t*x(-iMa>t <.: ■,isjri*ittBiiih^bhiiiiimiiilii^^ MAGAZINE Of SCIENCE LAINLY WORDED -EXACTLY DESCrIbED CONDUCTED BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR. ?«" OF CAMACiA, TOFtONTO, OrsiT,. ■^Z "Let Knowledge grow from more to more" — Tennyson ': S£P^M968 VOLUME YII. JANUARY TO JUNE, 1885. &^)?.,T„ .r '">»<; ■^"at.. ^y LONDON: WYMAN & SONS, 74-76, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN S-INN FIELDS, W.C. 18S5. f \J •7 INDEX TO VOLUME YII. GENERAL. Adteetising and mock charitieg, 551 Aerial navigation, reference to, 2S7 Aerolites, 2Hi Africa, the diamond fields of (illustrated), 438. 473 Afterglows, a required prize essay on the, 176; the re- curren"--e of the, 432 Age, old, George Eliot on, 391 Agricultural Hall, Islington, Sportsman's Exhibition at, 37S Algonquin Indians, legends of the (review) , 91 Allen, Alfred Jukes, trisecting an angle, 2it8 Ailen, W. F., reformation in time-keeping, f8, 103 Ambulance, a pocket, -170 America, manners and customs in, 66 Amerit-a, pre-historic (review), 506 American photographers, trades-unionism amongst, Ammoniaphone, the, 2^5 Angle, how to trisect an, 203 Animals of the past and present, 477 (see also " Correspondence ") Animals, the perisbabilitj of, 417 Ants, white, in India, 103, 142 (see also " Corre- spondence ") Appeal, a proposed Court of Criminal, 133 Arago on.fihooting stars, 475 Arctic work of the future, 149, 137 Areas and rurve.", the geometry of, 125 Arms, to strengthen the, 496, 515, 545 Asbestos fires, 30 Astronomical oliservations and the weather, 505 Astronomical Society, the Royal ; award of gold medal, 71 ; election of council, 376; Mouthly yvfices, 90, 5fio; presidential address, 155 Astronomical Sueiety of Livetpool, issue of papers by, 37t> Astronomical telescope, new occulting eye-piece for. Astronomy, the mathematics of meteoric, 335, 403, 423 Atlantic, ice in the, 482 Auctions, organised conspiracies at, 396 Babbicomdb murderer, reprieve of the, 20O Ballin, Ada S., thought and language, 27, GV, 107,170, 211, 262. ;i01, 365, 43>, 474, 515 (see also "Cor- respondence ") Baronetcies, the origin of, 1-40 Beauty, the evolution of, 3:}6, 3tJ, 366, 3S7, 414, 437 (see also "Correspondence") Beetles (illustrated), 253, 305, 342, 3A4, 423, 473, 513 Beginning of life (illustiated), S3, 123 Bethlehem, the star of, 605 Bible, the revised version of (review), 463 Billiard -table, an improved, 59 Birds, improved cage for exhibiting, 271 Body, regulation of the tempera! ure of, 1S6 Boots and shoes for travelling on ice, 33 Boulder-clay of Cheshire, the, 5r2 Brake for two-wheeled vehicles, 353 Brain, extraction of a tumour from the, 12 Brains, our two, 21, 62, 101, 141, 193, 2.9 (see also "Correspondence") Brashear, Jotm A., detecting errors in plane surfaces (illustrated), 327, 345, 3!i3 Breakwater, a floating. 535 Bricks, patent, for veutilaiion, 556 « Brighton electric railway, 255 Brighton railway, electric light on the, 168 Browning, John: Maps for trieyclists, 459; route- books for tricyclists, 550 ; Stanley show.the (illus- trated), 122, 191 ; tricycle, how to take care of a (illustrated), 86. 351; tricycle ride, a (illus- trated), 411; tricvcles .'for carrvinij goods, 54; tricycling in 1835 (Ulustrated), 11, 122,' 191, 235, 231, 351. 411 ; type-«riter, a new, 3sl ; vision, on the rapid increase of defeciivc, 171 Brougham-hansom, a. 19 Buchanan, Robeit, "George El'ot'a*' dog, 416 Butler, E. A.: entomology cf a pond, 2, Ul, 120; etymology of enlomologr, the. 428; household insects, 253, 3(5, 312, ;i34,'42S, 473, 513 Butterine. the ])roper(ip8 of, 13 Buzzard, flight of the, 418 Caoh for exhibiting birds. 271 Caligraphy ol correspondents, the, 20O Camp-kettles, 19 Canal project, the Nicaragua, 260 Cancer, the increase of, 210 Canine intelligence, instances of, 90, 417 Carpentry, household (illustrated), 42, 124, 213, 336 Carpet-beating, improved machine for, 337 "Carrying" tricycles (illustrated), 54 Carter, h. Brudenell, the influence of civilization on eyesight, 112 Casement-frames for windows, 293 Casks, a gauge for, 161 Castor, a patent magnetii^, 470 Champagne-wire cutter, 117 Charity, commerce, and advertising, 551 Charles II., thanksgiving for restoration of, note on, 463 Charnwood forest, over (illustrated), 23, 83 (see also " Correspondence ") Chemistry of Cookery, the : vegetarian question, 5 ; maltose as a cooking-agent, V5 Cheshire, the boulder clay of, 5 2 Chess coLUMy, oub : — Algaier gambit, game illusfraling variation of, 228 ; irregular defence in, 514 Blackmar gambit, game illustrating, 194 British Chess Association, 118, 443; tournament of, 535, 557 Centre gambit, 249, 333, Mo, 492 Che83 curiosities, 228 City Club r. St. George's, 98 Consultation game (centre gambit) , 338 Correspondents, answers to, iO, 40, 60, 93, 140, 184, 228, 249, 272, 291, 316, 333, 382, 40 1, 426, 418, 492, 514 Counties Chess Association, the, 4-13 End-games, useful, 1&4, 206, 272. 316, 382,404 Endings from actual play, 443, 514, 558 Evans' gambit, varia'ion iu, 4() German Chess Association, the, 413 Giuoco piann, a game in, 4'^t Handicap tournament game at City Chess Club, 360; ending from, 192 "Mephisto." mistaken identity of, 228 North London Chess Club, game at, 426 Originality or eccentri'"itv ? 492 Positions of interest, 470 Problems, 20, 40, 140, 162,184,228,240, 294, 316, 382, 404. 492, 514 Proctor, R. A., and chess in America, 360 Scotland, chess in, 1S4 Sicilian defence, the, 140, 557 Solutions, 20. 40, 60, 93, 134, 206, 228, 249, 272, 294, 333, 360, 426, 443 *' Synopsis of Chess " (Cook's), American reprint of, 118 Universities, chess at (he, 223 Vienna opening, game in, 557 'Winawer, S., end games played by, 418 Chest and throat, inhaler for treatment of, 35S Children, the training of, 3 Chimpanzee, the cultured, 253 Choleraic virus, experimental inoculation with, 396, 462 Cifl et Tcrre, a note on, 505 Cigarettes, the " Strawfena." 59 City Guilds, the, and the South Kensington Science and Art Department, 310 Civilisation, influence of, on eyesight, 113, 171 Climate, the variable English, 26-5 Climbing plants in Irecs, 393 Clodd, Edward : Algonquin Indians, legends of the (review), 91; custom and myth (review), 13 Europe, the geography and ethnology of (review) 463; Kalevala, the, h9, 165, 207, '251, 297, 343' 3S3; mammals, the descent of (review), 237 prehistoric America (review), 506 Clothing, the philosophy of; natural clothing, 100, the skin. 147; regulation of the temperatnre of body. 183; cooling action of the skin. 233, 274 protecting power of different materials. 321 Rumford's experiments on clotliing materials, 361 533; transmission of heat through clothing, 407, gaseous clothing material, 451, 496, 538; removal of perspirafion by clothing, 538 Coal, note on ihe origin of, 52j Cocoon of a spider, the, 339 Coffee-roasting machine, a. 293 Coleoptera (illustrated), 253, 305, 342, 334, 428, 173. 518 Colh'ery explosion in Clifton Hall mine, heroiam s , 551 Comet, Encke's, 90; ephemeris of, from Feb. 13tli to 27th, 136; prize offered for discovery of a new, 175 Comets, the origin of, 145 Compass, an attachment, 337 Concrete structures, improvements in, 556 Conductors and insulators, electrical, 544 Cone, the geometry of a (illustrated), 479, 541 Conic sections (illustrated), 10 Cookery, the chemistry of: the vegetarian question, 5 : maltose as a cooking agent, 45 Cooking apparatus, a steam, 227, 424 Correspondents, the caligraphy of, 2iX) Cotton-harvester, an automatic (illustrated), 526 Counterfeit sovereigns, the circulation of, note on, 353 Cremation, opinions as to merits of, 376 Criminal aopeal. a proposed court of, 133 Crowley, Mr. Kemus, the cultured chimpanzee, 288 Crystal Palace amusements, the price of admission to,. ' 71 Cuckoo, rarity of, in spring of 1835, 463 (see also " Correspondence ") Cupboard-fastening, an improved, 59 Curves and areas, the geometry of, 125 Customs and myth (review), 13 Custom and manners in America, 66 Cylinder, the geometry of a, 431 Dabwin, Charles, unveiling the statue of, note on, 527 Death-watch, the (illustrated), 305 Descartes versus Newton, S7 Diamonds, the origin and heme of (illustrated), 390, 43 S, 473 Dickens and Thackeray. 493, 520, 537 Dickens's story left half told, 1 (see also " Correspon- dence") Dies, stocks, and laps (illustrated), 406 Dinosaurs (illustrated), 25, 67 Dog, George Eliot's, 416 Domestic economy, chapters on modern (illustrated), 8, 29. 53, 70, 85, 105, 133, 154, 195. 215, 241, 259, 279, 309, 325, 352, 375, 339, 413, 433, 460 Door-fastener, an indicating, 153 Door-fastening, automatic " i'Utton " for, 337 Drainage, the ventilation of, 70, 85, 279, 309, 325, 353, 375, 389, 413, 43J. 4G> Drain-pipe, an accessible^ for inspection, 315 Drain-protectors, 97 Drawing apparatus, the "Rectoline," 271 Drawing-board and paper-stretcher, a, 205 Dress, taste in, the Bishop of Rochester on, 350 . Drills, how to make, 153 Drilling, hints on (illustrated), 153, 230 " J)ry-earth " system of drainage, the (illustrated), 8, 29.53, in5,'l32. 154, 195, 215, 241,259 (see also '* Correspondence ") Dynamite outrages, the, 90, 237, 376 Eabthqcakes : on some causes of, 99 ; explosions ii> mines and, 265, 330; instances of, in Great Britain, 551 Earth, the shape and motions of the (illustrated), 24, 78 Easel, the "Ilatherlev," 509 Easter, fixing the date of, 236 Eclipsed moon, ruddy appearanceof the fillustrated)^ 339, 471, 432, 4-36 (see also " Correspondence ") Eclipse of the sun, observation of, on March 16:h, 265 Edison, Thomas A., electricity man's slave, 127 Editorial Gossip, 12, 33, 55, 71, 90, 109, 133, 155, 175, 200, 219, 24:3, 365, 23G, 310, 330, 353, 376, 396, 410, 440, 462, 481, 505, 527, 550 (For items under this- heading see ** General" index) Electrician, the young (illustrated) : necessary ma- terials, 31. 63 ; soldering and cutting. 102; vices, 152; drills and drilling, 153, 192. 230; files and filing, 231 ; screws and screw-making, 303, 341 ; tapping, 344 ; dies, stocks, and taps, 4'}0; wood- boring tools, 453 ; measuring instruments, 454 ; production of electricity by friction, 494, 543; con- ductors and insulators, 544 Electricity man's slave, 127 Electricity, production of, by friction (illustrated), 494, 543 Electric lighting at the Inventions Exhibition, 384 Jolt 3, 18S5.] - KNOWLEDGE HI QfaenX—contiuufJ. £l0clm- light :iQtheproi.vtion of shadows (iUustr*t^ ; Tonus ema ms ui itlumiosnt ia fo^, 33J £l«otno nilwar at Bri^htoD, the, 2iyi KUvlrio trMucAF, an, (SO Kl«vtricwir*9, the dan^frs of overhi^ad, 429 BWlroplatinj:, t», -K*. -'77 Kliot, Gtforgp, on old *t:e, 391 ; her fftvourito do;-, 116 Cocke's comet, dj; epheiuehs of, Croni Fob. 13lh to 27th. 136 Endorcin^- press, a par»Uol, SOS Knpueenne coustructiMi at the lurentioiu ExUibi- tioD, 457 En^ne4, the weight of, 1C6 English Uiii^kf;e, on some corruptions of the, 52o KnsiU^e butter. 19 EntomoWr ; of a pond (illustrated), 2,61, 120; of the household (illustrated) , 2o3, 30j, 34i, 3^, 428, 473 Ephemeris of Eacke's comet from Feb. 13th to 27th, Eraains knife, an improved. 161 Ktymology of entomolopj, the. 42S Europe, the geography aud ethnology of (review), 463 Evolution, a mathcmalii-al Ihfory of, 4S6 Eihaustion of the neries, 433, 300, 519 Kxhibition at New Orleans, the, 31S Kxhibitionof amateur photogniphy, the, 1&4, 370 Exhibition of Inventions, the international, at South Kensington, 267, 371 ; Cremorne element at, 419; electric lighting at, 3S4 ; engineering con- itraction at, 4o7; lirearms and military weapons at, 415; misleadin:; statements aa to charge for mdimssion to, 41'.* ; pr-'mineni-e of eating and drinking at, 527; railway plant at, 436; watch, making at (iUustnited), 4'SO, IStS, 522 Exhibition, the Speedwell leveling, 150 Exhibition, the Sportsman's, at Agricultoral Hall, Islington, 37d ■* Expansile " lock and clip for mnsic folio, 19 Eye, the pupil of the : is its diameter an equivalent of the light's intensity ? 2d5, 299, 323 Eyesight, influence of civilisation on, 112, 171 FilTH-HBjiLiso. 170, 220, 221 Fashion-plates, inartistic, 13 Fellow of the Hoval AstroDomi, 174, 221,267,311,35*, 399, 4k2. 4S6, 529; Optical recreations (illus- trated). 166, 319, 541 Files and tiling (illustrated), 231 Filter for water, an improved (illustrated), 656 Finland and its mvthologv. 129, 165,207,251. 297, 348, 383 Firearms and military weapons at the Inventions Exhibition, 415 Fire-blower, an improved. 59 Fire-extinguishing grenade, a chemical, 139 Fire-gratee : a swing trivet and clip for, 331 ; improve- ments in, 19, 36. 73, 271 Fireproof fixing-blocki* for joiners' work, 59 Fires : at Japanese Village, 396 ; at Inventions Exhi- bition, 527 ; insufliciency of means of subdtiing outbreaks cf, 213, 550 ; of asbestos, 36 Fire-waste, '^79 Fish, highest temperature endurable by, 156 Flat-iron beater, an improved, 417, 535 Floating breakwater, a, S'io Flue-bricks, ventilating, 556 Fog appliances for ships, 97 Fontcnelle, M. de. on the plurality of worlds, 47, 105, 151, 199, 235, 282, 323, 369, 410, 455 Friction, production of electricity by (illustrated), 494,543 GiBBBS-EyGiirB, a patent, 402 Gardening, a useful tool for, 535 Gaseous clothing material, 450, 496, 538 Gasfitters, a combination tool for, 248 Gas-5toves, 36 Gate-opener, an automatic, 435 Geological rambles with a hammer (illustrated) , 22, S3, 172, 213 Geology of Cheshire, the, 5">2 Geometrical measurement, chats on (illustrated) : conic sections, 10; the hyperbola, 44, S4; the parabola, 84; curves and areas, 125; volumes and surfaces of solids, 237; pyramids, 277; the cylinder, 431 ; the cone, 479, 541 Gestores and language, 430, 474, 515 (see also "Cor- respondence ' ) Glasgow, trades '-union ism in ship-building trade at, 90 Glote, a mechanical terrestrial, 227 Gold, the successful imitation of. 353 Gorhiam, John, the pupil of the eye and its relation to the intensity of light, 2S5, 299. 322 Gossip, editorial, 12. 33, 55, 71, 90, 109, 133, 155, 175, 200, 219, 243, 265, 2-6, 310, 330, 353, 376, 398, 419, 440, 462, 481, 5'J5, 527, 550 (For items under this heading see "General" index) Greely, Lieutenant, on future arctic work, 149, 187 Gregory, James E , meteoric stones, 216 Greshain CoUe^e, a note on. 5^5 Gyroscope, an improved, 447 "Halltahds ** on certain corruptions of English languatre, 525 Hampstead Literary Institution, opening of new premises of the, 2<)0 Uand-rogulator for electric liglit employed in projec- tion of !4hadow9, 331 Uarnson, \V. Jerome : diamonds, origin and home of the (illustrated), 31N>. 439, 478; lantern-slides, aimplo method of making, 281, 326; rambles with a hammer {illustrated). 22, H3. 172, 213 " llatherley " steps, the, 117 ; folding easel, 508 Heating apparatus, improved, 161, 183, C3S Ileal of the sun, the, 51 Heat, the transmission of, through clothing, 407 Heredity, iu relation to traiuint: of children, 3 Heroism M ihe Clifton HmU colliery explosion, 651 Ilorsellesh for human food, the sale of, 287 Horses, nose-bngs for, 19, 161 llo^e-reel and garden engine, 402 Uo:-airaud laundry stove, a combination (illustrated) , 635 Household insfcts, our (illustrated), 253, 306, 343,3S4, 423, 473,518 Houses, dwelling, the framework and construction of (illustrated). 8. 29. 53. 70, 85, 105, 132, 154, 195, 215, 211, 259, 279. 30P, 325, 352, 375, 389, 413, 433, 460 Hurncanes and earthquakes, 99 Hutchinson, Surgeon-general, on Termites (illus- trated), 103, 142 (see also " Correspondence ") Hydrophobia iu February, 177 Hjporbola, the geometry of an, it, 64 IcR in the Atlaiilio, 492 lodia-rublter, production of, in Brazil, 327 India, white ants in, 103, 142 (see al^o " Correspond- ence ") Infection, device for preventing spread of, in disease, 161 Inhaler for throat and chest treatment, 358 Inkstand, an improved, 97 Insects, the, of our household (illustrated) , 253, 305, 312, 3S4. 128. 473.518 Insulators Mini conductors, electrical, 51t Inventions Exhibition, the International at South Keuaington, 267, 371 ; Cremorue element at, 410 ; electric lighting at, 3S4 ; engineering construction at, 457- firearms and military weapons at, 415 ; misleadins statement a^ to cliar^'c for admission to, 319 ; pntminence of eatint; and drinking at, 527 ; railway plant at, 436 ; watchmaking at (illus- trated), 4S0, 498, 522 Inventors' column, our, 19, 36, 59, 73, 97. 117, 139, 161, 183, 205, 227, 248. 271, 293, 315, 336, 358, 381, 402,421,447,470, 491, oVS, 535, 556 (For items under this heading, see * General " index) Ireland, the seaside resorts of, 520, 542 Iron rods, the effect of magnetism on the length of, 486 Japaxese village exhibition, the, 110; destruction of by fire, 396 Jewellery, successful imitation of gol, the " Expansile," 19 Music-stand, a patent folding, 421 Mythology, the, of Finland, 129, 165, 207, 251, 297, 318, 3S3 NiDBK, Constance, C. W.,on the evolution of beauty, 306, 313, 366, 3S7, 414, 437 (see also ''Corre- spondence") Xeison, Mr. E., and hia ditinterestedness in the cause of science, 462 Nervous exhaustion, 435, SCO, 519 New Orleans, exposition at, 348 Newton, Sir Isaac, data of death of, 243 Newton versus Descartes, 97 Niagara, the falls of, 185 Nicaragua canal project, the, 260 Nickel, rods of, the effect of magnetisation upon the length of, 468 Nightingale, earlv appearance of the, 220 Ni-ht eky. maps'of the: January, 31, 65 ; February, " i:il, 175; March, 211, 26i ; April, 307, 351 j May, 417,461 ; June, 50i, 519 Nobert's ruling machine, 433, 452, 504, 523 Nose-bag for horses, 19, 161 Occulting eye-piece, a new, 139 Oil-cans, an automatic governing spout for, 358 Old age, George Eliot on, 391 Optical recreations (illustrated), 166, 319, 540 "Optime " lighting system, the, 248 Orbit of the sun, 278 Overhead electric wires, danger of, 429 Overpressure in schools, 220 pALMiEBA table-water, 36 Parents and children, 3 Parabola, the geometry of a, 81 Pasteur, his life and la'bours (review), 177 " P.D." theory, the, 201 Perambulator," a patent contractible, 417 Photographers, trades-unionism amongst American, 109 Photographic ruby lantern for travelling, 337 Photographic " shutter," an adjustable instantaneoun, 315 Photographing the stars, 55 Photoi^raphy : it* relation to medical jurispruden' 257, 295 ; lottery swindle, a daring, 34s ; manners and customs in America, 66; mat hematics of meteoric astronomy, 335. 4<13, 423 ; meteors and falling stars, 317, 386,405,427; moon, the ruddv eclipsed, 339, 471 (see also ''Correspondence")'; muscle- reading and thought-reading, 449; Niagara, the falls of, 185; note from, 527; plant life and planet life, 148; rain, 214, 254, 30j; science and religion, 428 ; sea-serpents, mcnster, 273; sky, map3 of the night: Jan., 31, 65; Peb., 131, 175; March, 241, 263 ; April, 307, 351 ; May, 417, 461 f June, 503, 549 ; star-surrevs, needed, 7', 41,81,119, 167; star-lessons, first, 30, 64,130,174 240 262 306, 350, 416, 460, 502, 54S ; sun, orbit of the, 278 ; sun'a heat, the, 51 ; waves, preat sea, 517 ; zodiacal maps, 51, 189, 233 Pyramid, the geometry of a, 277 RiiLWAT plant at the Inventions Exhibition, 436 Railway, the Brighton, electric light on (illustrated), 168 Rain, 214, 254, 300 Kain-gauge, a marine, 161 Rambles with a hammer (illustrated), 22, fv3. 172, 213 Ranyard, A. C, the ruddy eclipsed moon, letter on. 509 J f , , ReadiD;:-]amp for travelling, 36, 491 Reading-rooms for the industrial classes, 12 Reading-stand, a, 183 "Eectoline" drawing apparatus, the, 271 Recreations in optics (illustrated), 163, 319, 540 Reformation in time-keeping (illustrated), 68, lOS Reformed time, the, 33, 220 Refuse, the disposal of household (illustrated) 195 215, 211, 259, 279, 309, 325, 333, 375, 389, 413. 433, 460 . . . > » Reprieve of the Babbicom^e murderer, 200 Restoration of Charles II., note on the thankseiTine for, 4e3 ^ Royal Astronomical Society, the : award of gold medal, 71 ; election of' council, 376 : Monthly y^otices, 90, 505 ; presidential address, 155 Royal Institution, subscriptions to, for ecientific research, 133 Ruddy appearance of eclipsed moon (illustrated), 339, 471, 4S2, 4'?3 (pee also "Correspondence") Ruling-machine of Herr Xobert, 433, -454, 501. 523 Romford, Count, and bis eiperimesits on cIothin<' 361, 538 Bossell, Percy, Irish sea-side resorts, 520, 542 SjjrrTAHr construction of dwelling-houses (illus- trated), 8. 29, 53,70, 85, 105, 132, 1S4, 195, 215, 241, 259, 279, 30M, 325, 353, 375, £89, 413, 433, 4tX) Saw, kc, for woodworking, 402 Schools, overpressure in, 230 Science and religion, 426 : and the Bishop of London. 110 *> ' ' f Scientific knowledge, growth of popular taste for, 176 Scientific research, subscriptions for promoting, 133 Scientific teaching, unreliable, note on, 528 Screws, how to make (illustrated), 302, 341, 406 Sea-side resorts, Iri^h, 520, 542 Sea-serpents, monster, 273 Seeds of plants under the microscope (illustrated) 232,408 Seeliger, Professor, note on an astronomical pauer by, 310 ^ Seiss, C. Few., blowing vipers (illustiated), 368 Sewer-gas, means for prevention of escape of 70 132 279, 325. 353, 375, 359, 413, 433, 460 ' Shelley. Hellen, death of, 440 Shipbuilding trade of Glasgow, trades-oniooism in the, 90 Ship-railwav, the inter-oceanic (illustrated) 196 217 239 ' J> , * Ships, appliances for raising sunken, 117; fog ap- pliances for, 97 Ship-worm and its ravages (illustrated), 516 Shooting stars, Arago on, 475; amusing account of 502 Skies, night maps of the, January 31, 65; Februarv, 131, 175; March, 241, 263; April, 307, 351 ; May' 417, 461 ; June, 503, 549 Skin, the human (illustrated), 147 ; cooling action of the, 233, 274 (see also " Correspondence ") Sky, face of the, 15, 66, 93, 136, 174, 221,267,311 35 K 393, 412,486,529 Skylight', an improvement in, 293 Slack. Henry J., plessant hours with the microscope (illustrated) : hints for object-mounting, 77; de- velopment of microbes, 143; stomata of plants, 190 ; seeds of plants, 232. 4':i8 ; molecular motion,' 318 ; anthers of plants, 548 Slate in America, 295 Slates, writing, a patent cleaner for, 381 BUngo, "W. :— Electrician, the vonng, 31, 63, 102 152 192. 230, 302, 3*4, 4^*6, 4.33 ,'494, 543 ; electnc'lifiht on the Brighton railway, 168 ; electric railwar at Brighton, 255 ; electric tramcar, an, SO ; electro- plating, 9, 48, 277 ; overhead electric wires, 429 *' Solar- physics, the committee on," a sham entitled 200 Soldering, hints on (illustrated). 102 Solids, volumes and surfaces of, the geometrv of 237,277 Spider, the cocoon of a, 3^9 Sportsman's exhibition at the Agricultural Hall, Islington, 378 Sprav-distributor, b, "3 Stanley cycle show (illustrated). 122, 191 Star-gazing in crowded thoroushfares, the danger of, 2'K) Star-lessons, first (illustrated), 30, 64, 130 174 240 262. 3Lt6, 350, 416, 460. 502, 548 Star of Bethlehem, the, 505 Stars, falling, and met?ors, 317, 386, 405, 437 Stars, measurement of light of the, 133 Stars, shooting, Arago on, 475 ; amusing 'account of, 502 Stars, the variable, a paper on observations of, 396 Star-eurveys, needed, 7, 41, 81, 119, 167 Steel rods, the effect uf magueiisation upon length Steps : for library use and easel combined, 97 ; the " Hatherlev," 117 Stocks, taps, and dies (illustrated', 406 Stomata ot plants under the microscope (illustrated). Stove, hot-air and laundrv combined (illustrated) 535 Strengthening the arms, 496, 515, 545 ' Subterranean woods, 171 Sonday opening of museums, t-he, 155, 265 Sun, the : observation of eclipse of (March 16), 265; orbit of the, 278; heat of the, 51'; temperature of strata of the, 265 Sanspot irregularities, 33 Swindle, a daring lottery, 362 Swords, our military, unserviceable nature of, 353 Tadle-watbb, the " Palmiera," 36 Tap and bung closer, 59 Taps, stocks, and dies (illustrated), 406 Te'hnicu! edui:-3tion, papers on, 396, 419 Tehuantepec ship railway (illustrated), 196. 217, 239 Telegraph and telephone, the, 127 Telegraph wires, the dangers of overhead, 429 Telescope, a new occulting eve-piece for, 139 Temperature: highest endurable by fish, 156; of the- human body, regulation of, 186 Teredo, the, and its work (illustrated), 546 Termites (illustrated), 103, 142 (see also *' Corre- spondence ") Terrestrial globe, a mechanical. 227 Thackeray and Dickens, 493, 520, 537 Thought and language, 26, 64, 107, 170, 211, 262,'304, 365, 430, 474, 515 (see also " Correspondence'") [' Thought-reading and muscle-reading, 419 (see also " Correspondence ") Throat and chest, inbaler for treatment of disease of Time-keeping, the reformation in. '33, 69 108 ''20 Tools for gasfitters (illustrated), 248 ; for the'" young electrician," 102. 153. 192, 231,3^.13. 345, 4 7,453; for wood-boring (illustrated), 4-53 ; for measurement (illustrated), 454; for gardening, 635 ■ for wood- cutting, 4<_12 Trades-unionism amongst American photographers 109 ; in Glasgow shipbuilding tra^e 90 ' Tram-car, an electric, SO ' Tram-cars, a novel check on takings of 220 Trees, climbing plants in, 392 Tricvcle and bicvcle shows : the Stanley 1**' 191 ■ the Speedwell, 150 j* ^ - , Tricycle ride, a (illustrated), 411 Tricycles : for carrying goods (illustrated) , 54 ; how to take care of, b6. 351 ; new tvpe of (illustrated) 235; saddles and seats for (illustrated) 411 ' Tncydingin 1SS5 (illustrated), 11, 122, 191 235 2S1 351, 411, 459, 550 ' Tricyclists : maps for, 459 ; route and road-books for. 550 * Trisecting an angle (illustrated). 208 Trivet and clip for fire-grates, 381 Tumour, extraction of, from the brain, 12 Type-writer, a new, 381 Ubaitcs, the discovery of, 219 Taccktatiott, instance of value of, 463 Veneering wood, the art of, 386 Ventilating : apparatus for, 36; bricks for, 656 Ventilation of drains, the, 70, 85. 279. Z(k 325 353 375, 389, 413, 433. 4eO * » ' . > ^^-t Ventilator and warmer, an improved, 183 Venus, the supposed sateJUte of. 265 Vessels: appliances for raising sunken, 117- fog- appliances for, 97 * Vice ; the use of the, 152 ; the parallel " grip" (iUtis- trated), 491 Viobn trade, a spurious, 55 Vipers, blowing, migration cf (illustrated), 368 Vision, on the rapid increase tT defective, 171 Vivisection, .'.48; note on, 550; opposition to, at Oxford, 243 Washisg-machisbbt. improvements in, 73, 117, 205 "Watch -ma king at the Inrenticns Eilubition (Illus- trated), 4-^1, 493, 522 Waves, great sea, 617 Weather-forecasts of 1884, the, 49 Weather, the, and astronomical observations, 506 Webb, Prebendary, the late, 481 Whist columk, oitb : — Accepted ace leads, 513 Ca! 'Illation of chances, 425 Illustrative games, 39, 76, 468 Opening.' the play, 250, 359 Problem, a fine, 558 Williams, W. Mattieu : Chemistry of cookery, the> 45; clothing, the philosophy 'of, \00, 147, 186,. 233, 274, 321, 361, 407, 450, 496. 538 (see also " Correspondence ") ; ruddy eclipsed moon, the, letters on, 4'X), 465, 509 Wind, note on the direction of the, 353 Window-fastener, a patent, 139 Wood-boring insect, an (illustrated), 546 Wood-bonng, tools for (illustrated), 453 Wooden n agnets to cure disease, b6 Wood-working machine, an improved, 402 Wooton, Edwin, nervous exhaustion, 435, 500, 51? Workshop at home, the (illustrated), 43, 124, 21?, 386 Worlds : life in other, 163, 210. 