the blood may be very
shortly dealt with. A fluid which is supplied to every
part of the body, and from which each organ or tissue
derives the materials wherewith to renovate and repair its
substance, might reasonably enough be e.xpected to pre-
sent us with a fluid epitome of the entire frame. And
so, in truth, do we find blood to exhibit a composi-
tion of wide and generalised character. We discover, for
instance, that blood contains about 784 parts of water per
1,000; it is vicli in albumen ; it contains /at I >/ matters; it
has a complex list of minerals, such as common salt,
chloride of potass, phosphates of lime and magnesium,
carbonate of sodium, itc. ; and it shows on analysis,
colouring matter, gases, and a number of substances de-
ri\ed from the waste of the Ijody. Another fashion of
showing the chemical composition of blood, brings out its
elementary constitution as follows: — Carbon, 57'9 ;
hydrogen, 7-1 ; nitrogen, 17'4; oxygen, 19'2 ; ashes, 4'4.
From such an estimate, we see that blood contains
materials adajited for supplying all the tissues of the
body in the reparative work which is incessantly being
performed.

Under the microscope, a thin film of human blood is seen
to consist of a clear liquid — the plasma — in which float
two kinds of bodies. These are the red and vhite corpuscles,
or " globules," as they are often popularly named. The
blood derives its red colour from the immense number of
red corpuscles which float in its liquid. The white globules
are less numerous ; about one white corpuscle existing to
400 or 500 red ones. The microscope enables us to see in
between the globules, aiid thus to perceive the clear liquid.
To the naked eye, conversely, the blood Appears uniformly
red, because the globules are so numerous, and because we
cannot perceive the liquid in which they float. Each red
corpuscle of man measures in breadth about -g^'goth of
an inch, and in thickness about yu-J-Tj^th of an inch.
In shape it is biconcave, or hollowed on either side, and is
coloured red by a substance called hoimoglohin. It is this
substance which is affected by the oxijgen we breathe into
the blood, and by the carbonic acid gas the body and
tissues at large excrete into the blood. The white corpus-
cles of man's blood measure in diameter, each, about the
->;\,-jyth of an inch. Each contains a central particle, the
nucleus. It appears to be this nucleus which, when libe-
rated from the outer part of the white corpuscle and
coloured red, becomes a red corpuscle. The red corpuscles
of the blood arc thus derived from the white ones.

The white corpuscles of the blood are known to possess
the curious property of exhibiting movements similar to
those seen in the «?;«), 6«-animalcule. These corpuscles
(like the amceb<() can also absorb particles of solid matter,
as the animalcule in question takes its food. The white
corpuscle is, therefore, a particle of living protoplasm, pos-
sessing a vitality independent, in a measure at least, of
that seen in the body of which it forms part. It is, indeed,
a curious fact to ponder over, that rolling about in our
veins and arteries ; now worming their way through the
walls of blood-vessels into our tissues, and now contracting
and expanding their substance, are myriads of minute
living specks, which, although part and parcel of our com-
position, are closely related in structure and life to the
animalcules of the pool.

SpAN'isii Iron Miner.\ls. — The exports of iron minerals
from Spain during the year 1880 amounted to 2,932,998
tons.

April 20, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

237

SUN VIEWS OF THE EARTH;

OR, "THE SEASONS ILLUSTRATED."
By Richard A. Proctoe.

WE give this week the four sun views for April, showing the sun at R a.m., noon, 6 p.m., and midnight, Greenwich mean time, as
supposed to be seen from the sun. For comparison, and to show the varying pose of the earth as the year proceeds, we give the
corresponding sun views for March and February.

238

• KNOVvALEDGE ♦

[April 20, 1883.

THE AMATEUR ELECTRICIAN.

ELECTRICAL MEASUREMENT.— X.

IN order to ol>t,ain a conveniontly-conipU^to set of Bridge
coils, it is ndvi?al>le to construct a small resistance-
box, holding four coils, so adjustable as to be able to
perform the functions of Coils A and B (Fig. 2, Electric-1
lleasurenient VIII.).

V

The accompanying diagram (Fig. 1) illustrates a simple
form, based on a design similar to that previously described
(Electrical Measurement VII.). M is a sheet of ebonite or
other insulating material, about a quarter of an inch thick,
and S inches long, by 2^ or 3 inches wide, and forming the top
of a box an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half deep.
Four ebonite, ebony, or boxwood bobl<ins are screwed to
the under side of M as shown at T R S U, the bobbins
being first carefully wound with silk-covered wire by the
" double-winding " method (Electrical Measurement VII. ),
two of them, E, and S, offering ten ohms resistance,
and the other two, T and U, otiering 100 ohms each.
The coils T and U are connected by one of their extremities
to the under screws of Y and Z respectively, the other
extremities being similarly connected to W and X. In
the same way, R and S are connected at one end
to \V and X respectively, the other ends of the
10-ohm coils being both connected to the central bind-
ing-screw, V. Short straps (Fig. 2, Electrical Measure-
ment VII.) are placed between the binding-screws on the
upper side of the ebonite plate, and removed or discon-
nected at one end when the subjacent resistances are
required. An extra nut is provided on the central and on
each of the end binding-screws (V Y Z) for the necessarj'
wire connections.

One pole of the battery being put to earth, the other
pole is joined to V, where the current divides, one portion
going to Y and the other portion to Z. The resistance-
box previously described (Electrical Measurement, VII.),
is connected by a short piece of copper wire to Y (or Z),
and the wire, or whatever it is the resistance of which is
desired to be measured, is connected to Z (or Y). The
remote ends of the resistance coils and of the wire being
both either put to earth or brought back to the battery
and connected to the pole which would otherwise be put to
earth.

The galvanometer should be connected to Y and Z. It
should, to be efficient, be wound with several layers of
fine silk-covered wire, and the critical parts very carefully
constructed. Too much stress cannot, in fact, be laid upon
the necessity for the greatest care to be exercised in the
construction of this instrument. The magnet should be
comparatively small, and entirely enveloped by the coil, a
light indicator being attached to it at right angles, and
made to travel over a horizontal scale with the zero accu-
rately marked. It is a great advantage to have a piece of
silvered glass under it, so that, in looking down on the
indicator, the shadow would be invisible, and a correct
reading taken. If properly made the galvanometer should
indicate, with low resistances and a powerful battery in
circuit, an error in measurement of a hundredth of an ohm.

The cost of such a box as the one illustrated would be very
small, while the arrangement of the coils and termiaaU
render the apparatus of great utility in a variety of ways.
It may be used as an ordinary set of resistance coils,
and as a Bridge coil it permits of a very useful series of
proportions. Suppose, for example, we wish to measure
the resistance of a length of wire, that we are not par-
ticular to the fraction of an ohm, and that we have reason
to believe it will give, say between 200 and 300 ohms. Then,
disconnecting the straps over T and U, we vary the resist-
ance in the larger box until the needle is unaffected, and
the resistance of T and U (representing A and B in the pro-
portion mentioned near the end of Electrical Measurement
JX.) being equal, the resistance of the wire being tested is
equal to that in circuit in the large box.

Suppose, in the next experiment, that we believe the
wire which we join to Z ofiers between 2,000 and 3,000
ohms. Then, after short-circuiting T and disconnecting the
strap over R (S being short-circuited), we again vary the
resistance in the large box connected to Y, until equili-
brium is produced. If this is obtained when 250 ohms are
inserted between Y and earth, it is evident that the re-
sistance of the wire being tested is 2,500 ohms, as shown
by the simple proportion : —

10 : 100 :: 250 : 2,500

As a third experiment let us assume that our wire is
under one ohm, then we should short-circuit U and R, and
disconnect the straps over S and T, when, if the needle be-
come stationary with five ohms in the large box, the wire
will offer halt an ohm, thus : —

100 : 10 :: 5 : -5

If, under the same conditions, a balance is effected with
2-5 ohms, then the resistance of the wire will be a quarter
of an ohm, thus : —

100 : 10 :: 2-5 : -25

It is, generally speaking, advisable to have an arrange-
ment for easily disconnecting and reconnecting the battery,
otherwise there will, under certain circumstances, be great
risk of injuring tlie galvanometer. Fig. 2 illustrates, in
elevation, a simple device. AB is a block of ebony or
other hard wood, two or three inches square, and half an
inch or so thick, c D is a piece of thin brass or steel,
about half an inch wide, rigidly fixed at one end by the
screw E, and having just enough spring in it to separate G
from F, when the finger, which by pressing the ebony
knob 11 lirouglit G into contact with F, is removed. F is
a small contact stud, consisting, preferably, of a piece of
platinum soldered to a brass or iron screw. It may, how-
ever, consist simply of a wood screw, screwed in from the
underside of A B, the head being well sunk, so as not to
protrude below the under surface. Similarly, G is a small
piece of platinum wire or foil soldered to c D, but may, if
desired, be dispensed with. The reason assigned for using
platinum is, that it is much less oxidisable than brass or
iron, and therefore preserves a clean contact surface. This
" key " is placed between the battery and V of the Bridge
coils, one wire being connected to E and the other to a
binding screw, placed on any convenient part of A B, and
connected to F. By this means, when II is depressed, the

April 20, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

239

current flows, and, vhcn allowed to rise, the circuit is
immediately disconnected.

So much for the Wheatstone Bridge. It is a set of
apparatus the value of wliich is incalculable. IJy its
means the practical electrician is able to detect almost
erery possible fault in a line, whether it be a disconnection,
a partial oxidation of the conductor, an earth fault or leak,
or, what amounts almost to the same thing, a metallic con-
tact Notwithstanding its paramount utility, there are
engaged in the newer applications of electricity several
so-called electricians who have no more knowledge of this
method of testing than the proverbial lunar inhabitant. It
will doubtless surprise many to learn that a man who was
in charge of one of the most important experimental instal-
lations of the electric light once asked us to recommend a
work on the rudiments of electricity; while on another
occasion an " electrician " in the same company's employ,
having to trace three or four wires, declined the offer of a
battery and simple galvanometer, and preferred to cut a
notch in a piece of wood and putting each wire in it in
succession, followed the wires throughout their length
over ceilings and under roofs, and through no end
of rubbish to the various lamps. To the ama-
teur and the experimenter in general the apparatus
is equally a boon, and its use was well brought out
at a meeting of the Society of Telegraph Engineers,
on the 12th inst., when Mr. Shelford Bid well showed how
by its aid he had gauged the resistances of microphonic
contacts under a multitude of circumstances.

The subject of electrical measurement, fraught as it now
is with the highest importance, must be suspended for a
time in these columns, to make room for a concise de-
scription of the various forms of batteries, their manu-
facture, principles, efficiencj-, and applications.

OX THE FORMATION OF COMETS'
TAILS.

By a. S. Davis.

IN his letter to Knowledge, for March IG, 1883, Mr.
Eanyard has piiuted out that the mode in which he
conceives the force of recoil from evaporation to act in
producing a comet's tail differs materially from that which
has been proposed by me.

According to Mr. Ranyard's supposition, a mist, consist-
ing of small particles which do not themselves undergo
evaporation, envelopes the nucleus of a comet. Upon the
particles of this mist matter of a more volatile kind is
being continually precipitated on the cool side, and evapo-
rated on the warmer sunny side. The matter thus pre-
cipitated and e\aporated is, in the first instance, evapo-
rated from the nucleus, and in streaming away into space
is caught by the particles of mist Mr. Ranyard thinks
that each particle of the mist, before its passage into the
tail, may condense and evaporate a quantity of matter
many times its own mass, and may, in this way, acquire
the velocity necessary to account for the formation of a
tail, a velocity, namely, which, in many cases, must be
many times greater than the relative velocity with which
the molecules escape from the particle of mist upon
evaporation.

Xow against this view there appears to me to be an
insuperable objection. Mr. Eanyard has, in fact, left out
of account one of the forces acting upon the supposed par-
ticles of mist In addition to the foiir forces he enume-
rates,— viz., the gravitation towards the nucleus and the
heat repulsion from the nucleus, the gravitation towards

the sun and the heat repulsion from the sun, — there will be
the force arising from the resistance to motion through the
supposed atmosphere.

Now, by the time that the particle has acquired a
velocity away from the sun equal to the average velocity
with which the molecules escape on evaporation, this
resistance will have become equal to the force due to recoil
from evaporation ; for by the hypothesis as much matter is
met with as is afterwards evaporated, and since the relative
velocity with which the molecules meet the particle will
then be at least equal to the relative velocity with which
they leave the particle, any further increase of velocity
away from the sun will be impossible. Thus, on Mr.
Ranyard's hypothesis, the velocity of the particles tailwards
could never be as great as the average velocity of transla-
tion of the molecules of gaseous matter due to thermal
energy, however great might be the quantity of matter
precipitated on them and afterwards evaporated.

Mr. Ranyard states that he has been dri%-en to make
this hypothesis of a mist of small particles on which matter
is being precipitated and afterwards evaporated, from the
difficulty of conceiving of the precipitation and subsequent
evaporation of the same substance in the neighbourhood of
a comet's nucleus. But, I would ask, where does this
difficulty arise? Let us suppose that a comet on its
approach to the sun consists of an agglomeration of blocks
of matter more or less loosely compacted about a nucleus,
that these blocks are of very various sizes, and that some
of them consist of matter almost wholly volatilisable by
the sun's rays, if continued long enough. From the ex-
treme smallness of the mass of a comet, it would be im-
possible for it to retain any permanent atmosphere, and
any matter volatilised by the sun's heat would at once
fly oft" into space. On its approach to the sun, such a
current of gaseous matter would be set up by the sun's
heat. At and about the nucleus, where the cometary
matter is most thickly clustered, this current would
be sufficiently powerful to carry along with it some of the
smaller masses of meteoric matter. It may be noted that
a very small force would suffice for this, seeing that the
gravitating force of the comet must be almost nil. The
matter thus carried away, and for the most part towards
the sun, since the evaporation would be on the sunny side
of the nucleus, would, however, itself be undergoing
evaporation, and when the matter had been carried so far
from the nucleus as to be almost entirely free from the
current of gas setting outwards, then the force of recoil
due to the evaporation of its own substance would begin
to tell upon its motion.

My illustration of a block o ice, equal in mass to a
cubic metre of water, enclosing a gramme of sand, was
chiefly taken as one admitting of very ready calculation.
It would appear more probable that the volatile substance
in many comets is some hydro-carbon, either frozen solid
or in the liquid state. Some of the meteoric masses would
probably be almost entirely made up of this hydro-carbon,
either broken off, or splashed off, from larger blocks by
their collision, and containing, perhaps, the merest trace of
non-volatile material enclosed or dissolved in them. Such
masses on volatili-sation would ultimately attain an enor-
mous velocity. As regards the continued emission of large
tails by a comet, having the constitution I have supposed,
even after several returns to perihelion, this would be quite
possible if the comet contained a nucleus having a core,
even a few miles in diameter, in which the masses were so
thickly clustered as to make it impenetrable by the sun's
rays.

Mr. Ranyard observes that the velocity I obtain in my
example is only 29.3,000 mUes per day, whereas velocities

240

• KNOWLEDGE -

[April 20, 1883.

of at least five or six million miles per day have to be
accounted for. Now, in my example 1 supposed the tem-
perature of evaporation to be 0°C. In the extreme cases,
where velocities of live or six millions of miles have been
observed, the perihelion distances of the comets have all
been very small, and the temperature of evaporation must
have been enormously high. By assigning a very high
value for the temperature, and at the same time supposing
a much smaller proportion of non-volatile material to be
present in the block, it is plain that the velocity obtained
by calculation would quite reach that observed even in the
most remarkable instances of rapid tail formation.

' Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Texntson.

SftterS to t{)c editor.

Only a small proportion of Letters receired can possihly be in-
serted. Correspondents Tnust not he offended^ therefore^ should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial cotnmunications should le addressed to the Editoe of
BCnowledge; all Business communications to the Publishers, at the
Ofice, Ti; Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is xot attended to,

DELAYS ARISE FOB WHICH THE EdITOE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post 0£ice Orders should he made
payable to Messrs. Wymax & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No communications are answered by post, even though stamped
AND dikected envelope be enclosed.

A NEW PAEADOXER.

[789] — I wish to explode the most vile and degraded superstition
that ever disgraced the woi-ld. I can find no language coarse
enough to characterise the swindlers and idiots who hold it. I
allude to what is known as the 47th Proposition of the First
Book of Euclid. I can prove it is false, Sir. You ask how. Simply
by denyin-j it, and by challenging its supporters to prove it to yne.
Yes, to ME, Sir. Their name is legion, and I am a solitary one.
Yet I defy them all. They cannot even drag me over the Asses'
Bridge. It is this ground upon which I take my stand. If further
argument is needed, I beg to say that vile scoundrel Enclid never
paid bis washerwoman. If any one dares deny what I say, let him
back his statements by proof. Let him bring one receipt from that
injured woman. Sir, after this, how can the squares on two sides
of a right-angled triangle together equal that on the hy])Othenuse ?

Bedlam, April 1. Mad Tom.

P.S. — I flatter myself I am not an unworthy disciple of the earth
flattencr.

COKSETS.

[790] — It having been unquestionably proved through tlie corre-
spondence in Knowledoe that corsets are nnneccssarj- and in-
jarious, the ne.\t step is to provide ladies who leave them off
with some garment which, while supporting, allows of the free
movement of the body without injurious consequences.

I suggest that the Kational Dress Society should bring out a
tighttitting jersey, made of the same material as is used in the
mnnufaoturc of elastic stockings worn for varicose veins, and so
satisfy those ladies who uill wear something of that nature.

I shall be glad to hear of any objections (medical or otherwise)
to this snggeation. C. Carus- Wilson.

[Uow about the circulation ? — K. P.]

LETTERS RECEIVED.

A. O. n. Lectures will not be publi.ihed. Thanks for information
about occult matters. — John Shaw. Yes, so T should imagine ; a
power til control the weather must bo a key to meteorology. You

arc lucky in being " in possession of a gift of that kind." —
H. J5. You can hardly expect us to insert a letter from a corre-
spondent who is not a regular contributor, and expects a co|)y of
number containing his letter to be sent to him. — A. Soxxen.sciieix.
No ; I did not ascribe to Herbert Spencer the idea of comparing
the heavenly bodies to trees in various stages of development.
Oddly enough, I was reading over, the day of the lecture, the
passage you quote from Humboldt's " Cosmos." Sir W. Her.«chel
presented the idea earlier, in reference to nebulae. — -H. M. C. Many
thanks, but the phenomenon is so clearly referable to peculiarity
in arrangement of clouds, that it would hardly be worth while to
make an en<rraving. — }1. Crofts. Tho word "religion" does not
necessarily imjily the slightest trace of belief in such matters as
you mention. It is, strictly speaking, simplj- that which keeps men
in the path of duty. — A. Wbigley. — R. N. — W. Goreif. — A. W.
Blomfield. Thanks. — E. A. S. Thanks.— S. E. Clabk. From De
Morgan's illustration of his owTi puzzle (see back numbers of Know.
LEDGE, it is clear he meant it as we presented it. — W. G. Rolfe.
Thanks, but must keep now to what all agree in liking. — Joseph
Clark. Why is tho s/,y blue ?— J. H. Tanner.— Faciebat. The
test is, can either " but " or " which " be left out without making
the meaning different from what was intended ? You will find that
neither can. — Coracoii). Out of print. — A. — A. S. D.ivis. — Room
No. III. Have written no article relative to purchasing power of
shilling. — C. Etherington. "Creatures like any known to us" was
my expression. Does not that leave open for you the wide field of
conjecture you mention? I did not myself want to enter that
field. — H. N. D. Have sent your query to Mr. Browning. — H. —
Stcdext. Among the varied pieces of information which have
reached me, noue tells me how to lessen excessive fleshiness at the
end of the nose. — R. H. Not H., but a man who has gone under
the name of Parallax, published a book on that silly theory. — A ScN
WOESHIPPEH. If the press would give reasonable support to scientific
lectures, the afternoon lectures you invite might well be given ; bnt
they do not. — .35o.\. You are a sun-worshipper of another kind, if in
earnest. But, surelv, your letter is an elaborate joke. — Myopia. —
Walter Jones. — a'Subscrieer.- F.E A.S. Thanks.— H. M. Wil-
kinson.— W. M. — Harveian. — H. L. I did V'ell to speak strongly
against such mischievous folly as Mr. Wiggins displayed. I retract
not a word. Those who hearkened to him were unwise, but those
who defend him after the event has shown how idly he spoke,
are worse than unwise. — A Little Girl. My dear child, your
" experience " (you will learn to spell experience with more e's
soon) is as yet limited. All the ladies who have thus far, to my
knowledge, left off wearing corsets have had small waists, even
singularly small waists ; yet you are so hard, you sarcastic little
girl, as to say that only the large-waisted leave off stays (!), and
tliat " those with small waists are so proud of their fine figures that
they draw themselves in as much as possible to make themselves
still smaller." — H. S. Your telescope has an erecting eye-piece ; it
would be easy to get an astronomical eye-piece made for it. —
G. Connolly. Lectures have never yet been committed to paper.

J. N. LocKYEP.. — Your unsigned post-card received. I shonld
imagine the person mentioned in it is not, either by birth or
breeding, by nature or by education, qualified to form an opinion
on the subject touched upon. This I find to be the general verdict.
But his name (the value of which you singularly over-estimate) shall
in future be as rigid'.y kept out of these pages as you could wish ;
also from books and lectures of mine (those who heard my lecture
on " The Sun " at St. James's Hall will explain to you what this
means). I will be as careful in his case as in that of the earth-
flattening person whose cause you seem to espouse. My friend the
Editorof Vanity Fair shovred his accustomed kindness in the matter
you mention (quite misunderstanding it). Your card is unsigned
and in a disguised hand ; but you have overlooked the trifling
circumstance that it refers to a matter sixteen months old, of which
no one could know anything but yourself, except from yourself, and
no one bnt you would have remembered the matter a day. (If not
actually from you, yet! Qui facit per alium facit per se). That in
regard to this matter you should have entirely misunderstood me is
(for a reason suggested above) altogether natural. But internal
evidence is not always a safe guide. I had no thought save to indi-
cate publicly that desire to be on friendlier terms, which I had
privately and in kindly words conveyed to you. Be it, however, as
you will. Life is too short, and to me too pleasant, to be wasted
over idle wrangling. You have had no warmer admirer of your best
observational work than myself, who first made that work known,
with just commendation, to the public ; but, like the rest of us. the
Editor (not being the Author) of Nature has made a few mistakes;
and he does not very readily forgive those who pointed them out.
Were it not for this, all (I take it) would have been well. Give the
world some more good work like that of 1868 and the mistakes will
be forgotten. — Richard A. Pboctoe.

April 20, 188S.

KNOWLEDGE •

24.1

^ur i«atl)fmatiral Column.

EASY LESSONS IX THE INTEGRAL CALCULUS.
ri'^nE study of the integral dealt with in our last, in its relation
J. to the area of circular sections (whether sector, se^ient, or
otherwise), leads naturally to the discussion of the areas of other
conic sections.

The ellipse, however, requires no new application of the integral
calculus. Thus, if B Q A is a right elliptical quadrant, C the centre
of the ellipse, and the semi-axes C A and B C are a and 6 respec-

tively, we know that putting C L = x and PL = !/, !/' = — {a'—x')

and the area of the elementary rectangle Q L = \idx

So that the area C B KX, in which CN=.ri,

a J 0

= - -* o ^ + ^^"' —

a L 2 2 a J

= -area CliX
a

When we tarn to the hyperbola, however, we 6nd om-selves led
to a new integral, and a new application of the integral calculus.
(In passing, I wish the reader to notice that my cliief object in
going over thus the discussion of the simpler integrals, and those
more commonly employed, is to associate this part of the student's
: with the actual application of the calculus.)

we know that y^ = x'—a'' (where C.\ = n), and taking an ordinate
K N, wo have, the area of an elementary rectangle P M = ydx,

= v'i'^"' dx
so that the area A K X, in which C N = a',

— I -J x' — d' dx

to determine which we must integrate v x- — a-di, not as yet
among the quantities whose integral is known to us. Befoie trying
to do this, let us consider the conjugate hyperbola A'P'Q'. Here,
completing the construction shown in the figure, we have, if P'L = y,

and the elementary rectangle FL=%''x'' + a- dx; so that the area
AK'X, in which CX = .r,

= / Va' - x'dx

involving also a new integral, but nearer in form (note the limits of
tlie integration) to what wo obtained in the case of the circle and
the ellipse.

We still refrain from the work of integration, because we know
from a familiar property of the hyperbola, that there is yet another
way of dealing with the curve which will probably give us the area
more readily, and therefore show ns how to integral® vi^ — o' dx
and vx'-ra'fJ.r mthout onr being at the pains to deal directly with
these, after any of the tentative methods yet described.

Take the rectangular hyperbola RAK with CZ and CZ', the
asymptotes, for the ases of rtference. Draw CAS, the axis, and
A G, P L, Q M (near to P L), K X, all perpendicular to C Z.

Then CA = a and CG=\/2a = o, (for convenience). Also, let

C L = ar, C 5I = a; + d.i*, CX = x., (to distinguish from the a-, of onr

former inquiry). Then, if PL=!/, we know that, drawing PL'

and AG' perpendicular to C Z', rectangle L'L = square G G' = a,';

- ir n'

Hence ij = — ; elementary rect. Q L = — dx, and area

I.e., x\i = -
G A K X.

=yr^'£''"=-?["'°'''-'°^'"]

=-9- '°s -

- "l

Xow dmw KX' perp. to C A S, and pnt C X' = Jj. Also join C K.
Then we note that AC X K= AC G A, so that, taking each in suc-
cession from the area C A K X, we have area C A K = area A G N K
(which we have just determined).

Xow area A P KX'= AC X' K — area C AK ; therefore we now
have the area A PK X' in the toils. For

ACX'K = iCX' . X'K = ixiv'i,»-a'

a' CX
Area C A K = area G A K X = •;; log ttt^

But if we draw X Kj'.', X'Kn, as in the figure, we know that

CN=X»' ?:

V'2

• We do not any longer write ex and afterwards change to dx,
bat the reader will, of coarse, understand that dx is not really a
If K PAR is part of a rectangular hyperbola, A the vertex, C \ finite increment, like L M, but is what this increment becomes as
the centre, and CZ,CZ',the asymptotes; and if C L = z!, P L=i/, ' Q il, in its approach to P L, is jnst about to merge into P L.

242

KNOWLEDGE ♦

[April 20, 1883.

ON Cn' Cn' CN' + N'n'
C N' + N' K «, + \/ii','-a»

Wherefore area Al'K N =:j*i v .'■,'— «'— "o log

(To be continued.)

logp =

Grbati'M. — Donbtlcss you have discovered the slip in the
numcriciil part of tho " light absorptiou " problem (putting
4-6090600 as the equivnlont of -3-3010300). But would not the
steps of the working be clearer thus : —

log 2000
bBOuO
330103
8S0U0
= - -0000373
= T 0099625
= log -9999137
(There are five 9's printed in this decimal in Knowledge ; but that
is clearlv a printer's error, as you quote tlie fraction correctly.)
8H3
The absorption = iu_ouo,000 = °°° ^''^^'' ("6^%)- -w.

&\ir Cftcss Column.

By Mephisto.

PROBLEM No. 8 ;

BY J. C. S.

Slack.

Whitb.
White to play and mate in three moves.

THE INTERNATIONAL CHESS TOURNAMENT.

This great event, which has been looked forward to -with the
greatest amount of interest by chess players all over the globe, will
commence on the 26th inst. Needless to say that nearly all the best
players will compete. The following have already signified their
intention of joining tho tournament : — Steinitz, Zukertort, Mason,
Blackburn, Potter, and Bird from England, Mackenzie from
America, Winawer from Berlin, Schwarz from Vienna, Dr. Noa
from Hungary, and T.-icliigorin from Russia, besides se-.-eral other.«.
Prizes of the value of £1,000 will be given, the first prize being fixed
at £300. ^

Concurrently a minor tournament will be played, intended for
young players, or those who are not absolute first-rates. The prizes
in this tournament will be £60, £50, £40, £30, £20, ^c, with less
sovcro play regulations than in tho mnjor tournament. It is
expected that this tournament will bo very popular, and that a
largo number of good players will compere. Tho tournament will
take place at thn Criterion. To spectators, an entrance-fee of
2s. 01. will bo charged for each sitting. Time of play will bo from
twelve to five and from seven to midnight. Wo shall endeavour to
publish regular reports, as well as games, of the leading players in
both tournamouts.

One of eight games, played by Mr. Zukertort eimnUancoosIy
iritbout sight of tho boards, at the North London Chess Club ob
the 14th inst. : —

SICILIAN DPFENCE.
Block.

White.
Zukorlort.

1. P to K4

2. Kt to QB3

3. Kt to B3

4. P to Q 1

5. Kt takes P

P to QB4
P to K3
P toQR3 (a)
P takes P
B to Kt5

6. B to K2 (b) B takes Kt (ch)

7. P takes B Kt to K2

8. Castles

9. B to R3

10. P to KB4

11. Q to Q2

12. B to Q3

Castles
P toQ3
Q toB2
R to Q sq
P to B4 (c)

White.

Zukertort.

P takes P

Bluk.

Amateur.

P takes P

13. QRtoKsq(d)Kt to B3

14
15.
IG,

17. R to B3

18. KR to K3

19. li takes Kt

20. R to K7

21. P to B4

22. B to Kt2

23. BtakesP(cli)R takes B

24. Rtake3B(ch)R to Kt sq

25. Q to B3 mate.

Kt takes Kt P takes E(
B to B4 ch K to B sq
P to B4
Kt to Kt Bq (e)
R takes B
Q to B3
B to Kt2
QU to K sq (/)

NOTES.

(«) 3. Kt to QB3 is preferable.

(b) We prefer 6. B to Q3.

(c) Black ought to have brought his pieces more into play by
12. QKt to B3, to be followed by P to K4 or QJ accordingly, but
his position was not good, on account of his weak P on Q3, and the
White E on Ra — always a bad combination in this opening.

(d) This, and the following moves are well calculated, and White
obtains a commanding position.

(e) White plays with marvellous precision, in spite of his con-
dueling eight games blindfolded. Black has no other move, for
if IS. R to K sq. 19. B to B7. If 18. Kt to Kt3. 19. R to K8 (ch),
Kt to B sq. 20. Q to Q5 (threatening m:.te on Kt8), B to K3.
21. R (K sq) takes B, R takes R. 22. R takes R and wins.

(/) An unfortunate move, which enables Zukertort to finish is
good style.

SOLUTIONS.
Pboblkm No. 82, by A. J. Maas, p. 213.

1. R to B4 B takes Q or K to K3

2. R takes P Anything 2. R to Bo ch K to Q2 or B3

3. Kt mates 3. Q to Kl5 or Q4 mate.

If 1. K to B3. 2. Q takes B (ch), K to B2. 3. R to BS mate, or
2. K to Ktl. 3. Q takes P mate.

If 1. K to K5. 2. Q to B2 (ch), if 2. K to K4. 3. Q to B5 mate,
or if 2. K to Q 1-. 3. R to B5 mate.

No. 83. DY C. H. Ekocklee.ink, p. 213.

1. Kt to B3 P takes Kt or B takes P

2. Q to Q8 Anything 2. Kt to Q4 K takes Kt

3. P to y4 mate 3. Q to Q6 mate.
If 1. B to B8. 2. Q to Q8 and mates next move.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
*»* Please address Chess Editor.
Henry Erskine. — Game received with thanks.
Correct Solutions Received. — -Pi-oblem No. 82 Borrow, R. J. P-.
G. W. Thompson.— No. 83 John, M. T. Hooton.— No. 84 W.

KOTICi:S.

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April

1863.]

• KNOWLEDGE

213

^^

MJ^2INEo?SqENCE

iPlAINi;^RD£D-£XACTq:i)ESCRIB£D

LONDON.- FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 1883.

Contents op No. 78.

Seienoe and Art Ooesip 243 Secondary Batterien

^cial Draamite. Bj Richard A.
Proctor 2M

Piquant Hours with the Micro-
•cope. Bj H. J. Slack, F.G.3.,
F.K.M.8 215

The Chjmistrr of Cookery. VIII.
Br W. Mattieu Williams 2-J5

•Enelish S.'asido Ilealth-Resorls.
By Alfred Haviland, M.K.C.3.,
F.B.M.C.S. Lond 217

Br B. C. Riiuineton ... 218
A Nfw D«ep-Sea Fish, (///in.) ,. 250
Newspaper Science. Br W. Sligo 251
Beriews : Sludv and StimulHnts ... 252
The Face of the Sky. By F.K.A.S. 253
Correspondence ; Multiplication —
Value of Gold — Learning Lan-
guages— Large Sun Spots 253

Our Whist Column 255

Onr Chess Column 266

^titmt anil art Gossip.

We regret that in a Gossip paragraph which appeared a
few weeks ago, Dr. Collyns Simon's name was spelled, by
mistake, Dr. Collins Symon. The Oxford Chronicle and
Bucks and Berks Gazette regards this as evidence that we
are "smarting under discomfiture," and so forth; but it
was purely accidental. We had not a book, pamphlet,
letter, or even card of Dr. Simon's to remind us how his
name is spelled. Beyond noting that we did not " quarrel
with," but accepted, Dr. Thos. Young's illustration of the
absorptive action of our air on light, we have nothing
further to say about Dr. Simon's theory. Not for the fifty
pounds he otfers, nor for five thousand, would we under-
take to convince him it is preposterous.

We supposed a letter sent us came from Dr. Simon. He
*ays (for it is manifest that it is he who writes in the 0. C.
and B. and B. G.) he did not write it ; and of course we
accept his statement. He must permit us to assure him in
turn that he is wholly mistaken in attributing to our pen a
letter signed " An Admirer of K\owledge," which ap-
peared in Knowledge for Dec. 10, 1881. We do not
know who wrote it ; but it bore the O.xford post-mark.
We wish we had consigned it to the waste-paper basket.

Among opinions which he regards as paradoxical (natu-
Tally enough), Dr. Simon attributes to us this : that "the
■weight of bodies is something different from the earth's
attraction." If Dr. Simon will look at any elementary
treatise on Mechanics, he will find that the quality
called weight is an ell'ect of the earth's attraction ; and
philosophj- is so fanciful as to draw a distinction between
cause and effect The other " paradoxes " relate to Dr.
Simon's peculiar theory, and we forbear to irritate him by
dealing further with that theory.

In response to many requests, we propose to publish in
Knowledge of May 4, the passage (nominally Richter,
but, in reality, rather De Quincey'S) which formed the
closing quotation of the first and last lectures at St.
James's HalL

Compositors are sometimes a little hard on jests, senti-
ment, and science. We have all heard how the touching
line, " lie kissed her under the silent stars," was altered by
a cruel compositor into " He kicked her under the cellar
stairs"; and I think I have already mentioned in these
columns how the words " Lines, bands, and stria- near the
violet end of spectra," were altered into " Links, bonds, and
stripes for the violent kind of spectres." Now, I have to
lament the destruction of a very mild joke, meant at once
to instruct and to amuse " A Little Girl " — see " Letters
Received," page 2-10. She had spelled experience "ex-
periance," and — well, the rest is not worth repeating ; but
by carefully correcting the spelling, notwithstanding an
entreaty in the margin that ho would leave it alone, a hard-
hearted compositor knocked the point off tliat little joke,
anyhow !

Mit. Browning has recently sent to the Royal Observa-
tory at Rome a set of apparatus which he has made for
Professor Tucchini, consisting of a very powerful direct
vision spectroscope fitted to a photographic camera. The
apparatus is intended to be used for the purpose of photo-
graphing the spectra of the flames which issue from
Vesuvius when in a state of eruption. The scale of the
spectroscope for reading off the position of the lines in
any spectrum is illuminated by means of a small incan-
descent electric lamp.

The Comet. — Mr. A. B. Biggs supplies the following
interesting notes : — On Monday evening at ten o'clock I
perceived a minute star (9th magnitude) in the advancing
edge of the comet's coma, which I foresaw would be
crossed centrally by the nucleus — a rare opportunity which
I determined not to miss. At eleven o'clock the star was
fairly in the centre of the nucleus. The nucleus was
perfectly transparent. I watched the star until it had well
crossed, and never lost sight of it, even when a slight
atmospheric haze obscured the comet itself. The light of
the star was not even sensibly diminished, except so far as
being seen upon the light background of the comet —
Launceston {Tasmania) Examiner.

An Improved Bell Telephone. — M. D'Arsonval, the
well-known telephonist, has devised a new form of Bell
receiver, which is, for its size and weight, the most
powerful yet constructed. The chief modification consists
in enclosing the bobbin entirely between the poles of the
magnet This is done by making one pole of the magnet
the core of the bobbin, and the other pole an enclosing
ring of iron. The inductive plate vibrates over the poles
and upper surface of the coil as before. The complete
instrument only weighs a little over five ounces, and is
stated to be as powerful as the heavy Gower-Bell receiver.
M. Leczensky has applied magnets of steel, tempered by
compression after the manner introduced by M. Clemandot,
and since this mode of tempering does not deform the
magnets, a neater article is the result — Engineering.

The Xaitlical Gazette (New York, March 22), referring
to the triple-hulled steamer designed by Captain William
Coppin, expresses a very favourable opinion of its value ;
and this seems to be shared by a number of American naval
officers. The feature which they consider of chief import-
ance is the high speed at which it is said that a vessel of
this type may be propelled ; and the writer remarks that,
if it is adopted, there is no question but that the ocean can
be crossed in 120 hours.

211.

• KNOWLEDGE •

[Apkil 27, 1883.

Although tlirco months will pass lioforo the Engineering,'
and Metal Trades E.\liiI>ition will bo held, the preparations
for it are very advanced, and the principal dilliculty of the
promoter, Mr. Samson Harnett, will probably be that of
finding sufficient space for exhibitors within the narrow
limits of the Agricultural Hall, as already over 200 appli-
cations for space have liecn accepted. At present the
space has been let almost exclusively to manufacturers
in the United Kingdom, but it is expected that a fair
number of Continental industries will be represented.

The Industrie Blaller recommends the following formula
as furnishing a good and cheap writing ink : — French ex-
tract of campeachy wood 100 parts, lime water 800 parts,
phenol (carbolic acid) 3 parts, hydrochloric acid 25 parts,
gum arable .30 parts, red chromate of potash 3 parts. The
extract is first dissolved in the lime water on a steam bath
■with frequent stirring or shaking, after which the carbolic
and hydrochloric acids are added, and change the red colour
to a brownish yellow. It is then heated half an hour on
steam bath and set aside to cool. It is next filtered, and
the gum and bichromate, dissolved in water, are added.
Enough water is then added to make up the solution to
1,800 parts. This ink is a fine red when used, but soon
gets black.

By permission of Messrs. Chapman & Hall, a shorthand
edition (Pitman's system, easy reporting style) of the
" Pickwick Papers " is to be published, in weekly parts of
24r pp., crown 8vo, in cover, price 3d., to be completed
in twenty parts. The first part will be published May 1.
This will give many an opportunity of studying the
system easily and pleasantly.

The Cambridge University Press is about to publish
the second part of the first volume of the " Treatise on
Natural Philosophy," by Sir W. Thomson and Professor
Tait. Many will hear with regret that the original
design of the authors, in commencing this volume about
twenty years ago, is not to be carried out beyond the com-
pletion of the first volume. The most important part of
the labour of editing this second part has been borne by
Professor Darwin. An index has been prepared by Mr.
Burnside, and schedules of the alterations from the first
edition and of new matter introduced into both parts will
be added.

It is also announced that the University Press will
publish presently the volume completing Jlr. C. A. M.
Fenncll's edition of Pindar's Remains, " Notes on Quali-
tative Analysis," and " Tables," by Mr. H. J. H. Fenton
(Demonstrator of Chemistry in the University), and a new
edition of Mr. Wallace's " Outlines of the Philosophy of
Aristotle."

"Forestry." — With the commencement, in May, of its
ftext volume, llie Journal of Forestry, still conducted by
Mr. F. C Heath, "Author of "Autumnal Leaves " and
Editor of Gilpin's " Forest Scenery," will take a " new-
departure." Under the altered title of Forcstrj/ : a Jfaqa-
zine for the Country, it will be enlarged in size and still
further popularised. The May part will include a descrip-
tive article by Jlr. Richard Jefleries, entitled " The
Contents of Ten Acres," and " A Forgotten President of
Agriculture," by Mr. R. A. Kinglake.

In' answer to a number of inquirers, I must explain that
I know nothing, of my own kno-vvledge, about any system
of artificial memory.

SOCIAL DYNMIITE.

By Richard A. Pkoctor.

IF we consider why men look with special horror at the
miscreants who use dynamite and nitro-glycerine with
the hope of destroying their enemies, we see that it is not
the cowardice, or even the malignity, of the act which
chiefly excites that feeling, but the recklessness with which
to destroy certain persons they run the risk, or rather incur
the certainty, of injuring many who are not among their
enemies. Among social offences there is one which in this
respect is akin to the use of explosives — writing anonymous-
letters. An anonymous letter of the libellous sort is an ex-
plosive which may or may not injure the person or persona
attacked, but is tolerably sure to injure others. It may de-
nounce one or several in such a way as to lead those to-
whom it is addressed to imagine that there may be some
truth in the attack — villanous though the source may be-
from which it came. These, of course, are the oVijects of the-
anonymous writer — to give pain to those attacked, and to
cause doubt and suspicion to their friends and relatives.
He may fail in this, because many have sense enough to-
consider that no reliance whatever can be placed on the
statements of one who is ashamed to be known, and they
may have confidence also (though this is harder) that none-
of their friends can for a moment put faith in statements-
emanating from a self-proclaimed, though unknomi, rascal
But there is one form of mischief, one kind of doubt,
which an anonymous letter is sure to produce. The person
or persons attacked may despise, as they should, an attack
so base ; the persons before whom the anonymous charges
are brought may, as they should, reject them as utterly-
unworthy of credit, coming as they do from a discreditable-
source. But though they may not be troubled by the
belief that the particular offences brought before then*
by an admitted liar have in them any shadow of truth,
they and all who hear of the anonymous charges
become certain that there is villany somewhere. And who
shall say ivliere ? Usually, an anonymous letter- writer is
so clover in disguise, that it has been well and truly said,
the author of an anonymous letter may generally be
taken to be the la^t person who is likely to be suspected.
But what a range of doubt and suspicion this idea covers.
All whom we look on as likely to be truthful and
generous, brave and outspoken : all who might be supposed
to respect themselves ; all who are worthy, as we think,
of any respect from others, are included among those
whom -we should consider the last to plan the villany of
an anonymous letter. Those whom we should suspeck
naturally are those whom we supposed to be sly and
treacherous ; but usually it turns out that the real traitor
is one who has a depth of slyness and treachery beyond
the range of this suspicion — one who has been clever
enough to hide slyness and treachery by superior craft and
deeper villany.

And as in dynamite plots there is an element of dsingar
in attempts which may be made to unravel the secret —
danger in which the miscreant author of the plot finds-
safety — so it is with anonymous letters. To trace the letter
to its source may require — in fact usually does require —
that its contents — or at least the nature of the attack in it —
should be publicly announced. This brings the anonymous
charges to the knowledge of many who may not, like his
immediate friends, know enough of the true character of
the person attacked to reject at once false charges against
his reputation. The wicked and mischievous proverb,
" There is no smoke without fire " — as lying a proverb
as ever deceived the unwise — is held by many to be
a truth, as if it had not again and again been shown

April 27, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

245

tliat in every community tliere exist persons capable of
inventing absolutely baseless charges. So that many are
ready to pass over in silence anonymous attacks against
themselves or their friends, rather than sutler in character
during attempts which may fail to detect the scoundrel
who is in their midst, but as yet unknown to them.

It were well if all men had the courage to despise this
risk. It should be regarded as so sacred a duty to expose
miscreants of the kind we are dealing with, that all ques-
tion of personal feeling should be set on one side. And,
after all, very little real harm can be done even l>y the
widest possible publication of anonymous charges, for only
very foolish persons can possibly attach the least weight to
them. Besides (though this is not a very lofty considera-
tion), they spread widely enough even when men are most
careful to keep them close, and it is better they should be
published by those attacked, than secretly spread by those
who originated them. A'ery often the only chance of
detecting the hidden villain is by making his charges so
widely public that some will hear of them who may have
means of knowing whence they sprang.

These considerations have been partly suggested to my
mind by the recent receipt of an anonymous post-card, of
an abusive kind, which I received through the publisher of
Knowledce, to whom it had been sent, marked in such a
way as to attract, and even force, attention. The writing
of even signed abuse on a post-card is an offence of the
dynamitic type, because no one can tell by whom such a
card may be seen, or who may be hurt by it. But even in
these depths there is a deeper still, and worse than the
ordinary anonymous letter-writer, villain though lie is —
worse than one who signs his name to post-card abuse,
ruffian though Ilc must be — is the creature who issues
anonymous abuse on post-cards for all to read through
whose hands the card must pass.

The case in point illustrates the certain evil which every
anonymous letter must produce. Though at first I had no
doubt that the communication came from the one person
who ought to have known about the matter (sixteen
months old) chiefly touched on by the writer, I think it
now quite likely that I may have been mistaken. I do
not know, may be I shall never know ; and I am not very
greatly concerned to correct the mistake, if such there be,
till I do know ; for undoubtedly the rascality of the post-
card writer would have been impossible but for mistaken
and self-injuring suspicion on the part of the only person
who could have given him his information, true up to a
certain point, and beyond that based entirely on an
unworthy suspicion. But, putting this person on one side,
the range over which my doubts might extend is wide
enough. To any acquaintance of his who chanced to
have some grudge against me (and no one who has
been as much before the public as I have for the
last fifteen j'ears or so can be witliout enemies, if he is
honest) the suspicion might attach, that he had been guilty
of one of the most contemptible of the petty villanies of
social life. Yet there are some clues by which Mr.
Lockyer, who is the person chiefly concerned, may, if he
please, help to detect the wrong-doer. He may rest assured
that, if he is really anxious to sift this matter to the bottom,
I will help him — publicly, not privately ^to the utmost of
my power. He knows, and I do not, to whom he has con-
fided recently (it must be recently, for no one would keep
snch a matter many d^iys in his mind) the terrible fact that
nearly seventeen months ago I replied, under " Answers to
Correspondents," to a letter addressed to me as Editor of
Knowledge (in which character I had addressed him) about
a paper which I had invited him to write. He knows who,
among his friends, would rejoice in imagining that this

might be a means of annoying, and even injuring, me. He
may be able to guess who, among his fricuils, is capable of
writing an abusive, unsigned note on a postcard, sent to a
public ofllce. I think I can supplj- such additional infor-
mation as may perchance enable him to select among those
wlio answer this di scription (and surely he cannot know
many such scoundrels) the particular scoundrel who did
this thing. If evidence from writing will be of any use —
and even a print hand may reveal the writer — I wUl pub-
lish a facsimile (by photographic means) of enough of the
Utter to indicate its character and to serve this purpose.
I may do this in any case, as 1 have thought it my duty,
in any case, to indicate my recent doubts as to the author-
ship of the communication.

The matter is utterly trifling, and beneath notice as re-
gards myself ; but as the detection of even the paltriest of
the villains who attempt to do mischief by explosives is
important, even when they have done no harm, and are
really powerless to do any, so I hold it to be of great im-
portance that those in our midst who are ready to tamper
with social dynamite should be detected and exposed. As
I am earnest in wishing this, and Mr. Lockyer has abun-
dant reason for desiring it, I have little doubt that, should
he, being innocent, assist to the utmost of his power, we
shall succeed in unearthing the real wrongdoers.

PLEASANT HOURS WITH THE
MICROSCOPE.

By Hexry J. Slack, F.G.S., F.RM.S.

THE aphides found in swarms at this time of the year
in greenhouses will be viviparous females, as men-
tioned in the last paper. Females of this description
produce numbers of young, by an internal process which
has been likened to the budding of plants, and they may,
perhaps, be well compared with the infant bulbils pro-
duced so freely in that well-known garden flower, liliuin
bulbiferum. Females which lay eggs are distinct from the
viviparous sort, and Mr. Buckton states that in the aphis
tribe the former are always wingless, though winged in
some other groups. The viviparous females, at certain
times, give birth to young ones (ji7i//(f), which develop
wings to assist their migration, but they are not strong
fliers, and drift easily with the wind. The appearance of
males is rare in some species, and in all, the great swarms
result from the action of the viviparous females. In many
cases, the egg-laying must conduce to the maintenance of
the species, as the eggs require no external supply of food,
but the insect, as well as the egg, can withstand a con-
siderable amount of winter cold.

If the reader has caught and watched some aphides, as
advised in the last paper, their rapid multiplication will be
understood. Various calculations have been made as to
the astounding quantities and the prodigious bulk and
weight that would be attained if no check occurred to
lessen the fertility. " A Mathematical Friend " cited by
Mr. Buckton improved upon Professor Huxley's calcula-
tion ; and, on the supposition that one aphis would pro-
duce twenty young ones in as many days, and each one of
these would begin, when five days old, to rear a family of
the same size, and so on in succession, found that at the
end of three hundred days the descendants of the original
ancestress would amount " to the fifteenth power of 210,
which it is almost impossible to express in figures. There
would be room for nothing else in the world but aphides."
Similar calculations might be made with reference to many

246

• KNOWLEDGE ♦

[April 27, 1883.

other prolific creatures, from vertebrates to insects, and
ol)j(icts still lower. Tlirre arc two things to bo considered
in such cases. First, if from the number and power of
enemies, the clltHts of changing clin.ate, or any other
cause, a species is subject to great mortality, it requires a
corresponding fertility to keep it in Ijeing ; but when, for
example, a lish lays millions of eggs, we may consider that,
in the system of nature, eggs may be required as well as
fishes. A human contriver or workman would, if he
could, make a codfish outright, and not build up
an egg first out of millions of molecules, and then
hatch it into his fish. In nature, however, all inter-
mediate steps may be regarded as necessary parts of a
great plan, and the quantities of matter passing from the
unorganised to the organised condition as a tiux and reflux
dependant upon laws essential to the system as a whole.

When we want live aphides to examine under the micro-
scope in a vigorous condition, we must handle them with
extreme gentleness, or their soft and delicate bodies will
be injured and the creature killed. Their slightness of
structure is, however, accompanied with great endurance
of conditions that would be quickly fatal to many stouter
organisms. Most insects would be rapidly killed by im-
mersion in paraffin oil ; but young and vigorous aphides will
often live for some time, and occasionally for hours in this
fluid, such as is burnt in lamps. If two or three of the insects
are very carefully placed in a little cork cell, mentioned in
the last paper, filled with paraffin oil, and covered with thin
glass, they are in a handy condition for examination. The
result of numerous experiments made with the best
American petroleum oil, commonly called crystal oil in the
lamp-shops, is that the survivals are very uncertain, but
sufficiently frequent for the process to be well worth
trying. They keep pretty quiet in the fluid, and it enables
higher power to be used with convenience. A half-inch
objective, magnifying about 100 linear, with a full-sized
instrument, is very handy. The illumination should be
varied ; but one of the best ways is to use both an
achromatic condenser and a lieberkuhn, or little silver
reflector, at the end of the objective. The largest hole
and central stop of the condenser will give a fine
dark ground illumination. When used in combination with
the lieberkuhn, it lights up the inside of the object,
while the less transparent parts receive reflected rays
from the silver surface. The student will find a great
many cases in which this mode of treating a refractive
and reflective object produces the best results. The eyes
of the aphis seen i:i this way are like half mulberries, and
the little eye projecting from the corner of the larger group
is well displayed. Where the view of the compound eyes
is a full -face one, the dark pigment is seen so strongly that
its true position is concealed. A profile view shows the
little lenses to be clear, like glass, and the pigment to be
behind them. A comparison of these eyes with those of
a common fly will show a considerable difl'erence. The
aphis lenses all look hemii?pheres, much like the projections
of a mulberry, or blackberry, while the common insect form
is hexangular — a shape produced by squeezing a number of
globes together.

Many parts that looked plain with a lower power,
appear beautifully ornamented under a higher one. The
cornicles of the specimen before us are prettily imbricated,
and the antennie are very graceful objects. It is diflicult,
without dissection, to make out much of the internal
organs, but the observer will be struck with the quantity
of oily-looking globules. Indeed, between the incipient
young ones and the fat or oil, there seems little room for
anything else. This fat supply is probably connected with
the resistance of the little animals to cold, and may serve

as a food reservoir in bad times. Just below the knee-
joint of the legs, at the top of the tibia, a small
pulsating vesicle is noticeable, and if the leg is
favourably situated, each beat of this little organ
may be seen to send a wave-motion down a very thin and
slender vessel. The colourless blood of the creature, we
may suppose, is thus circulating, and Mr. Buckton found
the pulsations from 120 to 180 times a minute. The
breathing is efl'ected by air-tubes (trachcf), as in other
insects, but their minute size makes them more difficult to
see than they are in larger creatures, and in such their
peculiar structure should be first studied. In their typical
form, they resemble the flexible tubes often used in con-
veying gas to portable lamps, which have a spiral wire
inside to prevent their collapsing. They glitter with a
silvery or pearly sheen when the light glances upon them.
In the aphis this wire is not discernible. The muscles of
these creatures are very transparent, but some of them
may be recognised in the legs without any colouring or
dissection.

The amount of optical power possessed by these
creatures seems in excess of the wants indicated by their
habits. The young ones keep close to their parents and
sisters, the whole family sucking away in an increasing
crowd, with little room for individual motion. When an
entirely new settlement is to be formed, winged females
appear ; and with these remarks we must close for the
present.

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.

Till.
By W. Mattieu Williams.

THE application of the principles already expouiided to
the processes of grilling and roasting is simple enough.
As the meat is to be stewed in its own juices, it is evident
that these juices must be retained as completely as pos-
sible, and that in order to succeed in this we have to
struggle with the evaporating energy of the "dry heat"
which effects the cookery.

It should be clearly understood that the so-called " dry
heat " may be communicated by convection or by radiation,
or both. When water is the heating medium, there is
convection only, i.e., heating by actual contact with the
heated body. In roasting and grilling there is also some
convection-heating due to the hot air which actually touches
the meat ; but this is a very small element of efficiency, the
work being chiefly done, when well done, by the heat which
is radiated from the fire directly to the surface of the meat,
and which, in the case of roasting in front of a tire, passes
through the intervening air with very little heating ett'ect
thereon.

I am not perpetrating any far-fetched pedantry in
pointing out this diti'erence, as will be understood at once
by supposing that a beef-steak should be cooked by sus-
pending it in a chamber filled with hot dry air. Such air
is actively thirsting for the vapour of water, and will take
into itself, from every humid substance it touches, a quan-
tity proportionate to its temperature. The steak receiving
its heat by convection, i.e., the heAt conveyed by such hot
air, and communicated by contact, would be desiccated, but
not cooked.

This distinction is so important, that I will illustrate it
still further, my chief justification for such insistence being
that even Rumford himself evidently failed to understand
it, and it has been generally misunderstood or neglected.

Let us suppose the hot air used for convection cooking
to be at the cooking point, as the hot water in stewing

April 27, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE

247

should be, what will follow its application to the meat 1
Evaporation of the water in the juices, and with that
evaporation a lowering of temperature at the surface of
the meat, keeping it below the cooking point If the air
be heated above this, the evaporation will go on with
proportionate rapidity, and as nearly 1,000 degs. of lieat
are lost as temjierature, and converted into expansive force
whenever and wherever evaporation of water occurs, the
film of hot, dry air touching the meat is cooled by this
evaporation, and sinks immediately, to be replaced by a
rising film of lighter, hotter, and drier air, which drinks in
more vapour, cools and sinks, to give place to another,
and so on till the inner juices gradually ooze between the
fibres to the porous surface, where they are carried away
by the hot, dry air, and a hard, leathery, unmasticable
mass of dissected gelatine, albumen, fibrin, Ac, is produced,
which, if given to a dog for the purpose of watching its
efiect on the animal, would render an unlicensed experi-
menter liable to prosecution under the Vivisection Act

Now, let us suppose a similar beefsteak to be cooked by
radiant heat, with the least possible co-operation of con-
vection.

To eflect this, our source of heat must be a good
radiator. Glowing solids are better radiators than ordi-
nary flames, therefore coke, or charcoal, or ordinary coal,
after its bituminous matter has done its flaming, should be
used, and the steak or chop may be placed in front or
above a surface of such glowing carbon. In ordinary
domestic practice it is placed on a gridiron above the coal,
and therefore I will consider this case first

The object to be attained is to raise the juices of the
meat throughout to about the temperature of 180 Fahr. as
quickly as possilile, in order that the cookery may be com-
pleted before the water of these juices shall have had time
to evaporate to any considerable extent ; therefore the
meat should be placed as near to the surface of the glowing
carbon as possible. But the practical housewife will say
that if placed within two or three inches, some of the fat
will be melted and burn, and then the steak will be
smoked.

Now, here we require a little more chemistry. There is
smoking and smoking ; smoking that produces a detestable
flavour, and smoking that does no mischief at all beyond
appearances. The flame of an ordinary coal fire is due to
the distUlation and combustion of tarry vapours. If such
a flame strikes a comparatively cool surface like that of the
meat, it will condense and deposit thereon a film of crude
coal tar and coal naphtha, most nauseous and rather mis-
chievous ; but if the flame be that which is caused by the
combustion of its own fat, the deposit on a mutton chop
will be a little mutton oil, on a l)eef steak a little beef oil,
more or less blackened by mutton-carbon or beef-carbon.
But these oils and carbons have no other flavour than that
of cooked mutton and cooked beef ; therefore they are per-
fectly innocent, in spite of their guilty black appearances.

If any of my readers are sceptical, let them appeal to
experiment, by putting a mutton chop to the torture, and
taking its own confession. To do this, divide the chop in
equal halves, then hold one half over a flaming coal, im-
mersing it in the flame, and cook it thus. Now cut a bit
of fat ofl" the other, throw this fat on a surface of clear,
glowing, flanieless coal or coke, and, when a good blaze is
thus obtained, immerse this half chop recklessly and un-
mercifully into this flame; there let it splutter and fizz,
drop more fat and make more flame, but hold it there,
nevertheless, for a few minutes, and then taste the result

In spite of its blackness, it will be (if just warmed
through to the above-named cooking temperature) a deli-
ciously cooked, juicy, nutritious, digestible morsel, appa-

rently raw, but actually more completely cooked than if it
had been held twice as long, at double the distance, from
the surface of the fire.

For further instruction, make a third experiment by
imitating the cautious unscientific cook, who, ignorant of
the diflerence between the condensation products of coal
and those from beef and mutton fat, carefully raises the
gridiron directly the flame from the dropping fat threatens
the object of her solicitude. The result will be an ordinary
domestic chop or steak. I apply this adjective, because
in this particular ellbrt of cookery, the grilling of chops
and steaks, domestic cookery is commonly at fault The
majority of our City men find that while the joint cooked
at home is better than that they usually get at restaurants
and hotels, the chops and steaks are inferior.

I believe that this inferiority is due, in the first place,
to the want of understanding of the diflerence between
coal-flame and fat^flanie ; and in the second, to the advan-
tage afibrded to the " grill-room " cook by his specially
constructed fire, where a large surface of glowing coke is
surmounted by a sloping grill, whereon he can expose his
chops and steaks to the radiation from a large glowing
surface with a minimum of convection heat, the hot air
passing in a current over the coke surface having such small
depth that it barely touches the bars of the grill. (This
may be seen by watching the course of flame produced by
the droppings of the fat) The same obliquity of draught
prevents the serious blacking of the meat, which, although
harmless, is unsightly and calculated to awaken prejudice.

The high temperature rapidly imparted by radiation to
the surface of the meat forms a thin superficial crust of
hardened and semi-carbonised albumen and fibre, which
resists the outrush of vapour, and produces within a cer-
tain degree of high pressure, wliich probably acts in
loosening the fibres. A well grilled chop or steak is
"pufled" out — made thicker in the middle; an ill-cooked,
desiccated specimen is shrivelled, collapsed, and thinned by
the slow departure of its juices.

ENGLISH SEASIDE HEALTH-RESORTS.

By Alfred Haviland, M.R.C.S., F.R.M.C.S. Lokd.

CLASSIFICATION.— LAND AND SEA WINDS.

(Continued from page 307, Vol. II.)

SOUTH-EAST.— This wind has an entirely difierent
source from the one we last discussed. Before
it reaches our shores, when it does so as a true south-east
wind, and not as a part of a cyclonic storm, it has travelled
over a greater variety of land and water than any other
wind which crosses our surrounding seas. Its source and
the varied character of its route combine to render it a
wind not easily defined by reference to any one distinct
property. In common with other winds from the south,
it conveys heat and moisture — the former even to
the Arctic regions, for we find Dr. Kane, who had
charge of the second Grinnell Expedition in search of Sir
John Franklin (18.53-.5.5), whilst at Rensselaer Har-
bour, writes in his diary, January IG : — "Again the
strange phenomenon of the sviith-east loinds. The late
change in the barometer ushered them in, and all hands are
astir with their novel influences." Again, "Jan. 18,
wind howling on deck ; a number nine gale ; a vnrm soutli-
r:n.-ilcr directly from the land. The mean temperature of
the wind is 20". Warm as this may seem, our experience
has taught us to prefer 40^ with a calm, to 10° with a
gale in the face." " That strange phenomenon, the warm

248

• KNOWLEDGE •

[April 27, 1883.

south and south-cast winds which came upon us in Januar}-,
did not pass away until the niiddlo of this niontli (Fuli-
ruary), and soon after it had gone the wcatlicr continued
for some time to rellect its inlluence." We find that tlio
south-cast wind is most prcvaU'nt during the spring and
summer seasons, and that tlio months during vvhiclx it
Mows the greater number of days are March, April, and
.1 uno.

On the Eastern and Southern Coasts, to which it would
naturally come first, during the years 1878-79, its fre-
quency had a mean of seventeen days, whilst on the WckI
Const, during the same period, the mean was twenty-eight
days. This anomaly will be explained when we illustrate
this sul)ject by wind charts, which will show how many of
what are called "prevailing" winds are really nothing more
than diverted winds, due to the physical peculiarities of
the country around the station where the observations were
made. This wind is interesting, as some dependence may
be placed upon it when calculating on the chances of fine or
bad weather. In fact, it appears that there are two kinds
of south-east winds — one the harbinger of wet and stormy
weatlier, whilst the other is the forerunner of fine ; and as
weather is of great importance to the visitors at the seaside,
we will briefly describe the conditions under which this
wind may be used as a weather prognostic. When the air
is warm and moist, the barometer follows, and the sky
clear down to the horizon, or flicked with cirrus clouds, and
then covered with grey clouds, rain may be expected ; on
the other hand, if the air is dry, as indicated by the wet
and dry bulb thermometer, or by the speedy disappearance
of steam from a locomotive or other engine, the sky
clear, except at the horizon, which is liazy, not cloudy, and
the barometer rising, then the south-east will bring fine
settled weather.

This wind comes to us warm, from the heated soil of the
north of Africa, and laden with a certain amount of
moisture from the Mediterranean Sea. One portion of this
wind may travel to us up the Adriatic Sea, and then over
the Swiss Alps, which would materially afiect its original
character as regards heat and moisture. Another route,
however, is taken in a more southerly direction, and then
we get it after it has passed through France. The latter
is generally the rain-bearing wind, and often veers to the
south and south-west, whereas the former portion has a
tendency towards the east, thus remaining a dry wind and
the source of settled weather.

Thf !<outh. — This wind, like the last, difiers in its
character as it difters in its source and route to our coasts.
One portion has travelled over the Pyrenees before tra-
versing France ; whilst another belt, after passing over
Spain, sweeps across the Bay of Biscay, and has a more
marine character than its companion to the east of Ports-
mouth. The south wind blows on the east coast about
thirty-two days ; on the south, thirty-five ; and on the
west, thirty-six days in the year.

The South Coast throughout its entire length looks
towards France, Calais, and Boulogne opposite. Dover-
F6camp, which received the fugitive Charles II. after
escaping from Brighton in Tallusell's coal-ship, lies in
front of Hastings. Opposite tlu; coast, between Beachy
Head and Brighton, are Havre and the mouth of the
Seine. The Rochers de Calvados, Barfleur, the Channel
Islands, and St. Malo lie opposed to the Isle of Wight,
Weymouth, and Portland Bill.

The remaining winds, namely, the south-west, the west,
and the north-west, are all eminently sea winds, and will
1)0 noticed in our next article, when we purpose concluding
this portion of our subject, and illustrating our coastal
winds by a scries of charts, constructed with the view of

explaining how tlie physical features of England and its
coasts influence their direction and modify their influence
on our climate.

SECONDARY BATTERIES OR
ACCUMULATORS.

Bv E. C. RniiSGTON".

rpHE ideas of the general public concerning secondary
JL batteries being, to say the least of them, rather hazy, I
propose in this article to endeavour to show what a
secondary battery really is, and to describe its chemical
action.

A secondary battery or accumulator is a reservoir for
storing electrical energy — not, as is popularly supposed, for
storing electricity.

The probable reason why this false idea prevails arises
from the fact that, in former times, electricity was believed
to be a fluid, and, although it is now known that this
cannot be the case, the convention is still often adopted
as a convenient method of referring to and studying its
actions. Coupling the idea of electricity being a fluid
together with the term current of electricity and the analogy,
frequently given, between electricity and water, the general
public have arrived at the conclusion that a secondary
battery or accumulator " stores electricity " much in the
same manner that a cistern stores water. This is com-
pletely and entirely wrong. An accumulator does not
store electricity ; it stores electrical energy by means of
chemical decomposition, and it is the reconvertiou of the
chemical compounds into their former state that gives us
back the energy, absorbed in decomposing them, in the
form of an electric current. If we immerse two plates of
platinum in a \essel of acidulated water, and then pass a
current from one or two Grove cells through this volta-
meter, we note that bubbles of gas come ofl' from the sur-
faces of the two plates.

Where does this gas come from ? It cannot be from the
platinum plates, because the platinum remains unchanged,
however long we continue the experiment ; but in time
the water gradually diminishes in bulk ; the gas evolved
must, therefore, come from the water — in other words, the
water becomes decomposed or split up into the elements of
which it is composed.

Let us now collect the gas given oflT from each plate in
two separate tubes. On testing the gases thus collected,
we find we obtain hydrogen in the tube over the platinum
plate connected to the zinc or minus pole of the charging
battery, and oxygen in the other tube, these gases being
the elements of which water is composed, its chemical
symbol being Hj 0.

Now let us try the same experiment, but, instead of
using a Grove cell, which has an electro-motive force of
rO volts, let us employ a Daniellcell, whose electro- motive
force is rather over one volt ; we find that no effect is pro-
duced. The reason for this is that the electro-motive force
of the secondar)- battery formed by the liberated oxygen
and hydrogen is greater than that of one Daniell cell
(being, in fact, 1 '-lo volts).

Let us now try our former experiment, but, instead of
having short pieces of platinum, let them be prolonged
up into the tubes, in which the evolved gases are col-
lected. In charging, include a galvanometer in the
circuit, and note in which direction the needle is deflected :
then disconnect the battery and circuit the voltameter
through the galvanometer, when a deflection in the reverse
direction will be obtained. This experiment shows that a
current can be obtained from this arrangement ; only, of

Apeil 27, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

249

course, it would be a very feeble one and of short dura-
tion. Nevertheless it was from this that the first idea of
secondary batteries was suggested.

In 1S.")9 M. Gaston Plante constructed an accumulator of
lead. He took two long strips of lead about 10 in. wide,
separated them from each other by means of pieces of
indiarubber, or tape, laid diagonally across between the
two, rolled them up together spirally, and immersed them
in a vessel of acidulated water.

This battery acts also through the decomposition of
water : but not precisely in the same manner as the
platinum plates. If we now perform another experiment
and immerse two small plates of bright load in acidulated
water, then pass the current from two Grove cells through
this small battery, we shall find that gas is not evolved at
first from both plates, but only from the one attached to
the zinc or minus pole of the charging source, while the
other becomes of a brown colour. When circuited through
the galvanometer, we obtain a current of longer duration
than in the case of the platinum plates. Suppose we re-
peat the process of charging and discharging several times,
first charging the plates in one direction, then discharging,
and charging in the other direction, and so on. After some
time, let us charge only in one direction, when, on dis-
charging through the galvanometer, we find that we obtain
a current for a far longer period of time than we did at
first ; when, on examining our plates, the one attached to the
plus pole of the charging battery is found to be thickly
covered with a layer of brown material, while the other
is in a more spongy state than when we commenced
aperations.

The difference in the chemical action which occurs in the
two cases is that when the two plates of platinum were em-
ployed, platinum being a metal not attacked by free or
nascent oxygen, the secondary action was obtained simply
from the gases that were in close contact with, and to a cer-
tain extent occluded in, the surface of the platinum, the
effect of which could be increased by rendering this surface
alightly spongy ; while in the case of the lead plates, lead
being an easily oxidisable metal, the oxygen attacked the
lead at the anode, or plate connected to the plus pole of
the charging source, forming peroxide of lead (PbO^,),
while at the cathode, or plate attached to the minus pole of
the charging source, the hydrogen was given off in bubbles,
provided the plate was quite bright ; if, however, it was
oxidised or partially converted into sulphate before charg-
ing, this oxide or sulphate was reduced by the hydrogen to
metallic lead. The reason for alternately reversing the
direction of the current in charging is that the peroxide of
lead at the anode, which, when the battery is discharged,
becomes converted principally into sulphate and a lower
oxide, on recharging in the reverse direction should become
reduced to metallic lead in a spongy condition, and thus be
more easily acted upon at the next time of charging.

This process of continually charging, discharging, and
recharging in the opposite direction is called forming the
battery, and when it is continued until the plates are
rendered of a spongy nature nearly through their entire
thickness, the Plante battery is in its best condition.

This forming of the plates in the case of a large cell
takes about eight months, which renders it rather a tedious
and expensive process ; so another Frenchman, M. Camille
Fanre thought he would obviate the inconvenience by
mechanically coating the plates with an oxide of lead, such
as litharge (PbO). or minium, or red-lead (Pb^Oj), which,
when once reduced, would give a coating of spongy lead in
contact with the lead plates.

Plates of lead were taken, spread over with a paste of
red-lead and dilute sulphuric acid, and sewn up in felt

cases; a number of these plates were then laid side by side,
the odd numbers connected to one terminal, and the evert
to another; they were then immersed in a vessel containing
dilute sulphuric acid, and charged in the usual way, but
the current was only reversed once or twice.

To understand the chemical action of a Faure cell, let us
first suppose that the plates are coated with litharge (Pb O),
or plumbic oxide, and are immersed in water (the reason
dilute acid is employed being that water is such a very
bad conductor witliout the addition of a certain quantity of
acid ; but, as far as the theory is concerned, we can suppose
we are dealing with water alone.)

PbO

HoO HP HoO PbO

Pb OH. OH, OH, OPbO ^
Pb H,b H,ij H,0 PbO;

When a current is passed through the cell in the direc-
tion of the arrow, the water is decomposed, hydrogen being
given off at the cathode, and oxygen at the anode. The
hydrogen reduces the PbO by combiuing with its oxygen to
form water, while the oxygen liberated at the anode com-
bines with the PbO there to form PbO., or peroxide of
lead.

Practically, then, the oxygen combined with the plumbic
oxide at the cathode has travelled over to the anode to
peroxidise the plumbic oxide there in charging, and on dis-
charge, this oxygen travels back to the cathode, lea\-ing
Pb O on both plates as at starting.

Now, to take a case that is more likely to occur in
practice ; suppose we take a discharged cell that contained,
when charged, dilute sulphuric acid (H,SOj) as the electro-
lyte, we have on both plates lead sulphate (PbSO^), and
if the dilute acid in the cell was fairly weak, it becomes
practically water when the cell is entirely discharged.

S04H, OH. OH; I gQ^^

t Pb SO^H- OH, OH.SOj PbO..
\ Pb H.SOj H;6 n,S04 PbO.

We start with lead sulphate on both plates and water as
the electrolyte ; the hydrogen liberated at the cathode
reduces the PbSO, by combining with the SO^ radical,
while the O liberated at the anode combines with a mole-
cule of water of the PbSO^ thus —

O -f PbSO, -f HoO = PbO, + H.,SO,.
As the charging continues, the acid in the cell gradually
becomes stronger, till the cell is entirely charged, when we
have the PbSO, converted into lead at the cathode, and
into peroxide of lead at the anode, while all the S O, that
was in combination with it has combined with the hydrogen
of the water forming H; 8 Ot or sulphuric acid.

In practice it is, however, exceedingly difficult to reduce
pure lead sulphate with an electrolyte of dilute acid, on
account of the bad conductivity of the salt lead sulphate.

It will thus be seen from this description of the theo-
retical chemical action which goes on in the charging of an
accumulator, that it is absurd to speak of a secondary
battery as storing electricity ; energy in the form of a
current of electricity in charging produces chemical action,

250

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[April 27, 1883.

while in discharging chemical action produces energy in
the form of a current of electricity.

The Kaure accumulator has been lately entirely super-
seded by more convenient forms of cells, such as the Sellon-
Volckmar, the Fitzgerald, A'c, but the theory of the
chemical action is the same for any form of cell in which
lead is employed at both electrodes, with dilute sulphuric
acid as an electrolyte.

A NEW DEEP-SEA FISH.

[Eurtipharynx pelecanoides.)

DURING the last cruise of the Travaifli;ur we found
off the coast of Morocco, at a depth of 2,300 metres
(2,515 yards), a fish which may be regarded as one of the
most singular beings that deep-sea dredgings have ever
brought to light. This animal, which is about 0'47 metre
(IS}; in.) in length and 002 metre (* in.) in width at the
widest part, is of an intense black colour. The body.

approximate it to the intermaxillary. The maxillary is
wanting, unless we admit that these two bones are con-
I founded.

Upon both jaws small dental granulations may be felt;
I and at the extremity of the maxillary bone are seen twcv
hooked teeth, 0002 nidtre ( ,\. in.) in length. The buccal
orifice, as a consequence of such an arrangement, is enor-
mous, and leads to a cavity whose dimensions are still
; more astonishing. In fact, the upper jaw is united to the
j sides of the head and of the fore-part of the body by an
extensible cutaneous fold that permits of considerable
I stretching ; and, between the branches of the maxillary
; bones, there extends an analogous cutaneous membrane
which is much more dilatable, and contains, as shown by
I a histological examination, a large number of elastic fibres
1 in bundles. It may be well compared with the mouth of
i the pelican.

As a consequence of the stretching of the jaws and the
extensibility of the membranes, the mouth in the living
animal forms, along with the pharynx, a vast funnel, of

THE EUUYPIIARYNX PELECANOIDES.

whose form is hidden in front by the abnormal mouth,
recalls that of the Macrurus. It tapers ofl' regularly from
the anterior quarter, at which point is observed the external
branchial orifice, and terminates in a point at the caudal
extremity. The anus is located at the junction of the
anterior third with the two posterior thirds of the body.

What gives this fish a very peculiar physiognomy is the
arrangement of the jaws and the conformation of the mouth,
which further exaggerate what Mr. Ayres has described
in the Malacosteus niger. Although the head is short,
scarcely OO.'J metre (IJ in.), the jaws and suspensorium are
excessively elongated, the later measuring no less than
0-095 mitre. It results from this that the articular angle
is carried very far back, to a distance from the end of the
nose equal to about three-and-a-half times the length of the
cephalic portion. This suspensorium, as far as can bo
judged, consists of but two pieces — the one basilar, ana-
logous to the temporal, and the other external, representing
without doubt a tympanojugal. The upper jaw is formed
of a long and slender stylet, the situation of which should

which the fish's body seems to b-e the tapering continua-
tion. It is presumable that food accumulates in this
pouch, and may be partially digested therein, a fact com^
parable with what has been pointed out in the Chiasmodus
tiigrr, Johnson.

The locomotive organs are of the most rudimentary
nature. The side fins are reduced to two very small
appendages, whose position near the branchial orifice
should make them correspond to the pectorals. The
ventrals are wanting. At a distance from the occiput
nearly equal to the length of the head begins a dorsal tin,
which extends nearly the whole length of the back, without,
however, reaching the end of the tail. The anal fin, which
has a similar arrangement, has it origin at a few milli-
metres behind the anus, and ends at the same point as the
dorsal. The extremity of the body is surrounded with a
small membranous fold — a sort of rudimentary caudal fin.
The delicate and flexible rays of these odd fins are not
articulated, or, as far as can be judged from the animal
preserved in liquor, united by a membrane.

April 27, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

251

The respiratory apparatus offers a structure which is as
yet unique in bony fishes. We find six pairs of internal
branchial clefts, and consequently five branchia-. These
latter are each formed of a double series of free lamelhe.
The water makes its exit from each side through a very
small orifice that forms a simple rounded cutaneous perfo-
ration, situated towards the level of the termination of the
bucco-pharyngeal infundibulum. Neither a hyoidean
apparatus nor opercular pieces are found.

Without entering into a description of the organs con-
tained in the abdominal cavity, it is important to note the
complete absence of a swimming bladder.

I propose to designate this lish by the name of Etcrijyha-
rynx peUcanoida.

What place should it occupy in the ichthyologic series ?
This is a point difficult to judge of in the absence of more
complete information as to its anatomy, and particularly as
to its skeleton, which is not possible to examine in all its
details in a single specimen.

It may be said that the fish offers affinities with the
AnacantJiini, with certain Physosiomi, such as the ScopelidtT,
the Stomiatkiie, and with the apodes. Although approach-
ing these latter in the absence of ventral fins and in the
imperfect opercular apparatus, it differs too much there-
from in its well-developed and free intermaxillaries to
allow it to be placed in that group. As regards the
Scopelido- and Stomiatidtr, all the known genera of these
families have a very widely opened branchial orifice. In
the first, the intermaxillary forms alone the free edge
of the upper jaw, and in the second, the maxillary enters
therein for a part It is to the Sropelkhr, then, that the
Eurypharynx is related, inasmuch as it does not exhibit
the hyoidean barbel that has up to the j)resent been
indicated as characteristic of the Siomiatido'. And of all
fishes placed in the Scopelidm by naturalists, it is with
the ilalacosteus nifffr that we should be tempted to com-
pare the animal under consideration, inasmuch as that fish
alone presents us with the simple arrangement of the sus-
pensorium noted above. But it is perhaps with the
Acanlhini that the affinities appear most real, either as
respects the form of the body, which recalls that of the
Jlacritrns, or as respects the absence of the ventrals, which
is habitual in certain animals of this group. So, too, several
OphididiC and all the Lycodula- — the latter with their
branchial orifice reduced, although not to the point that
occurs in our animal — furnish still another proViability in
favour of this view. However, the characters of the Eury-
pharynx are so decided that it must, in any event, be
regarded as the type of a new family of which it will be
the only representative, if future studies do not show that
it must be joined to the genus Malacosteus. — L. Yaillant,
in La Nature.

The production of gold in Australia seems to have
diminished considerably since 1875, when the mines yielded
1,068,418 ounces. In 187G the quantity sank to 963,700
ounces. In 1877 the figure fell to 809,653 ounces; in
1878, to 758,040 ounces; and in 1879 to 758,947 ounces.
The year 1880 showed a slight improvement, as the yield
lose to 839,121 ounces; and 1881 was better still, with
858,146 ounces.

A Large Steam Yacht. — A steam yacht, which it is
said will be one of the largest yet built, has been ordered
from Messrs. Shuttleworth k Chapman (Limited;, of Erith,
on behalf of Baron Arthur de Rothschild, of Paris, who
already possesses the yachts Eros and Passe-Parlout. This
new yacht is to be extremely fast, and to be fitted with all
the latest improvements.

NEWSPAPER SCIENCE.

By W. Slingo.

A FORTNIGHT since, Mr. Proctor, in a powerful article
on "Lectures and the London Papers," complained of
the treatment accorded to scientific addresses by the London
Press. I think, however, that he will admit, on reflection,
that the question resolves itself to some extent into one of
supply and demand. I would not insinuate that a demand
on the part of the public for scientific information does not
exist, but that the matter which is supplied is of a descrip-
tion too inferior and slipshod to satisfy any demand, and
that it is seldom read, and rarely trusted.* It is within
the memory of every electrician that the panic in the gas-
share market five years since was mainly the result of a
brief but unwise confidence in newspaper science. I take it
that there is not a genuine scientist in existence but would,
if he had the choice, prefer no report to an incorrect one.
On the other hand, those who desire to air an absurd fad
are the readiest to welcome the assistance of the unscientific
press, because, in the first place, imposition is in such cases
an easy matter, and in the second no scientific reporter can
be induced to give them a hearing. I was much amused a
few months ago by a man who (ignorant that I had the
honour of representing Knowledge) said to me : — " I do
not want scientific opinion ; it is no use to me." " Give me
the British public," said he, " let them be my judges," and
accordingly he showed me laudatory newspaper opinions in
abundance. He may have been, and probably was,
conscientiously confident in the efficacy of his so-called
invention. But what is the result 1 The concern was in
reality a scientific fraud. A public company was formed,
and may even now, for all I know to the contrary, bo
in existence, but the few thousands of pounds sub-
scribed can never bring any yield, but will, as certainly
as this appears in print, do no good beyond effectively
proving the fallacy of the invention.

To further demonstrate my point, I will quote a telegram
from "Our Own Correspondent" in Vienna, which ap-
peared in one of Saturday week's papers : — " An electrical
accumulator of a very novel character has just been
invented by Herr Prinz, who is known chiefly for his
discovery of a method of making artificial turquoises.
The inventor gave his first demonstration of his latest
discovery yesterday, and the experiments were attended
with complete success. lie first of all charged a substance,
weighing about four kilograiiuncs, the composition of which
he does not disclose, with electricity from a battery of six
chromef elements, the operation of cltarging taking fifteen
minutes. Then, disconnecting the battery, he inserted in
the electrically-charged substance a Swan incandescent
lamp. 77iis instantly gave a beautiful bright light, while
with the chrome elements in their original condition, only a
mild red light was obtained. The lam}) began to burn at
thirteen minutes to eight p.m., and it continued to give
out a steady light until two a.m. this morning.'!^ According
to Herr Prinz, the material he employs for the accumulator
can be manufactured at a very trifling cost"

Can anything more preposterous than this be conceived ?-
According to this, the force which in the original battery

• This is undoubtedly the case ; but although at present our daily
papers are not able to supply useful reports of anything scientific,
they might do something in the way of noticing what is being done,
especially in tho case of such an experiment as the one which I
have made in giving a, course of scientific lectures in St. James's
Hall.— K. P.

+ Presumably bichromate of potash cells.

t I wonder if, had the battery been kept on for thirty minutes,
the light would have lasted until 2 a.m. this afternoon ? — W. S.

252

KNOWLEDGE

[Ai'KiL 27, 1883.

can only impart a " mild red light " for fifteen minutes,
may lie transmuted into one which will give a " beautiful
bright light " for six hours ! After such outrageous twaddle
we are told that, " Among those present at the demon-
stration was Privy-Councillor Ilerr Brunner von Wat-
tcnwyl. President of the International Electrical Exhibi-
tion to be held at Vienna in the summer, and an eminent
authority on electrical science. In his view this discovery
of Herr Prinz does not give to science a new accumulator,
although it shows that by the aid of an electric current a
new primary current may be set up, from which a light of
long duration can be obtained." Then follows more non-
sense about the " new accumulator," which, if there is any-
tliing in it at all, is no more than a galvanic battery, and
would illuminate the lamp independent of the bichromate
battery altogether.

It will be within the recollection of many that a year or
so ago it was stated in certain professional papers that the
editors of the dailies deputed men to compile scientific
reports who were totally ignorant of the subject, because
they thought they could then rely upon an absence of bias
either for or against any particular system, and that
criticism would be more independent.* Such will, I
venture to predict, be the state of things until the general
public, educated by a more diffused scientific press to a
keener perception of the true and the false, demands early
and accurate accounts of scientific lectures, discoveries,
inventions, and exhibitions. The demand existing, supply
will follow.

SRefaictDSf.

STUDY AKD STIMULANT t
By Richahd A. Proctor.

MR. A. A. READE has done most useful work in
collecting together the experiences and opinions of
many persons who have devoted a large portion of their
time to study, upon the use of stimulants. I can imagine
nothing more likely to exert a wholesome influence on
young men possessing ambition of the healthier kind — am-
bition to do such good during their lives as is within their
capacity — than the study of such experience as is here
gathered together. They will find that the best workers
use little stimulant or none, and mostly use such stimu-
lants as they do take, rather after than before work — in
fact, rather as a sedative than as stimulant. The ex-
perience is, indeed, widely varied, and it is evident
that some who have comnmnicated their ideas to Mr.
Reade have given little attention either to the physical or to
the physiological questions involved. But their experience
is none the less valuable. One of the letters which deals
most philosophically with the subject (from Dr. Alexander
Bain), shows that John Stuart Mill, who drank moderately
and smoked not at all, held entirely erroneous ideas as to the
probable influence of vinous stimulants on the appetite for
food. Jlill thought that if he gave up wine, he would be
apt to take more food than was necessary ; but one of the
most marked cflTects of total abstinence from wine is an
increased control over the appetite ; of course, the
habitual use of strong liquors in excess destroys the

• This explains everything. If tho same system were only-
applied in politics ! — R. 1'.

t "Study and Stimiilnnt ; or tho Use of Intoxicants and Nar-
cotics in llolation to Intellectual Life, as Illustr.atod by Letters
from Literary and Seientilic Men." Edited by -V. .VnTnuB Reade.
(Abel Heywood & Son, Miinchoster ; and Siuipkin, Marshall & Co.,
London.)

appetite for food altogether. Dr. Bain writes as follows:
— " The difficulty that presses upon one in relation
to the whole subject is this — that, in organic influences,
you are not at liberty to lay down the law of concomitant
variations without exception, or to affirm that what is bad
in large quantities is simply less bad when the quantity is
small. There may be proportions not only innocuous,
l>ut beneficial^reasoning from the analogy of the action
of many drugs which present the greatest opposition of
cfl'ect in different quantities. I mean this not with refer-
ence to the inutility for intellectual stimulation, in which
I have a pretty clear opinion as regards myself, but as to
the harmlessness in the long run of the employment of
stimulants for solace and pleasure, when kept to what we
call moderation." This is the difliculty so far as the
theoretical question is concerned. The effect of stimu-
lants, whether used as such or as sedatives within short
periods of time, is easily ascertained. In a few weeks
the effect of a change of system may be noticed. But the
effects in long periods of time are not so easily determined.
Albeit, the general result of the experience gathered
together in the present volume is that none of the so-called
stimulants have any real value in helping literary or
scientific work, while in a great number of instances they
seriously diminish the working energies.

I may give the following result of my own experience
in influencing not my opinion only, but my course of
action. I was particularly anxious to appear at my best
before the audiences which gathered to hear my lectures at
St. James's Hall. It will be believed, then, that if I
thought any brilliancy or fervour (even though temporary)
were to be obtained from the use of stimulants before
lecturing, I would have used them. The best proof that
I hoped for nothing of the sort will be found in this, that
I prepared for each lecture of the six by abstaining abso-
lutely from food from breakfast-time at nine until six,
when I took one chop, one piece of dry toast, and a cup of
tea without milk or sugar. I never lectured with greater
ease or comfort to myself. On returning home about an
hour and a half after each lecture, I took a rather hearty
supper and one glass of the best Bourbon whisky and
water. After this, good sleep followed. The course of
lectures was thus given with the least possible amount of
strain.

THE FACE OF THE SKY.

From April 27 to May 11.
Bt F.E.A.S.

THE student will, as usual, keep a daily watcli upon the Sun for
indications of disturbance. The aspect of the night sky may
be gathered from M.^p V. of " The St.irs in thcii- Seasons." Mercury
is now an evening star, and after the iirst week in May may be seen
with the naked eye, after sunset, over the W.X.W. horizon. He is
romark.^bly well placed for the observer just now. Jupiter must be
looked for as soon as ever it is dark, as he is rapidly approaching
the west. He travels towards i) Geminorum, but to the north of
that star. The phenomena of liis satellites during the succeeding
fortnight are the disappearance of I. in ocoultation at 8h. 28m.,
p.m., on the 29th. On the 30th the egress of the shadow of I. at
8h. 5i;m., p.m., and the ingress of II. in transit at 9h. 12m., p.m.
On May 7 tho ingress of the shadow of I. will happen at 8h. 34m.,
]).m., and the egress of the satellite casting it at 9h. 56m., p.m.
After this we shall bid good-bye to Jupiter until October. Uranus,
tho only other planet visible, may be found about 1J° north of the
double star r Leonis.

There are no visible occultations of stars by the moon during the
next fortnight. Tho moon's ago at noon to-day (the 27th) is 19'9
days, and so on to May Gth, when it will, of course, be 289 days.
At noon on tho succeeding day she will be OG day old ; so that, for
our present purpose, she will scarcely be visible before tho 9th or
10th. For tho ne.Tt 24 hours she will bo in Sagittarius, as she will
during the whole of tho 28th, passing iuto Aquarius on the 29th

April 27, 1883.]

KNO^VLEDGE

253

and remaining thcro during the 30th and the 1st of May. On May
2nd she travels into Pisces, which she does not quit until the oth,
whin slie passes into Aries. During the later morning hours of
the 7th she moves into Taurus, through which her path lies on the
8th and part of the !lth, travelling into Gemini on the latter day.
She contiuues in that constellation throughout the 10th, and on the
succeeding day will be found iu Cancer, where we leave her.

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfbed Texxvson.

£fttn£i to tl)r etiitor.

Only a gmall proportion of Letters received can possibly be in-
i»rted. Correi'pondents must not be offended, therefore, should their
letters net appear.

All Hditorial communications should be addressed to the Editor of
B^SOWLEDGE; all Business communications to the Pcblishers, at the
Office, 74; Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DILAVS AEISE fob WHICH THE EdITOB IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

Ail Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should be made

payable to Messrs. Wvmax & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.
No communications are answered by post, even though stamped

iKD directed envelope be enclosed.

MULTIPLICATIOX [759].
[791] — By referring to the English Mechanic for April or May,
■1875, under article " Singular Mathematical Fact," two rules are
given as communicated by me, signed " S. J."

The first rule I learnt more than si.tty years ago, and have found
it very useful ; the second rule I devised for the article : —
38 x3C= (38 + 6)3 = 132
and t; X 8 = 48

1363 product.

87x34 = (S7 + 4)3 = 273

and (87-30)4 = 228

2958 product.

The two rules may be applied to multiplicands and multipliers
consisting each of three figures. James Smith.

P.S. — The editor, I believe, was abroad during April and May,
1875. — J.3. (See the " Geometry of the Two Rules.")

EASY MULTIPLICATION.
[792] — I was much interested in Jlr. Green's method of multiply-
ing numbers up to 19 x 19. I find it much easier to calculate in his
lT»y up to 99 X 99 than by the usual system, in all cases where the
left-hand figures are the same. Slightly alter Mr. Green's statement
[this part was mine. — R. P.] and sav —

(10a + 6) (10a + c) = 10'a(10a + 6 + c)+bc
Thus 97x95= 90(90 ■!- 7 + 5) + 35

(90 X 102) + 33
9180 + 35 = 9215.
If we have to multiply different left-hand figures, say,
(lOo+b) (lOc + d), and the larger (a) be taken as multiplicand,
the statement is rather more complicated, viz. : — ■

10c (10 a + 6 + d) + d (lOo-lO c) + bd
Thus, 35x24 = 20 (30 + 5 + 4) +4 (30-20) +20
= (20 X 39) + 40 + 20
= 780 + 60 = 810
But Is this easier than the usual method ? A. G. T.

STOKED ENERGY.

_ [793] — Your note to letter 733 seems hardly to explain the ques-
tion asked ; the initial state of the two spnings is different, while
the final state is the same. From this it is evident that they must
both go through a series of changes, during which energy is given
off, till they are both in exactly similar condition ; and, I think,

the final states being the same, we are justified in supposing that
any molecule of the coiled sjiring uncoils at the moment of its solu-
tion. Now, in the case of the coiled sjjring, the energy given out is
equal to the sum of that due to chemical action and that due to
the peculiar configuration of the mass ; and in the case of the
uucoiled spring it is oqu.al to that due to chemical action only. The
amount of heat duo to chemical action is constant, i»nd that due to
the peculiar configuration is equal to the thermal equivalent of the
mechanical work the spring would do in uncoiling. Hence, we see
that more heat would bo developed in the case of the coiled spring,
and that, as the chemical action takes place under similar condi-
tions, the time of solution would bo the same.

S. Skinner.

VALUE OF GOLD.

[794] — Early in this century gold was made the sole standard of
value in England. All commodities are measured by it. We price
everything in it. Gold, like other commodities, is ruled by supply
and demand.

For thirty years past the production has been falling off, and is
now less than one-half what it was. Meantime, the consumption
in the arts, ic, has been increasing, and it is estimated that at
present twelve or fifteen millions sterling of gold disappear in this
way annuall}'. For the past ten years this demand has been
eclipsed in importance by the demand for coinage. Germany,
America, and Italy havo been securing immense stocks of gold.
The metal, therefore, becomes scarcer, while the desire to obtain it
increases day by day. There is a growing appreciation of it ;
people are willing to give more land, or tea, or whatever it may be,
in exchange for it. In other words, prices of everything are falling,
and must continue to fall till the appreciation be checked. Thus
the agricultural industry suffers, and it will not make their hard-
ships the easier to bear, when they learn that their fellow-subjects
and competitors in the Indian portion of the empire are reaping
largo profits because they work under conditions exactly the con-
verse of those described above.

In India silver is the standard of value, and this metal is depre-
ciating while gold appreciates. While the English farmer must
part with more corn in exchange for less money, the Indian gets
moro money for less com.

Jlr. Goschen's speech has evoked articles in the Statist and
Spectator of the 24th ult., and iu the BuUionist of March 10
and 17. — I am, Sir, yours, &c., Padl F. Tidhan.

LEARNING LANGUAGES.

[795] — In the papers and letters which have appeared in Know-
ledge on the subject of Icaruing languages, the Kamiltonian
system is highly recommended. There is no doubt of its being an
excellent system, but it appears to me to go only half-way to per-
fection. The Robertsonian method preceded it, and earlier stUl the
" Methode Jacotot" — much used many years ago in France. By
this plan the memory is largely called into play, and words onoe
learnt are not likely to be forgotten. In a house wo find a store-
house or cupboard — a most necessary requirement. Vft; store our
tea, our sugar, fruit, spices, i-c, therein, and these are ready for use
when we want them. In a similar manner, the mind should have
placed in it a store of words — and not only of words, but of phrases,
of different parts of speech and their inflections, so that we may
take them out again when wanted. By the Ilamiltouian method
you get the meaning of words quicklj- at the time, but they are
generally forgotten again, nntil repeated translation fixes them in
the memory. By the Jacotot system they are put in the cupboard,
or mind, at once, and drawn upon when required. It may be said
that the task would be a heavy one — to learn a book by heart — but
for this there is no occasion, for when a person can say six pages of
a book by heart, ho knows half the language, its phrases and
inflections.

I may state my own case. I read and speak French. I can read
well the language of Dante and Goldoni, and thoroughly enjoy the
Spanish of Cervantes.

I read, for instance, every day, say, a page of Teleraaque inter-
linearly, and learnt by heart also two sentences. But I also repeated
by heart the two that I had learnt the day before, and the two
before that, always saying oft by heart daily the whole I had learnt;
so that after a time I had read the whole of the book, and was able
to repeat, say, six pages by heart. These I have never forgotten,
and in those six pages I consider I have learnt the best part of a
language.

Thus a very little additional trouble to the student by the Hamil-
tonian method will give him a speedier result. W. P. Bain.

[Mr. Bain's method is an excellent one, as I know from ex-
perience of my own. — R. P.]

254

♦ KNOWLEDGE

[April 27, 1883.

LAUGK SUN-SPOT.

[7n6]— Abont six o'clock, April 3, I glanced at the nun as ho
was ncariiii? the western horizon, and as there was a little mist
about the horizon, which made it easy to look at him with the
naked eye, I could distinctly see a black spot a little to the right of
the centre. I called tho attention of two friends to it, and they
also saw it qnite easily.

On Saturday and Sunday following I obscrred the sun with my
telescope, and then jierceived one rather large spot and several
smaller ones, and on the latter day I showed them to my wife and
several friends, and remarke<l to them that I believed that if we
could got a naked-eye view of the sun, wo should be able to see
the larger spot, and so that opinion has been eonlirmed since.

Seen through the telescope, it was triangular shaped, the central
black part, or umbra, being all in one, and not divided into several,
as was tho case in the great spot seen last November.

EXCELSIOE.

A subscriber, F.U.A.S., sends ns this picture of tho large sunspot.

" 1

April 15, 9.30 a.m. (with -tin. power 96 Eamsden).

[Our correspondent retoarks on the " peculiar series of little
bridges in one of the spots." " I watched them carefully," he
writes, " for fully half an hour, and there seemed a most violent
action going on around each bridge ; so much bo, that 1 contemplated
a violent disruption and equalisation of the whole mass into one
chasm. The whole spot seemed ' all alive,' whilst the smaller ones
were passive. Towards the close of the half-hour, the right-hand
large spot seemed to wake up, and numerous indentations became
manifest. After a while, the undulations seemed to settle down
as I drew them, and after that a more peaceful state seemed to
reign."]

SATURN'S RINGS.
[797]^Mr. Ward points out (775), an objection to Professor
Adams's theory about Balle's figure of Saturn in '■ Phil. Trans.,"
which appears to me fatal to that theory. Professor Adams, indeed,
foreseeing the objection, is forced to have recourse to the rather
lame expedient of supposing that the clause about tho notches
quoted from Balle " has been added or altered in some way "
(Monthly Notices, R.A.S., Vol. XLIll., No. 3, p. 94). But there is
an additional reason, not yet pointed out, for thinking that the
indentations in the figure were intentional.

In his paper, read before the lloyal Astronomical Society, and
quoted above, i'rofessor Adams says, " The paper was first folded
twice in directions at right angles to each other, so that only a
quadrant of the ellipse had to bo cut." Now, I have carefully ex-
amined the original cutting with a magnifying- glass, and I am pre-
pared to say that, while there is a very distinct perpendicular fold,
there is not the slightest trace of any horizontal fold. This may,
at first sight, appear to be unimportant, but it is important — in this
way : — It the paper had been folded in four, one cut would have
made both notches, and there would have been only one mishap.
But being folded in two, it follows that Balle made the same mis-
take (?) twice over, first in beginning the cut, and secondly in end-
ing it. As a confirmation of the objection brought forward by Mr.
Ward, I think this is not altogether unimportant.

Tho B.^tisfactory thing would bo to find Balle's letter. We should
then know whether tlie cutting was his own, or whether (what is
very possible) it was merely made by Oldenburgh from a drawing in
Balle's letter. I have made every search, however, in the archives
of tho Royal Society, and I am tolerably certain that neither the
original nor any copy of the letter remains there. It was probably
returned to Sir H. Moray as soon as Oldenburgh had done with it.

Scionco Club, Savile-row, W. IIekukkt Rix.

SUN AND MOON OF GIBKON.

[798]- — As you cannot forward my letter to Mr. Garbett, for want
of his address, I wish to say that in it I expressed the fact that the
LXX. version does not seem to bear out his rendering, " Bo thou
silent," though the margin gives this as the Hebrew. I am not an
Hcbraid, but these translators would surely not have used Triyrw,
and iv araait, and tdTrj, if they had understood it bore the sense
Mr. G. would put on it, whatever the physical fact may have
been. A different Greek verb is that " to keep silence," — aiyau, I
do not know whether you would admit a theoexegetical discoSBion
in your columns, which are not intended for such. Mr. Garbett
(|uotes Bryant as an authority, but 1 do not think he is much
thought of in these days of modern research. II. M. W.

[The Septuagint is not a very excellent translation. In English,
" Be thou still" would be near the mark, as conveying the actual
force of the Hebrew, which may mean either " be silent," or " stay
still."— R. P.]

A PHENOMENON.

[799] — I am afraid I am rather late in mentioning a peculiar
phenomenon I observed some time ago, and which no one could ex-
plain to me. On April 5, at about 5.20 p.m., at Wimborne, in Dorset,
while out on a hill near there, I chanced to look up at the sun,
when I observed at a distance from that body of about twenty
times his diameter, or perhaps a little more (1 cannot give the
distance astronomically), at the same distance above the horizon
as he was, a small piece of rainbow. This was to tlie west of the
sun ; it was about twice his diameter in length, and stood verti-
cally, as though part of a large rainbow-like halo. There were no
clouds about, but only a sort of cloudy haze, which was neither cloud
nor haze, and had no definite edge, but gradually melted into the clear
sky some distance above the horizon. The sun and rainbow were
just within this haze, where it was appreciably thick. No rain
came after, nor could I hear of any having fallen at that time
anywhere about the district; and, besides, I was not between it
and the sun, but both were before me. Several other persons
observed it; one was with me, and plenty more mentioned it to me
afterwards, but none could account for it. Hoping (if it be not
too late) to see an explanation soon, Imperitus.

April 18.

[Undoubtedly part of a solar halo; in other words, formed by
refraction of sun's light through ice-prisms. — R.P.]

FLOURY AGAINST WAXY POTATOES.

[SOO] — lam much obliged to "E. W. P." for his suggestions
(783) regarding the difference between a waxy and floury potato-
They are in strict accordance with my own belief, but in jiractice I
find great difficulty in growing the quality desired, for I often find
floury potatoes produced on land rich in nitrogen, more especially
if slow of decomposition ; whereas land poor in nitrogren may — for
instance, in a sunless, wet year — have very waxy roots ; so that I
presume sunlight or rain has as much as manuring to do with it.

With Dr. H. Muller's investigations I have been acquainted for
some time, but, from some known facts, I think many of his
deductions will require confirmation before being accepted as
truths. For instance, every farmer knows that even after the
severest winters his plough in the spring turns up many potatoes
in nice fresh condition, from only a few inches deep. These roots
must have been frozen through for days, and even weeks, together,
and yet kept qnite sound.

It is also known that potatoes frozen, or believed to be frozen, in
the drill, pet, or clamp, will in many cases turn out little the
worse if let alone till the frost is some time off, whereas if imme-
diately removed, nearly all will be wasted.

In my experiments tho ashes used were fine coal cinders from
nnder the engine furnace, and both lots of potatoes were removed
from the place where frozen at the time and immediately cooked.

Fabhes.

SINGLE EYE-GLASSES.

[801]— Mr. Kling, in his letter. No. 788, on " Single Eye-glasses,"
seems to me to miss the obvious meaning of the author of " How
to Use the Ej'es." I take it that the meaning of the passage is
that single glasses are of themselves hurtful, whether they help the
wearer to see better, or are worn for a less worthy purpose.

I think tho discussion as to the benefit of spectacles with lenses
of different powers must have been quite set at rest, for a year or
two ago I had to take to spectacles, and was ordered by a surgeon
to one of the ophthalmic hospitals to obtain a pair of unequal
strength. I should imagine that in case one eye is weaker than

April 27, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

255

another, the lenses most do harm, if of eqnal power, instead of
good. Myopia.

[I am particularly interested myself in this qoestion, seeing; that
my left eye is very short-sitrhted (I should use power " 12" if I
used any glass at all), while my right eye shows distant objects
with perfect distinctness. With adapted spectacles 1 seo double.
Bat as I get alou°; very well without glasses, this does not trouble
me.-H. P.]

LETTERS BECEITED.

A. T. Hartkt. I fancy a State Minister of Science would find
all his time taken up in distinc^uishinpf lionost workers from mere
money seekers. — W. W. Bishops. In Kxowledoe for May 4. — J.
U. Thomson. Many thanks ; but the scales would be too perplexing,'
to most readers.— N. K. PrNSHOx. If you try to give definite
shape to the rim; you suggest round Mira, ^-ou will find that the
variations of the star cannot possibly be accounted for in measure
and degree by that theory. — D. Kobertson', Ioxe. Not yet written.
— F. A. LrrroN. Answered elsewhere. Ur. U. Draper published
no such work. — S. Dobson notes that colour-bliudness is less
common among women than among men. — J. T. Pope. Squaring
the circle not to be effected in that wav. — S. Skinxek, H. II.
Ellis., J. C, \. U. A., Erx. J. R. Thanks.— "W. Miller, H.
K. MuiBUEAD. The difference between stored energy and the actual
use of such energy is surely too obvious to need pointing out. — H.
Stock. There i* that trouble about bulk. A balloon to raise even
the human body alone must be at least 1,000 times as bulky ; to
raise a car-load of travellers an inconveniently large balloon
would bo wanted, and the wind would play unpleasantly
■with such a bulky monster. — F. H. E. (1) A comet's opposition
ia not necessarily its ai>helion ; (2) the inclination of its orbit
may exceed or fall short of its greatest latitude, if this is what you
mean by its greatest inclination. (3) The " Vade Mecum do
I'Astronomie " is not known to mo; if it suits "every one not born
with a telescope in his mouth," it must be widely useful. I know
of no "work in English that does." — R. R. Baines. Many thanks,
but information crowded out. — E. A.nderson'. If a Southerner can
be called a "Yankee," your kind wnsh is already fulfilled. Your
triangle puzzle is perfectly dreadful. I agree with yon (but that
counts for nothing). The other bosh about the constitution is, I
fear, propounded very much as yon put it. My old theory (for
particulars inquire at Century Club, New York) comes in well
here. There 's a deal of nonsense about. — Hallyards. Fear the
derivations rather too recondite. — Original Subscriber. More find
difficulty in adding numbers including both odd and even, than in
adding all odd or all even numbers. — G. G. S. There is now no
correct way of pronouncing Latin. You may say lioostiecoos or
Busty Cuss, Viesissim or We kiss 'im. — ^V. H. Wilkinson. Lnmi-
noeity from heat does not imply burning away or combustion. You
may suppose those other ideas correct, though, probably, they are
not so. — A Stonebheakeb, J. C. S. Thanks, but method rather
cumbrous for the work done. — F. S. L. It is not necessary, in the
■squirrel puzzle, that the squirrel be rigidly attached to the man.
The squirrel's rotation, like the madness of the famous dog, is
understood to have been intended merely " to suit his private ends."
— A. Fbaxcis. Now. — A. B., S. J., R. Willing. Subject too
abstruse for explanation in these columns. — T. A. Would only
confuse our readers.— F. Malkin, Polaris. H. is honest, though
mad ; the other ia neither. — W. H. Lloyd., Reader of " Know-
ledge," R. W. W.— JusTiTiA Omnibv.s. Of course, " Mad Tom's "
paradox is but a joke. — Long Tom. Tour letter about Mad Tom
and H. is amusing ; and I would insert it ; but space is cramped,
■and — would you believe it ? — there are some who take such letters
for solemn earnest, and gravely rebuke me for inserting them. —
Canes Vesatici. Will trj-, but we are low-priced, and cannot
afford BO much that way as papers like the one j-ou name, not only
lugh-pricpd, but not giving Isalf-a-page weekly of original matter.
Set onr ten columns weekly of paid matter against illustrations
(without e.tception borrowed), and you will admit that for one-
third the i>rice wo give a fairer eqnivalent. — G. B. In Knowledge
for May 21. — J. R. Clafham. Quite agree with yon that he could,
if he would, have given very interesting matter, at very little
trouble and considerable profit to himself. But there are those who
deem it an offence to point out errors in their views — a mortal
offence to prove their [views erroneous. — W. Miller. On return to
town will prepare a paper on the subject. — R. L. L., A. Wishabt,
and many others. Have asked our assistant who spoke so highly
to us of the Loisettian system to say whether he is still satisfied of
its value. — Incredulitas. Cannot reply, of my o^vn knowledge,
about the Loisettian system. — P. J. L. The lady who wrote the
article on the Divided Skirt would not care to have her photo-
graph taken for public sale. But in any case it would show nothing
of the divided skirt, which is whollv concealed under the skirt of

the dress — this skirt not being divided. — G. J. Padbuby. That is a
matter for the imblisliers. — M. R. Doubtless, granted a sufficient
supply of heat, or other form of energy for decomposing ■water,
water would be an inexhaustible fuel-snpply. — II. Godwin. C. F.
Hodgson 4 Son, Goughsqunre, Fleet-street. — H. Vallance. First
deal puts card in middle seven, second puts it in middle three, third
makes it the middle card. — F. B. Allen, B. Holt, Professor
E. J. H., Ph.D. Our readers so nearly unanimous, that to balance
your one letter in favour of stays wo ought to put in, at least, a
hundred against them, for which wo have not space. — Rov. Terence
O'Flanaoan. Regret you were disappointed ; but question is not
comment. Imagine the Padre Sccclii would have opened his eyes
had ho heard that the Roman Catholic Church maintains, or you
seem to imply, that the earth is flat. You mistake, however, in
supposing that Galileo advanced the contrary. It was not neces-
sary. For no men of science in his time needed to be told that the
earth is a globe. — W. RowE. Know nothing on either point. — One
Already Reformed in Dbe.ss. Surely very few girls have the
barrel shape you speak of. All in my own household look at least
as shapely, and far more graceful, since adopting tho reformed
dress. — Chev. De L., E. C. Blscoe. Tho testimonial is true as far
as it goes; but it does not go very far.

^ur fflaa&i'gt Column.

By " Five op Clubs."

THE ECHO OF THE SIGNAL.

WHEN trumps have been signalled by your partner, and you
have yourself length in trumps, it is most desirable to let
hini know as much, that ho may not, by continuing to lead trumps,
extract two for one or none of the adversaries'. It often happens
that you are not able to indicate length in trumps, under these cir-
cumstances, by your return lead ; or the lead of trumps may be
delayed, and you may wish to indicate your^trump strength at once.
Under such circumstances you should " echo " the signal, if you
have an opportunity of so doing ; that is, you should play an un-
necessarily high card before a low one, in any suit, trumps or plain,
in which you may be able thus to indicate the possession of four
trumps at least. This " echo " signal, in fact, has, like the signal
for trumps, its negative as well as its positive aspect. Just as not
signalling for trumps when you have the opi)ortunity means that
you have not more than a certain degree of strength in trumps and
plain suits combined, so not to echo the signal, if you have the
chance, means that you have not more than three trumps.

You cannot readily echo, as you can signal, by the discard, for
when your partner lias signalled, and the opponents lead a suit
which you can ruff, you would not discard from a plain suit, but
take the trick, whether you held more or fewer than four trumps,
in order that you might lead trumps in response to the signal.

It is well to notice, in regard both to tlio si-jnal and to the echo,
that, failing to observe either form of signal on the adversaries'
part, or the absence of either when there has been an opportunity
for its display, is as mischievous as failing to notice such signals
or their absence in your partner's play. Thus, suppose one of
the adversaries leads trumps, really in response to his partner's
signal, but as yon suppose, not having noticed the signal,
from his own strength ; if the chance of forcing him arrives, yon
seize it, thereby playing his game, or when yon should force the
hand of the partner who signalled you, omit to do so, supposing
him to be weak in trumps. In fact, failing to notice the play of
the adversaries with regard to signal is ajit to prove a more dan-
gerous error than failing to notice yonr partner's signal ; for in one
case, your play, in consequence of your carelessness is weak and
incorrect in presence of trump strength of the adversaries, the
consequences of which can hardly fail to be disastrous ; in the
other case, yon fail properly to support your partner, but his
trump strength is there all the time, and will probably save yon at
least from irremediable disaster. In tho latter case, you may pro-
bably fail to make a game which might have been won, and despite
the saying that the cards never forgive, you may retrieve the error
in Imlf the number of events. But in the other case, you are very
likely to lose a game wliich might have been saved, and there is no
way of restoring a game which has been lost.

It is hardly necessary to observe that whether a player approves
or not of the general principle of signalling, wherever required, at
Whist, he must play at a disadvantage if ho fails to employ the
system against players who studiously employ it. But if your
partner is habitually careless with regard to tho signal, while your
opponents are observant, it is well to avoid signals of all sorts,
since they inform the adversaries, and tell your partner nothing.
(To be continued.)

2b(S

• KNOWLEDGE ♦

[April 27, 1883.

&ut €t)t^5 Column.

By Mephisto.

Game I'laykd at the Divax hn the 21st ixst., Uaui'E — Alkjaier.

White. Blrick.

MrphiHlo. Tdohicor}*!!.

1 . r to Kt P to K t

U. Kt to QU3 Kt to QRS

3. V to Bl P takes P

4. Kt to B3 P to KKtt

5. P to KlU P to Kt5
fi. Kt toKKt5 PtoKK3

7. Kt takes P K t.ikos Kt

8. P to Q t P to HG
0. P takes P B to K2

10. B to Bi (ch) K to Kt2

11. B to K3 B takes P (cli)

12. K to Q2

13. P takes P

14. B to Q3

15. P takes P

P to Ql. (a)
Kt to R-l (h)
B to K2 ((■)
Kt to KB3((/)

Whito. Black.

Mephisto. Tschigoryn.

16. BtakesPch(c)R takes B

17. P to Kt5 K fakes K (/)

18. Q takes Ef,,) Q to Rs(i

19. PtakcsKt(cli)B takes P

20. lltoKtB(i(ch) K to B3

21. Q to K-l Q to R3 (ch)

22. K to Q sq B to Q2

23. PtoKt4(;i) RtoKsci (i)

24. Q to Kt6(ch) Q takes Q

25. BtakesQ (ch) K to B sq

26. B takes R B takes B

27. R to B sq K to K2

28. P to QG (ch) P takes P
20. KttoQ5(ch) K to Q scj
30. Kt takes B(j) resigns

(«) 12. P to Q3 wonkl have given him a safer game, with a
better chance o£ defending himself.

(()) Black had not mnch choice; he now has two pieces in pre-
carious positions, a disadvantage that often arises when the
defence of B to K2, followed by R5, is adopted in any gambit.
Bad as it may look, Kt to Kt sq seems preferable.

(r) P to QKt3 seems necessary to ensure the safety of his Knight.

(d) For had the Pawn been advanced, Black might have played
B to Kt4, which he cannot do now without losing time ; if 15. B to
Kt4, 16. Q to B3, and White gets a strong game.

(f ) A further sacrifice of a piece justified by the position.

(/) If Kt to K5 (ch), 18. Kt takes Kt, B takes P (ch), 19. K to
B3, and Black's position is not much improved.

(;/) Not easy to decide which is best in this interesting position.
Q takes R gives White more liberty of action. Black dare not
withdraw his Knight from B3 on account of Q to R7 (ch), &c.

(h) If R toRsq, B to Kt5 (ch), &c.

(i) This loses the game. Black ought to have played R to KKt sq.

(.)) It is obviously better to have won this Bishop in preference
to P takes Kt, for now White's Pawns are far stronger.

Position after Black's 24th Move, Q to K sq.

In a game played on the 19th inst.

A. G. Sellmaxn (Baltimore).

Black.

i I I

'■-^ *

JM£ „„„„ ^ l;^„. ^ ^ #i.^|

Mephisto.
The game proceeded with —

Kt takes B Q to K7 (ch)

K to Kt3 R takes R

R takes R Q takes R

Kt to K7 (ch) ! K to B sq

(If K to K sq, White plays Q to K8 (ch) ! Black daro not take on
account of KKt to KiO mate ; if then Kt to B sq, White can safely
take the Rook after KKttoKtG (ch), K to R2, for the White King
will be able to escape porjietual check by working over to hil
Queen's side.) Kt (K7) to B5 Q to K8 (ch)

K to R2 Q to Q7 (ch)

Kt to Kt2 Q to KKt4

Q takes Kt, and White won.

SOLUTIONS.
Probleu No. 81, p. 228.

1. Rto Bi! P takes R, or

2. Kt to B5 (ch) K to Kt4 Q to R4 (ch) !

3. Kt takes P, mate Kt takes P, mate
If B moves, mates accordingly.

K toKtl
K takes Q

No. 85, BY J. C. S., p. 242.

1. Q to K7 ! Kt takes Q, or B takes Q

2. K takes P Anything B takes Kt Anything

3. Kt or R mates accordingly Kt to B7, mate

THE INTERNATIONAL '.TOURNAMENT.

As regards the number of entrants, the Tournament has not quite
come up to expectations ; but, in point of strength, it will certainly
eclipse any previous Chess contest of the kind. It may, jjerhaps,
in the interest of good play, be advantageous that we have only the
very best players assembled to do battle with each other, as the
severest test must necessarily favour and produce the best player.
Weak players introduce a certain element of chance in a Tourna-
ment which it may be desirable to avoid. The minor Tournament
has taken over several players who, but for its existence, would
have ranked amongst the competitors in the major Tourney. Yet
it has rather taken us by surprise that, with one solitary exception,
none of the very numerous strong amateurs have joined the major
Tourney.

We have to rectify the list of probable entries published last
week, which now stands as follows : — Steinitz, Zukertort, Mason,
Blackburue, Bird, and Skipworth, from England ; Mackenzie, from
New York; Sellmann, from Baltimore ; Winawer, from Warsaw;
Tschigoryn, from St. Petersburg ; English, from Vienna ; Rosenthal,
from Paris; and Dr. Woa, from Hungary. It is, perhaps, probable
that one more name may be added to this list, but we know of
only one other player who could claim equality, if not superiority,
to some of the names in this list — we mean L. Paulsen ; we shall
be very pleased if he should join in the noble contest at the last
moment.

The minor Tournament has, as we anticipated, found great
favour in the eyes of the Chess community. Twenty-seven players
have entered, and this figure may not quite represent the final
number of players. Thare will be several first-class players, both
English and foreign, amongst the competitors. The honorary
secretary, Mr. Minchin, wiU likewise take part in this Tournament,
and we can only wish him a well-deserved success.

All the foreign competitors have arrived, and some of them hav«
engaged in off-hand games with English amateurs. Mr. Donnes-
thorpe has been successful against Sellmann, while Mr. Mortimer
drew a well-contested Muzio gambit against the redoubtable
Winawer, but lost to Tschigoryn. We had also the good fortune
to encounter two of the players over the board. In a game with
Sellmann, we opened with the Vienna opening. He accepted the
gambit, and after 4. Kt to KB3 defended with B to K2, a defence
we do not like at all. The game proved very interesting, and was
won by us in in 4G moves. We give a position in the middle of the
game, after Black's 21th move. We also played two games with
Tschigoryn, winning the first and losing the second. We give the
first game. The second game Tschigoryn proffered the gambit,
which we declined by 2. P to Q4. The game was well contested,
but by superior play Tschigoryn won a pawn, and, conducting the
ending in a very steady manner, he won. Sellmann also engaged
Tschigoryn, each man winning one game. English played some off-
hand games at the St. George's CInb, in which he was victorious.
He will prove himself to be a very strong and tenacious antagonist.

Next week we hope to present our readers with the first speci-
mens of skill by these great masters.

Tuesday Night. — We hear that Mr. James Mortimer, a strong
English amateur has joined the major tournament, which, there-
fore, now contains fotirteen players.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Clarence. — Problem received, with thanks.

Stettin. — You must always note each colour of pieces from their
ovni side of the board.

B. Davis (Banaras). — We think our plan simpler.

Correct solutions received : — Problem 82, Stettin, Planck. No. 83, ,
Planck. No. 84, H. Planck, Mechanics' Institute, E. E. W., Berrow, i
Stettin. No. 85, G. W. Thomp.'-.on, Clarence, W. j

S. Gordon, U. A. B., George llobson, J. Bai'ber, Charles E. Bell, i
solutions incorrect.

Mav 4, 138?.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE

267

L-

AN. lUJi&^RATED ^^ J^

MAGAZINEOF^GIENCE "^

PLAINLYlf ORDED -fXACTlJf DESCRIBED

LOXDOX : FRIDAY, MAY \. 1883.

Contents op No. 79.

Oo tfaf* Spheroidal Condition of

Liquids, By Charles Tomlinson.

F.E.S :

A Geolopcal Excursion. Br Grant

Allen :

" Our Bodies." XI. The Circula-

tion of the Blood. Bj Dr. Andrew

Wilson. F.R S.E., ic i

How to Use Our Eyes. V. By John

Brownini;, K.K.A'.S I

A Dream of Infmity. By De Quincey,

after Richter J

Death of Worlds. Bt R. A. Proctor ;

The Crystal PaUoc Electric and Gas
Eihibition. Final notice, (lllm.) :

The Moon in a Three-inch Tele-
scope. HUu>.) By F.R.A.8. ... !

Reviews : Practical Oeoraetry i

CoERBSPOKPBNrR ; — Comets* IVuls
— Tide and Weather — The Great

Pyramid, Sc :

1 Our Mathematical Column 1

Our Whist Column :

I Our Chess Coltunn '.

ON THE SPHEROID.\L CONDITION
OF LIQUIDS.

By Cuahles Tomlinson, F.E.S.

1HAVE road, with considerable interest, Professor
Barrett's note on this subject (Vol. I., p. l.'iO).

On several occasions, during a long scientific life, I have
engaged in researches thereon ; and it may be interesting
to recapitulate the various phenomena, leaving the task of
deciding wliich of them fall under the new theory, and
which belong to the old, to the competent judgment of Mr.
Stoney and Professor Barrett.

So long ago as the year 1838, my " Students' Manual
of Natural Philosophy " contained an account of my first
researches. I quote, with some abridgment, from pp. 5.")3
et seq. of that work.

After describing an experiment by Professor Baden
Powell on the so-called repulsion of heat, in which
Newton's rings disappear on applying the flame of a spirit-
Ikmp to the lower lens, the text proceeds thus : — "There
is another striking phenomenon, discovered by Leidenfrost
in 17.")G, which seems to prove the existence of a repulsive
force between heated bodies, which force augments with
their temperature. If a polished metal vessel, such as a
platinum crucible, be raised to a red or white heat, and
several drops of water be allowed to fall into it, they unite
into a globule, which spins rapidly round witliout ebulli-
tion, and evaporation is slow in proportion as the tem-
perature of the vessel is high. It is necessary to the
SDCcess of this experiment that the globule, whether
bom calorific repulsion, or any other cause, be not
in contact with the heated metal ; and accordingly
we find that if the vessel be removed from tlic
source of heat, and allowed to cool down to a certain
point, the water flashes into steam by coming into
contact with the heated metal. I find that these pheno-
mena apply also to ether, alcohol, and many saline solu-
tions, but not to fixed oils. I have also varied the ex-
periment by employing a fixed oil at 4.'')0° or 500°
Fahr., instead of the heated metal. When oil of turpen-
tme is dropped upon its surface, it forms a disc, with a

perfectly well-defined edge ; the disc rotates rapidly in a
horizontal plane, and soon disappears by evaporation. If
s(>veral drops of etlier be placed upon the heated oil, they
unite and form one largo globule, which rotates rapidly, and
moves swiftly over the surface. If now a drop of water be
placed upon the heated oil, or rather be gently dolivored
to it from the end of a pipette, it forms a similar figure
to the ether, and bcha\es like it ; but soon the two
globules coalesce, and tlie compound drop moves and
rotates as before ; or it may sink below tlie surface of
the oil, burst into vapour, and scatter the oil ; hence
caution is required in conducting this experiment. In
some cases, however, the globule may be thrown up again
to the surface, and continue to rotate as before.

" It is remarkable that a drop of so volatile a li(iuid as
ether should rest upon the hot oil without evaporating
much more quickly than a similar drop would do on a
surface at the ordinary temperature of the air ; also that
water, which is so much denser than the hot oil, should
rest upon it, and move about with great rapidity. By
colouring the water with ink it will be seen that the
ether completely envelopes the aqueous globule, and even
increases its duration. Alcohol, wood spirit, naphtha, and
bisulphide of carbon form globules on the surface of the
hot oil, and behave in the same manner as the ether.
Ether also forms a rotating globule on the surface of hot
water and mercury. If sulphuric acid be heated to about
•100°, and ether be placed on its surface, it forms
globules which dart about with great rapidity. Alcohol
also forms gloliules, but naphtha and turpentine form
discs, wliich soon disappear with decomposition."

In 1845, I was introduced to M. Boutigny, in the labo-
ratory of King's College, London, where in the presence
of Professor Miller, and some other scientific friends, he
showed the experiments whicli ho had shortly before
described in a small pamphlet. He also described his
results in a lecture at the Royal Institution, which I
attended.

M. Ganot attributes to Boutigny the invention of the
term, " spheroidal state of liquids," but the term is much
older than his researclie.s. In conversing with him, he
freely admitted that I had anticipated him in many of his
results. He stated that water in the hot crucible evapo-
rates fifty times more slowly than if boiling, and that the
higher the boiling point of the liquid, the hotter must be
the metal ; that any liquid in the spheroidal state is
always below the temperature of its boiling point. Water,
for example, is at 95.5^0. ; alcohol at 75.5" ; ether at 34' ;
sulphurous acid at — 10,.")" ; but that the vapour disengaged
is higher in temperature. The lowest temperature of
platinum necessary to the production of the spheroidal
state is for water 171° C, for alcohol 131°, and for ether
Gl°, If boiling water be put into the heated crucible, its
temperature immediately falls 4° or 5°. Anhydrous sul-
phurous acid boils at — 10° C, and in the red-hot crucible
some degrees below that point, so that when water is
added it instantly congeals, and we have the singular
spectacle of a lump of ice being formed in, and turned out
of, a red-hot crucible. I was so fortunate as to be present
when Faraday first exhil)ited the still more singular spec-
tacle of freezing mercury in a bath of solid carbonic acid
in ether, contained in a red-hot crucible.

Boutigny also showed that a liquid in the spheroidal state
is not in contact with the hot metal. For this purpose a
silver plate was made h''^rizontal, and heated. Water
blackened with ink was dropped upon it, and, on directing
the eye through the space between the globule and the
heated surface, the flame of a candle could be seen on the
other side, Poggendorfl" established the same fact more

258

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May I, 1883.

olofjantly, perhaps, by showing that the globule would not
pass an electric current.

It was also shown that solids, in liquefying in a hot
metallic capsule, pass into the spheroidal state, as in the
case of iodine. So also liquids become spheroidal if dropped
upon a hot plate contained in an exhausted receiver.

It had long been known in the iron forgo that a highly-
heated bar of iron or of steel, plunged suddenly into water,
will continue so for some short time, without perceptibly
alTecting or being affected by the water. Boutigny shewed
an eflTcct of this kind by raising to a red heat a solid cylin-
der of silver, and lowering it into a beaker of water;
although it must lie admitted that when I saw him attempt
this experiment a second time, the beaker suddenly ex-
})loded. A copper vessel was lieated by means of a spirit-
lauip, water was dropped into it, and the neck tightly
corked. On withdrawing the heat, the water came into
contact with the hot metal, flashed into steam, and drove
out the cork with explosive violence. Boutigny imagines
that some steam-boiler explosions may thus be produced.
If, for example, during dinner-hour the water shall have
entirely evaporated, the bottom of the boiler may become
red hot, so that on readmitting water it may pass into the
spheroidal state, and coming in contact with the heated
metal may flash into steam, beyond the capacity of the
valve to remove it before an explosion takes place.

Another wonderful illustration of the spheroidal state
was introduced by Boutigny, and repeated by Professor
Williamson at one of the meetings of the British Associa-
tion, viz., passing the moist hand to and fro through a
stream of molten iron from a cupola furnace. It has been
supposed that some of the persons subjected to the fiery
ordeal of the Middle Ages may have owed their safety to
some such principle. At the Polytechnic Institution,
some years ago, a boy with naked feet stepped rapidly over
pieces of iron hot enough to explode gunpowder. I was
informed at the time that his feet had been wetted with a
solution of sal-ammoniac. There is also a well-known
conjuring trick, in which a man licks a bar of red-hot iron,
the moisture of the tongue preventing any ill-effects.
Here, too, we may refer to an old observation by Macquer,
that gold spins when melted into a globule, and that minute
fragments of grit on its surface are powerfully repelled.
When the metal is fused by the action of a large lens, fine
powder on the surface is dispersed, as if by a powerful
blast of the breath.

Boutigny adopts the theory of a repulsive force between
the hot surface and the liquid, or that the tension of the
vapour keeps the globule at a distance, so that the liquid
is not heated by contact, but only by radiation, water
being diathermanous, the rays of heat pass through
without raising its temperature. It may also be added
that the vapour is a bad conductor of heat, and that
evaporation from the surface of the globule carries off' the
heat as it arrives.

!Mr. Perkins, the engineer, also showed that water can
be dropped upon a red-hot metal colander without passing
through ; and even that water will not pass through a
red-hot metal pipe.

In connection with the spheroidal state, Eisenlohr re-
marks that if boiling water be covered with lycopodium,
the finger can be passed into it with impunity ; but this, I
imagine, arises from the fact that the powder prevents the
finger from being wetted.

With respect to the spheroidal state of liquids at common
temperatures, I have had abundant opportunities of
observing it in the course of my researches on the Cohesion
Figures of Liquids. I may briefly refer to some re-
sults obtained by me in 18G;!. Essential oils were

used, and it was found that the duration of the spheroidal
state formed an approximative method of determining
their purity. Three glass vessels were used, each
about 2.\ in. in diameter ; they were nearly filled with
water, on which a film was formed from turpentine pro-
cured from a colour-shop. The mean of twenty-four
experiments gave 15^- seconds for each drop, placed on the
film, and assuming the spheroidal state. The turpentine
was next distilled ofi" caustic potash, and a similar .series
of observations made with the fresh distillate, when the
mean duration of the globule in the spheroidal state was
now 36^ seconds, or about 7 to 3.

The spheroid, whether rolling about or stationary, dis-
plays active motion among its particles. If a little lyco-
podium powder be shaken over the globule, and this rude
treatment do not cause it to break up, the powder will
display the convective currents of the gloV>ule, streaming
rapidly down its outer surface, and ascending liy the central
vertical axis, to separate again at the top, and sti-eam over
the surface again to the bottom.

An essential oil does not readily assume the spheroidal
state on the film of another oil, and a drop of a fatty oil
does not readily become spheroidal on a film of a fatty
oil ; but by raising the temperature of the surface, globules
of various liquids can be readily formed, as already noticed.

In Professor Tyndall's work on "Sound" (1867), he de-
scribes (p. 154) a method of producing some of Chladni's
figures by drawing a fiddle-bow over the edge of a glass
goblet containing ether or alcohol ; and he gives to M.
Melde the credit of "this beautiful experiment." The
experiment is really due to me, and v.as described with a
figure in Thomson's " Records of General Science," vol. iv.,
p. 14, published in July, 1836. It was also shown that
fi.xed oils do not show the usual beautiful crispating figures
under the influence of the fiddle-bow, but do so readily
when heated.

In the appendix to my " Cyclopoedia," published in
1866, a number of spheroidal figures are gi^•en in the
form of a four, six, or eight-rayed star formed by pouring
turpentine on water at about 150" F. in a goblet, so as to
form a thin layer, and drawing the fiddle-bow against the
edge. The curved spaces outside the circle represent
portions of liquid often beautifully reticulated, that ascend
the glass in a vertical direction while the crispating fans
are on the surface of the liquid, and the spheroidal stars in
the centre, their rays pointing to nodal lines.

A BR.\ss cannon, 6 ft. long, has been found by an agri-
culturist, whilst ploughing, at Coorum, near Soopa, in the
Bhimthudy talooka. This cannon, it is said, was manufac-
tured by Michael Burgerhays, and is d.ated 1640.

The Society of German Railway Administration has
resolved upon opening every three years prize competitions
of a total amount of 30,000 marks, for important inven-
tions in railway matters, namely : — (1) For inventions and
improvements in the construction of railroads — 1st prize,
7,500 marks ; 2nd prize, 3,000 marks ; 3rd prize, 1,500
marks. (2) For ditto in the means of transportation, and
their use — prizes the same as at 1. (3) For ditto respect-
ing the general administration of railroads, railroad statis-
tics, and prominent subjects of railroad literature — 1st
prize, 3,000 marks ; 2nd and 3rd prizes, 1,500 marks each.
The award of a prize is not to prevent the inventor from
patenting his in\entiou or his sale of the patent. The first
competition of this kind has been made public, and applica-
tions are to be sent in between Jan. 1 and July 15, 1884,
to the managing director of the society at Berlin.

May 4, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

269

A GEOLOGICAL EXCURSION.

By Grant Allen.

ONE day last week, ha\-ing nothing in particular to do
(a rare complaint with public writers), and having
exhausted all the available walks in our own immediate
neighbourhood, in space and time, it struck me that it
would not be a bad idea to jump backward over a few
hundred million years or so at a bound, and take a short
holiday excursion in paheozoic Britain. This idea was
largely suggested to me by the fact that Dr. Hull, of the
GeologicalSurvey of Ireland, has lately publislied a series
of charts which enable intending tourists to make their own
way through that distant region with comparatively little
expense or trouble. So, with a friend to accompany me,
and a good map in my hand, I set out boldly on my
travels across the ages in a small steam-yacht, whose
whistle and screw were certainly calculated both to sur-
prise and alarm the unsophisticated inhabitants of the
primxval seas through which we sailed.

Having our choice of all terrestrial time before us, we
decided to make our trip in that epoch which Dr. Hull
describes as Devono-Silurian, the one, namely, when the
massive Old Red Sandstone deposits of Scotland were first
laid down. For this purpose, we started our yacht from a
port in the North of France, where we found a consider-
able mainland stretching east and west, into Germany, on
the one hand, and over what is now the open Atlantic on
the other. Due north of us, however, a wide sea occupied
the central bed of the English Channel, bounded to the
south by the continental land on which we then stood.
We steered our course straight for the Isle of Wight ;
but when we had reached the spot where Ryde
usually stands, I was surprised to find nothing but a
blue sea still stretching in front of us over the whole
area of southern England. I observed to my friend
that this was \ery curious, as I didn't remember that
there were any strata of corresponding age in that part of
modem England, as one would naturally expect if it had
once been occupied by a Devonian sea ; the only deposits
of the sort that I knew were in North Devon, lying just
around the Foreland point My friend, however, at once
reminded me that such strata really extended over all the
south coast from Cornwall to Kent, only they were con-
cealed by overlying deposits of later age, and could not be
recognised except by means of deep borings. " There could
be no doubt," he said, " that these buried sediments were
laid down by the very sea over which we were then sailing;
and from the nature of the sediments, and the manner in
which they were deposited, he had no hesitation in con-
cluding they had been derived in part from land lying over
in the direction where Norfolk and Lincolnshire are now
to be found. By turning our bows towards that quarter,
therefore, he hoped before long to arrive at a contemporary
land-surface of considerable extent

In pursuance of these views, we sailed on over the whole
valley of the Thames, with open sea stretching away to the
west of us, as far onward as Wales and Ireland. We noted
in passing that the sea contained a few strangely-armoured
fish, and a good many cephalopod mollusks ; but we, of
course, observed that none of the aquatic mammals were
yet developed, and that the fauna generally seemed of a
decidedly low and unspecialised type. On reaching Warwick-
shire and Northamptonshire, however, we saw a low shore
lying dimly in front of us ; and my friend pointed out to
me that this long penLcsula, stretching westward from a
continent which apparently occupied the modern bed of the
German Ocean, was part of the land surface from which

the sediment of southern England was derived ; while in
all this part of England, which appeared to us as land,
there are, of course, now no strata of this age, as
rocks represent the beds laid down under water, but land-
surfaces are answered by a blank on the con tern j>orary geo
logical map. "By making westward," my friend said, con-
fidently, " we shall round the peninsula, and strike through
a wide strait up to the Cumberland mountains. Don't you
remember that strata of about this age, or a little earlier,
run up the whole eastern half of North Waltsl I'm pretty
sure the sea in that direction hasn't yet been closed up, and
if we run for the Severn valley we shall doubtless find a
practicable road." As it turned out, he was quite right;
for though we saw high hills on the left already marking
the spot where the Suowdon region now stands, we found
a clear passage through Cheshire and Lancashire, as far
north as the Lake District. There, a mountainous shore
stood in front of us, and we found it absolutely necessary
to disembark. "The mountains of modern Britain aro
already beginning to outline themselves," said my friend.
" Though they may perhaps be submerged again more than
once in secondary and tertiary times, 1 can plainly see that
they will always maintain their relative elevation, and will
form at one time islands in the sea ; at another time, sub-
marine ridges ; at a third time, mountain chains ; but they
will never cease to be comparatively high ground, sur-
rounded on either side by lower patches.

We left our steam-yacht in a little harbour not far from
where Durham now stands, and struck our way across the
land, still northwards, through a dense forest of curious-
looking trees. Most of them were huge dubmosses and
waving tree-ferns, interspersed with some wholly extinct
types of very tropical and curious aspect. They resembled
a forest of horse-tails more than anything else that I had
ever before seen. We saw a few conifers, but were not
quite certain whether there were any true flowering plants
of the higher orders in the place, for though we fancied we
noticed one here and there, we could not pick any good
specimens to make quite certain, as the light in the woodland
was dim and very confusing. There were some odd looking
insects, however, all of them very rudimentary, and com-
bining traits now only found in quite distinct orders.
After traversing this region for about forty miles, we
came on the second day to the shores of a large lake. My
friend was much delighted when it burst upon us from
the summit of a little knoll, covered with scaly Lepido-
dendroids, and stiflf, formal calamites. " This," he said,
"is clearly the Lake Cheviot of Professor Geikie. From
it have been derived the old red deposits of modem
Northumberland and Berwickshire. It was once (in upper
Silurian days) an arm of the sea, and stretched as far as
the Solway Firth ; but I believe we shall now find that
end of it dried up, and we shall be able to round it easily
at its western edge among the Cheviots. How far it
stretches eastward over the bed of the German Ocean, I'm
sure I can't say, for we know very little of the submarine
deposits in that direction." So, acting on his advice, we
turned westward, and successfully got round the corner [of
the lake before we had fairly reached the middle of modem
Northumberland.

The southern liill region of Scotland we found chiefly
covered by a broad plain, with the same vegetation as that
of the country we had already traversed ; and, after three
days' good walking through a more than tropical jungle,
we arrived at last at the shore of a second and much larger
lake. "This," my companion exclaimed, "is clearly
Geikie's Lake Caledonia. It is the largest one of all
these great inland seas, but I hope its water is fresh, or, at
least, scarcely brackish. It will be useless for us to think

2G0

♦ KNOV/LEDG2 ♦

[May 4, 1883.

■of turning its cHgo ; for I know 1iy tho extent of the
inodf-rn strata that it spronrls right across the face of Scot-
land, and proli!ilily far out into wliat is now the soa on
cither side. Indeed, as similar deposits arc found in Ire-
land, as far as the Fintono beds, I am inclined to suspect
tliat Lake Caledonia stretches in that direction almost as
far as the Atlantic coast of Ulster. Our only plan is,
therefore, to build a raft and sail right across it ; for this
is certainly the great sheet from which the lacustrine sedi-
mentary strata of the Scotch lowland belt between Edin-
burgh and Glasgow were originally derived."

Following his advice, we built ourselves a large raft, and
shaped our course north-westward across this prima'val
Superior. After sailing from about the point where
Edinburgh usually stands to the centre of Perthshire, we
saw in front of us a long range of mountains, which we
recognised at once as the preeui'sors, or first rough drafts,
of the Grampians. These, my friend told me, must
represent the dividing ridge between the two main lacus-
trine beds of Old Red Sandstone in the Scotch Highlands,
aiid by crossing them, we should probably come upon the
largest of all the contemporary inland waters, the Lake
Orcadie of Professor Geikie. We therefore pushed our
way through the dense jungle in a northerly direction, and
from one of the highest summits in the range, we
caught a glimpse on the left of another considerable
inland sheet, which we felt sure was Geikie's Lake
Lome, occupying the basin now marked by the
terraced volcanic hills of North- Western Argyllshire.
Descending from the ridge, we soon found ourselves
on the wide shores of Lake Orcadie itself, an immense
.stretch of open water, indented into numerous bays, and
bounded on the near side by a range of high hills on the
site of Ross and Sutherland. How far it spread away to
the north-east, over the modern bed of tho German Ocean,
towards Norway, wo could not quite make out ; but we
knew it was fully big enough to have left its sediment
along the whole shores of the Moray Frith, across the
corner of Caithness, and onward as far at least as the
Orkneys and the southern outliers of the Shetland group.
We felt it would be quite impossible for any raft to live in
such an inland sea as that, and so we halted here as the
final end of our excursion, being deterred from proceeding
further partly by fear of danger, and partly by our
ignorance of the deposits underlying the Atlantic and the
German Ocean, which prevented us from obtaining a trust-
wortliy chart of the regions now covered by their beds.

The Snow Plough in India. — The snow plough has
l)een used on an Indian railway this winter for the first
time. At Darjeeling, on January JO, so heavy a fall of
snow took place, that the train could not proceed until a
plough had been fixed to the engine. At Naini Tal, from
.January 24 to January 28, the snow and rain rendered
the station almost inaccessible, and caused great difficulty
in forwarding the mails. — Enyineeriiii/,

A NON-INFLAMMAULE InSULATIXC MATERIAL. MeSSrS.

W. A. <k S. E. Phillips have taken out a patent for an
improved method of making the insulating bodies of
electric light conducting wires non-inflammable. The in-
vention consists in passing tho wires, covered or uncovered,
through a solution of tungstate of soda. According to
another part of the invention a concentrated aqueous
solution of tungstate of soda is prepared and poured into
boiled linseed oil, which is heated and kept stirred until
the water has evaporated. A portion of this fluid is then
mixed with the insulating compound used to cover the
M'ire.

"OUR BODIES:"

SHORT PAPERS ON PHYSIOLOGY.

By Da Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E., Ac.

No. XI.— THE CinCULATIOX OF THE BLOOD.

THAT blood circulates perpetually tlirough our bodie.s,
is, of course, one of the acknowledged truisms of our
physical life. So tacitly, however, is the fact taken for
granted, that very few persons seem to trouble themselves
further regarding the mechanism which keeps this per-
petual flow in motion. Possibly the most salient features
of the blood-circulation consist in the knowledge that the
Jtearl, by its incessant movement,'is charged with the duty
of sending blood through the body ; and that the blood,
secondly, flows, or is thus driven, through certain pipes or
bloodvessi'/ti. The heart in this light is a kind of force pump ;
and if we add that it is a muscular force-pump, we shall
have found a rough and ready, but essentially correct, idea of
the nature of the heart As a hollow nuisclr, the heart no
longer appears as a mysterious organ. It is hollow, to
allow blood to pass through it; it is a muscle (or rather
collection of muscles), that it may propel the blood through
the body by its forcible contractions. For, after all, the
same force by means of which we write a letter, or move
our legs in walking, is that which drives blood through
our bodies. The muscles of our fingers and arm contract
when we write ; the heart's muscular substance, in the same
way, contracts when the heart "beats." The description of
a heart as a "hollow muscle" is one also which applies
with equal force to all hearts ; and the heart of an insect
or the pulsatile organ of a snail or oyster as fully conforms
to this definition as that of a man.

We have already seen that the blood in the course of its
circulation exists under a double phase. It goes forth from
one side (the left) of the heart and from the lungs to nourish
the body. It is then pure blood ; it travels through pipes
or tubes called arteries, and hence it is often spoken of as
arterial blood. If we trace any arterial bloodvessel
through its ramifications, we may see that it divides and
subdivides, and finally spreads out into a network of fine,
delicate-walled vessels, known as the capillaries.] So
minute are these capillaries that, as a rule, they will
allow only a single row of red blood corpuscles to
pass along their interior at one time, like soldiers
in single file. The diameter of these capillaries
is, therefore, about the one three - thousandth of an
inch. We can readUy see that as the tissues of our
frames are permeated by such a dense network of blood-
vessels, they must receive not only a very large and
constant supply of blood, but must have that fluid like-
wise brought into connection with the most minute parts
or " cells." The fluid part of the blood strains through
the capillary walls, and thus bathes the tissues in nutri-
ment ; and it is this fluid part of the blood which, in turn,
is taken up by the absorbent vessels, as described in a
former paper.

We may further observe that at no part of the circula-
tion do the bloodvessels end abruptly, or like a street with-
out openings. On the contrary, the special feature of the
circulation is, that it is carried on in a set of closed tubes,
which are everywhere continuous. If blood escapes from
any bloodvessel at all, it must do so either naturally, that
is, by straining through its walls, as already described ; or
it must escape through injury to the vessel. A wound of
any bloodvessel, small or large, is thus really an opening
into a system of close and continuous pipes.

The blood, then, which the arteries have carried to

May 4, 1883.

KNO^A;'LEDGE

261

nourish the body, passes into the capillnries. The nutritive
functions of any part of the Woodtlow has lieen dis-
charged when the tissues have received their quantum of
blood through the capillary walls. If we trace the blood-
How onwards — as we may do when the web of the frog's
foot is microscopically viewed — we see that the capillaries
gradually tend to become of larger diameter ; and finally,
by their union, we discover that the capillaries form i-cin^.
The name " vein " is familiar enough in common parlance.
We know also, as a matter of everyday knowledge, that
the name "vein" is given to the bluish-looking vessels
we see in the back of the hand, and still more plainly in
the arm itself. For the veins, as a rule, lie near the
surface, whilst the arteries are deep-seated.

If we grasp an object firmly in the hand, and tie a
bandage say, in the middle of the arm, we notice that the
veins grow larger and more prominent. Why is this !
The reply is evident. We have by our bandage obstructed
a flow of V>lood "which is passing tip the arm toivards the
heart and /iings. Hence the veins swell on the side of the
bandage furthest from the heart. We cannot show experi-
mentally in such a simple manner the fact that in the
arteries the Mow takes place in the opposite direction,
namely, from the heart and lungs to the body. But, if we
were to place a ligature round any artery^such as the
radial artery, in which the "pulse ' is felt, at the thumb
side of the arm, about a couple of inches above the wrist;—
we should find the vessel to swell abovfthe ligature, instead
of below, as in the case of the vein. In other words, we
should then be interrupting a flow of blood, which is
passing down the arm, to nourish the hand.

We learn from these plain facts, that the circulation ef
the blood really merits that name. It is an incessant round,
from the heart and lungs as pure blood, through the body,
and back to the heart and lungs as impure or renous blood.
The impurities, or waste matters, -which it has received
from the body in its course, are got rid of by lungs, skin,
and kidneys, and this latter work constitutes that known
as " excretion." The course of the circulation — fully
wrought out by the immortal Harvey — is as follows. The
heart is two-sided (right and left) ; and each side consists
of two compartments — an auricle and a ventricle. The
rif/ht side of the heart deals with venous or impure blood
alone ; whilst the left side is concerned only with arterial
or pure blood. The impure blood is returned by the veins
to the right auricle : thence it passes to the right ventricle,
which pumps it into the lungs. This is one-half, so to
speak, of the circulation. In the lungs the blood is purified.
Then it is passed on to the left auricle of the heart ; and
thence to the left ventricle, which propels it through the
arteries all over the body. No mixture of pure and impure
blood, therefore, takes place in the heart ; but in frogs and
reptiles such a mixture actually takes place, because in
these animals the heart is not completely two-sided, or
double, as it is in birds, quadrupeds, and ourselves.

At Buda-Pesth, the capital of Hungary, the National
Theatre is to be lighted by 1,000 Swan lamps.

In connection with the photo-chemical action of ferric
oxalate, Mr. Victor Jodin has observed that when 162-5
parts — one equivalent — of perchloride of iron, and sixty-
three parts of crystallised oxalic acid, dissolved in a litre
of water, are exposed in the sunlight, carbonic acid gas is set
free in such quantity as to supply the requirements of
plants enclosed in a vessel with it, the absorption and de-
composition of carbonic acid by the plant being likewise
a photo-chemical action, because it requires sunlight to
aid it.

HOW TO USE OUR EYES.— V.

By John Bkowninc;, F.R.A.8.

(Conlinued from p. 194.)

rpO the precautions we should take with regard to our
X own eyes, I must add a few words of w arning respect-
ing those of our children.

Never allow infants to be exposed to the full glai-e of
the sun. ^Men shade their eyes with the brims of theii-
hats and ladies carry parasols. But infants wear nothing
which projects over tlie forehead, and they are constantly
to be seen in perambulators with their unprotected faces
turned full towards the sun, and I have frequently seen
them left by careless people in such a position, with their
poor little eyes closed, moving uneasUy about, and unable
to find any relief from their sutl'ering.

It is ditlicult to estimate the amount of mischief which
may be done to their eyes by such thoughtless cruelty.

The generally-received idea is that the spectacles worn
should always be the lowest power the wearer can
see clearly with, because the eye should have a slight
adjustment left to make for itself. This is entirely wrong.
The spectacles worn should fully meet the want of adjust-
ment or focussing power.

There should be not oiihj no conscious strain, but I'O ",i-
conscious strain, on the part uf the wearer.

Sometimes, though not very often, persons imagine that
because they have reached a certain age they must require
spectacles. I recollect one instance of this kind. A well-
known admiral came to nie and told me that he had never
worn spectacles, but he was quite sure he required them.

I gave him a book of test-types, and asked him to tel!
me the smallest size type he could read, and at what dis-
tance from the eye he could read it. Having obtained
this information, I gave him a pair of very low power
spectacles, suitable for a long-sighted person, and then,
directly afterwards, a pair suited for a short-sighted person.
He said he could see equally well with either. This \vas
just what I expected.

"Now," said I, "here is a pair of spectacles that will suit
you." He put them on, and, taking up the book, he said : "Oh,
yes, I can see better with these than either of the others."
"I thought you would," was my reply, "because if you
take them off you will find that they are a pair of spec-
tacle frames — there are no glasses in them ! "

Had this gentleman gone to a quack, he would certainly
have given him spectacles several years before he required
them.

I only wish to say one sentence more on this subject :
Do not believe that any loudly puffed spectacles can be
of special service to you. There is skill, of course, required
in making good lenses of tine optical glass or Brazilian
pebbles, but there is still more skill required in suiting the
spectacles to each particular person's requirements.

How can this skill, only to be acquired by knowledge,
combined with practice, be possessed by every watchmaker,
chemist, jeweller, or ironmonger, who buys a dozen pairs
of spectacles and writes up that he is a practical optician 'f
Remember that a pair of spectacles which would exactly
suit one person would, in a short time, almost blind
another !

I doubt if more than one person out of each dozen
receives the full benefit from s-pectacles they should do,
while there are four out of each dozen injure their eye-
sight by using spectacles unsuited to them.

Year after year I have been pained by people living in
the country coming to me for spectacles, when their eye-
sight had been first injured by using improper lenses.

262

• KNOWLEDGE -

[May 4, 1883.

After long consideration I have been able to devise small
instrnincuts, which I can send throuf;h the post, and from
the indications those give I can tell with accuruoy what
lenses are required. 1 have suited many cases in this way
by correspondence, when the eyes of the correspondents
differed greatly in focus.

Lenses of pebble, rock crystal, or, as it is termed by
mineralogists, quartz, keep a clear, bright polished surface
very much better than glass, and most persons prefer them.
A correspondent of Knowi.edgk inquired recently if these
lenses were not cut at varying angles out of the quartz
crystals, and whether this would not cause them to perform
badly. Jfy experience is that this is a matter of but little
consequence where the image formed by the lens is viewed
without magnification.

Still, first-class opticians should keep pebble lenses cut
at right angles to the axis of the crystal, though they are
necessarily more expensive.

Such lenses, when tested by polarised light, should give
concentric coloured rings. Lenses not cut at right angles
to the axis of the crystal give coloured bands.

You are doubtless aware that a glass eye is frequently
worn by a person who has lost an eye either by an acci-
dent or by disease. But few people are aware how skilfully
these glass eyes are made and fixed. They are kept in
their place simply by atmospheric pressure, and can be
removed and replaced without pain. They move in
unison with the sound eye, and it is at times almost impos-
sible to tell the diflTerence between the artificial eye and
the real one.

A celebrated surgeon states that he knew a case where
a lady who had a glass-eye got married, and although she
had been married two years, the husband had not dis-
covered that one of her eyes was artificial.

I do not think a lady would be deceived in a similar
manner. Ladies generally know " How to use their eyes,"
and I think a lady would find out if a gentleman had a
glass-eye before he had been courting her a week.

And now let me say, in conclusion, that there are many
points with regard to my subject at which I have scarcely
glanced, and several to which I have only briefly referred.

My papers have been on what to see and how to see it.

I am well aware that I have treated most imperfectly
these important subjects. I could not possibly have done
justice to them in the space at my disposal. A long course
of papers might be devoted to them, each more interesting,
because more complete, than those I have written.

The charms of a forest in autumn, the changing hues of
the clouds at sunset, the exquisitely modulated tints of a
rainbow, the glory of the heavens on a clear night, filled
with the innumerable suns which we call stars, all depend
on light and colour for their lieauty, and each of these
would furnish themes for papers on which I should scarcely
dare to try my hand, knowing as I do how much better
they could be treated by the Editor of this iournal.

Electric Lighting at Kimberley, South Africa. —
A correspondent, writing to the Ehctrician, says : — " This
installation consists of 32 Brush arc lamps, supplied by
two 16-light machines driven from a countershaft by a
Robey engine of 20 nominal horse j)ower. One circuit,
three and a half miles in length, extends round the
Kimberley mine, the other circuit, four miles in length,
to De Beer's mine, down Du Toit's Pan and Victoria
Roads. The wires are carried partly on the roofs of the
houses, partly on iron poles, and the light is at present
giving great satisfaction.

A DREAM OF INFINITY.

By De Quincey, after Ricuter.

[So many have asked to refer them to some work containing tho
quotation with which I closed my first and sixth lectures at St.
James's Hall, tliat I have thought it might be well to give the
])assage in these pages, as I am in tho habit of quoting it. I fancy
it differs somewhat from the original, to which I liave not referred
now for many j-ears. I used to depart purposely from the original,
in ])Iiices, for convenience of recitation ; and it seems to mo likely
that, writing now in Belfast,* away from my books, I niay not be
able to i|Uote tho passage quite correctly. It runs, in Do Quincey,
very nearly as follows : — ]

GOD called up, from dreams, a man into the vestibule
of Heaven, saying. Come thou hither, and see the
glories of my kingdom. And to the angels that stood
around his throne, God said. Take him ; strip from him
his robes of flesh ; cleanse his vision, and put a new breath
into his nostrils : only, touch not with any change his
human heart, the heart that weeps and trembles. It was
done ; and with a mighty angel for his guide, the man
stood ready for his infinite voyage ; and from the terraces
of hea\-en, without sound of farewell, they passed into
infinite space.

Sometimes, with the solemn sweep of angel wings, they
passed through Zaharas of darkness, through wildernesses
of death, that divided the worlds of life. Sometimes they
passed over thresholds quickening under prophetic motions
from God. Then, from beyond depths counted only in
heaven, light dawned as from a sleeply film. By unutter-
able pace, they passed to the light, the light by unutterable
pace to them. In a moment, the rush of planets was
around them; in a moment, the blaze of suns was upon them.

Then came eternities of twilight, that revealed, but
were not revealed. On the right hand and on the left
towered gigantic constellations, that by self repetitions, by
answers from afar, by counterpositions, built up triumphal
gateways, whose archways and architraves, horizontal,
upright, rested, rose, "at altitude, by spans — that seemed
ghostly from infinitude. Without number were the arch-
ways, beyond memory the gateways, past counting the
architraves. Within were stairs that scaled the extremities
around. Above was below, below was above, to the man
stripped of gravitating body. Depth was swallowed up by
height insurmountable, height was swallowed up by depth
unfathomable.

On a sudden — as thus they rode from infinite to infinite ;
on a sudden — as thus they tilted over abysmal worlds ; a
mighty cry arose that systems more mysterious, worlds
more billowy, other heights, other depths, were coming,
were nearing, were at hand !

Then the man sighed and paused, shuddered and wept ;
his overladen heart uttered itself in tears ; and he said : —
" Angel, I will go no farther ; for the spirit of man acheth
with this infinitude. Insufterable is the glory of God !
Let me lie down and hide me in the grave from the perse-
cution of the infinite; for end I see there is none." And
from all the listening stars that shone around there issued
a choral voice, " Angel, thou knowest that the man speaks
truly ; end is there none that ever yet we heard of." " Is
there no end 1" the Angel solemnly demanded : " Is there
indeed no end 1 and is this the sorrow that kills you 1 "

But no voice answered, that he might answer himself.

Then the Angel threw up his glorious hands to the
heaven of heavens, saying : —

" End is there none to the Universe of God ; lo, also
there is no bcfirinning."

• This may serve to ex])laiu the occurrence of certain misprints
in last number of KNOwi-EncE, especially in letter 798, which I had
no opportunity of correcting.

May 4, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

263

DEATH OF ^YORLDS.

By EicuARD A. Proctou.

1AM often asked, when I have shown how (so far as
science can judge) all the orbs in space seem to tend
towards death, whether there may not be some way in
which tills seeming tendency may be counterbalanced by
some restorative forces. When one has to reply that
science does not at present recognise any such forces, that
the theories devised by Mattieu ^^'illiams, Siemens, and
others to that end are not only not supported by scientific
evidence, but directly opposed to it, the idea seems com-
monly entertained that science rejects the belief in any
restriction of the energies which seem passing continually
away from suns and planets. Yet, in reality, such a reply
means nothing of the sort. On the contrary, it is as cer-
tain that science has shown nothing against the e.xistenee
of any restorative forces, as it is that science has as yet
shown nothing in favour of such a process. Science
simply knows nothing either on one side or the other.
And I think if men rightly understood the limitations of
scientific research, they would see no reason to wonder
that science should bo thus unable to reply to a question
80 exceedingly difficult Our knowledge has grown more
and more, and is ever growing more and more, till it
seems as though it would eventually e.\tend over all
time and all space ; yet it is in reality, and ever must
be, extremely limited compared with what actually is.
In regard to the (juestion of the seeming wasting aw-ay,
slowly, yet surely, of the life of every sun and every
planet, we are much in the position of creatures whose
whole lives, lasting but a few days perhaps, should be
passed beside a running river. They would learn, if
they had the power of reasoning, that the waters of the
river were passing continually away in one direction, and
they would be apt to infer that unless the store of water
were infinite, the supply must at length be exhausted. If
we imagine them combining together information derived
from others of their kind, up stream and down stream
within limited distances, and also storing up, for what
woxild seem to them a long period of time, the information
gathered by generation after generation, they would learn
that the river was broader lower down and narrower higher
up, and that it had remained (on the whole) without
appreciable change. They might even, we may ima-
gine, learn how the river was fed by smaller streams,
how it llowed into a larger river, that into yet larger
rivers, and so (possiVjly they might learn or guess)
into a sea of extent, to their minds, practicall}- in-
finite. Still their science could give no answer to the
question how the river might not really waste away, as
it seemed to be wasting (though inappreciably in long
periods of their time). The actual process of restoration,
which, to us, seems so simple a matter, could not possibly
suggest itself to creatures having their limited knowledge
and experience. That the air in which they lived con-
tained the stores from which the river, unlike in all re-
spects, was constantly nourished; would seem incredible if
suggested to them ; but as a matter of fact, the idea would
be to them utterly inconceivable. It could not occur to
their minds at all By parity of reasoning, we may well
believe that the way in which the energies of suna and
planets are continually restored, if (as I believe my-
self must be the case) they are restored at all, is utterly
outside the range of our knowledge and experience. Thus
understood as suggesting the kind . of way, not the way
itself, in which such restoration may be effected, the
following strictly unscientific ideas may be regarded as ad-

missible. Men were long deceived in regard to space, —
they thought this earth all important in space, whereas
now they know it to be the merest point compared with
the solar system, this system the merest point compared
with the distances separating star from star, and the whole
of the system of stars utterly lost in unfathomable depths
of space. !Men were deceived with regard to time, — they
thought the duration of this earth represented all
time ; was, at least, central in time ; they know
it now to be the merest second compared with the
duration of the solar system, the duration of this a mere
moment compared with the uncounted leons, of whose
progress the star-depths tell us, and even these as nothing
compared with the eternities of past and future time amid
which they are lost. May it not well be, then, that as men
have deceived themselves with regard to both space and
time, so also ha\e they deceived themsehes with regard to
the very structure of the universe itself t May it not well
be that the solid, liquid, and vaporous forms of matter with
which alone we are acquainted are not the only forms of
matter which exist ? May there not be a higher order of
universe, of which the suns and planets of the universe we
know of are but as the atoms and molecules 1 i\Iay there not
be a lower, or rather a rarer, order of universe, as much finer
in texture, so to speak, as that imagined higher order is
in a sense grosser 1 But we know that there is a rarer
order of universe — the xther of space — which permeates
our universe, flowing through the densest solids as the
breeze passes through the forest trees. The waste energies
of stars and planets are expended in the aether of space.
May they not subserve within it important purposes,
though we may not be able to conceive how 1 May they
not continually revivify that universe, while in turn our
universe is continually refreshed and restored by receiving
supplies of energies passed on to us from a higher order of
universe 1 And thus from higher and higher orders of
universe, absolutely without end on one side, to lower and
lower orders as absolutely without end on the other side,
there may be constant interchange of energy, instead of
the dying out of any one among these various orders of
material universe.

All this, as I have said, is outside science. For science
deals with what we know of, what we can observe, analyse,
and investigate, while these interchanges of life and energy
we can never analyse or test. But thus it is in whatever
direction we investigate the universe. On all sides we
reach the unknown, the unknowable. We approach in
every case the threshold of infinity — infinite space and
infinite time, infinite power and infinite variety. In deal-
ing with infinity we are dealing with what is for us abso-
lutely inconceivable, though its existence is absolutely
certain. — Newcastle Weekly Chronicle.

The Appuojvcuikg Sol-\r Eclipse. — The U.S.A. Navy
Department placed a vessel of war at the disposal of the
National Academy of Sciences, to take a party to the South
Pacific, for the observation of the solar eclipse which is to
take place on May 6.

The average time occupied in the transmission of tele-
grams between Australia and England during 1881 is
stated to have been three hours and fifteen minutes.

In a report of the British Iron Trade Association,
giving the production in the United Kingdom of different
descriptions of manufactured iron in 18Sl', the quantity of
ship-plates is put down at 49.1,000 tons, or .30 53 per cent,
of the total production ; boiler and other plates, 64,000
tons, or 3-94 per cent, of the total production.

2G4

♦ KNOWLEDGE •

[iMAY 4, 1883.

THE CRYSTAL PALACE ELECTRIC
AND GAS EXHIBITION.

FINAL XOTICE.

rpUAT Messrs. J. Defries it Sons are no novices in the
X. art of decorative fitting is amply demonstrated by
the charming display made by them in conjunction with
the Ciulcher Electric Light Company. Anything more
chaste in design, more delightfully soft and elegant in con-
ception, is beyond our highest imaginative flights. Any
eflbrt aiming at more than the briefest description would
necessarily be futile. Suffice it to say, therefore, that if
anything were wanting to try, to the utmost, the capacity
of the electric light for decorative and illuminating pur-
poses, that want is ready to be supplied ; and when we
remember the advantages, from a sanitary point of view,
pertaining to the adoption of the new illuminant, the pre-
diction that it will, before long, make its way, at least, into
the mansions of the wealthy, strikes us as a very safe one.
We say the wealthy advisedly, for it is practically beyond
dispute that the incandescent syst3m is somewhat more
expensive than gaslight, while the arc system is not ap-
plicable to domestic lighting. The ditrerence in cost is,
however, not so great as to prevent many consumers, even
in business houses, adopting the electric light on account
of its many advantages. The Giilcher-Crookes system is
one of the most perfect at present in the market. It
embraces a useful and economical dynamo, an arc
lamp which equals the Fyfe-Main in steadiness, and
a good incandescent lamp. The peculiar features about
the system are that both forms of lamp are maintained in
the same circuit, the arc lamps being fed in parallel circuit.
We have for a long time wondered why efforts in this
latter direction have not been more extensively made, and
it is still somewhat surprising that this is the only system
which attempts it. The electro-motive force or pressure of
the current generated by the Giilcher Dynamo is only 60
volts (a volt being, roughly speaking, the electro-motive
force of a single Daniell cell), no matter how many lamps
are in circuit, while such a machine as the Brush, main-
taining 40 arc lamps in a single circuit, has to provide a
current of something like 2,000 volts, a current which, to
say the least, is highly dangerous to those who have any-
thing to do with it. So impressed are we with the advan-
tages inherent in the Giilcher Company's system, that we
shall doubtless find occasion to say more concerning it in
an early number.

Tiie Lever Arc lamp has been removed, and its place
taken by the Werdemann Company, who have erected
three of their Lea Arc lamps in the tropical section, five
others being suspended over the centre transept. The latter
are, however, naked lights, and are an intolerable nuisance
to anyone sitting in the chairs opposite the orchestra, the
irregular glare dazzling one's eyes terribly. Surely but
little is expected to be gained by compelling people to see
a light in this manner.

The Gas Section has not brought forth any novelties
since our last notice, and the Bower-Griscom lamp re-
mains the champion. The principle of the " Regenerative "
lamps i^ deserving of some attention, the first form on
this principle that was introduced being that of Messrs.
Siemens. It is tolerably well known that the illumination
produced by the burning of gas is due to the presence of
minute particles of carbon. By raising the temperature of
the flame, combustion is rendered more perfect, and the
illumination, perforce, more brilliant. In the Regenerative
Burner, this effect is produced by supplying heated instead
of cold air to the flame. This is accomplished by utilising

the heated products of combustion, as they pass away from
the flame, to heat the gas as well as the air as it passes
towards the flame. The burner is illustrated by the ac-
companying diagram. The gas in a cold state passes
through the gas-chamber, A, and gas-tubes, B, to the point

of ignition, C. Cold air enters the air-chamber, D, and in
passing to C, between the tubes B, it is heated, and then
distributed to the flame by means of a circular collar. The
flame burns around the porcelain cylinder, H, and turning
over the top of it, descends into the interior of the burner
or regenerative heating chamber, E — an effect resulting
from a continuous current in the chimney, G. The tem-
perature of the heating chamber is said to be 900° C, the
consequence being that the gas and air in the surrounding
chamber (during the process of their ascent from the
Ijottom to the top of the burner) are raised to a similar
temperature, thus increasing the illuminating power. Out-
side the burner is a jacket of thin metal, I, between which
and the burner a current of cooler air ascends to prevent
the overheating of the burner, and to add to the supply
of air to the flame. K is simply a glass cylinder for pro-
tecting the flame. Looked at from below, the burner looks
uncommonly massive, and not over pretty, but its efficiency
is admitted to be very high. To the Londoner, it is not
altogether a novelty, as it has been in use in certain parts
of the City for some months. Some interesting figures
are given by Colonel Haywood in his report to the Com-
missioners of Sewers on the Holliorn experiment. The
illuminating power of each lamp is .stated by the company
to be equal to l;?0 candles, but no photometric observations
have been made by the Commission. The ordinary bats-
wing burner produces a light of about 14 candle-power, so
that the illuminating power claimed for the new lamps is

May 4, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE

265

9-28 times that of the ordinary lamps. The cost of lighting
the thoroughfare appears to be, by the ordinary system,
;£99. Ts. 4d. per annum for twenty-two lamps, and by the
cost system, £379. Gs. Id. per annum for a like number of
lamps. The general result appears to be, therefore, that
the lighting with the Siemens burner gives nine times the
luminosity, at about three and three-quarter times the
cost of the superseded lamps. None, however, but those
blind to the beauties and uses of the electric light will
be prepared to admit of the Siemens lamp that it
"enables shades of colour to be accurately detected" —
or that this is an advantage which (as is claimed in
the pamphlet issued by the Siemens Company) "cannot
be accomplished satisfactorily by any other artificial
light Nor is it altogether correct to designate gas-
light as the "light of lights." There is no doulit that,
however young and inexperienced the electric light in-
dustry may be, we should never have seen the recently-
effected improvements in gas-lighting had it not been for
the fear of a close and determined competition on the part
of electricity.

Another very interesting exhibit is Clark's " Recupera-
tive Shadowless Lamp," in which the llarae is in the form of
a ring, the whole of the light being projected downwards,
instead of mainly upwards, as in the Siemens. Want of
space, however, will not permit of anything more than a
reference to this lamp.

The Exhibition will have closed Ijy the time this appears,
and many of the exhibitors will have packed up and
cleared away. If there is any lesson to be drawn from the
exhibition, it is that gaslight is not by any means a thing
of thj past, nor is it necessary that our halls and rooms
should lie rendered untenable by the products of combustion,
as, in the majority of the lamps exhibited, these products
are entirely carried away, and help, inductively, to ventilate
the room. So far as electric lighting is concerned, it seems
impossible to say much concerning its prospects till the
Board of Trade have finished their share of the work in
granting "orders." This much, however, may be said, the
companies will be a long time before they recover from the
blow they received last summer at the hands of stock-
jobbers.

THE MOON IN A THREE-INCH
TELESCOPE.

By .1 Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

IN commencing our examination of some of the typical
and more remarkable objects on the moon's surface,
we will suppose that she is between three and four days
old. Arming, then, our three-inch telescope with a power
of 120, we proceed to direct it to her face ; and a very re-
markable spectacle it is which will present itself to the
student making his maiden observational essay on our
satellite. He will first be struck by the number of ring
plains, of which we have briefly spoken in our introduc-
tory paper, between the circular bright western limb of
the moon, and the " Terminator " ; by which name, as we
have previously explained, the boundary of light and dark-
ness is known. The Sea of Conflicts (A in our map on
p. 22.'3), and part of the Sea of Fertility (X) wOl also
strike his eye. Before proceeding, however, to scrutinise
the various olijects contained within the liright crescent of
the moon, it will be interesting to shift her image in the
field of view of the telescope. If this be done, it will be
found that the whole of the moon is visible ; the dark
limb looking like a very ghost on the black background

of the sky. Moreover, if the atmospheric conditions
are favourable, a certain amount of detail will be
readily seen upon this dark portion of the moon,
a bright spot, Aristarchus (148 in our map), and a
dark one, Grimaldi (272), being the most conspicuous
objects, ^^'e may shortly say here, with reference to this
phenomenon, that it is the effect of earth-shine. Five
minutes' study of the diagram illustrating the changes of
the moon which appears in every elementary work on
astronomy that has ever Vicen written, will show that when
the moon is new to the earth, the earth is full to the
moon. Moreover, we present a disc to our satellite more than
thirteen times the size of that which she exhibits to us, and
hence it will be seen that the amount of light we send her
at the time of her inferior conjunction (or when she is
" new ") must be very considerable. Of course, as the moon
waxes to us, we wane to her, so that it is only during the
first and last few days of every lunation that this earth-
shine renders the dark side of the moon visible. Having
satisfied ourselves as to its visibility, we will return to
the illuminated crescent Xow, the craters and plains
visible at the time of which we are speaking all present,
more or less, an elliptical outline, the ellipticity becoming
more and more marked as we approach the bright limb. If
the student will regard a terrestrial globe from a little
distance, he will at once understand that this is an eft'ect of
perspective. In fact, while the Sea of Conflicts (A) seems
to have its major axis North and South, it in reality
lies from East to AVest ; this great, dark plain, measur-
ing only 2S1 miles from North to South and 355 miles
from East to West ! We have called it a plain, but
a little attention will show undulating ridges on parts
of its surface. Its greenish grey tint will be noted,
too. To the East of this " sea," Picard (4) will be seen.
To the West of this is a white spot, which is a rather
mysterious object, having been seen to present the most
varying appearances. North-east of Condorcet (5) is the
Promontorium Agarum, a kind of peninsula projecting
into the Mare. This is a striking object when the moon is
nearly sixteen days old. Cleomedes (12) is a fine forma-
tion, about seventy-eight miles in diameter. It has a trifid
mountain in its interior. On its eastern w^all is situated a
very deep crater plain, Tralles ( 13 in the map). There is
a central mountain on the floor of this, too. Endymion (27)
is a circular plain (elliptical as it appears in the telescope).
Its western wall rises in places to a height of upwards of
15,000 feet Directing our instrument now towards the

Petavius. Jloun s Afe. :J24 days.

southern half of the lunar crescent, we arrive at Lan-
grenus (338) and Vendelinus (339), the former a splendid
object, with a bright central hill. And now we come to
that grand object, Petavius, which, as illustrating several
typical lunar features, we have here drawn.

As seen in a three-inch telescope with a power of 120, the
moon's age being 3 24 days, it will be noted how the wall
is divided by narrow valleys. The mountain in the convex

2GG

KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May 4, 1883.

interior is nearly 5,000 feet high ; and from this a straight
dark lino, or " rill," will bo seen to extend in a south-
easterly direction to the wall. These rills, as they have
been called, are very numerous on the moon ; but few are
so conspicuous as the one of which we are speaking. They
appear to bo exceedingly deep ravines, clefts, or cracks ; but
they are, undoubtedly, the most inexplicable of all lunar
objects. Sometimes they pass through wall and plain in-
dilFerently ; at others, they seem to stop short at an object,
ijut to reappear on the other side of it. Moreover, they
occasionally intersect. We shall have more to say of them
as we proceed. Before concluding to-night's work, the
attention of the young observer may be directed to one or
two points of the Leibnitz Mountains (259), just coming
into sunlight, and shining like stars close to the southern
cusp of the moon.

In rebuilding the Pittsburgh and Western Railway as a
standard-gauge road an extensive change was made at the
Summit tunnel. The Railroad Gazette says : — " Its bed
was lowered 9 ft. without stopping a train. The work was
accomplished by the excavation of the bed of the tunnel
while the track was kept up by trestle work. A row of
blasts would be fixed ready for firing, and as soon as a
train had passed through they would be touched off and
the debris cleared up before the next train arrived. The
track for the broad gauge was laid 9 ft. below the narrow
gauge, and when all was ready cars were run in on the
lower tracks and the trestle for the narrow gauge knocked
down and dragged out." A similar operation was carried
out some years ago with the tunnel near Blackburn, when
Pulman cars first began to run in this country.

M. G. TissANDiER has described to the Paris Academy
of Science his new electrical motor for balloons. It con-
sists of a screw propeller with two heliooidal blades nearly
10 ft. in diameter, a Siemens dynamo-electrical machine of
new design, and a light bichromate of potash battery. It
is intended to propel an elongated balloon of about 1,000
cubic yards capacity. The frame of the screw propeller
weighs \b\ lb., is stretched with silk varnished with
india-rubber lacquer, and kept taut by steel wire
stretchers. The dynamo-electric machine has four electro
magnets in the circuit, and frame parts are of cast steel,
so as to bring the weight down to 121 lb. It drives
the screw by gear, which reduces the speed in the propor-
tion of 10 to 1 ; thus, if the coil makes 1,200 revolutions
a minute, the screw makes 120. It gives out 220 foot-
pounds per second with a useful effect of 5.5 per cent. The
bichromate battery gives a better yield than accumulators
of the same weight. It consists of an element divided
into four series and arranged in tension. The element
consists of an ebonite cell holding four litres — or 0'S8
gallon — and containing ten plates of zinc and eleven cakes
of retort carbon, arranged alternately. The immersed
surface of the zinc is one-third that of the carbons. This
battery, charged with a highly-concentrated and very acid
solution, is constant for two hours. The liquid becomes
heated as it is impoverished, and the duration of activity
may be prolonged by the addition of chromic acid.

Errata. — " EnKlisli Seaside Health Resorts " (Knowledge, No.
78). — Pago 217, third lino from the bottom, read instead of 20° —20°.
Second line from the bottom, instead of -10° and 10°, read —10' and
— 10°. Pago 218, line 20 from the top, read "barometer follows,"
instead of " barometer falling." Lino 11 from the bottom, instead
of " TallusoUs," read " Tatteraall's."

Jlfbi'thjss.

PRACTICAL GEOMETRY.*

PROFICIENCY in practical geometry may be obtained
without much (or, indeed, any) knowledge of mathe-
matics, properly so-called ; and, vice versa, many excellent
mathematicians are very unskilful in practical geometry.
We have sometimes thought that the two subjects might
be brought into closer connection, in a treatise presenting
mathematical truths and reasoning, in company with con-
structions depending thereon. In this way, we believe,
practical geometry and mathematical geometry would both
be made much more interesting and instructive. But,
hitherto they have been kept very carefully apart. The
present work is on the old lines. The constructions are
given, and are meant to be learned, not proved, or even
inquired into. Constructions which are only approximately
correct are not distinguished from those which arc geome-
trically exact. Trial methods are mixed up with strict
constructional rules. The student is, in fine, kept closely
to practical rules, and though encouraged in the preface to
read Euclid, is not very likely either to do so or to have
his progress in practical geometry much advanced by such
reading. Albeit, as a work on practical geometry, this
little treatise is as good as most, and better than many,
works on the same lines.

The student of geometry would find it useful to take the
propositions of this volume and prove them mathemati-
cally in the order in which they stand, showing in the case
of those which are not exact the degree of approximation
here attained. To do this thoroughly, however, will re-
quire more than a knowledge of Euclidean Geometry. The
property on which Problem III., Part IV., is based, is a
singular instance of close approximation obtained by a
simple construction for all regular polygons from the
pentagon to the dodecagon. It may be thus indicated as
a formula : —

Let a be the side of a polygon of n sides, n being not
less than 5 nor greater than 12. Then, if r is the radius
of circle circumscribing the polygon, and we put

— (n - 6)n-=a
36 ^ _

r-=o-(I -I- 2 y3 sin a -f- 4 sin-a).

A Melbourne correspondent writes to the Mining
Journal that already two gold mines are lighted by
electricity, and that others are introducing the electric light

The Academy of Painting and Sculpture at Berlin has
been lighted by 200 Edison lamps. The dynamo is driven
by a Ruston-Proctor engine of 16-horse power.

The Telepuone in Boston. — An increase of 27,210
subscribers to the telephone in Boston is reported during
the past year.

At a recent meeting of the Glasgow Town Council it
was stated that the Bazaar Committee " had twice visited
the eighteen electric clocks in the City, and on each occa-
sion had found them all correct. The nineteen turret
clocks under the charge of the Committee had also been
visited, and ten were found correct, eight being slightly
wrong and one standing."

* " The Art Student's Second Grade Pr.actical Geometry." By
John Lowres. Revised to date and partly written by George Brown,
of the Blackheath School of Art. (London : Moffat & Paige.)

May 4, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

267

Xfttn-e to t\)t eiiitor.

Only a sma'.l proportion of Letters received can possibly be in-
$»ried. Correspondents must not be offended, there/ore, should their
Mt»rs not appear.

All Editorial communications should be addressed to the Editor of
Knowledge; all Business commtinications to the Publishers, at the
Qgice, 74; Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS ARISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messrs. Wtman &, Sons.

The Editor is not responsible /or the opinions of correspondents.

No COjnrCNICATIONS are answered BT post, even THOUGH STAMPED
AMD DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

[Many correspondents of Ksowledge have, from the
beginning of its career, indicated a wish tliat we should
adopt something like the chatty style which (in response
to that frequently-expressed wish) wo have actually
employed in our Gossip columns. A little space has been
taken up in that way, which other correspondents grudge.
Like the alderman who regarded the margin round his
" proof before letters " as so much space wasted, these
0iatter-of-fact souls couat all which is not to be called
" knowledge simply worded and exactly described " as waste
or worse. Though few and ill-mannered, they mar the
tone of our converse with our readers. If a host who had
invited friends of scientitic tastes to meet hiui, should, in
his desire to entertain them, chat familiarly about other
than strictly scientific subjects — for which, nevertheless, he
left ample scope — and but a single guest, being rude of
bearing, should object, he would yield to that one guest,
though the rest should be more pleasantly disposed. For
who cares to be familiar with his friends when even but one
of the gloomily grumbling sort is present ? For this reason
we must ask the many kindly friends who have expressed
pleasant approval of our Gossip to forgive us if we no longer
accede to their wishes in regard to it. The dull souls
who count every Gossip paragraph as so much stolen from
them (but they never considci- how generously they are
dealt with in original matter, of which they get thrice as
much here as in a magazine of thrice our cost), shall have
their way. There will iu future be no Gossip. We beg
that they will tiol be at the pains to express their approval ;
and we should be ratlior glad if the much more numerous
readers of the kindlier sort would let the matter pass
without comment by letter, as our correspondence is falling
dismally into arrears.]

COMETS' TAILS.

[802] — Mr. Eanyard is doubtless right in Lis observation tbat the
discharge of gas from each stone of a meteoric swarm is greatest
from the side tamed towards the snn ; but I do not think that the
Icinal direction of motion in the cage of each gaseous molecule, at
the instant at which it becomes an independent projectile launched
into space, can be much affected by this. The gas is not in a
gaseous form while in the stone, but it takes this form at tho instant
of departure, and retains it until its volume is so far expanded that
the molecules part company. While the gaseous form is retained
the molecules are necessarily moving in equal numbers in all direc-
tidns, by reason of their mutual encounters, whatever the initial
direction of the impulse which shook them from their occluded

state may have been; and, as any portion of tho gas must expand
to several million times the volume it occupied while in tho stone
before its molecules become independent of each other, the greater
number of tho molecules must at this time be quite independent of
the stone.

The quantity of matter in a, comet's tail must be very small,
whatever his origin ; but we can scarcely know what density is
necessary to make a vast e.xtont of gaseous matter, or of separated
molecules, visible. Every molecule probably reflects a portion of
tho light falling on it, and though the effect upon our eyes may be
insensible, and tho result, therefore, uitcr blackness when tho
volume is a few cubic feet, it may be otherwise when we look
through millions of cubic miles. I think, however, with Mr.
lianyard, that tho presence of particles of tho nature of snioko or
dust may be inferred, and it seems probable that occluded gases
when escaping would carry with them in molecular combination,
and would afterwards precipitate minute portions of the materials
from wliich they escape. Albert J. Mott.

TIDE AND WEATHER.

[^803 J — From observations made in London, and more especially
in a coasting district, I can confltlently assert that the state of the
weather is always affected by high and low water, and that a
change to a greater or less degree (sometimes almost inappreciable)
takes place at, or a short period before, tho turn of the tide.

RoiiERT Connell, M.D.

THE GREAT PYRAMID.

; 804] — Pray allow mo to thank you for your most interesting
book on the Great Pyramid, and excuse my troubling you with a
.speculative guess respecting the so-called ventilators.

1. They can hardly have been solely for purposes of ventilation ;
for, if so, an immense amount of careful work might have been
spared by making them perpendicular, as then it would only have
been necessary to cut off the corners of the blocks of stone,
and to build them up so that the cut comers should coincide in tho
successive layers, thus —

Horizontal Section. — Ventilator at A.

Instead of this, the tubes go in a slanting direction through the.
blocks, and must have been both difhcult to cut and especially bad
to join in the consecutive blocks.

B^
*^-''''

Vertical Section. — Ventilator, A B.

2. From this I argue that they had some special — probably
astronomical — use, and my guess is that the northern tube was to
keep the orientation of the Pyramid correct in the upper layers ;
and that tho southern tube was intended to observe the elevation of
the sun when on the meridian at the winter solstice.

3. I'erhaps you may be able to say if the northern ventilating
tube points to the north in such a way as to preserve the orienta-
tion.

4. The southern ventilating tube was, I imagine, intended to
solve this problem — Is the inclination of the earth's axis to the
plane of the eclipse a constant quantity, or (as the problem would
present itself to the ancient astronomers) are the maximum and
minimum angular elevations of tho sun at noon above tho horizon
(on longest and shortest days respectively) constant quantities, or
are they slowly changing ?

To resolve this problem, at first they may have accurately
measured the shadow cast by the sun at noon on shortest day in
succestive years. This method, however, would soon be seen not
to be sufficiently accurate to detect any change. A tube, down
which the sun would shine only on the one day of the year, and
which could be maintained in its exact position for three or four
thousand years, would bo a sufficient test ; for (1,) if the axis of the
earth became more nearly perpendicular, the sim would no longer

268

• KNOV/LEDGS •

(May 4, 1881

sliino down tlio tube; and (2), if it bociimo less prrpcndicular, in-
stead of ehininp down the tube on Dec. 21, it would do so on two
days, one before and the other after the winter solstice.

5. The idea of a chamber diirk all the year, except on the one day
when the snn is in an exceptional position, is thoroughly Egyptian ;
e.(j.^ in one of the rock temples of the sun its rays only roach the
inner sanctuary at sunrise on the longest day.

6. If this guess as to use of tube F. G. is correct, it would
account —

(1) For the accurate orientation of Pyramid,'without which the
tube could not be constructed.

(2) For one use of the grand (transit) gallery, which would be
needed for observations as to the exact elevation of noonday sun at
winter solstice.

(3) For the Pyramid being closed on completion. The secret of
the entrance and the tube being kept by tradition among the priestly
caste, so that at the end of, say 500 and 1,000 years, by which time
the change (if any) could bo observed, it could be re-entered.

7. Possibly yon may have measurements of sufficient accuracy to
decide if the direction of the tube is such as to make this supposed
nse jiossible. or, if it has not been observed, by mentioning the
matter in Knowledge, some future observer could settle the point.

A. M. Deaxe.
P.S. — I was amused,to see you printed my symmetrical solution
of the twenty-one girls' problem in preference to the author's, but
I sh luld like to have seen the latter.

[805]
divided
bored 1
so that
the 3rd

Make
the 3rd,

TWENTY-ONE SCHOOL-GIEL PUZZLE.

— Let the girls bo designated by numbers, 1 to 21, and
into sets, each of tliree consecutive numbers, the sets num-
to 7. The numbers are considered as arranged in a circle,
we may count forward from 7 to 1, and say that set 3 is
set from set 7.

two squares, one of the 1st. 2nd, and 1th sots, the other of

5th, and 6th, as follows : —

1 1

2

3

!4

5

6 :

!io

11

12 1

'

8

9

14

15

13

18

16

17

(Observe the order of writing the numbers in the second square.)

These squares are divided vertically into six groups of three,
which, with the seventh set — 19, 20, 21 — as a seventh group, makes
an arrangement of girls for the first day. Make the second day's
arrangement from the first, by adding 3 to each number and
subtracting 21, when the addition makes more than 21 ; the third
day's arrangement from the second's in like manner ; and so on
until you have arrangements for seven days. Then take the sets
composing one of the above squares, and make a third square of
them in this wav : —

1 1

2

3 ,

6

4

5

11

12

10

The three columns of this square furnish one gi-oup for the ar-
rangement for each of the three remaining days, and the other
groups arc formed from them by successive additions of 3, iSrc,
just as the arrangements for the days from the second to the
seventh were formed each from the arrangement of the preceding
day.

Proof. — By the successive additions of 3. the three squares given
above may be considered as extended into tliioe sets of squares, and
in each set of scpiares each line is occujiied by all the sets of
tliree consecutive numbers successively. In every square two con-
secutive sets are combined, two sets whoso numbers differ by 1 and
two whoso numbers differ by 2, so that in each set of squares each
set of numbers is combined with every other set. Htit, when the
same two sets of numbers are combined in different squares, they
are combined in different ways. For instance, the first and second
sets are combined in the first sot of squares — 1 with 4, 2 with 5,
3 with G; in tho second set— 1 with 5, 2 with 0, 3 with 4 ; and in
the third set— 1 with 6, 2 with 4, 3 with 5 ; so we see that not only
is each set combined with all tho other sets, but every number of
every set is combined in a gron]) of three with every number of
every other set, and, a.s on each of tho first seven days one set
forms a group by itself, every oni- of the 21 numbers is combined
with each of the other numbers. Ai.oekxox Bkav.

"31" GAilE.
[806] — I think yon might, perhaps, be interested by a game or
puzzle of the above name, which has lately made its aj>pcaranco in
New York, and of which the following sketch may give yon an
idea : —

1

1

1

1

1

2

2

2

2

3

3

3

3

4

4

4

4

5

5

5

5

6

6

6

6

The sketch represents a box divided by longitudinal partitions
into six parts, and containing twenty-four numbered blocks. The
blocks being first placed on one side of the bo.\, two players alter-
nately move one block at a time to the other side, keeping count of
the sum of the numbers on the blocks moved, as if they were
playing cribbage. The player who makes 31, or who comes so near
31 that the other cannot play without making more than 31, wins
the game.

The inventor of the game seems to have intended that the blocks
should always be placed in the box in the above order. Even with
this restriction, the game presents a tolerable problem, though it
has not much variety. But if the blocks might be placed in any
way you pleased, four in each row, there would be a great variety
of problems, the number of essentially different arrangements
being, I believe, 4,509,264,631,875. The problems wonld often be
exceedingly complicated, and there would be room for a good deal
of skill in play.

The box of blocks is by no means necessary in order to play the
game. You can readily see how it could be played with cards, and,
fiom the above regular arrangement, with a pencil and paper.

Algebxos Bkav.

THE SQUIEREL PUZZLE.

[807] — As a reader of Kxowxedge, I hope you will excuse what
I am about to put before you, but I cannot arrive at the same con-
clusions as you in regard to the squirrel and the man going roimd
him.

Supposing the squirrel that sits on the post holds apiece of string
in his mouth and the man has hold of the other end and walks
round the post, the squirrel turning at the same time ; if your con-
clusions are correct, the man must go around the piece of string
the squirrel holds in his mouth, and, consequently, round the piece
the man holds, or round himself [he does rotate — R. P.] ; otherwise,
there must be a point in the string where the man leaves off going
round it. I cannot see how the man goes round the string or
squirrel in the same sense that he has gone ronnd the post.

You might as well say that we go round the earth every time the
earth turns on her axis. ^^^ ^® ^^^ •' — ^- P*]

Perhaps, after all, wo only disagree as to what is going round au
object. I consider that in going ronnd an object we see during
the revolution every side of it, or that every side is presented to ns
in its turn. W. Smith.

[In what way does the expression going round an object imply
seeing every side of it. Suppose the man sliut his eyes, would that
make any difference ? Or, suppose the man stood still and the
sciuirrel turned round, so as to show him every side — would the
stationary man have gone round the squirrel ? In the original sup-
posed case of the squirrel turning, he simply rotated ; the string
shares the motion of revolution. We cannot deal with that ca."*"
except by using the more rigid definition of revolution. — R. P.]

MUSICAL QUESTION.

[SOS] —How is it that the same chord, if struck in two different
keys (say C Major and C-sharp Major), has a different sound —
irrespective of pitch — when a pianoforte is tuned to equal tem-
l>erainent ?

I have heard that there is a solution, but I have never comet
across it, and many musical friends are unable to enlighten me onj
the subject. I therefore appeal to you, Mr. Editor. I

Walter Jones, i

[The question is left to musical correspondents. It has al.vayj^
seemed to me that there is something akin in the fact mentioned liy,
Mr. Jones to the way in which a lumincuis surface presents » d'fj

Mat 4, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE •

269

fi-ront appearance according to its surrouodings : or, more coarsely,
to the way in which tepid water api^ears hot or cold to a hand
placed ia it after being in coM or hot wator respectively. — U. 1'.]

THE DIVIDED SKIUT.

[»09] — I haTc read the letter on the new skirt by " A Lady," in
Knowlkdce, April 13, and I think the description may prejudice
many against this valuable garment.

The only similarity to gentlemen's trousers is the division. Each
leg is one yard in circumference, and the whole is loose and com-
fortable. The appearance of mine is so like a petticoat that in
raising the dress the difference is imperceptible.

I have given a pattern, in three sizes, with instructions, to Miss
M. Knight, High-street, Maldon, Essex; and she is prepared to
supply them to any one on receipt of a Postal Order for One Shilling.
A Member of the L. S. A.

[The aathor of the article referred to informs us that many
ladies prefer the divided skirt as she described it, and even less
• full " (whatever that may mean) ; but that, even as described by
her, the ap|>earance is like a petticoat when the dress is raised, as
ir: stepping into a carriage. Quite a number of correspondents, by
the way, seem to imagine that the skirt of the dress is divided. One
even asks if we could not publish a photograph of " A Lady " to
show what the divided skirt is like, which, of course, would be
<|uite out of the question, even though it would show the divided
skirt. The mistake about the skirt probably arises from the
pu-tures which have appeared in Piincli and other comic papers,
showing a divided dress. The divided skirt is entirely concealed
by the skirt of the dress, which is not divided at all. I am requested
to note that for tricycling the divided skirt is better without the
plaits, which are apt to catch as the feet pass each other. — R. P.]

ilK:

IXTEHPLAXETARY .ETHER.

[810] — With reference to G. M.'s letter on the rotation of planets
(No. 770, p. 210) and ytmr footnote thereon, will not the hyjiothe-
tical ether, if such a substance there be, have some effect in acting
•• a *' break " on the rotation of planets, and likewise as a resisting
force on their circuits round the sun Y I suppose it is now pretty
well established that some such substance must pervade, space
acting as a link of intercommunication between the widely-scattered
puta of the material universe. It is evident that there must be
aome medium of communication, as the waves of light cannot be
propagated through a void, but must have some material pathway.
Snch a substance must also offer a resisting medium to the passage
of the heavenly bodies through space, and, given sufficient time.
Bast ultimately bring them to rest, unless their initi.il f<irce is re-
newed from without. Granting this resisting medium, it is clear
that the gravitating force of the sun will eventually overcome the
centrifugal tendency of the planets, and draw them one after
•DOther into it. I will be glad to hear what science has to say on
tkig point, and whether any evidence of snch a resisting medium
Iiaa been obsen-ed. " W. U.

[We infer the extreme, the practically infinite, tenuity of inter-
planetary matter, from the fact that neither rotation nor revolution
is appreciably affected by it.— K. P.]

ANIMAL IX.STINCTS.— A WKAXGLER'S PUZZLK.

[811] — George J. Romanes, Esq., in a lecture delivered in the
Hnlme Town-hall, Manchester, March 1879, said, in referring to
animal instincts, that there were satisfactory reasons for con-
dnding that most animal instincts were the outcome of a natural
growth, and that the few outstanding cases which were not capable
«rf explanation (at that time) in this way ought to be considered as
objects for further scientific inquiry, and not to be set down as
npematural, and, therefore, beyond the scope of such incjiiiry.
The instincts not susceptible of explanation in this way were enu-
■Jerated by him to be (1) the migratory instinct, (2) the so-called
"homing" instinct, and (3) the instinct manifested by certain
waap-like insects. " These insects," he said, " lay up a store of
■pWers as food for their larvae when the latter leave the egg. To
4> this they stiog the spiders in a certain spot of the body where
Aere is a large nerve-centre, the effect being that the spider is not
killed outright, but merely parahsed, and so does not decomjiose
during its imprisonment, and while the eggs of the wasp are in the
process of hatching."

Perhaps some of yonr biological, readers may be able to say
whether further " sciontitic inquiry " has bpen made, and with
what results.

I have seen no answers to " A Wrangler's " questions (No. 70,
1^ 138). In reference to (1), if the man threw some object (say

his cap) away from his body, would not the reaction dislodge him ?
I could not answer for him escaping without bodily injury.

U. ASKKH.
[That would do ; but if he had no such object to throw, blowing
would do : he would slide off, and have to take bis chance as to the
sequent fall. — R. P.]

A DISCOUNT DODGK.
[812]— The multiplication "dodge," given by Mr. Green (750,
p. 1G8), brought to my memory a discount "dodge," of which a
friend of mine was wont to make use, and which I never saw used
before, nor referred to in any arithmetic. I dare say my friend
found it in some book, but I never questioned him on this point,
and cannot do so now, seeing that he, poor fellow, gave over
figuring on this earth some six or seven months ago. To find out
the discount on any sura at the rate of 2J per cent, or 5 per cent,
is easy enough, without the aid either of figures or an interest
table; but, to find out the discount on a given sum, at such rates
as 3J per cent., 3j per cent.. U jier cent., lic, is not so easy. My
friend's plan was to multiply the principal sum by double the rate
of discount, the product, after cutting off the right-hand figures,
showing the amount of the discount in shillings — thus, supposing
an invoice amounting to £132. 15s. had to be subjected to a discount
of 3J percent., the operation of calculating the same, according
to the long way and the short way, would be as shown below : —

Lon? Wav. 132 15 0
3i

308 5
G6 7

0
6

4,6i 12
20

6

12,92

12

11.04

=

Short Way.

132 15

0

92,9 5

0

LETTERS RECEIVED.

More Light. All right. — J. G. JonNSON. Hope to lecture there
and elsewhere soon. — No Name, bit No Malice. No sense and no
manners. — G. F. The phenomenon was a paraselene — not very
common, but well known. — G. F. M. Thanks. — a Centaitri. Im-
possible to answer yon here. — Naturalist. An old joke, but good.
— Attentive Re.mier of "Knowledge." Questions forivarded. —
J. MuNRO. Quite natural. But then yon see those paragraphs, Ac,
which you do not care for were written in response to the wishes of
others who take a different view. I do not tell you to cease to read
Knowledoe, but can you not leave out those paragraphs here and
there which you do not care for, remembering that tastes differ? —
John Gree.nfiei.h. How many times your annual subscription
would pay, do you suppose, for such a letter as yours ? Try this
little sum. Are jou, by any chance, one of " the great men," uU
of whom yon say " I have offended, and consequently no one will
write for me " ? Now, before you retire in dudgeon and discontent
(bnt very much to my content), learn that I am not aware of having
offended a single "great man." Nine-tenths of those whom I have
invited to write here have done so, and are likely to continue. You
mnst not think that because I declined to give admission to certain
wild theories of your own, I have offended all the rest of " the
great men." As for " resigning," to whom should I resign ? To
the proprietor of K.\owLi!DGE ? Very well. The Editor of Know-
ledge hereby offers his resignation to the proprietor; and the pro-
prietor of Knowledge hereby declines to accept the Editor's resig-
nation.— Hen'BY Li"pton. Consider that I raise my hat to you in
token of adieu, and pass on. (Little space wasted here, any way.)
— C. T. Highgate. Omittance is no quittance. — H. C. Swan. Doubt
if Dr. Wilson would gravely reply to any advocate of the old phre-
nology.— C. P. L. B. Do not know of any work on the miocene
formation, and especially on the Savalik Hills of India ; but perhaps
some correspondent of Kxo«xe1)GE may be able to tell us of one.

270

KNO\VLEDGE

[May 4, 1883,

(9uv iWatt)cmatiraI Column*

IN our last, wo found tho area we firet set oat to find — viz.,
A PKN (in Fig. 2) — by an application of tho integral
calculus; though wo should have failed it' we had not known that

A

= Iogj;, and therefore if we had not first had the particular

function called a logarithm invented for us, and its qualities, value,
and so forth, ascertained.

But wo want also, now, to learn what is tho integral of ,/j>- — a-dj--.
We can form a pretty shrewd guess from the value we have
already obtained for the area A P K N' (Fig. 3). If we write x for
«! in that expression, and differentiate with respect to ,r, we find
that that expression is the integral we want. However, we prefer
to work it out properly. And noting its resemblance in form to the
integral of ^a' — x" we are led naturally to deal with it in the
same way. It would, in fact, be obviously the correct thing at this
stage to see if the short method given for finding that integral may
not be applied directly to this one. Let ua see. Integrating by
parts

/"/-^; ,, I r x'a.x

■J J Vai^—g?

J J ^x'^ — a^ J '</xf — a? J ■Jx^-ar

•■• adding, 2/ v/.^^^x^av/^IT^-/-?^ (1)
•' J Vx'-d'

Hero we find ourselves stopped for want of knowledge as to the
dx ix

integral of , ,. In tho other ease we had, instead, , — ■ —

vi'_H '■'a'—x-,

and wo knew tho integral of this to be sin ~' ( - 1 ; but wo have not

dT

yet dotormined tho integral of , How shall we set to work

va;'— o'

to find it ? Manifestly our proper course is to take advantage of
what we have already learned, viz., that the part of the integral w©
yet have to find involves x + Vx' — a'. This suggests our adopting-
the method of substitution and putting i+ '^a5' — a-' = i, — that is

"•'x'-u:'=z-x.

Then

i'— a'-

= i'-2xj + ,c=

Whence

2x + 2

l^-2z=0

a:

dx : — X

d~~ •

Hence we have

r ^'

/

" 1 dx

= log : = log («+ •^x'—a')

and thus we are able to complete the desired integration (1), anil
obtain from (1)

It will be found that
integrated.

/ 2 2 and v^i'+a- may be similarly
(To 6e continued.)

AN EQUATION.

H. E. P. C. gives the following simultaneons for solution : —

11

~ + — =ft x-~ir=h

X y -^

find :c and y in terms of a and h. It was given him by the late
Mr. Bidder.

[If we consider the conies represented by these two equations, we
shall see that they cannot possibly be made to give a quadratic
equation in x or y. — E. P.]

(Bttv 33236 is(t Column*

By "Five op Clubs."

"DO YOU PLAY WHIST?"

IT is amusing to compare the answers given to this question witV
the results observed when the game has fairly begun. " Do
you play Whist ? " "Certainly! I have played Whist for years,]
and I flatter myself I know something about it by this time." The'
g.ime begins, and you find the gentleman who has answered so con-
fidently knows simply nothing about the game beyond the rules for
following suit, counting honours, and so forth, which a beginner is
taught in the first ten minutes of his acquaintance with Whist.
He not only has no idea of Whist as a game in which each player
has a partner, but he does not even know how to play his
own hand. He leads out every winning card, weakens his
trumps recklessly in rnffing, when — if he knew anything of the
game — he would see that by leading trumps, or at any rate reserving
his force in trumjjs, he might bring in a long suit. He, perhaps,
has just so much thought of his partner as to return whatever suit
his partner may have led. A'ery likely he does this when it is his
clear duty to show his own suit, or when it should be obvious from
tho play that his partner has led from weakness. Or, again, he
may so far think of his partner as to force him whenever he gets the
chance, though as often as not forcing means disarming.

Another tells you he plays Whist well who has indeed an idea of
the general principles on which sound play should depend, but
knows none of the details essential to the application of these prin-
ciples in a practical way. He knows, for instance, that when yon
lead trumps you generally want trumps exhausted ; but he imagines
he does enough in helping you to this end when he returns your
trump lead. He is perplexed and aggrieved when you tell him that
by returning the wrong card he has utterly foiled all your plans.
Thus, holding Ace, Queen, nine, and two of trumps, you lead, let us
say, the two, on which fell seven, King, and five; he returns tho

May 4, 1883.]

KNO^VLEDGE ♦

271

three, on which fall the six. your Queen, and eight on your loft.
Now, so soon as he played the three, yon were justified in assuming
(if he knows how to play the game) that ho holds tho four and
another, for neither of the opponents holds the four, and you
have it not yourself, therefore ho mnst have the card ; and
having both the four and the three, he should return tho four,
it he holds no other : so that, as he returns the three, you
assume ho holds another. You play tho Ace, tho ten falls
on your left, your partner plays tho four, and tho fourth playir
discards from a plain suit. You believe all tho trumps to bo
extracted from tho enemy, and, moreover, that you and your
partner are four by honours. Acting on this belief, you play out
King-cards, which you would otherwise have retained ; and then
you bring in your partner's long suit, which had been already, we
yriW suppose, established. But, to your disgust, you find that your
opponent on the loft still holds the Knave, with which he stops
your long suit ; brings in liis, with which he finally forces out your
long trump, and, having no card in your partner's suit, you are
obliged to lead either from one of the adversaries' suits or from a
gait in which they hold the King-card, so that they bring in their
winning cards. Tluii perhaps you waste time trying to convince
your partner that his playing the three before tho four made all
the difference, with no other result but to bo rebuked by him for
giving up thc'command in your adversaries' suits, a mistake which,
but for your explanation, ho would have knowTi nothing about,
and which would not have been a mistake at all if his play had
really [meant what to every understanding Whist-player it implied.
Of course, you mistook in assuming that because he said ho could
play Whist he knew something about tho elementary rules of the
game.

Players who make sneh blunders as these are apt to argue, when,
after a time, it becomes clear to them how badly they play, that
as they cannot get to remember what cards have been played, and
by whom, to notice the signal, and so forth, it is not worth their
while to learn such minutiae as tho return of the proper card from
two or from three. Hut that is just where they are mistaken. These
points should not be regarded as minntine, but as the A B C of the
game. It may be difficult to attend closely to the fall of tiie cards,
to draw the right inferences, and to retain to tho end what has
thus been loarncd, but it is not at all diJScult to fall into the constant
habit of returning the highest card of two, the lowest of three,
left in the hand after the first round of a suit. It is note-
worthy, too, how care in such matters helps to aid tho memory, and
keeps alive the attention. After learning to return the right card,
you very soon find yourself noticing tho card returned by your
partner, or by tho adversaries to each other. Next you find that
when thus informed as to the number of cards of different suits
in different hands, yon presently begin to recognise where the indi-
vidual cards of the suit must lie. 'I'lie more you notice, the easier
it is to retain what yon notice in your recollection — precisely as
Mr. Proctor, I do not doubt, finds it much easier to recollect new
astronomical measures than most of ns do, because, having already
a number of such measures in his memory, new ones fit themselves
in among the rest, so as to be more easily remembered.

(To be continued.)

<j?ur CI) ess Column.

By Mephisto.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
•,• Please address Chess Editor.

C. Planck. — Problems received with thank.s.

Francis J. Drake. — No general time limit can bo fixed for solving
problems. To solve slowly is better tlian not solving at all.

Charles Bowen. — Thanks for good wishes. Solutions incorrect.
No. 84, If 1. Q to iU, B takes Q. 2. R takes P(ch), K to Kt4. .3. B
to K8(ch). Kt to li3(ch) ? No. 83, 1. R takes Kt (ch), K to R2.
2. Kt to KtG, R to Q5, and again there is no mate.

C. G. S.— No. 85. If 1. Q to K7, Kt to B3(ch). 2. K takes P !
and mate next move.

William II. Steer. — See reply to Charles Bowen.

D. Duggan. — Solution incorrect— see above repl}'. The games
of the late tournament have not been published.

Correct solutions received. — Problem 81. — East Marden, G.

Woodcock, Francis J. Drake, G. W. Thompson. No. 85. — G.
Woodcock, John, R. J. P., M. T. Hooton, T. T. Don-ington.

LONDON INTERNATIONAL CHESS TOURNAMENT.

THE tournament commenced on Thursday, tho 2(;th ult., in a
spacious and artistically decorated hall at the Criterion. AD
the players, and a goodly number of spectators, assembled there
before twelve o'clock. Play commences at noon punctually, and is
carried on up to 5 p.m., at which time an adjournment takes place,
to be resumed from 7 p.m. until ll.-lS. The pairing for the first
day was rather remarkable, as the two victors of Vienna, Steinitz
and Winawer, were drawn to play together. The chief interest of
the day was centred in their game.

Steinitz opened with his favourite, the Vienna Opening — viz.,
1. P to K4, P to K4. 2. Kt to QB3, Kt to QB3. 3. P to B4.
Winawer accepted the Gambit by P takes P, whereupon Steinitz,
very much against the exiiectations of many, played his own
favourite move of 1. P to Q4. The game proceeded with Q to R5(ch).
5. K to K2, P to Q3. This is a weak rejoinder. (With P to Q4
instead, the game could be brought to a position in which Mackenzie
drew.) Then followed 6. Kt to B3, B to Kt5. 7. B takes P, Castles
(the usnal move is B takes Ktch). 8. K to K3, B takes Kt. 9.
Q takes B, P to B4. 10. P to Q5, QKt to K2. 11. K to Q2, P
takes P. 12. Kt takes P, arriving at the following singular
position : —

WlXAWEE.

Steinitz.

It will be seen, after careful examination, that White threatens
to win the Queen by B to Kt 5. P to KR3 i.=! no defence, on account
of P to KKt3. Also P to KKt3 would not help Black, as White
can play as follows : —

12. P to KKt3

13. P to KKt3 Q to R4

14. Q takes Q P takes Q

15. Kt to Kt5 Kt to R3

16. Kt to KG E to Ksq

17. Kt takes B, followed by B takes Kt, and wins.

Winawer plavcd 12. Kt to B3. 13. Kt to Kt5, Q to R4. 14. Q
takes Q, Kt takes Q. 15. Kt to B7, Kt t.-ikes B. IG. Kt takes QR,
&c. Although being an exchange behind, Winawer made a gallant
stand, and even obtained a good chance for a draw. This, how-
ever, he missed, and lost after 6^ hours' play.

Another very interesting game was fouglit between Mason and
Mackenzie. It will be recollected that Mason came out third, with
23, at Vienna, while Mackenzie scored 221. Tho opening was a
Giuoco Piano, somewhat after the form first adopted by Blackburne
in his match with /.nkertort, and also very often played by Mason.
1 P to K4 P to K4. 2. Kt to KB3. Kt to QB3. 3. B to B4, B to
B4. 4. P t.i Q3, P to Q3. 5. B to K3, B to Kt3. 6. P to B3, Kt
to 133. 7. Kt to Q2, B to K3. 8. B to QKt5, Castles. 9. B takes
Kt P takes B. 10. B to Kt5, R to Ksq. 11. Kt to B sq, K to
Ktsq. 12. Q to Q2. P to KE3. 13. B to R4, B to Kt5. 14. P to
KR3. B to Q2? 15. B takes Kt, Q takes B. 16. Kt to Kt3, Ac.
Mason conducted this game with great strength and perseverance,
and defeated his opponent in fifty-two moves.

Scllman adopted the French Defence against Blackburne. The
p.ame, after the exchange of Queens, stood pretty even, when
Blackburne, on his twenty-ninth move, proposed a draw, which was
accepted.

Rosenthal played the Scotch Gambit of 4. B to B4 agamst Bird.
The latter scored an advantage in the opening, which gave him a

♦ KNO^VLEDGE ♦

[May 4, 1863.

Rood game in the ciidinf;. Rosentlml, however, equalised mattors,
iiiul, after forty-seven moves and six hours' play, the game was
;ihaiidoiied as a draw.

Tschiftoriii was opposed to Zukertort, playing the Buy Lopez.
The latter played in virj- line style, and won after twenty-nine
moves.

It was also remarkable thai the two English amatenrs, Skip-
worth and Mortimer, were drawn against each other. The former
opened with 1. 1' to QUi, to which Mortimer made the unsatisfac-
tory reply of P to K4, followed Ijy V to KU4, the result being that
Skipnortli won after forty-seven moves.

Noa i)layod the Kuy Lopez against English. The latter proved
himself as strong and tenacious as ever, and initiated a fine com-
bination on his twenty-fourth move, and won after thirty-two
moves.

Friday, the 27th, Steinitz was opposed to English. The former
opened with his favourite, the Steinitz Gambit, and the game
created no little surprise and e.\citement amongst spectators. 1. P
to K4, r to K4. 2. Kt to QB.3, Kt to gl!;i. y. P to B4, P takes P.
4. P to Q4, g to R5(ch). 5. K to K2. P to Ql (best). G. P takes
P, Q to K:i(ch). 7. K to B2, Q to R5lcli).

Stei.mtz.

The same position was arrived at by Steinitz in his match with
Mackenzie, and was given up as a (b-aw. Steinitz essayed to avoid
the draw, and lost. The following continuation ensued : — 8. P to
KKt3, P takes P. 9. K to R2, B to K3 (very fine). 10. P takes
Kt (weak), P takes P. 11. Q to B3, P takes Kt(ch). 12. K takes
V, Q takes P(ch). 13. B to K3, Q to B3. 14. Q to K2, Kt to K2.
15. B to Kt2, P takes P. 16. Kt to K4, Q to Kt3. 17. P to B4, B
to KKt5. 18. Q to KB2, Castles. Bl.ack remained with three pawns
to the good, and after about a dozen more moves, Steinitz resigned,
amidst intense excitement.

Of equal interest to the proceedings was the contest between
Blackbume and Mackenzie, which lasted over the adjourned till
late in the evening, it being the only game going. The ending was
particularly interesting. After a hard struggle of sixty-four moves,
the game resulted in a draw, although Mackenzie had somewhat
the best in the ending. We give the game in full.

Mason plaj-ed his Giuoco Piano against Skipworth, and won ; and
y.ukertort again won in fine and lively style against Mortimer. Bird
j)Iaycd a peculiar form of the Giuoco Piano against Winawer. He
f)btained some advantage, but the game ultimately resulted in a
<lraw, as did also the game of Rosenthal v. Sellman, and Noa v.
Tschigoryn.

Draws do not count till after the third draw, when they count
half. Saturday is merely intended for adjourned games, or
jilayers who have drawn during the week. Accordingly, on the
25th, those players that had drawn met again. Bird defended the
Cicilian against Winawer. The latter conducted the opening in a
novel but weak manner, and soon lost the advantage of the first
move— viz., 1. P to Kl, P to QB4. 2. Kt to QB3, P to K3. 3. Kt
to KB3, Kt to QB3. 1. B to Kt 5 (?), Kt to Q5. 5. Cistles, P to
yR3. (i. B to K2, P to Q4. 7. Kt takes Kt, P takes Kt. 8 Kt to
Kt sq (i-), B to Q2. '.). B to B3, B to B3, &c. Bird won the
game, playing in gooil style. 'I'schigorin beat Noa. The third
draw to be played off was between Blackbume and Mackenzie.
This again proved a veiy severe struggle, lasting 8i hours, with the
result that Mackenzie won.

In the minor Tournament, twenty-six players compete for
honours. Of these, Messrs. Lambert and Gunsberg stand best, the
former having played six games and the latter four games, winning
them all.

SCORE UP TO TUESDAY NIGHT.

Bird

Blackbume

English

Mackenzie

Mason

Mortimer

Noa

Rosenthal

Sellman

Skipworth

Steinitz

Tcshigoriu

Winawer '0

Zukertort

■s

n
1

0

e

a

Si
M

1

0

0
0

.55

-
1

I

0

0

1

u

1

1
1

1

c;

i.

1

0

1

1

0

1

Xi

1

I

1

0

1

0

1
0

s
0

0

1

1

0

1

1

0
0
0

.c

c

s

g,

Ijl

3~1

3 1

2 2

1 2

'I

2 1

4 0

3 )
1

1 2
0 13

12 I
— J

Game played in the second round of the London International
Chess Tournament, on April 27, 1883 : —

GIUOCO PIANO.

White.
Blackbume.

1. P to K4

2. KKt to B3

3. B to B4

4. P to B3

5. P to Q3

6. B to K3

7. QKt to Q2

8. Q to K2

9. Castle KR

10. B to QKt5

11. P to KR3

12. KttoBl

13. B takes B

14. Kt to K3

15. P to R3

16. P takes P

17. Kt, takes B

18. B takes Kt

19. Kt to Q,4 :

20. Kt takes P

21. Kt to Kt4

22. P to B3

23. Kt to Q5

24. R to B2

25. Kt to K3

26. K to R2

27. Q to B sc|

28. P takes Kt

29. K to Kt sq

30. R to K sq

31. R to Kt2

32. R to Kt3

Black.
Mackenzie.
P to K4
QKt to B
B to B4
Kt to B3
P to Q3
B to Kt3
B to K3
g to K2
P to KR3
Castles KR
B to Q2
Kt to R2
RP takes B
B to K3
P to B4
B takes P
K takes Kt
]' takes B
R to B5
Q to Q2
Kt to Kt4:
QR to KB sq
R to KR5 !
Q to B2
Kt to K3
Kt to B5
Kt takes RP
Q to Bo(ch)
Q takes Kt
Q to Kt4(ch)
g to R4
P to Q4

White. Blaok.
Blackburn. Mackenzie.

33. g to Kt2 E to B2

34. K to R2 R(R5) to KB5

35. R to KKt sq P to KKt4

36. Q to K2 R(B2) to B4

37. K to Kt2 Q to B2

38. R to KB sq Q to K3

39. R to Kt4 K to B3

40. K to R2 P to R4

41. R takes R R takes R

42. R to Ksq R to KR5

43. Q to Kt2 Q to B4

44. Q to Kt3 R to KB5

45. R to K3 K to B3

46. K to Kt2 P to B4

47. P to Kt4 P takes P

48. BP takes P R to Q5

49. Q to B2 ! R to R5

50. P to B4 ! ! R takes BP

51. Q to gB2 Q to K3

52. P to Kt5 P to Kt5

53. P to KR4 P to Q5

54. R to K4 Q to Q4

55. P to R4 Q to Kt2

56. K to Kt sq R takes R

57. P takes R K to K2

58. P to R5 : ! K to Q3

59. Pto R6 Q togB2

60. Q to QR2 Q to BS(ch)

61. K to Kt2 Q to KB5

62. Q to g5(ch) K to K2

63. Q to Kt7(ch) K to Ksq

64. Q to B8(ch) K to K2
Drawn.

Duration 9 hours.

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OFFICE: 74-76, GRKAT QUEEN STREET LONDON W.C.

May 11, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE *

273

AN ItLU&lRATED

MAGAZINE OF SGIENCE

Plain Cr^y^ORDED-EXACTqDESCRIBED

LONDON: FRIDAY, MAY 11, 1883.
Contents op No. 80.

Pagk
Thf nirth nnd Groirth of Myth.

VII. By Edward Clodd 273

Tlie Cheraistrvl of Cookory. IX.

Bf W. Mattieu Willianm 271

A Naluralisfs Year XII. IVo

Little firoenish Flowers. By

Grant Allen 270

CeoIo(^ of the Isle of Man. (Illug-

Irated. By W. Jerome Hi '

F.G.S

Flyinf; Foxes in Australia 279

The Archer Fish. (Illuilruled) ... 2S0
The Fleotric Light in Surgical

Diagnosis. (IllutlraM) 281

The Face of the Sky. By F.K.A.3. 2S2

Reviews: Snake Poison.i 283

Correspondence : Spelling Refnmi

— M

Paradoxes — Letters Re.

ited and Brief Answers 284

Chess Column 285

THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH.

VIT.

By Edward Clodd.

■" T) EVENONS ;i nos luoutons," as the impatient client
XAj who had lost some sheep reminded his rambling
■advocate.

In the great body of nature-myth, the stars are promi-
nent members. In their multitude ; their sublime repose
in upper calms above the turmoil of the elements ;
their varying brilliancj', " one star differing from another
star in glory " ; their tremulous light ; their scattered
positions, which lend themselves to every vagary of the
•constellation-maker ; their slow procession, varied only by
•sweeping comet and meteor, or falling showers of shooting
&tars ; they lead the imagination into gentler ways than do
the vaster bodies of the most ancient heavens. Nor,
although we may compute their number, weigh their
volume, in a few instances reckon their distance, and,
capturing the light that has come beating through space
for unnumbered years, make it reveal the secret of their
structure, is the imagination less moved by the clear
heavens at night, or the feeling of awe and reverence
felunted before that "mighty sum of things for ever
■speaking."

In barbaric myth the stars are spoken of as the children
of the sun and moon, but more often as men who have lived
■on the earth, translated without seeing death. The single
stars are individual chiefs or heroes ; the constellations are
groups of men or animals. To the natives of Australia
the brilliant Jupiter is a chief among the others, and the
stars in Orion's belt and scabbard are young mtn dancing
a corroboree, the Pleiades being girls playing to them. The
Kasirs of Bengal say that the stars are men who climbed
to the top of a tree, and were left in the branches by the
trunk being cut away. To the Eskimos the stars in Orion
are seal-hunters who have missed their way home ; and in
German folk-lore they are spoken of as the mowers, because,
as Grimm says, " they stand in a row, like mowers in
a meadow.' In North American myth two of the bright
stars are twins who have left a home where they were
iiarshly treated, and leapt into the sky, whither their
parents followed them, and ceaselessly chase them.

In Greek myth the faintest star of the seven Pleiades
is Merope, whose light was dimmed because she
alcaie among her sisters married a mortal. In German
star-lore, the small star just above the middle one in the
shaft of Charles's Wain, is a waggoner who, having given
our Saviour a lift, was oll'ered the kingdom of heaven for
his reward, but who said lie would sooner be driving from
east to west to all eternity, and whose desire was granted —
a curious contrast to the legend of the Wandering Jew,
cursed to move unresting over the earth till the day of
judgment, because he refused to let Jesus, weary with the
weight of the cross, rest for a moment on his doorstep.
The Housatonic Indians say that the stars in Charles's
Wain are men hunting a bear, and that the chase lasts
from spring to autumn, when the bear is wounded, and its
dripping blood turns the leaves of the trees red. With
this may be cited the myth that the red clouds at morn
and eve are the blood of the slain in battle. In the
Northern Lights, the Grcenlanders see the spirits of the
departed dancing, the brighter the flashes of the Aurora
the greater the merriment ; whilst the Dacotahs say of the
meteors that they are spirits flying through the air.

Of the Milky Way — so called because Here, indignant
at the bantling Herakles being put to her breast, spilt her
milk along the sky (the solar mythologers say that the
" red cow of evening passes during the night across the sky,
scattering her milk ") ; the Ottawas say that it was caused
by a turtle swimming along the bottom of the sky, and
stirring up the mud. According to the Patagoniaus, it is
the track along which the departed tribesmen hunt
ostriches ; in African myth it is some wood-ashes long ago
thrown up into the sky by a girl, that her people might be
able to see their way home at night ; in Eastern myth, it
is chafl' dropped by a thief in his hurried flight.

But the idea of a land beyond tlie sky — be it the happy
hunting ground of the Indian, or the Paradise of Islam, or
the new Jerusalem of the Apocalypse — would not fail to be
imagined, and in both the Milky Way and the Eainbow
liarbaric fancy sees the ladders and bridges whereby the
departed pass from earth to heaven. So we find in the
lower and higher culture alike the beautiful conceptions of
the clii-min des ames, the lied man's road of the dead to their
home in the sun ; the ancient Roman path of, or to, the gods ;
the road of the birds, in Lithuanian myth, because the
winged spirits flit thither to the free and happy land. In
prosaic contrast to all this, it is curious to find among our-
selves the Milky Way described as Watling Street ! That
famous road, wliich ran fror.i Richborough through Canter-
bury and London to Chester, now gives its name to a
narrow, bustling street of Manchester warehousemen in the
City. But who the W;etlingas were, and why their name
was transferred from Britain to the sky,* we do not know,
although the fact is plainly enough set down in old writers,
foremost among whom is Chaucer. In his " House of
Fame "t he says : —

" Lo, there, quod he, cast up thine eye,
66 yonder, to, the galaxie,
the whiclie men dope the Milky Way,
for it is white, and some parfay
ycallin it lian Wathiifrestrete."

To the savage, the rainbow is a living monster, a serpent
seeking whom it may devour, coming to earth to slake its
unquenchable thirst, and preying on the unwary. But in
more poetic myth, its mighty mani-coloured arch touching,

* Perhaps the converse is true ; if the name was a totem whicli
the family adopted, and which was given, as tribute to an impor-
tant clan, to one of the main roads of this island.

t 11., 427.

274

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May 11, 1883.

as it seems to do, the earth itself, is a road to glory. In
the Edda it is tlic tlirtecoloured bridge Bifroset, the
" quivering track" over which the gods walk, and of which
the red is fire, so that the Frost-giants may not cross it. In
Persian myth it is Chinvad, the "bridge of the gatherer,"
flun" across the gloomy depths between this world and the
home of the blessed ; in Islam it is El-Sirat, the bridge
thin as a hair and sharp as a scimitar, stretching from this
world to the next ; among the Greeks it was Iris, the
messenger from J5eus to men, cliarged with tidings of war
and tempest ; to the Finns it was the bow of Tiernes, the
wod of thunder ; whilst to the Jew it was the mes-
senger of grace from the Eternal, who did set
" his bow in tlie clouds " as the promise that never
a"ain should the world be destroyed by flood. Such
belief in the heavens as the field of activities profoundly
aflfecting the fortunes of mankind, and in the stars as
influencing their destinies, has been persistent in the
human mind. Tlie delusions of the astrologer are em-
balmed in language, as when, forgetful of a belief shared
not only by sober theologians, but by Tycho Brahe and
Kepler, we speak of "disaster," of our friends as "jovial,"
"saturnine," or "mercurial." But the illusions of the
savage or semi- civilised abide as an animating part of many
a faith, undisturbed by a science which has swept the skies
and found no angels there, and whose keen analysis separates
for ever the ancient belief in a connection between the
planets and man's fate. For convenience' sake, we retain on
our celestial maps and globes the men and monsters pictured
by barbaric fancy in the star-positions and clusters, noting
these as interesting examples of survival. Yet we are the
willing dupes of illusions nebulous as these, and, charm he
never so wisely, the Time-Spirit fails to disenchant us.

If the sun and moon are the parents of the stars, tlie
heavens and the earth are the parents of all living things.
Of this widely-found myth, one of the most striking
specimens occurs among the Maoris. From Rangi, the
heaven, and Papa, the earth, sprang all living things ; but
earth and sky clave togetlier, and darkness rested on
them and their children, who debated whether they
should rend them asunder or slay them. Then Tane-
mahuta, father of forests, reasoned that it was better to
rend them, so that the heaven might become a stranger,
and the earth remain as their nursing-mother. One after
another they strove to do this, but in vain, until Tane-
mahuta, with giant strength and strain, pressed down the
earth and thrust upward the heaven. But one of his
brothers, father of wind and storm, who had not
agreed to this parting of his parents, followed Rangi
into the sky, and thence sent forth his progeny, " the
mighty winds, the fierce squalls, the clouds dense and
dark, wildly drifting, wildly hunting," himself rushing
on his foe, snapping the huge trees that barred Iiis path,
and strewing their trunks and branches on the ground,
while the sea was lashed into high-crested waves, and all the
cre.atures therein aflrighted. The fish darted hither and
thither, but the reptiles fled into the forests, causing quarrel
between Tangaron, the ocean-god, and Tane-mahuta for
giving them shelter. So the brothers fought, the ocean-
god wrecking the canoes and .sweeping houses and trees
beneath the waters, and had not Papa hidden the gods of
the tilled food and the wild within her bosom, they would
have perished. Wars of revenge followed quickly one
upon the other ; the storm-god's anger was not soon ap-
peased ; so tliat the devastation of the earth was well-nigh
complete. But, at last, li^ht .arose, and quiet ensued, and
the dry land appeared. Rangi and Papa, parted for ever,
quarrelled no more, but helped the one the other, and
"man stood erect and unbroken on his mother Earth."

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.

IX.

By W. Mattieu Williams.

HAPPY little couples, living in little houses with only
one little servant — or, happier still, witii no servant
— complain of their little joints of meat, which, when
roasted, are so dry, as compared with the big succulent
joints of larger households. A little reflection on the prin-
ciples applied in my last to the grilling of steaks and
chops will explain the source of this little difficulty, and
I think .show how it may Vje overcome.

I will here venture upon a little of the mathematics of
cookery, as well as its chemistry. While the weight or
quantity of material in a joint increases with the cube of
its through-measured dimensions, its surface only increases
with their square— or, otherwise stated, we do not nearly
double or treble the surface of a joint of given form when
we double or treble its weight ; and vice-versd, the less the
weight, the greater the surface in proportion to the weight
This is obvious enough when we consider that we cannot
cut a single lump of anything into halves without exposing
or creating two fresh surfaces where no surfaces were ex-
posed before. As the evaporation of the juices is, under
given conditions, proportionate to the surface exposed, it
is evident that this process of converting the inside middle
into two outside surfaces must increase the amount of
evaporation that occurs in roasting.

What, then, is the remedy for this 1 It is twofold.
First to seal up the pores of these additional surfaces as
completely as possible, and secondly to diminish to the
utmost the time of exposure to the dry air. Logically
following up these principles I arrive at a practical formula
which will probably induce certain orthodox cooks to
denounce me as a culinary paradoxer. It is this. That
the smaller t/ie joint to be roasted, the hiyher the temperature
to irliich its surface should he exposed. The roasting of a
small joint should, in fact, be conducted in nearly the same
manner as the grilling of a chop or steak described in my
last. The surface should be crusted or browned — burned,
if you please — as speedily as possible in such wise that the
juices within shall be held there under high pressure, and
only allowed to escape by burst and splutters, rather than
by steady evaporation.

The best way of doing this is a proljlem to be solved by
the practical cook. I only expound the principles, and timidly
suggest the mode of applying them. In a nietallurgicid
laboratory, where I am most at home, I could roast a small
joint beautifully by suspending it inside a large red-hot
steel-melter's crucible, or better still in an apparatus called
a " mutHe " which is a fireclay tunnel open in front, and so
arranged in a suitalile furnace as to be easily made red-hot
all round. A small joint placed on a dripping-pan and run
into this would be equally heated by all-round converging
radiation, and exquisitely roasted in the course of about ten
to thirty minutes, according to its size. Some such an
apparatus has yet to be invented in order that we may
learn the flavour and tenderness of a perfectly -roasted small
joint of beef or mutton.

For roasting large masses of meat, a different proceeding
is necessary. Here we have to contend, not with exces-
sive surface in proportion to bulk — as in the grilling or
chops and steaks, and the roasting of small joints — but with
the contrary — viz., excessive bulk in proportion to surface.
If a baron of beef were to be treated according to my pre-
scription for a steak, or for a single wing rib, or other joint
of three to five pounds weight, it would be charred on its
surface long before the heat could reach its centre.

A considerable time is here inevitably demanded. Of

May 11, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

275

course, the higher the initial outside temperature, the more
rapidly the heat will penetrate ; but we cannot apply this
law to a lump of meat as we may to a mass of iron. We
may go on heating the outside of the iron to redness, but not
so the meat So long as the surface of the meat remains
moist, we cannot raise it to a higlier temperature than the
boiling point of the liquid that moistens it. Above this,
charring commences. A little of such charring, such as
occurs to the steak or small joint during the short period
of its exposure to the great heat, does no harm ; it simply
"browns " the surface ; but if this were continued during
the roasting of a large joint, a crust of positively black
charcoal would bo formed, with ruinous waste and general
detriment.

As Rumford proved long ago, liquids are very bad con-
ductors, and when their circulation is prevented by confine-
ment between fibres, as in the meat, the rate at which heat
will travel through the humid mass is very slow indeed.
As few of my readers are likely to fully estimate the
magnitude of this ditliculty, I will state a fact that came
under my own observation, and at the time surprised me.

About five and twenty years ago I was visiting a friend
at Warwick during the "mop," or "statute fair" — the
annual slave market of the county. In accordance with the
old custom, an ox was roa?tcd whole in the open public
market-place. The spitting of the carcass and starting the
cookery was a disgusting sight. We are accustomed to see
the neatly-cut joints ordinarily brought to the kitchen ; but
the handling and impaling of the whole body of a huge
beast by half-a dozen rough men, while its stiffened limbs
were stretching out from its trunk, presented the car-
nivorous character of our ordinary feeding very grossly
indeed.

Nevertheless I watched the process, and dined on some
of its result. The tire was lighted before midnight,
the rotation of the beast on the horizontal spit before it
began shortly after, and continued until the following mid-
day, all this time being necessary for the raising of the
inner parts of the flesh to the cooking temperature of about
180° Fahr.

Compare this with the grilling of a steak, which, when
well done, is done in a few minutes, or the roasting of the
small joint as above within thirty minutes, and you will
see that I am justified in dwelling on the great differences
of the two processes, and the necessity of very varied pro-
ceeding to meet these different conditions.

The difference of time is so great that the smaller
relative surface is insufficient tj compensate for the evapo-
ration that must occur if the grilling principle, or the pure
and simple action of radiant heat, were only made available,
as in the above ideal roasting of the small joint.

What, then, is added to this 1 How is the desiccating
difficulty overcome in the large-scale roasting 1 Simply
by baslin;/.

All night long and all the next morning men were con-
tinuously at work pouring melted fat over the surface of
the slowly-rotating carcase of the Warwick ox, skilfully
directing a ladleful to any part that indicated undue
dryness.

By this device the meat is more or less completely enve-
loped in a varnish of hot melted fat, which assisted in the
communication of heat, while it checked the evaporation of
the juices. In such roasting the heat is partially communi-
cated by convection through the medium of a fat-bath, as
in stewing it is all supplied by a water-bath.

I purpose making an experiment, whereby this principle
will be fully carried out. I shall melt a sufficient quantity
of mutton fat to form a bath, in which a small joint of
mutton may be immersed, or of beef fat for beef ; and then

keep the melted fat at about tlie cooking temperature, or a
little above it — say the boiling point of water, which will
be indicated by the spluttering due to the evaporation of
the water in the meat The result of this experiment will
be duly reported to the readers of KxowLEDt:E when I reach
the general subject of frying. In my next I must continue
this subject of roasting, which is by no means exhausted
yet. Count Rumford devotes seventy pages to it, and I quote
his words for my own use. He says,* " I shall, no doubt,
be criticised by many for dwelling so long on a subject
which to them will appear low, vulgar, and trifling ; but I
must not be deterred by fastidious criticisms from doing all
I can do to succeed in what I have undertaken. Were I
to treat my subject superficiall)', my writing would be of
no use to anybody, and my laVjour would be lost ; but by
investigating it thoroughly, I ina)', perhaps, engage others
to pay that attention to it which, from its importance, it
deserves."

In my last, col. 1, page 247, is an error that must have
puzzled some readers: on line 16, for "dissected," read
" desiccated."

The Boston (U.S.A.) Evening Transcript, in referring
to electric companies generally, says the best that can be
said in their favour is that they are now endeavouring to
do as little business as possible, for the more they do the
more they lose. [Of some companies this is quite true, but
certainly not of all. ]

It is stated that one of the palace cars belonging to the
United States Fish Commission started recently for Cali-
fornia with a passenger list of young fish numbering
18,000. The middle part had an aisle running through the
centre, and in place of the seats on each side, were wooden
ledges, about 3 ft. high, on which were placed the tin fish-
tanks. The fish were not placed in the tanks filled with
water, as the motion of the train would dash the water
about and destroy many lives among the young passengers.
But, instead, about twenty fish were placed in gallon tin pails,
and these pails were put in the tanks, and then the latterfilled
with water. With the carp, however, the water in the
pails was sufficient, and the motion of the car tended to
the circulation of air in the water, keeping it fresh. The
attendants renewed the water every eight hours, and kept
a careful watch to remove any fish that might have died.
The percentage of fish lost by death, however, was very
small.

The Raihoay Revieio (Chicago, March 21) quotes
from the Medical and Surgical Jourivxl some very
unfavourable comments upon a Bill lately introduced
into the United States Legislature, to put a stop to
the use of any test for the form and colour sense
of railway employes, except by the railway signals
themselves. This paper states that it has been re-
peatedly and clearly shown that not even the most
skilled experts can detect colour-blindness or decide
upon a man's eyesight by any use of the railway
signals. On the other hand, a very few minutes with the
most practical test used by the Government will settle
whether a man is safe or not. There is strong reason to
believe that the seemingly plausible argument of allowing
experts or others to test only by railway signals, arises
from the desire to break down the law which practically
prevents the colour-blind or purblind from holding positions
in which their defects endanger lives and property.

* " Essaya Political, Economical, and Philosophical." Vol. III..
page 129.

2.0

KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May 11, 1883.

A NATUKALIST'S YEAR.

By Chant ALLE>f.
XII.— TWO LITTLK GUEEXISH FL0WKK3.

OUT of the bank beside the lane I have just pioknd
two very inconspicuous, yet very pretty, little
!;reenish wild flowers. Most people, I suppose, hardly
know that such things as green flowers exist at all : and
j'et, perhaps, half our English weeds have really blossoms
in which green is either the prevalent or the only colour.
The fact is, both our tastes and our observations in this
matter are still more or less barbaric 1 we notice and gather
all the bright blue and crimson and yellow flower?, but pass
by their little green sisters in the hedge-rows or meadows
i^uite unheeded. Thus, as a rule, we confine our attention
'•ntirely to those large and conspicuous species which
depend for fertilisation upon the larger insects, while we
leave out of consideration those graceful, waving, pendu-
lous kinds which trust rather to the friendly offices of the
summer breezes.

The little green blossoms which I have picked to-day,
however, belong to rather a diflerent class from the true
wind-fertilised species, siich as the grasses and catkins.
Thorough-going wind-flowers have usually lost their petals
altogether, like the sedges and reed-maces, or have reduced
them to mere rudiments, like the grasses, or else have
tucked them away inconspicuously behind their calyx, like
the plantains ; so that all you can .see of their inflorescence
— with the naked eye, at least, or without dissection — is a
clustered spike or pannicle of waving stamens and feathery
styles. But the little flowers I have picked from the
bank here are not nearly so degenerate or so much
reduced in plan as that. This pretty, delicate, pale-
green plant that I hold in my hand is moscatel,
probably a distant relation of the elder, though
it is but a slender, very dainty herb, instead of a stout,
woody bush. Its rootstock, you see, forms a sort of semi-
transparent bulb, from which springs a tall stalk, bearing,
half-way up, a pair of divided opposite leaves, and sur-
mounted at the top by a little globular head of dainty green
flowers. In colour they almost exactly resemble the leaves,
but in shape and general appearance they are extremely
like the familiar little scarlet pimpernel. In fact, the
blossoms are so pretty in their symmetry and delicacy that,
though nobody ever notices them till they are pointed out,
everybody is always surprised at their singular beauty
when attention has once been directed to their shape and
\;olour.

Looking closely into the little heads, you can see that
each one usually consists of five flowers, one on top and
four below. The upper or central flower has generally two
sepals to its calyx and four lobes to its corolla ; the lower
or lateral ones have generally three sepals and five lobes.
Why is this t Well, the reason is simply one of obvious
convenience. The central flower, crowded between its four
neighbours, has only just room to expand a single lobe in
each interspace ; the lower flowers, less cramped in their
development, can ordinarily manage to find a pl.ace for the
full normal number of live lobes, which they inherit from
all their ancestors. But in stunted specimens, or in very
knobby heads, you will often find that one or more of the
lower blossoms has also been reduced by the pressure of its
neighbours to the four-lobed condition. This is all the
more interesting because their close relations, the dogwoods
and galiums, have almost always only four ; though even
here a few conservative species still manage to produce the
original five petals of the ordinary dicotyledonous corolla.

If you pull off the corolla from one of the blossoms, it
comes away in a single piece, with the stamen sticking to
it, just as in elder-Vjlossom or laurustinus When you come
to count the stamens, however, you will find that there are
apparently eight in the four-lobed flowers, and ten in the
five-lobed, instead of four and five respectively as in all
their other congeners. Each of these stamens is, in fact,
only a half stamen ; the original five have split up into
ten, as you can easily see from the fact that there are two
in the interval between each lobe of the corolla. This
curious arrangement is related, I believe, to the peculiar
method of fertilisation adopted by the plant. It lays
itself out specially to attract small flies, which seem
to care very little in this case for the allurement
of colour. If you look closely at the little ring on the
corolla, where the stamens are inserted, you will observe
between each pair a tiny glistening drop of sticky liquid.
That liquid is the honey ; and it is placed thus openly on
the flat surface of the flower, instead of being concealed at
the bottom of a deep tube, on purpose to accommodate the
little flies, which seem to be enticed to it mainly by the
sense of smell. Each half stamen bends over, when ripe,
towards the honey ; so that the insect is sure to rub against
it while sipping the nectar, and to brush it off against the
five stigmas of the next flower he visits in due course.

The other little weed which I have picked from the same
bank is much yellower and more conspicuous than the mos-
catel, though not nearly so pretty. It is a saxifrage by
family, and is commonly known as golden saxifrage, though
the botanists make it into a separate genus, and call it
chrysosplenium. It is interesting to compare this plant
with moscatel, both because of its resemblances and of its
differences. At first sight the likeness is very close ; you
would say, roughly speaking, that it had a small four-lobed
flower with eight stamens, as in the central blossom of its
greener neighbour. But when you come to look closer, you
see that there is apparently no trace of a calyx, and that
the eight stamens are really eight, instead of four split
pairs. They stand in two whorls of four each ; and when
they begin to wither it is easy to distinguish the outer
from the inner whorl. Now, in all the books on
botany you will find it written that golden saxifrage
has a calyx, but no corolla ; indeed, it is almost
a point of faith with botanists of the old school, that when-
ever a flower has only one floral envelope, as they call it,
that envelope should be considered as a calyx. It seems
to me quite clear, however, that in this case it is the calyx
that has disappeared, while the four lobes form a real
corolla. For the stamens of the outer whorl alternate
with the lobes, instead of being opposite them ; and, I
believe, wherever the petals have been suppressed, the
stamens stand opposite the sepals, as in nettles and goose-
foots, instead of alternately with them, thus leaving, as it
were, a blank in the place where the petals ought to be.
It is easy enough to understand how in rather succulent
plants, like the saxifi-ages, the very small and adherent
calyx might become so united with the petals as to dis-
appear altogether. Indeed, there are many allied plants
in which the calyx can only be distinguished as a very
small rim or edge outside the petals.