257, 295 ; the plurality of, 47, 105, 151, 199, 235, 28i, 323, 369, 410, 45a Zodiacal light, brightness of the, 243 Zodiacal Maps, 51, 189, 233 REVIEWS. ACADBiTT Ek etches, including various eiliibitions, edited by Henry Blackburn, 507 Academy, the royal (illustrated), edited by Henry Lassalle, 507 Acetic acid, and vinegar, ammonia, and alum. 266 Acoustics, fallacy of present theory of, by Henry A, Molt, juo., 411 Advertiser's guardian, the, by Louis Collins, 331 Aeronautical Society, annual reports of the. 483 Air, ether, and water, wave of translation in the oceans of, by John Scott Russell, 55 Air, science of the change of, bv David S. Skinner,- 441 Ahri, cruise of the, by W. R. Coppinger, 220 Algebra, factors in, discovered by arrangement, trial, and symmetry, by Rev. J. G. Easton, 56 Algonquin Indians, legends of the, by Charles G. Leland,91 Almanack for 1835 (Photographic ye^ts), 34 America, a book on emigration to, by Percy Taylor, 266 America, prehistoric, by the Marquis de Nadaillac, 506 Animal and vegetable life on our globe, origin auA reproduction of, by T. Spencer, 483 Asclepiad, the, 135, 378 Atlas, the penny [Moffat's), 484 Bacillaet phthitis of the lungs, by Germain SiJe, 331 Ballooning, by G. May, 397 Bible, inspiration of the, by H. L. Hastings, 34; revised version of the, 463 Biography, dictionary of national, edited bv Leslie Stephen, 34, 330 Boilers, how to prevent explosions in, by P. Milan and J. Shaw, 220 Book-keeping, commerd&l and scJiool, by A. F. Notlcy, 135 Boy, the :" what he thought, 243 Brass repousse, by Madame Amclie, 56 Britannia msgna, by the Aldetirst of Aldabrelton, 92 Britons awake ! 135 Bucolics, a bundle of, 441 Bull, John, to Max O'Rell, 178 Cawada and the United States, a book on emigra- tion to, by Percy Taylor, 266 Carnivora, natural history sketches among the, by Arthur Nicols, 15 Catalogues : of Royal Society of Painters in water- colours. 411 ; of suepected variable stars, by J.E. Gere, 4S3 Chemistry, the elements of inorganic, by J, C. Buck- master, 441 Child-culture, mental, moral, and physical, by T. M. Madden, z^)7 Child'.' Fictori'il, the, 378, 5v)7 " Christmas hamper," the, 112 Class-books, the Loudon, on science, by John Murphy, 73 Clock and watchmaking, by David Glasgow, 201 Colours, water, advanced studies of flower-painting in, by Ada Haubury, -441 ; catalogue of Royal Societj of Painters in, 441 Comprehenscia series, the, 35 Cookery, the Chemistrr of, by W. Mattieu WilliamF, 376 JrLY 188?.! ♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ R*Tiew9 — CCutiMHttt. Cooper, Daniel, memoir of, 52^ Crisis, the preat. at hand, by Kav. M. Baxter, k-t Custom and MTth, br Andrew Lanj;, 13 Cydi't, the Ch'riatmaJs number of the ('* Our Camp"), 35 " DAKKirS5f) and Dawn," 1-& PecoratioD, the ladr's jomual of, 419 Definition, the l^pic of, explained and applied, by William L. DaTidsun, 3i*r Delusion, the ^to^v of a ereat, bv William White, ;U Dictionarr of national biopnip^iy, edited by Leslie Stephen, 34, i'Si ; of presa of the world (SeU>), Di£Ferenlial c&lculus for beginners, 50 Direotorr, (he electrician's, iM Diseases, prevent ible, and filtration of water, bv P. A. Maitmen. Ill Docks and harbours, by Lereson Francis Vernon- Harcourl, L'44 Docfor, the FatMily, 244 Domestic oconomr, a book on, bv Mrs. S. A. Barnett, Drainage of houses, practical hints on, 17d Dramatic Rfvine, the, 135 Dreams and myths, by Edward Clodd, 376 Dm^ and plants, new ccmmer^ial, by T. Chribty, 419 Dmamics : an elementary treatise on, by Benjamin Wilson, 134; a treatise en, by W. H. Besant, 55 EcoKOJncs, an analriis of the principles of, by Patrick Geddes, 243 EcononiT, political, essavs on, by " Hibernicus," 396' £Iectri<>aI and magnetic laws, bv E. Hurren Harding, 607 Electrician's directory, the, 266 Emieratjon, a book en (" Go West ") by Perry Taylor, 266 Enginecrd". millwrights', and machinists* practical assistant, hx WUliamTempleton, 72 Entomology, a text-book of, by W. F. Kirby, 483 Epping Forest, walks in, by Percy Lindley, 5;i8 Essays, short, original and selected, 529 Ether, air, and wster, wave of translation in the oceans of, by John Scott Russell, 5.' Europe, the geographv and ethnologv of, by F. W. Badler and G. G. Chisholm, 463 European society, a review of, br J. Sketchley, 72 Evolution and epecial creation, by C. C. W. >'aden, 331 Evolution, the Neanderthal Skull on, by the Rev, Bourchier Wray Savile, 220 Exact sciences, common-sense of the, by William Kingdon Clitford, 377 Exliibiiion of inventions, the international, raili^ay- guide and route-book for, 397 Explosions in boilers, how to prevent, by F. Milan and J. Shaw, 220 Eyee, how to use oar, by John Browning, 15 Family Doctor, the, 244 Federation, imperial, of our colonies, by the Marquis of Lome. 4S% Fern portfolio, the, by Francis George Heath, 34 Filtration of water and preventible disease, by P. A. Maignen, 111 Flower-painting in water-colours, advanced studies in, by Ada Hanbury and others 441 Forewarned : a story, by E. M. A bay -Williams, 288 French-book, the Woodford, 92 French conversation, an introduction to, by Antoine Charlin, 72 Geogsxphical reader, the, by J. R. Blakiston, 2*1 Geography and ethnology of Europe, by F. \V. Badler and G. G. Chisholm, 463 Geology of Genesis, by E. Colpitis Robinson, 482 Geology of Shropshire, handbook of the, by the Rev. J. W. La Touche, 178 Geology of Suffolk, a sketch of the, by J. E. Tavlor, 15 Geology, students' elements of, by Sir Charlci Lvell, 31 German grammar, a practical, 4S4 Girls, what to do with our, by A. T. Vanderbilt, 92 Glass-painting, by Fred. Miller, 135 Gold, a lump of, from the mine to the mint, by Alei. Watt, 528 Go West ! bv Percy Taylor, 266 Grammar, a'brief and practical German, 481 Granitic and other rooks, on the origin and develop- ment of, by J. Reid, HI Growth, posttires to be avoided during, by Mathias Both, M.D., 288 HutABTiOLOGT, the ninth article of the thirty-nine of the Church of; England, by Bev. Joseph Miller, 484 ' . Handbook and vade-mecum for reporters (Pitman), 72 Handbook for managers of works, by W'alter S. Hatton, 14 Handbookof the Geology of Shropshire, by Eev. J. W, La Touche, 1 73 Handbooks of translation : Latin, 397 Harbours and docks, by Leveson Francis Vemon- H^reoort, ZiA Health, helps to by Henry C. Burdett, 135 Uoalth-re »orl8, iCnclish, meteorological statistics of, by DaMd S. Skinner, 411 Health-science, a manual of, by Dr. Andrew Wilson, 507 Hedley, William, inventor of present prini^iple of rail- way locomotion, by M. Archer, 484 Hi»torii-a] Keseareh, the liberty of independent, by Thomas Kcrslake, 331 llistorv, outline of the world's, bv Edgar Sanderson, 397 History, Roman, by Rev. B. G. Johns, 93 Home, the niakinp of the, by Mrs, S. A. Barnett, 4^5 Uydro<iy Arthur A Reade, 135 Knowlbdob, odds and ends of useful, 92 Kotaka, a Japanese tale, by J. Morris, 485 Ladiss' reader, the, by D. C. Bell, 377 I.ady^ the, a j< urnal for gentlewomen, 201 Land, and the Parliamentary Committee of the Liberty antl Property Defence League, 507 Land-laws, P'nglish, a treatise on, 4U Lantern, the nmgic, and its management, by T. C. Hepworth, 15 Lanterns, magic, how made and used, bv A. A. Wood, 92 Latin authors translated into Enjilish, 397 Latin parts of ppeech and sentences, elementarv help* noteson, by W. Thornton BuUot-k, M.A., 201 Leather manufacture, the art of, by Ales. Watt, 33 Life, aids to Imig, by N. E. Davies, 33 Life in the dead i>ast, 110 Literary success, a guide to practical journalism, by Arthur A. Read, 135 Little one's own picture-paper (Dean's), 485 Logical definition explained and applied, by William L. Davidson. 397 London in IfeHo, by Herbert Fry, 377 London, the siege of, by *' Poateritas," 56 Longevity, aids to, by N. E. Davies, 33 Luna'y law, the, I'V William R. Huggard,179 Lungs, phthisis of the, and bacilli, by Germain See, 331 Magic-lastkbs and its mansgement, bv T. C. Hep- worth, 15 Magic-lanterns, how made and used, by A. A. Wood, 93 Magnetic and electrical laws, by E. Hurren Harding, 507 Mahdi, the, past and present, by Professor Dar- mesteter, 5.;8 Mammals, the descent of. by Professor Parker, 287 Mcnagers of works, handbooks for, by W. 8. Hutton, 11 Mathematical and physical papers, by Sir William Thompson, 111 Mathematii-.", a history of Greek, by J. Gow, 134 Mathematics, differential calculus for beginners, 56 Mechanicians, celebrated (" Heroes of Science " series), by T. C. Lewis, M.A., 396 Mechaoiir's o«n book (Spon), 72 Meister Martin, by E. T. A. Hoffman, 14 Metaphysical aspect of natural history, the, by Stephen Monckton, 266 Meteorological statistics of English health-resorts, by David S. bkinner, 441 Microsc^'pical science, studies in, edited by Cole, 177, 266. 397, 483 Microscopy and natural science, the journal of, 177 Millwrights', engineers', and machinists' practical as- sistant, bv William Templeton, 72 Mimosia inquieta, by Edwin Wooton, 4S3 Moon and the weather, liy Walter L. Browne, 377 Myth and Custom, oj Andrew Lang, 13 Myths aod dreams, by Edward Clodd, 376 NATrsAL nisTOBT, the, metaphysical aspect of, by Stephen Monckton, 206 , Natural hifetory sketches among the camivora, by Arthur Nicols, 15 Naturalists' Field Club of Belfast, report of the, 135 Naturalists' societies, east of Scotland union of, reports of, 483 Nervous debility, a book on, by Edwin Wooton, 483 Night, in the watches of the, by Mrs. Horace Dohell, 420 " Nobody's boy," by Daniel Darlinghurst, 528 Nursing, hints' on village, by E. A. E., 178 Odds and ends of useful knowledge, 92 O'R'^ll. Max. John Bull to. 178 Organic analysis, practical, by (/eorge E. R. Ellis, 483 Overwork in schools from the teacher's point of view, by Mrs. H. Bryant, 72 Paintkss in water-colours, catalogue of Royal Society of, 441 Painting of flowers in water-colours, advanced studiea in. by Ada Hanbury aid others, HI, Painting on glass and pottery, by Fred Miller, 135 Pala'<>iitogr»phical Society, vol. xxxviii. for 1891 (" Life in the Dead Past "), 110 Pasteur, Louis, his life and labours, by his son-in-law^ 177 Pestilence, State measures for prevention of, 33 PfioiKttc Joiirnul, the, 72 PhotuQrtipfiic ynts, almanack for 1885, 34 Photographv, a practical guide to, bv Messrs. Marion, 377 Photogrspliy. year-book of, 34 Pholo-micrography, !)y A. Cowley Malley, 13t Phthisis of the lungs and bacilli, by Germain See^ 331 Physical eviireasion, by Francis Warner, 4s3 Physics, practical, by H. 'V. (Jlazebrook, 111 Physics, solar, by Sir William Thomson, 111 Fictorialj thr ChihVt, 378, 507 Pictures m 18H5, and the men who paint Ihem, 484 Picture-paper, coloured, ,tbe Little One's Own (Dean's), 485 Plane, the trochoided, by Lawrence Hargrave, 331 Plants and drugs, new commercial, by T. Christie, 419 Pneumatics and hydrostatics, a key to, by John Murphy, 72 Political economy, essays on. by " Hibernicus," 3i*6 Postures to bo avoided during growth, by Mathias Roth. M.D.. 2^8 Pottery-painting, by Fred Miller, 135 Poverty, State measures for prevention of, 33 Pre-historic America, by the Marquis de Nadaillac, 506 Press of the world, Sell's dictionary of the, 288 Railway-guidb and route-book to Inventions Exhibi- tion, 397 Railwnv locomotion, the present principle of : who in- vented it? by M. Archer, -IHk Reader, the ladies', by D. C. Bell. 377 Reading-books, ejplanatory, for schools, 283 ; Cassell'e series, 485 Recipfs, a collection of, 507 Re igion, what is? annotated by Dr. Lewins, 56 Reporter's handbook and vade-niccum (Pitman), 7i Repousse in brass, by Madame Amt^-lie, 56 Rocks, granitic, and others, the origin and develop- ment of, by J. Reidj 111 Roman history, by Rev. B. G. Johns, 93 Royal society of painters in water-colours, catalogue of, Wl Rus, a bundle of bucolics, til Schools, explanatory reading-books for, 288 Schools, overwork in, from the teacher's point of view, by Mrs. S, Bryant, 72 Science class-books, the London, I)y John Murphy, 72- Science pratique, la, 507 Sciences, the exact, common sense of the, by W. Kingston Cliftord, 377 Scripture discovery, an astounding modem, by John Wood, 206 Shells, a manual of British land and fresh-water, by Lionel Ernest Adams, 177 Shorthand, bow to get fpeed in (Pitman) , 72 Shorthand reporter and amanueneia (Packard) 111 Shropshire, handbook of the geology of, by Rev. J. D. la Touche, 178 Siege of London, the, by *' Posteritas," 80 Solar physics, by Sir William Thomson, 111 Solar sy&temj on the mechanical energies of the. 111 Souls and cities, a novel, 135 Sound, fallacy of present theory of, by Henry A, Molt, jun., 441 Stars, variable, a catalogue of suspected, by J. E. Gore, 483 Steam-engine, catechism of the, by John Bourne, 55 Btimulants and the voice, by Lennox-Browne, 377 Stimulants, the Housb of Commons on, by the author of " Study and Stimulants," 484 Stories, short, 15 Strikers, the march of the, by John A. Bevan, 266 Suffolk, a sketch of the geology of, by J. E. Taylor, Sumlay BiU, 2t4 Technical Journal, the, 14, 35 Teetotalism, books on, 484, 485 Theology, ecientific, by T. W. Barber, 34 Think ! a reply to Lord Braniwell's plea for Drink, by Dawson Bums, D.D., 485 Thirty-nine articles of the Church of England: th& ninth article — Hamartiology, by Rev. Joseph, Miller, 484 Timber, L'll Transit taldes for 1885, by Latimer Clark, 34 Translation of Latin, handbook for, 397 Translation, wave of, in the oceans of water, air, and ether, by John Scott Russell, 55 Travellers and invalids, hints for, by T. 8. Maclean,. 14 Tricyclixt, the, 35 Trochoided plane, the, by Lawrence Hargrave, 331 UiTiTBD States and Canada, a book on emigration to^ by Percy Taylor, 266 VI ♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ [July 3, 1885. Reviews — conf'mued. Vaccinatiow, the storv of a great delusion, by William White, 34 ' Vegetable and animiil life on our plobe, origin and reproduction of, by T. Spencer, 483 Voice, the, and etimulanta. by Lennox Browne, 377 Voice, the traiuing of a child's, by Emil Behuke and Lennox Browno, ;i77 Voyager's companion and adviser, by Henry J. Webber, 4S1 Wab, state measures for prevention of, 33 Watch and clock-making, by David Glasgow, 2 Weather and the moon, bv Walter L. Browne, 377 *' What the boy thought," 213 Wood-carving, edited by F. Miller, 213 Working-drawings, practical problems and lines for, 48') World's history, outline of the, by Edgar Sanderson, 397 Zoology, elementarv teit-book of, by Dr. C. Claus, 201 CORRESPONDENCE. Adultkbation of drugs, the, 420 America— and elsewhere, poliiics in, 17 " Animals of the past and present," 554 Anorthoscope, the, 115 Answers to correspondents, 18, 38, 53, 96, 116, 138, 160, 181, 203, 2i5, 246, 269, 291, 314. 334, 357, 330, 401, 122, 415. 407, 490, 513, 533, 555 Argument, the philosophy of, 224 Atoms, the theory of, 34, 63, 94, 137 Atwood's machine, 290, 313 Automaton, a human, 95, 158 BAWKBrPTCiEs in l^vSl, 71 Beast-language, 4 6 Beauty, evolution of the sense of, 401, 4-14 Beauty, Hogarth on, 3!3, 333 Bees and the colour of llowers, 333, 356 Blood, the circulation of the, and Shakespeare, 115 Body and mind, 114, 15li, 157. 173, 485 Brain and mind, 113, 157, 202 (see also " the Psychology of instinct," *' Omnipotence and free- will," &o.) Brain, our dual, 17, 19, 74, 95, 114, 137, 158, 245, 239, 311, 466 Brain, size of, and intellect, 332, 379 Brilliant glow at midnight, 529 Bubbles in a bath, &.c., 332 Cambleopabd or Camelopard ? 333 Chances, the doctrine of, 181, 225 Charnwood forest, the geology of, 533 Chromatics, the new, 224 Chronometer-balance, a new (illustrated), 489 Clock-face, a new, 95 Clothes, the need for, 159, 2i3, 290 (see also " the Tone of Controversy," and *' the Xaked Truth "J Coinage, a new decimal, 57 Coincidence, a, 415 Coins, wear of silver, 2G9 Colour, effects of, upon temperament, 401 Conception and images, 411; and sensation, 433 Consciousness, double, .'ill Controversy, the tone of, 216 (see also " the Need for Clothes ") Cookery for schools, 159 Correspondents, answers to, 13, 38, 58, 96, 116, 138, 160, 181, 203, 225, 246, 269, 291, 314, 334, 357, 330, 401, 422. 445, 467, 490, 513, 533 Cosmical movements, 512 CroU and the beginning of life, 179 Cromlech'!, 37, 64, 115 Crystal soda, the manufactore of, 421 Cuckoos, 512 Dabttinism, conventional, 466, 487; ia it doubtful? 511,553; the weak point of, 531 Death-watch, the, 351 Decapitation, movement of head after, 246 •'De Gustibus" (illustrated), 422, 489,533 (see also *' Taste in Desitrn ") Dermestes lardarius, the, 533 Design, taste in (illustrated), 355, 421, 439, 633 Development, 466, 1m7, 511 Dickens's story left half told, 16, 159 Double-consciousness, 511 Drugs, the adulteration of, 420 " Dry-eartli " system, the, 291, 334, 379 Dual brain, our, 17, 18, 74, 95, 114, 137, 153, 245, 239, Sll. 466 Duck, oil-glands of the, 533 Dynamics, Williamson's and Tarliton's, 29 >, 313 Eabth and the moon, past and future of the, 510, 55 Earthquake in England, an, 74 " Ease 'er — stop 'er ! " 512 Eclipsed moon, ruddy appearance of the, 400, 465, 509, 553 (see also " Lunar Glow ") Egoism, theism, and cosmism, 2J3 (see also '* The Sentient World," " Falbtcy of Materialism," *' Hylo-idealism," " Mind and Matter," &c.) Electroplating, 74 Eliot, George (criticisms on) , 467, 488, 530 English language, purity of the, 512 Evolution, 511, 530; Mr. Thomas's and Darwin's, 551 ; versxs natural selection,^ 178, 225, 289, 460, 437 (see also " development ") Eye-opener, an, 465 Eye the only colour-box, 17 Flatland, a question from, 115, 137 Floating dome of the Nice Observatory, 510 Flowers, the colours of, and beea, 333, 356 Friction, 138, 159 "Fullioside," 401 Gas-burnbb, a self-lighting, 38 Generic images, 438 Gesture-language, 466 Glow, brilliant, at midnight, 529 Haeckel on mind, 553 Head, growth of the, 245; movement of, after decapi- tation, 246 Hogarth on beauty (illustrated), 313, 333 Human automaton, a, 95, 158 Hydraulic l-. " dry-earth " systems, 379 Hydrophobia in winter, 246 Hvlo-ideabsm, 158, 22J, 421 (see also " The Sentient World," "Matter," " Fwllacy of Materialism," " Egoism, Theism, and Cosmism," &c.) Hylo-phenomenology i\ ontology, 158, 223, 421 (see also as above) Idealism, 530 Idio-centricism, 421 Images and conceptions, 414, 483 Immortality, is it a fiction ? 510 ; and memory, 530 Infinite, great, and small, 510, 553 Infinity, 312 (see also *' Ultra-gas ") Inscribed rocks (illustrated), 131, 215, 332, 379 Instinct or reason H 51 1 Instinct, the psychology of, 113, 157,202,312 (see also "Brain and Mind," •* Omnipotence and free- will," &c.) Intellect and size of brain, 332, 379 lutellect, the, in instinct and reason, 312, Intellectual capacity of woman, the, 379 Invention, what is an, 37 Jewish Jupiter 8 marriages with Christians, the fertility of, 245 8 IV'th satellite, d^rk transit of, 378, 420 KiNNS, Mr., to oblige, 16 Knowledge, the scope of, 4-15 ; what may be got from, 333 Language, the use of bad, 354 Language, tiiought and, 137, 158, 420, 466 Left-handedness, 289 Life in other worlds, -443 Lite, the beginnmg of, and CroU, 179 Lunar glow, 221, 553 (see also " Ruddy Eclipsed Moon") Lunes, 552 Maebiage of Jews with Christians, the fertility of, 215 Mars, the theory of life in, 413 Materialism, the fallacy of, 179, 223, 268 (see also " The Sentient World," " Hylo-idealism," &c.) Matter, 33, 57, od, 94, 157 ; the end of, and the begin- ning of mind, 114, 115, 158, 178-9, 223, 268, 312, 355, 401, 421 (see also "The Sentient World," " Hylo-idealism," &.c.) Matter requiring reflection, 401, 444, 610, 553 Matter, the immanence of life in, 553 Mean-time, sundials for, 224, 290, 465 Memories, early, 530 Memory and immortality, 530 Meteors, observations of, 332, 378 Midnight, brilliant glow at, 529 Mind and body, 114, 156-7, 178, 188; and brain, 157, 202 (see also " Psychology and instinct," *' Omni- potence and free-will ") Mind, Ha= io» aanouncemcDt of eUii- bilion f f, 410 Booksellers' Prorident Institution anil the Queea, 35 Book$, l*w Aj to, in the Chumei Inlands, lo2 Bricks made of cork, 112 Brid^ : an imnieose railroad, 2-lS : extraordinarj length of a, 1^36 ; progr««« of the Forth, :iU2, 337 Burial •.-u^toms aud the soul. 23S Bulterine, how to distinguish, 75 Butter-mjikiDg hj eUvtricity, 12S CjkBLxa, sabmarine, length of, 3 ; the Bennet-Macka^, 96 Cart, » wonderful. S9 Channel Islands, law as to books in, I.'2 ChimneT-»haft, novel way of taking down a, 523 China : teJegmphs in, 3o : coal-tields or, 3U2 C*.>i>c C\>p*, re-issue of, 651 Christian dispensation — is it closed? 265 Cii-! dt terrtr, iModuct of the, 222 Clifton railway, extension of the, 330 Clock at Westnjinster, errors of, during 1S3-I, .'2i Coal-fields : new, in Scotland, 104; of China, 393 Coal for };as-makin^, 112 Colchester, duancial failure of electric lighting ftt, SIS Colour and Hsht, lecture en, 413 Colours in decoration, antiquity of. 160 Commercial statistics of America for 183i, 51 Copper, produc!ii>n of, in Vnited States, 2S6 Cork for making bricks, 112 DiDic^iORT flowers, 113 Digestive organs of ^rey mullet, 131 l>indends for 1*S4: india-rubber, gutta perths, and telegraph works company, IW; telegraph con- struction and mainteDaoco company, ItiO Drift-deposits at Colwjn Bay, 93 Rastirx telegraph company's system, 161 Education : note on female, 292 ; technical, in London, 51 Electrical appliances, catalogue of, 31 i Electrical engineerint; and submarine telegraphy, school of, 161, 1S2 ElectricitT: making butter bj, 12S; torpedo-steering by, 398 Electric battery patents, lawsuits as to, 110 Slectric inveniioDB, number of patents granted in Cnited Stst-^sfor. 248 Electric light : on locomotires, for railway-station illumination, 112 ; for lighthouses, 112 ; advan- tages of, in textile iudnstriea, 183 ; for mine^, 291 ; cost of, as compared with eas, 336; winding op of " Hammond " company, 551 Electric lighting: act of parliament for, 232; adop- tion of, by Peruvian Goverument, 6); temporary failure of, through snowstorm, 2Vi ; financial failure of, at Colchester, 248 Electric wires, overhead: the danger of, 513; with- drawal of parliamentary bill for, 551 Electrolier at Inventions Exhibition, 556 Europe, railways in, 35 Evolution, announcement of lecture on, 222 Examinations of Society of Arts, results of, 478 Exhibitions : aeronautical, 136 ; architects' and bo-lding trades', 187 ; colonial and Indian, pro- posed, 283 ; commerce and navigation, 167 ; drawings in black-and-white, 416; " Healtheriea," notes on, 3, 113 ; Inventions, the international, notes on, 131, 241, 247, 267, 385, 556; mining appliances, 514; novelties, at Fbiidelphia, 374; photographs by amateurs, 276 ; SheSield manu- factures, 182 Family Physician, issue of the, 214 Female education, projects in connection with, 292 Ferns, announcement of a book on, 4i2 Fire, effects of, on iron pillars, 4S6 Fire-proof paint, note on, 551 Fires in London during 1881, 93 Flowers: dedicatoiy, li:j; fertilisation of, 155 Forest-treea of >'. America, issue of maps illustrating, 190 Forth bridge works, progress of the, 292, 337 Fossil- stones, misapplied use for, 267 France: passenger tralGc with England daring 1834, 136 ; public works expenditure, 306 Frozen meat, imports of, 357 GxBDBinso, a hint on, 113 Gardner machine-guns, trial of, by the Italian GoTemment, 551 Gas : as a coal eeonomiser, 357; coal for making, 112 ; New York companiea* profits, 336, 476 Gaa company, the Commercial, profits of, 336 Geologi'-al formati>"2 Public works in France, expenditure for, 300 Railway-bsidge, an immense, 2t8 Railway-carriages: cost of saloon, 267; lighting cf, 126 ; sarcastic allusion to quality cf, 507 Railway: extension of the Clifton, 38iJ ; New York elevated, 93 ; proposed, through the Simplon, 243 Railways in Europe-, 35 Religion and science, 426 Roy«l Society of New South Wale5, prizes offered by, 270 Russian encouragement of mechanical industry, 59 Paloos-cabs, cost of, on American railways, 267 Salts in solution, experiments with, 529 Science and religion, 426 Scientific research, prizes offered for, 270 Scotland, new coal-fields in, 104 Sculptured dolmens of the Morbihan, 23S Sea-water, to render drinkable, 353 Sewage: improvempnt of, at Coventry, 242 ; defective state of, at Enfield, 337 Shields of textile fabrics, 374 Ship-railway in France, projected, i'lO "Siege of London," the, 35; French translation of, 293 SimpKm, proposed railway through the, 248 Sixpenny telegrams, 280, 337, 117 Smith, WiUoughby, portrait of, lO-l Smoke of cities, the, 76 Snowstorms: and electric lighting, 2H; damage to telegraphs through, 261 Society of Arts: awards of. 2t>7; meeting of, H3; results of exaniinHtioiis, 478 Societies, references to: Aeronautical Societv, 13fi; Anthropological Institute, IMH, 138. 403, 432; Society of Arts, 110, 113. 171, 2(i7. 396, 478; Astronomical Society {tho Koyal) ,71, HO, 1 55, 376, 505; Astronomical Societv (of Liverpool) , 376; Geological Societv, 93, Kilt, o02 ; liarleian Hoeioty, 222; Iron and Steel Institute, 419; Manchester Literary and Philosophical Societv, 352; Man- Chester Medical Soi-ietv, 310; Meteorological Sotiety, 353, 410 ; Philobophical Society (of Glasgow), 392; Royal Institution, 133, B17 ; Royal Society, 468, ol7: Koyal Society of New South Wales, 270; Royal Microscopical Society, 523 Soudan and Kgypt, map of, note on, 357 Spinning-tops, the motion of,461i Star-atlas, a beginner's, publication of, 368 Steam-launch for Thamoa-police, 35 Steam-tramway, an economical, 70 Storni-sit;nal9, value of, 72 Submarine cal)le3, length of, 3 Sugar-beet, ;rrowth of, in England, 93 Sugar-manutatture, poisons used in, \)7 Tbchnical education in London, 54 Telegram^*, the sixpenny rate of, 28tJ, 337, 4-17 Telet;raf.h Coinpanv. the Eastern, system of, 161 Telegraph lonstruetion and maintenance company, dividend of, 100 Telegraphs: in China, 35; damage to, by snow storms, 2t;4- receipts of post-office, 206; in Cochin China, 35/' Telegraph-wires, durability of, 357; dangerous over- head, 513 , . . Telegraphy, submarine, and electrical engineering, school of. 16i, 482 Telephone action, another. 93 , » d Telephone company, the United, withdrawal ot Par- liamentary bill by, 551 Textile institute, proposed formation of, 418 Textiles : and the electric light, 183 ; shield of, 374 Torpedo-steering by electricity, 398 Trade of United States, depi;e3sion in, 54 Tramway, steam, an economical, 70 j *■ c Tramways, street : investments in, 35; adoption oi steam for, 3i7 " Tricycles, how to ride them," authorship of, 267 Twain, Mark, visit to England of, 136 United States: depression of trade, 54: production of maize in,ii7; lawsuits as to electric battery patents 110; decline of revenue of, '.^48; patenls- granted during 1884 in, 248 ; anthracite coal-trade- in, 398 J reduction of wheat acreage of, 402 Ventilation by .^olus water-spray, 439 A''ictoria hall, royal, nctes on, 72, 155, 3C6, 392, 39-, 41S. 412,405 Vivisection, statistics relatinir to, 529 Voice, range of the human, 359 Washington monument, insecurity of the, 318 Water, borings for, in New South Wales, 112 Water-pipes, vibrations in, 336 Wealher, a work on the influence of the moon on, 357 Westminster clock, errors of, during l8St, 521 Wheat acreage of the United States, reduction of, 4')i " Wild England, " new work entitled, 244 Willoughby Smith, portrait of, 104 AV'ood-engraving, beautiful example of, 70 ILLUSTRATIONS. Ammonia PHONE, the, 205 Angle, Iri'^ection of, fitjures illustrating, 209 Ant, a white, enlarged drawing of, 143 Beactt, Hogarth's line of, diagrams illustrating, 313, 33 1 Bicycle, a safety, 122 Bird-cage, an improved, for exhibiting, 271 Bottle-staud, a lapsable, 227 Brake for two-wheeled vehicles, diagram of, 359 CHAMPAGNB-bottle-wire cutter, 117 Chichester Cathedral and market-cross, views of, 412 Chronoraeter-Imlance, sectional view of, 489 Cistern, intercepting, sei-tional view of, 390 Closets, water: Eection of valve, 413; section (4" *' flush-out," 434; patent "Brighton excelsior," 434; sectional view of traps for, 309, 325, 413 Coffee-roasting machine, view of, 293 Compass, an attachment, 337 Cooking' apparatus, a steam, 227, 4'M Cotton-harvester, an automatic, 526 Cyanus major, seed of, under the microscope, 232 VUl ♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ [July 3, 1885. Illustration 3 — cj'ifinued. IJbsig.v, taste in, ligures illustrating, 335-6, 450 Diamond -mines at Kimberley : plan of claima on, 439 ; section of workings, 439 Dies, plan and elevation of, and die-plate, for screw- making, -107 Dinosaurs, illastrations of, 26, 27, 67, 63 Door-fasteners, patent, tit:ure3 of, 183, 337 Drain-pipe, accessible, plan and section of, 315 Drain-protector?, 97 Drawing apparatus, the " Rectoline," 271 Drawing-board and paper-stretcher, 205 Drills, Tiews of, 153, 192 " Dry -earth " srstena of drainage, figures illtistrating, 196, 215, 259, 26L) Eabth, shape and motions of, diagrams iUuatrating, 24, 78 Easel, the Hatherley, 508 Electrician, the young: soldering-iron and back-saw, 102 ; frame-saw and files, 103 ; vices and drills, 153, 192, 231 ; Bcrei^-plates, 303, 345 ; taps for ecrew-makini;, 303, 4';'7 ; tap-wrench, 407 ; die- plate and plan and elevation of dies, 315; die- Btock, 407 ; wood-boring tools, 453 ; measuring instruments, 454-5; friction eiperiments, figures illustrating, 494-5, 54^3-4 ; conductors and insu- lators, 544-5 Electric light : svstem for railway carriage illamina- tion, diagram showing. 