Moreover, golden saxifrage helps us to understand the
steps by which moscatel has become green. It is itself a
greenish-yellow in hue ; but though it is fertilised by very
small miscellaneous insects, it still finds it worth while to
attract them by some faint show of colour. IMoscatel, on
the other hand, being apparently very restricted in its
natural range of insect guests, can afford to dispense with
colour altogether. Why some flowers of this sort should
find they get along better with green petals is a little difli-

Mat 11, 1883.]

♦ KNO^A^LEDGE

277

cult to understand ; but there certainly are some which, in
spite of being fertilised by insects, do prefer green to any
gaudier or brighter hue. They are generally small, but not
minute blossoms. Knawel, lady's mantle, and moscatel are
but a few which could be named belonging to this small
green class. They all seem to be fertilised by little flies,
and their honey, when they have any, is secreted quite
openly on the face of the flower. There are a good many
puzzles of such a sort still remaining even in British
botany; and I mention this one only in order to call atten-
tion to the kind of question which yet needs an answer at
the hands of observing naturalists.

THE GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF MAN.

Bv W. .Jerome Hakkisox, F.G.S.

^pHE main fe.iture of the surface of the Isle of Man is a
1 ridge running from Maughold Head (S.E. of Eamsey)
to the Calf of Man, a distance of thirty miles. The highest
point of this rocky backbone just exceeds 2,000 ft. at
Snaefell, but Greebah and South Barrule both approach

Fig. 1. — Geological Sketch-Map of the lale of Man.

] Skiddaw Slates.
• oV Grit in ditto.
II Conglomerate.
^B Alluvium.

EZJD Carboniferous Lime-

Btone.
lZZ3 CJranite.
— ' Direction of Dip.

,'jOO ft From the line of hills so formed, the surface
-lopes down on either side to the sea, the width of the Isle
at right angles to its mountain axis) being from ten to
"«elve miles. A low flat plain, called the Curragh,
cupios about fifty square miles north of a line drawn
'om Ramsey through Bishop's Court to PeeL
In studying the geology of this isolated tract, we have a

great advantage in the fine sections of the rocks displayed
in the clitis all round the coast. Inlan<l, indeed, good ex-
posures are not common ; the strata are so overlaid by-
beds of sand, clay, and 'peat of recent origin, and the hill-
slopes are so well covered by grass, that the liard rocks
which lie beneath are only to be examined at wide
intervals.

If a geologist has only two or three days to spend on the
island, he should make at once for Castletown, as the
neighbourhood of that town atlbrds by far the most interest-
ing and varied display of the strata. Within a fortnight
or three wciks it is, however, quite possible to examine
the entire rocky structure of the island, so far as it is
visible.

The Government Geological Survey has not yet visited
Manxland, so that Sheet 100 of the Ordnance Survey Map
cannot be purchased "geologically coloured." The late
llev. J. G. Gumming did good and careful work among the
rocks, and published his results as part of his excellent
book on "The Isle of Man" (184S), and also in the
"Journal of the Geological Society of London" (vol. II.,
p. 317). Of recent papers, those by !Mr. Jno. Home in
1874 ("Trans. Edinburgh Geol. Soc," Vol. II.), and the
late Rev. J. C. Ward in 1880 (Geoloyical ilaga-.iitc, p. 1),
are well worth reading.

SiLiuiAX Formation. — Three-quarters of the surface of
Mona is formed of rocks of Lower Silurian age. The fine
sections exposed in the cliffs show hard rocks of varying
texture, all of which were deposited as mud on a sea-floor,
but which have since been so hardened, that the sandy
mud is now a rough stone called (jrii ,■ while the fine mud
has formed hard shnhs, which are sometimes cleaved, then
becoming a true slate. There must be a total thickness of
perhaps five or six thousand feet of these Silurian rocks in
the Isle of !Man, and yet such appears to have been the
paucity of life in the seas in which they were originally
deposited, that this enormous thickness of strata has only-
yielded a single species of fossil, viz., I'ahi ochorda amjor,
once considered to be a fucoid (seaweed), but now known
to represent the meandering burrow of a species of marine
worm.

This fossil, and the general similarity of the strata, help
us to identify the Lower Silurian rocks of the Isle of Man
with the Skiddaw Slates of Cumberland, and again, through
them, with the Arenig beds of Wales. A hard band of
grit is very noticeable at the base of the Arenig slates in
North Wales ; it occurs in the Lake district, and a some-
what similar bed, which crops out at Cam Gerjoil (S.E. of
Snaefell), and on St. Ann's Head, may represent it in the
Isle of Man. The hills forming the central ridge of the
island are composed of hard grey slaty shales and
flags ; The quarries at South Barrule show true slates
of a black hue, upon which, to the west, rest soft black
shales.

Owing to slow and long-continued movements of the
earth's crust in bygone ages, these old slaty rocks have
been bent into a double curve. A line drawn from south
of Ramsey to Crosby (west of Douglas), and thence to
Port Erin, will indicate an i-nifir/im'f axis or line, from
irhirh the strata dip in opposite directions ; those on the
Douglas side inclining at a high angle to the south-east,
and those on the Peel side dipping towards the north-west.
Beyond (or east of) Douglas, however, from the Dock to
the Head, the strata rise up again, and the dip here is
westerlj-. At Spanish Head, in the extreme south of the
island, bluish flaggy slates lie horizontally, and are
traversed by narrow vertical cracks of great depth, called
the " Chasms." The strata here probably form the crown
of an anticlinal or arch, a position in which they would

278

o KNOV/LEDGE ♦

[May 11, 1883.

he under great strain, and consequent liability to fracture.
(Fig. -'•)

Fifr. 2. — Strata forming an anticlinal curve or saddle. Tlio strain
l-as caused tlie beds to fracture, so forming the fissures C, D, E.

It is very desirable that these Silurian rocks should be
more thoroughly searched for fossils ; grnjitolites ought to
occur in them, for forty species are known in the Skiddaw
Slates.

Granite bursts through the Silurians at two points — viz.,
at Doon, near Laxey, and near Foxdale, about two miles
north-oast of South Barrule. In each case the intrusive
rock has shattered the Silurian shales of the neighbourhood,
and heated water, traversing the fissures so formed, has
filled them with various minerals, including much lead-ore
{galena), zinc-ore (blende), and a little copper-ore. The
lead-ore is richly impregnated with silver. In the year
1879, the Laxey mines produced 7,200 tons of zinc-ore,
worth £27,000, and 1,200 tons of lead-ore (containing
40,000 oz. of silver), value £20,000. In the same year,
the Foxdale mines produced 2,750 tons of lead-ore (contain-
ing 55,000 oz. of silver), value £37,000.

Fi:r. 3. — Section at Lanp^ness, showing the conglomerate resting
anconformably on the Skiddaw Slates.

B. Sldddaw Slates.

A. Conglomerate forming base of Carboniferous Limestone.
X Fanlt.

Lower CAnBONiFEROu.s Formation. — On the west side
of the promontory of Langness, east of Castletown, a con-
glomerate of varying thickness (5 to 50 ft.), containing
many quartzite pebbles, rests very unconformably on the
Silurian slates (see Fig. .3). Traced northwards, towards the
College, the conglomerate gradually passes upwards into a
limestone — the well-known carboniferous or mountain lime-
stone. At Peel, beds of red sandstone are seen similarly
to rest on the slates, forming a strip about two miles in
length, and perliaps 30(t ft. in thickness. These red beds
at Peel dip north-west towards the sea, and are overlaid
by limestone, which, however, is beneath the water. Both
the conglomerate of Langness and the red sandstones of
Peel were formerly assigned to th(^ period of the Old Red
Sandstone, a formation which Hugh Miller did so much to
render famous ; they have yielded no fossils, and it is

certain that they really form the base of, and belong to,
the Carboniferous Limestone.

The latter rock itself occupies an area of ten or twelve
square miles in the extreme south of the island round
Castletown. It forms a " happy hunting-ground " for
the fossil-seeker, for Gumming oljtained no fewer than
222 species of shells, ic, from Poolvash. Tlie strata lie
in a trough, or synclinal, dipping towards a common axi
(see map). The lowest beds are brownish limestones, with
partings of shale, exposed in two quarries at Castletown,
and altogether about 200 ft. in thickness. These are over-
laid by the light-coloured limestones of Poolvash, while the
hard dark-coloured limestone (called black marble), worked
in a quarry south of Poolvash, forms the highest known
stratum. It is the upper beds which are most fossiliferous,
and they contain a remarkaVilc mi.xture of ferns and
calamites with marine shells, indicating the proximity of
land at the time of their formation. Thin, corrugated
shells of the genus Posidonia characterise these upper
limestones.

Although the carboniferous rocks only occur at two
points in the Isle of Man (Castletown and Peel), yet, if an
elevation of the district were to take ■ place, we should
doubtless find the red sandstone and the limestone com-
pletely encircling the Silurian strata, but at present the
later-formed rocks of Carboniferous age lie under water,
except at the two points just mentioned.

Ljneous Rocks. — The coast-line between Castletown and
Poolvash aflbrds most interesting evidence of volcanic
action during early Carboniferous times. The Stack of
Scarlet is a boss of basalt which tills an ancient pipe or
vent ; a dyke of similar rock runs from it in a north-west
direction, while beds of volcanic ash are interstratified with
the neighbouring limestones.

Glacial Period. — Beds of clay, sand, and gravel, rest
irregularly upon the edges of the Silurian and Carboniferous
rocks which form the solid geology of the Isle of Man. On
the south of Ramsey, a bluish sandy clay, containing
boulders of Scotch granite, is seen resting upon the slates ;
it is overlaid by a bed of sand 10 ft. thick, above which
is a second bed of boulder clay, 6 ft. thick, containing
scratched stones, ifec. A bluish clay full of stones covers
most of the limestone in the south of the island ; when it
is removed, the surface of the rock beneath is frequently
seen to be grooved. All this boulder clay was brought by
a large glacier which, during the glacial period, advanced
from the south of Scotland, ploughing its way down the
Irish Sea, and grinding over the Manx hills — a fact to
which their rounded and mammillated outlines still bear
witness.

This period of intense cold was succeeded by a steady,
though slow, submergence. Down went the island ! Not
a peak remained to tell of its existence, or to aflbrd a refuge
for a vestige of that alpine flora which elsewhere contrived
to linger on, and which still exists on the Welsh and
Cumbrian hills. It is to the lifting action of coast ice, con-
tinued during this depression, that we must look for an
explanation of the fact that numerous blocks of the Fox-
dale granite have been raised more than GOO feet, so that
they now lie on the verj' top of South Barrule — a mountam
only a mile and a half south of the Foxdale boss.

]'ost-(!hicial lieds. — The submergence alluded to above
was succeeded by an elevation so great, that the entire floor
of the Irish Sea appeared above the waters, and the British
Isles formed a peninsula jutting out from the western coast
of Europe. The flat surface of the Curragh formed a part
of this old plain, whose surface was studded with small
lakes and peat bogs ; the threat Irish Elk roamed freely
over the district, and individuals got bogged and lost their

May 11, 1883.

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

279

lives ; their bones are now often found in the marl pits of
the Curragh. Numerous marine shells of species still Jiving
in our seas also occur in the sands and gravels of this
northern tlat portion of the island.

Mr. MoNi uiiK D. CoswAY, in a remarkable paper in the
yeipca.^'lle Weekly Chronicle, points out that, though the
so-called cultured conceal the Tartar in their nature at
home, save in such matters as Sabbatarianism, oaths, and
prosecutions for blasphemy, it comes out when they are
away from home — not the schoolmaster, but the savage is
fieen abroad.

TuE news of the defeat of the Affirmation Bill was re-
ceived with wild rejoicings in Ireland — naturally, for tltere
«ven 'the Invinciblcs religiously preface their villanies with
"So help mo, God " (and valiantly break their oath quite
traverse). Donaghadee and other centres of culture were
illuminated.

Erewiion' Ixtelligen'ce. — "Year 1723 before end of
world, Oct. 3. — It has been the custom in our enlightened
country, all Erewhoners know, to regard as an oflence
punishable by tine or imprisonment, the use of statements
not confirmed by oaths of suitable strength. A measure is
to be brought forward at the next session of our National
House, which seems intended to free Erewhoners of la.x
morality from this religious obligation. ..." Nov. 10.
— " Strong feeling is excited throughout the length and
breadth of Erewhon against the proposed measure. Sir
Average Dullard has addressed his constituents at Bigots-
bury, the far-famed capital of Hypocrisia, roundly abusing
what he characterised as a measure ' for removing the
Creator from conversation.' Lord Borne Sa\age has also
addressed a large gathering of the Erewhoners of Tartar-
shire, denouncing a measure which would not only permit
the cultured to omit from their discourse the ' So help me,
God,' which even the inhabitants of Erewhyna employ
(at least theii- noblest race, the so-called Invincibles of
Ireland do so. we understand), but would deprive our highly-
religious lower classes of the privilege of hearing at every
third sentence, as now, the more familiar ' S'help me ' and
' S'wulp me ' of the vernacular .... Hiatus valde defen-
dus . . . ." "Year 1722 B.E. of W., May 3. The hateful
measure introduced by an Atheistico-Agnostico-Materialis-
tic Government has been defeated by ten votes, amid a
ecene of wild enthusiasm. The followers of Sir Average
threw their particoloured caps into the air, and the cus-
tomary tokens of applause were given in a series of pro-
longed brayings. It is believed that Lord Borne Savage
will soon take his place at the holm of State." " May 4.
Eedaghanod is illuminated by bonfires, and it is believed
that the example will soon be followed by other cities
equally representative of Erewhon culture. Those among
onr people who justly claim (whatever the enemy may say
about shams) to be more earnestly religious than their
fellows may rest liappy — the cause of religion is saved."
. . . . Another hiahts .... "Year 1720, Before End
of World, ilay 20. The measure thrown out in
1723 is now passed, after months of contest. The
short-sighted objections urged against it in 1723 and
1722 are now estimated at their true value. But
Dnalire is mourning, and there is grief throughout Hypo-
crisia ; beadles and vestrymen gnash their teeth (such as
remain), and churchwardens propose to clothe themselves

in sackcloth and ashes." — 1718, B.E.W [Answer

to correspondent] — " It is well known that all well-
disposed and religious persons supported in 1723 the
measure relating to oaths which is now the law of the
land." — Extracts from sundry files of the Ereirhoii Times.

FLYING FOXES IN AUSTRALIA.

ONCE I visited a great " camp " of fruit-eating bats,
"Hying foxes," as they are here called {Pterojms
j)oHoceph(dus).

In a dense piece of bush, consisting principally of young
trees, the trees were hung all over with these bats, looking
like great black fruits.

As we approached, the bats .showed sign.s of uneasiness,
and after the first shot were rather dillicult to approach,
moving on from before us and pitching in a fresh tree
some way ahead.

The bats uttered a curious cackling cry when disturbed.
Tliey were in enormous numbers, and although thousands
had been shot not long before by a large party got together
for the purpose, their numbers were not perceptibly
redu<^cd. They do great liarni to the fruit orchards about
Paramatta, and the fruitgrowers there organise parties to
shoot them. They have the cunning to choose a set of
trees where the undergrowth is exceedingly dense, and
where it is, therefore, difiicult to get at them. I shot seven
or eight, but they are very apt to hang up by their hooked
claws when shot, and 1 lost several. I could find no
Nycteribia living on these bats, although these insects are
usually so common on the various species of Pteropus. —
Prof. Moselij.

The prizes and diplomas awarded to exhibitors at the
Crystal Palace Electrical Exhibitions of 1882 were dis-
tributed on Wednesday week by the Duke of Teck.

The following passages from the excellent and really
judicial summing up of Lord Coleridge, in the Freetldnker
trial, are well worth studying, especially by Mr. Justice
North : — " It is true (if we regard this prosecution as a
piece of persecution) that persecution, unless thorough-
going, seldom succeeds And, therefore, no doubt

the observation is correct, that, as a general rule, persecu-
tion, unless far more extreme than in England in the
nineteenth century is possible, is certain to be in vain. It
is also true, and I cannot help assenting to it, that it is a
very easy form of virtue. It is a more difiicult form of
virtue quietly and unostentatiously to obey what we
believe to be God's will in our own lives. It is not
very easy to do it; and it makes much less noise in
the world. It is very easy to turn upon somebody else
who diflers from us, and in the guise of zeal for God's
honour to attack somebody for a difference of opinion
whose life may be more pleasing to God and more con-
ducive to His honour than our own. And when it is done
by persons whose own lives are not free from reproach, and
who take that particular form of zeal for God which con-
sists in putting the criminal law in force against others,
that, no doubt, does more to create a sympathy with the
defendant than with the prosecutor. And if it should be
done by those who enjoy the wit of Voltaire, and who do
not turn away from the sneers of Gibbon, and rather relish
the irony of Hume, our feelings do not go with the prose-
cutors, and we are rather disposed to sympathise with the
defendant. It is still worse if the person who takes such
a course takes it, not from a kind of notion that God wants
his assistance, and that he can give it — le.-s on his oyvn
account than by pro.secuting others — but it is mixed up
with anything of partisan or political feeling, then nothing
can be more foreign to what is high-minded, or religious,
or noble in men's conduct ; and, indeed, it seems to me
that any one who will do that, not for the honour of God,
I^ut for the purpose of the ban, deserves the most disdainful
disapprobation."

280

♦ KNOWLEDGE *

IMay 11, 1883.

^

THE ARCHER FISH.

THE archer fish ITaxotfs Jacithilor) belongs to a group
or sub-family of the scale-finned fishes (Sijnanii/i'nii/es),
so-called because the " vertical fins are more or less densely
covered with small scales." The principal characteristic of
this fish is the elongated lower jaw. The inhabitants of
Java, its native island, keep tliesc fish in their houses as
pets. They are sometimes twenty centimetres in length.

The colouring of the upper part of the fish is greenish-gray,
the under part silvery ; there are four short wide bands
across the back, dark brown, with a sliade of green.

With few exceptions, all of the scale-finned fishes are
found in the upper stratum of the water and near the
shore ; some of them descend into the ocean, and others
occasionally wander out into the sea, following ships for
their refuse, or chasing other prey. Most of them, espe-
cially the beautifully coloured species, belonging to tliis

May 11, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

281

family, are found, as a rule, in the vicinity of reefs, or
above shallow places, playing in the sunshine. Their
beauty is very much heightened by motion.

Heuglin says that in the Red Sea they are commonly
observed in the deep chasms or well-like depressions
between the coral reefs, -whore the water is always clear
and quiet, although there may be a high sea outside.

When a ship anchors in a dark night between the reefs,
the presence of these fish may be perceived by their phos-
phorescence.

They may be observed, often at a considerable depth,
faintly glowing spots ; suddenly they disperse like scat-
tering sparks, move slowly to and fro, gather together in
groups, and separate again.

Nearly all the fishes of this family are carnivorous,
feeding upon small medusie, coral insects, iVc. These fish,
Heuglin says, play around the coral branches in the same
manner as birds hover around trees upon the land.

In crowds thej' stand still for a few minutes before a
branch of a coral, suddenly dart forward, bite at the coral
insects on the branches, and hasten as if inspired by a spirit
to another place, to go through the same play, and begin
again the same chase.

As soon as the archer fish sees a fly or any other insect
sitting upon a plant hanging over the water, it approaches
to within about one or one and a half metres (4 or 5 feet),
and spurts from its mouth a drop of water, so violently and
with such accuracy that it seldom misses its prey.

It has this habit even in captivity, and the Japanese
make a household pet of it They keep the fish in water
basins, and place in the middle of the vessel a stick, some-
times reaching out over the water sixty centimetres (2 feet).
In the stick wooden pins are fixed, and insects are fastened
upon them. Soon after this is done, the fish swims around
the stick, comes up to the surface of the water, raises its
eyes toward the surprised insect, suddenly spurts a drop of
water upon it, throws it down, and swallows it if its shot is
successful ; if not, it swims around the stick and tries
again. The certainty with which they throw this jet of
water upon their victims is wonderful.

In order to observe this, Hommel thrust a needle through
a fly and fastened it to the stick. Without intermission,
rapidly, and in regular order, all of his fish attempted to
throw the fly down, without once missing their aim as they
shot the drops of water upon it.

Insects appear to be the most natural food for this species,
and seem to be preferred to every other kind of food. —
From Thierlebtn, by A. E. BreJim.

keeping the tube cool while the electric light is burning ;
also for the introduction of water into the stomach to
distend the same. The lower e.\tremity of the tube is
provided with a platinum wire, which is made to glow
under the electric current, which is produced Viy a battery.
The tube is also provided with reflector prisms and lenses
for directing the light through the tube.

The eye of the surgeon is applied at the upper end of
the tube, after it has been inserted in the stomach in the
manner indicated in our sketch.

As preparation for the use of the gastroscope, it is
necessary that the patient shall have gone for some hours

THE ELECTRIC LIGHT IX SURGICAL
DTAGNOSIS.

WE find in a recent number of Annals of Anulonnj
and Surgeri/ a very interesting contribution by Dr.
Roswell Park, of Chicago, in which h(' describes the most
recent applications of the electric light for surgical pur-
poses. It appears that Josef Leiter, a well-known instru-
ment maker of Vienna, has at last succeeded in producing
electrical instruments by which the interior portions of the
human body may be strongly illuminated by the electric
light, and thoroughly e.\amined by the eye of the surgeon.

The accompanying engraving shows the application of
one form of these new instruments, called the gastroscope, an
instrument for the examination of the stomach. It con- i
sists of a bent tube, which contains a window at one end,
electric wires, tubes for the introduction of a water cir- ;
culation, by means of rubber bags, for the purpose of

without eating. Half-an-hour previous to its use a hypo-
dermic dose of morphia, say one third grain, should be
administered. Just prior to the examination the stomach
should be washed out. The patient is then laid upon the
left side on a table, having a head siipport, which shall
keep the neck in its axial position. A small receptacle is
placed under the mouth to catch the saliva which cannot
be swallowed. The head is then thrown well back, and
the instrument, which has previously been lubricated with
vaseline or glycerine, is guided by the finger of the left
hand, and passed downward with a gentle sweep.

Previous practice on the cadaver with a hard rubber
sound of the same dimensions and flexure as the gastro-
scope will easily teach the necessary manipulations. The
instrument being in place, the stomach is inflated to the

282

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May 11, 1883.

cli^sirpfl extent, but not sufficient to distress the patient.
1'Iic pointer on the rheostat Vieing turned slowly, the metal
lilind is drawn (at J.), and the ohserver has the field
liefore liini.

By tlie curve in tlie tube not only is the introduction of
the instrument facilitated — it having been found impossible
to pass a perfectly straight tube so far as is necessary for
this purpose — but it will be seen that, witli partial rotation
of the tube about the long axis of the straight portion, the
extremity carrying the window and the light makes quite
an excursion, and permits the view of a much more
extensive surface than would be possible were no such
excursion made.

^Moreover, as it is provided with an optical system, it
obtains, tliat as the instrument is rotated toward a given
point of the mucous membrane its image is enlarged ; while
as it is further removed the image is diminished, while the
field is enlarged. At a distance of two centimetres the
image is of natural size. The " definition " of this system
is excellent, and granted a tolerance of the instrument on
the patient's part, and the requisite skill on that of the
observer, a very satisfactory examination can be made.

A variety of other instruments are made, which are
operated suljstantially in the same general maimer as the
one described. For example, we have the laryngoscope,
for examination of all parts of the throat ; the cesophago-
scope, for the gullet ; the otoscope, for the ears ; the
urethroscope, for the bladder ; the cystoscope, ifec. The
invention of instruments marks another step in electrical
progress. They promise to be of utility and importance to
the medical profession, for by their use many parts of the
human system heretofore hidden from the eye may now l)e
brilliantly lighted and examined, and their condition in
disease and health ascertained. — Scientific American.

THE FACE OF THE SKY.

Fkom May 11 to M.iY 25.

By F.R.A.S.

TILE student will, as usual, watch the Sun daily for spots and
faculaj. Map V. of " The Stars in their Seasons " will show
the aspect of the night sky durinj^ our specified period. Prom
May 22 to July 30 thei'e will be no real night in England ; twilight
existing from sunset to suni-ise. Mercury is still visible after
sunset, towards the W.N.W. part of the horizon. On the 22nd, 23rd,
and 2-lth he will bo below /3 Tauri. For the purpose of those for
whom these notes are intended, the rest of the planets, save
Uranus, are now visible. Uranus himself is sensibly stationary
above r Lconis. He must bo looked for directly it is dark enough.

There will be two occultations of stars by the moon on the night
of the 17th. The first is that of x A^irginis, of the 5th magnitude,
which will disapjiear at the moon's dark limb at 9 h. 27 m. at an
angle of 79° from her vertex, reappearing at her bright limb at a
vertical angle of 258" at 10 h. 48 m. The second is an occultation
of I! A C 4259, a Cth magnitude star, which will disappear at the
dark limb at 9h. 34m. at an angle from the moon's vertex of 76°,
to reappear at her bright limb at an angle of 263° from her vertex
at lull. 56 m. The moon's ago at noon to-day (the 11th) is 46 days;
and on the 25th it will obvionsly bo 1826 days. Hence it will be
seen that up to about the 20th she will be in the most favourable
phase for the observer. During the next twenty-four hours she
will travel from (Jemini into Cancer, where she will remain
during the 12th. Sho will leave Cancer and enter Leo on tho
13th. She will bo crossing Sextans during a good deal of the 14th,
bnt will return into Iico before noon on tho 15th, and remain in
that constellation during tho whole of the succeeding twenty-four
hours. During tho afternoon of the 16th she will travel into
Virgo, where sho will remain during the during tho 17th, 18th, and
part of the 19th, passing into Libra during the early morning of
tho 20th, and continuing there for tho succeeding four-and-twenty
hours. She moves into Scorpio about one a.m. on the 22nd. In
tho early afternoon of that day her path carries her into Ophiu-
chus, where we still find her up to seven a.m. on tho 23rd. Then
she |in.sses into Sagittarius, where sho remains during tho 24th and
25tli, and where wo leave her.

ilcbich)£(.

SNAKE POISONS.*
i MONG the mysteries which science presents to us for
1\. investigation, there are few stranger or more alluring
than those associated with snakes of the poisonous varieties.
To begin with, the very e.xistence of this singular provision
— the power of poisoning — is a mystery of the strangest
kind, at least to those who adopt the view of special
creation for each class of animate existence. Why should
certain creatures be provided with a power of killing other
animals than those which are their natural prey ? The
Daboia and the Cobra, the Rattlesnake of America and
the Blacksnake of Australia, do not require for their food
such animals as dogs, and pigs, and monkeys, still less
can they prey on man. Yet are they provided with
the means of killing these animals, and that not in
self-defence, for so far is the power of poisoning from pro-
tecting these animals that it serves as the most effective
means of bringing upon them the destructive powers of
man, the most potent of their enemies. To the believer in
evolution, indeed, it is tolerably clear how this poisonous
attribute was obtained. He can see, for instance, that
without it the cobra could hardly secure its natural prey
— creatures so lively, that, if merely caught and swallowed,
their activity and tenacity of life would cause them to be
most uncomfortable occupants of their capturer's stomach ;
whereas the paralysing venom speedily reduces them to a
motionless state, " and places them," as Dr. Wall puts it,
" at the mercy of the gastric arrangements of their enemy."
The daboia, again, is in its movable poison fangs provided
with " an elaborate hunting weapon," as truly such as
the sportsman's gun. There is also, as Dr. Wall says,
" a refinement about the physiological contrivance that
can either kill at once by convulsions, or after an interi^al
by paralysis, or at a still more remote period by blood-
poisoning " (this relates specially to viperine poisoning),
" to which the mechanical appliance " — the gun — -" fails
utterly to attain."

Dr. Wall's book gives a most interesting and detailed
account of snake poisoning, indicating the phenomena
which characterise the progress of colubrine and viperine
poisoning. It will astonish many to learn that the deadly
rattlesnake of America — a viper — is far less deadly than
the colubrine snakes. The average period before death in
four fatal cases of Crotalus poisoning in dogs was 2 hrs.
2G min. ; and no fewer than five dogs recovered completely
after being bitten : whereas with the Indian Cobra, " the
average length of the period of fatal poisoning was 34-4
minutes," and with the Australian Hoplocephalus (a
coluber) it was 1 hr. 24 min. ; so that the rattlesnake
is much less dangerous than either the Cobra or the
Hoplocephalus.

As to remedial measures, it is rather disheartening to
find that " the more frequent is the administration of anti-
dotes, the shorter is the duration of life after it." In
colubrine poisoning the patient should have nothing given
him to swallow, after salivation and paralysis of the tongue
and throat have shown themselves, as he is quite incapable
of taking anything into the stomach, and the substance will
very likely be forced into the windpipe. " I have even
found, after death," says Dr. Wall, " remedies in the air-
tubes of the lungs, which had been forced there by
anxious friends, a circumstance which would have rendered
recovery impossible."

* '* Indian Snake Poisons, their Nature and Effects." Bv A. J.
Wall, M.D. Lond., ll.R.C.S., &c. (W. H. Allen & Co., London,
1883.)

May 11. 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

283

Little encouragement is given to tlio hope entertained by
many, that certain substances — such as (lotassiuni per-
manganate— wliich deprive snake-poison of its powers,
may save life when injected after an animal has been
poisoned in the natural way. If cobra poison is injected,
and presently along the same cannula one of these dis-
infectants is injected, the action of the poison may be
checked ; but even that is not certain ; and in ordinary
snake-poisoning no effect whatever is produced. The reason
is tolerably clear. "It is quite true," says Dr. Wall, "that
potassium permanganate destroys the active agent of
cobra-venom by oxidising it ; but when introduced into
the blood it, of course, commences o.xidising indifferently
all the organic matters witli which it comes in contact, but
it has no power of selecting one organic substance for
oxidation rather than another. The oxidising power of
the permanganate is, therefore, exerted on the constituents
of the blood generally, instead of being reserved for the
cobra-poison in it alone." That this is so, is shown by the
fact that, if cobra-poison is dissolved in an organic solu-
tion, and the periiiangaiiate is added, the poison suffers
little, if any, diminution of strength, for the oxidation has
taken place, in that case, chieffy at the expense of the
other organic matter.

The lirst point to be attended to in a case of snake-bite
is to prevent at once, if possible, the absorption of the
poison, by withdrawing the bitten part from the circu-
lation. "There is only one way of doing this elTec-
tually," says our author ; " at once let a thick india-
rubber band — sucli as is used in Esmarch's bandage for
bloodless operations — be firmly bound on the limb above
the part bitten. No circulation, and therefore no absorp-
tion, can go on after this, and time can be taken to
consider what further proceedings are necessary. An ordi-
nary cord, or string, or bandage, is nearly useless compared
with the india rublier band. I have known fatal absorp-
tion take place when a string has been applied so tightly
as actually to cut the flesh, and apparently strangulate the
limb completely, causing acute suffering, evidently from
the cord not accommodating itself accurately to the form
of the member, and thus leaving a small channel for circu-
lation. The india-rubber band is nearly painless, and,
properly applied, is an absolute safeguard against further
absorption."

After this, so soon as it has been ascertained that
poison has really been injected, care must be taken " to
remove by careful dissection out with a knife every part
likely to contain the poison." Then, and then only, the
india-rubber band may be removed, the part having first
been freely washed with a solution of caustic potash or
potassic permanganate.

Dr. Wall's book is full of highly interesting particulars ;
it is a most valuable contribution to science, and also to
the literature of snake-poisoning.

Killed by Stays. — It seems as though, aitn all, some
men even are unwise enough to try waist-squeezing of
mischievous severity. In the Yorkshire GazrMe of the .5th
inst. there is an account of an inquest on a young man,
one F. W. Calvert, aged 23, only son of his mother, who
died owing to the sudden failure of the heart's action. " It
transpired that the deceased had been in the habit of wear-
ing stays, and had them on on the day of his death."
The post-mortem examination showed that the heart was
diseased and enlarged, " its cavities being all empty."

Lic.iiTiN-G THE Suez Canal by Gas. — After a trial of
some months, says the Engiwer, the Suez Canal Company
has finally decided upon an extensive application of

Pintsch's system of lighting harbours and rivers by means
of gas-containing buoys and fixed lights, given by com-
pressed oil gas. The Pintsch Patent Lighting Company
has received instructions to erect a gasworks for the
purpose at Port Said, and eight spherical buoys 9 ft. in
diameter, and to burn for two months without re-filling,
are at once to be sent out for lighting the canal approaches.
Three fixed lights to burn two months are also to be
erected, and three large holders for storing the gas are to
be erected on suitable sites. The system will probably be
used throughout the canal. The same system is also to be
adopted at Port Philip, Victoria.

At the International Fisheries Exhibition, which will
be opened to-morrow, Jlessrs. Siemens Brothers are getting
on with the preparations for lighting the southern arcade
by means of 1,000 Swan lamps.

The re-opening of the Parkes Museum of Hygiene by
the Duke of Albany takes place on Saturday, May 2 6, in
new premises, 74a, Margaret-street, W.

SiN'CE the 23rd instant, the current at the Edison Cen-
tral Station, Ilolborn Viaduct, has been on the mains
throughout the twenty-four hours, and will continue to be
so in future.

On Sunday week a cyclone passed over Beauregard and
Wesson, Blississippi. In Wesson, 200 dwellings, mostly
inhabited by factory operatives, were wrecked, 12 persons
were killed, 75 were injured, and three children are missing.
Beauregard was entirely destroyed ; not one building
remains standing; 23 persons were killed outright, 17 were
mortally wounded, and 00 more seriously hurt. Tillman
was also destroyed, and West Point much damaged, several
persons being killed and injured. Medical assistance was
sent from the neighbouring towns.

The work of altering French lighthouses for the adop-
tion of the electric light has been begun with those which
guide into the principal ports, and those which give
warning of the most dangerous rocks.

A TENDER, which will be a landmark in the history of
electric lighting, has been made by the Telegraph Con-
struction and Maintenance Company, to carry out an in-
stallation in Nottingham of 60,000 Swan lamps of
20-candle power. Five dynamos are proposed to be fitted,
each weighing 4.") tons, and each capable of maintaining
1.1,000 lamps. The total power employed or available will
be 6,360 indicated horse-power. The cost of the installa-
tion will be £220,000, and the annual cost for maintaining
the system is estimated at .£42,608. Compared with gas
at 2s. 6d. per 1,000 feet consumed at 60,000 burners, each
giving a light of 12 to 14-candIe power, a saving of
X93,750 per annum will be efliected, or sufficient to pay a
dividend of 23y\- per cent. The stability of the Mainten-
ance Company is sufficient to warrant us in believing that
the above estimate is calculated on fair bases.

The metrical system is made compulsory in Havanna
from July next.

At Cobham Hall, near Rochester, workmen, a few days
ago, came upon a large earthenware jar, which was found
to contain between 800 and 900 Roman coins in bronze,
mostly of the fourth century, or about 100 years before the
Romans left Britain, and are chiefly of the reigns of the
Emperors Constantine, Constans, and Constantius. The
spot where the coins were discovered was near the old
Roman Watling-street, which ran through Cobham Wood
towards London and the interior of the island.

EiiRATL'51.— In the article on the Crystal Palace Exhibition, page
264, tirst col., eleventh line from bottom, for " Bower-Griscom,"
read " Bower-Grimaton."

284

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May 11, 1883.

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Tex.vtson.

arttrrs to t\)t (G'Hitov,

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly le in-
serted. Correi^ondents must not be offended, therefore, should their
letters vot appear.

All Editorial communications should he addressed to the Editor op
K.NOWLEDGE ; all Business communications to the Publishers, at the
Office, 7-t; Great Qtieen-street, Tr.C If this is not attended to,

DELAYS arise FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RE.SPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders shvidd be made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMMUNICATIONS ARE ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOUGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

SPELLING REFOPvJI.

[813] — Although the problem of spelling reform does not seem
to have found expression in the pages of your journal, I feel that
the question cannot have escaped your notice. The subject has
created attention, as may be seen from the fact of the existence of
the SpellingReform Association, with offices in John-street, Adelphi.
Its list of patrons includes all the leading philologists, and many
literary and scientific men of eminence. The names of Max Sliiller,
Sayce, Ellis, Murray, Latham, Skeat, Morris, Sweet, in England ;
and March, Whitney, Lomsbury, in America, prove that the ques-
tion has not been overlooked.

Max Miiller says : — " Can this unsystematic system of spelling
English be allowed to go on for ever ? Is every English child, as
compared with other children, to be mulcted in two or three years
of his life, in order to learn it ? Are the lower classes to go through
school without learning to read and write their own language in-
telligently ? And is the country to pay millions every year for
this utter failure of national education ?"

I refrain from entering now into any arguments for or against,
bnt hope to receive, as a subscriber to j'our journal, a short ex-
pression of opinion from yourself or your readers.

A. Murray Cobeold.

MY PARADOXES.
[By a Laputian of Ten.]

[814] — Will you afEord me a little space to briefly, and, I hope,
clearly, state ray theories, which I call the Entelechian r* I promise
not to attack (for I utterly disdain) any theories to the contrary,
and I assert that mine are not alone new, but that they are also
old, and that they will outlive all ordeals.

In the first place, I believe that I live, move, and have my being
'in a flat, circular Laputa, bounded edgewise by inaccessible ice, and
radiated by very powerful magnetic currents converging at the
centre of the circle, which centre has been hitherto called the North
Pole. I believe that those mighty currents, so uniting, ascend
straight from the Pole or Centre in an almighty pillar to the North
Star ; and by this magnificent column I believe that my Laputa is
suspended and upheld.

Although I believe in a North Pole, I deny and denounce a South
Pole.

I further believe that the Sun, like some gigantic warming-pan
or celestial cook's " salamander," is perpetually being passed about
over the flat surface of my Laputa (at a height of about 900 miles),
in orbits alternately semicircular and spiral, for the first six months
of the year approaching the dread Magnetic Pillar (by attraction),
and for the other six months receding from it (by repulsion) like a
frenzied comet. I also believe that several minor utensils, such as
the Jtoon, Jupiter, Venus, Meteors, and the rest, go cricketing
about above us in similar (but different) ways. Again, 1 am con-
vinced that the whole twinkling host of heaven is ever twiddling
round and round us, balanced on the pivot of the North Star.
I must admit (for I am nothing if not candid), that we have not

• Please turn to " Rabelais," Book 5, chapters 19 and 22. [Note
by Professor Naggdrib, of Lagado.]

yet discovered the thickness of this onr Laputa, though I hope
every day to hear that one or other of the over-worked coal-mines
has got through. I also believe that there is bnt one " Parallai,"
and that Gulliver was his prophet.

But I have reserved the most stupendous of my discoveries for
the end. I do not desire to speak disrespectfully of our Great
Magnetic Column of Suspension, but it is well known to be subject
to considerable perturbations, especially since the date of these
dangerous electric telegraphs and all that has followed in their
wake. /, however, am devoid of apprehension, for I knoxv that, in
view of possible accidents, this Great Laputa, wliich I believe to be
The World, is firmly placed upon the boweil shoulders of Atlas, who,
with arms a-kimbo, proudly sets his feet firmly upon the red houdah
of the Great White Elephant, who, in turn, serenely waggles liis
trunk and plants his four monstrous limbs upon the back of the
Eternal and Infinite Turtle, whose fins are firmly rooted in inferno.
So it's all right. And you are all wrong, and I do no( believe in
steamers or voyages. Sonowthen I— I remain, sir, yours para-
doxically, A Laputun.

The Academy, Lagado.

P..S., by Professor Naggdrib. Your March Part did not reach
Lagado until yesterday. Our Postmaster's flapper-bearer having
suddenly died, the service has been, and still is, disorganised. We
trust you may receive this.

LETTERS RECEIVED AND BRIEF ANSWERS.

ExcELsioK. Sorry for the mistake ; but correction would now
serve no useful purpose. Had ?iO " earthly reason " for correcting
it, except that when the proof reached me I could not tell what
were the dates referred to by the words Saturday and Sunday,
which appeared without either "last" or "following." It was
necessary to insert one of these (at the time when letter appeared),
and I put the one which seemed the more probable. — E. H. B. S. I
said that London newspapers give very limited attention to lectures.
You point out that twenty lines in relation to one of my lectures
appeared in the Daily Telegraph, and abont as much in Lloyd's
Weelhj Paper, besides, probably, other notices which you did not
see, whereas scarcely any notices of lectures have appeared in
Knowledge. But in the first place. Knowledge is not a newspaper,
and has scarcely any space for lecture reports (you find as few in
the Academy, Athenctum, Mature, and so forth) ; in the second
place, the lectuers you mention are given for societies which need
no notice, because they have been long established, are supported
by hundreds of subscribers, &c. (the notices in the Illustrated
London Neivs are supplied by the lecturers themselves) ; thii-dly
and lastly, the sum of £120 was expended in advertising my
course of lectures in the papers I referred to, besides some
fifty course-tickets — sofa stalls — corresponding in value to
£5-. 10s. at the advertised price. Now, when theatrical
and musical matters are advertised in the newspapers, and
free admissions given to the press, it is expected that a reason-
able amount of notice will be given in colunms not devoted to paid
advertisements. This is done ; and my contention was that what is
done for theatrical, musical, and artistic entertainments should, in
common fairness and courtesy, be done for scientific lectures, given
at greater risk of loss. When a similar claim can as justly be
made on Knowledge, it will not bo found that the cl.aim is over-
looked.— H. L. The lectures have never been committed to paper.
—A. H. S. Shortly.— L. Y. 1.— J. R. Sutton.-T. A. (1.) Prof.
Tyndall could not very well tell what neither he nor anyone
knows, or explain what neither he nor anyone understands.
(2.) There is no risk of collision with live suns ; why should dead
suns be feared ? (3.) Th.at the sun's surface we see is not that of
a molten mass may be true enough ; yet the sun's real globe may
be a molten mass. So the real globes of Jupiter and Saturn may
be (and I think are) molten masses. But I do not know. I doubt
very much whether the earth and moon ever were as Dr. Ball sug-
gested. But again I don't know. In these columns, at any rate,
neither Mr. Always-Right nor Mr. Never- Wrong shall appear, —
to pain the soul of Mr. Wilkie Collins. — K. M. Will cer-
tainly find space. — Sajiuel. Querj* column closed months since. —
Etonia.v. It is very difficult to guess precisely what Carlyle believed
in such matters. In his " Sartor Resartus" there is a passage im-
plying that he would regard miracles as belonging simply to a higher
order of natural events than the order with which we are familiar.
I doubt if he, or any one whose opinion was or is worth aught,
accepted the particular matter to which you refer as other than a
myth — doubtless, a solar one ; at any rate, it is common to all solar
myths, without any exception whatever. — E. Y., Lieut., F.R.A.S.,
Willing, M. Small. Letters shall appear as soon as space avail-
able.— Justitia Omnibus. Joke worn out. — Beccabunga. Perhaps
you can explain (what I must admit beats me) how the light which

May 11, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

285

is now — yoa say — absorbed by the moon's atmosphere can become
■' n great acquisition to this world of ours." — A Little Giki.. Yes ;
very likely a silly person like your Kezia (a sweet name) would fancy
that, because a small waist is nice, a pinched waist must be nicer, just
as those perfectly ridiculous people wlio draw the fashion books evi-
dently think hands and feet should be smaller than ever nature made
them. So Bnrne Jones, because the groat painters show where muscles
are, pats two-inch cables for some muscles in his pictures, aid
bell-pnlls for others. As you got older you will find |such follies
cropping up everywhere. — W. S . . . . .n. Your son was well known
to me by reputation, though I never had the pleasure of meeting
him. His lectures were Avidely and favourably* remembered in
Australia and Xew^ Zealand. If you would draw up a list of the
instruments, I would insert it among letters or pars, hoping
some might see it who would want instruments so valuable.
— W. Lawton wishes to learn Professor Palmieri's process
for silvering glass. — J. Thorbirn', II.D., R.L.L., and
many others. Know absolutely nothing personally about the
system of mnemonics to which you refer. — DorBTFfL. Either
Mr. Christie, Astronomer Royal, or Mr. J. Brett, landscape painter,
could tell yon, I fancy, — perhaps both. — A. J. S. Sui-ely I
could not be offended. Such letters are not of the kind referred to
by mo. But your information is incomplete, and I cannot but
think you are mistaken. If by the " person referred to " you mean
the person " mentioned," his conduct has not been characterised in
words having the bearing you indicate ; if, on the other hand, you
mean simply the (unidentified) person referred to, should hp come
forward, it -will be he, not I, who is concerned. I knew perfectly
well what you mention about " truth," but neither in one event nor
in the other is that point involved. I think I should be rather
interested to see your opinion tested ; and I believe you would find
it would turn out to be altogether erroneous. But what you say I
" shall, of course, tliink about " you, I, of course, do not think, I
recognise the sincerest kindness in your advice ; but frankly, if I
yet the chance, I shall follow the line I have indicated — simply
because I think that to be my duty. Joii.n Gbeexfield. Yes ; three
grumblers, counting Master John Greenfield. You ought not to be
annoyed that your wild theories cannot appear here ; schoolboys
are not expected to understand such matters. In a few years you
irill known that Bourbon whisky is not Scotch. What do you say
to waiting till then before vou write again ?

dBm Ct) (fits Column.

Bt Mephisto.

LONDON TXTERyATIOXAL CHESS TOURNAMENT.
We publish a score table, from which our readers will be able to
follow the course of events. Zukertort, who had won his first two
games, further distinguished himself by winning all his games last
week against his four opponents. His game with JIason, played on
Monday, was very hard fought, and, in some of its passages, very
brilliantly played. But his game with Blackbnrne, which we pub-
lish below, will take rank as one of the most brilliant productions
of Chess skill. On Tuesday, the 8th inst., the principal event of
the first round came on for decision. Zukertort had to jilay
Steinitz. The latter followed up his defeat of the first week by
playing the same opening against Tscbigorin on April 30, with the
result that he was again defeated. Since then, Steinitz has aban-
doned the Steinitz Gambit, and fortune has once more declared
itself in his favour. He defeated Mason, Mackenzie, Mortimer, and
Skipworth, and, on meeting tlio then favourite, Zukertort, his score
stood 5 to Zukertort's 7. Zukertort got the best in the opening,
and won an exchange; but, owing to a strange oversight, his game
suddenly collapsed. The game ran as follows :— White, Zukertort ;
Black, Steinitz. 1. V to Kl. P to K4. 2. Kt to KB3, Kt to QB.
3. Kt to B3, P to KKt3. 4. P to Ql,. P takes P. o. Kt takes P,
B to Kt2. 0. B to K3, Kt to B3 '. 7. B to K2, Castles. 8. Castles,
R to K sq. 9. Q to Q3, Q to K2. 10. Kt(Q4) to Kt.'j, P to Q3.
II. B to Kt5, Kt to K4. 12. Q to Q2, B to K.3. 13. Q to Bl, KK
to QB sq. 14. Q to R4, P to B3. 15. P to B4, Kt(K4) to Q2.
16. Kt to Q4, P to KE3. 17. Kt takes B, Q takes Kt. 18. B takes
P, B takes B. 19. Q takes B, Kt takes P. 20. B to Kt4, Q takes
B. 21. Kt takes Kt, Q to B4. 22. R to K sq, R to K sq. 23.
R to K3 : K takes Kt. 24. R to R3 ! Q to B3. 25. Q to R7(ch),
K to B sq. 20. Q to R8(ch), K to K2. 27. Q takes R, Q to Q.")
(ch). 28. K to H sq, R takes P. 29. R, to K 8q(ch), R to K5.
30. E takes R(ch) (a miscalculation), Q takes R. 31. Q takes RP,
P to Kt3, and White resigned, as he cannot prevent the mate bv
Q to K8.

SCORE UP TO TUESDAY NIGHT.

Bird -

Blackburne |

English 0

Mackenzie 0

Mason 1

Mortimer 0

Noa I

Rosenthal |

Sellman

Skipworth I

Steinitz

Tcshigorin 1

Winawer 0

Zukertort

1

1

0

1

1

0

0

1

—

0

0

i

0

0

0

0

0

1

1

0

1

1

1

- \ d
CC S t^ ^

1 ,0
0 0
0

— 1

0 I—

1

5 :4

5 4
3 {4
3

4t
0

u

0 2
0 3
0 1
0 3
7
4
0 1
1

0 1

4

— 1

A Me.morablk G.t.ME Playeo IX THE First Round on" M.w 5.

ENGLISH OPENING.

White.
Zukorlurl.

1. P to QB4

2. P to K3

3. Kt to KB3

4. B to K2

5. Castles
G. P to Q4

7. Kt to B3

8. P to QKt3

9. B to Kt2

10. Kt to QKt5

11. Kt takes B

12. Kt to Q2

13. P to B3

Black.
Blaokbumi^.
P to K3
Kt to KB3
P to QKt3
B to Kt2
P to Q4
B to Q3(a)
Castles
QKt to Q2{6)
QtoK3
Kt to K5
P takes Kt
QKttoBS
Kt take Kt

While. Black.

Zukutort. Blackburne.

14. Q takes Kt P takes P

15. B takes P P to Q4
10. B to Q3 KR to B sq

17. QB to K sq(c) R to B2

18. P to Kl QRtoQBsq(lhour)

19. PtoK5(lhour)Kt to K sq

20. P to B4 P to Kt3

21. Rto K3 P to B4(d)

22. P takes Pen pasKt takes P (e)

23. P to B5 Kt to K5

24. B takes Kt P takes B

25. P takes KtP R to B7

BL.iCKBlRNE.
BljICE.

^g^ .^.

-^--■

,1

J.

Whitb.
Zukertort.

2fi. P takes P(cli) K to R sq
27. P to Q5(ch) P to K4

30. Q takes P(ch) K to Kt2
_.. . v„ -,«^^.., . .- ... 31. B takes P(ch) K takes R

28. Q to Kt4 ( ;") R(B sq) to B4 '. 32. B to Kt7(ch) K to Ktsq(/0

29. Rto B8(ch)(<7) K takes P ' 33. Q takes Q Resigns

NOTES.

(a) B to K2 is preferable.

(h) We prefer to post the QKt on B3 in conjunction with the
previous moves of B to K2 and P to QB4.

(r) Preparing for an advance in the centre, he has nothing to
fear from the Rooks on QB file.

(f?) Seriously compromising his game. He ought to have played
Kt to Kt2.

(c) Again Q takes P would have been preferable.

(/) One of the finest combinations that have been made over the
board, if Q takes Q White mates in 7 moves by B takes P(ch), K

280

* KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May 11, 1883.

tnkcs P. R to R3(ch), K to K(3. R to BC(ch), K to Kt-1 or (")
K to Kl.'l(ch), K (<) Hi. II to H.-,((h), K to R3. « to 131(cli), Kto
R2. R tfi Kt mate («) if K to Kt:i. K to Kt3(fh), K to Ra. R to
B7(ch), K to R3. B to Bl(ch), K to Rl. R to R7 (mate).

(</) Mere praise would bo like paintinp tlio lily. If Q takes E,
then follows B takes I'(cli) and Q takes l'(eli) with a sp3edy mate.

(Ii) H Q takes B, tj to K8 (mate).

PLAYED IN THE FIRST ROUND OF THE INTERNATIONAL
TOURNAMENT, MAY 3, 18S3.— KING'S GAMBIT.

White.

Block.

■White.

Block.

Tschtfiorin.

SellmuD.

TschiKonn.

Sellman.

1.

P to K4

P to Kl

12.

q takes B

P takes P

2.

P to KB4.

P takes P

13.

R takes P

Q to K2

3.

Kc to KB3

P to KKt 1-

11.

Q to Bl

P to Q3

i.

B to Bt

B to Kt2

15.

R to KB sq(c) Kt to Q sq

0.

P to Q4

P to Kto (a)

IG.

R to R5

V to Kt4(rf)

6.

l\t to Kt sq

Q to R5(ch)

17.

B to Kt3

Kt to K3

7.

K to B sq

Kt to QB3

18.

Q to K3

P to R3

8.

P toB3

B to R3

19.

B toQ5

R to Kt sq

9.

Kt to QR3

P to yR3

20.

Kt to B2

Kt to Kt4

10.

P to KKt3(i)

P takes P

21.

Kt to Kt-1

Kt to B3

11.

K to Kt2

B takes B

22.

Q takes Kt

(0

And Wl

lite

won.

Duration 3 ho

urs 40 minutes.

NOTES.

(a) After 4. B to Kt2 the advance of the Pawns weakens Black's
game.

(h) Bold and attacking.

(c) White gets a fine attacking position.

((f) Weak; Black ought to play Kt to K3 at once.

(f) The culminating point of the game, and a most admirable
stroke, for if 22. P takes Q. 23. R takes R(ch), K to Q2. 24.
B to B6(ch), K to K3. 25. P to Q5(ch), K to K4. 26. Kt to Q3
(ch), K takes P. 27. R to K sq(ch) winning the Queen and
remaining with a Rook ahead.

PLAYED IN THE FIRST ROUND ON MAY 5.
KING'S BISHOP'S GAMBIT.

■White.
Mortimer.

1. P to K4

2. P to KB4

3. B to B4

4. K to B sq

5. Q to B3(/))
0. P to KKt3
7. Q takes P
S. B to Kt3
9. P to Q3

Black.

Bird.
P to K4
P takes P
QtoR5(ch)(a)
P to Q3
Kt to QB3
QtoB3
Kt to Q5
B to K3
P to KR4

■«Tiile.
Mortimer.

11. Q takes Q

12. K to Kt2

13. BP takes B

14. R to Kt sq

15. K to B sq

Black.

Bird.
Kt takes Q
B takes B
Kt to B7((J)
KttoQ8(ch)(e)
P takes P

10. Kt to QB3(c) P to R5

16. P takes P(/) R takes R

17. B to Kt5 RtakesKt(ch)
IS. K takes K Kt to BG(ch)

Resigns.

Duration 40 minutes.

NOTES.

(a) P to Q4 is preferable.

(b) Leading to MacDonnell's attack.

(c) P to KR4 was requisite,
((i) White pays a lieavy penalty for his mistake in allow:

more.

(c) A very fine combination.

(.0 The position is highly remarkable ; Black threatens P to Kt7
and P takes R Queen.

■ this

Kirkcaldy Naturalists' Society. — The first conversazione of
this society was opened on Friday evening, April 27, by Professor
Stuart Blackic, in a suitable address, in which the wcll-kno^m
Professor admonished his hearers to study the works of the
Almighty in every development of Nature, not to fill their brains
from musty old books when every little flowor had a far nobler
lesson to teach. Mr. James Shcjihcrd, nf Rosind Castle, Burnt-
island, vice-president of tlie society, then read a paper on the
" Beginnings of Life." Commencing with the well-known aphorism
of Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood^
"Omne animal ex ovo " — Mr. Shepherd went on to tell his hearers
that, " besides the eggs laid in tliis country, over 500,000,000 were
annually imported, and that, although so many eggs are daily con-
eumod, few take the trouble to even think of the real nature of this

pretty, oval, white, dainty-looking thing, which is onr ''
wonderful, most marvellous objects in creation, repr
beginning and the origin of every living individual in I

world, there being a perfect sameness in the origin of overyihiug
that lives, and breathes, and grows, plants as well as animals,
amongst which latter is man, both sjiringing from a simi>le cell."
After explaining the differences between the eggs of birds, fishes,
and reptiles, Mr. Shepherd concluded thus : — " There is nothing
more worthy the attention of naturalists than eggs, but at the
same time there is nothing more difficult. The great delicacy of the
phenomena which present themselves, and the great complexity of
the conclusions to be drawn from them, and above all the
veil which men have for so long seemed disposed to throw over
the origin of the living animal had (until the microscope pierced
the hidden dejiths), surrounded the subject with innumerable
obstacles. But we may rest assured that whatever is, is a fit
subject for man's researches, nothing should be declared a mystery
or be kept hidden from human eyes, until human intellect has, after
repeated efforts, been bafBed in the attempt to solve it. It is time
enough to warn us away from the inner sanctuary of the temple of
science, or to cry, ' Thus far shalt thou go, but no further,' when
our inquiries have ceased to be in the cause of truth." Other
addresses with experiments were delivered by Mr. Allan Mathewson,
of Dundee, on Flint Implements, and "Rubbings" of Ancient
Sculptured Stones of Scotland, of which many specimens were
exhibited; by M.J.J. Mann, of the National Electric Company,
Glasgow, on the Production of the Electric Light ; and by Mr.
Ernest Shepherd, on Frictional and Voltaic Electricity. The rooms,
which were opened on Saturday afternoon and evening, were visited
by numbers of the artisan class, who seemed deeply interested with
the scientific and mechanical exhibits. Mr. Sang, the energetic
secretary, deserves great praise for the able manner in which he
organised and carried out all the arrangements.

At the second annual general ineeting of the Maxim-Weston
Electric Light Company, the Chairman, in his opening congra-
tulatory (!) address, observed that, all things considered, he did
not think they had done so very badly. Though they had lost
£70,000 in the purchase of patents which they had not used, and
had conducted the lighting of the City at a loss, they had managed
to avoid getting into difficulties. For further patents they paid
£52,000. Up to the date of October, 1882, they made sales amounting
to £6,776, with a clear profit on that of £1,666. These were sales
of their lamps, dynamos, and apparatus. They took a certain
amount of contracts as low as they could. There was the Metro-
politan Railway contract — on that they made a loss of £1,225.
Then there was the Edinburgh Post-office, which resulted in a loss
of £380. They thought it well at a certain sum to take a
contract for lighting the Botanic Gardens. There they had a loss
of £26, while at Reading they also made a loss of £26. On the City
lighting they had made a loss of £4,405. Their great loss on the
City lighting had been owing to their having had to lay their cables
two or three tiiiies, and the difficulty of getting them properly to
carry the electricity from the other side of the river. They had
spent no less than £1,347 for the Crystal Palace Exhibition ; at
Warwick House, Regent-street, £170; at the Guildhall, £160; and
at the Albert Hall, £50. These were exhibitions. At the Opera
House, too, there was an installation before this Company came
into existence, and there was an expenditiu-e of £128. Altogether
£1,868 had been spent on exhibitions, and that, added to the loss
of £6,064, was a very considerable item. Having, however, got all
the advantage they could by the exhibitions, they had declined to
exhibit any more. Notwithstanding the bad appearance such
figures must make on a balance-sheet, the directors think the
prospects of real business warrant an increase in capital to the
amount of £500,000.

NOTICES.

Just PubUshed, Part XTIII. (April, 1883) . Price lOd. ; postage 3d. eitr«.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.

The terms of Annual Subscriptien to the weekly nambere of Khowlibgi i* •»
foUowB:— •• *•

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All subscriptions are payable in advance.
P. O. Orders and cheques should be made povable to the Publishers, Messbs.
Wtvak & Sons, London, at the High Holborn District Post-office.

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New York, to whom subscriptions can be forwarded.

OFFICE : 74-76, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON, W.C.

May 18, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE

287

^OVfhBj)

fy

% AN lUliSXf^ATED \^-

MAGA'ZINE of soence
PlainlyWorded -£xactlV Described

LONDON: FEW AY, ^fAy 18, 1883.

OOHTKKTS OP No. 81.

Personal. By E. A. Proctor 287

PleasftDt Hours ^vith tho Micro.

scope. By H. J. Slack, F.G.S.,

F.K.M.8 28?

The Buying Power of Gold 2S8

On s Toy Tricycle. By John

Browning 290

The Paradise Fish. (Illuttraltd.) 291
On the Formation of Comets' Tails.

By A. C. Ranyard 292

The Red Spot on Jupiter 293

PAOB.
The Moon in a Three-inch Tele-
scope. (///«..) Bv F.K.A.S. ... 294
The Brush Dvnamo-Eloctrio Ma-
chine, {lllii'ilrateil.) 295

The .Moon and May Frosts 29B

Death at the Play 297

Eeviews ; Tyndall on Sound 297

Editorial Gossip 298

Correspondence 298

Our Mathematical Column 301

Our Chess Column 302

PERSONAL.

By Richard A. Proctor.

IN a letter to the publishers of Knowledge, Mr. Lockyer,
under date May 11th, writes as follows : —

'• My attention lias to-day been rallrd to several references to mo
liy Mr. U. A. Proctor in recent numbers of Knowledge. Among
tbem I find the following (April 20, 1SS3, p. 240J :— ' J. N. Lockyer.
— Yonr unsigned post-card received.' I nnist request you to find
space in your paper for the following statements as to matters of
fact : — 1. I have sent Mr. Proctor no post-card. 2. I know abso-
lutely notbing about anyone else having done so."

I need hardly say that I most gladly find space in my
paper for Mr. Loukyer's stateuiciits. 1 regret that he
should have had occasion to make them — partly through
undue haste on my part, but chiefly through the wrongdoing
of a common acquaintance. I must beg him to believe
that when I received from the oflice, on Monday evening,
April 16 (that is, when the last paragraphs of Kxcwledhe
for April 20 were being made up*), a postcard vituperating
me for what, it seems, Mr. Lockyer had regarded, seven-
teen months ago, as an oftence against him, I thought
more of the charge brought against myself than of the
meanness of anonymous letter-writing. I wrote llfu to
defend myself, not to attack him. I had made advances,
not, I think, ungenerous, a year and a half ago, and I was
]>ained to find that a slight detail in the negotiation had
given new offence, at the very time when I was endeavour-
ing, at some sacrifice, to put matters right. I had
answered my friends — Professor Young, Mr. Clodd, Sir
Edmund Beckett, and others — through the correspondence
columns ; and there could be no cause of offence — no offence
certainly was intended — when, in the hurry of answering a
great number of communications, 1 responded to a business
letter of Mr. Lockyer's in that way. I was thinking of
this, not of the offence of the anonymous letter writer,
when I responded in Knowledge to a communication
which, at a first view, seemed — for reasons which I
then indicated — to come unquestionably from the only
person who could have known personally anything about

• I lectured in Dublin on 'Wednesday, April 18, at 4 p.m. It
will bo seenliow little time there was for weighing the matter.

the matter referred to. Yet it should be noticed that, even
in that first reply, I showed that there was that opening for
doubt which subsequently led me to recognise another
hand in the matter. In Knowledgk for April iTth, in an
article entitled " Social Dynamite," I indicated that doubt
very clearly, and denounced the writing of anonymous
letters, chiefly on the ground that they lead to precisely
such mistakes as that into which 1 had fallen. I had had
time to consider the meanness and cowardice of the wrong
done to Mr. Lockyer and (in loss degree) to myself, by
the person who had endeavoured to cloak his misconduct
by inserting a passage which was calculated, and doubtless
intended, to suggest the idea that Mr. Lockyer had sent
the card to ine.

And now to the question whether the real wrong-doer
can be detected. Mr. Lockyer must be interested in this
even more than I am. Indeed, now that I find my first
idea was erroneous, I am only interested because the person
who did this thing caused me, in the hurry following the
first explosion of his keg of social dynamite, to entertain
and act upon an erroneous notion. The readers of Know-
ledge may not be for the most part interested in this
matter, any more than they are personally interested in
the capture of dynamite oflenders ; but I must ask them to
forgive me for giving so much space to the subject as may
help to unearth a mischief-making individual, who, if early
detected, or even threatened with imminent detection, may
be hereafter innocuous.

The postcard bears date April 13, which was the date
of the last meeting but one of the Astronomical Society.
On that day, unless I mistake, Mr. Lockyer met, near the
region from which the post-card was issued, the members
of the Solar Physics Committee. I note this to remind
him of the time when this card was certainly written (or
rather printed) and posted. He may possibly remember
speaking on that day to some one of those (very few,
I am happy to believe) who entertain ill-feeling towards
me. It must also have been one who professes friendship
towards Mr. Lockyer — but very insincerely. Among the
subjects of conversation with such a one, then or a day or
two before (simply because the matter would soon have
been forgotten, if not quickly acted upon), must have been
Mr. Lockyer's annoyance at my answering him through
the correspondence column. If among those to whom,
about that time, Mr. Lockyer was led to speak on that
suliject, he can think of one who (1) really wishes ill to me,
and (2) may conceal under specious appearances a dynamitic
disposition, he will not be far from the wrong-doer to whom
he and I are alike indebted.

Next for myself. Can I not in some degree help the
search 1 I think I can.

First, the taste for sending abusive post-cards is, thank
goodness, an e.xceptional one. .Viiiong my acquaintances,
do I know any one who has shown an inclination that way?
I can think of only one (I omit a notorious offender in this
line, who happens, oddly enough, to be mentioned on the
first line of my post-card — because he always signs his
abuse, whether calling me or Mr. Wallace bad names.)
There was one who addressed a friend of mine, whom he
hates bitterly (and naturally, for my friend is a vei'y out-
spoken man), adding a number of titles between the name
and the address on the envelope, with obvious intent to reflect
ridicule on him and cause him annoyance. It so happens
(wherefore I think I must be outspoken too) that this person
honours me also with strong dislike. Strangely enough,
too, I happen to know that he had met Mr. Lockyer near
the time when, and not far from the place whence, this
post-card was despatched.

A few other points I omit for the present.

288

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Mat 18, 1883.

Lastly, although the words on tlio post-card are printed,
there are seven distinct peculiarities in the lettering, the
presence of all of whicli in the known writing of the
person who sent the card would serve to convict him of
his offence in any court for dealing with users of social
dynamite.

I fancy that if Mr. Lockycr should join with me in
endeavouring to discover and expose the real offender, wo
might proliaMy succeed.

PLEASANT HOURS WITH THE
MICROSCOPE.

By Henry J. Slack, F.G.S., F.RM.S.

SPRING is a good time for watching the aphides, or
plant-lice, in greenhouses, and also out of doors,
especially upon young shoots and buds of roses. A
favourite house-plant at this season, the so- called
" Marguerite," or French daisy, which is a chrysanthemum,
is likely to be attacked. The aphides will be seen in
crowds surrounding the flower-stems, which they seem to
like better than the leaves. Looking at some of these
groups with a hand-magnifier will most likely show that,
besides various sizes of old and young, there are some of a
dingier colour. These are the pupre, which produce no
series of budding young ones, but allow a single winged
female to come out, as a butterfly does from its inactive
chrysalis. As it is well, while writing about any such
matters, to have the objects under view, and to observe
their processes of change, several pupse were placed in little
cells, as described in the last paper, and watched frequently ;
but, as it turned out, not continuously enough for success,
as one of the creatures produced its imago, with four
delicate wings, when no one was looking, and the skin
from which it emerged soon shrivelled up. It is well
worth while to see how the imago gets out by a slit in
the back of the pupa. The pupa goes on feeding like the
larva, up to its time of change. Then a rent begins beliind
the eyes, which proceeds down the thorax, through which
the brown head of the imago emerges. The antenn.r and
legs are slowly pushed forward from the exuvire, or sheath,
which slips down the soft body of the fly by a kind of
peristaltic motion, " very interesting to watch under the
microscope." So says Mr. Buckton, and many readers of
Knowledge may take the trouble to witness what he
describes. The wings grow rapidly — so much so, that he
found it ditlicult to keep pace with them in working a
drawing. Winged females look so difl'orent from the larvw
and pup;i' that they would be taken for diflerent kinds of
insects if their origin were not known. The front wings are
large in proportion to the size of the little creatures, and
beautifully tinted with prismatic colours. The occurrence
of winged viviparous females allows fresh colonies to be
established wherever they settle. The larval aphides are
poor travellers, and the majority live and suck their lives
through close to the spot of their birth. It may be well
imagined that the juices of a plant ars; changed in charac-
ter wherever a swarm of aphides have inserted their piercing
and sucking tools. An entire plant soon sickens if not
relieved or protected against their ravages. It is supposed
that to facilitate a flow of the plant's juices they pour in a
poisonous fluid, as gnats do into our bodies, and, as the
character of the food is changed by the injury they do to the
plant, it may become loss favourable to the production of
young by the budding process, and more so to the produc-
tion of the pupal forms. Temperature has also something

to do with the matter, but Mr. Buckton thinks the main cause
is the necessity of seeking food in fresh places. At first
only a few winged aphides are seen, but later in the season
large swarms are carried by the winds to considerable
distances.

Rose-twigs are now (April 30) liable to such strong
attacks of these creatures that they may be examined with
a good chance of finding larvie and pupa; in various stages.
The latter are orange-coloured, and easily distinguished
from their bright green companions. In all the pupae the
wings of the future insect are seen in little projections,
like the flappers of a seal. The oggs of the rose aphis are
little black things, stuck into a crevice in the bark, or near
a bud in the winter. They hatch out in the spring, and
can withstand a considerable degree of cold. Mr. Buckton
mentions an instance in March, 1N73, when the young
aphides appeared, and survived, although the thermometer
marked 25° F. As early as the seventh hour of their age
he has noticed rudiments of the future young in the body
of the parent.

Aphides of all kinds increase most quickly in a shelteretJ
situation. In greenhouses they do not like free currents
of air, and out-of-doors they will attack roses in verandahs
on the south side of a house before any seen in the operi
windows. Most of the nostrums advertised as killing-
cures of these and other plant-plagues are of no use what-
ever. The Gishurst Compound (a sulphur soap) is really
disliked by many, and it is well to wash the bark of trees
attacked by any of the aphis, or bug, tribe with it, or with
a mixture of quicklime and sulphur boiled in water. A
teaspoonful or two of each in fine powder to about a quart
of water can be cooked in an earthen pipkin. The mixture
should be stirred up for use upon trees, and the clear yellow-
fluid only employed where a stain would be inadmissible.
Lime and size are often used against the cotton bugs, but
it is the size that really kUls them. Finely-powderet)
sulphur, or snuff, is useful when the creatures cannot b^
washed or brushed off; but I find Hardiman's Powder, sold
in little tin boxes with a bellows arrangement, the best I
have tried. The stuff looks just like Keating's well-known
Insect Powder, which is said to be made of a species of
artemisia, but it is finer. Like Keating's, its little fibres
stick to insects' hairs, or any roughness, and although it
gives off no appreciable odour to our noses, it probably
exhales something injurious to insects, that die, some-
times rather quickly, sometimes after an hour or two, but
are instantly injured by it

THE BUYING POWER OF GOLD.*

VARIOUS comments have been made by able critics
on the views which I have lately put forward with

regard to the increased purchasing power of gold. May I

be allowed to submit some further considerations to the

public on this important subject 1

My arguments may be briefly condensed as follows : —
Gold to the amount of nearly £200,000,000 has been

required for supplying Germany, the United States, and

Italy with new gold currencies.

This extraordinary demand fell on a diminished supply.

The annual production of gold during the first five years

after the discoveries of 1S51 averaged nearly £30,000,000.

It now amounts to less than £20,000,000. The new

demand has been equal to the total supply of ten years.

At the same we have to reckon with the normal demand

* From a letter to the Times.

May is, 18»3.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

289

for arts and manufactures, while more gold has also been
required to meet the wants of an increasing population
and an increased balance of transactions in all gold-using
countries.

No evidence is before us to prove that a fresh develop-
ment of banking expedients has to such an extent further
economised the use of gold as to neutralise this normal
rate of increase. On the contrary, it is believed that
in England alone the gold circulation has grown by
£20,000,000 in ten years.

It is a received axiom that prices of commodities are
affected by changes in the volume of the circulating
medium in which they are expressed. The late strain on
the common stock of gold must, therefore, have had some
result. It must have caused a general decline. Examined
by the test of present prices, these deductions are borne
out by facts. A general fall has occurred, though excep-
tional circumstances have maintained the prices of some
articles and accelerated the fall of others far beyond the
average.

But this general decline is not in itself a calamity. The
period of transition from a higher to a lower set of prices
is likely to be accompanied by much real sutlering and
more apparent suffering. But when the change has been
accomplished, commerce and manufactures may prosper as
before. The final disturbance will be limited to those cases
where individuals or corporations have permanent contracts
either to receive or to pay fixed sums of gold, and to those
further cases where exceptional circumstances of habit,
convenience, or sentiment will probably come into play.

Such is my argument. In its main lines it seems to be
unassailable, though I may ha^•e failed in some of my illus-
trations, and have dwelt too little on qualifying circum-
stances. If my position is to be attacked, it must be shown
either that I am wrong as to the existence of the cause
which I allege, or that the results which I maintain to have
followed cannot be traced, or that ray description of the
facts as to gold and as to low prices may both bo correct,
but that it cannot be proved that the former have led to
the latter ; or, lastly, the general argument may be ad-
mitted, but its particular applications be disputed.

No serious contentions have been put forward that I am
wrong as to the strain upon gold. My allegations as to
prices have been more seriously questioned. To those who
deny a fall in prices altogether, I would only say that, even
if they were right, the extraordinary demand for gold can-
not have been without a result. On this hypothesis it must
at least have had an effect in restraining a rise. If it is
contended that prices are not low, as I contend they are, it
must in any case be admitted that they would have been
higher if the circulating medium in which they are ex-
pressed had not been called upon to perform largely
increased work without a proportionate increase in the
supply. It is impossible to assert such a cause to have had
no effect.

I am bound to say that I am myself astonished to see
in the case of how many articles prices have gone back to
the rates which prevailed before the gold discoveries of
1850. I was scarcely prepared to find that, taking an
average of the most important articles of consumption,
almost the whole of the advance in prices consequent on
the immense increase in the supply of gold thirty years
ago has been lost Even should this not be so to the full
extent, I think it will be admitted that I have at least
furnished substantial additional proof that prices are at
present ranging on a very low level.

But very natural remonstrances have been made to me.
" It is all very well to speak of low prices in statistical
tables ; but is it true that prices have so far fallen to the

individual purchaser and to the spender of money as to
establish the proposition that a sovereign goes further ? "
This question is so interesting and important that I should
like to examine it more fully in a future letter. At
present, I will confine myself to pointing out that, espe-
cially in the expenditure of the upper and middle classes,
the purchase of commodities forms by no means the largest
part ; on the other side are house-rent, rates and taxes,
wages, travelling, children's education, and numerous other
items for what I may call " services rendered," and it can
easily be shown why the prices paid for " services rendered "
do not fluctuate with the same rapidity as market prices.
In many cases tradition, or a professional code, or an actual
law has fixed an immutable scale. However the pur-
chasing power of gold may fluctuate, the physician, the
singing master, the dentist receives the traditional guinea,
the lawyer his 6s. 8d., the cabman his legal Gd. per mile.

But the chief item of " services rendered," and one
requiring the fullest examination, is the question of
wages generally. The question would form part of any
further disquisition on the purchasing power of gold as
regards " ser\dces " as distinguished from commodities
generally.

I now turn to the objections made, not to my contention
as to low prices, but as to their resulting from the particular
cause which I have discussed. Granting, it is asked, that
prices are exceedingly low, can you prove that facts con-
nected with gold are the determining cause 'i

Some writers have appeared to show something approach
ing to irritation at the view that the situation of gold
should have largely influenced prices. I scarcely know
why, unless through the apprehension that the bi-metallists
may utilise the argument. I must repeat that to my mind
the connection between the additional demand for gold and
the position of prices seems as sound in principle as I believe
it to be sustained by facts. On the other hand, I cannot plead
guilty to the charge which has been made that I have over-
looked or denied the existence of other causes. I enume-
rated as possible contributory causes, the increased facilities
of communication, the operation of the telegraph, the pro-
gressive elimination of the profits of middle-men in inter-
national commerce, decreased specidation, and increased
production. At the same time, it is clear that many of
these causes were almost as fully developed during the
period 1870-75 as during the years 187.5-83. They must
have contributed over a course of years to cheapen the
cost of many commodities, but to my mind they do not
account alone for the prices of the last five years. Bad
harvests in England have, no doubt, also operated to a
considerable extent ; but it is not in England alone that
the fall in commodities has taken place. Nor has the
average of prices risen with the better harvests of the last
two years.

With regard to the deductions to be drawn from my
general argument as to the probable eflects on commerce
and 'manufactures of a lower level of prices generally,
it is, I think, a matter of the highest moment to
the manufacturing community to consider whether the
present range of prices is still the result of what
is called " depression," of absence of prosperity, of
slackened demand, and so forth ; or whether we have
to deal with the circumstance that prices are affected
by a change in the purchasing power of gold. If the
latter view is correct, the sooner menmake up their minds to
it the better. They will then cease to base their operations
or found their hopes on the return to a scale of prices
which would, under existing circumstances, represent even
higher prices than before. So long as men think that the
low price that an article may command simply means bad

290

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May 18, 1883.

business, so long we shall hoar of the decline and sickness
of our commerce, though the volume of our exports and
imports may bo quite satisfactory. It is surely important
that men's minds should bo clear in this respect.

As I have repeatedly stated, it would bo most unwise to
dogmatise or to prophesy where the operation of causes is
so covered and obscured by countless modifying circum-
stances, Viut it is none the less right to trace them and
bring them into light as far as it is po.ssible.

George J. Goschen.

ON A TOY TRICYCLE.
By John Browning,

Chairman and Treasurer of the London Tricycle Club.

I TRUST the readers of Kxowledge will not suppose
from the heading of this article that I am about to
indict on them a description of one of the children's
tricycles which are to be seen standing outside toyshops.
Yet these toys are remarkable in their way : they contain
nearly every fault which can be included in such a limited
compass, such as bad workmanship and materials, weak-
ness where strength is required, and weight and strength
where they are unnecessary.

But it is still more remarkable to see what a plucky boy
or girl can accomplish on one of these compounds of
mechanical blunders, actually mounting inclines which
would tax a moderately good tricyclist on a fairly good
machine.

I have, however, to tell of a tricycle of quite another kind ;
one in which the workmanship almost equals that of a good
philosophical instrument, and the materials are of the very
best, being of steel niokelised and gun-metal, and in which
it would be difficult to reduce the weight of any part by
a single ounce without unduly weakening the machine ;
and yet this tricycle was spoken of by those who ought to
have known better as a toy !

The circumstances which led up to this machine being
built will, I think, prove interesting to all who care for
the history of the tricycle and desire its further improve-
ment.

Soon after Starley invented the Lever Coventry Tricycle,
I called at the London warehouse of the manufacturers
and asked for as light a machine as they could make me.
They showed me some machines, the driving-wheels of which
were 54 inches in diameter, and the weight not, I have
reason to believe, less than from 1 1 5 lb. to 1 20 lb. They
told me the machine could not be made to weigh less. I
suggested that if they would make the driving-wheel 45
inches, the whole machine might be made smaller in pro-
portion and to weigh considerably less. They assured me
that a smaller wheel would not pass over the obstacles
often met with on ordinary roads, that the speed of the
machine would be greatly reduced, and that the machines
with the largest wheels went the easiest up hills ! I told
them that this was against all the principles of mechanics.
The reply I received was that they did not care about the
principles of mechanics ; they had tried the experiment of
riding up hills, both on small and large wheels, and they
were ijuoting practical results.

As I was then unknown in the tricycling world, I
could not persuade them to do anything for me different
to their stock machines. An agent with whom 1 had
some influence got the same firm soon after to make me a
machine with a 50-in. driving-wheel. The weight of this
machine — which, it must be recollected, had only one large

wheel — was 97 lb. The standard dimensions of these
makers are now machines with driving-wheel 48 iBches
diameter, weighing not much more than 75 lb.

At the commencement of the next season I saw Starley,
who then showed me his new machine, which he had
christened the " Salvo-tiuadricycle," the same excellent,
all-round machine which is now known as the " Salvo."
This machine weighed about 112 lb. I admired the
ingenuity of his now universally-adopted double-driving
arrangement, and told him that the machine was very
suitable for a man weighing from IG to 18 stone. I added,
that if he would make such a machine to weigh 56 lb.,
it would suit lue exactly. He said he could not reduce
the weight, and I declined to have one. This machine had
50-in. driving-wheels. The next season he brought out a
lady's " Salvo," with driving-wheels 4G inches in diameter,
and said to he much lighter. One of these machines I
bought, and it proved to weigh 96 lb. The wheels were
geared down to 38 inches, and my pace was faster on it
than on the Lever and Coventry by about twenty per
cent, at least.

Since then I have ridden sometimes as many as four or
five machines in a single day, through the kindness of
members of my club, and I have generally owned several
tricycles myself varying greatly in construction.

As a result of my experience, I prefer a rear-steerer,
with ratchets for easy riding or touring, particularly when
carrying luggage or photographic apparatus, provided the
niac/dne be so made as to be safe tvlien running doien
hill.

I havealways advocated ridingatabout the rateof six miles
an hour, using but little, if any, more exertion than would
be necessary to walk at half that pace. At this speed any
person, with a little practice, can ride from 35 to 50
miles in a day without fatigue. But at the end of last
season I determined to have one machine on which I could
travel at the highest rate of speed I could well attain. To
do this, I knew that, being light, and not physically strong,
I must get the lightest machine possilile. On considering
the whole of the machines known to me, I found that
Humber, Marriott, & Cooper had reduced the size of the
dri\dng-wheels of their Humber Tricycle to 42 inches, and
the weight to about 65 lb.

I asked them to make me a machine with 3S-in. driving-
wheels, and to keep every part of the machine down to the
lightest possible weight. This troublesome commission
they readily undertook, and carried out. The machine
was completed and exhibited at the Albert Hall in February
last. The weight proved to be 52] lb. — only a few pounds
more than the weight of a roadster bicycle. Because of its
small size, it was spoken of as the " Toy ; " but I am now
able to state with confidence that it does not merit that
name. I have ridden it through 300 miles of exceptionally
hiUy country, over many rough roads ; and although the
38-in. wheels are geared to run as 50 in., I have ridden up
every hill on it that I could ride on other machines geared
down to 40 in., and my pace is at least one mile per
hour faster than on any machine I have previously
ridden.

When I can get one of the new two-speed gearings
adapted to this machine, so that it can be made to run for
hill riding at about 35 in., and for the level and down-
hill at about 55 in., it will be for fast riding all I can
desire.

Candour compels me to add that it requires most careful
handling, particularly when riding at night-time. But
those who are not nervous, and who will take time to learn
to ride this class of machine, will find themselves well
rewarded for their pains.

Mat 18, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

291

v^irwy-

THE PARADISE FISH.

THE paradise fish is a representative of the family
Macropus. These fish have very large fins, less deve-
lopetl in the female. The brownish colour of the upper
side changes into a greenish gray on the lower side ; the
markings consist of changeable yellowish green, or blue
and red cross- lines. Their length is from eight to nine
centimetres.

Very little is known of these fish in their free life.
They are universally kept in activity in China, and treated
as our gold fish, but are more easily propagated in a limited
space.

They are better adapted for household pets than other
fish of this class, as they can live in a much less quantity
of water, and can remain out of the water for twenty
minutes and more without injury. Giraud brought one
hundred of these fish from China, and, although during the
tedious journey he was not able to give them sutEcient
room or the necessary care and nourishment, twenty-two
of them lived.

Benecke says that "in May of the year 1878 he obtained
a pair of paradise fish. They were placed in a basin con-
taining about forty litres of waters. They immediately
went to work to devour the small crawfish and larv.-e of
insects which had been placed in the vessel After these
■were consumed two crawfish, water fleas, and mussels were
put in. The mussels they had not received before, and
evidently had never eaten them, for at first they only took
hold of the little animals and then released them with a
shake of the head, but after a day or two they only ate the
mussels, leaving the water fleas placed in the ha'sin unmo-
lested. One day no mussels could be obtained, and they

ate greedily not onlj' small but very large angle worms,
from five to eight centimetres long and two millimetres
thick. They always rejected the intestines of the worms.
When the worms were put in the basin, as they were taken
from the ground, they would shake them two or three
times, then let them go, then throw them around in the
water, in order to shake oft' the dirt before eating them.
If the worm struggled, they would sling it against the
water plants or the sides of the basin.

About three weeks after the fishes were received the
male began to build a nest. For this purpose he would
come up to the surface of the water, take his mouth full of
air, thrust it under the water, forming small bubbles of film
like spittle, and continue thus to build a layer of these
bubbles lianging quite firmly together, adding new layers
until it was completed.

About twenty-four hours after the spawning, the germ
may be perceived in the pale yellow yolk of the egg — a day
later the heart begins to beat — twelve or eighteen hours
after the young, imperfect fish escapes from the egg ; it is
similar to a small tadpole. In eight months it is full
grown. So long as the fish needs parental care the male
devotes himself to it. As soon as the young fish starts
away he hastens after it, seizes it with his mouth, swallows
it, and spits it out into the nest of foam. They care
specially for the sick and feeble ones. As soon as the
young fish no longer needs his assistance he forsakes it,
without appearing to have any interest in its fate, and has
no hesitation in devouring it.

The young subsist at lii-st upon the foam of the nest,
later upon small animalcules not visible to the naked eye,
and finally upnn the same food as the parents. — From
Brehm's Thierkbdi.

292

» KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May 18, 1883.

ON THE FORMATION OF COMETS'
TAILS.

By a. C. Ranvard.

]F the repulsive force which drives the matter of a
comet's tail away from the sun is due to evaporation
of the sulistance of meteoric particles, there must be in
space meteoric matter of a kind which does not reach the
earth's surface. By far the largest number of the meteoric
bodies which have been seen to fall belong to the class of
stony meteorites. I make a distinction between the
meteoric masses which have been picked up immediately
after their fall and the stones and masses of iron collected
in museums to which a meteoric origin is attributed,
because, owing to differences of hardness and to differences
in their chemical constitution, some meteoric masses with-
stand the weathering effects of air and water better than others ;
and we should therefore expect to find a larger proportion
of the harder and better weathering meteorites in museums
than amongst the known falls. Iron meteorites are also
more easily recognised as of meteoric origin by an ordinai-y
observer than stony meteorites, and consequently an undue
jiroportion of such iron meteorites ultimately find their way
to museums.

One must not, therefore, go to the catalogues of meteoric
bodies collected in the museums of Europe and America
to determine the proportion of the different kinds of
meteorites existing in space. We shall probably obtain a
truer idea of the kind of matter which circulates in the
parts of space swept by the earth, if we confine our
attention to a smaller number of meteoric bodies whose
fall has been observed, Of these, according to the estimate
of Dr. Flight, about 90 per cent, are stony meteorites ; the
remaining 10 per cent, belong chiefly t>- the nickel iron
class, and there are only a very few bodies composed of
amorphous carbon and bituminous matter, such as the
Kold Bokkeveld, Orgueil, and Alais falls.

Without pretending to say what would be the tempera-
ture on the sun-illuminated side of a dark body in space
at the earth's distance from the sun, we may be sure that
the heat derived from solar radiation would not be sutii-
cient to raise such a body to a temperature of white
incandescence, for the moon (which certainly is not enve-
loped by an atmosphere of a thousandth part the density
of the earth's atmosphere) appears nearly black when it
passes into the earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse. The
slightly ruddy tint which the moon's disc presents under
such circumstances cannot even be due to a cherry-red
temperature of the lunar surface, for if this were the case,
the ruddy tint would be most visible in the region of the
lunar equator, where the sun's rays had been falling nearly
vertically ; but the red light is more or less evenly difl'used
over the whole lunar disc, and dillers considerably from one
eclipse to another, showing that it is due to light which has
passed through the earth's atmosphere, and has reached the
moon after absorption within the zone around the earth,
which an observer on the moon would see under such cir-
cumstances as a line of red light fringing the dark disc of
the earth, interrupted here and there by clouds and haze in
the lower air.

J will not digress to give an account of the Earl of
Rosse's observations as to the temperature of the lunar
surface, or of other considerations which may be urged to
show that the temperature of the sun-illuminated side of a
dark body not surrounded by an atmosphere, and situated
at the earth's distance from the sun, lays somewhere
betwcr^n 300'' and 500° Fahr. For my present purpose, it
will be suilicieat if we take it as proved that a dark body

would not be raised by such dii-ect radiation to a tempera-
ture of white incandescence. No doubt, all bodies are
volatilisable if exposed to a suflliciently high temperature j
but I know of no meteorite, whether of the Kold Bokkeveld,
or of the iron or stony class, which could be driven into
vapour by temperatures that would not suffice to make the
body glow with a white heat.

Comets frequently develop tails at distances from the
sun considerably greater than the earth's distance. The
great comet of 17l'9, when in perihelion, was more than
four times the earth's mean distance from the sun, and it
showed during a period of more than five months an exten-
sive nebulosity, though the heat due to solar radiation
must have been less than one-sixteenth the heat derived
from solar radiation at the earth's distance.

Mr. A. S. Davis, and those who think with him that the
repulsive force which drives the matter of a comet's tail
away from the sun, is due to evaporation of the solid
matter of meteoric bodies, may reply Viy suggesting that
possibly blocks of ice travel in space with the meteoric
bodies that reach the earth's surface, and that the ice-
blocks are evaporated by the heat developed in passing
through the earth's atmosphere. There are some theorists
who have even suggested that hail comes from outer space.
To the advocates of the meteoric origin of hail, I would
reply that if a storm of hailstones came into the
earth's atmosphere with a velocity comparable with
the planetary velocities with which meteoric bodies
usually encounter the earth, the whole sky would be
illuminated 'with a dazzling brightness which it is
difficult to give an idea of. A single meteor, which
enters the earth's atmosphere to a depth of nine or
ten miles above the sea level, and, much more, a meteor
which reaches the earth's surface, attracts the attention of
observers for miles round, even when the fall occurs during
bright sunshine ; and a million such meteors, entering the
atmosphere at once, would, by their light and sound,
dazzle, as well as deafen, the most unobserving of men.

It is usually difficult to drive from his hobby the
thorough-going theoriser, who is always ready with a new
supposition, which he does not condescend to found on
observed facts ; and the meteoric hail-men reply that it
is not necessary that the earth should meet the showers
of meteoric haD. The hailstones in space may all be tra-
velling in the same direction as the earth round the sun,
and with but slightly greater velocity, so that they may
come up quietly from behind, and pass through the earth's
atmosphere at any rate you please. I would remind them
that the earth's attraction is sufticient to give a velocity of
seven miles a second to a body which starts from rest at
an infinite distance, and though it is possible to conceive
of a single meteor falling with a less velocity, showers of
meteoric hail, catching up the earth from behind, must
enter the earth's atmosphere with a velocity of at least
seven miles a second.

Sir William Thomson has shown that a thermometer,
placed in front of a body which moves through the atmo-
sphere at the rate of ] 25 feet per second, rises one degree ;
with higher velocities the increase of temperatures is pro-
portional to the square of the velocity, being four degrees
for a velocity of 250 feet, sixteen degrees for a velocity of
500 feet, and so on. Consequently, a velocity of seven
miles a second would bo sufficient to cause a rise of tem-
perature of more than eighty-fi\c thousand degrees, which
would be more than suflicieut to drive iron and platinum
into vapour, and would cause the moving body to glow
with a brilliant white incandescence.

Mr. Davis, who, I assume, does not advocate the theory
of meteoric hail, may say tliat the heat developed in passing

May 18, 1883.]

KNOVS/LEDGE

293

through the earth's atmosphere would melt his cubic mfctre
blocks of ice, but I cannot permit him to retire under
cover of such a plea. The November meteors enter the
earth's atmosphere with a velocity of about 11 miles a
second, so that if we assume incandescence to commence at
a height of 120 miles, a meteor of the November shower
entering the earth's atmosphere perpendicularly, would,
if its motion were not retarded by the atmosphere, occupy
only about three seconds in reaching the earth's surface ;
but, taking into account the diminished \elocity due to the
resistance of the earth's atmosphere, a meteor must fall
very obliquely if it occupies more than a minute after the
iirst instant of incandescence in reaching the earth's
surface. With an ice-block, heat would be conducted to
the interior more slowly than in the case of an iron
meteorite ; and with temperatures such as we are consider-
ing, the ice-block would probably lose a thinner skin in
passing through the earth's atmosphere than an iron
meteorite of the same dimensions.

The experiments of Professor Graham and the more
recent and fuller investigations of Professor Wright show
that all classes of meteoric bodies hold gas as a sponge
holds water. Whether meteors pick up these occluded
gases in distant regions of space and disgorge their contents
at the sun when in perihelion is a speculation I will leave
to Sir W. Siemens. But laboratory experiments show
that the application of heat to meteoric bodies causes an
outflow of occluded gas. In space, the gas must pass away
from the meteoric masses and be chiefly projected towards
the sun with velocities which can be calculated as accu-
rately, when the kind of gas evaporated and the tempera-
ture of evaporation is known, as the velocities with which
the meteoric nuclei are moving can be determined. We
■are not leaving terrestrial analogies when we suppose that
a mist forms by the condensation of the less volatile gases
at a distance from the nucleus where radiation into space
•can take place freely in all directions. The particles of
mist will have a velocity away from the nucleus, and they
will also be bombarded on the side towards the nucleus by
the swiftly-moving molecules of the more volatile gases.
Condensation on the surface of the mist particles and
evaporation from their sunward sides will be set up and
repulsion from both the nucleus and sun will follow.

The largest outflow of gas will be on the sunward side
•of the conietary nucleus, and repulsion from the sun will
there act in a nearly contrary direction to the repulsion
feoia the nucleus. The mist will rise from the nucleus
until brought to rest by the solar repulsion*, and the mist
particles wOl then mo\e under the resultant force with a
tendency, as I have shown, to aggregation on a hyperbolic
sheet which has the sun for one focus and the nucleus for
the other. If Jlr. Da\is's theory as to the evaporation of
the substance of his meteoric ice blocks were true, there
■woiild be a great loss of substance while the evaporating

• Professor G. P. Bond, in the volume in which he diecusscs the
observations of the great comet of 185S, published as Vol. III. of
the " Annals of Harvard College Observatory," gives tables show-
ing the gradual rise of successive envelopes from the nucleus, and
lie shows that there is a tendency to a dimini.shed rate of ascent as
the distance from the nucleus increases. The rate of ascent of the
▼ertex of the envelopes between Sept. 20 and Oct. 20, 1858, varied,
according to the estimate of several observers, from 800 to 1,500
miles a day. Professor Bond thought that he had good evidence
<lerived from certain dark spots upon the envelopes to prove that
the material of whicli they were composed remained in the
^cinity of the nucleus for several days, and was ultimately driven
off from the cusps on either side of the nuclfeus (see p. 356 of the
Tolnme above referred to). The great velocity vritb which the
matter of tlie tail is driven away may bo gathered from the rate
Tlith which new tails are formed in a different direction as the
■Briena sweeps round the sun at perihelion. — A. C. E.

I

masses hung balanced in the coma, and the ultimate
velocity of repulsion would consequently Ije less than he
has calculated, but the mist particles will continually pick
up fresh matter, and evaporate it again towards the sun.

If the light of a comet's tail was dispersed by particles
driven backwards by evaporation of their own substance,
we should expect the light from the tail to be most com-
pletely polarised towards the fainter end away from the
nucleus ; for the light dispersed by small particles is only
completely polarised when the disjtorsed light is viewed at
right angles to the direction of illumination, and when
the diameters of the particles dispersing the light are small
compared with the wave length of light Viewed from all
other positions, the intensity of the polarisation varies with
the magnitude of the light dispersing dust. But no increase
of polarisation towards the end of the tails of comets has,
as far as I am aware, ever been detected. The polariscopic
evidence, therefore, does not point to a gradual decrease in
the diameters of the particles dispersing the light towards
the fainter end of the tail.

THE RED SPOT ON JUPITER.

AT the iirst regular meeting of the American Astro-
nomical Society, held in the directors' room in the
Brooklyn Academy of Music, on March 5, the topic for
discussion was the " Physical Changes in Jupiter." A
paper on the " Red Spot on Jupiter" was expected from
jlr. S. V. White, the president of the society, and there
was considerable disappointment over his inability to be
present

The remarks of the members were confined to the recent
changes in Jupiter. Messrs. Parkhurst and Serviss
described their observations of the great red spot which
made its appearance on Jupiter's disk in the summer of
1878, and which within a few weeks has almost entirely
disappeared. Others took part in the discussion.

The general opinion expressed was that Jupiter is a
world which is yet in a very early stage of its geological
history, and that in the great red spot, and in some other
remarkable spots which have made their appearance upon
its surface, evidences are seen that the planet either
has already a solid or liquid surface, or that the formation
of such a surface has begun. Several theories to account
for the great red spot, which was upwards of 30,000 miles
long by G,000 or 8,000 miles wide, were suggested.

One theory was that some volcanic action may have been
taking place, which threw up into the atmosphere a mass
of smoke and erupted materials which formed the red spot.
jVnother theory was that the crust of the planet where the
spot appeared may have been exceptionally heated, so that
tiie atmosphere above it was kept free from clouds. A third
theory regarded the red spot as possibly a solidified mass
thrust up through its gaseous and liquid surroundings, and
forming, perhaps, the nucleus of one of the future conti-
nents of the giant planet. The difference between the rates
of rotation of the red spot and of the white spot in the
southern belt was referred to. The red spot overtakes
the white spot once in thirty-four days.

The society meets on the first Monday in April in the
physical laboratory of the Packer Institute. At that time
special papers will be read upon the connection between
sun spots and terrestrial meteorology.— (Sciex^i/ic American.

During the past year there were 532 servants of our
railway companies or contractors reported as having been
killed and 2, -123 injured, in addition to those concerned in
accidents to passenger trains.

294

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

(Mat 18, 1883.

THE MOON IN A THllEB-INCH
TELESCOPE.

By a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

OUK first essay in the examination of the lunar surface
(p. 20")) was supposed to be made wlien the moon
was between three and four days old. To night we will
imagine that her age has increased, and is about six days.
The first thing which will strike the attentive student is
the changed aspect, under the more vertical light of the
sun, of the formations he has observed at an earlier date
in the lunation. Objects near the moon's western limb,
which, lit laterally by the rising sun, cast black shadows,
and so revealed their configurations distinctly, are now
illuminated (like the " depths of the sea," in the famous
prize poem) by "the sun's perpendicular rays," and are
converted into mere bright blotches upon a darker back-
ground. A strange formation, which was close to the ter-
minator at the epoch of our last observation, so curiously
illustrates the change of aspect induced by varying illumi-
nation, that we give three illustrations of it as seen in the
waxing, full, and waning moon at the ages given under the
respective drawings. It is numbered 327 in our Map, on

ier. Moon's Age, 17'8 days.

p. 223, and is called Messier, presumably from its resem-
blance to a comet ; the French astronomer, after whom it
is named, having been, as is pretty well known, one of the
keenest searchers for and discoverers of comets of the last
century.

Messier. Moon's Age, 3"95 days.

Messier. Fnll Jloon.

The two slightly diverging streaks which seem to radiate
from the right hand, or eastern, of the two craters
(" Messier A"), appear almost artificial in their regularity.
The most curious thing, however, in connection with these
two craters is thi.s : that Miidler, as the result of a large
number of observations, called pointed attention to their
precise similarity in size, form, depth, and brightness. A
glance at either of our drawings made at the telescope at
the epochs specified will suffice to show that they now differ
widely in this respect : that Messier itself (the western
one) is decidedly smaller than Messier A, and that their
major axes lie approximately at right angles to each other.
The young observer should try to view this formation
under the same illumination as we ourselves did in making
the third of the aViove sketches ; the long peaked shadows
revealing curiously the structure of the crater walls which
cast them. Messier itself is about nine miles in diameter.
The southern extremity of the Sea of Nectar (V) termi-
nates in a kind of bay, known as Fracastorius (372).

Under this illumination Fracastorius looks like what we
have called above a bay. If, however, it be observed
when quite close to the terminator (preferably in the
waning moon), it will be seen as a complete circle, the
northern part of it consisting of low detached blocks.
South of it is a very fine object, the grand ring-plain Pic-
colomini (371), about 57 i miles in diameter. Between this

and Fracastorius the moon is very mountainous. South of
Piccolomini lie a number of craters and ring-plains, whoso

Fracastorius. Moon's Age 5'65 days.

names may be learned from our map. Starting now from
the north side of the Sea of Nectar we find an interesting
pair of craters, Isidore and Capella (323 and 324) ; and
crossing the Sea of Tranquillity from south to north we
arrive at a groiip of craters, Rijmer (52), Littrow (55),
Maraldi (56), and Vitruvius (57). A little range of moun-
tains of the ordinary terrestrial type, called Mount Arg»us.
(58), will be noted just on the Sea of Tranquillity. On the
north-west boundary of the Sea of Serenity (H) lies one
of the largest ring-plains in the moon, Posidonius (5-t),
some G2 miles in diameter. There is a fine central crater
in this formation, and it would form an instructive-
exercise for the incipient selenographer who can draw,.
to try and sketch some of the details which abound in
this fine object. Atlas (28) and Hercules (29) here drawri

Atlas and Hercules. Moon's Age, o'Co days.

are two noble walled plains or depressions, 55 miles and
46 miles broad respectively. It will be noted that while
the most conspicuous object in the interior of Atlas is a
mountain, in Hercules it is a crater. Glancing at Pliny (61),
a fine terraced ring, full of little hills, on our way south-
ward again, we will conclude our night's work by the-
examination of that noble triple group, Tlieophilus, CyriUus,
and Catherine (319, 320, 321). The study of the connec-
tion between these grand objects and of the way in which
they are connected supplies us with a key to the chronology

Catherine, Cyrillus, and Tlieophilus. Moon's Age, 5'C5 days.

of this part of the lunar surface. The valley connecting
Catherine and Cyrillus will be observed, as also the way

May 18, 1883.]

o KNOWLEDGE ♦

295

Fig. 1.

in which the wall of Cyrillus has been intruded on by
Theophilus.

Little or no detail is observable in Catherine when so
near the terminator, but the shape of the shadows cast
into its interior reveals that of the ridges and peaks
causing them. Cyrillus will be seen to be more trapezoidal
than circular, and the two mountains in its centre and the
conspicuous crater on its wall will at once arrest the eye.
Theophilus is the deepest crater in the moon, the walls
being in places 18,000 feet above the level of the bottom.
Its diameter is nearly G4 miles. Necessarily its sides are
brilliantly illuminated by the rising sun when the interior
is plunged in the blackest night, and at about the fifth day
of the moon's age it may be seen projecting beyond the
terminator into the darkness of the seemingly surrounding
sky as a brilliant ring. Sharp-sighted people can detect
this without any optical aid.

2,000 candle-power each, the weight of the machine
being 2,200 lb. The inducing or field magnets consist
of four massive pieces of iron, wound round with

THE BRUSH DYNAMO-ELECTRIC
MACHINE.

URGED by several correspondents, we purpose describing
a few of the more important dynamo-electric machines
adopted by the various electric lighting companies. The
Gramme has been before the public about twelve years, and
for this reason we refrain from giWng a detailed description
of it here. Nevertheless, it is only right that we should
remind our readers that it was M. Gramme who first
rendered the conversion of mechanical power into electricity
practical. His machine may be said to bear the same rela-
tion to dynamos that the Daniell cell does to galvanic
batteries, each being the first practical form, and still, for
many purposes, the most efficient.

The Brush machine is one which has during the past
two years commanded a great deal of attention, and what-
ever may be said of the various transactions in connection
with it, it can scarcely be denied that it has done some
really good work, and that, for arc lighting on a large scale,
it is capable of standing its ground with any in the field. The
machine is made in various sizes, Fig. 1 representing the
one used to supply the current for sixteen arc lights, of

F.C. 2

stout copper wire (No. 10 gauge). Two of these (B B) are
shown in the figure, the other two being exactly behind
them. The inner face of each of the iron cones is flattened

out so as to extend nearly half way round the circle formed
by the armature (A). By reference to Fig. 4, which is a
typical horizontal section, it will be seen that the field
magnets are joined together in pairs, M M and M^ M', by

296

- KNOWLEDGE

[May 18, 1883.

portions of the iron framework K K'. The wire is coiled
round the cores so as to make the adjacent pole-pieces,
N N' and S S', of similar polarity, and is also continuous
from B' round both field magnets to B- of the commutator
(C Figs. 1 and 4), of which more anon.

The armature (A, Figs. 1 and 4) is the most important
feature in the Brush dynamo. It consists of a core of soft
iron in one piece, and ha^^ng wound round it, in specially-
constructed grooves, a number of coils of copper wire.
Fig. 2 represents a portion of the circular core, the grooves,
G G, having parallel sides, so that the coils are of equal
dimensions throughout. The coils are made sufficiently
thick to be flush with the projections, F F, and so present
almost perfectly level surfaces to the field magnets during
the process of rotation. Roimd the core is a groove, C, which
extends almost to the inner surface, while on both faces of
the projecting portions are series of concentric grooves, H H.

The armature of the 16-light machine is twenty inches
in diameter, and contains eight coils of No. 1-t B. W. G.
cotton-covered wire, each coil weighing about 20 lb., and
containing about 900 feet of wire. All are wound in the
same direction, the inner end of each coil beiny con-
nected to the inner end of the coil, exactly opposite to it
(there being in all machines an even number of coils).
The outer ends all pass along the shaft (S S, Fig. 4) to
the commutator, C^ C-.

The commutator is that portion of the machine where
the various currents generated in the coils of the armature
are collected and made to pass through the external circuit
in one common direction. It is very unique, difl'ering from
all its competitors in more than one important feature.
It is, of course, fixed on to the shaft, but instead of being
in the form of a series of discs radiating from the centre
of rotation, it consists of a number of copper rings or
flat cylinders, there being a ring to each pair of armature
coils. Each ring (Fig. 3) is divided into three parts, of
which A is connected to one free end of a pair of arma-
ture coils, and B to the other end. C is quite isolated
from the other segments, and is practically an insulator.
Each of the three parts is separated from the shaft
S by means of an insulating substance, and from each
other by air-spaces. B', B-, &c., are flat strips of
copper, with a number of longitudinal cuts. They are
aljout two inches wide, and are called brushes, their function
being, by pressing against the copper rings as they revolve,
to collect the current from the coils, or rather to connect
the machine with the external circuit As there are four
pairs of coils in the armature of the machine being de-
' scribed, there are four rings, for which two pairs of brushes
are provided — one pair for two rings. One of each pair
presses above and the other below the rings, the points of
contact being on the same diameter of the ring.

The consideration of the principles upon which this
interesting machine is constructed we are compelled, by
want of space, to defer.

THE MOON AND MAY FROSTS.

ALL gardeners dread the frosts which often come in
May, after the vegetation has been stimulated into
activity, and the plants are easily injured by a check. In
France, the cold is popularly attributed to the moon which
is new in April, and reaches its full at the end of that
month or early in May. This moon is termed la lune
rousse, because, during the clear nights it illuminates, young
leaves, and buds freeze and turn red, although the air may
be several degrees above the freezing point.

Louis XVIII. is said to have bewildered Laplace when
he visited the Bureau des Longitudes, by asking him to
explain how the lune rousse acted upon the crops. The
great astronomer looked in confusion, and finally told the
king that this moon had no place in astronomical theories,
and in consequence the Bureau was unable to answer his
question.

M. Mabillon, in an article on this subject, in Ciel et
Terre, says that this story led Arago to investigate the
subject, but he does not give the date of his inquiries.
Wells explained such incidents in his celebrated " Essay
on Dew," of which the first edition was published in 1814.

M. Mabillon quotes the following from a work of Plan-
tin's, " Ephemerides Perpetuelles de I'Air," published at
Antwerp in 1556: — "Si du vingt-et-cinquieme d'Apvril
jusques au vingt-et-huitieme d'Apvril la pleine lune
advenait, trouvat nuicts sereines et belles, sans aucun vent
(auquel temps la rosee ha coutume tumber a grade plante)
les anciens de longue experience tenaient tout certain que
les grains de la terre seraient endommagez." The reader
will be amused with this old French. It means that when
full moon comes between April 25 and 28, with clear nights
and no wind blowing, " Dew has the custom of falling in
great plenty, and long experience makes it certain that the
crops of the earth will be damaged." If dew forms on nights
when the clear air enables plants to lose much heat by
radiation, they will receive it as hoar-frost ; and if the air
is too dry for much dew, the radiation may be stronger
and their juices frozen, although the air is considerably
warmer. " The formation of dew indeed," said Wells,
" not only does not produce cold, but, like every other pre-
cipitation of water from the atmosphere, produces heat."
Wells found that bodies on the surface of the earth become,
during a still and serene night, colder than the atmo-
sphere," and then he saw that the gardeners he had smiled
at " in the pride of half-knowledge " were right in using a
" thin mat or any such flimsy substance," to protect their
plants. " On a clear night," he says, " in an open part of
the country, nothing almost can be returned to us from
above in place of the heat which we radiate upwards."
The plants which suffer on the clear May nights
receive no warmth to compensate for the heat ,
they radiate. A cloudy sky is a protection, and so
is a damp or misty one. The old writer already cited
says that if the conditions he mentioned occur " on the
seventh day of the Ides of May," corresponding with the
9th of our calendar, "or within three or four days later,
vines and olives are in great danger." M. ^Mabillon states
that in " the vine-growing districts, the people make
artificial clouds by heaping up to the windward dry leaves,
with green wood and resinous products, which they ignite
some hours before sunset, and thus make a great smoke.

May 18, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

297

which spreads over the vineyards, and, by hinderinfj
radiation, protects the -s-ines against the frost." It would
be more correct to say that the smoke particles and mois-
ture radiate back again much of the heat that would other-
wise be lost by the plants. S.

I

DEATH AT THE PLAT.

THE failure to regulate tlie temperature of the theatres
of New York results in the kUIing of from two to
twenty persons, it is estimat+'d, every night in the year.
When the patrons of the drama assemble in most of the
theatres, they find the temperature ranging from 50° to 60°
Faiir. By the end of the first act it has reached 80°, and
before the close of the second act, 90'. The heat then
rapidly increases until 100° are scored, and even then
scarcely stops. Just at the point of suffocation, the whole
audience is hurried out into the cold night-air or rain, the
operation of cutting off the gas occupying about one minute
and forty seconds. The consequence of this fall of 80"
of temperature in the twinkling of an eye is a chill or shock
to the system which brings on pneumonia, malaria, fevers,
colds, and all sorts of lung diseases.

Besides the injury to the health, the stifling heat of the
theatres is to the spirits most depressing. Many of them
being practically air-tight, one feels as if he had been sitting
under an exhausted receiver. There being no ventilation,
the vitalising properties of tlie confined air are soon ex-
hausted. Mental and physical weariness and languor
result, and a vacuity of mind and tliought is manifest on
both sides of the footlights. In short, the experiment of
li\-ing for three or more hours without change of air has
not been successful. To prevent death, sickness, physical
exhaustion, and mental depression, places of amusement
must l)e ventilated, and their temperature regulated.

The heat at such places should never be allowed to rise
al>ove 70° nor fall below 60°. The temperature of the
United States Supreme Court-room at Washington is kept,
by the order of the Chief Justice and his associates, at
68°. This is about the temperature that seems healthiest
to average constitutions. To sit in an artificial tempera-
ture 5° above or below this is positively unhealthy. And
such is the character of all our theatres, \\'ith but two or
three commendable exceptions. They must be made habit-
able and healthy, and their temperature regulated by law
or by public opinion.

A New Spectrometer. — Professor Clifton, of Oxford,
has brought out a new spectrometer. In the ordinary
instrument the axis round which the prism turns, and the
axis round which the telescope turns, are generally at an
angle to each other ; but it is of importance that they
should not be inclined in this way, hence Professor Clifton
has made them coincident. There is, in fact, only one
axis in the new instrument, the telescope, divided circle,
and prism plate being fixed on one conical axis turned
very true.

FoRETELLiKG FiREDAMP ESCAPES. — It is well known
that the escape of firedamp in mines is intimately associated
■with the height of the barometer, which thus becomes a
means of foretelling when such escapes are most likely to
occur. But, according to M. de Chancourtois, who has
brought the matter before the French Academy, the
danger is also increased by strain in the earth's crust
causing or opening fissures in the coal, and he therefore
proposes to fix sismographic apparatus at the head of every
dangerous mine, in order to detect these strains and pro-
vide additional precautions against the gas. — Engineering.

jRrbi'ftDS!.

TYNDALL ON SOUND.*

We are glad to see a fourth edition of this valuable
•work, the most suggestive and the most interesting treatise
on sound in the English language. The work itself is so
well known that it should be unnecessary to dwell here
upon its merits ; but the new edition contains some impor-
tant additions. The descriptions of the telephones of
Bell it Edison, and of the microphone and phonograph,
will be read with interest e\-en by those who are already
well acquainted with all these instruments. We should
have liked to have had here Professor Tyndall's opinion as
to the probable future of the phonograph. It is well
known that the original descriptions of its performances
were considerably exaggerated. The sounds which it was
said to repeat were repeated in a sense, but verily they
were considerably translated. To recognise in them the
original words one had " to make-believe a good deal."
The microphone is another instrument which promised
(one may say it promises) to do much more than it has
hitherto performed. We should have been glad if Professor
Tyndall had shown how full of promise this instrument is.

The experiments on the action upon sound (as respects
velocity) of soap-bubbles filled (1) with nitrous oxygen, and
(2) with hydrogen, are singularly instructive in their
bearing on the phenomena of light. The fog-signalling
observations have been somewhat amplified, and are ren-
dered clearer by the use of maps. Besides these additions,
the methods and results of Professor Tyndall's experiments
in the " Action of Free Molecules on Radiant Heat," are
here set forth, and an explanation of the singular phe-
nomenon of " ' Soundless Tones,' observed by General
Douane around Fog-signal Stations on the Coast of the
United States," is reproduced and illustrated.

Bridging the Niagara. — The Canada Southern Rail-
way Company is said to have closed a contract with the
Phojni.x Bridge Company for the construction of a new
iron suspension bridge across the Niagara. The bridge,
which will be about a quarter of a mile south of the old
Suspension Bridge, is to be ready for trains to cross by
Sept. 1, 1883, after which date the Canada Southern Com-
pany will not use the International Bridge, at Buflalo, or
the old Suspension Bridge, and will thus avoid the pay-
ment of the heavy tolls hitherto levied.

LuMiiER IX Canada .\xd tue Uxited States. — It
appears that there are no fewer than 15,024 saw mills in
the United States, and 637 in Quebec, Ontario, and
Manitoba. In these mills during last year, nearly
"50,000,000 ft. more timber was manufactured than in
the year 1881. Towards the close of the year, moreover,
new mills were being built in every direction, so as to be
ready for work this spring. Work in the woods has pros-
pered in consequence of the favourable weather, and the
lumberman looks for an increase of 15 per cent., and even
more, if the weather continues to be in good condition for
floating the logs down. It is confidently stated that, from
all present indications, the production of pine lumber in
the North- West for the year 1S83 will be the largest ever
known. The prices realised by manufacturers on the
stocks sold in 1^81 and 1882 were high, and the business
profitable. This fact has given a great stimulus in the
direction of the further expansion of the great lumber
trade.

* "Sound." By John Tj'ndall, D.C.L., &c. Fourth Edition,
revised and augmented. (London : Longmans & Co., 1883.)

208

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Mat 18, 1883.

(efiitonal (gossip.

So many readers express (despite our protest) the request
that Gossip should lie resumed, that in a modified form we
resume it. Tlie few grumblers may take it or pass it by as
seems best to them. We are not willing to go counter to
the wishes of a great number of kindly readers for the sake
of a few unkindly ones. It has been the same with the
Answers to Correspondents. Having in each case tested
the real wishes of the groat majority of our readers, we
shall not in future notice objections.

The O.rford Chronicle and Bucks and Berks Gazette is
upon me yet again. It will not accept my explanation that
we misspelt Dr. Collins Symon's name quite accidentally.
"He had the name," it says of me, "at full length in every
article of ours he has commented upon." I had, it is true,
but how long does the 0. C. <£• B. <£• B. G. imagine I had
the articles by me 1 When I wrote the paragraph com-
plained of I was on a lecturing tour, and, as I quite cor-
rectly explained, "I had not book, pamphlet, letter, or even
card to remind me how the name is spelled." But there are
men who (judging, perhaps, from internal evidence) are ever
prone to suspect falsehood. I can only say to the writer of
these rude remarks. You may, perhaps, know yourself — you
do not know me. He remarks further that Dr. Symon offered
a prize of fifty guineas, not to one who would convince Dr.
Symon of the absurdity of his paradox, but to one who would
convince any three professors chosen by [me of all people,
but he means] the acceptor of the challenge. I am aware of
it. The offer proves that Dr. Symon feels assured of the
truth of his views, but it also proves that he is quite un-
familiar with the ways of men of science. They do not
accept proffers of this kind any more than gentlemen and
men of probity accept such proffers as " I'll lay you a
guinea a crab is a fish," or " I'll bet you a pony the sun
goes round the earth." Dr. Symon's proffer was not in
very good taste, and the silence of men of science has been
its appropriate rebuke. If I have broken this silence it
has been only because he has so loudly expressed his belief
— which, doubtless, he honestly entertains — that silence
means assent.

The Oxford Chronicle now promises to supply its
readers with "a concise statement of the whole principle,
from the pen of its discoTerer." I wish these readers joy
of the scientific treat promised them.

Ik our last, a rather curious misprint occurred at p. 2 79
under heading, " Erewhon News." For " hiatus valde
dfflendus," there appeared the new reading, " hiatus valde
di'/e7idus " (save us, also !). Circumstances prevented us
from seeing proof.

O.v Sunday evening, twenty minutes after sunset, a
rainbow was visible in the east. It was remarkable for
the excess of red in its colouring, the spectrum not reaching
beyond the yellow-green. The source of light seems to
have been a singularly luminous patch of red cloud in the
west, close to the horizon.

SiiOKTLV after nine o'clock on Sunday evening M.
Borelly, of the Marseilles Observatory, discovered a new
minor planet It is of the eleventh magnitude, and can
therefore only be observed with large telescopes.

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfsed Texxysos.

afttris to tl)t editor.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly be «n-
serted. Correspondents must not be offended, therefore, should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial communications should be addressed to the Editor o»
Knowledge ; all Business communications to the Pcelishers, at the
Office, 74. Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is xot attended to,

DELAYS ARISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

Alt Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messrs. Wvmax & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No communications are answered bt post, even THorcH stahped
and directed envelope be enclosed.

SATURN'S RINGS.

[815] — In reference to Mr. Eix's letter (797) on this subject,
I must say that having also carefully examined Ball's original paper
cutting in the archives of the Eoyal Society, I am quite unable to
agree with the conclusion that the paper was only once folded. On
folding longitudinally a careful tracing which I made of it, I find
the correspondence in the form above and below to be perfect — not
only as regards the outside form of the ring, bnt also the spaces
between the planet and the ring. It is inconceivable that this per-
fect symmetry can have been the result of either skill or chance (as
any one will find who tries to make such a cutting for himself), and
I can only conclude that the paper was twice folded when the
cutting was made, as suggested by Professor Adams.

There is undoubtedly now no trace of a longitudinal fold, while
the vertical sold is very distinct, bnt it is qnite possible that the
paper was not strongly folded longitudinally, while the cutting may
have long been kept folded in the other direction. In the tough,
old-fashioned paper, too, the fibre would be less readily broken, and
the fold consequently less marked than would be the case with
most modern paper. W. H. Weslet.

Burlington House, April 28.

RATIONAL DRESS.

[816] — Having taken much interest in the correspondence upon
Rational Dress which has appeared in Knowledge, perhaps you will
allow me to make a suggestion, which I hope may be useful to
many. One of the most important points to keep in mind is, that
when a woman discontinues to wear corsets she must be careful
also to discard all heavy skirts suspended from the waist. It is a
very good plan (and I write from considerable experience) to have
a nleeveless bodice attached to all heavy skirts. If this fits to the
figure, it supplies the support referred to by C. Carus- Wilson, in
your issue of April 20 ; and the weight of the skirt is borne by thf
shoulders, which is, I think, rational.

Ladies, by adopting this bodice, can wear any dress with comfort;
and few even of the gentle sex would be able to say whether they
woro corsets or not, unless by observing their freedom in all move-
ments. E. T.

SHAM THOUGHT-READING.

[817] — Now that the parlour pastime, the Willing game, has
develoiicd into thought-transference — or, as it is popularly termed,
thought-reading — and in this form is the subject of special investi-
gation by the Society for Psychical Research, I may be allowed to
call attention to Professor Thorpe's very clever exposure of sham
thought-reading.

In illustrating his lecture the other night, he introduced a couple
of telegraph experts, one blindfolded in the orthodox fashion, and
by merely grasping hands, they wore able to keep up a secret tele-
graphy, an<l perform all the audience required. By difference
of pressure on tho hand, dots and dashes of the Morse code were
represented, and a communication kept up between thinker and
reader.

May 18, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

299

The best public exponent of penuine thougbtreading is a young
Wesleyan minister, Rev. K. U. Sugilen, B.A. This gentleman also
illustrated I'rofeSBOr Thorpe's lecture, and discovered, blindfolded,
the number of a bank-note, and wrote on a black-board a word
thought of, but ii"( spoken, by the person whose hand he held. I
shoald bo glad to hear of well-authenticated cases of thonpht-read-
ing u'ilhout contact, of which we hear bo much, and to which the
usual explanation of unconscious muscular action could not bo
applied. Willing.

PROBLEM IN CHANCE.

[818] — A short time back you had in Knowledge some papers
on probabilities and chances, and I should like to put before you
rather an interesting example, and should be glad if you would
inform me how to correctly solve it.

The editor of the Sporting Times is issuing a new paper called
The Prize If'inner, in which he offers certain prizes for picking a
certain number of winning horses out of ten given races, as a bait
to subscribers. The chief prize is JEIOO for picking all the ten
winners. Now, if we say there are five horses in each race to pick

from, is. not the chance of picking all the ten only ^ or

o «/,7t)D,o^5 r

If the £100 is not taken, there is another prize for picking five
winners or more out of the ten races — let us say, six winners out
of ten races.

Now, to pick six winners out of six races, in each of which there
are five horses to pick the winner from, the chance here would be

may be picked, the chance of naming the six is increased, and in
what wav to arrive at the actual increase here, I do not know.

A. M. T.
[I leave the problem for a week or two, as an exercise for our
readers, noting only that in all such cases the offerer of tho prize
takes a tremendous advantage of subscribers. — R. P.]

LOGICAL PUZZLEDOM.

0

I I

[819] — I think you are too hard on the logicians, both in what
yon (apparently) expect them to do and in your comments on what
they have done.

The puzzle which you really set them is this : To exhibit syllo-
gistically a piece of reasoning which is purely arithmetical, and to
do this in a single syllogism (at all events, I can anticipate the
comments which you would make if I sent you three or four syllo-
gisms, the last of which led to the conclusion in question), without
expressing the arithmetical axioms assumed. If logic cannot do
this (or finds great difficulty in doing it) yon conclude it to be
worthless.

Now, Sir, in the first place, no logician, I believe, contends that
all reasoning is, or ought to be, reduced to syllogistic form. What
he contends is that all right reasoning can be reduced to one or
more syllogisms, and that, therefore, when we have discovered tho
tests which distinguish good from bad reasoning in syllogisms (such
as, for instance, imdistributed middle, illicit process, or ambiguous
terms), we can apply these tests to ordinary reasoning without
actually performing tlie reduction. To show that logic is useless,
it should be shown either that these tests are useless, or that men
spontaneously apply them without any logical training.

But, in the second place, all logicians, I believe, admit that the
reduction of ordinary reasoning to syllogistic form must be left to
the reasoner himself, and that no cut-and-dried rules can be laid
down for its performance. To which I may add, that while some
simple and obvious arguments require a good deal of trouble in
ndnction, other arguments which are by no means simple can be
reduced to syllogistic form without difficulty. You will not, I
think, find much difficulty in ttiming the following argument into
a syllogism : — The universe is constantly p.irting with its heat ;
for it is radiating it away into the space which surrounds it, and
the greater part of this radiant heat, meeting with no solid body in
Ha path, never returns. But is this reasoning correct ? I think
Jon will not find it easy to give an answer.

W. H. S. MoxcK.

[I merely said that, without any training in formal logic, the par-
ticular relation presented by Professor De Jlorgan ought to be
obvious. The falsity of the reasoning at the close of our corre-
spondent's letter lies in the assumption that the universe is sur-
xoonded by space, which is no more correct than would be the
assumption that space is surrounded by the universe. The broad
fact that among the ablest reasoners the world has known, nine out
of ten have known nothing of formal logic, or, knowing its rules, have
never thought of applying them, is that on which I would alono dwell

in discussing the value of the study of logic. Yet in its proper
place, and in proper degree, the study of logic is excellent for the
mind, precisely as the study of mathematics is good even for those
who never care to nso mathematics in their actual studies. — R. P.]

ALTERATION IX COAST LINE AND SUBMERGED
FORE.STS.

[820] — As supplementing and correcting some statements by
" H'sett" (7C8), p. 183, allow me to say that on the NE coast of
Sheppey tho rate of waste is about a quarter of a mile in a century,
not 3ft. I can advance proof that during the last 300 years tho
line of cliff has receded three-quarters of a mile.

Warden Church was pulled down some years ago, w^hen its posi-
tion became dangerous, and during this last winter its site and the
whole of the graveyard have slipped away. Before long, on the
beach below, human remains will be as plentiful as fossils.

Minster Church and village are now little more than a quarter of
a mile from the sea, so that in another 100 years these will pro-
bably be swept away, unless in tho meantime the process of waste
bo stopped by an embankment.

Will " H'sett" state what evidence there is of an ancient forest
having been discovered below tho surface at Sheerness ? Drift
timber is plentiful enough in the London clay, and may also occur
in tho alluvium which — 60 or 70 ft. thick — overlies this at the spot
indicated ; but di'ift timber in a sedimentary deposit is a very
different thing from a submerged forest, indicating an old land
surface.

Tho skull of the enormous turtle (Chehne gigas), which I found
some time ago, is now in the Natural History lluseura at South
Kensington. W. H. Shrcbsole.

HOW TO USE THE EYES.

[821] — Like yourself, I am particularly interested in this ques-
tion, and hope to see it fully discussed in the pages of your valu-
able .Journal. The points I msh to refer to, however, will hardly
come within the province of the author of the above papers to deal
with, and it may not be out of place for me to seize the opportu-
nity— suggested by your note appended to a letter by " Myopia"
— of stating a case, which, although it may be rather a side-issue,
may yet have some claim to come under the subject of " How to
use the eyes." It is this, that, as in your own case, I have one
eye much more short-sighted than tho other, and that I see double.
But the ordinary position of one of my eyes is what is known as
an outward " squint," and it is only when I bring this eye to
look straight with the other that I have double and also indistinct
vision.

Of course, any one may at pleasure so adjust his sight as to see
double, but the question is, how is it that in this case double vision
is always the result of this experiment ':" If an oculist were to
operate and correct the squint, wonld the result be double and
indistinct vision ? This would be an important consideration, and
as I have often wished to have the operation performed, perhaps
some of your correspondents who may bo able to speak with the
authority of experience in the matter, will kindly give me their
opinion.

There may be many cases similar to my own, and of course the
correction of such a defect would be a great advantage to the indivi-
dual concerned ; but before tampering in any way with the eyes, let
us bo certain, as far as j>ossible, of results, I have been advised on
both sides — for and against the operation — by medical men, some
years ago, but would now like to have the testimony of any one
who may have had such a case brought under his notice.

Oculcs.

WART-CHARMING.

[822] — I am not a believer in any one of the occult " sciences."
I am of opinion that many extraordinary things, when sifted,
would prove to have no better basis than a garbled account of some
actual fact, totally different and altogether unimportant ; but what
am I to make of this ? A gentleman now sitting before me, whose
mind is as sceptical as my own, tells me that five-and-thirty years
ago, when he was about fifteen years of age, his hands were un-
sightly from warts. When out for a walk with his father he
called upon an acquaintance, who noticed them, and said that if he
would call upon him during tho week he would remove the warts.
The youth went, and was told to sit down and count his warts.
Some were partially grown together, and he put the question
as to whether he was to count them as one, or two, or three,
as the case might be. The answer, somewhat abruptly given,
was, that he must count his warts, and say how many he
thought he had. The "charmer" left the room for a minute,
came back, asked for the number, and told the youth that would

300

KNOV/LEDGE ♦

[May 18, 1883.

do and ho might go. The youth wont away lialf-laughiiif,' ami half-
disgasted at the ap|>areiitly ridiculuus way in wliioh ho thought ho
had beou humbuggol, uiiil dismissed the incident from his raind.
Ho had, as near as ho can now recollect, twenty-three warts. Ho
happened to recall the incident a fortnight afterwards, glanced at
hia hands to Bee that they were still there, and found, very much to
his surprise, that ail liad disappeared but one upon the jiad of the
thumb, and that wa.s the only one upon the under side of the lingers,
and it remained for years afterwards. My friend has, in the course
of his life, found many other cases of successful wart-charming. I
have often heard, but never noticed, such talcs until now, but it is
impossible for me to doubt either my friend's recollection of the
event or his veracity and good faith.

Wliat am I to make of this ? Pczzled Sceptic.

[Bacon (Francis) gives similar experience of his own, which I
have ([noted in an article on the Influence of the Mind on the Body.
What kills the warts in such cases is undoubtedly the attention
directed to them. That is tlie Hoiv, but as to the Why — Quieii sahe ?
E. P.]

POISON IN THE CUP.

[823] — Referring to the custom of serving ale and stout in
pe^vter pots which are never washed, I ask yon, in the name of
cleanliness, decency, and conimon sense, to help in putting down
this dangerous custom, which I am sure is the cause of much
disease, more particularly in the City of London and the neigh-
bourhood, where the great unwashed pewter is so much more used
than the cleaner glass, which must be washed, or show its
uncleanlincss.

It is notorious that in all the great luncheon and dining rooms
in the City, the City clerk and others who have not much spare
cash, order their half-pint in preference to asking for a glass,
which contains about a halfpenny worth less than the half-pint ;
or, in other words, for less than one halfpenny he will run the risk
of getting all manner of complaints, which he in turn may com-
municate to others, and all for one halfpennyworth of beer.

Our railway companies are obliged to clean out and whitewash
their railway trucks for fear of spreading cattle diseases. Is not a
human being as good as an ox, and should not our publicans be
obliged to do as much for their fellow creatures as the law compels
a railway to do for cattle ?

It anyone doubts that pewter pots go from day to day — yes, and from
week to week — without washing, until they are so sticky they can-
not be handled, lot him watch, or ask any bar girl, and he will find,
as I have done, that they will not reply— from which you can draw
your o^vn conclusions. I have,'at some little trouble, made some
inquiries, and find that the working man's public-house is vastly
cleaner than our palatial restaurant. Now, the question is, how to
mitigate the evil ? To name the places in question and caution the
public against going there might bring improvement for the time,
but for the time only. Therefore, I hope some discussion may bo
brought on, and that Parliament may be induced in future legisla-
tion to give the same protection to man as it does to a beast, or else
that some society will make it their business to oppose all licences
where common cleanliness is not observed.

Health before Beee.

THE OLDEST TREE IN THE WORLD.

[82-t] — In the number of Knowiedge for January 19, 1883, is
an article headed thus ; and also in a immber of the same paper for
March 2nd this year, is one headed the " Bo-tree and the tree of
Knowledge." In both of them statements are made which may
lead people into error.

" A. M. L. J.," the writer of the latter article, seems to confound
Bnddhism with Brahminism, and to imagine them to be one and
the same religion, because he found the pipal (Ficus religiosa).
Bodhi or Bo-tree sculptured on Buddhist remains, and saw its
leaves offered to one of the Hindu gods.

With regard to the former article, wo would refer your readers
for what we believe to bo a true account of the Bo-tree to a work
which has just appeared, entitled " Our Tour in Southern India,"
by Mrs. J. C. Murray-Aynsley, in which, at page 305, is given the
account of the introiluction of one of its offshoots to Ceylon; and
at page 35t we arc told where the original Bo-tree came from.
According to this work, an offshoot of the tree under which Buddha
attained Nirvana was brought to Anaradhapura, in Ceylon (not
Amarapoora, in Burmah), u.c. 289, from a place called Buddh Gaya,
no great distance from Patna, in Bengal, where was the original
lio-troe, pipal, or Jicu.i r)'li[iiosa, under which Buddha is said to
have remained five years until he attained Buddhahood or Nu-vana.
The pipal is stated to live only about three centuries. It i.'i a soft-
wooded tree, which we believe renders this highly probable ; and

when Mrs. Murray-Aynsley visited Buddh Cava in 18S1 she was
told that a year or two previously the old pipal tree had fallen
down (owing to the giving way of the masonry which surrounded
it), after it had been dead some years. And she states that the
present sacred tree is i\ seedling from the last, and quite a small
tree, only about fifteen-feet high, and that its trunk is covered
with gold-leaf.

Perhaps some of your readers in India may be able to confirm
or di8|)rove the statement here made respecting the ordinary age
attained by the jjipal tree. I have spent several years in India,
and do not recall ever seeing a tree of this species which appeared
to be of a very great age. Cosmopolitan.

LETTERS RECEIVED AND SHORT iVNSWERS.

W. B. That 3G5d., or a penny a day for a year = £l. lOs. 5d.
is too obvious to need a special letter ; but, as you say, it gives a
convenient way of quickly calculating how much a daily number of
pence will give per annum, coimting Sundays. As to the cat's-tail
paradox, we must beg to be excused. Surely you did not fail to see
that Mr. Foster was only jesting in his paradox about Jlercnry. As
for "An Observer," I am not sure whether he was jesting or not abont
tiglit-laciiig. I fancy he was, or was testing his skdl in advocacy.
Anyhow, he is one of the ablest men of the day. — W. B. To quote
the pleasing words of your own letter (there can be no "acrimony"
in that), " you would not, pardon me, have made an ass of yourself,
by writing as you have" (really that sounds rough, but it must be
right, as you put it that way), if you had known more of the facts.
I imow — you evidently do not — that not he alone, but several enter-
tain precisely that mistake ; I had a reason, that you cotdd not
appreciate, for entering on the discussion (which took precisely the
course I had anticipated) ; and, lastly, I know that the originator
of the theory is no more mad, and no more believes in the theory,
than you — to judge froni the sentence partly quoted above — know
anything (pardon me) of manners (you will excuse me). I trust
this also will prove "vastly entertaining to you and your friends."
— P. M. Teaesley. Not easy to say without fuller particidars. —
Plorian. I think it was only a long beam of light passing through
two low-lying banks of cloud. — Barpeta. It is impossible to say
what would suffice to make the matter clear to Dr. Simon and his
followers. Have no space to attempt the Herculean labour. —
C. J. Caswell. Quite agree with you. As to place of Venus, I
owe you many apologies ; will attend to the matter at once. —
E. C. H. Your reply does not cover the question, which refers to
one and the same chord. — A Constant Subscriber. — The writer
you quote seems quite right. When he speaks of the face of the
sun, he means, apparently, the visible disc ; but, as I have not seen
the article, I cannot be certain. Science knows of no dark face of
the sun, seen through the spots. — G. M. Much to be said about
interplanetary ether, but such talk is pretty barren. Too crowded
just now for the suggested article, the title of which suggests rather
ethical than physical matters. — H. R. B. Simple, yet useful. I
think no one wants it explained. Thanks. — W. H. J. Just the sort
of information we do not undertake to give. — T. M. Purday. Many
thanks. Pamphlet most interesting. — G. W. Valentine. Noted.
— F. MouNSDON. Partial halo. — JEoif. Consigned, as per
request, to locality indicated (oblivion). — A. M. MiTcmsoN.
Thanks. Will use. — LL.B. Leibnitz's definition implies only
evenness, not constancy of direction. — J. Redosmax. Query
column closed. — Joseph Hibbert kindly points out that the
translation of Richter's " Dream of the Universe" is in Vol. XIII.,
p. 13-i, of De Quincey's works, published 1SC3, by A. & C. Black.— W.
Thanks. — Hi'OH Clements. No connection whatever has been
made out. — E. C. H. On the contrary, for one letter maintaining
that the man does not go round the squirrel we have received a
score holding the correct view ; but the real point at issue is the
interpretation to be given to the words rotation and revolution.
The paradox that the moon does not rotate because she turns always
the same face to the earth is maintained by not a few, and is pre-
cisely akin to the one involved in your argument. — John Herbert.
Possibly weather unfavoiu'ablo. Cannot answer so many small
qtieries here, and query column long since closed. — A. Lath-^m. !
Regret that am unable ; but it would involve a heavy annual expense i
to do so in every ease, and cannot make selection. — E. A. Brown, '
J. Haroreave, L. Mathews, and many others. The gossip notes
(non-])eraonal) continue. — Scbscriber. Thnnks. — J. Parry. Many I
like you have disregarded that request ; and, of course, I am not .
sorry they have done so. — J. K. Dealv. Will try to find room, but '
am doubtful. — H. W. M. Thanks ; but subject unsuitable. — Jas. ,
HoRXELL. Query column closed long since. — Peccavi. Pretty seal,
yours ! Are not microscopical papers in progress ? Marvels of pond
life will come in naturally. — C. E. Bell. See Mr. Goschen's letter, i
— C. N. That (with regard to the Pyramid) "is what I intended
to convey officially."

May 18, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE

301

^ur iHatt)tmatical Column*

COLLECTING the results we have obtained in the last two
lessons, so far as they add to the number of our known
integrals, wo hare

xvx'—a' a' x

ijr = :; — o sin ~' -

^ Z a

/-'.TZl

-,i- dx =

2

"2 log^a+v'jr'-u^J
+ -5 log ( a:+ ^' x--,r )

y = log I a; + vx'—o-j

These results should be committed to memory, because these
logarithms are of frequent occurrence. As for the first, it is easily
remembered from tho relation which, as already pointed out, it
bears to a circular area. The next two are similarly related to tho
areas APKN and CA'K'X in Fig. 1. Also, if AK, AK' bo
joined, it mil be seen how the first part of the one represents the
triangle C K N, while the first part of the other represents tho
triangle C K' N — the logarithmic parts represent respectively the
areas A P K C and A' P' K' C. " These areas, then, are represented
by the fourth and fifth of the above tabulated integrals.

It remains, then, to be ascertained whether the curved surfaces,
ACK, A'C K', can be at once and so readily shown to be repre-
sented by the fourth and fifth integrals, that a convenient aid to
the memory may be obtained from the relation. Obviously, the

only way to get these areas is to proceed by polar formute. Thus,
let A P Q K be part of a rectangular hyperbola, C the centre, C A
the axis. Then we know* that if C P = r, and A C P = 0

r»=

Cos'S-sin'Q Cos29

Now, if P C Q =rf 6, we have, elementary area P C Q

r' ,„ aVO

= -<J9=- --

2 2 cos 20

and if K C A = o, we have

area APK 0 = 2!/"-^
2y„ cos 29

Thus to integrate /- and/- is our next care.

y cos 29 y sin 29

Take the second first, as more likely to be easy. We have

/- dO f dd r cos 9 dB

J^a2Jd^ J Z sin 9 cos d^ J 2 sin 9 cos '9

y tau(

Whence wo obtain / very easily. Thus,

J cos 29

V dB

Put 0 = -. -0 ; BO that 7T= — 1

* We give, in fact, the well-known polar equation of the rect-
angular hyperbola ; but it can be deduced at once from the relation
already given : i/«=i' — u'; putting !/ = r sin 9, and x = )- cos 9.

/- <J9 /■ 1 dfl r d»

1 1 /T \

= -^ log tan <t> =—2 '°g **" Vt"" '

= 2 log cot (^-0)
Ilcnco area A P K C

= -J[log cot(^-«)] (v logcot J =u )

=-jlogcot KCN
a' CN

a» C N'

' C N . N K
(CK)'
■ CG'

o» CN
=¥^°ScG

a? CN.XK

'"■=T'''S (NK)-^"

a- (A G)=

or =^ log ^^^y

a' AG
or =2- log -^

Wo have seen already that AQK C, fig. 3 = G A KX. Hence
tho result just obtained shows that we may write —

Area GAKS = — log^ or =4- log —
2 «! 2 1/1

(putting NK = yi)- This is, of course, obvious, since {niY='X\V\r
that is, «i_.^

V\ «i
But it is convenient to note the two forms.

Putting a = -, or carrying the radius vector on to coincidenco
4
with the asymptote C Z, we find that the area between the
asymptote, the semi-axis C A, and the curve A Q K to infinity

= — log (cot 0) = infinity.

We may here add to our list of known integrals these : —

/Ji - log tan? and /JL = logcot (^-^,)
ysinO 2 ycosW V-i 2/

/j!£_ = llogtane; and /_i£_ = l log cot (^ - e)
y sin 20 2 yco3 292 V^

/■JL.=\ log tan !i^; and/-i!i-=l logcot (--^)
yBin«9 n 2 y cos ii0 n \i i/

(j^ur CI) ess Column,

By Mephisto.

THE INTERNATIOXAL TOURNAMENT.

Since our last report Steinitz sustained an important defeat
by Blackbume on the 11th inst. From tho game which we publish
below it will be seen that Steinitz adopted the same defence of
3. P to KKt3 as in his gamo with Mackenzie and Zukertort, but
this time with fatal result. This, however, did not come as a sur-
prise to many, who had no faith in that line of play. Blackbum&
has raised his score to six, and he 1ms two more draws to play off.
Zukertort does not seem to be much affected by his only defeat of
last week by Steinitz. He defeated Sellman, Bird, and Eosenthal
in very good style, and heads the list with a score of ten. He has
to meet English and Winawer before the conclusion of the first
round, and it is possible he may have to yield the palm of victory
to one or other of these two strong players. Nevertheless, he
onght to come out at the head of the list at tho first round.
Tschigorin has done very well indeed, baring lost but three games
out of ten. Next come Mason and Winawer, with a score of five-
and-a-half each, and two draws to play off.

The play itself is excellent, and continues to interest a large
number of daily visitors. Some of the dailies also give considerable
attention to the Tournament, notably the Evenin'i Standard and

302

KNOWLEDGE .

[Mat 18, 1883.

the Monting Advertiser. Especially in the latter paper our
readers will find a reliable daily report.

SCORE UP TO MONDAY NIGHT.

Bird

Blackburne

English

Mackenzie

Mason

Mortimer . .

>Ioa

Rosenthal..
"Sellraan ..
Skipworth
Steinitz ..
Tcshigorin
Winawer ..
.^ukertort..

^•■•-i'il "

aj 'Ol 'Eh i>

0
0
1

1

PLAYED IN THE FIEST KOUND ON MAY 11.

1. P to K4

2. Kt to KB3

3. Kt to QB3

4. P to Q4

5. Kt takes P

6. B to K3

7. B to K2

8. Castles

9. B to B3

10. Q to Q2

11. B to RO

12. B takes B

13. B to K2 (ri)

14. P to B4

P to K4
Kt to QB3
P to KKt3 (a)
P takes P
B to Kt2
Kt to B3
Castles
KttoK2 (b)'
P to Q3
Kt to Q2
Kt to K4
K takes B (c)
P to KB3
Kt to B2

QR to Q sq
B toB4
B takes Kt
P to B5
P to K5 (<•)
Kt to K6 (ch)
P takes B
Q to Kt5
R to Q3
R toE3
Q to R6 (ch)
R to B8 (ch)
Q takes RP
mate (j)

P toB3
B to Q2
R takes B
Kt to B sq
BP takes P
B takes Kt
R to K2 (/)
Q to K sq (sf)
R takes P (h)
Q to K2 (0
K to Kt sq
Q takes R

NOTES.

(a) Steinitz tavoura P to KKt3 as a defence to the Fonr
Knights' and Ruy Lopez attack. Most analysts, however, condemn
that move, as leading to an unsatisfactory position in general and
a weakness on the King side in particular.

(6) Played with the intention of advancing P to Q4.

(c) Black's position being already cramped, he ought to have
simplified the game by Kt takes B (ch). This would, at least, have
averted the subsequent speedy dissolution of his game.

(d) A judicious retreat, which prepares for the advance of the
KBP.

(e) A very line move, played in Blackbume's best style. Of
course, the QP cannot take an account of Kt to K6, and on the
BP taking, he obtains the full command of the B file.

(/) 21. R takes R, would have given White an obvious advan-
tage. Also 21. R to B3, White would have replied with 22. Kt to
K4, R takes P, 23, Kt to Kt5, R to K2, 24. R to B7 (ch), and
rshould win.

(.7) White threatened R to 1!7 (ch).

(h) Ever}- move of this well-iilanncd attack seems the natural
outcome of the position. 23. P tii R3 would not have helped Black
much, for White would reply with 24. Q to Bfi (ch), K to Kt sq.
25. Kt to K4, with a winning position ; for if now 25. R takes P,
one of the likely continuations would be 26. Q to R4, P to Kt4,
•27. E to Kt3, &c.

(i) This allows of a mate in three moves, bnt Black had no real
resource.

(j) A worthy finish to a well-conceived attack. As a cm-iosity,
■wo may mention that Blackburne beat Steinitz at Vienna in the
same number of moves, viz., 27.

PLAYED IN THE FIRST ROUND ON MAY 7.

White
Muckenz

P to K4
Kt to KB3
B to Kt5
B to R4 (h)
V to B3
Q takes Kt
Q to Kt3
Q takes P (c)
P to Q3 (c)
Castles
P takes P
K to R sq (/)
Q to K2
P to KB4
Q to KB2
B to Q sq
B to K2
R to Q sq
B to B3
B takes Kt
Kt to R3
P to KKt3
Q to Kt2

P to K4 1

Kt to QB3
Kt to Q5 («) !
B to B4
Kttks. Kt(ch)
Kt to K2
Castles 1

P to Q4 (d)
P to QR4 I

R to R3
R to KKt3 I
B to Q3
Kt takes P
B to KKto
P to QB3
B to KB4
R to K sq
R(Kt.3)toK3(3
Kt takes P
B takes B
Q to Kt 4
B toK6
Q to R3

I' to KKt4
Kt to B2
Q to Kt3
P to Kt5 (j)
P takes Q
P takes P
Kt to Q4
K to Kt2
Kt to Kt3
P to Q4
RtoQ2
B to K4
KtoB3
B to B2
Kt to B5
KtoB4
K takes P
Kt to K6 (j)
K toK4
K to Q3
P to B4
R to Kt2
Resigns (!)

Bla«k.
Bird.

B to Kt3
B to R2
B to Kt sq
B takes Q
B to R5
R to Q sq
R to B3
K takes P
R to B4
K to R3 (A)
R to KKt aq
R to Kt4 (ch)
P to KB4
R to K sq (»)
B to R4 (ch)
R to Kt5 (ch)
R(Kt5)toKtsq
B to Kt5 (ch)
R takes Kt(ch)
P to Kt4 (t)
B to Kt4
R to K6 (ch)

NOTES.

(a) Bird is very partial to this defence of the Ruy Lopez.

(b) Steinitz prefers Kt takes Kt followed by castling.

(c) Always risky capture at this early stage of the game.
(rf) An attacking move.

(e) This is a tame move. P takes P would have been feasible.

(/') Zukertort suggested B to Q sq, with a view to playing B to
B3 as a satisfactoiy answer to Black's very bold manceuvre with
his QR

(jf) Black plays in very fine attacking style, and carries all
before him. White, being hard pressed, thought an exchange of
Queens would relieve the strain.

(li) This is far-seeing play, the object being to play R to Kt sq.

(1) Cutting off the retreat of the King and threatening a speedy
mate. We give a diagram of this interesting position.
Bird.

^

E'

t

t

■ .'6

1

11

.^'^

@

B

WUIIE.

Mackexzie.
(.)') To prevent the mate by KR to B sq.
(/.•) To prevent an escape bv K to B4.

(0 For if K to Q2, R to KKtO (dis ch) and wins. Black's play in
the latter part of the game has been very tolling and ingenious.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
*»* Please address Chess Editor.
Chas. E. Bell.- — The solution to 84 is quite correct ; you seem to
have moved R to B5 instead of B4. — Chief Editor.

Contents of No. 80.

Page

The Birth and Growth of Mylh.
VII. By Edward Clodd 273

The Chemistry of Cookery. IX.
Bt W. Mattien WiUiams 27-1

A NaturaliBfs Year. XII. Two
I.ittlo Greenish Floxvers. Bv
Grant Allen '.. 27G

Geolosy of the lale of Man. (Illiii-
frateil. By W. Jerome Harrison,
F.G.S 277

PlOl

FWin" Foies in Australia 279

The Archer Fish. (Iltuttraltd) ...230
The Electric Light in Surgical

Diagnosis. (Ilhislraltd) 281

The Face of the Sky. By F.E.A.S. 288

Reviews: Snake Poisons 283

Correspondence : Spelling Reform

— My Paradoxes — Letters Re-

eivcd and Brief Answers

r Chess Column

284

Mat 25, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE •

30i

. MAGAZINE . ^I^CE

FLAfNlYl|QRD£D-£XACT4BlSCRIB£D,

LONDON: FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1883.
Contents op No. 82.

PAGB
A Solurelisfs Tear. XIII. The

Blaikop Sings. By Grant Allen 303
Lsvrs uf Bristatness. {llltutmUd)

Bv K. A. Proctor 3M

Our Bodies. XII. The Bodr's

Income and Expenditure. 87

l)r. Andrew ■Wilson, F.R.S.E ,

4c.

The Libraries of Babjlo:

and

306

The Chcmistnr of Cookery. IX.

Bt W. Mattieu Williama i

Baldness I

?jlgi
Sun Views of the Earth. (//;«»-

Iratrd.) Bv R. A. Proctor 310

Reviews: Ge'oloey Afield— WTlere
10 find Ferns ^ Guid.nce f..r
Youth— Paradoxical Fhilosophv 3'1
The Face of the Skv. By F.R.A.S. 312

Editorial Gossip ...'. 313

Correspondence: To Destroy
Aphides — A Discount Dodge —
A Musical Question— The Di-

Tided Skin, 4c 311

Our Chess Column 317

Our Mathematical Column 318

A NATURALIST'S YEAR.

By Graxt Allex.

XIII.— THE BLACKCAP SIXGS.

\ JIONG the greening red-currant trees in the garden a
^1. noisy wee bird sits perched invisibly under the shade
«£ the lush young foliage, and sings away in changeful
notes, which make it at first very hard to distinguish for
what it really in the end turns out to be. When it began,
it whistled gaily like a blackbird, and I thought for a
moment it must be one of those light-heartod strawberry-
coving thieves come to look up the chance of a ripe berry
or two on the blossoming vines in the early bed. Then it
struck out a plaintive note or so, like the nightingale's ;
and after that it glided off incontinently into the liquid
treble of the thrush and the garden warbler. Presently,
hopping from one bough, which it had fully cleared of the
£at black and yellow banded caterpillars, to another one,
as yet unweeded of its insect foes, it showed enough of its
head and wings above the broad currant-leaves to disclose
the fact that it was really our English mockingbird, the
lively little garden-haunting blackcap. Plain and unnotice-
able as he is in plumage, there are so many odd small points
of form or habit about him which cast light upon the origin
and history of specific distinctions that I shall make no
apology for taking him as the te.xt of this morning's
, «volutionary discourse. I can watch him through the
window as I write, and so make sure that I am keeping
my description of his appearance and manners thoroughly
true to the facts of nature.

Your blackcap is Viy family one of the thrush kind, and,
by further restriction, he belongs to that lesser group,
justly known as the warblers, distingui-'hed (so far as outer
appearance goes) from the true thrushes mainly by the fact
that the young birds are unspotted on the upper part of
the body. This seems, no doubt, at first sight, a very small
and unimportant difference ; but then we must remember
that among such a closely similar class as birds generally,
the specific, and even the generic and family differences are
usually but slight ; and, further, that resemblances between
tlie young are almost always of high genealogical value,
because they presumably represent a common ancestral

form, from which the adult creatures proceed to vary in
different directions. Thus, we may fairly conclude that at
some early period the original thrush group split up into
two minor divisions, one with spotted backs, and the other
with unspotted ; while in the course of time each of these
minor divisions once more subdivided itself, under stress
of more special selection, into the thrushes, blackbirds, and
field-fares on the one liand, and the nightingales, blackcaps,
and whitethroats on the other. ]Mr. Seebohm, one of our
greatest authorities on such subjects, believes that these
two main groups ought even to be ranked as separate
families, and points out that the diversity indicated by the
difference in the plumage of the young liirds is correlated
with other diversities in the mode of moulting, and in the
peculiar shape of the bone known as the /nrsiix. It must
be borne in mind that variations in the plumage are com-
paratively important as indicating specific separateness in
birds, and that the only marked difference (for example)
between a thrush and a blackbird is that the one is spotted
and the other uniformly black. Under such circumstances,
the constant presence of spots upon the back of the young
blackbird, which die away with the mature plumage, must
be regarded as a good hint of the original derivation of the
race.

Our friend the blackcap, again, differs from the re-
mainder of his own relations, the restricted warblers, in the
possession of that little dark crest on the top of his head,
from which he has acquired his popular English name.
The hen birds, however, have the crest brown, instead of
black — a sort of distinction which commonly occurs in
similar cases. Here, in all probability, we have a very
simple instance of those decorative adjuncts -whose origin
Mr. Darwin ascribed to the selective preferences of the
female birds. In the closely-allied garden warblers the
sexes are indistinguishable, but in the blackcap a dis-
tinction of some importance has been set up ; and it is
interesting to learn from Mr. Harting, a close observer,
that till.' male blackcaps always arrive in England some
days before the females. The natural consequence must
be that the first and strongest females, when they arrive,
will be able to take their choice of the heartiest and
raost-decorated mates, as well as the best singers. Now,
it so happens that among the garden warblers, too, the
cock birds are the first to come ; and an objector might
easily ask why they also are not similarly decorated.
That is just the sort of objection which it is always
easy to raise against evolutionary reasoning, and the
answer to which is very simple. E%-erything must
have a Vieginning. However much decorated any
class may now be, there must have been a time when
it first began to acquire its earliest ornaments. Thus the
garden warblers may, perhaps, even now be starting on the
road toward the acquisition of a distinctive male topknot.
But, on the other hand, selection of this sort must be con-
stantly subordinated to natural selection of the strongest or
the bestrprotected individuals. Thus, it may also happen
that among the very civilised garden warblers, any extra
decoration might be harmful rather than useful. In short,
it is always relatively easy to account for what is — easy to
show why Englishmen with firearms get the better of Red
Indians with bows and arrows ; it is not always so easy to
account for what is not — to explain why Red Indians did
not invent gunpowder before the English. I may add that
the little white-throats also come to our shores before the
ladies of their kind, and skulk about in the hedges till the
hens arrive ; but as soon as this happens, they take their
stand conspicuously on the topmost branches by the way-
side, and sing emulously against one another for the attrac-
tion of their listening mates. To my mind, these incipient

304

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

(May 25, 1883.

stages in the selective process are quite as essential to
Darwin's argument as the highly-evolved display of the
peacock, the turkey gobbler, and the Argus pheasant The
one set of exiuii[.li-s shows us the mechanism actually at
■work ; the other set shows us the developed result.

The blackcap conies over to us about the middle of April,
and continui'S in full song till the end of June. Being a
conspicuous and brisk little bird — far more likely to invite
a stray stout' from the murderous hand of ingenuous youth
than the dull-hued sparrow, or even the nimble challinch —
it hides its black-topped liead for the most part under the
shade of thickets ; but it is very fond of gardens, where
not too e.xposed, as it is a confirmed fruit-eater, given to
making great depredations among the raspberries and
currants. It is a noteworthy fact, however, that the young
blackcaps will eat nothing but insects ; it is not till they
have attained to years of discretion that they take to their
hnal habit of plundering fruit-bushes. This trait, common
to many, if not to most, fruit-eaters, maj' be put side by
side with the one noted by Mr. A. E.. Wallace, that the
young humming-birds, which are developed flower-haunting
swifts, will eat nothing but spiders and small flies. In
both cases, the facts point back curiously to the
original habits of the whole race. There can be
very little doubt that all birds were at first carnivorous,
piscivorous, or insectivorous, and the greater part of them
probably remain so to the present day. The practice of
eating grains and seeds came later ; while that of living
upon fruits, or the nectar of flowers, mu.st have been the
latest of all. Indeed, the development of succulent fruits
or berries seems to me to be a very recent acquisition on
the part of plants generally ; and it must have proceeded
side by side with the evolution of fruit-eating habits in the
correlated birds. Hence we lind the young still require to
be fed upon animal food ; and, indeed, the adult black-
caps, like many other similar mainly frugivorous species,
cannot get along for any length of time without a liberal
admixture of slugs and caterpillars in their food. On the
other hand, the most advanced fruit-eaters, such as the
parrots, readily reveit to carnivorous practices in confine-
ment ; and one New Zealand species, since the introduction
of sheep into the colony, has become a perfect pest to the
breeders by its partiality for animal dainties. ^

At the same time, adult blackcaps have now got so
thoroughly accustomed to their vegetable food that they
will not live in captivity without fresh fruits in summer,
and a little pear or apple in winter. Being such sweet
and varied singers, they arc often kept as " pets " by
people who " are fond of birds," much as one might keep a
great pianist in prison, by way of admiring his musical
genius. In their wild state, blackcaps love freedom and
retirement ; so that the confinement and publicity of a
cage must be perfect misery to such pert and agile, but
timid, birds. Thej' sing best in the month of ilay, when
food is most abundant, and when the nesting is going on.
Both birds take turn about in hatching the clouded, pale
brown eggs, one feeding while the other sits ; but they
don't like to be interfered with during the nesting period,
and will desert their eggs if any attempt is made to
intrude upon their privacy. All these little psychological
points have their own peculiar value in the economy of the
race ; and the more one studies birds, the more does one
begin to see that their dispositions are all as strictly corre-
lated as is outward structure to the general necessities of
the species. Blackcaps are above everything timid hangers-
on of civilisation ; and their habits are accommodated to
the needs of their situation. They cannot live readily in
very wild countries, and it is a matter of observation that
they have grown more and more numerous in Scotland

with the spread of cultivation in the north, wliither they
have closely followed the currants and other garden fruits.
Indeed, the extent to which mankind lias modified and
altered the European fauna and ilora opens up a (juestion
still, I believe, only very partially understood. There
seems to be good reason for thinking that a very large
number of existing species can only have assumed their
present forms since the date when tillage first became-
common in the western Asian and Mediterranean regions.

LAWS OF BRIGHTNESS.*

By Richard A. Proctor.

THERE are few subjects on which illusions are so widely
prevalent as that of brightness, whether the
brightness of self-lununous objects, or that of opaque
bodies under illumination. For example, nearly every one
who has not given the subject close attention supposes
that a luminous body, of either kind, shines with a
seemingly fainter light when at a distance than when near
at hand, independently of any absorptive effects exerted
by the medium through which the object is seen. Again,
it is quite a common error that a luminous sur-
face, when looked at slantwise, appears less luminous
than when looked at directly. When the elTects of tele-
scopic appliances are in question, mistakes of a yet more
widespread nature are met with. Thus, quite a large propor-
tion, even of those who are in the habit of using telescopes,
entertain the idea that by means of a telescope an object
may be made to appear brighter. The notion that the
moon, for instance, shines no more brightly as seen with a
large telescope than as seen with the naked eye is at a
first view scouted as ridiculous by many telescopists.
Again, those accustomed to the use of night-glasses are
usually prepared to asseverate that objects seen through
such glasses are rendered considerably brighter ; other-
wise, indeed, they argue a night-glass would be of no use
whatever.

I propose here to consider a few of the leading facts
connected with the subject of brightness. They are of
extreme importance in many branches of research, and a
knowledge of them would prevent observers, as well as
theorists, from falling into many errors, either as to
methods, or as to the interpretation of observation.

First, as to self-luminous objects.

The first point to be noticed of self-luminous surfaces is
that they shine with equal brightness in whatever direc-
tion they may be viewed. If a red-hot poker be looked at
in a dark room it will be seen that the faces of the heated
square-sectioned part are of equal apparent brightness. The
experiment may equally well be tried in a lighted room ;
only, care must lie taken that the poker itself is not placed
in a strong light, for then, since a portion of its bright-
ness is reflected, there will be a certain degree of apparent
shading, the same in kind though not in degree, as though
the poker were an opaque body. A red-hot globe of iron
may be usefully studied in different lights, and especially
in full sunlight, when the apparent shading of the ball is
strikingly contrasted with the dead uniformity of the disc
presented when the ball is viewed in a dark room.

The law here stated is strictly an experimental one.
There is nothing in the nature of things which should lead
us to expect this law. The law requires that the light

* Tlieso papers, which are reprinted with little alteration front
the English Mechanic, in which they appeared several years since,
are introductory to a series of papers on " Spectroscopic Analysis/
which will be commenced in Vol. V.

May 25, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

r.o.j

waves emitted from a self-luruLnous surface should diminish
in intensity as the sine of the angle between them and the
surface. For let A B, A' B', be two spaces on the self-
luminous surface, represented at two positions at 8 »• and
S' «', viewed by the eye at E and E' respectively, and
appeariny as so seen to be equally large circles, the real
circle, A B, being viewed squarely, the oval, A! T>\ being
viewed obliquely. Then, obviously. A' B' is larger than A B
in the same proportion that A' B' exceeds a B'. Hence, if

Fig. 1.

waves proceeded as freely from every point in A'B' towards
E' as from every point in A B towards E (a pencil from a
point in each space is shown in the figure), the eye, E',
would receive more light from the space A' B' than the
eye E receives from the space A B ; and as the two spaces
appear equally large to these respective eyes, the space
A' B' from which most light came would appear the
brightest, in the same proportion that it exceeds the space
A B. But as it only appears equally bright, the light
waves proceeding from each point of it towards E' must be
smaller than those from each point of A B towards E in
the proportion that the space A B is less than the space

A' B' : that is, in the ratio B' re' to B' A'. But

B' A

is the sine of the angle B' A' a, which may be taken as
the average angle which the course of light from the space
A' B' to E makes with the plane S' s.

The second point to be noticed in self-luminous surfaces
is that they appear equally bright at all distances, unless
seen through an absorptive medium. This law may be
demonstrated experimentally ; but in reality it may be
regarded as resulting directly from the nature of light.

Thus, let E and E' (Fig. 2) be two eyes at different dis-
tances, viewing the same self-luminous surface represented
at S .s and S' s. Then, obviously, the light pencil from any
point P in S .s to the more distant eye E is smaller than
the light pencil from a point P' in S' *' to the nearer eyeE'
in the proportion that the square of P' E' is less than the
square of P E. For the cross-section of the former pencil

at e, such that P e is equal to P' E', is less than Uic crons-
section at E (the pupil of the eye), that is, than the crosb
section of the pencil P' E' at E', as the square of P«
ii less than the square of P E. In other words,
the cross-sections of the two pencils, at equal dis-
tances from the luminous surface, are inversely as the
squares of the distances from wiiich the eye views the
surface. But it is equally obvious that the apparent ei?.e
of the surface is reduced in precisely the same degree with
distance. Thus, the total quantity of light received from
the surface is reduced with increase of distance, in pre-
cisely the same ratio that the apparent area of the surface
is reduced. But this amounts to saying that the surface
appears equally bright at ail distances. However, the
matter can be readily demonstrated by experiment. Thus,
if two globes of iron of unequal si>:e be heated to the
same degree of redness, and if they be then placed in a
dark room at such distances from the eye as to appear
equally large, it will be found that they appear absolutely
alike in all respects. Again, if two candles of the same
kind be placed at unequal distances in clear air, it will be
seen that the flames, though they seem unequal in size,
remain apparently equal in intrinsic luminosity.

Next as to opaque bodies shining by reflected light.

First, both the laws just stated for self-luminous bodies
hold also for illuminated opaque bodies. The second law
admits of being tested more thoroughly in the case c£
illuminated than in that of self-luminous bodies. Thus,
from observations of the planets, it has been found that
the quantity of light received from the same planet at
different distances, but in other respects similarly situated
(as from Mars when in opposition near perihelion and near
aphelion), varies inversely as the sciuare of the distance,
which is, of course, precisely the ratio in which the ap-
parent dimensions of the disc vary.

The two laws may be combined into one simple and
easilj'-remembered statement : — A surface, tc/ielher self-
luminous or illuminated, appears in all positions and all
distances Just as brir/ht as it is iu realiti/. Of course, this
law does not take into account the absorption exercised
by any medium through which a luminous object may be
viewed.

(To ie continuod.)

Zinc Co.vtixg for Iron. — Attention li.is recently again.
been drawn to MM. Neugean and Delaite's process of pro-
tecting iron surfaces against rust. A very tine powder of
metallic zinc is mixed with oil and a siccative, and applied
to the iron by means of an ordinary brush. In many cases
one coat is sufficient ; two coats are at any rate guaranteed
to secure a protection against the corrosive action of the
atmosphere as well as of sea water. The zinc coating gives
the iron a steel-grey appearance, and it does not interfere
with subsequent painting. !MM. Neuj;ean and Delaite
received a diploma at the Paris Electric Exhibition of 1881,
and now recommend their process for iron structures,
bridges, lamp-posts, itc, and also for iron ships. If this
process really affords the piotection it claims, nothing need
be said in recommendation of it, since it can hardly be
surpassed in simplicity and cheapness, and is capable of
application in cases where galvanising, the Bower-Barft',
and similar processes would hardly be piacticable. A good
nii.xtiire, of which only the necessary quantity ought to be
prepared, consists of S parts by weight of zinc, 71 of oil,
and 2 of a siccative. — Enyineerimj.

Copies of the Index to Vol. I. Knowledge wanted. Apply or
address, the Publisher, 7-1 to 76, Great Queen .Street, London, ^V.C.

306

♦ KNOWLEDGE

[May 25, 1883.

"OUR BODIES:"

SHORT PAPERS ON PHYSIOLOGY.

By Dr. Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E., etc.

No. XII.— THE BODY'S INCOME AND EXPENDITURE.

IN the course of our previous studies we liave seen tliat
the work of the l)0cly is perpetually associated with
waste. Work and waste bear, in fact, a very well de6ned
relation to each other ; and of necessity, the function of
nourishment, wliereby repair of this waste is effected, must
in turn lelatc itself to lioth processes. Work is impossible
without the energy (or power of performing it) wc derive
from our food, and the bodily waste is merely one indication
of the extent to which that energy has been applied in
carrying out the acts of life. A human body, as
the result of its work, then, is perpetually breaking
down, in a chemical sense, into various waste products.
Of these products so mucli heat may be regarded as waste
matter, seeing that it is given off from the body, and is
thus lost to it. Water forms a second product of extreme
importance, as also does, thirdly, the gas named carbonic,
acid. A fourth kind of waste is represented by the sub-
stance known as urea ; and, fifthly, we can detect ammonia
amongst the waste materials of our frames. To these we
may add organic matters of various kinds, consisting of
the actual worn-out cells and particles of the body ; and
minerals, whereof a considerable quantity is excreted or
given off by the skin and kidneys especially.

The work of excreting or removing these waste matters
from the blood, into which they have been poured as the
result of the tissue-waste, falls chiefly upon the lungs,
skin, and kidneiis. These organs form, in fact, a kind of
physiological trio, engaged in the same kind of work, and
capable of mutually aiding each other in its performance.
The same products are excreted by all three organs, but in
different proportions. The practical benefit of this know-
ledge is seen in the treatment of many diseases. For when
the lungs are disordered in any way, the physician can
compel the skin and kidneys to take up so much of the
lung's work, by giving medicines which stimulate the skin
and kidneys respectively. When the kidneys similarly
suffer disorder, skin and lungs come to their assistance.
Tlie mere fact that skin and lungs co-operate to perfectly
and invariably during exercise is sufficient to impress upon
us the close interdependence wliich exists between these
organs.

When we endeavour to sum up the income and expendi-
ture of the body in a kind of physiological balance-sheet,
we are met by the consideration that whilst the work of
repair, or the facts of bodily'income, are plainly enough to
be discerned, the sources of loss or expenditure are not so
readily noted. We know that food — solid and liquid — is
converted into our own substance, and that the oxygen of
the air also forms part of our dietary, since it is necessary
for the maintenance of heat, and for other vital purposes.
But the sources of loss are not so apparent as the means
and ways of gain ; hence we must firstly see where and
Jiow the bodily income is spent. A little consideration
will show us that there must be a considerable amount
of loss incurred through the action of what may be
called the ordinary "wear and tear" of life. All
the organs and tissues must wear and lose their
substance in the discharge of their duties. In such an
organ as the stomacii, daily engaged in the important
work of digestion, or the liver, which is perpetuallv en-
gaged in its labour of manufacturing bile, there must be
constant loss of substance. Again, there is actual waste of
muscular substance in every movement of life, from the

winking of an eyelid, or tlie .stroke of the heart, to the
blacksmith's energetic labours, hammer on anvil. Much
of the bodily waste (water, heat, carbonic acid, etc.,) must
therefore arisr; from this source. A second source of
waste is that incurred in the production of heat
and of movement in our bodies. We are perpetually losing
and giving off heat, yet the normal temperature of our
bodies (about 100° Fahr.) requires to be maintained. Such
an amount of heat cannot be generated without expenditure
of force, or without the presence of asli, so to speak, which
ash makes its appearance in the form of certain of the
waste products already mentioned. As regards bodily
iiiotio7i, we have already noted the immense expenditure
which muscular action entails upon us.

Other and more subtle forms of waste make demands
upon our stores of energy, and necessitate bodily wear and
tear as an equivalent. The thoughts that originate in the
brain, the expression of nerve-force to which they give rise,
its conveyance by the nerves, are, each and all, so many
sources of waste and bodily expenditure. Even grovth
itself, the digestion of food, the propulsion of blood through
the body, and all other processes of nourishment, necessitate
an outlay of the store of strength we possess. It is thus
perfectly true, in one sense, that life is a process in which
we burn the candle at both ends. The very acts whereby
we build up our frames anew, and nourish our bodies,
whilst repairing these frames, at the same time draw from
them the strength and energy we owe to previous acts of
nourishment.

Summing up the sources of income of our bodies, we
may discover, firstly, that in solid food, mater, and oxygen
we may be said to place our physiological trust. An adult
consumes every day about 8,000 grains of solids, about
.3.5,000 grains weight of water, and about 13,000 grains
weight of oxygen. Nearly 8^ lb. of matter, calculating
roughly, represent the daily income. Daily expenditure
practically shows a similar amount, for supposing growth
has ceased, then income and loss will, in health, be as
nearly as may be adjusted ; and if our means of
research were more delicate, they would probably
be found, in health, exactly to correspond. From
the lungs we give off, per day, carbonic acid gas,
water, and organic matters equal to 2(1,000 grains. The
skin gets rid, in the same time, of nearly 12,000 grains
weight of water, minerals, gases, etc. The kidneys excrete
about 24,000 grains of waste (water, urea, minerals, etc.),
and from the intestine the digestive waste given off may
be estimated at aliout 2,800 grains weight. It follows that
with about 8^ lbs. of material income, and the same amount
of material expenditure, a man will deal with about
.3,000 lbs. weight of matter per annum ; and we can-
not regard the amount as excessive, if we consider,
even for a moment, the immense amount of work
which his body performs upon that material, and the
results of its conversion into bodily power. It has been
calculated, indeed, that the daily force expended by an
adult in maintaining his temperature, or heat, in the work
of heart, lungs, etc., and in his muscular acts, may be set
down at 3,400 foot-tons. In other words, the daily life of
man, summed up in one huge lift, would be capable of
raising 3,400 tons one foot high.

An American paper gives the following : — The United
States burns about 322,000,000 dols. worth of wood every
year. Railroads burn over 5,000,000 dols. worth. Brick
and tile factories burn 4,000,000 dols. Jlining operations
consume, as fuel, 3,.500,000 dols. worth. Steamboats
burn about 2,000,000 dols. worth.

May

1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

307

THE LIBRARIES OF BABYLONIA AND
ASSYRIA.

AMONG Babylonian library cities, Babylon itself of
necessity occupies a prominent position, and to give
an adequate account even of the various subjects upon
■which its cuneiform inscriptions are written, ranging, as
they do, from a calculation of interest on a loan of a few
shekels to an official description of the conquest of a mighty
empire, would occupy more space than is available. A visit
to the Tablet Gallery of the British Sluseuni will give
some slight idea of the riches that its mounds, or those of
the suburb of Borsippa (Birs. Nimroud), have already
yielded up. Babylon is remarkable from our present point
of view for the great length of time over which the dates of
its relics are scattered, texts having been found there of
the highest antiquity, such as that of Ru Sak, written only
in Accadian, and others gradually ranging down to an
astrological tablet of the time of Arsaces. Among the
oldest may be mentioned a list of the names of the months
in Assyrian and Accadian. A tablet, called the Prayers of
Amil IJrgal, a calendar of lucky and unlucky days, a list of
stones, also a fragment containing part of a map of the city,
andotherswith geometrical figures. Among more recent ones,
the famous cylinder of Cyrus, which decides for ever the truth
of his genealogical table as given by Herodotus ; and the
(so-called) cylinder of Nabonidus referring to the fall of
Babylon. Later still are numerous tablets of the suc-
cessors of Alexander, Seleucus, Demetrius, and Antiochus,
some of them, especially an inscription of the latter prince,
proving that they restored and beautified the temples of
E-Saggil and Ezida with apparently as much piety as
the earlier native kings. The inscriptions on Ptolemaic
temples, notably at Edfou, and the interesting researches
of M. Revillout in the demotic papyri, show how thoroughly
the Lagides identified their faith with, and adopted the
dogmas and ritual of, the Egyptian religion, and from this
text it appears the same policy of conciliation was adapted
by the Greek rulers of Mesopotamia.* One of the most
interesting chapters of history yet remaining to be written
is that which will enable us correctly to understand and
appreciate the means by which a mere handful of Greeks,
after the loss of their great leader and notwithstanding
insane strifes with each other, successfully ruled for so
long a period over millions of people, including descendants
of the greatest empires of antiquity, from the Sutledge to
the Nile, and not a little of the explanation will be found
in their wise compliance with the religious culture of their
subjects.t Mr. George Smith found at Babylon the remains
of a library attached to the temple of Bel, consisting
chiefly of instructions as to the ritual and ceremony to be
observed in his worship, and gives translations in his
" Assyrian Discoveries."

Some curious relics originating from Babylon were
found by JI. Place at Nineveh, and appear to have been
carried off by Sargon, King of Assyria, when he conquered
the city from Merodach Baladan,

--] <:: ^y -^ :^] ^? -^i

to his new palace at Khorsabad. Among these are some

* The new cylinder of Cyms appears to iDdicate a similar com-
pliance with Babylonian beliefs on his part, jnst as does the hiero-
plyphic inscription of the " Pastophorns of the Vatican" show us
Cambyses being initiated into and upholding Epyptian religion.

+ See Robiou " L'Economie Politique, rAdmiiiistration, et la
Legislation de I'Egypte au Temps des Lagides," and Lombroso
" L'Economie Politique de I'Egypte sous les Lagides," and Droysen
" Geschichte des Hellanismns."

oval shaped objects, termed olives by M. Oppert, pierced
like beads, perhaps to suspend around the neck. They are
usually inscribed with the name of a woman and that of a
master or husband, with a date, probably that of purchase
in the case of a slave. M. Oppert, who has translated
several of these, however, thinks they come from a temple,
and refer to the licentious worship of Mylytta, described
by Herodotus. They may, however, have belonged to
Babylonian women carried away captive to Assyria, and
hence are found among the ruins of one of her cities. One
in the British ^Museum runs as follows : " Of the female
Hipa, slave of Sinesses, month Sebet, eleventh year of
Maruduk-bal-iddina King of Babilu." Another Babylonian
relic found at Nineveh, is the cone of an ancient Baby-
lonian Monarch, read by Mr. Smith, -Vul-bal-idinav ; by
Oppert, Ben habal iddina, but is now decided to be
Rimmon bal idiuav

r -y, A4y ^^ 5?y ^t <y

■y^^

In one sense Babylon has, with the recent exception of
Sippara, been the most generous in the literature it has
preserved for our time, for from the Jumjuma mound there
have come the large collection, numbering more than .3,000,
of what are known as the Egibi contract tablets. These,
however, do not properly appertain to this part of our
sul)ject, as though found on Babylonian soil : they do not
belong to the age of her first civilisation, but to the much
later times of Nebuchadnezzar, Nabonidus, and Cyrus and
his successors. They will be described fully in treating of
contract tablets as a class.

Electric Lighting at Chesterfield. — The Committee
of the Chesterfield Town Council, appointed to consider the
electric lighting arrangements in the town, which have now
been in existence for some time past, have reported that
the lighting of the streets has been completed to their satis-
faction. In accordance with this report the Town Council
have decided to enter into a permanent contract with the
Hammond Electric Light Company, by whom the work
has been carried out.

Oil Tanks Fired by Lightning. — The following tele-
gram appeared in the Standard of Friday, the 11th inst.
It was dated New York, Thursday night (May 10), and
stated that " During a storm to-day (Thursday) the light-
ning struck and set fire to a wood factory in the miu.st of
a dense tenement-house population adjoining the Belle Vue
Hospital in Jersey City. For a short time the excitement
was intense, but the amount of damage was small.
Another flash did more damage. It struck the
.Standard Oil Company's works in Jersey City, and a
huge iron tank e.xploded with a violence which shook
the earth for a long distance. The llame which imme-
diately rose was seen twenty-four miles off. Ponderous
fragments of the tank were thrown a distance of half a
mile, and the crowds who assembled on the top of a
neighbouring hill a mile away were scorched. The
blazing fluid poured in a great stream towards the river,
and on its way ignited other tanks. The workmen and
firemen ordered to retreat before this sudden foe started
upon a fearful race ; their hair and clothing were singed,
and the si.x who were most in the rear were overwhelmed.
It is feared that other fatalities have occurred. The de-
struction has involved eighteen tanks of crude oil and two
of naphtha, each a\eraging, perhaps, ten thousand Ijarrels.
The works, which covered twenty acres, also contained
many thousand barrels of refined oil. The loss is
variously estimated at sums all of which approach one
million dollars."

308

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May 25, 1883.

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.

i.x.
Ey W. Mattieu Williams.

AS stated in inj- last, the subject of roasting occupied
a large auiount of Count Runiford's attention,
especially wliile he was in England residing in lirompton-
road, and founding the Rojal Institution. Ilis etTorts
were directed not merely to cooking the meat eifectively,
but to doing so economically. Like all others who have
contemplated thoughtfully the habits of Englishmen, he was
sliocked at the barbaric waste of fuel that everywhere pre-
vailed in this country, even to a greater extent then than
now.

The first fact that necessarily presented itself to his mind
was the great amount of heat that is wasted, when an
ordinary joint of meat is suspended in front of an ordinary
coal fire to intercept and utilise only a small fraction of its
total radiation.

As far as I am aware, there is no other country in
Europe where such a process is indigenous. I say " in-
digenous '" because there certainly are hotels where this or
any other English extravagance is perpetrated to please
Englishmen who choose to pay for it. What is itsually
called roast meat in countries not inhabited by English-
speaking people, is what we should call " baked meat," the
very name of which sets all the gastronomic bristles of an
orthodox Englishman in a position of perpendicularity.

I ha\e a theory of my own respecting the origin gf this
prejudice. Within the recollection of many still living,
the great middle class of Englishmen lived in town ; their
sitting-rooms were back parlours behind their shops, or
factories, or warehouses, their drawing-rooms were on the
tirst-floor, and kitchens in the basement.

They kept one general servant of the " Marchioness "
type. The corresponding class now live in suburban
villas, keep cook, housemaid, and parlour-maid, besides the
gardener and his boy, and they dine at supper-time.

In the days of the one marchioness and the basement
kitchen, these citizens "of credit and renown" dined at
dinner-time, and were in the habit of placing a three-
legged open iron triangle in a brown earthenware dish ;
then spreading a stratum of peeled potatoes on said dish,
and a joint of meat above, on the open triangular support.
The combination was carried by the marchioness to the
bakehouse round the corner at about 11 a.m., and brought
back steaming and savoury at 1 p.m.

This was not done always, but at other times, as when the
condition of the mistress's wardrobe offered no particular
motive for going to church, she stayed at home and roasted
the Sunday dinner. The experience thus obtained demon-
strated a material diflerence between the flavour of the
roasted and the baked meat very decidedly in favour of the
home roasted. Why 1

The principal reason was, I believe, that the baker's
large bread-oven contained at dinner-time a curious medley
of meats — mutton, beef, pork, geese, veal, etc., including
stuffing with sage and onions, besides the possibility of a
joint or two that had been hung longer than was nccessai-y
for procuring tenderness. The vapours of these would in-
duce a confusion of fl.avours in the milder meats, fully
accounting a for the observed superiority of the home-
roasted joints.

A little reflection on the principles already expounded
will show that, theoretically regarded, a given piece of meat
would be better roasted in a closed chamber radiating heat
from ftfl si(/e.f towards the meat than it could be when
suspended in front of a fire and heated only on one side.

while the other side was turned away to cool more or less,
according to the rate of rotation.

If I agreed with the popular belief in the advantage of
open-air exposure to direct radiation from glowing coal, I
should suggest th.at for large joints a special roasting fire
bo constructed, by Vjuilding an upright cylinder of fire-
brick, and erecting within this a smaller cylinder or grating
of iron bars, so that the fuel should be placed between
these, and thus form an upright cylindrical ring or shirt of
fire, inclosed outside by the, bricks, but open and glowing
towards the inside of the hollow cylinder, in the midst of
which the meat should be suspended to receive the radia-
tion from all sides.

The whole apparatus might stand under a dome, termi-
nating in an ordinary chimney, like a glass-house or a steel-
maker's cementing furnace ; or, in this respect, like
those wondrous kitchens of the old seraglio, to which I
have already alluded, where each apartment is a huge
chimney, outspreading downwards, so that the cooks and
their materials and apparatus, as well as the huge fires
themselves, are all under the great central chimney shaft.
I do not, however, recommend such an apparatus, even
to the most wealthy and luxurious epicure, because I am
convinced, not merely from theoretical considerations, but
also from practical experiments, that all kinds of meat
may be not merely as well roasted in a close oven as before
an open fire, but that the close chamber, properly managed,
produces better results in every respect than can possibly be
obtained by roasting in the open air.

To obtain such results there must be no compromise, no
concession to any false theory respecting a necessity for
ventilation.

Many modem kitchen ranges are fitted with such com-
promises in the shape of a ventilated roastiBg oven, the
action of which ventilation is piu-ely and simply mis-
chievous, excepting in the case of semi-putrid game or
venison, which reqaiire to be carbonised and disinfected as
well as cooked, and, of course, also demand the speedy
removal of their noxious vapours.

Xot so with fresh meats. There is nothing in the
vapour of beef that can injure the flavour of beef, nor in
the vapour of mutton that is damaging to mutton, and so
on with the rest. But there is much that can, and does,
actually improve them ; or, more strictly speaking, pre-
vents the deterioration to which they are liable when
roasted before an open fire. I will endeavour to explain
this.

Carefully-conducted experiments have demonstrated the
general law that atmospheric air is a vacuum to the vapour
of water and other similar vapours, while each particular
vapour is a plenum to itself, though not to other vapours ;
or, otherwise stated, if a given space, at a given tempera-
ture, be filled with air, the quantity of aqueous vapour
that it is capable of holding is the same us though this
space contained no air at all, nor anything else. But this
same space may contain a much smaller quantity of
aqueous vapour, and yet be absolutely impenetrable to
aqueous vapour, provided its temperature is unaltered.

Thus, if a bell-glass, filled with air under ordinary pres-
sure, at the temperature of 100° Fahr., be placed over a
dish of water at same temperature, a quantity of vapour,
equal to l-30th (in round numbers) of the weight of the air,
will rise into the bell-glass, and there remain diffused
throughout. If there were less air, or no air at all (tem-
perature remaining the same), the bell-glass would obtain
and hold the same quantity of vapour.

If, instead of being tilled with air, it contained at the
outset only this l-30th of aqueous vapour, it would now be
an impenetrable plenum, behaving like a solid to aqueous

May 25, 1883.1

KNOWLEDGE ♦

509

vapour — no more can be forced into it without raising its
temperature.

But while thus charged with aqueous vapour, tliere
would still be room for \apour of alcohol, or turpentine, or
ether, or chloroform, itc. It would be a vacuum to these,
though a plenum to itself. On the other hand, if the
alcohol, turpentine, ether, or chloroforu\ were allowed to
evaporate into the bell-glass, a certain quantity of either
of these vapours would presently enter it, and then this
vapour would act like a solid mass in resisting the entry
of any more of its own kind, wliile it would be freelj' per-
vious to the vapour of water or that of the other liquids.

A practical example will further illustrate this. Some
years ago I was engaged in the distillation of parallin oil,
and had a few thousand gallons of the crude liquid in a
still with a tall head and a rising condenser. In spite of
severe firing, the distillation proceeded \»'ry slowly. Then
I threw into the still, just above the surface of the oil, a
jet of steam. The rate of distillation immediately increased
with the same firing, although the steam was of much
lower temperature than the boiling oil, and, therefore,
wasted much heat. The rationale of this was that at first
an atmosphere of oil vapour stood over the oil, and this was
impervious to more oil vapour, but on sweeping this out
■and replacing it by steam, the atmosphere above the liquid
■oil was permeable by oil vapour. This principle is largely
applied in similar distillations.

But I am exceeding my limits, and must, therefore, defer
the direct application of these principles to my next,
though, doubtless, most of my readers will anticipate, or in
vulgar but expressive phrase, " see what I am driving at."

Ix a paper in the Comptes Rendus, " On the Liquefaction
-of ICitrogen," by MM. Wroblewski and Olszewski, it is
stated that nitrogen cooled in a glass tube to — 136° C,
-and under a pressure of 150 atm., does not liquefy. On
sudden release there is tumultuous eVmllition. Gradual
release, not passing 50 atm., yields the liquid, clear and
■colourless, with a distinct meniscus ; it evaporates very
•quickly. The liquefaction of CO under like conditions on
April 2lst was announced.

Lake Wissipeg. — Recent exploration and levelling
shows that the surmise of General G. K. A\'arren to the
effect that Lake Winnipeg once discharged itself into the
Mississippi on the south, instead of Hudson's Bay on the
■east, is correct. Mr. J. D. Dana, the well-known geo-
logist, in a paper in the ^l /iii;rir.an Journal of ^Science, fully
•discusses the evidence, and shows that the change was due,
not to a barrier of ice or earth, but to a change of level
over a wid^e area. The geological facts he adduces point to
the following succession of events : The lake deposits,
being underlaid by unstratified drift, show that before
the great lake existed, a glacier had moved south-
waixl over that region, and deposited moranic mate-
rial, The high level prairie on either side of the
iake region and of the Minnesota A' alley is made up of
this unstratified drift ; but the generally level surface in
the part next the lake valley and the stratification in the
material show that the floods from the melting ice levelled
it. This period of floods was followed by the era of the
great lake, that is to say, of quiet waters and gentle deposits,
w-ith a slow discharge over the Lake Traverse region,
which appears to have been brought about by a diminu-
tion in the slope of the general surface, which was part of
a great change of slope which went on, as General Warren
iias explained, until the land was reduced to its present
inclination and the stream to its present courses.

BALDNESS.

IN an article recently contributed to the Gcsrindheit — -
a paper, as its name imports, devoted to sanitary
subjects — ProfessorReclam, aGermon OVA/; ;-/';r, makes some
timely and useful observations on the subject of baldness.
After describing, in a vein of pleasantry, the vast array of
bare polls which may be seen any evening in the pit of a
theatre or the body of a lecture-room, he discusses the
causes of baldness. He does not think, as is sometimes
said, that loss of hair is the result either of impaired
health or of much study. The strongest men are often bare-
headed, and German professors, who are nothing if not
studious, arc distinguished above all men by the pro-
fusion of their locks. On the other hand, soldiers and
postilions, who wear heavy helmets and leather caps, and
wear them a good deal, are frequently as bald as billiard-
balls. From these facts Herr Reclam draws the con-
clusion that Ijaklness comes chiefly of the artificial
determination of blood to the head, and to the heat and
perspiration thence arising. The result is a relaxed con-
dition of the scalp and loss of hair. If the skin of the head
be kept in a healthy state, contends the Professor, the hair
will not fall oil'. To keep it healthy, the head-covering
should be light and porous, the head kept clean by wash-
ings with water, and the hair cut short. The nostrums
vended as hair restorers, and on which a fabulous amount
of money is wasted by the ignorant for the benefit of
quacks, he denounced as worse than useless. In ninety-nine
cases out of a hundred they are worse than useless. Cleanli-
ness and cold water are the sole trustworthy specifics ; but
when once the hair roots are destroyed, not all the oil of
Macassar, the bear's grease of Siberia, nor the cantharides
of Spain will woo back the vanished locks.

The census of 1 880 shows that the unsettled area of the
United States amounted to 1,400,000 .=quare miles, being
nearly one-half the entire area of the country. The
unsettled area east of the Appalachian range of mountains
has been reduced to 10,000 square miles only, and in the
original thirteen states there are less than 15,000 square
miles unoccupied. Wisconsin and Michigan show 20,500
-square miles as still unsettled, while Texas has no less than
137,000 square miles of vacant land. In the territory west
of the Mississippi, including Minnesota, Dakota, Kansas,
Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona,
Colorado, Montano, Idaho, and the Pacific States, 1,200,000
square miles are either unoccupied or inhabited only by
Indians. There is thus room for an enormous increase of
population.

A coitRESPONDEXCE is proceeding in the Giornal dei
Lnvori J'ubblici (Rome, JMay 9) on the question of
constructing a steel bridge over the Strait of Messina.
Engineer Giambastiani has presented to the Minister of
Public Works a plan for the colossal bridge, to be liuilt in
five spans, three of which would measure one kilometre
(021 of a mile) each. This design has been favourably
received by Signor Baccarini. Engineer A. Cokran (of
the Imprefa Induiytriah') now writes to point out that he
had himself prepared a plan for such an enterprise as far
back as the year 18G6, and that it is perfectly practicable,
if the cost can be met. The question of foundations
presents the chief difficulty, on account of the great depth
of the Straits (about 196 ft. being the minimum), and this
he suggests meeting Viy founding the piers of the bridge
upon submerged pontoons, anchored at a depth of about
35 ft. below the surface. He appears to doubt, however,
whether the enormous cost of the undertaking would be
worth incurring.

31 r>

KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May 2.5, 1883.

SUN VIEWS OF THE EARTH;

OR, "THE SEASONS ILLUSTRATED."
By Richard A. Proctor.

T\7 E give this week our monthly views of tho earth's fiice, as seen from the sun .at 6 in the morning, noon, 6 in tie e'. ening, and i. id-
\ V night, Greenwich time (solai-) j >vith the corresponding aspecti for the two preceding months for c jmparisin.

May 1^5, 1883.

- KNOWLEDGE -

311

Jxfbiftu?*

GEOLOGY AFIELD.*

THE second edition of this most useful and interesting
work has been sent to us for review ; and though it is
not among the publications of the year, we gladly call the
attention of our readers to a book from which the young
geologist can gain more than from many volumes of more
geological lore, however valuable. For this work shows
liim how to set about observing for himself, how to trace
strata, lay down their boundaries, work out their dip,
ascertain the character, peculiarities, and geological age of
the rocks, and how to discover, determine, and classify the
rocks which they contain. The directions for these pur-
poses are simple and clear.

Yet it is not to be inferred that the book is without
vaXxie for those who have not time for actual geological
exploration. On the contrary, we know of no work on
,i;eology which is better calculated to give the mere student
of the subject clear conceptions of the value and signifi-
cance of actual geological work and observation. He can
accompany the worker in imagination, though unable to
take hammer, pick, and spud, for the work of survey.

The section on paheontology is well written, and full of
interest. Those who imagine that paheontology has no
practical value, and picture the paheontologist as a mere
collector of old fossils, will do well to note how thoroughly
unpractical are those who neglect the teachings of this
department of geological inquiry. " I have known," says
the late ^Ir. J. i!. Jukes, "even in the rich coal district
of South Stalibrdshire, shafts continued down below the
coal measures, deep into the Silurian shales, with crowds
of fossils brought up in every bucket, and the sinker still
expecting to find coal in beds below those Silurian fossils.
I have known deep and expensive shafts sunk in beds too
far above the coal measures for their ever being reached,
and similar expensive shafts sunk in black shales and slates
in the lower rocks, far below the coal measures, where a
pit miglit be sunk to the centre of the earth without ever
meeting with coal. Kor are these fruitless enterprises things
of the past. They are still going on, in spite of the silent
warnings of the fossils in the rocks around, and in spite of
the loudly-expressed warnings of the geologists who under-
stand them, but who are supposed still to Vie vain theorists,
and not to know so much as the ' practical man.' Within
ray own experience large sums of money have been abso-
lutely thrown away which would have been saved by the
slightest acquaintance with the laws of paheontology."

ENGINEERING GEOLOGY.f

A SMALLER, but not less valuable, work by the same
author. A knowledge' of engineering is incomplete with-
out an acquaintance with geology, and in turn geology-
has been much advanced by engineering operations. This
book deals in an admirably clear and succinct manner with
the relation of geological strata to practical engineering
works ; the proper methods of procedure in field work ; the
economic products of tertiary, secondary, and Pahcozoic
rocks ; springs and water supply ; and the selection of
building sites. It is a thoroughly useful treatise.

• " A Textbook of Field Geolofry." By W. H. Penning, F.G.S.
With a Bection on " PalaeontoloKv," by Ai J. Jukes-Browne, F.G.S.
Second edition. (London : Bailliere, Tindall, & Cox.)

t " Engineering Geology." By W. H. Penning, F.G.S., Geologist,
Government Survey o£ England and Wales. (London : Bailliere,
Tindall, & Cox.)

WHERE TO^FIND FERNS.*

This little book, meant for the pocket, will be found an
invaluable companion by all lovers of ferns. The hunting
of ferns, as the autlior remarks, is one of the most delight-
ful of pastimes. It also adds a charm to open-air life,
which makes it a very valuable aid to the health and
strength. " The seeker after ferns," as Mr. Heath says,
" must ride his hobby into the wildest and most out-of-the-
way districts, and into the most delicious nooks of greenery
— must climb hills, wind through valleys, plunge into
woods, follow the course of streams ; search rocks, hedge-
banks, and forest clumps ; examine old walls and tree-
forks, and look everywhere, in short, where green life has
a chance of existence." Tliose who know Mr. Heath's
" Fern World," and " Ff.rn Paradise," will not need to be
told that in such wanderings the student of ferns will find
Mr. Heath's pocket companion a most trustworthy guide.
Every species of British fern is dealt with in its pages,
its peculiarities described, the general nature of its habitat
noted, and the places mentioned where it can be found, in
England, Scotland, and Ireland. A special chapter on the
ferns round London, and an index of localities, add much
to the value of the work.

GUIDANCE FOR YOTJTHS.f

This is a thoroughly practical common-sense guide, a
little in advance, perhaps, of the age in teaching
emphatically the dignity of honest work, but all the better
worth studying, not only by the young, but by those who
have charge of the young. Early in its pages it shows the
value of artisanship. It is hardly too much to say that
every man who values his independence should learn a
trade, though it will be long before every man thinks so.
" Experientia " tells the story of the clerk who, being in
the employ of the wealthy Stephen Girard, was advised to
learn the cooper's trade ; having learned it, he made for
his old master a splendid barrel, for which Girard gave
him two thousand dollars, saying, "Now, sir, I want you
in my counting-house ; but henceforth you will not be
dependent upon the whim of Stephen Girard. Let what
will come, you have a good trade always in reserve." Years
ago — but in such matters they are a century ahead of us
in America— Horace Greely wrote :— " It is a source of
consolation to us" [he was speaking editorially] "that
when the public shall be tired of us as an editor, we can
make a satisfactory livelihood at sotting type or farming ;
so that while our strength lasts, ten thousand blockheads,
taking ofience at .some article they do not understand,
could not drive us into the poorhouse." But snobs think
meanly of independence of that honest sort.

In dealing with moral duties, " Experientia " takes »
manly, sensible view (it is not the author's fault nor ours
that " Experientia " is feminine). He teaches honesty
Vjecause it is right, not on the low ground that it is the
best policy — though he fails not to show that it is so. He
gives wise advice about temperance, treating, smoking,
feeding, and so forth. (He goes rather farther, by the way,
in saying that man in his food, his moral and animai
character being constituted by his food, than facts warrant.)

The soundest advice is given when the youth is advised
to give his employer no half-hearted work. "Good measure,

* " Where to Find Ferns, with a Special Chapter on the Ferns
Round London." By Francis Heath, " Editor of Forestry,"
ic. New and Cheaper Edition. (Sampson Low, Marston & Co.,
London.)

t" The Youth's Business Guide. A Practical Manual for Those
Entering Life." By Experientia. (London : Wyman & Sons.)

312

♦ KNOWLEDGE *

[May 25, 1883.

pressed down and running over " — that is tlie secret of
success in life. Give more than you are strictly bound to
give— the extra work is all gain to you, and the profit to
tiie employer is no loss to you. There is sound sense in
the old proverb, " Cast your bread on the waters, and you
will find it after many day.s " — though it docs suggest
rather odd ideas among the people of old times as to the
way they liked their bread.

Here and there our author does not quite correctly
choose his words. A " deferential " bearing is recom-
mended when we fancy the author means a polite and
attentive bearing ; for he is speaking not of those who,
because of age and experience, expect deference, but of
those who may have no such special claims. In like
manner he says : " We are all responsible to our parents
for the training they have given us," where he means that
we are responsible to them in such and such ways because
of that training. But these are trifling faults ; the intrin-
sic merits of this most useful and suggestive little book are
in no way affected by slight flaws such as these.

THE NATURAL IN THE SPIRITUAL.*

Mr. Drummoxd notes that no class of work is received
with more suspicion, almost derision, than those which
deal with science and religion, and he shows cause why.
But he expresses a hope that though no initial protest
will probably save his book from the unhappy reputation
of its class, the thoughtful mind will perceive that the fact
of its subject matter being law — a property peculiar neither
to science nor to religion — at once places it on a somewhat
<lifferent footing. That this hope is justified we hardly
think. Mr. Drummond, after a very long and rather
dreary introduction, dealing with the application of law in
the spiritual world, considers : — First, biogenesis in science,
and shows, or seeks to show, that biogenesis — the theory
omne vivum ex ovo — is true in the spiritual world ; secondly,
the law of degeneration in nature, which he finds in
spiritual matters also ; thirdly, the law of growth as illus-
trated by the lilies of the field and the growth of grace ;
the law of death shows spiritually in this that "to be
carnally minded is death " ; then, natural mortification,
eternal life in nature, environment, conformity to type,
parasitism, and so forth, of all which he finds the analogues
in the spiritual life also. He does all this cleverly and
earnestly, and liy those who like such things the book will
lie found interesting enough. We cannot say that it will
appeal very effectively to those who entertain the prejudice
mentioned above.

PARADOXICAL PHILOSOPHY, t

It is a melancholy task to deal with such works as this.
Here is a volume of some 500 pages, well bound, and well
illustrated, presenting the wrong ideas of one who firmly
believes Newton to have been little better than a blunderer.
It is all hopelessly wrong, of course. But what is one to
do 1 It is painful to tell a man that for nearly a score of
years he has been blundering about matters far beyond his
powers. Yet it is the sad truth.

Mr. Jordan's fundamental error, on which — as usual
with paradoxists — a whole superstructure of erroneous
theorising is established, liesjin his fancy that Vis inerlia;
can undergo diminution through the action of forces which
in no way affect it— as, for Lnstance, that the horizontal

• " Natarnl Law in the Spiritual World." By Henry Druiumond,
F.R.S.E., F.G.S. (London : Uodder A- StonRliton).

t " Tlie New Principles of Natural Philosophy." By William
Lcighton Jordan, F.U.G.S. (London : David Bogiie. lSb3.)

velocity of moving matter is diminished by the vertical
action of gravity. He imagines Messrs. Huxley, Carpenter,
Spottiswoode, and others, to be opponents of his view, or to
be adopting them without acknowledgment, according as
he misunderstands them in one way or in another. If any
one says that when water leaves a tap horizontally, the
horizontal velocity of the water would be unchanged
were the air removed, he shows " pronounced hostility to
the new discoveries " (these blunders are always " dis-
coveries ") ; but should the same writer say " if air and
gravitation were alike abolished the water would travel
liorizontally for ever," he is adopting Mr. Jordan's dis-
coveries without acknowledgment.

Mr. Jordan's book reveals no new principles of philo-
sophy, but shows only how its author has misapprehended
the established ones. It is a more collection of blunders,
itself a bigger blunder than them all.

THE FACE OF THE SKY.

Feom Mat 25 to Jcxe 8.
By P.R.A.S.

THE sun will be daily examined as usual. The aspect of the night
sky will be found delineated in Map TI. of " The Stars in their
Seasons." Venus ia a morning star, but very badly placed, and
Mercury is approaching too close to the sun to be visible. The
rest of the planets are invisible too ; in fact, it rarely happens that;
so barren a sky, in this sense, falls to the observer's lot. The Moon
is 18'6 days old at noon to-day (the 25th), and 3'2 days old on
June S. She will be new at 12'5 minutes past 6 a.m., on June 5. It
will be hence seen that she will be but poorly placed for the observer
during the greater part of the period of which we are treating.
One occultation of a star will occur at a convenient honr during oar
prescribed interval. It is that of the 5i magnitude one, 68 Gemi-
norum, which will disappear at the moon's dark limb at 9h. ISm.
p.m., on June 7, at an angle of 102° from her vertex, and re-appear
at her bi'ight limb at 10 h. 7 m. — at which time, however, she will
have set. The moon is in Sagittarius to-day and to-morrow (26th), and
crosses Capricornus, during the morning of the 27th, into Aquarius.
In this constellation she remains during the 2Sth and part of the
29th, when she travels into Pisces. She continues in Pisces during
the 30th, 31st, and part of June 1, when she passes into Aries.
There she remains during the whole of the 2nd, and on the 3r<:l
reaches Taurus. She continues in Taurus during the 4th, and
during the 5th too, crossing, however, the northern part of Orion
on that day. She is in Gemini on June 6, and travels into Cancer
on the 7th, where we leave her on the Sth.

From the Scientific A nierican (New York, April 28) it
appears that great results are expected from the develop-
ment of the Deer Creek Coalfields, in ..\rizona. Although
discovered in 1881, active operations only commenced last
March, Fifty seams have been opened, seven shafts have
been sunk in different places, showing seams varying from
6 ft. to 25 ft.

The Radiation of Silver in SoLiDirTiNr.. — At the
International Congress of Electricians in 1881, M. J.
Violle proposed, and M. Dumas, the famous chemist, se-
conded, the use of an absolute unit of light consisting of
the radiation emitted by a square centimetre of platinum
in melting. At the instance of !M. Cochery, tlie French
ilinister of Posts and Telegraphs, an investigation of the
subject has been begun by M. Violle, and his first experi-
ments have led him to some observations on the radiation
of silver in solidifying. A bath of pure melted silver was
placed under a thermo-electric pile connected with a mirror
galvanometer. The radiation from the bath fell normally
on the battery through an aperture in a double-walled
screen kept cool liy circulating water. As the bath cooled,
the pile showed that the radiation slowly decreased until
the instant just before solidifying, when there was a slight
increase, preceding the final decrease after solidification.

May 25, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

313

I AM a lover of chess, but I must confess I find the
International Chess Tournament a melancholy sight. To
see fourteen men, most of whom have obviously good
brains, looking hour after hour at the checquered board — •
waiting sometimes many minutes, and occasionally a full
hour, to decide whether to move this piece or that pawn —
is depressing, to say the least The results may be very
fine games. But even to a Steinitz or a Zukertort one of
these masterpieces requires many hours' study for its full
appreciation ; and the amateur, even though a strong
one, who sits down to play one of these games, under
the impression that he can understand its beauty in less
time than two " past masters " in chess took to play it, is
grievously mistaken. Our Whist Column yields for awhile
to these chess masterpieces and their skilful analysis by the
deep ilephisto ; but only the most ardent lover of chess can
get real pleasure from the study of games so profoundly
studied by the players themselves.

I LIKE to flatter myself I am a chess-player of strength.
It is a pleasing delusion easily knocked on the head I
give a weakling a queen, and amaze myself by the clever-
ness of the combinations by which I defeat him ; but nine
out of ten of them are unsound. I play with the same
weakling, even, and am amazed at the stupidity of the
blunders by which I bring awful odds against me, and
perhaps get beaten. It is a pleasing lesson, again, to sit
down to chess with one whom you expect to beat easily,
and to find your dashing play met by a quiet but efi'cctive
resistance. Chess is a game which men play, I think, very
unevenly, unless they become professionals, when you can
generally tell pretty well what their strength is. At least,
it is so with me. Most amateurs take some warming-up to
play respectably, and slight distractions will make a
knight's difference in their strength. I fancy the profes-
sional's strength does not vary this way.

This brings luck into the game not a little. I have had
good luck in the few games I have played with known
chess-players. I played two games (only), and won them
both, with Goldsmith, who for two years was the champion
player at Melbourne, at a time when Wisker (who had
divided with Bird the championship of England) scarcely
held his own against Australian players. But I expect
that in a set match I would have had as much chance
against Goldsmith or Wisker as I should now have against
a Steinitz or a Zukertort.

The question which suggests itself, when one is looking
on at a chess tournament between professionals, is, Can
chess be regarded as worth studying till a man plays his
best possil)le game ? But then the same question applies
to all games of skill. Who can do his best at cricket,
rowing, whist, draughts, billiards, or any other game without
sacrificing much more time and energy to it than a man
■with brains can reasonably spare from the work of life 1

The moral seems to be not only that such games should
be used for relaxation only, but that men of sense should
earnestly study to keep such games in their true position.
When a man gives more time to them than they deserve,
he either shows weakness or fitness for nothing worthier.

Ax incredible thing ! Application is made to rae to
subscribe for cuttings from all the newspapers and
periodicals, " at the rate of 5s. for twenty notices, payable

in advance, 3d. each notice ! " Imagine jmying to get
these things sent to one, as if they did not stream in, "free,
gratis, for nothing," till one is disposed to charter a special
dust-cart for their removal I have no reason to complain.
The anonymuncules of the press have treated me verj'
kindly — only one in ten or twelve, perhaps, making a mild
attempt at a sting. But does any one in his senses want
to collect such things 1 It seems some folks do. The
London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory "Vacci-
nation subscribes ; so does the Editor of the World; the
JIarchioness of Lome receives cuttings ; and so does the
Salvation Army. There are many other " clients who con-
tinue to patronise the ' Artistic and Literary Corre-
spondence.' " But to most of us cuttings, whether cutting
or otherwise, are things to be avoided. One's publishers
send enough of them ; or extract from a few the few lines
of vague praise which are wanted for advertising purposes.
But I never came across any of the " 2,000 among the
first in the artistic and literary world " who are stated to
be among the clients of the Artistic and Literary Corre-
spondence. I should picture a client of this sort somewhat
as John Leech pictured the person who rejoiced in hearing
organ-grinders, — as a harmless but hopeless imbecile.
Perhaps the 2,000 have already retired for the most part
to their natural home in the neighbourhood of Earlswood.

When I was but a very young beginner in literary work,
books used to bo sent to me for review. I learned then
something of the generosity with which such work is re-
warded— the reason why it is done so well. I remember a
wealthy Scottish publisher, who had recently started a
weekly journal of science, sending me a thick octavo
volume of about 500 pages for review — -" about a quarter
of a column, and the book to be returned." In other
words, I was to examine and honestly criticise in a quarter
of a column, for 2s. Gd. (or, to be more precise, 2s. 7Jd.),
a book of that size, and to return tlie book. Why, the
mere time occupied in untying and retying the book in
brown paper, and writing the generous publisher's name
and address, would have been ill-paid at the price.

Charles Reade is awfully hard on the criticasters and
anonymuncules of the Press, — but he should put some of
the blame on those who employ them and practically com-
pel them to be dishonest or to drop the work. The noble
critic who said in the Globe that " Griffith Gaunt" was stated
to be an immoral work, but " on this point, having vainly
attempted to read it, he ofl'ered no opinion," may not have
been so bad as he seemed. True, the book is one which a
man vainly attempts not to read, when he has once begun
it. (I remember how grievously "Griffith Gaunt " wronged
me, when years ago I first read it ; I thought I had occu-
pation for my leisure hours during three or four days at
least ; but. Blame the book — to use a favourite oath of
an old schoolmaster of mine — it left me no leisure till I
had read to the last page, in a third of the time.) And
the book encourages immorality about as much as
" ilacbeth " encourages murder. But if a man, with
perhaps a family, has to review a Ijook in the twentieth
part of a column, for twopence halfpenny a line, might he
not vainly attempt to read itl That critic was, perhaps,
a poor but honest fellow, misunderstood by the great
novelist.

The " Artistic and Literary Correspondence " makes me
a present of one notice (price 3d. according to tariff) of my
little book, " Mysteries of Time and Space," from the
Glaggov} Herald, in such villainous English that even its

314

♦ KNOWLEDGE

[May 25, 1883.

granting freoly at the outset that I am " a pleasant and,
even to a considerable degree, a profitable figure in contem-
porary life " (imagine a man being a pleasant and profitable
figure !), cannot inveigle me into a verbatim reading. Yet,
unless I mistake, I have reason for knowing that, when
decently paid, the writer of this rubbish can do much
better.

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfked Tennyson.

ilfttns! to tt)t eiiitoi-.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly be in-
eerted. Correspondents must not ie offended, therefore, should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial communications should he addressed to the Editor of
Knowledge ; all Business communications to the Publishers, at the
Office, 74, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,

DELAYS ARISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messes. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMMUNICATIONS ARE ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOUGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

TO DESTROY APHIDES.
[825] — The following will relieve yonr roses ot aphides : — On
quassia chips pour boiling water. When cold, strain, and mix with
solution of soft-soap ; use cold. They are obtained from a large
forest tree of Jamaica, and other West Indian islands. Its pure,
bitter principles depend on the presence of a crystalline quality,
called quassite, or qnassiue. It is employed as a tonic and febri-
fnge. A solution acts as a narcotic poison on flies and otherinsects,
and can be employed as an anthelmintic. Law stopped its being
used as a substitute for hops. The tree is Quassia (Picrcena
excelsa), and attains a height of nearly 100 feet ; and is named after
a negro (Quassy), who first discovered its virtues.

John Ales. Ollakd, F.R.M.S.

SIWALIK HILLS.
[826] — The correspondent who seeks information regarding the
tertiary deposits of the Siwalik Hills, in India, will find what he
requires in Medlicott and Blandford's " Geology of India."

C. Carcs-Wilson.

FLIGHT OP VERTICAL MISSILE.

[827] — A correspondent in Adelaide asks this question : — If a
perfectly spherical ball bo shot vertically upwards from the earth's
equator, and in vacuo, will it fall to the eastward or westward of
the point of projection ? Thus, if we take the upward velocity at
1,000 ft. per second, and knowing the equatorial velocity of the
earth — required, the precise amount of deviation, if any.

W. P. L.

[Three replies were obtained by W. P. L. and his friends — to wit,
that there would be a westerly deviation of 0'25 ft., 71 ft. (!),
282 ft. (! !). I leave the problem as an exorcise to readers, but it is
hardly necessary to say the two larger deviations are quite wrong. —

EDISON ELECTRIC LIGHT COMPANY.
[828] — It is a truism that error dies hard. The paragraph on
page 230 of your issue ot this date, relative to the cost of tho
Edison installation at tho House of Commons, is an example in
point. The Daily jYcics, I believe, originally promulgated this,
and it has since gone tho round of the weeklies. As you m.ay have
observed, from the answer of the First Commissioner of Works to
a question by Lord Randolph Churchill in the House lately, the
contract with tho Edison Company was for tho lighting of the
library and dining-rooms during the current session at a rate some-

what e.xceeding the cost of gas, or rather over £100. As regards
tho alleged cost of making the installation, while I do not writ©
officially, I may say that the sum named — £2,000 — is much in
excess of the actual amonnt expended.

COBBESPONDENT.

A DISCOUNT DODGE.

[829]—" G. M.," in letter 812, p.ige 2C9, falls into an error
regarding easy method of calculating discounts. I found the
method in an old arithmetic, and have used it for many years.
This is tho rule as given in the arithmetic I refer to : — Multiply
tho principal by double the rate of discount. With the product
cut off tho last figure to tho right in the pounds, the figures to tho
loft will then represent shillings, and the figure to the right will
represent pence and the fifths of a penny. Take 3| per cent, dis-
count on the sum of £187. 10s.
By the ordinaiy
method.
£. s. d.

187 10 0

93 15
562 10

0
0

6,56 5
20

0

11,25
13

G. M.'s" metl

£. s. d.
187 10 0

7

od.

3

raction.

Old arithmetic.

£. s. d.
187 10 0
7

131,2 10 0
12

131,2 10 0
-t-^O 10 0

3,4 = £G 11

and i

3 0 0 = JE6 11

3,00 = £6 11 3

The last method will be found to work true, no matter what
parts of a pound there may be in the principal. For instance, —
£123. 4s. Id. at 5^ percent., say £123. 4s. Id. x U = £135,5. 4s. lid.

a fifth added 1 0 114

[Readers will find it a
comes about — R. P.]

6 5 10^
= £6. 15s. G,Vad.
T. J. K.

study to note how this result

EASY MULTIPLYING.

[830] — I beg to call your attention to another easy multiplication.
About eight years ago, an American doctor taught me a simple
method to get square powers of these nine numbers, viz., 15, 25, 35,
45, 55, 65, 75, 85, and 95. Rule. — Prefix the product of the left-
hand figure, multiplied by another higher by one than itself, to the
square of the 5.
Examples : —

35x35 3x4 = 12 65x65 6x7 = 42

5x5= 23 5x5= 25

1225

4225

The following is a method found out by myself. By this I can
multiply any two numbers under 100, providing that either left or
right-hand figures are alike. For instance :
24x34 =(20x30) = 600
(20-1-30) 4=200
4 X 4= 16
816
61x67 = 60x60 = 3600
(1-H7) 60= 480

1x7 = 7

4087
This method is not unlike that of Mr. J. Smith, but, I think, a
little easier. If I write down both multiplicand and multiplier, thus :

51

— result ot which will be so,
58

58
2958

I a moment.

EXTRACTING SQUARE ROOT.

[831] — Perhaps the following mode of extracting square roots
may interest some of the readers of Knowledge. I can't say mncb
for its practical utility, but I have now and then found it handy
when I have not had a logarithm book available. It, of course.

Mat 25, 1883.]

♦ KNOV/LEDGE ♦

3K

follows from the law that the aquares are proportional to the odd
numbers.

Let it be required to extract the square root of any number — say,
"I'lU. Square a number that is somewhere near it — say, 90. This
ves 8100. Then square the next higher number, 91. We obtain
^.'Hl ; difference by subtraction, 181.

N'ow subtract in turn all the odd numbers from 181 upwards
im our orifpnal square 9004, till we obtain a remainder of 8100, and
■' I + number of subtractions) will be the root required. If the
uare be not a perfect one, we, of course, only obtain the nearest
Jole number by subtracting till the remainder is nearest to that
• require.

WoRKixG OF Problem.
90^ = 8100, 91= = 8281, 8281-8100 = 181

9601- (181 + 183 + 185 + 187 + 189 + 191 + 193 + 195)
= 8100
-■ . sqroot of 9001 = 90 + 8 = 98.

T. U. B., Lieut. R.A., F.U.A.S.

MUSICAL QUESTION, 808.

[832] — Mr. Walter Jones and his musical friends fall into the
common error of confounding musical instruments with music.
Tliere is no difference in the same chord if struck in two different
keys, C major or C sharp major — naturally. There are but two
classes of instruments in this world that give out true music, and
they are the vocal organs of men, women, and children, and the
fiddle family. The over-lauded organ and the modern pianoforte
have much to answer for in destroying our n.itural ear for music.
In my boyhood I used to run after a man who played the triangles
with his feet, the cymbals with his knees, the big drum with his
«lbowg, the accordion with his hands, the pandean pipes with his
mouth, and a bunch of bells with his head — sis instruments at once,
no doubt all out of tunc. Not so bad. But pretty much the same is
the pianoforte, which endeavours, by the touch of one performer,
to represent the effect of an orchestra, and, by an arrangetnent of
black and white keys, to produce all the chords and modulations of
nature.

JIusic consists simply of eight sounds, the first and last being
alike, separated by seven intervals — three great tones, two small
tones, and two so-called semitones.

Expressed in figures, the difference between any sound and its
octave may be represented by 474.

From 1 to 2 80 deg;

2 to 3 72

3 to 4 45

4 to 5 80

5 to 6 72

G to 7 80

7 to 8 45

474

With the voice or violin, where there are no key-boards and fixed
sounds to bother yon, it is quite possible, when the brain and
stomach are in fair working order, to sing or play any passage in
tune. But, with the pianoforte tuned (or, one might say, mistuned)
to equal temperament, it is impossible for Mr. Walter Jones to play
cnt; chord in tune, no matter whether he commences on C or
C sharp.

In equal temperament, the scale is divided into twelve equal
eeraitones ; that is to say, five whole tones, all alike, and two semi-
tones, thus : —

Eqiuil N.tnn.1.

Temperament.

From 1 to 2 79 instead of 80

2 to 3 79 „ 72

3 to 4 39i „ 45

4 to 5 79 „ 80

5 to 6 79 „ 72

6 to 7 79 „ 80

7 to 8 39i „ 45

474 474

To place the matter before you at a glance, I send you enclosed
a long piece of paper showing two octaves of natural sounds side
by side with two octaves of equal tempered pianoforte sounds, and
a; short piece of paper with one octave of nattire's sounds drawn
to the same scale.

If you use the small piece as a sliding sqale by laying it on the
larger, you will see at a glance where the sounds don't fit. This
will perhaps explain why the verse parts of a cathedral anthem
sound like heavenly music when unaccompanied by the organ,
why " Cast thy bsrden upon the Lord," in " Elijah," when sung

by such artists as Titiens, Dolby, Reeves, and Santley, causes a
feeling of satisfaction vastly different to that of, say a German
band, or an average congregation when each one fills up the in-
tervals in the scale according to his temperament.

Why Mr. Jones finds the common chord of C more grateful to
his ear than that of C sharp, is because the tuner lias shown hia
judgment in throwing the necessary errors into those keys where
they are less likely to be discovered. J. H. Chattertox.

[833]— Your correspondent Walter Jones (808) may be more
Burpriscd to learn that no two keys on the piano have the same
sound. Each has its own distinct individuality, and arises from the
fact of the great difference between the enharmonic notes — i.e.
G sharp is not A flat, F sharp is not G flat, &c. ; but on the piano
each black key has to serve the double purpose, therefore is tem-
pered, or tuned in between, which makes the intervals, thirds and
fifths of each key all different in distance. Tliis is so equally dis-
persed by good tuners as to be almost imperceptible, but is quite
suflicient to account for the fact.

While on the subject, may I point out another curious fact. The
notes of the chords of the sharp sixth and flat seventh on the piano
are identical, and yet have a different sound. The following is an
illustration ; —

(m^^^mm^^^

The chords above the cross are the same on the piano, and yet
produce a totally different effect. The reasons are they both occur
in different progressions and have both different resolutions.

William Godhex, Prof cssor of Harmony.

[834] — This question has been considered a good many times.
even amongst musicians, and it has been asked, consequently, Why
do composers often write their pieces in such a lot of flats or
sharps, when the more simple keys would answer the same purpose,
and make a piece of music so much less diflicult for the general
public ■'" Now, I am of opinion that, speaking of the pianoforte,
the chord of C shar]', or a piece written in that key, would produce
exactly the same effect upon an audience as if played in C natural,
because in our modem system of keys the relations of one key are
the same as those of another.

Supposing you had two pianofortes, the second tuned a semitone
higher than the first, then C natural on the one would sound
C sharp on the other, and a piece in C played on the iirst, C sharp
on the second, and rice versd.

But as soon as the orchestra is concerned, matters alter alto-
gether, where there are combinations of a very different
character to those on the piano. On a stringed instrument,
for instance, the chord (1) would, on account of the empty
strings and their harmonies, give a very different effect — or
Klang-tint, as Helmholt'. calls it— to chord 2, where every string

is covered by the fingers and the vibrations interrupted. Here the
tone not only alters as to pitch, but also as to intensity and quality.
Hector Berlioz has, in hi.^ celebrated " Instrumentations-lelire,"
assigned special and individual characters to each major and minor
key ; but, in a great measure, this will be more or less a matter of
subjective feeling — on the piano, absolutely imaginary.

A nocturne of Chopin, written in D flat and played in D natural,
loses certainly all poetical expression for the performer ; but for
an audience 'unaware of the transposal, I dare say none— or very
few, perhaps — wonic! be cognisant of the fact. This would simply
prove what you wish to know, viz., that there is in reality no
difference between the chord of C and C sharp on the pianoforte,
except, of course, that of pitch. Gcstave Wolff.

THE DIVIDED SKIET.

[835]— As the divided skirt was brought out by the Rational
Dress Society, will yon allow me to say that it is meant to be worn
as the dress itself, and not merely as an under petticoat ? Wearing

316

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May 25, 1883.

it in this last manner defeats its principal objects, which are clean-
liness in walkinR and absence of drag and twisting round the
ankles. It sliould bo at least four inches longer than the light over-
skirt or drapery. I have worn it this way for the lost two years,
and it does not look remarkable in any way.

A small sketch of three ligiires in the dress can bo obtained by
sending a stamped and directed envelope to the Secretary of the
K. D. S., asking for a circular of the Society's rules, Ac. Her
address is Miss K. JI. Carpenter, CO, Shaftesbury-road, Hammer-
smith, W. A Member of the K. D. S.

[" A Lady " refrained from advising a change which seemed hope-
less to advocate, as nine ladies out of ten (herself included) would
bo unwilling to wear such a dress. But she states, from her own
experience, that wearing a dress such as she described secures all
the advantages of the divided skirt, and does not in any percep-
tible degree defeat its purpose. — K. P.]

HEATING POWER OP STEAM.
[836] — Having met the paragraph at foot in " Lectures on Arts
connected with Organic Chemistry," by W. T. Brande (p. 213), at
the Royal Institution, 1S52 (Longmans), and being at a loss for
the reason of the apparent contradiction, I should be glad if yon
will kindly explain it. I may add that the statement occurs in the
lecture on Sugar Refining, in connection with remarks on working
the vacuum-pan ; but it is general in its application, and being
published by a man in Mr. Brande's position, evidently cannot
but be well considered. Bristol Boiler-Makeb.

"In stating that high-pressure steam has not so great a heating-
power as steam under 10 lb. to the square inch, the remark must
be limited to the condition of heating a fluid by means of a steam-
warmed jacket or coil. If a fluid be heated by injecting steam
into and through it, then high-pressoi-e steam, weight for weight,
is the more powerful."

LETTERS RECEIVED AND SHORT ANSWERS.
T. C. Really, does it matter how those particular names are
spelled. I thought all that nonsense had died out, except, of course,
among the majority, who ever have been, and ever "will be, behind
the age. — E. Hull names Medlicot and Blanford's " Manual of the
Geology of India" as a book giving valuable information about
Savalik Hills.- — A Spelling Refobmeu. Can scarcely give so much
space to the subject as your letter would require. It is a barren
subject, anyway ; for no good will ever come of showing how much
good ivould come from reform. — Phoncs. Same reason applies. —
H. W. B. B. We have wider ideas of the domain of science. In
what yon think remote from science may be discerned very
interesting evidence of the inherent savagery of man. —
Paepeop.\ri. Ah, well I we differ then. If you were as indifferent
to converting me as I am to converting you, you would hardly
have written your letter. What can it matter, anyway ?
— A. McD. Thanks for your genial letter. Such a letter is as
cheering as a glass of wine (pace Sir W. L. !) They are a " can-
tankerous lot," and the fable of the old man, his son, the ass, and
the other asses, doex often occur to me. — Thos. Littlf. Lectures
not published, possibly because not yet committed to paper. — E. C.
Webner. Mr. L.'s letter removes all doubt on that point ; he dis-
claims all knowledge about the matter. — Ignoramus. Hope soon
to make room for translation of original dream. — Magister. Glad
the "First Hook of Knowledge" pleased you as well as it did me.
Cannot, nnfortunately, speak of other books of the kind. — J. R.
(Edinburgh). The book is useful, though, as you say, cumbrous
and ill-written ; I do not think more was claimed for it in review
than it deserved. It is evidently the result of much hard work.

(Bar iilatt)cmatiral Column.

JROBLEM. — To (iiid a root otlier than unity of tlio equation

(1)

= 1.

= 1

.-. x'--l=(.r'^ + .r'^-t- ... +rr-i-l) (x-l)=0
Hence wo have by a due arrangement of terms

l + x + ic>^ + x' + x'''+ . . . -h.i;"-ha:' = 0

or l + x-^ — + x^ + l-+ . . . +!if + — ==0

Let V = a; -r _ - -^ :c' +—+.,■' + — + .i" + _

(2)

y + l--(I'-^.L-^a:S•^ -L-

Hence, by multiplication [remembering that x'~ = Ij : —

x* X- x^ X* x'

1 . -. . 1 . -» . 1 . - . 1 . -. . 1

1

x'

1
1

+ _■4-x-^_= — 4

-Hi'+r. + x* +- +x' +~ +3^ & .

■i- X^ + - + X^ + - + X* + - + x' + ^ + x' + -+ i

X* 0^ ac* x' r"

4 -14

Selecting the upper sign, we have

1111 v'lT-l

X + - + X-+ -,-^- X* + -i + x' + -^ = — :-, —

X or X x^ 1

,1 ,1 .1 ,1 -^/•ly-l

And hence a;' + -i -H .t'' -)- — . -f- x' -1- "« -I- x' ■<- — 7 = 7,

v/17-1 1 1

Hence from (4) ;, — — : = x- -H -. -)- .t" -1- -j

•v'17-f 1

(3)
(•t)
(-)

/ V"!' + J- \ 1 1 1 -

\ I ) j/ X x'

1 1 1,1

+ -s-f-r" + -. + x^ + ri + ^ + Ti = - 1

^/l7-l (^/l7-i)- le-Hjvn-iv

10

IG _

2(17- x/17)

= = 4( v/l? - 1 ± ^"2 v/l7 - v/17 )

Selecting the upper sign, we have

1 , 1 1/ _ _ , =.\

Letu = x'-h — + X* -^i-
x-i x^

Hence from (5) — ^ — u = x'^ + — -hx'-i-^

And bv multiplication as before we have

(z4--.).= -i

, ^/17 + l (v/17-Hl)-_ (v'17-i-l)--t-lG
" "^ 2 ""^ 16 ~ lt>

2(17-hv/T7)
16

•»=-(- v^l7 - 1 ± v'2 yi7 -^ v'i?)
Selecting the upper sign, we have

»' + -7j + ■'' + — = j(- >/17 - 1 -H v/2 ■JY! + v''17)

Let r = .i+l

(C)
(7)

(8)
(9)

,by.(7) Q(v'17-l-l-v'i:v'l7-^/17)- rju

=x- -h jL + x'-h

=;(_,. 17- i+,/2v/ir;^>>-w

May

1883.

KNOWLEDGE ♦

317

Hence, by a little tedious multiplication and addition, we obtain
Ir

\/0STlUvi7.,^,2s/2v/l7-v'17)('>/l7-l)-16v'2'/l7+Vi7j
S (10)

Wc will selett the upper sign, for x + -
But .r + -= I-

X

.— rf + i- = i-— 1

and '°2 2

Eeleciing the upper sign we have

X = i + '"~ wliere v is the function on the right hand side

of equation (10). A. il. M.

&m €l)fss Column.

By Mephisto.

THE TOURXAilEXT.
SCORE UP TO TUESDAY NIGHT.

a

si

a

tc

a

p
p

o

s

1

2

•a

3

s

c

s

CJ

c

^

§. i

_5

a

1

I

i«q ,f=i

0

0

aa

1

0

0 1

o7

Bird

1

0

7

Blackburiic

0

1

0

1 1

1

I

1

1

0 +

0 0

8t

En'_'lish

0

0

—

t

1

1

1

1

1 0

0 8

«»

Mackenzio

0

1

♦

0 1

1

I

0

0 0

0 .7

0

Mason

1

0

1

— 1

i

1

1 0

1 1

0 7

8*

Mortimer

0

0

)

0

0 -

0

0

0

0 0

0 0

0 3

0

Noa

1

0 0 p

1 1

—

1

0

0 0

0

0 5

3t

Rosenthal

I

•> 1

0 1

0

0

1 1

1 i

0 10

5i

Bellman

)

0 iO i

0 1

1

1

—

0 0

0 0

0 5

3*

Skipworth

)

0 0 0

0 1

1

0

— 0 0 0

0 2

3

Steinitz

I

0 0 X

1 1

1

0

1—0 1

1 1

9

Tcshigorin

1

1 0 ,1

0

1

1

0

1 1 -1

0 2 1

9

Winawcr

)

\ 1 1

}

1

\

10 0-

0 9

G

Zukertort

1

1 1 1

1

1

1

1

10 11

1

— •4

12

The first, round of the Tournament is all but finished, and the
second round was fixed to be(.'in on Tliursday, the 24th inst. The
players who had no draws to play off are enjoying a welcome holi-
day, while both Rosenthal and English will not have finished their
games by Thursday, as they still have three draws each to play off.
Theirs is by no means one of the best scores, and their position con-
firms the axiom that players whose play is of an undecisive cha-
racter, favourable to producing drawu games, will not take high
honours in a TournameRt.

The following players have still games to play : — Steinitz 1 (against
Rosenthal, his only draw as yet), MasoD 1, English 3, Winawer 1,
Rosenthal 3, Makcnzio 2, Xoa 1. The quality of play has been highly
satisfactory on the whole, although by no means free from acci-
dental results, only less so than in other Tournaments. If we com-
pare the position of some of the players after the conclusion of the
first round at this Tournament with the Vienna Tournament of last
year, some very remarkable results are obtained. Thus, at Vienna,
Mackenzie stood at the head with a score of 12J, which put him
above Steinitz, Blackbume. and Zukertort, while here his score is
very low, and hardly half that of Zukertort, who, again, stood three
below Mackenzie at Vienna.

The lion share of praise belongs to Zukertort. Taking the great
excellence of his fellow competitors into consideration, his noble
score of 12 out of a possible 13 is the finest score made in any
tourney. His play is vivacious and elegant, which is particularly

refreshing in contrast to dulness practised in other quarters. His
firmness and steadiness is a proof of a sound body, as well as a
sound mind. If he keeps in the same good physical condition
throughout the next hot month he will carry off the first prize.

Steinitz (9) has sacrificed too much in favour of certain openings,
and has, therefore, paid a jienalty which will materially injure his
chance for first prize. Everything proceeds forward with rapid
strides now-a-days, and the player, who through confidence in him-
self, engendered by former victories, thinks he may do without
keeping within the bounds marked out by the latest analysis of the
openings, will certainly meet with unexpected reverses.

Tcshigorin (9) has not only proved himself a highly original and
inventive player, but as being possessed of those staying qualities
so valuable towards success in a tourney. He has, indeed, whatever
his final position may be, achieved high honours by his fine victories
over some of the best men, viz., Steinitz, Winawer, Blackbume, and
Mackenzie.

Mason has gone on with his usual steadiness, and although he has
not exceeded himself, he is, nevertheless, in the foremost rank, his
present score being 8J.

On Tuesday Rosenthal played the two Knights, to which Steinitz.
replied with 3. P to KKt3, as in his games with Blackbume and
Zukertort. The result of this perseverance in the wrong direction
was that Steinitz sustained a decisive defeat, placing him at &
against Zukertort's 12.

POSITION' AFTER BLACK'S ICtii MOVE IX THE FIXAL.
GAME BETWEEN ZUKEUTORT AXD ENGLISH.

English.
Black.

■White.
Zukertort.
Zukertort finished the game in very elegant style by playirg-

47. Q to Kto, Q takes Q (forced)

48. P Queens (ch), K to B2

49. Q takes Kt (ch) ! K takes Q

50. Kt to B7 (ch), K to K4

51. Kt takes Q, and White won after 68 moves.

PLAYED

IN THE FIRST ROUND OX MAY 18.

White.

BUck.

White.

Black.

Winawer.

Blackbume.

Winawer.

Blackbume.

1. P to K4

PtoK4

21. R takes B

Q to Q3 (d)

2. KKt to B3

KKt to B3

22. QR to KB sq

R toK2

3. Kt takes P

PtoQS

23. Q to B2

Kt to K4 (e)

4. Kt to KB3

Kt takes P

24. P takes Kt

Q takes B

5. P to Q4

B to K2

25. R to BO ( 0

R takes P (g)

C. B to Q3

P toQ4

26. R takes BP

Qtks.R(ch)(A)

7. Castles (o)

Castles

27. Q takes Q

R takes R

8. P to B4

QKt to B3

28. QtoQ3 (i)

P to Kt3 (J)

9. P takes P (h) Q takes P

29. P to QKt4

KR to K2

10. R to K sq

Kt to B3 (c)

30. Q to RG

P to B4

11. Kt to B3

Q to Q sq

31. Q to B8 (ch)

KtoKt2 (i)

12. P to KR3

B toK3

32. P takes P

R takes BP

13. B to K3

Kt toQI-

33. Q to Q8

QR to K4

14. Q to n2

P to KKt3

34. Q to Q4

K to B2

15. PtoR3

B toB3

35. QtoQBl(ch

K to B sq

10. Kt to K4

Kt takes B

30. Q to B3 (/)

P to QKt4

17. P takes Kt

B to 04

37. P to K4

K toB2

18. Kt takes B(ch)Q takes Kt

38. Q to R5

P to KR4

10. R to KB sq

QR to K sq

39. Q to RG (ni)

K to Kt2

20. QU to K sq

B takes Kt

NO!

PES.

(a) We prefer P to B4 before

:astling.

(b) Kt to B3 looks a promising

move, and would be our choice.

(c) The objection to this openi

ng is that this Kni

ght must gene-

318

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[May 25, 1883.

rally retire when a position is obtained which can bo reached one
move earlier by playinj; the Krenrh defence.

(d) White's centre Powns are weak, and the Queen is well
posted there to prevent their advance.

!e) A very clever device, it leaves White no alternative.
/) With the intention of advancing P to KG if possible.
(y) We wonld have played Q to Q2, White could not then ad-
vance the Pawn which is threatened by the Kuok.

(h) A bold course, which hardly promises more than a draw.
Blackburno truly pointed out that R to B4 would force the ex-
change of the Queen and two Rooks, and leave Black with a
slightly preferable Pawn position.

Blackbcrnk.

ikt

r— '■ J.
• *

mm

^^

._'ii)'#

WlXAWER.

(i) The endinpt is very difficult for White, on account of the
■weak position of hia Pawns. Played to prevent KR to K2 by
■Q to Kt3 ch.

(J) This creates a weakness of which White cleverly avails
himself in his subsequent play. P to QR4 looks stronger. White
might reply to this with Q to B3.

(i) If K to B2, then Q to KR8, after the exchange of Pawns.

(I) Threatening Q to R8 (ch) if R takes P.

(m) Wliite never again retired his Queen from that quarter,
although Blackbume tried hard to lure him away ; and, as neither
Rooks could move without leaving either the Rook's or Knight's
3'awn unprotected, the game was given up as a draw after about
<35 moves.

POSITION AFTER BLACK'S ISrn MOVE.
Bmn.
Black.

Hi
i

i

M^'

w

Steinitz played —
AVhit

Whitb.

Steixitz

' 21. Q takes R

i 22. R to K sq

: 23. R to K8

21. Q R to K

Q takes B
Q to Q3
QtoQ2
Q to QB3

White. Black.

Stciniti. Bird.

Ik R to Q sq n takes Kt

15. P takes B P takes P

10. B to R 3 P to Q t

17. Q takes P P to QKt4

18. B takes KtP! P takes B
10. B takes Kt ! K to B3 (a)
20. Q to K5 Q to Q2

(a) If Q takes B, Black loses the Queen by 20. R takes V (ch),
K to K sq. 21. R to K5.

{>') If K to Kt2. 26. E to K7, 1! to Q2. 27. R takes B,
<J takes R. 28. R to K7 winning.

(c) Threatening an ingenious mate by Q to Qt (eh), which
Black cannot prevent.

Q to BG (ch) K to B-1 (b)
2fi. R(Ksq)toKG{c)B takes R
27. R takes B resigns.

GAME BETWEEN BLACKBURNE AND ROSENTHAL.
Scotch Opexixo.

White.

BlKlc.

WhilP.

Blsck.

BUckbome.

Hosenthal,

Blackburne.

Kovotb*!.

1.

P to K4

P to K4

13.

QtoK2

B to R6

2.

KttoKB3

Kt to QB3

14.

Castles (KR)

Castles (KR)

3.

P toQ4

P takes P

15.

P to KB5

P to KB3

4.

Kt takes P

B to QB4

IG.

QKt to B2

Kt to K4

5.

B toK3

Qto B3

17.

Kt to Q4

Pto KKt4

G.

PtoQBS

KKt toK2

18.

Kt to KG

KB to QB sq

7.

Kt to B2 (a)

B to Kt3

lU.

QR to Q sq

P to Kt4

8.

QKt to R3

B takes B

20.

R to B2

KKt to B3

0.

Kt takes B

P to QR3

21.

B takes B

Q takes B

10.

P to KKt3

P to Q3

22.

Kt to Q5 (c)

Kt to KKtS

11.

B to Kt2

B toK3

23.

Q takes Kt and wins (d)

12.

P to KB4.

QtoK3

(a) Mr. Blackbume's favonrite, played by him at Vienna last
year.

(()) Loss of time, besides posting the Kt well at K3.

(c) Giving White a substantial advantage.

(d) A fine stroke, which practically decides the game. Black
could not retake on account of Kt takes P (ch), winning the
Queen. Black struggled on for eight more moves, and then
resigned, after 3^ hours' play.

ANSWERS TO COEEESPONDENTS.
•«• Please address Chess Editor.

F. W. E. — In game between Steinitz and Winawer, p. 272,
Black's 9th move is B to Q3, instead of K3.

T. T.— See solution of No. 84, p. 256.

L. G. Rylaxds.- — The fact of a piece being pinned does not
deprive it of its checking powers.

S. L. B. — It is as you say, the combination that was sprung upon
"Z" was one move deep. It is a true specimen of play that
occasionally occurs at tournaments. A more vexatious thing than
that even happened to us. We opened a game as follows: —
1. P to K4, P to K4. 2. Kt to QB3, Kt to QB3. 3. B to B4, Kt
to B3. 4. Kt to B3, Kt takes P. 5. B takes P (ch), K takes B.
G. Kt takes Kt, P to Q4. 7. KKt to Kt5 (ch), K to Kt3 (r). 8.
Q to B3, P takes Kt (r). 9. Q to B7 (ch), K takes Kt, having,
partly by our own enterprise, and partly by our opponent's weak
play, arrived at this position, which yields some very interesting
analysis, in most of which the tenacious Black King comes out
victorious. We played P to Q3 (ch), and soon obtained the worse
game. But if the same check is given bv P to Q4, the game can
be forced, i.e.— 10. P to Q4 (ch), K to E5. 11. P to KR3, P to
KKtS (best). 12. P to Kt3 (ch), K to R4. 13. P to Kt4 (ch),
K to E5. 14. Q to QKt3, and wins.

A Learner. — 1. P to QB4 constitutes the English opening; it is
usually followed by P to K3. 2. P to K3, Kt to KB3. 3. P to Q4,
P to Q4, &c.

R. Hallidat. E. T. Eidsdale. — In the game of Mackenzie v.
Bird, p. 302, the diagram is misprinted, but the text is correct.

Contents of No. 81.

PAGE.

Personal. By E. A. Proctor 2S7

Pleasant Hours with the Micro-
scope. By H. J. Slack, F.G.S.,

r.R M.S 289

The Buying Power of Gold 2S8

On a 'Toy Tricycle. By John

290

The Paradise Fish. {lUuitraled.) 291
On the Formation of Comets' Tails.

By .4.. C. Ranyard 292

The Red Spot on Jupiter 293

FA6B.

The Moon in a Three-inch Tele-
scope, (libit.) By F.R.A.S. ... 291
The Brush DTnamo-'Electric Ma-
chine, {niustrated.) 295

The Moon and May Frosts 29«

Death at the Play 297

HeTiews : Tj-ndall on Sound 297

Editorial Gossip -H^

Correspondence - "^

Our Mathematical Column :^"1

Oar Chess Column 3 'i

NOTICES.

Just Published, Part XIX. (May, 18S3). Price lOd. ; postage 3d. eitra.

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I

JcNE 1, 1883. 1

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

319

I ^' MAG^2lNE0FSqENCE

j PLAINiyWoRDED-fXACT^v^^'^^RlBED^

LONDON: FRIDAY, JUJSJ^ 1, lsa3.

OONTENTB OF No. 83.

PAOB.