169; for the Inventions exhibition, plan of, 395; in spectrum analysis, view of apparatus for regulating the, 331 Endorsing-press, a parallel, bi>S Entomology: a queen termite, enlargement of, 143; the teredo, or ship-worm, 517. Pond insects — cataclystalemnalis, 2; balancer of "daddy long- legs," 61 ; head of female gnat, 62 ; anchomenus marginatus, elaphrus riparius, maxillary of bebi- diuro, and salda pilosella, 121. House insects — anobium domesticum, 253 ; " death-watch," 305; ptilinus pectinicornia, 342 ; ptinus fur, 384 ; niptus hololencus, 385 ; mezium aflini and gibiom scotias, 429 ; dermestes lardarius, 473 ; attagen us peUio, anthrenus museorum, and toycetaea hirta, 518 Eihibition of inventions at South Kensington : plan of, 373 ; plan of electric lighting of, 395 FiLTEB for water, sectional views of, 556 Fire-eitinguishing grenade, a chemical, 139 Fire-grate, the N'autilus, 73 Fire-grates, trivet and clip for, 381 Fire-stove, a patent register, 271 Flat-iron heaters, improved, 447, 535 Gabdes^-esgikb and hose-reel, view of, 403 Gaafitters' combination tools, 243 Geological rambles : Section across Charnwood Forest, 23 Geometrical measurement, diagrams illustrating, 10, 11, 4i, 125-6, 237, 277, 432, 471(, 541 Globe, a mechanical terrestrial, 227 " Hatheblbt " steps, 117 ; easel, 508 HeatiDg_apparatus, the "Challenge," 161 Hogarth's Une of beauty, diagrams illustrating, 313, 33 1 Hose-reel and garden-engine, view of, 402 Hot-air and laundry-stove combined, 535 IxHALEB for chest and throat affections, 358 Inscriptions found on rocks, 181, 245, 333, 379 Inventions Exhitjition, the International: plan of the, 373 ; plan showing electric lighting of, 395 KiUBBELBT diamond mines : plan of claims on, 439; seciion of workings, 439 Knife-cleaner, an improved, 218 Landslip in France, section and plaas of scene of, 14.5 Laundry -stove and hot-air stove combined, 535 Lawn-edge cutter, view of a, 353 Letters: patent grip for, 293; patent spring case for, 381 ; file or binder for, oOS Library furniture, working drawings of, 213 Library-steps and easel combined, 97 Maps: Zodiacal, 50-1,139,233 ; night skies— January, 31, 65; February. 131, 175; March, 241, 263; April, 307, 351 ; May, 417, 461 ; June, 503, 549 Microscope, the: spring clip for object-mounting, 78; micro-ferments, figures of, 143; magnified seL^tion of human skin, 117 ; sfomata of a plant, magnified view of, 190 ; magnifications of seed of Cyanus major, 232 ; seed of Paulownia imperiulis, 409; tissae-cells of anthers of plants, 518 Monoliths, inscriptions on, 181, 245, 333, 379 Moon, the ruddy eclipsed, explanatory diagrams, Music-stand, view of patent portable, 421 OccuLTisG eye-piece for telescope, 139 Oil cans, section of improved spout for, 353 Optical recreations, figures illustrating, 166, 330, 540 Orbit of the earth, 89 Paballel endorsing-press, a, 508 Paulownia imperialis, seed of, under the microscope, 409 Perambulator, a patent contractible, 447 Photography: adjustable instantaneous "shutter" for, 315; improved ruby lantern for, 337 Plane surfaces, detection of errors in, figures illus- trating, 323-9, 346-7 Rbadisg-stand, an improved. 133 Becreations in optics, figures illustrating, 166, 320, 540 " Kectoline " drawing apparatus, the, 271 SiyiTATiON in dwellings, figures illustrating, 196 259, 260, 23>, 309, 335, 375, 390, 413, 431. 462 Saw and combination tool for wood-cutting, 402 Screw-making, figures illustrating, 303, 345,407 Sea-serpent, appearance of the, 555 Seeds, magcitied views of: Cjanua major, 232 Paulownia imperialis, 409 Ship. railroad, the Tehuantepee, 197, 213, 239, 24'3 Ship-worm and its borings, 517 Skin, human, magnified section of, 147 Skyhght, improved, plan and elevation of, 293 Spray-distributor, a, 73 Star-maps : January, 31, 65; February, 131, 175; March, 211, 263'; April, 307, 351 ; May, 417, 461 ; Jnne, 503, 649 Steps : working drawings of, 124-5; the " Hatherley," 117; and easel combined, 97 Stock for dies, a, 4^)7 Stomatacf a plant, magnified drawing of, 190 Stove, hot air, and laundry combined, 535 Sunspot, the recent great, changes in, 552 Taps and tap-wrench for screw-making, 303, 407 Taste in design, illustrations of, 355-6, 4S9 Tehuantepec ship-railroad, the, views of, 197, 218, 239, 210 Telescope, occulting eye-piece for, 139 Teredo, the, and its borings, 547 Termite, a queen, enlarged drawing of, 143 Terrestrial globe, a mechanical, 227 Time-keeping reform : diagram comparing mean and solar time, 69; map showing railway standard times, lt)9 Tools: gaafitter's combination, 249; required by the "young electrician,*' 102, 103, 153, 192,231, 303, 345, 407, 453-5 ; combination tool for wood- cutting, 402 Tricvcle ride, a: yiew of Chichester Cathedral and Market Cross, 413 Tricycles : carrying. 51 ; front-steering^ 152 ; the Cnnard, central-geared Rucker, Pioneer, and Huraber automatic steerer. 236 ; saddles and seats for, 231 ; shelter for, 353 Trivet and clip for grates, 3S1 Valve-closet, sectional view of, 413 Veneering hammer, front and side view of, 386 Vices, illustrations of, 192 Viper swallowing a toad, view of, 368 Wabdbobb, working drawing of a, 43 Washing-machines, views of, 73, 117 "Watch-making at Waltham, U.S.A., views illtia- trating, 430-1, 493-9, 522-3 Window-fastener, an improved, 139 Wood-boring : tools for, 453 ; by the teredo or ship- worm, 547 Wood-cutting machine, a combination, 402 Workshop at home, the, figures illustrating, 42, 134-5, 213, 336 Zodiacal maps, 50-1, 139, 233 Jan-. 1685.] KNOWLEDGE ♦ AN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINEofSCIENCE PlainuWorded-ExactdtDescribed^ LONDON: FlUDAY, JAN, 2, 1885. Contents of No. 166. PXGB Dictens's Storv Left Half Told. Bv Richard A. i'roctor '. I The Entomolo^T of a Pond. (J//iw.) Bt E. a. BmW 2 ParVnta a'^d Children. Bv Richard A. Proctor ' 3 The Chemiftrr of Cookery. L. By W. Mattieu Williams 5 Xeoded Star Sorrers. Bj R. A. Procter ." 7 Chapters on Modem Domestic Economr. IX 8 Electroplatins: In the Bath and Out of It. BjW. SUogo 9 1 ¥A61 Chats on Geometrical, Measurement. {lUus.) By R. A. Proctor 10 Tricyclinp in 1884. By John Browning 11 Edirorial Gossip 12 Reviews : Custom and Mjth— Some Books on our Table 13 Fac." of the Sky. By F.R.A.S 15 Correspondence: To oh]it,M Mr. Kinns — Dickens's Hulf-Told Story — Our Dual Brain — The lOye the onlv Colour-box, iV;-' 1(» Our inventors' Column 1J> Oar Chess Colomn 20 DICKENS'S STORY LEFT HALF TOLD. By Eichaud A. PiiocroR. AN apology ia due to rc\y friend Mr. Foster, for the introduction of " H. L.'a " letter about Dickens's llalf-Told Story, among the articles in Kkowledoe for November 28. It was open to " H. L." to reply in a letter to ilr. Foster's criticisms, and had I been at home -when his letter arrived I would willingly have found space for it; but it was manifestly a mistake to treat the letter in such a way as to convey the idea that Mr. Foster's careful and elaborate investigation of Dickens's last work was intended merely as a reply to " H. L." For this mistake, which occurred in my absence, Mr. Foster has my sipologirs. Of course, Mr. Foster does not propose to enter into any discussion of the suliject with " H. L," who takes so hope- lessly prosaic a view of Dickens's melodramatic ttory that controversy with him would be idle. Mr. Foster's inter- pretation of the mystery was published seven or eight years ago, and his recent papers in these columns were simply in- tended to present the evidence afresh, with somewhat greater fulness of detail as respects certain portions of the story than had been possible in the pages of the Ikhjravia Maga-Ane. The only points to be noticed in " H. L.'s" recent com- munication (outside its rather truculent tone) are points of detail. As to the manner of .Jasper's attack on Drood, ilr. Foster has but an opinion, which is as likely to be wrong as right. Dickens gives very little information on this point, and guesses about it are as difficult as guesses would be about the pattern of Edwin's waistcoat on the occasion. A passage in Jasper's dreamy talk to the opium- woman suggests that Jasper looked down on the body from a height ; and the nocturnal climb up the great staircase seems to suggest that .Jasper had some purpcse up there. Unquestionably, if Drood had been killed in a fall from the tower and Jasper had not been able to remove the body to the tomb he had chosen, and to get rid ofall traces of the murder, there would still have been no manner of risk to .Jasper himself, for "dead men tell no tales," and an accident would have Vjeen the accepted explanation. He would simply have failed in bringing suspicion on Neville as his full scheme, successfully carried out as he supposed, enabled him to do. As for the appeal to what " 11. L. ' calls "human credibility," — meaning probably "credulity,' — any one who has read " No Thoroughfare " will llnd there precisely the same sort of appeal. A murderous villain, very much of Jas|ier'» type, armed with a dagger, attacks a \ictim so drugged as to be helpless, on tho edge of an ice- bound piecipice. Yet despite the danger from tho [loison, the dagger, the fall from the precipice, and the nnowp, which last actually cause the poor fellow's death if it means anything to say tliat "hi.s heart stood still" (not for a moment but hmg enough to show that he was dead it' he could be killed), this victim of Dickens's ingi'uuity conus all right again, to confront his murderer as Drood was to have confronted his. I studied with Mr. Fester, years since, tho cathedral which was tho original of Cloi^terllam, and there can bo no doubt of tho pi ssibility of such escape as Mr. Foster has suggested. But neither he nor 1 regard the manner of the attack on Drood as inferrible from the story. The writing of " crypt " for " churchyard," by which, says "II. L." politely but vaguely, Mr. Foster " ha.s con- victed himself" (of something not defined), was a manifest slip of the pen having no bearing whatever on Mr. Foster's views. I write so much, partly because my absence from London led to the mistake for which I have had to apologise, partly because I myself published in the columns of an evening paper, a solution of the mystery of Edwin Drood which is to all intents and purposes the sanu; as Mr. Foster's, — a little before the appearance of tho article in the Jlefc/ravia iVaga-Jne, if I remember rightly. i may add that during the last seven or eight" years 1 have talked over Dickens's last story with many (I should suppose with hundreds) of readers and lovers of Dickens's stories ; and I think I am not exaggerating in saying that certainly nineteen out of twenty accept the identity of Datchery and Drood, so soon as it is suggested, as obviously the true interpretation. About one-tenth say that they never had any doubt about Datchery being Drood from the very introduction of the Datchery assumption, — my own experience. I think no one who has really studied Dickens's other stories, and learned his ways, can have much doubt on the subject, even unhelped by suggestions from others. Mr. Foster's experience has Ijeen similar. "H. L.'s" letter does not really touch on the true evidence in the matter of the Mystery of Edwin Drood. He mis- understands Mr. Foster's ideas, — as for instance in sup- posing that Datchery reddened " with surprise " (which he even italieis-ts) and that Datchery — i.e. Drood — did not recognise the old woman at once. So when he asks " Where did Mr. Foster learn logic?" he clearly misapprehends Mr. Foster's remark that Neville, Drood, and Jasper were cer- tainly to meet again. Mr. Foster is drawing an inference from Dickens's well-known ways in regard to the headings of chapters, itc. When Dickens heads a chapter " When will these three meet again 'i " those who understand Dickens know certainly that tho three will meet again, and that when they meet the crisis of the story will have come. Of course, one does not expect " II. L." to see this. The ideas formed liy the more prosaic reaflers, including "II. L." (who must by no means imagine that liis article in the Cornhi'l Ifaf/azinc contained more tlian the infer- ences from what Dickens intended to lie on the face of hia story *) are somewhat as follows, — The quaintly humorous, gentlemanly, sympathetic, and * Miss Meyrick, author of tlic article in tlie (Vniu/i/ to whicli " n. !,.■' refers frays that tho idea of Datchery being Prood will ho coriccted hy a careless reading of the story: t'.iat is nearer I lie • KNOWLEDGE [Jan. 2, 1885. •wistful Datchery, ia " some Jetective employed by Grew- gious." (Imagine a wistful Jetective !) Thougli Dickens said to Miss Ilogai-tli (who unquestion- ably was the only person to whom he would have commu- nicated anything near his real ideas) that he feared '■ the Datchery assumption" (even what he had already written about it) might explain the mystery, " H. L." insists that there is no assumption at all (foi- if Datchery is "some detective " what assumption is there '!), and that the character, so far as dealt with, throws no light at all on the mystery, — unless " H. L." considers A/s interpretation of Datchery self-luminous. Though Dickens flatly told Forster that he would not communicate the real idea of the mystery, " H. L." will have it that what Dickens said to Forster immediately after- wards, was the real solution. " H. L." believes that Dickens communicated to Fildes the true end of the story, though it is well-known he never gave Hablot Brown or Marcus Stone the least inkling of the true end of any of the stories they illustrated. The figure in the tomb from which Jasper shrinks back apjialled in the suggestive jiicture at the foot of the nuraher-cover is not Edwin Drood, but Neville playing bogey. " H. L." would admit, I suppose, that the figure was meant to terrify Jasper by its resemblance to Drood, yet there is Jasper with a lantern, apparently of e.v;cellent quality, staring hard at the face of the figure, and yet " H. L." thinks, conceivably mistaking Neville's face for Drood's, though the two were as unlike as they could well be.* If " H. L.'s " ideas are correct, the " Mystery of Elwin Drood " is flat, stale, and unprofitable. But let any who have not read the story, or having read it have not sus- pected that Drcod really escaped and returns as Datchery, go through the half-written story with this interjn-etation in view, and I fancy they will find the incomplete novel more interesting than many fine novels which have been written out to the end. It was to sugjest this that Mr. Foster wrote his article. THE ENTOMOLOGY OF A POND. By E. a. Butlee. ABOVE THE SURFACE (continued). \NOTHER of the Hydrocampidte, called Catachjafa hmnalii (Fig. 1) is very common over ponds in which duckweed abounds. It is a small whitish insect, with the edge of its hind wings adorned with what looks like a row of tiny sparkling diamonds set in a band of jet. Its larva is a little black fellow with velvety skin ; it feeds on duckweed [Lemna), and, as usual, inhabits a case covered with the leaves of its food-plant, but, unlike the Hydrocampas, the case needs to be made of more than two pieces, on account of the minute size of the leaves. It is of an irregular oval form, about half an inch in length, and troth than she imaginecl. A careful and appreciative reading will give better results. * Dickeng, we know from a dozen similar cases, would have had no difficulty in exjilaining why Jasper failed to recognise Drood on the one occasion when he had an opportunity of seeing him close at hand. A real change of appearance might well have followed six months of slow recovery from the effects of the attack, &c. This, and the disguise (the voice also being altered), would suffice to prevent Jasper from even imagining that Datchery was the man ho supposed he had not only slain but gotten rid of utterly. Th.it Datchery had passed through an ordeal is evident from what he says after his meeting with Jasper. It would have been no ordeal for " some detective." rather less than half as much in breadth : the leaves of which it is composed are laid so as to overlap, and at the two ends some of them hang down over the openings, so that when the little hermit is within its cell, one can hardly distinguish the case from a mere accidental collection of duckweed leaves, such as may so frequently be met with. The late Mr. W. Buckler, who devoted his time with remarkable assiduity to studying, describing, and figuring the preparatory stages of many Lfpidoptera, found that a larva of the present species, when deprived of its case, took only .six minutes to put together the leafy framework of another, inside which it remained for a time invisible, apparently busy in finishing it off with a neat lining of silk. Its body is apparently impervious to inoi.sture, for after submergence for any length of time, it comes up to the surface as dry as when it went down. Like the Hydrocampas, it hibernates during the winter months, and begins to feed again in the warmest days of April, the perfect insect appearing in May and June. It pupates in its larva case, and after the issue of the moth, the old case is found to contain both the last cast skin of the larva, and the empty and broken pupa case. The caterpillars of the three insects already mentioned, though living beneith the surface of the water, are not provided with any means of subaqueous respiration ; they are furnished with the ordinary spiracles, and breathe air directly in the usual manner, and the tiny globules of air that hang about the margins of the spiracles like so many silvery beads and streak,=, look very pretty on the sooty- black body of Ciitadi/sta. But the larva of Paraponyx stratioialis, a brownish moth much like a Hydrocampa, besides its spiracles, is possessed of organs similar to those we have so often referred to before, through the thin walls of which the air dissolved in water can diffuse into the trachea' with which they are furnished. These organs are usually called " tracheal gills," a not very appropriate name, iua'?much as a gill is properly an organ to which the blood is conveyed in great quantities, there to receive the revivify- ing action of the oxygenated water that passes over it ; but in this case, the gas is conveyed to the blood throughout the body, instead of the blood to it. Fig. 1. — Cataclysta lemnalis. The last and most remarkable species of the family is one that we have had occasion to mention once before — Acenti-opus nivetts, noted as having been for a time a bone of contention between entomologists, the questions in debate being, first, whether it was a moth or a caddis-fly, second, admitting its lepidopterous character, whereabouts in that order it was to be located, and third, whether there was more than one species. It is a small, whitish insect, which appears in July, and is nocturnal in habits. During the daytime it sits about on weeds, sticks, boards, &c., close to the water's edge, and is very sluggish, not taking to wing unless disturbed. But just about dusk its spirits revive, and it starts on its nocturnal peregrinations, skimming about in broken circles so close to the surface of the water as to seem to be actually swimming; while flying, it scarcely ever seems to leave the surface, but, every now and Jks. 2, 1885. J KNOWLEDGE ♦ then, as if to scik a britf interval of rest in the midst of its circuitous and di>dgy llight, it glides otV and settles on the mud at the margins of the pond. In spite of its small size — little more than half an incli in expanse of wings — its pale appearance renders it somewhat ecnspicuous : s-till, on account of its )ieculiar habits, its capture is not at all easy; evtn when safely Icdged in the net, its restlessness is so great that it sj>eedily damages its delicate wings, hence it has been r2^;omnienc.lcd to observe in the evening where the insect is common, and to go next day and box them in pill boxes oft" their resting-places. The white, roundish eggs are laid on the leaves of different species of Polamof/e/on, or )iond-weed, the mother diving for the purpose. The caterpillar is light green, and, like that of the preceding insect, is furnished with tracheal gills. It feeds on pond weeds, but without a case, and, when fully fed, forms a silken cocoon, which it strengthens by incorporating in its substance fragments of the leaves of its food-plant ; the cocoons are placed in the axils of the leaves of the pond- weed. There are two varieties of the female, one with rudimentary wings, or sometimes even without any trace of them at all, and the other with wings fully developed. The former appears at the end of May, and seems to be the (uoduce of caterpillars wLich, like many other of the Lepidoptera, were hatched too late in the preceding season to complete their metamorjihosis before winter, and have therefore existed in a torpid condition through the winter months, conipl(!ting their life-cycle the following spring. The other is the produce of a later brood. The pairing of these insects takes [dace either on, or ac- tually beneath, the surface of the water, and not only the female, but her consort as well, thinks nothing of taking a little jaunt below the surface, coming up again with wings as dry as though they had never been near the water. This is certainly most extraordinary conduct on the part of a moth. There yet remains one other order that contributes to the fauna above the surface — viz., the Diptera. Of these the most important are the gnats and midges, whose pre- liminary stages we traced out some time ago. They con- stitute the dancing crowds that enliven the air with their incessant gambols a few feet above the surface of the pond. These crowds sometimes assume gigantic proportions, suffi- cient to excite popular attention, and even .'sometimes to create quite a sensation. Thus it is recorded that in the year 173G vast clouds were seen to rise in the air above Salisbury Cathedral, which, at a distance, so resembled columns of smoke as to give rise to a report that the cathedral was on fire. A similar alarm occurred at a place in Silesia in 1812. Again, in 176G, enor- mous numbers were seen at Oxford, resembling a black cloud, and even darkening the air for a time. But these are very exceptional cases, and usually the swarms are of very moderate d'mensions. They consist almost entirely of male insects, and Westwood says he has observed that, when executing their merry dances, they always fly with their heads towards the quarter from which the wind blows. (To he continued.) HoNOUBS AT THE Heai-th EXHIBITION. — The Joiy Comniission has awarded Mr. W. J. Harrison, F.G.S., Science Demonstrator for the Birmingham School Board, a special certiEeato of thanks for the system of science-teaching carried out nnder his direction in the Board Schools of Birmingham. Length of Submaeine Cables. — Kosmos puts the total length of all the submarine cables at present laid at 08,353 miles, or nearly three times the circumference of the globe. Each cable consists of forty wires, so that the total length of iron and copper wire used amounts to twenty-five millions of mile.", or ten times the distance between the earth and the moon. PARENTS AND ClI I LI )1{ KN. A NOTE ON Till- T.AW OF nEUEDTrV IN ITS UKl.ATION TO THE TUAlMNd OK CliU.nUEN. Bv PiiciiARD A. Proctoh. ri^^llE j)rinciple of heridity has now Ik en generally X accepted, but many of the conclusions which follow from it seem to have been little thought of by many of those who most fully acce])t the piinciple itself. Amongst the most important of these may be mention) d the changed view of parental duties and parental roponsibilitiis which presents itself when we consider how the character of each child born into th(! world depends almo.