The Great Inlornslional Fisheries
Exhibition. N'atural History
Departments. By John Ernest
Adr. Inlroductorv 319

The "Birth and Oronth of Myth.
VIII. Bv Edward Clodd 320

Fleusnt Hours »ilh the Micro-
scope. Bt H. J. Slack, F.Q.8.,
F.R.M.S.' {.Itlu-trated.) 322

The Amateur Electriciao. Bat-
teries. 1 323

riGB.
Laws of Brightne.-<9. 11. By R. A.

Proctor. {IthutraUd.) 324

The Moon in a Three-inch Tele-
scope. (///iM.) Br F.R.A.8. ... 326
AseoftheMi«ouri. By E. P. West 327

GeoloRv amon;; the Colliers 328

Rational Urois 329

Editorial Gossip 330

Correspondence 331

~ Mathematical ColumD 333

Oar Che

iCoIu

333

THE GREAT INTERXATIONAL
FISHERIES EXHIBITION.

NATURAL HISTORY D E PA R T M EX T S.

By John Ernest Ady.

INTRODUCTORY.

THE Teutonic name Jisc, allied to tlie Latin jiiscis, was
originally applied indiscriminately to animals which
live in water. It became necessary, however, in the de-
velopment of scientific nomenclature, to restrict the mean-
ing of the term, and Jish came to signify, in popular zoology,
an oviparous aijuatic animal, provided with gills, covered
with scales, and, most important of all, furnishing a vast
tribe of animals with a staple diet. From the earliest
historical records, we find that the value of fish as an article
of food impelled man to devise plans for their capture ;
economy led the way, and pleasure followed in its wake,
and thus arose, by degrees, the intricate arts of fishing,
with their multitude of observances, which have even
aflFected the laws of nations. Let us trace how these two
factors, utility and amusement, have been represented in
the valuable institution at South Kensington.

The casual visitor to the Exhibition will, perhaps, be
bewildered with the e.xtensive and varied collection which
may meet his gaze, and ask — What has all this to do with
fish and fishing 1 Here, an exquisite case, the property of
Lady Brassey, resplendent with beautiful sponges, corals,
and shells, is placed at the head of a short corridor near
the tine art saloon at the principal entrance. The corridor
ends in one direction in a cul-de-sac, at the termination of
•which a blue-jacket (sailor?) is stationed vending tracts.
Let us suppose that the visitor is a student of natural
science. He sees, from Lady Brassey's splendid collection,
that fishing in its modern acceptation is not confined to the
zoological order Pisces, but that the same economy which
directed the fisher to the fish made him also a fisher of
pearls and corals, wherewith to furnish the a'sthetic tastes
of his fellow-creatures with food, and delight their senses
with beauteous forms and colours. Then, too, is not the
blue-jacket a " fisher of men " 1

To the right-hand side, this corridor continues in an

easterly direction, and the student comes face to face with
another beautiful cabinet, displaying a varied selection of
knives, forks, etc., mounted in lobster claws ; he is once
more reminded that, beside molluscs, corals, and sponges,
lobsters and their allies play some part in fisheries. Most
appropriately, this case precedes a series of similar stalls,
and the names, Crosse and Blackwell, in their midst,
reminds liim of the pleasures of the table, ere he arrives at
a well-appointed refreshment bar.

Instead of continuing his circuit along the eastern
arcade, he ought to return to Lady Brassey's case, descend
the sliort staircase, and proceed down the long vista of
British sea fisheries exhibits, which extends in a westerly
direction for about 900 feet. It would be out of place
here to enter into a detailed description of the nuimrous
appliances — boats, tackle, cloths, ite. — which decorate the
divisions of this gallery in the most attractive manner, and
which cannot fail to elicit a fair share of his attention.
Sufiice it to say that he may pause with the crowd to glance
at Grace Darling's portrait, to wonder what ladies' stock-
ings, etc , produced on the hand-knitting machine, have to
do with fisheries, or, may be, to betake himself to a dining-
saloon which would satisfy the spirit of a gourmet, or even
a Vitellius.

The long gallery is a thing of the past, and he finds
himself compelled to turn somewhere. To the right is an
open passage flanked oa one side by a refreshment stall, on
the other side by sheds with machinery in motion and for
the production of the electric light ; let him turn thither,
and ascend the staircase placarded " Aquarium." Every
step in this direction will be found replete with interest to
him.

On the threshold of the aquarium he will linger, attracted
by a huge bill on which some of Dr. Hassall's admirable
drawings are reproduced, illustrative of the organic and
other impurities found in drinking water. It is an adver-
tisement for Maignen's patent " Filtre Ilapide ; " and so
efficiently does this apparatus purify and aerate water, that
even minute particles held in suspension, as in a solution
of potassium permanganate (Condy's Fluid) are effectually
removed from it The filter is also adapted to purify sea-
water, and render it suitable for aquaria in which living
fish may be reared, and fed on only such foods as are
suitable. In future papers we shall give a few illustrations
of the chief forms of substances, living and dead, which
are detrimentsjl to drinking and potable water.

The aquarium, with its curious inmates and the model
tanks, showing the culture of fish and molluscs, are of vast
interest to the student of natural history, and will be care-
fully described in subsequent issues. The rooms surround-
ing and beyond the aquarium are occupied by exhibitors
of pisciculture, and of ornamental aquaria, and fish.
Amongst the latter we may here notice some very fine
examples of the horse-fish (llipjwcampus), procured from
the jSIediterranean Sea, and e.xhibited by Mr. King, of
Great Portland-street.

The gallery of live stock comes to a close with Mr.
Thomas Bolton's living organisms for the microscope. On
Mr. Bolton's tables, a number of microscopes are carefully
adjusted over forms of plant and animal life. We desire
to draw special attention to these exhibits, for they bear
directly upon some of the great questions concerned with
the life-history of fish of all descriptions, the vicissitudes of
their existence, and the influence of many of the minuter
organisms upon their environment — questions which we
can only hope to elucidate with the aid of the microscope
brouglit to bear upon the details of minute structure. We
shall have occasion to repair to Mr. Bolton's section fre-
quently, and furnish our readers with illustrations taken

320

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

Juke 1, 1883,

from his specimens. The student of natural history will linger
with dcligiit over Mr. Bolton's microscopes, and see there
not only the embryonic stages of many fishes and molluscs,
but the minuter particles, living and dead, which sustain
the growing young and adult individuals. The proteus
animalcule {Am<i/,ii) may be watched creeping over the
sides of his zoophyte troughs and live boxes, whilst in
another receptacle a few unfortunate young trout may be
seen in a state of uneasy excitement, occasioned by rela-
tively huii;(' parasites, or lish-lice [Argulus foliaceus), which
infest them ; one of these placed under the microscope
reveals its formidable suckers and hooklets, whereby it
attaches itself to its victim ; it belongs to the group of
animals which includes the crab and lobster {Crustacea).
Nor is Mr. Bolton's department devoid of local interest ;
with the ardent zeal of a lover of natural history, he has
been scraping and gathering from the pond beneath the
memorial to the Prince Consort in the exhibition grounds,
which are now stocked with fresh-water fish, and has
brought to light myriads of organisms calculated to agree
and disagree with the appetites of the imprisoned captives.
Mr. Bolton's exhibit closes the living portion of the
exhibition, and dead life now becomes the dominant feature
of its galleries. A remarkably largo walrus flanks one side
of the short staircase which leads to the west quadrant ; it
is a pity that tliis magnificent specimen has not been suit-
ably cased in glass ; nevertheless it is worthy of attention,
and an interesting printed circular, relating to the habits
of the walrus, and its geographical distribution, may be
obtained from the exhibitor.

The west quadrant, the northern gallery, and the east
quadrant are devoted to stufl'ed specimens of fish, fish-
eating birds, etc. Amongst the more noteworthy of these
are the collection of plaster casts, by the late Mr. Buck-
land, the stuflfed specimens of exceptionally-large and well-
marked forms, which testify to the skill of the angler, and
remind the student that, apart from economy and study,
fish and fishing have afTorded him the pleasurable and
healthy beguilement of many happy hours with rod and
line, over moorland and heath to wild lakes and rivers, or
of the cool, bracing early morning in a fisher's smack far
out at sea. The Fisheries Exhibition, then, admirably
fulfils the two factors which we started with ; it displays
the results of economy combined with those of recreation.

The natural-history galleries are so complete that a
hurried sketch here would tend but to confuse rather than
enlighten the reader ; we hope to visit them again, and to
show him phases in the development of the salmon, collec-
tions of parasites which prey upon all kinds of fish, beauti-
ful specimens of algw, and exquisite accurate drawings of
annelids ; to comment upon them, and to learn the lessons
they are intended to teach.

(To he continued.')

THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH.

VIII.
By Edward Clodd.

THE beliefs of the ancient Finns in the world as a
divided egg, of which the white is the ocean, the yolk
the earth, and tlie arched shell the sky, and of the Poly-
nesians that the universe is the hollow of avast cocoa-nut
shell, at the tapering bottom of which is the root of all
things, are to us so grotesque that it is not easy to regard
them as explanations seriously invented by the human
mind. Yet these, together with the notions of the two

halves of the shell of Brahma's egg, and of the two cala-
Viashes which form the heaven and the earth in African
myth, find their correspondences in the widespread con-
ception of the overarching firmament as a hard and solid
thing,* with holes (or windows t) to let the rain through,
with gates through which angels descend, % or through
which prophets peer into c(^lestial mysteries ; § a firmament
outside which other people live, as instanced by the Poly-
nesian term for strangers, " papalangi," or " heaven-
bursters."

They are the less refined forms of myths which have
held their ground from pre-scientific times till now, and the
rude analogies of which are justified by the appearances of
things as presented by the senses. Man's intellectual
history is the history of his escape from the illusions of the
senses, it is the slow and often reluctant discovery that
nature is quite other than that which it seems to be. And
this variance between appearances and realities remained
hidden until the intellect challenged the report about
phenomena which the sense-perceptions brought. For in
the ages when feeling was dominant, and the judgment
scarce awakened, the simple explanations in venerable
legends sung by bard or told by aged crone — legends to
which age had given sanctity which finally placed them
among the world's sacred literatures — were received
without doubt or question. But, as belief in causality
spread, men were not content to rest in the naive explana-
tions of an uncritical age. What man had guessed about
nature gave place to what nature had to say about herself,
and with the classifying of experience science had its
birth.

Meanwhile, until this quite recent stage in man's pro-
gress was reached, the senses told their blundering tale of
an earth flat and fixed, with sun, moon, and stars as its
ministering servants, while gods or beasts upbore it, and
mighty pillars supported the massive firmament. In
Hindoo myth the tortoise which upholds the earth rests
upon an elephant, whose legs reach all the iray doirn ! In
Bogota the culture-god Bochica punishes a lesser and
oflending deity by compelling him to sustain the part of
Atlas, and it is in shifting his burden from shoulder to
shoulder that earthquakes are caused. The natives of
Celebes say that they are due to the world-supporting Hog
as he rubs himself against a tree ; the Thascaltecs that they
occur when the deities who hold up the world relieve one
another ; the Japanese think that they are caused by huge
whales creeping underground, an idea probably confirmed
by the discovery of monster fossil bones.

As the myths about earth-bearers prevail in the regions
of earthquakes, so do those about subterranean beings in
the neighbourhood of volcanoes. The superstitions which
mountainous countries especially foster are intensified
when the mountains themselves cast forth their awful and
devastating progeny, " red ruin " and the other children
born of them. Man in his dread, " caring in no wise
for the external world, except as it influenced his
own destiny ; honouring the lightning because it could
strike him, the sea because it could drown him,"|| could do
naught else than people them with maleficent beings, and
conceive of their sulphur exhaling mouths as the jaws of a
bottomless pit.

Indeed, if in freeing ourselves from the tyranny of the
"solar" theory we shackled ourselves with some other, we

* " And said the f?ods, let there be a hammered ])late in the midst
of the waters, and let it be dividing between waters and waters.**
Gen. i, 6. The verb from which the substantive is derived signifies,
among other meanings, " to beat out into thin plates."

t Gen. viii. 2. J Gen. sxviii. 17. § Ezekiel i. 1.

II " Modern Painters," Vol. III., 15-1.

June 1, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

321

should certainly prefer that which is known as the
"meteorological," and which, in the person of Kulin and
other supporters, finds a more rational and persistent
source of myth in phenomena which are fitful and startling,
such as hurricane and tempest, earthquake and volcanic
outburst. Sunrises and sunsets happen with a regularity
which failed to excite any strong emotion or stimulate
curiosity, and the remotest ancestor of the primitive Aryan
soon shook off the habit — if, indeed, he ever acquired it — of
going to bed in fear and trembling lest the sun should not
come back again. Nature, in her softer aspects and her
gracious bounties — in the spring-time with its promise, the
summer with its glory, the autumn with its gifts — has
moved the heart of man to song and festival and proces-
sion ; as, by contrast, the frost that nipped the early buds
and the fierce heat that withered the approaching harvest
gave occasion for plaintive ditty and sombre ceremony. It
is in the fierce play and passionate outburst of the elements,
in the storm, the lightning, and the thunder, that the
feelings are aroused and that the terror-stricken fancy sees
the strife of wrathful deities or depicts their dire work
amongst men. Hence, all the world over, the Storm-God
and the Wind-God have played a mighty part

To the savage, the wind, blowing as it listeth, its whence
and whither unknown, itself invisible, yet the sweep and
force of its power manifest and felt, must have ranked
amongst the most striking phenomena. And, as will be
seen hereafter, the correspondences between wind and
breath and the connection between breath and life, added
their quota of mystery in man's effort to account for the
impalpable element. In the legends of the Quiches, the
mysterious creative power is Hurakan (whence hurricane) ;
among the Choctaws the original word for Deity is Hush-
toli, the storm wind, and in Peru to kiss the air was the
commonest and simplest sign of adoration to the collective
divinities. The Guayacuans of South America, when a
storm arose and there was much thunder or wind, all went
out in troops, as it were to battle, shaking their clubs in the
air, shooting flights of arrows in that direction whence the
storm came.* But we are some steps nearer to the
primitive myth when we find the wind conceived of as a
mighty bird — which, indeed, is in both old and new world
mythology a common symbol of thunder and lightning also.
On this matter Dr. Brinton's remarks bear quoting : —

Like the wind, tho bird sweeps throagh the aerial spaces, sings in
the forests, and rnstles on its coarse ; like the clond, it floats in
mid-air, and casts its shadow on tho earth ; like the lightning, it
darts from heaven to earth to strike its nnsuspecting prey. These
tropes were trnths to savage nations, and led on by that law of
language which forced them to conceive everything as animate or
inanimate, itself the product of a deeper law of thought which
urges us to ascribe life to whatever has motion, they found no
animal so appropri.ite for their purpose here as the bird. Therefore
the Algonkins say that birds always make the winds, that they
create the waterspouts, and that the clouds are the spreading and
agitation of their wings; the Xavajos, that at each cardinal point
stands a white swan, who is.the spirit of the blasts; so, also, the
Dakotas frequently explain the thunder as the sound of the cloud-
bird flapping his wings ; the lightning as the fire that flashes from
his tracks, Uke the sparks which the buffalo scatters when he scours
over a stony plain.

Turning to the literatures of higher races, we find in the
prose Edda, when Gangler asks whence comes the wind,
that Har answers him : "Thou must know that at the
northernmost point in the heavens sits a giant,

" In the guise of an eagle ;
And the winds, it is said.
Rush down on the earth
From his outspreading pinions."

* Dorman's " Primitive Superstitions," p. 350.

In the Veda, the !Maruts, or Storm-gods, to whom many
of the hymns are addressed, " make the rocks to tremble
and tear asunder the kings of the forest," like Hermes in
his violence and like Boreas in his rage. Whether or no
thej- become in Scandinavian legend the grim and fearful
Ogres swiftly sailing in their cloud-ships, we may see in
them the "crushers" and "grinders,"* as their name
imports, the types of northern deities like Odin, long
degraded into the Wild Huntsman and his phantom
crew, whose uncouth yells the peasant hears in the mid-
night air.

Of this personification of the elements, the following
Ojibway folk tale, cited by Dorman, gives poetic illustra-
tion : — "There were spirits from all parts of the country.
Some came with crashing steps and rearing voice, who
directed the whirlwinds which were in the habit of raging
about the neighbouring country. Then glided in gently a
sweet little spirit, which blew the summer gale. Then
came in the old sand spirit, who blew the sand-squalls in
the sand-buttes toward the west. Ho was a great speech-
maker, and shook the lodge with his deep-throated voice,
as he addressed the spirits of the cataracts and water-
falls, and those of the islands who wore beautiful green
blankets."

In his valuable book on the Myths of the Red Race,
Dr. Brinton has brought together a mass of evidence in
support of a theory that the sanctity in which the number
Four is held amongst that people is due to the adoration of
the cardinal points, which are identified with the four
winds, who, in hero-myths, are the four ancestors of the
human race. Certainly the illustrations with which the
argument is supported are both numerous and valuable ;
but any elaborate system of mythology based upon a
definite number of winds has, like the solar theory, to
make the facts square with it, and while it explains much,
to leave much unexplained. Here this bare reference to it-
must suflice.

Estimates differ much as to the size of the Thunder-Bird,
In one tradition, an Indian found its nest, and secured a.
feather which was above two hundred feet long, while in
another tradition the bird is said to be no bigger than one's
little finger ! But among the Western Indians he is an
immense eagle. " When this ac-rial monster flaps his wings,
loud peals of thunder roll over the prairie ; when he winks
his eye it lightens ; when he wags his tail the waters of the
lake which he carries on his back overflow and produce
rain." The old and universal belief that stones were hurled
by the Thunder-God is not so far-fetched as we, in our
pride of science, might think, for the flints which are mis-
taken for thunderbolts, and which become objects of adora-
tion as well as charm?, produce a flash when struck by the
lightning. MLxcoatl, the Mexican Cloud-Serpent, as well
as Jove, carries hisbimdle of arrows or thunderbolts, which
in the hand of Thor are represented by his mighty club or
hammer.

As in the conflict raging in the sky during gale or
tempest, when the light and the darkness alternately pre-
vail, the barbaric mind sees war waged between the heroes
of the spirit-land who have carried their unsettled blood-
feuds thither, so in many myths the lightning is no com-
rade of the thunder, but its foe, the battle of bird with
serpent. The resemblances of the lightning flash to the
sharp, sudden, zigzag movements of a creature so myste-
rious, to barbaric man, in its unlikeness to the beasts of the
field, account for the myth, the interest of which lies for
us in the correspondences which it suggests with the group

* From Sans, mar, " to grind." Ares and Mara come from tho
same root.

322

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 1, 1883.

of storm-myths and sun-myths of the Aryan racp, the
battle Iictwppn Iiulra and \'ritra, Oiiim/.d and Ahriiiian,
Thoraiid Midgard, lIiTculrs and Cacus, Apolloand Pytlion,
and St. Cujorge and the Dragon. It is witli the physical
origin and, for us, deep tlicological significance of these,
that the succeeding paper will deal.

PLEASANT HOURS WITH THE
MICROSCOPE.

Bv Henry J. Slack, F.G.S., F.R.M.S.

THERE is now a general consent amongst the leading
experiuK'nters in medical science that consumption
and a whole group of tubercular diseases are caused by the
action of the minute organism noticed by Koch, and
named BaciUus tithercuhsus. Former articles upon micro-
ferments aflbrd some information concerning the class of
bodies to which the haciUus belongs. Bacteria and bacilli
are minute straight rods, of a beaded character, stationary,
or witli a vacillating motion, while analogous spiral objects
{spinUa), often very much larger, corkscrew their way with
considerable rapidity. Bacteria have long been suspected
of connection with various diseases, and the action of some
traced, but it is only recently that the Bacillus tuber-
culostis has been discovered. It can only be well seen
when prepared by a skilful operator, and then the highest
powers can only show it like very small cuttings
of fine thread, which are resolvable into rows of a
few beads when the illumination is carefully managed.
A slide now under view was prepared from the sputa
of a consumpti\e patient, staining it, with an aniline dye,
a purple tint ; removing that tint from the organic debris
and leaving it in the bacilli, which hold it with greater
stability. A power 300 x shows no structure at all, but
one of about 1,000 indicates beads more or less plainly as
the illumination is suitable, and the object uninjured by
the process of mounting. Three, or four, or five beads
(occasionally a few more) either in an invisible tube, or
simply in linear contact, make objects which, so magnified,
seem from an eighth to a third of an inch long, and many
millions of them would scarcely have enough weight to be
represented in figures that could convey any meaning if
stated in fractions of a grain. Dr. Burney Yeo reckons
these bacilli as from a quarter to half a blood corpuscle in
length, and the human corpuscle to which he refers is
found to be from 1-3,200" to l-S.-'SOO" in diameter. They
vary in size, but are always minute. He tells us that in
some rods oval spherules have been noticed. The tempera-
ture of the human body is advantageous for their growth,
aud probably a single bead of inconcei\'ably small weight
may suflice to start a rapidly-growing colony.

Doctors find the mischief done by these organisms to
begin with an infiammatory accumulation of cells produc-
ing little nodules in the organ attacked. As their action
increases, lumps of cheesy matter are formed at the ex-
pense of the tissues, and in violent cases the process of
destruction is fearfully rapid. It has been ascertained that
tubercular disease can be communicated by inoculating
animals with this bacillus. Breathing air emitted from
the lungs of afiected persons seems, under some circum-
.stances, capable of producing the disease ; but, probably,
in all such cases, there is something in the system of the
party attacked which specially favours the growth of the
deleterious organism. Dr. Yeo mentions many cases in
which husbands and wives, living and sleeping together,
have not transmitted the infection of consumption ; but in

otlier instances this has probably occurred ; and one man,
mentioned by Dr. Webber, is believed to have infected four
wives in succession, and then he himself died of consump-
tion, after giving up a seafaring life. The nurses and
servants of the Brompton Hospital have been very free
from tubercular disease ; and when, at one time, the
patients suffered from defective ventilation, there was no
increase of consumptive attacks, but a large crop of
erysipelas.

Py.x'mia is now ascribed to micrococci, or little spherules,
septicemia to bacilli, relapsing fever to spirilla, and ery-
sipelas is also traced to a micrococcus. It appears that
this disease sometimes affords relief from other complaints,
and Fehleisen grew its organism artificially, and then
inoculated seven selected patients, producing erysipelas.
The British Medical Journal says, in reference to these
experiments on human beings, that they " were perfectly
justifiable" (?), and states that one case of lupus (a horrible
skin disease) was completely cured.

The question arises, are the bacilli which produce
different diseases different species of organisms, rigidly
reproducable in the line of hereditary descent, with uni-
formity of properties 1 Sometimes, of two objects that
look alike, one can be distinguished by its more readily
taking and holding a particular dye ; sometimes the
identity, or difference, of species is assumed on account of
the properties manifested. Pasteur's experiments with
the organisms producing splenic and some other diseases
show that, by growing them under different conditions,
their infectiousness can be attenuated to any extent ; and
if we look to the larger fungi, we find them wholesome or
poisonous, according to the circumstances of their develop-
ment, climate, soil, shelter of trees, or in open spaces.

A small spherule, or a little rod, may or may not be
capable of development into other forms, and this can
only be found out by elaborate investigations. With
many of the lower organisms it by no means follows that
because many generations may be grown like their parents,
another type, so far as appearance goes, may not occur
under fresh conditions, either of external circumstance or
internal state. Mr. Dallinger's researches into the life-
history of certain monads abundantly prove that such
changes do occur. Spirillum at one period becomes less
twisted, and finally straight, according to Messrs. Geddes
and Ewart, and a great variety of bodies are developed
from round or oval spores, not distinguishable from each
other except by watching their development. Many
spores can pass through the digestive organs of animals
without injury.

Dr. Matthews found spirillum developing from its spores
when he broke up a little excrement of a goat in distilled
water ; and sewage matter is a too well-known nidus of
disease-causing organisms. One of the most i-emarkable
statements in reference to the minuteness of the quantity
of matter capable of generating disease was made to the
Royal Microscopical Society in May, 1882, by Mr. G. F.
Dowdeswell, who said, in the case of the bacteria called
after its discoverer, Davaine, that the blood of rabbits
containing it "is usually infective up to the millionth and
the hundred millionth part of a drop ; sometimes even in
smaller quantities, obtained by successive dilutions."

The subjoined figures will help the beginner in recog-
nising some of the organisms mentioned. Figs. I and 2
represent bacillus tubercHlosiis magnified about 500 times
and about 1,000, the latter being in beads. Fig. 3 is a
common form in the scum of infusions ; 4, a spirillum
considerably magnified. These objects vary in size. 0 and 1)
are other forms ; .5, a long bacterium form ; 7 and 8, spores
and micrococci. It is only by long practice that any one can

Jl-ke 1, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

323

tell, or guess, what some of these minute beads may really
be. Those which are harmless, and those which may give
rise to diseases arc not marked out by obvious or striking
characters. Many of these organisms become visible if
allowed to dry on a slide, and many are very ready to take

aniline dyes. Minute bacteria, unnoticeable in water, are
easily seen as it evaporates, and some arc sure to be found
where decomposition is going on. Giving such objects
specific names, unless something is' known of their origin
or life history, is merely playing with words.

THE AMATEUR ELECTRICIAN.

BATTERIES.— I.

NOTWITHSTANDING the fact that galvanic batteries
have been more or loss well known during the past
half-century, their functions, and the conditions they are
called upon to fulfil are even now, in this " age of elec-
tricity," but very imperfectly appreciated by manj' of those
whose business or pleasure it is to deal with them. That
we are not unduly emphasising this somewhat widespread
ignorance is evidenced in many ways, more especially
amongst amateurs (a term in which we venture in this
particular instance to embrace all who are not engaged as
professional electricians). It is no very unusual thing to
be asked how many Daniell cells would suffice to maintain
a dozen or more incandescent electric lamps, although
their inefficiency for the purpose should be apparent to the
merest tyro in applied electricity. Then, again, the rela-
tive advantages and disadvantages pertaining to the various
forms of battery for any particular purpose may to some
extent be known, while the causes for such peculiarities
are, so far as the experimenter or operator is concerned,
enveloped in the deepest oblivion.

Very frequently the question of applicability resolves
itself into one of simple electrical measurement. At other
times — and more especially is this the case with modern
attempts to " improve " the Daniell battery — the disconti-
nuity of the chemical reactions, and the imperfect absorp-
tion of nascent hydrogen, result in intermittent currents,
whose " pressure " (or electro-motive force) and strength
are constantly varying.

The object in view in these papers is to describe, as
succinctly as possible, the principles involved in the con-
struction of the various typical forms of battery, giving,
at the same time, their numerical efficiency, approximate
cost, results of experiments on their durability and utility,
and such other matters of interest as may present them-
selves, not omitting to furnish details for their simple and
inexpensive construction.

It is desirable, in the first place, that any one who is
about to adopt a battery for any specific purpose should

have a clear conception of the rudimentary principles
involved in the doctrine of the " conservation of energy.'"
There is not, in the whole range of science, a grander or
more universally true doctrine than this, nor is there
any similar collection of principles, a knowledge and
appreciation of which will prove so useful in protecting
one against the allur(;ments of an innumerable ho.st of
impostures. Amongst the more recent attempts at " per-
petual motion," none are more daring, nor more frequently
put forward, than those which are based ou electricity, and
scientific lecturers are often guilty of misleading people by
statements and experiments, which they, however, probably
intended to ha\e a widely ditlerent eliect. For instance,
it is often put forth as among the wonderful applicability
of electricity that a passing current may be made to
simultaneously dellect a galvanometer, raise a weight,
decompose water, render a piece of wire or a carbon
filament incandescent, and perform a long list of other
experiments too numerous to detail. But how many
lecturers are there who supplement the experiment by
saying that the amount of force expended in all these
operations cannot possibly exceed the capacity for per-
forming any one of them ; and yet such a law is easily
demonstrated. If a current is allowed to pass through the
coil of a galvanometer without having any other work to
perform, we shall get a dellection of, let us say, 40°. If
now we insert an electro magnet in the circuit, the
deflection of the needle (or the work performed in forcing
it out of the position assigned to it liy gravity) will be
sensibly reduced. Here, th^n, is simply and incontro-
vertibly demonstrated the fact that a current of electricity
can no more be called upon to perform a second kind of
work without the first being proportionately reduced, than
can a boilerful of steam. Similarly, if we insert an electro
magnet in circuit with an incandescent lamp, the luminosity
(or the heat developed in the filament) will be propor-
tionately reduced.

The most important battery at present in use is that
known as the Daniell, of which there are, as might be ex-
pected, a large number of modifications. The principle,
however, is never denied to Daniell, who is justly regarded
as the father of practical batteries, as the man who con-
tributed almost, if not quite as much as Morse or Wheat-
stone to make telegraphy a part of every-day life. The
size and shape of the to-be-adopted battery will depend
considerably upon the requirements of the case. Where
the external resistance is low, large plates are required ;
and where pottrries are scarce, or electrical instrument-
makers exorbitant in their charges, a cylindrical is
preferable to a square form. A cell of one quart capacity
is perhaps the most generally convenient size. It may be
put together very easily. In a glazed earthenware or other
non-porous jar place a cylinder of zinc. The zinc should'
be about a quarter of an inch thick, and should stand as
high as the jar is deep. Where space is not an important
factor it will be found cheaper to use a large earthenware
pot and a flat piece of zinc, the bending of which is
generally troublesome, at least to the amateur. Inside
the zinc cylinder place a porous pot, standing half an inch
or an inch above the zinc, and containing a sheet of very
thin copper, bent into an approximately cylindrical
shape. Nearly fill the porous pot with crystals of pure
bluestone (sulphate of copper, CuSOj) ; then fill up both
the glazed jar and the porous pot to within half an
inch or an inch of the top of the outer jar. If re-
quired for immediate use, add a small quantity of
sulphuric acid to the water in the zinc division,
making the proportion about 12 of water to 1 of acid.
Terminals, or binding screws, should be attached to the

;iZ4

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 1, 1883.

zinc and coppor plates, it being always carefully borne in
mind tliat clcnn and tliorough metallic connections are
absolutely essential, more especially where wc are dealing
with currents of low electro-motive force, such as arc gene-
rated by a few battery cells. The cost of a Dainell cell is,
as we said, small ; the outer jar and porous pot should be
procurabl; for a few pence. A pound of thin copper (at,
say, Is. 8il.). would be sufficient to make several plates 1 in.
by 5 in, i^inc ought not to cost Tuorc that 5d. per pound,
and a plat3 of j-inch metal, .")in. by 3 in., weighs a trille
over one pound. The terminals cost about Gd. each, but
vary considerably according to shape and size. Pure
sulphate of copper costs Gd. per pound, about ] lb. being
required for each cell.

The principles involved in the Daniell cell have been
very extensively written and talked about ; but a brief
summary will not detract from any value pertaining to this
particular description. In the zinc division, the action
brings about an absorption of zinc, which is converted by
means of sulphuric acid into sulphate of zinc. Hydrogen
is at the same time released, which, entering the porous
pot, displaces the copper from its sulphate, forms sulphuric
acid, and precipitates the purest possible copper on the
negative or copper plate. Reduced to an equation, we get
Zn + SO,H^ + SO^Cu = SOjZn + SOJL-f Cu.

Thus it will be seen that the liquid in the zinc division
becomes gradually a more and more concentrated solution
of sulphate of zinc, while the sulphate of copper solution is
reduced or weakened at the. same rate, and were there no
reserve stock of crystals in the cell, the liquid would soon
become colourless, and hydrogen would be deposited on the
copper plate. It must, however, be remembered that the
one great function of the bluestone solution is to prevent
any deposition of hydrogen, because an accumulation of
that gas upon the copper plate results in the rapid cessa-
tion of the current due to the insulation of the plate.
A further point to be noticed in this " polarisation " pro-
cess is that counter currents are started from the hydrogen
film to the zinc plate. It will be seen from the above
equation that for every atom of zinc dissolved, an atom of
copper is deposited, and this explains why it is that a
thick zinc plate is advisable, while there is practically no
limit to the thinness of the copper plate. In fact, batteries
have been constructed without any copper plate, the action
being relied upon to deposit a coating of copper upon a
sheet of lead or other conducting substance. The atomic
or relative weights of zinc and copper are 6-5 and 63 5
respectively, so that for every Q>^ grains of zinc dissolved,
the weight of the copper deposited will be 635 grains.
The molecular or relative weight of copper sulphate is
159-5, so that for 635 grains of copper deposited, 1595
grains of copper sulphate will be converted into sulphuric
acid. The sulphate of the zinc solution should not be
allowed to get too strong, otherwise a formation of in-
soluble zinc salts will take place. The solution, which is
advantageous up to a certain point, requires, therefore, to be
partially removed occasionally, and the cell filled up with
water.

The Daniell cell has an electro-motive force of 1-079 volts
(see Electrical Measurement I.), the internal resistance of
the cell varying directly as the surface of the plates, and
inversely as the distance between them. The small cells
used by the Post Office offer 10 Ohms per cell, but the
resistance of such a cell as the one above described would
be 3 to 4 Ohms.

As the source of a constant current, the Daniell cell is,
for currents of such dimensions as it is capable of main-
taining, as near perfection as anything human can make

it. For this reason it is second to none where a constant
and steady current is required, and is extensively adopted
in telegraphy and electro-metallurgy.

In consequence of the diffusion of the sulphate of copper
into the zinc division, a precipitation of copper at the ex-
pense of the zinc is always going on, and the bluestone
proportionately wasted. This action is represented by the
(!quation

SO.Cu -f Zn = SO.Zn -|- Cu.

The copper is deposited on the surface of the zinc, at the
bottom of the cell, and, generally speaking, wherever the
zinc touches. To prevent this as much as possible, the
bottom of the porous pot should be immersed for a few
minutes in melted paraffin wax. The upper portion of the
pot which stands out of the solution should be similarly
treated, to hinder the creeping of the solutions. Both the
zinc and the copper sulphates creep considerably, and, the
water evaporating, the sulphates crystallise. Being more
or less damp, they may easily short circuit the cells. When
any crystals are observed on the upper portions of the
elements, the cell should be wiped with a damp cloth.
It is found that the consumption goes on in an idle cell
almost as rapidly as in an active one, and accordingly the
Daniell cell is never to be recommended where only occa-
sional currents are required, as is the case with electric
bells, &c. In fact, if adopted for such purposes, the
Daniell cell would soon eat its head off. Nor, again, is this
battery advantageous where strong currents, or currents of
high electro-motive, are required for a short period. Other
forms of battery are available for such purposes, and will
in their turn come in for description.

LAWS OF BRIGHTNESS.

11.

By Richard A. Peoctoe.

"TTTE are next to consider the degree of brightness with
V V which an opaque body is illuminated, according as
"its distance and position vary with respect to the source of
light.

It will be sufticieut to consider here only the case where
the illuminating body is so far off that, as seen from any
point of the opaque surface, it would appear very small.

Suppose A B (Fig. 3) to be a plane opaque surface
squarely illuminated by a luminous surface, S S'. Let a
small luminous area at P emit towards the small circular
area C D of A B the pencil of light, PCD. Then, if the
area A B be shifted to the position A' B', its plane remaining
still square to the light rays from S S', the pencil, PCD,
falls upon the small circular area, C D', and obviously il-
luminates this area, CD', more brightly than C D in the
proportion that the area C D exceeds the area C D'. But
the area C D is to the area C D' as the square of C D
to the square of C D', that is, as the square of P C to
the square of P C. Hence the point P illuminates the
area A' B', more brightly than the area A B, as the square

June 1, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

HAo

of the distance A B exceeds the square of the distance of
A' B'. The same is true for all parts of the surface S S'.
Hence the illumination of A B is to the illumination of
A' B' inversely as the square of the distance of A B is to
the square of the distance A B. The same reasoning would
obviously apply if A B were inclined at any anjjle to 0 P.
and the plane A' B' parallel to the plane A B. Hence wo
have the law that the illumiiMlioii of siini!af!i/ jtJaccd
opaque surfaces varies inverse!)/ as the square of the distance
cf the source of light.

Next, as to the effect of the inclination of the opaque
surface to the light rays falling upon it.

If A B C D, Fig. -4, represent the same areas as A B,
C D in Fig. 3, and A B be tilted to the position a h ;
then if the oval c </ be the intersection of the plane a b
with the conical pencil C P D, the area of the oval c d is
to the area of the circle C D (by a well-known property of
projection) as 1 to the cosine of the angle lietween the
planes A B, nr 6 (the point P being regarded as so far oil"
that c C and D d are appreciably parallel). But the angle

between the planes A B and a 6 is the complement of the
angle between P c and the plane of a b. Hence the area
•c rf is to the area C D as 1 to the sine of the angle between
P c and the plane a b. Since then only the same amount
of light falls on the larger area c d as on the smaller area
0 D, it follows that the illumination of c d is to the
illumination of C D in the ratio of the sine of the angle
between P c and the plane a b. This being true for all
points of S S', we deduce the law that the illumination of
an inclined opaque surface varies as the sine of the angle
between the light rags and the surface, or as the cosine of the
angle between the light rags and a line perpendicidar to the
surface, this last-named angle being called the angle of
incidence.

These laws are sufficient for the cases of the opaque
celestial bodies. For terrestrial olyects under illumination
from large sources of light — as, for instance, a body illumi-
minated Viy the sky, either the complete hemisphere of sky
{the sun biing supposed to be out of view) or some given
portion thereof — other considerations have to be taken into
account. For lines from different parts of the sky do not
meet the surface at the same angle. For our present pur-
pose these cases need not be considered ; nor, indeed, do
they usually admit of the same kind of treatment as
problems in celestial illumination ; simply because bodies
which are exposed to light from many different directions
are commonly exposed to a good deal of reflected and
scattered light from objects of very different degrees of

reflective power, and few cases arise where the exact con-
sideration of the resulting degree of illumination is worth
the trouble it would involve.

Now, let us consider some results of the laws of
illumination of opaque bodies under light from a distant
source.

In the first place, it is obvious that a planet l)oing illu-
minated proportionately to the inverse scjuare of the dis-
tance will appear intrinsically brighter or fainter in a
corresponding degree, neglecting for the moment the diffe-
rent rert(>ctive powers of different surfaces) from whatever
station it may be viewed. Its In-ightness as a whole will,
of course, depend on the position of the observer, but its
intrinsic brightness will be independent of this considera-
tion. Thus, supposing that with the same telescope an
observer views in succession all the planets from Mercury
to Neptune, and that reducing the field of view he sees
only a small part of the planet's disc, on which the smi's
rays tixre falling square!//, then supposing the planets to
have surfaces of similar reflective power, these successive
areas would differ in lustre as —

1 1 1

(Mercury's dist)- " (Venus's dist|- ' (Mars' dist)'^ ' &<^->

wherever the planet might be placed. Of course the
italicised pi-ociso could not be attended to in the case of
Mercury and Venus if these planets were in the nearer
half of their orbit ; but with these exceptions it is always
possible to bring a part of a planet which is under square
solar illumination into a small field of view. However, in
the preceding remarks I have not had in view the descrip-
tion of an experiment to be tried, but rather the illustration
of a certain relation.

It follows that so far as the effects of actual solar illu-
mination are concerned — that is, setting aside the reflective
qualities of the different planets — we should have the
intrinsic brilliancy of the planet's surfaces related in the
following manner (where the earth's illumination, when at
her mean distance, is taken as unity): — ■

In Pcrilielion. Aphelion.

Mercurv 10-58 ... 4-50

Venus.'. IW ... I'Jl

Earth 103i ...- 0'9G7

Moon 1034 ... 0967

Mars 0-521 ... 0360

Jupiter 00408 ... 0-0330

Saturn 0-0123 ... OOWia

Uranus 00027 ... 0002.5

Neptune O'OOll ... OOOll

It will be observed that the moon is here included
as the earth's fellow planet rather than as a satellite. It
ought, indeed, to be held in view that the moon really
circuits the sun as a planet would do, undergoing rather
considerable perturbations, but traversing what may be
properly described as an elliptic orbit, having the same
aphelion and perihelion as the earth's.

We shall presently see that the tabic just given, -which
ia, of course, the ordinary table of the light received by
the several planets, has to be considerably modified to
indicate the actual apparent brilliancy (intrinsic) of the
planetary surfaces under direct solar illumination. The
table is useful, however, as indicating what may be called
the normal ratios of planetary intrinsic brightness.
(To he continiied.)

HusoARiAN State Railways. — The net profit realised
in 1881 upon the Hungarian State lines was £681,418.
This was equivalent to a return upon the capital engaged
in the lines at the rate of 2-10 per cent, i er annum

326

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

fJusE 1, 1883.

THE MOON IN A TIIRKE-INCH
TELESCOPE.

Bv A Fia.i.ow OF THE Royal Astronomical Society.

ADVANCING sunlight is now l)ringinf» into view a
highly complicated mass of walled plains and craters
in the south-western quadrant of the moon; and with some
of the more notable among them we will begin our work
to-night. Maurolycus (3.">8 in our map) is a splendid object
about the time of the moon's first quarter. The great
complexity of the wall will attract the attention of the
observer. A few crater pits may be detected with the
instrument we are employing on the walls, as well as on
the floor of Maurolycus, and there are numerous hills on
the latter also visible under favourable illumination.
Another splendid oliject in this neighbourhood is Stofler
(354), but the inside of this is very much more level and
undisturbed than that of its neighbour. The system of
briglit streaks radiating from Tycho (previously referred to
on p. :222),passesover this region, with the curious result that
the bold and most conspicuous formations of which we are
speaking to all intents and purposes disappear at full moon
altogether ! In Walter (iOO), Regiomontanus (201), and
Purbach (202), we have an instance of three crater plains
in connection with each other, and lying, approximately,
north and south of each other, one example of which we
have already seen in Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catherine,
and another of which we are immediately to examine in
Arzachel, Alphonsus, and Ptolemy. North-east of Purbach
lies Thebit (20.3), a crater well worth examining, as atten-
tive inspection will show that another crater has burst the
original wall, and has itself in turn been intruded on by a
more minute one still. Here, again, we are able to trace the
chronological sequence of the successive eruptions. A
strange formation, known as "Straight wall," but looking
(when the moon is eight or nine days old) like a stag's
horn on the top of an alpenstock, will be noted not far to
the east of Thebit. And now we arrive at that truly
superb triple system, Arzachel (204), Alphonsus (207), and
Ptolemy (208).

Arzachel, Alphonsus and Ptolemy.

Arzachel is about G')\ miles i^i diameter, with terraced
•walls, diversified by clefts and craters. Alphonsus is 83
miles across, and has very complicated walls. The
northern one opens by clefts and valleys into Ptolemy — an
enormous walled plain of 1 1 5 miles in diameter. The con-
spicuous crater in its floor will at once strike the eye. In

Alphonsus, the chief object in the interior is a mountain;
while in Arzachel both a mountain and a crater will be
noted by the observer. In our sketch above, Alpetragius
(20.'>) will lie seen to have its interior wholly immersed in
shadow. This beautiful crater is about 27 miles across, and
is so comparatively deep as to be only free from shadow for
less than a week during the entire lunation. Herschel (212)
is a fine ring plain, 24 miles in diameter, with a central
mountain. llh:eticus (104) is noticeable as lying actually
on the lunar equator. Godin (103) and Agrippa (102),
two ring plains of 23 and 27 miles in diameter respec-
tively, arc fine objects when seen near the termi-
nator. The observer should carefully examine that
curious object Hyginus (93) and its neighbourhood
about the time of the first quarter, employing for this
purpose as high a power as his telescope will bear
(say 160). He will note the curious rill running right
through the crater, the snail-shaped or spiral mountain
just to the north of it, a brilliant ridge to the west of this
again, and so on. Hereabouts it is that the alleged dis-
covery of the depression known as "Hyginus N." was
made. The incipient observer with a 3-inch telescope
must not, however, blame either himself or his instrument
should he fail to distinguish this mysterious object.
Manilius (9.5) is a fine object under proper illumination.
Its diameter is 25i miles. The Sea of Serenity, at which
we now arrive (H) contains numerous objects to reward
the observer. Among them is the curious one, Linn6 (74),
which, save when almost on the terminator, presents
the appearance of a minute whitish cloud, or little
smudge of light. It may be found on a line drawn
from Pliny (61) through Bessel (73). The two splendid

.^ ^J

C«i

Eiidoxus and Aristotle. Autolycus, Aristillus, and Archimedes.

craters, Eudoxus (77) and Aristotle (7S) here drawn
present a grand spectacle when near the boundary of light
and darkness, either with a waxing or a waning moon. Our
own sketch above was made when the sun was rather too
high above their horizon. Under suitable illumination
Aristotle will be seen to be surrounded by radiating chains
of hills. Cassini (81) is a curious object about the time of
the moon's first quarter. Its diameter is about 36 miles,
and it contains a ring plain, some nine miles across, withm
it. The edge of the ring of Cassini must be consideraWy
serrated or cut into peaks and spire.s. With Archimedes
(120), Aristillus (83), and Autolycus (84), we shall con-
clude our work to-night. The examination of the region in
which they are situated may well afl!brd us an entire even-
ing's occupation on a future occasion.

Archimedes is a comparatively shallow ring plain of
50 miles in diameter. The inside, with our instrumental
means, will appear quite smooth ; but powerful telescopes
show minute craterlets and spots in it. When, however,
this great plain is fully illuminated, a three-inch telescope
will show that the floor is striped or streaked with alter-

Junk 1, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

327

uate light and darker bands. Archimedes is a grand object
when the sun is either rising or setting upon it Aristillus,
34 miles across, has a central mountain, shown in our
sketch. I'nder rather more oblique illumination, ridges,
like lava streams, may be seen radiating from the outer
ring. Autolycus, L'3 miles in diameter, is tolerably deep,
but calls for no more special description here.

Erbati M. — On p. 20i the order of tho sketches of llcssior is
curiously inverted. Of course, that taken when slie was 31)5 days
old should stand first ; next should como tho one showin"; its aspect
at full moon ; while the drawing made when the moon's age was
17'8 days should stand third and last.

AGE OF THE MISSOURI.

Bv E. P. West.*

THE Missouri, one of the grandest rivers of the world,
washes the northern limit of Kansas City. We wit-
ness its annual Hoods, garnered liy the vast accumulations
of winter's snows in the faroft' elevations of the Itocky
Mountains. We see, year by year, the devastations caused
by its wild waste of waters. We observe it, in its gentler
moods, freighted with the products of many nations, de-
stined to swell the commerce and add to the convenience and
comfort of the enlightened and happy people occupying the
environments of its picturesque shores. Generation after
generation, age after age, witnesses the same occurrences ;
and we are apt to associate this great river with the geologi-
cal formations cut by its turbid waters for all past time. But,
while it is one of the largest, and apparently one of the
oldest of rivers, it is, in truth, one of the youngest of this
continent. When the St. Lawrence, the Cumberland, the
Ohio, and the Upper Mississippi had attained their full
growth and supremacy over the countries now tributarj- to
them, the Missouri River was but in its infancy. When
their systems of drainage were complete, all the vast terri-
tory now tributary to the Missouri, which lies within the
limits of four great geological formations — namely, the
Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary, embracing a
part of Iowa, the most of the States of Kansas and
Kebraska, all of Colorado, and the territories of Wyoming,
Dakota, and Montana — were covered by an ocean. The
Missouri River was then but little more than four hundred
miles in length, and its drainage covered less than half of
Missouri and Iowa, and but a small part of the eastern
portions of Kansas and Nebraska, its headwaters being not
remote from Omaha, Nebraska. Then great reptiles, from
forty to ninety feet in length, sported in this vast e.xpanse
of ocean, which, with some interspersed islands, extended
westward over the western plains and Rocky ^Mountain
regions, covering the entire country now drained by the
Missouri River westward and north-westward of Omaha.
The eastern borders of Kansas and Nebraska formed a part
of the ocean's eastern shore line, and it was nowhere at a
greater distance than two hundred miles from the eastern
boundary of these States, the greatest distance being along
the Kansas border.

The Triassic and Jurassic formations were the first to
emerge from this old western ocean. These formations are
exposed along a narrow strip of countrj-, extending through
Middle Kansas, and prolonged, perhaps, into Eastern
Nebraska, but greatly widening to the south-west through
the Indian Territory and Northern Texas. They added
but little to the drainage of the Missouri River, and are
conspicuous for the paucity of organic remains in them.

* A Paper read before the Kansas City Institute.

Next, the Cretaceous formation emerged and became dry
land. This added to the Missouri's drainage a broad belt
of country extending across Kansas and Nebraska, and
northward of Omaha, through Dakota Territory, increasing
the river's length more than four hundred miles, and adding
very materially to its western tributaries. This formation
is noted for the great abundance and gigantic proportions
of its fossil reptiles and numerous invertebrate forms, as
well as for several varieties of fossil wood, leaves, and
plants, closely approximating present living species. Lastly,
the Tertiary formation rose from the water, completing the
Rocky Mountain system, and the drainage of the Missouri
River to its present sources. By the uprising of this
formation the remainder of Kansas and Nebraska, the
most of Colorado, and the territories of Wyoming, Dakota,
and Montana were made tributary to the waters of the
Missouri. But we must not associate these various eleva-
tions with great catastrophes, or suppose them sudden or
violent, but, on the contrar}', we have reason to believe
them slow and gradual, requiring long ages in their accom-
plishment. We must not, either, consider the Missouri,
though among the youngest of rivers, so very young,
counting its age by years, or comparing it, even,
with man's duration upon earth, for it has witnessed
stupendous and long-continued changes since it at-
tained its majority and was adopted, full-grown, into
the family of American rivers. Though young in com-
parison with the other great rivers I have named, some
idea of its really great age may be formed when it is con-
sidered that the great and widespread mutations which
gave it birth and built up our western river systems,
occurred between the close of the Carboniferous age and
the end of Tertiary time. The upper carboniferous rocks
are to be found about Kansas City, and northward along
the western border of Jlissouri and eastern borders of
Kansas and Nebraska, and the Tertiary formations about
the elevations of the Rocky Mountains and over their
eastern slopes.

Next in sequence followed the events alluded to as
having occurred since the Missouri river was increased to
the full measure of its present drainage, namely, the Glacial
and Champlain epochs which occurred in Post-Tertiary
time. First, the glacial period was ushered in : —
" Once the fierce Kabibonokka,

Issued from his lodge of snow-drifts,
From his home among tho icebergs,
And his hair, with snow besprinkled,
Streamed behind him like a river,
Like a black and wintry river,
As he howled and hurried southward,
Over frozen lakes and moorlands."

The entire country now tributary to the Missouri River
was elevated far above its present level, and vast glaciers,
thousands of feet in thickness, crept down from the north-
ward to about the parallel of Kansas City. But before the
country became mantled in snow and creeping rivers of
ice, the Missouri River had carved out a channel to an un-
known depth, but, perhaps, five hundred feet or more below
its present bed. The old channel is found to be choked up
with drift-sand and boulders, borne in by glacial action,
and by this means the river was partly, and perhaps
entirely, diverted in some places. These facts are made
apparent by the achievements of modern civil engineering
in overcoming obstacles to continuous railway transit.
Nine railway bridges now .span the Missouri River from
Omaha downward to its mouth. All of the bridges
approach one or the other of the river bluflTs —
generally those on the south side. In sinking
piers to support the superstructure, solid rock has
been found only on one side — i.e., the side touch-

828

KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 1, 1883.

ing tlie bluffs, although excavations for this purpose
were made at all of the bridges, in the river's bed,
from sixty to more than one hundred feet deep. Con-
sequently, some of the piers — in each instance, those most
remote from the blufl's — rest on piles driven into the loose,
erratic material which fills the old channel up to the river's
present bed. These facts would seem to indicate that the
old gorge of the river extended from bluff to bluff, and
sloped, with more or less regularity, downward from the
bluff on either side, toward the centre of the valley. It
required a great lapse of time for the river to cut out such
a channel, and long ages must have transpired between the
close of the Tertiary era and the full inauguration of the
Glacial epoch, between which events this work of attrition
was done.

To comprehend this clearly, we must imagine a rock-
bound canyon of variable width, cut through the carboni-
ferous strata between the bluffs on either side of the river,
to a depth of 500 feet or more, below the present bed, at
the bottom of which the river was dashed in wild con-
fusion ; then we must conceive of vast rivers of ice,
creeping down from the north, laden with great streams of
stones and sand, to be emptied into the canyon, in quan-
tities sufficient to fill and completely dam it up in many
places ; but, at the same time, it must be borne in mind
that at the interval the glaciers reached the Missouri river
the volume of water was greatly diminished in it, in conse-
quence of the congelation of the snow and rainfall over all
the country north of the 40° of north latitude.

The Glacial period is distinguished by its wide-spread
distribution of erratic rocks over all the country north of
the 40° of north latitude. It has but few fossil remains,
and those, mostly of life which preceded it.

The Champlain epoch next followed, and was, in every
■way, in strong contrast with the Glacial period.

Most of the country along the Missouri River, which,
during the Glacial time, had been elevated above the present
level, in the Champlain era was sunk below it. Instead
of intense cold, the climate was warmer than we now enjoy.
Instead of vast fields of moving ice, still lakes prevailed
along the Missouri River, coextensive with the Loess for-
mation now bordering it. Instead of an arctic waste, life
teemed in the water and upon the land. The lakes were
filled with fish, and the land abounded with animals.
Among the animals the elephant and the mastodon browsed
among the hills and valleys. The horse, much larger than
the living species, the ox, and the bison grazed on the
plains. A gigantic beaver, and animals of the sloth tribe,
much larger than the moderns, prevailed. Among the
carnivores there were bears, lions, and a species of racoon ;
and last, though not least, we have a glimpse of man
playing a part for supremacy in this remote era. The
remains of several of these animals have been found im-
bedded in the Loess deposits about Kansas City. This era
is distinguished for its great deposits of brick clay, or Loess,
its terrace formations, its gigantic mammals which have
become extinct, and for the great number of its mollusks,
which are identical with living species. Next, the era of
mind was ushered in, and is still slowly fulfilling its promise
of a higher destiny. — luuisas City Eeview.

Teleoraphy in China.— The establishment of a tele-
graph line was recently authorised between Shanghai and
Tientsin. This line is now to be extended to Pekin.
Telegrams are to be forwarded in French or English. Two
mandarins have been appointed to keep a rigid surveillance
over all telegrams, so that they may not in any way com-
promise the security of the State.

GEOLOGY AMONG THE COLLIERS.

ON page .311, col. 1, of last week's Knowledge is a
quotation from the late Mr. J. Beete Jukes, which
expresses an error into which many other eminent geologists
have fallen — viz., that of supposing working colliers to be
far more ignorant than they really are.

My own experience among them indicates that no average
" practical man " of that class would make the mistake
there described.

These practical colliers, especially " sinkers " of middle
age and upwards, usually have a remarkably sound and
intimateknowledgeof the stratigraphical and pal:« ontological
characters of the coal-measures, though ignorant of the
names of the most familiar fossils; and I can hardly under-
stand the possibility of such men sinking "in black shales
and slates in the lower rocks, far below the coal measures,"
without knowing that the coal was " up in the sky," to
quote an expression I heard used l)y an old Welsh collier
to a speculative gentleman who proposed to sink a pit for
cannel not far from jSIr. Gladstone's country residence at
Harwarden.

The only geological book-lore of this old man was that
contained in Genesis ; yet, in spite of the fact that we were
surrounded on three sides by the pit-heads and engine
shafts of working collieries, and that the farmer who was
with us had several times turned up with the plough large
lumps of camel in the field on which we stood, the
collier firmly denied the possibility of finding any
below us.

He did so for the same reason that would have led
Mr. Jukes to the like conclusion — viz., that we were stand-
ing over the Millstone grit, which his illiterate forefathers
had named the " Farewell Rock," before modern geology
existed as an acknowledged science. They so named it
because they all knew that it lies below the coal-measures,
and whenever it is reached in sinking they must bid fare-
well to coal-seams.

This terminus and all the strata above it, as they
occur in particular districts, are as well known to the
sinkers of each district as the stations on the Metropolitan
Railway are known to born and bred cockneys.

Still, it is quite true, as Mr. Jukes says, that pits are
sometimes sunk " deep into the Silui'ian shales," but
under whose instigation and direction 1 Not those of
working colliers, but of company-floating sharemongers, or
wild speculators maddened by money-greed. With either
of such masters the poor sinker dare not speak ; the
utterance of truth would infuriate the latter and convict
the former, in either case bringing about the dismissal and
persecution of the intermeddling truth-speaker.

Some sad cases of such persecution came under my own
notice during the few years that I was engaged in caimel
distilling and pit-sinking in Flintshire. I was able to
rescue and employ in very responsible work one man who
had suffered much from speaking undemanded truth to his
employers, and was well repaid hy the advantages which
his fidelity, and sound, though unlettered, geological know-
ledge afforded me.

I must not be tempted into further personal details, but
conclude by stating generally that Viy listening patiently
to these men with willingness to be instructed by them I
learned a great deal, and formed a much higher opinion of
the intelligence and the moral worth of working colliers
than is commonly entertained by those who judge them
superficially by their black faces and rude speech.

I will just mention one incident for the instruction of
those who regard them as rough and brutal. A friend w£is
visiting at my house, "The Celyn," near Caergwrle, and on

Jdne 1, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

329

returning from a walk asked me what was the matter with
the big fellow he had just met in tlie hay-fiekl. The man
■was crying like a child and mopping his tears with a dirty
handkerchief. I was able to explain that he had walked
from his cottage at Leeswond (four miles away o\er the
Hope Mountain) to bid his master good-bye, as he was
about to emigrate. I£e was simply one of my rough,
poorly-paid labouring pit-sinkers.

W. MaTTIEU WlLLI.^MS.

RATIONAL DRESS.

THE following suggestive letter, signed "A Woman,"
appeared in the Times of Tliursday, May 22: — "Men
have their say on women's dress, and decide autocratically
what is or is not ' rational dress ; ' will you permit a lady
to represent that men's costume is by no means perfect, and
admits of much improvement as regards health, conve-
nience, and grace 1 It is rather dilficult to speak out
plainly enough to substantiate my assertion as to the first
point ; but doctors will testify that there has l)een a great
increase of late among joung men of liver and kidney
disease, not to speak of other delicate parts. This
is owing, I believe, to the fashion which has pre-
vailed of small cut - away coats, leaving loins and
stomach unwrapt, save by the tight and often thin
trousers. Older men frequently sutler from chill taken
from sitting on damp seats, or cold stone, from which a
■woman would be protected by her more voluminous gar-
ments. The absurdity of the open coat and waistcoat,
turned back just where the throat and chest needs covering,
is more generally recognised. The practice of wearing, in
winter, waiscoats cut very high, and the constant argu-
ments for wearing a beard ' to protect my throat,' show
that it is felt, though not often acknowledged in speech.
The large expanse of starched shirt front, held together,
perhaps, with but one small stud, is ridiculous in every
way. It is a sham, for most, if not all, wearers supplement
its deficiency by a warm vest below, which cannot, how-
ever, quite exclude a searching wind, or keen night air,
after leaving a warm room, from reaching the lungs. It
is not beautiful in itself, it becomes easily soiled, needs
frequent repair, costly washing, and seldom sets as it
should. The stiff collar, rasping chin, cheeks, and throat,
is most inconvenient in every way. A far more rational
dress for man was the doublet fastening to the throat, and
covering the thighs with soft band or turn down collar.
We come now to the crucial garment so recommended for
women's imitation — trousers If these be so adapted to
allow the free use of the limbs, how is it that men ■\\ear
knickerbockers for bicycling, rowing, running, and climb-
ing 1 I once heard a gentleman, who had been to a fancy
ball in hose and silk stockings, exclaim, 'How jolly it is
to dance without trousers.' I suppose he found they
fettered freedom of action. The chief difference between
man's dress and woman's is the principle of suspensioiL The
former uses braces, and hangs all the weight on the
shoulders, the latter uses corsets, and suspends from the
waist. Braces would not do for women — they would cut
and pain the delicate llesh of tlie breasts. Do they suit
men ! Is it not curious that in all active exercise they
are discarded, and a belt substituted t I can easily imagine
many inconveniences att<;nding their use ; but content
myself with suggesting the question. I have said nothing
about the grace of men's dress — every one must allow it
might be more ornamental. No one who has ever seen a
stout, elderly man without his coat can help shuddering at
the thought of a matron, stout and elderly, clad in the

dual garment, with only a frill round the waistband of the
victorious trousers, valuable to the morphologist as show-
ing the course of evolution. Men and women are
structurally different in make and physical constitution.
I am so benighted as to think their dress should also differ
to suit their needs. I could say somewhat in defence of
the use (not the abuse) of the abhorred corset ; but I
prefer begging men to perfect their own costume before
attacking the dress worn by one still calling herself

A Woman.

The Abundance of Gold. — The future supply of gold,
even for coining purposes, is beginning to be one of more
than common interest. Ancient history is resplendent
with the prodigal display of gold by the barbaric peoples
of the Orient. Arabia, Egypt, and Africa, according to
the same authority, were prolific in their production of
this precious metal. Pliny states that Cyrus returned from
his conquest with ;54,000 poundsof gold(about $10,000,000).
Alexander the Great brought 8100,000,000 in gold from
Persia. But at the present time these great fields, so re-
nowned in history, are barren so far as the production of
gold is concerned, and it is evident that Europe can be no
longer depended upon to perform any appreciable part in
furnishing a supply of gold to meet the demands of the
future. Even in this country the statistics of production
show a constant and marked decline in gold, although the
field is largely extended, and mining is more thoroughly
prosecuted than ever before. — Mining Revieio (American).

The Eegistrar-Gexeral's Annual Summ.\ry. — In the
Annual Summary for 1882, just issued by the Registrar-
General, in respect to London and other great towns, the
number of large towns included in the list of weekly varia-
tions has been raised, in accordance with the change made
in the beginning of the year, from twenty to twenty-eight.
The additional towns are Derby, Birkenhead, Bolton,
Blackburn, Preston, Huddersfield, Halifax, and Cardiff'.
The population dealt with in this return is 9,4GG,292, or
more than one-third of the total for England and Wales.
In this population the deaths reached to 205,235, or 21-8
per 1,()00, Derby being lowest, with a rate of 18^7, and
Preston highest with 27-6 per 1,000 ; London and Brighton
were 21 ■! and 21-7 respectively. It is interesting to know
that with the exception of the years 1850 (21 0) and 1881
(21-2) the death-rate for last year is the lowest recorded, that
for 1872 having exactly equalled it. Of the whole number
of deaths 1G^3 per cent, or 13,553 were registered as due
to zymotic diseases, the aggregate rate thus reaching 3 49
per 1,000. As recorded in the report, the most remark-
able fact in this connection was the subsidence of the
smallpox outbreak. In ISSl, 2,3G7 deaths took place
from this disease, in 1882 only 431. Of these 431 persons
who died, 108 were certified to have been vaccinated, 184
unvaccinated, while 139 were doubtful. These figures,
therefore, show that, while the deaths among vaccinated
persons were 37 0 per cent., of the unvaccinated G3 0 per
cent, died.* Another curious point in connection with
the same figures is that of the vaccinated 23 per cent,
were under 20, and 77 per cent, over 20 years of age ;
while among the unvaccinated the proportions were
nearly reversed, ■viz., 674 and 39'6 per cent, respectively.
— .Medical Press.

* This is incorrectly expressed. The ■writer means that excluding
the doubtful cases 37'0 per cent of those who died were certified to
hare boon vaceinatod. As only a small proportion of the population
are nnTaooinated, the evidence in favour of the protective effects of
vaccination is very strong. — R.P.

330

♦ KNOXA^LEDGE ♦

[JoNE 1, 1883.

(editorial (Boi^ip.

A RECENT writer asserts that, according to statistics,
dark-haired women have better chances of marrying than
their fair-liaired sisters. The statistics are not very satis-
factory. Tliey show, he tells us, that there are three fair-
haired spinsters for two dark-haired ones. To give a
meaning to this we should be told at what shade the line is
drawn which separates dark from fair ; or are onlj' the
nearly black-haired considered in one category and the
nearly flaxen-haired in the other ? Then we need to be told
in what proportion, numerically, are the fair and dark
women thus classified ; for, if there are more fair than dark
in a ratio exceeding 3 to "2, the statistics point the other
way from that indicated by our author, whereas if the dark
are more numerous than the fair, in any ratio, the inference
he draws from statistics is strengthened. Yet, even if a
relation of this kind should be proved, complexion may
have little or nothing to do with the matter. The statistics
may, perhaps, show that particular complexions are
commonly found in company with such and such tempera-
ments and dispositions ; /hfs>>, and not the complexions,
may be the attraction chiefly influencing conjugal
selection.

In point of fact, statistics are very seldom dealt with
correctly, even by those whose special business it is to
analyse and interpret them. Dr. Stark finds that the
death rate among the unmarried is higher than among the
married ; another finds that crime is more common among
the unmarried ; madness, also, seems, according to statistics,
to visit the single more than the married. So Dr. Stark,
and a host of others as hasty in their use of statistics, go
about proclaiming that marriage prolongs life, checks
crime, and stays the evil course of madness in the blood.
It never seems to occur to them that marriage is a selective
process, and that, on the avcragi', the unhealthy, the
criminal, the mentally inferior, have less chance of marry-
ing than their more fortunate brothers and sisters.

It would matter little if these were mere questions of
opinion. But, unfortunately, such statements exert a
real and mischievous influence on conduct. Where
marriage is arranged or encouraged by parents or guardians,
as likely to check the progress of disease — bodily, mental,
or moral — the good eflfccts expected may or may not follow,
but the reversion of bodily, mental, or moral disease among
the offspring is ensured.

No such harm is perhaps likely to follow from the pro-
mulgation of the theory that for a woman to be fair-
headed is to have no fair chance of conjugal selection.
The theory might cause the fair-headed to dye, perhaps ;
but that would be balanced by its influence in preventing
the dark-haired from seeking such golden dyes as were in
favour not so long ago. Still, it is well to have statistics
properly dealt with.

Some of the statistical "facts" brought before the
public have as much real truth in them as there was in the
well-known saying that statistics prove the railway car-
riage to be safer than the house. This is really demon-
strated by statistics quite as clearly as the theory that " to
be unmarried (we quote Dr. Stark) is as fatal as to live
in ill-drained houses," or in places where the death-rate
is very high. Only, whereas even those who ought to

know better are deceived by one statistical fact, no one is
quite so foolish as not to see that if more per cent, die at
home than in railway carriages (even during excursion
times) it is not because of any preservative action in the
railway carriage, but because those who are likely soon to
die usually stay at home.

The Tuifs has devoted a leading article to the Rational
Dress Exhibition, and has taken a very fair and common-
sense view of the suggested changes in feminine dress.
But because the Rational Dress Reformers carefully refrain
from playing their best card, the game is going against
them. The most ardent advocates of reform in dress (male
or female dress) are likely to be deterred by proposals for
changes which attract attention. Women, especially, are
not likely to adopt, even for the sake of comfort or health,
a dress which would cause them to be stared at. And they
are quite right. For, apart from the sense of propriety
which leads every right-minded woman to avoid making
herself conspicuous, there is the consideration that there
is a larger proportion of ofiensively-staring folk in all
classes in this country than in any civilised or semi-
civilised community on the face of this earth. Those who
would reform dress, then, should devise changes which,
though eflective, are inconspicuous. They should take a
lesson (/as est ah Iwste doceri) from fashion, which does not
hurry women to the successive absurdities in which it
rejoices, but guides them gradually from the mania of ex-
panded crinolines to the imbecility of tie-backs, and causes
the insanely straight outlines of one era to pass by slow
gradations into the wildly serpentine undulations of
another. If, for example, the reformers were to watch
the progress of the change which is changing fashionably-
dressed women to the appearance (especially when walking
or turning) of fan-tailed pigeons, and were to strive by
slight but progressive changes, each scarcely noticeable,
to introdue healthier, lighter, and warmer habiliments,
they might do good to thousands for each one whom they
can now induce to face the goggle-eyed in obviously divided
skirts.

Numbers of letters reach me because of a letter I wrote
to the Times, showing how much good might be done
without any discernible change at all, and numbers of
comments, chiefly sensible — but some foolish — have ap-
peared in the papers. Among the less sensible comments
are those dwelling on the courage required to change the
costume to the extent mentioned in my letter ; for I was
careful to explain that I referred to a compromise already
described in the Times leader — a change of dress absolutely
unnoticeable even by feminine eyes.

The Standard, illogically enough, remarks that ladies
were able to walk, play tennis, sing, dance, and so forth,
before divided skirts were thought of. What has this to
do with the fact that many ladies, having tried the experi-
ment, find they can do all these things better, and with
more pleasure to themselves, after a quite undiscernible
change of attire, than they could before! The Dnhlin
Mail makes some reference to the propriety of the subject
for discussion, on which I would only remark that any one
who finds impropriety in the subject must belong to the
class which Charles Reade has dealt with in a well-known
letter on "The Prurient Prude."

In" several of these communications the ladies mentioned
in my letter to the Times are identified as my daughters,

Jl-se 1, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

331

my sisters, my wife and daughters, and so forth. It has so
chanced that not one of these shots has been quite ri^'ht.
I may be permitted to suggest to these anonymous scribes
that there is a considerable range for choice among relation-
ships corresponding with what I wrote. Thus (merely to
begin), there are sisters, daughters, nieces, cousins in the
first, second, and third degree, wife, mother, aunts ; -wife's
sisters, cousins, nieces, aunts ; brother's wife, h^r sisters,
cousins, itc. ; there miglit be the sisters, cousins, nieces,
«tc., of a tirst or second wife, or of a wife's first or second
husband, and so there might be stepdaughters, brother in-
law's sisters, cousins, aunts, and so forth ; or, again, there
might be none of these.

Mr. Proctor has just closed a very successful course of
six lectures at the Royal Concert Hall, St Leonard's, at
which more than 1,000 persons have been present Two
lectures have also been given at the Pavilion, Eastbourne,
and these are the first of a series which, during the summer
season, will be continued at Brighton, Tunbridge Wells,
Lewes, Worthing, and elsewhere. The experiment is as
bold as that recently completed with such gratifying re-
sults at St. James's Hall, and there is every indication of
even greater success. The arrangements of the lecture
tour are in the hands of Mr. John Stuart, of St Leonard's.

Among the most interesting features of the Zoological
Gardens (Philadelphia) are the peculiar relations existing
between the capybara and two prettj- kittens. The capy-
bara {Hydroclomis caj'i/bara) is a curious creature. It is
the largest of rodents, and in its habits and characteristics
very much resembles our musk-rat. It lives in the water
and burrows in the banks of the South American rivers.
It is about as large as a big dog, and is covered with coarse
hair. As it lies in the pen in the deer-house it is con-
tinually accompanied by the two kittens. Sometimes
he will play with them and poke them about with his nose:
thereupon they will mount his back and sit serenely, while
he is unable to get them off. Then he will plunge into his
water tank, and water-hating tabby will spring oft" to escape
the undesired bath. If the cats leave the pen, " Porgy "
(he is so called after " Porgy " O'Brien, the circus man) will
follow them to the bars and make a funny squeaking noise,
beseeching his companions to come back to keep him com-
pany. Sometimes the keepers will bother the kittens.
They fly at once to the protecting sides of " Porgy," while
he will bare his long teeth and chatter fiercely. In the
next cage is a wallaby, and while the cats go in and out,
they do not attempt to be at all friendly. They confine
their allegiance wholly to the more ugly capybara. — I'hila-
delphia I'ress.

Mid-Ocean TELErjRAriiv. — The following, taken from a
contemporar\-, is given for what it may be worth : — The
idea of telegraphing from ships at sea is not a new one,
and crops up from time to time. Mid-ocean telegraph
stations have been proposed, and will, probably, )>e carried
out some day. The chief difficulty in the way of their
adoption has hitherto been the necessity of keeping the
ship connected by a branch cable to the main cable lying
on the bottom, and anchoring her so as to maintain this
communication in all weathers and depths desirable. But
Professor A. E. Dolbear has proposed a plan which may
render this fixed communication unnecessary. A large
metal plate attached to an insulated conductor is lowered
from the ship to the bottom on the track of the cable, and
another plate is merely submerged. Between these two plates
a batterj- and ^lorse key is inserted. On working the key
the Morse currents induce other currents in the cable, which
can be heard in telephones attached to the cable on shore.

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Tennyson.

afttrrs to t\)t editor.

Only a small proportion of Letters receiied can possibly be in-
serted. Correspondents must not be offended, therefore, should their
letters not appear.

All Editorial cotnmunications should be addressed to the Editor of
Knowledge ; all Business communications to the Pcblisheks, at the
Office, 74, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,
delays arise fob which the Kditob is not responsible.

All Remittances, Cheques, arid Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messrs. Wtman & Sons.

The Edit<>r is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No commc.nicatioxs are axsweeeb by post, even tbocgh stamped
and directed envelope be enclosed.

JOSHUA AND THE SDX.

[837] — I beg to refer any reader of Letter 798 (April 27) to 688
(Jan. 9), the sole mention yet made of Jacob Bryant, to see what
grounds there are for saying I "quote Bryant as an authority." I
named him as having " fully convinced me." What has con-
vincing to do with authority '^ But let none who may turn to his
arguments fancy there are no better. He was ignorant that the
book the Samaritans call " Joshua," which is now thrice as long as
ours, but about twice if we omit everything after Joshua's
time, while quite agreeing in most details, and specially those of
the Gideon battle, and thunderstorm and hail, has not a word
of the sun or moon. If we must come to " authority," here is
probably the earliest e.'itant — certainly, as all admit, much older
than the LXX. As for these translators (who were never a
bit more authority than our "James, King of France's"), of
course, they adjusted it to the vulgar creed of their time, with no
more criticism than Habakkuk (iii. 11) or the son of Sirach
(xlvi. 5, 6). But even the blindest retailers of pulpit-stuff
to-day, who say (see Barrett's " Synopsis of Criticism") "that the
sun and moon did really stand still, is proved by" the above texts !
— are puzzled enough by Joshua's speech having nothing about
standing still. "Sun on Gileon, he dumb," was the best even Dr.
Adam Clarke could make of it. Very odd that the Power able to
make the sun stand "still in the midst of heaven" should inspire
nobody to mention aught nearer to " stand still " than " be dumb,"
or nearer " the midst of heaven" than Gibeon ! Then the topo-
graphers all agree that Ajalon was so much west of Gibeon that,
for the moon to be seen at all, the miracle must have been in the
morniihj, and "hasted not to go down about a whole day," was
exactly what the sun would naturally not haste to do. The only
miracle would have been not hasting up towards the meridian. But
in what tribe, however savage, is a general childish enough to con-
nect the heavenly bodies thus with neighbouring spots ?

Poor Josephus was nearly nonplussed here. After far more
about the thunder and hail, by which Joshua " believed that God
assisted him," he manages to compress the whole day phenomenon
into a line, and without mention of sun, moon, God, miracle, or
that most glaring inconsistency that " they were more which died
with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew mth
the sword." (Did the chief executioners, the hailstones, need
more daylight, then ?) Carefully sinking this, he proceeds : " It
happened, too, that the day was lengthened, that the night might
not come on too soon." (Quite a piece of luck, you see, like snow
at Charles I.'s funeral. Afterwards he adds, " That the day was
really lengthened at that time, and was longer than usual, is stated
in the books that were kept in the Temple."

Now, the first mention of a book being laid up in the Temple —
or rather Tabernacle— was on the anointing of Saul (1 Sam. x. 25):
" Then Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom, and
iviote it in a book, and laid it up before the Lord." This book, as
Sir Isaac Newton showed, must have included the first, and pro-
bably the first seven, of the present Bible. It influded Genesis,
which, in its chap, xxxvi,, brings down Edomite history to that same
generation, and professes not to be edited till there was a king in
Israel (ver. 31). And the seventh. Judges, dates itself, at its ver.
21, as completed whUe the Jebusites yet held Jerusalem, of which

332

KNO\VLEDGE ♦

[June 1, 1883.

they were disposBOSsed in David's pifjhlh year (2 Sam. v. 4); ro
that tho whole sovon books vijjoruiisly limit tlieir com[io8ition
within forty-povcn years, if Saul reigned forty (as stated in the
New Testament and best copies of Josephus). But Joshua's time
was then as distant as tho Wars of the Koscs are from us.

Tho total silence of the New Testament as to tho sun miracle,
ospocially that of llie writer to tho lli^brows (.\i.) is most signal and
decisive ; and hardly less notable is that of I'hilo, wlio had many
occasions foralhision to it. There is a very apocryplial book (which
WhistoM, however, thought genuine) called the " Eighteen P.salma
of Solomon." It ends with this remark on the heavenly bodies : —
"They have not erred, from the day that Ho created them j they
have not left their way, from ancient generations; except when
God enjoined them by the command of liis servants." Now Philo,
in his voluminous works, often insisted on this constancy of celes-
tial motions; and notably in his two "Dialogues on Providence,"
almost verbally repeats tho above, but without a hint at any
exception. E. L. Garbett.

P.S. In letter 688, second paragraph, the five repetitions of
"p.m.," partly right and partly wrong, are the printer's fancy, as
I only spoke of eleven and one o'clock.

PROBLEM IN CHANCES.

[838] — I beg to enclose the following answer to"A. M. T.'s'
question [818], which appeared in Knowledge of May 18.

If the probability of a person naming the winner in any given race

out of ten races ?

The probability that ho would be right inani/jjaj-h'cuZar six races,
and wrong in the other four (e.ij., that he would be right in the fii'St
six and wrong in the next four), is

(^•(D' - i.

But anybody would gain the prize who named the winners in any
eix races.

And by elementary algebra the number of different groups of six
which can be obtained out of ten races is

10.9.8.7.6.5 110

6.5.4.3.2.1

|6 |4

Hence the probability of naming exactly six winners in ten races is

|10 4^
I g I , ■ j^' which is the fifth term in the expansion of the binomial

(1 4 \'° 4^

— H J > and is equal to 210 — . The probability of naming at

least six winners is

i loA i-jg- 4^ iig. j^ i^ii

5'o'^ 5'° + |8|2 5"'"^17|3 o'°'^|6|4 5^»

LETTERS RECEIVED AND SHORT ANSWERS.

OxE Open to Conviction. Considering that a series of articles
on "Intelligence in Animals" appeared in the first volume of
Knowledge, in which the view you think so unreasonable was
advocated on the strength of rather striking evidence, you must not
bo surprised to find that I take a different view. — J. de Galindez.
Your solution of the chance problem is not correct. You are " firm
as a rock " in a wrong conviction. Rocks may bo rent. As to the
other problem, your verbal statement of it does not agree with the
solution. It presents no features of interest, so far as I can see. —
W. G. Greener. Regret, but am quite unable to answer through
the post. Such letters reach me by hundreds. — Faciebat. Return
the letter. Cannot saj- my experience of those who write about
language leads me very much to admire their way of writing.
I doubt if they arc the best judges. When the "author of a
primer" tells tho author of forty books how to write English, the
latter is apt to feel somewhat as Charles Lamb did when a school-
master offered to teach him the system by which the boys of his
establishment were trained in composition. Your friend seeking
to show how a certain sentence should be worded, suggests a
form which would not have suited mo at all — putting "which,
however," for " but which." "But which" and "and which," as
ordinarily met with are nine times out ten incorrect ; in the tenth
case tho form is absolutely essential to tho sense, and tho expres-
sion only seems clumsy to those who have had to give so much time
to correcting tlie wrong use of tho expression — in school exercises,

and so forth — tliat they cannot bear to hear it at all. I take the
sentence you object to, and try the effect (1) of removini; " but,"
(2) of substituting " it " for " which," and (3) " wliich, however,"
for " but which." In every case it fails to express my meaning.
As written it does express my meaning, and it is grammatically
sound, noting that there is an ellipsis, permissible in a sentence
which is meant to be a title, and is therefore reasonably presented in
an abridged form. Your criticism, and your friend's, reminds me of
one which a friend of mine made on a sentence in this form : — " If
a colony of Englishmen were removed to India, and there left
witliout interference, all would liavo died out at the end of two
hundred years." Jly friend insisted that either for " were " should
be substituted "had been," or for "would have died" shonld
be substituted "would die" or " would be dead" ; because he had
tho scholastic idea that tenses must be balanced. I objected, le-
cause I wanted to say what I had said, and not what the balancing
of tenses would have made me say — in other words, I wanted to
indicate, not only the state of things at the end of a certain interval,
but the progress of events to that end. The professed language-
analyser, however, will always prefer well-balanced words, tenses,
i-c, to so palti-y a considei'ation as the mere meaning a writer
wishes to convey. — An Inquirer after Tri'tii. The narrative
literally interpreted is, of course, absurd. What the real interpre-
tation may be, who can guess ? — W. Hume. Agree with you ; but
it is hardly worth while to have any correspondence about the
matter. Any man who suffers under the chimney pot for the sake of
appearances — may suffer. A fellow of that sort might wear a com-
fortable head-covering, and hold anew hat in the liand, or sling it over
the shoulders, or in some other way avoid the distressing suggestion
that he could not afford a tall hat.— Juvenis. Cannot make the "hare
and tortoise " matter clearer, nor answer queries such as elementary
textbooks deal with. As a mere detail, the earth's axis does not
always point to the same star. — E. C. H. Yes, we mistook ; how-
ever the question has now been sufficiently answered. — H. P. Any
elementary treatise on rigid dynamics will show you how to calcu-
late moments of inertia, and unless you have studied such, any
explanation we could give would be of no service to you.- — One who
Knows. As you suggest, that could hardly be discussed here. — W.
R. Darwin certainly does not draw any definite line between
varieties and species. How could he, with his views as to the
origin of species ? Quatrefages' other objection is absurd. One
might as reasonably say that the gradual addition of a blue liquid
to a red one would never produce a purple liquid, because the
various tints resulting from greater or less admixture of blue and
red would produce "the greatest confusion." A race which,
owing to changes of condition, is undergoing a change of character
with the progress of time, does not break up into a number of
races, but changes, as a whole, its progress in any direction being
measured by the average condition of individual members of the
race in regard to the changing characteristics. The constant cross-
ing has not the effect imagined by Quatrefages, but an effect akin to
the constant intermixing of the!difEerent portions of a liquid which is
undergoing change of tint. — Walt. Pilgrlm. Oh, favour us mth
an interval of repose. — H. Romeitce. You think I may have no
reason to complain of adverse criticism, because such criticisms, if
they appeared, would not be sent to me. My dear sir, ages before
your " Artistic and Literary Correspondence " was established, an
institution existed which ensured that at least every adverse criti-
cism should reach its mark; the institution is called "the good-
natured friend," to which some add, after Sheridan, a strong theo-
logical participle. Any one who pays you five shillings for twenty
adverse criticisms, every one of which would be sure to reach him
through the D. G. P., must have many shillings to waste, and a
singular taste " at that," as your country folk put it. — II. Malim.
Neither solution is correct, as you will presently see.

^uv iHatJjfmatiral Column*

GEOMETRICAL PROBLEMS.

By Richard A. Proctor.

Introduction.

THE object of these hints to the solution of geometrical problems,
is to show the student how ho should deal with deductions
which are proposed to him in examination. There are many books
in which sets of problems are given, with several fully solved, and
hints supplied for the solution of others ; but these are often of
little use to the student. The average mathematical student re-
quires to learn — imt how to solve this or that problem, nor what
construction will help him in any particular case — Int what are the

June 1, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

333

general mctliods which lie must apply to problems in order to obtain
Eolations for himself. The mathematical teacher who simply solves
the problems brought to him by his pupils docs little to show how
snch problems are to be treated. He should exhibit to his pupils
the train of thought which leads him to apply such and sucli pro-
cesses to the solution of a problem. And more than tliis — a good
tutor will show his pupils where they might be led astray by im-
perfect methods; he will try the effects of steps which he himself
knows to be bad, and thus show his pupils what methods to avoid
as well as what methods to apply. One problem thus dealt with is
worth a dozen which are merely solved ; and I believe the student
who will carefully go through the examples which I shall take to
pieces (so to speak) in the following scries, will learn more than he
would from seeing any number of problems merely solved.

Geometsicai. Deduciioxs.

Geometrical deductions are problems which are intended to be
solved by the application of recognised geometrical methods and
propositions. They are divided into several classes.

A geometrical deduction is termed a ii'iJcr when it is given as an
exercise on a particular proposition. It generally happens that the
difficulty of a deduction is greatly diminished when it is given in
tliis way, for we know in what direction to seek for a solution.
When a deduction is presented as a rider, it is, of course, expected
tliat the proposition to which the deduction is appended shall be
made use of in the solution. It will occasionally happen, with
carelessly-constructed riders, that a simpler solution, not involving
this proposition, is available; but generally there can bo no diffi-
culty in so arranging the proof as to introduce the proposition on
which the deduction is supposed lo be founded.

A deduction may be given as an exorcise on a particular book of
Euclid, or on a given set of propositions. In such a case, it is of
course expected that no later books or propositions (as the case may
be) shall be made use of.

Or, a deduction may bo given as an exercise on Euclid, generally
— in which case it is expected that no methods which are not used
by Euclid shall be applied to the solution of the problem, and,
further, that no proposition not contained in Euclid, or not readily
deducible from Euclid's propositions, shall be made use of.

Lastly, there are deductions of a more advanced character, and
propositions which present themselves in the solution of problems
in other subjects, such as trigonometry, optics, mechanics, and so
on. In treating deductions of this sort, it is allowable to make use
of several well-known geometrical problems not established by
Euclid, nor obviously deducible (that is, deduciblo as cornllaries)
from his propositions. Hence these properties may themselves be
presented as exercises on Euclid — and, in fact, most of them will
be found in collections of deductions. It seems better, however, to
direct the student's attention specially to propositions of this sort,
since their importance is apt to be lost sight of when they are
included in a long list of deductions. It is possible that I may on
some future occasion attempt to gather together all those propo-
sitions which may fairly be looked on as subsidiary. Some of them
are very simple, others less so ; but the student should have all of
them at his fingers' ends, since they are of continual service in
geometrical processes.

CONSTBCCTIOX.

The first step in the solution of a geometrical problem is the con-
struction of a figure which shall afford a clear conception of what
we have to do or prove. There arc some who insist that no one
deserves to be called a geometrician who makes use of well-drawn
figures. To solve a difficult problem when the illustrative figure is
unlettered, or when ovals are drawn for circles, waved lines for
straight ones, and so on, may be all very well for the advanced
mathematician. Indeed, a good geometrician should be able to
take up a list of problems and solve the major part without pen or
paper. But it seems to me a great mistake to insist that the learner
should increase the difficulties he naturally has to encounter, by
making difficulties for himself. And independently of this con-
sideration, there is nothing better calculated to lead the student to
observe new properties-— or properties new to him — than the con-
struction of a well-drawn figure. He is led to notice relations which
would otherwise escape him. Thence he learns to seek for the proof
of such relations, to satisfy himself that they are real — not apparent.
And it is this habit of being always on the watch for new properties
which serves as the most efficient aid in the solution of geometrical
problems, and which, also, so far as mathematical progress is con-
cerned, is the most valuable fruit of geometrical studies.

The beginner should oven use mathematical instruments, and
should spare nn pains in the exact construction of his figures. But
after awhile, all that will be necessary is that the figures should be
drawn, free-hand, so as to represent as closely as possible the rela-
tions described in the proposition to be investigated. Simple as this

seems to be, there are a few points which deserve to be attended
to. A few illustrations will serve better than formal rules : — •

Suppose a problem spoke of a trisected line : the student would
probably draw a line, as A B, Fig. 1, and then divide it as nearly as
possible into three equal parts, in C and D. This is not the best
plan : he should draw a line, as A D, bisect it as nearly as possible

A C D B

in C, and then produce it to B, so that D B may be as nearly equal
to D C as possible. He will thus have a line much more exactly
trisected than by the former method, since every one can bisect a
lino, or produce it till the part produced is equal to the adjacent
part, whereas many fail in the attempt to trisect a line. Similar
remarks apply to the division of a lino into five, seven, or nine equal
parts.

{To be continued.)

(£^iir Cbess Column.

By Mephisto.

THE TOURXAMENT.
SCORE UP TO TUESDAY NIGHT.

be

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7

Blackburne

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11

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English

0

0

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0

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0

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Mackenzie

0

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14.

There was no fresh play last week, as it was deemed desirable to
allow the players to decide their drawn battles. The beginning of
the second round was, therefore, postponed to Monday, the 28th
inst. Of the games which came to a decisive conclusion, the con-
test between English and Mason proved doubly interesting, as in
the first instance it was a very well-fought game, as may be seen
from its perusal ; secondly, it was a success gained by a likely can-
didate for high honours. Mason by this victory passed Steinitz and
Tschigorin, coming out second. In spite of the time granted, there
yet remains one draw to be played off between Rosenthal and
English, either of whom, may yet slightly improve their position by
winning.

The score of the players before the beginning of the second
round stood as follows : —

Zukertort 12

Mason 9i

Steinitz 9

Tschigorin 9

Blackburne 8}

Bird 7

Winawcr 7

English 6 J

Rosenthal 6 i

Mackenzie 5

Xoa 3i

Sellman 3i

Skipworth 3

Mortimer 0

• Some of the matters here treated of may seem trivial, but in
examinations they will be found not unimportant. It must, indeed,
be remembered that these papers have special reference to the
requirements of young mathematicians preparing for examination.

334

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 1, 1883.

Another most forcible conclusion as to llic clmnccs in Tournament
play mny bo drawn by a comparison of Dr. Noa'a play in London
and Vienna. At the latter placo, nf(or tlie conclusion of the first
round, ho stood at 9 against Zukertort's Oi, a most glaring contrast
to his present score. IIo has, however, also in London proved him-
self a ))layor of considerable power, as ho drew all liis three games
with Mason.

On Monday the second round was commenced. The result was
that English drew with Stoiniti!,as did also Blackburnc and Mason,
Mackenzie and Scllman, Winawer and Kosenthal, Noa beat
Tsehigorin, Mortimer beat Skipworth. The game between Bird
and Zukertort was adjourned after 9 hours play.

On Tuesday Zukertort boat English, he also later on won his
adjourned game with Bird. Kosenthal beat Noa, Blackburue beat
Skipworth, Steinitz beat Bird, Winawer beat Tschigorin, Sellman
beat Mortimer, Mason and Mackenzie drew.

In the second tournament Bardeleben stands best for first prize
with a score of 19{ out of 22. Fisher has the second prize certain
■\vith a score of 201 out of 25, which is the full number of games to
be played. Gunsberg has scored 17 out of a total of 22, while
Macdonald stands at 19i out of 25.

GAME BETWEEN ENGLISH AND MASON.

Queen's Gambit Declined.

■miite.

English.

P to Q-t
P to QB4 (a)
Kt to QB3
P to K3
Q to Kt3 (!))
Kt to B3
P to QR3
Q takes B
B to Q3
Q takes P
P takes P
Kt takes Kt
Castles
QtoB2
P to Bt (c)
B to K2
PtoQKtl(/)
Q to R2 (.j)
R takes Q
B to QKt2(.)
B toQ4
R takes B
R to QB2
P to B5 (i)
KR to B sq.

Black.

MasoD.

P to Q t
P to K3
B to Kt5
Kt to KB3
Kt to B3
Q to K2
B takes Kt
Castles (c)
P takes P
P to K4
Kt takes P
Q takes Kt
B to K3
KRtoQsq((J)
Q toQl
P toB3
B to B4
Q takes Q
B to QG (;.)
Kt to K5
B takes B
P to QKt3 (i)
QR. to QB sq.
PtoB3
R to Q3

White. Black.

English. Mason.

2G. P to QR4 P to QB4

27. Pto R5 Rat Q3toQB3

28. RP takes P RP takes P

29. P takes P P takes P

30. R to B4. K to B2 (?)

31. B to Kt2 Kt to Q3

32. R to KB 1 R to QR3
HtoQsq. RatBsq.toB3
P to Ki R to QR5
P to KKt3 Kt takes KP
R to Q7 (ch) K to K sq. (»»)
R takes P R to Kt3
R at Kt7 toKtiR at Kt3 to Kt 5
B to B sq. P to KR 1
R to R4 K to Q,2 (h)
R to B sq. Kt to QB6
R takes P (..) Kt to K7 (ch.)
K to B2 R to R7
R to R7 (ch.) K to B3

B to K3
K to B3
K to BJ.
R to K7

R to KtG
Kt to Q5 (ch.)
R to E5
KttoQB7(dis.
ch.)
QR to RG wins

NOTES.

(a) We prefer 2. Kt to KB3, which leads to a more modern and
safe Queen's side opening.

(h) Not much to be said in its favour — it loses time.

(c) Black having Castled, and both his Knights well posted on
B3, has already a considerable advantage of position.

(rf) Now comes that heavy and subtle wrestling for position
which distinguishes the first-class player. A study of the position
will reveal its difficulties. The black Queen keeps White's QB con-
fined, he also threatens Kt to Kt5. 15. P to K4, an otherwise
promising-looking move, Black would reply with R to Q2, after-
wards doubling the Rooks.

(p) This displaces the Queen, but it creates a new weakness in
White's centre.

(/) With the hope of developing his QB.

(3) White thinks to relieve his game by exchanging, while Black
considers his position good enough to venture upon that step with-
out fear of drawing.

(h) Another high-pressure move ; if B takes B, Black gets his
Rook into good play.

(1) If Black plays B takes B then 21. B takes Kt would probably
lead to a draw.

(i) Black now devotes his attention to advancing his QBP.
(^•) This advance weakens the Pawn.

(I) Black vigorously pursues his advantage in position. We give
a diagram after Black's 30th move, K to B2.

1

1^ i

t

'rs :.^

' .■

Masox.

(m) Very well played. AVhite can only capture the Pawn at
great risk to himself from Black's Rooks.

(n) Black gradually increases his attack, while White's Rooks
have got out of play. White dare not take the EP, as Black
threatens R to R8, followed on the White E to B sq. by the other
Rook to Kt8 to win the B.

(0) A fat.al capture, from this point Black finishes off in masterly
style.

POSITION AFTER BLACK'S 26th MOVE, KT. TO El, IN A
GAME PLAYED ON THE 28th INST.

Noa.
Black.

! 1*

1 tk

' i . ^
i

White.
TSCHIGOKI.V.

27. P to B4

28. P to KR-t

28. Q to KR3

29. RP takes P

30. K to Kt sq.

31. K to B2

32. Q to K3

33. K to K2

34. P to B5

Black.
Noa.

P to B3
P to KR3
RP takes P
Q to R2
P takes P
P to Kt5
P to KtG (ch)
R to Kt5
Kt takes P(ch)

■Wtite.
Tschgorir

Black.

35. Kt takes KtQ to E7 (ch)

36. K to K sq. B takes Kt

37. E. takes B

38. E to B2

39. K to K2

40. Q takes Q

P to Kt7 !
PtoKt8(Q)(ch)
Q (Kt8) takes E
(ch)
R to Kt7, and
Black won.

JfOTICHS.

Just Published, Part XIX. (May, 1883). Price lOd. j postage 3d. extra.

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June 8, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

335

L

MAGAZINE OF^GIENCE

PLAlNlYiyORDED -£XAC AdESCRIBED j

LONDON: FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1883.

Contents op No. 84.

FJIGB

Lunar Lessons. By R. A. Proctor 335
A Xttturaliat's Year. XIV. AmoDt;

thi-Gnwses. Bv Grant Allen 336

The Fisheries feihibition. By

John Ernest Adj 337

Professor Hughes' on Mn^etism.

BtW. Slinao 339

Law's of Brii:htness. III. {Iltut.)

By K. A. Proctor 3«

Cremation 3-11

The Chemistry of Cookery. XI.

By W. Mattien WiUiama. (/»u>.) 311

Editorial Gossip 343

Reviews : The Past of our Earth—
Ortjanie Chemistry — European
Mineral Waters — Poems for

Penny Readings 311

The Face of the Sky. By F.R.A.S. 346
Correspondence; Singular Solar Phe-
nomenon — Stays and Health-
Rational Dress— A few Observa-
tions on Hoat, Ac, 4c- 316

Our Mathematical Column 318

Our Chesa Colonm 319

LUNAR LESSONS.

By Richard A. Proctor.

I^HE more the moon is studied, the clearer seems to be
the evidence that she gives respecting the life history
of a planet. She tells us more, perhaps, of the future of
our earth than of the past ; but she tells us of the past
too. That the moon is waterless and practically airless
too, now, is certain, and, therefore, there is probably no
life now on her surface, though for those who like such
fancies the belief is always open that there may be
creatures on the moon utterly unlike any with which
we are acquainted on earth. Yet the moon's face tells
us of a remote youth — a time of fiery activity, when
volcanic action even more effective (though not probably
more energetic) than any which has ever taken place
on this globe, upheaved the moon's crust. But so
soon as we consider carefully the features of her
surface we see that there must have been three
well marked eras of vulcanian activity. Look at the
multitudinous craters, for e.xample, around the Metropolitan
Crater (as Webb has happily named it) Tycho. They tell
us of century after century of volcanic disturbance — but
they tell us more. They mark a surface which varies in
texture, and therefore in light^reflccting power in such a
way as to show that the variations were produced long
Jjefore the \olcanic action began by which the craters
were formed. For the variations of texture are such as
to mark a series of streaks — some of them two or three
thousand miles in length, and many miles in breadth,
extending radially from Tycho. Craters lie indifferently
on these brighter streaks and on the intervening
darker spaces, and some craters can be seen which
lie right across a bright streak with parts of their ring
on the darker regions on both sides of the streak. Of
course, this proves that the craters were formed long
after the great streaks. When the streaked surface was
formed, it must have been tolerably smooth ; for we see
the streaks best under a full illumination, and there is no
sign of any difference of elevation between them and the
darker ground all around ; they are neither long ridges nor
long valleys, but mere surface markings. Yet must they
have been formed by mighty vulcanian disturbance, such,

indeed, as we may be certain went on at the early stage of
the moon's history, to which these radiating .streaks must be
referred. It seems clear that, as Nasmith has illustrated
by experiment, they belong to that stage of the moon's
history when her still hot and plastic crust parted with its
heat more rapidly than the nucleus of the planet, and so,
contracting more quickly, was rent by the resistance of
the internal matter, which, still hot and molten, flowed
into the rents, and spreading formed the long broad
streaks of brighter surface. It seems as clear that the
next stage of the moon's history (after many thousands,
perhaps millions, of years had passed) was one in which
the cooled crust, still plastic, contracted little, while the
still hot nucleus contracted steadily, so shrinking from the
crust, which, under the action of gravity, closed in upon
the nucleus in such sort as to a form a wrinkled or corru-
gated surface. This was the second era of lunar vulcanian
disturbance. The third was the era of great volcanic
eruptions, during which the mighty craters were formed
which are so numerous on the lighter tinted higher regions
of the moon's surface. Were there no seas or oceans on
the moon at this time 1 It is strange if there were none,
when we consider the connection which exists on the earth
between the activity of the great volcanic vents and the
pro.ximity of water. It is stranger still if we consider that
those regions where, if water had ever existed on the moon,
it would have formed seas, are without exception charac-
terised by a different tint, and a different surface contour,
from what we find in the regions which would in that case
have formed the lunar continents. All the lower levels
are dark, are much more uniform, and are marked by few
craters, and those small. This is no mere accident or
coincidence. It is a feature which we are justified in
regarding as characteristic ; and, so regarded, it seems to
force upon us the conclusion that those lower levels are in
reality old sea-floors, formed in a different way from the
higher levels, and therefore presenting a different tint and
reflecting a different amount of light.

When we thus recognise in the moon the three stages of
past vulcanian energy which Mallet and Dana have recog-
nised (though the evidence has not been quite so obvious)
on the earth, and the signs also of a past fitness for the
support of life, seeing that the presence of seas implies
also the presence of an atmosphere dense enough to make
the boiling-point of water not too low, we recognise the
significance of the evidence which the moon gives re-
specting the earth's future. What has happened to her
will happen also to our earth, though doubtless with
variations in details corresponding to different conditions.

Yet science has good reason for regarding as exceedingly
remote the time when the earth will be at the stage of
planetary development which the moon has reached. If
the earth's crust, God's work, whose teachings, therefore,
if we can but read them aright, are God's words, speaks
truly, it is certain that tens of millions of years have
passed since even that stage of the earth's life through
which she is now passing began. But suppose, for the
sake of argument, we put twelve million years only as the
time which has elapsed since the earth and moon were at
the same (necessarily much earlier) stage of planetary life.
The earth's mass exceeds the moon's 81 times, and there-
fore at that time she had 81 times as much heat to part
with as the moon. But her surface is now (and the pro-
portion cannot have been very different then) only some
1 .3 .\ times greater than the moon's. Thus, since 81 con-
tains 13.1 six times, the earth has parted with her heat at
only one-sixth of the rate which would have made the
supply last just as long as the moon's. Each stage of the
earth's cooling, or of the earth's life, has been six times as

336

♦ KNOWLEDGE

[JoNE 8, 18i-3

long as tlip corresponding stage of tlio nioon'!i, and the 1 2
luillioa years of earth history correspond to about two
million years of nioon life. Ten million years ago, then,
the moon was in the same stage of planetary life that the
earth is now passing through. But those ten millions of
years of uioon-life correspond to sixty millions of years
of earth-life. Wherefore, on the very moderate assump-
tion I have made as to the time which has elapsed since
earth and moon were both young, sixty millions of years
would have to elapse before the earth would have reached
the stage of life through which the moon is now passing. —
Neiccuslle Weeklij Chronicle.

A NATURALIST'S YEAR.

By Grant Allen.

XIV.— AMONG THE GRASSE.S.

^ J1HE meadows are now all out in full blossom, and the
L various sedges, grasses, and plantains, which make
up the larger part of their greensward, are at this moment
in the busiest epoch of their existence, universally engaged
in getting themselves fertilised by the friendly interven-
tion of the unconscious wind. Pick any one of them that
you choose for examination, and you will find that, widely
as these meadow plants differ from one another in origin
and in underlying botanical structure, they are all closely
similar in external and adaptive characteristics. By the
very necessity of the situation they are almost universally
wind-fertilised, and they have undergone a certain number
of modifications in a single direction, in order to fit them
for this particular niche in Nature. Insect fertilised
plants may have their flowers buried among the foliage
or pressed close to the ground, provided only they are
conspicuous enough to attract the eyes of passing
insects ; but wind-fertilised blossoms must raise their
heads high above the neighbouring foliage, so as to
have free access to the breezes of heaven ; and so all
these grasses, sedges, and plantains have tall tufted flowers
usually hanging loose in graceful, plume-like panicles, so as
to be easily moved by every gentle breath of wind. Then,
again, the stamens themselves hang far out of the enclosing
scales or glumes, on long thread-like filaments, and quiver
like aspen leaves before the faintest flutter of the air, so as
to shed their pollen readily and instantaneously, wherever
the wind is ready to carry it. Finally, the stigmas, or sen-
sitive surfaces of the ovary, also protrude bodily from their
coverings, and are split up rnto innumerable little feathery
branches, so as to catch whatever pollen may chance to be
wafted their way. If you look closely at the surface of a
meadow waving in the wind, you will see that it is all one
mass of tiny purple bloom, shivering tremulously before the
breeze, and scattering little showers of light pollen with
every movement of the pendulous heads and stems.

Of course, plants of such a sort can only succeed under
a combination of two diverse conditions. In the first place,
they must grow in open, unimpeded places, where the breeze
can get at them freely, and the pollen can be carried before
it without let or hindrance. In the second place they must
grow together in large masses — must be gregarious in habit
— or else the pollen would most probably get wasted in
traversing the distance between one plant of the species
and another. Among all the herbs which have adapted
themselves to this peculiar conjunction of circumstances
there are none more successful than the grasses. Indeed,
most careless observers imagine that the sward of a meadow
or pasture is almost entirely made up of grasses ; and

though this is very far from being the case (for at least one-
half the plants in it are larger-leaved species, such as clovers,
sorrels, and buttercups) yet the grasses certainly occur in
such large numbers, and so overtop the other weeds around
them, as to give the general character and tone to the low-
land flora of temperate countries like our own England. If
we glance for a moment at their constitution and nature,
wo shall be getting an insight into one of the most dominant
plant families in the whole creation.

The simplest grass you can possibly take, in order to
understand the flowering system of the entire group, is that
known to farmers and children as rye-grass, and technically
described as LoHitni jiereiuw. It is a common roadside
weed in every part of Britain, with a tall, stifT, blossoming
stem, and a number of spiky flower-heads stuck on alter-
nately upon either side of the stalk, which is deeply in-
dented first on the right and then on the left, in order to
make room for them. Each such flower-head is technically
known as a spikelet, and it consists usually of some eight
or ten tiny fiowers, closely crowded together along the edge
of a central stem or axis. The best way to understand the
flowers is to hiegin with the lowest spikelet of the head, and
pull ofi" the fiowers one by one, dissecting them with a pin
as you go. The outer piece of all is an empty bract,
which nearly encloses the whole spikelet, and keeps out
unwelcome visitors, such as pollen-eating flies, weevils, and
caterpillars. It is very stout, and thickly-ribbed, so as to
serve its purpose of defensive armour. Next comes the lowest
flower of the group, a degraded lily, so very degenerate
that you would hardly guess at first sight the real relations
of its parts. It is enclosed between two green organs,
kno^vn as glumes, which are, in fact, the representatives of
the three original calyx pieces. One of these, the outer,
or " flowering glume," is large and convex, rolled round
the edge of the other, which is thin and flat. The flat
" inner glume," or " palea," has two green ribs near its
middle, thus showing that it is really two calyx-pieces
rolled into one. Removing these with your pin, very
carefully, you come upon the actual floral organs. But
where are the three petals 1 Ah ! to find them you have
to look very close indeed, and I won't guarantee that,
without a lens, you will be able to see them at all. Still,
if you have good eyes, you may possibly be able to make
out two tiny white scales, very thin and almost transparent,
between the outer glume and the base of the ovary.
Those are the last faint relics of the two outer
petals. As to the inner one, it has got crushed out of
existence altogether by the mutual pressure of the florets
against one another on the side turned towards the axis.
The plant, in fact, had no further need for petals, since it
Joes not now wish to attract insects ; and therefore the
real wonder is, not that one of them has disappeared, but
that two of them should remain at all, even in the most
rudimentary state, as evidences of their former presence.
In many small grasses they have died out altogether ; it is
only in the larger kinds that any trace of them still exists.
The stamens, on the other hand, being equally important
to the plant under any circumstances, are there in full
force — three of them, as in the lilies, but hanging out at
the end of their long-waving filaments. Lastly, the ovary
consists of a single cell, containing one rich seed, the grain
which has given all the grasses their marked superiority in
the struggle for existence. The remaining florets on the
spikelet are each a repetition of this first pattern one ; and
the remaining spikelets of the head are similarly made up
of an external enclosing bract and eight or ten small
packed florets.

That, as I said, is the simplest general plan upon wliich
all the grass-flowers are built up ; but in most of them this

June

1883.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

337

comparative primitive simplicity is largely obscured by the
immense variety of devices for preventing thieving insects
from getting at the grain or the pollen. For the very same
insect interference which proves so beneficial to insect-
fertilised plants is the deadliest danger of their wind-
fertilised allies, and is guarded against by a profusion of
minute devices which seems at first sight almost absurdly
careful and petty. Pretty nearly any grass that you pick
will show you these multiplied protective organs in a very
advanced state of perfection. Here, for example, is a
waving head of cock's-foot {Dacti/!is glomeTaia), which con-
sists of numberless one-sided spikelets, clustered together
into a closely-packed bundle, which only relaxes a little
during the short time while the stamens and pistil are
actually at maturity. Every spikelet consists of several
little flattened florets, their outer glumes all ending
in sharp, needle-like awns or beards, which eftec-
tually prevents flying insects from lighting upon them,
either to probe the blossoms with their proboscis for
the pollen, or to lay their eggs where the young grub
might fatten on the richly-stored grain. Then, to keep
out little creeping weevils, the glumes are strongly keeled,
and down the keel runs a row of saw-like teeth, so that
the insect would have to run the gauntlet of twenty little
liottle-glass clif.vaux-ik-frisc (so to speak) before it could
get at the food it was hunting. Every grass you can
examine, almost, will supply similar instances of careful
protective mechanism, all diflerent in details, and all the
same in general plan and pxirport. Sometimes, as in fox-
tail {Alopeciirus jjratensis), the whole cylindrical flowering
head is one soft mass of velvety hairs, in whose impene-
trable forest the creeping insects lose their way hopelessly,
while the flying ones cannot approach it by reason of the
endless sharp points that stick out from it all round
in every direction. At other times, as in wild barley
(^Hordextm inurinum), the entire inflorescence bristles from
head to foot with stitt" bayonets, half the florets being here
given up ' to purely protective functions, and enclosing
no real floral organs at aU, or only a few loose and
imperfect stamens. Yet again, some kinds, like sweet
vernal grass Antlwxanthitm odoratttm, have all the florets
of each spikelet barren, save one onlj-, so that insects which
visit the outer empty chafi" find nothing for their pains, and
go away in despair without rifling the well-protected central
floret. But the most remarkable of all these singular tricks
on the part of the grasses is that practised by the common
dog's-tail Ci/Jiogjmts crisiatiis, which has its florets regularly
arranged in double sets of spikelets, one outer and one inner,
one at each joint of the stem. Of these, the outer spikelet
is, so to speak, a mere waste, a bunch of empty scales,
arranged in the shape of a fertile row, but without any
stamens or any grain to justify its existence. It exactly
covers and conceals the genuine spikelet that lies behind it,
just as though one were to have a number of wax cherries
hung up on the outside trees of an orchard, so as to take
in the pilfering boys of the neighbourhood. One could
spend days in describing all the various details of these
protective grassy devices ; but T have done enough, I hope,
to show how interesting this branch of botanical study
really is, and I may add that it is one of those where in-
dustrious amateurs may still hope to find out much for
themselves that is as yet unknown, or but half understood,
by the masters of the science. No group of flowering plants
is harder to work at than the grasses : but no group better
repays the time and trouble that may be spent upon it.

It is said that the Torrens Bridge on the Grange
Railway, South Australia, has sunk some inches owing to
the use of heavy locomotives.

THE FISHERIES EXHIBITION.

XATUKAL HISTORY DEPAETMtNTS.
By John Ernest Ady.

IXTKODUCTOKY. (Continiud.)

LAST week we brought our visit to the Exhibition to a
close at the termination of the Natural History
galleries of the East Quadrant, and with it completed our
survey of most of the important British exhibits concerned
with our subject. We propose now to conduct the student
over the ground principally devoted to the foreign sections,
and thus to bring the narrative portion of our work to an
end.

Let us commence where we left ort', at the East Quadrant.
We will not continue along the Eastern Arcade, the divi-
sions of which are appropriated by exliibitors of fishermen's
clothing, preserved diets, nautical instruments, diving
apparatus, kc. ; but will rather proceed into the open
space, and glance at some of its interesting contents.
Geographically defined, this space is bounded on the north
by a large conservatory, in which a gorgeous royal barge,
presided over by an equally gorgeous personage (not always
on duty) is lodged. To the south of this, on the right
and left hand sides, are two band- stands, surrounded by
grass plots ; and the whole of the space thus occupied is
divided from the remainder by a transverse path running
east and west, in the middle of which the Prince Consort's
memorial is situated. The open ground is thus divided
into two nearly equal portions ; it is the southern part
with which we shall have to deal. This latter is further
subdivided by the large central pond into two lateral
halves, and each half comprises two terraces, which overhang
narrow, elongated (north and south) depressions, utilised as
fresh-water tanks. To the western half we are allured by the
huge skeleton of a whale which occupies its western
terrace. This specimen is the property of the Marquis of
Exeter, and is propped up on suitable supports. Its bones
are coated over with luminous paint, and a few tickets
suspended from the monster inform the public that it is
erected in memoriam Bahena myslicetus, the Greenland
or right whale, which yields, in place of the teeth it loses
before birth, the whalebone of commerce, swims at the rate
of about four miles an hour, and never exceeds 75 feet in
length. We must not rest satisfied, however, with this
meagre description, for the whale and its congeners,
the porpoise, grampus, and dolphin, with their next of
kin, the seals and walruses,* represent one of the most
important items in the fisheries of the world, and we shall,
therefore, recur to them in the descriptive portion of these
papers. We shall then have occasion to guide the student
to the stands where he may see the results of the various
industries which have been developed from the great
mammalian fisheries. So, in like manner, shall we conduct
him to the stalls where he may view what commercial
enterprise and artistic skill have done to utilise the various
products which are the outcome of fish and fishing.

The terrace which contains the mortal remains of the
whale overhangs an elongated tank, to which access may
be gained down short flights of stairs at either end of the
tank, within whose waters a large number of golden tench,
common tench, carp, perch, and pike have been deposited
by Lord Wsdsingham. The golden tench are particularly

* The seals and walruses belong to the aqnatic Camivora, the
whale and its allies to the Cetacea, amongst mammalian animals ;
these two divisions are connected by a link now broken, and which
is represented by the remarkable tertiary fossils of Zevrjlodon and
Squalodon. — J. E. A.

338

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 8, l»b3.

attractive ; tUey lia%c been bred from the original stock
intioducrcl into this country in 1852 by Mr. Berney, of
!Morton Hall, Norfolk.

The Eastern terraces, with their enclosed pond, crossed
by a Chinese bridge, are now inhabited by fish-eating birds
lent by the Zoological Society out of their collection in
Regent's Park. The pelican of the wilderness and the
curious fbiniingo are conspicuous amongst these ; whilst at
the e.xtreme end of an aviary a dejected cormorant sits,
deploring the fate which transported him from his birth-
place in the Society's Gardens to the less congenial corner
of a box in Soutii Kensington.

The Chinese bridge, with its inconvenient steps, leads to
a pagoda on its eastern side, and from thence a pathway
directs us to the covered building assigned to China.
Everything here is Chinese, from the carefully-e.xecuted
drawings which deck the walls, and of some of which it
may be appropriate to say, "These are fishes !" in a breath
with the renowned artist of old who entitled his smear
with the inscription, " This is a cow." Heterogeneity,
rather than variety, seems to have been the aim of the
Celestial curator whose pickled iish surround the pedestal,
whii-h is surmounted by a dilapidated boat containing a
model Chinaman within and cormorants strewed without.
The model serves its purpose, however, in conveying some idea
of a novel mode of fishing which is even still employed by
our Chinese lirethren. The specimens of shells, ic, are chiefly
confined to some of the commoner tropical forms, arranged
anyhow and named somehow. In Chi'na it is a prevalent
custom to make use of some of the larger turbinated shells
(notably Turbo olearms) as hanging tlower-pots; the outer
layers of the shell are scraped away and reveal the beauti-
ful nacreous lustre of the mother-of-pearl ; a few of these
may be seen in this department, and the work of M. P.
Dabry de Thiersant* may be observed, safely locked in a
glass-case. The roof which shelters China also protects
the interests of India, the Straits Settlements, Japan, Chili,
Hawaii, Tasmania, and New South Wales.

Although the exhibits of India are derived for the most
part from the Government museums of that Empire, they
seem to be a direct contradiction of the great law of evo-
lution, the survival of the M?ifittest Nothing short of the
nio~t unqualified reproach can be bestowed upon collections
which we had hoped would vie with even those of Great
Britain ; but our disappointment is counterbalanced by the
e.xquisite collection of Indian fishes, with illustrations from
his valuable work, which stands out like a gem amidst a
heap of rubbish ; it is the property of a gentleman now
resident in this country, and well known as a distinguished
ichthyologist ; we refer to Dr. Francis Day. The natural
history collections from the Straits Settlements consist of
a medley of the commoner forms of tropical corals, shells,
and some unnamed fish in bottles of spirit.

The Asiatic exhibits come to a close with the Japanese
division. On a central table there may be seen a box,
exhibited by Messrs. Atkins and Nisbet, containing bundles
of a whitish, semi-transparent, dried sea weed ; this is the
famous Ft'ci's cnr/Uar/inosus of the Chinese and Japanese,
which, when boiled with water and sugar, and allowed to
cool in a mould, aflbrds an alimentary substance somewhat
like calf's-foot jelly in colour and consistency, but vastly
different in taste.

Chili and Hawaii are not yet adequately represented,
and the next exhibits of interest are those of Tasmania and
New South Wales. These sections contain several hand-
some museum cabinets with well prepared stu fled specimens
of fish and mammals, a choice selection of oyster shells

• " La Pisciculture et la Pfiohe en Chine.'

(Oiti-cra f/lomerata), and the food fishes of Australia in spirit
This brings us to the end of the gallery from whence a
short pathway leads to a narrow elongated building
apportioned to Spain. We will not linger here, saveto glance
at a few specimens of wood perforated by the so-called ship
worm [Teredo), whose true molluscous nature was first
explained in an elaborate Latin memoir by G. Sellius.

The Spanish gallery terminates in the large central
promenade of the Exhibition buildings, from which access
may be successively gained (in respective order) to the seal
and otter ponds, the buildings delegated to Norway,
Sweden, Belgium, and the Netherlands, the United States
of America, Canada, Denmark, and Newfoundland. To
the west of the Canadian department there is a pond for
beavers. Lastly, Russia is located — or rather not located
— in a gallery corresponding on the west to that occupied
by Spain on the east ; and the building which here takes
the position of the Australasian departments on the east is
termed the Foreign Gallery, and lodges the chief Con-
tinental exhibits of Europe, those of the West Indies and
Bahamas, and the Isle of Man.

We cannot do more here than merely indicate a very
few of the interesting exhibits in each of the above-named
departments. In the Norwegian section may be noticed a
series of copied drawings from the originals of Professor
Sars' work on the development of the cod, and also some
of the plates taken from the reports of the Norske
Nordhaiis Expedition.

The Swedish section is richer in its natural history
specimens ; there may be seen some good skeletons of
Cetaceans, lent by the Gothenburg Museum ; several beau-
tiful paintings in water colours, by W. von Wright, of the
fishes of Sweden ; and the collection made by Baron
Nordenskjold during the Veya expedition.

The United States of America have already arranged a
large and well-chosen collection of specimens in their
portion of the buildings, amongst which we may draw-
special attention to the cases of insects which serve as food
for fishes, the collection of oyster (Osiraa virginica) and
other shells, and a number of literary productions on fish
and fish culture, conspicuous amongst which is an elaborate
treatise on the game fish of the LTnited States.

The Canadian dominion is fairly well represented ; one
of the chief attractions is a case containing specimens of
fish caught in June and July, 1882, which even now seem
to be comparative!}- fresh, decay having been arrested
through a well-constructed freezing apparatus.

Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands are also well
represented, although there seems to be a general lack
amongst them of natural history specimens. The New-
foundland cod-fisheries find a small place in several beau-
tiful commercial examples in bottles of spirits.

In the Foreign Gallery, Greece and Italy are rendered
attractive through their corals and cameos. In one cabinet
a large number of cameo-shells (chiefly of the genus Cassis),
are arranged to show the progressive stages of the carv-
ing. Amongst other things in this gallery we may draw
special attention to a very fine collection of bath sponges
and pink pearls from the Bahamas, and to the only con-
tribution which has as yet arrived from Austria, — a series
of parasitic crustaceans found on Adriatic fishes, and
described by Signor Antonio Valle.* The Foreign Gallery
merges into the British departments allotted to pisciculture,
through which we passed on a former occasion.

Lastly, in the south-eastern corner of the E.xhibition
buildings, a small shed is appropriated by the native Guano
Company, and serves well to illustrate how a very far-

' " Crostacei Pai-assiti dei Pesci del Mare Adriatico. Trieste, 1880.

Jl-xe 8, 1883.]

♦ KNO\A/LEDGE ♦

339

fetched cause may tend to considerably influence and
modify tish and tishing — viz., how the pollution of rivers
can be obviated and turned to account. In the shed are
exhibited specimens of nativi> guano, precipitated from
sewage by a peculiar nii.\ture termed a li c ; the precipita-
tion is most perfectly effected, and all noxious substances
are dissipated ; the result of tliis is, that clear water flows
off, freed from all injurious materials. Some of the water
thus procured is shown to be perfectly harmless to tish in
tanks and aquaria.

In conclusion, this narrative will be followed by a series
of descriptive illustrated papers on the natural history
exhibits. We propose to coniuicnce with the lowest forms
of life, and to progress to those of higher organisation. In
doing so we must obviously visit widely-separated stations
in the E.xhibition buildings, seek out and collect kindred
specimens, and study them systematically.

Dr. Ramsay H. Traqiair, M.D., F.R.S., Director of the Naiurnl
History Jlnsenin, Edinburgh, is now delivering a course of Iccturis
(/re.) on the " Strneture and Clussification of Fishes." The fii-tt
lecture was given on the otli, and further lectures will be delivercil
at -1 p.m., on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays hereafter, till
June 29.

PROF. HUGHES ON M.\G>'ETISM.

By W. Si.in-<:o.

PRESSMEN were wont to say of speeches made by
Mr. Lowe (Lord Sherborne) that they were so full
of points, each essential to the rest, that to eliminate any
of them for the purpose of condensation were well-nigh
impossible. A similar difficulty presents itself to any one
who ventures to epitomise the paper on " The Cause of
Evident Magnetism," read by Prof. Hughes at a meeting
of the Society of Telegraph Engineers on Thursday week.
The paper contains matter that is certain to evoke the
greatest interest in the minds of all who have hitherto
given any, even the slightest, attention to magnetism. The
chairman went so far as to say that nothing in magnetism
so interesting in description, or so perfect in demonstra-
tion, had been l)rought before the scientific world since the
time when Qllrsted made public his great discovery con-
cerning the relations between magnetism and electricity.
These discoveries were of themselves sufficient to make
telegraphy practicable, but whether or not Prof. Hughes'
labours will affect the applications of magnetism to every-
day life is matter of conjecture. It seems to lae
more likely that the science rather than the art (or
the application of the science) will reap the reward.
At the commencement of his paper, the Professor
details the chaotic work and theories of previous experi-
mentalists. Coulomb, Poisson, Ampire, De la Rue, ilatteuci,
Page, .Joule, and Maxwell. He does so in order to show
that they all " admit of the inherent polarity of the mole-
cule " ; but, he further observes, " the induction balance at
once shows that they are erroneous in the most important
part, for my researches have proved that neutrality is per-
fectly symmetrical, that there is no case of neutrality where
the axes of the molecules are turned indifferently in all
directions, and that we cannot obtain perfect neutrality
except when the molecules form a complete closed ciroiit of
attraction." Upon this basis, experimentally treated.
Professor Hughes draws the following conclusions : —

1. That each molecule of a piece of iron, steel, or other mafrnetio
metal is a separate and independent magnet, having its two poles
and distribution of magnetic polarity e.tactly the same as its total
evident magnetism when noticed upon a steel bar-magnet.

2, That each molecule, or its polarity, can be rotated in lithor
direction \ipon its axis by torsion, stress, or by physical force such
as niacnetisni and electricity.

3. That the inherent polarity or magnetism of each molecule is a
constant quantity like gravity ; that it can neither be augmented
nor destroyed.

i. That when we have external neutrality, or no apparent nmg-
netisni, the molecules, or their polarities, arrange themselves so as
to satisfy their mntnal- attraction by the shortest path, and thus
form a complete closed circuit of attraction.

5. That when magnetism becomes evident, the molecules or
their polarities have all rotated symmetrically in a given direction,
producing a north pole if rotated in that direction as regards the
piece of steel, or a south pole if rotated in the opposite direction.
Also, that in evident magnetism, we have still a symmetrical
arrangement, but one whose circles of attraction are not completed
except through an external armature joining both poles.

G. That we have permanent magnetism when the molecular
rigidity, as in tempered steel, retains them in a given direction,
and transient magnetism whenever the molecules rotate in com-
parative freedom, as in soft iron.

Space will not permit me to give even a bare enumera-
tion of the various admirable and ingenious experiments
performed to demonstrate these deductions, but the pith
of them all is I imagine in the third and fourth paragraphs,
the others following as an almost natural sequence. Prof.
Hughes has been materially assisted in his ettbrts to over-
come previously - received notions of coercive force and
neutrality, by his recent experiments on the effects of
torsion, and by his invention of the induction balance. In
demonstrating the principle of "inherent" magnetism, the
professor maintains that a "bar of iron or steel, being held
in the earth's magnetic field of infinite size compared with
the bar, and infinitely homogeneous, cannot deflect or
weaken its surrounding field." " We cannot," he says
further on, " either by induction, conduction, or concen-
tration, produce a greater force in another body of similar
displacement or size, otherwise we could easily create power
from a feeble source. Thus the enormously greater mag-
netic power observed in iron than the same column of air
which it displaces must be due to the indirect polarity of
its molecules." This polarity he ascertained in a certain
piece of wire to be " l.'),GOO times greater than the column
it displaced." The effects of torsion are most remark-
able. Torsion is capable of doing anything that can
be performed by heat or by vibration. This was shown
in many ways. A piece of iron, after being slightly niag-
netised, was Vjy its means demagnetised. A piece of iron
held in the magnetic dip was highly magnetised. A piece
of untempered fine cast drill steel illustrated " superposed "
magnetism in a remarkable manner. The wire, one milli-
metre thick, had two entire turns or twists to the right,
and was then magnetised by passing it over the north pole of
a magnet. It was then subjected to two turns to the left,
and passed over the south pole of a magnet. When free
from torsion the wire exhibits perfect neutrality, but when
twi.sted either to the right or left polarity is evident. One
of the prettiest experiments of the evening was with the
aid of such a piece of wire. None of the apparatus was
remarkable for its costliness, the most elaborate piece con-
sisting of two footless wine-glasses, four penny bar-magnets,
and a short piece of thin steel. The steel was movable in
a horizontal plane over the bar magnets, and was therefore
polarised.

If moved far enough in either direction, it struck one of
the glasses, producing a musical sound. The superposed
magnetic wire on being brought near the piece of steel and
twisted alternately to the right and left, repelled and
attracted it, and caused it to strike the glasses with
unerring distinctness. The effect was niarvellou.s, and
Prof. Hughes may be pardoned for taking a little pride to
himself for showing " the first direct transformation of

340

KNOWLEDGE

[June 8, 1883.

molecular motion into mcclmnical movement." I ought,
perhaps, to mention one other experiment performed to
illustrate the molecular homogeneity (as opposed to the
generally received theory of hajjhazard intermingling)
when in a state of neutrality. A complete ring of .steel
wire, ten ccntimotrcs in diameter, was revolved over the
pole of a niajjnet and gradually withdrawn, the revolution
being maintained until removed some feet from the
magnet Such a ring is perfectly neutral, and exhibits no
polarity, although it would do if made to simply touch the
magnet. On cutting or .snapping the ring, very strong
polarity becomes evident, and, therefore, excellent testi-
mony is borne to the position taken up by Prof. Hughes.

Assuming that what Professor Hughes advances is
correct — and I, for my part, can see no reason for
doubting it — what is the effect upon our conception
of magnetism ! There will not be wanting those who
will maintain that if we deprive the Ampurian theory
of the electric currents, we shall get Hughes's theory.
But if we so treat Ampere's propositions we rob
them of their one beauty. The molecular theory is one
which has been at least suspected by many electricians,
but to Professor Hughes belongs the credit of assigning to
magnetism a place )jy the side of gravity, two forces which
are indestructible and inconvertible. Magnetism can never
be changed to any other form of force, although it may be
made a channel of transference. It is therefore most com-
pletely separated from electricity — a form of force which,
like heat, may be imparted or withdrawn, converted or
destroyed.

LAWS OF BRIGHTNESS.

III.

By Richard A. Proctor.

NEXT let us consider the relative absolute brightness
of the planets under different circumstances.
In the first place, let us inquire what is the total quantity
of light sent from a hemisphere (smooth), illuminated and
viewed in the same directions : —

Fig. 5.

Let A I) B (Fig. 5) be a section of the illuminated
hemisphere, tlie lines of light being as I A, I' E, .tc. Let
D be the middle of the visible disc, E another point. Then
the illumination has its maximum value at D. At E it is
less in the ratio of the sine of the angle T E I'. But the
angle E C A is equal to the angle T E I', and the sine of
the angle E C A is the ratio E M to E C. Hence the
illumination at E is less than that at D in the ratio of E M
to E C— that is, of E M to D C. So that if we represent the
illumination at I) by the line D C, the illumination at E will
be represented by the line EM. Now let AB (Fig. G), represent
the disc shown by the hemisphere, growing gradually
fainter to the edges ; and let A' B' (Fig. 7) be a ilat disc
illuminated all over as the hemisphere is illuminated at D.

Thin, if a il h be an ideal hemisphere corresponding to the
illuminated hemisphere A D B in dimensions, k corre-
sponding to E and d to D, we have seen that if d c repre-
sent the brightness at D, «j tti will represent the brightness
at E ; so that obviously if the small solid space d c
represent the total light from the small area D, the
small solid space c m will represent the total light from
the small area at E. Henee, supposing the whole
disc divided into a number of very small areas,
such as those at E and D, we see that when all the
corresponding small solid spaces have been taken into
account, we get the total light from the disc represented

B -,

Fig. 0.

by the volume of the hemisphere adb. Doing the like for
the flat disc A B (and retaining the same scale of construc-
tion) we get the total light from the flat disc, represented
by the volume of the cylinder a' d' V, whose base a' V is
equal to n 6, and its height d' c' equal to d c. Now, the
volume adb is two-thirds of the volume a' d' b', by Archi
medes' property of the sphere and cylinder. Hence the
total light reeeived from a hemisphere, both Dluminated
and viewed directly, is two-thirds of the total light from a
flat surface equal to the great circular section of the
hemisphere, and illuminated directly.

This relation only enables ns to estimate and compare
the lirilliancy (total) of the superior planets in opposition
(for Venus and Mercury in superior conjunction may be
left out of consideration). We may apply the relation at
once to determine the theoretical relative brilliancies of
the superior planets, on the supposition — first, that they
are smooth spheres ; and secondly, that their surfaces are
of equal reflective power. It will be understood, of course,
that by reflective power is understood the power of return-
ing light by general reflection, the quality which makes
opaque bodies look more or less bright under the same
circumstances of illumination. Zollner calls this quality
the albedo, or, as it were, the inJiiteness of surfaces.

Now, obviously, all we have to do, to determine the
theoretical relative brilliancy of the superior planets in
opposition, is to multiply the number representing the area
of each planet's disc into the number representing its illu-
mination. For we have seen that the total brightness of a
planet in opposition bears a constant ratio to that of a flat
disc illuminated directly and looking precisely as large as
the planet. Now, the apparent diameter of a planet at any
time varies as its real diameter di'vided by its distance, so

that the apparent size of its disc varies asl |

\ distance /

We have only to multiply this by the number representing

the illumination to get the relative total brilliancy. The

following table gives the results. In calculating it the

JuxE 8, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE

341

diameters of the planets have been assumed to be as
follows : —

Dinmftor.
Miles.

Mars -l.JOO

Jupiter 85,000

Saturn 70,000

Uranus 30,000

Neptnue 37,000

The mean distances and eccentricities as in the usual table
of elements.

Then we get the following table : —

BeLATIVE THEOEETIIAL TOTAL BBULIANCY OF THE SCPERIOU

PiASETS IX Opposition.

Mars at mean distance from sun 1,000

„ in iwrihelion 2,302

„ in aphelion 519

Jupiter at mean distance 487

,, in perihelion 024

„ in aphelion 405

Saturn (without rin^s) at mean distance 2I'5

Uranns at mean distance li'30

Xeptuno at mean distance Oo8

It will be seen at once that the theoretical relative
brilliance of Mars and Jupiter differ markedly from the
observed brilliancy of these planets. Mars in opposition at
his mean distance is not so bright as Jupiter in opposition,
yet theoretically he should be more than twice as Iiright as
Jupiter in opposition at his mean distance. Mars in oppo-
sition in perihelion ought to be more than three times as
bright as Jupiter in opposition in perihelion, and more
than five times as bright as Jupiter in opposition in aphe-
lion.

It will also be recognised that Mars when in opposition
at his mean distance is not forty times brighter than
Saturn when in opposition, with his ring edgewise, or
nearly so, as during the years 1860-62.

We see, then, at once, even from these elementary con-
siderations applied to the brightness of the planets as seen
by the naked eye, that there is a marked distinction
between the planets Jupiter and Saturn on the one hand,
and Mars on the other. This instance serves to illustrate
the interest attaching to the photometrical study of the
planets.

(r> be contitined.)

CREMATION.

I FANCY '• A Brother Cinder " is rather " chaffing " in
his letter on cremation, which, if it be so, is a pity.
The subject is a very serious one, and, with the present
state of our population and cemetery rites, an important
one in a sanitary point of view. Of course, in advocating
the disposal of the dead by cremation, one has to contend
against perhaps the strongest antagonist it is possible to
encounter — public prejudice. Added to this is the circum-
stance that the proper method is but imperfectly under-
stood in this country. Still, as our intercourse with
■countries in which cremation obtains increases, and our
knowledge of the proper method becomes more perfect, it
is to be hoped that the practice will be more common.

If your space will allow of it, I should like to make a
few remarks upon this subject It is one I wrote upon in
the public papers more than fifteen years ago ; indeed, I
think as almost one of the first advocates of the process.
Its advantages over sepulture appear to me to be : — 1st.
Cleanliness and purity. 2nd. In a sanitary point of view.
3rd. In expense. 4th. In solemnity.

On the two first points nothing need be said, they are so

perfectly self-evident. With regard to expense, if properly
carried out, the first expense would not exceed that of an
ordinary burial, and the after-expense of mausoleums,
tombstones, and railing would be saved, although, of
course, tablets, Ac, would remain the same. As touching
solemnity, of course, as few in England have seen the
process, it is difficult to convey an adequate idea of the
feelings it would engender. I can only say, that ha^-ing
myself attended a cremation, as well as many a burial at
sea and on shore, the former carries away the palm far and
away for solemnity.

The first cremation I saw was at Bangkok, in Siam. It
took place in a grove as tiie evening fell. A large kind of
brick-bath, with a ledge round it of about two feet in
width, filled level to the full with some incandescent fuel,
apparently charcoal. From each corner of the fire sprang
an arch, meeting over the centre in a dome. It appeared
as if this was always kept burning at the level of the full.
Tlie situation was in a quiet, retired grove outside the city.
The corpse was brought by bearers, with priests in advance
and the relations in rear : much, indeed, as our own funeral
order is used in England. The coffin — of wood, and pro-
bably filled with aromatic chips of wood — was placed on
the wide ledge, and the funeral rites performed, after which
it was gently pushed upon the incandescent fire. I watched
it carefully. It appeared to gradually sink quietly down
into the fuel below, and to become itself part of that fue
There was scarcely any smoke, and no nm^ll whatever.

I have very imperfectly described that cremation. But
it left upon my mind, as in that silent grove the mourners
stood around, and the boughs of the trees drooped over-
head, and the summer's evening breeze swept through them
— it left, I say, upon my mind a feeling of peace and
solemnity that I have failed to realise at the launching of
any corpse into the blue sea, or the burial of any body in
the damp earth.

I will not trench upon your space farther than to say
that I hope at some time prejudice may be overcome,
and solemn and healthy cremation have its place amongst
us. Two things I have omitted to mention ; one, that I
think the majority of old Indian officers will be found on
the side of cremation. The other, that for the preserva-
tion of the bones, it is only necessary to envelope the corpse
in an asbestos sheet, which is subsequently withdrawn.
Percival a. FoTHEEf.iLL, B.A., F.R.A.S.

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.

XI.

Br W. Mattieu Williams.

VLWAYS keeping in view that the primary problem in
roasting is to raise the temperature throughout to the
cooking heat with the smallest possible degree of desiccation
of the natural juices of the meat, and applying to this
problem the laws of vapour diffusion expounded in my last,
it is easy enough to understand the theoretical advantages
of roasting in a closed oven, the space within which
speedily becomes saturated with those particular vapours
that resist further vaporization of these juices.

I say " theoretical," because 1 despair of practically con-
vincing any thoroughbred Englishman that baked meat is
better than roasted meat by any reasoning whatever. If,
however, he is sufficiently "un-English" to test the question
experimentally, he may possibly convince himself. To do
this fairly, a large joint of meat should be equally divided,
one half roasted in front of the fire, the other in a non-
ventilated oven over a little water 1 ly a cook who knows

U2

KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 8, l«t3.

how to heat the lattt-r. Tliis condition is essential, as
some intelligence is deniandtd in regulating the tempera-
ture of an oven, while any Imrliarian can carry out the
modern modification of the ordinary device of the savage,
who skewers a bit of meat, and holds this near enough to
a tire to make it frizzle.

Having settled this question to my own satisfaction more
than twenty years ago, 1 now amuse myself occasionally V)y
experimenting upon others, and continually find that the
most uncompromising theoretical haters of baked meat
practically prefer it to orthodox roasted meat, provided
always that they eat it in ignorance.

Part II. of Count Rumford's "Tenth Essay" is devoted
to his roaster and roasting generally, and occupies 94 pages,
including the special preface. This preface is curious now,
as it contains the following apology for delay of publica-
tion : — " During several months, almost the whole of my

fifty-seven minutes (and consequently muddled my sub-
ject in the vain struggh; to condense it), I tried to find the
original roaster, but failed ; all that remained of the original
" repository " being a few models put out of the way as
though they were empty wine-bottles. I am not finding
fault, as the noble work that has been done there Vjy Davy,
Faraday, and Tyndall must have profoundly gladdened the
supervising soul of Rumford (supposing that it does such
spiritual supervision), in spite of his neglected roast€T,
which I must now describe without further digression.

It is shown open and out of its setting in Fig. 1, and
there seen as a hollow cylinder of sheet-iron, which for
ordinary use may be about IS inches in diameter, and iM
inches long, closed permanently at one end, and by a hinged
double door of sheet-iron (dd) at the other. The doubling
of the door is for the purpose of retaining the heat by
means of an intervening lining of ill-conducting material

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

time was taken up with the business of the Royal Institu-
tion ; and those who are acquainted with the objects of
that noble establishment will, no doubt, think that I
judged wisely in preferring its interest to every other
concern." To those who have attended the fashionable
gatherings held on Friday evenings in " that noble estab-
lishment" during the London season, it is almost comical
to read what its founder says concerning the object for which
it was instituted, viz., the noble purpose of Diffusing the

KSOWLEDGE AND FACILITATING THE GENERAL INTRODDCTION
OF SEW AND USEFUL INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMF.NTS." The

capitals are Rumford's, and he illustrates their meaning by
reference to " the repository of this new establishment,"
where specimens of pots and kettles, ovens, roasters, fire-
places, gridirons, tea-kettles, kitchen-boilers, &.C., might be
inspected.

Some years ago, when I was sufficiently imprudent to
accept an invitation to describe Rumford's scientific
researches in one Friday evening lecture, rigidly limited to

Fig. 4.

Or a single door of sheet-iron, with a panel of wood outside,
may be used. The whole to be set horizontally in brick-
work, as shown in Fig. 4, the door front being flush with
the front of the brickwork. The flame of the small fire
below plays freely all round it by filling the enveloping flue-
space indicated by the dotted lines on Fig. 4. Inside the-
cylinder is a shelf to support the dripping-pan (d) Fig. 1,
which is separately shown in Figs. 2 and .'5.

This dripping-pan is an important element of the
apparatus. Fig. 3 shows it in cross section, made ap
of two tin-plate dishes, one above the other, arranged to
leave a space (w) between. This space contains water,
half to three-quarters of an inch in depth. Abo\e is a
gridiron, shown in plan. Fig. 2, on which the meat rests ;,
the bars of this are shown in section in Fig. 3. The object
of this arrangement is to prevent the fat which drips from
the meat from being over heated and filling the roaster
with the fumes of "burnt," /.<:., partially decomposed, fat
and gravy, to the tainting influence of which Rumford

June 8, 1883.

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

543

attributed the English prejudice against baked meat. So
long as any water remains the dripping cannot be raised
more than two or three degrees above 212°.

The tube i; Fij;. 1, is £or carrying away vapour, if
necessary. Tliis tube may be opened or closed by means of
a damper moved by the little handle shown on the right.
The heat of the roaster is regulated by means of the register
c in the ash-pit door of the fireplace, its dri/nens by the
above-named damper of the steam tube v, and also by the
blowpipes, b p.

These are iron tubes, about 2 J in. in diameter, placed
underneath, so as to be in the midst of the flame as it
ascends from the tire into the enveloping flue, shown by the
dotted lines, Fig. 4, where their external openings are shown
at b p. It p, and the plugs l)y which they may be opened or
closed in Fig. 1. It is evident that by removing these
plugs and opening the damper of the steam pipe a blast of
hot, dry air will be delivered into the roaster at its back
part, and it must pass forward to escape by the steam pipe.
As these blow pipes are raised to a red heat when the tiro
is burning briskly, the temperature of this blast of air may
1)6 very high ; with even a very moderate fire, suliiciently
high to desiccate and spoil the meat if they were kept open
during all the time of cooking. They are accordingly to be
kept closed until the last stage of the roasting is reached ;
then the fire is urged by opening the ash-pit register, and
when the blow-pipes are about red-hot their plugs are
removed, and the steam-pipe damper is opened for a few
minutes to brown the meat by means of the hot wind thus
generated.

It will be observed that a special fire directly under the
roaster is here designed, and that this fire is enclosed in
brickwork. This is a general feature of Rumford's
arrangements, which I shall have to discuss more fully
when I come to the subject of kitchen fires. The economy
of the whole device will be understood by the fact that in
a test experiment at the Foundling Institution of London,
he roasted 112 lb. of beef with a consumption of only
22 lb. of coal (three pennyworth, at 2.5s. per ton).

Rumford tells us that " when these roasters were first pro-
posed, and before their merit was established, many doubts
were entertained respecting the taste of the food prepared
in them," but that, after many practical trials, it was
proved that " meat of every kind, without any exception,
roasted in a roaster, is better tasted, hiijlier Jhivoured, and
much more juicy and delicate than when roasted on a spit
before an open fire." These italics are in the original, and
the testimony of competent judges is quoted.

I must describe one experiment in detail. Two legs of
mutton from the same carcar.s made equal in weight before
cooking were roasted, one before the fire and the other in
a roaster. When cooked both were weighed, and the joint
roasted in the roaster proved to be heavier than the other
by 6 per cent. They were brought upon table at the sanu;
time, "and a large and perfectly unprejudiced company
was assembled to eat them." Both were found good, but
a decided preference given to that cooked in the roaster,
"it was much more juicy, and was thought better tasted."
Both were fairly eaten up, nothing remaining of either
that was eatable, and the fragments collected. " Of the
leg of mutton which had been roasted in the roaster,
hardly anything visible remained, excepting the bare bone ;
while a considerable heap was formed of scraps not eatable
which remained of that roasted on a spit."

T his was an eloquent experiment ; the G per cent, gained
tell of juices retained with consequent gain of flavour,
tenderness, and digestibility, and the subsequent testimony
of the scraps describes the diflference in the condition of
the tendonous, integumentary portions of the joints, which

are j ust those that present the toughest practical problems
to the cook, especially in roasting.

But why are these roasters] not in general use ? Why
did they die with their inventor 1 I will take up these
questions in my next.

^eDitoiial <go06ip.

The story of the three black crows might be matched
by some stories spread with modifications by newspapers.
Two years or so ago I learned quite a number of new
things about myself from some papers in America, which
certainly meant all in kindness which they wrote ; and,
knowing precisely what the grain of truth was around
which had gathered these accumulations of error, I was
more amused than annoyed at the mis-statements which
came under my notice. But I should have liked to trace
the growth of error, to see precisely how a trivial matter
had grown into something surprising and almost por-
tentous. In particular, I should like to have known how
a column or so of nonsense, which appeared in I know not
how many American papers, under the title of "Pro-
fessor Proctor's Romance," came into being — by what
process of evolution it was developed from one little germ
of truth contained in it.

What has recalled this amusing experience to me has
been the receipt of news from Aiistralia that, "according
to home papers, Air. R. A. Proctor has taken to wearing
stays." Readers of Knowledge will perhaps be rather
surprised at this item of news, seeing that I have rather
roundly ridiculed in these columns the practice of wearing
stays (at least, if tightly-laced), even by those who, per-
haps, have right and reason to wish to improve the figures
Nature has given them. But to me the chief interest
arises from the recognition of the rapid growth of error
around a little germ of truth. Consider how robust the
seedling must have been to germinate in this remarkable
way : — I mentioned, only a few months ago, that once
upon a time, having seen it stated and asseverated that
wearing — not stays — but a broad waistband, with a
strong and rather long busk — had led to rapid dimi-
nution of weight, I had thought it worth while
to try the experiment ; and that in my case, at any rate,
the experiment had altogether failed. So much for the
germ of truth. I might have added a few details, if I had
cared, which would perhaps have robbed the story of some
of the attractiveness which it seems to have had for the
anonymuncules of the press. For in.stance, the thing
happened fourteen or fifteen years ago, when, being but
recently " turned thirty " (whatever that expression may
signify), I might not have reached that unconcern about
figure which, Anthony Trollope has told us, comes on men
who have reached the forties. But again, the question
of figure had nothing to do with my anxiety to be
rid of superfluous fat, but — a rather more serious
matter — a certain unwillingness to die before my time.
I had been threatened with sudden cessation of circulation
such as had, only two years before, befallen a sister (whose
constitution resembled my own), and through the same cause,
fatty oppression of the heart. I had been willing enough,
till thus threatened, " to expand wisibly," and to receive
from the earth increased attentions in the way of gravita-
tion ; but I did not want to go to earth altogether for
awhile, if I could help it. An experimental attempt (and
a failure at that) to reduce my weight through waist com-
pression, fifteen years or so ago, referred to casually in
Knowledge, comes back to me from the Antipodes, after

344

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Jdne 8, 1883.

little moro tlian time to got there and back, in the form of
a recent definite recourse to corsets — now, when 1 am
considerably past the age at which every man is either
a fool or a physician.

Naturally, my good friends of the ^Melbourne press
make some little fui\ of this tlirec-black-crows item of news.
I should l)e fair game, were it true. If it is of any interest
to them (as ajiparently it is) to note such matters, I may
mention that when I made the e.xperiment in question,
ttrelvc years before my visit to Australasia, I weighed
14 St. 7 11)., whereas during the time of my visit to them I
drew but 11 st. 10 lb. ; and even now only V2 st. 6 lb.

A LETTER in the Times, signed C. Pritchard, presumably
from the Rev. Charles Pritchard, Savilian Professor of
Astronomy at Oxford, speaks of the advantage of the
study of the Greek language. Mr. Pritchard's repugnance
to a scheme by which the degree of Bachelor of Natural
Science might be obtained without the necessity of pass-
ing a previous examination in Greek, arose, it appears,
" from a life-long experience of the educational advantages
derivable from a study of the Greek language and litera
ture." The world had, it seems, "misapprehended the
motives which induced some of us Museum Professors to
vote against " that scheme. " I, with others," says Mr.
Pritchard, " felt that it was an invidious thing to single
out us poor science men as the only university students
desirous of escaping Greek." Whether Professor Adams
or Professor Cayley, or, in fact, any university professor
who has made a name in science, would trouble himself to
express strong repugnance lest he, not being a " poor "
science man, should be suspected of ignorance of Greek,
is a question which may occur to some who know how
very much one professor differs from another in distinction.
One can imagine {apropos des holies) that ^Esop's daw,
conscious of questionable tail-feathers, might have insisted
on the beak as a feature which a life-long experience had
taught him to regard as all-important among b irds.

Seriously, if the opinion of science is to be taken on
the question of the study of Greek by those who go in
for degrees in Natural Science, one would like to have the
opinion, not of " poor" science men, but of the real men of
science who honour the universities by holding professor-
ships there. Professor Adams, co-discoverer of Neptune
with the great Leverrier, Professor Cayley, the greatest
master of pure mathematics living, and men of like
standing, are rather annoyingly silent on this subject;
Professor Pritchard, author of ? — , discoverer of ? — , in-
ventor of 1 — , but promiser of new lunar theories, and like
loud-sounding nothings, is scarce less annoyingly voluble.

Still, Professor Pritchard's exceptional familiarity with
Greek language and literature may, perhaps, entitle him to
speak. I remember once, when a new and atrocious addi-
tion to astronomical nomenclature was under discussion
before the Astronomical Society, I objected strongly, and I
am glad to think effectively, to the proposed word — leuco-
sphere (or white sphere)— on the ground, among other more
important reasons, that the word, judged by its sound, would
be mistaken for wolf-sphere ; on which I was told by Pro-
fessor Pritchard, considerably to my astonishment, that the
Greek for a wolf was "not \iiKi,r, but Xi-nr." This singular
discovery was perhaps one of the results of "a lifelong
experience of the educational advantages arising from a
study of the Greek language and literature." Professor
Pritchard must be almost as well fitted to speak with
authority on this point as on questions suited to " poor
science students."

Erbi'ririsf.

THE PAST OF OUR EARTH.*

By JticiiARD A. Phoctob.

THIS would not be the place for a review, properly so-
called, of the masterly treatise before us, full as it is
of matter which, though exactly described and dealt with,
cannot be said to be plainly worded. So far as this book
is to be regarded as a mathematical treatise, it is outside
our lines ; we need only note that the mathematical treat-
ment of the subjects dealt with is thorough and admirable,
and even that will be no news to those whom it alone
concerns — advanced mathematicians — seeing that the
names of Professors Thomson and Tait are a guarantee
for profound and accurate investigation of all subjects
falling within the range of mathematical inquiry.

But matters are dealt with in this work, which, though
here treated in a way which only mathematicians can
follow, are full of interest to all students of science. Among
these are (1) the subject of the tides, admirably dealt with
in the present work, in sections 798-811 ; (2) the effects of
tidal friction (sections 830, 8-31, and Appendix G) and
their connection vrith w-hat is commonly termed the lunar
acceleration, though analogy would suggest the use of
another expression! ; (3) the condition of the earth's
interior (sections 832-8-16 ; (4) the secular cooling of the
earth ; (.5) the age of the sun's heat ; (6) and the size of
atoms.

In dealing with the cooling of the earth. Professor
Thomson maintains that, on the whole, there is reason for
regarding as probable those geological speculations which
assume somewhat greater extremes of heat, some violent
storms and floods, more luxuriant vegetation, and hardier
and coarser-grained plants and animals in remote antiquity.
" A middle path," he says, "though not generally safest in
scientific speculations, seems to be so in this case. It is
probable that hypotheses of grand catastrophes, destroying
all life from the earth, and ruining its whole surface at
once, are greatly in error; " but, on the other hand, "it is
impossible that hypotheses assuming an equality of sun and
storms for 1,000,000 years can be wholly true."

In the same interesting portion of the work before us,
Sir W. Thomson, speaking of an opinion advanced by Sir
Charles Lyell, respecting the possible maintenance of the
earth's heat without change throughout countless ages,
uses words which may be applied without change of a word
to the stupendous theory advanced by Sir C. Siemens not
so very long since — such an idea of a practically endless
cycle " violates the principles of natural philosophy in
exactly the same manner, and to the same degree, as to
believe that a clock constructed with a self-winding move-
ment may fulfil the expectations of its ingenious inventor
by going for ever." The earth is necessarily cooling from
century to century ; her volcanic energies are certainly
diminishing, as certainly, to use an illustration of Sir W.
Thomson's, as the quantity of gunpowder in a " monitor "
is diminishing when hour after hour she is seen to discharge

* " Treatise on Natural Philosophy." By Professors Sir W.
Tliomson and P. G. Tait. Tol. I., Part II. (Cambridge University
Press.)

t It is well pointed ont by onr authors that the ordinary use of
the expression " lunar acceleration " is as incorrect as would be the
use of the word " acceleration " to describe the fall of a body in
whatever period is taken as the unit of time, and the cnmraon but
really absurd mistake of speaking of a clock as so many seconds or
minutes fast, when in reality it is only by so much in advance of
true time. The authors of the work before us suggest the use of
the words " lunar advance " to express what has hitherto been
erroneously called " lunar acceleration."

June 8, 1883.]

* KNOWLEDGE

345

shot and shell, whether at a nearly equaWe rate or not,
without receiving fresh supplies of ammunition.

Professor Thomson is led by a consideration of the
necessary order of cooling and consolidation of the earth,
to infer that the interior of our world is not, as commonly
supposed, all liquid, within a thin, solid crust of from 30
to 100 miles thick, but that it is on the whole more rigid
than a continuous solid globe of glass of the same
diameter, and probably more rigid than such a globe of
steel.

ORGAXIC CHEMISTIIY.*

Oroaxic chemistry — or, more correctly, the chemistry of
the carbon compounds — is regarded by many as a dry and
disagreeable study — the mere investigation of alkaloids.
Yet it is, in truth, the key to the study of life. It is a
study calling into exercise not only observation and expe-
riment, but close and careful reasoning. The book before
us has dealt with this important subject — as fully and
completely as could possibly, we think, be done within its
limits — in such a way as to prepare the student to read
understandingly, and with interest, the literature of
organic chemistry. It is intended as a textbook, not
a dictionary, of compounds, or a work of reference.
It seems admirably adapted for the purposes of the
teacher. In particular we must recommend the system
by which, at the end of each group, there is a retro-
spect, re\iewing the compounds considered, and surveying
the typical reactions and inter-relations of the various
classes of substances. These retrospects, following on the
detailed facts relating to each group, are much more intel-
ligible and much more useful to the student than thej' can
be as sometimes presented — that is, as broad generalisa-
tions respecting groups of compounds with which the
student'is little acquainted. Dr. Austen has preserved the
pleasant lecture style of Prof. Pinner's book, and he has
added the more important recent discoveries in organic
chemistry, making free use of suitable textbooks and
works of reference. The book is one we can cordially re-
commend to students of organic chemistrj-.

EUROPEAN MINERAL WATERS, t

Mineral waters are so often recommended as specific
remedies for diseases, or for conditions threatening
disease, that it is well to have trustworthy statements
respecting their real value. There are those who assert
that the " waters " themselves have less to do with the
benefits attained from spas than the regimen enjoined. But
no physician doubts the efficacy of magnesium and soda
salts, though many would be perplexed to define the precise
results which might be expected — apart from regimen — to
follow the use of mineral waters of complex composition.
Be this as it may, it is important to ha\e a trustworthy
work of reference, like this book before us, in regard to the
chief mineral waters. In particular it is well that the
errors repeated in many of the books about mineral waters
(errors largely arising from changes which have taken place
in the composition of these waters) should be corrected.

* " An Introduction to the Study of Organic Chemistrr." By
Adolph Pinner, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry in the University of
Berlin. Translated and revised from the fifth German edition by
Peter T. Austen, Ph.D., F.C.S., Professor of Chemistry, Rutgers
College, and the New Jersey State Scientific School. (London :
Trubner 4 Co.)

+ " The Mineral Waters of Europe ; inclndinCT a short description
of Artificial Mineral Waters." By C. E. C. Tinhborne, LL.D.,
F.E.C.S., &c., and Prosser James", M.D., M.R.C.P. (London:
Baillifre, Tindall, & Cox.)

This has been done, and done well, in I»r. Tichborne's work.
The waters have been either examined specially for this
purpose, or use has been made of the work of recent
analysts of competent skill. The new analyses are nearly
one hundred in number, and represent work extending
over three years. The chapters on the therapeutical action
and uses of the several mineral waters, liy Dr. Prosser
James (which alternate with those written liy Dr. Tich-
borne) are based on practical knowledge, obtained at the
source of many of the most important waters.

POEMS FOR PENNY READINGS.*

For Penny Readings some folks fancy such poems and
ballads as Tennyson, 8cott, Burns, Adelaide Procter,
Aytoun, and some other poets known rather favourably to
fame, have written. But this fault is to be found with all
such poems — the reader must always be to some degree
doubtful whether the applause which follows the reading is
due to the beauty of the poem or to the ability with which
it has been read. The great merit of the collection before
us is that it leaves room for no doubt of this sort. We
know of no seriously intended poems better in this respect,
and only of one poem better among those not so intended
— to wit, the one which relates to "Lost Mr. Blake." A
reader who could move the feelings and rouse emotion by
the sweet poem which begins —

Mr. Blake was a regrular out-and-out liardened sinner,

Who was quite out of the pale of Christianity, so to speak ;
He was in the habit of smoking a long pipe and drinking a glass of
grog on a Sunday after dinner,
And seldom tliought of going to church more than twice or — if
Good Friday or Christmas Day happened to come in
it — three times a week,

might be as successful with Agra's poems and ballads.

The volume opens with a poem after (rather a long way
after) the Burial of Moore. It relates to Lieut. Brookes, at
Tel-el-Kebir, beginning, and also closing, with the touching
lines :

Bury him in the blood-stained sand.
On the spot where he bravely fell.
With his broken spade in his cold right hand —
The spade that he swung so well.

But " The Water-logged Barque " is, to our taste, the
finest thing in the book. At the outset the barque
was under full sail, " a mountain of snow, inexpressibly
grand," the " royals glancing in the light of the morning
sun ;"

" While the foresail, bulging out before,
Swell'd in the breeze still more and more,

Seem'd, as it were, a cathedral dome
Dark in the shadow."

But the skipper saw that this was no time

" To gazo
On the snow-white canvas' towering maze,"

So he

" Spoke to the mate, who sang out the hail,
' Get in the flying jib and the gaff top-aail.' "

So actively did the crew attend to this and " succeeding
orders following fast," that "the main-sail was .stow'd ere
noon was past ; " and even this work of stowing the main-
sail in a few hours did not show the full activity of the
crew ; for some of them had been below, whence, however,
they were called.

The ship was stripp'd and close recf'd at last.
The weather changed, it began to blow.

*" Poems and Ballads for Penny Readings." By Agra. (Wyman
& Sons. London.)

i

346

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[JcSE 6, 1883.

Then

Fiercer bUU the wilil utorin-blastKrow,
The sea olianfjed nt onco from deepest blue
To a (lark ami greasy, slojipy green.

But even this unpleasant state of things only heralded

worse, for —

As squall followed squall in infernal roar, —
Such an awful tumult I'd ne'er heard before.
Who e'er would have thought but a few hours past
That such fearful weather for a week could last ?

The barque was thrown on her beam ends, and though
"now and then when it ceased to blow we righted a
moment ' it was

" Only to fall
Down flat with a jerk that electrified all ; "

Evidently the crew had a shocking bad time. The worst
of the trouble, however, was to come. The ship after
several days sprang a leak, which blanch'd every cheek, for

'twas awful to think
That our cargo was such that she could not sin!:.

Therefore, all hands naturally went to the pumps ; but as
she could not sink,

we worked in vain,
For days we kept up the fearful strain,

Till the useless toil severely told.
We left off exhausted, worn out, one by one —
The skipper admitted no more could be done.

There is nothing more impressive, perhaps, in modern
poetry than this, unless it be found in Gilbert's touching
lines —

For a month we'd neither wittles nor drink,

Till a hungry we did feel.

Being rather tired after working several days at the pumps,
the crew

" wish'd she'd sink,
But knew she would not ; there on the brink
Of death ever present days we stood
Lash'd to the poop-rails."

How the crew of the waterlogged barque was eventually
saved, we leave the penny-reader to disclose, sure that every
soul in an audience which has heard the whole of this
poem — the gem of the collection — will feel with him as he
utters the closing lines —

"of all I've passed through in my day,
That most miserable time bears the blackest mark,
For the worst of all was ' The Water-logged Barque.'"

Some of the other poems in the volume are almost
equally fine, yet none quite so grand as this one.

THE FACE OF THE SKY.

Fbom June 8 to June 22.
By F.R.A.S.

THE period of maximum Solar disturbance has now certainly
passed, but watch should still be kept for occasional outbreaks
of spots, etc. The face of the night sky will be found delineated in
Map VI. of " The Stars in their Seasons." Twilight now persists
all night long in the British Islands ; hence it is an unfavourable
time for observing nebulaj and similar objects. As regards the
planets, the heavens are really a practical blank during the next
fortnight. Mercury, Mars, Jupiter. Saturn, Uraims, and Neptune
being quite invisible, and Venus onl)- twinkling as a little disc less
than 12" in diameter near the eastern horizon just before sun-
rise. The moon's age at noon to day (8th) is 32 days, and on the
22nd obviously she will be 17'2 days old. Hence from the 8th to
the 17th, and on the 21st and 22nd she will be in a succession of
favourable phases for the observer with the telescope. Four occul-
tations (all of 0th magnitude stars) will occur at convenient hours
during the period of which we are treating. The first happens on

Juno 10, when 14 Seitantis will disappear at the moon's dark
limb at 'J h. 10 m. p.m. at an angle of 130' from her vertex, and re-
ap]iear at 10 h. 6 m. p.m. at her bright limb at an angle of 202° from
the vertex of the moon. On the 14th 50 Virginis will disap])ear at
the dark limb at 8 h 51 m. in the evening at an angle from the moon's
vertex of 104°; reappearing at 10 h. 8 m. p.m. at her bright limb
at a vertical angle of 252°. On the 17th 41 Librse will disappear at
midnight at the moon's dark limb at an angle of 23° from her
vertex; to reappear 14 minutes later at her bright limb at an angle
from her vertex of 5°. Finally 16 Sagittarii will disappear at the
bright limb of the moon at 8 h. 55 m. p.m. on June 20, at an angle
of 20° from her vertex. It will really reappear at her dark limb,
but she will be so nearly full at this instant, that the reappearance
of the star will apparently occur at the bright part of her limb,
situated at an angle or 282' from her vertex, at 9 h. 57 m. p.m. The
moon will be in Cancer during the whole of the 8th and part of the
0th, during which day she will pass into Leo. On the 10th she will
travel across Sextans, and so re-enter the eastern part of Leo on the
succeeding day. During the 12th she pas.scs into Virgo, remaining
in that constellation during the whole of the 13th, 14th, and 15th.
The IGth finds her in Libra, where she continues during the succeed-
ing day. On the 18th she crosses Scorpio into the southern part of
Ophiuchus, moving on the 20th through Serpens into Sagittarius,
where we leave her.

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfked Texxtson.

Sfttfiei to ti)t emov.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly he in-
serted. Correspondents must not be offended, therefore, should their
letters not appear.

All Hditorial communications sho^dd be addressed to the Editob op
Knowledge; all Business communications to the Publishers, at the
Office, 74; Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to,
delays arise foe which the Editor is not responsible.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of corre fmdenls.

No communications are answered by post, even though stamped
AND directed envelope be enclosed.

SINGULAR SOLAR PHENOMENON.
[839] — Last Sunday (May 26), while observing the sun with my
3-inch refractor, power 200, 1 was surprised to find that the lower left
limb, as seen in the telescope, presented the following appearance : —
The projecting piece was of a greenish-yellow colour, which at first
led me to fancy that the effect was due to some fault in the O.G.

However, when the limb was brought into the centre of the field, no
change occurred, though the remsiinder of the sun's edge was per-
fectly sharp, whether seen at the edge or centre of the field. The
face was abnormally mottled, and free from spots. Sky very clear.
A friend informs me to-day that he observed the same thing with
his 8i-inch Calver. " W. Owen Prosseb, F.C.S.

STAYS AND HEALTH.
[840] — Pr.ay do not consider me too late in offering some of my
personal experience. Australia is very far for joining in discussions
carried on in England ; but this subject ia of such moment to the

Jive S, 1883.J

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

347

uhancement of onr race that I think it ought never to be deemed
ti>o late while one stays-wearer remain to be benefited by informa-
tion upon it.

When about fifteen years old, the dominant powers encased me
in stays. At first I cried much ; then common-sense urged some-
thing more executive. Now and again I removed a bone or two,
then cut a piece off, gradually lessening the size of the hated
encumbrance until it was reduced to a mere belt, and finally I gave
that up.

I need not tell you the inflictions those wretched instruments of
torture entailed upon my young supple body, because you had the
courage to try them — for which honest confession I feci so pleased
with you that, in return, 1 confess, in my case, vanity aided good
sense; for always after visiting the statnary in the British Museum,
I was exceedingly discontented with the appearance of my own
wooden-looking bust. That was thirty-eight years ago, and I have
never once since been induced, or derided, into anything even
resembling stays. Back-ache, chest-ache, headache, anil indiges-
tion in any form, are unkno^^■n to me. When you receive this I
shall have entered my fifty-seventh year. Running is an enjoyment
I often take, and I can jump, when necessary.

For twelve years, with the exception of a few months, I rode
and drove daily, often five, six, or seven hours in the saddle. If
your readers — especially the lady portion — will reflect upon the
fact that it was during those years my children were born, and
that they are now powerful men, healthy in mind and body, they
will understand the thoroughness of the test. Wei-o K.nowledge a
medical journal, I could give other proofs, almost too astounding
for belief by those who have gone through very different
experiences.

I have watched healthy girls gradually become weak and sickly
after commencing stays-wearing. Both publicly and privately I
have advocated the adoption of a more healthful mode of dress,
and have satisfactory proofs of success mth some, but the infatua-
tion for displaced ribs is so strong that yet awhile the generality of
women would rather listen to the sophistries of such people as
your correspondent "Observer" than to the soundest reason, born
of experience. Any one sincerely wishing the progress of humanity
cannot look at our beautiful (in face) young girls without a feeling
of pain, hobbling along in their compressing boots, squeezed
waist, unpleasantly-swelled hips, and crooked shoulders. As years
increase, the baleful effect of outraging nature can be sadly seen
in their countenances. Long internal suffering of that sort injures
the brain; hence the thousands of nothings of both sexes. For
those, like myself, earnestly wishing and hoping the rise of woman
— which means the rise of all human-kind — it is a most distressing
cause for serious thought.

I cannot doubt your excellent articles upon it will be beneficial
to all who really observe, think honestly, and act truthfully. You
wield a great and responsible power. May you long continue to do
so faithfully and fearlesslv, H. A. Dfciui-K.

Camberwell {Victoria),'.4|)ri7 11, 1883.

RATIONAL DEESS.

[841] — Haring read your various articles on dress reform, I am
constrained, in gratitude, to acknowledge the benefits I have received
from its adoption ; and I should like, in a few words, to show how
easily such reform may be effected. I need only mention that I
now wear a flannel combination, aud, in place of the objectionable
stays, I have a loose, twilled, calico bodice, which reaches down to
my hips, and is set in a band, on which is buttoned tlie divided
skirt ; over this is my ordinary dress, having the skirt and jacket-
bodice attached. I was led finally to this arrangement from reflect-
ing on the more rational character of my husband's attire ; and I
may add that the comfort and freedom I now enjoy from my new
costume have exceeded my most sanguine expectations. L. M.

[842] — It may interest you to know that, being inspired by j'our
article in Knowlebge, I have left off wearing stays. Since I have
done so I have been in better health, I have been able to walk
greater distances without fatigne, and my voice for singing has
greatly improved, and altogether I have derived immense comfort
from the free use of all parts of my body.

I cannot resist writing to express my gratitude to you for having
pointed out one of the greatest errors women are guilty of. I oidy
hope that many of my fellow countrywomen may benefit by your
advice.

I may mention that I am eighteen, and have worn corsets
(owing to my height) since I was twelve. Since I have left them
off I have never missed the support, and would not, on any account,
wear them again. ' L. M. G. B.

A FEW OBSERVATIONS ON HEAT.
[843]— In a large number of heat problems we have to multiply
specific heat by temperature ; but, so far as I am aware, no attempt
has ever been made to explain the nature of the resulting product.
Nor is such explanation possible by means of physics alone ;
though by the aid of dynamics, it seems to bo remarkably simple.
Mass X specific heat x temperature = quantity of heat

= quantity of motion
= momentum
= mass X velocity
.*. Specific heat x temperature = velocity
Which, for simplicity, we may write —

ht" = V
This rcsnit enables us to deduce the formula for specific heat
from a purely dynamical theorem ; for in the method by mixture,
we have merely to regard the two substances as composed of im-
perfectly elastic particles moving with certain velocities, and
impinging directly upon one another. Let us consider a single
molecule, with mass A, in the one substance, and a single molecule,
with mass B, in the other ; and let u ii, be the velocity of A before
and after impact, and i^ i', the same with respect to B.

Then, since action and reaction are equal and opi)osite,
total momentum before impact = total momentum after impact
i.e., AuiT Bi-i = Au + Bv
:. Au-Au, = B,-t-Bv
Representing the required specific heat of A by h and its tem-
perature by (°. and supposing /ij and t^ to stand in the same capacity
for B, and 6 to be the temperature of the mixture, and substituting
these values in the above equation, we get
Ahir-e) = Bhtid-f)

■ h = — — ;' which is the formula

'^^'"-"^ ,. .

for specific heat. If B bo ice-cold water, then A impinges upon B

at rest, and r = 0; also 'ii = l, so that

; iJ9

A(r-ii)

It will also be seen that by the same theorem we can easily arrive
at the general value for 9

Aht + Bh,t,.t-. . . S(Aht)
Ah -hlJ/i, -i-T". ."s(Xh)

Many other important results may be deduced without much
difficulty ; but, for the present, let us confine ourselves to one in
particular. Since .4?i(° = 3/ (momentum), if 3/ and C be constant,
hxl/A. Does not this give us the reason why specific heat is in-
versely proportional to atomic weight ? Such certainly seems to be
the case ; and moreover, this question embodies the results ex-
jjerimentally obtained by Regnault and others. But here at once
we come to an apparent discrepancy ; for only elementary solids
are supposed to follow Dulongand Petit's law, whereas our equation
would lead us to expect it to be universal. In the case of gases,
however, I think this discrepancy will disappear when we compare
them under similar conditions ; and, in order to do so, we must
bring to 'our aid another formula, mass = volume x density. The
numbers obtained for solids varj", owing to experimental differences,
from 57 to 69 ; the following table will show that those for many
gases do not show a greater variation.

w„ Product of
Name of Gas.

r Hydrogen
1 Nitrogen
Simple gases •; Oxygen
I Chlorine
[ Bromine
Gases formed ( Hydrochloric acid
without < Carbon monoside
condensation (. Nitrogen dioxide

f Carbon dioxide
Gases formed I Sulphur dioxide

with < Nitrogen monoxide
condensation ( Steam
1_ { Water
To this list may, I think, be added alcohol, ethyl sulphide, ethyl
cyanide, and many other vapours of a more complex constitution ;
but I have omitted them, as I am not quite certain of the exact
change in volume which takes place in their formation.

It would be irrational to suppose that the closeness of these
figures, not only amongst themselves, but also to those of the
elementary solids, is a scries of coincidences ; it follows directly
from the equation -4/i('' = J/, and may fairly be claimed as a cor-
roboration of that equation. The case of the carbon compounds is
especially noteworthy. AlthouL'h their behaviour is perfectly
regular, carbon itself is at ordinary temperatures a decided excep-

ft-eiRht.

ot vols

cols.

3-409

1

2

6-82

•244

14

2

6-83

■217

16

2

6-96

•121

35-5

2

8-59

•555

80

2

8-88

•185

36 5

1

6-75

•245

28

1

6^86

•232

30

1

6-96

•217

44

f

6-36

•155

64

f

661

•227

44

^

6-63

•480 ■)
•504)

18

(■5.76

^605

348

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

Jn.NE 8, 1883.

tion to Dulong and Pctlt'a law. Conscqiioiitly, may wo not infer
that thiTc is a temperature at which carbon i.s not an exception 'i
Hut, if onr equation bo universally applicable, M is a constant for
all substances and at all teniporatures ; so that when t° is also a
constant, hxl/X, i.e. Ii-clj vcjlunic x density. Honco, we may, jier-
liaps, conclude that the Bpecilic heal depends upon the mode of atomic
aggrcKatiou, a conclusion that is in uccordiinco with experiment ;
and, if so, wo have an easy mode of ascertaining the changes in this
mode, provided that we can fix the value of M approximately.
Water and iodine may bo nicutioned as simple instances ; in each
case, tho spocitic heat of the liquid is exactly twice that of the
vapoiu-. In the same way, too, we might explain tho divergence of
chlorine and bromine from tho law ; for there seems no reason why
they should bo treated in one way and carbon in another.

To return to the formula with which wo started, hf = v. It may
be asked what are h and C respectively equivalent to in dynamics ?
It is difficult to answer tho question with any certainty ; but as v=-
space

time ' "^""^ ^® temperature seems to correspond to space, we may
regard specific heat as inversely proportional to time ; a result that
accords with " Method by Cooling." It must not be forgotten that
I' has been taken to represent the velocity, not of progression, but
of vibration ; but, when care is taken not to confound the two, the
laws of dynamics appear to be ap])licab]e to problems connected
with either. For, from the motion of two balls impinging obliquely
on each other, we can deduce the laws of the refraction of heat and
light ; from the motion of a ball impinging obliquely upon a fixed,
smooth plane, we can deduce the laws of reflection, and so on. Of
course, in the case of a constant som-ce of heat, we have uniformly
accelerated motion to deal with, and different formula! must be
employed. By the aid of these it is not impossible that we shall be
able, theoretically, to estimate tho boiling points of different
liquids ; an hypothesis that I trust, before long, to be in a position
to verify. H^-on Colkman- Davidsox.

HOW TO USE THE EYES.

[843] — I have read the articles under this heading, by Mr. John
Browning, with special interest, and for personal reasons, similar
to your own, my eyes being extremely odd, instead of a pair. I
tliink that the experience of oculists will bear me out in the
assertion that perfect equality of focal length is not so
common, nor disparity so rare, as is generally supposed.
But although a trifling inequality of vision between the right
and left eyes is a very common defect, yet I believe that my
own case would be found to bo unsurpassed, if even equalled, in
the extreme disproportion that exists. At the present moment, the
focal length (for natural vision, without effort or straining) is
about 5 in. for my left eye, and 36 in. for my right" eye.
In my youth the focal length of my short-sighted eye
was about 3 in. The other eye always has been ex-
tremely long-sighted, and so remains. As an obvious conse-
quence, my vision is distinct but single. Dual vision, distinct
or indistinct, combined or double, is beyond my personal experience
or power of conception. In either case, of short or long sight, the
one image is enabled, by its own clearness and distinctness, en-
tirely to obliterate the other, which is dim and blurred; and,
although I can, by an effort, obtain double and indistinct vision of
an object at a distance of 10 or 12 inches, in practice I never do.
The stereoscope and binocular are of no use to me— have no raUon
d'etre in my eyes ; indeed, I dispute the truth of the scientific
explanation of the former ; inasmuch as, with either eye singly, I
can distinguish a plane from a convex or concave surface, or a solid.
Similarly, spectacles are, in my view, superfluous disfigurements.
No optician could make a pair to suit my vision, because the dimi-
nution for the one eye and the m»gnifying for the other would
present two well-defined images of immensely different dimensions,
which would not coincide and coalesce, whereby I should have dis-
tinct dual in lieu of as now Single Vision.

[My own experience is closely akin to " Single Vision's "; but
the explanation of the stereoscope is right enough.— R. P.]

WART CHARMING.

[844]— ^ot to occupy your valuable space with unnecessary
prefatory matter on tho above subject, I would inerely wish to
mention, m corroboration of the cllicacy of the moans described in
your last in reference to tho removal of warts on tho hands that
one of my daughters was troubled for some years with these un-
sightly excrescences, until, happening to hear of a "charmer," in
tho person of a not very distant neighbour, she waived her in-
credulity for tho time and paid the operator a visit. The modus
operandi was precisely the same as that narrated by "Puzzled

Sceptic," the warts were counted, and my daughter left. Before
tho end of a month every wart had disappeared. Very strange,
but very true I W.

EASY MULTIPLIKG.

[845] — I discovered tho rule for squaring numbers mentally some
years ago. It does not apply to particular cases only, but ia
general. The formula is as follows : —

a-=(o + i)) (a— t) + fc=
To take the number given by yonr correspondent
35 = a
5 = b.-. 35'=(35-r5) (35-5) -i- 5-
35"= (40) (30) -(■25
35' = 1,200 + 25
1225 = 1225
Take 87. Here I will equal 3 —

&7"=(87-t-3) (87-3) -H 3-
87-= (90) (81) + 9 = 7560 + 9
7509 = 7569
This rule I find extremely useful in practice. Most elaborately-
looking squares may be done mentally in a moment. It is also ol
great service in multiplying feet and inches of a square form.
Take the following — 7 ft. 6 in. by 7 ft. 6 in. — according to the
formula : —

(7'6"y=j(7'6").6"jj(7'6")-0|.(0"/

The result when worked out being 56 ft. 3 in. Practically I add
and deduct 6" mentally, which gives 8 by 7 and add 3 inches, the
result as above of the square of 6 inches.

Some curious mental juggling may be done in this way. Take,
for example, 75. This may be thrown into the form of 7'5, which
is 7 ft. 6, and this squared will give 56 ft. 3 in. The 3 in. is '25,
and substituting this for 3 in. will give a result 5625, omitting the
decimal point. Robebt Mooke.

LETTERS RECEIVED AND SHORT ANSWERS.

.i^ON. Vis inertias may be " a bodiless bogy," but it is quite im-
possible to accept conclusions based on the assumption that the
first law of motion is absurd, even though you have had the news
from one somewhat more fully acquainted with the laws and forces
of nature than tho great Newton himself. — W. B. Pray, believe
that no offence being meant, none is taken. L. M. H. P. Baery.
Regret that have at present no space conveniently available. —
C. E. Bell. No room for discussion of the gold question. Your
solution of chance problem not quite correct. — A. K. Hartixgton.
Thanks ; but no available time. — E. F. B. H. No space for descrip-
tion of the telescope you mention. — Amatevk. Consult text-bookon
microscope. — P. Chapman. No one who considers the mechanism
of the foot can doubt for a moment that the fashionable boots are
most injurious. — Student. The fears as to probable early exhaus-
tion of English coal rather exaggerated. — A Constant Subsceibee.
You seem to know all about the surface of tho sun. I congratulate
you. You are the only man living who does. How gratifying that
must be to you. — .^EoN (last letter). Newton conceived grarity as
acting by a series of impulses, but he did not imnjiiie that it so
acted. — E. Sellon would like some information about the natural
history of the parasite infesting the ivindpipes of chickens, and
producing the disease known as " gapes."

®nv iWatftrmattfal Columiu

GEOMETRICAL PROBLEMS.

B\- Richard A. Proctor.

Construction — (contin ued).

SUPPOSE we had to solve such a problem as the following : —
From a given point mitside the acute angle conJained hv two
given .straight lines, to draw a straight line so that the part inter-
cepted between the two given straight lines may be eqiial to the part
between the given point and the nearest liyie.

Here the natural process, in constructing the figure, would be to
draw the lines. AB and BC (Fig. 2), and taking P as the given
point, to draw 1' D E, so that P D and D E might be as nearly equal
as possible. The proper way, however, is to draw a straight
line, P E, bisect it in D, and through the points D E to draw tho
lines, A D E, C E B, meeting in B.

June S, 18S3.]

* KNO^A^LEDGE ♦

349

Agoiu, suppose a problem spoko of a circlo touching a given
line in a given point, iiud passing through another given point.
Then we should not tlraw a stright line, and, taking tho points, P

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

and Q (Fig. 3), attempt to draw a circle through Q to touch A D in
P. We should tirst draw tho circle, then draw a tangent, A P B,
and take a convenient point, Q, upon the circumference of the
circle.

In like manner if, in a deduction, mention is made of a circle in-
scribed within, or circumscribed without a triangle, wo shall obtain
a far more satisfactory tigure by drawing the circle tirst, and then
forming a triangle round it or within it, respectively, than by
drawing the triangle tirst.

These instauce-s suBice to exhibit the necessity of considering tho
order of the constructions needed in our 6gurc. There are some
considerations to be attended to, also, respecting the sliapes to be
given to different figures, that an examination of tho properties
they are meant to illustrate may be made as easy to us as
possible.

It is very important that the different parts of a figure should
not exhibit apparent relations not really involved in the problem
illnstiated. Lines should not seem to be equal, nor to be at right
angles to each other when they are not necessarily so. Triangles
should not seem to bo isosceles or right-angled when the problem
does not involve such relations. It is well to notice that, in general,
the most convenient form of triangle for illustrating general pro-
perties is that shown in Fig. 'l ; here the angle A is one of about
75°, the angle B one of about 60°, and the angle C one of about 45°.

Fig. 4.

Fig. 5.

When a quadrilateral figure is not necessarily either a parallelogram
or a trapesium, it is well to construct it of such a figure as A B C D
(Fig. 5), in which the four sides are uneiiual, neither pair of oppo-
site sides parallel, and the diagonals AC, B D do not make equal
angles with any side. It will be noticed, also, that neither diagonal
bisects the other. If we had a problem in which the bisections E
and P of tho diagonals were concerned, all that would bo necessary,
in order that neither diagonal might bisect the other, would bo to
draw the diagonals A C and B D jirst, so that their point of inter-
section, G, should be well removed from the bisections, E and P ;
then join A B, B C, C D, and D A.

It is sometimes convenient to draw a part of tho figure in darker
lines than the rest. We may distinguish in this way, for instance,
between the lines or circles belonging to the enunciation and those
belonging to the construction. When we are in donbt as to the
necessity of any construction, it may be lightly dotted in. In very
complex figures, dark, light, broken, and dotted lines may bo con-
veniently employed together.

Always letter every i>oint of the figure which may have to be
referred to as you proceed. It is often as well, when a result has
been established which seems to promise to be useful towards the
solution of a problem, to re-draw the figure, omitting all lines
except those which have served to guide yon to this result. But,
except in such instances, or where the figure seems obviously
nnsuited to your requirements, or has become overcrowded with
constructions, it is well to keep to the same figure as long as
possible. The habit of repeatedly re-drawing figures interferes
with the concentration of the attention, and the steady progress
from result to result, which alone avail toward tho solution of
difficult problems.

(To be continued.)

^ur €\9ti9 Column.

By Mephisto.

PLAYED IN THE SECOND UOUND OX JUNE Isr.
Irregular Opening.
Bl«ck. Wtite. Black.

Kt to KB3
P toQ4
Pto K3
Bto K2
B takes B
Castles
P to B4
Kt to B3
P to QKt3
B toQ2
R to K sq. (d)
P takes P
V to K4
Kt takes P
B takes Kt
B takes P
K to B sq.
Q to B3
B to Kt5
QRtoQsq.(/)

Ma
PtoQ4
Kt to KB3
B to Kt5 (o)
B takes Kt
P to K3
B to Q3
P to B3
QKt to Q2 (fc)
K to QB sq.
B to Kt sq. (c)
P to KR4
BP takes P
P takes P
Kt takes Kt
Kt to B3
B takes P(ch.)
R to QKt sq.
B to g3
B to K2 (e)
Castles

R (Q6) to Q2
Q toB7
R to Q3 (i)
R to y5
Q takes RP(t)
Q toB5
P to QKt4
R takes P(ch.)
RtoR3
R takes R
P to Kt5

Q to B4
B toB6
B to Kt2
QtoB3 (j>
QR to R sq.
R takes P
R to B7 (0
K to Kt sq. (m)
R to B6
Q takes R
B toB3

^ mi.'

E takes Kt
B to K4
Pto Q5
R takes P

B takes B
P to Kt3
P takes P
Q to Kt3
Q to Kt3 (o) B to Kt2 \

R to Q6 Q to B4 [

KR to Q sq. QK to K sq. (;i) 1
B to Q5 Q to B7 I

B to B4 K to R2 I

P to Kt6
P to Kt7
K to Kt sq.
QtoQ5
K to B sq.
QtksP(ch.)(,
B takes Q
P to Kt3
P takes B
K to Kt2
R to QKt sq
K to B3
RtoKt5(ch
K to Kt4
K to Kto
R to Kt6
R takes P(ch
R to QKtC

K to Kt2

R to KR sq.

Bto K4

B to R7 (ch.>

Q toB3
)Q takes Q

K takes B (o)

B takes P

KtoK3

R to QKt sq.

K toB4

K to Kt4
,) K to B3

K to Kt2

KtoR2

K to Kt2
.)K toB2

Resigns.

NOTES.

(a) Which must lead to tho exchange of the Bishop against the
Knight, thus leaving the opponent with two Bishops at a very early
stage of the game. On the other hand, it must be admitted that
the second player obtains thereby some attack.

(b) If 8 .... P takes P, White recovers tlie Pawn with 9. Q to
K2, for Black dare not reply P to QKt4, on account of 10. Kt
takes P.

(e) Making everything ship-shape for an immediate attack
against the adverse King's quarters.

(rf ) For both offensive and defensive purposes, for White threatens
now to force the opening of the King's file, and he clears a retreat
for his King.

(c) Tempting, but disastrous would he 19 ... . Kt to Kt5, 20.
R takes P (ch.), K to B sq. (best), 21. B takes Q., Kt to R7 (ch.),
22. K to K2, Kt takes Q, 23. R takes B, and White remains with a
piece ahead.

(/) 20. B to B4, B to Q3, 21. QB6 (ch.), K to K2 would be in
Black's favour.

(ij) Threatening, R to Q6, or R takes P.

(h) If 27 B to K4, White wins with 28. R takes P (ch.),

P takes K, 29. Q takes P (oh.), B to Kt2, 30. B to Q5 (ch.), and
Black must sacrifice his Queen, for if 30 .... K to R sq., White
would mate in two moves.

(i) White conducts the attack with much vigour up to this

350

• KNOV^/LEDGE ♦

[Jdne 8, 1883.

Black plays : 39. E to K sq. 40. Q to QO (ch.), K to B sq. 41
KR to Kt sq. and wins.

THE TOUKNAMENT.
BCOKE UP TO TUESDAY NIGHT.

point, but here ho niissos the strongest continuation, viz., 32.
R t.. Q7.

( / ) Well played ; ho threatens R to K2 and Q to B5 at tho same
time.

(k) After 34. R to Q7, Q to R5, 35. K to Kt sq., B to K4, 36.
R takes P (ch.), K to R3, 37. RtoR7 (ch.), Kto Kt I, White's game
would be hopelessly compromised.

(0 A miscalculation, as Mr. Mason informed us.

(»i) Of course if 37 .... P takes R, then 38. B to Q3 (ch.), and
39. B takes R.

(n) A very pretty coup, wliich either disposes of tho Bishops of
different colour or wins a Pawn.

(o) If 47 .... B to Knight sq., then 48. R to Q7, and White
mast altimately win. — Standard.

PLAYED IX

THE SECOND ROUND, JUNE

2xD, 1883.

Evans

Gambit.

White.

Black.

White.

Bkck.

Tschi-orln.

Steinit?:.

Tsc-liigorin.

Steinitz.

1.

P to K4

Pto K4

21.

P to B4

P takes P en p

2.

Kt to KB3

Ktto QB3

22.

Kt takes P

Kt to K2

3.

B toB4

B to B4

23.

P toK5

BP takes P

4.

P to QKt4

B takes P

24.

P takes P

PtoQ4

5.

P to B3

B to B4

25.

R to KB sq

Kt to B4

«.

Castles

PtoQ3

26.

Kt to Q4

Q to Kt3

7.

P toQ4

P takes P

27.

Kt takes Kt

B t.ikes Kt

8.

P takes P

B to Kt3

28.

B toR4 (h)

P to QB4

9.

Kt to B3

Kt to R4 («)

20.

R to KB3

K to Q2 (0

10.

BtoKKt5(6]

P to KB3

30.

QR to KB sq

KR to B sq

11.

B to Bi (r)

Kt takes B

31.

K to KKt3

Q toR3

12.

QtoR4 (ch.) Q to Q2

32.

B toBG

B to K3

13.

Q takes Kt

Q, to B2 (d)

33.

Q to R7 (.)■ )

KtoB3

14.

Kt to Q5 (e)

P to Kt4

34.

B to QKt 3

KtoQ2

15.

B to Kt3

B toK3

35.

QtakesPatKt3R to B3

16.

Q to K4 (ch.;

B to Q2

36.

Q, takes P(ch.

iR to B2

17.

Q to R3 ( 0

R to B sq.

37.

Q to Kt5 (ch.

R to B3

IS.

KR to K sq.

P to Kt5

38.

Q to Kt7 (ch.

RtoB2

19.

Kt takes B

RP takes Kt

39.

Q toR6

Resigns (t)

20

Kt to Q2

B to K3 («;)

NOTES.

(a) Or B to Kto, wliich leads to a satisfactory game.

{b) Tjooks like loss of time.

(c) Evidently stronger than B to R4 — the move given by the
Handbook.

{d) Recommended by the boot, but we are of opinion that P to
B3 is worthy of closer examination.

(e) A good move ; it prevents Black from playing Kt to K2,
and threatens to break up the Pawns on the Q side.

(/) White now threatens, Kt takes B, and to win a Pawn.

(3) This appears unsatisfactory ; but Black had no really satis-
factory move. If he play Kt to K2, the following would be a
tempting continuation for White : — 21. P to K5, BP takes P.
22. P takes P, P to Q4. 23. P to K6, B takes P. 24. Q to K3,
K to Q2, with a defensive position. If White does not push the
KP, Black may venture on Castling. On the whole, we should
have preferred it to the move in the text. We give a diagram of
the position after White's 20th move, Kt to Q2 : —
Steixitz.
Bt.uk.

i 1 t

^^ MH I^^ I

TSCHIGORIX.

(/i) White played the ending with great accuracy and strength.

(i) B to KB sq. would not have answered well, as White would
Ooublo the Rooks, and then Q to R4 (ch.) would be troublesome, as
neither Q nor B could interpose.

(j) This is very fine and telling pl.ay.

(i) Black has no resource. White threatens Q to Q6 (ch.). If

c^ K ^ ^ fi^ A

Bird — 1 10

Blackburne 0 i — 1

English 01

Mackenzie 0

Mason '1

Mortimer 0

Noa 1

0 —
111

oojii

000

0 !o

Rosenthal '1 jO

Sellraan 000 ;00

•Skipworth 000000

.Steinitz lliO ,0

Tcshigorin 1 jlOO

Winawer 0 ji ll

Zukertort llll 11

1 0
0011

i 00
— 0
1 —

0 0 j
OOi

1 ]01
JOO
0000

llg g

^Is «>

1 iO

111

1 11

1 \i |10

— 0000'
11!— lio
iioi:~|
ill :i
101000
1 1 .0
1 100
1 11 |4
1 ill 1

1100 0
HI 111
11101
110 0
110 1
010 0

0 '010 01

0 llll 1
— jOlO 0
10'— 00 00

1 00 6 9
i io 10l2t
0 0013 91
0 0 12 9
lO'OOlOlli
0 0 4 1

CO 5 6i

0 1410.'.

0 ' 7 oi

0000 2 3

11 — 0
11 ll-
ll 00 01
110 1

312
411
0 1410
617

* Retired.

Wednesday, May 30th. — Four draws were played off. Steinitz
drew again with English (second draw), as did also Rosenthal and
Winawer. Blackburne again had a well-deserved victory over
Mason, whom it will be recollected he also vanquished in the first
round. Mackenzie beat Sellman.

Thursday, May 31st. — Blackburne was victorious against the
Russian champion, Tschigorin, while Mason again suffered defeat
at the hands of Winawer. Zukertort could only draw with
Mackenzie ; English drew against Rosenthal ; Noa beat Mortimer,
and Bird beat Sellman.

Friday, June 1st. — Zukertort again distingtiished himself by
winning the fine game against Mason, given on previous page.
Another sensational event was the defeat of Steinitz by Tschigorin.
Further results were : — Blackburne and Winawer, Noa and Mac-
kenzie, drew ; Rosenthal beat Mortimer ; Englisch beat Sellman.
Skipworth having retired from the contest, all his opponents count
1 without playing.

Saturday, .June 2nd. — Three draws were played off. Blackburne
again drew with Winawer. Mackenzie beat Noa. The only game
outstanding from the first round, between Rosenthal and English,
again, and for the second time, was drawn.

Monday, June 4th. — Mackenzie beat Blackburne ; Rosenthal beat
Mason ; English beat Bird ; Winawer could only draw with Sell-
man ; and Zukertort also received a temporary check by Tschigorin
obtaining a draw. Mortimer, after a hard-fought game, likewise
drew with Steinitz.

Tuesday, June 5th. — Zukertort defeated Noa; Blackburne beat
Mortimer; Steinitz was victorious against Winawer; and Mason
against English. The games between Sellman and Tschigorin,
Mackenzie and Bird, resulted in draws.

In the second Tournament, Bardeleben takes first prize with a
score of 21J ; Fisher, second, 20i ; MacDonnell, third, 19^. The
other prizes are not fixed yet.

S'OTICES.

Just Published, Part XIX. (May, 1883). Price lOd. ; postage 3d. extra.

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June 15, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

351

PlAINLYlfQRDED -EXACTLYDESCRIBED

LONDON: FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1883.

OONTBNTS OP No. 85.

Star-Clouas ii

R. A. Proct^
The Birth »nd Growth of Myth.

IX. Bv Edw.rcl Clodd 352

Oar Chemistrr Cluran : Sea Salt.

Bt W. Jat'o; F.C.S 353

XheFisheri.-, Eshibilion. (lllu:

tr„Ud.) HvJ. E. Ady 351

A Great Telemope 355

Pirsl-Cousjn .Marriaeea 357

Pleajant Hours with the Uicro-

scope. Bv U. J. Slack. F.G.S.,

F.R.M.S.' (llluilrattd.) 358

at the Brighto

359

The Dolphi.
Aqaarium ..
KeTiews :-

.«i«ence aa an Aid to Faith 36)

The Ueavonly Bodies 360

The Commercial Frodocts of the

Sea 360

Editorial Gossip 362

Correspondence 383

Our Mathematical Column 'i&\

Our Chess Column :
The International Tournament ... 365

STAR CLOUDS IN OUR GALAXY.

By Richard A. Proctok.

IT is singular how persistently even simple errors, if
supported by great names, are repeated by the many
who care only to think as others tell them to think. One
of the nioit striking; illustrations of this is to be found in
the theory of nebuhu or star-clouds, quoted again and again
in our books of astronomy, as if it were based on observa-
tion and direct evidence, instead of being originally but a
guess, and a guess which will not bear investigation.

In the later portion of his observing career, the great
astronomer. Sir W. Herschel, who had earlier regarded all
nebulie as aggregations of stars, adopted and enforced the
theory that many among them are great masses of self-
luminous gas. Yet he still retained the idea that large
numbers of these objects are great aggregations of suns
akin to our own galaxy. According to this view, the
nebulaj of the star-clustering kind are galaxies e.xternal
to our system of stars ; they are " island universes "
as Huniboldt poetically said. Sir John Herschel even
iudicated among them one which he regarded as not
only a galaxy resembling our own in general charac-
teristics, but as one in which the chief details of its structure
can be recognised. Arago and other astronomers deservedly
eminent have adopted this theory of external star galaxies.
Popular writers have accepted the doctrine, and dwelt, not
without reason, on the magnificence of the conception that,
marvellous as are the glories, mysterious the profundities
of our stellar system, they are repeated, with variations
perhaps in detail, but resemblance in general character —
among thousands of star systems within telescopic range,
and doubtless among millions beyond the reach of the
most powerful telescopes man has ever made.

Yet as I showed sixteen years ago (though Mr. Herbert
Spencer, clearest of thinkers, had been beforehand with
me by many years) there are reasons so strong for rejecting
this theory that they need only to be mentioned to be
found convincing.

Thus, towards the end of his observing career. Sir W.
Herschel found that even with his mo.st powerful telescopes
he could not resolve all parts of the Milky Way. Parts of

our own system of stars are too remote, then, it seems, to
be resolved into stars. Of course, in these parts, the stars
may be much smaller and more closely set than elsewhere,
but to admit this — which is probable, nay, I believe, un-
questionably true — is to adopt a view more essentially in-
consistent with Herschel's original ideas respecting the
galaxy, than is the one we are dealing with. If, then, the
most powerful telescopes yet made by man cannot resolve
the remoter parts of the galaxy to which our sun belongs,
which cannot lie so much as a diameter of the galaxy from
us, how can any such telescope possibly resolve galaxies so
remote as to be reduced to mere specks, lying, in fact —
as their apparent diameters show — at a di.stance
exceeding many hundred times their real diameters? Mr.
Herbert Spencer has admirably shown the inherent
absurdity of the notion to which many (especially many
professional astronomers, who appear to imagine that
measuring star-places must give them an insight into astro-
nomical truths) cling as if it were a demonstrated truth.
" Take a homely example," he says : " Suppose a man,
surrounded by a swarm of bees extending, as they some-
times do, so high in the air as to be individually almost
invisible, were to declare that a certain spot on the horizon
was a swarm of bees, and that he knew it because he could
see the bees as separate specks. Astounding as the asser-
tion would be, it would not exceed in incredibility this
which we are criticising."

Consider again the way in which nebuhe are arranged
on the star-sphere. Whether we consider the broader
features of arrangement or specific details, we find the
clearest evidence that the nebuLa! belong to our galaxy,
and not to outside space. The regions richly strewn with
stars are almost entirely free from nebul.T, excepting two
very special regions, presently to be considered. Is it likely
to be an accident which has thus left those parts of the star-
sphere where nebula; most do congregate less richly sup-
plied with stars than the rest ? Then consider details.
Not only is the peculiarity true of the star-sphere regarded
in its broader features, but it is true of its smaller portions.
The spaces near nebulas and groups of nebulw contain but
few stars. Arago dwells on this, not noting its signifi-
cance. " Herschel," he says, " found the rule to be in-
variable. Thus, every time that, during a short interval,
no star approached, in virtue of the diurnal motion, to
place itself in the field of view of his motionless telescope,
he was accustomed to say to the secretary who assisted
him" (his sister, to wit — Miss Caroline Herschel), " ' Pre-
pare to write ; nebul;e are about to arrive ! ' "

Mr. Spencer has admirably pointed out the significance
of this "invariable rule." "Shall we believe that, in thou-
sands of cases, the far-removed galaxies happen to agree in
their visible positions with the thin places of our own
galaxy ? Such a belief is next to impossible." Combined
with what we have learned about the general arrangement
of nebula, the evidence is absolutely decisive. The nebulas
must of necessity form part and parcel of the system with
whose features, broad as well as more detailed, they thus
closely correspond.

But there is even simpler evidence (we cannot say more
striking or more conclusive evidence, for none could be
that), proving that nebulas are what they look like, cluster-
ing aggregations of small stars, and not (what they might
have been found to be) remote congeries of suns like our
own galaxy of such orbs. In the Magellanic clouds, who.se
figure shows them to be really round — that is, nearly
globular systems in space — nebulas of all kinds are found
in great numbers in company with many stars, the spaces
around the nubecuhe being free alike from nebulas and dis-
crete stars. Now, from the observed apparent size of the

352

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[JoxE 15, 1883.

nubeculns the farthest part of either of these ^'lobe-shapfd
aggregations lannot be farther from us than the nearest part
in greater degree than as ton to nine. Within these
narrow limits of distance are many orders of stars (from
tJie seventh magnitude to the lowest discernible with very
powerful telescopes) and all orders of nebulie. It is
certain, therefore (and, " which is else," it is obvious), that
tliese nebuhc are not, as the common theory asserts of all
nebuhe, many hundreds of times more remote than the
discrete stars. To use Sir John ITerschel's own words, " It
must be taken as a demonstrated fact that stars of the
seventh or eighth magnitudes and irresolvable nebuhe may
co-exist -within limits of distance not differing in proportion
more than as nine to ten."

The nebuL-e, then, arc certainly, for the most part, and
most probably without exception, portions of the grand
galaxy of which our sun is a member. They are among
the features which indicate its variety and complexity of
structure. They are also features which must be taken
into account in any theory which is intended to give an
account of its origin and development.

THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH.

IX.

By Edward Clodd.

I HOPE that no reader of these papers will gather from
the closing words in my last chapter that there is a
desire to covertly intrude religious questions into them.
My agreement with the clear definition of the aim and
limitation of the contributions to Knowledge, which the
editor gave in its earlier numbers, when certain corre-
spondents show eagerness to impart the odium theologicum,
would in itself be sufficing check. And if that would not,
the editor's eagle eye would soon detect the cloven foot.

At the same time, the scientific character of Knowledge
requires that whatever is matter of historical explanation
should have place in its columns. For the term science
includes much more than was conceded before the " Origin
of Species " was published. Not twenty years ago, Mr.
Froude was at some pains in endeavouring to refute
Mr. Buckle's theory that a science of man is possible
because the origin of his ideas and the sources of
his actions, both individually and socially, are trace-
able to physical causes. Incomplete as was Mr.
Buckle's theory, and obscured as it now is under
the greater light of the doctrine of descent with modi-
fication, he was on the right track. For if man is a
part of nature, then there is a science of him not only
attainable, but demanded ; a science of him intellectually,
emotionally, spiritually, as well as physically. His rela-
tion, materially, to every kind of life on the earth; struc-
turally, to the higher forms, is established ; the natural
history of him is demonstrated. But this is physical only,
and for us the larger question is psychical. Here most of
us are yet in the empirical stage, and here we must remain
till the sequences of mental phenomena are recognised to
be as determinable as those of material phenomena. But
that time seems afar oflf, because people are frightened
when the application of the same method of investigation
to psychology as to pliysiology is urged. They say that
this savours of materialism, whereas it commits us to
nothing to which the idealist cannot assent. Thus much
must suffice to Justify what has yet to be said.

These papers would not Ije worth the reader's attention
if they were solely concerned with bringing together illus-

trations of myths from semi-savage races. Their other,
and indeed their primary, concern is with the origin and
growth of man's effiort to understand the nature and weaning
of things around him, and of his own acts and feelings. In
this lies primitive philosophy, theology, and science, the
beginnings of all knowledge that has been and that ever
will be, and in the unbroken sequence of which we find
the explanation of the existence of beliefs amongst
us which are discredited whenever examined. It is
the persistence of these which has made it increasingly
difficult, as these papers proceed, to deal with the primitive
myth apart from its later and more serious forms. Myth
was the product of man's emotion and imagination, acted
upon by his surroundings, and it carries the traces of its
origin in its more developed forms, as the ancestral history
of the higher organisms is embodied in their embryos.
Man wondered before he reasoned. Awe and fear are
quick to express themselves in rudimentary worship ;.
hence the myth was at the outset a theology, and the gra-
dations from personifying to deifying are too faint to be
traced. Thus Ijlended, the one as inevitable outcome of the
other, they cannot well be treated separately, as if the
myth was earth-born and the theology heaven-sent. And to-
treat them as one is to invade no province of religion,
which is quite other than speculation about gods. The
awe and reverence which the fathomless mystery of the
universe awakens, which steal within us unbidden as the
morning light, and unbroken on the prism of analysis ; the
conviction, deepening as we peer, that there is a Power
beyond humanity, and upon which humanity depends ; the
feeling that life is in harmony with the Divine order when
it moves in disinterested service of our kind — these
theology can neither create nor destroy, neither verify nor
disprove. They can be bound within no formula that man
or church has invented, but undefined —

" Are yet the fountain life of all oar day,
Ai'e yet a master light of all our seeing."

If thus far my readers are with me as to the unrelatioD
between religion and formulated theology, and if these
papers have shown with any clearness the emergence of the
latter from primitive speculations about the gods and their
doings, their sympathetic interest may be reckoned on in
what has now to follow concerning the survival of some old
weather-myths in beliefs that have had profound and dire-
ful influence upon human conduct and fate.

All the Aryan nations have among their legends, often
exalted into epic themes, the story of a battle between a
hero and a monster. In each ease the hero conquers, and
releases treasure."!, or in some way renders succour to man,
through his victory. In Hindu myth this battle is fought
between Indra and Vritra.

Indra, one of the Vedic gods, comes, according to Pro-
fessor Max Miiller, from the same root as the Sanskrit
indu, drop, sap, but the etymology is doubtful. What ia
not doubtful is that he is the god of the liright sky, and,
although like the other gods invoked in the hymns of the
Rig- Veda, a departmental or tribal deity, a sort of primtis
inter jtares, of whose many titles, Vritrahan, or " Vritra-
slayer," is the pre-eminent one. The benefits showered by
him upon mortals caused the attribution of moral qualities
to him, and he was adored as " lord of the virtues," while
the juice of the sacred soma plant was offered in his
honour, for which reason he is also called Somapii, or " soma-
drinker." It is his struggle with Vritra which is a constant
theme of the Vedic hymns, the burden of which remind us
of the praises oflered in the Psalms to Yahweh as a man of
war, as mighty in battle. " The gods do not reach thee,
nor men, thou overcomest all creatures in strength. . . .
Thou, thuuderer, hast shattered with thy bolt the broad

JuxE 15, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

353

and massive cloud into fragments, and hast sent down the
waters that were confined in it to flow at will ; verily thou
alone possessest all power." The primitive physical mean-
ing of the myth is clear. Indra is the sun-god, armed with
spears and arrows, for such did the solar rays appear to
barbaric fancy. The rain-clouds are imprisoned in dungeons
or caverns by Vritra, the " enveloper," the thief, serpent,
wolf, wild boar as he is severally styled in the Rig-^'eda.
Indra attacks him, hurls his darts at him ; they pierce the
cloud-caverns, the waters arc released, and drop upon the
earth as rain.

Surely a most rational explanation ; self consistent as
fitting into crude philosophy of personal life and volition in
sun and cloud, and fraught with deep truth of meaning in
regions like the Punjaub, -where drought brought famine
in its train.

The Aryans were a pastoral people, their wealth being
in flock.s and herds.* The cow yielded milk for the house-
hold ; her dung fertilised the soil ; her young multiplied
the wealth of the family at an ever-increasing rate, and she
naturally became the symbol of fruitfulness and prosperity,
ultimately an object of veneration ; while, for the functions
which the bull performed, he was the type of strength.
The Aryan's enemy was he who stole or injured the cattle ;
the Aryan's friend was he who saved them from the
robber's clutch.

Intellectually, the A ryan tribes were in the my thopnnc
stage, and the personification of phenomena was rife
among them. Their barbaric fancy, as kindred myths all
the world over testify, would find ample play in the fleeting
and varied scenery of the cloud-flecked heavens, suggestive,
as this would be, of bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial.
To these children of the plain the heavens were a vast, wide
expanse, over which roumed supramundane beasts, the
two most prominent figures in their mythical zoology
being the cow and the bull. The sun, giver of
blessed light, was the bull of majesty and strength ;
the white clouds were cows, from whose swelling
udders dropped the milk of heaven — the blessed rain.
But there were dark clouds also, clouds of night and clouds
of storm, and -(Wthin these lurked the monster robber ; into
them he lured the herds, and withheld both light and rain
from the children of men. To the sun-god, therefore, who
smote the thief-dragon, Vritra, with his shaft, and set free
the imprisoned cows, went up the shout of praise, the song
of gratitude. This myth, as hinted already, survives in
many legends of the Aryan race, and their family like-
ness is unmistakable. In its Latin guise, it appears as
Herculest and Cacus, although the preciseness of detail
narrated by Virgil, Livy, and other writers, has given it
quasi-historical rank. Hercules, after his victory over
Geryon, stops to rest by the Tiber, and while he is sleep-
ing the three-headed monster, Cacus, steals some of
his cattle, dragging them by their tails into his cavern
in Mons AvertiBus. Their bellowing awakens Hercules,
who attacks the cavern, from the mouth of which Cacus
vomits flames, and roars as in thunder. But the hero
slays him and frees the cattle, a victory which the
earlier Romans celebrated with solemn rites at the
Ara Maxima. In Greek myth the most familiar

* Both " pecuniary " and "fee" are, as established by Grimm's
law, from pecu. Lat. pecii-a, pi. pectis, "cattle"; Sansk. pa^u,
" cattle " from pac. to fasten (that which is tied up, i.e., domestic
cattle). Cf. Skeats's Etyniol. Diet, in Inc.

t Not the same as the Greek Herakles. The similarity cf name
led the Komans to identify their Hercnles, who was a god of
bonnclariea, like Jupiter Terminus, with the Greek hero. Caciis
is not cognate with Gr. lakos, bad, but was originally Cwciuf, the
"blinder" or " darkcner."

examples are the struggles between the sun-god, Apollo,
and the storm-dragon. Python, and the deliverance of
the Princess Andromeda by Perseus from the sea-monster
sent by Poseidon to ravage the land. In the ISIorthem
group we have the battle of Siegfried with the Niflungs, or
Niblungs, and of Sigurd with the dragon of Fafnir, who
guards golden treasures ; while, in the Eddor, Thor goes fish-
ing with the giant Hymir, and, baiting his hook with a
bull's head, catches the great serpent Midgard. Amongst
ourselves, Beowulf, hero of the poem of that name, attacks
Grendel, the grim and terrible Jotun that haunts a marsh
by the German Ocean (the watery habitat of these monsters
is a noticeable common feature), and carries oli' young and
old alike, so that the land is desolated. 'With mighty grip
Beowulf tears him limb from limb, and when, later on,
another " winged worm," devourer of fair damsels and
hoarder of stolen riches, appears, Beowulf slays him with
his enchanted sword.

These brief illustrations would hardly be complete without
some reference to our national saint. Opinions differ as to
his merits. Gibbon stigmatising him as a fraudulent army
contractor,* while the researches of M. Ganmau seek to
establish his relation to the Egyptian Horus and Typhon.
Be this as it may, the stirring okl legend tells how George
of Cappadocia delivered the city of Silene from a dragon
dwelling in a lake hard by. Nothing that the people could
give him satisfied his insatiate maw, and in tlieir despair
they cast lots who among their dearest ones should be
flung to the dread beast. The lot fell to the king's daughter
and she went unflinchingly, like Jephthah's daughter, to her
fate. But on the road the hero learns her sad errand, and
bidding her fear not, he, making sign of the cross, bran-
dishes his lance, attacks and transfixes the dragon, and
leading him into Silene, beheads him in sight of all the
people, who, with their king, are baptised to the glory of
Him who made Saint George the victor, f

While, however, the myth of Indra and Vritra has in its
Western variants remained for the most part a battle
between heroes and dragons, the moral element rarely or
never obscuring the undoubted physical features, it gave
rise among the Iranians, or ancient Persians, to a definite
theology, the strange fortunes of which have profoundly
aflected Christendom. How this came about needs another
paper to tell.

OUR CHEMISTRY COLUMN.

By William Jago, F.C.S.
SEA SALT.

TAKE a glass of sea-water, set beside it another filled
with the purest water to be obtained ; observe the
two most carefully ; to the sight, at least, they present no
difference ; one might as readily be taken as the other, and
emptied at a draught on a hot summer's day, yet all know
that while the latter is the most precious boon to a thirsty
man, to ofler the former would be a cruel mockery, its
contents are undrinkable, the water is — salt. Water acts
as an almost universal solvent, and as a result of this
property, is never found pure in nature ; the sea, as the
great reservoir into which rivers are continually pouring
their contents, acts also as the receptacle of the solid
matter they have dissolved from the rocks and moor-
land over which they have passed in their course. The

• "Decline and Fall," vol. iii., c. xxiii, 171. (Smith's Ed.)
t See Ralston's " Russian Folk Tales," p. 347, for similar
Bulgarian legend about St. George.

354

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 15, 1883.

sun, acting on the ocean's surface, vapourises water only ;
tlirougli the cycle of cloud, mist, and rain, it is again
borne to earth, and once more couimonces its downward
How oceanwards, carrying with it another burden silently
stolen from river banks, and as silently leaving its load
with the sea as it goes on to repeat its mission in cloud
and shower. In this way the sea acquires its characteristic
saltness tlirough the' gradual transference, by the agency
of rivers, of the soluble matter of land to itself. The
saltness of the sea is not the result of the solution of one
substance alone ; although by far the greater part of the solid
residue left on evaporating a sample of sea-water to dryness
consists of salt proper (common salt or sodium chloride,
NaCl of the chemist), there are several other ingredients
also present. Among these may be mentioned magnesium
chloride and bromide, calcium sulphate and carbonate,
l)esides traces of other substances. The presence of mag-
nesium chloride may be noticed by tasting sea-water ; it
will be observed that it has, in addition to the simply
saline taste of pure salt, a bitter flavour. This is much
iutensitied by e%aporating a quantity of the water almost
to dryness ; the salt, being less soluble, crystallises out,
and leaves an intensely bitter solution of the more soluble
magnesium chloride. To this solution, to which we shall
again refer, the name of bittern is given. The quantity of
calcium sulphate in sea-water amounts to a little over one
part per 1,000, yet, although so small, it is suflicient to
produce vast effects in Nature, as when, for instance, through
an alteration in the configuration of the land, a portion
of the sea is changed into an inland lake and then
slowly evaporated; beds of rock-salt are thus formed,
iuterstratitied with layers of gypsum, which is but.
crystallised calcium sulphate. As the substances dissolved
in sea-water must necessarily have come from the land, and
as the igneous rocks must have furnished the first material
to be weathered and ground down into sediment, it is inte-
resting to trace the presence of the same elements in these
primary rock masses. Igneous rocks by their decomposition
furnish two classes of bodies ; those of one of these are
insoluble, and comprise sand, which is mostly pure silica
and clay — a silicate of alumina ; among the soluble bodies
are compounds of sodium, potassium, magnesium, and cal-
cium. These are also present in sea-water. The presence
of common salt in granite may be easily proved by
a striking experiment. Take a few fragments of the
rock and crush them to powder in a clean iron mortar,
or else on a clean surface, with a hammer, transfer the
powder thus obtained to a test-tube, and add distilled
water, boil, and pass the solution through a filter-paper.
Evaporate a few drops to dryness on a clean glass slip ; a
sensible residue remains. To another portion add a few
drops of silver nitrate solution ; the production of a white
precipitate of silver chloride proves the presence of a soluble
chloride in the rock. Viewed under the microscope, many
samples of granite show themselves to be full of minute
cavities, in many cases partly filled with a saturated
salt solution. Before leaving the historic chemistry
of sea-salt, taught us by geology, a \ery remarkable
])roperty of sea-water, as distinguished from fresh water,
may be mentioned. Select two glass vessels of similar
size and shape (tall gas jars answer admirably), put into
each a couple of ounces of dried mud, the finer the better,
and till the one with fresh, the other with salt water ; shake
them both thoroughly and then set aside. The mud will
be deposited as a sediment from the sea-water, leaving the
upper liquid clear, in a fraction of the time necessary to
i>Hect the same with the fresh water. This is no doubt
one reason why many rivers deposit their mud as a delta
innnediately at their mouths, rather than carry it out and

allow it to settle for a muck further distance over the sea-
bottom.

At one time the extraction of salt from sea-water wm
carried on largely on the southern shores of England.
Although the working of the \ast salt deposits of Cheshire
has now, with us, superseded this industry, yet in the
south of Europe the process is still solely eniployed.
Shallow pools are constructed at high-water mark, the salt-
water is allowed to evaporate in them ; and, from time to
time, as they form, the thin crust.s of salt are raked off:
these constitute the haij-aaH of commerce. After as much
salt as possible has thus been obtained, the remaining
water, or Ijittern, is employed as a source from which other
substances are prepared, the most important of these
being bromine. The presence of this peculiar element
in sea-water may be proved by the following experiment
Pour some three or four ounces of sea-water in a
si.x or eight-ounce stoppered bottle, and add a few
drops of pure sulphuric acid, and then some of a solu-
tion of potassium permanganate ; the superb violet
colour of this latter compound disappears almost
immediately, giving place to a deep sherry-colour ; at
the same time the liquid acquires a most pungent and
irritating odour. Notice, too, that the upper part of the
bottle is filled with a reddish-tinted vapour. The addition
of the potasium permanganate has produced a chemical
change in which free bromine has been liljerated ; the
colour and odour are due to the presence of this element in
the free state. There is yet another element present in sea-
water very similar to bromine, but this exists in the merest
traces — its name is iodine. Its extraction is, however, per-
formed for us by certain sea-weeds. These absorb the com-
pound of sodium and iodine, and store it in their tissues ;
the sea-weed is dried in the sun and afterwards burnt, the
sodium iodide can then be dissolved out from the ash by
water. The three elements — chlorine, bromine, and iodine
— to whose presence in sea-water we have referred, form a
most interesting group, to which, from their forming bodies
very much like salt, the name of "halogens" has been
given. We propose in our next paper to describe some
experiments illustrative of their properties, and through
these to explain the modes of their extraction from sea-
water.

THE FISHERIES EXHIBITION.

NATURAL HISTORY DEPARTMENTS.
By John Ernest Ady.

IN his interesting preface to the Natural History Section
of the Exhibition, Dr. Francis Day makes the follow-
ing observations.*

" The naturalist and fish-culturist ought to approach the
question from an entirely different point of \-iew ; he
should ascertain the^life-history of all forms of fishes, — not
merely such as ser\"e for human food, but also of those
which form the sustenance of the more predaceous kinds.
He should endeavour to collect reliable information respect-
ing the plants and animals which afford them sustenance
and shelter, as well as ascertain what are their enemies or
their friends, and what conditions favour the presence or
absence of either class. Irrespective of the foregoing, he
should consider the relationship of temperature, currents,
soils, and the various conditions of the water in which
they reside ; to their migrations, growth, health, and

* " Official Catalogue, Great Inteniationul Fisheries Exhibition,
London, 1S83." 1st Edition, pp. IGO, IGl.

June 15, 18S3.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

355

reproduction. He should also ascertain ■whether fish
are increasing in numbers, decreasing, or if the supply
remains unchanged ; if the size of those captured
is augmenting or lessening ; if their condition is better
or worse than it was. Should investigations lead him
to conclude that fisheries are being unduly depleted,
lie should carefully note in what families of lish such is
occurring, if possible tlie cause, while in marine forms it is
likewise necessary to inquire if fishermen have to go further
out to sea to obtain their captures, if the killing powers of
their implements have increased, and whether more men
are now required to obtain the same amount of fish than
was tlie case a few years previously. Lastly, it may l.ie
observed, that unless the investigator is able to distinguish
the various species, he may easily imagine that he sees in
some small forms, as the solonette (Solea niiiiitta), the
young of the more valuable kinds, as the common sole
( >'. vu!r/aris), whereas he is merely e.xamining one sort that
is worthless, except as food for the larger kinds.''

In these pregnant remarks we become aware of the fact
that we have to deal with a subject as vast as the universe
itself. Inorganic nature plays a passive part in sheltt-ring
the denizens of the deep, and it aflbrds nutriment to a
varied vegetation which ofttimes sustains them. The
flowering plant Virews nectar for the insect which becomes
a choice morsel to the finny monster ; and man, most cun-
ning of them all, fashions strange imitations to secure the
dupe. Interdependence, then, is one of the laws which
regulate Dame Xature.

But we cannot here enter into a detailed consideration
of everything which bears both directly and indirectly on
our subject, lest our pages should prove too formidable ;
we must rather content ourselves with a glimpse at certain
typical examples which may be found in the Exhibition,
and serve to illustrate the forms of animated creation.

In the scale of life, plants are popularly regarded as
lower types of organisation tlian animals. A little reflec-
tion, liowever, will convince one that this is but an erro-
neous view of the case, and that the two kingdoms are, in
reality, the opposite developments of a common origin.
There exists a multitude of forms, not yet thoroughly
understood, which occupy a debateable area in the field of
creatiorL

If a small piece of fresh meat is triturated in water,
and the strained liquor permitted to stand in a place
accessible to the rays of the sun for two or three days,
and if into this fluid a few threads of cotton wool are
suspended, they (the threads) will be found, in due course,
to be coated over with a glairy-looking deposit. It requires
a high power of the microscope to reveal what this jelly-
like substance is. Professor Huxley has called it protn-
plnsm, or the physical basis of life. When magnified about
700 or 1,000 diameters, as in Fig. 1., the slimy mass will

Fig. 1. — Protamaha, from infusion of meat, x 1,000.
o, fully grown form; b, undergoing fission; c, divided.

be seen to move, and soon shows that it is composed of
little particles, each endowed with a slowly-creeping motion.
The movement consists Ln the protru.sion of rounded lobe-

like processes, termed pseudopodia* after which the
semi-fluid-like body flows, and thus a movement of a
characteristic kind results, and is termed amd'oidA
Occasionally, one of these little bodies may be observed to
divide (Fig. 1, l>, c), and thus to give rise to other indi-
viduals ; it is then said to reproduce itself by fission.

The sagacious naturalist has termed this little speck of
jelly rrotHiimia, and says that it is an animal ; this particu-
lar J'roliuniiia, however, has not been seen to change into
anything else. But what about the thousands of other
protanueboid creatures ! Some of them go a stage further,
and are then known as Amnhfi; whilst other progress
onwards and develop into what are claimed by botanists as
plants (My.comyceies). The chief distinction here between
vegetable and animal resolves itself into a question of
analogy. When the little I'rotamnhn passes through a
series of stages which simulate those of t\w undoulited
Pandm-iiin, as it does in the case of the Jfi/xomi/c'tes,
it may, with safety, be called a plant. On the other hand,
■n^hen its jelly-like body becomes faintly parcelled out into
an outer firm (ectoplasm) and an inner .wft (endoplasm)
layer, when it develops a dense internal spherical body
(nucleus), ingests matter in extempore stomachs (food-
vacuoles), and exhibits, in future stages, a dilatable space
(contractile vesicle), wliich is supposed to pump its fluid
contents tliroughout the sub.stance of the body by a system
of obscure canals, then it may probably be an animal. If
this so-called animal not only multiplies by fission, f.ut is
also observed to become spherical, quiescent, to surround
itself with a dense envelope or cyst, and ultimately to
liurst and liberate a number of small pro(nmtib/F, which
thereafter go through all the stages mentioned above, we
are then fully warranted in assuming that it is an old
friend, the proteus animalcule, Amelia (Fig. 2), which may

Fi>r. 2. — Diagrammatic dra^vingB, to show the structure ami de-
velopment of Ama>ba. A. Amaiba princeps ; v, villous region; n,
nucleus with contained nucleolus ; e, etcoplasm ; e', endopl.-ism ;
f, food vacuole ; /, food, a desmid about to be taken in ; <•, con-
tractile vesicle. B. Quiescent Amoeba encysted ; c, envelope or
cyst ; >i, nucleus, -with nucleolus ; p, protoplasm. C. Liberated
AmoebiB from cyst ; c, cyst ; p, protoplasm, now divided into a
number of young amoebae sho^vn emerging at a.

• From the Greek, J/fi'cijc, false ; and TroiJr, ffocdr, foot.
t So called from first having been observed in Amoeba, Gr.
uniiii), change.

356

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

JoNE 15, 1883.

be seen in activity on Mr. Bolton's table at stand 75G,
beyond the aquarium.

The question may now bo asked, Is Amwba a permanent
type 1 Assuredly so ; but it very often is only a phase in
the life-history of some higher form— e.//., the well-known
fresh-water polype (/fi/ilra), whoso fertilised ovum escapes
in tlie shape of A mo ha. In this connection there are a
large number of problems which yet remain unsolved, and
are of great interest, not only to the scientific investigator,
but also to those who are concerned with the economies of
fish and fishing. It has been stated that the spat of
oysters are very often preyed upon by Ainobc, which have
been found in large numbers amongst the decaying fish
of the culture beds. If this is in reality the case, some
attempt should be made to destroy the Aviw//cv; from
analogy, however, we are inclined to suppose that the effect
has here been confounded with the cause, and that the
A maid' result from pre-e.\isting germs which find a suitable
nursery in the already dead spat. It would, we believe,
be as wise to attribute the death of a cat to the larva; of
the blowfly which are invariably associated with its car-
cass ; and we are further supported in our conclusion by
the fact that the best hunting-grounds for Amabo'. are
ponds in which dead cats and dogs abound. Our simple
experiment for the manufacture of Protommha, too, is
another circumstance in favour of the view that some
Ami'ba:, at all events, are produced from germs which
derive their pabulum from decaying animal matter in the
presence of water, light, heat, and vegetable growths.

The presence of Anudia and kindred forms, such
as the remarkable Protomyxa; of Hsccckel, in enormous
numbers in the depths of the sea and in fresh water,
render it highly probable that these organisms furnish fish
of all kinds with an important part of their food. Evidence
is not wanting to show that the minute testaceous Fora-
minifera (the group among which Amoba is classed) are by
no means despised by even such large fish as the cod,
whose stomach is often quite a museum of rare and beau-
tiful forms. We propose, in continuation of this, to fui--
nLsh our readers with a few pencil sketches of these exqui-
site organisms, and to link together the manifold variations
in their existence which have resulted in phenomena — truly
stupendous.

{To he continued.)

TuE Scientific American gives some facts relating to the
manufacture of fiddle-strings, and says : — "The name ' cat-
gut,' as applied to the animal fibre strings, is altogether a
misnomer. The cat is in nowise responsible for the string,
and, much as the fact is to be deplored, the manufacturers
of such strings refuse to utilise cats for the supply of their
material. That disposes of the last excuse for the existence
of the cat. Catgut is of no use to anybody but the cat ;
hence no consideration of damage to valuable raw material
need hereafter stay the hand that hurls the avenging boot-
jack at the nocturnal serenader on the back fence. Violin
strings, and all sorts that come under the general head of
' gut,' are made from the entrails of lambs and cattle, from
the delicate threads used for sewing racket-ball coyers up
to the half-inch thick round belts. After the lamb is seven
months old its entrails are no longer fit for making strings
for violins ; consequently this branch of the manufacture
can only be carried on a few months in each year. The
only man who now carries it on in America says that he
cannot, without tariff protection, compete with the cheap
labour of Germany and France, and he is going to give
it up."

A GREAT TELESCOPE.*

"1^7"^ have seen the wonders of the starlit sky through
Vt the largest and best refracting telescope in the
world ; but the wonderful instrument is not destined to
remain in America. The most important part of it,
the object glass, with the cell that holds it in place, will
soon be on its way to the Russian Observatory of Pulkowa,
located on the Pulkowa Hills, nine miles south of St
Petersburg, and commanding a fine view of the capital.
The Observatory was built and richly endowed by the Czar
Nicholas in 1839, and has won high renown on astrono-
mical annals for the work it has already accomplished
under its first director, the eminent astronomer Wilhelm
Struve, as well as imder his son, Otto Struve, who became
director in 1864, upon the death of his distinguished father,
and still holds the honourable position.

The Russian Government was not satisfied with the
capacity and size of the present working force of the Ob-
servatory, and determined to have a new refracting tele-
scope constructed which, in mechanism and optic power,
should surpass any telescope in existence. The director
(Struve) was commissioned to carry out the plan. The
most perfect workmanship attainable was to be put in
requisition, and Struve chose from all the world, for the
execution of the difficult and delicate task, the Messra
Alvan Clark i Sons, the famous telescope-makers of Cam-
bridgeport, Mass.

Struve came to this country and intrusted to their skilful
hands the making of the object-glass, with a diameter of
thirty inches, ' and its cell. The mounting of the great
telescope is being made in Hamburg, Germany, by Messrs.
Repsold ife Sons. The Pulkowa object-glass is four inches
larger than that of the Washington telescope, finished in
1873, and seven inches larger than that of the similar
instrument recently completed for the Princeton Observa-
tory, both telescopes being the work of the same makers.
The arrangements with Messrs. Clark were made in the
summer of 1881, and the great objective was completed in
October, 1882.

A temporary equatorial stand was erected in the yard
of the workshop, in order to test the quality, power, and
perfection of the glass. It consists of a pier of solid
masonry, to which a tube of sheet-iron, made in three sec-
tions, is firmly fixed, with the necessary mounting to secure
its movement in the required direction. The object-glass,
the eye-pieces, and other appurtenances being then placed
in position, the great" refractor was ready to show its
working power, and to reveal any slight imperfections in
the polish or finisli that required attention. The precious
glass bore the testing process with triumphant success, and
is pronounced by the makers to be the best that has left
their hands.

But the supremacy of the Russian telescope as the
largest of its kind in the world will be of short duration.
The same trial mounting will be used by the Messrs. Clark
for testing the 36-in. object-glass which they have engaged
to make for the Lick Observatory of Califoraia.

The pier of the temporary structure is 27 ft in height ;
the tube is 4.5 ft. in length, with an aperture of 40 in. in
diameter. Figm-es, however, give a faint idea of this giant
structure. It must be seen looming up under the sky
before its huge dimensions can be realised. A view of the
heavens through its great eye must be taken before its
wondrous light-gathering power can be imagined.

The evening of our observation is intensely cold, but the
sky is undimmed by the shadow ] of a cloud, the atmo-
sphere is free from a breath of moisture. The heavens

* From the Scientific American.

June 15, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

357

present a scene of exceeding beauty as the party of
observers take their places under the stars. The
last lingering rays of twilight faintly sufl'use the west ;
the new moon, only a day old, holding the old moon in her
arms, is nearing the horizon ; and the zodiacal light spreads
its cone of pale gold high up among the eternal stars.
Under the dark dome arching above us the brightest stars
and clusters of stellar space look down with friendly eyes,
and seem to hang low, as if they would hold communion
with mortals. Among them tliread the planets Jupiter
and Saturn, whose mysterious portals we audacious invaders
are seeking to enter this night with necromantic art. Ris-
ing from a surface of unbroken snow, and looming up with
shadowy indistinctness, the huge telescope seems to pierce
the skies, while the observers at its base dwindle to
pigmies.

Aft«-r a short time the instrument is ready for action ;
its open eye is turned upon the planet Saturn. The serene
star, upon which a moment before we had turned our
unaided eye, is suddenly transformed into a creation of
surpassing beauty. A superb golden sphere, as large as
the full moon, lies before us. Saturn is softly cradled in
the protecting embrace of his engirdling rings, and seven
of his eight moons are visible as bright points on the dark
background of the sky. Titan, the largest moon, has a
perceptible disc. Every detail of the magnificent and
•complex Satumian system is complete. The outer ring,
with its faint line of division ; the division between the
outer and inner rings ; the inner or second ring ; the third
or crepe ring, closely joined to the second ; the break on
the rings formed by the shadow of the planet; and
the soft markings on his disc. Nothing is wanted
in the minutest details, and there is but one
imperfection in the picture. The definition is not
good ; the outlines are not clearly defined. The
view does not difl'er greatly in dimensions from that pre-
sented by a smaller telescope, but planet and rings are
flooded with light of delicious brilliancy and softness.
Here lies the advantage of a great telescope. It brings to
the eye all the light that enters it, so that, within certain
limits, the larger the telescope the larger the amount of
light it collects, the more easily visible will faint objects
become, and the greater the number of objects before
■tmseen that will be revealed.

Terrestrial colours are muddy in comparison with the
celestial hues of liquid gold of the disc and rings, and the
■creamy tints of the belts that cross the disk with the
lightness and grace of scudding cloud-bands. The sphere
seems almost to stand upright within the encircling rings,
only a small portion of the planet being seen beneath
them. We have fallen upon favourable conditions for a
view of Saturn, for his rings are opening to their widest
extent, his northern declination is increasing, and he is
•approaching perihelion.

Jupiter is the next object to test the space-annihilating
j)0wer of the instrument. The Prince of Planets is superb —
larger than the full moon, though but little larger than we
■have seen him many times in a telescope of 8 in. aperture.
He is, however, much brighter ; and though by no means as
■magnificent as Saturn, we have the pleasure of feeling that
we see him on a much larger scale. He seems so near that
'vre are impelled to put our hands behind the glass and touch
him. His broad belts are delicious in colouring, now
^suffused with pale rose or mottled with soft grey, while
shades of purple, brown, and delicate green are interspersed.
Never before did we behold the variety of tone and tint,
the flood of light we see this night. Never did our giant
brother seem so near, so grand in proportions, so S3-m-
metrical in equipoise. His four satellites are brightly

beaming on his left, and bear testimony to the power of
the telescope by presenting disks instead of points. The
famous red spot is wanting in the view. We mourn its
absence, for, since 1878, its well-known features have
become as familiar and firmly fixed as if they were a per-
manent feature on the planet's disk.

What shall we see next? is the question now discussed,
for the extreme cold has congealed tlie oil, and the monster
refuses to move. His eye is turned to the meridian, and
no eflbrt will make him swerve one inch to the right or
left In this emergency, a member of the party volunteered
to mount to the top of the pier and lubricate with fresh
oil the joints of the giant. The plan is successful, and,
with many a shriek and groan, the lower end of the tube
rises and the upper end falls, until the Cyclopean eye points
to the great nebula in Orion.

The little wisp of cloud haze visible to the naked eye is
transformed into one of the most glorious visions that ever
breaks upon the entranced eye of the observer. The most
wonderful nebula the northern sky reveals lies before us,
filling the whole field of view, and suti'used by a light that
never was seen on sea or shore. Now we appreciate the
power of the great telescope, the triumph of the optician's
art. For definition is of little consequence in observing
the shadowy nebula. Light is needed, and light comes.

The delicacy of the celestial glow that pervades the
scene is beautiful beyond comparison. The central point
of interest is the famous trapezium, consisting of four
bright stars and two smaller ones. ' Around this sextuple
group radiate what seem to be the head and Ijranching
horns of some huge animal, the trapezium occupying the
open mouth, and surrounding a space of sky within which
reigns the blackness of darkness. Spiral curves of
nebulous haze fill in the field of view, the radiating mass
being of a delicate green tint, while dotted over the
shadowy haze are many brilliant stars, throwing an element
of life into the formless void, and lielping to light up this
scene of loveliness and grandeur which no pencil may
paint nor pen describe. We feel, while with reverent
eyes we gaze upon the picture, that we are looking within
tlie eternal gates, and enjoying a glimpse of the glory to
be revealed, that " eye hath not seen nor ear heard."

FIRST - COUSIN MARRIAGES.

AT a meeting of the Academy of iledicine in Ireland*
(Sub-section of State Medicine), Dr. C. A. Cameron,
the President, read a paper on consanguineous marriages
in relation to deaf-mutism. He described the practices and
prejudices in respect of consanguineous marriages amongst
ancient and modern nations, civilised, barbarous, and
savage. He next reviewed and criticised the memoirs on
the subject of the effects produced by the marriage of
cousins. On the whole, the evidence seemed to show the
effects were somewhat injurious. The statistics in reference
to mutes published in the Irish census reports for 1881 and
the previous decennial reports were closely examined by
the author. It appears that in Ireland in 1881 there were
5,13G mutes, of whom 13.5 were the children of first cousins.
The author endeavoured to ascertain the proportion of the
population who were children of first cousins. He ascer-
tained that amongst nearly 8,000 persons the proportion
was only 0.57 per cent., or less than one-fourth of the rate
amongst deaf-mutes. As the statistics were in great part
collected amongst Protestants, the author believed that
there were not in all Ireland one person in 200 the oflspring
of first cousins, as marriage between persons so related was

• Keported in the Med ical Press.

358

KNOWLEDGE

[JcxE 15, 1883.

very rare among Catholics, who formtil three-fourths of
the population of Ireland. Tiie general conclusion arrive,d
at was that consanguiaeous marriages was a cause of deaf-
mutism.

The Chairman (Dr. Fitzpatrick) observed that the paper
was the most remarkable he had heard at any public meet
ing for a long period, making it apparently clear to d(Mnon-
stratiou that the marriages, particularly of lirstand second
cousins, were productive of deaf mutism. In his own
long experience he found almost every case of deaf-mutism
to be the result of the intermarriage of near relatives.
To take an example, he found not only was one child a
deaf-mute, and another insane, but the whole family partook
of degeneration of the nervous power. They entered early
into marriage and never prospered in society. Scrofula,
deaf-mutism, insanity, and other characteristics exhibiting
weakness of lirain and muscular power resulted from those
marriages.

Dr. Eustace thought the question must be considered
very much from the animal point of view. The human
family was at the head of all other animals, so that the
question might be elucidated by what took place M'ith other
animals, who, according to their anatomy and in many
respects, were our relatives. It was well known to all
persons who tried to breed first-class animals that close
in-and-in breeding resulted in very great deterioration of
the species, and also that animals, when left to themselves,
did not select their nearest relations for sexual intercourse.
That intermarriages were productive of many evils as a
general result he held to be a fact. With regard to mental
disease, he believed the health of the intellect in the
human family depended more largely than they were in the
habit of considering on the bodily health or physique,
although there were exceptional cases in which very poor
specimens of humanity were gifted with brilliant intellect.
In the treatment of the insane his leading principle was
to get up the bodily health, and as it improved the mind
improved.

Dr. Cox mentioned an instance in which two cousins got
married. Both were healthy, and without any special
indication of disease. The result was, that of the oft-
spring, one, a very tine girl, died of phthisis, another
developed symptoms of lung disease, but happily escaped
consumption, and a third developed spinal disease. Again,
in animals other than the human species, disease was
apt to occur in those nearly related ; while in the vegetable
kingdom, plants of the same kind which were barren were
often fertilised l)y the pollen of others.

Dr. Willis instanced a case he saw some years ago near
London, of a sick child whose father and mother were deaf
and dumb, and it was through their children, all of whom
could speak, he came to a decision about the ailment.

Dr. Wright concurred as to the damage ensuing from
the marriage of near relatives, and referred to Darwin's
experiment on pigeons, and to the difficulty of keeping a
pure breed of poultry, as illustrated by the fate of the
bantams brought from the palace of Pekin, and by the
destruction of another favourite breed of fowls, the
white-crested Polish.

The President replied, pointing out that his statistics
■were necessarily incomplete and restricted. It would be
indispensable to ascertain how many of the whole popula-
tion were the children of first cousins before drawing a
definite conclusion.

PLEASANT HOURS WITH THE
MICROSCOPE.

By Henry J. Slack, F.G.S., F.R.M.S.

rpHE present is an excellent time for Rotifer-hunting.
A. A pond, in a sunny situation, covered with a green
scum caused by myriads of minute vegetable organisms, is
sure to contain several species; while other ponds and quiet
river pools, in which various flowering water-plants grow,
are likely to be frequented by the tube dwelling species
which attach themselves to the stalks or leaves. There are.
three obvious distinctions amongst groups of rotifers. There
are two sorts of free swimmers ; to the first of these belonga
the Philodines, of which the common rotifer, Ji. rvlgaris,
is tiie most abundant. All members of this group are
protected Viy a strong skin, and as it is very elastic, and
has its telescope-like joints united by a flexible material,
they can execute very curious changes of form. Sometimes
one will be nearly globular ; at others every joint stretched
out, and thecreature worm-like in shape, with a conical snout.
Suddenly, this snout is withdrawn, and the rotary organs
protruded, which work so as to produce the optical illusion
of wheels revolving on an axis (Fig. 1.) The second sort

Tramways in Japan. — A tramway is now in operation
at '] okio, the capital of Japan. The traffic is stated to
be making satisfactory progress.

1. Rotifer Vulgaris. A, irs so-called gizzard ; B, contractile
vesicle connected with the water vascular system.

of free swimmers are provided with a carapace, or hard,
transparent shell, to which they are organically attached
at certain points, but so as to permit their bodies to enjoy
consideralile freedom of motion inside their armour (Fig. 2).
After these may be ranged the householders, or tube-
dwellers — a most interesting group (Fig. 3). Their usual
plan is to throw ofl' rings of a gelatinous substance. These
arranged one upon another, and kept hollow by the motions
of the creatures while they are consolidating, form con-
venient dwellings. One species makes a great advance in
construction, and is the architect of the family ; this is the
ilfelicerta ringens, which is provided with a brick-monld-
ing apparatus, and builds her house by placing brick upon
brick in workmanlike fashion. There are also rotifers that
dwell in societies, like Coiioccliibis, a mass of gelatinous
matter forming their common home.

It is well to begin with some general notions of the
rotifer tribe, as no one can foresee what is likely to be the
result of a few hours' search after them. A few differ
very widely from the typical genera, but in all the above-
mentioned an apparatus of cilia producing whirlpool
currents may be observed, though they do not all exhibit
this in the wheel-like shape. The rotifer-hunter should
be provided Mith a wide-moutlied bottle at the end of a

June 15, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE

>59

stick. This will catch the free swimmers. A hook at the
end of a stick will facilitate pullinj:; out pond weeds, and a
small curved knife, instead of the 1 ilunt hook, is handy for
cutting; oft' portions of niyriophyllum, anacharis, or other

2. Brachionns nrceolaris, remarkable, amongst other things, for
its highly-organised tail, which it flaps like a cat.

plants on which the tube dwellers may have erected their
houses. Mr. Baker, in High Holborn, Mr. Stanley, and
many other opticians, sell walking-sticks containing a fish-
ing-rod joint to extend their length, and with a handy

3. CEcistes crvstallinns.

way of attaching the bottle, hook, or knife. Besides the
capturing-lx)ttle, a larger one should be taken to hold the
spoil, which a hand-magnifier is usually suiEcient to indi-
cate.