^t wholly on in- fluences derived from the child's parents. In old times, men's ideas respecting the training of children, the duties of children to tlieir parents, and the duties of parents to their children, were comparatively simple. The child's mind was regarded as a blank page on which anything could be written that the child's teachers might d»sire. Tlu; child's good qualities were regarded as involving merit which deserved reward ; the child's bad qualities were re- garded as involving ofl'ence which deserved pun'shment. The duty of the child to its parents was held to be very distinct and definite, while beyond the duty of maintaining the child, the parents' responsibility, according to old- fashioned ideas, was limited to the inculcation of moral and social duties (hy precept rather thin by example), and the employment of a sy.stcin of rewards and punishments for the development of the child's good qualities and the correction of its bad ones. All this is practically very little cliangfd, though the absurdity and unfairness of the old system have been demonstrated over and over again in recent yeais. Children are not only unlike, instead of being like, as the old system implied, but unlikeness is their most sti iking characteristic. Instead of its being probable that a well- chosen .system of training will suit ninety-nine children out of a hundred, the chances are that no system of training could be devised which would really be suitable for any two children out of a hundred. The children of the same family differ strangely from each othi r. Though all their qualities are derived from the same source, the proportions in which these qualities have been received are so different that, as a rule, no two children, even in a large family, are closely alike in character. If this is so in one and the same family, as every one who has observed such families must have noticed, how absurd must be the attempt to select any system of training which shall suit scores of boys or girls (or, as in Ameiica, of boys and girls) belong- ing to difierent families. With a rtcognition of the laws of heredity, the old-fashioned system of training ought in this respect to have been entirely altered. But not only has the position of the trainer and teacher of children been altered with the new lights under which character now presents itself, but the relations of the child to the parents and of the parent-i to the child have been entirely altered. In all the various stages of a child's life fioin babyhood to manhood or womanhood, the character, however much it may change naturally or be affected by external influences, is in the main a product of develop- ment. It is as hopeless to apply a system of rewards and punishments to modify the essentials of cbarjcter, at any stage of child-life, as it would be to attempt to alter by an elaborate system of watering or manuring the fruit of the pear-tree into the fruit of the walnut-tree, or vicevcrsd. Moreover, the character of the child at the different stages of child-life is very dilTerently rtlati d to the parental character. In ear'y cbildbo: d the chatacler is not only ♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ [Jan. 1885. remoter from the pai-ental type, but partakes even of maLy of the characteristics of animal tjpes. The very young child is in reality wanting in most of the essential attributes of human types of character, in most of the features which distinguish man from the lower animals. A biby is an engaging animal, but still it is little more than an animal. It cannot be said to reason, more at any rate than a clever dog or monkey seems to reason. It has no distinct ideas of right or wrong. It has appetites and wants, and nearly all that it does is ruled by those appe- tites and wants — at first almost wholly, later with such limitations as are suggested by the effects of experience, mere or less consciously acted upon. The system of training ap[)ro[>riate at this stage of child-life — in fact, the only system available — is akin to the system of training used for animals. The tender nurse and the loving mothei may object to this statement, but she acts on this principle. Moreover, a parent can more fairly aot in this way to the very young child than to one that begins to show peculiarilie^i of character more nearly approaching to those of either pai-ent, or of others of the child's near kindred. Parents can hardly feel responsible for those faults of character in the baby which, according to the principles of heredity, have not been directly handed down to the infant by them, but belong to much more remote progenitors. Similar remarks apply to the following stage of early childhood, the stage when the child resembles in character the savage rather than the mere animaL It is at these two stages, chiefly, that the old-fashioned system of training can alone be adopted, though even at those early stages discrimination is re- quired, because of the different degrees in which animal or savage peculiarities of character are recogni.sed. Some babies are good little animals, though they have animal- faults which require correction; others, on the contrary, are bad little animals, and require for their own good (and even for their own siftty) a severer system of treat- ment. So with young children a stage or so later. Some are very pleasant little savages, though they have some savage tricks which mu:^t not be encouraged, but checked ; others are terrible little barbarians, and unless ruled with a rather strong hand will do mischief to others, and (probably) still more serious mischief to themselves. For these earlier stages of child-life, a system of training and, where necessary, of control and even severity, has to be adopted ; and the only considerations to be attended to in selecting the most appropriate measures are those depending on the individual traits of character observed at this stage of the growing child's life. At this time it may sometimes happen that the old-fashioned system of severity — the old-fashioned doctrine that he who spareth the rod hateth his child — may be unfortunately ajipropriate. Even in the animal and savage stages of a child's life, however, gentleness and kindness are nearly always better than sternness and severity. Xearly always it is the weakness of the parent rather than the fault of the child which calls for correction, though correction falls on the child, not on the parent. The child sees examples of ill-temper and obstinacy, falls into obstinate and ill-tempered ways, and is presently punished, more because its faults excite anger than because, when wise'y considered, they are held to require such correction as may lead to their being gradually eliminated from the character. It would be difficult to say what proportion of the faults of manhood have their origin at this stage of life, because the faults then spring- ing into existence are afterwards commingled with those inherited from the parents or through the parents. But there can be little doubt that for want of patient and judi- cious training, and occasional correction, erring rather on the side of pity than of severity, many characters are seri- ously impaired before the inherited traits have begun to show themselves with any degree of distinctness. It is, however, later in life, in boyhood and girlhood, I young manhood and young womanhood, that we recognise the more difficult part of parental training. Many parents, indeed, nay most, overlook the special considerations to which they ought to attend, now that the development of the law of heredity has made the origin of indi^-idual peculiarities of character clear ; but this dees not affect the argument. In every family we see, at one or another part of the chila's life, the faults and good qualities of the parents or of other near relations showing themselves with greater or less distinctness. Faults may be so punished that the child conceals them : yet they are there. It very seldom happens that they are not at some time or other shown, in such sort that the parents can see what manner of man or woman the child will grow up to be. Now here a very difficult cjuestion of responsibility and duty presents itself. A father, we will say, recognises in his child a fault which he knows to be inherited both from and through himself — in other words, what is called a family failing. The consciousness that he himself has the fault does not in any degree diminish the annoyance caused by it : rather the reverse, seeing that faults in others are all the more provoking if we are ourselves liable to them. But the right to jiunish and the duty of punishment are curiously affected by consideration of the hereditary nature of the fault. I am, let us say, prone to violent fits of temper, or to moroseness, or to obstinacy ; some fine day, a son or daughter of mine exhibits, in a marked degree, the same failing, which I know to be mine, which I know I have inherited, and which I equally know I have transmitted. I know that in his or her career my child will suffer from the effects of this family failing, unless every pains be taken either to eradicate it or to bring it under mastery, making of it a servant instead of a tyrant Of old, my course would have been clear enough, though painful. I should have felt it my obvious duty to use correction of such degree of severity — and no more — as was neces.-ary to compel my child to master his j fault or temper. (Of course, I am considering here the case of a parent who recognises his duty in such matters ; one who does not would probably thrash his son or punish his daughter in such severe ways as might occur to him, with no other object but to get rid of the annoyance caused by the child's fault.) But when the parent recognises the fault of disposition or of temper as in reality his own, though manifested by the child, the position becomes difficult and painful. A parent may be obliged by a sense of iluty to punish his own fault in his child, being all the while conscious that for the existence of the fault in the child he is himself responsible. It is easily seen, too, that in the case of far-seeing persons (those farthest removed from the savage state), the sense ( f duty, or rather the feeling of doubt and difficulty in this matter, would extend further. The father who, knowing that some fault of temper has been a source of sorrow or misery to himself, feels that, let it have come how it may (not that he has any doubt whence it came), this fault in his child must be corrected, might very well consider thaf, since children could only be bom to him at the risk of inheriting this source of sorrow and misery, it would not be well that children should be bom to him at all. The old argument against Malthusian doctrines, that a child bom into the world may possibly become one in the choir of heaven, singing God's praises everlastingly, so that all doctrines by which the number of such children may be diminished (as by late marriage, Jan. 2, 1885.] ♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ &C.) are sinful, might be met, even in the general case, by the answer that a child born into the world may possibly have a quite different future ; but in particular cases the probabilities are so enormously against the happier, and in favour of t lie less happy, fate, that the argument ((/" (V is trortfi aiii/t.hiiii/ at all) might be applied very ell'ectively, at any rate, against early marriage. Be this, however, as it may, it is evident that due consideration of the doctrine of heredity should lead a parent, who recognises his own faults in his offspring, to be very careful and tender, however earnest, in his endeavour to eradicate such faults. When I hear of, or see parents harshly punishing their children for faidts which they must hnow that they themselves po!^scss and have trans- mitted to their offspring, I am inclined sometimes to wonder whether they will be able to look their children in the face in after year.=, when the real origin of such faults has become as clear to the younger as to the older possessors of them. If the younger were not, happily, much more for- giving as a rule than their elders, how much might the peace of families he disturbed in after years by the recollec- tion of past severities inflicted by parents on children for faults which would have had no existence but for the parents, and which the parents .show in at least as marked a degree as their offspring. And, again, how singularly would the lives of young people be alFected if parents considered carefully the precept, " Let him that is without fault," itc. — ^'ewca^lle Wetlli/ Chronicle. THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. By W. Mattieu William-s. L.— TEE VEGETARIAN QUESTION. IX my introductory paper I said, " The fdct that we use the digestive and nutrient apparatus of sheep, oxen, ic, for the preparation of our food is merely a transitory barbai'ism, to be ultimately superseded when my present subject is sufficiently understood and applied to enable us to prepare the constituents of the vegetable kingdom to be as easily assimilated as the prepared grass which we call beef and mutton." This has brought me in communication with a very earnest body of men and women, who at considerable social inconvenience are abstaining from fle,sh-food, and doing it purely on princi[)lc. Some people sneer at them, call them " crotchetty,'' "faddy," etc., but, for my own part, I have a great respect for crotchetty people, having learned long ago that every first great step that has ever been taken in the path of human progress was denounced as a crotchet by those it was leaving behind. This respect is quite apart from the consideration of whether I agree or disagree with the crotchets themselves. I therefore willingly respond to the request that I should devote one short jjaper of this series to the subject. The fact that there are now in London nine exclusively vege- tarian restaurants, and all of them flouri.shing, shows that it is one of wide interest. At the outset it is necessary to brush aside certain false issues that are commonly raised in discussing this subject. The question is not whether we are herbivorous or car- nivorous animals. It is perfectly certain that we are neither. The carnivora feed on flesh alone, and eat that flesh raw. Nobody proposes that we should do this. The herbivora eat raw grass. Nobody suggests that we should follow their example. It is perfectly clear that man cannot be classed either not even to be classed He stands apart from with the omnivorous all as TiiK Cooking our ancestors ate with the carnivorous animals nor the herbivorous animals, nor with the graniinivoroiia animals. His teeth are not con- structed for munching and grinding raw grain, nor his digestive organs for assimilating such grain in this condition. He is animals. Animal. It is true that there was a time when raw flesh, including that of each other. In the limestone caverns of this and other European countries we find human bones gnawed by human teeth, and s|ilit open by flint imiiUmcnts for the evident jmrpose of extracting the marrow, according to the domestic economy of the period. The shell mounds that these prehistoric bipeds have left biihind, show that mussels, oysters, and other mollusca were also eaten raw, and they doubtless varied the menu with snails, slugs, and worms, as the remaining Australian savages .still do. Besides these they probably included roots, succu- lent plants, nuts, and such fruit as then existed. There are many among us who are very proud of their ancient lineage, and who think it honouraVfle to go back as far as possible, and to maintain the customs of their fore- fathers ; but they all seem to draw a line somewhere, none desiring to go as far back as to their interglacial trogloditic ancestors, and, therefore, I need not discuss the desirability of restoring their dietary. All human beings became cooks as soon as they learned how to make a fire, and have all continued to be cooks ever since. We should, therefore, look at this vegetarian que-tion from the point of view of preparfd food, which excludes nearly all comparison with the food of the brute creation. I say " nearly all," because there is one case in which all the animals that approacli the nearest to ourselves — tbe mammalia — are provided naturally with a specially pre- pared food, viz., the mother's milk. The composition of this preparation appears to mo to throw more light than anything else upon this vegetarian controversy, and yet it seems to have been entirely overlooked. The milk prepared fi^r the young of the different animals in the laboratory or kitchen of Nature is surely adapted to their structure as regards natural food requirements. Without assuming that the human dietetic requirements are identical with either of the other mammals, we may learn something concerning our approximation to one class or another by comparing the competition of human milk with that of the animals in question. I find ready to hand in Dr. Miller's "Chemistry," Vol. III., a comparative statement of the mean of several analyses of the milk of woman, cow, goat, ass, sheep, and bitch. The latter is a moderately carnivorous animal, nearly approaching the omnivorous character commonly ascribed to man. The following is th-j .statement ; — Water Woman Cow. Gout. Asa. Shtep. Bitch. S80 87--1 820 0O5 85-6 66-3 Fat 2G 4-0 4-5 1-4 4-5 14-8 Sugar and Soluble Salts 4,0 50 4-5 G4 42 20 Nitrogenouscompounds and Insoluble Salts .. 3-9 30 90 1-7 57 160 According to this it is quite evident that nature regards our food requirements as approaching much nearer to the herbivora than to the carnivora, and has provided for us accordingly. If we are to begin the building-up of our bodies on a food more nearly resembling the herbivora than the carni- KNOWLEDGE ♦ [Jan. 2, 1885. vora, it is only reasonable to assume that we should continue on the .same principle. The particulars of the difl'ereuce are instructive. The food -which nature provides for the human infant difl'ers from that provided tor the young carnivorous animal, just in the same -way as flesh food difiers from the cultivated and cooked vegetables and fruit -within easy reach of man. These contaiu less fat, less nitrogenous matter, more water, and more sugar (or starch, which becomes sugar during digestion) than animal food. Those who advocate the use of flesh food usually do so on the ground that it is more nutritious, contains more nitrogeiious material and more fat than vegetable food. So much the worse^for the human being, says Nature, when s/ie prejiares the food. But as a matter of practical fact there are no flesh-eattrs among us, none who avail themselves of this higher propor- tion of albuminoids and fat. AVe all practically adiuit every day in eating our ordinary Eoglish dinner, that this excess of nitrogenous matter and fat is bad ; we do so by mixing the meat with that particular vegetable which contains an excess of the carbo-hydrates (starch) with the smallest available quantity of albuminoids and fat. The .slice of meat, diluted -with the lump of potato, brings the whole down to about the average compo-ition of a fairly- arranged vegetarian repast. When 1 speak of a vege- tarian repast, I do not mean mere cabbages and potatoes, but properly selected, well cooked, nutritious vegetable food. As an example, I will take Count Rum- ford's No. 1 soup, already described, without the bread, and in like manner take beef and potatoes without bread. Taking original weights, and assuming that the lump of potato weighed the same as the slice of meat, we get the following composition according to the table given by Pdvy, page 410 : — Lean Beef Water. Albumen! Starch. Su^ar. Fat. Salts. 7200 75-00 19-30 2-10 18-80 320 3-60 0-20 510 070 Mean Composition of Jlixture . 147-00 21-40 18 80 3-20 3-80 5-80 73-50 10-70 9- 10 1-GO 1-90 2-90 Rumford's soup (without the bread afterwards added) ■was composed of equal measures of peas and pearl barley, or barley meal, and nearly equal wei;;hts. Their percentage composition as sta'ed in above-named table is as follows : — Peas Barley Meal Mean Composition of Mixture Water. Albumen. Starch. Sugar. Fat. Salts. 15-00 2300 1500 6-30 55-40 69-40 2 00 4-90 2-10 2-40 2-50 2-00 30 00 29-30 134-80 6-90 4-50 4-50 15-00 14-G5 G2-40 3-45 225 2-25 Here, then, in 100 parts of the material of Rumford's halfpenny dinner, as compared with the "mixed diet," we have 40 per cent, more of nitrogenous food, more than six and a half times as much carbo-hydrate in the form of starch, more than double the quanti'y of sugar, about 17 per cent. more of fat, and only a little less of salts (supplied by the salt which Rumford added). Thus the John Bull mateiials fall short of all the coitly constituents, and only excel by their abundance of very cheap water. This analyi-ij supjjlies the explan-ition of what lii.s puzz'ed many inquirers, aud encouraged some sneeiers at this work of the great scientific philanthropist, viz., that he found that le.-s than five ounces of solids was sufficient for each man's dinner. He was supplying far more nutritious material than beef and potatoes, and, therefore, his five ounces was more satisfactory than a pound of beef and potatoes, three-fourths of which is water, for which water John Bull pays a shilling or more per pound when he buys his prime steak. Rumford added the water at pump cost, and, by long boiling, caused some of it to unite with the solid materials (by the hydration I have described), and then served the combination in the form of porridge, raising each portion to 19-| ounces. I might multiply such examples to prove the fallacy of the prevailing notions concerning the nutritive value of the " mixed diet," a fallacy which is merely an inherited epidemic, a baseless physical superstition. I will, however, just add one more example for com- parison— viz., the Highlander's porridge. The following is the composition of oatmeal — also from Pavy's table : — • Water 1500 Albumen 1260 Starch 58-40 Sugar 5-40 Fat 5-60 Salts 3-00 Compare this with the beef and potatoes above, and it will be seen that it is sitpcriui' in every item excepting the vxiter. This deficiency is readily supplied in the cookery. These figures explain a jiuzzle that may have suggested itself to some of my thoughtful readers — viz., the smallness of the quantity of dry oatmeal that is used in making a large portion of porridge. If we could, in like manner, see our portion of beef or mutton aud potatoes reduced to dry- nesiJ, the smallness of the quantity of actually solid food required for a meal would be similarly manifest. An alderman's banquet in this condition would barely fill a breakfast-cup. I cannot at all agree with those of my vegetarian friends who denounce flesh-meat as a prolific source of disease, as inflaming the pas.^ions, and generally demoralising. Neither am I at all disposed to make a religion of either eating, or drinking, or abstaining. There are certain albuminoids, certain carbo hydrates, certain hydro- carbons, and certain salts demanded for our sustenance. Excepting in fruit, these are not supplied by nature in a fit condition for our use. They must be prepared. Whether we do all the preparation in the kitchen by bringing the produce of the earth directly there, or -whether, on account of our igno- rance and incapacity as cooks, we pass our food through t! e stomach, intestines, blood-vessels, ic, of sheej) and oxen, as a substitute for the fir.st stages of scientific cookery, the result is about the same as regards the dietetic result. Flesh feeding is a nasty practice, but I see no grounds for denouncing it as physiologically injurious. In my youthful days I was on friendly terms with a sheep that belonged to a butcher in Jermyn-street. This animal, for some reason, had been spared in its lambhood, and was reared as the butcher's pet. It was well known in St. James's by following the butcher's men through the streets like a dog. I have seen this sheep steal mutton- chops and devour them raw. It preferred beef or mutton to gras.". It enjoyed robust health, and was by no means ferocious. It was merely a disgusting animal, with excessively per- verted appetite ; a perversion that supplies very suggestive material for human meditation. My own experiments on myself, and the multitude of other experiments that I am daily witnessing among men of all occupations who have cast aside flesh food after many years of mixed diet, prove incontestably that flesh Jax. 2, 18t5.] • KNOWLEDGE ♦ food is quite unnecessary ; and also that men and women who emulate the aforesaid sheep to the mild extent of con- suming daily about two ounces of animal tissue combined with six ounces of water, and dilute tliis with s-ucli weak vegetable food as the potato, are not measurably altered thereby so far as physical health is concerned. On economioLil grounds, however, the ditl'erencft is enormous. If all Eiigli>hincn were vegetarians tlie whole aspect of the country would be chnnged. It would be a land of gardens and orchards, instead of gradually reverting to prairie grazing ground as at present. The unenn)loyed miserables of our great towns, the inhabitants of our vinion workhouses, and all our rogues and vagabonds, would find ample and suitable employment in itgriculture. Every acre of land would require three or four times as much labour as at present, and fte.l tivc or six times as unny people. No sentimental exaggeration is demanded for tlic recom- mendation of such a reform as tlii?. I must apologise for this digression, as it has prevented me from closing this series with this paper, as f intended. In my next, -nhich really will conclude, 1 shall d('.sci'ib(! some experiments I have recently made on the preparation of vegetable food. NEEDED STAR SURVEYS. By Eichard A. Puoctor. IN my article on Sir W. Ilerschel's two methods of gauging the star-depths, I showed that, in a sense, both methods failed, one obviously to himself, the other as tested by his own method of reasoning. But let us consider what we mean when we say that either method failed, and then note what each method showed, what other methods are suggested by the results of applying those, and lastly what further plans are available for the survey of the star- depths. Herschel's first method of gauging the heavens was based on the assumption that the greater the number of .stars seen ■with a given telcicope in one and the same direction, the greater the e.xtent of the sidereal universe in that direction. It can only be Siid to have failed in tliu respect, that it showed the incorrectness of the assumption on which it was based. Herschel found that a great increase in the number ■of stirs seen in particular directions may arise — and in many cases certainly does arise — from the clustering of great numbers of stars in their particular regions of space — a condition of things of which his preliminary assumption bad taken no account. But while this involved the utter failure of the process of measurement which he had proposed to apply to the stellar universe, it by no means implied the failure of his observations to reveal any new truth. Ou the contrary, the very circumstance that he had to give up his precon- ceived idea of stellar distribution shows that a quite un- expected discovery had rewarded his star-gauging labours He had been able to demonstrate the clustering of stars in particular regions of space, and therein lay a discovery of extreme interest. Herschel's second method of gauging the heavens was based on the assumption that the greater the telescopic power required for the resolution of the milky light of the Galaxy into discrete stars, the greater the extent of the t idereal universe in the direction thus explored. This method also failed; but it only failed in l/iis sense, that it showed the assumption Herechel had thus made to be incorrect In some regions of small extent he found the resolution of the milky light to begn with his lowest powers and ccuitinue until his highest were used, milky light even then still rcimiiniug unresolved. And although ho did not himself note the point, it is numifest tiiat this, if his original assumption had been sound, would have signified the cxistenct! of long spike-shaped projections of stars from the sidereal system, all these proj(>ctions, by an incredible chance, being directed exiictly from the solar system. As such a supposition ciinnot be accepted for an instant, it is manifest (lluuigh llersclu'l, then in extreme old age, did not notice this), tliat there must be a clustering of stars of many orders of real magnitude within particular regions of space, — a condition of things of which Herschel's second preliminary assumption had taken no account. But here also, while the complete failure of tliis second process of measurement was involved, this failure by no means implied the failure of Herschel's observations to reveal new truth. Here, as in the other case, the very cir- cumstance that a certain idea of stellar distribution had to be given up, showed that a di'^covery of importance had rewarded Herschel's laliours. He had been able to show that the clusterings of stars already demonstrated was not a clustering of .stars nearly equal in magnituJe, but of stars differing enormously in real size. Some of the rounded clusters thus examined by Herschel are so limited in extent that, assigning to them a roughly rounded real form (inferable from their obviously rounded apparent form), w-e see that the farthest ]>irts of these clusters are not farther away than the nearer ])arts in greater degree than as 100 is greater than 99. But within these narrow limits of real distance llerfchel found ciifl'i'rences of stellar size and resolvability, through some eighteen star magni- tudes, which would have corresponded (had his assumption been true) to distances diti'ering much more tlian a hundred differs from unity. The discovery that within rounded regions of the stellar universe there may exist so many orders of suns, the largest exceeding the smallest thousands of times in volume, was of extreme interest, and threw an entirely new liglit on the architecture of the sidereal system. In like manner it is to be noticed that Herschel's obser- vatiom of star-clouds or nebuUe, although by no means to be interpreted as ho had at first supposed, are most im- portant in their bearing on our ideas respecting the struc- ture of the sidereal system. He regarded the nebuhe as outlj'ing universes resembling our own galaxy, — a grand idea justifying what is said on his tombstone, that he had broken through the boumls of our heavens, — Codonun perrupit daustra. It is however certain in reality all these star-clouds are within the limits of our sidereal universe. Herschel's own principle of interpreting his observations, though inadequate and inexact, suflices to prove so much as this. It is certain that with his most powerful tflescope he was unable to reach the limits of our galaxy ; U is manifest, therefore, that he could not see with them the individual stars or even the milky li^jht of galaxies lying far beyond those limits. Therefore all the nebulai observed by him were within these limits. There is no possibility of escaping this conclusion, unlc-s we admit the possibility that there exist outside our galaxy others consisting of enormously larger and more brilliant .stars — stars thousands of times larger than Siiius and Vega, which are themselves at least a thousand times larger than our great and glorious sun. Of course, all these results may be said to have been proved at one stroke by Sir John Herschel's observations of the Neheculce or M-igellanic Clou'ls. He found in tliose rounded regiuchanan, we may here make use of two special examples, which will serve to point out advantages ot cardinal virtue in the exhibition of the system. In commenting upon the Dorset county school at Dorchester, where provision has gradually been made since 18G."), he says: — "When the school was furnished with water-closets, the cost for ft'pairs of them used to exceed £.3 a-year. In the four years since the adoption of earth-closets, the entire charge for repairs has been less than 10s. Under the water-closet system there were frequently offensive smells, and diarrho-a was occasionally epidemic. Since the introduction of the earth system, there have been neitlier offensive smells nor diarrhiea. In 18GG and 1867 there was a good deal of ' low fever ' in the parts of Dorchester round the school, but there was none in the school itself." Again, with regard to the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, he observes: — "Upon my visit on Dec. '29, 18G9, several urinals were found to have their water-supply frozen up, and smell was coming from them. But the earth-closets were in most instances quite free from smell, although where they had been misused by slops thrown into them (iu a part of the establishment where their use was most recent and least understood) there was some smell from them. "P.S. — March, 1870. The closets in this and other parts of the asylum are now found in perfect order, witliout the least smell from any one of them. The ojiportunity of the frost, however, enabled comparison to be made with what must necessarily have been the condition of water-closets under similar conditions of use. The earth-closets, when properly used, were clean and odourless ; water-closets without water, used by more than ten persons each, must, however carefully used, have been foul and offensive. Moreover, the Superintendent informed me that .