In other papers, opportunity will be found for describing
in detail some of these interesting creatures. At present
we niaj- consider some of the leading peculiarities of the
family. Comparative anatomists put them amonijst the
6'ctilecHlfi; a group that includes the intestinal worms.
The arrangement is not very satisfactory, as most of the
rotifers are superior in organisation to any of these worms
in any of their stages ; they all, however, agree in pos-
sessing a peculiar set of vessels called " a water vascular
system," communicating with the exterior, and probably
subservient to excretory processes. Female rotifers
are furnished with a gullet, a masticating apparatus,
commonly called a gizzard, but which in several species
can be protruded as a prehensile mouth. They also have
a stoniacli, and an intestine ending in a cloacal opening,
except in one genus. All have a nervous system. The
larger carapaced sorts show a conspicuous cerebral gan-
glion, which is not difficult to see in most others, but the
ramifications of the nerves are more or less untraceable.
They have no blood circulation. Their ciliary apparatus
is very complex. Most commonly they bring all the light
floating matter around them near their mouth-opening by
means of the whirlpools which they excite ; but as the
observer watches them he will see that they can produce
other currents to cause the particles they want to pass
down into the gullet, and onwards through the gizzard,
while other particles they find unsuitable are hurled away.

Most of them have little red eyes, which glisten like rubies
when well lit up. These organs seem to have a cornea and
a lens, and sometimes disappear in the adult stage. The
alimentary canal is lined with cilia, and in one genus,
aspJanchna (which have no anal aperture), the digestive
process is assisted by very strong currents produced by
cilia that are conspicuous under high powers.

Male rotifers are scarce, and those of many species have
not been disco\ered. They are only wanted at certain
times, and then not for long, so they are not provided with
any alimentary apparatus. The females produce a plen-
tiful supply of eggs, which are mostly hatched externally ;
but in the common rotifer, and some others, the young ones
may be seen inside their mothers, and working their tiny
gizzards or jaws. Opportunities will occur for describing
the structure and ways of individuals of this interesting
family, and, meanwhile, the figures now given will help the
Ijeginner to recognise some of the most striking forms.

These figures are taken from " Marvels of Pond Life,"
by permission of Messrs. Groombridge it Sons They are
drawn as they are easily seen, and many interesting parti-
culars will be found in the work they belong to.

Time Signalling. — In the annual report of Mr. "W. H.
M. Christie, astromer royal, he says : — " There has been no
case of failure in the automatic drop of the Greenwich
timeball. On three days the ball was not raised on account
of the violence of the wind. The Deal ball has been
dropped automatically at 1 p.m. on every day throughout
the year, with the exception of five days on which there
was a failure in the telegraphic connection, of one day
when the ball was accidentally dropped 4 sec. too soon by
telegraph signals, and of fourteen days when the current
was weak and the trigger was released by the attendant.
On twelve days the ball was not raised because of the
violence of the wind. The Westminster clock has main-
tained its high character, its errors having been under
1 see. on OG per cent, of the daj's of observation, between
1 sec. and 2 sec. on 25 per cent., between 2 sec. and 3 sec.
on 6 per cent., and between 3 sec. and 4 sec. on 3 per cent.
The error has never exceeded 4 sec."

3G0

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[JuxE 15, 1883.

THE DOLPHIN AT THE BRIGHTOX
AQUARIUM.

IN a letter to the Jiri'jhton E.nwiiner, Mr. Henry Lee
writes as follows : — By the courteous invitation of the
authorities of the Brighton Aquarium, I have paid a visit
to the dolphin recently placed in one of the largo tanks
tliere. It is a full-grown specimen of the common dolphin
{Delphums del phis), and is about 10 ft. in length. It was
found, early on Saturday morning last, stranded in Selsea
Bay, eight miles from any railway station ; and by means
of much toil, care, and skilful treatment, it was brought
safely to Brighton by Mr. Lawler, the curator, after being
out of water for twenty hours. This is the third species
of the whales that have been exhibited in this aquarium.
The other two have been the common porpoise {Phocccna
comnntnis) and Eisso's grampus (Grampus ij7'isei(s).

The opportunities of observing closely the habits of the
cetacea are so rare, and the average duration of their lives
in captivity is so brief, that any one who feels interested
in the movements, structure, and mode of life of these
great sea-beasts should not lose a chance of improving his
acquaintance with them. In this instance, the diflerence
between this dolphin and the porpoises previously seen in
the Brighton tanks should be noted. It is of larger size,
weighing about half a ton ; its snout, instead of being
rounded ofl' like that of the porpoise, is lengthened out in
form of a beak, both jaws of which are filled with simple,
pinnate teeth ; and the dorsal fin rises much higher, and
the tail is rather wider across, than in the common por-
poise. Those who have not seen one of these creatures
under such favourable circumstances should notice,
also, its mode of locomotion. This is effected entirely by
an up-and-down motion of the tail (unlike that of fishes,
in which the movement of the tail is from side to side,
except in the flat fishes), and the flippers, or " paddles," as
they have been called, do not contribute to its progress in
any way ; they are only used as rudders and poisers. As
the water in the tank has been lowered so far as to allow
the dolphin to be seen when it rises to the surface of the
water, the action of the blow-hole and the absence of all
•" spouting" should be remarked. In fact, by two minutes'
intelligent observation of this interesting animal a grand
practical lesson in comparative physiology is to be learned —
one a thousand times more impressive than can be obtained
from the most careful explanation in print. We have before
us a warm-blooded animal of great brain capacity, full of
intelligence, breathing atmospheric air by lungs, like our-
selves, and the female of which suckles her young one, and
attends to it with the greatest maternal aflection. This
highly organised creature, instead of walking on four legs
•on land, has to live and move in water ; and, so, its shape
is adapted to its necessities, and it is made in the external
forui of a fish. But it has to breathe air through its lungs,
and not the oxygen contained in water through gills. If
it were to inhale the air in the ordinary way — through its
mouth — the water would enter with it, and choke it. To
meet this difficulty, its windpipe is carried up to the top
of its head, and is fitted with a valve which allows the
exhausted air from the lungs to pass out, and frssh air to
he drawn in, whilst it effectually excludes the water.

The Jfonitt'ur Industricl (Paris, May 17) says that at
the present time, a little over 700 miles of subterranean
t(^legraph lines are actually completed in France. About
1,.300 miles more are in course of construction, and will be
finished by the end of the year.

BfbiflijS.

SCIENCE AS AN AID TO FAITH.*

By Eichard A. Pboctob.

THIS work is remarkable among works of its kind for
fairness of tone. The subject is dealt with almost
throughout with a calm gravity well suited to it —
at least, as viewed by those for whom the author is
writing — those, namely, who regard the Book of Genesis
as written by Moses under Divine inspiration. The work
is not meant for those who doubt this— or rather (for that
is the real position of many men of science referred to
in its pages) for those to whom such a view of the
Book of Genesis does not present itself as reasonaVjle,
except in the very limited sense indicated by Sir George
Airy in his little treatise on the Hebrew Scriptures.
Occasionally Dr. Cotterill forgets for the moment that
Ha'ckel, Tyndall, Airy, and others occupy this position, and
adopts a tone which would only suit them if their criticisms
related to a book which they regarded as directly inspired
by the Almighty. Thus he finds something amusing in the
candour and condescension with which " Professor Ernst
HKckel confers his admiration on " the Jewish lawgiver,"
apparently not noticing that as Ha;ckel has not the least
trace of any idea that the book of Genesis was an inspired
work, there is no more condescension in his recognition of
the keen insight of the older writer than there would be,
for example, in my dwelling on the success with which
Wright, of Durham, anticipated the views of modern astro-
nomers about the structure of the stellar heavens. In like
manner, he speaks of Prof. Tyndall's Belfast address as
inconsistent with reverence for religious truth, not noticing
that the ofience of which he accuses Prof. Tyndall is one
of which no man can easily be guilty. What a man holds
to be religious truth he necessarily respects. Prof. Tyndall
may or may not have implied that what Dr. Cotterill
regards as religious truth is not so in Prof. Tyndall's eyes ;
but even if he did he was not guilty of irreverence for reli-
gious truth, whether Dr. Cotterill's views are right or wrong.
It sounds, no doubt, to many altogether profane when
Sir George Airy writes that the geology of the book
of Genesis may be fairly good, but the astronomy
is all wrong ; yet there is no more real profanity
in such a remark from one to whom the book is simply a
curious record of ancient ideas, than there would be in a
similar remark applied to passages in the Koran or the
Talmud. \\'hat Dr. Cotterill might have attacked in
Hteckel, Tyndall, and others would have been their reasons
— had he known them — for not accepting certain books as
being the word of the Almighty. These reasons he pro-
bably does not know, because, so far as I know, they have
never been published — and, in fact, in no way concern the
public. Yet, for those whom he was addressing. Dr.
Cotterill might without impropriety — and perhaps with
advantage — have dwelt on the evidence which is regarded
as establishing tlie Book of Genesis in the position assigned
to it by Jewish and Christian theologians. Doubtless, the
difficulty is that those for whom he writes need no evidence
on this particular point ; while those men of science for
whom he is not writing, have no time to spare for an
inquiry in which few of them take any interest, except as
it might form part of a chapter in such a work as Tyler's
" Primitive Culture."

*" Does Science aid Faith in regard to Creation?" By the
Right Rev. Henry Cotterill, D.D., F.R.S.E., Bishop of Edinbtu-gh.
(London : Hodder & Stoughton.)

June 15, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

3G1

It is pleasing to find something like justice rendered to
the greatest philosopher of the age, the much misunder-
stood teacher of the best, the most reasonable, and the
happiest system of moral philosophy. It is indeed singular —
though it ought not to bo so — to find the atheist (whom,
however, I take to be an almost imaginary being) met with
weapons drawn from the armoury of one whom foolish folk
regard as the chief of atheists. Those who call thenisidvcs
atheists, and imagine that they are so, are usefully reminded
here that if Herbert Spencer has shown theistic views to
be inconceivable, so also has he shown those views to be
inconceival>k- which have been opposed to them. An
infinite universe is inconceivable ; but the idea of boundaries
beyond which there is neither occupied nor unoccupied
space is not inconceivable only, but unthinkable. Eternity
is inconceivable ; a beginning or end of time is unthink-
able. In like manner, no mind can conceive the idea of
Diety ; yet to reject the idea is akin to insanity. '

Dr. Cotterill's \ iews about other worlds are interesting.
He accepts as reasonable the intermediate theory to which
I was led — or rather forced— while writing my little book,
" Other Worlds than Ours " ; but he thinks that this
theory may be held, while yet we may believe that at this
present time our earth is the only inhabited world — or, at
least, the only world inhabited by reasoning beings. Thi.s
is doubtless possible, however unlikely. The reasons, how-
ever, which have led Dr. Cotterill to try to maintain this
opinion are not scientific, but depend on that particular
form of religious belief which is his.

The book is carefully and thouijhtfully written — evi-
dently after careful study of some of the best modern
authorities.

THE HEAVENLY BODIES.*

A BOOK so largely made up of extracts as to show rather
what the author has read than what he thinks — though he
evidently thinks wrongly on a great number of the subjects
he has here dealt with. If his mistakes were limited to
his own opinions, little harm would be done ; but, misun-
derstanding what others have written, he assigns wrong
opinions to them, and so does them injustice. Thus, he
remarks that " ilr. Proctor, in his work on the Moon,
shows that supposing the moon had an atmosphere equal
to our own, it would, under the small attractive power of
tlie body, extend to a height of twenty-two miles," whicli
is absurd. We also learn that Mr. Proctor "supposes the
gas corresponding to the line D,, in the solar spectrum, is
a form of hydrogen, diftering from the ordinary forms of
that gas as known to us," which, if we know anything of
Mr. Proctor"s opinions, he does not at all suppose. So
with other writers. Then he mixes up his authorities in
a way which must be particularly unpleasant to actual
students of science. In company with Huggins and Secchi,
he quotes the idiocies of Jlr. Knapp about the perihelion
passages of the planets. Instead of Young or Langley,
Secchi, Faye, or Huggins, he takes as his )uost trustworthy
authority on the sun, one who has blundered more about
the sun and sun-surrounding space than any one now
living.

It will be readily inferred how much weight is to be
attached to the opinion of ilr. Miller, that this earth is
the only inhabited world — the question to which all his
quotations, and such reasoning as he advances, are directed.

* " The Heavenlv Bodies j their Nature and Habitability." By
William Miller, S.S.C. (London : Hodder & Stonghton.)

THE COMMERCIAL PHODUCTS OF THE SEA.*

IX the authors preface to the first edition of this work,
we are informed that it is, in effect, a collection of his
papers from the Art Journal and his serial publications,
the raison d'etre of which was to supply a handy volume,
uniform with his other works, on an important subject,
which had hitherto remained unrepresented, by a compact
and easily accessible form.

That he has admirably fulfilled his promises may be
gathered from even a passing glance at the pages now
before us, especially with regard to items of statistical
and economic value, which form one of the principal
features of the entire volume, and fully warrant its happy
title, " The Commercial Products of the Sea." We must
congratulate the author on the success which has attended
his eflbrts ; success which has induced his publishers to
issue a new edition, with the hope that it may prove useful
to those concerned with the increasing " interest excited
by the International Fisheries Exhibition," and we feel
assured that, although such interest often proves but
evanescent, the intrinsic value of the work will assert its
independence, and find a fitting place on the shelves of
every student of commercial economy and natural history
who is made aware of its existence.

In plan the work is well arranged. The general intro-
duction opens with a brief discourse upon the importance
of marine products, the uses of animals, etc., and the only
objection we can make with regard to this is, that the
biological terminology adopted is somewhat loosely dis-
played, and is not always accurate. As an example of
this we may give one quotation from pp. 2, 3, where the
author says : —

The animals aro among the mightiest and among the smallest.
There aro swimming beasts, as whales, seals, and walruses ; there
are fishes of various kinds and sizes, crustaceans, soft or jolly
fishes, the molluscs, down to those creatures resembling live plants
— the zoophytes or corallines, which partake of the qualities of
plant, animal, and mammal.

Here the molluscs, instead of being placed in immediate
descending series after the fishes, are made to separate the
jelly fishes from their relatives the zoophytes. Again, the
term " corallines " is used in its obsolete sense to signify
the I'ohjzoa, whose affinities with the molluscs on the one
hand, and the worms on the other, are entirely disregarded
when they are linked with the zoophytes, which are
strangely said to " partake of the qualities of plant, animal,
and matninal" whereas the biologi.st now understands by the
term " corralines " a genus of calcareous sea-weeds belong-
ing to the Floride.ce,

The rest of the introduction is excellent in the statistical
and other data which it furnishes. We would, however,
have liked to have seen a little more concerning the fisheries
of India, which are here dispatched in a couple of lines, eked
out by a short stanza from Milton. We urge this because
the records of Indian fisheries are far from scanty, and are
most readily accessible, t

There is yet another suggestion which we would offer in
this place. Although it may be argued in justification of
the plan adopted, that it is a prevalent custom in English
literature iwt to note the sources of the information which
has been collated, it is a fact to be deplored rather than

* "The Commercial Products of the Sea; or, Marine Contri-
butions to Food, Industry, and Art." By P. L. Simmonds. New
and Cheaper Edition, with Thirty-two Illustrations. 8vo, pp. 4S4.
(London: Griffith & Farran, St. Paul's-churchyard. 1883.)

t Sec Dr. Francis Day's Introduction, Official Catalogue, Inter-
national Fisheries Exhibition, London, 1883, 1st edition, pp. 260
et sequentes.

3G2

KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 15, 1883.

'lefendcd, especially when such a good example is afTorded
to us in this particular liy our I'onunfntat conti'inporaries.

The first part of the work deals with "The Food Products
obtained from the Sea." Scope is here given for a vast
amount of information respecting the various kinds of fish
and fisheries, the methods of their preparation for imme-
diate use or for preservation, and a fund of literary lore
about fish. Nor are we disappointed ; for we recognise at
once the master's hand in the judicious display of facts set
before us. There is a degree of novelty and unusual inte-
rest in the chapters devoted to the essentially eastern
trepang and E(iuid fisheries, whilst the oysters and their
allies demand, and have received, a fair share of attention.

The second portion, entitled " Marine Contributions to
Industry," occupies an extent of 197 pages, and includes
most of the engravings which are contained in the volume,
all of which are well executed ; whilst some, more notably
those at pp. 156, 169, and 187, are really artistic. A brief
introduction is followed by three chapters on sponges ;
their place in nature is commented on, the modes of pro-
curing and preparing them are fully described, and their
marketable values are carefully noted. Some of the more
beautiful hexactinellid sponges, such as Etiplectella and
Iloltenia, also, are neatly figured. At p. 182 the following
sentences are worthy of remark, as illustrative of the value
of scientific experiment to commercial enterprise : —

" During the past few years, Dr. Oscar Schmidt, Professor of
Zoology at the University of Griitz, has employed several weeks of
the early summer in artificially prodvicing and rearing the bath-
sponge. His labours have met with such success that his system
has been adopted by the Austrian Government, and is now carried
on on the coast of Dalmatia.

" It has for some time been a well-known fact that several
families of zoophytes have such great powers of reproduction, that
a portion of one will grow and form on an entirely new body. This
property has been taken advantage of by Dr. Schmidt, his process
being to cut the sponge into pieces, fasten each portion to a pile,
and immerse it in the sea. The pieces then grow, and eventually
from each one a spherical sponge is obtained. According to the
estimates of Dr. Schmidt, a small piece of sponge at the end of
three years will represent a value of 5d. The total cost of raising
4,000 sponges, including the interest on the expended capital for
three years, is estimated at £8. Ss., and the income at about £16,
leaving, therefore, a net profit ol nearly £8. There is no doubt
but that the practice of this branch of industry mil be the means
of considerable benefit to the inhabitants of the Idrian and
Dalmatian coasts."

We would fain linger over pages such as these are, but
must content ourselves with merely remarking that the
products of marine mammals, fish, molluscs, seaweeds, and
even salt, are all carefully included in these chapters.

The third section is devoted to " -Marine Contributions
to Art," and in this, as in the other parts, the author has
utilised his space with the highest degree of excellence.
Tortoiseshell and turtles, mother-of-pearl and pearl
fisheries, corals and amber, successively considered, bring
the work to an appropriate close. Lastly, there is a
fairly copious index appended.

A New Electric Cancelling St.\mp. — This instrument
has been invented by Monsieur J. Chatenet, and is designed
by him to supersede the present Post-office cancelling
stamps. It is of the same size as the ordinary ones, and
the top of the handle is connected by means of ordinary
insulated wire with the two poles of a battery. Tlie
circuit is closed by the contact of two metal plates on the
face of which is a zig-zag platinum wire. Upon the
postage-stamps being struck in the ordinary way, contact
is made, and the platinum wire liecomes instantly red-hot.
This burns the surface of the postage-stamps in such a
manner as to render it impossible to erase the marks, wliile
doing no injury either to the envelope or its contents.

€01 to rial (gossip.

Wk have seen and heard Mrs. King lecturing on and in
the divided skirt ; and we venture to express the most
confident opinion on the utter futility of any attempt to
persuade ladies to adopt the style of dress she advocates.
It is, to all intents and purposes, Bloomerism over again ;
and the Bloomer costume failed egregiously. It was
Ijound to fail ; and so is the new dress — not because it is
outre, for there is no dress, however preposterous, which
fashion could not force women to wear (witness tlie de-
velopment of crinolines, tie-backs, and the present fantail-
pigeon style), but because it attracts notice to women as
running counter to the fa.shion. Sensible women so array
themselves, whatever absurdities may be in fashion, as not
to appear absurd, either in following the fashion to its full
absurdity, or in lieing markedly out of the fashion.
Feminine idiots in the days of crinoline made themselves
known by the fullness of their crinoline develop-
ment ; in the days of tie-backs by the exposure of contours
(either their own or Parisian), usually concealed Viy more
flowing drapery, and at the present day by Parisian pro-
tuberances, pectoral, and otherwise than pectoral, unknown
to nature, save among fancy pigeons ; ladies are able to
be in the fashion at all times, yet reasonably attired. Now
the divided skirt in the obtrusive form advocated by the
reformers, is neither idiotic nor indecent like many of the
developments of fashion among races essentially inartistic ;
on the contrary, regarded merely as clothing, and not as
adornment, it is sensible and seemly ; but it is staringly
out of the fashion. It attracts notice, a serious matter
wherever louts and boobies, 'Arrys and 'Arriets are many.
A few strong-minded — but not therefore the wisest —
women, may try the new dress ; some others neither wise
nor strong-minded, but pleased to attract notice in any
way, may adopt it ; but it needs no prophet to know that
women generally, wise enough to know that street-staring,
and the coarse comments of the vulgar, are neither to be
invited nor despised (however contemptible in themselves)
as of no account, will not expose themselves to unpleasant-
ness even for the sake of the undoubted advantages which
the proposed costume presents.

Mrs. King considers that harm is done to the cause she
advocates by those ladies who wear the divided skirt but
conceal it so that no one knows they are wearing it. She
mistakes. Round by the road may be a longer way than
through the hedge, but it may be much the better way
even where the hedge can be broken through. The way
she recommends is through the hedge ; but there is no
getting through. She thinks the way by the road does
not lead to the desired goal ; but those who have tried it
find that it does ; it is also an easy way and a pleasant
way.

AVe are sorry to see the British Workman, usually rather
obtrusively goody-goody in tone, becoming, to all appearance,
an advocate of steady drinking. So, at least, we infer from
the only story we have read in No. 342. It is called
" A Ship Wrecked by One Glass." We must confess we
read it in the hope of finding some such amusement as one
derives from the famous temperance stories in " Pickwick."
Imagine, then, the pain with which we found that the
wreck of the ship is ascribed to a too rigid teetotalism.
"My brother," says the narrator, "was to .stand watch.
The seamen prevailed on liim to take one glass to help him
to perform his duties, but, being unaccustomed to liquor, he

Jl-xe 15, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

363

fell asleep, and in the night I awoke to find my vessel a
wTecL" Truly, an awful warning!

The Chess Tournament, as we write, is nearly over. It
is not clear who will take the second, third, and fourth
prizes ; but it is certam that Zukertort will take the tirst
And what a record he has 1 In no former chess tourney among
the great masters has anyone gone ahead of all the rest as
Zukertort has here. It may be urged that tournaments
are not the best way to test chess strength. A match
between Zukertort and Steinitz, for instance, would be tlie
only just way of showing which is the stronger player.
Possibly, though even so, it is clear that a particular
quality of chess strength is better indicated by the tourney
than by the tilt, l^y combat among many than by jousts
between two. " It is better, though scarce easier " (or to
that effect), says Wamba the Witless, " to be the best man
of twenty than the best man of two," a remark whose point
was not fully appreciated by Athelstanc the Unready.
Zukei-tort has achieved the harder task ; even should he
fail in the easier, he would .still hold the tourney champion-
ship.

Our daily papers will shortly cease to record the jousts
of the chess masters. AVe must confess to a sense of relief.
For truly some of the notes and comments have been per-
plexing. Thus in the Times we read some time back that
though Mackenzie and English are strong players, i/et the
game between them ended in a draw. A day or two later
we were told that Mr. Skipworth had been prevented from
Castling, and tlius had to submit to the loss of either a
Queen or a Rook. Yet again, Steinitz played Pawn to
K Kt's 4th, and therofor>' had no time to Castle. Then
we had the moves in which Blackburn mat«d Mortimer,
without the position from which the process started ; a
diagram showing how a game stood after Black's .5l!nd
move with the Black King left in check, and other rather
odd chess nuts.

CuEss becomes less and less of a home game as it
becomes more and more of a profession. The clubs started
and maintained to encourage chess have also been, we
believe, the liane of chess as a home game. Just as home
whist is decaying (though that is little loss, perhaps, for
home whist is usually not worth playing) ; as clul) whist
extends, so home chess is gradually dying out. The good
players are drawn away to clubs ; and when they do play
in the drawing-room, they do not play (as a rule) for love
of chess, but to show how weaklings can be crushed.

Certainly, home chess, like home whist, is apt to be an
uninteresting game for strong players. Tlie weak know
nothing of their weakness, and would be offended if odds
were offered. To win against them affords no chess
pleasure. To leave pieces en prise becomes too obviously
condescending. The only way to bring on a fight is to get
into ditiiculties by moves not obviously meant for tliat pur-
pose, and then to struggle out of them again (if possible),
which often affords excellent practice. But there should
be a rule that, after winning three games in succession, a
player should be entitled to give (not merely to offer) either
such odds as he may choose, or certain definitely advancing
odds for each triple victory, the odds-taker being entitled
to give back the odds, or the last advance in odds, when he
has secured three successive games. The steps in ordinary
home play might be the Knight, the Rook, two minor
pieces, Rook and Knight, and the Queen — for, in home
play. Pawn and move, and Pawn and two moves, are not
desirable odds.

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfbed Tenkison.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possiUy le in-
eerted. Corre.syondenfs must not he offended, there/ore, should their
letters not appear.

All Kditorial communications should be addressed to the Editob of
Knowledge ; all Business communications to the Pcblishebs, at the
Office, 7-1; Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended TO,

DELAYS ABKSK FOK WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should he made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMMDNICATIONS ARE ANSWEHEB BY POST, EVEN THOUGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

LETTERS KECEIVED AND SliOKT ANSWERS.

[Our " Letters to the Editor " are unavoidably " crowded out."]

Geologist wishes to know who are the publishers of Mr. Beeto
Juke's " Manual of Geology."— J. U. A. 0. Thanks, but already
provided. — G. Hakdingham. I was myself the author of the article
to which you refer. The Star-drift spoken of is not a drift of the
whole universe, but of Kro\ips of stars in different directions. Other
question referred to Mr. Slingo.— W. H. M. AsKEW. Thanks; glad
to hear the system has suited you so well. I can quite understand
that many try it with something like the same idea as the country
joskin had about the spectacles in the well-known story, " Helps to
KeaJ." — yf, Vf_ B. Very glad to have j-our opinion on the Loisette
system. Your friend entirely misapprehended my remark, which
neither implied doubts about the system, nor any feeling as to M.
Loisette's perfectly legitimate use of my name. I simply called
attention to the circumstance that, as indeed M. Loisette showed,
I had not myself any personal knowledge of the system. I hope
before long to avail myself of the opportunity, long since offered
me by M. Loisette, of examining into the system personally. —
A. G. McCallum. Thanks ; but I fear my opinion on questions
metaphysical is of no value. Your Trinity— time, space, and
matter— appears to nie rather lopsided. Why should not " motion"
have a place ? — Thos. Kimber. Thanks ; I should be glad to make
use of the papers you kindly offer if each of the fifteen or sixteen
articles were not more than, say, li or 2 cola, in length. — A. M. M.
Thanks ; the series might conveniently follow the one now com-
menced in that column. — Philistine. Granted readily that a
drawing-room dress and an out-door exercise dress should differ.
But you forget that apart from the nuisance of occasional complete
changes of attire, the advocates of what may be called the reason-
able divided skirt — that is, the divided skirt concealed by light
overskirt — claim for it superiority in just the points which you
name — warmth and convenience indoors. Again, do heavy inside
skirts " add grace and dignity to the figure ? " So far as my own
observations extend, the reverse is the case. They take away all
grace (unless you admire the movement called the " skirt-kick"), and
the dignity they give is akin to that which characterizes the move-
ments of a hobbled cow. I do not my.self interfere in the slightest
degree with the ladies of my household in such matters ; but I
must confess that my eyes have become now so used to the easier
and more lissome movements following the disuse of corsets and
heavy underskirting, that I should be very sorry to see again the
heavier movements and the somewliat entangled gait of former times.
• — W. A. Anderson. I forget at this moment (and am away from
library for reference) in which of De Quinccy's works Richter's
dream occurs. Yon mil find the reference in the index to his com-
plete works. — F. M. Lvpton, J. H argreave, and Many Others. It is
quite impossible to answer through the post the hundreds of letters
reaching me on the subject of the divided skii-t.--T. J. Dewar.
Thanks for illustration of integral calculus without cymbols. Such
methods are to be classified in Newton's lemmas, and would only
be suitable hero if presented systematically. On the other subject,
vou should note that letters are not " articles."— J. P. notes that in
other accounts of the Archer Fish a distance of five or sis inches,
instead of a metre and a half, is indicated as his range of shooting,
but Brehm refers to a larger species than the one usually kept in
vessels of water to amuse people by its skill in shooting. — L. M. G. B.

364

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 15, 1883.

Tlio pntellitcs of Jiipitcr ore alwavs spoken of by nstroQomcrs by
their mimbors, in tho order of their distance from Jupiter. It
wunld l)0 well if tlie same were done with Saturn's. I cannot give
yon all the names, being away from my books, and never using the
names myself, except iu the case of Japetus, Hyperion, and Titan,
the Sth, 7tU, and Cth of Saturn's satellites. — J. Buown. The heat
would bo greater, for that side of any object exposed to tho sun,
much loss for the other, and tlicreforo the extremes greater — as in
cnso of the moon, tho temperature of whose surface varies some
600 degrees (Fahrenheit).

©ur illatftrmatiral Column,

GEOMETEICAL PROBLEMS.
By Bicn.\RD A. Peoctor.
Analysis and Synthesis.

THERE are two general modes of treatment applicable to pro-
blems, termed, conventionally, the sytithetical and the analytical,
or synthesis and analysis. In the former, we study what is given
and work up to what is sought ; in the latter, we examine what is
sought and work back to what is given. I am not concerned here
with tho correct applicability of the names synthesis and analysis
to these processes, and shall therefore content myself with dis-
cussing the processes themselves under the names usually given to
them.

It is a mistake to suppose that, as some have asserted, analysis is
the method always employed — consciously or unconsciously — in the
solution of problems. Of course, we are compelled to consider
what it is we liave to do or prove, and thus far the analytical method
cannot but enter into otir processes. But in the solution of a
problem, we may proceed, as may be most convenient, by either the
synthetical or the analytical process, or — which in complex problems
is far more commonly the case — by an alternation of both methods.
As an illustration of my meaning, I may compare geometrical
problems to those examples in algebra, trigonometry, &c., in which
wo have to establish the identity of two expressions. In such
cases we may either take one expression, and try to work it into
the same form as the other, or vice versCi, we may select the latter
to work upon, or — which is the surer process — we may work both
down to a common form.

However, it will be better to select a few examples of geometrical
problems, and to exhibit the application of different processes to
them, than to discuss general rules. I begin with very simple
examples.

Suppose we have given to us the following deduction : —

Ex. 1. — The line A B (Fig. 6), is hisected in C, and C D is drann
at right angles to AB. From any point E in CD lines are drau-n
to A and B. Shoxc that E A is equal to E B.

Having constructed a figure in accordance with these data, we
go over the data thus : we have A C equal to C B, and C E at right
angles to A B. We remember, also, that we have to prove that
A E is equal to E B. Xow, we cannot fail to see that the data in-
volve the fiqnahty of the triangles, A C E, C E B, by Euc. I., 4, and
therefore that A E is oi|Ual to E B. This solution is synthetical,
notwithstanding the prior reference to the relation which has to be
established. For we proceed from the data— A C, C E, equal
to B E, C E, and the included angles equal — to the equality
of the triangles, ACE, B C E, in all respects, and thence
to the equality of A E, E B. In the analytical solution we
should argue thus :— Wo have to show that A E is equal to E B.
Xow, 1/ A E is ctinal to E B, then since A C, C E are respectively
equal to B C, C E, the angles ACE and B C E will be equal
(Euc. I., 8) ; but these angles are equal, being rfght angles ; hence
we are led to reverse the steps as a probable method of solving our
problem ; and, on trial, we find that the proof of tho equality of
A E, E B, is complete by this method. We shall pressntly see that
the mere fact of obtaining by the analytical method a result corre-
sponding to certain data of a proposition is no certain test that the

problem is correct ; and I will at once show that it is no certain
liroof that the reversal of the process will give at once a satisfactory
solution of a problem.

Suppose that we have given to us A C equal to C B, and tho
angle 0 A E equal to the angle C B E, and that we have to shoir
from these data that C E is at right angles to A B. We proceed
analytically thus : // C E is at right angles to A B, then A C, C E
being equal, respectively, to B C, C E, the triangles A C E, B C E
are equal in all respects ; therefore the angle C A E will be eqtial
to tho angle C B E. Xow, these angles are equal ; therefore we
might exiicct the reversal of the process to lead at once to the solu-
tion of our problem. This, however, is not the case — we have A C,
C E equal to B C, C E, and the angles C A E, C B E opposite to the
common side, C E, equal to each other ; but there is no proposition
in Euclid which enables us to assert from these data that the
triangles C A E and B A E are equal in all respects.

Of course, there is no difficulty in the above problem. The equality
of the angles, C A E and QBE, give us immediately A E equal to
E B (Euc. I. G), and thence the equality of the triangles, ACE,
B C E, follows at once. But it is well to notice that analysis may
lead to a result included in our data which yet does not involve the
immediate solution of our problem.

Let us take next a less obvious proposition : —

Ex. 2— In the Fig. to Euc. I., 5 (Fig. 7), if B G, CF intersect in
H, show that AR bisects the angle BAG.

Let us go over our data : — We have A B equal to A C, the angle
ABC equal to the angle BCA, and also (see the proof of Euc. I.,
5), the angle A B G equal to the angle A C F, and the angle G B C
equal to the angle BCF. There are other relations which seem
unlikely to aid us, so we content ourselves with these. Remember-
ing that we have to prove the equality of the angles, BAH and
C A H, we are at once led to notice that our data point to the
equality of the triangles, H B A and H C A. For we have the angle
A B H equal to the angle A C H, and also A B, A H, equal to CA, AH,
respectively. But these relations are not suificient. Seeing, how-
ever, the probability that the solution of our problem lies in this
particular direction, we search for some new equality in the
elements of the triangle, A B H, C A H. Can we, for instance,
show that the angle A H B is equal to the angle A H C ? This
poems no easier than to establish the equality of the angles,
II A B, HAC. Can we, then, prove the equality of the sides,
H B, H C .^ This would involve the equality of the angles, H B C,
HOB (Euc. I., 6) ; and this is one of our data. Hence we see
our way at once to the solution of the problem, which rtms
thus : —

Since the angle H B C is equal to the angle H C B, H B is equal
to H C. Hence in the triangles B A H, C A H, we have B A, A H
equal to C A, A H, each to each, and the base B H equal to the
base C H. Therefore the angle B A H is equal to the angle C A H.
(Euc. I., 8.)

It will be noticed that the reasoning from which this solution is
obtained is partly synthetical and partly analytical. We apply our
data to obtain a result which very nearly gives us what wo want ;
then we inquire analj-tically how the missing link is to be supplied ;
and finally, having seen oar way to the solution, we run over such
portions of our reasoning as are required for the complete proof of
the proposition. The mental process is, of course, considerably
longer thati tho solution which results from it — the mind runs
rapidly over the elements given and required, selecting and reject-
ing this or that relation until the path to the complete solution
has been traced out. 1 have only followed one such process
of reasoning — that which seems to me most natural. Others
might readily be conceived. Thus the equality of the
lines A F, AG, and the angles AFC, A G B (see the
proof of Euc. I., 5) might occur as the most obvious data
for selection. It would, then, be seen that before we can establish
the equality of the triangles, F A H, G A H, we must prove that
F H is equal to H G ; but we know that F C is equal to B G ; there-

JcsE 15, 16S3.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

36^

fore, we must prove that tl>e remainder, H C, is cqnal to the
remainder, H B. This requires the e<iuality of the angles, II B C,
H C B. We know these angles to be equal ; therefore, li C is equal
to H B, and thence F H to H G ; and, since A P, A H are equal to
G A, A II, the angle F A H is equal to the angle G A H. It is pro-
bable, however, that the geometrician's being led, in this way, to
the equality of H B and H C, would not retrace the steps ho had
followed, but would immediately notice the shorter proof dci>ending
on the equality of B A, A H to C A, A 11 respectively.

Thus we gather an important rule. Having tracked out, analy-
tically or synthetically, a complete proof of a proposition, it is well
before writing down tho solution to notice whether the relations
which have presented themselves in tho process of reasoning
suggest u shorter proof, or whether [any of tho steps of the
reasoning may be omitted, or so varied as to be reduced in number.
The raluo of a proof is, of course, much enhanced by brevity and
conciseness.

(j^ur Cfjess Column.

By Mephisto.

THE TOURXAMEXT.
With this interesting game, played 11th June, Zukertort won the
first prize.

Qveen's Pawn Opexinc.

1. P to Q4 P to K3

2. Kt to KB3 Kt to KB3

3. P to K3 P to Ql

4. B to Q3 B to K2

5. Castles. Castles.
0. P to QKt3 P to B-i
7. B to Kt2 Kt to B3

22. Kt to K3 P to B3

23. P to BG ((?) K to B2
21. Q to Q2 P takes Kt

25. Q takes Kt (e)Q to B sq.

26. B takes P R to B2 (/)
I 27. B takes Kt Q takes B
! 28. P to B7 Q to B m.

8. QKt to Q2 P takes P (<i) ! 29. Q takes RP (g)V to K4

9. P takes P P to QKt3 ' 30. R to B3 P to K5

10. PtoBt B to K3 (6) 31. RtoKtS R(B2)toBsq.

11. R to K sq. R to B sq. 32. R to KtS Q to Q2

12. R to QB sq. Kt to lU 33. R takes R R takes R

13. Kt to K5 B to Kt5 34. Q to R4 (h) Q takes Q

14. P to B5 (c) B takes B 35. P takes Q R to QB sq.

15. Kt takes B B takes Kt 36. P takes P P takes P

16. Q takes B Kt to K5 37. K to B2 K to B2

17. Q to K3 K to K sq. 38. K to K3 K to K3

18. P to Ii3 Kt to KB3 , 30. K takes P P to Kt3

19. R to B2 Kt to Q2 40. R to BG (ch) K to Q2

20. KR to B sq. P takes P j 41. K to Q5 Resigns.

21. P takes P Kt to Kt sq. i

XOTES.

(a) An early exchange of Pawns is disadvantageous for the
second player.

(h) It seems that the attack by this and tho following moves
against the QBP does not yield the second player any advantage.
English likewise came to grief over it in his game with Zukertort.

(c) Good play, it produces a decided superiority of position on
the Q side.

(d) Taking advantage of the position in masterly style.

(e) Playing the combination w^ith nnerringj accuracy. White
recovers tho KP with an increased attack.

(/) If Black plays R takes P. 27. R takes E, Kt takes R.
28. Q to R4, and he loses a piece.

(;)) Which practically decides the game.

(/i) Taking it easy ! Q to Kt7 would have been more chessy.

The week's play has been productive of some fine specimens of
chess skill, and some surprising — nay, we may almost say marvellous
— restUts. Zukertort met Tschigorin on Wednesday to decide the
draw pending between them. Tschigorin opened with the Evans'
Gambit, which he played with triumphal success against Steinitz.
The superior knowledge and tact in the conduct of opening which
Zukertort has shown all along, rightly caused him to refuse the
Evans (by B to Kt 3) to a player whose forte is originality.
Zukertort won. Curiosity was almost raised to excitement on
Thursday, when Zukertort had to meet Steinitz. Although
Zukertort was too far advanced to stand in fear of a defeat,
nevertheless more than usual interest was attached to this game
between tho hero of the past and the' champion of the future.

Steinitz played the Ruy Lopez, lie attacked his opponent in some-
what wild fashion, and obtained apparently a strong game, bnt
Zuckertort, rallying, dispelled White's forces on tho Q's side, and
himself got a Pawn advanced to B 7. Steinitz effected an injudicious
exchange of Queens, which enabled Zukertort to win a, very hard-
fought game in ninety moves. Friday, Zukertort drew with
Winawer, but on the Saturday he won against the same oppo-
nent one of the best-fought games in the tournament, in which
Winawer showed himself at his best ; in the end ho had a clear
draw in hand, but missed it. Monday, again, will bo a red-letter
day in the annals of the tournament. Zukertort played Black-
bume. After about an hour's play it was already apparent that
the master would continue his victorions career, and at about 3.30
Blackburne was beaten in a smart but well-fought game, which
we give above. With that creditable victory Zukertort has abso-
lutely won tho first prize, as will bo seen from tho table below, frora
which the final chances of tho players in this great contest may ba
estimated.

Steinitz beat English, Sellman, and Mortimer, and on Monday h&
drew with Rosenthal, having a fair chance for second honours.
Blackburne, since our last report, has only won one game, and
drawTi with Rosenthal. JIason, who has considerably fallen off, has-
also only scored one against Bird and lost one against Mackenzie.
Worse luck befell Winawer, who lost four games in succession to
Rosenthal, Noa, Zukertort, and English, almost losing his chance-
for a place. Rosenthal continues to do well ; he has not lost a
game. He won against Winawer, and drew against Mackenzie,
Blackburne, and Steinitz.

Tuesday, Juno 12. — Steinitz played Mason, who adopted the
French Defence, and drew ; Blackburne beat Sellman ; AVinawcr
beat Mortimer; English drew with Tschigorin; Noa beat Bird,
although the latter at one timo had a won gaime. Zukertort
defended the Ruy Lopez against Rosenthal. The latter obtained a,
slight superiority, but ultimately had to yield to the victor. Th&
foUowirg is the position of the players after Tuesday's play : —

Has StiU

won. to play.

Zukertort 22 3

Steinitz 15 5

Blackburne 14i 3

Rosenthal 12 7

Tschigorin 13 4

Mason 12i 5

English 12 5

Has Still
won, to play.

Mackenzie 12 5

Bird 11 a

Winawer 11 4

Noa 9i 4

Sellman SJ 4

Mortimer 1 3

Skipworth 3 retired.

THE VIZAYANAGARAM TOURNAMENT.

It will be remembered that this second tournament, for which
the Maharajah of Vizayanagaram provided the prize money of £200,
began simultaneously with tho chief tournament on April 26. As
might have been expected, the greater and more important contest
prevented the Chess world from giving tho attention and interest
to the second tournament, which otherwise it would have readily
bestowed upon it. Twenty-six plaj^ers entered the list, and tho
prizes, five in number, amounted to the respectable total of £200.
To this sum £40 was added at the conclusion of the tournament,
divided into four prizes. Tho tournament came to a final conclu-
sion on the 6th inst., when the last adjourned game was played.

When the contest began there were two lots of J players, one for
day and evening play, tho other for evening play only. But this
rule was soon relaxed by some more active spirits, who wished to
do battle with each other whenever they had leisure time. The
committee being much engaged with the .an-angements for tho
major tourney, gave the minor lights great liberty of action. The
result being that some of the games degenerated into off-hand
play.

Nevertheless, some very good games were produced, and some
players have come out of this tournament very much improved both
in play and reputation. Mr. Gunsberg startediwell until he got
defeated in a game undertaken out of time and turn with the Rev.
Mr. Newham. Tho next plaj-er who attracted attention by his
steady progress and good play was Mr. Fisher, who had not lost a
game when he scored fourteen, and had beaten MacDonnell and some
of the stronger players. He lost his first game to Gunsberg. In
the meantime, Herr von Bardeleben was quietly working his way
upwards, not losing a single game, and playing very steadily. Tho
Rev. Mr. Ranken also played remarkably well, winning every game,
and gained for himself the sobriquet of the " Invincible." We
maj' mention that Mr. Ranken took part in tho International
Tournament of 1851. Some of tho other players had also done
well, but the confidence of the public rested with the above four
players.

"The second half of the Tournament witnessed some change in the
position of the favourites. Herr von Bardeleben clearly proved his

300

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 15, 1883.

auperiority by only interrnptinj; his score by draws, and especially
uftcr his boating Fisher and drawing with Gunsberg, his position
119 lirat ])rizo winner seemed well securod. Mr. Gunsberg, who lost
to iloMBrs. SlacDonnoll and Minchin, resigned second place to Fisher
by snfTiring another defeat at the hands of Mr. Gattie, a player of
great abiUty, who, curiously enough, althongh not scoring high
himself, was tlio oidy man who managed to defeat IJardeleben ; lie
also won of Rankcn. The latter broke down in tlie second half of
the Tonrnament, losing several games, jjrobably through physical
exhaustion. Tko Kev. Mr. MacDonnell, who had not been doing
well at first, played with increased attention and strength in the
second half of the Tournament. Mr. (iunsberg ])layed Mr. Lee in
a careless and haphazard fashion, out of time and turn, and. owing
to some differences, this game was scored against both players, thus
allowing the Bev. Mr. MacDonnell to take third place.

Official Scoee of the Pri-ze Winners in the Vizayanagaram
toubnament.

Bardlben.

Fisher ...
McDnell. '

Kanken S
Xsmbert

«P"

Lee

; Q W &. a S iJ ►Jig S

I)

I 1 1 |1 1 1 1 0 1

1 0 1 il 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 0 ll il 1 II II

I 1 0 ll ,1 il 1 iO ll

0 i I il ,1 i 1 :i :j

J 1 0 |0 1 ll 1 0 1

0 0 1 |» — U 0 1 I 0 1 '1 |1

0 0 1 0 1 -0 1 1 1 1 1 ll

0 0 0 ll 1 I — ) 1 1 1 i 0

-1 :i
0 —1
i 0 -

I 1 1 ,0

« d. ». « ;

1111
1111
1111

0 111

1 1 ,1 1
i 1 1 1
1111
1111
1111

The prizes were of the value of: 1, £60; 2, £50; 3, £40; 4, £30;

5, £20; 6, £15; 7, £10; 8, £8; P, £7. Messrs. Gossip and Ranken

divided the fifth and sixth prize.

Our readers will be able to judge more correctly of the merits

and style of the players by the following table : —

First. ...Bardeleben ...won 11). ..drawn 5. ..lost 1

Second.... Fisher „ 20 ,, 1 „ i

Third. ...MacDonnell... ,, 10 „ 1 „ 5

Fourth.... Gunsberg „ IS „ 2 „ 4*

Fifth Gossip „ 15 „ 5 „ 5

Sixth. ...Ranken 15 ,, 5 „ 5

Seventh. Lambert „ 15 ,, 3 ,, 7

Eighth.. ..Piper „ 14 „ 4 „ 7

Ninth. ...Lee „ 15 „ 1 „ 8*

* And lost 1 by forfeit.

We also give the following analytical table, showing the play
amongst the nine Prize winners only (!), independent of the score
of the weaker competitors. Some very curious results are ob-
tained, clearly showing that there are qualities besides strength of
play which may somewhat materially effect the position and chances
of a player in a tournament.

1

.a

s
c

1

1

0

1
1

0
0
0

i

0

I

0

J

0
0
0*

i

1

1
0

1

0

1

1

1

i

0
0

i

1

•s

•2
5

4

1
1
1

0

\

a.

1

0

1
1
i
1

0

1

§

1

1
1

0*

1

0
0
0

5"

4
4
4
3
3
,1
2
3

e

a

3
0
0
2
1
3

i

1

a
I

1

_
0

°.

0

i
i

0
0

1
0

1

0

1

0

I

0 Ri

1

•?

Fisher

4
4

1
4

4
4
5
3*

4

3

4

4

2

^)

5

r.i

3 M

5 2

6 ;2j

4 Is

3

7

R

8

Piper

0 ^1

7
6

,

1= won J i = drawn; 0= lost game; * = forfeit.

All players are agreed as to the well-deserved success of Herr
von Bardeleben. He is about 22 years of age, and resides in
Leipzic, Germany. In spite of Ids youth, he has already taken part
in two or three Tournaments, and won considerable prizes. He has
a sound theoretical judgment, and, above all things, he is a very
steady and cautious player, invariably ])laying the Sicilian Defence
as second player, and never venturing upon a bold course with the
first move in band. Ho played in the evenings only, and thoroughly
devoted himself, from beginning to end, to the task before him in a
manner which will serve as a lesson to some of his less steady

fellow-competitors. The following anecdote may not be out of
place. W'lien asked by the writer to visit a concert at the Albert
ilall on a Wednesday afternoon, Herr von Bardeleben, after some
hesitation, declined. Ho excused his refusal of the invitation by
tho following characteristic reply : — "If you play in a Tournament,
you must eat well ! drink well ! and do nothing else besides playing
in tho Tournament."

Wo give below a fine specimen of this young chess-artiBt'a
skill :—

Between tho first Prize Winner, Herk von Bakheleben and
Mr. J. G. MiscniN.

1. P to Q4

2. P to QB4

3. Kt to QB3

4. Kt to B3

5. P to K3
C. B to K2

7. Castles

8. P takes QP
0. P to QKt3

10. B to Kt2

11. Kt takes P

12. B to B3 (d)

13. Q to Q3

14. KK to Q sq.

15. R to Q2

16. QR to Q sq.

17. P to Kt3

18. R to B2

19. Q to K2

20. Q takes Kt

21. Kt to B5 (e)

P toQ4
P to K3 I

KttoKB3 (a)'
P to QKt3 I
B to Q3 (!.)
Castles I

P to B4
KP takes P
B to Kt2
P takes P (c)
Kt to B3
Kt to K2
R to B sq.
B to Kt sq.
R to K sq
Kt to Kt3
Kt to K5
Kt to K4
Kt takesB(eh)
QtoQ2
B to K4 (/)

Buci.

tk ':^"\
i k

•^ 1

22. Q takes Kt (;)B takes Kt

23. Q to Kt4 (hj B takes B (i)

24. Kt to R6 (ch) K to B sq.

25. Q takes Q P takes Kt

26. R takes B, and, after a few
more moves, Black resigned.

NOTES.

(u) Mason played B to Kt5 in his game against English with
good effect.

(fc) B to K2 is safe and more defensive in its character, the point
being not to interpose a piece between the Queen and the centre
Pawns, which are the main objects of attack.

(c) Not to be commended. Kt to B3 instead would have
answered better.

(d) Devoting his attention to the isolated Pawn.

(e) A move full of deep and hidden motives, besides threatening
the centre. He also intends assailing the KKt, P with Q, Kt,
and B.

(/) Apparently the Bishop defends the weak spot on Kt2, but of
no avail. Black really had no satisfactory defence, as the position
is such that it admits of various interesting combinations. If Black
plays P to B3, or K to R sq., then Kt takes Kt ought to win, or, if
Kt takes Kt, then Q to Kt4 wins. We give a diagram of this in-
teresting position.

(3) Both brilliant and sound, and the combination that ensues
gives evidence of play of the highest order.

(h) The key move of the position.

(i) Q to K3 was here necessary to save the Queen ; but White
would win, as he remains with a piece ahead.

ANSWERS TO COEEESPONDENTS.

•^* Please address Chess Editor,
O. C. S. — Your opponent has a very slight advantage in both

N^OTICES.

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OFFICE : 74-76, GEEAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON, W.C.

JcsE 22, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

r.67

V AN aL'iL3l714,TED \Jlf- ^

^MACAZlNEo?5Gi£NCE^

PLAINLY'^'CRDED-EXACTlVrESCRlBED .

LONDON: FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 1883.

Contents of No. 86.

PAGE.

A Xaturalist's Tear ; Concerning

Bsta. By Grant Allen 36"

'Sociable'* Tricycles. By John

Bn

368

The Ori;r>t. of Whales. By B. A.

Proctor 369

The Chemistrv of Cookery.— XII.

By W. M. Williams 370

Laws of Briehtness.— IV. (JlUu-

tralej) Bv R. A. Proctor 372

Australian Ants 373

viei.

Sun Views of the Earth (////«-

trated.) By R. X. Proctor 375

Limits of Telescopes 375

Editorial Oossip 376

Reviews : — Ijintern Headings — The

Electrii- I.iu'lit 378

The Face of the Sty 379

Correspondence 380

Our Mathematical Column 381

Our Chess Column :
The International Tonmament ... 382

A NATURALIST'S TEAR.

By Graxt Allek.

XV.— COXCERXIXG BATS.

"IT^HAT a number of wild aiaimals we possess in
* * England whose very existence hardly ever obtrudes
itself upon us, even though they may have taken up their
residence in the self-same houses which wo conceited
human beings vainly presume to call our own. For
example, there are the bats. They say no less than
fourteen distinct species of these queer, night-flying
creatures have been found in Britain, and yet how seldom
anybody ever notices them, save by the merest chance —
certainly far too casually to venture upon pronouncing a
definite opinion on the obscure question of their specific
distinctness. In the garret of this very house, now,
between the outer tiles and the plaster ceiling, a whole
colony of the long-eared kind — commonest V)ut one, I
should say, among the British species — has taken up its
permanent quarters. We are but five " humans " in
precarious possession of the premises, but when we first
came here we found the bats already firmly settled on the
spot, ranged up from the rafters liy dozens, and hanging
head downward by their hooked claws from the edges of
the cross-beams or other timbers. Recognising their just
prescriptive claim against uncompensated disturbance, we
have left them still strictly as tenants in capiti' ; and every
summer night about half past nine, they issue forth from
the attic air-hole, to sweep the garden far and wide in
search of moths and other nocturnal insecta During the
winter, however, they lay by quietly in cosy crannies
between the tiles, hibernating after the fashion of most
smaller British mammals, and living on the store of fat
which they have duly accumulated on their own plump
bodies in the lavish abundance of the flush season.

Bats are, perhaps, the oddest and most abnormal of all
mammals, with their very developed wing-like membranes,
and their extraordinary power of extended flight. Yet it
is not verj- difficult to trace by analogy the steps through
which they have acquired their existing organs of locomo-
tion. True, the great central group of mammals from

which they appear to be descended — the insectivores, or
shrew and mole group — are particularly wanting in any-
thing approaching the possession of flight ; they are
thoroughgoing ground animals, most of them burrowers,
and all of them averse to climbing, which seems invariably
the first step towards the acquisition of wings, or their
equivalent. This, however, is doubtless due to the very
fact that their more advanced and developed descendants,
the bats, have cut them out in this respect, so that all the
intermediate and less perfect types have long since become
extinct But the various half-flying creatures which we meet
^\-ith elsewhere, though not themselves at all connected
genetically (save, perhaps, in one case) with the bats or the
insectivores, still help us to understand by analogy the origin
of the bat tribe from an ordinary insectivorous ancestor.
It is well known that among forestine animals a great ten-
dency exists towards the production of a rudimentary
flying apparatus ; and there is hardly any great gi-oup of
mammals among which themoretree-haunting members have
not begun to develop such a mechanism, in a more or less
perfect form. Anybody who has ever watched even our
English squirrels, leaping lightly from bough to bough, can
readily understand how closely their movements approxi-
mate to the rudest type of flight ; for in these familiar
creatures, which have as yet no specialised membrane for
the purpose, there is some taint approach towards the use
of a parachute, as they always spread out their legs, head,
and bushy tail to the utmost extent in taking what is
characteristically described as " a flying leap." But among
some of their relations, the whole class of flying
squirrels, comprising a number of American and Asiatic
forms, there has been developed a distinct e.xtensible
membrane or fold of skin, spreading from the fore-
legs to the hind-legs, and employed as a parachute
to break the creature's fall, or to permit it to glide
obliquely from one bough to another at a lower level.
Naturally, the possession of such a membrane gives an
arboreal animal a great advantage in the struggle for
existence, and hence it is frequently found, independently
developed over and over again, amongst all great tribes of
tree-haunting animals. For example, among the rodents
themselves, there is another group besides the flying-
squirrels in which the same peculiarity appears under
similar circumstances, and that is in the African family of
the anomalures — a family closely resembling the flying-
squirrels in outer appearance, but difTering from them in
so many points of internal structure that they must be
looked upon as distinct in origin, and owing their external
similarity rather to likeness of circumstances than to
identity of genealogical descent They help, in fact, to
prove the universal rule, that nearly the same conditions
produce everywhere nearly the same results.

Among the marsupials, or pouched animals, again, the
very arboreal family of the Phalangers has produced
several so-called flying species, one of which is even known
locally in Australia as the flying squirrel, though, of
course, it is not really connected in any way with the true
rodent squirrels. Nevertheless, the resemblance Ln the
bushy tail, the long, loose, flying membrane, and the whole
shape of the head and body, is so close as to be almost
ridiculous. Finally, there is one very strange creature —
half lemur and half insectivore,the colugo or galeopithecus
— which seems like an actual remnant of the ancestral
line by which at least one great group of bats — the fruit-
bats of the East — were originally evolved. This curious
beast, a surviving representative of some very ancient
type, differs from most other parachute-bearing mammals,
in the fact that the space between its fingers is " webbed,"
or covered with skin, a great approximation to the

3G8

KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 22, 1883.

character of the bats. If, as many naturalists believe, the
fruit-ljats are really a separately-developed class by them-
selves, then it is not impossible that the galeopithecus may
represent one of the intcrincdiate steps in their original
development ; for the fruit-bats seem to present strong
points of affinity to the lemur.s, whose region they inhabit,
and to be, in fact, specialised lemuroid animals, while the
other bats appear rather to be liighly advanced and winged
insectivores.

The flying squirrels and even the galeopithecus cannot
really llv in the strictest sense of the word ; they can only
glide sideways and downward by means of a skin parachute.
In the true bats, however, the organ of flight has attained'
a far greater development than this ; for they are able to
rise and wheel about in the air with the same freedom and
facility as birds. To make this possible, the fore-arms and
the finger-bones have attained in them an immense develop-
ment, the middle finger especially being ordinarily as long
as the whole body, without the tail. Between these fingers,
and from them to tlu; hind legs, stretches the membrane
by means of which the bat flies. It is the great length of
the fingers, and the extent of membrane between them,
that enal)les the bat to fly in the true sense ; and
yet, it is impossible to compare the skeleton of a
bat with the skeleton of a shrew, and not to per-
ceive' at once that the liat is really in all essentials a
flying shrew. The bones of the fore-legs (or arms) are all
prodigiously lengthened, out of all proportion to the rest of
the body ; but that is all. In ground-plan the two animals
resemble one another very closely. With the light thrown
upon the subject by the flying squirrels and galeopithecus,
it is not difficult to understand how a race of ancestral tree-
haunting insectivores may have taken to pursuing their
prey in the air as they jumped, and how this habit
■would give an advantage to such animals as possessed
very slight extensile patches of skin to buoy them up
from falling too rapidly. Thus we would first get a
creature like the colugo, and then, as the animals took
wider and wider excursions after their insect prey, the
possession of longer fingers and webbed hands would begin
to tell in favour of any chance divergent individual. In
this way, from generation to generation, the most bat-like
insectivores of such a type would most frequently survive,
until at last the whole group became evolved into true bats
by the necessary extinction of its least advanced members.
Once fully developed, the race would begin to diverge
afresh in different directions, and so to give us all the
immense variety of existing bats. Geologically, we know
that these flying mammals go back to a comparatively early
age, and when we first find them in the eocene deposits
they have already acquired the full marks of existing
families : hence we may conclude that they must have
diverged from the insectivores while that group was still
young and plastic, and that their fossil pedigree is now lost
for us in the mist of ages.

The Railiimy Ar/c (Chicago, May 3) says that narrow-
gauge trains have been blown off the rails in California on
several occasions lately during tornadoes.

BuRXHAM Beeches. — Mr. F. G. Heath is issuing at the
office of Forealr;/ a special " Author's Edition " of his little
work, "Burnham Beeches," to which will Vie prefixed a fac-
simile of the long and interesting letter of Lord Beacons-
field to the author on peasant life, trees and sylvan scenery
— a letter particularly referring to Burnham Beeches, and
written a short time only before the late Earl's death.

" SOCIABLE " TRICYCLES.

By John Browning.

(Chairnian and Treasurer of the London Tricycle Club.)

THAT delusions die hard is proverbial, but two in con-
nection with "Sociable" tricycles have, I trust,
received their death-blow this week. The first is, or was,
that " Sociable" tricycles are very much slower than
single machines. The second, that these double tricycles
must weigh from 1701b. to 180 lb. to be safe. I am aware
that many makers now quote the weight of their " Sociables "
as between 1 101b. and 1.501b., but in every instance that
I have been able to weigh them, save one — Singer's
"Apollo" — they have scaled upwards of 1701b.

To test the qualifications of the " Sociables," I recently
proposed to the committee of the London Tricycle Club to
give two £3. 3s. prizes to the winners of a twenty -five
mile road ride on " Sociables," to be competed for by
members of the Club.

The committee not only accepted my ofTer, but very
handsomely supplemented it by subscribing themselves
£3. 3s. as a second prize. There were six or seven entries,
but, from various causes, only four pairs of riders were
able to start at the appointed time.

The ride was twelve and a half miles out and back to
the starting-point, on the same road, the course being
from near Caterham Junction, over Merstham Hill and
Red Hill, on the road to Crawley, and returning. The
effects of hills and wind were, therefore, to a great extent,
neutralised. The roads were very rough, inches deep with
dust, and plentifully strewn with loose flints, the result of
the dry weather which has recently prevailed. The atmo-
sphere was heavy and humid, and most unfavourable to
exertion.

Under these circumstances the ride was completed in
the following times : —

1st riders

.. 2 hrs 1 min. 30 sees

2nd „

.. 2 „ 6 „ 5 „

3rd „

.. 2 „ 7 „ 25 „

4th „

.. 2 „ 19 „ 0 „

It will be seen at once that the distance was covered at
the rate of between twelve and thirteen miles an hour,
which will compare favourably with the performance of
single tricycles, and not badly with that of bicycles.

But a still more important point to note is this — that
the winners, Messrs. Howard and Salmon, rode a specially
light machine, made for them by Hurst, of Croydon.
This machine must have been at least 40 lb. lighter than
that ridden by Messrs. Nixon and Bates, who gained the
second prize, and I think it most probable that if the riders
were to change the machines and ride such a race again,
the second men would be in nine or ten minutes ahead,
instead of being between four and five minutes behind the
late winners.

Yet the fact that the light machine stood the test of
being driven over rough roads for twenty-five miles at a .
racing pace is sufficient proof that it is amply strong for
ordinary riding or touring.

Riders of medium weight should now insist on machines
built specially for them being made much lighter, though
heavy riders would do well to study strength in preference
to lightness.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of a lighter " Sociable "
would be found when it became necessary to push it up an
unrideable hill. Where there is one lady riding with a
gentleman, the gentleman has, of course, to push the
machine up hills by himself. When touring with my wife,
I find the lighter " Apollo Sociable," which Singers have

June 22, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

3G9

recently made me, a much easier machine to push up hill
than any I have tried previously.

During the next season I trust we shall see " Sociable "
tricycles in the market which will be nearer 1 Oil lb. in
weight than 200 lb., and, eventually, I have little doubt
that their weight when required for light riders may be re-
duced below 1001b. Single tricycles are now made of
various patterns — ■ for instance, the " Humber," the
" Monarch," and the " Coventry " — which do not e.xceed
65 lb. in weight, and yet are strong enough for all
ordinary work ; and a double tricycle need not certainly
weigh so much as two single tricycles. The elder Starley,
the creator of the tricycle, who, being a very heavy man
himself, always erred on the side of weight, only began by
making his " Sociable " weight 180 when the single
weighed 1101b.

To reduce the weight of the " Sociable " the machine
must have smaller wheels.

To make the machines as light as they well can be, the
wheels should not be more than tO inches in diameter. For
average riders these might be geared level, but for strong
riders they would be better geared to 45 in. One great
advantage of a machine with 40 in. wheels is that it can
be put into a guard's van and carried anywhere in a train.
A machine with larger wheels requires a truck, and is
charged at carriage rates.

The performance of " Sociable " tricycles will, however,
not be satisfactory until they are provided with two-speed
gearing. It is common on such machines to ride with
some friend, eitlier a lady or gentleman, who, from want of
practice, can do but little towards propelling the machine.
Under such circumstances, a head wind, rising ground, or
a rough road will soon nearly stop the riders. Two-speed
gearing would then be invaluable. A machine with 40-
inch wheels should, for average riders, bo geared down to
30 inches for power for all hard work, and up to 50 inches
for speed. For strong riders, who wish to travel as fast as
possible, the power gear should be 35 inches and the speed
gear 55 inches.

The following makers are already prepared to supply
machines with two-speed gearing. The St. George's
Foundry Company, Bricknell i Co., the makers of the
" Merlin," and Burdess, who is known as the ingenious
contriver of the " Sterling " and " Rucker," and Singer,
are preparing to supply such gearing.

Lloyd Bros., the maker of the novel and excellent rear-
steerer, the " Quadrant," are making for me a two-speed
machine on an entirely new plan. The readers of Know-
ledge shall be informed as to the details and the perform-
ance of this machine directly I have tried it

A subscriber of Knowledge has asked me to repeat my
warning to tyros not to deviate from a straight course to
avoid either stones or ruts when running quickly down a
steep hilL Such a deviation is most dangerous. Should it
incautiously be made, the error cannot safely be corrected
by using the steering handle only. The brake should be
carefully, not suddenlij, applied at the same tiynt;, and it
will be found more beneficial in steadying the course of
the machine than it is in checking it. This use of the break
is not known as it should be.

Before I found out the advantage to be gained by using
the break in this manner, I had two very ugly accidents ;
but of late I have experimented on all kinds of uncertain
rear-steering machines with safety. Had it not been for
the use I have constantly made of the break in the manner
described, I doubt if I should be tricycling now.

One shilling will he paid for a copy of the Index to Voinme I.
Knowledge. Apply or address to the Publishers, 75, Great Qneen-
Btreet, London, W.C.

TPIE ORIGIX OF WHALES.*

By liiciiAED A. Proctor.

THE capture of a bottle-nosed dolphin, which is now
disporting itself in a tank at the Brighton Aquarium,
synchronises rather happily with Professor Flowers's sug-
gestive lecture on whales at the Royal Institution — a
lecture bringing out very etiectively some of the most
remarkable evidence in favour of the modern theory of
biological evolution. The idea prevails that this theory
depends in large degree on the resemblances existing
between different forms of animal life. It is supposed, for
instance, that because men and monkeys, and horses and
sheep are all backboned animals, therefore science recog-
nises relationship among these various classes of animals.
In reality, the modern theory of development does not
depend at all — whatever may have been the case with
older theories — on mere features of resemblance in structures
and in organs manifestly useful. It might be reasonably
said in answer to any argument of the sort that the speciiil
arrangements which are good for one class of animals, are
not, therefore, necessarily bad for another class, but may
be the best for that class also. The antecedent proba-
bility would seem to be that certain types would be found
to prevail among animals even if the structure of each
order had been made a matter of special teleological
arrangement. The resemblance between the handles of a
screw-driver, a chisel, and a gouge, does not show that
these instruments have either been developed one from
another, or that they have all been developed from a com-
mon form ; bnt arises from the simple circumstance that
that form of handle is convenient for the work which all
these instruments are intended to do. But as a matter of
fact, the modern theory of biological evolution depends
rather on the differences than on the resemblances between
races presumed to be more or less akin, is based rather on
the partial disappearance of structures or organs in par-
ticular races — or rather on the way in which such partial
disappearance is found to have been brought about — than
on the existence of the same sets of structures or organs
in different animals. For the absence, or almost total
absence of a structure or organ in any animal is proof
that the animal can do very well without it, and does
not need it ; so that an organ found to be practically
wanting is one for which nature manifestly had no
occasion to make provision ; and if it is found that,
nevertheless, nature /ins made provision for some such
organ, which yet has not come to its full develop-
ment, or remains practically non-existent, then there is
strong evidence in favour of natural development or
evolution, as distinguished from special creative acts. For
instance, the presence of the bones of the fore-arm in man
affords scarcely any reason for regarding him as akin to
the monkey, the horse, the sheep, all of which also have
the same bones ; for the fore-arm is obviovisly as useful to
man, though not in the same way, as it is to those other
animals ; but the presence of tail-bones in the human
skeleton indicates kinship, because man needs no tail
either for prehensile purposes, as with certain classes of
monkeys, or to sweep away annoying insects, as with the
horse. If such kinship were not rendered probable by the
actual structure of the tail bones, with the rudiments of
parts, such as in lower animals have useful purposes, it
would be rendered so hj the embryological evidence, which
shows how the rudimentary tail in each human being began
with relatively important proportions, and with acces-
sories suggestive of future usefulness in more ways than

From the Neuxastle Weekly Chronicle.

370

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 22, 1883.

oip To say that special creative acts might well have
fdshionccl all animals on one general plan, if that plan
were the hest, is reasonable enough ; but it seems alto-
gether unreasonable to say that there would probably, or
even that there might possibly, have been such a rigid
adherence to one plan that those animals which had no
use or occasion for certain organs, would yet be provided
with the rudiments of them, and in the beginning of
their existence would have them in relatively full de-
velopment.

The study of such an animal as the whale illustrates
this line of argument with singular force. For scarcely
any animal possesses so many rudimentary organs as the
whale. Thus the whale wants no teeth, yet in the begin
ning of its existence it has teeth. It has no use for separate
fingers, or, therefore, for the muscles which move the
fingers ; yet it has fingers, immovable — because enclosed in
an unyielding integument — j'et provided with muscles. It
wants no hind limbs (at any rate, it gets along very wfll
without any) ; jet not only has it rudimentary hind limbs,
deep buried in its body, but in these can bo traced many
details of structure such as are found in quadrupeds,
(zoologists, by the way, nearly always speak of the whale
as a quadruped). Regarding the structure of each animal
as a matter arranged originally by special creative acts, such
characteristics as these are more than perplexing : they
are clearly suggestive of imperfection of plan and varia-
bility of purpose. But regarded as the evolutionist
regards them, they indicate the perfection and widely-
ranging character of the law by which, as surroundings
change, animals change in character along with them. Al-
though the idea of Deity must ever transcend (and trans-
scend infinitely) the thoughts of man, there seems some-
thing infinitely nobler in the conception of a la\\giver
whose laws take into account the occasion for change
and provide for them, than in that of a workman re-
stricted to a particular plan, and rather fashioning useless
mechanism on that plan than departing from it as occasion
arose. To use an illustration drawn from manufacture,
we recngnise wisdom in the gradual progression from the
heavier vehicles of former days, when roads were bad, to
the lighter carriages of our own time ; whereas, when we
note that the peculiarities of the old stage-coach were
repeated — quite uselessly — in the first forms of railway
carriages, even to the reproduction of features having no
meaning in railway travelling, we recognise simply the
absence of inventive facult)'. Yet there are those who are
absolutely offended with science for showing that through-
out nature there is evidence of wisdom of the former type,
though infinitely wider in scope, and no evidence of that
want of inventive faculty whicli would have been suggested
by the uniform application of one and the same plan
under varying conditions.

Apart from such considerations as these, the theory of
biological evolution applied to different classes of animals
affords evidence such as we can obtain in no other way
respecting their past history. Thus, while paheontology
affords very little information respecting the past history
of the cetaceans, the rudimentary organs throw some light
on the question. It ajipears, says Professor Flowers, "that
originally whale.s were land mammals of fairly high or-
ganisation, with a hairy covering, and complete olfactory
apparatus for smelling in air, teeth of several kinds, and
distinct fore and hind limbs." " Whales," he adds, " are
not related to animals like seals, as if the hind limbs had
been developed into very efficient aquatic organs. It is
not easy to imagine how thest' limbs could have become
completely atrophied, and their function transferred to
the taH. IMore probably whales were derived from

animals with tails which were"u.sed in swimming, like
those of the beaver, and eventually with such effect that
the hind limbs became no longer necessary." The whale,
judged by its anatomical structure, seems more closely
related to pig-like animals than to any of the camivora.
The absence of any traces of cetaceans in the creta-
ceous strata has long lieen noticed as a remarkable cir-
cumstance. Professor Flowers finds a probaVjle explana-
tion in the fact that many existing species belong
exclusively to rivers, whence we may perhaps infer that
the whole group had a fiuviatile origin. It would be in-
teresting to in(iuire what was the probable origin of the
plesiosaurus, ichthyosaurus, and other such sea saurians,
whose place the cetaceans are supposed by some palajonto-
logists to have taken. It has long been commonly assumed
that the former have necessarily disappeared, but if we
consider the circumstances under which the cetaceans pro-
bably took their present position, it does not seem easy to
recognise any reason for supposing that the saurians would
have been dispossessed by the cetaceans. It seems exceed-
ingly probable that if they still exist they might yet
scarcely ever be seen. Some accounts of what has been
called the sea serpent agree well, as Gosse and other natu-
ralists have shown, with the theory that sea saurians still
exist.

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.

XII.

By W. Mattieu Williams.

RETURNING to the question suggested by my last
paper. Why has Rumford's roaster fallen into disuse,
notwithstanding the fact, mentioned in his essay, that
Mr. Hopkins, of Greek-street, Soho, had sold above 200,
and others were making them 1

Those of my readers who have had practical experience
in using hot air or in superheating steam, will doubtless
have already detected a weak point in the " blowpipes."
When iron pipes are heated to redness, or thereabouts, and
a blast of air or steam passes through them, they work
admirably for awhile, but presently the pipe gives way, for
iron is a combustible substance, and burns slowly when
heated and supplied with abundant oxygen, either by
means of air or water, the latter being decomposed, its
hydrogen set free, while its oxygen combines with the
iron and reduces it to friable oxide. Rumford does not
appear to have understood this, or he would have made his
blowpipes of fire-clay or other refractory non-oxydizable
material.

The records of the Great Seal Office contain specifica-
tions of hundreds of ingenious inventions that have failed
most vexatiously from this defect ; and I could tell of joint-
stock companies that have been " floated " to carry out in-
ventions involving the use of heated air or superheated steam
that have worked beautifully and with apparent economy
while the shares were in the market, and then collapsed
just when the calls were paid up, the cost of renewal of super-
heaters and hot-air chambers having worse than annulled
the economy of working fuel described in the prospectus.
Thus a vessel driven l)y heated air, as a substitute for
steam, was fitted up with its caloric engine, and crossed the
Atlantic with passengers on board. The voyage practically
demonstrated a great saving of coal ; patent rights were
purchased accordingly for a very large amount, and shares
went up buoyantly until the oxidation of the great air
chamlier proved that the engine burned iron as well as coal
at a ruinous cost.

June 22, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

371

Although no mention is made by Runiford of such de-
struction of the blowpipes, he was evidently conscious of
the costliness of his original roaster, as he describes
another which may be economically substituted for it. This
has an air chamber formed by bringing the body of the
oven door so as to enclose the space occupied by the blow-
pipes shown in Fig. 1, and placing the dripping-pan on a
false bottom joined to the front face of the roaster just
below the door, but not extending quite to the back. An
adjustible register door opens at the front into this air
chamber, and when this is opened the air passes along
from front to back under the false bottom, and rises behind
to an outlet pipe like that shown at r Fig. 1. In thus
passing along the hot bottom of the oven the air is heated,
but not so greatly as by the blowpipes, which being sur-
rounded by the flame on all sides, are heated above as well
as below, and the air in passing through them is much
more exposed to heat than in passing through the air-
chamber.

To increase the heat transmitted in the latter. Rum-
ford proposes that " a certain quantity of iron wire,
in loose coils, or of iron turnings, be put into the air
chamber."

This modification he called a " roasting oven," to dis-
tinguish it from the first described, the " roaster." He
states that the roasting oven is not quite so effective as the
roaster, but from its greater cheapness may be largely
used. This anticipation has been realised. The modem
" kitchener," which, in so many forms is gradually and
steadily supplanting the ancient open range, is an appa-
ratus in which roasting in the open air before a fire is
superseded by roasting in a closed ^amber or roasting
oven. Having made three removals within the last twelve
years, each preceded by a tedious amount of house-hunting,
I have seen a great many kitchens of newly-built houses,
and find that about 90 per cent of these have closed
kitcheners, and only about 10 per cent are fitted with
open ranges of the old pattern. Bottle-jacks, like smoke-
jacks and spits, are gradually falling into disuse

When these kitcheners were first introduced, a great point
was made by the manufacturer of the distinction between
the roasting and the baking oven ; the first being provided
with a special apparatus for effecting ventilation by devices
more of less resembling that in Rumford's roasting oven.
Gradually these degenerated into mere shams, and now in
the best kitcheners even a pretence to ventilation is aban-
doned. Having reasoned out my own theory of the con-
ditions demanded for perfect roasting some time ago (about
1860, when I lectured on " Household Philosophy " to a
class of ladies at the Hirmingham and Midland Institute), I
have watched the gradual disappearance of these conces-
sions to popular prejudice with some interest, as they show
how practical experience has confirmed this theory, which,
as already expounded, is that the meat should be cooked bij
the action of radinnl heat, jtrojected tov:ardis it from all
sides, while it is immersed in an atmosphere saturated witli
its own vapours.

Herein I diverge from my teacher, as the preceding
description of both his roaster and roasting-oven shows.
His explanation of the prejudice of Englishmen against
baked meats may have been to some extent justified by his
own experience, seeing that he heated his ovens by a fire
placed below, and if he first used these without his water-
pan, they doubtless effected the decomposition of the
dripping and gravy of which he speaks (see No. XL of this
series, page 342) ; but even in this case the flavour of
merely burnt fat is not very serious — far less objectionable
than that of the vile mixture of vapours described in
No. X.

The few domestic fireplace ovens that existed in
Rumford's time were clumsily heated by raking some of
the fire from the grate into a space left below the oven.
Those of the best modern kitcheners are heated by flues
going round tliem, generally starting from the top, which
thus attains the highest temperature. The radiation from
this does the " browning " for which Rumford's blowpipes
were designed.

According to my view of the philosophy of roasting, this
browning, or the application of the highest temperature,
should take place at the beginning rather than the end of
the process, in order that a crust of lirnily coagulated albu-
men may surround the joint and retain the juices of the
meat AU that is necessary to obtain this effect in a suffi-
cient degree is to raise the roasting oven to its full tem-
perature before the meat is put in. Supposing an equal
fire is maintained all the while, this initial temperature
will exceed that of the continuing temperature, because,
when the meat is in the oven, the radiant heat from its
sides are intercepted by the joint and doing work upon it;
heat cannot do work without a corresponding fall of tem-
perature. While the oven is empty the radiations from
each side cross the open space to reinforce the temperature
of the other sides.

Is there, then, any difference at all between roasting and
baking 1 There is. In roasting, the temperature, after
the first start, is maintained about uniformly throughout ;
while in baking by the old-fashioned method, the tempera-
ture continually declines from the beginning to the end
of the process ; but in order that a dweller in cities,
or the cook of an ordinary town household, may understand
this difference, some explanation is necessarj'. The old-
fashioned oven, such as was generally used in Rumford's
time, and is still used in country houses and by old-
fashioned bakers, was an arched cavity of brick with a flat
brick floor. This cavity is closed by a suitable door, which
in its primitive, and perhaps its best form, was a flat tile
that was pressed against the opening and luted round with
clay. Such ovens were, and still are, heated by simply
spreading on the brick floor a suflicient quantity of wood —
preferably well-dried twigs ; these, being lighted, raise the
temperature of the arched roof to a glowing heat, and that
of the floor in a somewhat lower degree. When this heat-
ing is completed (the judgment of which constitutes the
chief element of skill in thus baking) the embers are care-
fully brushed out from the floor, the loaves, ic, inserted
by means of a flat battledore with a long handle, called a
" peel," and the door closed and firmly luted round, not to
be opened until the operation is complete. Baked clay is
an excellent radiator, and therefore the surface of bricks
forming the arched roof of the oven radiates vigorously
upon its contents below, which are thus heated at top by
radiation from the roof, and at bottom by direct contact
with the floor of the oven. The ditt'erence between the
compact bottom crust, and the darker bubble-bearing top
crust of an ordinary loaf is thus explained.

As the baking of a large joint of meat is a longer operation
than the baking of bread, there is another reason besides that
already given for the inferiority of meat when baked in a
baker's oven constructed on this principle. The slow cool-
ing-down must tend to produce a flabbiness and insipidity
similar to that of the roast meat which is served at restau-
rants where a joint remains " in cut " for two or three
hours. Of this I speak theoretically, not having had
an opportunity of tasting a joint that has been cooked
in a brick oven of the construction above described, but
have observed the advantage of maintaining a steady heat
throughout the process of roasting in the iron oven of a
kitchener, or American stove, or gas oven.

372

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

June 22, 1883.

LAWS OF BRIGHTNESS.

IV.
By Richard A. Pkoctob.

BEFORE passing to the consideration of tlic total
brightness of globes when viewed so as to present
various phases, I propose to make a few remarks on a diffi-
culty which may suggest itself as respects what I said in
my last paper about the brightness of an illuminated
hemisphere viewed directly. It seems at first sight that
such a hemisplicre, liaving a larger surface than a disc of
equal diameter, ought to send to the observer at least as
much light, notwithstanding the obliquity of the illumina-
tion near the edge of the hemisphere. This reasoning really
amounts to the supposition that the relative faintness of
the illumination of a part near the edge of the hemisphere
is compensated by the greater area. Thus, if F E be a
small circular cylinder intersecting the surface of the hemi-
sphere in the ellipse M L (Fig. 8) the illumination being

received in direction I P ; it seems as though the faint
illumination of L M should be made up by the greater area
of L M, compared with the area of the small circle D E in
the case of an illuminated disc as H K. As a matter of
fact, the large area L M receives the same amount of light
precisely as the small area D E ; but it sends it away in a
difierent manner. D E gives back most light in direction
P I ; but L M sends out most light in direction P N. As
seen from that direction the space L M appears as an oval,
having a much larger area than D E as seen (from the same
distance) in the direction I P. It is obvious, therefore,
that M L, viewed in the direction P I, in which it does not
give out its maximum amount of light, cannot look so bright
as D E (which receives exactly the same amount of light)
viewed in the same direction P I, in which it gives out its
maximum amount of light.

Or we may xievr the matter in this way. The hemisphere
receives precisely the same amount of light as a disc of
equal diameter. But the light received from the disc grows
less and less down to nothhig as the disc is viewed at a
smaller and smaller angle from the right angle down to
zero (when the disc is viewed sideways). But the light
received from the hemisphere, though it also is reduced as
the illuminated hemisphere is viewed more obliquely, is
nevertheless not reduced to notJdng when the hemisphere
is viewed sideways, for then the hemisphere appears as a
half disc of light. The light is not reduced absolutely to
zero until the exactly opposite hemisphere is looked at
directly. Now, neither the disc nor the hemisphere can
give out more light than they receive, and they receive the
same quantity of light; hence, since the hemisphere gives
out light over a greater range as respects direction, this
must bo compensated by the circumstance that in that par-
ticular direction in which both the hemisphere and the disc
give out the maximum of light, the disc gives out more
light than the hemisphere.

I have failed, after some trying, to find any method by

which the total brilliancy of an illuminated sphere, when
presenting any given phase, can bo determined so that the
general reader can follow the demonstration. Perhaps
some of our mathematical contributors may be able to solve
the problem in a geometrical way. My analytical solution
is given below.* The result, which was long ago obtained
by Lambert (I do not know in what way), may be con-
veniently presented as follows : —

Let A D B E (Fig. 9) be a smooth sphere illuminated
by a distant body, and let the length of the semicircular
arc A D B be taken to represent the total light received
from this sphere when A D B E is the illuminated hemi-
sphere. Then, when D G E is the terminator and D G E A
illuminated, the total light is represented liy the length
of the mixed line A H K G, obtained by describing the
semicircular arc F L G with 0 G as radius, and drawing
thereto the tangent A H ; and when D G E is the ter-
minator, but D G E B illuminated, the total light is repre-
sented by the length of the line K B, diminished by the
length of the circular arc K G. It follows that when
D C E is the terminator, or the sphere " half full," the

* Lot A 0 D Q, Fig. 10, be the illnniinated portion of a smooth
disc, and let the arc D E (or the circular measure of the angle
DOE) = a. Let B be the centre of the ilhiminated hemisphere,
so that B D is an arc of 90°. Let K and S be two points in 0 Q,
such that CS = ic, RS = Ji, and let two planes, at right angles to

Fig. 10.

O Q and passing through tlie points E and S, intersect the sphere
in F H, G K, so that G H is a narrow zone of the sphere ; and let
two pianos through O Q, inclined at angles 6 and 9 + B 0 to O DQ,
rut the zone G H in L P and NM. Then the elementary area PN
is equal to rS 6 . S x approximately ; but it is reduced by fore-
shortening, so as to appear = rS 6 . 1 x cos C P approximately. And
if the illumination of a unit of area at C be I, the illumination at
P is equal to I cos B P. Hence tlie light received from the ele-
mentary area PN = L r . S 9 .S x cos B P. Cos C P approximately.

June 22, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

573

light is represented by the length of the line A C ; that is —
light of full sphere : light of half sphere

:: arc ADB : AC

:: - : 1

or :: 22 : 7 approximately.

Thus two half spheres do not give the same light as one
full spli?re ; but less, in the ratio of the diameter of a
circle to half the circumference.

Again, it is easy to compare the sum of the light given
in two phases supplementary to each other, as 1) G E A
and D G E B, with the lii,'ht of full sphere. For wo have
light of D G E A : light of full sphere :: A H + H K G :
arc ADB. Light of D G E B : light of full sphere ::
B K — K G : arc A D B. Hence (remembering that
A H = B K) we have light ofDGEA + DGEB: light
of full .'sphere :: A H K B : A D B.

AUSTRALIAN ANTS.

THE kind of ants perhaps the best knows near Mel-
bourne are those generally found in paddocks, parks,
and other pasture lands. In up-country districts the space
of ground covered by the so-called nests are often of
enormous proportions. I noticed one, some years since, on
the eastern side of the Wodonga Railway, near Benalla,
that must have been fully ten yards in breadth and length,
so that the area thereof would be nearly 1,000 square feet.
These nests are perfect hives of industry, the population
outnumbering in all probaVnIity that of many European
capitals. A mere glance at the surface, however, gives but
very little idea of the amount of living creatures belonging
to and labouring for the commonwealth. A slight dis-
turbance of the community, either by scraping with the
foot or thrusting a blade of grass down one or the other of
the numerous entrances, is sufficient to bring out the
underground population in countless numbers, and he
who thus disturbs the peace of the republic is for-
tunate if he escapes with less than a few score of the
warriors and sentinels clinging to his garments and
biting the flesh when arriving at an uncovered part with
ferocious energy. I am not aware whether there are gal-
leries underground uniting the several entrance shafts with
each other or not. The probability seems to be that each
hole at the surface leads only to one nest, altogether inde-
pendent of all the rest To decide this point two tests
were resorted to. A small stick was forced gently into
one hole, the usual outrush following, as might be expected.

Now, each of tho spherical tiiangles O B P, O C P is quadrantal,
and therefore

cos B P = sinOP. cos BOP

cos C P = 8in 0 P. cos C 0 P

sia (a -1- (

Hence, proceeding to the limit and making summation, we get the
total light from A O D Q

. + r -rr — i

^-y / ^r-x- sin 6. sin (n + 0) ,(.r . (W.

I r+'-r^-" ,

= 57/ / ^ V ,-_^- [cos or — cos (JT-H 28)] (ix.dO.

) /-+'• ,

( — a) cos a + sin n / / vj^^^ jr.

{v — a) cos a-rsin a *• ; or varies as

I f

TTr c "1

= 1 -"5 J (t — «) cos a -rsin a ^

[sin a+ ("■ — n) cos a] ; or as sin v + v cos r, if we pat (n- — a) = v.

The other entrances, even when only removed a few inches
from the one experimented upon, were used for the pur-
poses of exits and entrances as ordinarily was the case, and
there was no excitement whatever. The second test con-
sisted in blowing the smoke of a cigar or pipe down one
hole, and then watching the rest. As may be supposed,
the little inmates of the hole subjected to temporary
fumigation issued from the same in crowds. No
smoke, however, escaped from any of the other holes,
nor was there ever any alarm manifested thereat.
This is by no means the case with ants of some other
species, many of whom are in the habit of buildmg
large nests with matiy entrances. Smoke blown into
any given hole of such nests escapes from other holes,
not unseldom at several feet distance. A very marked
peculiarity with respect to this kind of ant is the number
of roads constructed by them, and leading in all directions
to the foraging ground. Such roads may often be traced
for several hundred yai-ds. They run radially from the
nest, and, at certain distances, are bifurcated, or split oft
into branches. These roads are altogether cleared of
obstruction, every root of grass being as carefully cut down
(if the life in it is not absolutely destroyed by some occult
means), as is a line througli the forest denuded of timber
by the surveyor as preparatory to the construction of a new
highway. The only obstacles left are stones and a few fast-
growing plants, which are seemingly beyond the power of the
little workers to clear away. The road, therefore, is made
to deviate a little from its ordinary straight line, resuming
the same line as soon as the oVjstacle has been passed. As
may be supposed, owing to the numerous branches, the road
is most thronged with passengers near the nest, so that it
appears almost as crowded as does Cheapside or the Strand
on a fine afternoon. There is, however, but little jostling,
and no lingering crowds ; there are no loiterers in such a
community, while those passing to and fro appear to keep
sides as rigidly as do well-informed pedestrians on a metro-
politan pavement. Occasionally the roads cross a bush-
track or macadamised roadway. In such cases it is gene-
rally resumed on the opposite side. Under ordinary
circumstances, the string of ants is preserved unbroken
completely over the bare space. A passing vehicle, how-
ever, as does a strong breeze, by remo%-ing the dust, gene-
rally breaks up the string, the little animals running about
and spreading themselves in all directions — evidently at a
loss by which way they should proceed.

This following in regular file and over considerable dis-
tances is adopted also by most ants which are of gregarious
habits. A small black species is very common in Mel-
bourne, and may be seen running across the pavements,
always in the same direction. When the track leads over
asphalte, to my eyes the surface appears to he somev.'hat
discoloured. I at first thought the apparent darker shade
of the track might be due to fancy and an optical illusion.
I have noticed, however, that after a sharp shower the
marking referred to is not noticeable until some few hours,
during which a constant traffic has been going on, have
intervened. A stick or finger drawn once or twice across
the track seems to puzzle the passengers above measure,
since they are seen to pause and scatter themselves
both to the right and left for several inches, some-
times to the extent of one or two feet. From these
facts, which have been for a long time observed
and commented upon by naturalists, it is inferred that
ants are guided by scent, the forerunners leaving an
odour behind them which those in the rear subsequently
follow. With respect to this theory, however, I have often
noticed what is worthy of being recorded. In rushing
about to recover the missing trail, one or two — sometimes a

374

KNOWLEDGE •

[Jdne 22, 1883.

dozen — would straggle completely across the stick or fing<T-
niark. Jt generally liappened that these chance regainers
of the opposite and liroken track were not followed, the
confusion remaining on either side as great as ever. After
a sliorter or longer interval an ant would lind its way over,
and was immediately followed hy a rush of the before
utterly disorganised crowd. This kind of behaviour would
seem to indicate the existence and recognition of duly
appointed leaders, and an authority not to lie disregarded
by the general throng, who refuse to accept of the guidance
of any of the common lot.

In digging up some of these nests, one or two remarkable
features were brought to light. The queens are generally
found huddled together, as if in a sort of seraglio. The
eggs and pupie are similarly gathered in heaps. The usual
size of these ants is about a quarter of an inch long ; but
by opening the nest other members of the community are
met with of double such length and of corresponding
breadth and thickness. These giants are not so numerous
as are the smaller kind, and are seldom seen above ground,
and when the nest is dug up they look somewhat like a
score or two of Bonnors among a concourse of Bannernians.
Such comparative Goliaths are met with in the nests of
several of the ant species. The idea entertained by many
is that they act as soldiers to defend the settlement. This
view, however, so far as my own observations go, does not
seem to be verified. They are more than ordinarily
sluggish in their movements ; they scarcely ever rush out,
bent on bellicose operations, when the nest is disturbed,
whilst ants not one quarter of their length, and conse-
quently not one sixty-fourth of their bulk, appear to attack
them with impunity, the attacking party, if it happens to
be a strife of two to one, generally coming off victorious.

Another kind of ant, somewhit larger than the last, of
a reddish colour, and by no means so active as those just
described, is often common on light, gravelly soil. They
are tolerably numerous in the Government House reserve,
especially at spots a little removed from the most-fre-
quented pathways. There are seldom more than some half-
dozen entrances to the community, and these would seem
to be all connected together, as when smoke, as before
mentioned, was blown down one hole, it issued, in a short
time, from all the rest, the entire settlement appearing to
be simultaneously alarmed. This species has its giants
also, and has besides a singular habit, as it would seem, of
constructing regular sepulchres for the deposit of the
dead. I have several times dug up one of these
burial-places, which may be said to be extra-mural,
since they are generally situate at least at the
very boundaries of the colony. The same habit seems
to follow these ants when kept in close captivity.
A few months ago 1 placed some two or three hundred
within a shallow box covered with a plate of glass and
containing a small, artificial glass nest. As the outer box
was allowed to stand exposed to the sun, the earth witliin
it dried, and a severe mortality among the inmates was the
result. The corpses were all removed and piled up in a
heap as far as possible from the entrance to the glass nest.
I several times scattered the bodies so heaped together,
but they were invariably re-collected by the ants and piled
up as before, and always in the same spot. This went on
till every member of the community had died but one. It
is only fair to add that the sole survivor seemed to hold an
opinion that the rights of sepulture should be rigidly
attended to, and observed, since they were accorded by the
solitary individual, last of his tribe, to his dead comrades.

" Tlie skeletons of antdoni were around t)mt lonely one ;
Some had expired in fight, though brands
Were grasped not fast in bony Imnds."

At last the survivor died also. As none of his race re-
mained to give him decent burial, I dropped him gently on
the pile of his late companions, saying, I almost think,
while doing so, " Well done, thou good and faithful
servant, liequiescal in pace."

(To be continued.)

A SUKVEY of the extensive landslip which recently
occurred at Warden, in the Isle of Sheppey, shows, saya
the Enffiueer, that fully three acres of land have sunk from
their natural level some 70 ft down. Had not Warden
Church been pulled down three or four years ago, it would
inevitably have formed part of the slip. As it is, the
entire churchyard has been carried away, and is now
located about half way down the clifl'. Although each
decade shows a greatly diminished acreage in the Island of
Sheppey, no attempt is made to construct works to resist
the inroads of the sea; it is not worth it. Within living
memory, the lane now abruptly cut off once ran on for
nearly half a mile, where now the tide covers the fore-
shore. Beyond the church was a coastguard station, and
some ten or fifteen acres of land, all of which have fallen a
prey to the encroachments of the sea. A landslip of such
magnitude as the present has seldom been recorded.

AccoKDiN'G to the last annual report of her Majesty's
Inspectors of Explosives, laid before Parliament, there
were in Great Britain at the end of the year 1881 —
Factories, 8G ; magazines, 317; stores, 2,0-t5; registered
premises, 1-5,669; total, 18,117.

Me.xicax Tin. — The first ton of Mexican tin has, it is
said, been lately received in the United States. It came
from the Durango district, near the mountains of the same
name, and is said to be bright, clear, and of good texture.
It was discovered by Mr. Hans Freeman, of Australia,
who has for more than a year being searching for evidence
of the tin lodes and placers spoken of by the old Spanish
settlers.

The Xational Car-Builihr for May mentions that the
Vandalia Railway Company are removing the iron wheels
from carriages run through with express trains, and re-
placing them by a 43-in. paper wheels. The same company
two years ago issued an order, making the use of the
coupling-stick obligatory, on pain of dismissal. Since then,
no man obeying the order has been injured while making
couplings.

The Colonies and India says trains running on Feb. 13,
between Waverley and Nukumara, half way to Wanganui,
New Zealand, were brought to a standstill through count-
less thousands of caterpillars being on the rails. The offi-
cials had to sweep and sand the metals before the trains
could proceed.

A DESP.\TCH from Greensburg, Pa., 3rd ult., says : —
" The Lyons run gas well recently developed has turned
out to be a wonderful affair. The roar of the escaping gas is
something terrific, and the amount of gas going to waste is
enormous. It is estimated 6,000,0(10 cubic feet is daUy
wasted. The well is conceded by all who have seen it to
exceed in power the old Murraysville well and the new
wells of Messrs. Bolton it Doubleday and Pugh it
Emerson's, all three put together. The new well is two and
a-half miles nearer Pittsburgh than the Murraysville wells.
Messrs. Bolton k Doubleday, imitating the example of
boys on a fish pond, have bought an acre close by the new
well, and will put down a well in the hope of securing
some of the gas of Messrs. Brunot i Haymaker's well.
Twenty thousand dollars have been offered for the new
well."

June 22, 1883.]

• KNOWLEDGE ♦

375

SUN VIEWS OF THE EARTH;
OR, "THE SEASONS ILLUSTRATED."
Br Richard A. Proctoh.

WE give this week the Sun Views of the Earth for Midsamnier, in c mipauy with those for the last two months, in order that the
changing aspects of the earth, as supposed to be viewed from the sud, may be recogn'sed. We leave till nest week the pictures
s'lowing the aspect of Great Britain, Ac, at mid-day in Midsjmmer. We shall show then, for comparison, the same portion of the
earth as supposed to be seen from the earth, at mid-day in spring and autumn, and also at 6 in the morning, ■iwl 0 in the evening, in
midsnmmer.

376

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[JuKB 22, 1883.

LIMITS OF TELESCOPES.

IT startles most people to be told they never see the
stars, and yet in an important sense this is quite true.
Tlie human eye, or a telescope, forms an optical image
with the light rays rccei\('d from the stars, but not a
picture. The stars are too far ofl" for their light to bring
to us the smallest visiljle representation of their surface,
and the discs which a well-corrected telescope shows are
only optical images. If, on a clear, calm night, when the
air is steady, a telescope is pointed at a planet, it forms a
real picture, though the distance of the olyect prevents
details, even of considerable size, from being seen. If,
after using an eye-piece that magnifies fifty times linear,
another of double that power is employed, the planet's disc
will look twice as broad. Try the same experiments
with a bright star, and if the air is clear, and quiet
enough to produce no confusion, the star disc will not
be made bigger by the higher power. Larger telescopes,
if good, show stars with lesser discs than smaller instru-
ments, and hence a 6-in. telescope will plainly separate
double stars so close that a 3-in. cannot divide them at
all. Looking at the moon with an ISin. telescope and
a power of 200, shows more details than the same magni-
fication can display with a 6-in. or 8-in. It is only on
rare occasions, and in very favourable situations, that
large telescopes can be used effectively with magnifying
powers proportioned to their size. The larger they are,
the more disturbed air they look through ; and it often
happens that, instead of showing large stars with neatly-
rounded discs, they exhibit them like luminous flags
fluttering in a strong wind. Mr. C. Wolff, writing in Ciel
nl 'furre, says that Signor Schiaparelli, of the Milan Observa-
tory, can, with a telescope by Merz, with an aperture
(diameter of object-glass) of 0'" -218, or about 8i inches,
see an object on Slars like Jutland, Cuba, or the Isthmus
of Panama. The Washington telescope, of 2.5 J inches
aperture, he states, would distinguish a round object on
the moon of about 344 yards in diameter, or an elongated
one of half that breadth. He observes, " We are far from
the promises made by Arago, when he asked the Chamber
of Deputies for a credit for a telescope of 0'" -38 (about
1 o inches) aperture. He thought, by forcing the magnifi-
cation to 6,000, a round object on the moon about 65 J feet
square, or a long object about 6i feet wide, might be seen.
He considered only the difliculty of obtaining images bright
enough for such magnification ; but Foucault showed that
great apertures were necessary for such purposes, and that
to reach the limits mentioned by Arago, a telescope must
have an object-glass or mirror nearly 10 mfetres (about
33 feet) in diameter. " If," says Mr. Wolff, " we could
make such instruments, they would be nearly useless."
They would be hindered from working properly by the
disturbances of the air.

It is probable that large telescopes will be set up in the
best climates that can be discovered for affording clear,
steady vision ; but if a locality could be found in which the
moon could be continuously observed with a magnification
of 2,000, that would only be like bringing tlif eye of the
observer within about 170 miles of our satellite, and the
planets, being so much further ofl" could only exhibit objects
of very considerable dimensions.

We give the above statements as made by Mr. Wolff,
but precise explanations and observations are needed to
settle such questions. For example, what is to be called
" seeing a lunar object " 1 One telescope shows a small spot,
without details ; a larger one exhibits in that spot a little
hollow ; a still larger some roughnes.sos in the hollow. Would
Mr. Wolff consider the object seen by the first instrument 1

(^tutorial (gossip.

In the Pavilion at Brighton the use of the oxy-hydrogen
lantern has, of late, been forbidden — a restriction rather
inconvenient for lecturers. It would, probably, pay well
to build a hall in Brighton capahile of holding as many a&
the Dome, with good acoustic properties (those of the
Dome are singularly bad), and with sensible arrangements
in lieu of the unwise ones in vogue at the Pavilion. The
charge for the Dome is higher than would Vje just for as
large a hall of first-rate proportions, and with the best
modern improvements.

Looking over some of the later editions of Dickens's
works, I have been struck by the way in which some of
the rules apparently in vogue among compositors have
made nonsense of his words. Thus, it appears to be a
rule that the word " however " shall always be closely
guarded by commas. In the " Charles Dickens' Edition "
of " Great Expectations " this rule comes in effectively
to improve the conversation between Pip and Mag-
witch. Dickens made Pip say, " Still, however you
have found me out, you have found me out," <fcc.,
and a little later Magwitch says, " However you have
found me out, you seys jest now. Well ! however
did I find you outi" Of these three " howevers," the
two first are, of course, provided with a sequent comma,
making both sentences absurd. The third escapes ;
wonderful to relate. True, the absurdity would have been
even wilder if that third " however " had had its comma.
But, " says the ghost, says he, vy that's no rule," on the
contrary, that was a raison de j}lus for adding the pre-
posterous comma. In more editions than one, by the way,
of the same story we find the absurdity, " ' His wish were '

said Joe as I would, and you that,' " — for " His wish

were as I would ' and you that."

One of my own favourite hetes noirs in this line is the con-
stant custom of adding a comma after " and " in sentences
beginning " And therefore," or the like. Imagine reading
or speaking with a pause after the " and " in such cases !
Of course the sense is impaired as well as the sound ; but
the sound should be a sufficient guide.

Throwing in a comma before " which " often produces
a most absurd change in the meaning of a sentence, while
the sound in reading is not impaired, so that in correcting
proofs one is apt to overlook the change. For instance,
speaking of the crescent phase, I wrote, " We recognise
this peculiarity in the planets which travel nearer to the
sun than our earth does." This does not read better (or
worse) than " We recognise this peculiarity in the planets,
which travel nearer to the sun than our earth does ; " but
it happens to be a trifle nearer the truth.

The valuable series of papers on the " Moon," by our
esteemed contributor, " F.R.A.S.," must for a time, which
we trust may be short, be suspended.

Referring apparently to eclipse expeditions and the
theoretical views which they either have or have not
confirmed, the Glasgow Herald (in a review of my " Light
Science for Leisure Hours ") has the following impressive
passage,

(" Which is pretty, but I don't know what it means.")
" There was bound to be a little too much shouting over
realisations out of those unknown regions, and there will

JusE 22, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

377

always be a felt want of a check from the other side, to
put it so, in quests that cannot be called Utopian, but that
are particularly tit to take away the reproach of idleness
from men who may not have a forced field for their eflbrts."
The same review remarks that ilr. Proctor's "disciples
may not be tired by his prelections, but the public are
sometimes resentful of the assumption of too easy under-
standings even by great men." In a neighbouring review,
obviously from the same Miggsian mind, comes the remark
that " wits may jump together without damage to originali-
ties." In glancing over a series of reviews of legal,
scientific, and historic works, travel, poetry, fiction, and
so forth, by one unable to write respectable English, one
is disposed to suitgest, that " There is bound to be a little
too much outcry over evolutions out of moral conscious-
nesses, and there will always be a felt want of a check
from the other side (other, to put it so, than the cheque
calculated at half-a-crown per thirty lines), in decisions
which cannot be called judicial, but that are particularly
fit to suggest the reproach of impertinence in the case
of men who have emphatically forced fields for their
exertions."

Says the Easthounie Chronicle : — " By his lectures on
astronomy, delivered in difi'ercnt cities and towns of the
kingdom, Mr. Richard A. Proctor has no doubt done much
to popularise this most interesting and elevating of sciences.
But, like many modem astronomers who have dived deep
into the mysteries of the heavens, Sir. Proctor lays himself
open to the grave charge of endeavouring to account for
the present aspect of the universe by the mere lapse of
time. The existing condition of our planet is put forward
as a momentary phase in a development which presupposes
thousands of centuries in the past and thousands yet to
come. The earth, we are told, was once a gaseous
mass, in time it condensed and cooled, and in
due course became the abode of life. Now, in
the stage of mid-life, Mr. Proctor points to the
period — I am afraid to say how many years hence —
when it shall pass, like the moon, into the fifth stage
of a planet's life — the stage of death — and turn on its
axis as slowly as does the ' pale orb of night.' The
' birth and death of worlds ' is a sensational way of con-
veying the idea of commencement and end, but it is an
idea necessitating the dealing with ages, and myriads of
ages, in a way that is absolutely perplexing. One is dazzled,
almost dazed, by the endless heaping up of centuries, and
all to account for a condition of things which is far more
simply and satisfactorily explained by the plain Biblical
narrative of the creation of the world. To make ' time' a
universal factor in the economy of the universe is to underrate
and limit creative power. This searching after a crude and
ill-defined beginning for our earth and for the other planets
seems to smatter of the Darwinian theory of the origin of
man. Surely the globe we inliabit could as easily have
been called into existence in the ' developed ' form in
which we find it as in a condition less perfect and mature ;
and why must the moon needs have been at one time a
planet presenting the same conditions of life as our earth 1
All these are mere fanciful suggestions which would be
much better left out of lectures of this sort. I would not
wish to do Mr. Proctor an injustice, but his ideas respect-
ing the birth and death of worlds fit in very indiflferently
with Scriptural teaching as contained in the opening
chapters of Genesis."

To this the wiser Easthouriie Gazette makes answer:
— "The Chronicle is troubled because Mr. Proctor, the
popular lecturer, asserts the earth' to be somewhat older

than his primary education had led him to believe, and
'fits in very indifferently with Scriptural teaching as
contained in the opening chapters of Genesis,' and,
moreover, savours of Darwinism. !Mr. Proctor's theories
do not bear out the popular idea that the earth is only
some 6,000 years old. ' One is dazzled and da/ed,' says
the Chronicle, 'by the endless heaping of centuries,' «fec.
The immense distance of the heavenly bodies does not
seem to trouble the writer, it is the time that concerns
him, because that is not in accordance with Scripture,
and therefore he suggests a ready-made world
instead of a gradually ' developed ' one. All the
different strata with their fossiliferous remains, indicating
a regular order of growth and development, are to be ac-
counted for by 'miracle.' The coal-beds were always coal,
and not submerged forests, and the extinct animals, known
only by their fossil remains, never inhabited the earth, but
were created as fossils, and all the evidences of prehistoric
man are to be accounted for in the same way. If all these
proofs of the antiquity of the earth are to be explained as
suggested, a gigantic deception has been practised on man-
kind. But the facts of astronomy and geology cannot be
set aside to uphold a view of things that originated in a
barbaric age."

From San Francisco the following telegram has been
received respecting the total solar eclipse of May 6th : —
" The solar eclipse on the 6th ult was very successfully
observed by the English, American, and Continental astro-
nomers stationed on Caroline Island, the sky being beauti-
fully clear at the time. The corona extended over a distance
of two diameters from the sun. The light during the
middle of totality was equal to that of the full moon. Suc-
cessful observations were made by Dr. Janssen as well as
by Professor Tacchini. The intra-Mercurial planet Vulcan
was not seen by M. Palisa. The D line of the spectrum
was seen dark in the corona by Dr. C. S. Hastings. Good
photographs of the corona were obtained by the English
observers as well as liy Dr. Janssen. The English observers
were also successful in obtaining photographs of the flash.
Good photographs w-ere taken of the coronal spectrum in
the blue end." From other sources we learn that few
prominences were seen. "We shall discuss the results next
week.

The " flash " in the above means the spectrum of multi-
tudinous bright lines seen for a second or two just after
totality has begun and just before it ceases. The word
may do very well, coarsely prosaic though it is, for tele-
graphic purposes ; but we see it with regret used in an
article in the Times, as a fit word for describing one of the
most beautiful phenomena connected with a total solar
eclipse.

TuE same article propounds the truly preposterous idea
that the absence of prominences may have indicated that
practically the lower part of the corona was itself made up
of them.

I REGKET vei-y much that any amount of inuendo should
have induced Mr. Irving Bishop to have anything what-
ever to say to a wager connected with a matter which
should be dealt with only by the usual methods of scien-
tific inquiry. The Times, with customary Philistinism,
describes the wager as a test of the genuine English sort, —
implying that the Saxon way of dealing with scientific
questions is essentially horsey and vulgar. I have never yet
heard of any student of science who has offered to back
his opinion on a scientific question by a wager, or by the
proffer of a sum to any one who could prove the opinion

378

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 22, 1883.

incorrect. I can recall only one instance before the present
one, in which a wager proffered by an unseientific man was
accepted by a student of science — as Mr. Irving Bishop
claims to be, and may continue to be regarded, if he dili-
gently eschews all future use of the wager-test.

It is amusing to note the singular mixture of scepticism
and simplicity in the newspaper comments on the general
question of thought-reading. Those who utterly deny that
the strange psychical power exists, or can e.xist, which
purely scientific men like Dr. Carpenter have recognised as
a proper subject for e.xperimental research, proclaim loudly,
in the same breath, the absurd doctrine that if the power
exists it is miraculous. The real fact is, that while Pro-
fessors Barrett, Balfour Stewart, and others have gone far
to prove that the power exists, not only is there nothing
miraculous (though much that is marvellous) in it, but it
actually affords a natural explanation of several phenomena
which have been regarded by inexperienced persons as
miraculous.

Whether Mr. Labouchere's money was lost or not is a
question beneath notice here. Sporting papers may settle
that point if they like.

Our Whist Column has been discontinued during the
Chess Tournament. It wiU be resumed next week, or the
week after at latest.

The number of miles of streets which contains mains
constantly charged, and upon which hydrants for fire pur-
poses could at once be fixed, in each district of the metro-
polis, is now as follows : — Kent, 85 miles ; New River,
214; East London, 120; Southwark and Vauxhall, 119;
West Middlesex, 88 J ; Grand Junction, 48 J ; Lambeth,
136| ; Chelsea, 68 ; making a total length of 880 miles.

The Bill to permit the construction of the proposed
" Arcade Railway " under Broadway, in New York, has
passed the State Assembly. The plan is to excavate the
entire width of Broadway to the depth of 20 ft, and make
a new Broadway under the present one, with ample side-
walks, with four tracks for passenger and freight trains,
and with an accessible conduit for all the iron pipes, water,
gas, &c., now under the street. The upper road is to rest
on iron girders, sustained by brick arches covered with con-
crete, asphalte, and sand, on which the pavement is to be
laid.

Colonel Colton, commanding the Quebec Citadel, suc-
cessfully broke the ice gorge on the St. Lawrence River
the week before last, by means of gunpowder explosions.
The gorge extended for several miles along the river, being
jammed at the narrows until it was some 35 ft. thick.
Here several shafts were bored and filled with charges of
300 lb. each, which were exploded by electricity. This
treatment loosened the ice, and the tide is now cleaning
the harbour. The possibility of opening the Montreal
port earlier hereafter has thus been demonstrated.

A Colossal Brosze St.\tue. — A great national statue
of Germania, which is to be erected at Niederwald, near
the Rhine, to commemorate the victory of Germany in the
late Franco-German War, is now in process of being cast in
separate pieces at Munich, and the head and several other
parts have already been collected. Some idea of the mag-
nitude of this work may be gathered from the fact that
the total weight of the metal used will amount to 45 tons.
— Jiiujineering.

LANTERN READINGS.*
The Voyage of the Challenger.

We are glad to see that the series of biological lantern
slides, planned by Mr. W. Lant Carpenter and Dr. Andrew
Wilson, has now been prepared by Mr. York. The series
of lectures to be illustrated by the slides includes Fora-
minifera, Radiolarians, Siliceous Sponges, Crinoids, Echi-
noderms, kc. We have before us one of the biology series,
" The ^'oyage of the C}iaiUvii;/fr." It is intended to be
read by amateur lecturers, and Mr. Carpenter gives excel-
lent instructions for such reading. At the right places in
the reading the letter B is marked for the bell-signal to the
operator to change the slide. Mr. Carpenter thinks the best
signal of all to be the " Invalid Electric Bell," the metallic
gong of which has been replaced Vjy a silent wooden one, the
bell being placed by the lantern and operated by the reader.
Our own experience is in favour of a small hand-bell
(struck by pushing a hammer, not by shaking) ; but then
that is because we prefer to have no taljle, but to be free
to occupy at will any part of the platform. We should
not care to walk up to a table bell, or to the " push " of
the Invalid Bell. Those who read lectures have to be near
the table all the time, and would probably prefer the
arrangement suggested by Mr. Carpenter.

The lecture here printed for amateur reading is full of
interest. We are half inclined to think that many would
prefer buying this little pamphlet, and afterwards getting
the " Depths of the Sea " and " The Atlantic," whence
the lantern pictures have been selected, to attending a
reading of it, even though illustrated by the lantern
and the slides — no doubt excellent — which Mr. York
has prepared. But the slides may be used to illus-
trate lectures other than those merely read by class
teachers and the like. Those who have themselves taken
part in the work of biological research, can wish for no
better subjects than those which Mr. Carpenter has here
selected. Lecturers who speak out of the fulness of their
interest in these inquiries, must be glad to find such
illustrations as they want collected here for them at a
moderate price. Without that living interest, lecture-
audiences must of necessity dwindle into mere " classes."
But it is essential that those workers and thinkers in
special branches of science who may wish to impart
to thousands the lessons which have impressed and
moved themselves, should have the means of properly
appealing to the eyes as well as to the ears of their
audiences. (Segnitis irritant, (tc, d'c.) The oxyhydrogen
lantern and photography give them this power, and we
rejoice to see that measures are being taken to provide our
public teachers with the illustrations their subjects require.

THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.f

The fact that this work has reached its second edition in
the space of two years, demonstrates that it has met with
some measure of success. It must not be forgotten, how-
ever, that the volume appeared under the most favourable
circumstances. There was, in consequence of the stir made
by the practical introduction of the electric light, a great
demand for electrical information of all kinds, to supply

* " Lantern Readings. The Voyage of the Challenger." By W.
Lant Carpenter, B.A., B.Sc, &c. (Alabaster, Passmore, & Co.,
London).

+ " Kloctric Light ; its Production and Use." By J. W. Uniuhart,
Kloctrician, Author of " Electro-plating," ic. Edited by F. C.
Webb, M.I.C.E., II.S.T.E. (Second edition. London: Crosby, Lock-
wood, & Co.)

JuxE 22, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

379

wliic}) new hooks were in some cases necessary. Moreover,
Mr. Urquliart had made some reputation by his previous
works on electro-metallurgy.

The work is unambitious in design, and accordingly no
pretence is made to deal exhaustively with the subject
Nevertheless, it is difficult to perceive the reason animating
the author to exclude all reference to electrical measure-
ment, oven to definitions of the various units and everj-day
technicalities, in favour of long descriptions of various
liatteries, some of which are useless for electric light pur-
poses, and the adoption of which cannot fail to terminate
in disaster and disappointment Our difficulty is to
discover for what special class of readers the
work is intended. If for electricians, the work
is somewhat feeble ; if for amateurs, there is a
great deal that can in no way interest them. If on
the otlier hand, as indeed seems most probable, the work
is intended to be a sort of handbook for professional men :
architects, builders, gasmen, vestrymen, and so forth, the
general arrangement appears to have been sadly cared for.
This latter class of readers could have well spared tlie
greater part of the 44 pages devoted to batteries, while
the information about machines and lamps is far too
scanty to be of much practical use. Jleagre also is the
information upon general construction, and a telegraph
lineman would be justiried in smiluig at the picture of the
" Britannia " joint.

Secondary batteries are summarily dealt with in four
pages. The chapters on magnets and dynamo machines
contain good and generally relialile information, the fault
being in the choice and arrangement of matter. Machines
which are now out of date, and which, when made, involved
no new or important feature, are allowed ample spare ;
while more modern, and at the same time more im-
portant ones are dismissed with two or three lines
and a reference to some other source of information.
Thus of the Gulcher machine, which is probably
one of the best in the market, all that is said
is : — " This machine bears some resemblance to the
Brush apparatus. It will be found described in
the Electrician, of Oct 29, ISSl. One machine develops
an electromotive force of 70 volts, the other of 2,000." It
i-i pleasing to notice that the Ferranti (spelt Farranti on
every occa.sion) comes in for a share of attention, but it
would have looked better had the author refrained from
making so many advertising observations on this and other
dynamos.

In the seventh chapter, containing " general observations
on machines," we are told that " if there is jumping or
flickering of the light, the carbons are bad, or the same
defect may be caused by the engine not having a
sufficiently sensitive governor to keep up a steady
motion." This is true, so far as it goes ; but surely
the lamp itself has something to do with steadiness,
otherwise whence is the perfection of the Fyfe-Main lamp
(which, by-the-way, does not meet with any attention at
the hands of Mr. Urquhart) ■? Some interesting informa-
tion concerning the history of the construction of incan-
descent lamps is imparted, although a slight error or two
still exists. Such, for example, as the resistance of a Swan
lamp, which is stated to be 150 ohms when hot and 250
ohms when cold, or about five times the actual resistances.
A work on the electric light without the description of a
single meter is a somewhat anomalous phenomenon, and it
is to be hoped that, should a third edition be issued, some
attention will be devoted to this Ijranch of the subject
The paper and printing are good ; the diagrams, too, are
highly commendable, if we except one or two of them for
bad perspective (as in the illustration of Ladd's machine).

On the whole, the work is very readable. It is infinitely
superior to the work on " Electromotors," by the same
author, and will doubtless hold a place in the literature of
electrical science for some time to come.

THE FACE OF THE SKY.

From Jcxe 22 to Jily 6.

By F.R.A.S.

rpHE eun still continues to develop interesting little groups of
I spots, as well ns faculse, &c. (ut less frequent intervals, how-
ever, than of late) and should hence be observed with the telescope
whenever ho is visible. The aspect of the stellar vault will be found
depicted on Map VI. of "The Stars in their Seasons;" but, as we
remarked a fortnight ago, there is no real night, during the period
over which these notes extend, in any part of the United Kingdom.
As far as planets are concerned, the sky is a practical blank for the
observer. Nor do any occultations of stars by the moon occur
during our specified period. Her ago on Jane 22nd at noon is 17'2
days, and, pretty obviously, on July 4th, 292 days. .\t noon
on" July 5th her age will be 09 day, and, of course, 19
on the 6th. Hence she will be out of the reach of the
ordinary observer after the night of the 2oth. On the 22nd she
is in Sagittarius, passing into Aquarius during the afternoon of
the 23rd. She continues in that constellation during the whole
of the 2-ith and the greater part of the 25th, travelling into
Pisces before noon on the 20tli. She remains in I'isces during the
27th and 2Sth; and about 11a.m. on the 29th will be found in
that region of the sky where Pisces, Cetus, and Aries are conter-
minous. She is in Aries during the 29th and a good deal of the
30th, travelling into Taurus about 2 a.m. on July 1. There she
remains until noon on July 3rd, when she crosses the boundary into
the northern part of Orion. Traversing this in the course of the
next twelve hours, we find her at midnight in the confines of
Gemini. She continues in Gemini until 3 p.m. on the 5th, at which
time she moves into Cancer, where we leave her on July 6th.

M. BoussiN'GAULT has recently presented to the French
Academy a communication on the matter difl'used or sus-
pended in the air at great elevations. lie has e.xamined
samples of the rain and snow which fell on the Alps from
1859 to 1865, and has found nitric acid varying from 0 to
069 mgs. per litre of water examined. The sample con-
taining the largest amount of nitric acid also contained
0 3 mgs. of ammonia. He intends soon to compare the
electrical condition of the northern and southern hemi-
spheres, which condition probably aflfects the amount of
nitrogen compounds present in the air and even in the
soil. The writer also, says the Journal of the Society of
Chemical Industry, notes the fact that hailstorms may
occur in very elevated mountain regions, he having ex-
perienced one in the province of Riobamba at a height of
5,000 metres above the sea level.

Allots of metals are often difficult to make and very
small quantities greatly afJ'ect alloys. The presence of yrruo^
of a pound of antimony in a pound of melted lead increases
the rapidity with which the lead oxidises and burns. Lead
which contains more than ,-^,',,,17 °f its weight of copper is
unfit for the manufacture of white lead. Der Techniker
says gold with an alloy of t7v,',,77 of lead is extremely brittle.
Copper w-ith }, per cent, of iron has only 40 per cent, of the
electric conductivity of pure copper. Xickel was regarded as
a metal which could be neither rolled, hammered, nor welded,
until it was found that the addition of yr.'uTy of magnesium,
or i„'„„ of phosphorus, makes it malleable. Some varieties
of cast steel are exceedingly brittle, but the addition of yV
of 1 per cent of magnesium makes them malleable. At
the Paris Exposition of 1878 a great ditlerence was found
in the toughness of sheets which were made of Swedish
puddled iron. The only difierence which chemical analysis
showed was that the good plates contained nj-uCoui ^^^
the bad 777 J^uu of phosphorus.