£70 had been paid for repairs to the water-closet pipes after a hard frost some few years ago, whereas under the earth system frost can do no mischief A saving of water, estimated by Dr. Meyer to amount to nearly half the quantity previously used, and involving a corresponding economy ui coals and pumping, is also to be considered in relation to questions of cost. Such economy of water was, indeed, one of the reasons for the substitution of the earth for the water system." In our next communication we shall consider the value of the process in relation to other types, such as its appli- cation and results in relation to villages and towns, with specially interesting example?, and a concluding summary. Ebeat.1.— On p. 499, col. 2, line 9 of the article on " A Marvellons Little Stream," the word " atmite " should be " auprite." On p. 500, col. 2, lines 3 and 4, the dash ' should be transposed from the second E to the first. K I, VA'T !{()-? I.. \ 'V I NM{. Bv \V. Si.iNco. XVI.— IN Til 10 1!.\T1I .\M) OUT OV IT. rpiIE objects destined to receive a coating of silver X having been duly suspended from the cathode (the rod in connection with the zinc |>ole of the battery) and immeised in the el.ctrolytic bath, and the battery circuit having been completed, attention must be ccntn^d on the bath and its behaviour. It is possible that, after every conceivable precaution has been taken in the preparation to ensure .success, failure will ultimately result, unless due regard be paid to the ellicicncy with which the various parts of the bath continue to perform their respective functions. It is noteworthy that when a solution is first used, its action is somewhat irregular, and may ))Ossibly lead one to think that something is radically wrong. This trouble, which is probably due to mechanical or iihysical inequaliti(>s, soon disappears, and, if all is as it should be, the deposition of the metal will proceed with brcoming regularity, and give every satisfaction, for a time at least. In a previous article it was intimated that a cpiantity of free cyanide of potas- sium should be present in the solution for the purpose of facilitating the conversion of the silver plat(i forming the anode into the cyanide of silver. Now, the cyanide of potassium is assailable by carbonic aciJ, which converts it into the carbonate of potassium, while hydrocyanic acid is set free. It is well-known that our atmosphere contains a propor- tion, small though it be, of carbonic acid, and it is this acid which acts dcleteriously upon the cyanide, converting it into carbonate of potassium, in consequence of which the solution has a tendency to become weak iu silver. In order to maintain the solution in good working order, a little additional cyanide of potassium should be poured in from time to time. The necessity for this additional cyanide is evidenced by the altered apiiearauce of the silver plate, which, under favourable circumstances, has the charac- teristic pure white tint, but when the free eyani'le has become neutralised, it is converted to a dirty or dull grey colour. The metal is less readily dissolved, and the action of the bath becomes sluggish. Temperature, it will be evident on reflection, has a con- siderable influence on the quality and rapidity of the working, seeing what an immense part heat jilays in varying the degrees of solubility for all kinds of substances in all kinds of solvents. Experience shows that the temperature at which the Viest action takes place is about G0° Fall. The quality of the deposit is considerably improved and its regularity largely increased by imparting motion to tli!? object while it is in the cell. If constant motion cannot be maintained, an intermittent one, even if only at long intervals, should be imparted. If a solution be kept peifectly still, having immersed in it a plate of silver and a plate of, say, copper, connected to the copper and zinc jjoles of the battery respectively, it will be found that the upper part of the silver will be very ex- tensively dissolved as compared with the lower part, while the densest deposit occurs on the lower part of the copper. This, at first sight, would appear to indicate that the electrolytic action takes place diagonally. A little reflec- tion will, however, make it apparent that this is not neces- sarily the case, but will make it evident that the real cause is involved in a i-imple question of specific gravity. The cyanide contiguous with the silver dissolves it, and the liquid being thus much heavier falls. At the surface of the copper, silver is withdrawn, and the solution being pro- portionately lighter rise,''. Copious depo-iits are, therefore, 10 * KNOWLEDGE ♦ [Jan. 2, 1885. made on the lower part of tlie copper, an J, a? we approach the surface of the solution, the proportion of deposited silver gradually decreases. It will be also apparent that a smaller quantity of silver will, under these circumstance.'*, be deposited in a given time by a given battery, and that, in fact, a weaker current is passing than would be the case were the silver precipitated uniformly. This uniformity is accomplished by imparting motion to the copper, and so stirring up the solution. In this way the amount of deposited metal may be increased as much as 15 per cent, and a correspsnding increase in the strength of the current flowing will also be noticed. A strong solution, containing only a small proportion of ■water, conducts well, and rapidly produces a rich, silky deposit, but it has the disadvantage of aggravating those troubles to which reference has just been made, and great care is necessary in managing the cell. The cathode becomes covered with a series of variously-coloured deposits, ranging from a good silver tint to lilac, or even to brown. Frequent stirring will, in a great measure, prevent this ; but perhaps the safest way is to weaken the solution by the addition of a little more water, when it becomes much more manageable, albeit a little slower. Sometimes it may be observed that the anode is being dissolved much more rapidly than the cathode is being deposited upon. This is a pretty sure indication that an excessive quantity of cyanide of potassium is present, in ■which case the addition of cyanide of silver will, in all pro- bibility, effect all thttt is de.-ired. A little additional water may, however, ahso improve matters ; but dilution to tjo great an extent should be avoided, as the deposit, which naturally forms slowly, assumes an unpleasant dead white ajipearance. The addition of cyanide of silver and cyanide of potassium will soon put matters right in this direction. When the requisite amount of silver has been depo.sited, the object is dipped into a cyanide of potassium solution, and then well washed in a stream of water or under a tap, and the washing continued until the whole of the depositing liquid is removed. The object is then dried, and a trough of box- wood or mahogany sawdust having been heated, the object is placed in it and rubbed gently with it to ensure perfect dryness. It is then subjected to the s.-ratchbrush process to rub down the burred surface ja-oduced by the depositing process. Bath-brick apjilied with a stiff hair brush may, however, be substituted for the scratch-brush. The polish- ing (with rottenstone, &c.) and burnishing (with steel or agate burnishers) has then to be gone through. These are processes which are only learned by practice, and which it would repay the student to cultivate and practise frequently. They impart a charm to work which might otherwise look dull and uninteresting. It will sometimes hajipen that, although every precaution may be thought to have been taken, neveitheless some little necessity for cleanliness has been overlooked. The result is, that the apj)lication of the scratch - brush causes the .silver to strip off in such places, and manifestly the work, perfect as it may otherwise be, is efl'ectually spoiled. There is no help for it, save to remove the whole of the silver, make the new exposed surface of the article smooth by rubbing i', with Water of- Ayr stone, and then to replate it. It may also be mentioned here that a similar process may be adopted in order to replate old work from which the silver has been more or less rubbed off in ordinary usage. To remove the silver the article is placed in a stone vessel con- taining some strong sulphuric acid, to which a few crystals of nitrate of potash have lieen added, and which has been raised to a high temperature. The nitiate of potash, or saltpetre as it is more commonly called, dissolves in the acid, and the solution dissolves the silver off the article. Care must be taken not to leave the object in the solution too long, otherwise it will stand a good chance of being entirely spoiled. If the silver is not readily dissolved, a little more saltpetre should be added, when the desired efl'ect will be produced. If much of this sort of work is done, the solution becomes exhausted and crystals are deposited on the bottom of the vtssel. As a consider- able quantity of silver is present, an effort should be made to " recover " it. This problem, however, must be defeired for a foitnight. CHATS ON GEOMETRICAL MEASUREMENT. By Richard A. Proctor. TUE CONIC SECTIONS. (Continued from p. 497.) A. We have now to deal with the parabola. J/. Let A S L (Fig. 3) be the axis of the parabola A P K ; S the focus ; K L perp. to A L. We have to determine the area A Q K L. Take P Q adjacent points on the curve (which means points pretty near each other) and draw P M, Q N perp. to A L. Now we may con- veniently try the properties of parabolic tangents, because we know that they are related to the lengths of such lines as PM, AM, itc, which are manifestly involved in otir problem. We draw the tangent P YT cutting A Y / the tangent at A (perp. to A L) in Y''. Join S P, S Y, and draw FmJ, Que, Kl perp. to A I, and T d >: perp. to T A L. Then T P Q is a straight line, wlien Q comes near enough to P. Henca the strips P N and P e, being com- ])lementary parallelograms, are equal. But we know that P(/=2P;»:'' hence the strip P« is double the ttrip V n in area. Wherefore the elementary strip PN is equal to twice the elementary strip P oi. Dividing up the whole areas A P K L, A P K / into such areas as P N, Pvi (by taking a multitude of points like P, Q, along A P K), we have each such area as P N in A P K L double the corre- sponding area as P ii. in A P K /. Hence the whole area A P K L = 2 the whole area A P K / and parabolic area A P K L=| rectangle A / K L. A. That is a simple result. This is, in fact, the first case in which you have shown an area bounded by a curved surface to bear a simple proportion to a definite rectangle. JA You must not often expect such a result. A. You liave discussed, satisfactorily enough, particular areas taken from the ellipse and the parabola ; but is it not possible to determine the area of any segment of either curve? * By a well-known property S Y is perp. to P T, and as P T bisects tlie angle S V d, / S P T = Z tZ P T = Z P T S. Wherefore S r = ST, and PY = YT. Hence Fm = md. But the equality of A T and A M is really a fundamental property of the parabola. Jan. 1S85] ♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ ]1 ^f. It is not only possible, l>iit easy. For instance, I si all leave it to you as an exercise to estaUlish the two following cases: — (1) P LP' (Fig. -t) is a cloud cuttins); the axis A A' of the ellipse A P A' in L; MPQ, XPQ are ordinates (perjx to A A') to the auxiliary circle Q A Q' ; Q Q' will evidently pass through L. Show that, EUip'ical sequent P A P'= Circular sequent Q A Q . AO Fiff. 4. The proof consists in showing that any straight line being drawn as rj pi perp. to A A', the part p e lyirg on the elli|'tical area bears to the part q>l on the circular area, the constant ratio 6 U to A C. Fig. 5. (2) Prove the like as to the sequents Py/ P', Q q Q', in Fig. 5 (in which Q' p' Is, q p I, and Q P M are perp. to A A'). [The proof is similar to that of case 1, — note that P P' and Q Q', produced, meet on A A' produced.] (3) Prove that the parabolic segment P a P' (Fig. G) is equal to two-thirds the parallelo- gram TliP', when lal' is the tangent parallel to P P', and there- fore a M, parallel to the axis, is the diameter of the chords parallel to P P'. [The proof consists in showing that ]j )/ 1, tangei.t at p, is bisected in y, and hence that the elementary area p m, parallel to P M, ia twice the elementary area p n {p n d being parallel to a M)]. (To he continued.) Fig TRICYCLING IN 1884. By John Browninc. ChdiruKin of the London T/'iVyr/c Clnh. \V1I.\T W i; G.UN BY USING THE TRICVCLK AS A MODE OF LOCOMOTION. IN the very thoughtful article published by Dr. UicharJ- son, in Lonymaiis Magazine, he claims for the tricycle that, " it has doubled his power of locomotion." Before the successful application of two speed gearings, as applied to these machines bj' Burdess, Bowns, Hirst, and the St. George's Foundry Co., i should have agreed entirely with this claim. My own walking powers Ijeing considerably reduced in the Idbt twenty five year.", 1 cannot walk, without over- taxing my-elf, more than thirty miles in a i!ay, at the rat© of about three miles in an hour. At the beginning of this year, I should have said that I could not ride a tricycle more than sixty miles in a day, at the rate of six miles an hour. For, while last year I found about eight or nine houis" riding at the rate of about seven miles an hour as much as I could conveniently accomplish, this year I have ridden for nine hours at the rate of upwards of nine miles an, hour, and I only left ofl' then because it was dark and I could not get a companion to ride with me any further or I would have ridden three hours more at the same rate of speed. But even eighty tAO miles in nine hours may f'aiily le said to be three times my power of locomotion unaided by a tricycle. Again, as regards speed, I could at one time walk for hours at the rate of five miles an hour ; then, the tricycle would barely have enabled me to double my pace. Now that I cannot walk more than three miles an hour for any length of time, and yet can well ride at the rate of nine- miles an hour on my tricycle without dilliculty, my pace i* clearly trebled. From this I deduce the conclusion that the weaker a, man is, the greater advantage he will gain by riding a tricycle. After about nine months' experience on specially light machines, with wheels not lai'ger than 40 in. in diameter, geared up to from 48 to .^G in. for speed, and dowrt to from li8 to 32 in. for power, I can honestly affirm thut the tricycle lias trebled »ii/ power of locrmioliii')). Many persons have a])plied to me during the last three- years to advise them resjjecting the adoption of a tricycle, stating that they were weak men, and they feared tliey were not Capable of the exertion of riding one. I have had the pleasure of seeing or hearing from many gain purer air, while with others they gain the delightful pleasure of viewing a greater variety of scenery — the exhilaration caused by ''the glory of rapid motion, ' and, above all, greatly improved health and strength arising from the fact that ti icy cling is a far more beneficial exercise than either walking or running. All who are interested in tricycles will be gla 1 to hear that the Stanley Show will be held next year in a building which will be erected for the purpose on the Thames Embankment, near to the Temple Station of the District Railway. The date fixed for the opening is January 2S, and the Show will close on February 3. The building will probably be known as the " Wheeleries." The central position of the Show, and the fact that its managers pledge themselves to exhibit all the novelties and a machine of every standard pattern render its success certain. 033 1'to rial (gossip. A WELL-KNOWN Scientific knight, being asked the other day what the letters F.R.S. after his name meant, responded, " F.R S. ? Why, 'fees raised swiftly.'" I repeat this perfectly true anecdote to express my admira- tion of tlie truthfulness of the reply, and my regret that some more of the gentry who annually acquire the same distinction as he has done are not equally candid. A cCRlors commentary on the hysterical shrieking of the (happily small) band of fanatics who are monomaniacal on the subject of vivisection was affi^irded by an operation which was performed some five weeks ago Vjy Mr. Rickman J. Godlee, surgeon to University College Hospital. Phy- siologists are familiar with the experiments by Professor Fcrrier on rabbits and monkeys, by the aid of which he Was enabled to localise the sensory and motor functions in the cerebrum. Now, it came to pa-s that there was a patient in the Regent's Paik Hospital for Epilepsy and Paralysis, a married man, with a family, stricken down with that — heretofore — fatal malndy, tumour on the brain: a malady of the mere existence of which the diagnosis had not presented much difficulty, though, prior to Ferrier's .'plendid researches, it was .>-imply impOb^ible to localise the seat of the tumour. Guided, however, by the unerring hand of science, Dr. Hughes Bennett was so successful in the interpretation of this poor creature's convulsions as to be able to say definitely that the tumour was situated in the ascending frontal convolution of the right hemisphere of the brain. Down tbrough the scalp, the skull, and the dura mater did Mr. Godlee cut to the point indicated by Dr. Bennett — and there was the tumour, the size of a walnut, which was removed withotit difficulty I Surely the moral of this story needs but little insisting on. Here was a mau, who, but for the flood of light cast in his case by the experiments in vivisection of Dr. Ferrier, must infal- libly have perished miserably, and left a widow and orphans to the cold charity of the world. Thanks, however, to those experiments, he has been restored to health, strength, and usefulness; and who shall say lh*t the lives of a thousand rabbits have been wasted in the attainment of so glorious a result ? From time to time we see reports of prosecutions in the police courts of cheesemongers and others for selling as butter a compound known as oleomargarine, butterine, or '• bosh." I was rather amused to see that a large manufac- turer of this material had been endeavouring to convince the Society of Arts that — on the whole — it is rather pre- ferable to pure butter as an article of consumption ; inter alia, keeping better and being much cheaper. Certainly, as described by the lecturer, the " butterine," composed, as it is, mainly ot fresh and sweet animal fat, and manufac- tured under conditions of the most scrupulous cleanliness, should be as good as a very large proportion of, say, the "inferior Dosset " of the uudyiug ilr. Middlewick. For myself, however, I have a weakness for a more primitive article, though I should be very sorry to obtrude this opinion on anyone who preferred a round ot oleomargarined toast. It is related that one ot a party of convives, early in the century, carefully removed all the flies from the punch-bowl, helped himself to punch .... and then re- turned the flies to the bowL " What," exclaimed his next neighbour, " what the doose did you do that for 1 " " WeU," was the reply, " I don't like flies myself, but I didn't know but what you might '. " Jan. 2, IS.-:. J KNOWLEDGE ♦ 13 Taking; up a number of the Qiueii the other day, my eye fell ou an article l>y Lsuly John Manners, on "Some of the Advantages of E:isily Accessible Ueadini; and Eecreatiou Kooius," lhroU|;h which I took the piins to read, to see whetlier its authoress had anything really instructive to s>y upon the subject. I was, I confess, terribly disappointed. Her idea of a reading-room for the industrial classes — or rather of its literary furniture — would seem to be that a very considerable })roportion of the books should be of the " goody-goody," or " I say untoe you, my brethren," order. She gives, however, quite candidly, the name of the highly -respectable tirm of book- sellers whose representative has been her adviser in this matter. Th.it a working man or woman should ever care to know anything of the structure of the Celestial A^'ault and the glories of the illimitable universe ; of the strange story of the manner in which our own earth has developed through untold millions of years ; of the theory of the light- ning flang confesses it to be to hinisf^lf, since it iuvolves disagreement with the distinguished scholar whose "Lectures on the Science of ljan;;uage " led many of us, weary of word-monger.a, for the ilr.st time by pleasant ways into the seemingly arid region of philology, and who has done so much to enkindle interest in the profounder subjects of man's religious development and destiny. But " truth must be preferred to Plato," and the dicta of Profissor Max IMiiller may not pass unchallenged. . In a discursive article under the title " Forgotten Biljle.s,"* a title which, except in the 0])pning sentences, has no relation to the subject-matter, the Professor divides the modern school of inquiry concerning the origin and nature of language, myth and history, into the Historical and the Theoretical, contending that whilst the guiding principle of the former is " learn to understand what is by learning to understand what has been," that of the latter is, as the name given it implies, speculative, "reasoning a jiriori." Professor Max Miiller then shows what snccfss has attended tl'.e one in its endeavour to solve the problem of the origin and growth of language and of religion by the collection and comparison of accessible evidence from the Aryan group of dialects and from the sacred books of both Aryan and Semitic ijations, and what failure has followed the other through its assumptions that interjections and imita- tive sounds are the rudimentary forms of speech, and that the barbaric assumption of life and personality to lifeless things is the foundation of belief in gods and other spiritual being.". The distinction which tlie Profes-or draws between these two schools is artificial ; 'had it any correspondence in fact, the titles given should change places. For, in all its inquiries, the school dubbed Theoretical adopts the scientific method. It works from the more known to the less known, from the familiar to the recondite. It is in bondage to no theories to which the facts it brings to light must also be chained. Embracing man in his tout rnsetn/jli', and un- hampered 'oy limitations of his antiquity, it draws no imagi- nary boundaries such as hem in the so-called Historical School. Its study of man, as myth-maker and fetish wor- shipper, extends faj beyond the relatively late period of Vedic civilisation ; for it the roots of his language lie deejjer than we can fathom, far below the feeders of Proto- Aryan p])eech. (By the way, when may we expect a translation of that, thus far, " forgotten Bible," the " Rig- Vedi," as the Veda facile princeps, to apfiear among the "Sacred Books of the East 1 " It is the Historical School which works on a priori lines, restricting its motto, " Learn to understand what is by learning to understand what has been," to what " has been " up to the Vedic age, but not beyond it. It. is that same school which assumes in man at his lowest a faculty of " apprehending the In- * Vide Nineteenth Century, June, 1S81. u KNOWLEDGE ♦ [Jan. 2, 1885. finite," as if this were a luinial dowry of the soul, and which constructs its pictures of island dwellers to whom the ocean, of valley dwellers to whom the rivers, fed from mysterious sources, the protecting mountains with their inaccessible summits, and the overarching sky wei'e alike the Unknown, becoming in the end their God. And, wiih reluctance be it added, it is the Historical scliojl which, limiting the area of its sympathies, llings the sneer at relics of a prehistoric past with their witnesses to an ascent of man, and mis- represents the anthropologists as making every fact tit into ■their immobile division of the ages of progress. Because, as a young student. Professor Max Miiller witnessed the collapse of the empirical theories of development rife in Germany forty years a^o, he predicts a like fate for the -evolution theories of to-day. JVon sequitur. But the Pro- fessor's prejudices are more damaging to his cause than his prophecies, when, speaking of the anthropological method, he says : " I ditl'er from it ; I have no taste for it. I also think it often very misleading." It may not be to the polemical advantage of the Historical school, although it would prove its candour, that Professor Max Miiller should conquer his distaste for the mass of evidence — much of it confessedly unsavoury — with which the " Theoretical " school supports its arguments. But the facts are there ; facts as to the limitations and feeble vocabularies of Iiarbario peoples ; as to their myths, often coarse and irrational ; as to their religious customs, often disgusting and brutal ; and they must be reckoned with, whether as degradations of nobler endowments and beliefs, or as arrested developments, or as the expression of germinal ideas. Enough has been said to indicate the serious questions ■which are raised by Mr. Lang, and tlie settlement of which will determine whether the exclusive method which he controverts is to give place to that scientific method svhich investigates the history of man in the sum of his customs and beliefs throughout the world from remote times until now. As to the issue there can be no doubt. But in reviewing the manifold subjects of abiding inte- rest so luminously treated by Mr. Lang, it is to be regretted that he has n-jt told us what residuum of truth he recog- nises in the solar theory so far as the results based upon philological evidence, upon terms in Greek and Sanskrit whose cognate likeness is proved, and upon the survival of anthropomorphic notions about nature, are concerned. This we may perhaps learn in. a future volume, when the •case against the comparative mjthologists is stated in more related form. For the work before us is, as hinted at the outset of this notice, a series of article.^ more or less detached, sent out, like scout i, before the regular troops advance in well-ordered array. And in the day of conflict the sun will not stand still upon Gibeon, nor moon in the Valley of Ajalon to give victory to the solar mythologists. Mr. Lang's book is to be commended to the perusal of every student of the science of human progress. SOME BOOKS OX OUR TABLE. Darkness and Damn, the Peaceful Birtli of a New Aye. ■(London : Kegan Paul, Trench,' & Co. 188-4.)— The first part of this altogether remarkable volume mainly consists of a string of vituperation (in pseudo-Euskinesque) of existing social conditions in England. In the fecnnd portion, its author describes, in a species of prophetic vision, how all the evils from which we are now suffering were at once and for ever aVirogated by the simple process of throwing everything into what lawyers call " hotchpot," abolisldng all property, rights, and social distinctions, and making every man in the Briti-h Islands not only as good as every other man, " but," as the Irishman once observed, " a grate dale betther, too." That commercial morality is at a low ebb, that a vast amount of preventible suffering obtains among the working-classes, and that huge fortunes are made by those but ill qualified to benefit either them- selves or others by such acquirement, we are assuredly not concerned to deny. Whether, though. Socialism, pure and simple, aflfords a panacea for such a condition of things, is, we think, in the very last degree doubtful. Meiater Martin. By E. T. A. Hoffman. Edited by Franz Lange, Ph.D. (Liinduu : Symons & Co.) — This quaint romance, giving a vivid picture of media;val Nurem- berg life among the members of a guild, is published in ]\Iessrs. Symons' "German Classics" Series. Professor Lange's notes on the idioms and grammatical construction of the work are one and all to the purpose, and will be found very helpful to the student of German. Ward c£' Lock's Technical Journal. (London : Ward, Lock, k Co.). — Now that the system of apprenticeship is practically as dead as the Heptarchy, sound and efficient technical education has become an imperative necessity, unless, indeed, the English artificer is to yield the palm to his continental competitor, and his preeminence as a work- man is to become a thing of the past. As a contribution towards the solution of this problem, and with a view to affording the means of self-instruction in the various details of the mechanical and industrial arts, Messrs. Ward it Lock have projected the work whose title heads this notice; and, should the remainder fulfil the promise of the first part now before us, it can hardly fail to supply a really valuable addition to the bookshelves of the young architect, engineer, builder, carpenter, metal-worker, manufacturing chemist, textile-worker, gardener — or, in fact, worker with his hands of every sort and description. An encyclnpjedic dictionary of technical terms promises to be a most useful feature in the new journal. It is profusely illustrated. Hints for Invalids and Travellers, witli Observations on the Climate of Lu.vor and Egypt. By T. S. Maclean, M.B. (London : H. K. Lewis. 18^1:). — All who, undeterred by our present little difficulties on the banks of the Nile, would visit the land of the Pharaohs for their health's sake, will find a quantity of useful information in Mr. Maclean's little pamphlet. Tlie Woiks JIanayers Handbook. By Walter S. HuTTOX. (London : Crosby, Lock wood, & Co. 1885.) — Practical from beginning to end, Mr. Huttou has produced a book which cannot fail to prove invaluable to those for whose benefit it has been compiled — the managers of mechanical works of every sort and description. Into its 408 pages he has contrived to pack an amount of informa- tion which is quite remarkable. The work is divided into six sections, dealing, respectively, with (I.) Stationary and Locomotive Steam-engines and Gas-engines ; (II.) Hy- draulic Memoranda ; Pipes, Pumps, and Water-power ; (III.) Mill work : Shafting, Gearing, and Pulleys ; (IV.) Steam Boilers, Safety-vales, and Factory Chimneys; (V.) Heat, Warming and Ventilating ; Melting, Cutting, and Finishing Metals ; Alloys and Casting ; Wheel-cutting and Screw-cutting ; and (VI.) Strength and Weight of Materials, Workshop Data, etc. Under every one of these headings the most recent information is supplied — for example, the weights of metals rolled to gauge are given in the New Imperial Standard Wire-gauge; the Birming- ham Wire-gauge being now abolished by statute. One conspicuous merit in Mr. Hutton's volume, and one which will be readily recognised as such by all who make use of it, is the virtual abolition of formula? from its pages, ami the substitution of rules expressed in words, witli worked - out examples. For there can be no doubt that, rightly or Jan-. ISS').] • KNOWLEDGE . 15 wrongly, the average pi-actical mechanic is repelled by a's n's x's y,/ and sin O. As far as our exaiuiuation has extenJtd, we have found one comparatively trivial mistake, and one oulv, in the whole book. It occurs on p. 385, where the velocity of light is jjiven as r,»l',000 miles a second, it being really only 1SG,G00 miles. yatiiral Iliiitori/ Skvtclws anio»g the Carnivom. By ARTiifK NicOLS, F.G.S., itc. Illustrated. (London : L. Upcott Gill. 1685.) — Obviously possessing a strong per- sonal attachment to animals, Jlr. Xicols cannot fail to inspire his re.idei-s with much of his own enthusiasm. Ohatty in style, commeiidably free from technicalities, and brimming over with anecdote, his book introduces us, as it were, into the inner life of the Carnivora, and invests them with an interest which cannot fail to foster a taste for zoological study in the large numbers who will, we hope and believe, read his latest work. It is ditlicult to avoid contrasting a volume like this, full of iutere.-t from beginning to end, and illustrated with the most life-like engravings, with the wretched compilations of dreary, stereotyped little paragraphs and conventional woodcuts, bearing but the fainte-it resenil)lance to the animals they were fondly imagined to represent, which passed for " Natural History " in the days of our childhood. The Magic Laniein and its Management. By T. C. Hepworth. (London: Chatto i Windus. 1885.) — In the plainest language Mr. Hepworth instructs the beginner in the use of the lantern ; describes the various modes of illumination ; explains the various sorts of screens, opaque and transparent, on which the image is thrown ; tells us how to paint magic-lantern slides and to colour photographs for the same purpose ; gives an account of the manner in which opaque objects are exhibited, and the lantern-microscope is constructed, — in fact, supplies a manual containing every- thing that is needed to make its reader an expert exhibitor of this very amusing and instructive optical instrument. Hoic to Use our Ei/es. By John Browmsc;, F.R. A.S., ifec. (London: Cha'.to it Windus. 1S84.) — A portion of this work appeared in our third volume, but considerable additions have been made to thi.s, and no less than fifty-four illustra- tions now elucidate the text That Mr. Browning's entirely practical brochure supplies a real want may be inferred from the fact that it is the third edition, and fifth thousand of it, which lies before us. It furnishes exactly the kind of information required by every one whose sight is any degree failing ; and to all such we commend its perusal. Short Stories. Selectf-d by J. M. Laine, M.A. (London : Mcffitt it Paige. 1884.) — Anything more hopelessly dreary than a collection of small anecdotal paragraphs when read through from beginning to end it would be hard to imagine. !Mr.Xaine's selection, however, has been made for the benefit of children in the Fifth Standard in Elemen- tary School-i, who are required by the Education Depart- ment to " write from memory the substance of a short story read out twice," and for this purpose it seems suffi- ciently well adapted. What, though, by a wonderful stretch of imagination, he calls " amusing stories," appear to us particularly depressing. Perhapp, though, it isn't very easy to be funny to order— even of " My Loids." A Sketch of the Geology of Suffolk. By J. E. Taylor, Ph.D., F.LS., F.G.S. (SheflSeld 1 Wm. White. 188-i.)— This reprint from " White's History of Suffolk" contains an account at once succinct and complete of the geology of the county of Suffolk. Its physicil structure is described, and the pakeontological charactt-ristios of the various strata treated of. The localities famous for particular fossils are indicated, and, in fact, it may be regarded as a cade mecwn for a geologLst on his first visit to this part of East Anglia. We have also on our ta'jle the Tricyclist, Society, Brad- streel's. The Medical Press and Circidar, The Second A mmal Report of the Metropolitan Public Garden, Boidecard, and Plai/r/round Association, Ciel et Terre, The Doctrine of Life, The Dyer, Sight and Day, Tlie Sidereal Messenger, and Xal'iren. THE FACE OF THE SKY. From Jantaky 2nii to Janvauv KJrii, 1885. By F.R.A.S. SPOTS and f.iculiv, tliough bGcoining nitlier leas freciiiont, sliould bo looked for whenever tho Sun is visible. The niglit sky will bo found pictured in Jfap I. of " Tho Star.s in their Sea.sons." Mercury comes into inferior conjunction with tho Sun on tho :!rd, and becomes a morning star, lie is about as badly placed for tho observer as ho well can be — a remark which ajiplios witli e(|ual force lo Venus. Mars is invisible. Jupiter rises between 8 and i) o'clock when these notes begin. \\y nn'dnight lie is suffieii'iitly high u]) to be well observed, pre.scnting ;i splendid sjiectaelo with adequate telescopic power. Ho is situated to the east of tho star p iu the constellation Leo (" Tlie Stars in their Seasons," Map IV.). Tho phenomena of his satellites are now both numerous and interesting; and, as usual, wo give those happening before 1 a.m. during tho next fortnight. To-nif;ht Satellite It. will disappear in eclipse at 12h. 2(5m. 31s., as will Satellite I. at, 12h. 32m. lOs. p.m. On tho 3rd the shadow of Satellite I. enters on to .Jupiter's face at 9h. tim. p.m., followed by the satellite easting it at lOh. 13m. The egress of the shadow occurs at ]2li. -Ini., that of tho satellite at Ih. 2m. the nest morning. Satellite II. will begin its transit at nine o'clock at night on the 4th, but Jupiter will be so very close to the horizon that the observation of this phenomenon is doubtful. Fifty-eight minutes later, the shadow of the same satellite will leave Jupiter's disc. At lOh. 15m. p.m., Satellite I. will reappear from occuUation by the planet. Satellite III. will reappear from eclipse at lib. 5m. 3O3. ; only, however, to bo occulted at llh. 25m. Finally, the egress of Satellite II. from the f.ace of Jupiter will happen at llh. 55m. p.m. On the 8th the egress of the shadow of Satellite IV. takes place at lOh. 28m. p.m. On the 10th tho shadow of Satellite I. begins its transit at llh. 38m. p.m., followed by Satellite I. itself at half-past 12. On the 11th, Satellite I. will disappear in eclipse at 8h. 53m. 32s. ji.m., but it is very doubtful whether this will bo seen, so close will Jupiter be to the horizon. The shadow of Satellite II. will enter ou to Jupiter's face at 9h. 35in., and that Satellite itself at llh. IPm. Satellite III. will bo eclipsed at llh. 32ni. Gs. ; Satellite I. reappear from occultation at 12h. 2m. p.m., and the egress of the fhadow of Satellite II. take place at 12h. 31m. On the 12th the egress of the shadow of Satellite I. will occur at 8h. 26m., but, for the reason once or twice previously stated, its visibility will be doubtful. The egress of Satellite I. itself takes place at Dh. ICm. On the 13th Satellite II. will reappear from occultation at 8h. 55m. p.m. Lastly, on the 15th, under unfavourable circumstances for the observer. Satellite III. will pass off Jujtiter's face at 8h. Om. p.m. Saturn is visible all night long. His rings are now almost as open as tlicy can be, and it would be hard to imagine a more beautiful spectacle than the planet presents to the possessor of adequate telescopic power. No opportunity should be lost of observing and, wo may add, drawing Saturn under the present exceptionally favourable conditions. He forms a rough isosceles triangle with /? and 'C Tauri ("The Stars in their Seasons" Map I.) Uranus has not yet come fairly into view. Neptune may be found by the observer furnished withasuffieiently large telescope to the S.S.E. of 0 and ? Arietis (same map). The Moon enters her last quarter at 3h. Slj'lim. a.m. on the 8th, and will be new at 8h. 3G'5m. a.m. on the IGth. One occulta- tion of a star only at anything like a convenient hour occurs during the next fourteen days. It happens to-night, when the Cth magni- tude star B.A.C. 2872 will disappear at the Moon's bright limb at 7h. 10m. p.m. at an angle from her vertex of 314°, to reappear at 7h. 3Gm. p.m. at her dark limb at a vertical angle of 283°. The Moon is crossing Cancer to-day, and passes into Leo at four o'clock to-morrow afternoon. From Leo she descends into Sextans at nine o'clock at night on the 4th, to re-emerge in Leo at six o'clock the next morning. She finally quits Loo for Virgo at 6h. 30m. a.m. on the 6th ; and it is 2 p.m. on the 0th before she has completed her passage across this great constella- tion. Entering Libra at tho hour last named, she occupies until 3h. p.m. on the 11th before she reaches tho boundary of the narrow northern strip of Scorpio. This it takes her eleven hours to cross; and at 2h. a.m. on the 12th she enters Ophiuchus. She leaves Ophiuchns for Sagittarius at 8 o'clock the same night ; remains in Sagittarius until 2h. p.m. on the IGth, and then crosses into Capricornus, where we leave her. 16 KNOWLEDGE • [Jan. 2, 1885. " Let Knowledge giow from more to more." — Alfbed Tenntsoh. (hily a small frcportion of Letters received can possibly he in- serted. Correspondents mvst not le offended, there/ore, should tkeir letters not appear. All Editorial conimnntcatio7is shoiild be addressed to the Editor o» Knowledge; all Business conimvnicatimis to the Publisheks, at the Office, 74, Oreat Queen-street, W.C. Ir this is not attended to DELAYS ARISE FOR WHICH THE EdITOB IS NOT RESPONSIBLE. All Semittances, Cheques, end Post Office Orders should le made payable to Messrs. Wyman & Sons. The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents. No ccjumunk-'atioks abe an.'^'beeed ey fost, e"ven thocgb stamped and directed envelope be enclosed. TO OBLIGE Jin. KIXXS. [1347] — 5Ir. Kinns, apparently nnaware that for tlie next few months I shall be in America (whence, however, I continue to con- ductExowLEiiGE in the fnllest sense of the words), writes to mo in considerable dudgeon because of my remarks respecting his views about " iloses and Geology," He wishes me, as I understand him, to withdraw my remark tliat the gentleman who kindly acts for me as editor in my absence, wrote " in good faith " what he said about Mr. Kinns's work. This, I need hardly say, I decline to do. I could not do it without gro.=s untruth, which"jlr. Kinns will excuse me from being guilty of. The Acting Editor has, in the fullest and clearest way, explained that a mistake, and a very remarkable one, which disfigured the first edition of the book and led to his com- ments, has disappeared from the second : and I have pointed out that there is nothing libellous or injiu-ious in saying that a remark- able mistake respecting any particular scientific subject implies Ignorance on that subject at the time when the mistake was made. I am grossly ignorant about a number of scientific subjects, and expect, if (misunderstanding some statement by an expert) I make incorrect remarks on such subjects, to find my ignorance pointed out and corrected. So far from regarding such correction as in- jurious, I recognise it as profitable. Mr.^Kinns, in like manner, owes a debt of gratitude to whomsoever it was who first called his attention to the mistake in his supposition that refraction might bring a heavenly body into view round a whole hemispliere. This enabled him to expunge the mistake from the new edition, and to make quite a little noise over my friend's remarks based, in perfect good faith, on the belief that "the error had not been removed. Why, Mr. Kinns profited by a perfectly splendid opportunity of advertising, for nothing, the increased value of the new edition of his book. He assuredly has had, in the long-run, small reason to complain, but quite altogether and .absolutely the other way about. Then Mr. Kmns wishes me to withdraw my remarks about a certain monstrous miscalculation. Well, I decline to do that either. I have the most perfect recollection of the mistake, which he was good enough to send directly to me— and I am told it is relocated in his book, in later as well as earlier editions. In fact, he himself refers to it in his letters to me. The mistake was this. He found fifteen statements in Genesis about successive creative acts. He found that these could be shown to correspond with !■« ''^ ^'a?PS recognised by various scientific men, writing in different fields of research, as belonging to the past of the earth ; and that these stages, according to the views of certain among these scientific men, could be arranged in the same order as the fifteen corresponding stages which he found in Genesis. Wherefore, he reasoned in this marvellous way;— Fifteen things can bear- ranged in 1,307,074,368,000 different ways ; the odds against a particular arrangement being taken at random are therefore 1,307,674,307,999 to 1. Therefore these are the odds in favour of Mr. Samuel Kinns's theory that the account given in Genesis presented in abstract' the true sequence of events m_ the early history of our earth. The real facts are some- thing like this : — First, not a man of science living would pretend to set in precise order any fifteen, or any ten, or any five stages of the early history of our earth ; secondly the odds would be millions to one against the correctness of any attempt on the part of the whole scientific body of our day to mark out such a sequence as Mr. Kinns has indicated; thirdly, of each of the fifteen Bible statements he uses, it may be said that it will bear from five to twenty other interpretations than that assigned by Mr. Kinn.o. Takii:g on the average the chance that he would be able to fit three statements out of the fifteen with corresponding scientific views as about 4-5 (which is equivalent to making the chance in a single case rather better than 9-lOths), we find the chance of his fitting all fifteen statements in this way, equal to about 64,000 in 100,000, or the odds in favour of his doing so nearly 2 to 1. (Noting Mr. Kinns's keenness in the work I would certainly have backed him at long odds — 100 to 1, at least — to manage it somehoic). This is the chance of Mr. Kinns showing an apparent coincidence between the order of fifteen creative acts recognised by him in Genesis, with fifteen stages (recognised by some men of science) in the past history of the world, and by some of them set — three or four stages at a time, or so — in a certain order, out of which a suitable sequence of the fifteen (that is, suitable for Mr. Kinns's theory) may be constructed. The odds against any sequence thus constructed out of the very imperfect data being right, or anywhere near right, must be millions to one. Thus while the odds are strongly in favour of any one satisfying himself with a solution, who seeks for it as Mr. Kinns has done, the odds are overwhelmingly in favour of the solution so obtained being incorrect. He may be regarded as in a sense resembling Lady Tichborne, seeking for some one to represent her missing son. She did this in such a way that she was almost sure to come across a son in the long run, and that — if she did — she was quite sure to come across the wrong one. Mr. Kinns further wishes me to withdraw my remark that his view with regard to the general question is monstrous. But unfor- tunately the more I think of it, the more monstrous it seems. In effect, he expects us to believe that an inspired writer — it really is a matter of perfect indifference whether Moses, or Samuel, or any one else — wrote an account involving fifteen statements about the past of the earth, in such a vague and unsatisfactory manner, that till Mr. Kinns came along and was good enough to explain m,atters, no one understood what the fifteen statements meant. Why this is almost as monstrous as the belief of the pyramidal folk that an Omniscient Being, with every conceivable way of communicating his will open to him, chose to have the Great Pyramid bnilt at the cost of thousands of innocent lives — cemented with blood, one might say — in order that thousands of years after, when it had lost all the fineness of structural detail which had once characterised it, the pyramid should suggest to a few enthusiasts His plans and purposes, with regard to the whole human race. EicnAED A. Proctor. DICKENS'S STORY LEFT HALF TOLD. [1548]— "J. B.'s" letter (1527, p. 471) about "Dickens's Story Left Half Told" takes so very prosaic a view of the story, that it seems hopeless to attempt to show that Dickens never could have had such a dull plot in his mind. Still less would he have described such a plot as " a powerful one," or again as " difficult to work out." I will note a few of "J. B.'s" mistakes in matters of detail, but 1 have no expectation of convincing him. I do not make a great point of " the sight which solemnified Jasper," &c. ; for I do not know what it was which, startled him so. But I certainly reject "J. B.'s" prosaic interpretation. Possibly some look or expression of countenance showing Drood's real nature, earnest not frivolous, as Jasper and others fancied, may h.ave been meant ; Dicken,s would have made a point of such a detail as that. Neither do I pretend to say, or care to guess, how Jasper's attack was carried out; all that belongs to the common- place sensational part of the story, not to the real interest of the plot. It would have been part of the difficulty of the plot to explain how Drood had been so altered by the effects of the injuries he had received as to be capable of carrying out his plan of keeping close watch, in disguise, on one who knew Drood so well. If " Hunted Down " had been left ui finished, similar objections might have been raised against the true interpretation of that plot, too, — an interpretation which every one who really understood Dickens's wiiys guessed (in its general aspect, though not, of course, in details) from the outset. So with Carton's plan for saving Darnay, — we feel it, know even how it is to bo done, that is, on what general idea the plan turns, yet one could not convince a common- place reader that that was the plan, until or unless he had read on to the end. The way in which, early in the story. Carton asks Darnay if he does not think him unpleasant, satisfies every one who understands Dickens that Carton is to make some great sacri- fice for Darnay. *' J. B." thinks that the attention drawn to Datchcry would have detected Drood had he been disguised in that character. Attention would be drawn to Datchery's jieculiarities, and, therefore, not to. Jan. 1885] ♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 17 but from Datchery's resemblauce to tbo missing mnu. Dickens knew well bow easily a man may bo ilisjjoisod so tbat ovon his own friends sball not know bim, — if ho is discrnisect in such a way tbat attention is directed to peculiarities. Nolo how carefully even the keen Cavaletto had to waich before ho detected the marked features of Uigaud under a comparatively comtnonplaco disguise. "Fancy Drood sauntering about Clois'ierbam with a largo grey wig on I " says '* J. B." Well ! fancy Uigaud-Blandois sauntering before his unondam fellow-prisoner disguised as an elderly man ! I contend, not that no one ever speaks of Drood as dead, but that tbe whole toneof t^rewgious and lu>sa implies that they know bim to be alive. But I cannot make '' J. B." catch tho meaning of this tone, any more than a musician can show a person not possessed of musical knowledge tbat sounds coming from a band contain such and snch tones produced by such and such instruments. " J. B. "agrees with " U. L." tbat the illustrations on tho cover prove nothing, for "Dickens wculd not have published them" if they represent Edwin's escape and reappearance on the scene. Would he not? Have "J. B." or " H. L." never, by chance, seen the covers on the monthly numbers of "Martin Chuzzlowil" and others of his stories, or noticed how much of the development of the story was thus illustrated from the beginning ? Dickens knew that readers not keen enough to see the working of his plot as be went on would find no meaning in such sketches, suggestive though they were to the keener sort. Bnt, fay,9 "J B.," Dickens feared the story was being unfolded too rapidly. That fear was only exprpssed to Miss Hogarth when Datcbery had already appeared on the scene, months after Dickens bad instructed Fildes what to show on tho cover (of course witliout giving Fildes the least inkling as to the meaning of these little I'ictures). By the way, it was I who called attention to tbe significance of Dickens's anxiety. Perhaps " J. B." or "' H. L." can explain why Dickens should have spoken of the " Datchery assumption," if Datchery were not an assumed part, as the detective notion implies ; or why, if Datchery had been .a detective only, Dickens should have felt the least anxiety as to his plot being interpreted. If Datchery were ' only a detective, or indeed were any one bnt Drood, the progress of the plot might have been in any direction whatever; and certainly no light would have been thrown on the mystery. But Dickens knew that the detection of the identity of Datchery