380

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[JCNE

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfbed Tennyson.

Only a small proportion of Letters received can possihly he in-
serted. Correspondents muat not be offended, there/ore, should their
letters not appear.

All Kditorial communications should he addressed to the Editor op
Knowledge; all Business commiinicationa to the PcBtisHERS, at the
Office, Ti; Great Q^ieen-street, W.C. Ik this is not attended to,

DELAYS ARISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Remittanres, Chequet^, and Post Office Orders should he made
payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons.

The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMMUNICATIONS ARE ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOCGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

SINGLE VISION.

[846] — Tonr correspondent, " Single Vision," in his very interest-
ing letter, correctly describes his own case as being one of extreme
disparity of focus between the two eyes. I do not recollect, in all
my experience of thirty years, such an extreme case.

I find it is very seldom that, with such extremedisparity of focus,
the person can bear the focus being made equal by means of
lenses, but in some cases they can do so ; and I have visited a case
within the last few days in which the person wears a convex lens
of 16" focus on the left eye, and 40" on the right eye, with great
comfort and satisfaction.

Strangely enough, the one point on which your correspondent
considers that he may speak with confidence, he may be mistaken
in. He is of opinion that " two well-defined images of different
dimensions will not coincide and coalesce." Now, if any person
having equal vision will take an ordinary spectroscope and place on
one side of it, in the centre of the field of view, a bronze-copper
halfpenny, and on the other side, in the centre of the field of view,
a bronze-copper pennypiece, although the two images given through
the lens will differ very greatly in size, a person using the spectro
will see an image clearly defined midway between the size of the
two coins.

I have got many persons to make this experiment, and in every
case with the same results.

From a knowledge of this fact, I ventured upon the prediction
that if two discs of colour exactly complementary to each other
could be presented one to each eye, the resulting image seen by the
observer would be white.

Mr. Stevenson, a member of the Council of the Royal Micro-
scopical Society, some time afterwards produced such discs by
means of polarised light, and the result was as I had predicted.

John Browning.

[847] — I marvel somewhat that when correcting a mistake made
by " Single Vision," in his letter in Knowledge No. 84, p. 348,
you did not also correct the very great mistake in the last sentence
of his letter. That sentence, being followed immediately by your
note, is virtually endorsed by your silence respecting it, and will
mislead dozens of those readers of Knowledge who are as un-
acquainted with the elements of optics as " Single Vision."

Single Vision, No. 2.

[" No. 2" is quite right ; the mistake should have been corrected.
Double vision does result, but not because of unequal magnifying,
yet the magnifying is unequal. — E. P.]

li

RATIONAL DRESS.
[848] — I have read with interest all that has been said in your
paper about woman's dress, and have been induced by it to try the
new style. I am delighted with the result, and would on no acco mt
go back to petticoats and stays. As th';re seems to be a variety of
opinion as to what one ought to wear, I will give full details of my
costume: flannel combination without band; divided skirt; thiii
linen body, to the waist of which is buttoned the dress skirt ; dress
body ; stocking suspended from the broad, close-fitting belt of the
divided skirt— which belt I consider essential to the comfort of any
one leaving off stays for the first time, as it gives snch a feeling of
support to the body. I wear the same fashionable dresses as I have
been accustomed to (frilled, furbolowed, and steeled), and only one

lady (and I told her) knows that 1 have altered my undergarments.
The keenest feminine eyes have noticed only the greater ease with
which I take long walks, and my healthier appearance. I am
twenty-two years old and vain enough not to wish to make an
object of myself. I assure all women they can try the new dress
for themselves >vithout any one being the wiser.

PEDE.STBIENNE.
[Wc are nmch obliged to " Pedestrienne " for her letter. " A
Lady," to whom we have shown it, says it agrees with her experience
in all respccts.^ — R. P.]

A FEW OBSERVATIONS ON HEAT.

[849] — Mr. Davidson says no attempt has ever been made to
explain the nature of the product resulting from multiplying si)ccific
heat by temperature, so far as he knows. In the " Transactions
Roy. Soc. Edin., XX.," the late Professor Rankine clearly explained
this thirty years ago. The product is not " momentum," but
" energy," and is proportional, not to the velocity, but to the
square of the velocity. Mr. Davidson should also have written
"absolute temperature" for "temperature." He talks of
the momentum of a " single molecule," whereas the
statistical method introduced by Clausius and Maxwell should
have been adopted, and the " mean square " velocity ascertained.
He talks of the " method of mixture." Does he mean the method
of mixture of solid substances ? He says the specific heat of water
is exactly twice that of the vapour. But he takes no note that the
latter varies with temperature and pressure. And at 212° Fah.,
and 147 lb. per square inch, the specific heat of steam to water is
as '37 to 1 — not double. See McFarlane Grav, in Phil. Mag., May,
1882.

In the concluding paragraph, Mr. Davidson says temperature
seems to correspond to space; whereas Rankine, Clausuis, Thornton,
Tait, and Maxwell, show that it is kinetic energy, not that it corre-
spojids to it. Mr. Davidson concludes by explaining the reflection
of light by the exploded corpuscular theory '. T. J. Dewar.

CONSANGUINEOUS M.\RRIAGES.
[850] — In reading your report of Dr. Cameron's paper on the
above subject in its relation to deaf-mutism, I was reminded that I
had lately seen a number of cats and kittens which were nearly all
quite deaf. In rearing the animals in qnestion no care was taken
to avoid in-and-in breeding; in fact, to keep the breed pure, quite
an op])osite plan was adopted, and they are all descendants of one
pair obtained some twenty or thirty years ago. The result bears
out in a remarkable degree the conclusion arrived at by Dr.
Cameron in the paper referred to. R. S. T.

AN ODD MISPRINT.
[851] — Your item in Knowledge for April 27, on the blunders
of compositors, recalls an experience of my ovm. some two years
since. My right arm was temporarilj' disabled. I commonly an-
nounce the topic of my Sunday discourses in our daily newspaper
of Saturday. Being unable to write, I stepped into the business
office of the paper, and asked a clerk to write a notice for me,
saying that my subject on Sunday morning would be " Caesar's
Things, and God's." Judge of my surprise on reading, a few hours
later, that I would speak on " Corsairs, Thugs, and Gods ! " And
I abhor sensationalism in the pulpit ! W. G. H.i.skell.

LANDRAILS.
[852] — Every observant country rambler cannot fail to have
noticed the unusual numbers of landrails (Crer pratensis) that are
to be met with. The voice of this meadow bird, softened by dis-
tance, is one of the most characteristic of our rural charms ; but
when one's ears are assailed on all sides with the monotonous cry of
this bird, the usual pleasant effect is assuredly marred. From dif-
ferent parts of our island I have heard of their phenomenal abun-
dance ; indeed, they seem to be a sort of aftliction this year — they
literally and positively swarm. Did we live in the times and countiy
of Moses and Phar.aoh, I should be decidedly inclined toattribute their
numbers to an eleventh plague. Out in the fields one hears nanght
but their abominable crake-crake, crake-crake, and towards dusk
their persistency is something marvellous. The very air seems
saturated with their outrageous clamouring, and the otherwise
poetic gloaming becomes very prosy indeed. I am here just half-a-
mile from the centre of the old Danish burgh of Derby, and yet,
with my window open, 1 can distintly hear the subject of my letter
rasping out his harsh song, as if his very life depended on the
effort. To my knowledge, this is the first time for years that
they have approached the town so near. There is something
essentially romantic in the idea of being serenaded, on a moon-
light night, beneath one's chamber window ; but when the
"gay troubadour" turns out to be a saw-voiced, crack-throated

Jd;e 22, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

381

landrail, tlie romance disappears, and pive^ place to a vcrj'
different fcelinff. A friend of mine in Lancashire has just sent me
his bitter ei])eriences of such a trying ordeal. He is a irreat orni-
thological enthusiast, bnt — non mirahiledictxi? — the most unbounded
enthusiasm has its limits. It seems that for several nights in suc-
cession his slumbers were disturbed by the unceasingand loud com-
plaint of a wretched corncrake which planted itself on the grass
plot directly under his bedroom window, and kept up a continuous
unmusical call throughout the dreary watches of the night. For a
time, he bore the affliction with the patience of martyrdom ; bat at
length, exasperated beyond all bounds at the audacity and barc-
fairilncss of the intruder, he got up and shot it.

What is the cause of the abundance of the bird this year? I can-
not look back upon mauy decades of life myself, but it appears cer-
tain that landrails have their periods of tnaxima and minima, as
well as sun-spots. Surely the cause is traceable ? Probably Mr.
(irant Allen could be per.^uaded to give his opinion on the matter?
I can assnro you, Mr. Editor, any remarks of his on the jioint would
be most welcome to more than one of your many readers.

Derby, June 8th, 1883. T. K. DEAtv.

LETTERS RECEIVED AND SHORT ANSWER.S.
W. G. Haskell. Mr. Clodd's valuable papers will be reprinted —
probably next fall. — *'Eox. (1) Tiie " one" more fully ac()uainted
with the laws and forces of Nature than Newton will, I trust, teach
you how to present the higher truth known to you in such a way
as to convince Newtonians. (2) Tlie difference between imagining
anil conceiving, in such cases as you consider, may be thns pre-
sented : — To say Newton imagined that attractive forces act by
successive impulses would imply that he thought (or at least thought
it possible) that they do so. But he thought nothing so absurd.
He conceived them to act in that way, as the only possible way of
determining the effect of their action. The result he obtained
i--)iilf that conception was in /orce was as incorrect as the conception
itself, for it indicated a polygon as the path of the attracted body ;
but the curve to which that polygon is shown to approximate is the
true path, just as the continuous force is the true limit of the
force supposed to act by successive small impulses. — Wilfrip.
I believe the double "t" in "Britt" is intended to indi-
cate the plural, — though in a rather singular way. — G. B.
No doubt a large meteor. — W. You cannot properly denote the
force of a blow in terms of weight ; although a particular spring
may be just as much deflected by static pressure as by a blow, the
same static pressure would deflect another spring of different
quality in different degree than it would be deflected by a blow of
the same force. .\s to the other questions, they belong to the text-
book explanations of definitions, Ac, and cannot conveniently be
answered here. — E. M. H. In Humboldt's " Looks into Nature,"
the nature of Indian edible clay is, I think, explained ; bnt I am
away from books just now. — C. F. Hall. Thanks; but at present
have barely space for subjects in hand. — W. Hii'slev. The longi-
tude is now often determined by lunars. Quite possibly Swedenliorg
indicated with more or less distinctness the value of the method. But
he can hardlj- have taught Newton, Halley, or Flamsteed anything
new on the subject, seeing that one of the special objects for which
Greenwich Obseri-atory was founded was the observation of the moon
for the express purpose of affording a means of determining the
longitude at sea.— E. J. Scott. Sixty oranges at 2 for Id. and CO
for 3 for Id., are GO at Id. each and 60 at Jd. each, or 120 at an
average of ^jd. each ; 120 at 5 for 2d. are 120 at Jd. ; and ^d. ean-
cannot be considered precisely equal to tV''-. S-'' '' ''o^' y°^ ^^''"■
That is the only explanation I can think of, except the statement
you ask me to explain, which is in itself sufficient — to wit, 00 at 2
for Id. and CO at 3 for Id. come to 4s. 2d., whereas 120 at 5 for 2d.
come to -ts. — F. L. Grensted. Letter will appear as soon as
possible. — R. E. S. The disadvantage of your optical theory of
comets' tails (I suppose 500 have asked my opinion on it) is that it
is entirelv inconsistent with fact ; otherwise it is capital. — W.
H.S.MoxcK. What ismattcr? Nevermind.— C.T.Davy, T.Weltox,
J. Gbeex, M. E., E.Delbeijck, W. Oxlev, C. Nobris, D. Draper, W.
Miller, H. Penrith, W. Thomas. Excuse delay in acknowledgment.
If you only knew how the correspondence arrears are growing. — •
Rob. THoM.'iON. The theory of a primitive impulse on the planets
is not now held by any scientific nvan. — 3. B. If a table were made
a mile square, and set with its central part in a perfectly horizontal
position, and water were poured on to it so as to cover it (allow a
rim, please), that water would be two inches deeper at the middle
of the table than at the middle of an edge, and four inches deep?r
than at the comers.- -A.. KiTSOX. I wrote my " Elementary
Astronomy " (Is. 6d.) for the purpose you mention. — C. H. Habdixg.
Know of no way but writing to secretary of the E. Institution. It
was the plan I followed.^Wsi. Clark. Birds have often been
observed to go to roost during total eclipse; bnt it is never anything
near as dark as night.

^ir i»att)ematiral Column*

GEOMETRICAL PROBLEMS.

By Rkhati) a. Pbocior.

Pabt IV.

WE have hitherto taken theorems involving eract results as
our illustrative examples, and we have seen that to such
theorems, analytical or synthetical methods, or combinat'ons of
both, are applicable with equal advantage. We shall presently
discuss other propositions of this sort, and of greater cottplexity.
Bnt we must now notice the fact that in certain propositions we
have no choice ns to the method of solution. This is almost always
the case with theorems involving general results, and with j)roi)!e»ns
properly so culled — that is, with propositions in which something is
required to be done. Propositions of the former class require the
synthetical, propositions of the latter class the analytical method.
But, of course, neither of these rules holds, necessarily, in problems
of great simplicity, in which only one or two steps separate the
data from the quasitum.

We begin with (in instance of this sort — viz., a very simple
theorem in which the relation to be established is general. Suppose
we have to prove the following proposition : —

E.x. 3. — Let A B C, I'tg. 8, be an isosceles triangle, A B leivij
equal to A C: produce A B to I), and join D C. Then shall D C be
greater than B C.

There is only one proposition in Euclid which deals with the
inequality of two sides of a triangle — viz., prop. 19, Bk. I. It
naturally occurs to us, therefore, to apply this proposition. We
have to show that D C is greater than B C, and we know from
Euc. I., 19, that if D C is greater than B C, then the angle DBG
is greater than the angle B D C. Now, our figure shows us D B C
as an obtuse angle, and a moment's consideration shows that
D B C is necessarily obtuse. For this requires that ABC should

be necessarilv acute. But the angle A B C is equiil to the angle
A C B (Euc. I., 5), and two angles of a triangle being less than
two right angles (Euc. I., 17), each of these angles must be less
than one right angle. Therefore A B C is acute, and its supple-
ment, D B C, is obtuse. B D C is therefore acute, and D C greater
than B C. ^.^ ,^

We will next try a proposition slightly more difficult.

j;j_ 4^ l,et P, Fig. 9, be a point which does not lie on either

diagonal of the quadrilateral A B C D ; then shall the sum of the
four lines' A P, B P, C P, and D P be greater than the sum of the
'diaqonals AC.BD.

Here it would serve us nothing to begin analytically by sv,pposing
A P, B P, C P, and D P to bo, together, less than A C and B D
together. It would be impossible to deduce anything from a general
relation of this sort. We must, therefore, proceed synthetically.

Let 0 be the intersection of the lines A C, B D.

Then we might first be struck by the fact that D P and A P
are together greater than A (J and 0 B together (Euc. I., 21).
But then we notice that, on the other hand, C P and P D are
together less than C O, O D together. So that unless we can show
tin; former excess to be greater than the latter defect, we have
proved nothing to our purpose. This method does not seem pro-
mising. Nor does it seem likely to be useful to take B P,'P C
together and then A P, P D together, comparing these pairs,
respectively, with B 0, O C together and A O, O D together.

Let us try taking alternate lines together, namely, B P, P D, and
A P, P C. 'We at once see that B P, P D are together greater than
the 'diagonal B D ; and that A P, P C are together greater than
A C. Hence, P A, P B, P C, and P D are together greater than
A C and B D together.

(To be continued.)

382

♦ KNOWLEDGE

[June 22, 1883.

^ur Ctirss Column,

By Mephisto.

THK TOURNAMENT.

Zukcrtort has concludod his part in this groat contest witli a turn
of fortune against him. On Wednesday, the 22nd, ho had to meet
Mackenzie, and, havinc; arrived at an apparently won position, ho
made a blunder, whicli lost him the game. Thursday he played
Scllman in very weak fashion, of which the latter took proper ad-
vantage, and by good play and making tho best of the position he
won. On P'riday Zukcrtort played Mortimer. He jilayed the P^vans
Gambit, which Mortimer accepted, playing tho Compromised
Defence. Despite the fact that Zukcrtort knows more about this
Tpening than any other player, his opponent succeeded in getting
.'airly through the opening, and, as may be seen from the game, a
~ell-played game resulted, in which Zukcrtort, by some lino
Manoeuvres, arrived at a winning position ; but the feeling of irre-

onsibility under which this game was played prompted him to

>k a speedier termination of the game than he was justified in
ng by the sacrifice of the Rook. Mr. Mortimer, defending him-

' with great skill, managed to score a victory higlily creditable
t imsclf. In reference to tho nonsensical remarks anent Zuker-
t(>. s reverses in the daily press, we, for oiu' part, think it far more
a n itter of surprise that Zukcrtort held out to make the most
wonderful score of 22 games, only to break down at the last moment,
when success was of no more consequence to him.

Far more remarkable was the defeat of Steinitz by Rosenthal.
Everything depended on the loss of a game to Steinitz, as it might
deprive hiui of second place. Nevertheless, he overlooked a very
obvious win, and lost. We give the position in our present issue.
Despite this blemish, we think the game one of the very finest
games played in this tournament, and it does credit to Rosenthal.

Blackburne defeated Winawer on Wednesday and Bird on Satur-
day, advancing his score to 16\. He met Steinitz on Friday, and
we think we are right in stating that this game was a fight for
second prize between these two old antagonists. Steinitz score was
15, while Blackburne stood at 15i. Blackburne, as second player,
adopted the French Defence, to which Steinitz replied with P to
K5. Blackburne played indifferently, the result being to enable
Steinitz to support his advanced Pawn by P to Q4 and KB4, and
obtain a strong position. Blackburne fought an uphill fight very
bravely, and, in spite of his sncceeiling in capturing a dangerous
passed pawn, he lost, by suijeriority of forces, a game which ex-
hibits nothing apart from the winning process. All other players
are quite uncertain as to what will be their ultimate position.

On Saturday Tschigorin stood at 15, he having only Mortimer to
encounter, and also to play off a draw with Rosenthal. He drew
with Rosenthal for the second time, and had some fair chance of
coming in fourth, which will probably be reached by a score of
16i ; but, lo and behold ! he was defeated by Mortimer on Monday.
Speaking from our own experience, as well as from the above case,
we think that to some excitable natures the knowledge of standing
in great need of a certain object will render its attainment far more
dithcult than it would have been under ordtnarv circumstances.
This defeat renders Rosenthal's probable position of fourth more
secure, especially as he defeated Sellman on Monday, his score
being 14, and 4 to play ; and another rival — Mackenzie — being that
day beaten by Steinitz. Mason defeated Noa on Monday, Sellman
on Saturday, but suffered a defeat by Tschigorin on Friday. He
now stands at 15|, but he has to meet Steinitz yet, therefore his
chance is not a vei-y good one.

On Tuesday Steinitz defeated Mason in a very fine and decisive
game, which will rank as one of the masterpieces in the Tourna-
ment. Considering the amount of bad luck Steinitz had to contend
with, his score of 19 is very creditable. He takes the second prize
of £175. Tschigorin avenged his defeat by beating Rosenthal in
a Ruy Lopez. After the latter had played P to QR3, and later on
QKt I, Tschigorin attacked the Queen's side in a novel manner, by
P to QR4, and soon obtained a good game. He has finished with
a score of 16, and is awaiting events. English and Mackenzie
drew for the third time, and therefore count i each. Winawer
beat Sellman.

The following players have completed their score : —

Zukcrtort 22 I Mason 15J I Noa OJ

Steinitz 19 Winawer 13 Sellman OJ

Tschigorin 16 | Bird 12 | Mortimer 3

The remaining players are Blackburne, with 16i, having to play
with English and Rosenthal; Rosenthal, 14, having to play
English, Blackburne, and Mackenzie; Mackenzie, 14J, having to
play Rosenthal ; English, 13i, having to plav Rosenthal and Black-
burne.

It will be seen that English is eighth. Either he or .Mackenzie
will, therefore, not take a prize, and tho others will probably rank
as follows:— Blackburne third, Tschigorin fourth, Rosenthal and
Mason fifth and sixth, English or Mackenzie seventh.

Wednesday.— Blackburne drew with I^nglish ; Mackenzie (pro-
Ijably) beat Rosenthal.

Position of the game between Steinitz and Mackenzie.

Mackenzie.

Black.

White played.

33. R to R6

34. R takes R

35. R to R7

36. P to B6

37. B to Q4

Kt to B2
Q takes R
Q to Kt sq
RtoB2
K to B sq

38. Q to KtG

39. B to B5 (ch)

40. P to Kt4

41. Q to B5 (ch)

42. Q to B7 (ch)

K to K2
K to K3
R to B sq
K toB2
Resigns.

The following position occurred in the game between Steinitz and

Rosenthal : —

rosexthai.

,t k'k_ „ i t i
a,

Rosenthal continued with the beautiful move of

Kt to K5
P takes R
P takes P

R takes Kt
B takes B
R to Q sq

(If Q to B2, then P to KR4 wins.)

I R to Kt3 (ch) !

B to Kt3 R takes B (ch) !

P takes R I P to B7 (ch) !

K takes P j Q to Kt7 (ch)

K to K3 I Q to B6, mate.

NOTICES.
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New York, to whom subscriptions can be forwarded.

OFFICE : 74-70, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON, W.C.

June 29, 1883. J

KNOWLEDGE ♦

383

LONDON: FRIDAY, JUNE 2'J, K-^SS.

Contents op No. 87.

VAOS. P&OB.

Fleuant H.urs with the Micro. , The Fisheries Exhibition. II. By

scope. By H. J. Slmck. F.G.S. 3« J. E. .Wv 389

The Beernt Solar Eclipse. Bv < The Moon in & Three-Inch Tele-

R. A. Proctor '. 3S3 scope. (Illu..) Bv F.B.A.8. ... 390

Oar Chemistry Column: The Halo- I Sun Views of Great Britain. {Illu.) 390

cens. Bv W. Jago, F.C.S . 393 Editorial Gossip 391

The Weather Forecasts of the Correspondence : Fliirht of Vertical

Meteoroloeicil Office. Bj W. Missiles— Rational Dress— A Few

Mattieu Williams ..., 3S3 ■ Obserrations on Heat, 4c 393

The Birth and Growth of Myth. X. | Oar Mathematical Coltunn 397

Bj Edward Clodd 357 I Oar Cheaa Column 397

PLEASAIS^T HOURS WITH THE
MICROSCOPE.

By Henry J. Slack, F.G.S., F.R.M.S.

IN recognising different groups of infusoria, the most
obvious characteristics are afforded by their organs of
locomotion, or when they are stationary, by those for
seizing their food. Stein divided the ciliated kinds into
four groups, which he named Ilolotric/ia, all over cilia ;
lleterotrichn, having cilia and styles ; llypotricha, sliowing
a distinction between back and front sides, the latter only
ciliated ; I'eritricha, the body generally naked, but ciliated
near the mouth. It is not worth while for the beginner to
trouble himself much about principles of classification, but
the above names represent facts of great importance to the
little animals, and very interesting to observe. Specimens
of all these groups are to be seen in hay infusions,
and their modes of life present considerable variations.
The drawings of these objects in the best works
show all that can be seen under the most favour-
able circumstances, and all that has been seen after
prolonged study and numei^ous observations. At first
these representations bewilder the student, as many details,
quite plain in the drawing, are invisible in the objects
before him. For example, the star-shaped, contractile
vesicle of a parameciuni is difficult to discern while the
animal is actively moving, but easily recognised as it gets
quiet, and the water-drop dries up. The mouths of the
smaller creatures are often unnoticeable unless food par-
ticles are seen to enter, and the nucleus and nucleolus
(endoplast and endoplastule of Huxley), which probably
represent male and female organs — though this is disputed,
make a conspicuous show in the books, and often require
A good deal of management to see plainly in the living
objects.

A little carmine in the water is of great use in finding
the mouth of an infusorian. The bright red particles are seen
to be swallowed, and their subsequent course can be traced.
When they are noticed in numerous groups, occupying
small clear spaces, the most obvious explanation is that the
creature possesses a plurality of stomachs, and hence

Ehrenberg, the great founder of knowledge concerning
them, called them roly<jaslrica, or many - stomached.
Further observation showed that a stomach could be
formed when required in the soft sareode, and that even
wht>n there was a permanent gullet with thickened corru-
gations, no stomach existed, having a permanent place, and
its own bounding membranes. Externally a ciliated in-
fusorian has a skin, or pellicle, stiff enough to support its
swimming organs. In some cases this pellicle is highly
elastic, and permits great changes of shape, while in others
it is unyielding and the form fixed. Amongst the Ileti'.ro-
trirlia the integument is strong enough to permit the
bristles, or styles, to act with considerable leverage. They
may often be seen to have a bulb at their base, which
works in a thickened mass of tl e pellicle, so as to perforn^
the function of a ball and socket joint, though it is a muc
simpler structure.

Below the pellicle comes a layer of elastic sarcode froi
which the cilia spring. The internal part is composed'
protaplasm full of granules, and very soft. It is not . x-
commonto find protoplasm spoken of as homogeneous, I'Ut
there is no such thing. Granular matter is always pte-
sent, immersed in a transparent fluid. As .soon as one of
the ciliata has swallowed a food-particle, and transferred it
to its interior, the protoplasm forms a vacuole into which
it pours a digestive fiuid ; and when it has been suffi-
ciently acted upon, the waste matter is excreted either
through a permanent anus or through a temporary open-
ing which closes up. Many infusoria are supplied with
trichocists, or little cells, in the fiim protoplasm, from which
it can emit minute rods, or needles, supposed to act like
the stinging organs of polyps and anemones. Simpler
than the ciliated infusoria are the jlarjeUata, which swim
by means of one or more whips.

Mr. Saville Kent, whose " Manual of the Infusoria "
is the greatest English work on the subject, and whose
opinion is entitled to much weight, proposes a new division
of the creatures, which we shall now describe, because it
suggests interesting points for the student to look for. He
includes under the name of infusoria only such protozoa,
or rudimentary animals, as are furnished in their adult
condition with cilia, tiagella, or adhesive, or suctorial
tentacles, and which take in their food by one or
more distinct apertures, or at any part of their
bodies. Minute animals, moving with whips, fill his
section of Pantostomata, or universal mouth creatures ;
then come his Discoslomnta, which have whips, take
in their food at some point in a definite anterior
region, but have no mouth. After this comes Eustomala,
well-mouthed, in which a distinct mouth exists ; and
lastly, rolystomata, or many-mouthed, which include
creatures with tentacles by which they suck the contents
out of their prey, or obtain it by first pouring some of
their own fluid matter into the prey, and then setting up a
current which brings it Viack laden with fresh matter.

The two systems of classification, one founded upon
locomotive organs, and the other upon mouth organs, both
suggest what the student should look for. The modes of
reproduction should also be noticed. The commonest
is by fission, either transverse or longitudinal. It is ex-
tremely interesting to see a creature split itself into two.
Before the separation occurs, an internal growth takes
place, so that each half departs fully organised. This
method allows an amazingly rapid multiplication, so that
Ehrenberg computed that a single Styloiiichia mytihts
might have a million descendants in ten days. Many of
the small flagellata, or whip animalcules, form sporocysts,
or capsules of spores. Mr. Dallinger found some of these
spores too minute for individual recognition with a power

384

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 29, 1883.

of 15,000 diametcjrs. A swarm of them make a little
cloud, and each one is capal.leof developing into the parent
form. Tlicse monads have an active stage, when they
move rapidly with their whips, a quieter ama;boid stage,
and then the sporocyst state. The cyst finally Vjursts, dis-
perses its contents, and fresh generations arise to repeat the
processes.

The next paper will be illustrated by figures of the
principal types, and special notice of some of their habits.

THE RECENT SOLAR ECLIPSE.*

By Richard A. Proctor.

THE news received from the observers of the solar
eclipse of May G seems to show that veritable acces-
sions were made to our knowledge on that occasion.
We learn first that the corona extended visibly to a dis-
tance of two diameters, corresponding to about 1,700,000
miles from the sun. "The light during the middle of
totality," says the report, " was equal to that of the full
moon," a statement which I venture to regard as a very
vague guess indeed. The circumstances of a total eclipse
are so unlike those under which the full moon is ever
observed, that such a comparison as is suggested in the tele-
gram is absolutely impossible. It is gratifying to learn
that Dr. Janssen, whose photographic work on the sun at
Meudon has long been celebrated, made successful obser-
vations. Professor Tacchini, the eminent Italian spectro-
scopist, was, it appears, equally successful. Dr. C. S.
Hastings, the American physicist, has done good work
within recent years in determining the difference between
the solar spectrum obtained from different parts of the
sun's disc. He has had sufficient work with the spectro-
scope to justify us in accepting with confidence his state-
ment that the D line of the spectrum was seen dark in the
corona. This is a most important observation. During
the eclipse of 1871, Janssen recognised the solar dark lines
in the spectrum of the corona ; but some doubted whether
the observation had been satisfactorily made. Dr.
Hastings, by limiting his attention, apparently, to one
particular part of the spectrum and one well-known line,
has been able to place the existence of the dark solar lines
in the coronal spectrum beyond any possibility of doubt.
For what he has proved of one may be taken, when we con-
sider Janssen's ol)servation in 1871, as applying to all.
Now the existence of these lines in the coronal spectrum
proves that the light of the corona is in great part reflected
sun light, and therefore that the corona consists in large
degree of matter capable of reflecting sunlight. I take it
that the meteoric and cometic theory of the corona, or
rather the theory that the corona consists in large part of
meteoric and cometic matter, has been thus practically
established.

The extension of the corona to a distance of two solar
diameters was quite as great, says an article in the Times,
"as was expected at the period of maximum solar ac-
tivity." Quite, I should imagine, as great, in fact, as
could have been expected by those who, like myself, see
no reason for expecting a smaller corona at the time of
maximum than at a time of minimum solar disturbance.
Considering that the observations were made from very
near the sea-level, the obser\ed extension of the corona
corresponded to at least as great a real extension as
existed in 1878, a time of minimum disturbance, when
Professor Cleveland Abbe observed the coronal streamers

• From the Neweastle IVeekly Chroniole.

extending, but as very faint streaks, to a distance of six
diameters ; for Professor AV^be was stationed some five
thousand feet above the sea-level. The theory referred to
in the Times' remark, it that the corona is farther extend-
ing and less luminous at a time of small solar activity (as
indicated by the al)sence of sun-spots) ; being reduced in
extent, but much brighter, when sun-spots are numerous ;
also, that under the latter circumstances, only, can the
bright linos of hydrogen be detected in the corona. I
believe that the former part of the theory is probably
incorrect, but the latter may be sound enough. The
records of total solar eclipses show cases of enor-
mous coronal extension at the time of maximum as
well as minimum solar activity. There are cases,
also, though less frequent, when the corona has
been exceedingly brilliant at the time of minimum
spot disturbance. Therefore the supposed change of
general character in the corona may well be doubted. It
is otherwise, however, with the special peculiarity relating
to the presence of glowing hydrogen in the corona. Obser-
vation and reasoning seem alike to show that hydrogen is
probably either not present in such quantity or not in the
same incandescent state when sun spots are few as
when they are many. In the first place the lines
of hydrogen were wanting during the eclipse of 1878,
when the circumstances were such that, had they
existed, they should have been well seen. In the
second place, there is a known relation between sun
spots and solar hydrogen which, to say the least, favours
the idea that the observed difference should be syste-
matically recognised. When there are few- spots or
none on the sun's surface, the eruptional or jet promi-
nences are not seen. They are also limited at all times
to the solar spot zones. There is, then, a real connection
between the existence of spots on the sun and the occur-
rence of outbursts during which, whatever may be the
actual nature of the erupted matter, hydrogen is observed
around the svm to enormous heights above his surface,
and in a state of intense incandescence. The observed
peculiarities of arrangement in the solar prominences by
which the jets of glowing hydrogen are limited to the
spot zones and to the periods of solar activity, as mani-
fested by spots, justify us in exjiecting that throughout
all the brighter parts of the corona, and to a distance of
at least a million miles from the sun, glowing hydrogen
would be seen when spots are many. For in some of the
great eruptions glowing hydrogen has been traced, with-
out any eclipse to aid the observer, to a distance of over
200,000 miles from the sun's surface.

" The English observers were successful in obtaining
photographs of the flash " — a somewhat mysterious com-
munication at first view, but really full of interest and
significance. I believe the word " flash " w-as invented by
Mr. Lockyer. It is the rather prosaic name for a very
beautiful phenomenon, the occurrence of which I pre-
dicted several months before the eclipse of December,
1870, when it was first observed. At the last moment
before totality, just as the moon is aliout wholly to hide
the disc of the sun, her edge is approaching his at a point
where complete covering will just be eflTected. The
moment after, around an arc of some extent near that
point, the absorptive atmosphere to which the solar dark
lines are due is for the moment shining alone. It absorbs the
more glorious light of the sun ; but it emits the very rays
which it absorbs. When, then, to the observer with the
spectroscope, the rainbow-tinted streak which forms the
background of the solar spectrum disappears, the gases
which produce the dark lines on that background produce
bright lines on the dark background which for the moment

Jdne 29, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

?85

replaces it. Then suddenly flashes into \-iew a rainbow-
tinted array of lines, multitudinous in number and most
beautiful in aspect (Mr. Lookyer od4Iy enough imagined
in 1870 that the absorption took place below the visible
surface, and therefore not only rejected the idea that they
would be seen, but for a long time denied that they had
been seen. However, repeated observations at last con-
vinced astronomers that the other view was the sounder
— and now these lines have even been photographed.)

OUR CHEMISTRY COLUMN.

By \Villi.\m J.\no, F.C.S.
THE HALOGKN.';.

FROM the ordinary definition of an element as a sub-
stance which cannot be split up into two or more
different substances, it follows that no two elements can be
exactly alike, because they would then be one and the
same element But while wo cannot take two of the
elements and say that they are in every way similar, we
can nevertheless arrange them into groups, between the
members of which there is a strong family likeness. The
classification of elements in this manner has always been
a fascinating occupation to chemists, for if a group consists
of three elements — say. A, B, and C — which are remarkably
like one another, is it not possible that they may be
modifications of one and the same element of
simpler constitution than has hitherto been discovered ?
Of such groups, perhaps, none present such striking and
interesting resemblances as that whose name heads the
present article. The " halogens " include the three
elements — chlorine, bromine, and iodine, of whose pre-
sence in sea-water we dealt in the last paper. The group
is generally made to include another element — fluorine.
This latter, however, if the others be looked on as brethren,
cannot aspire to a much closer relationship than that of a
first cousin. Let us confine our attention to the first three :
their study can be best prosecuted by actually preparing
the substances and experimenting on them. The chemical
student who has a few flasks and other appurtenances
of tlie laboratory at hand, can easily prepare for himself a
few jars of chlorine. Let him, however, avoid so doing in
any place where the fumes of the gas will penetrate to
those who may not be enamoured of practical chemistry :
for, while sulphuretted hydrogen is known everywhere as
the gas with a. downright stench of rotten eggs, commend
us to chlorine for a gas making existence a burden in its
immediate neighbourhood. Its odour is most pungent and
irritating, and even a comparatively little, present in the
air, makes breathing diflicult ; still there is this comfort
about it, the fumes are not injurious to health otherwise
than by their irritating action on the mucous membrane.
If there is not sufficient of the gas disseminated through the
air to make breathing inconvenient, no harm is being done.
Curiously enough, chlorine and sulphuretted hydrogen,
before referred to as the gas of rotten-egg-like odour,
mutually destroy each other, producing inodorous sulphur
and far less disagreeable hydrochloric acid. So, a stranger
in a chemical laboratory, inconvenienced by the chlorine
being made by the worker on his right, may get rid of that
gas if he can only persuade some one else on his left to
make sulphuretted hydrogen in just the right proportion to
neutralise the chlorine. The writer, however, cannot from
personal experience recommend this method of purifying
the air of a laboratory or other room from chlorine ; some-
how or other the exact pointof proper quantities seems as diffi-

cult to realise, as it is to concei^•e how those two disagreeable
niighbours, the Kilkenny cats, managed to render a service
to Kilkenny by mutually destroying each other, except the
tips of their tails. This property of chlorine is, neverthe-
less, a useful one to remember, for in the vicinity of
chemical works, where water impregnated with the gas is
allowed to enter the drains, it destroys the sulphuretted
hydrogen, and also is inimical to the life of disease germs.
However, despite the obstacle of smell, one may manage to
make the gas in either the open air (provided there is
no wind) or an outhouse. For this purpose a flask,
fitted with a cork and delivery tube, after the manner de-
scribed in text-books for the preparation of gases, will be
needed ; in this flask a mixture of sulphuric acid, common
salt, and manganese dioxide is placed, the flask is gently
heated and the gas collected in jars over warm water. A
littli' bromine and iodine may be readily purchased from
the chemist, provided the would-be purchaser of iodine can
persuade the vendor he is not a dynamiter in embryo.
Some bromide and iodide of potassium should also be
obtained.

And now let us see what our three elements are like ;
chlorine is ■ a gas, bromine a liquid, and iodine a solid.
Here there is, you see, a sort of ascending the scale through
the three gradations of form in which matter is known to
exist. We find, too, that in passing from chlorine to
bromine, there is a deepening in colour ; the former is a
greenish yellow, the latter a deep red, and also, at ordinary
temperatures, gives oft' a vapour of the same tint ; iodine
is also dark in colour, but if a few grains are heated
in a test-tube or flask, a vapour of a superb violet
hue is produced. The whole three elements have a very
similar smell, but of the three, that of bromine is the
worst. The name itself is derived from the Greek bromos,
a stench. The three elements can exist in the state of
\apour, and if the vapours are weighed, the density of
chlorine is found to be 35 5 (hydrogen always being taken
as unity), that of bromine 80, and of iodine 127 ; here,
again, there is the same gradation. It may be noticed, in
passing, that the density of bromine is almost the mean of
those of chlorine and iodine. Powerful acids are formed by
the union of one atom of each of these elements with one
atom of hydrogen. These acids are all gaseous and all readily
soluble in water, producing in this manner pimgent fuming
liquids. The salts of these acids with the same metals
crystallize in the same shape, and are very similar in
appearance ; of these bodies common salt is a familiar ex-
ample. The name " halogen " is applied to members of this
group because of their thus forming salt-like bodies, the
word literally signifying "salt-producer." As the density
of the halogens increases, their chemical activity diminishes,
so that in most instances chlorine is the most powerful
element of the three. The two salts that have been
suggested for examination, bromide and iodide of potassium,
are both very soluble in water. Pour some of a solution
of the bromide into one of the jars of chlorine gas that
have been made, notice that the colour changes to deep
red, and if sufiicient bromide has been added, little red
drops of bromine will be seen. In the same way,
pour just a single drop of bromine in some of the iodide
solution, and iodine is liberated ; by adding some carbon
disulpliide, and shaking up, the iodine is dissolved by the
disulpliide, to which it imparts the same purple tint as
that characterising its vapour. These experiments illus-
trate the principle of the method employed for the extrac-
tion of these elements from sea-water. Chlorine is passed
through the " bittern " before described, and the free
bromine dissolved out by ether. Iodine is obtained by
burning the sea-weeds, which extract it from sea-water, and

38(3

KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 29, 1883.

heating tlie ashfs, containing sodium iodide, with sulphuric
aciil and manganese dioxide, wlien the iodine distils over.
Chlorine is manufactured largely for bleaching purposes.
Its ethcacy in this direction may be readily proved by
introducing a piece of moistened red blotting-paper in a
jar of the gas : the colour almost immediately disappears,
liromine and iodine have not, however, such extended
applications, being principally used as medicinal agents.
Ptrhaps among the wonderful changes resulting from
chemical action there is scarcely one more remarkable
than this production of the halogens from sea-salt. Com-
mon salt, so necessary as an article of food, is seen to be
composed of chlorine — a gas of most poisonous nature —
and sodium — which metal would certainly take lire if placed
in the mouth ; and yet the two combined form a body so
entirely different in all its properties.

In the ne.vt article of this series it is proposed to com-
mence the study of the chemistry of those grains, such as
wheat, ikc, used as articles of food, and also the chemical
changes invohed in the preparation from them of the
numerous class of bodies in general and e\eryday use.

Brighton School of Science and Art. — One of the
leading institutions in Brighton is the School of Science
and Art. The building, which is fitted with the most
recent appliances, was built at a cost of £12,000. The
Science Department is under the control of our contributor,
Mr. W. Jago, F.C.S. It contains a good laboratory and a
lecture theatre. One of the most important aims of the
institution is to provide technical education in chemistry,
for intending brewers, engineers, medical men, &c. The
laboratory is open daily for students of this description.

It is reported that a company has been formed in Iowa
for the purpose of manufacturing sporting shot from iron.
It is stated that recent trials which have been made with
the shot have proved it to be fully equal, and in some
respects superior, to the lead shot.

An American contemporary thus describes a piece of
tunnel work vrhich baffled the excavators from the same
cause as that which gave so much troulile in the St.
Gothard :— " The phenomenon of a tunnel so filling itself
up as to resist all eflbrts to open it is reported from Vir-
ginia, Nevada. In Castle District, at a point about five
miles north of that city, is a tunnel that may be called
an ex-turuiel. It was run about four years ago into the
side of a steep hill, and was originally about 40 ft in
length. When in about 1.5 ft., the tunnel cut into a soft,
swelling clay, very difficult to manage. After timbering
and striving against the queer, spongy material until it
had been penetrated some 2.5 ft., the miners gave up the
fight, as they found it a losing game. Being left to its
own devices, the tunnel proceeded to repair damages.
It very plainly showed that it resented the whole
business, as its first move was to push out all the
timbers and dump them down the hill. It did not
stop at that, but projected from the mouth of the tunnel
a pith or stopper of clay the full size of the excavation.
This came out horizontally some 8 ft., as though to look
about and see what had become of the miners, when it
broke oil' and rolled down the" slope. In this way it has
been going on until there are hundreds of tons of clay at
the foot of the hill. At first it required only about a week
for a plug to come out and break off, then a month, and so
on, till now the masses are ejected liut three or four times
a year ; yet the motion continues, and to-day the tunnel
has the better of the fight by about 4 ft.

THE WEATHER FORECASTS OF//rHb:
METEOROLOGICAL OFFICE.

By W. Mattieu Williams.

1)RESSURE of non-postponable work has prevented me
from earlier fulfiUini; my promise (page 72) concern-
ing the above, in accordance with the reminder of Mr. J. W.
Staniforth (page 1«2).

My reasons for anticipating that a fair checking of the
official forecasts will prove them to be generally reliable as
regards wind, but questional^le in reference to rain and sun-
shine, are historical as well as theoretical. When I com-
menced, in 1854, the three science classes which laid the
foundation of the now prosperous Birmingham and Midland
Institute, I worked and lodged in the Ijuilding of the old
Philosophical Society in Cannon-street. On and in this
building was one of Mr. Follet Osier's earliest self-registering
anemometers, including a rain-gauge, also self-registering.
The sheets on which the curves were drawn by this instru-
ment were placed on a horizontal table. When the new-
Institute buildings were completed, an improved anemo-
meter, with first-class barometer and revolving drum, in-
stead of travelling table, was presented V^y Mr. Osier.

In connection with the working of ,these instruments I
had several conferences with Mr. Osier at his house, at
which he showed me the results of his researches extending
over many years prior to IS. 5 4, and explained his chief
object in making these observations and collating them with
other observations made at Liverpool and elsewhere.

He found that certain winds most disastrous to the
shipping on our coasts usually travelled in regular courses,
and therefore that it was possible, by erecting a weU-
arranged set of observatories, easily workable with self-
registering anemometers, to supply telegraphic intelligence
of the approach of dangerous storms, and thus effect an im-
portant saving of life and property on our largely-navigated
coasts. He did not assert the possibility of foretelling all
the gales and squalls, one very simple reason being that
storms reaching us from outside, as, of course, they
generally do, must strike one part of our coast without
any possible anemometer warning from British stations.
(There was no Atlantic cable then). Only the stations in
the following track of the storm could possibly receive a
warning, and of these stations only such as were far enough
distant as to get their telegraphic news before the storm
arrived.

Mr. Osier struggled hard to induce the Government to
take the subject in hand us a national business, and to his
et?orts we are largely indebted for the establishment of
Admiral Fitzroy's storm warnings, and much of the present
organisation of the Meteorological Office and its tributary
observatories connected by a complex chain of telegrams.
For the comfort of certain gentlemen, I may state that Mr.
Osier was a very long way beyond the reach of any office-
seeking motives in advocating this official scientific work,
and that he spent on the demonstration of its desirability a
considerable amount of money and of work. The money
he could spare well enough, but not the work.

The prediction of rain was not an element of Mr. Osier's
original scheme, and I question the policy of the Meteoro-
logical Ofiice in the inclusion of fine, and wet, and cloudy
weather in their forecasts. It looks like a bid for popu-
larity, and is likely to defeat its own object by the number
of failures that must inevitably occur in a country like
ours, whore it is possible by means of local observations to
contradict any general prediction, however accurate it may
be in its generality. The districts included in the forecasts
are so large that during certain very common conditions of

JoxE 29, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

387

British weather there shall be at one place within such
district no rain at all, in another an abundance of rain ;
therefore, whether the forecast says rain or no rain, it may
be refuted by one place or the other. Where 1 live, for
example, it is commonly the case at about this time of the
year that refreshing showers may be seen falling on the
ridge of Dollis Hill, about a mile distant, while my garden,
and those of my neighbours, are starving from drought.

There are, on the other hand, times when the whole
island is under one great pall of cloud, or enjoying con-
tinuous sunshine. The weather predictions of the Meteoro-
logical office, as recorded in the newspapers, are then
almost invariably correct. 1 think it would be far better
if the predictions of rain, cloud, and sunshine were limited
to these periods, even though the newspapers should cease
to quote them in consequence, and the picnicing interests
be alienated. The shipping interests would still be
equally well served, and those of science somewhat better,
while the office itself would hold a higher position than
under its present exposure to tlippant criticisms, based
upon failure in the prediction of contradictory variations
of local meteorological details by critics whose acquaint-
ance with the daily reports of the Meteorological Office is
limited to the fragment copied by the newspapers, which
usually omits the most important elements of the report —
viz., the barometric gradient and the wind curves — for the
sufficient reason that their readers cannot understand them.

I should add that the establishment of the general
reliablility of Buys Ballot's law has supplied an important
supplement to Osier's method of forecast. This law is
that (in the Northern hemisphere) if you know the baro-
metric gradient and stand with your left hand towards the
region of low barometer and right to high, the wind will
blow against your back, not quite squarely, but a little on
the right side. The barometric gradient is obtainable by
telegraphic intelligence of the state of the barometer at
different meteorological stations, whereby a line may be
drawn from the highest barometer to the lowest, or along
the slope of this gradient. Like Osier's method, it only
tells directly of the winds, liut indirectly and doubtfully of
sunshine, cloud, and rain.

Herr F. Schkll, of Grund, has described some obser-
vations recently made in the course of mining work in the
Hartz Mountains, on the distance through which sounds
are transmitted in rock. In a horizontal direction the
firing of shots at the face of a cross-cut has been heard
in a cross-cut driven toward it, the face of which was
447 ft. distant from it A level was driven on a vein at a
depth of 538 ft below the surface, and happened to strike
187 ft. distant in a horizontal direction below a stamp-mill
dropping stamps weighing 330 lb. The dropping of the
stamps on the surface could be distinctly heard in the
heading below, which, in a direct line, the hypothenuse of
a right-angled triangle, was separated by 571 ft. of rock.

The Raihiynj Review (Chicago) quotes from the Picayune
a description of a remarkable creosoted trestle which the
New Orleans and Xorth-Eastem Railway is building
across Lake Pontchartrain. It will be 21/, miles long, 5|
miles of which will be over the lake. Of this portion of
the work the piling has been driven for 2} miles, and one
mile is completed. The piles average GO ft in length, and
are driven in for about 40 ft The whole structure is
exceedingly substantial, and is said to be a most perfect
specimen of trestle work. Some idea of the magnitude of
the undertaking may be gathered from the fact that the
quantity of timber required, besides the piles, will be over
15,000,000 ft

THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH.

By Edwaud Clodd.

ALTHOUGH in the Vedic hyinns the features of the
primitive nature-myth reappear again and again,
Indra himself boasting, " I slew Vritra, O Maruts, with
might, having grown strong with my own vigour ; I who
hold the thunderbolt in my arms, I have made these all-
brilliant waters to flow freely for man," we find an approach
in them to some conception of that spiritual conllict of
which the physical conflict was so complete a symbol.
Indra, as victor, is an object of adoration and invested
with purity and goodness ; Vritra, as the enemy of men, is
an object of dread, and invested with malice and evil.

But while in the Zend-Avesta, the Scriptures of the old
Iranian religion, the struggle between Thraetaona and the
three-headed serpent Azhi-Dahaka (in which names are
recognisable the Traitana and Ahi of the Veda and the
Feridum and Zohak of Persian epic) is narrated, the normal
idea is dominant throughout. The theme is not the attack
of the sun-god to recover stolen milch cows from the
dragon's cave, but the battle between Ormuzd, the .Spirit
of Light, and Ahriman, the Spirit of Darkness. The one
seeks to mar the earth which the other has made. Into
the fair paradise, Airayana-VaejO, " a delightful spot," as
the Avesta calls it, " with good waters and trees," and into
other smiling lands which Ormuzd has blessed, Ahriman
sends " a mighty serpent .... strong, deadly frost ....
buzzing insects, and poisonous plants .... toil and
poverty," and, worse than all, "the curse of unbelief."*
Between these two spiritual powers and their armies of
good and bad angels the battle rages for supremacy in the
universe for possession of the citadel of Mansoul.

Early in the history of the Aryan tribes there had arisen
a quarrel between the Brahminic and Iranian divisions.
The latter had become a quiet-loving, agricultural people,
while the former remained marauding nomads, attacking
and harassing their neighbours. In their plundering in-
roads they invoked the aid of spells and sacritiees, otlering
the sacred soma-juice to their gods, and nerving themselves
for the fray by deep draughts of the intoxicating stuff.
Not only they, but their gods as well, thereby became
objects of hatred to the peaceful Iranians, who forswore
all worship of freebooter's dieties, and transformed these
dcvas of the old religion into demons. That religion, as
common to the Indo-European race, was polytheistic,
a worship of deities each ruling over some department
of nature, but a worship exalting now one, now another
god, be it Indra, or Varuna, or Agni, according to the
indications of the deity's supremacy, or according to the
mood of the worshipper. As remarked by -lacob Grimm,
" the idea of the devil is foreign to all primitive religions,''
obviously because in all primitive thought evil and good
are alike regarded as the work of deities. In the Old
Testament, Yahweh is spoken of as the author of both ; t
the angels, whether charged with weal or woe, are his
messengers. In the " Iliad," Zeus dispenses both : —

" Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood.
The source of evil one, the other good ;
From thence tlie cnp of mortal man he fills,
Blessings to these, to those distribute ills,
To most, he mingles both. "J

and 'tis a far way from this to the loftier conception of
Euripides : " If the gods do evil, then are they no gods

* Haig's " Essays on the Parsis," tr. Vendidad, pp. 225, ff.
+ Cf. Isaiah xlv. 7; 1 Kings, xxii. 21-23.
X Iliad, Book xxiv, p. 603 ff., Amos iii. 6.

388

KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June iO, 1883.

So there was a monotheistic — or, as Prof. Max Miiller
terms it, a henothcistic — elcinont in tlio Vedic religion
which in the Iranian religion, and this mainly through the
teaching of the great thinker and reformer, Zaratliushtra
(Zoroaster), was largely dill'iised. In his endeavour to
solve the old prolileni of reconciling sin and misery with
Omnipotent goodness, he supposes " two primeval causes,"
one of which produced the "reality," or good mind ; the
other the " non-realit}'," or evil mind. Behind these was
developed belief in a philosophical abstraction, " uncreate
time," of which each was the product ; but such doctrines
were too subtle for the popular grasp, and, wrapped in the
old mythological garb, they appeared in concrete form as
dualism. Vritra survived in Ahriman, who, like him, is
represented as a serpent ; and in Ormuzd we have the
phonetic descendant of Ahura-mazdas.

Now, it was with this dualism, this transformed survival
of the sun and cloud myth, that the Jews came into asso-
ciation during their memorable CKile in Baljylon. Prior to
that time, their theology, as hinted above, had no devil in
it But in that belief in spirits which they held in common
with all semi-civilised races, as a heritage from barbarous
ancestors, there were the elements out of which such a
personality might be readily evolved. Their satan, or
" accuser," as that word means, is no prince of the demons,
like the Beelzebub of later times ; no dragon, or old serpent,
as of the Apocalypse, defying Omnipotence and deceiving
the whole world ; but a kind of detective who, by direction
of Yahweh, has his eye on suspects, and who is sent to
test their fidelity. In all his missions he acts as the
intelligent and loyal servant of Yahweh. But although
therefore not regarded as bad himself, the character and
functions with which he was credited made easy the
transition from such theories about him to theories of him
as inherently evil, as the enemy of goodness, and, therefore,
of God. He who, like Vritra, was an object of dread,
came to be regarded as the incarnation of evil, the author
and abettor of things harmful to man. Persian dualism
gave concrete form to this conception, and from the time
of the Exile we find Satan as the Jewish Ahriman, the
antagonist of God. Not he alone, for " the angels that
kept not their first estate " were the creatures of his evil
designs, creatures so numerous that " every one has 10,000
at his right hand and 1,000 at his left hand, and because
they rule chiefly at night no man should greet another
lest he should salute a demon. They haunt lonely spots,
often assume the shape of beasts, and it is their presence
in the bodies of men and women which is the cause of
madness and other diseases." *

From the period when the Apocryphal books, especially
those having traces of Persian influence, were written,!
this doctrine of an archfiend with his army of demons
received increasing impetus. It passed on without check
into the Christian religion, and wherever this spread the
heathen gods, like the devai of Brahminism among the
Iranians, were degraded into demons, and swelled the vast
crowd of evil spirits let loose to torment and ruin mankind.

This doctrine of demonology, it should be remembered,
was but the elaborated form of that ancestral belief in
spirits referred to above. In the Christian system it was
associated with that belief in magic which has its roots in
fetishism, and from the two arose belief in witchcraft. The
universal belief in demons in early and medi;eval times
supplied an easy explanation of disasters and diseases ; the

• Vide my "Jesus of Nazareth," p. 144..

t Notably " Tobit " and " Baruch," and of. " Book ofWisdom,"
IT- 2-t; for earliest indications of the belief. Tlio Asmodeus of
Tobit iii. 8 and 17, appears to bo tho Acshm6 dtlrv6 of the Zend-
Avesta.

sorcerers and charm-workers, the wizards and enchanters,
had passed into the service of the devil. For jjower
to work their spite and malevolence, they had bartered
their souls to him, and sealed the bargain with their blood.
It was enough for the ignorant and frightened sufferers to
accuse some poor, mis-shapen, squinting old woman of
casting on them the evil eye, or of appearing in the form
of a cat, to secure her trial by torture and her condemna-
tion to an unpitied death. The spread of popular terror
led to the issue of Papal bulls and to the passing of
statutes in England and in other countries against witch-
craft, and it was not until late in the eighteenth century
that the laws against that imaginary crime were repealed.

There is no sadder chapter in the annals of this tearful
world, than this ghastly story of witch-finding and witch-
liurning. Sprenger computes that during the Christian
epoch no less than nine millions of persons, mostly women
of the poorer classes, were burned ; victims of the sur\-ival
into relatively civilised times of an illusion which had its
source in primitive thought. It was an illusion which had
the authority of Scripture on its side ; * the Church had no
hesitation concerning it, such men as Luther, Sir Thomas
Browne, and Wesley never doubted it, the evidence of the
bewitched was supported by honest witnesses, and judges
disposed to mercy and humanity had no qualms in passing
the dread sentence of the law on the condemned.t

And although it exists not to-day, save in bye-places
where gross darkness lurks, it was not destroyed by argu-
ment, by disproof, by direct assault, but only through the
growth of the scientific spirit, before which, like the
miasma of the Campagna or the planting of the Eucalyptus,
it has dispersed. It could not live in an atmosphere thus
purified, an atmosphere charged with belief in unchanging
causation, and in a definite order unbroken by caprice or
fitfulness, whether in the sweep of a planet or the pulsa-
tions of a human heart.

Of course the antecedents of the arch-fiend himself could
not fail to be the subject of curious enquiry in the time
when his existence was no matter of doubt. The old
theologians scraped together enough material about him
from the sacred books of the Jews and Christians to con-
struct an elaborate biography of him ; but in this they
would seem to have explained too much in certain directions
and not enough in others, thus provoking a reaction which
ultimately discredited their painful research. Their
genealogy of him was carried further back than they
intended or desired, for the popular notions credited
him with both a mother and grandmother. Their
theory of his fall from Heaven gave rise to the
droll conception of his lameness and to the legends of
which the " devil on two sticks " is a type. Their infusion
of foreign element into his nature aided his pictorial pre-
sentment in motley form and garb. To Vedic descriptions
of Vritra's darkness may perchance be traced his murkiness
and blackness ; Greek satyr and German forest-sprite his
goat-like body, his horns, his cloven hoofs, his tail ; to
Thor his red lieard and trident, %-ulgarised into a pitchfork ;
to dwarfs and goblins his red cloak and nodding plume ;
to theories of transformation of men and spirits into
animals his manifold metamorphoses, as black cat, wolf,
hellhound, and the like.

But his description was his doom ; it was by a natural
sequence that the legends of mediasval times present him,
not, with the Scotch theologians, as a scholar and a swindler,
disguising himself as a parson, but as gullible and stupid.

* Exodus xxii. 18.

t For details of witch trials in this island, cf. Mrs. Lynn Linton's
" Witch Stories," passim.

June 29, 1«83.J

KNOWLEDGE ♦

389

as over-reaching himself, and as befooled by mortals. And,
like the Trolls of Soaiulinavian folklore who burst at sun-
rise, it needed only tlic full light thrown upon his origin
and development by the researches of comparative mytho-
logists to dissipate this creation of man's fears and fancier
into the vaporous atmosphere where lie liad his birth.

THE FISHERIES EXHIBITION.

NATCEAL HISTOKY DEPARTMENTS.
By John Ersest Ady.

rpHE student of natural science will search in vain for
JL an adequate representation of the class Jihizopoda
amongst the extensive collections in the Exhibition ; yet
the members of this group play so important a part, not
only as food and as atl'ecting the conditions of existence of
all kinds of fish, but also in the structure of the crust of
the earth in times past and present, that a general record
of some of the facts connected with their systematic
position and life-history ought to find a place here.

It is now some years since Huxley gave the name BatJuj-
bius to what he then belisved to consist of irregular, form-
less masses of protoplasm diffused over the lloor and at
great depths of the sea, and, more recently, Bessels de-
scribed a similar structure under the name I'rotobathybins.
The reports of the ChnHprnjiT naturalists have taught us
that, even at enormous depths, the conditions are not in-
compatible with the existence of highly -organised forms of
life ; the question then naturally arises. What do these
creatures live upon ? The ready answer would be Batluj-
bius .' During the cruise of the CliaUeuijer, Murray was
struck with the development of a material, in the bottles
of spirit into which specimens had been dropped freshly
after capture, and which strongly called to mind
Huxley's Bathyhius ; the material was not there at first,
but accumulated with time. This led him to make a few
experiments, and to discover that a natural process of
chemical precipitation was going on in the sea whereby a
gelatinous product, similar to that which was collecting
artificially in the bottles of spirit, resulted in the proto-
plasmoid substance Batlqjhiut!, which, on chemical analysis,
was shown to consist of sulphate of lime. AVe can scarcely,
however, credit Herdnian's unique Abijssasriilia WyviUii*
which was brought to light from a depth of 2,600 fathoms,
with the faculty of deriving sustenance from a gelatinous
pi-ecipitate of pure sulphate of lime. Doubtless there are
primitive forms of life, belonging to the lihhopoila, which
contribute to the bodily wants of the abyssal fauna.

In our description of the Amctha, we chose a typical
example {Amo:ba princeps) wherewith to illustrate the
structure and life-history of the group. It now remains
to be added, that such a form as AmrKba may pass into one
in which the pseudopodial area becomes restricted {Patn-
})haf/i(s), or it may develop a firm membraneous carapace
(ArceUa), or the carapace thus formed maybe strengthened
with adventitious particles, such as grains of sand, itc,

(Difflurjia).

This naturally leads to the next order of the Rhizopoda,
viz., the Foraminiftra ; where, in addition to the structures
enumerated in th^ Amaba, the forms are characterised by
the presence of an arenaceous, chitinous, or, more com-
monly, a calcareous test, often of great beauty, and, which

* Proc. Koyal Soc. Edin., 1879-80, p. 4T0.

we noted before, plays an important part in the formation
of the earth's crust.

The Foraminih-ra, with but few exceptions {e.g., Gromia,
which is found in both fresh and salt water), inhabit the
sea, and all the known recent forms are of microscopical
dimensions. In ancient times, however, they attained
relati\ely gigantic proportions, as in the Eocene XunDmi-
litcs, which in days gone by were stated by certain learned
persons to be the remains of an ancient Egyptian currency.
These Nummulites are often an inch in diameter, and the
Cretaceous rarhria is sometimes twice that size. In still
remoter times, in fact, in the most ancient formations of the
geological record, the Laurentian rocks of Canada, a curious
structure has been described as a gigantic Foraminifer,
under the name of Eozoon Canailense. A great deal of
dispute has arisen respecting the true nature of Eozoon ;
it has been claimed by petrologists as of inorganic origin,
and is said by them to be the mere metamorphosed results
of a purely mineral aggregate or rock. The dispute has
not, by any means, been satisfactorily settled, and it w ould,
therefore, be out of place for us to enter into any detailed
account of it here. Sutlice it to say that similar structures
have been observed in several of the so-called marbles and
serpentines of the continent of Europe, and also quite
recently by Heddle in Sutherlandshire.*

If to tlie body of an A ma ha, devoid of any distinct
separation into ecto- and endo-pla,<m, we add a delicate sub-
external shell, composed of a horny or calcareous material,
perforated in such a manner as to permit the escape of its
pseudopodia, and provided with spines, we shall then have
a typical Foraminifer. The shell is generally pierced by a
number of minute pores, or may contain but one large
terminal aperture ; through these the pseudopodia, which
are generally filamentous and interlacing protrude, and a
thin layer of the protoplasm of the body, moreover, forms
a superficial stratum over the surface of the test. The
protoplasm of the body is usually of a bright yellowish
hue, and exhibits a peculiar circulation of granules,
analogous to that which may be observed in certain
plants, t

In accordance with the perforation of the walls of their
tests, Foramini/i ra have been divided into two great
groups, the Perforata and Impcrforata. The nature and
form of the shell was long accepted as the foundation on
which the classification of this interesting group was based,
whilst the more important factors in their development
were disregarded, because they were not imderstood ; now
that they have been partially revealed, the artificial classi-
fication promulgated by Max Schultze has given place to
others more in accordance with observed facts, and the
natural systems of Reuss and of Carpenter, Parker, and
Rupert Jones, are now generally in vogue. The latter
divides all Foraminifera thus : —

I " i ^1 I I I

GromiJa. Millioliila. LiltioUda. Lngenida. Olobigcrinlda. ItummuUnida.
(To he continued.)

* Professor Heddle's report on the rock has not yet been pub-
lished, but will appeal- shortly in the Mineralo'jical Magazine. —
J. E. A.

t We may here draw the attention of the reader to Mr. Bolton's
table, stand 756, once more. Under one of the microscopes he will
notice a specimen of the proombryo of Nittllu, showing the circu-
lation alluded to above. — J. E. A.

390

KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 29, 18(>3.

THE MOON IX A THRKE-INCH
TELESCOPE.

By a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

rpO tlie north-west of Cassini (described on p. 32G) lie the
JL Lunar Alps (SO in our map), a range of mountains
possessing a much more terrestrial character than the ma-
jority of objects visible on the moon's surface. They start
from the neighbourliood of Cassini, and extend with a very
remarkiiblc interruption, iuiiiK'diately to be spoken of,
nearly, if not quite, to Plato. The interruption of which
we have just spoken takes the form of an enormous
wedge-shaped valley, between eighty and ninety miles
long, and varying in width from three and a-half to six
miles. Our sketch represents this region as it appears
with a power of 120, the age of the moon being 7 58 days.

full Moon. South of Plato stands that absolutely
isolated peak, Pico (131), in the dark grey Sea of
Showers. As it is some 8,000 feet in height, it
ca.sts a tremendously long shadow under the ollique
illumination either of sunrise or sunset, and forms
a most conspicuous object. Timocharis (121) is worth
looking at for its terraced wall. The glorious mountain
Chain of the Apennines (M.5, 87, 02, in our map) pre-
sents, like the Alps of which we have spoken above, a
very decidedly more terrestrial character than the vast
majority of lunar objects. We may regard this superb
range as starting in the north from Cape Hadley (87),
which rises more than 15,000 feet from the plain at its
base, although they will be seen to tend in a south-
westerly direction from it. Following them, however, in
their eastern course round the Sea of Showers, we come to
Bradley (89), a mountain 13,600 feet in height, and to
Huyghens (90), the loftiest of their peaks, attaining an
altitude of some 20,000 feet. The spectacle presented by
this range of mountains — for the observation of which a
power of IGO may be employed on a tine night — with their
glittering and corrugated highlands, and the serrated
shadows cast by their peaks on the plain beneath, is &
wonderfully beautiful one, and will repay the most earnest
attention the student can give to it. The projection oS
this noble ridge beyond the illuminated part of the moor.,
about the time of first quarter, is easily discernible with
the naked eye by moderately sharp-sighted people. It may
be held to terminate with Eratosthenes (110), the descrip-
tion of which, however, we must reserve for our next
paper.

The Valley of the Alps, and Suiiriee on Plato,
iloon's Age 7'o8 days.

The eastern side of the valley is the steeper of the two.
The highest of the mountain masses lie to the west of the
huge cleft, the eastern range, however, increasing in
magnitude as it approaches Plato (132). The sun was just
rising on this last-named superb formation at the time our
drawing was made ; and its interior, as will be seen, was
plunged in the blackness of night. While scrutinising this
part of the moon's surface, the student may direct his at-
tention to the two interesting ring-plains to the North —
Archytas (46) and Timajus (170). Plato itself, and its
vicinity, present a most interesting region for examination
during the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth days of the
moon's age ; as they do (though at a most inconvenient
hour) when she is twenty-one or twenty-two days
old. This great walled plain measures sixty miles
across, and is notable, when fully illuminated, for
its steel-grey tint. Its surrounding wall is broken
in places, and exhibits very little of that series of descents
in terraces which we shall find by and by in Eratosthenes,
Copernicus, etc. A variety of streaks and spots have been
detected upon the very level floor by the aid of large and
powerful telescopes ; but by far the larger proportion of
these details are hopelessly beyond the reach of the ob-
server with such an instrument as that whose use is pre-
supposed in these papers. Under suitable illumination,
the shadows of three huge peaks on the western wall will
be seen cast upon the floor ; as will that of an even higher
one from the eastern wall out on to the very broken surface
of the Mare beyond. It is, so far, an inexplicable fact,
that, as the Sun rises on the interior plain of Plato, it
follows the usual law of getting brighter until the Sun has
attained an altitude of 20°, or thereabouts ; after which it
darkens very notably and perceptiVily until shortly after

SUN-A^IEWS OF GREAT BEITAIN.

\TTE give this week what may be called Sun-Views of
\\ Great Britain, showing how the aspect of Great
Britain and Ireland, Norway, Denmark, France, Spain,
ifcc, varies, as supposed to be seen from the sun.

or autuiiii).

JcsE 29, 1883.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

391

efiilorial (gossip.

The present number completes Vol. III. The Index
and Titlepage will shortly be published,— separately,
because it is not tli..ui.'lit Just to fonc those wl.o read but

Ac nuou, midsummer.

do not keep Ivnowledge to pay for an index which is of
no use to them. The plan involves some loss to the pro-
prietors, but it is followed as the fairest.

Ori';in"ally it had been Intended to have but a single
volume for each year, but it was pointed out that such
volumes would be cumbrous, especially when the growth

Db. WiLsox's papers on "Our Bodies " being concluded,
he has promised a series on our remote kinsfolk, the more
or less u.anlike monkeys. These will shortly, we trust, be
commenced. The valuable papers on the Moon, by
F.K.A.S., commenced in Vol. 111., will be contmued in
Vol IV. They are likely, we trust, to form for a long
time a feature of Knowleuoe. (Some correspondents pay
us the high compliment of identifying F.R.A.8. with Mr.
R. A. Proctor, who is a fellow of the same society, but is
not'the writer of those interesting papers, nor of anything
^^hich luvs appeared over the signature F.K. A. S., here or
elsewhere.) A series of papers sketching Mr. Herbert
Spencer's "Philosophy of Society" will shortly be com-
menced by Mr. Thos. Fost*^^r. Mr. Grant Allen will con-
tinue his interesting series, " A >«'aturalist's Year ; Mr.
H J. Slack his valuable " Hours with the Micrcosope ;
Mr W Mattieu Williams the useful series now in progress.
Messrs. Slingo and J ago will supply papers on electrical
and chemical subjects, the latter dealing specially with the
chemistry of common life. The articles on " How to get
Stron--'"will iminediatelv be renin, pH. The " Sun \ lews

Fig. 4. At six in the morning, midsummer.

of our circulation rendered possible an increase in the size
of each monthly part. But readers should remember that
the promises made for Vol. III. related to what will in
reality be Vols. 111. and IV.

of the Earth " will be;{continued, and a series of papers on
the Spectroscope be presently commenced by the Editor.
Chess will continue to be^conducted by Mephisto, W hist
by " Five of Clubs."

Readers of Knowledge will, we trust, hear with plea-
sure that our circulation has been steadily increasing, and
promises to increase at an increasing rate. We heartily
thank those who, by securing new subscribers, have helped
this progress. So many have written to us that they have
done so,"that we have not had space or time to thank them
individually. But we are none the less sensible of their
good-will.

The race of grumblers, by-the-way, seems to have died
out As we really have been doing our utmost to make
Knowledge worthy of the welcome given to it, this is as
it should be.

1 RATHER wonder no one has called my attention to the
way HI which, in the gossip about printers' ;commas, the

392

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

JONE 29, 1883.

gender of tlie Frt'iicli hcte was made masculine. It is an
old Joke that our gallant neighbours make the unoonipjli-
raentary word feminine. I happen to reiiiomhor thinking
of this as I wrote, and rather carefully penning the words
betes noires. Yet many to whom French is nearly as fami-
liar as English are occasionally loose in the matter of
genders. Witness Charles Reade, and the fun he made of
the anonymuncules of the press, who, laboriously turning
over the pages of a French dictionary, corrected him for
two or three such slips in a language of which he had for-
gotten more than probably the lot of them ever knew
(which is not saying he had forgotten very much either).

I AM asked by a correspondent, who takes great (and
effective) interest in philological questions, to quote the
passage where Roade uses the word anonymuncule. He
has used it rather freely ; but I think he first defined it in
a letter to the editor of the Daily (llobe, Toronto, in
which also he defined the criticaster, the sham-sample
swindler, the prurient prude, and other creatures, studied
under the heading " Literary Zoology." Here is his ac-
count of " True Anonymuncule " : —

Tliis little creature must not be confounded with the anonymous
■writers who supply naiTatives of current events, and discuss public
measures with freedom, but deal largely in generalities, and very
little in personalities. These are the working bees, that gather
honey for the public. Eeade's anonymuncule is no great producer.
He can do Uttle but sting. He is of two kinds — the anonymous
Ietter-^^■riter, pest of families, and the anonymous literary detractor,
pest of the fuie arts. Both varieties have this essential trait in
common — they abuse the shelter and the obscurity of the
anonymous. The literary anonymuncule often abuses it doubly —
he belies his superior in one organ of criticism, then flies to another,
and says the same thing in other words. Then the duped public
believes that two disinterested judges have condemned its favourite,
whereas the poor editors are only a couple of unguarded puppets,
pulled by one unscrupulous anonymuncule raging with literary
envy.

Suffering also, I imagine, under the sense that let him spit
venom as he may, more remains than the anonymuncule
can ever get rid of. Imagine, in this aspect, the hopeless
condition of those whom we are apt to despise instead of
pitying, as we should. What a sad and singular life, for
instance, a skunk's must be !

Mr. J. Charles Kinc;, engineer, sends us his pamphlet
suggesting a land junction between Great Britain and
Ireland by a tunnel connecting Antrim and the Mull of
Cantire. We fear to discuss the subject, lest we should
be told that there is imminent danger to our tottering
country in a tunnel so situate. One wonders what our
kindred in America and Australia think of these fears %
It used to be —

Come the three comers of the world in arms.
And we shall shock them.

It is some comfort to reflect that only about YTjVijth (or, to
be more precise, xo'a i^^) '^^ ^^^ blood of the chief warrior
who thinks England efiete is English — or rather, is of that
complex mixture of Norman, Scottish, English, French,
German, and Italian blood, which attained its fullest
development in James, known as the First of England and
the Si.\;th of Scotland, — but to his familiars by a less
dignified title.

By the way, what were, in Shakespeare's time (or
John's, if the saying was meant for the earlier date), the
" three corners " of the world 1

by a correspondent, I came across the following, under the
word " Almanac," which is interesting in connection with
my views respecting the Great Pyramid.

Kusebius, De Prtcp. Evangel, iii. 4, quotes Porphyrias as to the
Egy])tian belief in astrology, in horoscopes, and so-called lords of
tlu! ascendant, whose names are given in the ahnenicbiakd (^Iv ro7r
<i\/iti'(Xi'»i:o7!,), with their various powers to cure diseases, their
risings and settings, and their presages of things future.

Sever.vl correspondents have asked me, by the way,
since that book appeared, whether I have noticed that
several eminent Egyptologists assert very positively that
the Great Pyramid was meant for a tomb, and a tomb
only. I know it, and knew it before. They give abun-
dant evidence in favour of the first part of their proposi-
tions, but I have never seen a line of evidence or of
reasoning in favour of the second ; so that to my mind
this part (namely, the soZe/y-tombic theory) seems to me as
illogical as the solelytemple theory, the solely-stone-bible
theory, the solely-astronomical-observatory theory, and
others, which are disproved by facts. Only those familiar
with the difficulties and niceties of astronomical observa-
tion can know how certainly the Great Pyramid is shown
to have been an astronomical observatory, whatever else it
was ; yet it would be utterly illogical to reject on that
account the evidence which proves that the building was
meant to be a tomb also.

Looking over some early proof sheets of the Philo-
logical Society's new English Dictionary, kindly sent me

A Long-lived Lamp. — A contemporary states, on the
authority of the Edison Co., that one of the B (eight-
candle) lamps used in the Strasburg station installation
has been burning over 5,000 hours. The same source also
states that the company's manager intends to make a series
of experiments with this lamp, and to publish the results.

An extensive bed of superior red marl, 64 yds. deep, has
been recently discovered at Ruabon, and with it Messrs.
Monk & Newell, of Liverpool, are forthwith commencing
the manufacture of terra-cotta, <fec., upon a large scale, the
manager of the Penybout Works — the originator of Ruabon
" deep-red terracotta " — undertaking the practical manage-
ment of the works.

The following is the estimated railway mileage of the
world, Jan. 1, 1883 :— United States, 113,0013 miles;
Europe, 109,000 ; Asia, 8,000; South America, 7,000;
Canada, 8,.500 ; Australia, 3,200 ; Africa, 2,200 ; Mexico,
2,100. Grand total, 253,000 miles. These figm-es are not
claimed to be exact. It is absolutely impossible to obtain
official returns for the same period within a year or two
after date, and so it is necessary to use the latest available
statement, and add the probable increase since that time.

South American Timber. — Some investigations by M.
Thanneur show that South America is rich in woods for
engineering purposes. The yandubay is exceedingly hard
and durable ; the couroupay is also very hard and rich in
tannin. The quebracho is, however, more interesting than
any, and grows abundantly in the forest of La Plata and
Brazil. It resembles oak in the trunk, and is used for
railway-sleepers, telegraph-poles, piles, and so on. It is
heavier than water, its specific gravity varying between
1-203 and 1-333. The colour at first is reddish, like ma-
hogany, but grows darker with time Being rich in tannin,
it is employed for tanning leather in Brazil, and has
recently been introduced for that purpose into France.
A mixture of one-third of powdered quebracho and two-
thirds of ordinary tan gives good results. — Engineering.

June 29, lb83.]

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

393

mms:

" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Tenntson.

Only a small proportion of Letters receiied can possihly be in-
serted. Correnpondents must not be offetided, there/ore, should their
letters not appear.

All Kditorial commvnicnfions should be addressed to the Editos of
Knowledge; all Biisines- cr>mmui\ications to the Publishers, at the
Office, 7-1, Great Qiieen-.^treet, W.C. If this is kot attended to,

DELAYS ARISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE.

All Uemittances, Cheque.-, and Post Office Orders should be made
payable to Messrs. Wym.O" & Sons.

The Editor is not respcnfille for the opinions of correspondents.

No COMMUNICATIONS ARE ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOUGH STAMPED
AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED.

FLIGHT (IF VERTICAL MISSILES.

[853] — I am always irratcful when you pive me a chance to
exercise my small wits on a problem, and I offer a solntion of
the one with the above title [S27, p. 315]. I do this with some
donbt, occasioned by your exclamation point appended to the
answer of 71 ft., where yon seem to imply that this is more out
of the way than 025 feet is. According to my calculation, it is
.ibont half as largo again as it should be.

The initial velocity being 1,000 feet per second, I suppose the

1000 6000
ball would ascend upward, for ^^^ = ^^^ seconds, and that the

32.V

total rise would be I

1000 y

16^V =

193

3000000

193

feet. The average

the same time the ball

elevation during flight I make to be two-thirds of the total height,

2000000
or — jnS — feet. Now, in the time of rise and fall, the earth

3000'
moves east .^ During

moves east with the velocity of a point on the earth's
surface. Hence, as compared with the starting-point, the ball
moves west a distance equal to the difference between an arc of

measured at the surface, and the same arc measured at

193

a height of " ^^^ — feet, which is equal to the length of the

same arc m a

193
circle of -

2000000
193~
or about 40S-t feet.

feet radius. This I reduce to

18 X 193-
difference of longitude measured at the height of

This would, however, be the
2000000

193

^ feet.

At the surface it would Ijc a little less, say 4C'82.

I shall wait with some curiosity for other solutions of this pro-
blem, as I should like to see whether I am right, or where I havo
gone wrong. Algernon Bray.

[Mr. Bray's solntion is quite correct. I will give next week a
solution of the general problem, which I had written before his
letter reached me. With regard to my exclamation point, it was
appended under the idea that a rise and fall of 1,000 ft. were men-
tioned in the problem, instead of a velocity of 1,000 ft. per second,
as I should have seen if I had read the letter over again. — R. P.]

RATIONAL DRESS.

[I hasten to publish Mrs. King's letter, because I appear to have
done her injustice. I think, however, I probably used the word
" fashion " in a different sense from that in which she employs it —
a less extreme sense. I heard only a Ismail part of the lecture,
having an engagement which took me elsewhere. — R. P.]

[854] — As you have seen and heard me lecture, I am surprised
at the view you take of my advocacy of dress reform.

My 5th requirement of a perfect dress is that it should " not
dep:^ too conspicuously from the ordinary dress of the time." I
declared this to be a maxim for all timb, as involving the principle

of evolution ; and that by the neglect of this principle we put our-
selves too much out of harmony with our surroundings. 1 attri-
buted the failure of Bloomerism to its having so departed. I
quoted the following passage from Emerson's Essays : — " Many a
good experiment, born of good sense, and destined to succeed, fails,
only because it is offensively sudden. 1 suppose the Parisian
milliner, who dresses the world from her imperious boudoir, >vill
know how to reconcile the Bloomer costume to the eye of mankind
by interiiosing the just gradations." " This," I continued, " is our
mission, to bridge over this disUinco ' by interposing the just gra-
dations,' not to Bloomerism itself, but to what was really desired
in Bloomerism — a free, convenient, and comfortable dress, with the
one indispensable condition added, which they seem to have left out
— namely, beauty."

True, I attributed the slow progress we had made during the last
two years to " the mistaken policy of concealment which had been
adopted," because it is a fact which nono can gainsay that apparent
failure leads to failure, and apparent success leads to success, as
ovcrj- politician knows when he cries up the "immense success " of
his iiarty, and proclaims the " utter failm-e " of his opponents. But
I hastened to guard against misapprehension by adding: " Let me
guard against misapprehension. 1 do not insist upon it that every
woman who joins this Association should immediately put herself
into trousers, and show about three or four inches of them, as I do.
The ' just gradations' must be observed in mind, as woU as in act. All
I ask is that they should study certain principles, and endeai-our to
carry these out as far as their position, circumstances, and feelings
will allmu." This I consider the very keynote of my method of
dress reform, and I would rather have this carried out both by
men and women than see every woman in England wearing
trousers.

Your advice to ladies to follow fashion in a sensible manner is
the very worst that could be given to those who have dress-reform
at heart. The sensible women who thus conform to fashion are its
very mainstay and support, for it is they who " reconcile the eye of
mankind" to all that in dress is born of nonsense and unreason ;
because ladies of good tasto and refinement follow fashion a little,
young fools follow it yet a little more, old fools more still, and bad
fools in any way and every way they can, so as to attract attention
to their persons. If fashion were left to the last 'two classes, it
would become so notoriously ridiculous and odious that it would
speedily ensure its own ruin.

I have had to thank you for the very first favourable press
criticism on dress-reform which we received, and am, therefore,
more sorry that you appear to have misunderstood me, for I do not
attribute to you "the mistaken policy of concealment."

My fifth requirement is really the knotty point of dress-reform,
and should you consider it worth having, I should be glad to con-
tribute a short aiticle upon it for your journal. E. M. King.

[I should be very much obliged to Mrs. King if she would do so. —
R. P.]

[855] — I should feel deeply indebted could you make it con-
venient to spare me the space of a few lines in which to reply to
the arguments (?) of " A Woman," and to refute the calumnies she
has oast on our dress.

It generally happens that people make egregious mistakes when
presuming to instruct others iu subjects of which they are ignorant —
or, at best, can have but studied theoretically ; and, as I shall
endeavour to show, " A Woman " proves no exception to the rule.
In her letter to the Times (reprinted in No. 83 of Knowledge),
she treats of the matter from a threefold point of view — viz., as to
health, convenience, and grace. This seems to be a very convenient
method, and I propose answering her arguments in the order in
which they are given.

Very properly, as I think, she avoids going into the first question
in all its details, and contents herself with the remark that there
has of late been a great increase amongst young men of liver and
kidney disease. This may or may not be a fact — in any case, I am
not preiiared to dispute it ; but she continues : " This is owing, I
believe, to the fashion which has prevailed, of small cut-away coats,
leaving loins and stomach nnwrapt, soi'C by the light and often thin
trousers." Now if " A Woman" were half as well acquainted with
the articles of a gentleman's attire as she pretends to bo, she would
know that it is usual for them to wear drawers of some woven
material than which it would be difficult to find anything warmer.
" The absurdity of the open coat and waistcoat "is not so patent to me
as, perhaps, it ought to be ; indeed, I believe that the more sedulous
a person is in wrapping himself up, the more likely and apt he is
to catch cold. Despite the cutting remarks about a white and stiff
shirt (which by-the-by, personally, I find a great inducement to
holding oneself up) I am a great admirer of the same ; but I will
not presume to defend the use of the " dog-collars " with which our

31)1

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[JoNE 29, 1883

(fildcd youth at prcnont ndorn thomselves (aB " A Woman "seems to
dvocato " muffling," I should have thought they would have met
with hor approval).

With re^;!ii'd to the convenience of trousers, did it never occur to
" A Woman " that there niiglit be some especial reasons for discard-
ing them when indulging in particular exercises ? Thus, in bi-
cycling, running, and football a man does not put on knickerbockers
because trousers impede the free use of his legs, but because, in
the first case, they show his socks when riding ; in the secorul, be-
cause the long spikes of his shoes are apt to catch in the bottoms ;
and, in the third case, because football is a dirty kind of game, and
stockings are more easily washed.

The greater number of my rowing acquaintances go on the river
in cricketing trnusers, and I am not aware of any inconvenience
attending their use. If not impertinent, I should venture to suggest
that the gentleman who found it so "jolly to dance without
trousers " had attracted attention by the symmetry of his calves,
and regretted that ho would bo unable to do so on future occasions.

Similar reasons may be found for our discarding braces in athletic
sports. As a rule, the '* silks " require no suspension, and a belt,
if used at all, is mostly for show. A pair of ordinary braces going
over the jersey would look slightly out of place, and T find some
difficulty in conceiving how they would be kept on without the use
of a waistcoat. Unlike *' A Woman," I am unable " to imagine
many inconveniences attending their use." I can safely say, as far
as I am concerned, that I have not experienced any. On the con-
trary, my experience tends in the opposite direction, and both for
comfort, and from a hygienic point of view, I prefer them to the
use of the belt.

There are two sides to the artistic view of the question ; on one
is Nature, on the other Art. I need go no further than to
remind your readers that the human frame, if in its unsullied
grandeur, is, of all the Creator's works, the most artistic. Conse-
quently, I contend that the dress which best adapts itself to the
form and rcciuirenients of that frame has the best right to be con-
sidered artistic. The mind of man has discovered for himself a
dress which, I hold, fulfils both of these requisites. It remains
to be seen whether the mind of woman is equal to the task of
devising a similar one for herself. G. Clavering Mesnakd.

A FEW OBSERVATIONS ON HEAT.

[856] — First Laic. — Heat and mechanical energy are mutually
convertible. A unit of heat = quantity of heat required to raise
one pound of water 1^ Fah. in temperature = energy required to
raise 772 pounds 1 foot in height. This is expressed —
E = JQ
where E = amount of energy in foot-pounds,
Q = quantity of heat in thermal units,
J = 772 foot-pounds = Joule's equivalent.
Second Law. — The energy converted from one of these forms to
the other during a given change in any substance, is proportional
to the absolute temperature.

\_Ahsolute Temperature is measured according to a scale in which
equal divisions correspond to equal quantities of energy.]
This law is expressed —

T,-T.,
E = JQ,-^-

where Ti and To are the initial and final temperatures.
These two laws are the result of experiments. They are also the
result of any theory founded on the collisions of molecules of gases,
or on the centrifugal energy of molecular vortices in solid bodies.
The absolute zero so found isTo=— 4G0F. This zero also corre-
sponds to that at which gaseous elasticity disappears. Thus, it is
found that air expands 0'366 of its volume between 32° and 212°,
hence —

180°
T„ = 32°-T577.= -4G0°.

The quantity of heat in a body when no change of state is
involved is the product of the specific heat into the absolute
temperature, or

Q = iT.
Sensible or thermometric heat = kinetic energy. Latent heat =
potential energy = heat which disappears in molecular changes

T(V,— V) dP
= ■ — , where V and Vj are the volumes of unit of mass

in the first and second states, and i — the variation of pressure jier
dT

degree of temperature. This formula is arrived at as a result of
the two laws. It gives 96fi thermal units for the latent heat of
steam at 212°, and 144 thermal units fur the latent heat of ice.

It predicted the fact that the freezing-point was lowered by
])ressure, from V for ice being greater than V, for water.

For perfect gases, i.e., those without viscosity
P V _ Pq V„ .

T " 'i'l,
without communication of heat, P V'"' = const. T. J. Dewab.

MUSICAL QUESTION.
[857]— The reply to "Musical Question" (808), by G. Wolff, is
very apt to mislead such persons as W. Jones, who are in want of a
true one to the question proposed. Mr. Jones finds the chord of
C preferable to that of C shaqi. It is very evident that he has a
keener musical ear than Mr. Wolff, if we are to consider the latter
as one of the audience'.who, he says, would be ignorant of the fact
that a nocturne of Chopin, written in D flat, had been played in D
natural. It also shows that the tuner had, to a certain extent,
tuned the chord of C with the natural number of degrees between
the notes, whilst in so doing he must have sacrificed the correctness,
amongst others, of the chord of C sharp. Mr. Chatterton has given
the reason very generally accepted as correct ; and if it is correct,
it is quite natural that those chords, the correctness of which had
been sacrified to others by the tuner, would sound harsh and
incorrect.

Taking the chord of C. Now the number of degrees from 3rd to
5th (E to G), should be 125, and from 5th to 8th (G to C), 107.
Then take the chord of D. From 3rd to 5th should be 125, but if
the piano were tuned correctly in the key of C, the number would
be "„"-h72 = 112. Thus, to make the chord of D more correct, F
sharp should be made 125 — 112 = 13 degrees nearer F than is usual
on the piano which is tuned on the equal temperament. Taking
the supposition that there are two pianos tuned so that C natural on
the one should be C sharp on the other, then, if the tuner had tlirown
the greatest amount of error in those keys which are the least
used, the chord of the key of C would become the most perfect on
both pianos, and therefore, although G and C sharp on the two
pianos were exactly the same note, yet the chord on that piano on
which it is played as the chord of key of C, would be much more
satisfying to the ear than that on which it was played as the chord
of C sharp. Most of your readers have doubtless heard the
song, " Some day." It seems to me in order to hear the full
effect of the song, one requires it to he played on a piano that has
been tuned naturally in that very key in which it is written. On
most pianos (tuned to equal temperament), many of the notes in
the most touching parts of the song seem to have a degree of
sharpness about them which clash very perceptibly with the natural
notes produced by the voice, owing to the many accidental notes
which were introduced into the song. The error in one accidental
note would pass almost unnoticed ; but when many such accidentals
are introduced, the amount of incorrectness reaches such a height
as to call one's attention to it. E. A. Martin.

A DISCOUNT DODGE— FIGURE CONJURING.

[858] — " T. J. K.," in letter 829, page 314, says I fell into an
error in my communication 812, relative to an easy way of cal-
culating discounts. In reply, I beg to say I fell into no error
whatever. I merely professed to give a method used by a late
friend of mine, and I stated that method correctly. As to the
absolute mathematical correctness of that method I gave no
opinion, and, consequently, am not fairly chargeable with having
fallen into any error. Even now I prefer my friend's method to
that of "T. J. K.," inasmuch as it seems to me to be equally usefnl
for all practical purposes, and easier to be manipulated correctly.
Calculating the discount on a large invoice to the 59.200th part of
a penny is cutting the thing rather too finely. I hope the wealthy
Scotch publisher mentioned in page 313 of Knowledge will not
get to see this correspondence, or he will be offering Mr. Proctor
2 59-200d. per line for a review instead of 2id.

I found the other day, in a French conjuring book, a plan by
means of which a person may discover a figure thought of by
another party, without seeing the said figure at all. The trick,
however, would, I think, present a more mysterious appearance if
worked on four figures instead of upon one. As the details of this
experiment may probably be both novel and interesting to many of
the arithmetical readers of Knowi.euge, I will state them in full.

The performer gives his friend pencil and paper, and asks him to
write down, privately, any four figures he may choose ; he must
then multiply these fonr figures by 2, then add 4, then multiply the

Jdxe 29, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

395

[iiixluct by 5, then add 12, aud, fiually, multiply by 10. Ho must
MOW hand to the performer the final product only, aud the performer
vill then instantiv toll him the tigurea ho originally chose.

Thus, suppose the four liijures chosen wore —

x5

lO.SGS
5

+ 12

54,340
12

xlO

54,352
10

643,520

Thus, the figures lianded to the performer, on

a separate slip of paper, will be 543320

From which ho will deduct privately 320

5432 I 00
LeaWng, after cutting off the two last figures, 5432, the four figures
originally thought of.

But then, it may be asked, whence gets the performer the 320
which forms, it would apjiear, the key to the trick ? The rough-
and-ready way of explaining this seems to me as follows : — We
must suppose the figures 5432 to be fast top links in a chain ; to
these the performer hooks a series of other links, to the number of
320 ; the deducting of the 320 is then simply the unlinking of the
chain, and the leaving of the four fast links as they stood at the
lommentement of the experiment. Thus 0 x 2 = 0 + 4 = 4x 5 = 20 +
12 = 32x10 = 320. Perhaps a more learned explanation of the
matter may easily be found by some of the scientific readers of
K.NOWLEDGE, but I give mine just for what it may be worth. I may
add, the same result may be attained by deducting 25 instead of 320,
slightly varying the preceding operations; thus, multiply the ori-
ginal figures by 2, then add 5, and finally multiply by 5 ; cut off
one figure only to the right, and the remaining figures will be those
thought of. Hero we get the 25 in the same manner as the 320 ;
thus, 0x2 = 0 + 5 = 5x5 = 25. The first method, however, is, I
think, preferable to tlus latter one; being more complicated, the
trick becomes more mysterious — the great point at which the
conjurer should aim. G. M.

[" G. M.'s " use of symbols is rather perplexing. What the per-
former really does is to niultiplv the original number (in this case
5,432) by 100, adding to it 4 x 5 + 12 x 10 or 320.— K. P.]

VACCINATION.
[859] — I was rather vexed to see in your journal figures ex-
tracted from the Medical Pres.^ which are so wrong. Mark, now,
how a plain tale shall put yon or them down.

108 certified deaths vaccinated is 25 per cent., not 37,
to which add ■' doubtful," as only a small proportion
of the population are unvaccinated.
184 42i per cent.

292 Deaths of vaccinated G7i „

139 Remainder unvaccinated 32i „

431 100

I think the above the more accurate representation of the
Cgures. Chas. Johnson.

[Perhaps; but why interchange the "doubtful" (139) and the
"unvaccinated" (184). In the Medical Press, the percentage was
considered only on the undoubted cases, which, as I pointed out,
was not a correct way of dealing with the matter. The actual
numbers and percentages are : —

Number. Percent.

Vaccinated 108 25

Unvaccinated 184 42^

Doubtful 139 32i

100
If we add all the doubtful cases to the vaccinated, wo get 57i per
cent, of the deaths among the vaccinated. But you must bo a most
energetic ;idvocate of vaccination to suggest this. Do you not see
what you are doing ? You are assuming that so small is the pro-
portion of unvaccinated folk, that among 139 doubtful cases (or
say, even 184), not one was probably anvaccinated. It follows.

according to your reasoning, that the vaccinated are nearly two
hundred times as numerous as the unvaccinated ; yet, instead of
supplying nearly two hundred times as many deaths (or 184
for 1), they only supply about four deaths for three (or 84 for 138)
among the unvaccinated. The most ardent advocates of vaccina-
tion do not claim greater protective effect for vaccination as at
present managed. — H. P.]

ON THE FORMATION OF COMETS' TAILS.

[860] — The supjiosition that an active tail-forming comet is made
up of meteoric masses, some of which consist almost entirely of
matter volatilisable by the sun's heat, is in no degree invalidated by
the fact that meteors consisting of such volatile material never fall
to the earth.

Though it is probable that any of the matter now contained in
the meteoric streams which the earth encounters in her path round
the sun once formed part of the material of a comet, this matter
must have long since parted with any volatile matter with which it
may then have been associated.

The meteoi ic stones, therefore, which reach the earth must be
regarded as affording evidence as to the nature of the non-volatilo
material only which a comet may contain. The earth would have
to pass through a comet, probably quite close to its nucleus, before
it could encounter masses of volatilisable matter. Prom my view,
it is only masses of moderate size which could be carried away
from the nucleus by the steam of gas setting outwards from it,
and be afterwards ejected by the evaporative force into the tail ;
and such musses could not long bo exposed to solar radiation in
vacuo without quickly losing by evaporation all their volatile
matter — probably before they had been carried very far into the
tail. 1 speak of the evaporation as taking place in vacuo, for I con-
ceive that when a meteoric mass has been ejected to some distance
from the nucleus, the evaporation will take place in what may bo
regarded as an almost absolute vacuum.

I may again state that I nowhere advocate the view which Mr.
Kanyard persists in attributing to me, that the volatilisable matter
of a comet is ice. Nor is it at all essential to my view that the
dimensions of the evaporating masses should be as largo as a cubic
metre. It will be seen from the formula I have given that the
ultimate activity attained by the comi)lete evaporation of the
volatile portion of a mass depends only on the proportion which
the volatile portion bears to the non-volatile portion, not on the
absolute dimensions of the mass. There would, however, be a
point at which the formula would not be strictly a))plicable, for,
when the mass has become reduced by evaporation to an
exceedingly small particle, the effect of the solar rays, in
causing evaporation, could hardly be confined^ to one side only
of the particle. I believe, however, that the particle might
be reduced to verj- small dimensions before the solar heat would
cause evaporation on both sides, for experiments on evaporation in
vacuo appear to indicate that radiant heat, falling on an evaporating
surface, is almost entirely spent in producing evaporation, and that
very little heat is carried by conductiou into the intorior\)f the
evaporative body. As the polarisation of the light from a comet's
tail points to the conclusion that the bulk of each evaporating mass
after evaporation is very minute, it will not bo necessary to suppose
it to have a large bulk before evaporation, in order to account for
its velocity tailwards.

In conclusion, I would remark that Mr. Ranyard, in his communi-
cation to Knowledge for May 18, has not attempted to refute the
argument by which I showed that the particles of mist which he
supposes to form the tail of a comet could never acquire a velocity
greater than the average velocity (duo to their thermal energy) of
the molecules of gas evaporated from them, though he still
adheres to his opinion that the particles, by continually picking up
fresh matter, and evaporating it again towards the sun, would be
continually acquiring fresh velocity, and might ultimately acquire a
velocity sufficient to account for the tail formation which, if my
argument be valid, is out of the question. A. S. Davis.

Cheltenham, June 11, 1883.

COMETS' TAILS AND THE SUN'S SURFACE.

[861] — In an article of mine, published in " yours " of Fob. 2nd
last, I endeavoured to show that comets' tails might bo considered
to bo formed by a repulsive force acting with an intensity varying
as the surface exposed, and so in small condensed particles over-
coming gravity, which acts according to mass, i.e., in bodies of a
given density a function of the volume. I also supjiosed that this
repulsive force was a molecular bombardment similar to that which
takes place in a Crooke's Radiometer. I did not answer Mr. Ranyard
and others. I derived profit from their contributions, and my
own views were in a transition state. I now seek to inquire

396

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[June 29, 1883.

aa to what mnst be tho condition of the outer surface
of tho gascoua envelope of tho sun. Obviously gas
is there, |)as.>iinf{ from tho condition of tho third to tho
fourth state of matter, and tho mean velocity of tho molecules is by

Jonlo's equation V = -v/ 3- where V = mean velocity, p=pre88uro,

^ . P

p — density. These terms wo cannot determine, bnt may form an
idea of the state of affairs since V for hydrogen molecules at
32" F., and 30 in. barometer pressure is C,097 ft. per second, and
thus individual molecules may be moving at a far higher velocity.
Is it not thence almost a nocciiiKinj conseijucnce to suppose that
molecules mnst be constantly starting off normally to the sun's
surface with a velocity that must take them beyond the limits of
the sun's gravitation attraction. Hence, further, such molecules
will bombard oh/;/ on the side turned toimrds the sun any particles
exposed, and this bombardment will act as ic repulsive force vary-
ing with the surface as theory requires. Freb. F. Grensted.

DO SPECIES CHANGE?

[862] — I should feel much obliged to you if you could find room
for the following extract from Tit-Bits, and should be glad if some
one would reply totliesame: —

" The negroes who attended Semiramis and Rhamses are in every
respect similar to the negroes now toiling amid the sugar canes of
Alabama. If duriug 4,00U years species and races have not changed,
why should we suppose that they ever should change ? ^Vby
should we not take our stand on that testimony, and assert that
species are unchangeable ? Such has been the argument of
Cuvier and his followers, an argument on which they have laid
great stress, and which they liave further strengthened by a
challenge to adversaries to produce a single case where a transmu-
tation of species has taken place.

" Here we show you evidence that species have persisted un-
altered during 4,000 years, and you cannot show us a single case of
species having changed ; you cannot show us one case of a wolf
becoming a dog, an ass becoming a horse, a hare becoming a rabbit.
You must admit that if there were any inherent tendency to change,
4,000 j-ears is a long enough period for that tendency to display
itself in ; and we ought to see a very marked difference between
the species which lived under Semiramis and those which are living
under Victoria. Jnstead of this, we see that there has been no
change : the dog has remained a dog, the horse has remained a
horse ; every species retains its well-marked character."

R. P. B.

["E. P. B." will find that the considerations here touched upon
have been carefully weighed by evolutionists, and form part of the
evidence on which the modern theories of biological evolution are
based. They may have been advanced, perhaps, in the present
case by some naughty person anxious to show that, if negroes
have remained unchanged for 4,000 years, the different branches
of the human family can hardly have sprung from a single race, still
less from a single pair, unless many millions of years have elapsed
since the race began. — E. P.]

OKIGIX OP THE WEEK.

[863] — I have been much interested in " The Great Pyramid,"
and I think, perhaps, the following quotation in reference to " The
Origin of the Week " may be of use : —

" Q. Curti Rufi liistoriarum Alexandri magui Macedonis." — Lib.
viii., ab initio cap. is. Cambridge : Pitt Press.

Book viii., ch. ix., sec. 35 : —

" Menses in qninos denos discripseruut dies, anni plena spatia
servantur. Lunce cnrsu notant tempera, non, nt plerique, cumorbem
sidus inplevit, sed cum so curvarc coepit in cornua, et idcirco
brcviorcs habent menses, qui spatium eorum ad hunc lunae modum
dirigunt — multa et alia traduntur, quibus morari ordinem rerum
haud same opeiTC videbatur."

Trans. — " They (the Indians) have divided their year into
months of fifteen days each (lit. they have divided their months
into fifteen days apiece) , the full period (plural) of the year is
(correctly) kept."

" They measure time (pi.) by the course of the moon — not, as is
generally done, from full moon (lit. when the star* has filled its
orb), but (from the time) when it has begun to bend its horns;
and, therefore, the months of those who fix the duration of the
month according to this phase of the moon are shorter. Many
other customs, also, are handed down, with which it really does not
seem worth while to delay my narrative."

• " Sidus = constellation = or fnoon sidus lunrc." — Piin. 2, 9,6,
Sec. 41.

1 have copied the translation from one published by J. Hall A-
Son, Cambridge, translated by H. J. C. Knight.

F. Letebton Harris.

P-S. — Tlio following translation may also be interesting. — Book
viii., 9, 31 :—

" There is one wild and uncouth class which they call ' wise men.'
It is with them a noble deed to anticipate the day of doom "

" 33. Those who live in towns under rules of civilisation are said
to bo skilful astronomers (to examine skilfully the motions of the
constellations), and to foretell the future— nor do they believe that
one thereby hastens the day of death, since — he-can-look-forward-to
it without fear "

LETTERS RECEIVED AND SHOET ANSWERS.

Jas. Stephensox. It is very difficult to advise in such matters.
1 should have thought GuiUemin's " The Heavens" more generally
useful than Newcomb's book, admirable though it is. Would not
Huxley's " Physiography " suit. By the way, " physiography " is an
atrocious word, not in the slightest degree indicating what was in-
tended, and almost as discreditable to science as " chromosphere."
— Nemo. GuUlemin's " Heavens." As to telescopes, unable to
advise. — A. C. P. suggests that my notes (only they are not mine)
on " The Face of the Sky " should date from two days after the
day of ])ublication, as some readers are reached later than the day
for which the notes begin.— A. D. C, C.axtae. Thanks.— S. P. G.
I use Boole's Dif. Equations. Other question too vague. — A. E. W.
Inconsistent with curved tails. — Hally.^eds. That correspondent
was answering some one who had attacked him. Do not want
discussion on the point raised. Letters are not articles. One
such subject started would send in on us an intolerable load
of correspondence. After all, what does it matter? — G. C. Lyox.
Have read the cutting. Should say it was a joke ; but if the
person named really wrote that, I should imagine mania was
about. — Sam. Ki.xes. Xo, I thank you. I think I could very easily
show that, with such latitude as you allow yourself, the chances are
about a billion to one against your failing to find close corre-
spondence. If " Let the earth bring forth grass" (or, lit., "Let
the earth sprout forth sprontage") can be interpreted "Let algae,
lichens, and fungi appear," then — well, then, anything, so to speak,
might (as it were) be interpreted after a fashion anyhow. In my first
book I tried something that way myself, but I know better now.
As well try riding across country in swaddling-bands. — J. V. E.
Thanks. 'The other article has been really deferred preposterously.
It shall appear very soon. The other series I should much like to
see. I would arrange for its speedy appearance, taking alternate
weeks; for, as you say, it would be necessary not to have long
delay. — Arasthom. Surely the discount dodge has been sufficiently
explained. — Ja.s. A. U. M. Many thanks. See reply in " Gossip."
The proofs full of interesting matter. — A. Good. Can no longer
forward or insert questions addressed to contributors. — I-N'mciEER.
Gravity at any point within the earth is unaffected by the attraction
of all matter lying outside a spheroidal sui'face through the point,
similar and concentric with the spheroidal surface of the earth herself.
— J. A. EoEsox. ilr. Moore simply takes b so as to make one of the
multipliers a multiple of 10. — j As.S. The moth which was flying
all the time in the railway carriage covered whatever distance his
journeyings within the carriage amounted to, not, in addition, the
twenty-five miles traversed by the train. So soon as the train
started the carriage-full of air was carried along, with the moth in
it. — A. R. EoTCORP (in whom I seem to recognise an inverted name-
sake) wishes to hear of a remedy for hay fever. — J. M. Rohger.
I daresay your 13-fold trisection will do all you claim for
it, and that if I suppose, multiply, subtract, divide, Sec, as
vou tell me to, the result will be what you say. Bnt
suppose I don't?— E. F. Woottox. Thanks.— E. T. P. Can
hardly do that. — M. H. Close. Yes ; some mistakes. — Alg.
Bray. There are sixteen roots of the equation besides unity.
You have evidently still to study an interesting chapter of the
theory of equations. — A, H. HtTTH. Thanks. Will use your letter
if can possibly find space. — J. W. Dawsox. Know nothing of the
plans for that periodical, except that they in no way affect ours. —
A. J. Saxtox. Do not know any of their names, nor quite what is
meant by an " astronomer-royal to the king of Bavaria." Is it some
specially roy.al kind of astronomy they study? — G. W. B. Thanks;
will consider when time comes, and space can be found. — -A
Learner. We do not work sums. — C. JoHX^iox gives, as a paradox,
this — " For every person boi*n, one, viz., himself, dies ; how then can
the population increase ? " By way of illustration, eai-ly marriage
and large families may be suggested. — W. Ql'ixtin desires to learn
how best to chloroform a frog without injuring it. — T. J. Dewar.
Thanks. Heat seems to result from other causes than science
recognises.

June 29, 1883.]

KNOWLEDGE ♦

397

(Pur iflatbtmatical Column.

GEOMETRICAL PROBLEMS.
By Richabd A. Proctor.

WE will now try a problem of greater lengtli, thongh by no
means difBcnlt : —

Ex. 5.— The triangles B A C, BBC (Fig. 10) arc on the same
hose, B C, and beliveen the same parallels, A D and B C ; also, B AC
is isosceles, the side B A being equal to the side A C. Show that
the perimeter of the triangle B A C is less than the perimeter of the
triangle B D C.

r

Fig. 10.

First of all, we notice that B C being common to both triangles,
we need only prove that B A, A C are together less than B D, D C
together.

After a little examination it becomes clear that the sides B A, A C
are not easily comparable with the sides B D, D C, as they stand. It
is an obvious resource to produce B A lo A F, making A P equal to
A C, so that B F is equal to the sura of the lines B A, A C ; and in
like manner to produce B D to G, making D G eqnal to D C, so that
B G is equal to the sum of the lines BD, D C. We have, then, to
show that B F is less than B G. If B F is less than B G, then
joining F G, the angle G is less than the angle B F G (Eu. I., 19).
But there seems no obvious method of proving this relation.

Let ns consider our construction. We have A F equal to A C.
But A C is eqnal to A B. Thns B A, A C, and A F are all eqnal.
Hence a circle described with centre A, through B, would pass also
through C and F. Since B F would be the diameter of this circle,
B C F is a right angle. (Euc. 111., 31.) We therefore join C F,
and note that it is perpendicular to B C*

We notice, also, that C A F is an isosceles triangle. Let us see,
then, about B G. We have D G eqnal to D C. But D C is less than
D B, since the angle D B C is less than the angle D C B. (Euc. I.,
18.) This does not seem likely to help us. If we join G C, C D G
is, like C A F, an isosceles triangle. But this, again, does not
appear, on examination, to be a profitable relation.

Let ns see, however, whether we are making use of all our data :
— We have been forgetting that A D is parallel to B C. Without
making nse of this relation, we cannot hope to solve our problem.

We have shown that C F is at right angles to B C, and tlierefore,
of course, C F is at right angles to A D. It will be as well, there-
fore, to produce A D to meet F C in H, and to note tliat A H is at
right angles to F C. But C A F is an isosceles triangle, and it is a
well-known property that the line drawn from the vertex of a
right-angled triangle, at right angles to the base, bisects the base.f
Thus C H is equal to H F. Will this projierty help us ? Let ns
consider : C H is eqnal to H F, and H D A is at right angles to C F.
Clearly, then, if we join D F, we have D F equal to D C, for the
triangles D H C and D U F will be eqnal in all respects.
(Enc. I., 4.)

* Hero is an instance of the advantage of carefully-constructed
figures. The relation arrived at by a tolerably obvions line of
reasoning might be overlooked for awhile. But if the figure has
been constructed carefully, in accordance with the data, the up-
rightness of F C could not escape notice, and a moment's inquiry
would show that it is not accidental, and suffice to exhibit its
cause.

t This problem is not explicitly stated in Euclid. It is contained
implicitly in Bk. I., props. 10-12. It should be included amongst
the additional problems, a knowledge of which is necessary to those
who wish to work successfully at dedact'ions.

D F being equal to D C, we may be led to proceed in one of two
ways : —

First, we might notice that oar construction made D G equal to
D C ; so that D F is equal to D G, therefore the angle D F G equal to
the angle D F G (Euc. I., 5) ; therefore the angle BFG greater
than the angle G ; and B G greater than B F (Euc. I., 19) ; that is,
B 0, D 0, together greater than B A, A C together.

Or, we might notice that since D F is equal to D C, B D and D P
arc together equal to B D and D C together ; but B D and D F are
together greater than B F (Euc. I., 2U) ; therefore B D and C D are
together greater than B A and A C together.

If we had followed the first of these courses, wc should still
scarcely fail to notice a/tenoards that the second is an available
and a better solution.

We proceed, then, to run over such steps of the above work as
are necessary to the proof of the proposition. In doing this we
notice that a property of the third book has been made use of in
proving that C F is at right angles to A H. We will assume that
the proposition has been given as a deduction from the first book.
Then, although the student might mentally have followed the course
we have adopted,* it would be well for him to modify the proof so
as to avoid the use of Book III. This is easily done. The student
sees at once that the proof involves the equality (in all respects) of
the triangles A H F, A H C. He had the angle A F U equal to
the angle A C II, A F equal to A 0, and A H common.
This is not quite sufficient (so far as Euclid's treatment of triangles
e.^itcnds). But it is easy to supplement these data by establishing
the equality of the angles FA II, H A C, these angles being respec-
tively equal to the equal angles A B C, A C B (Euc. I., 29). Hence
the triangles H A F, H A C are equal in all respects.

The construction and proof of the proposition we are dealing^
with run, therefore, thus : —

Produce B A to F, making A F eqnal to A C. Join D F, D C,
and let A I), produced if necessary, meet P C in H. Then the
angle F A II is equal to the interior angle ABC (Enc. I., 29). But
A B C is equal to A C B (Euc. I., 5), and A C B to C A H (Euc. 1.,
29). Therefore the angle F A H is equal to the angle C A H. Also,
F A, A H are equal to C A, A H respectively. Therefore the
triangles F A H, C A H are equal in all respects (Euc. I., 4).
Hence P H is equal to H C, and the angles at H are right angles.
Thus the triangles D H P and D H C are equal in all respects (Euc.
I., 4). Therefore D F is equal to D C. But B D and D F are
together greater than B F (Euc. I., 20), that is, than B A, A F
together. Therefore B D and D C are together greater than B A
and A C together, and the perimeter of B D C is greater than the
perimeter of B A C.

(To he continued.)

(Bur €l)tis Column,

By Mephisto.

AN INTEKSATIONAL TOURNAMENT IN GERMANY.

WE have pleasure in announcing that the bi-annual International
Congress of the German Chess Association will take place at
Nuremberg, beginning on July 15. The prizes for the diief tourna-
ment are £00, £40, £25, £15, £10. Besides this tournament there
will be several minor tournaments, a problem tournament, solution
tournament, &c. It is expected that from this conntrj- several of
the strongest players will attend. Blackburno and Mason have
already determined upon doing so. It will be remembered that at
the last meeting at Berlin in 1881, Blackbume carried off first prize.
We hope to be specially represented at the tournament, and to give
our readers an ample report weekly.

THE TOURNAMENT.

Mackenzie won his game against Rosenthal on Wednesday
the 20th, as announced in our columns last week. This made
Blackburn absolute third prize winner. On Thursday English
was fortunate enongh to win from Blackbume, to whom the game
was of " no consequence," but it improved English's chance for a
prize; he stood at 14t. On Friday Rosenthal and English drew

• More probably he would have noticed the equality of the
triangles A F H and A H C, if bis figure had been drawn with a
moderate amount of care. He would then see at a glance that this
equality was not accidental, would complete the proof mentally on
the assumption that H C is equal to H F; and in writing out the
proof he would give that proof of the equality of the triangles,
A n F and A H C, which follows above.

398

♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦

[Juke 29. 1883.

Ihoir panio, l;nt on Saturday liosontlml, who ovidentlr liad not
much liffht lefl after tlie two' nii.titli!.' battle, lost to En^'lisli. The
latter therefore ties with Mackenzie and Mason, each having' 15}.
T8chip)rin remained in undisputed posession of the fourth jirize.
fiosienthal, who oddly onouRh at the finish stood at 11. with four
draws to play, and might have tied with Blackburne for third place,
has not taken a jirizo at all. He had still to play Blackburne, but
as ho could not, even if he won, take a prize, also as the game was
of no consequence to Blackburne, they did not play their game.
Rosenthal has, however, won a special prize of £25, he having made
the best score against the prizi? winners, viz., Si, which figure
includes two well-fought games won of Steinitz.

PitizF, Winners :

Score.

First (£300)...Zukertort 22

Second (£175). ..Steinitz 19

Third (£150) .Blackburne li3J»

Fourth (£125)...Tschigorin 16

Fifth (£100) ^ Mason. 15^

Sixth (£75) > Mackenzie 15i

Seventh (£50) ) English 15^

Special prize of £25 for best score against prize winner : —
Bosenthal.

* One game nnplayed.

Complete Score Table.

1st
Eou

2nd
nd

Total

1st
Rou

2nd
nd

Total

Bird

Blackburne ...

English

Mackenzie ...

7

8i

7

5

9i

0

Si

5

8t
8i
lOi
6
3
6

12

IGi

15i

15J

15i

3

9i

Rosenthal ...

Sellman

Skipworth ...

Steinitz

Tschigorin ...

Winawer

Zukertort ...

7

3i

3

9

9

n

12

7t

3

reti
10

7

6
10

14
6i

red
19

Mortimer

13i

t One game not played.

We think the play of Captain Mackenzie deserving of special
notice. We pointed out in a former number the inconsistency
between his position at the London and Vienna Tournaments in the
■first rounds. Since that time he has at least shown us the con-
sistency of his inconsistent play. In the first round, as will be
seen, he scored 5, while in the second round he not only scored
more than double, viz., lOJ, but he has absolutely done better than
anybody else, and has beaten Zukertort.

A most remarkable decline in position is revealed to us by
Winawer's score. It would be almost incredible, if it were not a
fact, that from being first at Vienna with 24, he has descended to
eighth in this tournament with 13^.

English steadily advances in strength, although his play is not
sufficiently spirited to be capable of very great improvement. He
was close upon the prize >tinners at Vienna; this time he has done
better. He is a remarkably rapid player, but very much given to
drawing. Kolish said of him that it is verj' difficult to win a game
from him, but also difficult to lose one.

We are glad to see Blackburn come out at the head of all other
players in such an important contest; barring Zukertort and Steinitz.
His position is a very honourable one.

MORTIMER'S VICTORY.
Position after Black's 2lBt move.

MOKTIMER.

Black.

r.i^

' .

%

'i t

ji

1

-J
r

t'^..,.

..

A

Zl'KKRTOKT.

White. Bluik.

ifukcrtort. Mortimer.

1. P to K4 P to K4

2. Kt to KB3 Kt to QB3

3. B to B4 B to B4

4. P to QKt4 B takes P

5. P to B3 B to R4

6. P to Q4 }' takes P

7. Castles. P takes P
:a Q to Kt3 Q to B3

9. P to K5 Q to Kt3

10. Kt takes P KKt to K2

11. B toI{3 RtoQKtsr;j(a)

12. Kt to Q5 Kt takes Kt

13. B takes Kt Kt to Q m\

14. QK to Q sq. P to QKt4 {h)

15. R to Q4 P to Kt5

16. Kt to R4 Q to QKt3

17. B to Kt2 Kt to K3 (r)

18. Kt to B5 P to Kt3

19. B takes Kt BP takes B

20. Kt to Kt7(ch)K to Q sq (d)

21. Kt takes KP

(eh) K to K2

22. Kt to B4 (e) B to Kt2

While.
Zukertort.

BUck.

Mo

23. R takes P (ch)

(/) K takes R

24. Q to B7 (ch) K to B sq

25. P to KG B to !{3 (<i)

26. R to QB sq R to Q sq

27. P to K7 K to Kt2

28. P takes R, Q'sR takes Q

29. Kt to K6 E to Qt (h)

30. B to Be

31. R to R sq

32. Q to K7

33. q takes Q

34. Kt to B5 (ch) K to B3

35. Kt to K4 R to K3

36. P to B3

37. K to R sq

38. R ch

39. B to Kt5

40. P takes B

41. P to KR4

42. B to Q8

43. Resigns.

Q to B3 (i)
B to QB5
Q to Q3
R takes Q

B to Kt3 (ch)
B to Q4 {})
K to Kt4
B takes Kt
R takes P
P to KR3
P to B 4

NOTES.

(n) Plajed by Andersen. If B takes Kt or Castles, then QR to
Q sq gives White a good attack.
(h) Or Kt to Q3 at once.

(c) Castling would not be good, as White would get up an irre-
sistible attack by Q to Kt3.

(d) The position is very complicated and interesting. If K to
K2, then Q to Kt3 ; or if K to B2, then Q to B3 (ch) ; K takes
Kt. Q to B6 (ch), K to Kt sq. R to B4, and wins.

(e) Kt to Kt5 ought to give White an easy win. We give a
diagram of this interesting position.

(/) Then, again, P to K6 ought to win, instead of going in for
brilliancy.

(3) A very good move.

(h) Black now has the best of it. If R takes P (ch), Q takes K,
threatening mate by R on Q8 ; or if Kt takes P, then R to KB4.

(») Taking the bull by the horns.

(j) Which wins another Pawn and the game.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
*«* Please address Chess Editor,

Leonard B. Page. — 1. R takes KP; time, five minutes.

Alfa. — Blackburne has proved himself the best English player.

Jacobs. — Anything to oblige a lady.

BoxA Fides. — See notice.

R. S. — We do not think it necessary to go into the particulars of
your variation. P to KKt3, whether played as defence to the Ruy
Lopez or the Two Knights' Opening, must be bad on principle.
P to KB5 mostly is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

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