and Drood wonld indicate the direction of the plot to the very end. Grewgious is at no time genial, " J. B." thinks. If Grewgions was not a special favourite of Dickens's and meant to be as much liked as Tom Pinch, or even better, I know nothing of Dickens's ways. Tet I cannot recall a single instance in which, when reading bis later novels, I have failed to see from the beginning what Dickens meant each character to be. There were readers of " Our Mntual Friend" so dull as to imagine Silas Wegg a genial character; and such readers doubtless imagine Grewgious not genial : you wonld never persuade them he was one of the kindliest of men. "J. B." and "H. L." both assume that Durdles and Deputy know all about the plot according to my interpretation. On tho con- trary, I doubt if Dickens meant that they should be found to have known anything directly related to it. But Durdles was a secretive person any way, and what be knew he could very well have kept to himself "' for a consideration." "J. B.'s" last remark that Datchery reddened because he stooped may be commended to all who know Dickens's way as an exquisite jest. Dickens would as soon have thought of mentioning that when Datchery stooped, the centre of gravity of his body was displaced, as to have referred — without a special object — to tlie circumstance that "a man of Datchery's age and build" (how mncb is told us on either point, by the way ?) would " redden when he stooped." The stooping and reddening were brought in for a purpose, after Dickens's customary manner. But neither " H. L." nor " J. B." would notice this. The real mystery, I fancy, in regard to " U. L." and " J. B." (and a few others) is, how they can have overlooked ITie real inter- pretation of the story, which once shown seems obWous. But Dickens knew all about this. As he said when the fall of the old house at the close of " Little Dorrit" proved so startling to many that they supposed it was tuggestcd by an event which chanced to occnr about that time. The story was full of indications from tho very beginning that the old house was to fall, yet these indications had been overlooked by most as if they had had no existence. This carelessness Dickens came to regard aa customary, and he trusted in it with confidence. Bat "J. B." wants the explanation of the mystery of Edwin Drood to be "commonplace enough" for his comprehension, and it was Fcarcely a part of Dickens's plan to mak.e the story quite so commonplace as that. It is just such readers who repeat the commonplace notion that Edwin Drood is an uninteresting story. Longfellow better understood bis fellow-poet's work when he pro- notmced it the best thing Dickens had yet done. Thomas Foster. THE 7.0D1.VCAL LlGiri". [lolil]— The Zodiacal Light was seen hero for the lir.sl time this winter on December 13, which is early. It is distinct, brighter than the Milky Way. llAi.LYARns. lV)rni('. Loire Infi'riettre, Franco. OUIl DU.VL BRAIN. [l,")5t>] Your notes in these articles as to Ihe idea that part of our lives have been lived before have interested mo nuieli, as [ have often experienced it, and thought somewhat over tho pheno- mena. In some cases I have been able to trace it to droams (1 dream very vividly, and every night), but only as to places, and then not satisfactorily. The phenoiriena with me are asfollows; — Insteail of jmying attention to what is going on, 1113' mind is oei'upied with something else, and I only hear anrl see, but withotit really jiaying any attention. On suddenly being compelled lo do so, 1 am, as it. were, in a trance or nightmare, feeling that all has passed before is known to me, aUluimjh 1 am unahle to tell wluit is coming. I seem to know, and when come it is as I expected. I have not tried to produce tho effect, but think I could do so. Often when reading, a similar phenomenon takes iilaee. I read, my mind wanders; 1 know nothing of what I have read, but on reading it again I remember 1 have reail it before. It seems to me now, after reading your reniai ks, that one por- tion (tlie lesser, or weaker, or less intelligent) of my Ijniiii takes in w-hat has passed, whilst tho other, which is the higher and more im- portant, is otherwise employed. On the sudden mental exertion to comprehend the matter fully, the lesser communicates to the higher suddenly, like a flash of lightning. John Ale.x. Ollakd. POLITICS IN AMERICA— AM) KLSEWUERE. [1551] — Anent your remarks as to tho different lights in which Americans regard their Pi'esident before and after election, might I venture to draw your attention to the following extr.aot from Mr. Herbert Spencer's last work, " Tho Man versus tho State" ? — Mr. Spencer draws attention to the change of feeling which " comes over constituencies when, from boroughs and counties, their members pass to tho Legislative Chamber." He then pro- ceeds : — "While before them as candidates, they are, by one or other party, jeered at, liinipooned, ' heckled,' and in all ways treated with utter disrespect. But as soon as they assemble at West- minster, thoso against whom taunts and invectives, charges of incompetence and folly, had been showered from ])res3 and ])lat- forni, excite unliTuited faith. Judging from the pr.iyers made to them, there is nothing which their wisdom and their power cannot compass." Human nature is alike all tho world over. No doubt the ovil is far more apparent in the American Presidential election than in our own Parliamentary election ; but I believe that if Englishmen had to elect a President, all the abuse which is now divided among hundreds of Parliamentary candidates would bo centi'ed upon the few Presidential candidates, and that we should bo not one whit better than our "American cousins." A. F. Osborne. Uxbridge, Dec. 19, 1881.. [Admitting fully the truth of what Mr. Herbert Spencer says, no impartial man would contend that anything like the gross per- sonal invective and intrusion into the privacy of a candidate's life that characterises an American I'residential election has ever been found, or would ever for ,an instant be tolerated, in England. — Eo.] THE EYE THE ONLY COLOUR-BOX. [155:i] — An interesting letter on this seeming paradox, from tbe pen of Mr. Cave Thomas, appeared in the penultimate number of Knowledge. In it Mr. Thomas expresses his surprise that meta- physicians have hitherto made so little of this startling scientific fact. It may not bo without interest to the readers of Knowledge to be informed that for many years past I havo been elaborating a system of life and mind, or its strict correlation — the world and man — on tho same principles. This synthesis I term the brain- theory of mind and matter, otherwise hylo-idecilism, hylo-phenome- nalism, autopsism, egoism, or autology. Its stand-point is the old JTC-Socratic Protagorean one which the sophist of Abdera formu- lated in the terms, "Man is tho standard of all things and nothings to man." I go a step further, and say " The univerna is myself," no mind being able to transcend itself, and all the universe of which it can have access to is that "imaginary" ideal or phono- menal one created by its own self-consciousness. This theory, if traced through all its ramifications, will bo found to bo of pro- foundly vital itnportauco in the domain both of speculative and practical science and philosophy. 18 KNOWLEDGE ♦ [Jan. 18fc5 Before closing this letter, may I be allowed to ask for informa- tion, by the editor or other expert in the higher optics, as to tlio present most satisfactory explanation of erect vision, spite of the inversion of object -images on the retina P In a very able article of Blaclncood's Mainninc, so long since as June, 1812, of the Berk- leyan theory of vision and idealism, the reviewer is puzzled by the same anomaly. lie therein invites Sir IJavid Brewster to solve this crux, a solution for which we are still waiting. I c.armot think Kepler's nitioncle, in his " Supplement to Vitellio," at all satis- factory. Robert Lewi.xs, M.D. Army and Xavy Club, Dee. 20, ISSt. [I rather fail to see in what Dr. Lewins's theory differs from that of Herren Fichte, Hegel, & Co. In connection with the para- graph with which the letter above concludes, see p. IfiS of the current volume of Knowledge. — Ed.] THE EFFECT OF TEA— TUE DUALITY OF THE BEAIN. [1553] — I had abstained from taking tea or coffee for nearly a year, but, by w;iy of experiment, 1 took a cup of tea a few days ago at about half-past eight in the evening, the result being that I was in.able to get to sleep until about live the next morning. On the following day I tried the experiment again, taking the tea about tix instead of half-past eight. The result was exactly same. If tea is not injuritjus, sleepless nights are. On the other hand, ] am acquainted with a lady and gentleman who assert that tiiey use tea as a remedy for sleeplessness. If unable to sleep, they rise and make tea, and it never fails to jiroduce the desired result. If constitutions differ thus. How can we all agree ? 'Tis useless, then, to make a fuss On coffee, wine, or tea. An interesting point with regard to the duality of the brain is the fact that, when one leaves a place, one is often conscious of having forgotien something. How common is the expression, " I'm sure I had something else to do." And frequently the journey is over before the other half of the brain enables us to remember ii'hut that " something" is. C. CAKV.-i-WlLSON. IS TEA IXJUraOUS?— VEGETABLES ;■. MEAT. [1E54J — Having made many experiments on mj'self, I am able to say from experience that it is. After giving up tea for a time, I find that when I return to it that its taste is at first unpleasant, and were it not for the sugar and cream wonld be undrinkable. Soon after taking, it acts as an excitant, making me feel very clear mentally, and lit for studious work, and I can work well whilst the excitability lasts. Then follows a feeling of depression, which lasts for a variable time ; during this periotl I am unfit for all work and in a low mood, which nothing but time and exercise will remove. If the tea be taken in the afternoon — say, after 5 p.m. — there is no sleep for me until 2 am. next mom. These effect^-, I must say, seem to wear away as the habit becomes usual. My first experiment, some six years ago, showed that tea is a strong paralysant of the nerve- centres governing the lower extremities. I hati given up tea for a month ; then at the house of an Anglo-Indian, I had some strong Indian tea at G p m., and a cup of black coffee at 10 p.m. I went home at midnight, and found I wa.s intoxicated and had not proper control over my loner limbs. I retired to bed, but did not sleep until 1 a.m. ; I simply laid on my back, thought of nothing, but hummed one refrain over and over again. How I was next day I do not recollect. This and like trials showed me that tea is bad, and I only use it now when out visiting. Let other readers of KxoHLEDGE try the same experiment, and I promise them like results. L. 0'.Shea Dillon, with many others, labour under a wrong idea when they think that vegetarians (so-called) are vegetable-arians. My food, as a non-flesh eater, contains very little greenstuff; peas, be.'jns, lentils, rice, barley and oaten grits are my staple foods, to which I add a little carrot, turnip, and onion. These latter I use for bulk, flavour, and to supply a little vegetable acid. But these grains, with farinaceous puddings and fruit of every kind, fresh and dried, are my chief foods. Cabbage, greens, &c., I do not much use, nor even the potato above once or twice a week, as I can get my nourishment cheaper and less bulky from the cereals an«3 pulses. T. K.'Alunson, L.U.C.P. [There can be no doubt that the flesh-eati'ig races have been the conquerors of the world. It suffices to contrast the pusillanimous vegetarian Hindu with the brave and soldierlike meat-eating Sibb, to seetowliat phytophagism reduces a jieople. We could never have held India for a year, but for the condition to which its predomi- nant races have been reduced by their vegetable die,.. — En.] LETTERS RECEIVED AXD SHORT ANSWERS. CiEoRGE Lacy. I suspect that the reply to your letter has been delayed through great pressure of business. You are, however, entirely in error as to any connection subsisting between the adver- tiser and the Editor or ])roprietor3 of K.NOWI.KDGE. I know nothing of the gentleman to whom you wrote, and have never had the slightest communication, oral or in writing, with him in my life. — G. G. HAED1NG11A.M. Can you give me the approximate date at which you sent the book ? because it has certainly never reached me. Mighty as Newton was as a mathematician and man of science, he was assuredly no authority on any theological question. You know, of course, that ho suffered under mental aberration iii the years lb92 and IGDa ; and it was during this period of temporary insanity that, at Dr. Bentley's request, he wrote his four letters on the existence of the Deity. So, too, his " Observations oa the rrojjheciea of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John" hardly read like the composition of a man in full possession o5 his intellectual faculties. Your hint about the suggested alteration in our way of measuring time shall receive consideration. — FACiEfi.^T. Thanks; the two typographical errata to which you invite attention arc corrected ehewherc. Augite occurs as a trap or intrusive material in metamorphic or any other rock. In the case referred to it must have belonged to the volcanic tufa. You are right in your interpretation of the letters. You can easily construct the diagram for yourself. Describe a circle of one inch in diameter. Call this the earth. Then, with the same centre, describe another circle round this of two inches in diameter to stand for the moon's orbit. Draw any diameter of the earth, and at the extreniity of it draw a tangent to the one-inch circle (of course, at right angles to the diameter). This will obviously cut the outer circle at two points. Then will this tangent represent the horizon of the spectator, and the two places where it cuts the two-inch circle, the distance of the moon from the observer at the time of her rising and setting. While the place where the diameter produced cuts the semicircle shows how far she is from us when overhead. A glance at such a figure without any measurement will suffice. Sir Edmund Beckett's ex- planation rather supplements than contradicts mine. I heartily re- ciprocate your kind wishes. — I!. L. Tidmax. Fit only for the unfortu- nate creatures whose fatuous folly prompts them to believe in so gross an imposture as slate-writing, or (Heaven save the mark ! ) " psychography." As for that most respectable and ingenuous person, Madame Blavatzky, see the Madras Christian CoUcije Matja- zive for November. — A. Le Suer. Thanks for your very useful hint. — Ktima. The meridian of 180° may correspond to either one of two days, for a perfectly obvious reason. See reply to " Istoria," in p. 51.3 of the volume just concluded. — JLD. Note that I spoke of sensations, not of either emotion or volition. But the two last states of consciousness may obviously co-exist, because I may will to knock a man down with whom I am (absolutely simultaneously) angry for a gross insult. Under ordinary circumstances, though, what I may not very scientifically descri'oe as different sorts of consciousness, must be separated from each other by some interval, be it ever so minute. I heartily reciprocate your good wishes. — G.A. M. Too great a heap of matter just now to leave room for reports of lectures. — C. N. You will see from letter 1552, page 17, that Dr. Lewins has already had his own say upon what he claims as his theory, but which is really only a re-state- ment in other words of ideas developed by Berkelej' in this country, and later on by some of the German metaphysicians. — Undek Grad. (L.U.). Your intimation that you "shall have no hesitation in risking, say, a matter of £5 as to the lionu.-Jides oS your contention" is a stupendous puzzle to me. Do you think that the Messrs. Wymans or I am prepared to risk a prosecution under 16 and 17 Vict., c. 110, s. 3, by turning 74, Great Queen- street into a tetting-house ? Heat is nothing but another /oi-Jii of motion. If yon check the rotation of a fly-wheel by a brake or clutch you set up molecular vibration or motion in that brake which constitutes, and becomes apparent as, heat, and, pro tantOy diminishes the motion of the fly-wheel. I am not concerned to defend all that has been written about the retardation of the rate of the earth's axial rotation, for the simple reason that, in the existing condition of our knowledge, no jiroo/ whatever exists of such retardation. Its assumption serves to explain certain other phenomena; but that is a very different thing indeed. Jax. 16^5] • KNOWLEDGE 19 (!?iii- InbrntoiG' ^Column. So great U the numler of inventions ncir pntcnfed that inanygO'd things are eonrparatiicly lost in (he ci-ci(ure ; the agr^ncies of denudation avail them- selves of the oppoi tunity, and soon the rocks along the " anticline" are eroded and a valley is formed (Fig. 2). Sub.icquent earth-movements have, in the case of Chainwood, converted the anticlinal line into a line of fault also. The beds have been there cracked, and the strata on the eastern side have slipped down at least 500 ft. Yet no precipice of .'"lOO ft. altitude divides the eastern half of the Forest from the western. For again the levelling agencies of rain and frost and ice have acted most on the most elevated portion (the western half), and reduced the whole to tolerable evenness. It is most interesting to find, as the geological surveyors have recently done in the " rainless " tracts of the western part of the United States, faults really marked by terraces many miles in length ; but here, in England, the geolcgsi gets no such indications of "growing faults." In seeking for the conditions under which the stratified rocks of Cliainwood were dipo^ited, we must study modern volcanic districts, and in the Plilegr;ean fields, west of Naples, we have a scene probably not much unlike that presented by Charnwood many millions of years ago. Here numerous small cones have ejected enormous quantities of scoria-, lapilli, and dust-, which form a well-stratified flepo.sit of considerable thickness, covering many square miles. Such was probably the state of the Charnwood area in Pre- C'ambrian times. The erujitions took place chiefly in the nortli-westeni corner, near Whitwick, where several cratns must Lave discharged steam and ashes. " The lowness of the hills and porosity of their materials would be unfavour- able to rivers ; the ash would settle down in the quiet waters of lakes or lagoons, little rolled, or be spread out upon the jilain." As to the absence of fossils, we know that the organic nature of the only su|iposed Pre Cam- brian fossil — the famous Eozoon — is now strongly ques- tioned, so that their absence in the Pre Cambrian slates of Charnwood need not surprise us ; but, in addition, it is plain that the continual showers of hot ashes from the volcanoes then in action here would be inimical to life, whether on the neighbouring land or in the waters. (To be continued.) There lies before us a record of the splendid services rendered, and the gallant rescues effected, by the boats of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution durin;^ the year which has just closed. From it we gather that 7S0 lives have been saved through the instru- mentality of the Society during the past twelve months, and 31,:ii:i since its foundation. In order to carry on this great work, which is second to none in importance, and to maintain in eflBciency their fleet ol 284 boats, the committee maVe a strong appeal to the public for help, feeling assured that that appeal will not be mado in rain. Contributions are received by all the London and Country Bankers, and by the Secretary, Charles Dibdin, Esq., 14, John- street, Adelphi, \V. 24 ♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ [Jan. 9, U THE EARTH'S SHAPE AND MOTIONS. By Eichard A. Proctor. {Contimied from p. 502, Vol. 17.) IN nearly all works on astronomy, the Ptolemaic system of the universe is describe d and illustrated. Juy Tycho Brahe, according to which the earth was replaced at the cen're of the universe, the sun circling round v, but, being himself the centre of all the planetary motions, Tycho was unfortunate in coming after Copernicus. Had he lived a few centuries earlier, his theory would most probably have found acceptance, and, had it once been established, Copernicus would have found it very dif- ficult to establish his own views. I have no hesitation in pronouncing the Tychonic system a masterpiece of inge- nuity. It accounts quite as well as the Copernican for all the celestial motions known in Tycho's day. It required no modification other than one reeembling that by which Kepler improved the Copernican theory, to account for observed motions as exactly as on the Keplerian theory. For the oty> cts observed, if tlid sun travelled in an ellipse roiuid the earth, and the planets, in their proper ellipses, round the sun, would be exactly the same as those ob- served if the sun were the centre of all the motions, the earth travelling in itn i)ropcr ellipse about him. And there was this furtlier pi'int in favour of the Tychonic system — that it got rid of the great difficulty (pointed out by Brahi himself) that if the earth circled in an enormous orbit round the sun, the stars ought to be seen to shift in position unless their distances were inconceivably great. So that, as a matter of fact, the Copernican theory had nothing in its favour but the great suiieriority in the sun's volume -nhich was suspected even in Tycho Brahe's day. So far as this superioiity rendered it likely that the sun and not the earth, was the centre of the universe, the theory of Copernicus seemed the better. So far as the point considered in the last sentence of the preceding para graph was concerned, the theory of Tycho Brahd seemed the better. Kepler, by changing the circles of Copernicus into ellipses, did not alter the relative position of the two theories, since his ellipses were quite as available for the Tychonic system as for the Copernican. It was only when Kewton established the theory of gravi tation that the Copernico- Keplerian theories which had been already adopted could be said to have been demon- strated. Into the proof of universal gravitation it would be out of place to enter here. Suffice it to say that the proof was made com])lete even by Newton himself, though since his days a thousand new evidences have been revealed which have placed the theory absolutely beyond quebtion, save by those too ignorant to understand the matter. It will be seen at once how it affects the question which had been at issue between Tycho and the Copernicans. Obviously if the sun is the centre of the planetary motions, he, and not the earth, is the overruling attractive body ; the earth, then, must travel around him, and not he around the earth. But although Newton, in establishing the law of gravity, had established the Copernican system, the most striking proof of that system was that obtained when Bradley discovered and explained the aberration of light. (To he continued.) DIXOSAITRS.* THE first naturalists who described reptiles as crawling animals would certainly have modified the opinion that they expressed had they known the strange creatures whose history we are about to sketch. These animals, which are designated as ornithosceliaiis or dinosaurians, partake, by certain characteristics of their organisation, of the nature of mammals, bird?, and reptiles properly so called, while at the same time exhibiting cha- racters that are proper to themselves. They seem to bridge over the gap which in present nature separates the most perfect of the reptiles, the crocodiles and the tortoises, from the lower mammals— the marsupials— and from such birds as the ostrich, emu, and cassowary. They are so far re- moved from the reptiles that we have to form a distmct subclass for them equal in value to that which is admitted for reptiles of the present time. The differences that they present from our reptiles are much greater than those that we find between tortoises and serpents, for example, to merely cite the two extreme terms of the series. 'We know nothing of the dino.5aurs except their skeleton. It is probable that if it were permitted us * Science et Nature. 26 KNOWLEDGE ♦ [Jan. 9, 1885. to know what their organisation was, how their circulation was effected, and what their mode of development was, we sliould not hesitate to put them into a class intermediate between that of the mammals and birds and that of the reptiles properly so called. It was toward 1820 that Gideon Mantell found the first bones of dinosaurians in the midst of Tilgate forest, I^le of Wight, in strata which arc referred to the lower portion of the Cretaceous formation, and which are terrestrial and fresh-water ones that mark a transition from the Jurassic to the Cretaceous. These bones, which were very incomplete, were referred by Mantell to an animal of great .size, which he called an igiianodon, as the teeth ofTered certain analogies, as regards form, with those of a lizard of the present time called the iguana. Since that epoch, and especially f-ince a few years back, our knowledge concerning the dino.saurshas peculiarly increased, and we are beginning to get a glimpse, among these animals, of very different types, which indicate orders just as distinct as are those of the pacliyderms, ruminants, and carnivora among mammals. Upon the sides of the Rocky Mountains, in the United Htates, we find sti-ata which can be followed for several iinndred miles in extent, and which have yielded for the in- vestigation of paleontologists a small marsupial, remains of Jilies, remains of pterodactyls, crocodiles, and tortoises, and especially an enormous quantity of bones of gigantic dino- saurs. We Imve here a true bone-yaid in which lie buried, pellnielj, the most curious and strange forms of all the animals that the ancient ages have bequeathed to u^. It is to the admirable researches of Marsh and Cope that we owe •Dur knowledge of a fauna that has entirely disappeared. Ouided liy the two great laws of correlation of forms and subordination of characters — laws which we owe to the in- romparable genius of Cuvier, and which, like Ariadne's thread, permit u.s to find our way ,in the inextricable labyrinth that is presented by the forms of extinct animals — these two learned American paleontologist.s have evi ked an entirely new world, and brought up before us the g nearest the polar constellation is numbered 2, to Argo, the Ship, which being the farthest from the pole of all those included in this series of maps is numbered 45, the last number in our list. The constellations are also taken around the pole in the order of their right ascension, — or in the direction in which the hands of a watch move, around the Nirth Pole, which in the southern skies means from right to left. The constellations included in the set of maps are numbered throughout as follows : — 1. Ursa 3/tjior, the Little Bear (a, the Pole Star). 2. Draco, the Dragon (a, Thuhan) 3. Cepheus, King Cephcus. 4. Cassiopeia, the Lady in the Cl.air. 5. Per^evs, the Champion (/?, Algol, famous variable). 6. Auriga, the Charioteer (a, Capella) 7. Ursa ilajor, the Greater Bear {a, /3, the Pointers). 8. Canes Venalici, the Hunting Dogs (n. Cor CaroH). 9. Covia Berenices, i^ueen Berenice's Hair. 10. Bootes, the Herdsman (a, Arcturus). 11. Corona Borealis, the Nor- thern Crown. 12. Serpens, the Serpent. 13. HercuUs, the Kneele.r. 14. Lyra, the Lyre (a, Vega). 15. Cygnns, the Swan (a, Arided ; (i, Albires), 16. Pega!,us, the Winged Horse. 17. Andromeda, the Chained Lady. 18. Triangula, the Triangles. 19. Aries, the Ram. 20. Taurus, the Bull {a, Alde- huran ; 7], Alcyone, chief Pleiad). 21. Gemini, the Twins (a. Castor ; p, Pollux). 22. Cancer, the Crab (the cluster is the Beehive). 23. Leo, the Lion (a, Regulus). 24. Virgo, the Virgin (o, Spica). 25. Libra, the Scales. 26. Ophiuchus, the Serpent Holder. 27. Aqnila,the Eagle {a,Altair). 28. Delphinus, the Dolphin. 29. Aquarius,iiieWater Carrier. 30. Pisces, the Fishes. 31. Cetus, the Sea Monster (o, ilira, remarkable va- riable) . 32. JEridanus, the River. 33. Orion, the Giant Hunter (a, Belelgcux ; /3, Bigel). 34. Canis Minor, the Lesser Pog (a, Procyon). 35. Hydra, the Sea Serpent (a, Alpha'd). 36. Crater, the Cup (o, AU.es). 37. Corrus, the Crow. 38. Scorpio, the Scorpion (o, Antares). 39. Sagittarius, the Archer. 40. Capricornus, the Sea Goat. 41. Piscis Australis, the iSou- them Fish (a, Fomal- haut). 42. Lepus, the Hare. 43. Cotumba, the Dove. 44. Canis llajor, the Greater Dog (a, i^irius). 45. Argo, the Ship. An interesting article on " The Development of the British Coal- Pield" (which should be read in its entirety) appears in the January issue of the Manufacttirer. Jan. 9, 1885.] KNOWLEDGE 31 XIGHT SKY FOR JANUARY (First Map of Paik), Showing the heavens as they appear at the following hours : — January 7 at 10 o'clock. January 10 at Of o'clock. January 14 at 9^ o'clock. January 18 at 9{ o'clock. January 22 at 9 o'clock. January 25 at h^ o'clock. January 29 at 8J o'clock. February 2 at 8i o'clock. February G at 8 o'clock. THE TOUXG ELECTRICIAN. By W. Slingo. THE study of electricity has of late years increased so extens-ively that there is scarcely a youth who has not, to a greater or less extent, some acquaintance ■with it. There is, too, every prospect that as time goes on, the Eulject will still further increase in po])ularity. As, however, jihysical science i.s based upon experiment, it follows that to gain anything more than tlje merest smattering of the subject, something beyond a few hazy notions culltd from indifferent sources is essential. It is necessary, as niucli so, perhap.s, as in' any ether subject, that the study of the science should be practical, and that experiments should be worked to prove the various points laid down. 1 know of no better exercise than having a- certain law in mind to devise apparatus in some form or other to prove its tiuth. But to the ttudent who attempts unaided to unravel for himself lh& mysteries of electrical science, obstacles present themselves at every step. Books there are in shoals to teach him the ).rinciples and applications of electricity ; some, too, describe- in greater or lei-s detail the construction of the spparatUR tmplojed ; but he will look in vain for a work theoietically reliable, and, at the same time, mechanically explicit. Iii ♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ [Jan. 9, 1885. other words, if he desires to make his own apparatus, and to perform his own experiments, he is left, too mucli to his own resources, or to the tender mercies of shopkeepers who want their " shent per shent." It is, however, very certain that the expenditure of money upuu " cheap " (and exceedingly nasty) apparatus is a mistike. If economy be a material consideration, far better would it be to become one's own mechanic, or even to purcliase the parts and put them together properly. The necessitous, however, are not the only students who find pleasure or sa'isfaction in constructing apparatus for them- selves, for there is a solid gratification in working experi- ments with home-made instruments. Coupled with this gratification, is the assurance that the individual store of knowledge is being considerably augmented. Home-made apparatus should be, and often is, far .superior to a large proportion of that which is exposed for sale in shop windows. These remarks will render apparent my reason for undertaking this series of papers, iu which it will be my object to enable my readers to make such apparatus as may hi necessary to explain the various laws and applications of electricity, and to aflTord to the amateur a source of pleasurable employment not altogether devoid of intel- lectual profit. Points of theory will, as far as practicable, be eschewed. The plan will rather be to euuuciate the laws generally accepted, and then to describe systematically the manufacture and application of such apparatus as may help to explain or verify the law. In order to render the work as complete iu itself as pos.sible, I purpose commencing with the more rudimentary portions of the subject, and then by following out a specie.^ of evolution in electrical instrument making, to attempt ultimately some of the most delicate and, withal, the most interesting pieces of appa- ratus conceivable. It is only by practical experience that we become ac- quainted with the various little details in construction e.ssential to tlie good and reliable working of the apparatus. To work well, apparatus should be made well, and we might just as feasibly expect a wooden horse to carry a man across the country as to expect a clumsily or care- iessly-made piece of apparatus to behave as an orderly and well-conducted piece of machinery should do. There are doubtless some parts of various instruments which the majority of amateurs could hardly hope to succeed in njakicg. Tlii.s, however, need not prevent them making all that it is possible for them to do, but when they find it necessary to call upon profe.ssional skiU, let them be sure that they get it ; and this they can only rely u])on by going to a good establishment. Befoi-e the student is able to prepare any experiments, it is necessary that he should provide himself with a few tools and sundries which be will require more or less frequently. Let us first, then, decide upon a small stock- in-trade, and in doing so, let us bear in mind that we are preparing for a series of experiments in the department of " frictional " or " static " electricity. Ex. I. — One of the first necessities is an insulating varnish. This may be prepared in a small necked, stoppered glnss bottle of about 12 oz. capacity. Into this put about half-a-pint of methylated spirit, and in that dissolve shellac (previously broken into small )iieces) until it assumes a consistency similar to that of ordinary commercial gum. Shellac is an exceedingly useful material, and a quantity of it, say a pound, should be kept on hand. The solution of the lac takes a day or two. When water is used as a solvent (not that water is applicable in this particular case), we may, generally speaking, increase the rate of solu- tion by applying heat ; but the spirit is too volatile for this to be done, and we must therefore be satisfied with such speed as we may get. When thus prepared, it is carefully stoppered and put away in a cool place to be called upon when required. It is sometimes said that the varnish will not keep, and that the spirit will evaporate; but I have some by me which I made two or three years ago, and which is as good now as when it was first made. Every- thing depends on the stopper. If it fits well it will prevent evaporation, and the partial solidification of the little varnish that happens to find its way into the neck should make good any shortcoming on the part of the stopper. A glass stopper is preferable to a cork, because the latter would very speedily get fixed irreuiovably. Shellac varnish answers best when used thin. If too thick the outer film is deprived of its spirit, and becomes practically solid before the spirit associated with the subjacent lac has had time to evaporate. Consequently a very long time is likely to elapse before the insulating coating becomes thoroughly dry and set. When a coating of considerable thickness is required, it is much the better plan to apply a succession of thin layers, allowing each one to dry before the succeeding one is applied. A little vermilion added to the varnish imparts a beautiful glossy colour, and such a varnish is far preferable to ordinary sealing-wax varnish, being so much purer. Shellac varnish is applied by a brush, which so long as it is kept clean may be allowed to dry after having been used. Immersion in the solution for half an hour or so will restore its pliability. Ex. II. — Another insulator frequently required is paraffin- wax. This is a white, solid substance, to be by no means confused with paraffin-oil. W^hen used, it is applied in the liquid state, and allowed to cool, which it does very speedily. As it is volatile, it is best not to raise it to too high a tem- perature when melting. The melting is generally accom- plished by heating the wax in a small tin box, or even a saucer, over a spirit or Buusen flame. Substances to bo coated with paiaffiu require, generally speaking, to be immersed in the molten wax. Sometimes a difl'erent course is pursued, but reference will be made to this when occasion requires. Ex. III. — As a solid suspending insulator, nothing is superior to silk fibre, a small quantity of which will prove useful. Silk-thread and narrow silk-ribbon will also be requisitioned occasionally. The colour is practically immaterial. Ex. IV. — Glass is, of all insulat..irs, the one most generally employed when strength is a necessary quality ; and half a pound of quarter-inch and a like quantity of half-inch tubing will be certain to prove useful. " Com- bustion," or hard flint glass, tubing (pale green in colour) is preferable to the soft tubing for straight insulators ; but, where they are to be bent, the softer kind must, generally speaking, be resorted to. A small quantity of glass rod, quarter to half an inch iu diameter, will also prove useful. (To he continiicil.) Patents. — The number of applicants for Letters Patent during the year just ended amounted to 17,110. Bankruptcies is 1881. — NotwitVistanding tlie fact that the past year has been one of universal depression, the dccrcaso in the number of bankruptcies has been most remarkable. In 1S83 the number ^a^-etted for England and Wales was 10,183 ; last year there were only 3,721 persons declared bankrupt, or barely a third of the number of the previous year. In this statement of ntlaiis there must be much that stands to the credit of the new Bankruptcy Act, for everything else has favoured an increase of bankruptcies. Whatever room there may be for improvement in details, it is very obvious that the new Bankruptcy Act is a success. Jax. 9, 1865.] ♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 33 etiitorial »go6£Jip. Since the second paragrnph in this Gossip, on ]\ li* was ■written 1 grieve to hear thut the subject of tlic l>rilliant operation there referred to has died. Inasmuch, liowevcr, as his death was uot referable to its performance, tlie moral to be derived from the whole history is in no way invalidated. Os' the first day of the present year the Astronomer Eoyal commenced the experiment of beginningthe astronomi- cal day at the same instant as the civil day, i.e. at the stroke of midnight of Dec. 31, 18S4, instead of, as heretofore, at noon on Jan. 1. This was, of course, done in compli- ance with the decision come to by the International Prime Meridian Conference, on Nov. 1, ult. The second recom- mendation of the Conference, that the hours should bo reckoned uninterruptedly from Oh. to 2 Ih. had (as is pretty well-known) long previously been adopted at the Royal Obser- vatory, the public dial at which has for some years indicated time in this fashion. It is much to be desired that this method of counting the hours should come into general use : which it certainly might do at com- paratively little cost and trouble. The sole alteration absolutely necessary in our exi^ting clock and watch faces ■would be the painting of the hours 13, 14, 15, 10, &c., under (or over) the 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. I cannot help thinking that any enterprising watchmaker who would undertake either to supply fresh dials or alter existing ones, as suggested, at a cheap rate, might benefit himself, as well as the general public, very materially in this way. As for the cotwenience of the 24-hour reckoning, and the comparative immunity it affords from all chance of mistake, only those who employ it can appreciate it. Notably would it simplify " Bradshaw " (and other work.s in which time-tables form an element) very mateiially indeed, the attempted distinction between a.m. and p.m. in main-line trains being most confusirg. It is .surprising how soon the seeming oddness of the numeration wears off. I have no doubt that in a sinsle week's time it would t-ecm as natural to people to talk of dining at 19h. 30m. as it now does of breakfasting at nine or lunching at half-past one. It may be only a coincidence, but it struck me as odd to read of four consecutive accidents in different parts of England from the fall of rocks in quarries, hajipening con- currently with the terrible earthquake disturbances in Spain. May it not possiVjly be that the vibrations or undulations set up from the original centre of disturbance travelled across this country in so attenuated a form as to be imper- ceptible to the senses of those not specially on the watch for them, and yet with sutficient force to loosen fissured or overhanging strata 1 I SEE that a Committee has been appointed to consider the question of the design and printing of the whole series of British postage stamps. As they must, almost as a matter of course, recommend a very consideraljle altera- tion of the present unmeaning serie.^, hard enough to dis- tinguish in daylight, and indefinitely more so by lamplight, it is greatly to be hoped that they will urge upon the authorities the wisdom of engraving a portrait of the Queen upon the fresh issue. Why should we go on falsi- fying history, by sending forth to the world the picture of a girl of nineteen, as the likeness of a lady who is a great- grandmother ! ? When we hear of a semi - barbarian Emperor having it announced that he has tat down to meat, and that now all other earthly rulers may go to dinner, we laugh at the savage and worse than childish conceit which prompts the jtroclamation. Do the oll'icials who are responsililo for the present tjueen's head upon our stani]>'<, appeal — or try to appeal — to a similar barmaid typo of v.inity in their Sovereign, by representing her of the same age as her own grandchildren 1 I HAVE received a jiapcr by Messrs. Balfour Stewart and W. Lant Carpenter, which was read before; the Royal Society on May 1, ISSl, entitled, "A Comparison between apparent In( (lualities of Short Period in Sun-spot Areas and in Diurnal Temperature Ranges at Toronto and Kew," in which the authors exj)rei-s their conviction that some evi- dence exists that " Sun-spot ineipialities around 21 and 2C days (whether apparent or real), seem to correspond closely in period with terrestrial inequalities as exhibited by the daily temperature range at Toronto and at Kew." That the results differ strangely for the two stations is scarcely worth mentioning ! ; and I can only say that were I a magistrate, I should be very sorry indeed to send a tramp to gaol for a week's hard labour upon such " evidence " as Messrs. Stewart and Carpenter adduce. Their report, however, was originally made to that most paltry scientific sham, the " Solar Phy.sics Committee " ; which must con- tinue to give some raison d'etre, or the money grant to it, of which the wretched tax-payer's pocket is annually picked, would, perforce, be withdrawn. iKtbieUiS* SOME BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. Slate Measures for the Prevention of Poverty, War, and Pestilence. By a DocTori op Medicine. (London : E. Truelove. 1885. ) — Our author's ideas as to the best method of stemming the tide of poverty which is fiouding tlie land are, in effect, those of that unjustly maligned and much misunderstooing, and, at the same time, absolutely therapeutic. The very moderate price at which this volume is issued places it within the reach of all who are interested in its contents : in which category every man or woman who has passed the age of fifty may fairly be included. Tiie Inspiral'wn of tltc Bible. By H. L. Hastings. (London : S. Bagster i Sons.)— We must confess our astonishment at seeing the name of so well-known and high-cla-s a firm as that of the Messrs. Bagsters on the title page of such a collection of mere vulgar rant as this tract. The Fern Portfolio. By Francis George Heath. (London : Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 1885.) — We have from time to time noticed isolated parts of this most beautiful work as they have reached us, and are now glad to find it issued in one volume by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The publishing committee of that Society may well congratulate itself on having been the means of bringing before the public a book which many persons will be glad to have, if it be only as an ornament to the drawing-room table. Superadded, how- ever, to its merely ornamental characteristics is the meiit it possesses of being the most absolutely lifelike reproduction of all the species of British ferns that has ever been pub- lished. As atlording the means of identifying our Briiish ferns it is quite unsurpassable, and fhould, as it doubtless will, be forthwith procured by every one who delights in the grace and beauty of the Filices of these islands. A Dictionary of Xationcl Tiiogrnphij. Edited by Leslie Stephen. Vol.1. (London : Smith, Elder, i- Co. 188.3.) — At once concise and full, containing everything essential to be known, without a superfluous line, the articles which make up Mr. Leslie Stephen's first volume may unhesi- tatingly be pronounced to be models of biographical literature. The most out-of-the-way sources of information appear to have been ransacked to provide the material for this fine work, and it mav sutEce to show the catholic spirit in which it has been undertaken, if we mention that in the present volume (extending from Abbadie to Anne) we find notices of lives of such diversity as those of King JEifred and Bishop Acca side by side with those of Gilbert A'B^ckctt, the famous comic writer, and Jerry Abershaw, the notorious highwayman of the last century. The name of the editor, and the list of contributors pre- fixed to the volume before us, may of themselves be accepted as an earnest of the manner in which ]Mr. Stephen's scheme will be carried out. Assuredly if the future volumes of the series fulfil the promise of the jjresent one, Englishmen will ultimately possess a biographical dictionary which will suffer nothing from comparison with anything that has previously been attempted in any language. The Storfi of a Great Delusion. By Willi.am White. (London: E. W.Allen. 188.5) — Forly-five Years of Regis- tration Statistics, proving Vaccination to he both Useless and Danc/erous. By A. Pv. Wallace, LL. D. (London: E. W. Allen. 188.5 ) — We class these works toaether hesause they have a common aim — that of discrediting vaccination. It is simplj' pitiable to find a man of Dr. Wallace's intellectual ability in such company. He deals with statistics after the fashion of the small fanatical horde with whom he has thrown in his lot ; and while admitting that it is diflicult or impossible to tell whether a person who has died from small-pox has been vaccinated or not, tacitly assumes that every such person has been vaccinated. Mr. White proceeds on the time-honoured principle, " No case : abuse plaintiff's attorney," and alleges that Jenner was a dishonest hypocrite — in fact, little better than a rascal. This is a species of argument (?) which m:iy satisfy a Leicester mob ; it is hardly one to influence the candid and dispassionate inquirer. Scientific Theology. By Thomas Walter Barber. (London': Elliot Stock. 1884.)— Mr. Barber travels, to some extent, along the lines of Professor Drummond's " Natural Law in the Spiritual World," in the work lying before us; but his knowledge of the latest results of scientific research, unfortunately, scarcely equals that of the author of the able essay referred to. For example, he hardly seems to grasp the modern doctrine of energy in its entirety. But his tolerance is admiraVile, and he is very far indeed from condemning the philosophic doubter to ever- lasting fire. Readers may differ from him in some of his conclusions, but they will all admit the large charity with which such conclusions are advanced. The Student's Elements of Geology. By Sir Charles Lyell, Birt , F.R.S. Fourth Edition^ Revised, by P. Martin Duncan, F.R.S. (London : John Murray. 188.5).— Tbere is small need to occupy space by any attempted introduc- tion of a work which has long been recognised as absolutely indispensable to every student of geology. The fir.~t edi- tion of the volume lying before us appeared in 1871, and was recast by its great and lamented author from his classical " Manual of Elementary Geology." The second edition appeared in 187-4, the third in 1878, and now the exhaustinn of the last one has rendered the proiluction of this fourth edition imperative, and to Professor Duncan has been entrusted the task of its revision, and the bringing of the information it is intended to imjart down to the latest date. Sir Charles Lyell's pleasantly-written and profusely-illiistiated work has suffered nothing at the hands of its latest editor, who seems to have successfully embodied the latest results of geological investigation in such addi- tions as he has made. This is emphatically a volume which no student of geology can afford to be without. Tlie Year-Booh of Photography, and Photographic A'eios Almanac for 1885. Edited by Tnos Bolas, F.O.S. (London: Piper & Carter). — By excellent systematic arrangement, and by the use of small tyi'e, Mr. Bolas has contrived to pack an amount of information between the covers of this year-book which may be fairly described as astonishing. Every improvement which has been made either in apparatus or photographic processes during the past twelve months will be found here recorded. Amateur and professional will alike discover that his wants are supplied. The astronomer will find something about stellar photography ; the very beginner directions how to test a lens. Every possessor of a camera will, merely as a matter of course, buy this book. Transit Tables for 1885, &.C. By L.iTiMER Clark, M.I.CE. (London: E. &. F. N. S|)on. 1885.)— Fur- nished with one of Mr. Latimer Clark's excellent and in- expeusive transit instruments, and the little volume of tables whose title heads this notice, the most inexperienced observer may speedily be in a position to determine his time within less than a'half-second. The a'lvanta«e of this in outlying places must be very obvious indeed. Londoners ' have the Great Clock at Westminster to which to a])pea], Jan-. 9, 1885.1 ♦ KNOWLEDGE 35 but the dweller on Salisbury Plain or Caunock Cliase may have many miles to travel ere he reaches a postctlice to which Greenwich time is flashetl. Moreover, merely as an introduction to practic.il astronomy, the use of the transit instrument possesse.s both value and interest Our Camp. The Christmas number of the Ci/cUsl. (London : Ililfe it Sons.) — If it be objected that our notice of this Christmas number apjears full late, we may perhaps urge that this is of the less importance, since by this time every cyclist in the kingdom has probably bought and had his shilling's worth of laughter out of " Our Camp." It con- tains three large cartoons filled with portraits of everybody who is anybody in the wheel world. The supposititious pages froui the different cycling periodicals are clever cari- catures. The Trict/clist. (London : Iliffe & Sons.) — We mention this paper here inasmuch as a series of articles on tricycle touring has just been commenced in its columns, which Eupply really valuable information to those about to employ this very agreeable means of familiarising them- eelvfs with the beauties of their own country. The Comprehenscia Series. Letters to a Friend in Fleet- street, lied, Bhte, mid Yellotr. (London.) — This is "a familiar description of a lecture delivered before the Balloon Society," which is a])parently a species of refuge for the soientidc destitute. \Ve hope that the society was edified. For ourselves the author pa.ssc3 our " comprehenscion " altogether. Ward and Lock's Tecimieal Journal. Part II. (London: Ward, Lock, i Co.). — The second part of this serial fully sustains the promise of the first There can be no doubt as to the place the work will ultimately take in technical literature. We have also on our table The Procerdimjs of the Academy of Sat lira I Sciences of Phitadelphia. del ei Terre, Brad- street's, TheSeason, Sunday Talk, The Launceston {Australia) Examiner, Who made the Kew Testament 1 The Medical Press and Circular, and from Messr.s. Cassell it Ci>. their Household Guide, The Countries of the World, Cassell's Popular Gar denin;!, The Book of Health, European Butter- iHes and Moths, and The Librartj of EnrjJish Literature. iHiiSrrllanca. Railways in Europe. — It ia computed that there were 52,000 locomotives upon the railways of Europe in 1882. The number of passengers carried during the year was 3,371,000,000, while the aggregate weight of goods carried was 715,000,000 tons. The Qceen has been pleased to present to the funds of the Booksellers' Provident Institution, through Sir Henry Ponsonby, CC.B., a donation of £20. Her Majesty has been the Patron of the Society since the year 18G8. Messrs. Wvman & Sons are on the point of issuing a remarkable Wttle brochure under the title of " The Siege of London," by " Pos- teritas." We understand that there is a probability that the work will canse a sensation, as it is in the nature of a warning and a [(Tophecy. Foca years ago there was but one telegraph line in China, namely, Shanghai, to the sea. Now the capital of Southern China is joined with the metropolis in the north ; and as Canton has been put in communication by telegraph with the frontier of Tonquin, the tele- graph now stretches in an unbroken line from Pekin in the north to the most southern boundary of the Chinese Empire, and a message either from London or Pekin might reach the headquarters of the Chinese forces on the Tonquin frontier in a few hours. We have received from Messrs. Davidson & Co., of Jewin-street, some remarkably effective relief cards, which form pretty and novel toys if inserted in wooden stands, or serve capitally to fill a juvenile scrap-book. They chiefly represent the old nursery legends, which are illustrated in coloured bas-relief. Some larger rmes depict fire-engines, a fire-escape, and an omnibus. They are all spirited, artistic, and woiulerfiilly clu'n]i, and are something (piito new for the youngsters. Wk have also received from Messrs. Unwin Hrothers, Phillips's Acrostic Loto, a gamo in which instruction is combined with amusement to an extent that might almost j\istify its ingenious inventor in nutting it forth as a very agreeable mode of cramming for a competitive exaniinalinn in history, biogr.Tphy, and general literature. Seriously speaking, though, I lie man who ran win at this game by his quickness in recognising tho inembors of tho Acrostic which is dealt to him must i)03sess an amount of diversilied knowledge such as falls to the lot of but few merely